The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-26 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Household Words Almanac.
Everything Charles Dickens has adventured upon
in connection with his popular weekly print of
Household Words has succeeded, up to this time,
to admiration. As a periodical, Household Words
itself has acquired, and, let us add, most deservedly
acquired, a very high reputation. Insomuch that
its circulation from the outset has been what the
Dominic in " Guy Mannering" would have defined
as Pro-digious ! Nearly twelve volumes are already
ranged in goodly order upon the bookshelves of
many a household not possessing anything at all
entitled to the dignity of being defined as a library :
and yet collecting together in numbers from week
to week, in parts from month to month, in volumes
from half-year to half-year a workrepletefor the most
part in a remarkable degree with valuable instruc-
tion and delightful entertainment. Then, again,
the earliest offshoot of the original publication, the
_Household Narrative of current events, is pretty
generally recognised by this time, we conjecture,
as about the most succinct, and well-digested, and
scrupulously authenticated epitome of passing
occurrences offered as yet to the public at large as
the periodical accumulation of the materials of con-
temporary history. Christmas after Christmas,
too, have we not had, in the form of an ample
threepenny supplement, such a batch of seasonable
stories far the winter fireside as sounded no less
pleasantly in the ears of young and old than the
crackling of a yule log, or the bubbling of a was-
sail-bowl, or the sputtering of roasting chesnuts,
or the wild sough of the night wind drifting the
sleet against the window-panes outside and rum-
bling with a reminder of in-door comfort down the
throttle of the broad old chimney. Finally, we
have before us, in connection with Household
Words, another perfectly novel enterprise in its
way—a sort of model Almanac for the year one
thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, being "Leap
Year," as all the young ladies in the land should
take particular attention to remember ! House-
hold Words Almanac it is called—though it might
for that matter have been designated with perfect
accuracy the very Almanac of Almanacs. Four-
pence is the price of it. Twenty-seven pages com-
prise the whole store of its motley and manifold
information. Its motto is reverently— " 0 ye
nights and days, bless ye the Lord : Praise him
and magnify him forever!" It has a calendar as a
matter of course for each month in due sequence—
but a calendar relating to nature instead of to
society. A calendar that tells off like beads upon a
rosary the memorable and noteworthy events of bo-
tany and ornithology—reminding us of the day, for
instance, when the leaves of the Goat's Leaf Honey-
suckle first opens, or that again upon which the
song of the missel thrush becomes first audible.
Besides which there are estimable notes prefixed
to each quarter. Hear how these are written, for
example, in illustration of the winter, and not only
of the winter, but of the solar system, and not
only of that, but of the stupendous and compli-
cated mechanism of the heavens. Firstly, there-
fore, having remarked that " the length of day is
determined by both movements of the earth," and
that " out of the varying proportion between day
and night arise the seasons"—the Almanac ob-
serves :

"The earth runs, in three hundred and sixty-five
days and about a quarter, through a circle, in the centre
of which stands the sun, and while so doing it turns
round upon itself once in every twenty-four hours—
every day. These are its two movements. The three
hundred and sixty-five days and about a quarter make
of course the year, but the quarters of days are not
counted until they make one complete. Thus, with ex-
ceptions afterwards to be explained, a day comes to be
added (in February) to every fourth year, which is called
a Leap Year. This year 1.56 is a Leap Year."
Adding immediately afterwards :
" The Moon is the earth's partner in the waltz about
the sun, and whirls between 12 and 13 times in a circle
round us—making so many lunar months—while the
great circuit of the earth through its whole orbit is being
made. Twenty-nine days, twelve hours, and forty-four
minutes is the true period of every such revolution.
The division of the year into months is of the Moon's
suggesting, but an artificial means of dividing it into
twelve months of unequal length has been found most
convenient. A rude division of the lunar month into
four quarters gave, probably, to most nations, the week
of seven days. Sometimes in the course of the waltz,
the moon happens to come more or less between some
part of her partner and the central light. There is then,
for that of the earth, a partial eclipse of the sun. Some-
times the earth gets between sun and moon, throwing
upon the moon her shadow more or less. There is thea
a total or a partial eclipse of the moon. In this year
1166 onlyone eclipse is visible in England, and that a
partial but considerable eclipse of the moon, which will
happen on the 13th of October.
Remarking in conoNsion

