"Julius Caesar did the Britons came;
Conquering will you him into England came;
Brave Montrose was basely murdered;
The Rev. Dr. Stewart lost his head;
The plague raged very sore at London;
London burnt, whereby many were undone;
The crown on Anna's head was placed;
She expired, and George's head it graced."
So much for historical records. There a calendar among his monthly observations:
"January—The gardens now doing healed no posies,
And men in cloaks muffle their noses."
"March—A toast we plunged in March beer,
Being sugared well, and drunk up clear,
Revives the spirit, the heart doth cheer;
And, had for three pence, is not dear."
This old Robin shamefully pecks at the fair sex. In his notes on April he says:
"Then let young people have a care,
Nor run their heads in marriage snare;
A woman's tongue is like the ocean.
It ebbs and flows in constant motion;
But yet herein a difference grows—
Her tongue ne'er ebbs, but always flows."
...
No booklings have multiplied more almanacs: we have now clerical, medical, naval, military, aye, horticultural, down to children's almanacs; and amongst these almanacs there is one entitled Almanac des Voleurs. Magazines swarm, ranging from the highest class of religious, literary, and social-scientific, not forgetting industrial, subjects, to the most commonplace and trifling matters. The Gentleman's Magazine is stated to have been the first of the class published in England. Of reviews we have a long array, distinguished by every shade of uniform and badge, and from them a vast amount of useful and pleasurable information is obtainable. This class of books first appeared in the middle of the last century; one entitled the Monthly Review was the first published.
The first newspaper was published in the time of Queen Elizabeth—The English Mercury, of which the earliest number is in the British Museum, and bears the date 1588. In the reign of Queen Anne there was but one daily paper, which made a slow and tedious course of circulation; whereas in these days newspapers are everywhere, and the leading ones convey intelligence of the whole world's transactions, and issue admirable essays, affording information on every subject, and this within a marvellously short space of time.
Books are so common, that it becomes necessary to be careful in the selection of them. Tares and wheat will spring up together; the earth produces noxious weeds with the most excellent fruit. If, then, we do not reject the tainted and imperfect grains, a diseased crop is the result. It cannot be expected in this age of inquiry and the rapid progress of learning, that all books should be of an improving character, but the good greatly overbalance the evil. "This advantage," said Gregory the Great (writing so early as the end of the sixth century), "we owe to a multiplicity of books; one book falls in the way of one man, and another best suits the level or the apprehension of another; it is of service that the same subject should be handled by several persons after different methods, though all on the same principle." A superfluity of good books is beneficial; I would [{110}] illustrate this proposition thus: The Nile as it flows fertilizes a vast tract of land; but if it were not for the streams and rivulets that are artificially constructed to diverge from it, in order to draw from the main supply of water some portion of the alimentary matter it contains, other tracts would not be fertilized: so the great folios in their wide expanse of text and margin have their important use, while the streams and rills which issue from the parent flood are illustrative of quartos, octavos, duodecimos, 24mos, and 48mos, that refresh and enrich minds innumerable.