The penny magazine, issue 1, March 31, 1832

By Charles Knight

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Title: The penny magazine, issue 1, March 31, 1832

Editor: Charles Knight

Release date: July 22, 2025 [eBook #76548]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1832

Credits: Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENNY MAGAZINE, ISSUE 1, MARCH 31, 1832 ***





                           THE PENNY MAGAZINE

                                 OF THE

             Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 1.]                   PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.        [March 31, 1832

------------------------------------------------------------------------


                            READING FOR ALL.

In a book upon the Poor, published in 1673, called ‘The Grand Concern of
England explained,’ we find the following singular proposal:--“that the
multitude of stage-coaches and caravans, now travelling upon the roads,
may all, or most of them, be suppressed, especially those within forty,
fifty, or sixty miles of London.” The evil of the stage-coaches is
somewhat difficult to be perceived at the present day; but this
ingenious author had no doubt whatever on the matter, “for,” says he,
“will any man keep a horse for himself and another for his man, all the
year, for to ride one or two journies, that at pleasure, when he hath
occasion, can step to any place where his business lies, for two, three,
or four shillings, if within twenty miles of London, and so
proportionably into any part of England?”

We laugh at the lamentation over the evil of stage-coaches, because we
daily see or experience the benefits of the thousands of public
conveyances carrying forward the personal intercourse of a busy
population, and equally useful whether they run from Paddington to the
Bank, or from the General Post-Office to Edinburgh. Some, however, who
acknowledge the fallacy of putting down long and short stages, that
horses may be kept all the year, “for to ride one or two journies,” may
fall into the very same mistake with regard to knowledge that was thus
applied to communication. They may desire to retain a monopoly of
literature for those who can buy expensive books; they may think a
five-guinea quarto (like the horse for one or two journies) a public
benefit, and look upon a shilling duodecimo to be used by every one “at
pleasure, when he hath occasion,” (like the stage-coach,) as a public
evil.

What the stage-coach has become to the middle classes, we hope our Penny
Magazine will be to _all_ classes--a universal convenience and
enjoyment. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge have
considered it proper to commence this publication, from the belief that
many persons, whose time and whose means are equally limited, may be
induced to purchase and to read it. The various works already published
by the Society are principally adapted to diligent readers,--to those
who are anxiously desirous to obtain knowledge in a condensed, and, in
most cases, systematic form. But there are a very great number of
persons who can spare half an hour for the reading of a newspaper, who
are sometimes disinclined to open a book. For these we shall endeavour
to prepare a useful and entertaining Weekly Magazine, that may be taken
up and laid down without requiring any considerable effort; and that may
tend to fix the mind upon calmer, and, it may be, purer subjects of
thought than the violence of party discussion, or the stimulating
details of crime and suffering. We have, however, no expectation of
superseding the newspaper, and no desire to supersede it. We hope only
to share some portion of the attention which is now almost exclusively
bestowed upon “the folio of four pages,” by those who read little and
seldom. We consider it the duty of every man to make himself acquainted
with the events that are passing in the world,--with the progress of
legislation, and the administration of the laws; for every man is deeply
interested in all the great questions of government. Every man, however,
may not be qualified to understand them; but the more he knows, the less
hasty and the less violent will be his opinions. The false judgments
which are sometimes formed by the people upon public events, can only be
corrected by the diffusion of sound knowledge. Whatever tends to enlarge
the range of observation, to add to the store of facts, to awaken the
reason, and to lead the imagination into agreeable and innocent trains
of thought, may assist in the establishment of a sincere and ardent
desire for information; and in this point of view our little Miscellany
may prepare the way for the reception of more elaborate and precise
knowledge, and be as the small optic-glass called “the finder,” which is
placed by the side of a large telescope, to enable the observer to
discover the star which is afterwards to be carefully examined by the
more perfect instrument.


                         ---------------------


                             CHARING CROSS.

   [Illustration: The memorial cross that previously stood at Charing
                                Cross.]

This place has been recently greatly improved by clearing away decaying
houses, and enlarging the space for the public convenience, and for the
display of newly-erected handsome buildings. It derives its name from
having been anciently a village detached from London called _Charing_,
and from a stately _Cross_ erected there by order of Edward I., to
commemorate his affection for Eleanor, his deceased queen. The cross
occupied the last spot on which her body rested in its progress to
sepulture in Westminster Abbey. The other resting-places of her
sumptuous funeral were dignified by similar edifices.

Two centuries and a half ago, Charing Cross was within bowshot of the
open country, all the way to Hampstead and Highgate. North of the Cross
there were only a few houses in front of the Mews, where the King’s
falcons were kept. The Hay-market was a country road, with hedges on
each side, running between pastures. St. Martin’s lane was bounded on
the west side by the high walls of the Mews, and on the other side by a
few houses and by old St. Martin’s church, where the present church
stands. From these buildings it was a quiet country lane, leading to St.
Giles’s, then a pleasant village, situated among fine trees. Holborn was
a mere road between open meadow-land, with a green hedge on the north
side. In the Strand, opposite to St. Martin’s lane, stood the hospital
and gardens of St. Mary Rouncival, a religious establishment founded and
endowed by William Earl of Pembroke, in the reign of Henry III. In the
middle of the road leading to the Abbey, and opposite to Charing Cross,
stood a hermitage and chapel dedicated to St. Catherine.

Charing Cross is represented in the above engraving. It was of an
octagonal form and built of stone, and in an upper stage contained eight
figures. In 1643 it was pulled down and destroyed by the populace, in
their zeal against superstitious edifices. Upon the ground of similar
zeal, Henry VIII. suppressed the religious houses of the kingdom, and
seized their estates and revenues to his own use: the hospital of St.
Mary Rouncival was included in this fate. On its ancient site stands the
palace of the Duke of Northumberland. It was built in the reign of James
I. by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, and during his life was called
Northampton House. In 1642 it came to Algernon, Earl of Northumberland,
by marriage, and since then has been called Northumberland House.

The exact spot upon which Charing Cross stood is occupied by an
equestrian statue of Charles I. in bronze, executed in 1633 by Le Sœur,
for the Earl of Arundel. During the civil wars it fell into the hands of
the Parliament, by whom it was ordered to be sold and broken up. The
purchaser, John River, a brazier, produced some pieces of broken brass,
in token of his having complied with the conditions of sale; and he sold
to the cavaliers the handles of knives and forks as made from the
statue: River deceived both the Parliament and the loyalists; for he had
buried the statue unmutilated. At the restoration of Charles II. he dug
it up, and sold it to the Government; and Grinlin Gibbon executed a
stone pedestal, seventeen feet high, upon which it was placed and still
remains. It has been customary on the 29th of May, the anniversary of
the Restoration, to dress the statue with oaken boughs.


