The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 19, 1864.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

" THE SPECTATOR" WITH A BEE IN ITS BON-
NET!—A man must be very blind, very incapable
of the most ordinary generalisation, who does not
see that bees stand morally and politically to many
flies and other insects much in the relation of man
to apes and other savages. Or, if you please (be-
cause we do not pretend to settle the details of the
analogy, we only stipulate for it in the gross), that
the bee, the wasp, the hornet, the humble-bee, may
stand for the various civilised communities of man
ou the globe, as compared with sundry flies, w hich
as the lowest savages and apes, live in motley
groups, very busily and jollily perhaps, but without
appreciable organisation. Let the bees stand for
England, then the big and distant hornet will do
for Russia, and the flighty, graceful, omnipresent,
marauding wasp for France. Germany will be the
busy, buzzing, rustic, yet fierce, little humble bee,
and so on. Or shall the bedizened wasp stand for the
bedizened banditti of the Apennines or Pyrenees ?
Any how the main analogy is patent—it is not
superficial—it lies in the heart of the matter. Has
man a language? So have the bees, as we shall
show on good authority. Has man an art and a
science ? So have the bees. Does he transmit his
ideas ? The bees do likewise. To repeat the quo-
tation from Shakspere made by an accurate student
of bees :

" So work the honey-tees
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like, merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make booties on the summer's velvet buds,
Which pillage they with every march bring home
To the tent royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesties, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizen kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate ;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy, yawning drone."
Theta lines, so magnificently true, we quo`e almost
with regret, their substantial truth having a ten-
dency to invest them with the air not of absolute
truth but of ingenious parallelism. But let us for
a moment imagine the condition of man and the bees
reversed. Suppose man were the size of the bee and
the bee the size of the man, would the diminished
size of man affect the worth of his intellectual and
moral ideas in themselves? Even as he is what is
he seen from a balloon? What is he seen from the
moon ? A vast deal less than the bee actually is to
us seen through the glass of our own relative mag.
nitude. Yet is he as thus seen less noble in reason,
less infinite in faculties, lees admirable and express
in form and moving, less in action like an angel, in
apprehension less like a god, the beauty of the world,
the paragon of animals ? Surely not. And if some
Hamlet of a bee chose to speak of bees as Hamlet
spoke of man, though we might perhaps smile, we
certainly could not object, seeing that Shak-
spere, who created Hamlet, gives the bees in
the lines we quoted above every right to think as
much of themselves, as man of himself. And all
this is still only relatively. The consequences of
the inversion of size, if looked at positively and
economically, aro equally if not more striking. Our
size adds not a jot to the worth of our ideas and
feelings in the scheme of the world. But it adds
just everything to our weight and influence on our
own globe. If the bee had been the size of man
and man the size of the bee, man would certainly
not have been master of the globe. Sir John Hers-
chel indeed in his introduction to the study of
natural philosophy speaks very eloquently of the
defencelessness of man. But the truth is that in
the savage state man is beyond comparison the most
ferocious, adding colder purpose to ferocity, among
animals. Babies are defenceless, of coarse, but so
are whelp, so are larvae. Supposing the bee to be
the size of man, she would have reigned mistress of
the globe far more supremely than we could ever
pretend to. What can a savage do in beauty and
delicacy at all comparable with the work of the
bee ? What is hie best armour to the terrible
dagger which is part of her very frame, what
are his tools compared to the carpenter's mut
turn in parvo which she carries about her ?
Endowed with flight too, who can tell
tier dunces of conflict with the powers
of nature? What chance would the elephant or
rhinoceros stand against a winged warrior that
could settle at will on his beck, stab him behind,
and devour him before ? And if the bee builds as
an insect, in ivory and gold, and lives upon nectar,
what would she have built had she been unques-
tioned mistress of the earth, skipping rivers with
easy flight, surveying countries as from a balloon,
perhaps able to fly with ease across the ocean, cer•
tainly able to tear up the bowels of the earth with
her own naked strength in a manner to astonish the
most herculean navvy, and taught by dominion,
spurred by growing ambition, and aided by flight—
to supplement her already prodigious strength by
constructions and engineering devices of which we
in our rudeness have no conception? Bat it will be
said these suppositions are idle. They are not, and
therefore they cannot be. They are not, certainly
not within our experience. That they cannot be,
that they are not on some other globe, for instance,
is what a man must be a bold man to affirm. What
is it that prevents the bee being bigger here ? It
may be acme constituent in the atmosphere so
minute on this globe as to prevent the insects who
depend upon it from growing any larger. Horses
feeding on one soil go to bone, on another to fn sh.
