EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
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extended, and many of them display great learn- ing. Among them is a work in two volumes 4to. entitled A thort Etmy towards an Ancient and Modern History of Booksellers.
1704. The fir$t newspaper published in North America, appeared this year, entitled TTie Boston yews-Letter, published by authori^. The printer was Bartholomew Green, son of Samuel, whom we hare mentioned as printer to Harvard college ; a person of consideration, and several years a deacon of the Old South Church. Among other subjects of commendation urged in his obituaiy, is his " caution of publishing anything offensive, light, or hurtful."- The proprietor, however, for the first eighteen years, was John Campbell, a Scotchman by birth, the postmaster of the town, whose office, without supposing it to have exer- cised, in him, the sharp intuition of his country- woman, the postmistress of St. Ronan's Well, naturally gave him the freest access to intelli- gence useful to his work. At the end of eighteen years it fell into the hands of Green, and by him fud his successors was continued till the evacu- ation of Boston by the British troops in 1776, being in later years the organ of the tory party, and the only paper continued in Boston through the siege.
1704, Sq>t.4. Z>i«;, Sir RooerL'Estranoe,* who was the first individual in England who acquired notoriety as an occasion^ political wnter, and also the first writer who regularly enlisted himself under the banner of a party for pay. He was of an ancient family in Norfolk, and distinguished himself as a soldier at the outbreak of the rebellion. Being captured by the parliamentary army, he was tried and con- demned to die, and lay in prison almost four years, every morning expecting to be led forth to execution. He was at last liberated, and lived in almost total obscurity till the restoration, when he was rewarded with the invidious post of licenser of the press. He commenced the Obtervator in 1681, and continued it through three volumes in folio. In this work L'£lstrange went as^reat lengths to vindicate the measures
- It is k pltr Towzei's old Worrier, Hony Care, were
not now tUve— for no limner can bit his featniee ao well as he: however, tir Roger Is a renurkable peraon, end I win draw him aa well ta I can. Then to come to hii cha- racter, — Sir Roger descended ttom an aaUent and worthy ftuniljr, yet I cannot make bis picture like him wtthoat telling the world his sting la gone, and aince hla weekly satire ia (kllen asleep, la no longer a goide to the inferior clergy. " Hark ye, sir Author," comea a little piece of cra^ buzzing in my ean, " conaider what yon say and do. There la respect due to the unfortunate, eapeelally to thoae who have been great, and are still men of aenae and ingenuity; and bealdea yon know what he has done of ondonbtod value. Re only haa had the rare happineaa of bettering aome of the beat authors in a tianaladon, — and hisSeiweaaiuiOjten will live aa long aa the world." All Vbia I knew before— but what ia thia to honeaty t There is the Jewel. Wit ia no more commendable in a knicht than conrage In a highwayman. A man that betrays his religion and country in pretending to defend it, and wiitea round to all the points of the compass— that waa made anr- veyor of the preaa — and would wink at unllcenaed books if the printer'a wife wonld but smile on him. How Hi tliia ia the character of sir Roger I leave to hla own con- science to conaider, and the rather aa he now atanda on the brink ot eternity (for he ia now above four acore) and has but a iiew minutes to repent it.— i>inif«ii.
of the couTt,a8 ever were gone j)y any mercenary journalist. On the accession of James II. he was knighted, April 30, 1685; and elected in that year one of the representatives in parlia- ment for Winchester. December 16, 1688, he was committed to Newgate, for publishing trea- sonable papers against the government. He was again committed to Newgate,March 2, 1695, and from thence in a few days removed to the Marshalsea, where he continued till May, 1696. He died in his 88th year; as appears by An Elegy on the much lamented death of sir Roger L' Estrange. After the revolution he was left out of the commission of the peace ; and it is said q ueen Mary shewed her contempt of him by the following anagram she made upon his name.
Roger L'Eatrayge, Lye atrange Roger I
Sir Roger L'Estrange also translated EsopU Fables,* the works of Josephus, and many things from the Greek, Latin, and Spanish. In his
Solitical writings he was so anxious to accommo- ate his style to the taste of the common people, that few of them could now be read with any degree of pleasure.
1704, Oct. 28. Died, John Locke, author of An Essay on Human Understanding, and other eminent works. A more happy combination of the Christian, the scholar, ana the gentleman, has perhaps never been exhibited, than in the person of this distinguished philosopher. It is scarcely presumptious to say, that he brought to light perhaps all that is discoverable respecting the operations of the Human Understanding ; and, while his talents were devoted to a work which became one of the highest ornaments of the literature of his country, his pure and virtu- ous life displayed the most satisfactory proof of the practical efficacy of a piety, the sincerity of which was clearly proved by his efforts, not less humble than vigorous, to shew that all the parts of the Christian system were reconcileable to human reason. He was born at Wrington, in Somersetshire, August 29, 1 632, and educated at Oxford, where, after taking his degree in arts, he entered on the study of physic, and made great proficiency. When lord Shaftesbuij was appointed lord chancellor, he made Mr. Locke secretary of presentations, which place he lost when his patron was deprived of the g^reat seal. After the revolution he was made a commissioner of appeals, and in 1695 a commissioner of trade and plantations. He died at Oates, in Essex. 1704, Dec. II. Died, JoBH D-tRsr, senior, an eminent printer in Bartholomew-close, London. In Febnianr, 1684, he was convicted of printing a libel, call^ Lord RusulVs Speech, and fined
- Printed by Mr. Gilliflower, of whom John Dnnton
says, " Both hla eyea were never at once flrom home g for one kept honae, and obaerved the actlona of man, while the other roamed abroad for intelligence. He loved hia bottle and hia friend with an equal afllBctlon. He was very testy upon aome oecaslona i yet ttirivlng waa part of his character. He printed L'Batrange'a JBtop, lord HalUkz'a Adoiet to kts Dmighttr, and many excellent oopiea." Hia shop waa in Weatmlnster haU.
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