The penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, issue 7, May 12, 1832
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Title: The penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, issue 7, May 12, 1832

Editor: Charles Knight

Release date: August 28, 2025 [eBook #76752]

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 7, MAY 12, 1832 ***

THE PENNY MAGAZINE

OF THE

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

[May 12, 1832

7.]

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.

THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PAUL’S.

[Old St. Paul’s Cathedral—South View.]

The elevated situation of the spot on which St. Paul’s is built, seems to have pointed it out from very ancient times for religious or other public purposes. Without adopting the very doubtful opinion of some antiquaries, that the Romans during their occupation of the island had erected a temple to Diana upon this eminence—an opinion which has not even the support of tradition, and which Sir Christopher Wren, when he dug the foundations of the present church, became convinced had no other support—it seems to be clear that these foreigners used it for a cemetery or burial place, if not for anything more sacred. On the erection of the present building many Roman funeral vases, lacrymatories, and other articles used in sepulture, were found at a considerable depth under the surface. Next to these lay in rows skeletons of the ancient Britons; and immediately above them, Saxons in stone coffins, or in graves lined with chalk, together with pins of ivory and box wood which had fastened their grave clothes. The earliest building which is actually recorded to have stood on this site was a Christian church, built about the year 610, by Ethelbert, King of Kent, the first of the Saxon princes who was converted by St. Augustine. It was dedicated to St. Paul, and the old historians tell us was indebted for the latest improvements which it received to the liberality of St. Erkenwald, the bishop of the diocese, who died in 681. However, it could scarcely have been a very magnificent or extensive edifice, if it be true, as is related, that upon its being accidentally burned down in 961, it was rebuilt the same year. After this it was again destroyed by fire in the year 1087; when the Norman bishop, Maurice, who had just been appointed to the see, resolved to undertake its restoration, on a much larger and more splendid scale, at his own expense. Both he and his successor De Belmeis, each of whom presided twenty years over the diocese, are said to have devoted all their revenues to this great work; but it was not finished till the time of Bishop Niger, the fourth after De Belmeis, in the year 1240. In 1135, indeed, the uncompleted building had again caught fire, and been nearly burned to the ground. When the fabric, which might thus be called ancient, even while it was yet new, at last stood ready for consecration, it exhibited a mass 690 feet in length by 130 in breadth, surmounted by a spire 520 feet in height. Some additions, which were made to it after this, were not completed till 1315, in the reign of Edward II., the ninth king after him in whose reign the first stone of the pile had been laid.

This was the building we now call old St. Paul’s, the immediate predecessor of the present cathedral. It was one of the largest edifices in the world, and in its best days, before it was deformed by the successive repairs to which it was subjected, and the various foreign incumbrances under which it was long buried, it was no doubt a grand and imposing structure. But, from the causes we have mentioned, its form in the course of time underwent so many changes that at last it presented the appearance of little else than a heap of incongruity and confusion. The spire was of timber; but in 1315 it was found to be so much decayed that the upper part of it had to be taken down and replaced. It was upon this occasion that a ball, surmounted by a cross, was first fixed upon the termination of the spire.

The first accident which befel the church was the consequence of a violent tempest of thunder and wind which burst over the metropolis on the 1st of February, 1444. The lightning having struck the spire set it on fire; and although a priest succeeded in extinguishing the flames, a good deal of damage was done, so that it was not till the year 1462 that the gilded ball with the cross again made its appearance on the summit of the building. A much more serious disaster than this, however, happened about a century afterwards. On the 4th of June, 1561, a plumber who was employed in making some repairs, thoughtlessly left a pan of coals burning within the spire while he went to dinner; the flames from which caught the adjacent wooden work, and in no long time set the whole building in a blaze. In spite of every thing that could be done, the conflagration continued to rage till it had consumed every thing about the church that was combustible, and reduced it to a mere skeleton of bare and blackened walls.

With such ardour, however, did the Queen (Elizabeth), and, it may be said indeed, the whole nation, promote the scheme of restoring the sacred edifice, all ranks contributing to the pious and patriotic work, that in the space of about five years it was again opened for worship. But it never recovered its ancient splendour: the spire, in particular, was not rebuilt at all; and from the shortness of the time spent in the restoration altogether, it is probable that other parts of the work were hurried over without much attention either to strength or beauty. By the end of the reign of Elizabeth accordingly, the structure had fallen into sad decay; so that it was found in 1608 that it could not be repaired under a cost of considerably more than twenty thousand pounds. It was not, however, till 1633, in the reign of Charles I., that the repairs were actually begun, the interval having been spent in attempts to collect the necessary funds by subscription. Meanwhile the cathedral was every year becoming more ruinous. The money subscribed at last amounted to above a hundred thousand pounds, and then the celebrated Inigo Jones having been appointed to superintend the work, it was, as we have said, proceeded with.

We shall now mention some particulars to show the extraordinary state of neglect and ruin into which this once proud edifice had been by this time allowed to fall. Towards the close of the sixteenth century it is stated, that the benches at the door of the choir were commonly used by beggars and drunkards for sleeping on, and that a large dunghill lay within one of the doors of the church. The place indeed was the common resort of idlers of all descriptions, who used to walk about in the most irreverent manner with their hats on even during the performance of divine service. More than twenty private houses were built against the walls of the church, the owners of several of which had cut closets out of the sacred edifice, while in other instances doors had been made into the vaults which were converted into cellars. At one of the visitations the verger presented that “the shrouds and cloisters under the convocation-house are made a common lay-stall for boards, trunks, and chests, being let out unto trunk-makers; where, by means of their daily knocking and noise, the church is greatly disturbed.” One house, partly formed of the church, is stated to have been “lately used as a play-house;” the owner of another, which was built upon the foundation of the church, had contrived a way through a window into a part of the steeple, which he had turned into a ware-room; and a third person had excavated an oven in one of the buttresses, in which he baked his bread and pies.

