Ostrich, 99 Otter, 64 Owhyhee, 97 Pain, on, Paley, 141 Paley, on authority, 131; on grasses, Paradoxical animals, 115 Parke, Mungo, in the desert, 56 Pascal on the Christian Religion, 239; Penrhyn slate-quarry, 93 Plague, the, at Eyam, Derbyshire, 129 Pleasure of amusement and industry, Burton, 64 Sandwich Islands, Sunday at, 235 Scott on Death, 88 Scott, Sir Walter, on the Bible, 75 Secret of living always easy, 96 Seneca, remark by, 6 Sherlock, on intemperance, 218 Sin not weakened by age, South, 187 Skinner's Excursions, 87 Snow, preservation of life under, 239 Solitude, lines on, by the Rev. W. Jones, 3; answer to by G. H. South, extract from, 55 South, Dr., on gratitude and ingrati. Southey, extract from, 3; observations by, 71; lines by Remembrance, 67 Spring, Bishop Hoadly, 173 Steam engines in 1543, 30 Stork, white, 221 St. Paul's cross and church, 234 Sunday at Sea, Bishop Turner, 46; Swallows. lines on, by Hayley, 151 Swithin's, St., day, 14 Water-bottles of the East, 44 Watson, Bishop, on equality, 111 What is Time? Rev. J. Marsden, S of, 38 Whichcote, Dr., on opinions, 232 White's Selborne, extract, 56 Widow to, her child, 227 Wild Sports of the East, Captal Mund extract, 12 Williams, Archbishop, on conversio 197 Wisdom, remark on, 7 Wotton, Sir H., lines by, 152 Yew-trees, in church-yards, 74 Page 3, for Sir Wm. Jones, read the Rev. Wm. Jones. To cor- ERRATA. Page 104. In the account of the Middlesex Luna- Page 117, for Bishop Horne, read altered by Bishop Page 169, col. 2, twelve lines from the bottom, for Page 170. The " Cockfighter's Gariand." We are requested to state, on the authority of a this poem, is not only exaggerated, but in seve Page 231. Last line of second column, for Bish Saturday No 1. JULY 7, OF GENERA Magazine. PRICE UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION INTRODUCTION. It was a favourite saying with a crabbed old Greek, I that--a Great Book is a Great Evil. He said this before the grand invention of printing, when the making and reading of books, if not a great evil, was certainly a great trouble. The only mode in which a book could then be published, was by hiring persons to write out copy after copy, upon long rolls of parchment, or the coarse sort of paper which they called papyrus: and those who wished to read them, had to unrol the volume till they came to the place which they wanted. No wonder then that in those days books were but few, and knowledge was scarce. There were not many who could afford to buy books, and fewer still, perhaps, who could read them. Even the mighty and the noble were ignorant and unlettered, and the mass of the people were sunk in darkness and superstition. Nor did it seem possible, till the discovery of printing letters by means of moveable metal types, to bring the learning of the learned, and the wisdom of the wise, within reach and possession of all classes of the community. After this most important discovery, which we owe to John Gutenberg, of Mayence, the reading as well as the making of books became so much more pleasant, that readers and authors increased to a degree unknown in former ages. A vast number of books, upon all subjects, were written by men of masterly genius and profound learning. There was no branch of knowledge which they did not cultivate and adorn; and their works, full of immense learning and deep research,upon the knowledge and practice of our holy religion, upon history and philosophy, upon medicine and chemistry, upon geography and astronomy; in short, upon every thing connected with the advancement and refinement of mankind,-have come down to us for our improvement and instruction. : past times, so common in the mouths of men who set Now all these great books are very curious, many of them very useful, and some of them invaluable; yet they are very seldom opened by any man now-a-days, except to be dusted, although their names are from time to time to be found presiding over a modern work, to the spirit of which they may perhaps be altogether opposed. This neglect is partly owing to the circumstance that these books can rarely be met with out of public libraries, where a man cannot sit down comfortably to read them; partly to their occasional perplexity of thought and uncouth manner of speech; and partly also to their size-to their being such very great books-which makes it a work of months, sometimes of years, to get quite through some of them. Nevertheless, they were not without their effect on the world: many of the important truths which they contain, have been preserved and illustrated in later writings, more portable in form and easy of digestion.-And this improvement of their labours we hope to extend to a greater degree than has ever yet been done. But this by the way-lest in offering to our readers a very little book indeed, we should be taken to join in the abuse of the authors of sundry great books in VOL. I. An old Latin poet, a very fashionable man in his day, said that the most popular book would be that which mixed up the useful with the agreeable. We shall make such a mixture in this Magazine. By the side of the truly useful we shall place that which ought alone to be truly agreeable, and we will do our best to make one reflect light upon the other. Whether the information which we convey to our readers be given in the form of an essay or a tale, we shall We shall not keep in mind our great object of combining innocent amusement with sound instruction. relate ghost-stories, except to explain the delusions from which impressions of the reality of such things have proceeded, and will often