May not globes, alike in the main, yet by a minute
inversion in the proportion of the gases, for
instance, change the whole relations between
the order of the animal kingdom, assuming
those orders to be, as they may very well be on
many globes, substantially alike ? Suppose a
globe, for instance, in which that substance or
those conditions, whatever they are (are they
known ?) which give flies, and bees, and other in-
sects, their dark metallic hues, should be greatly in
the ascendant, is it inconceivable that on that globe
the entomological should be and would be the su-
preme Order, trampling on two-legged fearfully
and wonderfully made diitinutive creatures, as we
trample on the flies and insects here ? That the bee
is wonderfully made is certain. Her nervoas sys-
tem is apparently far more intricate than ours. And
physiologists know the whole consequences of that
one tingle fact. We have said that it is demons..
trable, let us say all but demonstrable, that bees
have a language, and of course a memory. Dr.
Bevan mentions the following anecdote: "A colony
had been attacked in 1804 by the sphinx (moth) and
suffered through too tardy preparations. In ISO 7
the moth reappeared, when the bees immediately
constructed fresh spamparts. Now, working bees do
not live more than a year at the outside." We need
not follow Mr. Wood, and specify the consequence.
Again, it is clear that they have not instinct merely
but reason. Instinct can only mean the stereotyped
acts under stereotyped circumstances. If the adap-
tation of means, however clumsy, to ever shifting
circumstances can be called instinct, then all we
can say is that man's instinct transcends the in-
stinct of animals only in degree. If not, then ani-
mals and insects, in whatever degree, give demons-
trable proofs of reason. Take the following
instances :—Quoting again from Dr. Bevan, Mr.
Wood says, "Avery striking illustration of the ream
coning power of bees occurred to my friend Mr.
Walond. Inspecting his bee boxes at the end of
October, 1817, he perceived that a centre comb,
burdened with honey, had separated from
its attachments, and was leaning against an-
other comb, so as to prevent the passage of the
bees between them. This accident excited great
activitytsahtirinudced to
in the colony, but its nature could not be
ascertained at the time." " At the end of a week,"
Mr.
e bees Woodthroughclustered
th e win
ddo continues,w o‘
f'
together,tt hheeboa weatherxr .tva nnt
e dyg coldb at
nobserved.
con-
structed
hhoraizdornetmalnyped
illasrosmbeutewheeonf thethe combs
and wax from the top of each as to allow the pas-
sage
uninterruptedof a bee ;
ti
hn
oabouth
ft
ne
tne
,d at yhse moree thhe me e
combw:s an
t
its upper part had been secured by a strong barrier
and fastened to the window with the spare wax.
'nil being accomplished the bees removed the hori-
zontal pillars first constructed as being of no further
use." Will anybody after reading this deny that
bees have reason and science ? Is science less science
for la-ing implicit, i e., involved in spontaneous but
reflective and adaptive action, and not explicitly
laid down in books ? If every Englishman were a
Stephenson and every woman a Brunel, and we had
no encyclor re lia of engineering, because we wanted
none, should wo not laugh at those who said that
we, poor things, had only instinct not reason ?
Have we not our own jokes against the" bookish ?"
It humanity were perfect there could be r,o books
Are the bees less perfect because they accomplish
great feats of engineering, regard being had to Their
size, which are quite equal to cur own limier ordi-

nary circumstances ? Ordinary circumstances !
Show me the English child who will build a per-
fect, practically perfect, hexegon, and alter it to
suit circumstances ! Why such an ordinary degree
of education in the children of our shires would
be deemed visionary, impracticable, the dream of
an enthusiast! The bees have it, and we the
wonderful say, " Pooh ! you have only instinct,
it is nothing in you. 011ie me instinct, and
I could do the same." "Instinct !" says
the bee, "nonsense! So when a central comb
gets detached, which in proportion to me is as big
as your clumsy houses in proportion to you, and I
support it by pillars and alter it to suit circum-
stances, you call that instinct, do you ? Pray what
do you call it in your engineer who built a tubular
bridge over some straits or other of yours with his
naked eye, and boasted his ignorance of mathe-
matics ? Had he only instinct ? ' But the instances
we quote are the veriest fragment of the evidence,
which demonstrates as clearly as the sun in heaven
that the bees are an organised polity, a civilised
community, differing from us no doubt more than
Turks or Chinamen from Christians, but bound
together by ties of language, experience, affection,
common aims, in a word all, perhaps even more
than all, the ties wherewith we are bound together.
