Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.

Of the fact of Moore's steadfastly refusing to accept the subscription offered to be raised for him by his aristocratic Whig friends, there can be no doubt whatever; and the matter is more creditable to him when the fact is remembered that it was not he himself who committed the error by which he was rendered liable to the judgment given against him. He might also have sheltered himself under the example of Charles James Fox, who consented to accept a provision made for him by the leaders of his party. But Moore detested all eleemosynary aid. He speaks in one of his most vigorous poems with contempt of that class of "patriots" (to what vile uses can language be profaned!),

"Who hawk their country's wrongs as beggars do their sores."

While sojourning at Paris upon that occasion Moore received a very remarkable offer. Barnes, the editor of the Times, became severely ill, and was obliged to recruit his health by a year's rest, and the editorship of the Times was actually offered to Moore, who, in telling the story to a brilliant living Irishman, said, "I had great difficulty in refusing. The offer was so tempting —to be the Times for a twelvemonth!" The offering him the editorship of "the daily miracle" (as Mr. Justice Talfourd called it) might, however, have been only a ruse de guerre of his aristocratic and political friends to bring him back to London, where, for a variety of reasons social and political, his company was then very desirable.

There is a very interesting circumstance connected with the birth of Moore, which deserves record. The fact of the birth, as every one knows, took place at Aungier-street, and its occasion was at a moment singularly appropriate for the lyric poet being ushered into the world. Jerry Keller, the wit and humorist, rented apartments in the house of Moore's brother, in Aungier-street, and had a dinner-party on the very day of the poet's birth. Just as the guests were assembled, and the dinner on the table, it was announced to them that Mrs. Moore's accouchement had taken place, and that she was in a precarious state, the physicians particularly enjoining that no noise should be made in the house: a difficult matter, when Keller, Lysaght, and other convivial spirits were assembled. What was to be done? One of the company, who lodged near him, solved the difficulty by proposing that the feast should be adjourned to his house close by, and that the viands and wine should be transferred thither. "Ay!" cried Jerry Keller, "be it so; let us adjourn pro re nata." Thus, in the hour of feasting, just as Keller dropped one of his best witticisms, was Moore's birth registered by a classic pun.

Moore had few friends whom he loved more than Mr. Corry, and he has left upon record an exquisite proof of his friendship in the following lines, which are very affecting to read at the present time.

On one occasion, Moore and Corry were ordered, by medical advice, to drink port wine, while they were sojourning for their health at Brighton. The idem velle atque idem nolle was perfectly applicable to their friendship, and they detested port wine with perfect antipathy. However, they were under advice which required obedience. Moore got the port-wine from his wine-merchant, Ewart; but in traveling from London it had been shaken about so much, and was so muddy, that it required a strainer. Mr. Corry bought a very handsome wine-strainer, prettily ornamented with Bacchanalian emblems, and presented it, with a friendly inscription, to Moore, who wrote in reply, the following lines, never, we believe, before printed:

TO JAMES CORRY, ESQ.,ON HIS MAKING ME A PRESENT OF A WINE-STRAINERThis life, dear Corry, who can doubt,Resembles much friend Ewart's wine —When first the rosy drops come out,How beautiful, how clear they shine!And thus, a while they keep their tintSo free from even a shade with some,That they would smile, did you but hint,That darker drops would ever come.But soon the ruby tide runs short,Each moment makes the sad truth plainer —Till life, like old and crusty port,When near its close, requires a strainer.This friendship can alone confer,Alone can teach the drops to pass —If not as bright as once they were,At least unclouded through the glass.Nor, Corry, could a boon be mine,Of which my heart were fonder, vainer,Than thus, if life grew like old wine,To have thy friendship for its strainer!Thomas Moore.Brighton, June, 1825.[From Household Words.]

