custom of making public proceedings in Parliament. By this act was the
supremacy of the people over the Parliament acknowledged, for the very
publication of its transactions was an appeal to the people for approval
and support. This printed record of parliamentary affairs came out in
1641, and was entitled _The Diurnal Occurrences, or Daily Proceedings of
both Houses in this great and happy Parliament, from the 3d of November,
1640, to the 3d of November, 1641._ The speeches delivered from the
first date down to the following June were also published in two
volumes, and in 1642 weekly instalments appeared under various titles,
such as _The Heads of all the Proceedings of both Houses of
Parliament--Account of Proceedings of both Houses of Parliament--A
perfect Diurnal of the Passages in Parliament_, etc., etc. There was no
reporter's gallery in those days, and the Parliament only printed _what
they pleased_; still this was a step in the right direction. After
Parliaments occasionally evinced bitter hostility toward the press, but
that which boasted Sawyer Lenthal for its speaker was its friend (at all
events, at first, though afterward, as we shall notice by and by, it
displayed some animosity against its early _protegé_), and from this
meagre beginning took its rise that which is beyond doubt one of the
most important domestic functions of the press at the present day.

The abolition of the great bugbear and tyrant of printers--that infamous
mockery of a legal tribunal, the Star Chamber--was another gigantic
obstacle cleared away from the path of journalism. The _Newes Bookes_,
which, in spite of all difficulties, had already become abundant, now
issued forth in swarms. They treated _de rebus omnibus et quibusdam
aliis_. Most of them were political or polemical pamphlets, and boasted
extraordinary titles. There is a splendid collection of these in the
British Museum, collected by the Rev. W. Thomason, and presented to the
nation by King George III. We will mention a few of them. A