and yellow. The woods were full of genii then; and of course Old Mother Hubbards and Little Red Riding Hoods abounded, not the worst of the lot. But a reaction took place against the prodigal exaggeration which pervaded the literature of youth. Jack the Giant Killer was put to one side, and useful books -moral and virtuous books-religious books-and solid books of many kinds, were expressly got up for the use of children. There was much affectation and simulation of virtue thrown into them, which often amounted to mawkishness; and the evil grew, until the whining and preaching papas and mammas of the story-books, were felt to be so absurd and so false, that at length they became positively intolerable.

No, no! Children must have "facts." Science must be made easy for them. They must be taught to judge evidence and calculate probabilities. Above all, when they read, they must reflect and consider whether what was said was true or not. Worse and worse! Jack the Giant Killer may be bad enough, and the end of Little Red Riding Hood too horrid to think of; but to stuff a child's mind with only "useful facts,"-to instil merely such knowledge as was material, and about material things, to the exclusion of all food for the youthful fancy and imagination, was to check the growth of a most essential element of the child's mind, and to make it old and unnaturally rational and commonplace long before its time. Think of working up the beautiful philosophy of Robinson Crusoe into the form of a catechism! Yet this was done with the wonders of earth and air,-the beautiful flowers, and plants, and animals, the adventures of the hardy explorers of this wide and strange world; history itself was worked up into a catechism,-for have we not yet Mangnall's Questions? We have heard one say, that when a child, she had learnt no fewer than thirteen of such catechisms by heart. Think of the mental

torture involved in such a process! Not to speak of the quantity of undigested stuff which is shot into the child's mind,-unconnected, unproductive, and unprofitable in all ways, -stifling, not only to the imagination, but also to the reason of the child.

But there was reaction in this too. It began to be perceived that it was beginning at the wrong end" to begin children with mere facts and dry philosophy. And Felix Summerly brought back the old child's books again, in a new and more attractive guise than ever, calling in the aid of even the highest artists to furnish him with his illustrations. He avowedly set himself to stem the tide of "Peter-Parleyism;" aiming at the cultivation of the fancy, imagination, sympathies, and affections of children, in the old style. He brought back the poetic fictions of infancy in an improved form, greatly to the delight of all young readers. Some great writers had meanwhile been adding to the stores of child's literature, both in England and Germany. One of the finest books that we know of for a child, was written by the German philosopher, Carové, called the Story without an End: it has been admirably translated by Mrs. Austin. That book is worth volumes of grammar, and geography, and history, and botany, and mineralogy, and geology, and chronology, and theology, and omniology, dished up in the catechetical or any other form. It is a beautiful picture of an Infant Soul living and loving in the bosom of nature; and what can be better for a child than that? there came Hans Christian Andersen, with his beautiful child's stories; and at home, there was Mary Howitt, and Harriet Myrtle (Mary Gillies), The Brothers Mayhew, Aunt Effie, Mrs. Harvey, and many more. And the art with which these modern children's books are illustrated, is the most remarka

Then

ble thing of all. The best artists lend the aid of their pencil and graver. Have you seen the book called Child's Play? It is really a book of singular beauty, and all merely to illustrate the old snatches of nursery doggrel which ring in most of our ears through life. Every page of this book presents an evidence of genius drawing exquisite forms and thoughtful designs out of the simplest, and apparently the most limited material; and it cannot fail to fill the eyes of children with delight, and to reach their hearts by disclosing to them a new world of beautiful emotions.

Quite a new feeling and humanity has been thrown into the child's literature of the last few years by modern writers and artists of juvenile books. In no respect is the progress of the age more striking than in this apparently trifling matter. The old wolf and lion stories, with griffins, salamanders, and one-eyed ogres, have given place to a style of literature much truer, wholesomer, and more instructive. The fancy is fed, while the understanding is not neglected. Imaginary young ladies are no longer fallen in love with by impossible princes; but we have instead, pictures often full of true pathos,-of the domestic triumphs of patience and humility, interiors with life-like people in them,-novels in little, of the world as it is, touched often with a picturesque and dramatic truthfulness which appeals even less to the fancy than to the sympathies and reason of their young readers. And it is a great work which the writers of these children's books are engaged in,- -no less than the moral and mental training of the men and women of the next and succeeding generations; as well as the formation of what is called national character. We rejoice to note the signs of progress in this direction, and trust the writers and illustrators of the higher order of child's books will go on and prosper.