                         ---------------------


                           VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.

We have before us an Almanac for 1831, published in Hobart Town, the
capital of Van Diemen’s Land. It is a matter of agreeable wonder to find
an Almanac published in, and for the use of, a country, which even at so
late a date as the beginning of the present century (within thirty
years), and indeed for some years afterwards, was inhabited merely by a
few thousands of the most ignorant and destitute savages on the face of
the earth. And now we find established on those distant shores a
community so far advanced in social refinement as to have already an
almanac of its own; one, too, in many respects as well executed as any
production of the same kind to be found in older countries, and much
better than some that still disgrace the most civilized countries. This
is an Almanac without Astrology.

Although called an Almanac, this little volume contains a considerable
variety of information not usually given in works of that description.
The heavy stamp-duty in our own country renders it necessary that an
Almanac should contain little besides the Calendar, Lists, and useful
Tables; and thus the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
prints a Companion to the Almanac, which may be bought with it or not.
In addition to a Calendar and the ordinary lists, we have here a body of
information respecting the past, and especially the present state of the
country, embracing almost every particular with which either a person
intending to emigrate, or the general reader, can desire to be
acquainted.

Van Diemen’s Land was discovered so long ago as the year 1642, by
the Dutch navigator Tasman, who gave it the name which it still
bears, in honour of his employer Anthony Van Diemen, the then
governor of the Dutch possessions in India. It was not, however,
till the year 1604 that the country was taken possession of by
England. In the early part of that year Colonel David Collins,
having been appointed Governor of the projected settlement, arrived
on the island with about four hundred prisoners in charge, and a
force of fifty marines under his command. He was accompanied also by
several gentlemen, commissioned to fill the various situations in
the new government. They fixed their headquarters on the site of the
present capital, to which they gave the name of Hobart Town, after
Lord Hobart, the then Secretary for the Colonies. “The Colony,”
proceeds the narrative before us, “being thus founded, continued to
take root, although at times suffering very great hardships. Indeed
those who recollect them, and see what the place has since become,
will be of opinion that no difficulties at the outset of
colonization are enough to deter adventurers from steadily pursuing
their object. For the first three years, the inhabitants being
wholly dependent upon foreign supplies for the commonest articles of
food, were occasionally reduced to great straits; and, accordingly,
we hear of eighteen pence per pound having been readily given for
kangaroo flesh, and that even sea-weed, or any other vegetable
substance that could be eaten, was eagerly sought after. But man is
always the better for being thrown upon his own resources. After a
time, it was discovered that the colony itself, if the land were
cultivated, possessed that which would supersede the necessity of
seeking elsewhere for food; and, although the first attempts at
husbandry were merely made with the hoe and spade, enough was
ascertained by them to bid the colonists go on and prosper.” No
sheep or cattle were imported till three years after the settlement
of the island. For some time after this, indeed, the colony was
looked upon merely as a place of punishment for persons convicted of
crimes in New South Wales, numbers of whom accordingly continued to
be sent to it every year. Governor Collins died in 1810; and in 1813
Lieutenant-Colonel Davey arrived as his successor.

From about this time the colony began to be considered in a new light.
The population consisted no longer merely of the convicts and the
garrison; but, besides many persons who, having been originally crown
prisoners, had obtained their freedom by servitude or indulgence,
embraced a considerable number of settlers who had arrived in successive
small parties from the neighbouring colony of New South Wales. Hitherto
the only places with which Van Diemen’s Land was allowed to hold any
communication, had been New South Wales and England: that restriction
was now done away with, and the two colonies were placed, in respect to
foreign commerce, on precisely the same footing. In 1816 the numbers of
the community and the importance of its affairs had so much increased,
that the government thought proper to establish a newspaper, entitled
The Hobart Town Gazette, principally for the purpose of promulgating
proclamations and other notices. This year also was distinguished by the
first exportation of corn from the island, a considerable quantity
having been sent to Port Jackson, and likewise by the commencement of
whale-fishing by the colonists, “two of the sinews,” says the present
writer, “of our prosperity as a colony.”

In 1817 Colonel Davey was succeeded in the government by Colonel Sorell.
The first object which engaged the attention of the new Governor was the
suppression of an evil under which the colony had for some years been
suffering, the ravages of the bush-rangers, as they were called, or
prisoners who had made their escape and roamed at large in the woods.
The capture and execution of the principal leaders of these marauders in
a short time put an end, for the present, to their destructive inroads.
Colonel Sorell then applied himself to the improvement, in various ways,
of the internal condition of the colony. Amongst other important public
works he formed a road between Hobart Town and Launceston, another
settlement which had been made about a hundred and twenty miles farther
north.

About 1821 may be said to have begun the emigration from England, which
has since proceeded almost with uninterrupted steadiness. The immediate
consequence was, “that trade began to assume regularity, distilleries
and breweries were erected, the Van Diemen’s Land Bank established, St.
David’s church at Hobart Town finished and opened, and many other steps
taken, equally indicative of the progress the colony was making.” In
1824 a supreme court of judicature was established in the colony. The
same year Colonel Sorell was replaced by Colonel Arthur, the present
Governor. Very soon after Colonel Arthur’s arrival, bush-ranging again
broke out in a more formidable manner than ever; but, by the judicious
plans which he adopted for its suppression, “in the course of a few
months,” says the present writer, “not only was tranquillity entirely
restored, but was placed on so firm a basis, that it is next to
impossible ever to be again disturbed by a similar cause.”

In December, 1825, Van Diemen’s Land was declared entirely independent
of New South Wales; and an executive and legislative Council were
appointed as advisers to the Governor, the members of both being named
by the Crown. In 1827 the island was divided into eight police
districts, each of which was placed under the charge of a stipendiary
magistrate. The colony about this time “began to export considerably,
loading several ships each season to England, with wool, bark, and oil.”

