crime, folded up the paper, and with a "Richard Elkins! through your "It is, Sir!" I therefore, consider it my duty to punish you, as an example to the rest of the crew; and much do I regret that one who is in every respect so deserving a man, should have incurred so severe a penalty.-Strip, Sir !" 'making; and he again set to plying his hammer with redoubled assiduity. Whatever investigations the captain had instituted, with regard to the individual with whom the fire had originated, the result was totally unknown except to the parties concerned. That due enquiry had been made, how ever, we all felt quite assured; for the crime was one of a very serious nature, and not likely to be overlooked by so strict a disciplinarian as Captain Morley. Nay, when the systematic arrangement of everything on board, and the correct information the captain usually had of whatever passed in the ship, was considered, it seemed extremely probable that the guilty person had been detected. It was not, therefore, matter of astonishment to myself or any one else, when at six bells in the forenoon, all hands were turned up for punishment. In the fore-part of the quarter-deck stood Captain Morley, dressed in full uniform, holding a folded paper in his hand, apparently the articles of war. Near him were the different officers, in cocked-hats and sidearms; and a little farther removed, the men. All was now anxiety as to the culprit; and there was a general murmur of regret and surprise, when Richard Elkins, the boatswain's yeoman, was called forward and committed to the custody of the master-at-arms. If there was one man on board the Hesperus a greater and more general favourite than another, it was Elkins. Civil and obliging to his superiors, kind and friendly to his equals, an excellent seaman, and always ready at the call of duty, he was respected and beloved both by officers and men. During the war he had been engaged The boatswain had taken off his in the hottest of the fray, and bore many honourable wounds in testimony coat, preparatory to giving the first of his gallantry. Repeatedly had he dozen-the cat was ready in his hand led the van of his comrades in board--the stiff figure of the master-at-arms ing the enemy;-twice had he, by his stood by, prepared to record the prowess, and at great personal risk, stripes, and the captain paced to and fro upon the deck, chucking into the saved the life of an officer; and on one occasion he swam to the admiral with air a small bunch of keys-his common despatches when the iron shower of practice when he was agitated. After balls and grape fell so thick that no making several turns of the quarterdeck, he at length stopped, and every boat could be trusted on the water. one expected that he was about to For a give the signal to commence. moment he stood gazing on the culprit; The captain, having read before an uncovered audience, the clause in the articles of war which related to the Without a syllable in his own defence, or a single plea for mercy, he took off his coat and shirt, and his brawny wrists were tied to the gratings. One only appeal he made, but not in words; it was merely an expressive glance of his eye, by which he seemed to request the intercession of his officers and comrades. The benevolent commander marked that glance, and it was reflected back from his own countenance, as if he wished to second the appeal. But in vain; no spoke, for all knew that the offence was too heinous to be forgiven. Four o'clock, p. m. one VOL. III. 21 it was an interval of the most anxious sus- meet that I should now forgive you. Pipe down, Mr. Parsons!" Three rounds of such hearty cheers, as made the timbers of the Old Hesperus ring again, succeeded this short, but truly eloquent address; and I believe I was not the only one on board who envied our noble-minded commander the grateful applause of the seer within his own breast-an applause which, certainly, he must have that day experienced. Unbind him. THE EVENING WIND. I come, I come, from the isles of bloom, O'er the billows I rush in my stormy pride, I pass through the woods with a gentle sigh, Onward I sweep past the mouldering halls O'er the pilgrim I breathe as he kneels once more And his young heart bounds with a rapture free, R. C. W. THE SIXPENNY MANIFESTO. The low priced periodicals of the past year, put forth by Mr. Knight of London, under the patronage of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, have been wound up by a supplementary vindication of ministerial policy, in the shape of a larger number of the Companion to the Newspaper, which purports to be a political retrospect of the year 1833. Those who concur in the prevalent opinion that lowness of price ensures proportionate circulation among the poorer classes, and that a penny broad sheet searches the frame of society more effectually than a shilling pamphlet, would be disposed to arraign the policy which makes this little publication a rather dearer purchase than most others of the cheap family to which it belongs. We