RELICS OF OLD ENGLAND,

LEGENDARY AND MONUMENTAL.

ALL great nations live much upon the Past-pride themselves upon their ancestries; and this, in fact, is the distinguishing feature between civilized and savage nations. If there be a spell in any word, surely it is to be found in the word "antiquity." What a thousand pictures of departed times it conjures up! Summoning back from death's dateless night, shadows of the good, the beautiful, and the true, and filling the mind with visions of departed glory. All the pompous paraphernalia of the chivalric ages lives again upon the memory; it rouses and absorbs the feelings, and softens and subdues the heart. We walk amidst the mouldering ruins of some old abbey, or beneath the crumbling battlements of some rock-built castle, and the solemn spirit of the Past starts visibly, but silently, from every tottering stone and from every trembling pillar; like a ghost it lingers round the ruined pile, and amidst the dust and darkness of death it preaches of the gone ages-tells "a tale of the times of old; it is the voice of years that are gone, they roll before us with all their deeds." Antiquity stalks over the battle-field, and every battered helmet, every broken sword, and every rusty morion, becomes instinct with interest and life. She touches the banner and rendeth it, looketh down from the hatchment and escutcheon, and filleth the heart with dim mysterious awe. Memory loves to linger over the by-gone scenes,-and there imagination and thought build for themselves a home, and delight in clothing death with all the splendour and animation of life. There, amid the ruins of the old abbey, the grey-bearded men of old seem to come

forth again from their cloisters and their cells, and the heart bows down in veneration before the venerable spirits who held up the lamp of knowledge in an age of darkness; and there, oft in the grim shadows of the gloaming, many a cowled father will come, and the monks will again chant their sad, wild requiem over some forest tomb. Antiquity bears us away through deep and beamless glooms, to the buried ages of departed time. Each spot of earth is consecrated by her, for every spot of the green earth is pregnant with rattling skeletons and mouldering bones; the plough turns them up in our fields, they bleach on the shore, and in the whitened caverns of the deep; our very towns are built on the manes of our ancestors, the very air we breathe is laden with the dust of former ages, and its murmurings are but the sighs of antiquity. In the superstitions of the past -the fables and the legends of the mythic age,-in the decaying battlement, in the exhumed stone, we catch clearer glimpses of the many-coloured lives of our forefathers, than in the accurate and sonorously. rounded periods of our modern erudite historians. Beautiful indeed are many of those old legends, and delightfully illustrative of the simplicity of early times; that touching legend, for instance, given by one of the old Saxon chroniclers, of the introduction of Christianity into the northern parts of England, in the reign of King Edwin, when the good Paulinus craved permission to preach the truth to our rude heathen forefathers: the king, says the old chronicler, assembled all bis nobles at Market Weighton, and himself presided over the gathering-or, as we should say now-a-days, took the chair. The nobles, who were for the most part indifferent to the object of the gathering, nevertheless assembled together at the mandate of their monarch. The priests, highly incensed and indignant at the threatened attack upon their faith, and full of fear for their ancient temples, and their venerated deities. The king, though still wedded to the ancient creed and the old customs, was still disposed to listen to the preacher of the new faith, and to welcome, though hesitatingly, the serene light which had just begun to fling its tremulous but benign lustre over his land; he had indeed been kindly disposed to the new faith by the pleadings and gentle spirit of his queen, Bertha, who was one of its earliest proselytes. And there they were all assembled in solemn conclave, debating with earnest gestures, and still more earnest words, whether the venerable preacher of the strange outlandish faith should be heard or not. The place where they were met was only a building like a barn, rudely thatched with straw, and that thatch itself sadly broken, as is manifest from the fact, that while they were deliberating a sparrow flew in through the broken roof, and after it had flown about inside for a considerable time, made its escape through the broken thatch on the other side of the hall.

"Then,"

says the old chronicler, "there arose a venerable chieftain, and leaning upon the top of his staff he said-Oh king! Oh king! while we have sat here, I have thought that man's life is like that sparrow,we know not whence we come, we know not whither we go: how thankful we should be to any one who will tell us this: let us hear this old man.'" And with this sentence the aged chieftain resumed his seat. How sweetly natural was all this; words so simple let fall a flood of light upon the assembled chiefs. "Our religion," they might reason, "informs us of nothing; it acquaints us not of the heretofore, nor lifts the veil from that strange, mysterious afterwards which stretches away beyond the long dark avenue of the grave: yes, let us hear the old man." The words of the old chief decided the meeting, and at its close, when the venerable Paulinus had reasoned

earnestly upon temperance, righteousness, and judg ment to come, the monarch pronounced in favour of the new faith.

