2 pages, 8vo, on a bifolium, creased at folds.

Dickens thanking Thomas Watts, of the British Museum, for his “very curious and interesting pamphlet. I was not aware of the discovery it describes, and indeed had never given any attention to the subject of which it treats. I had a general idea that the first Newspaper published in England, was published in the Armada time; and looking into some books of reference within an hour or so of my going  out to the News Vendor’s dinner, and finding that idea confirmed, took its accuracy for granted, and thought no more about it…”.

Thomas Watts’ “A Letter to Antonio Panizzi, Esq.” (1839), exposed the fabrication of the alleged first English newspaper (the English Mercurie). Watts became first Superintendent of the Reading Room at the British Museum in 1857, and in 1866 succeeded John Winter Jones as Keeper of Printed Books. On November 21, 1849, Dickens presided over the tenth anniversary dinner of the Newsvendor’s Benevolent Institution at the Albion Tavern.