deserved to have the severest penalties inflicted upon them, but no discrimination was used, and good and bad alike experienced the vengeance of 'divine right.' The aim of the abandoned monarch and his advisers was manifestly total extermination, and journalism appeared to be at its last gasp. But though crushed and mutilated in every limb, and bleeding at every pore, faint respirations every now and then showed that the vital spark still lingered. But brighter days were at hand. That festering mass of mental and bodily corruption which had once worn a crown, was buried away out of the sight of indignant humanity, and the vacillating James with feeble steps mounted the tottering throne. The licensing act had expired in 1679, and had not been again renewed, for there were no newspapers to license. Upon the alarm of Monmouth's invasion, James renewed it temporarily for seven years. Journalism reared its head again, and the court party, instead of persecuting, found itself compelled to fawn and flatter and sue for its protection and support. Newspapers, both native and imported from Holland in large numbers, played an important part in the Revolution, and paved the way for the downfall of the Stuarts and the advent of William and the Protestant Succession. It must not be supposed that the capital had possessed a monopoly of newspapers during all this period. Scotland appeared in the field with a _Mercurius Politicus_, published at Leith in 1653. This, however, was nothing but a reprint of a London news sheet, and probably owed its existence to the presence of Cromwell's soldiers. In 1654 it removed to Edinburgh, and in 1660 changed its denomination to _Mercurius Publicus_. On the last day of this year, too, a journal of native growth budded forth, with the title of _Mercurius Caledonius_. But the canny Scots either could not or would not spare their bawbees for the encouragement of such ephemeral literature, for Chalmers tells us that only ten numbers of this publication appeared, and they were 'very loyal, very illiterate, and very affected.' Dublin appears to have produced a _Dublin News Letter_ in 1685, but little is known about it, and its very existence has been disputed. There were other sheets with Scotch and Irish titles, but they were all printed in London. With 1688 a new era dawned upon the press--the most promising it had yet seen--and newspapers gradually sprang up all over the kingdom.