CHAP, in.] OVERTURES FROM SMOLLETT AND NEWBERY.
then, no costly arts for making and marring fortunes ; culti- 1760.
vated to a perfection liigli as the pigeon's flight, swift as the Mt. 82.
courier's horse, or deep as the secret drawer of the diplo-
matist's bureau. Then, it was no more essential to a paper's
existence, that countless advertisements should he scattered
broadcast through its columns ; than to a city's business, that
puffing vans should perambulate its highways, and armies of
placard-bearing paupers seize upon its pavements. Neither
as a perfect spy of the time, nor as a full informer or high
improver of the time, did a daily journal yet put forth its
claims. Neither to prompt and correct intelligence, nor to
great political or philanthropic aims, did it as yet devote
itself. The triumphs or discomfitures of Freedom were not
yet its daily themes. Not yet did it assume, or dare, to ride
in the whirlwind and direct the storm of great political
passions; to grapple resistlessly with social abuses; or to
take broad and philosophic views of the world's contem-
poraneous history, the history which is a-making from day
to day. It was content with humbler duties. It called itself
a daily register of commerce and intelligence, and fell short
of even so much modest pretension. The letter of a Probus
or a Manlius sufficed for discussion of the war; and a
modest rumour in some dozen lines, for what had occupied
parliament during as many days. " We are unwilling," said
the editor of the Public Ledger (Mr. Griffith Jones, who
wrote children's books for Mr. Newbery)* in his first number,
* " It is not, perhaps, generally known, that to Mr. Griffith Jones, and a brother
" of his, Mr. Giles Jones, in conjunction with Mr. John Fewbery, the public are in-
'' debted for the origin of those numerous and popular little books for the amusement
" and instruction of children, the Lilliputian histories of Goody Two-shoes, Giles
" Gingerbread, Tommy Trip, &c. &c. which have been ever since received with
" universal approbation." Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 466. Hereafter are
given some reasons for suspecting that Newbery may have had a more distinguished
fellow-labourer than Mr. Jones ; but I believe that to himself the great merit is
due of having first sought to reform in some material points the moral of these