Pray if the bees were our size and we theirs, what
would they think of U 3 ? Our language they would
describe as a hum, our finest flights of eloquence as
a rather louder hum than usual. our music as comi-
cal chirping, our books as curious scraps of industry,
to serve, as far as they could see, curiously base uses,
our houses us showing a very incomplete sense of
symmetry, our relations to one another as being
almost incomprehensible, and excepting in the one
cardinal fact that, with the exception of one or two
varieties of the insect man, one male went with one
female, all other relations as below the pains of a
bee of the world to understand. Perhaps some poor
eccentric bee might waste her precious life and die
in a garret in the attempt to fathom the useless
mystery of that:pretty and curious little two-legged
and two-handed insect man ; but the vacation of
the public-minded bee would bid her attend to very
much higher matters.
THE " SATURDAY REVIEW' ON MEN CONSI-
DERED AS ANIMALS !—English society is so varied,
it is marked off into so many classes, and these
classes are so intermixed, that even those who have
had the best opportunities of forming a wide and
accurate judgment can scarcely venture to say they
understand it. But there is one thing which per-
vades all English society and is found in every class,
and that is, a large amount of daily happiness. Be-
low a certain level, indeed, happiness cannot be said
to exist. There is a degreo of poverty which forbids
any enjoyment whatever, and it must be owned
that there is a large portion of the population of
England which is not happy, simply because it has
not a fair chance of health. Millions in England
do not get enough good air and enough food to
make life anything but a long burden. The agricul-
tural population in manycoun tries never gets enough
to eat. Thu men are half-starved, and the women
and children are the constant prey of those num•
berless diseases which spring from insufficient
nourishment. In large towns, the very look of the
inhabitants, and especially of the young, tells its
own tale ; and it is a mockery to speak of happi-
ness when the body is exposed to such endless pri-
vations, and the mind is dulled with constant care,
and an overpowering sense of helplessness. But if
these poor wretches are put aside, and a moderate
ch ince of good health is once secured, every class in
England is happy in its way. Nor is it easy to say
which class ie teat) happiest. An Eogtish nobleman,
for example, with a handsome place and a fine
estate, with au incontestable position in the best
society, able to fill his house with the visitors he
likes best, with the opportunity of being scientific,
or literary, or agricultural, or sporting, or simply
nothing, just as much or as little as he pleases—
with every one inside his gates treating him as a
blessed being from a brighter world, and every
one outside delighted, to have been spoken to,
or even nearly spoken to, by him—seems as if he
had everything the world could give him.
But when we turn from surveying him to
surveying a person of a different class, we do not
find the elements of happiness:much diminished. A
successful professional man wtio is not engaged in a
pursuit which perpetually occupies and interests
him, who is getting together a moderate fortune,
who has a comfortable well appointed home, and
who has all the resources which educatton can offer
at his command, has as happy a life as mortal can
desire. He is not, however, better off than the
manufacturer whose zeal and perseverance have
placed him at the head of a groat business,whocounts
the hands he employs by thousands, and who tastts
every hour the pleasures of sustained practical au•
tivity and of setting in motion the practical activity
of others. He, again, may be rivalled in happiness
by one of his own hands, who delights in his own
punctuality, industry, and thrift, who honestly be-
lieves that he sucks in wisdom from his Mechanics'
Institute, who educates his children to a higher pitch
than he himself haareached, and chuckles over the
thought of the store he has confided to the
Savings'-bank. None of these men, again,
is better off, so far as the sense of pre.
sent enjoyment goes, than the higher kind of
labourer, who gets good wages by leading a life in
the open air, who is at ease about the position of
his wife and family, and who earns daily the glo-
rious appstite that gives to his lump of fat bacon
and his pipe of coarse tobacco a divine relish un-
known to the luxurious or even to those who work
hard, but in a less appetising way. Then, in one
sense, all happy men are on a level, and there are
no summits in society. Every class is apt to fancy
that those below it must be unhappy because they
have not got what it itself possesses: But this is a
mere fancy. The mass of mankind is utterly indif-
ferent to the feelings and wants and possessions of
those with whom it is not brought into daily fertile
liar coats ct. The human mind easily accommodates
I itself, in the absence of positive suffering, to that
condition of things in which it finds itself placed.