The first thing which Jones did was to clear away these obstructions, after which the work of restoration proceeded slowly but with tolerable regularity till the commencement of the civil wars in 1642. In 1643, not only all the revenues of the cathedral, but the funds which had been collected for repairing it, together with all the unused building materials, were seized by the Parliament. The scaffolding was given to the soldiers of Colonel Jephson’s regiment for arrears of pay; on which, no man hindering them, they dug pits in the middle of the church to saw the timber in. Another part of the building was converted into a barrack for dragoons and a stable. Public worship, nevertheless, was still celebrated in the east end and a part of the choir, which was separated from the rest by a brick wall, the congregation entering through one of the north windows which was converted into a door. At the west end Inigo Jones had erected a portico of great beauty, consisting of fourteen columns, each rising to the lofty height of forty-six feet, and the whole supporting an entablature crowned with statues. These statues were thrown down and broken in pieces; and shops were built within the portico, in which commodities of all sorts were sold. The wood-cut, at the head of this article, represents the cathedral as it was drawn by Hollar in 1656.

In this state things continued till the restoration. Soon after that event, the repairing of St. Paul’s again engaged the thoughts of the king and the public; and subscriptions to a considerable amount having been once more obtained, the work was recommenced on the 1st of August, 1663. Three years afterwards, however, (in September, 1666,) before it had been nearly completed, the great fire, which consumed half the metropolis, seized in its progress westward upon the scaffolding by which the cathedral was surrounded, and after an awful conflagration, left it a mere mass of ruins. History has recorded no finer instance of national spirit than the noble courage and alacrity with which the citizens of London, and the English government, and people generally, rose from this terrible calamity and applied themselves to restore all that it had destroyed. In the plans which were immediately taken into consideration for rebuilding the city, St. Paul’s was not forgotten. Sir Christopher Wren, who had been employed in superintending the previous repairs, was ordered to examine and report upon the state in which the foundations of the building were, and so much of the walls as was left standing. At first it was thought that a considerable portion of the old church might still be found available; but this idea was eventually given up; and on the 21st of June, 1675, the foundation-stone of the present building was laid. From this time the work proceeded without interruption till its completion in 1710. The same great architect, Sir Christopher Wren, presided over and directed the work from its commencement to its close. For this, all that he received was £200 a-year; and the commissioners had even the spite and meanness, after the building was considerably advanced, to suspend the payment of one half of this pittance till the edifice should be finished, under the pretence of thereby better securing the diligence and expedition of the architect. In fact, it was with no small difficulty that Sir Christopher at last got his money at all. The whole expense of rebuilding the cathedral was £736,000, which was raised almost entirely by a small tax on coals. The church of St. Peter’s at Rome, which is indeed a building of greater dimensions, but to which St. Paul’s ranks next even in that respect among the sacred edifices of Christendom, took one hundred and forty-five years to build, was the work of twelve successive architects, and exhausted the revenues of nineteen successive popes. It is worthy of remark, that St. Paul’s was begun and completed not only by one architect, and one master mason, Mr. Thomas Strong, but also while one bishop, Dr. Henry Compton, presided over the diocese.

AN EMIGRANT’S STRUGGLES.

[Concluded from No. 6.]

