252 Political Journals. 



Newspapers have also become important in a 

 literary view. There are few of them, within the 

 last twenty years, which have not added to their 

 political details some curious and useful informa- 

 tion, on the various subjects of literature, science 

 and art. They have thus become the means of 

 conveying to every class in society, innumerable 

 scraps of knowledge, which have at once increased 

 the public intelligence, and extended the taste for 

 perusing periodical publications. The advertise- 

 ments, moreover, which they daily contain, re- 

 specting new books, projects, inventions, disco- 

 veries and improvements, are well calculated to 

 enlarge and enlighten the public mind, and are 

 worthy of being enumerated among the many 

 methods of awakening and maintaining the popular 

 attention, with which more modern times, beyond 

 all preceding example, abound. 



In ancient times, to sow the seeds of civil, dis- 

 cord, or to produce a spirit of union and co-opera- 

 tion through an extensive community, required 

 time, patience, and a constant series of exertions. 

 The art of printing being unknown, and many of 

 the modern methods of communicating intelli- 

 gence to distant places not having come into use, 

 the difficulty of conducting public affairs must have 

 been frequently great and embarrassing. The 

 general circulation of Gazettes forms an important 

 sera, not only in the moral and literary, but also 

 in the political world. By means of this powerful 

 instrument impressions on the public mind may 

 be made with a celerity, and to an extent of which 

 our remote ancestors had no conception, and which 

 cannot but give rise to the most important conse- 

 quences in society. Never was there given to 

 man a political engine of greater power; and never, 

 assuredly, did this engine before operate upon so 

 large a scale as in the eighteenth century. 



