"I fear so :---Well Sam, civilly, but rather formally, neither like a footman of parts nor of figure, mentions. that John Cox, the parish clerk of All Saints' Parish, Northampton, waits in the kitchen for those obituary verses engrossed with the annual bill of mortality, which Mr.. Cowper had for some years furnished on his solicitation. "Ay, Sam,---say I will be ready for him in a few mi of that shabby, but now honoured town-to. Cowper's abode :—no poet's fabled retirement, embowered in sylvan solitudes, by wild wandering brook or stately river's brink, skirted with hanging woods, or vine-clad steeps, or towering mountains. Here is the parlour."-" But pray stop, sir," cried Sophia, "that dull house had its pleasant accessories; have you forgot the greenhouse, the plants, the goldfinches; that pleasant window, looking over the neigh-nutes, and give the poor man a cup of beer,' said the courbour's orchard? and what so beautiful as an orchard, when the white plum-blossom has come full out, and the pink apple flowers are just budding !" "And Beau, and Tiney," cried Fanny. "I have forgot none of these things, my dears, said Mr. Dodsley. Only I fear that to see them, as Cowper saw them, we must have a poet's glass; an instrument of higher powers than a Claude Lorraine glass, and clothing every object with softer, or warmer, or sunnier hues than even that pretty toy-where could that be bought, Fanny ?" "Indeed, sir, I don't know," said Fanny. "We may borrow one for a day, or a few hours or so," said Sophia, smiling intelligently. "It is but fair to use Mr. Cowper's glass in viewing his own pictures, and Mrs. Unwin's spectacles, in judging of her domestic comforts," said the Curate. "There is the parlour;it looks doubly snug to-night. Now you are to recollect ladies and gentlemen, that this scene passes on a night when Mr. Hastings' trial is proceeding; and while Lord Thurlow is busy and distracted in his bureau. Tea is over the hares are asleep on the rug.-Bean, the spaniel, lies in the bosom of Bess, the maukin. On the table lie some volumes of voyages, which Mrs. Hill has this day sent from London to Mr. Cowper, with a few rare, West India seeds for his greenhouse, as he calls it. There is a kind but short letter from her husband, Cowper's old friend; -for he too, is a busy man in the courts, though not Lord Chancellor and there is a polite note from herself. There has also been a letter from Mr. Unwin this evening, a very kind one, filial and confidential. Mr. Cowper's cumbrous writing apparatus is on the table, for he has not yet got his neat, handy, writing-desk from Lady Hesketh. His former writing-table had become crazy, and paralytic in its old limbs; but to-night, he has, by a happy thought of Mrs. Unwin's got that forgotten card-table lugged down from the lumber garret, and he shakes it, finds it steady, and rejoices over it. And now the fire is trimmed for the evening; the candles are snuffed; they shew a print of Mr. Newton, and a few prints of other rather ugly, grimlooking, evangelical ministers, and black profile shades of some of Mrs. Unwin's friends. Yet all looks comfortable and feels pleasant to the inmates for this is their home. O! that magic, transfiguring word! but this home is indeed a peaceful and a happy one. "Mr. Cowper relates to his companion the events of his long, morning ramble,—a rambling narrative; simple, descriptive, somewhat pathetic too, nor unrelieved by a few delicate touches of Cowper's peouliar humour. And she listens all benevolent smiles to his ventures, happened in meadow and mire--- o'er hills, through valleys, and by rivers' banks;' and, in her turn, tells him of two poor persons distressed in mind, and pinched in circumstances, who had called at their house; and mentions what she had done for them, and consults what farther deed of mercy or charity she and her friend may jointly accomplish before that day closed. And now Sam, Mr. Cowper's excellent and attached servant, or rather humble friend, who in adversity had cleaved to him, enters the room. Sam knew nothing of London life or London wages, or official bribes, or perquisites; but I should like to know if ever Lord Thurlow had such a servant as Mr. Cowper's Sam; for this is no inconsiderable item in a man's domestic happiness. And unless we know all these little matters, how can we pronounce a true deliverance." | "We may guess, that honest Sam and his qualities would have been of little utility, and of small value to Edward, Lord Thurlow, any way," said Mrs. Herbert; " and so throw the attached servant out of his scale altogether." teous poet. I must first read the verses to you, Mary,' continued he, as Sam left the parlour; you are my critic, my Sam Johnson, and Monthly Reviewer:'---and he reads those fine verses beginning, He who sits from day to day.' "I like them, Mr. Cowper,' said his calm friend; and that was praise enough.