of the Gardener's Chronicle, are evidence of his industry and love of his pursuit. Dr. Hugh Falconer was born in 1808, and was chiefly remarkable for his several valuable essays upon questions relating to palæontology, especially those concerning the Quaternary deposits. In 1832 he had charge of the Botanic Gardens at Saharunpore, and it was mainly through his exertions that the government was induced to cultivate tea and cinchona in the Himalayas. During the later years of his life he was resident among us, and it will be remembered came under the notice of the general public in connection with the celebrated Abbeville. Dr. Samuel Woodward, a most distinguished conchologist and enthusiastic student of palæontology, was born at Norwich in the year 1821. In 1845 he was appointed to the Chair of Botany and Geology in the Royal Agricultural College of Cirencester, and in 1848 he received an appointment in the Natural History Department of the British Muse um. His contributions to scientific journals were numerous and important; but the work which, more than all his other labors, will tend to imortalize him, is his splendid treatise on "Recent and Fossil Shells." Sir Joseph Paxton was born in the year 1804, and, although he was less remarkable for his scientific worth than for his artistic taste as a landscape gardener, his Botanical Dictionary and Magazine of Botany entitled him to a certain status in botanical science. His greatest achievement was the plan of the Crystal Palace, and this alone will cause his name to be long remembered both by the public and his profession. Sir Robert W. Schomburgh was more of a geographer than a botanist, though he distinguished himself in both these capacities. In 1835 he undertook the exploration of Guiana, and discovered the Victoria regia, that prince or shall we say princess? - of aquatic plants. On the completion of his survey of Guiana, he received the order of Knighthood; and the latter portion of his lifetime was spent in Siam, where he held the post of consul. Admiral Fitzroy, who was born in 1805, reaped many laurels as naturalist and meteorologist. As Captain Fitzroy, he commanded the Beagle, and was thus associated with Darwin's celebrated journal. The later portion of his career was devoted to the study of meteorology, which he may be said to have first converted into a practical science. His prediction of storms and his weather signals have made him an authority in the mouths of our sea-faring population. Sir John Richardson, the great' Arctic explorer and naturalist, was born in 1787. His scientific writings, says one of his biographers, fill up some twenty volumes, treating mainly of the zoology of mammals, birds, and fishes, and most instructively of the distribution of species. He made two Arctic expeditions under the command of Sir John Franklin. The following are the names of some other great men who have died during the year 1865: Charles Waterton, the naturalist; Balfour Bakie, the African traveller; Hugh Cuming, the conchologist; Professor Malgaigne, the French surgeon; Herr Remak, the Prussian anatomist; Signor Piria, the distinguished Italian chemist; Professor Valeciennes, the great French ichthyologist; Professor Gratiolet, the Dutch anatomist; and Captain William Henry Smyth, the eminent hydrographer. NAUGHTY NELLY. So sweet she is, so sweet and fair, I sadly wished in her to see And pertness, and design: I wished that she had learnt at school, But, how to use the charms she had I wished - but wishing is a trade I could not set her free From all the tricks and trumperies ARTHUR MUNBY. CIVITAS DEI. THE roads are long and rough, with many a bend, To that Eternal City, and the home Of shards and splinters lying in a field That City's gates and towers The wily pen, the cannon's fierce report, Where is it? Tell who can. "T is builded in no valley of Japan Or secret Asia, nor in isle unfound As yet, nor in a region calm and warm, Where is it? Who can tell? Ev 'n to a City with foundations low As Hell, with battlements Heaven-high, Which is eternal; and its place and name Are mystery. WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. VOL. I.] A Journal of Choice Reading, SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1866. [No. 6. author. Millar, whom Johnson respected because he raised the price of literature; Dodsley, who suggested the English dictionary to the "great lexicographer"; Elmsley, whom Gibbon honored as a friend and companion, may be taken as fair types of the ideal publisher. SHADOWS OF THE OLD BOOKSELLERS.