It is no better to be a duke, eating venison and
drinking claret, than to be a day labourer, eating
bacon and drinking that thick brown beverage
which is invested in the country with the sacred
name of beer. They both have the enjoyment of
eating ; and if the duke can get a perception of
savour and perfume with a less amount of physical
readiness for food and drink, the labourer has, to a
degree beyond all comparison, a greater pleasure in
filling up a real void in his system, and in satisfy-
ing a genuine physical want. After the meal is
over, the labourer hes to go nn working, and the
duke nifty if he likes do nothing. But to be occu-
pied is much pleasanter than to be idle, and the
easiest way to be occupied is to be forced to use
exertion. It is the power of choice as to industry
or idleness that makes rich people miserable. Nor
is there any reason to suppose that a labourer's
work is distasteful to him. It seems distasteful to
those who view it from the outside as philosophical
spectators, because they think how they themselves
would like it, and they know that they would con-
sider three or four hours of hedging and ditching in
a drizzling rain very poor fun. Bat the labourer
does not think about doing it—he does it. His mind
is reduced, by the kindness of Providence, very much
to the state of pure blank which is suited to agricul-
tural occupations. What can be more dreary to look
at than the way in which a cow walks over a field,
for even biting at damp grass ? But the cow neither
likes nor dislikes its ordinary grass. It is forced,
by habit and animal instinct, to bend its head down
laiendgsgaowoenek, nibbling—and
go
by habit and the wish for a certain number of shil-
onhedgitnhge labourer is forced,
and
it is said the labourer has no intellectual ditching. Butenjoyments,
it t
t
no pleasant books to read, no nice people to talk to.
Aso booke, he neither has t
the m nor wants them ;
he no more troubles himself about them than most
educated Englishmen trouble themselves about not
understanding
ninbeatuoti hises of
betters,PerPersian poetry.
hopes
. He
e
leaves book leer
like it, just as we leave Persian poetry to the Asiatic
Society, and hope that it suits them. And as to
having no nice society, that is a matter of taste.
The labourer sees great fun in discussing the cepa•
bilities of the different pigs, donkeys, and bulls of
sia w
the neighbourhood over a publichouse fire, in drat.
ting the farmers, and in blessing his eyes if he ever
saw such a rum chap as the
parson. The labourer,
perhaps, has not such fine and such complicated re-
ligious feelings as his superiors, but this is only a
negative disadvantage. It is one that, by the very
nature of things, he cannot feel, for if he felt it he
would be on the way to have these feelings; and as
for a contented view of a future state, that, as experie
ence shows, can be produced by a proud consciousness
in any other way. But the common sense of man-
of having helped to stub Thornaby waste as fully as
kind has lorg ago pronounced that, although the
amount of happiness or enjoyment may present no
perceptible variations in specimens of different
classes, and although we may be very thankful that
oisn
ne
0, yet
differenceh a ee pi übbeeuettewt iehseenreefs
man is so constituted that, wherever there is health
sind
sipfful
coe
hr
sand
ann
dt
savourythin*as inf
savouri-
ness. food
itself,dt
and the absence of remorse, there a reasonable
amount of happiness is within the reach of every
and there is a hither and a lower happiness. There
o
The lot of
alishhunligferyrnma
sh
raep,pitnheasts oisf otnoe men in different classes of Eng-
yan:ossibly not be very unequal, but the
aAnodd constantw h
a o
are
et
these
e thatsum ofmi
summits
another 'Theret to
o s
say,
may be more refined, varied,
appearsclass.
summits in English society.
there are more especially two. There aro two
classes of men who, each in their way, have
everything that life has to give them.
There are the great nobility, and there are
the educated professional classes who can con-
and a competence. It is very difficult to say which

has the brighter fortnne,the more rounded and coma
plated existence of the two. Each has in perfection
what a great number has to a moderate extent and
wish to have more abundantly. An English or
Scotch duke has almost everything that is commonly
thought to make up prosperity, and he has it to a
very extraordinary degree. He has got to the end
of that vast striving to be great which consumes so
much of the time and thoughts of Englishmen, He
is a very big man wherever he goes, and in his own
district he is something prodigiously great. It is
a sumptuous and splendid thing to move about from
one huge castle or palace to another, and to know,
wherever he goes, that all this is his ; or, to speak
more accurately, that he has a life interest in it.