---John Cox was ushered in, brushed his eye hastily over the paper, scraped with his foot, and said he dared to say these lines might do well enough. The gentleman he employed before was so learned, no one in the parish understood him. And Cowper smiles, and says, "If the verses please, and are not found too learned, he hopes Mr. Cox will employ him again.' "And now the postboy's horn is heard, and Sam hies forth. Mr. Cowper is not rich enough to buy newspapers; but his friends don't forget him, nor his tastes. Whenever any thing likely to interest his feelings occurs in the busy world, some kind friend addresses a paper to Olney. Thus he keeps pace with the world, though remote from its stir and contamination. He reads aloud another portion of the trial of Hastings, most reluctant as friend and as Christian to believe his old school-fellow the guilty blood-dyed oppressor that he is here described. He reads the heads of a bill brought in by the Lord Chancellor to change, to extend rather, the criminal code of the country; and says, passionately, Will they never try preventive means? There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, it doth not feel for man.' He skims the motley contents of the little folio of four pages,' gathering the goings on of the great Babel, as food for future rumination; and he would have read the speech of the Chancellor, had not more important concerns carried him away,-for old John Queeney, the shoemaker in the back street, longs to see Mr. Cowper by his bed-side. Mr. Newton, John's minister, is in London; and though John and Mr. Cowper are in nowise acquainted, saving seeing each other in church, there are dear ties and blessed hopes common to both; sa Cowper goes off immediately. But since Mrs. Unwin insists that it is a cold damp night, he takes his great-coat, though only to please her, and Sam marches before with the lantern. John Queeney has but one poor room, Sam would be an intruder there; and as it is harsh to have him wait in the street, like the attendant or horses of a fine lady, Sam is sent home by his amiable master. "When, in an hour afterwards, Mr. Cowper returns, he tells that John Queeney is dying, and will probably not see over the night; that he is ill indeed, but that the King and the nobles of England might gladly exchange states with that poor shoemaker, in the back street of Olney :— his warfare was accomplished! Mrs. Uuwin understands him; she breathes a silent inward prayer, for her dying fellow-creature, and fellow-Christian; and no more is said on this subject. Cowper, now in a steady and cheerful voice, reads the outline of a petition he has drawn out in name of the poor lace-workers of Olney, against an intended duty on candles. On them such a tax would have fallen grievously. My dear Mr. Cowper, this is more like an indignant remonstrance than an humble petition,' said his friend, with her placid smile. "Indeed and I fear it is. How could it well be otherwise? But this must be modified; the poet's imprudence must not hurt the poor lace-workers' cause.' "And now Sam brings in supper-a Roman meal, in the day's of Rome's heroic simplicity; and when it is withdrawn, Hannah, the sole maid-servant, comes in to say she has carried one blanket to Widow Jennings, and another to Jenny Hibberts; and that the shivering children had actually danced round, and hugged, and kissed the comfortable night-clothing, for lack of which they perish ed; and that the women themselves shed tears of thankfulness, for this well-timed, much-wanted supply. And you were sure to tell them they came not from us,' said the poet. Hannah replied that she had, and withdrew. Thus did he travel on life's common way, The visitations to which his delicately-organized mind was liable, I put out of view. They were a mystery "These blankets cannot cost the generous Thornton beyond his mortal being-far beyond our limited human above ten shillings a-piece, Mr. Cowper, says Mrs. Unwin. intelligence. And tell me now, my young friends, which, at the close of his memorable life, may be pronounced the 'Oh! how many a ten-shillings that would, in this severe season, soften the lot of the industrious poor, are every Westminster Boys? best, and, by consequence, the happiest man of our Three Each was 6 night lavished in the city he inhabits! How many blan-blood; and though I do not assert that any one of the spring of earth's first kets would the opera-tickets of this one night purchase! three is a faultless model, it is a fair question to ask, which And can any one human creature have the heart or the has your suffrage?—He who, by the force of his intellect right thus to lavish, yea, though not sinfully, yet surely and ambition, the hardihood and energy of his character, not without blame, while but one other of the same great took his place at the head of the councils of this mighty family perishes of hunger, or of cold?' empire, he, the conqueror of so fair a portion of the East, who, by arms and policy, knit another mighty empire to this, or he-the stricken deer,' who sought the shades, the arrow rankling in his side-who dwelt apart, in 'blest seclusion from a jarring world,' and who, as his sole memorial and trophy, has left us "And they speak of their poor neighbours by name; they know many of them, their good qualities, their faults, and their necessities. And fireside discourse flows on in the easy current of old, endeared, and perfect intimacy; and Cowper is led