* A BOOK has been written on the fertile subject of what men have said of women. There is room for a companion volume, to be called, "What Authors have said of Publishers." Horace's slight mention of the Sosii is about our earliest instance, and though But how many such occur in the list of old bookHorace's allusion to them is generally taken as a sellers, and how many more have succeeded them panegyric, we are not certain that it implies more since publishing has risen to its present rank? The friendly relations between men of letters and men of price of literature has risen very much since Millar books in Rome than those which have generally ex-gave Fielding £ 200 for a novel. The whole system isted. We do not know, Macaulay tells us, what Bavius and Mævius wrote about Mæcenas. We do not know that Virgil was well treated by his publisher; that Juvenal did not include his in a satire; that Lucilius did not give his a kick with the foot which his habits of composition left him at liberty to employ. But we might perhaps infer it from what we know of modern authors. Dryden trembled at the thought of Tonson's spoken incivilities, and vented himself in written incivilities which produced even more effect. Pope satirized some of his publishers and defamed others. Johnson knocked one down with a folio. In more recent times Campbell, when called upon for a toast at a literary dinner, gave the health of Napoleon because he had shot a bookseller. One of the wittiest stanzas in Coleridge's Devil's Walk is that in which the Devil claims kin with a publisher: : "For I myself sat like a cormorant once Upon the tree of knowledge." But we will not multiply instances. These were suggested by the book before us, in which Mr. Charles Knight, after having served the public both as author and publisher, revives many pleasant associations of both branches, and gives both branches the benefit of his experience, after having done all he could to promote a good understanding between them by his example. has changed since Jacob Tonson wrote to Pope: "I remember I have formerly seen you in my shop, and am sorry I did not improve my acquaintance with you. If you design your poem for the press, no one shall be more careful in printing it, nor no one can give greater encouragement to it than, sir," &c. All the relations between authors and publishers are different from those in force when few literary bargains were settled without a dinner, and business was discussed in coffee-houses with the prospect of a "whet.” But these changes in the external aspect of things have not been accompanied by a growth of confidence and friendship. Clipped money has been superseded by protested bills. We believe nothing was ever said by an author of any old bookseller as severe as what was said of a modern publisher by a novelist of distinction. And it was a modern author who made the parable of the Good Samaritan run, "A certain man went down to Paternoster Row, and fell among thieves," and the eighteenth chapter of St. John end with the words, "Now, Barabbas was a — publisher." The worst of the shadows chosen by Mr. Knight for his dissolving views is that of Curll, whose life and personal appearance are almost as nauseous as are the things written against him by Swift and Pope. Years have passed since Mr. Knight published the ardson. Mr. Knight has of course a fellow-feeling One of the pleasantest shadows is that of Richyouthful works of Praed and Macaulay; and he can now speak with all the authority of those years when with the bookseller of Salisbury Square and author he tells authors and publishers that if they under- of Clarissa. An interesting fact connected with his stood their mutual interests there would be little dis-works, and one of equal value in a bookselling as tinction between them; lean kine and fat kine would in a purely literary point of view, is that Pamela both flourish on the same pastures. Unfortunately sprang from a request made to Richardson by two there is little chance of this hope being realized. of his trade. "Two booksellers," he says, "my parBoth authors and publishers understand their own interests too well to think of each others' interests. There are of course some cases in which both have worked in concert, just as there are cases when the publisher has been of the greatest assistance to the • Shadows of the Old Booksellers. By CHARLES KNIGHT. little volume of letters in a common style, on such ticular friends, entreated me to write for them a subjects as might be of use to those country readers who were unable to indite for themselves. Will it be any harm,' said I, 'in a piece you want to be written so low, if we should instruct them how they should think and act in common cases, as well as indite? They were the more urgent with me to begin the little volume for this hint. I set about it, and in the progress of it wrote two or three letters to instruct handsome girls, who were obliged to go out to service, as we phrase it, how to avoid the snares that might be laid against their virtue. And hence sprung Pamela." And hence, too, sprang Joseph Andrews. A request from some booksellers for a polite letter-writer produced two such novels. Mr. Knight