In speaking of the power of memory, the narrator observes: 'I once knew an
orphan child who traced all her religious feelings through after life to a walk
taken in India, on a star-light [sic] night, with her adopted mother, at which
period that tender parent had taken occasion to lead her mind to the goodness
and power of God by explaining to her the nature of the glorious heavenly
bodies, scattered over the azure vault, extended above her head' (3).
The narrator, 'Aunt Sophie', has some young relations staying with her from
the country for Twelfth-night. She takes them through the streets 'to show them
the variety of ingenious devices which the shop windows of the metropolis
exhibited on that day' (18). At a party in the evening they have 'simple
entertainment', which includes playing with a model of Noah's ark. The
'multitudinous family' are then returned to the ark, 'the beetle and the
lady-bird, the elephant and the camel; And "this is a dove aunt Sophie?" and
"this is a raven?" [are] answered with as much patience as it [is] possible to
command at the hundredth repetition of similar questions' (19–20).
The tree is described, and its property of appearing to be many trees united
as one is used to illustrate the 'union of believers with Christ' and each
other.
Having lost a bunch of keys, the narrator, 'A Country Correspondent',
reflects allegorically on them, observing: 'I conceived it might not be
unprofitable to my young readers to see an exhibition of that phenomenon of
mind, arising out of what philosophers designate by the learned title of the
laws of association' (45). The writer reflects that the key of knowledge is
good, but that prayer is the 'master key', and that 'every young person' should
'begin his studies with prayer; it will sanctify his knowledge, for
unsanctified learning is a dangerous thing' (46–47). Observes: 'When a
youth first begins to look abroad on the face of nature, and to enquire after
knowledge, he will ask who made this beautiful world, the sun, the moon, and
the stars? [...] The key that will unlock to him these wondrous mysteries, is
the knowledge of the word of God' (47). Reminds the reader: 'Knowledge is
generally applicable to subjects of human science, wisdom to those of heavenly
morality' (49).
Mr. Wordsworth has been showing his son Edwin, nephew Charles, and other
members of the family some 'amusing experiments with his air-pump, one evening
during the Christmas vacation (50). He shows them that a shrivelled apple loses
its wrinkled appearance when placed in the air-pump, and Charles explains why.
Mr. Wordsworth tells the children that the 'health and vigour' of living beings
depends to a large extent on the 'due adjustment of the external and internal
air', and relates this to vigorous or languid feelings in humans in different
climatic conditions. He observes: 'Is it not very good of our all-wise Creator,
to suit as he has done, our circumstances to us, and us to them?'. (51) The
contrasting appearance of the apple under different conditions is made the
basis of moral reflections. Mrs. Wordsworth draws an analogy between the apple
in the receiver of the air-pump and the children in the home from which their
parents 'extract almost every breath that can try [them]'. She asks them: 'If
you were more exposed to the atmosphere of the world, how would you conduct
yourselves?'. (52)
Seeks to answer the objections of the 'virulent opponents' of the Bible to
the account given of Jonah being swallowed by a large fish, drawing on
philological and natural historical evidence (103).
The first four stanzas ask: 'Is there a man' who has seen the various
aspects of the created order, who has not 'ask'd, nor sought to know' whose
wisdom, power, and goodness it was 'that made them so?' The final stanza reads:
'If such a thoughtless wretch there be, / How sunk and how debas'd is he! /
Consign him with the beastial [sic] train, / To feed on husks, or graze the
plain; / And never let his careless eye / The wonders view of earth and sky, /
Till he has known, or sought to know, / The Almighty power that made them so!'
This poem was reprinted in a subsequent issue of the magazine.
Describes a newly identified species, which 'will be found to correspond
with all that the ancients, the monuments, and mummies, indicate as
characteristic of the Ibis' (145).
The narrator, 'A Country Correspondent', reflects on the vicissitudes of
life, observing of the day of judgement: 'There are many who are now in their
own inflated opinion, first, who, on that day, shall be found to be last. There
are many enthusiasts of science now, who will then find that they know nothing
as they ought to know' (156).
Wilkes
1810–29Wilkes, John
1810–29. Encyclopaedia Londinensis; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts,
Sciences, and Literature, Comprehending, Under One General Alphabetical
Arrangement, all the Words and Substance of Every Kind of Dictionary Extant in
the English Language . In which the Improved Departments of the Mechanical
Arts, the Liberal Sciences, the Higher Mathematics, and the Several Branches of
Polite Literature, are Selected from the Acts, Memoirs, and Transactions, of
the Most Eminent Literary Societies, in Europe, Asia, and America, 24 vols,
London: For the Proprietor
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Corrects an earlier correspondent concerning the number of permutations of
which the letters of the alphabet are capable.
The narrator speculates whether a star might be a world, and whether its
inhabitants ever experienced a fall from grace. The poem then turns to the vain
attempts of the human mind to 'scan the secrets of the sky; / And learn, with
scrutinizing gaze, / To read the planets as they blaze'. These attempts to know
how things are, or how they will be, occupy humans instead of the knowledge of
true religion. (178) In heaven, vain conjecture shall not 'Employ the mind, the
tongue, the pen; / But all Creation's mysteries / Shall stand unveil'd before
our eyes; / And we shall wonder, praise, adore' (179).