He has the best of everything always provided for
him• If he has a fancy for science, the heads of
the scientific world will tell him all their secrets in
the simplest way, and show him exactly the right
sort of instruments to use, and do all his
calculations for him. If he is religious,
Exeter Hall will not only lick his shoes, bat
clean them afterwards, to get them on the proper
platform. If he likes literature, he can have so many
literary people to talk to him that he can fancy
their remarks are his own. If he wishes for poli-
tical distinction, he grins his experience at once,
and can enter the Cabinet while he is still a boy;
and as to the pleasures of the heart and the affec-
tions, half the improper women in London will run
after him directly he shows himself. People who do
not live in the society of dukes, and possibly some
of those who do, are apt to forget how great men
they are—but let a stranger penetrate into a great
duke's country, and he will then know how very
much one mortal can be above another. And he
will realise this as he can realise it only on his
native soil. We are never properly impressed with
Continental grandeur—and there are, for instance,
many honest Scotchmen who would smile at the
glory of the Czar of Russia, but are fully overcome
by that of the Duke of Hamilton. The duke is on
one of the summits, yet we cannot but think that
the educated professional man with a competence
—let us say the Dean of St. Paul's or of West*
minister—is on the other. He has not got the
pride of wealth, and he has everything else that
wealth can give except its pride. A man wants
nothing really for himself more than two or three
thousand a year can give him. Everything that is
really nice to eat and drink may be had for money.
So long as a man has carriages to ride in,it cando him
no immediate good that he has carriages for other
persons to ride in. The interchange of social cour-
tesies is, to say the least, as pleasant in the house of
the humbler man as in that of the duke, and, what
is of the highest consequence, the women are quite
as well educated and as substantially well-bred,
The intellectual pleasures may be tasted to the uts
most in such a station, and there is generally more
devotion to them, and a more habitual relish of them
than in a higher rank, If station, is to be measured
by opportunities of doing good, which it is often
theoretically but never practically, there are quite
enough opportunities in the simpler life, and. there
is none of the anxious burden of deciding how
c'earities are to be given on a very large scale. Even
out of doors the duke has not nearly so much the
best of it as is thought. It is true that if ha goes
out shooting he will have the opportunity of killing
more birds; if he hunts, ho will ride better horses;
if he drives, he will preside over a much more mag-
nificent turn-out. But the pleasure of easy and
splendid sport resides much more in the impression
it produces on others than in the sport itself. Many
a humble squire or farmer who walks hard about
his fields until he has picked up half-a dozen brace
of birds has had a much pleasanter day than a duke
who has killed a hundred pheasants at the corner of
a wood. But the duke and his shooting are men-
tioned in the county newspaper, and the squire is
not mentioned. This is the difference, and every
one must allow that it is a real pleasure and a legie
timate ecurce of happiness to be mentioned in a
county newspaper, which is only one of many signs
of a high station. But then it must be remembered
that if the duke has the pleasures of high station,
he has the burdens too. He is always watched
whatever he does; always stared at wherever he
goes ; always talked about, even if he is as quiet as
he can be, and lies in bed all the day long. His
humbler rival escapes publicity, and this is a great
thing.hßut even if the burden of great station is not
equal to its delights, yet the conditions of the two
men, which in nine points out of ten are equal, may
on the tenth point be said to be equalised by the supe-
riority which the inferior has in the choice of his so-
ciety. He need not ask to his house, or visit, any but
friends ; whereas the duke is a duke, and is expected
to behave as such by countless people whom he
wishes at the bottom of the Red Sea. But it may
be said, if the educated professional man is on a sum-
mit, why not others ? The answer is obvious. In
the first place, we must cut out all persons who are
in the same line as dukes, but not so high—all peers,
county magnates and so forth—for they have evi-
, dently a summit above them, on which the duke is
placed, In the next place, we must cut out a 1 per-
sons who wish to enter this list, all persons whose
aim it is to found families, buy great estates, get
titles, and even those who desire great professional
success ; for they all own that happiness :s incom.
p;ete without some accession of grandeur approxi-
mating them, however remotely to dukes. Then,
among professional persons, we must cut out all
those whose professions are not compatible with the
highest education, forotherwise they lose the greatest
pleasure of the intellect, and they do not mix in
circles where the women are highly edue itad and
thoroughly refined. Lastly, we must exclude edu-
cated professional people who have not got a com-
petence, for their happiness is spoilt by pecuniary
anxiety, and there are many positive pleasures—
such as travelling, and good wine, and patronising
promising relations—which they cannot enjoy. The
number of persons, therefore, who are on this sum-
mit is not very large, but neither is the number on
the ducal summit; and England may think herself
very lucky that she has as many on each summit as
she has, for she has far more than any other coun-
try in the world.