alludes briefly to the feud between Richardson and Fielding, and enters a passing protest against Thackeray's contemptuous mention of the "puny Cockney bookseller, pouring out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle." It is certainly some extenuation of Richardson's prejudices that he had been a kind and early friend to Fielding. He might have looked on Fielding's ridicule as deep ingratitude, while to Fielding's broader, heartier nature, such ridicule was perfectly legitimate. principles the booksellers would have been great admirers of Gibbon, the first volume of whose Decline and Fall passed through three editions in two years. Mr. Knight gives us the account presented to Gibbon by Messrs. Strahan and Cadell after the third edition. The expense of publication amounted to £310, the sale of one thousand copies to £ 800, and of the £490 of profit Gibbon received two thirds, namely, £ 326 13s. 4d., and the publishers the remainder. Hume's History was not so fortunate, and did not answer the bookseller's test so well as Gibbon's History. There were only forty-five copies sold in the first twelvemonth. Mr. Knight takes occasion from this to aim a rather misplaced and not more deserved hit at the Student's Hume, which may be "the cruellest of devices for assailing the reputation of Hume," as it corrects his inaccuracy, but is perhaps none the less useful to the student. The charms of Hume's style have never been disBut if on this occasion Richardson met with such puted, but style is not the first thing in history. If treatment at the hands of a brother author, he might Mr. Knight values it so highly he should have avoided have been consoled by the compliment another au- one or two blemishes in his own work, especially the thor paid him in his double capacity. Young wrote habit of always mentioning Johnson as "rolling," to him, "Suppose in the title-page of the Night"a gigantic figure, with a huge face scarred by disThoughts you should say, 'Published by the Author of Clarissa'?" Judging from another anecdote in Mr. Knight's volume, Young was by no means a blind worshipper of publishers. He was once in correspondence with both Tonson and Lintott about the printing of one of his works, and answering both their letters the same morning, he misdirected them both in his hurry. When Lintott opened the one that was addressed to him, he read, "That Bernard Lintott is so great a scoundrel—.” So far we have been considering what authors have said of publishers. But here is another side to the account, what publishers have said of authors. What Millar said of Johnson when he received the last sheet of the dictionary was, "Thank God, I have done with him!" Griffiths, the hard taskmaster of Goldsmith, accused that author of idleness, threatened him with a jail, and called him sharper and villain. Lintott's views on the subject of authors were clearly stated in his journey to Oxford with Pope. He thought Pope might translate the Odes of Horace in his leisure hours, but he was generally hard on translators, and shut the mouths of critics with a piece of beef and a slice of pudding. Translators, he said, were the saddest pack of rogues in the world; they would take up a Greek book and it was Hebrew; and would pretend to a knowledge of all the Patristic literature, when they could not tell in reality whether the Fathers lived before or after Christ. say Naturally enough a bookseller's judgment of any book turned on its success or failure. In an account of the Chapter Coffee-house and the booksellers who frequented it, quoted by Mr. Knight from the Connoisseur where George Colman began his literary career, we read that "the conversation turns upon the newest publications, but the criticisms are somewhat singular. When the booksellers say a good book, they do not mean to praise the style or sentiment, but the quick and extensive sale of it. A few nights ago I saw one of these gentlemen take up a sermon, and after seeming to peruse it for some time with great attention, he declared it was very good English. The reader will judge whether I was most surprised or diverted when I discovered that he was not commending the purity and elegance of the diction, but the beauty of the type which, it seems, is known among the printers by that appellation." On these ease, rolled into his shop,"—"a burly man was rolling along the labyrinth of dirty streets and alleys that then separated Oxford Market from Pall Mall,” One touch of this nature lights up a page, but the repetition of it has just the contrary effect. We do not wish to part from Mr. Knight on bad terms, as we owe him too many obligations for past works as well as for this collection of shadows. His pages abound in anecdote and illustration, and fill up clearly and pleasantly an important chapter in the annals of English literature. A NIGHT IN A WORKHOUSE. Ar about