incidentally to talk of dark passages in his earlier life; of the Providence which had guided and led him to this resting-place by the green pastures and still waters; of the mercy in which he had been afflicted; of a great deliverance suddenly wrought; of the ARM which had led him into the wilderness, while the banner over him was love.' And then the talk ebbs back to old friends, now absent; to domestic cares, and little family concerns and plans; the garden, or the greenhouse, matter fond and trivial,' yet interesting, and clothed in the language of a poet, and adorned by a poet's fancy. "I must again ask, had the Lord High Chancellor ever gained to his heart any one intelligent and affectionate woman, to whom he could thus unbend his mind—pour forth his heart of hearts-in the unchilled confidence of a neverfailing sympathy: This I shall consider-the possession of this friend-an immense weight in Cowper's scale, when we come to adjust the balance," said Mr. Dodsley. "I must now read you the fruits of my morning's study, ma'am,' says our poet, after a pause; I had wellnigh forgot that.'-And he reads his sublime requiem on the loss of the Royal George. "I am mistaken if this be not wonderfully grand, Mr. Cowper,' says his ancient critic. But hark! our cuckoo This single volume paramount.'" And Mr. Dodsley lifted Sophia's small and elegant copy of Cowper's works, and gave it into the hand of the youth next him. The An animated discussion now arose; and when Miss Hard. ing collected the votes, she found the young gentlemen were equally divided between Hastings and Thurlow. young ladies were, however, unanimous for Cowper; and the Curate gave his suffrage with theirs, repeating, "Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, DIRGE OF WALLACE. THEY lighted a taper at the dead of night, But her brow and her bosom were damp with affright, Her eye was all sleepless and dim ! And the lady of Elderslie wept for her Lord, clock. It must be regulated-you forget your duties, sir-When her curtain had shook of its own accord, When a death-watch beat in her lonely room, Tiney must be put up, and' "You must just allow me, Mary, to give one puff of the bellows to the greenhouse embers. The air feels chilly to-night-my' precious' orange-tree.' And Mrs. Unwin smiles over his fond care, as the gentleman walks off with the bellows under his arm. And the raven had flapp'd at her window-board, To tell of her warrior's doom! Now sing you the death-song, and loudly pray "For the soul of my knight so dear; "And call me a widow this wretched day, "Since the warning of God is here! The nightmare rides on my strangled sleep:"The lord of my bosom is doom'd to die; His valorous breast they have wounded deep; And the blood-red tears shall his country weep, "For WALLACE of Elderslie!" "And now it is the stated hour of family worship. Sam and Hannah march forward in decent order. But I shall not attempt to describe the pious household rites, where the author of the Task is priest and worshipper. Affectionate Goodnights,' close the scene. And this is the order" of the evenings at Olney. "Cowper regulates the cuckoo clock; for though he has no alarum watch, or impending audience of Majesty, he lays many duties on himself, lowly, yet not ignoble; so about the same hour that the Chancellor rolls off for Windsor, Cowper, also alert in duty, is penning his fair copy of the lace-worker's petition to Farliament, or despatching one of his playful, affectionate epistles to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, or acknowledging the bounty of the benevolent Thornton to the poor of Olney. And now, body and mind refreshed, the blessings of the night remembered, and the labours of the day dedicated in short prayer and with fervent praise, and he is in his greenhouse study, chill though it be, for it is quiet and sequestered. See here, Fanny-our last picture. But so minutely has the poet described his favourite retreat that this sketch may be deemed superfluous labour. Yet this is and will ever be a cherished spot; for here many of his virtuous days were spent. "Why pursue the theme farther," continued the Curate, 'you all know the simple tenor of his life : Yet knew not his country that ominous hour, On the high-born blood of a martyr slain, And his heart was rent in twain! Yet bleeding and bound, though her Wallace wight, His head unentombed shall with glory be palmed, CAMPELL. COLUMN FOR THE LADIES. DOMESTIC ECONOMY. A flourishing nation is living evidence of the wisdom, sagacity and statesmanship of Benjamin Franklin. But the nicest points of domestic economy did not escape his attention; for these he justly regarded as the main foundation of national economy. The letter which we to-day submit to the ladies, was sent from Paris to his daughter, a married woman with a family, who, while her father at Paris retained all his republican simplicity of character and manners, was beginning to be, like most ladies, a little too ambitious of fashion. "I was charmed," he says, "with the account you give me of your industry; the table-cloths of your own spinning, &c., but your sending for long black pins, and lace, and feathers, dissolved