General Books

Barber's Barn, Hackney. The engraving represents a place of historical interest—an ancient mansion in Mare-street, Hackney, built about the year 1591, upon a spot of ground called Barbour Berns, by which name, or rather Barber's Barn, the house has been described in old writings. In this house resided the noted Colonel John Okey, one of the regicides "charged with compassing and... more...

The Fortune Playhouse   The Engraving represents one of the playhouses of Shakspeare's time, as the premises appeared a few years since. This theatre was in Golden Lane, Barbican, and was built by that celebrated and benevolent actor Edward Alleyn, the pious founder of Dulwich College, in 1599. It was burnt in 1624, but rebuilt in 1629. A story is told of a large treasure being found in digging... more...

The Arke of Artificial Day. Before proceeding, to point out the indelible marks by which Chaucer has, as it were, stereotyped the true date of the journey to Canterbury, I shall clear away another stumbling-block, still more insurmountable to Tyrwhitt than his first difficulty of the "halfe cours" in Aries, viz. the seeming inconsistency in statements (1.) and (2.) in the following lines of the... more...

DOUGLAS JERROLD. My personal acquaintance with Douglas Jerrold began in the spring of 1851. I had always had a keen relish for his wit and fancy; I felt a peculiar interest in a man who, like myself, had started in life in the Navy; and one of the things poor Douglas prided himself on was his readiness to know and recognize young fellows fighting in his own profession. I shall not soon forget the... more...

CONSTITUTION of the NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION, INCORPORATED (As adopted September 13, 1948) NAME ARTICLE I. This Society shall be known as the Northern Nut GrowersAssociation, Incorporated. It is strictly a non-profit organization. PURPOSES ARTICLE II. The purposes of this Association shall be to promote interest in the nut bearing plants; scientific research in their breeding and culture;... more...

The Prophetic Faculty: War and Peace. In our last issue, the psychometric faculty of prophecy was illustrated by predictions of peace, while generals, statesmen, and editors were promising a gigantic war. In this number the reader will find a grand prediction of war, while statesmen and states were anticipating peace, and a southern statesman, even upon the brink of war, offered to drink all the blood... more...

GENIUS. When Paul Morphy plays seven games of chess at once and blindfold, when young Colburn gives impromptu solution to a mathematical problem involving fifty-six figures, we are struck with hopeless wonder: such power is separated by the very extent of it from our mental operations. But when we further observe that these feats are attended by little or no fatigue,—that this is the play, not the... more...

MARRIAGE CONTRACT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE EARL OF BOTHWELL. [Among the curious documents which have been produced from time to time before the House of Lords in support of peerage claims, there have been few of greater historical interest than the one which we now reprint from the Fourth Part of the Evidence taken before the Committee of Privileges on the Claim of W. Constable Maxwell, Esquire,... more...

NOTES. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "DELIGHTED," AS SOMETIMES USED BY SHAKSPEARE. I wish to call attention to the peculiar use of a word, or rather to a peculiar word, in Shakspeare, which I do not recollect to have met with in any other writer. I say a "peculiar word," because, although the verb To delight is well known, and of general use, the word, the same in form, to which I refer, is... more...

The plan for the establishment of a second college in Connecticut was not carried into effect until after the time of the political and religious revolution which secured the adoption of a State Constitution in 1818. Probably no such plan was seriously entertained till after the close of the war of Independence. The Episcopal church in Connecticut had, one may almost say, been born in the library of... more...