nine o'clock on the evening of Monday the-th instant, a neat but unpretentious carriage might have been seen turning cautiously from the Kennington-road into Princes-road, Lambeth. The curtains were closely drawn, and the coachman wore an unusually responsible air. Approaching a public house, which retreated a little from the street, he pulled up; but not so close that the lights should fall upon the carriage door, not so distant as to unsettle the mind of any one who chose to imagine that he had halted to drink beer before proceeding to call for the children at a juvenile party. He did not dismount, nor did any one alight in the usual way; but any keen observer who happened to watch his intelligent countenance might have seen a furtive glance directed to the wrong door,that is to say, to the door of the carriage which opened into the dark and muddy road. From that door emerged a sly and ruffianly figure, marked with every sign of squalor. He was dressed in what had once been a snuff-brown coat, but which had faded to the hue of bricks imperfectly baked. It was not strictly a ragged coat, though it had lost its cuffs, -a bereavement which obliged the wearer's arms to project through the sleeves two long inelegant inches. The coat altogether was too small, and was only made to meet over the chest by means of a bit of twine. This wretched garment was surmounted by a "bird's-eye" pocket-handkerchief of cotton, wisped about the throat hangman fashion; above all was a battered billy-cock hat, with a dissolute drooping brim. Between the neckerchief and the lowering brim of the hat appeared part of a face, unshaven, and not scrupulously clean. The man's hands were plunged into his pockets, and he shuffled hastily along in boots, which were the boots of a tramp indifferent to miry ways. In a moment he was out of sight, and the brougham, after waiting a little while, turned about and comfortably departed. This mysterious figure was that of the present writer. He was bound for Lambeth Workhouse, there to learn by actual experience how casual paupers are lodged and fed, and what the "casual" is like, and what the porter who admits him, and the master who rules over him; and how the night passes with the outcasts whom we have all seen crowding about workhouse doors on cold and rainy nights. Much has been said on the subject, on behalf of the paupers, on behalf of the officials; but nothing by any one who, with no motive but to learn and make known the truth, had ventured the experiment of passing a night in a workhouse and trying what it actually is to be a "casual." The day had been windy and chill, the night was cold; and therefore I fully expected to begin my experiences among a dozen of ragged wretches squatting about the steps and waiting for admission. But my only companion at the door was a decently dressed woman, whom, as I afterwards learnt, they declined to admit until she had recovered from a fit of intoxication from which she had the misfortune to be still suffering. I lifted the big knocker, and knocked; the door was promptly opened, and I entered. Just within, a comfortable-looking clerk sat at a comfortable desk, ledger before him. Indeed, the spacious hall in every way was as comfortable as cleanliness and great mats and plenty of gaslight I could make it. "What do you want?" asked the man who opened the door. "I want a lodging." "Come in," said Daddy, very hospitably. "There's enough of you to-night, anyhow! What made you so late?" "I did n't like to come in earlier." "Ah! that's a pity, now, because you've missed your skilley (gruel). It's the first night of skilley, don't you know, under the new Act?" "Just like my luck!" I muttered dolefully. The porter went his way, and I followed Daddy into another apartment, where were ranged three great baths, each one containing a liquid so disgustingly like weak mutton broth that my worst apprehensions crowded back. "Come on, there's a dry place to stand on up at this end," said Daddy, kindly. "Take off your clothes, tie 'em up in your hank'sher, and I'll lock 'em up till the morning." Accordingly I took off my coat and waistcoat, and was about to tie them together, when Daddy cried, "That ain't enough; I mean everything." "Not my shirt, sir, I suppose?" "Yes, shirt and all; but there, I'll lend you a shirt," said Daddy. "Whatever you take in of your own will be nailed, you know. You might take in your boots, though, they'd be handy if you happened to want to leave the shed for anything; but don't blame me if you lose 'em." With a fortitude for which I hope some day to be rewarded, I made up my bundle (boots and all), and the moment Daddy's face was turned away shut my eyes and plunged desperately into the mutton broth. I wish from the bottom of my heart my courage had been less hasty, for hearing the splash, Daddy looked round and said, "Lor, now! there was no