printed breath of public opinion. It throws out a feeler, perhaps, though not quite at first, accompanied by some decided expression of opinion, and carefully watches the effect upon the public mind. Should that effect be different to what was expected, _The Times_ knows how to veer round with the _popularis aura_. This is not always, however, done so skilfully but that the act is apparent. It is not the most dignified course that a journal which aspires to be--and which is--the leading journal of Europe ought to pursue; but _The Times_ knows human nature, and knows, too, that were it to adopt any other course, it would fall from its high estate, and become a mere party organ. Moreover, _The Times_ possesses an enormous prestige--deservedly won, as this article has endeavored to show--and that, in a conservative country like England, is considerably more than half the battle. In 1842 appeared the first pictorial newspaper, _The Illustrated London News_. It was started by Herbert Ingram, who began life as a provincial newsboy, and died, in the vigor of his age, member of Parliament for his native town. It was a success from the first, so great that numerous competitors sprang up and endeavored to undersell it. But these were all vastly inferior, and one by one withered away, the most persistent of them at last passing into the hands of _The Illustrated London News_, which now enjoys a larger circulation than any other weekly newspaper, amounting to about six millions a year! There was a satirical paper at this time, called _The Age_, which, being of a strongly libellous character, was continually feeling the weight of the law. It did not improve in character as it grew older, and its editor, Tommy Holt, was proved upon a trial to have received bribes to suppress a slander that he had threatened should appear in his paper. This same Tommy Holt was very successful in inventing 'sensation' headings for his columns, and by no means either delicate or scrupulous in so doing. There was another rascally paper of the same description, called _The Satirist_, which was at last finally crushed by the Duke of Brunswick, the result of several actions for libel. Among other new literary oddities at this time may be mentioned _The Fonetic Nuz_, the organ of those enthusiastic reformers who were endeavoring to accomplish a revolution in our orthography. It lasted, however, but a very short time.