A Literary Fraud.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 867, 12 October 1888, Page 5

A Literary Fraud.

The old Elizabethan newspaper, with its full report of the discomfiture of the Spanish Armada, was shown by the late Mr Watts, of the British Museum, half a century ago, to be a forgery; but, like Sir John Barley; corn, the old English Mercurie takes a good deal of killing, and even frequent burial does net appear to have much impaired its fraudulent but robust constitution. Anyway, a contemporary says it has furnished a northern provincial contemporary with an exciting column, headed * Three Hundred Years Ago : The Story of the Invincible Armada. An Old-world Newspaper’s Report.’ The manufacture of this elaborate imposture has been satisfactorily traced to the playful invention of the second Earl of Hard wi eke ; but it is still lo be beard of now aud then as ‘ the first printed newspaper,’ for which ‘ mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the wisdom of Burghley.’ So, no doubt, it will continue to be ; bnt a professional journalist ought certainly not to be unaware of the fact that no genuiue newspaper of the sixteenth century is either extant or known to have ever existed.