Now, gentle reader, is not this a bright spot in the dim twilight of Old England's early day? a beautiful flower blossoming in the by-paths of history? And Old England has many such spots and monuments round which the heart loves to linger. These old associations constitute the poetry of history. Amidst scenes, or upon spots where human joys have been felt, or human tears been shed,-where the victim has writhed in the grasp of his oppressor, where the charter of a people's liberties has been wrung from an unwilling tyrant, or the sanctuary of a perished faith is crumbling to decay, we seem to live over the past again, and to witness the deeds of sorrow or of joy over which the weight of centuries has rolled. here, we think, is the secret of many of the superstitions which still cling to the minds of men: there, in the shadow of the wood, or on the forest-skirted banks of the river, the spirit of the place-that is the influence of some dark deed transacted there-would still seem to hover round the spot, till at length it became embodied in some popular legend, and was thus transmitted from generation to generation. By this process nearly every spot of earth has become haunted ground, and modern England teems with relics of the olden time, though, by-the-by, they are being sadly diminished by the " improvements" of modern times.

And

One of the finest specimens of antiquity which still exists among us is the city of Chester-rich in old associations. It is a petrified city of the twelfth century handed down to the nineteenth. No other city in England, nor, we may add, in Europe, presents a similar aspect. And now, in these days of excursion trains and cheap travelling, we would recommend all lovers of the antique to visit it. To describe it is impossible. Around it runs the wall (entire) which tradition ascribes to Cymbeline; it winds all round the city, unbroken-one moment pursuing its devious course through rich pasture-lands, then amid piles of ancient and quaintly gabled houses, again ranging away like a terrace along the beautiful banks of the Dee, giving you, ever and anon, delightful glade glimpses of the Broxton and Welsh hills. From one of the ancient watch-towers-of which there are several still entire upon the walls-you look out in a southerly direction upon Rowton Moor,-ay, and from the very window from which Charles I. looked out and saw his army defeated by the Republicans on the said moor.

The streets, or rows," as they are called, are built after the manner (though by no means uniform) of a double arcade, or a series of raised and covered terraces, affording us a vivid idea of the danger, violence, and insecurity of the age in which they were built. Kohl, the German traveller, thus describes them :-"These 'rows' do not form a very regular gallery; it varies according to the size or circumstances of each house through which it passes. Sometimes, when passing through a small house, the ceiling is so low that one finds it necessary to doff the hat, while in others one passes through a space as lofty as a saloon. In one house the row lies lower than the preceding, and one has, in consequence, to go down a step or two, and, perhaps, a house or two further, one or two steps have to be mounted again. In some stately houses the supporting columns are strong, and adorned with handsome antique ornaments; in others, the wooden piles appear timeworn, and one hurries past them, apprehensive that the whole concern must topple down before long." Another peculiarity in Chester is, that the streets do not, as in other towns, run along the surface of the ground, but have been cut into it

out of the solid rock. The "rows are in reality on a level with the surface of the ground, and the carriages rolling along below them are passing through a kind of artificial ravine. The back wall of the ground floor is everywhere formed by the solid rock, and the courtyards and the kitchens are generally about ten or twelve feet higher than the street. But our limits will not allow us to say more on the antiquities and associations of the "ancient city."

Another unique spot in Old England-rich in hoary and romantic associations is Old Sarum. There, on what is still called the Hill of the Sun, stood a druidical temple dedicated to that luminary, in those days when the circular temples of druidism covered the land. This old British city has been in the hands of six nations-the Ancient Britons, the Belgæ, the Romans, the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans; ancient relics of the six nations are still found there; but now Old Sarum is a silent and solitary plain.

Old Sarum was built on a dry, barren waste,

A great many years ago;

'Twas a Roman town of strength and renown,

As its stately ruins show;

But still longer ago, in plains below,

A British city stood;

And harpers' cots and druids' grots
Adorned the neighbouring wood.

OLD BALLAD.

Silchester was another ancient Roman city, remains of which are still found in the fields between Staines and Datchet. It was here that King Arthur was crowned, and here, too, the Roman soldiers conferred the imperial purple upon Constantine. Innumerable monuments have, from time to time, been dug up in the neighbouring fields, which are rich in antiquities.