consider this rule of descent of circulation in the inverse ratio of price, a fallacy; for we know from observation that the Penny Magazine and the Six-shilling Review exert their main influence on the same parties; and see nothing, in the increased price of the sixpenny supplement, to prevent it following its twopenny predecessors to the tables of men who would willingly expend almost any sum demanded for corroboration of their peculiar views, and encouragement in the prosecution of them. When we say that we have observed the high and low priced vehicles of Whig opinion exercise their main influence together, we would not be understood to assert that wherever the Penny Magazine penetrates, there also may be found the Times and the Edinburgh Review; but we would express our conviction, that below the level of the latter's circulation, the former, with all its train of petty coadjutors, is of little or no effect. The dogma, that knowledge of any kind is directly conducive to the formation of what are termed liberal sentiments, in the lower orders, seems to be entertained as an undisputed axiom by a great portion of the most influential part of the community. Before proceeding farther, we must endeavour to justify our dissent from this doctrine, and to show cause for the opinion we again express, namely, that the tone of liberal moderation sought to be imparted to the mass of the people, by the cheap publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, is neither caught nor sought for, below the already existing boundary of Whig sentiment, in the middle classes. One great drawback on the efficiency of the whole plan is, that the Penny Magazine, the intellectual pioneer which is to clear the way of the march, and establish an open basis for the main political operation of the economists, is pushed into its present advanced position by means which are dishonest, derived from sources which must soon become exhausted. It is circulated by underselling the works it plagiarises; it derives its interest from the plagiarism of that only which is popularly agreeable in each. It is vain to expect the communication of useful knowlege to any extent by such a system. Respectable works are discouraged. The fountainhead of the supply is choked up by the dabblers in the stream. Besides, science is grave, contemplative, difficult of intimate access, offers no approach to her best stores but through a tedious and severe probation, and will not long supply materials of meretricious interest to those, who, although they plunder with impunity her legitimate votaries, can only turn the fruits of their rapacity to profitable account so far as they may chance to hit the fancy of their ignorant abettors. But let us leave the dishonesty and instability of the Penny Magazine's resources to able hands already occupied with their exposure, and proceed, not to dispute the axiom that "knowledge is power," supposing knowledge to be imparted, but to join issue with the dogma that the "smattering of heterogeneous knowledge administered by the publications of Mr. Knight, is conducive to the formation of liberal sentiment among the lower orders." Were we to examine the manifesto of the society, whose object is to create this sentiment, for a definition of it, we should say that liberal sentiment is approbation of ministerial measures, of the whole of ministerial measures, and of nothing but ministerial measures. It is liberal sentiment to wrest the representation of Old Sarum out of the hands of a Tory, and to consign that of Huddersfield into the hands of a Whig. It is liberal sentiment to sympathise with the assailed rioters on Manchester Green, and to denounce the same parties on Coldbath Fields. It is liberal sentiment to cry "agitate, agitate, agitate," and with the same breath to proclaim martial law for agitation. It is liberal sentiment to cog, to shuffle, to prevaricate, to dupe and be duped, to bully and be bullied. It is the perfection of liberal sentiment to be a ministerial Whig. We shall not be required to exonerate the Penny Magazine from the imputation of clearing away the obstacles opposed to the developement of such a plan of operations. We must seek another definition of liberal sentiment, not from the practice of Earl Grey's ministry, but from the theory of Earl Grey's principles. Liberal sentiment, then, is unshaken allegiance to the three estates, and investment of all ultimate authority, to the manifest nullifying of two of those estates, in the commons-preservation of the dignity of crown, mitre, and coronet, and prostration of crown, mitre, and coronet, to the bonnet rouge-maintenance of order, and invitation of anarchy-moderation in profession, and recklessness in practice. This also is contradiction, and the Penny Magazine would be little complimented by being excused from the charge of preparing the people's minds for the entertainment of such incongruous crotchets. It is vain to seek a definition from the actions or professions of men who dare not