_The Oracle_--which, by the way, boasted Canning among its contributors--was rash enough to publish an article in defence of Lord Melville. The House of Commons fired up at this, and, led on by Sheridan--_quantum mutatus ab illo!_--Fox, Wyndham, and others, who had formerly professed themselves friends to the liberty of the press, but who were now carried away by the virulence of party spirit, caused the publisher to be brought before them, and made him apologize and make his submission upon his knees. In 1805 appeared _The News_, a paper started by John Hunt and his brother Leigh, then but a mere boy, but who had, nevertheless, had some experience in newspaper writing from having been an occasional contributor to _The Traveller_, an evening paper, that was afterward amalgamated with _The Globe_, which still retains the double title. The year 1808 was fruitful in prosecutions for libels, but is chiefly remarkable for the appearance of Hunt's new paper, _The Examiner_. This was conducted upon what was styled by their opponents revolutionary principles, an accusation which Leigh Hunt afterward vehemently repudiated. This same year also gave birth to the first religious paper which had as yet appeared, under the name of _The Instructor_, as well as to _The Anti-Gallican_, which seems to have quickly perished of spontaneous combustion, and _The Political Register_, an impudent piracy of the title of Cobbett's paper, and directed against him. In 1809, Government passed a bill in favor of newspapers, to amend some of the restrictions under which they labored. This was done on account of the high price of paper: and yet in the following year another attempt was made to exclude the reporters from the House of Commons. These men had always done their work well and honestly, although in their private lives some of them had not borne the very best character. A capital story is told of Mark Supple, an Irish reporter of the old school, who was employed on _The Chronicle_. One evening, when there was a sudden silence in the midst of a debate, Supple bawled out: 'A song from Mr. Speaker.' The members could not have been more astonished had a bombshell been suddenly discharged into the midst of them; but, after a slight pause, every one--Pitt among the first--went off into such shouts of laughter, that the halls of the House shook again. The sergeant-at-arms was, however, sent to the gallery to ascertain who had had the audacity to propose such a thing; whereupon Supple winked at him and pointed out a meek, sober Quaker as the culprit. Broadbrim was immediately taken into custody; but Supple, being found out, was locked up in a solitary chamber to cool his heels for a while, and then having made a humble apology, to the effect that 'it was the dhrink that did it,' or something of the kind, was set at liberty. But the reporters at the period of this unjust and foolish exclusion--for it was successful