the charm, and disgusted me as much, as if you had put salt into my strawberries. The spinning, I see, is laid aside, and you are to be dressed for the ball. You seem not to know, my dear daughter, that of all dear things, idleness is the dearest in the world, except mischief. When I began to read your account of the high prices of goods, a pair of gloves seven dollars, a yard of gauze twenty-four dollars, and that it required a fortune to maintain a family in a very plain way,' I expected you would conclude with telling me that every woman, as well as yourself, was grown frugal and industrious; and I could scarce believe my eyes in reading on, that there was never so much dressing and pleasure going forward;' and that you yourself wanted feathers, and black pins, from France to appear, as I suppose, in the mode. This leads me to imagine that perhaps it is not so much the goods that are grown dear, as that the money is grown cheap, as every thing else will do, when excessively plenty; and that people are still nearly as easy in their circumstances as when a pair of gloves might be had for half a crown." . high as hers, "it does not signify talking, I must go now; for my illustrious friend expects me: but, to please you, we will stop on our road, and buy a fashionable bonnet.' "Stop, and buy a bonnet! Ah! j'en mourirai," and she almost laughed herself into a convulson; then suddenly drawing up, and drying her eyes, she continued: "So, you think then that to be well dressed, one has only to stop and buy a bonnet. You suppose that I will take you to the Rue Vivienne, and empty some shop window of its chapeau d'affiche, and order it into the carriage, as one does an ice; and then fit you out with a robe à prix fixe, in the Passage de Lorme, and send you with the price-ticket fastened to your skirts, into the salon of General Lafayette, for the special amusement of his elegant relation, Madame de T., one of the best-dressed women of France. No, no, stay at home for this day, and amuse yourself by looking out of the window, and seeing the fashionables going into the gardens at the hour of promenade; and that will give you a general idea of the toilette of the day. Meantime, I will go to Victorine and Herbaut, and see what can be done for you.' "What can be done for me!" "To be sure: I will get their earliest day and hour; and faire inscrire votre nom sur leur livre rouge.' 39 "Take their day and hour! take mine, you mean.' "By no means. Were you Sappho herself, you must wait their leisure. When the Duchess de Berri sent her dame d'honneur to Victorine, the other day, to desire she would come and take her orders at the Pavillon Marson, she replied that she would be happy of having the honour of dressing her Royal Highnesss, who would find her at home on such a day, at such an hour." "And how did the Duchess bear this?" "Bear it! What could she do? There are princesses everywhere: there is but one Victorine on earth, as there was for merly but one Le Roi, and one Bertin. The throne and the altar have been shaken and overthrown in France, the toilet never!" At this moment my servant brought in a card, for a diplo matic ball. Madame de read it with all the delight. with which Signore Mai would feel in a newly discovered manuscript of Cicero. And now Franklin's elevated patriotism comes into ac- "Voila qui est bien," she said, "I must not lose a minute tion. The war in which America was engaged he thought in making interest for you. It would be impossible for you to a just and necessary war. He says, "to support the war go to a diplomatic ball, without being habillee par Victorine et may make our frugality necessary; and as I am always berretee par Herbaut. Il vous faut leur cachet. Your beautiful countrywoman, Lady by neglecting to keep her preaching this doctrine, I cannot in conscience, or in appointment with the latter, never recovered her ton during the decency, encourage the contrary, by my example, in furseason of her debut. But fiez vous à moi; if I cannot get nishing my children with foolish modes and luxuries. I these two great sovereigns to dress you, you shall have some of therefore send all the articles you desire that are useful, their school; and will write you my success to-night; so a and omit the rest; for, as you say, you should have great demain n'est ce pas ;" and away fluttered this friendliest and pleasure in wearing every thing I send you, and showing most frivolous of Frenchwomen; leaving me the most morit as your father's, I must avoid giving you an opportunity tified and desolate of Irishwomen; for I was too late for my apof doing that with either lace or feathers. If you wear pointment and found Lafayette, as I expected, gone to the Chamcambric ruffles, and take care not to mend the holes, they ber. This certainly was "le plus beau jour de ma vie;" so having will come in time to be lace; and feathers, my dear daugh-morning, as I had begun it, and seated myself at the window, the fear of my bonnet before my eyes, I returned to finish the ter, may be had in America from every cock's tail. If you as Madame de- had desired me,-to take that general happen to see General Washington assure