IGNORANCE IS POWER.

THE maxim attributed to Bacon,-but which, by the way, is nowhere to be found in his works,-that Knowledge is power," is not more true than the converse maxim, that IGNORANCE is power. Indeed, we are strongly disposed to think that Ignorance has always had more power in the world than Knowledge.

Ignorance dominates in the world; and it is because of the evils arising out of ignorance that all the costly repressive institutions of modern governments exist. Ignorance arms men against each other; provides armies and fleets; castles and fortifications; gaols and penitentiaries; police and constabulary. All the physical force of the state is provided by Ignorance; is required by Ignorance; is very often wielded by Ignorance. We may well avow, then, that Ignorance is Power.

Ignorance is powerful, because knowledge, as yet, has obtained access only to the minds of the Few. Let knowledge become more generally diffused, let the multitude become educated, thoughtful, and wise; and then knowledge may obtain the ascendency over ignorance. But that time has not come yet. Among even what are called "the educated classes," ignorance is as great a power as knowledge. Take the case of the recent general election, when the privileged and propertied classes were appealed to, and their "most sweet voices were solicited by the first-class privileged and propertied men of the nation. Was it knowledge had the greatest power then, or ignorance? Was it not length of purse, strength of lungs, and depth of prejudice, which in most cases determined

the issue?

Did not the recent riots at Stockport prove that ignorance is power? And what was done at Stockport, might happen to-morrow in any town in

England of the same size, were the same stimulus to an outbreak provided. We regard that riot as no outbreak of religious zealotry. The parties most active in the work of demolition had little idea of the distinction between Catholic and Protestant. Their religion was not even skin-deep. Religion had nothing to do with it; though names had the names of Catholic and Protestant-or rather of Irish and English. It was a pure outbreak of ignorance, proving the truth of our maxim, that Ignorance is Power.

Look into the records of crime, and you find that, for one man possessed of wisdom or knowledge who commits a crime, there are a thousand ignorant. Or, into the statistics of drunkenness and improvidence of all sorts; still ignorance is predominant. Or, into the annals of pauperism; there again, ignorance is

"How forcible are right words!" exclaimed Job. Yes! But, with equal justice, he might have said, "How forcible are wrong words!" The wrong words have more power with ignorant minds than the right words. They fit themselves into wrong heads, and prejudiced heads, and empty heads; and have power over them. The right words have often no meaning for them, any more than if they were the words of some dead language. The wise man's thoughts do not reach the multitude, but fly far above their heads. Only the few as yet apprehend them.

The physiologist may discuss the laws of health, and the Board of Health may write tracts for circulation among the people; but half the people cannot so much as read, and of the remaining half but a very small proportion are in the habit of thinking. So the laws of health are disregarded; and when cholera comes, it finds a wide field to work upon-undrained and filthy streets and backyards,-noisome, pestilential districts, foul, uncleansed dwellings, large populations ill-supplied with clean water, and worse supplied with pure air. Then death makes fell havoc; then many destitute widows and children have to be maintained out of the poor's rates; and then we reluctantly confess to ourselves that Ignorance has power.

The only method of abating this power of Ignorance, is by increasing that of Knowledge. As the sun goes up the sky, the darkness disappears; and the owl, the bat, and the beasts of prey, slink out of sight. Give the people knowledge,-give them better education, and in so doing, you abate crime, drunkenness, improvidence, lawlessness, and all the powers of evil. It is only because education has as yet been confined to the few, that these have preserved so formidable an ascendency among men. Let the people be enlightened, and the power of Knowledge will speedily overcome and put to flight the power of Ignorance.

AMERICAN ICE.

As we are now having this cooling luxury regu larly supplied to us, and its great superiority, both in clearness and thickness, over the home article (owing to the precarious nature of our winters and other causes) is acknowledged by all who have tried

gates for the sake of improving the neighbourhoods where the wealthy reside; yet we fear this has been done in some instances. The working man's time is his money, and it is by the establishment of lodginghouses within a reasonable distance of the great mart of commerce that he will be really benefited.