THE " LONDON RETIEW."—A PENNY FOR ITS
THOUGHTS.—Cheapness is a characteristic of our
age. Your penny will work more wonders now than
your pound could a century ago. We may be literally
"penny wise" without being "pound foolish ;" we
may eat penny ices in Italian salons, and penny
pine apples at the costernaongei es stall. Some wit
and poet of our happier times should annihilate
" The Splendid Shilling" by writing " The
Splendid Penny." He might range from
cyclopredias to steamboats, and yet find matter for
still more glorious flights. He might even emulate
the achievements of Shekspere as recorded by Dr
Johnson. Existence would " see him spurn her
bounded reign," and " panting Time" would cer-
tainly "toll after him in vain." For we may look
into the future at the moderate cost of one penny,
and may put ourselves in possession of the fate of
empires and the policy and actions of great men a
whole year in advance. " Old Moore's Penny Al-
manack" will suffer no man to bo ignorant of
coming events who cares to be informed. We have
no occasion to wait for the sunset of life to acquire
that mystical lore which enables us to see the ad-
vancing shadows before the lagging substance.
Old Moore, for the merely nominal consideration of
a penny, makes us all partakers of his most occult
knowledge. His almanack is 4 prospective news
paper for the ensuing year; in fact we don't see
why people should go to the expense and trouble
of buying and reading newspapers, when they only
chronicle after the event what Moore has revealed
before it. It is true they enter somewhat more into
detail than the prophet ; but this is mere idleness
and frivolity. All reasonable minds are interested
in broad results rather than in petty minutiae. To
such persons " Old Moore's Almanack" is a sort of
essence of the journals of the world, stewed down
to a portable form, and anticipating the laggards
who, for the sake of a few unimportant particulars,
prefer to wait for the event. To be enabled to buy
such a jar of potted meat—minas the bone and
offal—for a penny, is certainly one of the great pri-
vileges of the time ; and we cannot wonder if the
publication finds a large sale. See what you get
for your money in this latest issue—the Almanack
for 1865! Besides the hieroglyphic and prophecies
for the coming year, and the almanack properly
so called, we have-a number of " beautiful engrav-
ings representing sea-fishing;" portraits of the
American Generals, Lee and Grant ; lists of fairs
and markets ; tide-tables ; the " rising and setting of
the planets and phases of the moon ;tables of stamps
and taxes; an enumeration of " the principal fixed
and moveable feasts ; law and university terms ;
articles of the calendar—in short, as Old Moore
himself says on his title-page, in a burst of lofty
generalization, at once modest and dignified, "all
that can be desired or expected in en Almanack."
By the expenditure of another halfpenny, you may
have your pennyworth of wisdom secured to you in
a " rich coloured 'mapper," all yellow and blue and
red, with a hieroglyphic on the front, and a picture
of an exquisite young lady in hat and curls, with
the most languishing of eyes and the most delicious
of shoulders, on the back. But this is simply a con.
cession to the artistic tastes of the wealthy three.
halfpenny classes, of which the penny public need
not feel jealous. Ail the solid worth of Moore is to
bo had for the lower sum, and the effluent may wale
low, if they will, in the luxury of ornamentation.
" Old Moore," as usual, begins with proving to the
sceptical how all his forecastings for the existing
year have been fulfilled. he "likes to speak by the
eard," and therefore comes to the point at once with-
out any nonsense. Now, did he not say, with re-
ference to March, 1864, that " there are omens of
danger to the heads of Royal hues abroad ?" and
did not the King of Wurtemberg die? Yee, eel.
tainly—only ho did'nt die in March. Then, again,
he " foreshadowed the Conference upon the great
Danish question thus... 6 Misunderstandings end eZill

planation between diplomatists upon a very impor.