him of my great view of the beau monde, which the comings and goings of the and sincere respect, and write often, my dear child.” walkers in the Tuileries were calculated to give me." Be it remembered that this thinking and this writing is that of a man laying, in frugality, the stable foundation of a mighty empire. He bids women abridge or give up their lace and feathers, that there might be funds for war -for a struggle which conquered independence and free.. dom to their posterity; but many causes dictate the same virtue to women, in all places, and in all seasons. FEMALE DRESS. FRENCH WOMEN. BY LADY MORGAN. "LET me off to Lafayette now, and you shall find me very tractable another time," said she. "I am well enough dressed for the organizer of two great revolutions, and the founder and commander-in-chief of the National Guards." "You put me out of all patience," burst forth Madame de , in a fit of petulance that makes a French woman so awful, or so amusing. "Because a man founds, or destroys an empire, is he, therefore, to have no eyes, no judgment? Your General is a great man, I allow; but he is Francais avant tout; and with a Frenchman, though it were St. Denis kimself, an old fashion is ever a ridicule.' “Well," I said, endeavouring in vain to pitch my voice as Lady Morgan's distress reminds us of an adventure which befel another English lady; Lady Davy, which is at once ludicrous and serious. It happened in 1813, when Sir. H. Davy was allowed by Buonaparte to visit Paris :-While he was at the meeting of the Institute, her ladyship, attended by her maid, walked into the Tuileries garden. She wore a very small that, of a simple cockle-shell form, such as was fashionable at that time in London, while the Parisian ladies wore bonnets of most voluminous dimensions. It happened to be a saint's day, on which the shops being closed, the citizens repaired in crowds to the garden. On seeing the diminutive bonnet of Lady Davy, the Parisians felt little less surprised than did the inhabitants of Brobdignag on beholding the hat of Gulliver; and a crowd of persons soon assembled around the unknown exotic; in conse quence of which, one of the inspectors of the garden immediately presented himself and informed her Ladyship that no cause of rassemblement could be suffered, and therefore requested her to retire. Some officers of the Imperial Guard, to whom she appealed, replied, that however much they might regret the circumstance, they were unable to afford her any redress, as the order was peremptory. She then requested that they would conduct her to her carriage; an officer immediately offered his arm; but the crowd had by this time so greatly increased, that it became necessary to send for a corporal's guard; and the party quitted the garden surrounded by fixed bayonets." SCIENTIFIC NOTICES. CAOUTCHOUC, or what has been commonly called Indiarubber, which has for some time past been manufactured into various useful articles of wearing apparel, impervious to wet, &c. is the subject of an article in a recent number of the "Journal des Connaissances Usuelles et Pratiques," in which it is observed that the caoutchouc is formed from the juice of two plants growing in the Indies, namely the Jahopha Elastica, and the Ecvea Caoutchou, which the natives by means of moulds form into various shapes, and especially make of it a species of bottles, on which various designs are executed. To dry it, they expose it to the flame of resinous wood, the black smoke of which gives it the dark colour which is generally observed in it. M. de Humboldt brought to Europe some of the juice of the Ecvea Caoutchou, from which white caoutchouc was produced, as it would all be, were it not for the process already mentioned. It appears, however, that the mode of manufacturing it in England, of an apparently uniform consistency, has not been hitherto discovered in France, where in the attempts made for similar purposes, it was found that the places of junction of the different pieces of caoutchouc were discoverable in the manufactured article, whilst, as already observed, the articles made in England presented an aniform texture, and the points of juncture were not discernible. But it is now thought that the secret has been discovered, and that by carrying on the whole process under water, of separating the lamina of caoutchouc (which the French writer compares, as to its mass, with Gruyere heese,) the object may be achieved of obtaining lamina or strips, which may be joined together in the manufacturing of various articles without the points of juncture being discernible. And it is stated that strips thus obtained become so solid at the point of junction, that they could be more easily torn or fractured at any other part than that. Tubes have been thus prepared which, from their imperviability and the facility of employing them, have been found of the greatest service in chemistry. IMPROVED RAW SUGAR.