In 1663 he set up a newspaper, called “The Public Intelligencer and the News,” which was afterwards put down by the _London_ GAZETTE; for which, however, government allowed him a consideration. After the popish plot, when the Tories began to gain the ascendant over the Whigs, he, in a paper called _the Observator_, became a zealous champion for the former, and an advocate for some of the worst measures of the Court. He was afterward knighted, and served in the parliament called by James II. in 1685. After the Revolution he met with some trouble, as a disaffected person. He is said to have been particularly disliked by the queen, who very curiously anagrammed his name, as was mentioned in the first section of this chapter. He died on the 11th. of September 1704, in the 88th. year of his age, and was interred in the church of St. Giles in the fields, where there is an inscription to his memory. He wrote many political tracts, in a high tory strain, and often with little regard to truth; and also published translations of Josephus’s works, Cicero’s offices, Seneca’s morals, Erasmus’s colloquies, Esop’s fables, Quevedo’s visions, &c. His style has been praised by some, while others have represented it as intolerably low and nauseous: and Granger represents him as one of the great corrupters of our language. But there was something in his character that was still worse and more detestable than even his style.—Having mentioned him as one of our early compilers of newspapers, it may not be amiss here just to note, that he had been long preceded in that occupation, by a country-man of his, _Wm. Watts_, M.A. who is supposed to have been the very first compiler of a weekly, or stated English newspaper; at least his employer, _Butter_, seems to have been the first editor of such a paper, which was begun in August 1622, under the name of “The certain news of this present week;” and Watts is thought to have been the compiler of it from the first, and is therefore deemed the _Gallo-Belgicus_ of England: alluding to the first newspaper, or periodical publication of the low Countries, about the beginning of the 17th century, which went by that name. But as Watts is said to have been a native of Lynn, a further account of him shall be given in its proper place.