occasion for that; you look a clean and decent sort of man. It's them filthy beggars" (only he used a word more specific than "filthy") "that want washing. Don't use that towel: here's a clean one! That's the sort! and now here's your "Go and stand before the desk," said the porter; shirt" (handing me a blue striped one from a heap), and I obeyed. "You are late," said the clerk. "Am I, sir?" "and here's your ticket. No. 34 you are, and a ticket to match is tied to your bundle. Mind you don't lose it. They 'll nail it from you if they get a "Yes. If you come in you'll have a bath, and chance. Put it under your head. This is your you'll have to sleep in the shed." "Very well, sir." "What's your name?" "Joshua Mason, sir." "What are you?" rug: take it with you." "Where am I to sleep, please, sir? "I'll show you." " And so he did. With no other rag but the checked shirt to cover me, and with my rug over "An engraver." (This taradiddle I invented to my shoulder, he accompanied me to the door at account for the look of my hands.) Where did you sleep last night?" "Hammersmith," I answered forgiven. which I entered, and, opening it, kept me standing with naked feet on the stone threshold, full in the as I hope to be draught of the frosty air, while he pointed out the way I should go. It was not a long way, but I would have given much not to have trodden it. It was open as the highway,—with flag-stones below "How many times have you been here?" "Never before, sir." "Where do you mean to go to when you are and the stars overhead, and, as I said before, and turned out in the morning?" Back to Hammersmith, sir." These humble answers being entered in a book, the clerk called to the porter, saying, "Take him through. You may as well take his bread with you." cannot help saying again, a frosty wind was blowing. "Straight across," said Daddy, "to where you see the light shining through. Go in there, and turn to the left, and you'll find the beds in a heap. Take one of 'em and make yourself comfortable." And straight across I went, my naked feet seeming to cling to the stones as though they were burning hot instead of icy cold (they had just stepped out of a bath you should remember), till I reached the space through which the light was shining, and I entered in. Near the clerk stood a basket containing some pieces of bread of equal size. Taking one of these, and unhitching a bunch of keys from the wall, the porter led me through some passages all so scrupulously clean that my most serious misgivings were laid to rest. Then we passed into a dismal yard. Crossing this, my guide led me to a door, calling No language with which I am acquainted is caout, "Hillo! Daddy, I've brought you another! pable of conveying an adequate conception of the Whereupon Daddy opened unto us, and let a little spectacle I then encountered. Imagine a space of of his gaslight stream into the dark where we stood. | about thirty feet by thirty feet enclosed on three sides you see! Now lay down, and cover your rug over There was no help for it. It was too late to go back. Down I lay, and spread the rug over me. I should have mentioned that I brought in with me a cotton handkerchief, and this I tied round my head by way of a nightcap; but not daring to pull the rug as high as my face. Before I could in any way settle my mind to reflection, in came Daddy once more to do me a further kindness and point out a stupid blunder I had committed. by a dingy whitewashed wall, and roofed with naked | bigger than a man's hand! I did not know what to tiles, which were furred with the damp and filth that do now. To lie on such a horrid thing seemed imreeked within. As for the fourth side of the shed, possible; yet to carry back the bed and exchange it it was boarded in for (say) a third of its breadth; for another might betray a degree of fastidiousness the remaining space being hung with flimsy canvas, repugnant to the feelings of my fellow-lodgers, and in which was a gap two feet wide at top, widening to possibly excite suspicion that I was not what I at least four feet at bottom. This far too airy shed seemed. Just in the nick of time in came that was paved with stone, the flags so thickly incrusted good man Daddy. with filth that I mistook it first for a floor of natural "What! not pitched yet?" he exclaimed; "here, earth. Extending from one end of my bedroom to I'll show you. Hallo! somebody's been a bleedin'! the other, in three rows, were certain iron "cranks" | Never mind; let's turn him over. There you are, (of which I subsequently learnt the use), with their many arms raised in various attitudes, as the stif-you." fened arms of men are on a battle-field. My bedfellows lay among the cranks, distributed over the flagstones in a double row, on narrow bags scantily stuffed with hay. At one glance my appalled vision took in thirty of them, thirty men and boys