Decrease of Newspapers after the Civil War--_Mercurius Democritus_--_The Faithful Post_--_The Politique Post_--Broadsides for the People--The Hollow Tree at Hampstead--Prodigious Monster taken in Spain--The Restoration--Trial of the Regicides--Execution of the Regicides--Licenser of the Press appointed--Popular Taste for the Supernatural--Apparition in the Air in Holland--Revival of _Mercurius Civicus_--Murder of Archbishop Sharpe--_The Loyal Protestant_--Frost Fair on the Thames--Monmouth's Rebellion--The Bloody Assizes--Funeral of Queen Mary, Consort of William III.--Increase of Newspapers after the Revolution. When the Civil War was over the newspapers it had called into existence disappeared. The printing-press was, of course, not idle during the rule of Cromwell, but its productions were narrowly watched, and there is reason to suppose the newspapers were to a great extent under the influence of the party in power. Examples of illustrated journalism during this period are rare. We have '_A terrible and bloudy Fight at Sea_' between Blake and Van Tromp, and '_A great and wonderful Victory_' obtained by the English in the West Indies, each illustrated with a woodcut that had done duty in the pamphlets of the Civil War. A rough representation of an owl seated at a table writing in a book heads a tract ridiculing Lilly, the astrologer; while '_Black Monday, or a full and exact description of the great and terrible Eclipse of the Sun_,' is adorned with a representation of 'the true Figure of the Eclipse.' The grim and unsocial character of the times is set forth in '_The Vindication of Christmas_,' a pamphlet illustrated with a woodcut representing Old Christmas welcomed on one hand and forbidden on the other. After a pitiful lament for the misery of the times, Christmas sets out on a pilgrimage to London, where he enters a fair house that had once been an Alderman's, but is now inhabited by a sour-tempered miser. Here he meets with such a cold reception that he is fain to take himself off, 'and wandering into the country up and down from house to house, found small comfort in any.' [Illustration: THE VINDICATION OF CHRISTMAS, 1653.]