When we set out upon our expedition, which I have just mentioned, we had two servants with us, and as many dogs. One man carried some biscuits; another a bottle of rum, a piece of beef, and a little tea and sugar, with a couple of tea-pots. Immediately behind my house there is a fine long hill, rising, with an easy slope, to the height of five hundred or six hundred feet, and covered, like the country in general, with trees and grass. It has been the practice to allow proprietors of cattle and sheep to graze on the unlocated parts, which they were obliged to quit on settlers coming to occupy the ground. These herds were generally left in the care of one or two men, while the proprietor lived in Hobart Town; the consequence of which was, that the cattle were allowed to stray wherever they chose, and became altogether wild. This was the case where I have settled; and although the herdsmen have removed themselves to their assigned limits, the cattle are still on my ground, and have been the cause of my suffering one of the most serious inconveniences which can befal a settler. For I had scarcely arrived on my land when my working bullocks got into the wild herd, with which they continue until this day. This has completely baulked my agricultural projects, obliging me to perform by manual labour what the beasts of the field should have done for me. But I am again digressing, and tiring you with my misfortunes, instead of giving you an account of our journey. As we approached the river Ouse we found its banks had been lately burnt by the natives, and the grass and smaller trees were completely consumed. After some search we found a place which we ventured to wade, but it was with great difficulty we could keep our feet. Sometimes the dogs would kill a kangaroo, and as we had not time or opportunity to make use of it, the huge crows, which abound in the woods, soon hovered over the carcase in great numbers. These crows are of the same genus as your English ones, but of a different species. They are very large, and distinguished by a white ring round the eye: they have even more cunning than their brethren of the old world. The banks on the further side of the Ouse are yet steeper than on this. We continued to ascend over the burnt ground, and underneath huge trees, for about five miles, till we arrived at the stock-keeper’s hut, which we discovered by the help of the track of horses. Here we found eight men, who had been sent up a few days before to erect a hut and stackyard for the cattle. They had sheltered themselves by branches of trees, and burnt a large fire in front. They had chosen a spot beside a small spring of water, in the midst of a large valley, which was almost clear of trees. After making some kangaroo soup we again set out, and bending our course more to the north, so as to keep near the river, we arrived at sun-set on the border of a beautiful lake. It appeared about seven miles long, and proportionably broad, with two lofty islands in the midst of it. The water was very soft and clear; its bed seemed to be composed of fine sand, and very shallow. Having formed our encampment near its brink, and lighted three very large fires to keep ourselves warm, we commenced making tea. One of the party fired a shot over its surface; the discharge was succeeded by a long and lasting peal like thunder, which had a sublime effect. We therefore named this piece of water Lake Echo. We were now on very high ground, and seemed to overlook all the mountains around us. In the morning, at peep of day, we took leave of this enchanting scene, which we had admired at the two periods most favourable to the display of its beauty with the rising and the setting sun. The surface remained as even as glass, and the shadows of its banks and islands gave a soft serenity to the landscape. A fine open valley led us down to the river, but we traversed it with difficulty, for during the wet season the water had so lodged in it that it was now full of holes, and we were never sure of a step. We passed many recent encampments of the natives, and saw their fires at a little distance. As we approached the river the dog started a large kangaroo, and hunted it down on the plain. This was a seasonable supply. We immediately commenced cooking; cutting off some steaks, we strung them on a stick, and set them before the fire; when one side was done we turned the other;—this is what they call a sticker-up, and our manner of cooking them is called bush-fashion. The slang nomenclature which the convicts have imposed on this land is in many instances unpleasant and vulgar, but sometimes appropriate. Having made a comfortable meal we again crossed the Ouse, but with still greater difficulty than we had encountered the day before. The immediate space between the rivers is here still more mountainous than behind my house, and is covered with large rugged stones, and fine lofty trees. We passed several encampments of the natives. Pursuing our way, we soon came to the Shannon, which we crossed, as the eastern side afforded the best walking. Here we entered on an extensive plain, but so rough, and so obstructed with rushes, as to render our passage through it quite laborious. In one part we struck a light, and the wind blowing with great keenness, the grass blazed up in a few minutes, the flame extending for nearly half a mile. Our provisions were now quite exhausted, and we had to recreate ourselves with tea, and chat beside a beautiful cascade on the river. In these high regions we found several maple trees, with sweet unctuous juice exuding from the bark. You can hardly form an idea of the beauty of the heavens, as the vault appeared to the eye, while we reposed on a kangaroo rug on the grass, beside a large fire which illumined the trees, and with a fine sweep of the river winding its way before us, and reflecting the silvery beams of the moon. Next morning, after walking three or four miles, we killed a kangaroo, and fared sumptuously on a sticker-up. Thus refreshed, we descended towards home. We had explored in this journey a region which no European had ever seen before, and had ascended to some of the highest ground in the island. I should calculate my habitation to be nearly two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and I think we ascended as much more. You may suppose what romantic rapids and cascades occur in the course of a river which falls that height in the course of thirty miles. Just before my door I have a broad placid stream resembling a lake, over which I have made a flying bridge, by means of a rope and the elm-tree case of my wife’s piano, which answers the purpose so well that I brought over seven hundred sheep belonging to Mrs. Smith, the other day, by twenty at a time. I am completely at my own command, for if a visitor comes he must hail on the opposite side before I slacken my rope, and allow him to pull the boat over.

We have no fish in these rivers, excepting some fresh water craw-fish, such as are found in the Thames, some eels, and a small thing not worth catching. We sometimes, however, shoot a wild duck or a widgeon, which are both large and good. We have also a kind of pigeon, which is very fine eating, and many other smaller birds, besides cockatoos innumerable, both black and white, and some beautiful parrots and paroquets. But the bird which chiefly enlivens the grove is a species of magpie, which sings two regular bars of music, of the clearest and sweetest notes you can imagine. On taking possession of my grant, my plan was to build a rough hut for my servants, which I should inhabit whilst a better one was erecting for myself, but the loss of my bullocks made me fain to make the best of my first habitation. It is entirely built of the materials on the ground, excepting the nails, which came from England, and the window-frames, which were made in Hobart Town. The walls are composed of logs or planks split out of the trees, of about a foot broad, and two or three inches thick. These are sunk two feet in the ground, and nailed to a beam at the top; they are then plastered over with a mixture composed of sand, clay, and grass cut short, and the wall is complete. The roof is covered with shingles, which are also split out of the trees round the house, and have exactly the appearance of slates. I have not yet been able to make a floor, we therefore walk at present upon the bare earth. As I cannot afford to buy another set of bullocks (for they cost 87l.) I must wait patiently till I recover them when the wild herds are got in. This of course throws me into great difficulties. I have, however, upwards of one hundred sheep, two cows, and three or four young ones, a goat, and a pig, besides eight hens. These last thrive amazingly, chiefly owing to the number of grasshoppers which they eat.

I have just heard of an opportunity to send off a letter, and I therefore hasten to a conclusion. It is strange, when I reflect upon it, that any vicissitudes of life should have induced me voluntarily to undergo separation from my friends; to desert their company for a wild and enthusiastic scheme of emigration. Much however as I feel the deprivation of such society, I must say that I do not yet regret my coming to this country. When I consider that the people around me have mostly been convicted of heinous offences in England, I am pleased at the security we enjoy. You will, I know, rejoice to hear that I and my family are in good health; and that though so remote, I am as near to you in the alliance of friendship as ever.

THE LOBSTER.