stretched upon shallow pallets, with but only six inches of comfortable hay between them and the stony floor. These beds were placed close together, every occupant being provided with a rug like that which I was fain to hug across my shoulders. In not a few cases two gentlemen had clubbed beds and rugs and slept together. In one case (to be further mentioned presently) four gentlemen had so clubbed together. Many of my fellow-casuals were awake,-others asleep or pretending to sleep; and, shocking as were the waking ones to look upon, they were quite pleasant when compared with the sleepers. For this reason, the practised and wellseasoned casual seems to have a peculiar way of putting himself to bed. He rolls himself in his rug, tucking himself in, head and feet, so that he is completely enveloped; and, lying quite still on his pallet, he looks precisely like a corpse covered because of its hideousness. Some were stretched out at full length; some lay nose and knees together; some with an arm or a leg showing crooked through the coverlet. It was like the result of a railway accident; these ghastly figures were awaiting the coroner. "Why, you are a rummy chap!" said Daddy. "You forgot your bread! Lay hold. And look here, I've brought you another rug; it's perishing cold to-night." So saying, he spread the rug over my legs and went away. I was very thankful for the extra covering, but I was in a dilemma about the bread. I could n't possibly eat it; what then was to be done with it? I broke it, however, and in view of such of the company as might happen to be looking made a ferocious bite at a bit as large as a bean, and munched violently. By good luck, however, I presently got half-way over my difficulty very neatly. Just behind me, so close indeed that their feet came within half a yard of my head, three lads were sleeping together. "Did you hear that, Punch? one of them "Ear what?" answered Punch, sleepy and snap asked. pish. แ Why, a cove forgot his toke! Gordstruth! you would n't ketch me a forgettin' mine." dirty hands. From the moral point of view, however, the wakeful ones were more dreadful still. Towzled, dirty, "You may have half of it, old pal, if you're villanous, they squatted up in their beds, and smoked hungry," I observed, leaning up on my elbows. foul pipes, and sang snatches of horrible songs, and "Chuck it here, good luck to yer!" replied my bandied jokes so obscene as to be absolutely appall-young friend, starting up with an eager clap of his ing. Eight or ten were so enjoying themselves, the majority with the check shirt on, and the frowsy rug pulled about their legs; but two or three wore no shirts at all, squatting naked to the waist, their bodies fully exposed in the light of the single flaring jet of gas fixed high up on the wall. as he was 66 My entrance excited very little attention. There was a horse-pail three parts full of water standing by a post in the middle of the shed, with a little tin pot beside it. Addressing me as "old pal," one of the naked ruffians begged me to "hand him a swig," werry nigh garspin." Such an appeal of course no "old pal" could withstand, and I gave him a potful of water. He showed himself grateful for the attention. "I should lay over there, if I was you," he said, pointing to the left side of the shed; "it's more out of the wind than this 'ere side is." I took the good-natured advice, and (by this time shivering with cold) stepped over the stones to where the beds of straw bags were heaped, and dragged one of them to the spot suggested by my naked comrade. But I had no more idea of how to arrange it than of making an apple-pudding; and a certain little discovery added much to my embarrassment. In the middle of the bed I had selected was a stain of blood | I"chucked it here," and, slipping the other half under the side of my bed, lay my head on my folded arms. It was about half past nine when, having made myself as comfortable as circumstances permitted, I closed my eyes in the desperate hope that I might fall asleep, and so escape from the horrors with which I was surrounded. "At seven to-morrow morning the bell will ring," Daddy had informed me, " and then you will give up your ticket and get back your bundle." Between that time and the present full nine long hours had to wear away. But I was speedily convinced that, at least for the present, sleep was impossible. The young fellow (one of the three who lay in one bed, with their feet to my head) whom my bread had refreshed, presently swore with frightful imprecations that he was now going to have a smoke; and immediately put his threat into execution. Thereupon his bedfellows sat up and lit their pipes too. But oh! if they had only smoked, if they had not taken such, an unfortunate fancy to spit at the leg of a crank distant a few inches from my head, how much misery and apprehension would have been spared |