A new evil, however, now began to assail the colony, we mean the
hostility of the natives. After various attempts had been made in vain
to tame them, or to deter them from continuing outrages against the
settlers, the Governor, at last, in September 1830, deemed it necessary
to resort to the extreme measure of endeavouring to drive them into one
corner of the island, with the intention of there enclosing them for the
future. For this purpose the whole of the inhabitants were called upon
to arm themselves, and to lend their aid to the military. The result had
not been completely successful at the time when the latest accounts left
the country.

In the course of the year 1828 the colony, and Hobart Town in
particular, made a decided step in advance. In 1829 a new Act of
Parliament was passed for the government of the colony, the most
important provisions of which were, the transference of the power of
levying taxes from the Governor to the Legislative Council, and the
extension of the authority of all the laws of England to Van Diemen’s
Land, as far as the circumstances of the colony permitted.

Such is a brief sketch of the origin and progress hitherto of this
young, but advanced and flourishing colony. Our next week’s publication
will contain an account of its present state.


                         ---------------------


                           ANTIQUITY OF BEER.

The general drinks of the Anglo-Saxons were ale and mead: wine was a
luxury for the great. In the Saxon Dialogues preserved in the Cotton
Library in the British Museum, a boy, who is questioned upon his habits
and the uses of things, says, in answer to the inquiry what he
drank--“Ale if I have it, or water if I have it not.” He adds, that wine
is the drink “of the elders and the wise.” Ale was sold to the people,
as at this day, in houses of entertainment; “for a priest was forbidden
by a law to eat or drink at _ceapealethelum_, literally, places where
ale was sold.” After the Norman Conquest, wine became more commonly
used; and the vine was extensively cultivated in England. The people,
however, held to the beverage of their forefathers with great
pertinacity; and neither the juice of the grape nor of the apple were
ever general favourites. Of a favourite wassail or drinking-song of the
fifteenth century, the burden was--

                       “Bring us home good ale.”

“The old ale knights of England,” as Camden calls the sturdy yeomen of
this period, knew not, however, the ale to which hops in the next
century gave both flavour and preservation. Hops appear to have been
used in the breweries of the Netherlands in the beginning of the
fourteenth century. In England they were not used in the composition of
beer till nearly two centuries afterwards. It has been affirmed that the
planting of hops was forbidden in the reign of Henry VI.; and it is
certain that Henry VIII. forbade brewers to put hops and sulphur into
ale. In the fifth year of Edward VI., the royal and national taste
appears to have changed; for privileges were then granted to
hop-grounds. Tusser, in his ‘Five Hundred Points of good Husbandry,’
printed in 1557, thus sings the praises of this plant:--

           “The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,
            It strengtheneth drink and it flavoureth malt;
            And being well-brewed long kept it will last,
            And drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast.”

In the reign of James I. the plant was not sufficiently cultivated in
England for the consumption; as there is a statue of 1608 against the
importation of spoiled hops. In 1830 there were 46,727 acres occupied in
the cultivation of hops in Great Britain.

Of barley, there are now above thirty million bushels annually converted
into malt in Great Britain; and more than eight million barrels of beer,
of which four-fifths are strong beer, are brewed yearly. This is a
consumption, by the great body of the people, of a favourite beverage,
which indicates a distribution of the national wealth, satisfactory by
comparison, with the general poverty of less advanced periods of
civilization in our own country, and with that of less industrious
nations in our own day.--_Vegetable Substances used for Food._


                         ---------------------


                               FAIR PLAY.

A nobleman resident at a castle in Italy was about to celebrate his
marriage feast. All the elements were propitious except the ocean, which
had been so boisterous as to deny the very necessary appendage of fish.
On the very morning of the feast, however, a poor fisherman made his
appearance, with a turbot so large, that it seemed to have been created
for the occasion. Joy pervaded the castle, and the fisherman was ushered
with his prize into the saloon, where the nobleman, in the presence of
his visitors, requested him to put what price he thought proper on the
fish, and it should be instantly paid him. One hundred lashes, said the
fisherman, on my bare back, is the price of my fish, and I will not bate
one strand of whip-cord on the bargain. The nobleman and his guests were
not a little astonished, but our chapman was resolute, and remonstrance
was in vain. At length the nobleman exclaimed, Well, well, the fellow is
a humourist, and the fish we must have, but lay on lightly, and let the
price be paid in our presence. After fifty lashes had been administered,
Hold, hold, exclaimed the fisherman, I have a partner in this business,
and it is fitting that he should receive his share. What, are there two
such mad-caps in the world? exclaimed the nobleman; name him, and he
shall be sent for instantly. You need not go far for him, said the
fisherman, you will find him at your gate, in the shape of your own
porter, who would not let me in until I promised that he should have the
half of whatever I received for my turbot. Oh, oh, said the nobleman,
bring him up instantly, he shall receive his stipulated moiety with the
strictest justice. This ceremony being finished, he discharged the
porter, and amply rewarded the fisherman.

                         ---------------------

_Changes of Manners._--John Locke, the celebrated writer on the Human
Mind and on Government, mentions in his Journal, in the year 1679, the
following as the amusements of London to be seen by a stranger:--“At
Marebone and Putney he may see several persons of quality bowling two or
three times a week all the summer: wrestling, in Lincoln’s Inn Field
every evening all the summer; bear and bull baiting, and sometimes
prizes at the Bear-Garden; shooting in the long-bow and stob-ball, in
Tothill-fields.”

                         ---------------------

_Animal Sagacity._--In the immense forests of North America, the
moose-deer is hunted by the Indians with such relentless perseverance,
that all the instincts of the quadruped are called forth for the
preservation of its existence. Tanner, a white man who lived thirty
years in the woods, thus describes the extraordinary extent of the
moose’s vigilance:--“In the most violent storm, when the wind, and the
thunder, and the falling timber, are making the loudest and most
incessant roar, if a man, either with his foot or his hand, breaks the
smallest dry limb in the forest, the moose will hear it; and though he
does not always run, he ceases eating, and rouses his attention to all
sounds. If in the course of an hour, or thereabouts, the man neither
moves nor makes the least noise, the animal may begin to feed again, but
does not forget what he has heard, and is for many hours more vigilant
than before.”


                         ---------------------


                        THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.

