It offers such a rational means for the dissemination of the
latest scientific and literary news that the mind undeceived by facts
would naturally place the origin of the periodical near the invention of
printing itself. Apart from certain sporadic manifestations of what is
termed, by courtesy, periodical literature, the real beginning of that
important department of letters was in the innumerable _Mercurii_ that
flourished in London after the outbreak of the Civil War. Although the
_British Museum Catalogue_ presents a long list of these curious
messengers and news-carriers, the only one that could be of interest in
the present connection is the _Mercurius Librarius; or a Catalogue of
Books Printed and Published at London_[A] (1668-70), the contents of
which simply fulfilled the promise of its title.
Literary journals in England were, however, not a native development,
but were copied, like the fashions and artistic norms of that period,
from the French. The famous and long-lived _Journal des Scavans_ was
begun at Paris in 1665 by M. Denis de Sallo, who has been called, since
the time of Voltaire, the "inventor" of literary journals.
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