proceed; we shall tell no Newgate legends of murder and robbery, except sometimes to point out the horrible excesses and dismal end to which a man may come, step by step, downwards, from the first dram he drank, the first oath he swore, and the first Lord's day he profaned. But then, on the other hand, we shall show forth some of the wonderful things of Natural History; we shall recount the origin and progress of some of the greatest of human inventions, such as Navigation, Printing, the Telescope, Steam-Engines, and so on; we shall remind our readers of remarkable events in the annals of our own dear country, and of other great kingdoms on the continent; and we shall sometimes, as occasion 1 may serve, indulge ourselves with proving how sweetly the poets of England used to sing, and how sweetly some of them yet live to sing. One way or another we hope to be popular in this Magazine, which comes out on the Saturday, when most men have a pause from labor. We are not for interfering with the family talk, or the friendly walk, much less with the duties of the Sabbath, or the study of the Bible and we trust every one of our readers has All these good things may be done and served, and yet there will be plenty of time for perusing these few pages; the reader shall never find in any one of them a line which shall be contrary in its tendency to the improvement and the happiness of any member of his family. one. Thus much to explain the character and object of this Magazine! We hope to give good proofs that our intentions are as honest as our means of performance are great, and we trust that after a fair trial our readers will not think our wood-cuts or our engravings the best part of our work. For the present we say Farewell!-and put an end to this somewhat lengthy introduction. ON THE RIGHT USE OF KNOWLEDGE. KNOWLEDGE is power. This saying, which has been so strikingly illustrated by the history of the last fifty years, will no doubt be exemplified, in a still more remarkable manner, by the changes which the next ten or twenty years will produce in the state of society. Whether these changes will be for good or evil, must obviously depend upon the kind of knowledge which will be diffused through the mass of the community, and the direction which shall be given to it, in its application to the great purposes of life. If it be true that knowledge is power, this necessarily follows: for that power, whatever it is, may be for good or evil. It is a giant's strength, which it is excellent to have, if it be used for the ends of virtue and happiness; but which may be employed to the purposes of a tyrannous malice. It is impossible that the cultivation of our natural faculties, even to the utmost pitch of advancement, can be in itself wrong: for it is plain, from the very constitution of our nature, that they are given us to be improved; and their improvement, when it is really improvement, may be made equally conducive to our comfort and happiness, as inhabitants of this material world, and to our preparation for a spiritual state of being. If we are to enter hereafter into such a state, it is so plain that no reasoning can make it plainer, that to prepare for it is the main business of our existence here; and therefore, such a cultivation or employment of our faculties as thwarts and impedes, instead of seconding and advancing the work of preparation, does not deserve the name of improvement. Whereas nothing can be more worthy of man, as a thinking and moral creature, destined to advance through successive steps to a higher and purer order of being, than the diligent exercise and quickening of his mind, and the enlargement of his knowledge, with reference and in subordination to the chief purpose of his existence. take and fall; I thought it good and necessary, in the first place, to make a strong and sound head, or bank, to rule and guide the course of the waters; by setting down this position, or firmament, namely, That all knowledge is to be limited by Religion, and to be referred to use and action." This is a very natural and striking similitude. Religion is the strong mound and embankment, which confines the stream of human knowledge within its proper channel, and guides it along its intended course; so as to fertilize and beautify the country which it would otherwise inundate and lay waste. With this guard, or firmament, as Bacon terms it, we may admit, that knowledge is not only power, but also virtue and happiness; a help, that is to say, to virtue, and an instrument of happiness, as far as happiness is to be found in any of the pursuits or acquirements of our present imperfect state. Knowledge, for instance, was a source of happiness to Newton and to Locke, far more abundant than pleasure or ambition ; and it was auxiliary to virtue, because it withdrew their attention from objects of sensual enjoyment. But then Newton and Locke were Christians, and referred their extraordinary powers of mind, as well as the results of those powers, to the first Source of Light and Truth, under a deep sense of their own insufficiency, and of the limits which are set to the researches of the human mind. Newton, the most original and patient and sagacious of inquirers into natural and mathematical truth, spoke of himself, with reference to the secrets of God's nature and designs, as a child playing with pebbles on the sea-shore. We have said, that in the case of these eminent philosophers, knowledge was not only power, but virtue and happiness, because they were Christians. With Voltaire, and Hume, and Gibbon, it was power; but it was not happiness, nor