The greater number of our readers must have heard of the Zoological
Gardens, in the Regent’s Park, at London, which have been established
about four years, and which now comprise the finest menagerie in the
world, if we regard the number and variety of the animals. The expense
of this establishment, which amounts to many thousand pounds a year, is
maintained by the annual subscriptions of the Fellows of the Zoological
Society, and the payment (a shilling) by each person who is recommended
by the ticket of a proprietor. It is not our intention to give a
description of all the various animals there; but we shall from time to
time notice any remarkable circumstance that occurs, as illustrative of
their habits; or we shall mention any new curiosity which is purchased
by the Society, or presented to it.

The _Wapiti_, in the Zoological Gardens, shed his immense horns on the
6th of February last. Their weight was twenty-one pounds five ounces. In
1831 he shed them on the 1st of February, when their weight was twenty
three pounds two ounces. In captivity, therefore, the Wapiti shows no
deviation from the law of nature, which he exhibits in his own American
forests,--that he should shed his horns, or bony excrescences, every
year. All the deer tribe are subject to this law. Already the new horns
of the Wapiti are beginning rapidly to grow--at first looking like a
soft velvety substance, and gradually getting harder and more branching,
till they become the gigantic antlers, which within a year will drop
off, again to be renewed. It is generally considered that the horns of
the deer tribe increase in size as the animal advances in age; but in
the individual instance of the Wapiti of the Zoological Gardens, the
horns of 1832 weigh less, by one pound thirteen ounces, than those of
1831.

                  [Illustration: Horns of the Wapiti.]

A very large bear, of the species called the Grizzly, has been recently
brought to the Zoological Gardens. This is the largest and most
ferocious of the bear tribe--the most terrible quadruped of North
America, whom even the Indians, accustomed as they are to every danger,
fly from and fear. He is exceedingly tenacious of life, and thus, if he
encounters a single Indian, there is little chance of destroying him
with the generally fatal rifle. Lewis and Clark, two enterprising
travellers in the wildest regions of North America, describe an
encounter with a bear of this species. Six hunters went to attack him:
four fired and each wounded him. The two who had reserved their fire,
hit him when he sprang forward. Before they could again load, the
fearful animal was upon them. They fled to a river: four were able again
to fire, concealed behind a tree, and again hit him. He turned upon
them, and they were obliged to throw themselves into the water, from a
bank twenty feet high. He took also to the water in chase of his
hunters; and had not one of the two men who remained on shore shot him
through the head, the hindmost swimmer would at least have rued the
perilous adventure.

The Brown Bear of the northern parts of Europe is not so ferocious as
the Grizzly Bear, but of prodigious strength. Mr. Lloyd, in his Northern
Field Sports, says, “he walks with facility on his hind legs, and in
that position can bear the heaviest burthens.” Indeed Mr. Neilson (a
Swede) says, “a bear has been seen walking on his hinder feet along a
small tree that stretched across a river, bearing a dead horse in his
fore-paws.”

   [Illustration: A bear, carrying a dead horse, crosses a river on a
                             fallen tree.]


                         ---------------------


                               THE WEEK.

April 1.--The anniversary of the birth of the celebrated philosopher,
René Des Cartes, who was born at La Haye, in Touraine, in 1596. When a
child he was so remarkable for the anxiety he showed to know the _cause_
of every thing, that his father used to call him his young philosopher.
He entered the army when very young; and continued to serve for some
years, but zealously pursued his mathematical and other studies all the
time. An anecdote, illustrative of the extent of his acquirements under
apparently unfavourable circumstances, is given in ‘The Pursuit of
Knowledge under Difficulties.’ “He happened to be in garrison with his
regiment at the town of Breda, in the Netherlands, when, walking out one
morning, he observed a crowd of people assembled around a placard or
advertisement which was stuck up on the wall. Finding that it was
written in the Dutch language, which he did not understand (for he was a
native of Touraine, in France), he inquired of a person whom he saw
reading it what it meant. The individual to whom he addressed his
inquiries happened to be the Principal of the University of Dort, a man
of distinguished mathematical attainments; and it was with something of
a sneer that he informed the young officer, in reply to his question,
that the paper contained the announcement of a difficult geometrical
problem, of which the proposer challenged the most able men of the city
to attempt the solution. Not repulsed, however, by the tone and manner
of the learned Professor, Des Cartes requested to be favoured with a
translation of the placard, which he had no sooner received than he
calmly remarked that he thought he should be able to answer the
challenge. Accordingly next day he presented himself again before
Beckman (that was the name of the Professor) with a complete solution of
the problem, greatly to the astonishment of that distinguished person.”
At last Des Cartes left the army, and travelled through a great part of
Europe, visiting England among other countries. He then fixed his
residence in Holland, where he wrote the greater number of his works.
They relate to metaphysics, geometry, and various departments of natural
philosophy. He is now principally remembered for the impulse which his
works gave to the study of metaphysics in Germany, and for his ideas
being now, in a great degree, the foundation of what is called the Ideal
School of Philosophy, as opposed to the Sensual, or Material. His
celebrated axiom was “_Cogito ergo sum_,” (I think, therefore, I exist).
His astronomical speculations were very singular and extravagant. He
explained the constitution of the heavens by means of a multitude of
vortices, or elementary whirlpools, of which the sun and every other
fixed star, according to him, had one, forming as it were its system,
and supporting and keeping in motion the other lighter bodies that
circle round it. Notwithstanding these fancies, Des Cartes was a most
profound and ingenious mathematician; and the science of optics is also
greatly indebted to him. Having been invited by Christina, Queen of
Sweden, to take up his residence in Stockholm, he repaired to that
capital in 1648; but died there of an inflammation of the lungs on the
11th of February, 1650, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.

April 1.--_All-Fools’-Day_, like many other days that were once observed
by most people, has no honours now but in the gaiety of school-boys. The
old custom of sending individuals on this day on a fool’s errand is not
peculiar to England. Scotland has her _April gowk_, and France her
_Poisson d’Avril_ (April fish). It is probable that the custom is a
relic of a high and general Pagan festival, in which the wildest spirit
of frolic expressed the universal gladness. It is to be remembered that
the year anciently began about the time of the vernal equinox, when the
awakening of all the powers of nature from their wintry sleep--the
leafing of trees, the budding of flowers, and the singing of birds--made
men look forward with joy to a season of long days and sunny skies. In
simple ages rough jokes, given and taken without feelings of unkindness,
form one of the most usual expressions of hilarity. There is a festival
amongst the Hindoos, called the _Huli_, which is held in March, in
honour of the new year, in the observance of which the practice of
sending persons on errands which are to end in disappointment, forms a
prominent feature. This circumstance would show that the custom, which
still remains with us, is one which has its origin in remote ages, and
is derived from a common source, accessible alike to the Hindoo and the
Briton.

