Lost on the 30 of October, 1665, an Intermix'd Barbary Tercel Gentle, engraven in Varvels, Richard Windwood, of Ditton Park, in the County of Bucks, Esq. For more particular marks--if the Varvels be taken off--the 4th feather in one of the wings Imped, and the third pounce of the right foot broke. If any one inform Sir William Roberts, Knight and Baronet (near Harrow-on-the-Hill, in the County of Middlesex), or Mr. William Philips, at the King's Head in Paternoster Row, of the Hawk, he shall be sufficiently rewarded.--_The Intelligencer_, Nov. 6, 1665. The next paper contains an inquiry for a goshawk belonging to Lord William Petre, and two years later a royal bird is inquired after in the _London Gazette_, as follows:-- A Sore ger Falcon of His Majesty, lost the 13 of August, who had one Varvel of his Keeper, Roger Higs, of Westminster, Gent. Whosoever hath taken her up and give notice Sir Allan Apsley, Master of His Majesties Hawks at St. James's, shall be rewarded for his paines. Back-Stairs in Whitehall. This Sir Allan Apsley is the brother of Mrs. Hutchinson, who has given us such a vivid picture, in the memoir of her husband, of the Commonwealth time. The _London Gazette_, from which we quote, is the only paper still in existence that had its root in those days. It first appeared in Oxford, upon the Court taking up its abode in that city during the time of the Great Plague, and was therefore called the _Oxford Gazette_. On the return of Charles to London it followed in his train, and became the _London Gazette_, or Court and official paper, and the latter character it has retained to the present hour. The gazettes of the seventeenth century were widely different from those of our day. They contain foreign news, as well as state papers, royal proclamations, &c., and, stranger still, miscellaneous advertisements are mixed up with those upon the business of the Court. The quack doctors, with an eye, we suppose, to the "quality," were the first to avail themselves of its pages to make known their nostrums. It will astonish our readers to find what an ancestry some of the quack medicines of the present day have had. "Nervous powders," specifics for gout, rheumatism, &c., seized upon the columns of the newspapers almost as early as they were published. Here is a specimen which might still serve as a model for such announcements:--