Amongst the numerous examples given by Dr. Paley, of the wonderful manner in which Nature contrives to overcome difficulties, which would at first appear insurmountable, there is perhaps none more striking than the mode in which the lobster is released from his case when the increasing size of his body requires more room. In most animals the skin grows with their growth. In some animals, instead of a soft skin, there is a shell, which admits by its form of gradual enlargement. Thus the shell of the tortoise, which consists of several pieces, is gradually enlarged at the joinings of those pieces which are called “sutures.” Shells with two sides, like those of the muscle, grow bigger by addition at the edge. Spiral shells, as those of the snail, receive this addition at their mouth. The simplicity of their form admits of this; but the lobster’s shell being applied to the limbs of his body, as well as to the body itself, does not admit of either of the modes of enlargement which is observed in other shells. It is so hard that it cannot expand or stretch, and it is so complicated in its form that it does not admit of being enlarged by adding to its edge. How, then, was the growth of the lobster to be provided for? We have seen that room could not be made for him in his old shell: was he then to be annually fitted with a new one? If so, another difficulty arises: how was he to get out of his present confinement? How was he to open his hard coat, or draw his legs out of his boots which are become too tight for him? The works of the Deity are known by expedients, and the provisions of his power extend to the most desperate cases. The case of the lobster is thus provided for: At certain seasons his shell grows soft. The animal swells his body; the seams open, and the claws burst at the joints. When the shell is thus become loose upon the body, the animal makes a second effort, and by a trembling motion, a sort of spasm, casts off his case. In this state of nakedness the poor defenceless fish retires to a hole in the rocks. The released body makes a sudden growth. In about eight and forty hours a fresh concretion of humour takes place all over the surface of his body; it quickly hardens; and thus a new shell is formed, fitted in every part to the increased size of the body and limbs of the animal. This wonderful change takes place every year.

MATERNAL CARE OF THE EARWIG.

In ‘Insect Transformations,’ (p. 102,) it is mentioned that the distinguished Swedish naturalist, Baron De Geer, “discovered a female earwig in the beginning of April under some stones, brooding over a number of eggs, of whose safety she appeared to be not a little jealous. In order to study her proceedings the better, he placed her in a nurse-box, filled with fresh earth, and scattered the eggs in at random. She was not long, however, in collecting them with all care into one spot, carrying them one by one in her mandibles, and placing herself over them. She never left them for a moment, sitting as assiduously as a bird does while hatching. In about five or six weeks the grubs were hatched, and were then of a whitish colour.”

These observations the author of ‘Insect Transformations’ has just had an opportunity of verifying and extending, and has communicated to us the following interesting facts:—

“About the end of March, I found an earwig brooding over her eggs in a small cell scooped out in a garden border; and in order to observe her proceedings I removed the eggs into my study, placing them upon fresh earth under a bell glass. The careful mother soon scooped out a fresh cell, and collected the scattered eggs with great care to the little nest, placing herself over them, not so much, as it afterwards appeared, to keep them warm as to prevent too rapid evaporation of their moisture. When the earth began to dry up, she dug the cell gradually deeper, till at length she got almost out of view; and whenever the interior became too dry, she withdrew the eggs from the cell altogether, and placed them round the rim of the glass where some of the evaporated moisture had condensed. Upon observing this, I dropped some water into the abandoned cell, and the mother soon afterwards replaced her eggs there. When the water which had dropped had nearly evaporated, I moistened the outside of the earth opposite the bottom of the cell; and the mother perceiving this, actually dug a gallery right through to the spot where she found the best supply of moisture. Having neglected to moisten the earth for some days, it again became dry, and there was none even round the rim of the glass as before. Under these circumstances, the mother earwig found a little remaining moisture quite under the clod of earth upon the board of the mantel-piece, and thither she forthwith carried her eggs.

“Her subsequent proceedings were not less interesting; for though I carefully moistened the earth every day, she regularly changed the situation of the eggs morning and evening, placing them in the original cell at night, and on the board under the clod during the day; as if she understood the evaporation to be so great when the sun was up that her eggs might be left too dry before night.

“I regret to add, that during my absence the glass had been moved, and the mother escaped, having carried away all her eggs but one or two, which soon shrivelled up and will of course prove abortive.”

THE WEEK.

May 14.—This is the birth-day of Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, usually regarded as the inventor of the common mercurial thermometer, and certainly the first person by whom the instrument was accurately constructed. Fahrenheit was born at Dantzic, in 1686. His business was that of a merchant, but he was fond of spending his leisure in philosophical inquiries and experiments; and at last he settled at Amsterdam, and devoted himself almost entirely to the fabrication of the instrument which bears his name, and which still continues to be the thermometer principally used in Britain, North America, and Holland. He is supposed to have begun to make these thermometers about the year 1720, and he died in 1736. It was Fahrenheit, also, who first noticed the fact that water boils at different degrees of temperature, according to the weight of the atmospheric column resting upon it—that it requires, for instance, less heat to make it boil on the summit than at the foot of a high mountain. We shall, in some future number, explain the construction and principle of the thermometer. In the mean time we extract from ‘the Companion to the Almanac’ for 1830, a comparison of the various scales of the thermometer which are in general use:—

“A fertile cause of error in estimating and comparing the statements of temperature, is the very different manner in which they are recorded by scientific men of different nations. Wherever the English language prevails, the graduation of Fahrenheit is generally preferred. By the German authors, Römer (Reaumur) is used; and the French have, within a few years, decided to adopt that of Celsius, a Swedish philosopher, calling it ‘Thermomètre Centigrade.’ To diminish this evil, in some degree, the annexed diagram has been constructed, which shows by inspection, the expression of any point of temperature in the degrees of either or of all the above-mentioned scales; and the comparison of any degree of one with the equivalent degrees of the others.”