-We are indebted to a correspondent for the following notice, and submit it without at all pledging ourselves for its accuracy :-" A sample of native raw sugar, prepared by the improved process of concentrating the cane juice in vacuo, has been introduced into the market, and has excited great interest in every person connected with this important branch of our commercial and colonial prosperity. It is raw sugar, obtained in perfect, pure, transparent granular crystals, developing the form of the crystal of the sugar, and being wholly free from any portion of uncrystallizable sugar, molasses, or colouring matter."-Athenæum. [The correspondent is quite correct. The good folks here in Edinburgh have been using this elegant preparation for some time; for coffee always, for tea or toddy occasionally. IMPROVEMENT IN THE STEAM ENGINE. The "Sheffield Iris" states that a great improvement in the steam-engine has been recently made by Mr. George Rennoldson, of South Shields. This engine has three cylinders from one boiler, with the connecting rods on a triangular crank, so that while one piston is moving upwards another is going down, and another passing the centre, the pistons following each other in a regular division of time, and completely balancing each other as far as weight and pressure are concerned, the slides of course moving upon a smaller triangular crank. This engine has nearly as complete an equability and uniformity of motion as it is possihle to procure from a rotatory engine. The necessity of a fly-wheel is altogether superseded. It is so steady in its motion, indeed, as hardly to affect the frame in which it stands, and makes so little noise that it would scarcely be known to be at work, were it not seen to be so. Such an engine must necessarily be of great use in steam-boats, in cotton-factories, and in those manufactories at Birmingham and Sheffield where fine metal-work is wrought. An engine of this description will go in less bounds than those of the ordinary construction. WONDERS OF MECHANISM.-Those young people who may lately have visited Thiodon's Mechanical Theatre in any of the towns of Scotland, where its marvels were exhibited, will be prepared for the curiosity we have to describe,-VAUCANSON'S DUCK. This duck exactly resembles the living animal in size and appearance. It executed accurately all its movements and gestures; it ate and drank with avidity, performed all the quick motions of the head and throat which are peculiar to the living animal, as did Thiodon's swan; and like the duck it muddled the water which it drank with its bill. It produced also the sound of quacking in the most natural manner. In the anatomical structure of the duck, the artist exhibited the highest skill, now Thiodon's animals were entirely for stage effect. Every bone in the real duck had its representative in the automa ton, and its wings were anatomically exact. Every cavity, apophysis, and curvature was imitated, and each bone executed its proper movements. When corn was thrown down before it, the duck stretched out its neck to pick it up; it swallowed it, digested it, and discharged it in a digested condition. The process of digestion was effected by chemical solution, and not by trituration, and the food digested in the stomach was conveyed away by tubes to the place of its discharge. SUPERSTITION OF THE URISK.-The dedication of groves, in particular the grottoes and caves in their most retired recesses, to sacred purposes, was, it is well known, a practice common to the theology and demonology of every ancient nation. In this respect the Druids do not appear to have been professors of a system, or observers of rites peculiar to themselves, but to have been participators along with other heathen priests, in observances which are spoken of in the sacred writings, as corruptions of purer institutions. Almost every divinity had his or her favourite tree, from which they gave out their oracles; and it is at least a curious coincidence, that while the sacred temple of the true worshipper had its Urin (the lights or emanations from the breastplate by which responses were given,) the leafy temple of the idolater had its Urisk, (Urisk or Uritz, in the same ang uage, signifying light from the tree.)-A Skye terrier, of the small light coloured peculiar breed, known only in the Hebrides, belonging to Sir Walter Scott, received the appropriate name of Urisk, and has made some figure both in literature and painting. We believe Urisk has shared the fate of Maida, Sir Walter's stag houndgone to his rest. BESIDES appearing in WEEKLY NUMBERS, the SCHOOLMASTER will be published in MONTHLY PARTS, which, stitched in a neat cover, will contain as much letter-press, of good execution, as any of the large Monthly Periodicals: A Table of Contents will be given at the end of the year; when, at the weekly cost of three-halfpence, a handsome volume of 832 pages, super-royal size, may be bound up, containing much matter worthy of preservation. EDINBURGH: Printed by and for JOBN JOHNSTONE, 19, St. James's THE AND EDINBURGH WEEKLY MAGAZINE. CONDUCTED BY JOHN JOHNSTONE. THE SCHOOL MASTER IS ABROAD.-LORD BROUGHAM. No. 4.-VOL. I. SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1832. PRICE THREE-HALFPENCE MANUFACTURING OPERATIVES. SCHOOL MASTER AND FRIEND-A MORSEL OF DIALOGUE. Friend. Monstrously radical last Saturday, Mr. Schoolmaster! Could you not very safely leave the attack on the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge to the "Westminster" on the one hand, and ❝ Blackwood" on the other?