virtue; because it was not sanctified nor directed by Christian belief and principle. For surely that is not happiness, nor the source of happiness, which is no preservative against the most miserable ambition, the most restless uneasiness under the world's opinion, and the most disquieting views of futurity. Consider the following argument; it is of a very plain and practical kind. If our religion be true, no kind of knowledge can be really beneficial which causes us to neglect the study of God's word, or to undervalue and disregard his laws. On the other hand, there is no kind of knowledge, deserving of the name, with which religion interferes, either in its acquisition or right employment. On the contrary, religion tends to preserve the mind in that tranquil and contented state which is necessary to the successful pursuit of every branch of useful knowledge; it teaches us to set a right value upon it when acquired, and to employ it to the benefit of mankind. Moreover, it has an obvious tendency to secure to us even the present and temporal rewards of knowledge: for who, that is looking out for an able instructor for his children, a trusty steward for his estate, or a skilful workman to be employed about his premises, would not rather have a religious man, upon whose prmciples he could rely, than an unbeliever, a scoffer, and a drunkard? So that religion, which cannot in any case impede the acquirement of knowledge, nor interfere with its right application, enhances the value of it to its possessor, with respect both to the inward compla cency which it affords him, and the present recompense to which it leads. While laying up in the storehouse of his memory the materials of useful knowledge, which it will be our object to provide for him, let our reader bear in T mind, that there is something to be known above and beyond the scope of unassisted human inquiry-something which transcends the highest flight of human intellect, and is of greater importance than its most sublime discoveries; and that is, the knowledge of God, of His attributes, His purposes, and His laws; a knowledge, for which man must be indebted to God himself, who has revealed it to him in His written Word. To this source and treasury of truth let him continually recur, for the purpose of humbling intellectual pride by the view of his own sinfulness and weakness; and of withdrawing his mind from too fixed and exclusive a contemplation of secondary causes, to the First Great Cause of all things. Let him accustom himself to trace the Creator in His creatures, to rise through Nature up to Nature's God, and to find, in the daily accumulating stores of knowledge, not only the means of worldly advancement, nor merely a resource for his hours of leisure or retirement, but fresh materials of humility and thankfulness. To a mind so disciplined, the pursuit of information will be at once delightful and profitable; and knowledge will be power, in the highest and noblest sense of the words,-the power of being and doing good. ON THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. It is rather a subject of surprise that, in our general associations, and mixed societies, in times so highly enlightened as the present, when many ancient prejudices are gradually flitting away, as reason and science dawn on mankind, we should meet with so few, comparatively speaking, who have any knowledge of, or take the least interest in, Natural History; or if the subject obtain a moment's consideration, it has no abiding-place in the mind, being dismissed as the fitting employ of children and inferior capacities. But the natural historian is required to attend to something more than the vagaries of butterflies, and the spinnings of caterpillars. His study, considered apart from the various branches of science which it embraces, is one of the most delightful occupations that can employ the attention of reasoning beings. And perhaps none of the amusements of human life are more satisfactory and dignified than the investigation and survey of the workings and ways of Providence in this created world of wonders, filled with his never- absent power. It occupies and elevates the mind, is inexhaustible in supply, and, while it furnishes meditation for the closet of the studious, gives to the reflections of the moralizing rambler, admiration and delight, and is an engaging companion that will communicate an interest to every rural walk. We need not live with the humble denizens of the air, the tenants of the woods and hedges, or the grasses of the field; but to pass them by in utter disregard, is to neglect a large portion of rational pleasure open to our view, which may edify and employ many a passing hour, and, by easy steps, will often become the source whence flow contemplations of the highest order. Young minds cannot, I should conceive, be too strongly impressed with the simple wonders of creation by which they are surrounded: in the race of life they may be passed by, the business of life may not admit attention to them, or the unceasing cares of the world may smother early attainments; but they can never be injurious. They will give a bias to a reasoning mind, and tend in some after thoughtful, sobered hour, to comfort and to soothe. The little insights that we have obtained into Nature's works, are many of them the offspring of scientific research; and partial and uncertain as our labours are, yet a brief gleam will occasionally lighten the darksome path of the humble inquirer, and give him a momentary glimpse of hidden truths. Let not, then, the idle and the ignorant scoff at him who devotes an unemployed hour— No calling left, no duty broke, to investigate a moss, a fungus, a beetle, or a shell, in ways of pleasantness and in paths of peace." They are al the formation of Supreme Intelligence, for a wise and worthy end, and may lead us by gentle steps and degrees to a faint notion of the powers of infinite wisdom. They have calmed and amused some of us change to a new and more perfect order of being.