April 2.--On this day, in the year 1578, was born at Folkstone, in Kent,
Dr. William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood.
Harvey published this important discovery in 1620. Before this time it
was universally believed that the arteries, or vessels through which the
blood flows from the heart, did not contain blood at all, but only air;
and, indeed, the word artery was originally used to signify the
windpipe, and an air-tube. The body, it was thought, was fed with blood
entirely through the veins, which carried it at last to the heart, where
it was in some way or other absorbed or drunk up. Thus, one of our old
poets, Phineas Fletcher, in a curious allegorical poem, descriptive of
the body and mind of man, which he entitles ‘The Purple Island,’ written
(although not published) before Harvey announced his discovery, gives
the following account of the manner in which the body is watered and
fertilized by the different channels that pervade it:--

       “Nor is there any part in all this land,
        But is a little isle; for thousand brooks
        In azure channels glide on silver sand;
        Their serpent windings and deceiving crooks,
        Circling about and watering all the plain,
        Empty themselves into the _all-drinking main_,
        _And creeping forward slide, but ne’er return again_.”

Nobody imagined that there was any _circulation_ of the blood, till
Harvey demonstrated that the same blood which the veins brought _to_ the
heart the arteries immediately carried away again _from_ it. Harvey
lived for many years to enjoy the glory of this discovery; dying at
Hampstead, in Essex, on the 3d of June, 1658, in the eighty-first year
of his age.


                         ---------------------


                   EXCELLENCE NOT LIMITED BY STATION.

There is not a more common error of self-deception than a habit of
considering our stations in life so ill-suited to our powers, as to be
unworthy of calling out a full and proper exercise of our virtues and
talents.

As society is constituted, there cannot be _many_ employments which
demand very brilliant talents, or great delicacy of taste, for their
proper discharge. The great bulk of society is composed of plain,
plodding men, who move “right onwards” to the sober duties of their
calling. At the same time the universal good demands that those whom
nature has greatly endowed should be called from the ordinary track to
take up higher and more ennobling duties. England, happily for us, is
full of bright examples of the greatest men raised from the meanest
situations; and the education which England is now beginning to bestow
upon her children will multiply these examples. But a partial and
incomplete diffusion of knowledge will also multiply the victims of that
evil principle which postpones the discharge of present and immediate
duties, for the anticipations of some destiny above the labours of a
handicraftsman, or the calculations of a shopkeeper. Years and
experience, which afford us the opportunity of comparing our own powers
with those of others, will, it is true, correct the inconsistent
expectations which arise from a want of capacity to set the right value
on ourselves. But the wisdom thus gained may come too late. The object
of desire may be found decidedly unattainable, and existence is then
wasted in a sluggish contempt of present duties; the spirit is broken;
the temper is soured; habits of misanthropy and personal neglect creep
on; and life eventually becomes a tedious and miserable pilgrimage of
never-satisfied desires. Youth, however, is happily not without its
guide, if it will take a warning from example. Of the highly-gifted men
whose abandonment of their humble calling has been the apparent
beginning of a distinguished career, we do not recollect an instance of
one who did not pursue that humble calling with credit and success until
the occasion presented itself for exhibiting those superior powers which
nature occasionally bestows. Benjamin Franklin was as valuable to his
master as a printer’s apprentice, as he was to his country as a
statesman and a negotiator, or to the world as a philosopher. Had he not
been so, indeed, it may be doubted whether he ever would have taken his
rank among the first statesmen and philosophers of his time. One of the
great secrets of advancing in life is to be ready to take advantage of
those opportunities which, if a man really possesses superior abilities,
are sure to present themselves some time or other. As the poet expresses
it, “There is a _tide_ in the affairs of men,”--an ebbing and flowing of
the unstable element on which they are borne,--and if this be only
“taken at the flood,” the “full sea” is gained on which “the voyage of
their life” may be made with ease and the prospect of a happy issue. But
we should remember, that for those who are not _ready_ to embark at the
moment when their tide is at its flood, that tide may never serve again;
and nothing is more likely to be a hinderance at such a moment than the
distress which is certain to follow a neglect of our ordinary business.


                         ---------------------


                             ISAAC ASHFORD.

                    [From Crabbe’s Parish Register.]

One of the most eminent of our modern poets died a few weeks ago, the
Reverend George Crabbe. Mr. Crabbe was born in 1754, at Aldborough in
Suffolk, and, consequently, at the time of his death, had reached the
advanced age of seventy-eight. Although his last work, his Tales of the
Hall, in two volumes, was published so lately as 1819, he had been for
many years by far the oldest of our living poets; for his first
production, The Library, was published so long ago as the year 1781. His
poetical career, therefore, reckoning from this commencement to his
death, had extended over more than the long space of half a century. A
second poem, entitled The Village, however, which quickly followed the
Library, was the only additional work which he produced during the first
half of this period. It was not till 1807 that he again came before the
world as an author, by the publication of two volumes of Poems,
comprising the Parish Register and other pieces. This publication was
followed by another poem, entitled The Borough, in 1810; by two volumes
of Tales, in 1812; and, as already mentioned, by his ‘Tales of the
Hall,’ the last work which he gave to the press, in 1819. Mr. Crabbe had
been Rector of Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, for eighteen years before his
death.