—the former decrying, the latter ridiculing its labours. Schoolmaster. You labour under a great mistake, my Friend, if you imagine the Schoolmaster meant to attack the Society, in simply expressing the discontent generally felt among the best-informed operatives at the line it is pursuing, at its giving, after its own fashion, every sort of knowledge, but that which, in the words of the text to which you object, may enable the poor man to gain a competency, and secure it to himself. The artisans undoubtedly presume that the Society view with increasing jealousy attempts made to disseminate cheaply the sort of knowledge which they no longer deem it advisable to promulgate themselves. Friend. Political knowledge, you mean, now; but that they do not pretend to teach: you need not blame them for not doing what they never proposed. commercial prosperity of the country, if, indeed, the present course of things, daily tending to lower wages as well as profits, and set the two classes in opposition to each other, shall not of itself bring on a crisis. To allow, or rather to fore, not merely safe, but most wholesome for the commuinduce the people to take part in these discussions, is, therenity, and yet some points connected with them are matter of pretty warm contention in the present times; but these may be freely handled, it seems, with safety; indeed, unless Why, then, may not every topic of politics, party as well as they are so handled, such subjects cannot be discussed at all. general, be treated of in cheap publications? It is highly useful to the community, that the true principles of the constitution, ecclesiastical and civil, should be well understood by every man who lives under it. The great interests of civil and religious liberty are mightily promoted by such wholesome instruction; but the good order of society gains to the full as much by it. The peace of the country, and the stability of the government, could not be more effectually secured than by the universal diffusion of this kind of knowledge." What say you to this, my Friend? But I must crave your attention to another sentence-" The abuses," says Mr. Brougham, "which through time have crept into the practice of the constitution, the errors committed in its administration, and the improvements which a change of circumstances require, even in its principles, may most filly be expounded in the same manner. And if any man, or set of men, deny the existence of such abuses, see no error in the conduct of those who administer the government, and egard all innovation upon its principles as pernicious, they may propagate their doctrines through the like chan nels. Cheap works being furnished, the choice may be left to the readers-assuredly a country which tolerates every kind, even the most unmeasured of daily and weekly dis Schoolmaster. Here again, my Friend, you mistake. The operatives who are grumbling at the Society, ask nothing but what was voluntarily promised by its own original plan. Will you give me leave to read you a short passage from what may be termed the Society's preliminary discourse, written by no less distinguished a member than Lord Brougham. Unfortunately, the Society's publications must have got into less liberal guidance; for than his Lordship's views expounded in 1825, nothing can be more deserving the approbation of the people. But hear his doc-cussion in the newspapers, can have nothing to dread from trine of CHEAP POLITICAL PUBLICATIONS. "Why," says Mr. Brougham, "should not political, as well as all other works, be published in a cheap form, and in numbers? That history, the nature of the constitution, the doctrines of political economy, may safely be disseminated in this shape, no man now-a-days will be hardy enough to deny. Popular tracts, indeed, on the latter subject, ought to be much more extensively circulated for the good of the working-classes, as well as of their superiors. The interests of both are deeply concerned in sounder views being taught them. I can hardly imagine, for example, a greater service being rendered to the men, than expounding to them the true principles and mutual relations of population and wages; and both they and their masters will assuredly experience the effects of the prevailing ignorance upon such questions, as soon as any interruption shall happen in the the diffusion of political doctrines in a form less desultory." This I call a manly and complete recognition of cheap political publications. Friend. I confess I was not aware-few persons are one cannot remember every thing-that the Society had ever proposed such scope for their labours. But all prospectuses, you know the thing is proverbial-You have the Society on the hip, I own. Yet surely there is no good in parading that shocking picture of the actual state of the manufacturing poor-ministering to the worst passions of the mob! Schoolmaster. A serious charge, my Friend, were it a just one. The Schoolmaster's descriptions, however, were, only taken at second hand; and moreover, from untroubled |
