In a few years after the Revolution newspapers began to increase rapidly. The censorship of the press ceased in 1695, and was immediately followed by the appearance of great numbers of periodical papers. At first they were small in size, were wretchedly printed on the commonest paper, and each number contained only a small quantity of matter. The art of wood-engraving, the readiest and least expensive method of illustration, was now in the lowest possible condition; and the newspapers at the end of the seventeenth century contain scarcely any illustrations, except, perhaps, a heading of a rudely executed figure of a man blowing a horn, flanked by a ship or a castle, and numerous small woodcuts to advertisements. [Illustration] FOOTNOTE: [1] _History of England._ CHAPTER VI. Constant Attempts at Illustrated News--Increase of Caricatures--The _Postman_, 1704--Fiery Apparition in the Air, seen in London--Caricature against the Jacobites--The South-Sea Bubble--Eclipse of the Sun, 1724--The _Grub Street Journal_ an Illustrated Paper--The _Daily Post_--Admiral Vernon's Attack on Porto Bello--The _Penny London Post_--Henry Fielding and the _Jacobite's Journal_--_Owen's Weekly Chronicle_--_Lloyd's Evening Post_, and the Trial of Lord Byron for the Murder of Mr. Chaworth--The _St. James's Chronicle_--Illustrated Account of a Strange Wild Beast seen in France--The _Gentleman's Journal_ of Anthony Motteux--The _Gentleman's Magazine_ of Edward Cave--The _London Magazine_--The _Scot's Magazine_. In glancing at the early newspapers it is apparent that the idea, in some shape, of illustrating the news of the day was never quite absent from the minds of newspaper conductors. Sometimes it took the form of a rude map of the country where some war was going on, or the plan of some city which was being besieged. In the _London Post_ for July 25, 1701, is a map of the seat of war in Italy, which is reprinted in other numbers, and the _Daily Courant_, for Sept. 8, 1709, contains a large plan of Mons. In the absence of other means, even printers' lines were used to represent a plan of some place, or an event of unusual interest. Such an attempt at illustrated news was made in the _Dublin Journal_ for May 14, 1746, where there is a plan, set up in type and printers' lines, of the battle of Culloden; and in the number for March 28, 1747, there is a similar plan of the trial of Lord Lovat. This is doubly interesting as being _Irish_. Engraving on copper, though it involved the expense of a double printing, was sometimes resorted to for the purpose of enlivening the pages of the early newspapers, and we have seen that it was also employed in broadsides. There was so much enterprise that even penny papers sometimes introduced engravings into their pages.