taut subject." Captious disputants may perhaps
urge that, if he meant a Conference upon the Danish
question, he might as well have said so while he
was about it; but objections are easily made by
those who are resolved to make them, Concerning
France, the prophet observed that " the entente cor-
diale may perhaps receive a slight check. There will
certainly be some points of difference between Eng-
land and France." This was spoken with reference to
the Emperor Napoleon's proposal of a " Congress of
sovereigns," •which " England refused, not over-
courteously, and perhaps not over-wisely." The
good man knows that this refusal " was very pain-
ful to the Emperor;" and, without pretending to
anything like Old Moore's profundity of informa-
tion, we believe we may say that we know this too,
and that the fact is within the cognisance of most
men, But why, oh sage, why did you not tell us a
year ago that the Emperor desired to hold a Con-
gress, and that he would be much pained at our
refusal to join him ? However, we must not ques-
tion a prophet; we must only listen. OA Moore,
in his last issue, told us all about France and Mexico,
and he now warns the world that "much will be
said and done in 1865 about this usurpation, com-
menced under fallacious and deceitful pleas." We
are also advised that for many a long day Algeria
will be very troublesome and onerous to her con-
querors—which we see not the slightest occasion to
doubt. The star-gazer informed us last year that
there would be a protracted struggle and a
sanguinary contest in America ; and he now
points with something of gloomy satisfaction to
the proof that his prophecy was no alarmist
chimera. Then, moreover, he said that " China
would be the scene of more warfare and struggle ;"
and have not the facts borne out his words? These
marvellous successes must inspire the student of
Moore's vaticinations for 1865 with immense confie
deuce; and we therefore turn, with mingled hope
and fear, to the magic glass which reflects the for-
tunes of mankind in the coming twelvemonth. We
are rather daunted to find at the very outset that
dark aspects are prominent, " Surely England is
not again at war ?" exclaims the soothsayer, shud-
dering. Alas !he " much fears it." But let us
not entirely lose heart. Moore reassures us as far
as he is able by bidding us recollect that sometimes
even at the eleventh hour favourable symptoms
appear unexpectedly, and the patient is saved.
Most true, oh Moore ! and we think none the
worse of you for saying so; besides, it is always
better in prophesying to be prepared for both con-
tingencies. Sometime in February, it seems, "Mi..
nisters will be engaged in the consideration of
measures involving the safety and honour of Eng-
land." We are glad to hear they will be so well
employed, since in the opinion of many they have
recently let the honour of England go rather too
much by the board. We are hardly surprised to
find that " much difference of opinion will prevail
as to the best measures to be adopted," because that
always is the case ; but, with regard to another
matter, we must confess we should have been bet-
ter satisfied had the information given been more
precise and certain. " Probably a change in the
Ministry about this time." Probably, but not
assuredly. Perhaps so, and perhaps not. It would
certainly be pleasant to know one way or another,
and to have a list of the new Cabinet (if any); but
the prophet knows best, and next year we shall be
told exactly how events shaped themselves. Under
the head of March it is intimated that "affairs in
Spain do not progress very satisfactorily" (we do
not recollect that they ever did) ; that there will
be a " frightful calamity on lan, and," Moore
fears, "disastrous havoc at sea," which indeed is
only too probable; that there will be more insur-
rections in Algeria ; that Canada will be trouble-
some, and Chiba in a state of rebellion ; and
that " the Continental news" will be " by no means
tranquilising." In April " Garibaldi will again
attract attention," which we can very readily be-
lieve, and there will be danger to royalty either at
home or abroad." Moore also expects to hear of
" much religious discord" in Belgium, which country,
with a sweet forgetfulness of recent events, he de-
scribes as " usually so quiet and so free from excite-
ment." Furthermore, he fears a commericial crisis
in England, and darkly warns his readers "not to
join too rashly in the many new schemes of the day."
Undoubtedly, to join " too rashly" in any schemes,
whether new or old, is nnadvisable ; but it would
have been very handy if the names of the questionable
companies had been given. Perhaps, however, the
wizard was afraid of an action of libel. One cannot
very well plead a justification before the fact. Pro-
phecy is not evidence. In this way we are conducted
through the whole year. We see a few allusions to
the deaths of eminent men, but of course Old Moore
is not so cruel as to mention names. One of these
men, we are told, is " the noblest Roman of them
all," and of another it is said that " we could have
spared a better man." A very extraordinary thing
is:to happen in October, 1865, for Convocation, which
is generally not in session at that time of year, is
" to decide upon some very essential and weighty
principles connected with the doctrines and disci-
pline of the Church of England." On the whole,
we are led to expect events of great magnitude and
gravity ; but we are piously reminded that we are
in the hands of Providence, and that things might
bo worse. Moore is certainly an entertaining and
a versatile author. By turns gloomy, grand, re•
assuring, didactic, descriptive, political, and scien-
tific, he impresses us with the idea of a rich and
comprehensive soul; and that he should introduce
us to the future on terms so infinitesmal—place us,
as it were, hand.in glove with the stars for the price
of an old song—proves that he has a heart as genes
rotas as his brain is large.
