The _English Mercurie_ of 1588, which professes to have been published during those momentous days when the Spanish Armada was hovering and waiting to pounce upon our southern shores, contains, among its items of news, three or four book advertisements, and these would undoubtedly have been the first put forth in England were that newspaper genuine. Mr. Watts, of the British Museum, has, however, proved that the several numbers of this journal to be found in our national library are gross forgeries, and, indeed, the most inexperienced eye in such matters can easily see that neither their type, paper, spelling, nor composition are much more than one, instead of upwards of two centuries and a half old. Newspapers, in the strict sense of the word--that is, publications of news appearing at stated intervals, and regularly paged on--did not make their appearance until the latter end of the reign of James I. The _Weekely Newes_, published in London in 1622, was the first publication which answered to this description; it contained, however, only a few scraps of foreign intelligence, and was quite destitute of advertisements. The terrible contest of the succeeding reign was the hotbed which forced the press of this country into sudden life and extraordinary vigour. Those who have wandered in the vaults of the British Museum and contemplated the vast collection of political pamphlets and the countless Mercuries which sprang full armed, on either side of the quarrel, from the strong and earnest brains which wrought in that great political trouble, will not hesitate to discover, amidst the hubbub of the Rebellion, the first throes of the press of England as a political power. At such a time, when Marchmort Needham fell foul with his types of Sir John Birkenhead and the court party which he supported, with as heavy a hand and as dauntless a will as Cromwell hurled his Ironsides at the Cavaliers at Naseby, it is not likely that we should find the press the vehicle to make known the goods of tradesmen, or to offer a reward for stolen horses. The shopkeepers themselves, as well as the nobility, were too hard at it, to avail themselves of this new mode of extending their trade: they had to keep guard over the malignants, to cover the five members with the shield of their arms, to overawe Whitehall, to march to the relief of Gloucester,--objects quite sufficient to account for the fact that the train-bands were not advertisers. After the king's death, however, when the Commonwealth had time to breathe, the people seem to have discovered the use of the press as a means of making known their wants and of giving publicity to their wares. The very first advertisement we have met with, after an active search among the earliest newspapers, relates to a book which is entitled--