May 16.—On this day, in the year 1623, was born at Rumsey, in Hampshire, the celebrated Sir William Petty, a memorable and animating example of the elevation and distinction which real talent, accompanied by activity and perseverance, has always in this country been able to command for its possessor. Petty’s father was a clothier, and he appears to have given his son little to set out in life with but a good education. It is said that Petty, when quite a boy, took great delight in spending his time among smiths, carpenters, and other artificers, so that at twelve years old he knew how to work at their trades. He made so great progress at the grammar-school, that at fifteen he had made himself master of French, Latin, and Greek, and understood something of mathematics and physical science. On entering the world, he went to Caen in Normandy with a little stock of merchandize, which he there improved; and on his return to England, having obtained some employment connected with the navy, he managed to save about sixty pounds before he was twenty years of age; and with this sum he repaired to the Continent, to study medicine at the foreign universities. He accordingly attended the requisite classes successively at Leyden, Utrecht, and Paris; and in about three years came home well qualified to commence practising as a physician. Having taken up his residence in this capacity at Oxford, he soon acquired for himself a distinguished reputation, and, young as he was, was appointed assistant professor of anatomy in the University. He had already also become known in the scientific world by some mechanical inventions of considerable ingenuity; and he was one of the club of inquirers who, about the year 1649, began to assemble weekly at Oxford, for philosophical investigations and experiments, and out of whose meetings eventually arose the present Royal Society. Indeed, Dr. Wallis, one of the members, in a letter, in which he has given an account of the association, tells us that their meetings were first held “at Dr. Petty’s lodgings, in an apothecary’s house, because of the convenience of inspecting drugs, and the like, as there was occasion.” Petty’s reputation, however, rose so rapidly that, after having succeeded first to the professorship of anatomy in the University, and then to that of music in Gresham College, he was, in 1652, appointed physician to the forces in Ireland. This carried him over to that country—and eventually introduced him to a new career. In 1655 we find him appointed secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and three years afterwards a member of the House of Commons. He was, however, soon after removed from his public employments by the Parliament which met after the death of the Protector. On the Restoration, which took place the following year, he was made a commissioner of the Court of Claims. The remainder of his life was as busy as the portion of it already passed had been; but we have no room to enumerate the books he wrote, the ingenious schemes and inventions with which his mind was constantly teeming, and the lucrative speculations in mining, the manufacture of iron, and various other great undertakings, in which he engaged. Suffice it to say, that, after accumulating a large property, he died in London, on the 16th of December, 1687, full of honours, if not of years. The first Marquis of Lansdowne (the father of the present Marquis) was the great-grandson of Sir William Petty.

THE VALUE OF A PENNY.

It is an old saying, that “a pin a day is a groat a year,” by which homely expression some wise man has intended to teach thoughtless people the value of small savings. We shall endeavour to show the value of a somewhat higher article, though a much despised one,—we mean a penny.

Pennies, like minutes, are often thrown away because people do not know what to do with them. Those who are economists of time, and all the great men on record have been so, take care of the minutes, for they know that a few minutes well applied each day will make hours in the course of a week, and days in the course of a year; and in the course of a long life they will make enough of time, if well employed, in which a man may by perseverance have accomplished some work, useful to his fellow-creatures, and honourable to himself.

Large fortunes, when gained honestly, are rarely acquired in any other way than by small savings at first; and savings can only be made by habits of industry and temperance. A saving man, therefore, while he is adding to the general stock of wealth, is setting an example of those virtues on which the very existence and happiness of society depend. There are saving people who are misers, and have no one good quality for which we can like them. These are not the kind of people of whom we are speaking; but we may remark that a miser, though a disagreeable fellow while alive, is a very useful person when dead. He has been compared to a tree, which, while it is growing, can be applied to no use, but at last furnishes timber for houses and domestic utensils. But a miser is infinitely more useful than a spendthrift, a mere consumer and waster, who, after he has spent all his own money, tries to spend that of other people.

Suppose a young man, just beginning to work for himself, could save one penny a day; and we believe there are few unmarried young workmen who could not do this. At the end of a year he would have 1l. 10s. 5d., which he could safely deposit in a savings’ bank, where it would lie safely, with some small addition for interest, till he might want it. After five years’ savings, at the rate of a penny a day, he would have between 8 and 9l., which it is very possible he might find some opportunity of laying out to such advantage as to establish the foundation of his future fortune. Who has not had the opportunity of feeling some time in his life how advantageously he could have laid out such a sum of money, and how readily such a sum might have been saved by keeping all the pennies and sixpences that had been thrown away? Such a sum as 8 or 9l. would enable a man to emigrate to Canada, where he might, by persevering industry, acquire enough to purchase a piece of land; and, if blessed with moderate length of life, he might be the happy cultivator of his own estate.

Eight pounds would enable a mechanic, who had acquired a good character for sobriety and skill, to furnish himself on credit with goods and tools to five or six times the amount of his capital; and this might form the foundation of his future fortune.

It often happens that a clever and industrious man may have the opportunity of bettering his condition by removing to another place, or accepting some situation of trust; but the want of a little money to carry him from one place to another, the want of a better suit of clothes, or some difficulty of that kind, often stands in the way. Eight pounds would conquer all these obstacles.

It may be said that five years is too long a time to look forward to. We think not. This country is full of examples of men who have risen from beginnings hardly more than the savings of a penny, through a long course of persevering industry, to wealth and respectability. And we believe there is hardly a condition, however low, from which a young man of good principles and unceasing industry may not elevate himself.