Notwithstanding considerable peculiarities, and some obvious faults of
manner, it is impossible to peruse any of Crabbe’s productions without
feeling yourself to be in the hands of a writer of great power, and a
true poet. In some of his pieces he has displayed both a soaring
imagination and a delicate sense of beauty; but he is most popularly
known as the poet of poverty and wretchedness,--the stern explorer and
describer of the deepest and darkest recesses of human suffering and
crime. Perhaps he has occasionally painted the gloom of the regions in
which he was thus accustomed to wander with somewhat of exaggeration;
but it would be easy to select abundant proof from his writings, that if
he delineated with an unsparing pencil both the miseries and the vices
of the poor, he could also sympathize with their enjoyments and estimate
their virtues as cordially as any man that ever lived. The following
passage from the Third Part of his Parish Register, that in which he
reviews the list of burials, is an admirably drawn picture of a lofty
character in humble life. The writer, it will be observed, speaks in the
character of the clergyman of the parish. He has related the lives and
deaths of two of his female parishioners, after which he proceeds
thus:--

           Next to these ladies, but in nought allied,
         A noble peasant, _Isaac Ashford_, died;
         Noble he was, contemning all things mean,
         His truth unquestioned, and his soul serene.
         Of no man’s presence _Isaac_ felt afraid;
         At no man’s question _Isaac_ looked dismayed:
         Shame knew him not, he dreaded no disgrace;
         Truth, simple truth, was written in his face;
         Yet while the serious thought his soul approved,
         Cheerful he seemed, and gentleness he loved.
         To bliss domestic he his heart resigned,
         And with the firmest, had the fondest mind:
         Were others joyful, he looked smiling on,
         And gave allowance where he needed none;
         Good he refused with future ill to buy,
         Nor knew a joy that caused reflection’s sigh;
         A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast
         No envy stung, no jealousy distressed;
         Yet far was he from stoic pride removed,
         He felt humanely, and he warmly loved.
         I marked his action when his infant died,
         And his old neighbour for offence was tried;
         The still tears, stealing down that furrowed cheek,
         Spoke pity, plainer than the tongue can speak.
         If pride were his, ’twas not their vulgar pride,
         Who, in their base contempt, the great deride;
         Nor pride in learning, though my clerk agreed,
         If fate should call him, _Ashford_ might succeed;
         Nor pride in rustic skill, although we knew
         None his superior, and his equals few:
         But if that spirit in his soul had place,
         It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace;
         A pride in honest fame, by virtue gained,
         In sturdy boys, to virtuous labours trained;
         Pride in the power that guards his country’s coast,
         And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast;
         Pride in a life that slander’s tongue defied,
         In fact, a noble passion, misnamed _Pride_.

           He had no party’s rage, no sectary’s whim;
         Christian and countryman was _all_ with him:
         True to his church he came; no Sunday shower
         Kept him at home in that important hour;
         Nor his firm feet could one persuading sect
         By the strong glare of their new light direct;
         ‘On hope, in mine own sober light, I gaze,
         But should be blind and lose it in your blaze.’

           In times severe, when many a sturdy swain
         Felt it his pride, his comfort, to complain,
         _Isaac_ their wants would soothe, his own would hide,
         And feel in _that_ his comfort and his pride.

           At length, he found, when seventy years were run,
         His strength departed, and his labour done;
         When, save his honest fame, he kept no more,
         But lost his wife, and saw his children poor;
         ’Twas then a spark of--say not discontent--
         Struck on his mind, and thus he gave it vent:--

           ‘Kind are your laws (’tis not to be denied)
         That in yon house for ruined age provide;
         And they are just;--when young, we give you all,
         And then for comforts in our weakness call.
         Why then this proud reluctance to be fed,
         To join your Poor and eat the Parish bread?
         But yet I linger, loathe with him to feed,
         Who gains his plenty by the sons of need;
         He who, by contract, all your Paupers took,
         And gauges stomachs with an anxious look!
         On some old master I could well depend,
         See him with joy, and thank him as a friend;
         But ill on him, who doles the day’s supply,
         And counts our chances, _who_ at night may die;
         Yet help me, Heaven! and let me not complain
         Of what befalls me, but the fate sustain.’

           Such were his thoughts, and so resigned he grew,
         Daily he placed the Workhouse in his view;
         But came not there; for sudden was his fate,
         He dropt expiring at his cottage-gate.

           I feel his absence in the hours of prayer,
         And view his seat, and sigh for Isaac there;
         I see no more those white locks thinly spread
         Round the bald polish of that honoured head;
         No more that awful glance on playful wight,
         Compelled to kneel and tremble at the sight;
         To fold his fingers, all in dread the while,
         Till Mister _Ashford_ softened to a smile:
         No more that meek and suppliant look in prayer,
         Nor the pure faith (to give it force) are there;
         But he is blest, and I lament no more
         A wise good man contented to be poor.


                         ---------------------


                            A QUAINT SERMON.

Mr. Dodd was a minister who lived many years ago a few miles from
Cambridge; and having several times been preaching against drunkenness,
some of the Cambridge scholars (conscience, which is sharper than ten
thousand witnesses, being their monitor) were very much offended, and
thought he made reflections on them. Some little time after, Mr. Dodd
was walking towards Cambridge, and met some of the gownsmen, who, as
soon as they saw him at a distance, resolved to make some ridicule of
him. As soon as he came up, they accosted him with “Your servant, sir!”
He replied, “Your servant, gentlemen.” They asked him if he had not been
preaching very much against drunkenness of late? He answered in the
affirmative. They then told him they had a favour to beg of him, and it
was that he would preach a sermon to them _there_, from a text they
should choose. He argued that it was an imposition, for a man ought to
have some consideration before preaching. They said they would not put
up with a denial, and insisted upon his preaching immediately (in a
hollow tree which stood by the road side) from the word M.A.L.T. He then
began, “Beloved, let me crave your attention. I am a little man--come at
a short notice--to preach a short sermon--from a short text--to a thin
congregation--in an unworthy pulpit. Beloved, my text is _Malt_. I
cannot divide it into sentences, there being none; nor into words, there
being but one; I must therefore, of necessity, divide it into letters,
which I find in my text to be these four--M.A.L.T.

M--is Moral.

A--is Allegorical.

L--is Literal.

T--is Theological.

“The moral, is to teach you rusticks good manners: therefore M--my
Masters, A--All of you, L--Leave off, T--Tippling.

“The Allegorical is, when one thing is spoken of, and another meant. The
thing spoken of is Malt. The thing meant is the spirit of Malt, which
you rusticks make, M--your Meat, A--your Apparel, L--your Liberty, and
T--your Trust.

“The Literal is, according to the letters, M--Much, A--Ale, L--Little,
T--Trust.

“The Theological is, according to the effects it works--in some,
M--Murder--in others, A--Adultery--in all, L--Looseness of Life, and in
many, T--Treachery.

“I shall conclude the subject, First, by way of Exhortation. M--my
Masters, A--All of you, L--Listen, T--To my Text. Second, by way of
Caution. M--my Masters, A--All of you, L--Look for, T--the Truth. Third,
by way of communicating the Truth, which is this:--A Drunkard is the
annoyance of modesty; the spoil of civility; the destruction of reason;
the robber’s agent; the alehouse’s benefactor; his wife’s sorrow; his
children’s trouble; his own shame; his neighbour’s scoff; a walking
swill-bowl; the picture of a beast; the monster of a man!”