The sanitary condition of the metropolis is another thing which a thorough November fog brings forcibly to mind,-when the streets are so redolent of foul vapour and unhealthy exhalations that, to use a common expression, you may cut them with a knife. Strange that bodies corporate should so long put off that which will, sooner or later, make them bodies incorporate; let us hope that the force of public opinion will effect some progress here before another November enshrouds us in its pestilential vapour. But has November no other gloomy association? It has; for November has long been the month in which the religious mind of the community has been most enveloped in the dark veil of bigotry and intolerance. The fifth of November served for many years to awaken all those latent feelings of revenge the enlightened policy of recent times had well nigh extinguished. Last year those displays, so revolting to good taste and charitable feeling, were revived in all their ancient barbarity; and it is to be feared the recent prolonged controversy on papal affairs has augmented rather than subdued that bitter spirit. With the question pending between the Church at Rome and the legislature at home, it is out of our province to interfere; enough has been said, and will be said, on that subject elsewhere, but as many of our pastors will doubtless revive the service for the day (5th November) with all its formulæ, how can they reconcile this commemoration, with its association in the minds of the people, with the expulsion of James's posterity from the throne they pray for? We have seen during the past year the association of all nations, and all creeds; national jealousies have been put on one side, and sectarian differences never hinted at: let us hope that the dark November of the mind will be for ever cleared up by the union of the nations in 1851.

LAMAN BLANCHARD.

His three volumes of essays, pleasant, and often brilliant as they are, give no idea of the powers of the author, or even of his natural manner, which, as I think, was a thousand times more agreeable; he was like the good little child in the fairy tale,-his mouth dropped out all sorts of diamonds and rubies. His wit, which was always playing and frisking about the company, had the wonderful knack of never hurting anybody. He had the most singular art of discovering good qualities in people; in discoursing of which the kindly little fellow used to glow, and kindle up, and emphasize with the most charming energy. Good-natured actions of others, good jokes, favourite verses of friends, he would bring out fondly, whenever they met or there was question of them; and he used to toss and dandle their sayings or doings about, and hand them round to the company, as the delightful Miss Slowboy does the baby in the Christmas book. What was better than wit in his talk was, that it was so genial; he enjoyed thoroughly, and chirped over his wine with a good humour that could not fail to be infectious. His own hospitality was delightful; there was something about it charmingly brisk, simple, and kindly. How he used to laugh! As I write this, what a number of pleasant, hearty scenes come back! One can hear his jolly, clear laughter, and see his keen, kind, beaming Jew face,-a mixture of Mendelssohn and Voltaire.-W. M. Thackeray.

THE EMIGRANT SHIP.
A MEETING AT SEA.

A SAIL! a sail! a tiny mast

Upon the ocean's verge;
An atom 'mid the waters vast,

Half buried in the surge.
For days and weeks no single speck
Upon the sea we've found ;"

We hail her from the crowded deck
As 'twere a treasure found!
Perhaps she is a British ship, gold laden, homeward
bound!

She nears! she nears! we see her hull
Above the heaving plain;

Her pennon streams-her sails are full;
We hail, she hails again!

In harmony our courses bend

Upon the ocean's round,

The merest stranger is a friend,

But hark! the stirring sound!

"From Melbourne; cargo, wool and gold; the Glory, homeward bound!"

Good-by! good-by! they're o'er the foam;
"Hurrah!" our voices blend;

They bear our precious tidings home,
Though brief, and rudely penned.
We watch that treasure-laden bark
While light still gleams around;
We watch her as, 'mid shadows dark,
She fades, horizon-crowned :-
Farewell! God speed thee on thy way, the gallant
homeward bound!

Oh, homeward bound! the magic spell
That tunes the seaman's song;
It flushes o'er our hearts as well,

As yet a homeless throng.
"Tis ours a future lot to mould

'Mid labour's iron sound,

To tear the stubborn rocks for gold,

Or dig the patient ground ;

To spin, to hew, to delve, to sow,-we, too, are homeward bound!

WILLIAM DUTHIE.

FRIENDS STAYING IN THE HOUSE.

With such only can we share the genial and inspiring eventide, with all its holy, heart-fed light, increasing in and around us, amidst the deepening shadows of material darkness. To the "friends staying with us" it is that we communicate the home thoughts and sympathies that arise from daily occurrences and near connections; theirs is the quick understanding and return of bright and harmless household jests, transforming annoyances themselves into sources of amusement. From such only can we expect the deep interest in our welfare that will render everything concerning us important in their estimation; to such may children's children turn, and meet with the warm embrace and hospitable welcome long ago received and still remembered; by those whom parents or grandparents once sheltered and were kind to.-Home Truths for Home Peace.

Printed by Cox (Brothers) & WYMAN, 74-75, Great Queen Street, London; and published by CHARLES COOK, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Flect Street.