England has her ill-humours, but the press ventilates them away; the vapours are not suffered to lie on the ground, until they condense into malaria. There may be folly, and even faction, among us, and the press may be the trumpet of both; but, the width of the area is the remedy. A whole nation is always right. No sound can stir it, but the sound which is in accord with its own feelings; the trumpet which is overwhelming within four walls, is unheard at the horizon!
If, in an age of foreign convulsion, England has undergone no catastrophe; if, in the fall of monarchies, she has preserved her hereditary throne; if, in the mingled infidelity and superstition of the Continent, which, like the mingled frenzy and fetters of a lunatic hospital, have, in our day, exhibited the lowest humiliation of human nature; she has preserved her freedom and her religion; I attribute all, under God, to the vigour, and intelligence of public investigation; the incessant urgency of appeal to the public mind; the living organization, of which the heart is the Press of England!
PAPER AND PAPER MAKING,
ANCIENT AND MODERN.
CHAPTER I.
Introduction—Language—Origin of the Art of Writing—Various modes of recording events which preceded it—Materials upon which Men first Wrote—Stones, Bricks, Metals, Skins and Intestines of Animals, Tablets, Leaves, Bark, etc., etc.—The Egyptian Papyrus, from which Paper (so called) was first made—Process of Manufacture—Usual dimensions and extreme durability of Papyri—Modern Paper—Its general advantages to mankind—Supposed period of its Invention—The Introduction of Paper-making into Europe—Historical incidents connected therewith—James Whatman—The superiority of his manufacture—Adoption of the Fourdrinier-Machine—General advantages of Machinery over the Original Process, etc., etc.
Amongst the numerous and diversified objects of human investigation and research, it would, perhaps, be difficult to single out one, more curious and interesting, than that of the medium which bears the symbols of language; which retains the register of circumstances and events of past ages, and which hands down to us the transactions of primeval time, with its intervening periods.