                         ---------------------


                         DESCRIPTION OF POLAND.

The kingdom of Poland, which has lately been the theatre of so
disastrous a war, was established in 1815, by the treaty of Vienna, and
was composed of four territories placed respectively under the following
sovereignties, viz.:--

1. _Gallicia_; assigned to Austria.

2. _The Grand Duchy of Posen_, including the Western Palatinates
bordering on Silesia; surrendered to Prussia.

3. _The city and district of Cracow_; constituted a free republic; and

4. The remainder of ancient Poland, comprising the bulk of what was
before the Grand Duchy of Warsaw; made to revert to Russia.

The kingdom was divided into eight Palatinates: viz., Masovia, Cracow,
Sandomir, Kalisz, Lublin, Plotsk, and Augustowa. The population,
according to the last census of 1829, was, exclusive of the army,
4,088,290, which have been thus classed:--

            Employed in agriculture (householders) 1,871,259
            Their families and servants            2,221,188
            In manufactures                          140,377
            Their families                           358,035
            Tradesmen                                 49,888
            Their families                           131,331
            Landed Proprietors                         4,205
            Copyholders                                1,886
            Freeholders in towns                      41,654
            Employed under government                  8,414
            Patients in the 592 public hospitals       5,376
            Prisoners in the 76 prisons                7,926

The population of the towns is, to that of the country, as one to five.
The towns are small and far removed from each other, which has been a
main cause of retarding the progress of civilization, commerce, and
manufactures. There are only thirteen towns in Poland containing upwards
of 10,000 people each: viz., Warsaw, containing about 120,000; Dantzic,
about 50,000; Wilna, 30,000; Lemberg, 29,000; Cracow, 28,000; Kiev,
20,000; Posen, 20,000; Brady, 15,000; Witepsk, 13,000; Lublin, 13,000,
Mahilev, 12,500; Kalisch, 12,000; Kharkof, 11,000; the population of the
whole thirteen being equalled by the aggregate population of three or
four of the Lancashire or Yorkshire towns. The maps contain a multitude
of names of miserable wooden villages, inhabited merely by the peasant
cultivators of the soil, and by a few shop-keeping Jews. Of the 451
towns of the kingdom, 353 are more than half, and 83 wholly, of wood;
and but a very few towns contain a supply of the ordinary articles of
consumption by persons in easy circumstances. The common articles of
ladies’ wearing apparel are obliged to be procured either from Warsaw or
Vienna, and it is common, in great families, to keep memorandum-books,
in which the inmates of the family enter their wants, from time to time,
which are supplied altogether at intervals of some months. In respect of
all those comforts and conveniences of life which denote the progress of
refinement, Poland is, perhaps, behind all other nations of Christian
Europe.

The rate of increase of the Polish population, since 1815, has been
stated at 100,000 individuals annually, or about two and a half per
cent.

The Catholic religion is specially protected by the government, without
imposing any disabilities on the members of other faiths. The Catholic
establishment consists of an archbishop of Warsaw, eight bishops, and
2,740 clergy. The Greek Catholics have a bishop, and 354 priests. Next
to the Roman Catholics, however, the Jews are of the most importance,
and their numbers are stated to be fast increasing. They have of late
been very unpopular, and have been charged with many malpractices, in
monopolizing trade, and otherwise. The native writers have, for some
time past, been in the habit of reproaching them as the ruin of their
country, but sometimes, possibly, with more prejudice than reason. The
religious statistics are as follows:--

                       Roman Catholics 3,400,000
                       Greek Church      100,000
                       Lutherans         150,000
                       Calvinists          5,000
                       Jews              400,000
                       Other Sects         5,000
                                       ---------
                                       4,060,000

The class of nobles in Poland is to that of the plebeians as one to
thirteen. But this class is composed of persons of such various degrees
of wealth, that the poorer nobles are often glad to be employed as
stewards by the richer, and their wives and daughters take occupations
as humble as nurses and ladies’ maids. The peasantry are still in a
state of modified slavery, or villeinage, cultivating the land for the
benefit of their lords, and not being allowed to remove from it without
giving up their tenements. They are assigned a certain portion of the
produce of the estate; the whole live and dead stock upon which belongs
to the landlord, who lends the use thereof to the peasants, compelling
them to take care of, and account for, it. The peasantry in the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw have been nominally emancipated; but their condition has
hitherto hardly been sensibly ameliorated thereby.

The exports of Poland consist chiefly of corn, cattle, timber, and other
articles of raw produce; and the imports are wines, colonial produce,
and articles of luxury. The manufactures of woollen cloth, linens,
carpets, and leather have increased since 1815, and the breweries and
distilleries are on a very extensive scale. Agriculture is, however, by
far the largest source of occupation for the people; but suffers, at the
present time, from a depression of prices, and has permanently to
contend against the effects of a six months’ winter of frost and snow.
The proximity to the cold regions of Russia, and the exposure to the
sharp north-east winds from Siberia and the polar regions, render the
climate incomparably colder than that of England, though the situation
of Poland is not more northward. In the summer the heat is very great,
the forests obstructing the free circulation of air.


                         ---------------------


_Power of Steam._--It is on the rivers, and the boatman may repose on
his oars, it is in highways, and begins to exert itself along the
courses of land-conveyance; it is at the bottom of mines, a thousand
feet below the earth’s surface; it is in the mill, and in the workshops
of the trades. It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries, it draws, it
lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves, it prints.--_From Webster’s
Lectures._

_A Popular Error._--It is not at all an uncommon thing for even
well-informed people to consider one event the cause of another, because
the one has immediately preceded the other in the order of time. A
curious instance of this error occurred in the last century. The fish,
on which many of the inhabitants of Norway depended for subsistence,
suddenly vanished from their coasts; the practice of inoculation for the
small-pox had just then been introduced, and was instantly fixed upon as
the cause of the calamity; and as the people considered the risk of that
disorder a trifle in comparison with starvation, nothing could exceed
their righteous indignation against all who undertook to prevent their
taking the small-pox.