— worms and reptiles, and possibly bettered us for our Journal of a Naturalist. TO SOLITUDE. FROM THE REV. WILLIAM JONES. THOU world, tumultuous and rude, Far from the world's tumultuous swell, ANSWER. FROM G. H. GLASSE. AWAY with wishes fond and weak! I HAVE sat upon the shore, and waited for the gradual approach of the sea, and have seen its dancing waves and white surf, and admired that He who measured it with His hand had given to it such life and motion; and I have lingered till its gentle waters grew into mighty billows, and had well nigh swept me from my firmest footing. So have I seen a heedless youth gazing with a too curious spirit upon the sweet motions and gentle approaches of an inviting pleasure, till it has detained his eye and imprisoned his feet, and swelled upon his soul, and swept him to a swift destruction.-MONTAGU's Dedication. HE whose heart is not excited upon the spot which a martyr has sanctified by his sufferings, or at the grave of one who has largely benefited mankind, must be more inferior to the multitude in his moral, than he can possibly be raised above them in his intellectual nature.-SOUTHEY THE celebrated temple of Jagganátha is situated in the district of Cuttack, on the sea-coast of Orissa, a province under the British Government of Bengal, in Lat. 19° 49' N., and Lon. 85° 54' E. The nominal chiefship of the country in which the temple is situated, is in the Rajah of Khoorda, a small principality, the capital of which stands about 20 miles S. W. of Cuttack. The aspect of the country on the seacoast is low, covered with wood, and totally flooded by the sea at spring-tides; and into this stoneless expanse of swamp and forest the numerous rivers from the interior discharge their waters through many channels, as in the coasts of Bengal and Egypt. The district has only three towns, deserving to be so called, one of which, adjoining the temple, is called Pooree, or "The Town." Under the ancient Hindoo governments, the territory of Cuttack appears to have been divided among petty chiefs, having no regular head: one among them was the Khoorda Rajah, the hereditary highpriest of Jagganátha and keeper of his wardrobe, who probably possessed considerable influence over the others. The country was invaded at an early period by the Mahomedans, and was conquered by the Mahrattas in 1738, with whom it remained until conquered by the English in 1803. Afterwards, on the expulsion of the Mahrattas, a settlement was made with the tributary Rajahs, some of whom, however, though professing submission, tendered no tribute; among these was the Khoorda Rajah, then a boy of 18, who laid waste the adjoining country with fire and sword. A British army was in consequence collected, which had to conduct its operations in an almost impassable country, and amidst difficulties aggravated by the sanctity of the Rajah's priestly character. At length the Rajah voluntarily surrendered his sacred person, which was brought into camp, while the inhabitants of the adjacent districts came forth and fell down before him in humble adoration. On his surrender, he was allowed an ample pension, and was continued chief in authority over the temple of Jagganatha. Every Hindoo temple or place of pilgrimage has its marvellous legend or history, describing the circumstances to which it owes its supposed holiness,-events generally dated in a former age of the world. The legend further pretends to contain an account of the foundation of the first temple or shrine, the different visits paid to it by their idol-gods and heroes, its discovery and renewal in the present age, the marvels which have resulted from its worship, and the benefactions made to it by modern sovereigns. The last part of the story is generally the only portion of these: lying legends which contains any real history. The legend of Jagganátha states that an ancient king of Ootkala, the Hindoo name of Orissa, pressed down by the weight of his sins, addressed himself to Brahma, the idol-god whom he had chosen for his peculiar divinity, for instruction as to what he could do that would obtain for him happiness in a future state of existence. Brahma, says the story, perceiving the sincerity of his sorrow and his piety, directed him to make inquiry after a certain shrine built by his ancestors, which formerly stood by the side of a hill, and was made of massy gold, and was. the abode of Vishnu. It had been buried by the sands thrown up by the sea. The worshipper was further informed that, if he would restore the worship of the temple, and renew the offerings which were formerly made there, he would ensure to himself a dwelling of happiness after his death, and, by inducing this pretended god again to take up his abode on earth, would procure the same happiness to the human race. For more particular information of the spot where the temple stood, the king was referred to a tortoise, as old as the world, which he would find near the hill Nila, Delighted with the wonderful intelligence, the king set out to find his informant; and, on approaching a lake under the hill, a prodigious tortoise approached him, and asked him what he sought in that desert |