April 14. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



2S6 



vol. i. p. 110., edit. 1848 ; and in Brady's Clavis CaUndana, 

 vol. i. p. 255.] 



NEWSPAPER NOTES. 



(Vol. X., p. 473. ; Vol. xi., pp. 25. 34. 144.) 

 Among my notes, collected with the view_ of 

 forming a History of British Journalism, a design 

 which I was induced to abandon on the appear- 

 ance of Mr. Hunt's Fourth Estate, I find the fol- 

 lowing relating to the Irish press : 



"The Irish press about this time (1760-70) began 

 to flourish ; the Dublin Gazette had been in existence 

 from the year 1711, and was now published 'by au- 

 thority ; ' "but the oldest surviving Dublin papers date no 

 farther back than 17G3, with the exception of the DuLlin 

 Evening Post, which, first founded in 1*25, underwent 

 several changes, and only appeared in its present form as 

 a new series in 1779. In 1763 the Freeman's Journal 

 was founded by Dr. Lucas, and in 1764 Saunders's News 

 Letter appeared. None of these could have been among 

 the earliest Dublin newspapers, although the information 

 we possess of various previously defunct ones is not very 

 explicit; for we find that the press had very soon after- 

 wards extended widely into the provinces, and there are, 

 even among those still in existence, papers established 

 about the same time, or only a few years later, such as 

 the Belfast Neios Letter, founded September 1st, 1737 ; 

 the Limerick Chronicle, May, 17C6 ; the Waterford Chro- 

 nicle, 1766; the Clare Journal {^xxma), March, 1778; the 

 Kerry Evening Post (Tralee), 1774; the LondoJiderri/ 

 Journal, 1772, &c." 



My authorities for most of the foregoing facts 

 were some papers read before the Statistical So- 

 ciety of London in (I think) 1842 by Mr. P. L. 

 Simmonds, and some manuscript notes obligingly 

 communicated to me by that gentleman. Your 

 <;orrespondents would also find information as to 

 the dates of the foundation of the several papers 

 now existing In Mitchell's Newspaper Directory. 



In 1766 the price of the Dublin Fi-eemans 

 Journal (then issued twice a week) was three half- 

 pence. I have a copy of the Freeman, dated 

 ^' March 14th, for March 16th, 1776," then called 

 The Public Register, or Freeman's Journal, 

 vol. xiii., No. 88. : *' total number 1639," with a 

 coarsely-executed wood-cut surrounded by the 

 motto " The Wreath, or the Rod, or," so as to 

 read either way. 



Mr. F. Knight Hunt makes but little allusion 

 to the Irish press in his Fourth Estate. 



In Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 145., 

 Nov. 8th, 1834, the dates of the early Irish papers 

 are thus arranged in an article headed " Popular 

 Information on Literature, seventh article : " 



" Warranted Tidings from Ireland - - 1641. 

 (A similar production it would seem to the 



news sheets of the Civil Wars.) 

 Put's Occurrences ----- 1700. 

 (George) Falkener's Journal - - - 1728. 

 Waterford Flying Post - - - - 172i)." 



There is in the same article a mass of information 

 on the subject of the Irish press. 



The statement made by Mr. Kemplay before 

 the Leeds Philosophical Society, to the effect that 

 the copies of the English Mercuric preserved in 

 the British Museum are forgeries, seems to have 

 taken your correspondent Mr. Bowlbt by sur- 

 prise. He may therefore be interested in knowing 

 that he can find full particulars of the fraud in a 

 letter to Antonio Panizzi, Esq., by Mr. Thomas 

 Watts, whose suspicions seem to have been first 

 aroused, and in the preface to the twelfth edition of 

 D'lsraeli's Curiosities of Literature. Mr. BowLBr 

 surely is in error in mentioning that the same 

 party stated " that the oldest regular newspaper 

 published in England was established by Nathaniel 

 Butter in 1662 ;" or is the date a mistake of the 

 press ? I have a note of Nathaniel Butter having 

 brought out The Courant, or Weekly News from 

 Foreign Parts, in 1621 ; and, at all events, Mr. Hunt 

 gives a list of Butter's publications commencing 

 with the year following, the first of which is 

 Newes from most parts of Christendome, &c., Sep- 

 tember 9th, 1622. Alexander Andrews. 



" PAP^aE OF ICELAND AND ORKNET. 



(Vol. xi., p. 181.) 



W. H. F. of Kii'kwall has collected together 

 nearly all that is known relative to this people. 

 It is probable that they were of Irish descent, or, 

 on the other hand, that the followers of the Irish 

 missionaries were called Papa3 as a bye-name at 

 first in allusion to the Latinised appellation of 

 their instructors, while the Pagans retained the 

 name of Pechts, or Picts. 



The names of Papal or Popil occur in the north- 

 east corner of Yell, in Shetland, where are also the 

 ruins of some old chapels and Pictish " Broughs." 

 The sculptured stone referred to by W. H. F. as 

 having been found in Shetland, was originally 

 discovered in the ruined church of CuUensbro, in 

 the island of Bressay. In 1852 my attention was 

 called to it by Mr. W. H. Fotheringham of Kirk- 

 wall, in a letter I received from that gentleman, in 

 which he mentioned that he had heard of a stone 

 bearing a Runic inscription existing in the minis- 

 I ter's garden at Bressay Manse. On arriving in 

 I Shetland that summer, I called on the Rev, Mr. 

 I Hamilton, the minister of the parish, and on being 

 I shown the stone immediately recognised the ia- 

 ! scription as being, not Runic, but Ogham writing. 

 Mr. Hamilton kindly allowed me to remove the 

 stone to Newcastle-on-Tyne, where it was ex- 

 hibited at the meeting of the Archaeological Insti- 

 stute, in September, 1852. Careful casts of the 

 inscription and of the stone were taken, and were 