demonstrate, either by word or deed, what they really seek to accomplish. But we all know what liberal sentiment ought to be, and this is enough. Men who are selfish, ignorant, and either stupidly satisfied with an unworthy condition, or madly covetous of a condition incompatible with what reason and experience pronounce a right state of things, should be disinterested, enlightened, contented with that elevation which they are worthy to attain, and vigilant to preserve whatever order justice and expediency may ultimately sanction as established. desired to the means proposed, from It is a startling leap from the end the liberal sentiment of a nation of philosophers to the Penny Magazine and the Companion to the Newspaper. Yet these little instruments tion of the public as no inconsiderable are looked upon by a respectable portools in the great work. It is hardly possible to divest the subject of an air of ludicrousness when it presents itself thus contrasted in its parts: but we would not take advantage of a casual open to ridicule, in that which we conceive to be a gravely injurious fallacy. That men can be prepared for imbibing liberal sentiment by confusion of ideas, dissipation of mind, and undue confidence in their competency to all things, is, we believe, at once admitted an absurdity, effects of mere instruction in the poThat those are the pular parts of the Cyclopedia, we are far from assuming: for, although we believe that the power of a little learning, ill-digested, and irregularly administered, gether, inefficient for good, still we very nearly, if not altothink this better than the total inertia of ignorance, and say to the venders of cheap knowledge, get it and give it by all honest means, but do not do evil that this, which is hardly a positive good, may come of it. If you cannot come honestly by the baubles which either do without them, or come and you throw to the people, let the people seek the real treasures, in connexion with which only they cease to be baubles, by the legitimate path of unambitious study. the questionable good of a little learnBut to the point: that which makes reason, and inflates the pride of the ing a positive evil, which dissipates the penny scholar, is the allurement to purchase continually held out, in the understanding between master and pupil, that the multifarious lesson is qualification sufficient for the degree of political philosopher. The Penny Magazine evades the stamp duty by avoiding the discussion of all matters immediately touching church and state; but it omits that they are preparing themselves in no opportunity of assuring its readers the best way to deal fitly with those 1834.] The Sixpenny Manifesto. institutions, by enlightenment on the subjects it professes to discuss. Every number is an insurance policy of legislatorial capacity, a pledge of future power. But the confidence begotten by this infallible dispensation overreaches the design of the very men who extend it to the public. The possessors of the penny policy want no man's help in forming their own notions of politics. Hence it is that the Penny Magazine outstrips so far its intended coadjutor the Companion to the Newspaper, a halting politician, despised by the arrogant idolators of the Palladium. We shall not be required to prove that it must be the reverse of liberal sentiment which rejects the Companion; yet it is a fact, that the Companion is rejected by those who have now for a year back had the Magazine, and rejected, too, for the sake of such competitors as the Crisis and the Gauntlet. But even the Penny Magazine, with all its meretricious and ill-acquired attractions, makes but a feeble inroad on the class who totally abjure the Companion. It may reach the work-table of the city milliner, or the suburban tailor's lapboard; but it falls far short of the slopped counter of the pot-house, or the dusty window sole of the grimed artizan's garret. There lie the Satirist, the Movement, the Poor Man's Guardian, Taylor's Atheistic Tracts; or 's Proposals for an Agrarian Law. Impatient hatred of all existing institutions, savage longing for the advent of anarchy, glorying infidelity, that showers equal contempt upon the Deism of Paine and the Christianity of Paley these are not the characteristics of liberal sentiment; yet these exist here in vigour undiminished by the vicinity of the Penny Magazine. That it and the other members of the cheap family exert an influence on the better classes, we admit; but it is an influence of mere corroboration, not of any directing or Even here the modifying efficacy. miscalled Companion is left behind by its intended associates. The range of the first floor is refused to an intruder of so uninviting an pect; and the companionless Companion has to carry the whole economy of its definitions, postulates, and vindicatory demonstrations, to the solitary study of the already formed but still anxious politician. He who can afford as 255 to devote his time and attention to the But whatever sordidness or dishonesty |