" THE EXAMINER" ON IGNORANCE WHICH IS
BLISS !—Colonel North has spoken well on a sub-
ject he understands, namely, his own ignorance.
Let us not be understood in any offensive sense.
We mean what we write, and mean it not uncivilly,
but the contrary. It is not every man who knows
his own ignorance, but if be does he knows much.
When Johnson heard a young man flippantly say
he did not know something that was asserted, the
Doctor remarked, " What you do not know, sir,
would fill a very large library." It is a common-
place that every step a man takes in knowledge ex-
tends his consciousness of the extent of his igno-
aence. Newton, measuring what he knew with
what he did not know, said he was like a child
on the ocean's shore gathering pebbles. This is
the season when great cruelty is done to dumb
beings. There is a law against over-driving oxen,
but there is none for the redress of over-driven
members of Parliament, and it is a marvel that none
of them go mad. Hear the sufferings of Colonel
North :—The month of September always opened
to him with two very different feelings—one of
pleasure at the prospect of meeting hie constituents
at these meetings, and one of perfect horror that he
was obliged on seven or eight different occasions to
get upon his legs. How much better to be a par-
tridge, and seasonably shot and finished off at once.
The Colonel is required to attend the agricultural
meetings of his county, and to talk about crops and
manures, steam ploughs and implements, whereas
he has nothing to say except about soldiering, which
farmers do not care to hear of. He knows but one
kind of drill, and it is not drill husbandry. Here
is his frank avowal :—At the age of 16 he entered
the army, and for about 20 years, all that ever at-
tracted his notice in the shape of agriculture was
the grass that grew in his barrack yard, and he was
therefore more fit to discuss the merits of the fire-
lock than the plough. At these meetings politics
were most properly forbidden, as he hoped they
always would be. Under these circumstances what
on earth was he to talk about ? To attempt to give
them a lecture upon agriculture would be wholly
unwarrantable, for of all insufferable bores that
man was the worst whose vanity induced him to
offer opinions on subjects of which he was not a
master. To express an opinion on agriculture to
the present company would take up a great deal of
valuable time, and really would not be worth the
paper on which those dreadful but most necessary
gentlemen of the press were writing. Now this is
well said, we repeat, because the speaker is
talking of what he understands, his own
deficiency ; and our sympathies are with
him. His, indeed, is the cry of distress
of a much over-driven member of Parliament.
He has had to run the gauntlet of agricultural
meetings with no agriculture in him but that blade
of grass of the barrack yard. He craves that people
should only be expected to speak of what they
thoroughly understand. But this would bring
spouting to an end altogether, and meetings would
be like Quakers' meetings unmoved by the spirit.
Col. North in Oxfordshire has made a better speech
than Mr Roebuck in Sheffield, and for this simple
and plain reason, that Colonel North spoke of his
own ignorance, which he did understand, and that
Mr Roebuck spoke of himself, the subject of which
every man is likely to make the greatest number of
mistakes. Colonel North chose his topic better,
but this extortion of speech, malgre, is really a
great hardship where there is nothing to say with..
out the knack of saying nothing. In ancient Rome,
upon proper occasions, beasts spoke in the Forum,
but it is very remarkable that what they said was
never recorded. It was enough that they spoke,
more was not required of them. They would have
done sufficiently well at our agricultural meetings,
without knowing more what they were talking
about than in the Roman Forum, where there
were no reporters taking notes. The prodigy of
bestial speech went out when public speaking came
in, and silence is a far greater marvel now than the
utterance of dumb things need to be in ancient times.
The change is not, perhaps, to the advantage of the
moderns.

GREAT NORTITEFN HOSPITAL, CALEDONIAN•
ROAD, ISLINGT3N,—The number of patients for the week
ending Sept, 17 was 869, of which 236 were new emu,