who "deserves not only the correction of the gallows, but the personal
correction of every man that meets you, and 'twill be no more sin to
cut your throat, than to kill a dog."

We who live in a world in which party politics are reflected in many
of the newspapers we read and many of the radio commentators to
whom we listen need not linger over the controversy of the extent
to which the Review was subsidized by governmental officers. Other
eighteenth-century periodicals were subsidized, yet their histories were
short. There was one primary reason for the long life of the Review:
the pertinacity and assiduity of its editor. On this there is no disagree-
ment among scholars. In sickness or in health, from English inns or
Scottish taverns, no matter where he was or how he was, Defoe con-
tinued to send his copy to the printer for nine years. Replying to mali-
cious gossips who doubted the authenticity of the authorship of certain
numbers of the Review, published while he was in Scotland, Defoe
said: "The papers are wrote with his own hand, and the originals may
be seen at the printers." We have external evidence in plenty to prove
the truth of Defoe's statement, but even if we had none, we would
still have the internal evidence of Defoe's style and characteristic point
of view, echoing everywhere to ears accustomed to the peculiarities of
Defoe's vocabulary, rhythm, moods in his novels, pamphlets, or occa-
sional papers.

The periodical of the eighteenth century was neither a newspaper
nor a magazine, in our modern sense. Newspapers of somewhat the
sort we know today were familiar in England, where they began to
appear at least as early as 1621--"corantos," they were called, single-
sheet, two-column publications containing foreign news. In 1622 had
appeared a "news book," the Weekely News, edited by Nicholas
Bourne and Thomas Archer. This averaged twenty-two pages to the
issue and, in addition to foreign news, offered its readers accounts of
murders, witches, monsters, miracles, and other "wonders." In 1666
appeared England's first "official" newspaper, the London Gazette, a
news organ that was supposed to carry only authenticated reports of
political events, intended as an antidote to ignorant and unfounded re-
ports that made up the material of other newspapers. The Restoration
government was fully aware that political news was a power either
to arouse or allay the fears of the people. Other newspapers and news-

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