But suppose the penny only saved during one year: at the end of it the young man finds he has got 1l. 10s. 5d. Will he squander this at the ale-house, or in idle dissipation, after having had the virtue to resist temptation all through the year? We think not. This 1l. 10s. 5d. may perform a number of useful offices. It may purchase some necessary implement, some good substantial article of dress, some useful books, or, if well laid out, some useful instruction in the branch of industry which is his calling. It may relieve him in sickness, it may contribute to the comfort of an aged father, it may assist the young man in paying back some part of that boundless debt which he owes to the care and tender anxiety of a mother, who has lived long enough to feel the want of a son’s solicitude. Finally, however disposed of at the end of the year, if well disposed of, the penny saved will be a source of genuine satisfaction. The saving of it during the year has been a daily repetition of a virtuous act, which near the end of the year we have little doubt will be confirmed into a virtuous habit.

Suppose a dozen young men, who are fond of reading, were to contribute a penny a week to a common stock: at the end of the year they would have 2l. 12s. This sum judiciously laid out, would purchase at least twelve volumes of really useful books, varying in price from three to four shillings, besides allowing some small sum for the person who took care of them and kept the accounts. Another year’s saving would add another twelve volumes; and in five years the library might contain sixty volumes, including a few useful books of reference, such as dictionaries, maps, &c.—an amount of books, if well chosen, quite as much as any one of them would be able to study well in his leisure hours.

But suppose the number of contributors were doubled or trebled, the annual income would then amount to 5l. 4s., or 7l. 16s., for which sum they could certainly procure as many useful books as they could possibly want. There might be some difficulty in the choice of books, as it is not always easy to know what are good and what are bad. We propose to meet this difficulty by occasional notices of particular books under the head of ‘The Library.’ At present we will merely suggest what classes of books might gradually find admission into such a library. There are now good practical and cheap treatises on the principles of many of the branches of industry which are followed by mechanics—such as books on the elements of geometry and measuring of surfaces and solids; on arithmetic; on chemistry, and its application to the useful arts, &c.; lives of persons distinguished for industry and knowledge; descriptions of foreign countries, compiled from the best travels; maps on a pretty large scale, both of the heaven and of different parts of the earth: such books as these, with an English dictionary, a gazetteer, and some periodical work, would form a useful library, such as in a few years might be got together.

It would be impossible to enumerate all the good things that a penny will purchase; and as to all the bad things, they are not worth enumerating. But there is one which we cannot omit mentioning. A penny will buy a penny-worth of gin, and a man may spend it daily without thinking himself the worse for it. But as every penny saved tends to give a man the habit of saving pennies, so every penny spent in gin, tends to cause him to spend more. Thus the saver of the penny may at the end of the year be a healthy reputable person, and confirmed economist, with 1l. 10s. 5d. in his pocket: the spender may be an unhealthy, ill-looking, worthless fellow; a confirmed gin-drinker, with nothing in his pocket except unpaid bills.

We wish it were in our power to impress strongly on the working people of this kingdom, how much happiness they may have at their command by small savings. They are by far the most numerous part of the community; and it is by their condition that the real prosperity of the country should be estimated; not by the few who live in affluence and splendour. Hard as the condition of the working classes often is, are they not yet aware that by industry, frugality, and a judicious combination of their small resources, they can do more to make themselves happy, than anybody else can do for them?

MIRABEAU.

M. Dumont, of Geneva, a distinguished writer on jurisprudence, who died about two years ago, has left behind him a most interesting work, entitled ‘Recollections of Mirabeau, and of the two first Legislative Assemblies.’ This work has been received throughout Europe as one of great merit and importance, and deservedly so; for it contains, in a brief space, the best account we have read of the most extraordinary part of the life of one of the most extraordinary men of modern times; and with it, the first impulses and movement of the French Revolution.

This most extraordinary man, whose character is still a problem to most of those who knew him, was Honoré Gabriel Riquetti de Mirabeau, who ruled the National Assembly, who directed the political opinions of twenty-five millions of men for two years together, and who was, for that period, what has been cleverly termed “the intellectual Dictator of France.” This champion for the people was born a noble; his father was the Marquis de Mirabeau, of whose ancestors we know nothing; but, on his mother’s side, he could boast a descent of which even those who dislike or care not for aristocracy, might be proud; for she was grand-daughter of Riquet, constructor of the famous canal of Languedoc. Mirabeau was ugly in face almost to hideousness; and he was perfectly conscious of this; for, in writing to a lady who had never seen him, he told her to fancy the face of a tiger that had been marked with the smallpox, and then she would have an idea of his countenance; and at a later period, when his voice and gesture and appearance struck the National Assembly with awe, he was accustomed to say, if any of its members had shown refractoriness during his absence, “I will go down to the House and show them my wild boar’s head[1], and that will silence them!”

All the circumstances of the times were favourable to his ambition and his wonderful talents and energy; but perhaps no man ever begun public life with more disadvantages, as regarded his own character, against him. He had been seventeen times in prison; he had deserted his own, and run away with other men’s wives; he had had the most scandalous lawsuits with his own family; had been condemned as a criminal; exiled; executed in effigy; he had written and published one of the most depraved of books; had led the most dissipated and obscene of lives; and was known to be a dangerous enemy to those he hated, and an unsure friend to those he pretended to love. The morals of the French capital had been reduced in the days of despotism to a degraded standard; but, according to Dumont, when the name of Mirabeau was first read in the National Assembly among those elected to represent the French nation, it was hissed and hooted by all present.

