Major Ouseley brought over from Bengal, in 1805, 15,000 volumes of Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit MSS., besides a vast museum of Oriental curiosities. The Major had peculiar facilities, and opportunities, for forming his collection, as he was for some time aide de camp to the Nawab of Oude. His brother, Sir William, also possessed a choice library of some 800 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish MSS.

Not only here, but on the Continent, philology was looking up, for we find that the Pope, whilst in Paris, at the Coronation of Napoleon, visited the National Printing Office, and, as he passed along the galleries, 150 presses furnished him with a sheet each, upon which was printed the Lord's Prayer in a different language or dialect. Asia furnished 46; Europe, 75; Africa, 12; America, 17.

In fact, literature was beginning to be aggressive, and, actually, to ask for a club of its own; and in 1808 the Alfred Club took premises in Albemarle Street, and continued its existence till 1855, when it was merged in the Oriental. It was extremely dull, and was christened by the wicked wits, the Half read; and Lord Alvanley was a member until the seventeenth Bishop was proposed, and then he gave up.

The Press-Morning Post and Times-Duty on newspapers-Rise in price-The publication of circulation to procure advertisements-Paper warfare between the Times and the Morning Post-The British Museum-Its collection, and bad arrangement-Obstacles to visitors-Rules relaxed-The Lever Museum -Its sale by lottery-Anatomical Museums of the two Hunters.

Ο

F the London Daily papers that were then exist

ing, but two are now alive-the Morning Post

(the Doyen of the daily press) and the Times. They were heavily taxed, in 1800, with a 3d. stamp per copy. In July, 1804, this was made 32d.; pamphlets, half-sheet, 1⁄2d.; whole sheet, Id. ; an Almanac had to have a shilling stamp; and a perpetual Calendar, one of IOS. And this oppressive stamp, with a comparatively limited circulation, meant death to a newspaper. In 1809, the Morning Post, and other papers, boldly went in for a halfpenny rise, and gave its reasons-May 20: "Since the settlement with Government took place, which fixed the price at sixpence, every article necessary for the composisition of a Newspaper, has increased in price to an unpre

cedented extent. Paper has risen upwards of fifty per cent.; Types upwards of eighty per cent.; Printing Ink thirty-five per cent.; Journeymen's wages ten per cent., and everything else in the same proportion. It is therefore unnecessary for us to observe, that the advance of One Halfpenny per Paper will go but a short way towards. placing the Proprietors in the same situation, in respect to profits allowed, in which they were left by the settlement of 1797; and, under all these considerations, the Public, we trust, will not deem us unreasonable in availing ourselves of the parliamentary provision that has just been made in favour of all Newspapers. The Bill will receive the Royal Assent this day, and on Monday, the Price of the MORNING Post, in common with that of other Newspapers, will be Sixpence Halfpenny."

Then, as now, the backbone of a Newspaper was its advertisements, and then also, did each Newspaper laud itself as being the best advertising medium, owing to its superior circulation. We, who are accustomed to see huge posters setting forth sworn affidavits that the daily circulation of some London newspapers amounts to some quarter of a million if not more, will feel some surprise when we learn that the Morning Post, of June 10, 1800, the then leading paper, published a sworn return (and exulted over their number and success) of 10,807 newspapers printed in the week June 2-7, or a daily average of 1,800 copies.

The World, at one time a rival, had published its circula

"THE TIMES” AND “THE POST."

189

tion when it reached 1,500 daily, and thus laid claim to be considered a good advertising medium; and this was when newspapers were selling at 3d. each. In 1800 they were 6d. each, and the extra tax had diminished the circulation of the Morning Post during the previous summer by onethird, which fall they claim to have recovered, and to have raised their circulation in five years from 400 to 1,800 daily. In June, 1796, the Times published its number; and again in 1798, when it confessed to a fall of 1,400 in its daily sale.

In 1806 there was a very pretty little war as to the circulation of rival newspapers.

The Times opened the ball on the 15th of November by inserting a paragraph, " Under the Clock": " We are under the necessity of requesting our Correspondents and Advertisers not to be late in their communications, if intended for the next day's publication; as the extraordinary Sale of THE TIMES, which is decidedly superior to that of every other Morning Paper, compels us to go to press at a very early hour."

The Morning Post, November 17th (which number is unfortunately missing in the British Museum file), challenged the statement-to which the Times replied on the 18th: "This declaration of our Sale, a Morning Paper of yesterday has thought proper to contradict, and boldly claims the superiority. We have only to say on the subject, that, if the Paper will give an attested account of

its daily Sale for the last two Months, we will willingly publish it."

And now the strife was waxing hot, for the Morning Post on the 21st of November wrote: "We admit the sale of his Paper may, for the present, be many hundreds beyond any other, except the MORNING POST, the decided superiority of which, we trust, he will no longer affect to dispute. ... We pledge ourselves to PROVE that the regular sale of the MORNING POST is little short of a thousand per day. superior to that of his paper."

Of course the Times, of the 22nd of November, calls this a preposterous boast, and wishes statistics for the last two months.

Thus goaded, the Morning Post, of the 24th of November, issued affidavits from its printers and publisher, that its circulation, even at that dead season, was upwards of 4,000 daily, and that during the sitting of Parliament it reached, and exceeded 5,000, the editor remarking: "What is meant by regular Sale, is the Number which is daily served to SUBSCRIBERS. . . . If those who, by the Low Expedient of selling their Papers by the noisy nuisance of Horn Boys, take into their accounts the extra Papers so sold, it is not for us to follow so unworthy an example; to such means the MORNING POST never has recourse."

The Times, November 25th, has the last of this wordy warfare, declaring that its circulation sometimes reached 7,000 or 8,000 a day: and I should not have introduced