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Coppee, Henry

"English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Designed as a Manual of Instruction"

Whether true or not, the newspaper said it; and
the English people believed it implicitly.
About 1600, with the awakening spirit of the people, there began to appear
periodical papers containing specifically news from Germany, from Italy,
&c. And during the Thirty Years' War there was issued a weekly paper
called _The Certain News of the Present Week_. Although the word _news_ is
significant enough, many persons considered it as made up of the initial
letters representing the cardinal points of the compass, _N.E.W.S._, from
which the curious people looked for satisfying intelligence.

THE CIVIL WAR.--The progress of English journalism received a great
additional impetus when the civil war broke out between Charles I. and his
Parliament, in 1642. To meet the demands of both parties for intelligence,
numbers of small sheets were issued: _Truths from York_ told of the rising
in the king's favor there. There were: _Tidings from Ireland_, _News from
Hull_, telling of the siege of that place in 1643; _The Dutch Spy_; _The
Parliament Kite_; _The Secret Owl_; _The Scot's Dove_, with the
olive-branch.


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