in method, with vividly realized characters who gossip and chat over games of piquet or at the theatre. The Beaux' Stratagem, which had been played in Williamsburg three weeks before, is mentioned as delightful enough to make one of the ladies commit the indiscretion of giggling. The Monitor represents a kind of light social satire unusual in the colonies. Politics in the later newspapers After 1750, general news became accessible, and the newspapers show more and more interest in public affairs. The literary first page was no longer necessary, though occasionally used to cover a dull period. A new type of vigorous polemic gradually superseded the older essay. A few of the well-known conventions were retained, however. We still find the fictitious letter, with the fanciful signature, or a series of papers under a common title, such as The Virginia-Centinel, or Livingston's Watch-Tower. The former is a flaming appeal to arms, running through The Virginia Gazette in 1756, and copied into Northern papers to rouse patriotism against the French enemy. The expression of the sentiment, even thus early, seems national. Livingston's well-known Watch-Tower, a continuation of his pamphlet-magazine The Independent Reflector, has already the keen edge of the Revolutionary writings of fifteen and twenty years later. The fifty-second number even has one of the popular phrases of the Revolution: "Had I not sounded the Alarm, Bigotry would e'er now have triumphed over the natural Rights of British Subjects." (Gaine's Mercury in 1754–1755) Revolutionary epoch and early national era: 1770–1820 (This section is based on Newspapers, 1775–1860 by Frank W. Scott) Weekly newspapers in major cities and towns were strongholds of patriotism (although there were a few Loyalist papers). They printed many pamphlets, announcements, patriotic letters and pronouncements. On the eve of Revolution Virginia had three separate weeklies at the same time named The Virginia Gazette—they all kept up a heavy fire against the king and his governors. The Massachusetts Spy and the Patriotic Press Isaiah Thomas's Massachusetts Spy, published in Boston and Worcester, was constantly on the verge of being suppressed, from the time of its establishment in 1770 to 1776 and during the American Revolution. In 1771-73 the Spy featured the essays of several anonymous political commentators who called themselves "Centinel," "Mucius Scaevola" and "Leonidas." They spoke in the same terms about similar issues, kept Patriot polemics on the front page, and supported each other against attacks in progovernment