General Books

ADDRESS TO OUR FRIENDS. We this day publish our fifty-second Number. Every Saturday, for twelve months, have we presented to our subscribers our weekly budget of "Notes," "Queries," and "Replies;" and in so doing, we trust, we have accomplished some important ends. We have both amused and instructed the general reader; we have stored up much curious knowledge for the use of... more...

ERNEST RENAN'S THEORY. Christianity is a fact. We sometimes hear of men who are said to 'deny' 'Christianity.' The expression is nonsense. Men cannot deny the sun. Christianity has been a visible thing, on this planet, for eighteen hundred years. It has done a heavy amount of work, which is very visible too. It is altogether too late in the day to 'deny Christianity.'... more...

MACCLESFIELD BRIDGE. This picturesque structure crosses the Canal towards the Northern verge of the Regent's Park; and nearly opposite to it is a road leading to Primrose Hill, as celebrated in the annals of Cockayne as was the Palatino among the ancient Romans. The bridge was built from the designs of Mr. Morgan, and its construction is considered to be "appropriate and architectural."... more...

AN OLD-TIME SCENE. OOK at the picture, and see if you can tell what has roused all those children up so early in the morning. There is Mary in her stocking-feet. There is Ann in her night-dress. There is Tom, bare armed and bare legged.Why have they all left their beds, and run into the play-room in such haste? And why is little Ned, the baby, sitting up in the bed, as though he wanted to come too? It... more...

The Duke's Theatre, Dorset Gardens. The above theatre was erected in the year 1671, about a century after the regular establishment of theatres in England. It rose in what may be called the brazen age of the Drama, when the prosecutions of the Puritans had just ceased, and legitimacy and licentiousness danced into the theatre hand in hand. At the Restoration, the few players who had not fallen in... more...

ORIGIN OF A WELL-KNOWN PASSAGE IN HUDIBRAS. The often-quoted lines— "For he that fights and runs away May live to fight another day," generally supposed to form a part of Hudibras, are to be found (as Mr. Cunningham points out, at p. 602. of his Handbook for London), in the Musarum Deliciæ, 12mo. 1656; a clever collection of "witty trifles," by Sir John Mennis and Dr. James Smith.... more...

COLOMBIA COLLEGE, NEW-YORK “It is intended that a large academy be erected, capable of containing nine thousand seven hundred and forty-three persons: which, by modest computation, is reckoned to be pretty near the current number of wits in this island,”—Swift’s Tale of a Tub. Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades. One college is almost completed within her radius, and will be opened in a... more...

A TRUE STORY. HEN I was in Boston about a year ago, I stopped one day at the corner of Washington Street and Franklin Street to witness a pretty sight.Here, just as you turn into Franklin Street, on the right, a poor peddler used to stand with a few baskets of oranges or apples or peanuts, which he offered for sale to the passers-by. The street-pigeons had found in him a good friend; for he used to... more...

Thou, sitting on the hill-top bare,Dost see the far hills disappearIn Autumn smoke, and all the airFilled with bright leaves. Below thee spreadAre yellow harvests, rich in breadFor winter use; while over-headThe jays to one another call,And through the stilly woods there fall,Ripe nuts at intervals, where'erThe squirrel, perched in upper air,From tree-top barks at thee his fear;His cunning eyes,... more...

THE HARMONISTS. My brother Josiah I call a successful man,—very successful, though only an attorney in a manufacturing town. But he fixed his goal, and reached it. He belongs to the ruling class,—men with slow, measuring eyes and bull-dog jaws,—men who know their own capacity to an atom's weight, and who go through life with moderate, inflexible, unrepenting steps. He looks askance at me... more...