sufficiently well known to the neighborhood, without being described in print, while the district would be more interested in London news, in foreign affairs, and in what had occurred in the next county. These are the lines on which much of the country journalism of the period seems to have been conducted. The careers of many of these early newspaper pioneers are deserving of more attention from local antiquarians than they have yet received. Indeed the history of the early Press throws much light on the intellectual condition of provincial England during the last century, and hence demands more attentive cultivation.
Few cities or towns of England can boast of a more interesting or eventful newspaper history than Exeter. How interesting that history is, is shown in a recent contribution, dealing with its beginning, by Dr T. N. Brushfield, in the Transactions of the Devonshire Society (vol. xx.) He there gives a most interesting outline of the life of Andrew Brice (1690 or 1692-1773), author, journalist, printer, and publisher of the first Exonian newspaper. "From his teens," the writer says, "to the end of his long life he was a journalist, at a time when journalism implied unremitting hard work and scanty pay." Brice's paper consisted of six small pages, with the title forming the first page. It was not till the thirteenth number that the first item of local news appeared. The earliest advertisements were of patent medicines, and, in respect to these, it may be noted that down to twenty years ago it was not unusual at country newspaper offices to keep a stock of the patent medicines then advertised, which were distributed by the newsmen who took the country rounds. The first Exeter paper was started in 1714, but Dr Brushfield states that it was not till 1725 that the Stamp Duty was imposed. Down to that time the paper escaped with the very small tax of 3s. per impres-