THE APPETITE FOR NEWS

The last great work of that great philosopher and friend of the modern housewife, Monsieur Alexis Soyer, is remarkable for a curious omission. Although the author – a foreigner – has abundantly proved his extensive knowledge of the weakness of his adopted nation; yet there is one of our peculiarities which he has not probed. Had he left out all mention of cold punch in connection with turtle; had his receipt for curry contained no cayenne; had he forgotten to send up tongues with asparagus, or to order a service of artichokes without napkins, he would have been thought forgetful; but when – with the unction of a gastronome, and the thoughtful skill of an artist – he marshals forth all the luxuries of the British breakfast-table, and forgets to mention its first necessity, he shows a sort of ignorance. We put it to his already extensive knowledge of English character, whether he thinks it possible for any English subject whose means bring him under the screw of the income-tax, to break his fast without – a newspaper.

The city clerk emerging through folding doors from bed to sitting-room, though thirsting for tea, and hungering for toast, darts upon that morning's journal with an eagerness, and unfolds it with a satisfaction, which show that all his wants are gratified at once. Exactly at the same hour, his master, the M.P., crosses the hall of his mansion. As he enters the breakfast parlor, he fixes his eye on the fender, where he knows his favorite damp sheet will be hung up to dry. When the noble lord first rings his bell, does not his valet know that, however tardy the still-room-maid may be with the early coffee, he dares not appear before his lordship without the "Morning Post?" Would the minister of state presume to commence the day in town till he has opened the "Times," or in the country till he has perused the "Globe?" Could the oppressed farmer handle the massive spoon for his first sip out of his Sèvres cup till he has read of ruin in the "Herald" or "Standard?" Might the juvenile Conservative open his lips to imbibe old English fare or to utter Young England opinions, till he has glanced over the "Chronicle?" Can the financial reformer know breakfast-table happiness till he has digested the "Daily News," or skimmed the "Express?" And how would it be possible for mine host to commence the day without keeping his customers waiting till he has perused the "Advertiser" or the "Sun?"

In like manner the provinces can not – once a week at least – satisfy their digestive organs till their local organ has satisfied their minds.

Else, what became of the 67,476,768 newspaper stamps which were issued in 1848 (the latest year of which a return has been made) to the 150 London and the 238 provincial English journals: of the 7,497,064 stamps impressed on the corners of the 97 Scottish, and of the 7,028,956 which adorned the 117 Irish newspapers? A professor of the new science of literary mensuration has applied his foot-rule to this mass of print, and publishes the result in "Bentley's Miscellany." According to him, the press sent forth, in daily papers alone, a printed surface amounting in twelve months to 349,308,000 superficial feet. If to these are added all the papers printed weekly and fortnightly in London and the provinces the whole amounts to 1,446,150,000 square feet of printed surface, which was, in 1849, placed before the comprehensive vision of John Bull. The area of a single morning paper – the Times say – is more than nineteen and a half square feet, or nearly five feet by four, compared with an ordinary octavo volume, the quantity of matter daily issued is equal to three hundred pages. There are four morning papers whose superficies are nearly as great, without supplements, which they seldom publish. A fifth is only half the size. We may reckon, therefore, that the constant craving of Londoners for news is supplied every morning with as much as would fill about twelve hundred pages of an ordinary novel; or not less than five volumes.

These acres of print sown broad-cast, produce a daily crop to suit every appetite and every taste. It has winged its way from every spot on the earth's surface, and at last settled down and arranged itself into intelligible meaning, made instinct with ink. Now it tells of a next-door neighbor; then of dwellers in the utter-most corners of the earth. The black side of this black and white daily history, consists of battle, murder, and sudden death; of lightning and tempest; of plague, pestilence, and famine; of sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion; of false doctrine, heresy, and schism; of all other crimes, casualities, and falsities, which we are enjoined to pray to be defended from. The white side chronicles heroism, charitableness, high purpose, and lofty deeds; it advocates the truest doctrines, and the practice of the most exalted virtue: it records the spread of commerce, religion, and science; it expresses the wisdom of the few sages and shows the ignorance of the neglected many – in fine, good and evil, as broadly defined or as inextricably mixed in the newspapers, as they are over the great globe itself.

