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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76752 ***





                           THE PENNY MAGAZINE

                                 OF THE

             Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

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

 7.]                   PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.          [May 12, 1832

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                      THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PAUL’S.

         [Illustration: 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 87_l._) 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.

             [Illustration: A lobster, viewed from above.]

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.”

      [Illustration: A thermometer, with markings for the Reaumur,
 Fahrenheit, and Celsius scales. The following temperatures are marked,
 most with degrees Fahrenheit: Highest Temp. Sun’s rays at London, 134°;
  Highest Temp. of the Air at ditto, 90°; Mean Temp. of ditto at ditto,
    49 and a half°; Lowest Temp. of ditto at ditto, 11°; Ditto at the
  Earth’s surface at ditto, 5°; Greatest cold observed in the shade in
  England; Boiling point of water; Boiling point of alcohol, 174° (both
 at 30 inches barometric pressure); melting points of beeswax (142°) and
   tallow (127°); Fever heat as usually marked; Fever heat in general,
 107°; Blood heat; Summer heat; Temperate; Usual Temp. of Spring water,
             50°; Water freezes; Strong wine freezes, 20°.]

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 1_l._ 10_s._
5_d._, 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 9_l._, 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 9_l._ 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 1_l._ 10_s._ 5_d._ 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 1_l._ 10_s._
5_d._ 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
2_l._ 12_s._ 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 5_l._ 4_s._, or 7_l._ 16_s._, 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 1_l._ 10_s._ 5_d._ 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.”

-----

Footnote 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:--

 The paper for 100,000 copies of the Penny Magazine
   weighs 3,400 lbs., upon which a duty is paid of 3d.         £. s. d.
   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


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

 • p. 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 76752 ***