384

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

III.

perhaps obtained admission to the gallery of Whitehall, andnoticed how the King and Duke looked. In this way hegathered materials for weekly epistles destined to enlightensome county town or some bench of rustic magistrates. Suchwere the sources from which the inhabitants of the largestprovincial cities, and the great body of the gentry and clergy,learned almost all that they knew of the history of their owntime. We must suppose that at Cambridge there were asmany persons curious to know what was passing in the worldas at almost any place in the kingdom, out of London. Yetat Cambridge, during a great part of the reign of Charles theSecond, the Doctors of Laws and the Masters of Arts had noregular supply of news except through the London Gazette.At length the services of one of the collectors of intelligencein the capital were employed. That was a memorable day onwhich the first newsletter from London was laid on the tableof the only coffee-room in Cambridge. * At the seat of a manof fortune in the country the newsletter was impatiently ex-pected. Within a week after it had arrived it had beenthumbed by twenty families. It furnished the neighbouringsquires with matter for talk over their October, and the neigh-bouring rectors with topics for sharp sermons against Whig-gery or Popery. Many of these curious journals mightdoubtless still be detected by a diligent search in the archivesof old families. Some are to be found in our public libraries;and one series, which is not the least valuable part of theliterary treasures collected by Sir James Mackintosh, will beoccasionally quoted in the course of this work.**

” Roger North’s Life of Dr. John North. On the subject of news-letters, see the Examcn, 133.

*• I take this opportunity of expressing my warm gratitude to thefamily of my dear and honoured friend Sir James Mackintosh for con-fiding to me the materials collected by him at a time when he meditateda work similar to that which I have undertaken. 1 have never seen, andI do not believe that there anywhere exists, within the same compass,so noble a collection of extracts from public and private archives. The