| Citation |
CG-NL.772.063
2 Oct 1772:11,12 (9/464)
Norwich, Sept. 1772. . . [First 3 paragraphs in article
discuss the importance of reporting news on the arts and
sciences]
Knowledge is salubrious nutriment, and food for their
minds--and news-- that kind of knowledge, which, like bread,
may be called the staff of life, and of common conversation.
The alps of science and epicurean titt bits, are alike
inaccessible to the bulk of mankind; but the gossiping
materials for chit-chat, like bread, are bountifully spread
before all the world, and are the very basis and corner
stones of ordinary dialogue, and general narrations.
At a popular stoop, or pile of wood, I have seen a
group, with tickling ears and flippant tongues, surround a
voluble reader of the news, with much the same grotesque
attitudes Shakespeare (in one of his plays) so finely
depicts hungry expectation:
I saw a smith stand on his hammer,
With open mouth-- swallowing a taylor's news.
[signed] Blowsabello.
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