who give a being to the power which had none can only judge, whether it be employed to their welfare, or turned to their ruin. They do not set up one or a few men, that they and their posterity may live in splendour and greatness, but that justice may be administered, virtue established, and provision made for the public safety. No wise man will think this can be done, if those who set themselves to overthrow the law are to be their own judges.' Sir William Temple, in an essay on government written in 1672, arrives at substantially the same conclusion as Sidney by a different path. Fletcher of Saltoun, the illustrious Scottish patriot, wrote _An Account of a Conversation for a right Regulation of Governments_ (1704). The development of the English periodical press during the Restoration epoch is a matter of such moment that the two men principally connected with it cannot be left unnoticed, although, at least in one instance, their claim to rank as men of letters is very slender. Marchamont Needham (1620-1678) had scarcely any other character than that of a pamphleteer who only escaped the designation of hired scribbler by his political infidelities and a certain rough effectiveness in his ephemeral writings. This 'most seditious, mutable, and railing author's' position in the history of the press is nevertheless important; for if not the first strictly professional journalist, he is the first whose name has descended to posterity. Having from 1641 to 1647 made war against the king in his _Mercurius Britannicus_, he changed sides and wrote as a royalist in _Mercurius Pragmaticus_, recanted again and supported Cromwell as the conductor of _Mercurius Politicus_; and, after a short exile, ultimately made his peace with the Restoration. He had already excited the animosity of the stricter Puritans, one of whom thus anticipated and refuted the best plea that could be made for him: 'He is a man of parts, and hath a notable vein of writing. Doubtless so hath the Devil; must therefore the Devil be made use of?' He subsequently made war upon schoolmasters and physicians, and died suddenly as he was about returning to his old trade of political pamphleteer. Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704) was a man of much higher character, being a consistent royalist. His connection with the periodical press in Charles II.'s day was brief, lasting only from 1663 to 1666, when his _Intelligencer_ and _News_ were extinguished by the appearance of an official journal, the _Oxford_, afterwards the _London Gazette_. But he has a permanent place in history as the first 'able editor,' who not only made his journal the vehicle for political discussions, and availed himself of regular news-letters, but employed a regular staff of assistants to collect news. He was no friend to his own trade, for he says in a prospectus: 'Supposing the press in order, the people in their right wits, and news or no news to be the question, a public Mercury