The penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, issue 1, March 31, 1832
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Date: 2025-07-22T00:00:00+00:00
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Title: The penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 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

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENNY MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, ISSUE 1, MARCH 31, 1832 ***

THE PENNY MAGAZINE

OF THE

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

[March 31, 1832

1.]

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.

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.

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.

[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.”

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

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 OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, ISSUE 1, MARCH 31, 1832 ***

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Table of Contents

- The Penny Magazine, March 31, 1832

- READING FOR ALL.

- CHARING CROSS.

- VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.

- ANTIQUITY OF BEER.

- FAIR PLAY.

- THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.

- THE WEEK.

- EXCELLENCE NOT LIMITED BY STATION.

- ISAAC ASHFORD.

- A QUAINT SERMON.

- DESCRIPTION OF POLAND.

- A POSTSCRIPT TO OUR FIRST READERS.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE