in these branches of useful knowledge, at the rate of two-pence halfpenny per branch. In short, we expect that, before Christmas, we shall be, in our proper person, a complete animated Encyclopædia, at the sum total expense of half-a-crown. When the holidays come, however, we shall repay our poor soul for the heavy burthens which we at present hebdomadally impose upon it. We are all Minerva now,-then we shall be Bacchus. Look at the illustrations,-their perfection,-their brilliancy,-the number of them that we can buy for a trifle! Portraits,-landscapes, -still life, dogs,-horses,-game,-Landseer,-Turner,-Martin,Cruikshank,-all you may have almost for nothing. Montgomery the Second is gone to Pandæmonium to collect materials for landscapes, which he has undertaken to describe in a most tremendous poem. The ever-to-be-lamented Rosa Matilda is already awakened from her tomb, for the purpose of lending her never-to-be-forgotten verses to the prints of Charles Tilt. We are soon to have, not only a new edition of Robert Burns, but charming sketches of every individual whiskey-house which he honoured by getting particularly drunk therein. The Findens threaten to make even Crabbe popular! What is to become of all the paper which is now in constant process of typo-impressment? What are we to do with it? Where is it to find room in some half-dozen years? We observe, indeed, more than one Encyclopædia in progress, which is likely to be concluded about the year of our Lord 2000. As we do not intend to live so long as that, we leave the said Encyclopædia to shift for itself. But, mercy on us, how are we to dispose of the "National Library ?" Here is a collection" intended to place all the most useful, instructive, moral, and entertaining works, comprising the standard literature of all countries, within the means of all the families in the three kingdoms!" We are kindly informed, lest our natural feelings should be alarmed at the prospect of paying for such a number of books, still more of perusing them, that all this is to be accomplished "without taxing too heavily, at one and the same time, either the pocket or the head of the reader." Infinite are the obligations of the happy subscriber to the editors, for thus dividing the inflictions which they are resolved to heap upon his devoted head. After being nicely wrecked on the rocks of Scylla, most comfortably will he be swallowed up in the whirlpool of Charybdis. It is not long since we came home one day from the Bank with our dividends in one pocket, and about a hundred weekly journals in the other, which we purchased in the fragrant purlieus of Fetter Lane. We were seduced by the show which they made, all embellished with cuts as they were, in a shop-window. There shone "The Cab," price one halfpenny, addressed to gentlemen of aspiring notions, but limited means; and offering them, in return for a small annual subscription, not only the Cab itself, but the occasional use of a chariot, with horses quiet to drive, ride, or run in tandem, and also the loan of boxes at Covent Garden and the Opera, as well as of ladies of fashion,-only for the purpose of gracing the said boxes by their appearance. They were to present themselves in moustaches à la porcupine, to talk loud during the opera or the play, to smell of cigar, and to take snuff in abundance. It was a necessary condition of their periodical felicity that they should, in all externals, be men of ton, whatever their previous habits might tr have been in the mystery of picking pockets. "The Halfpenny Magazine" had already, by some accident, arrived at a seventh number, -a fatal one, we fear, for the editors were fain to confess, "We have no cut this time.” "The Halfpenny Library" had the singular merit of manufacturing a new adage out of an old one. There is an ancient saying, "Truth lies in a well." "Máy not the modern adage," quoth the said Library, " run thus, The most certain charity is at a pump ?"" "The Magnet," after admitting candidly that periodicals had increased beyond the possibility of purchase, or perusal, had the courage to add one more to the number, and the conscience to promise that it would print the essence of the whole in its own pages. "The Squib " threatened to blow up all its rivals. Forgetting that it was itself of inflammable materials, it became the first victim of its own temerity. "The Sunday Chronicle" came to proclaim the comfortable doctrine that all the world was mad, and that, as things went, Miss Baxter would have made a capital Lord Mayor. The editor gave demonstrative proof of his own wisdom, by departing spontaneously from such a world almost as soon as he came into it. Among the prescriptions of "The Doctor" and "The Penny Lancet," we looked in vain for a remedy capable of being administered to a young periodical diseased. We never beheld two medical practitioners, who stood more in need of assistance from their own 66 damnable compounds." "The New Penny Magazine" must have been assuredly under their care, as the editor commenced a notice, intended for a very different purpose, by confessing, "With reluctance we decline." "The Tourist" had pledged himself to travel from Wellington Street, in the Strand, all over the civilized and savage world. After crossing over Waterloo Bridge, and disporting himself amid the pleasant retreats of Lambeth, he returned by Blackfriars to the place of Wellington once more, where we found him ruminating in the following penitential strain:-"Human hopes are frequently falsified by experience. No sooner are they submitted to an infallible criterion, than they have been proved defective and illusory; the offspring of self-conceit or of partial knowledge. We are free to acknowledge that we have failed to realize our own expectations.' "Rude Boreas" Dibdin! What is it really Tom? It is, in good truth, the same concoctor of immortal songs, pouring, with all his might, the tones of a heart still buoyant after every vicissitude, through a Penny Trumpet," in the character of one Doctor Blow. Alas! poor Tom!-he was soon destined to realize the converse of a story, which he himself tells of Schmidt, one of the late King's band. The German having been once asked to sustain a note of forty minims' duration, replied, "You may find ears, but who the defil is to find vindt?" Dibdin was copious in wind, but, after essaying a few blasts, he found an appalling deficiency of ears. دو Plagiarism is the order of the day in all these publications. We bought for one penny the whole essence of Cyrus Redding's book on wines, which we found concentrated by the digestive pen of Mr. Craik in the pages of Charles Knight's magazine. By the by, what a glorious humbug this said magazine is upon the reading portion of the operatives! They think, poor devils, that the matter doled out to them weekly, through the medium of the "Penny Magazine," has been really got up “under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge." The Society know just as much about it as the Mandarins of the Celestial Empire. Does anybody in his senses bélieve that the Lord Chancellor, or Lord John Russell, or Sir Henry Parnell, has time to correct the proofs of a penny journal? The history of this publication may be thus concisely stated: Mr. Hill, member for Hull, and one of the committee of the Diffusion Society, is a particular friend of Charles Knight. Knight bethought himself of a penny magazine, on the plan of "Chambers' Edinburgh Journal." Says Knight to Hill, "This would be a capital speculation, if you could get me the name of the Society." Says Matthew Hill, "I will." And he succeeds, and the magazine is published under the fiction of its being the property of the Society, whereas, in truth, it is the property of Charles Knight and Co. The consequence of which has been, that this weekly sheet, called the Society's magazine, brings in Knight some thousands per annum, although, if it had been publicly known to be what it truly is,-nothing more than a bookseller's speculation,-it would have been at the bottom of the Lethean lake by this time. It is, in fact, a very feeble compilation of poor Craik's abridgments of all sorts of matter-an olla podrida which he dishes up at some small pay per diem. We pity him much; but more do we lament the fate of the unhappy authors, whose lucubrations it is his business to melt down into a retail shape, and whose expectations of a reasonable reward for their labours he contributes to baffle by his abominable epitomization. We know of no difference in this respect between the "Penny Magazine" and the "Thief." The motto of the latter, "Ex rapto vivens," (living by plunder,) is equally applicable to the former, and, indeed, to all the publications of the Diffusion Society, who have not, during the nine years of their existence, produced a single original volume, appertaining to any one of the hundred departments of science and art with respect to which they have undertaken to enlighten the world. 99 66 Peace be to the shades of the many Gleaners,' Spies,' "" Investigators," "Scrap-books," "Caskets," "Correctors," "Schoolmasters," "Guardians," and "Devils," which we have consigned to the tender mercies of our scout, in order to save the expense of wood for the ignition of our fires. We were about to add to them a whole volume of the "Crisis," when the ghost of Robert Owen, its patron, stared us in the face, mildly reproving us for our consummate ignorance of the disorders which prevail throughout all classes of society, and for which he, Robert, believes that he has discovered a most effectual remedy. The "Crisis" is, it seems, intended to prepare the way for the new terrestrial Paradise, which he has been labouring for many years to create. Having been quietly bowed out of the factory at New Lanark, where he had been for some time managing clerk, but where he had contrived, by his inspirations, to introduce most admired confusion, he came to London to dissipate his chagrin, and diffuse his principles. But here he toiled in vain. He found no associates to assist him in the scheme of rendering property common, in order that he might come in for a share of a commodity of which he happened then, as he happens still, to be rather in need. He next, like many other speculators who have been sadly disappointed at home, turned his eyes towards America, and, having purchased a dim forest in the back settlements, for a few dollars, he 'ycleped it “ New Harmony." But old Discord was too strong for even that sweetly sounding title, the concern was dissolved, and he returned once more, resolved on fresh speculations, to this Babylon. He took up his residence near the pastoral glades of Burton-crescent, put up a brick and composition portico to a little, low house which he called " The Institution for the removal of Ignorance, and the regeneration of the World." Here he preached and lectured, gaining a few shillings now and then, by way of admission-money, and informing his slender audience that he was charged with an express mission (from whom or whence we never could learn) for the purpose of turning the whole fabric of society exactly upside down. It has been our good fortune to meet with him sometimes in our matutinal perambulations. Strange to say, if it rained, he held an umbrella over his head like any common mortal. Nay, more, we have actually seen this great reformer of our bad habits eating beef, and drinking bottled beer-although he is indisputably (according to his disciples) the identical person referred to by the sybils of yore, the long-expected of nations, at whose birth "Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo: