Later Stuart Tracts

al edition as I found them. The only exception is the addition of the interesting Preface to the Eighth Volume of Iefoels Review, which completes the series, and has never before been rc- printed. Introduction, . . CONTENTS Sir William Petty- Political Arithmetic IG, . Daniel Defoe- An Appeal to EIonour and Justice 171 S, . The True-Born Englishman I 701, . The History of the Kentish Petition 1701 Legions Memorial 1701 . The Shortest Way with the Dissenters 1702, A Hymn to the Pillory 1703 The Reuie7u Prefaces and Extracts 1704-12. Papers from the Review 1704, The Iievolution of 1688 IIO, The Education of Women 1697, . John Arbuthnot- Law is R Bottomless Pit 1712, John Bull in his Senses IIZ, John Dull still in his Senses 1712, . An Appendix to John Bull still in his Senses 1712, Lewis Baboon turned honest, and John Bull politician 1712, the later Stuarts the newspaper press was in its infancy, and men who wished to influence public opinion on a question of the day usually published a pamphlet, which was read and discussed in coffee-houses, and was frequently answered by one or more pieces of the same nature. During the Civil War there were, indeed, various Mercuries, which during their usually brief existence gave their readers items of news, together with animadversions upon the opposite party, but most of the controversy was carried on by means of isolated pamphlets. After the Restoration the newspaper gradually grew in importance, but pamphlets remained the favourite medium for political controversy for more than half a century. Sir Roger LEstrange, a prolific pamphleteer, started, in, 1663, two weekly papers, the News and the Intebencev, pub- lished for the satisfaction and information of the people. These papers, written in defence of the Government, gave place in 1665 to the Oxford Gazette, which became the London Gazette in the following year, on the return of the Court to town after the plague. The Gazette, however, contained little but paragraphs of news, official notices, and the like,and when mens minds were agitated by the Popish Plot in 1679-80, a host of pamphlets appeared on either side. At the same time LEstrange brought out controversia periodicals, HeracZitus Ridens, a discourse between jest and vil earnest, in opposition to all libellers against the Government, and the Observator, which lasted for six years. Party politics, questions of church government, economic problems, literary quarrels-everything in which men were interested, formed the subject of pamphlets. Many of these pieces were, of course, by forgotten scribblers, for the cost of production was slight but they were also the means by which men like Marvel1 and Baxter made their views known to their contemporaries. In fact, the pamphlet fulfilled the purpose now served by a leading article in the Spectator or other influential paper, or by a letter from a public man in the Times. Sometimes the pamphlet was in verse, like Drydens Medal or The Hind and the Panther, or on the other side Shadwells Medal ofJohn Bayes...