With this variety of temptation for all tastes, it is no wonder that those who have the power have also the will to read newspapers. The former are not very many in this country where, among the great bulk of the population, reading still remains an accomplishment. It was so in Addison's time. "There is no humor of my countrymen," says the Spectator, "which I am more inclined to wonder at, than their great thirst for news." This was written at the time of imposition of the tax on newspapers, when the indulgence in the appetite received a check from increased costliness. From that date (1712) the statistical history of the public appetite for news is written in the Stamp Office. For half a century from the days of the Spectator, the number of British and Irish newspapers was few. In 1782 there were only seventy-nine, but in the succeeding eight years they increased rapidly. There was "great news" stirring in the world in that interval – the American War, the French Revolution; beside which, the practice had sprung up of giving domestic occurrences in fuller detail than heretofore, and journals became more interesting from that cause. In 1790 they had nearly doubled in number, having reached one hundred and forty six. This augmentation took place partly in consequence of the establishment of weekly papers – which originated in that year – and of which thirty-two had been commenced before the end of it. In 1809, twenty-nine and a half millions of stamps were issued to newspapers in Great Britain. The circulation of journals naturally depends upon the materials existing to fill them. While wars and rumors of wars were rife they were extensively read, but with the peace their sale fell off. Hence we find, that in 1821 no more than twenty-four millions of newspapers were disposed of. Since then the spread of education – slow as it has been – has increased the productiveness of journalism. During the succeeding eight-and-twenty years, the increase may be judged of by reference to the figures we have already jotted down; the sum of which is, that during the year 1848 there were issued, for English, Irish, and Scotch newspapers, eighty-two millions of stamps – more than thrice as many as were paid for in 1821. The cause of this increase was chiefly the reduction of the duty from an average of three-pence to one penny per stamp.

A curious comparison of the quantity of news devoured by an Englishman and a Frenchman, was made in 1819, in the Edinburgh Review– "thirty-four thousand papers," says the writer, are "dispatched daily from Paris to the departments, among a population of about twenty-six millions, making one journal among 776 persons. By this, the number of newspaper readers in England would be to those in France as twenty to one. But the number and circulation of country papers in England are so much greater than in France, that they raise the proportion of English readers to about twenty-five to one, and our papers contain about three times as much letter-press as a French paper. The result of all this is that an Englishman reads about seventy-five times as much of the newspapers of his country in a given time, as a Frenchman does of his. But in the towns of England, most of the papers are distributed by means of porters, not by post; on the other hand, on account of the number of coffee-houses, public gardens, and other modes of communication, less usual in England, it is possible that each French paper may be read, or listened to, by a greater number of persons, and thus the English mode of distribution may be compensated. To be quite within bounds, however, the final result is, that every Englishman reads daily fifty times as much as the Frenchman does, of the newspapers of his country."

From this it might be inferred that the craving for news is peculiarly English. But the above comparison is chiefly affected by the restrictions put upon the French press, which, in 1819, were very great. In this country, the only restrictions were of a fiscal character; for opinion and news there was, as now, perfect liberty. It is proved, at the present day, that Frenchmen love news as much as the English; for now that all restriction is nominally taken off, there are as many newspapers circulated in France in proportion to its population, as there are in England.

The appetite for news is, in truth, universal; but is naturally disappointed, rather than bounded, by the ability to read. Hence it is that the circulation of newspapers is proportioned in various countries to the spread of letters; and if their sale is proportionately less in this empire, than it is among better taught populations, it is because there exist among us fewer persons who are able to read them; – either at all, or so imperfectly, that attempts to spell them give the tyro more pain than pleasure. In America, where a system of national education has made a nation of readers (whose taste is perhaps susceptible of vast improvement, but who are readers still) the sale of newspapers greatly exceeds that of Great Britain. All over the continent there are also more newspaper readers, in proportion to the number of people, though perhaps, fewer buyers, from the facilities afforded by coffee-houses and reading-rooms, which all frequent. In support of this fact, we need go no farther than the three kingdoms. Scotland – where national education has largely given the ability to read – a population of three millions demands yearly from the Stamp Office seven and a half millions of stamps; while in Ireland, where national education has had no time for development, eight millions of people take half a million of stamps less than Scotland.

Although it can not be said that the appetite for mere news is one of an elevated character; yet as we have before hinted, the dissemination of news takes place side by side with some of the most sound, practical, and ennobling sentiments and precepts that issue from any other channels of the press. As an engine of public liberty, the newspaper press is more effectual than the Magna Charta, because its powers are wielded with more ease, and exercised with more promptitude and adaptiveness to each particular case.