_Instruction and Amusement_ are more blended than the world in general
is apt to imagine. Uninstructive amusement may be afforded for a moment
by a passing jest or a ludicrous anecdote, by which no knowledge is
conveyed to the mind of the hearer or the reader; but the man who would
amuse others for an hour, either by his writing or his conversation,
must tell his hearers or his readers something that they do not know, or
suggest to them some new reflection upon the knowledge they have
previously acquired. The more the knowledge bears upon their pursuits,
upon their occupations, or upon their interests, the more attractive it
will be, and the more entitled to be called useful.

_The Secret of great Workers._--M. Dumont, in his ‘Recollections of
Mirabeau,’ the leading orator of the French Revolution, thus describes
the persevering industry of our illustrious countryman, Sir Samuel
Romilly:--“Romilly, always tranquil and orderly, has an incessant
activity. He never loses a minute: he applies all his mind to what he is
about. Like the hand of a watch, he never stops, although his equal
movements in the same way almost escape observation.”

_Devotion of a great Mind to its Duties._--Milton, the poet of Paradise
Lost, who, during an active life in the most troublesome times, was
unceasing in the cultivation of his understanding, thus describes his
own habits:--“Those morning haunts are where they should be, at home;
not sleeping or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up
and stirring; in winter, often ere the sound of any bell awake men to
labour or devotion; in summer as oft with the bird that first rouses, or
not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be read, till
the attention be weary, or memory have its full fraught; then with
useful and generous labours preserving the body’s health and hardiness,
to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the mind, to
the cause of religion and our country’s liberty.”

                         ---------------------

An era is fast approaching, when no writer will be read by the great
majority, save and except those who can effect that for bales of
manuscript, that the hydrostatic screw performs for bales of cotton, by
condensing that matter into a period that before occupied a
page.--_Colton._

                         ---------------------

Two painters undertook a portrait of Hannibal; one of them painted a
full likeness of him, and gave him two eyes, whereas disease had
deprived him of one. The other painted him in profile, but with his
blind side from the spectators. He severely reprimanded the first, but
handsomely rewarded the second.

                         ---------------------

The petty sovereign of an insignificant tribe in North America every
morning stalks out of his hovel, bids the sun good morrow, and points
out to him with his finger the course he is to take for the day.

                         ---------------------

When the air-balloon was first discovered, some one flippantly asked Dr.
Franklin what was the use of it? The doctor answered this question by
asking another: “What is the use of a new-born infant? It may become a
man.”

                         ---------------------

The Chinese affect to despise European ingenuity, but they cannot mend a
common watch; when it is out of order they say it is dead, and barter it
away for a living one.

                         ---------------------

A friend called on Michael Angelo, who was finishing a statue. Some time
afterwards he called again; the sculptor was still at his work. His
friend, looking at the figure, exclaimed, You have been idle since I saw
you last. By no means, replied the sculptor, I have retouched this part,
and polished that; I have softened this feature, and brought out this
muscle; I have given more expression to this lip, and more energy to
this limb. Well, well, said his friend, but all these are trifles. It
maybe so, replied Angelo, but recollect that trifles make perfection,
and that perfection is no trifle.


                         ---------------------


                   A POSTSCRIPT TO OUR FIRST READERS.

It is said that amongst the Mahomedans the following curious custom is
observed:--They never destroy any fragment of paper, however small,
which chance may place in their way. For this custom, which may appear
in its practice to be ridiculous, a remarkable reason is assigned:--“It
is the duty,” say the Mahomedan teachers, “of every true believer to
throw away no opportunity of communicating to his fellow-creatures a
knowledge of the one God and of his Prophet. The few words which express
the short and comprehensive article of our faith may be written on any
the smallest fragment of paper: let not true believers lose this
opportunity which Allah himself presents to them! neglect not, destroy
not that fragment. Let the word of the Prophet be written upon it, and
the winds of Heaven will, under the direction of Providence, convey it
into the hand of some one whose memory needs to be refreshed from the
fountain of Truth, or whose mind’s eye hath not seen the light of
Heaven.”

In the desire, and certainly in the power of enlightening their
fellow-creatures, the Christian need fear no comparison with the
Mahomedan world; but, in the mode of accomplishing this object, the
custom alluded to affords a lesson for study, and an example for
imitation.

By a Society which has undertaken the task of contributing, as far as
lies in its power, to the diffusion of useful knowledge, no means should
be neglected by which instructive amusement can be afforded. Timid
(although well-meaning) persons might perhaps be inclined to censure
such a society, should it set the example of applying the powers of the
press to the production of a Penny Periodical Magazine. They might
object that the instrument which is intended for good might be used for
evil; that publications in form so cheap as to be accessible to the
lowest class of readers, would soon fall into the hands of the lowest
class of writers. We doubt this, although we know it is the opinion of
many excellent persons; we have good and substantial reasons to assign
for our doubts, but into those reasons we shall not now enter; the time
for them is past. The evil (if it be an evil) is already in being. The
demand of the public has already called into existence penny periodical
publications, of which eight or ten have established a regular sale. It
will be cheering intelligence to those who would have dissuaded from
this undertaking, that the most noxious of them have been hitherto the
least successful. The channel, then, is open. Through its course must
flow much of the information conveyed to the minds of a large and
increasing class of readers. We are called upon to pour into it, as far
as we are able, clear waters from the pure and healthy springs of
knowledge. That duty we will not neglect: in the attempt to fulfil it we
think that we ought not to fail.

The success of our undertaking will be the measure of its utility.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                LONDON:--CHARLES KNIGHT, PALL-MALL EAST.

  _Shopkeepers and Hawkers may be supplied Wholesale by the following
                            Booksellers:_--

 _London_, GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster-Row.
 _Birmingham_, DRAKE.
 _Leeds_, BAINES and Co.
 _Liverpool_, WILLMER and SMITH.
 _Manchester_, ROBINSON.
 _Dublin_, WAKEMAN.
 _Edinburgh_, OLIVER and BOYD.
 _Glasgow_, ATKINSON and Co.

            Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke Street, Lambeth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          Transcriber’s Notes


This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover
art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized
changes from the original text:

 • p. 1: Added period after phrase “carefully examined by the more
   perfect instrument.”
 • p. 2: Added period after phrase “was replaced by Colonel Arthur, the
   present Governor.”
 • p. 6: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “But should be
   blind and lose it in your blaze.”
 • p. 7: Added period after phrase “which I find in my text to be these
   four--M.A.L.T.”





*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENNY MAGAZINE, ISSUE 1, MARCH 31, 1832 ***


    

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