Denham
and Clapperton 1826Denham,
Dixon and
Clapperton, Hugh 1826. Narrative
of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the Years 1822,
1823 and 1824, by Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and the late Doctor Oudney:
Extending Across the Great Desert to the Tenth Degree of Northern Latitude, and
from Kouka in Bornou, to Sackatoo, the Capital of the Fellatah Empire, 2
vols, London: John Murray
CloseView the register entry >>
The writer has a habit of recording anecdotes or incidents of particular
interest found in books on the back end-paper, and introduces some of these to
the reader. One, taken from
Denham
and Clapperton 1826Denham,
Dixon and
Clapperton, Hugh 1826. Narrative
of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the Years 1822,
1823 and 1824, by Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and the late Doctor Oudney:
Extending Across the Great Desert to the Tenth Degree of Northern Latitude, and
from Kouka in Bornou, to Sackatoo, the Capital of the Fellatah Empire, 2
vols, London: John Murray
CloseView the register entry >>, concerns the death of a horse. The writer observes:
'it leads us to admire those wonderful instincts with which the great Creator
has endowed his irrational creatures, in many instances, so that if they were
capable of acting upon mortal principles, we would apply to them nearly the
same language which we would use toward a faithful servant' (183).
The writer reflects on how many 'useful or interesting discoveries' owe
their origin and improvement to observation (187). 'By observation, astronomers
have learned to foretell the movements of the heavenly bodies, agriculturalists
to promote the fertility of the soil, naturalists to account for the phenomena
of nature, and philosophers to search into the mind of man, and to trace out
its devious labyrinth. Much is said in praise of genius; it is extolled, almost
deified by us, and doubtless we owe much to it, but may not we trace many of
the wonders we ascribe to genius, to that habit of observation [...] which will
not rest satisfied with conjecture, and which suffers no point to remain
unnoticed' (187–88). It is a religious duty to cultivate this talent, but
many do not. The writer contrasts impractical scholars who learn from books
with those who have 'made a diligent use of what they possess in common
observation' and are dependent on themselves for what they learn. There is
'something more impressive in the knowledge we gain from what we ourselves
observed [...]. We feel a pleasure in the injunction idea that it is the fruit
of our own discovery'. (188) Learning by observation also develops individual
judgement in place of blind reliance on authority.
After some preliminary comments on the divine ordination of 'the ranks and
gradations of society', the narrator recounts the details of his recent visit
with some 'young friends' to the 'house of a nobleman, which is obligingly
shewn to strangers' (230). The narrator reports: 'We were [...] led into the
saloon, which, decorated with horns of the elk, and antlers of the stag, was
also a museum; here my companions had an opportunity of viewing various
valuable specimens of natural history, which they had never seen before'
(231–32). The narrator and the party's guide both relate some of the
specimens to biblical incidents.
Ancient Authorities, Mathematics, Astronomy, Religion,
Creation
Relates that Thales 'introduced the knowledge of mathematics into Greece,
foretold solar eclipses, and divided the year into 365 days.' Reports that he
gave quasi-theistical answers to a 'sophist wishing to puzzle him with
difficult questions'. (245)
Introduces a purely descriptive extract concerning the fossil skeleton with
the observation that it is 'an instance of a fossil human petrefaction in an
alluvial formation' (153).
The writer considers there to be three books from which the soul might be
taught by the Holy Spirit, namely, 'the word, works, and ways of God'. Of the
second of these it is observed: 'there is another open volume to which the
pious heart often turns in the spirit of holy contemplation [...]. The heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork [...] all
speak the wisdom, the power, and the glory of their Creator'. (290)
The anecdote of the 'amazing mental faculties in African negroes, who could
neither read nor write' is used to argue against objections to their education
(353).
Suggests that the bodies of time-killers be 'denied the rites of sepulture,
and that they be publicly exhibited in terrorem, as a warning to
others'. Continues: 'In the last age, those who were guilty of murder were hung
in chains; more recently, their bodies are dissected, and the skeletons are
placed in
Surgeon's HallRoyal College of Surgeons
CloseView the register entry >>. Now I propose that
a separate apartment in that edifice be allotted to the Time-killers; that
twice in every year the readers of the
Youths'
MagazineYouth's Magazine
(1805–67)
Waterloo
Directory CloseView the register entry >> shall visit these remains, and be distinctly informed,
that if they follow such examples they must expect the same end'. The writer
reports that a youth of his acquaintance who was in danger of becoming a
time-waster, was soon corrected by being 'threatened [...] with a niche in the
Museum'. (384)
The female narrator describes having travelled inside the mail coach with
three gentlemen, two of whom were discussing their plans for reform. The
narrator observes that 'crude reformers [..] almost universally leave the
depravity of human nature out of their calculations. As if in computing the
progress of a vessel through any given space of ocean, the calculator should
forget to take account of opposing tides, and baffling winds' (388).