Mr. F. K. Hunt in his "Fourth Estate" remarks, "The moral of the history of the press seems to be, that when any large proportion of a people have been taught to read, and when upon this possession of the tools of knowledge, there has grown up a habit of perusing public prints, the state is virtually powerless if it attempts to check the press. James the Second in old times, and Charles the Tenth, and Louis Philippe, more recently, tried to trample down the Newspapers, and everybody knows how the attempt resulted. The prevalence or scarcity of newspapers in a country affords a sort of index to its social state. Where journals are numerous, the people have power, intelligence, and wealth; where journals are few, the many are in reality mere slaves. In the United States every village has its newspaper, and every city a dozen of these organs of popular sentiment. In England we know how numerous and how influential for good the papers are; while in France they have perhaps still greater power. Turn to Russia, where newspapers are comparatively unknown, and we see the people sold with the earth they are compelled to till. Austria, Italy, Spain, occupy positions between the extremes – the rule holding good in all, that in proportion to the freedom of the press is the freedom and prosperity of the people."

[From Sharpe's Magazine]

A FEW WORDS ON CORALS

It is the object of the following papers to illustrate the natural history of the ocean, and to introduce to the reader a few of the forms of life which the naturalist meets with in the deep sea. The sea that bathes the globe contains as countless multitudes of living beings as does the land we tread, and each possesses an organization as interesting and as peculiar to itself, as any of the higher forms of the animal creation. But the interest does not cease here, for these marine invertebrata play an important part in the vast economy of nature, some living but to afford food for the larger kinds, others devouring all matter devoid of vitality, and so removing all putrescent materials, with which the sea would otherwise be surcharged; while others, again, living in large communities, surely and slowly, by their gradual growth, so alter the physical construction of the globe as to render seas and harbors unnavigable, and in many eases even to give rise in course of ages to those islands, apparently of spontaneous growth, which are so common in the Southern Seas.

Corals and Madrepores first claim our attention, because they occupy the lowest place, with the exception of sponges, in the animal scale! Indeed, so low is their organization, that former naturalists denied their animal character, and from superficial examination of their external appearance, placed them among the wonders of the vegetable world. And from the arborescent and plant-like form assumed by many kinds, in the Flustra and others, in which the resemblance to sea-weeds is so strong as generally to cause them to be confounded together under the same group, and being fixed to submarine rocks, or marine shells, observers might easily have been led to the mistake, had not modern research rectified the error. Corals and Madrepores, as they are known to us, consist but of the stony skeletons of the animals themselves, for in the living state, while dwelling in the ocean, each portion of the stony framework was covered with an animal coating of gelatinous matter, which, closely investing it, was the living portion of the animal. But the structure of the animal is not simply this, for attached to different portions of it in the living state are to be found a countless number of little cells, which, armed with tentacles of great prehensile and tactile powers, are the apertures through which the particles of food are conveyed for the sustenance of the animal These bodies as they may be called, are the analogues of that simple polyp, the common hydra, which, abounding in almost every pond, has been long known to naturalists. It consists of a single dilated gelatinous vesicle, which is terminated at one extremity by a sucker, and at the other by a number of contractile filaments, which serve as the tentaculæ, by which it seizes its prey. This is all that represents the animal, the dilated portion of the tube being the part in which the process of digestion is carried on, and where the food is assimilated to the wants of the little creature. These hydrae live singly, each animal being independent of another, and each possesses the power of self-reparation; so that, should it happen that a tentacle is lost, another sprouts to supply its place, or should the naturalist by way of experiment divide it in half, each portion immediately reproduces the wanting section. Such, then, is briefly the structure of the simple fresh-water hydra, a polyp of common occurrence, and from this description the reader will gain some idea of the polyps of the Coral family before us; but he must remember that in the case now under discussion, the polyps are aggregated together, a number on one common stem, each possessing independent life, but all ministering to the support of the compound animal.