"The earth on which we live is one of a small num-
ber of stars, the rest of which we know by sight as
planets, which at different distances and rates travel as
we do in a circle round the sun. The Sun is a solid
body, distant from the earth ninety-five millions of miles,
and is to in size as a globe two feet thick is to a pea.
The sunlight proceeds from an atmosphere which hides
the substance of the sun itself, though waves in it pro-
duce breaks that are seen as shifting spots, sometimes in
fact forty-five thousand miles across and varying a thou-
sand miles a day. The sun is a fixed star rotating on it-
self. Of the side of the moon which is turned always
towards us, how much we see depends upo❑ the part of
it that lies at any time in sunshine. Its sunlight is our
moonlight. It contains lofty volcanoes, but no air or
water. Except the few planets of our system all the
stars we see are suns ; with unseen planets like our own,
no doubt enlightened by them. And the suns, also, lie
in groups. Of such groups we see almost infinitely dis-
tant as faint cloudlets of light. But in our own firma-
ment the stars visible to us all are only those of our own
cloudlet. This cloudlet is proportioned like a dish, and we
are stationed i❑ about the middle of its thickness. When,
therefore, we look through it edgewise it seems to us
like a baud crowded with stars, and it is called by us
the milky way. Of these stars many are so distant that
the light, which travels from them at the rate of
11,520,000 miles a minute, takes three or four years to
reach us."

In addition to which departments of the alma-
nac, astronomical and otherwise, there are others
of a more miscellaneous character not yet particu-
larised. There is a very useful one under the hod
of "Serviceable Information," giving hints in re-
gard to " The Care of Health," in reference to
" The Choice of Food," in allusion to " Sleep,"
in the matter of " Exercise," together with sug-
gestions as to " The Rearing of Children," as to
" Unhealthiness in Trades," as to " Sick-room.
Duties," as to "Air, Water, and Light," as to" Do-
mestic Medicine," and " Domestic Surgery"7-in fact
"wrinkles" de omnibus rebus, including a list, ines-
timable in its way, of " Counterpoisons.' There
is another division of the Almanac, entitled
" Chronicle of Progress"—wonderfully suggestive
of its kind—supplemented by a series of curious
anecdotes, headed " A Hundred Years Ago."
Finally, there are, to crown all, tables, postal and
monetary, upon the subject of income or wages,
explanatory of the duration of daylight, of the
value of foreign coins as compared with the
English metallic money now in circulation, et
cetera, et cetera ! The whole is an astonishing re-
pertory of facts and figures that would have been
dear to the heart of Thomas Gradgrind. The
Almanac will be acceptable, however, to others
of a very different genus, to those numerous
readers of Household Words, who may bo pre-
sumed to love not merely these worldly stores of
facts and figures, but with them and through them
the glory of the awfal universe.

One Hundred Hymns : For Bagged Schools. Se-
looted by a Superintendent. Second Edition.
W. H. Miller.
Beyond all doubt the very best
s
f
" Hymns" as yet brought (to our knowledge)eciwonitho!
in reach of the numerous and happi
Hitherto
class of our Ragged School Teachee been either
rs•
ii ncreasi g
n
the generality of Hymn Books have
too childish, too expensive, or too voluminous. To
all this tho little pocket volumep. It is, all
before us is a
most welcome and decided
exception.
things considered,
as
twopence each copy, or !chc tweap as cheap can be—
ave shillings" a hun-
dred. It is, besides this, so admirably well com-
pacted as scarcely to exceed by a grain or two half
.. _
an ounce in weight, its diminutive size admitting
nevertheless of exachoiceafford-
ingconjecture,ctly a centenary of hymns,
consequently, ample'
we may
toh most fastidious. Added twhich enough even to
.o
every way singeniously
. adapted
the contents are in
h ols th
as he are that to the Ragged Sc 0 , at every verse
in the book may be sung with equal fitness by
little children of five and six, and by elder boys
and girls of fifteen or sixteen. We are not aware
of there being any other work precisely of this
character. It seems to us altogether without any
competitor. We are not at all, surprised, there-
fore, to findit already in a second edition—and
shall be right [glad to witness its advance very
rapidly to the honours of a twenty-second
edition. For the little volume appears to us
to be altogether so good, so cheap, so wisely
adapted to its modest but lofty purpose, and so
eminently calculated to sow germs of beauty and
truth in the minds of our poor, ragged, ignorant
children-from-the-streets, that we cannot but re-
joice at heart over the mere-thought of its multi-
plication before long by thousands and thousands.
A hundred hymns selected from sacr d-s og
writers as famous and as popular as Watts,
and
Wesley, and Taylor, and Cowper,
children
might well be
hailed as a prize for our ragged schoole expenditure
worth winning for them by the
of considerably more than
a few halfpence.
Yet at such a merely nominal cost may.
this charming little hymn-book be placed in
d many a poor
the hands of many an