In spite, however, of all this, in a few weeks he was everything with those men who had considered themselves disgraced by being associated with him; and gathering influence and power by bounds, and not by slow steps, he became almost the absolute master of the National Assembly, the mass of whose members he moved and controlled with as much facility as the Italian showman moves his wooden puppets. His talents and energy were indeed, as we have characterized them—wonderful, and so was his eloquence; but these qualities would not of themselves have given him the supremacy he obtained. There were two other advantages in his favour: the first of which we have never heard sufficient importance given to—the second of which M. Dumont alone has clearly, and, it appears to us, honestly, stated.

During his long imprisonments, Mirabeau had profoundly studied the science of politics; and during his exile in foreign countries, and particularly in England, he had attentively investigated the practical part of government: he was the only man that entered the National Assembly well acquainted with the necessary forms and true spirit of a representative government; all the rest had to learn their rudiments. There was talent—there was even genius in abundance—but all these new legislators were theorists; Mirabeau was the only practical man.

In the second place, he had a wonderful art (which he had also acquired during his misfortunes, when his poverty obliged him to write and compile books and pamphlets for his living) of readily availing himself of the assistance of other men, and of working up their materials so as to make them appear his own. The whole matter of many of Mirabeau’s most admired speeches was furnished by M. Dumont himself, or by another citizen of Geneva, M. Duroverai; and, generally, he laid under contribution the information and experience of all his associates. When he was deficient on any point, or, what was more frequently the case, pressed for time, he would assemble these gentlemen, and from their conversation, their notes, or digested essays, get up all he wanted, and proceed forthwith to astonish the Assembly with his wonderful fund of knowledge and flashes of eloquence. But that eloquence, it must be said, did really make the matter his own; his powers of adaptation were as great as those of invention in other men.

Mirabeau’s hatred to the ancient despotism was implacable; but he seems to have had no objection to a constitutional monarchy. Great obscurity still hangs over these matters; but it is said that, seeing the democratic principle was gaining too much strength, and the revolution going too far, he had undertaken to stop its march, and that the negotiations with the Court of the unfortunate Louis XVI., which were notorious, had for their object the prevention of a republic, and the establishment of a limited monarchy. His will had hitherto been law; he had ruled and played with all parties and factions—but whether he could now have succeeded to the utmost of his wish—whether he could now have quieted the storm he had mainly raised, and on which he had floated, we cannot determine; for at the very crisis, at the time when he was supposed to hold the destinies of his country in his hands, he died in the forty-second year of his age, after a most agonizing illness of five days, brought on by his detestable excesses.

His funeral was “rather an apotheosis than a human entombment.” Nearly all Paris followed his body to the church of Sainte Geneviève, thenceforward entitled the Pantheon; the melancholy music, the thousand torches, and the intermittent cannon, producing an effect which has been forcibly described by many eye-witnesses; and those who had feared and hated him, those who had been literally enchanted by his eloquence and genius, saw the grave closed over Mirabeau with awe and feelings that never can be described.

The career of Mirabeau offers a few consolatory remarks to those who are gifted with no extraordinary faculties, either for good or for evil. Mirabeau swayed the destinies of millions,—but he was never happy;—Mirabeau had almost reached the pinnacle of human power, and yet he fell a victim to the same evil passions which degrade and ruin the lowest of mankind. He could never be really great, because he was never freed from the bondage of his own evil desires. The man who steadily pursues a consistent course of duty, which has for its object to do good to himself and to all around him, will be followed to the grave by a few humble and sincere mourners, and no record will remain, except in the hearts of those who loved him, to tell of his earthly career. But that man may gladly leave to such as Mirabeau the music, the torches, and the cannon, by which a nation proclaimed its loss; for assuredly he has felt that inward consolation, and that sustaining hope throughout his life, which only the good can feel;—he has fully enjoyed, in all its purity, the holy influence of “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.”

1. In French, la hure.

THE MAY-FLY.

“The angler’s May-fly, the most short-lived in its perfect state of any of the insect race, emerges from the water, where it passes its aurelia state, about six in the evening, and dies about eleven at night.”—White’s Selborne.

The sun of the eve was warm and bright
When the May-fly burst his shell,
And he wanton’d awhile in that fair light
O’er the river’s gentle swell;
And the deepening tints of the crimson sky

Still gleam’d on the wing of the glad May-fly.

The colours of sunset pass’d away,
The crimson and yellow green,
And the evening-star’s first twinkling ray
In the waveless stream was seen;
Till the deep repose of the stillest night
Was hushing about his giddy flight.

The noon of the night is nearly come—
There’s a crescent in the sky;—
The silence still hears the myriad hum
Of the insect revelry.
The hum has ceas’d—the quiet wave
Is now the sportive May-fly’s grave.

Oh! thine was a blessed lot—to spring
In thy lustihood to air,
And sail about, on untiring wing,
Through a world most rich and fair,
To drop at once in thy watery bed,
Like a leaf that the willow branch has shed.

And who shall say that his thread of years
Is a life more blest than thine!
Has his feverish dream of doubts and fears
Such joys as those which shine
In the constant pleasures of thy way,
Most happy child of the happy May?

For thou wert born when the earth was clad
With her robe of buds and flowers,
And didst float about with a soul as glad
As a bird in the sunny showers;
And the hour of thy death had a sweet repose,
Like a melody, sweetest at its close.

Nor too brief the date of thy cheerful race—
’Tis its use that measures time—
And the mighty Spirit that fills all space
With His life and His will sublime,
May see that the May-fly and the Man
Each flutter out the same small span.