The hydra, then, of the Coral and Madrepore, thus explained, would appear to be the parts through which food is absorbed for the general nourishment of the body, which, as before observed, consists simply of a gelatinous film of animal matter, possessing but little evidence of vitality. Here, then, is a community of nourishment, and with it also a community of sensation, for if one portion be irritated, contiguous portions of the animal are apt to sympathize. When the Coral polyps are not in an active state, or in other words, when they are not in want of food, these hydra-form polyps may not be visible, but being retracted into cells found as depressions in the skeletons of the Madrepores, they are lost to observation, and it is only when in quest of food and nourishment that their contractile tentacles are expanded, and distinctly prominent.

The physiology of the growth of the skeleton, both in the Madrepores and the Coral, is the same. The entire skeleton, however ramified it may be, or whatever form it may assume, is secreted by the living matter with which it is invested, the materials for its formation being derived from the element in which it lives; and as its deposition takes place at different times, the central stem of some corals is apt to assume a beautiful concentric arrangement of laminæ. But the material deposited or secreted need not necessarily be hard or calcareous, but even may partake of the character of horn or other flexible materials, as is the case with some of the coral family. In other cases there is an alternation of each material; and the necessity of this change in the character of the skeleton will now demand our attention.

The common coral of the Mediterranean, possessing a stony skeleton, is found in situations where its stunted form and its extreme hardness sufficiently preserve it from the violence of the waves; but place a coral under other circumstances, and expose it to the storms of the Indian Ocean, where the waves rage with fury, dashing on and uprooting all things within their power, and the structure of the simple coralium would fail to withstand their violence. Here, then, under such circumstances, in the case of the Gorgonia, nature has provided a horny and flexible skeleton, which, spreading majestically in the sea, shall be capable of bending beneath the weight of the superincumbent waves, and so yielding to the storms. Nature has thus adapted herself to each contingent circumstance.

The next point to which we shall advert will be coral formations, which form so interesting a study to the naturalist and geologist. When we consider that we have at hand only a soft, gelatinous covering, stretched on a hard, stony frame-work – that the material on which this animal substance exists is furnished by the sea in which it lives – we can not but be surprised at the smallness of the means which nature uses for the execution of her great designs. But time compensates for the insignificance of the means employed, and the continued activity of nature's architects, during continuous ages, accomplishes these stupendous results, which have at various times excited the wonder of the navigator, and aroused the attention of the naturalist. Many examples of these are to be found in the Pacific Archipelago. Seas and shallows, once navigable, become in the process of time so filled by these living animals, as to become impassable, their stony skeletons forming hard, massy rocks and impenetrable barriers, which, rising from the bottom of the sea and shallows, constitute solid masonry of living stones.

But besides thus aggregating in the neighborhood of land and continents, formations similarly produced are constantly met with during the circumnavigation of the globe. Not only barriers and reefs owe their origin to these humble means, but large lands, stretching for miles in the centre of the ocean, rise gradually from beneath the surface of the sea, and, becoming clothed with verdure and vegetation, at last offer a resting-place for the daring seafarer. But now occurs the interesting question, How happens it that these islands are found in situations where the sea is too deep to allow of any animal life to exist? And yet these corals must have grown upward from some resting-place. The researches of Darwin have shown that the greatest depth in which corals live, is between thirty and forty fathoms beneath the surface of the sea; hence it is absolutely certain that for every island some foundation must exist in the sea for these reef-building animals to attach themselves to. Such foundation, from the observation of Darwin, would appear to be provided by submarine mountains which have gradually subsided into the sea, having originally existed above its surface. Upon these foundations the reef-building saxigenous corals have become attached, and slowly accumulating in large numbers, and gradually depositing their carbonate of lime, during the lapse of ages, by degrees construct these large piles, which, at last emerging from the ocean's bosom, appear as newly-formed continents and islands. Once above the surface, the work of the corals is at an end; no longer exposed to the salt water, the emerged portion dies, and then new agencies are called into play, before its surface can be clothed with vegetable life. The storms of the ocean and the rising waves gradually deposit on its surface the sand and mud torn up from the bottom of the sea, and the sea-weed, too, that is cast upon its tenantless shores soon crumbles into mould, and unites with the debris of the former polyps. At last, some seeds from the neighboring lands are driven to its strand, and there finding a soil united for their growth, soon sprout, under the influence of a tropical sun, into fresh life, and clothe the ocean isle with verdure and vegetation.