By Anne’s time, journalism had improved, and—when the victories of Marlborough and Rooke, the political contests of Godolphin and Bolingbroke, and the writings of Addison, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Steele, and Swift, created a mental activity in the nation which could not wait from week to week for its News—the first daily paper was started. This was the Daily Courant, which came out in 1709. Other such journals followed; but three years afterwards, they received a severe check by the imposition of the Stamp Duty. “All Grub Street,” wrote Swift to Stella, “is ruined by the Stamp Act.” On the 7th of August, 1712, he writes:— “Do you know that Grub Street is dead and gone last week? No more ghosts or murders now for love or money. I plied it pretty close the last fortnight, and published at least seven penny papers of my own, besides some of other people’s, but now every single half-sheet pays a halfpenny to the Queen. The ‘Observator’ is fallen; the ‘Medleys’ are jumbled together with the ‘Flying Post;’ the ‘Examiner’ is deadly sick; the ‘Spectator’ keeps up, and doubles its price; I know not how long it will hold. Have you seen the red stamp the papers are marked with? Methinks it is worth a halfpenny the stamping.” Grub Street was not, however, so easily put down; and from that time to the days of Dr. Johnson, newspapers had considerably increased in number and influence. In the Idler the Doctor says:—“No species of literary men has lately been so much multiplied as the writers of News. Not many years ago, the nation was content with one Gazette, but now we have not only in the metropolis Papers for every morning and every evening, but almost every large town has its weekly historian, who regularly circulates his periodical intelligence, and fills the villagers of his district with conjectures on the events of war, and with debates on the true interests of Europe.” In Dr. Johnson’s day, the newspaper press was fairly set upon its legs, and it has gone on with some few vicissitudes to its present condition. As illustrations of the antecedents of the modern newspaper, we now purpose giving, at random, a few curious extracts from the earliest of them. The Daily Courant, dated March 1, 1711, contains the following announcement of a publication which is still read with delight, and which was destined to play an important part in the reform of the coarse social manners of the time. It runs thus:— “_This day is Published_, “A paper entitled THE SPECTATOR, which will be continued every day. Printed for James Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little Britain, and sold by A. Baldwin, in Warwick Lane.” In the first number thus announced, which was written by Addison, the Spectator says:—“As my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me may direct their letters to Mr. Buckley’s, in Little Britain.”