Jam redit et virgo, redeunt saturnia regna; With him the age of iron is to cease, that of pure gold to begin. Every trace of ancient sin and sorrow is to disappear at his command from earth. The lion shall gambol with the lamb, and every field shall spontaneously grow yellow with golden harvests. There will be no necessity for public worship, as in the new order of things everybody is to pray in secret, if he have any disposition that way. If not, he can sing or whistle if he like, instead of going to church, for no church there is any longer to be. The lawyers may sell their wigs and gowns, for law is to come to an end. Order is to be altogether dispensed with, as a beautiful confusion is to prevail in its place. A young man shall meet a young maiden in the streets, and, without asking her how she does, without saying "A fine day, my dear," or anything else of that bashful tendency, he is straight to pop the question, "Will you marry me?” and she will! They are to live together from that moment, without further ceremony, just as long as they choose; they may then separate, and their children, if any there be, are to receive maintenance from the public treasury. Here will be a glorious state of things for all the bucks of Cambridge! "They who give themselves to the study of just and good works,' says the Cumaan sybil, "and to piety and holy thoughts, shall be carried by the angels through the flaming river, into a placc of light, and a life without care, where the immortal path of the great God is, and where three fountains of wine, milk, and honey, flow without cessation. And the earth shall be equal to all, not divided by walls or partitions, but shall bear much fruit spontaneously; and all shall live in common, and their wealth shall be undivided; neither poor nor rich shall be there, nor tyrant, nor servant, nor one greater or less than another; no king, nor leader; all shall enjoy all things in common, and none shall say the night is come, nor to-morrow, or yesterday is past; and no care shall be for many days. There shall be no spring nor summer, no winter nor autumn; nor marriage, nor death; nor buying, nor selling; nor setting nor rising of the sun, for there shall be a long day."—" This is a highly figurative description of heaven upon earth, in the usual hyperbolical style of prophecy," quoth the "Crisis:" "but it is evident, when stripped in part of its mystical character, that it describes such another state of things as we propose to establish by the adoption of the new system of society!" Now observe the wonderful process by which the new system has been already, in part, carried into effect. Among the various speculations upon which Mr. Maberly, unluckily for himself, bestowed, some years ago, his time, together with a princely fortune, was an immense edifice, which he erected near the top of Gray's Inn Road, intending the lower part thereof for a horse-bazaar, the upper for a mart, in which all things whatever, from a kitchen-range to a doll's-eye, were to be exposed for sale. Exposed, indeed, many articles of utility and finery were upon neat stalls, peeping eagerly behind which were numbers of the prettiest faces which that quarter of the metropolis could turn out; but, by some fatality, no purchasers appeared. Indeed, who that could afford to buy even a tetotum was to guess that a bazaar existed in Gray's Inn-road? We have not, at present, the most remote idea how we ever chanced to hear of such a thing. Of course, it was soon shut up. The time was now near at hand, when the true regenerator of mankind was to step forth upon a more public stage than the small institution in Burton-place enabled him to enjoy. Having converted the landlord of the said Horse Bazaar to his principles, he prevailed upon the man to give him the use of the empty premises for nothing. He then collected together numbers of poor mechanics from the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, formed them into a society pro bono publico, appointed himself their father, and set about knocking into their heads his magnificent principles in a series of grave lectures. In the course of his labours, he had the good fortune to receive the most valuable assistance from Miss Macauley, a lady some time out of her teens, and not unknown to fame as an actress, a teacher of enunciation, a reader of plays and poems, a head of a new religion, in which capacity she preaches, and as an author of pamphlets upon the currency, the poor-laws, agricultural distress, the Factory Bill, and a variety of other subjects, equally poetical and enchanting. She has also a horse, or rather a mule, to which is appended a little omnibus. Within the omnibus sits a lad. On the front, the back, and the sides of this machine are painted, in gigantic letters, three mystic words-" Miss Macauley's Repository." "A repository of what?" we asked the lad, for in our ignorance we deemed it a public vehicle, and flattered ourselves with the hope that it would carry us for a penny from Finsbury, where it then stood, to the rural groves of Paddington. "Sir," replied the urchin, smiling, " of Miss Macauley's pamphlets, will you buy one? you may have it for a penny. When her store of literature shall have been disposed of, it is Miss Macauley's intention to convert her ingenious shop into a Thespian cart, and to act tragedies all along the New-road. The mirror-like serenity with which this fair associate of Mr. Owen delivered herself of the new doctrines was marvellous. The Messiah, she declared, was a very good sort of a person in his way, considering the manner in which he was brought up; and was tolerably well informed too, remembering the dark age in which he lived; but he knew nothing, or next to nothing, of the evils of society, or of the real remedies which they |