And the fly that is born with the sinking sun,

To die ere the midnight hour,
May have deeper joy, ere his course be run,
Than man in his pride and power;
And the insect’s minutes be spared the fears

And the anxious doubts of our three-score years.

The years and the minutes are as one—

The fly drops in his twilight mirth,

And the man, when his long day’s work is done,

Crawls to the self-same earth.

Great Father of each! may our mortal day

Be the prelude to an endless May!

HIGH DUTIES AND LOW DUTIES.

It is a well-known principle, that in taxation two and two do not make four—that is, if a government receive one sum from a low or a moderate duty upon an article of common use, that receipt will not be doubled by doubling the duty. In some cases it will be even lessened. This result is produced by the diminished consumption, arising out of the higher price to the consumer; which higher price includes the additional profit which the manufacturer and the retailer must charge for the additional capital employed upon the article in consequence of the tax. Suppose a tax of a penny were put upon the ‘Penny Magazine.’ Let us see, in that case, how the tax would affect the consumption, and what the government would gain by the tax. In the first place the tax would raise the price of the Magazine to three-pence; for, as the retailer receives one-third of the present price, he would also require to receive one-third of the additional price:—the stamp of a penny would therefore immediately become three half-pence to the consumer, by the profit of the retailer alone. The remaining half-penny would be necessary to compensate the publisher for this additional advance of capital, and for the diminished return upon the original outlay for authors, artists, and that branch of the printing process which is called composition. There are certain expenses which are the same whether a work sells one hundred copies, or one hundred thousand. The price being therefore raised to three-pence, we may fairly conclude that the consumption would be diminished nine-tenths—that ten thousand copies would be sold instead of a hundred thousand. Let us see how the revenue would be affected by these altered circumstances:—

| | | | | | | £. | s. | d.

The paper for 100,000 copies of the Penny Magazine weighs 3,400 lbs., upon which a duty is paid of 3d. per lb., amounting to

42

10

0

The imposition of a stamp of 1d. per copy would have the effect of raising the retail price of the Penny Magazine to 3d. At that rate it is presumed that the sale of the Three-penny Magazine, instead of being 100,000 copies, would be reduced to 10,000 at the utmost.

Upon 10,000 copies, with 1d. stamp, the revenue would receive as under: | £. | s. | d. | £. | s. | d. | £. | s. | d.
Duty of 3d. in the lb. upon paper. | | | | 4 | 5 | 0 | | |
Stamp of 1d. upon 10,000 | 41 | 13 | 0 | | | | | |
Deduct discount of twenty per cent. allowed upon news stamps | 8 | 6 | 6 | | | | | |
| | 33 | 6 | 6 | | |
| | | | | 37 | 11 | 6
Weekly loss to the revenue from the high duty | 4 | 18 | 6

Or, Annual duty upon sixty-four impressions of 100,000 copies of the Penny Magazine, using 217,600 lbs. of paper, taxed at 3d. per lb

2,720

0

0

Annual produce of a penny stamp, and paper duty upon 10,000 copies | 2,404 | 16 | 0
Annual loss to the revenue from the high duty | 315 | 4 | 0

By this operation, therefore, the government would sustain that loss which invariably results from the diminished consumption of an article of general use upon which a high duty is imposed; and ninety thousand persons would be excluded from the purchase of a little work from which they derive instruction and amusement. By this diminished consumption of nine-tenths of the Penny Magazine, nearly nine-tenths of the paper-makers, printers, type-founders, ink-makers, bookbinders, carriers, and retailers, to whom the sale of a hundred thousand copies weekly affords profitable employment, would, as far as the Penny Magazine goes, be deprived of that employment; and that diminution of profitable employment would in a degree diminish their power of continuing consumers of other articles contributing to the revenue, and thus still more affect the amount of taxation dependent upon the Penny Magazine.

Perseverance.—“I recollect,” says Sir Jonah Barrington, “in Queen’s County, to have seen a Mr. Clerk, who had been a working carpenter, and when making a bench for the session justices at the Court-house, was laughed at for taking peculiar pains in planing and smoothing the seat of it. He smilingly observed, that he did so to make it easy for himself, as he was resolved he would never die till he had a right to sit thereupon, and he kept his word. He was an industrious man—honest, respectable, and kind-hearted. He succeeded in all his efforts to accumulate an independence; he did accumulate it, and uprightly. His character kept pace with the increase of his property, and he lived to sit as a magistrate on that very bench that he sawed and planed.”

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.

Bristol, Westley and Co.

Hull, Stephenson.

Leeds, Baines and Co.

Liverpool, Willmer and Smith.

Manchester, Robinson, and Webb and Simms.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Charnley.

Nottingham, Wright.

Dublin, Wakeman.

Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd.

Glasgow, Atkinson and Co.

Printed by William Clowes, Stamford Street.

Transcriber’s Notes

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized changes from the original text:

- p. 61: Added “a” to phrase “the value of a somewhat higher article.”

- p. 62: Changed “here” to “there” in phrase “And we believe there is hardly a condition, however low, from which.”

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENNY MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, ISSUE 7, MAY 12, 1832 ***

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Table of Contents

- The Penny Magazine, May 12, 1832

- THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PAUL’S.

- AN EMIGRANT’S STRUGGLES.

- THE LOBSTER.

- MATERNAL CARE OF THE EARWIG.

- THE WEEK.

- THE VALUE OF A PENNY.

- MIRABEAU.

- THE MAY-FLY.

- HIGH DUTIES AND LOW DUTIES.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE