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The number of square miles in England and Wales is computed at 49,450; and the population being found, by the late returns, to be 9,343,578; the number of inhabitants to a square mile is of course 188, upon an average. But the proportion of the inhabitants of towns to those of the country, is as one to two; that is, one third of the people, or 3,114,526, live in towns; and the remaining two thirds, or 6,229,052, in the country. The towns occupy but a small proportionate number of square miles; not so many perhaps as 450. Taking that number, therefore, as an ample allowance, the 49,000 square miles in the country will contain 6,229,052 inhabitants, or 127 and a fraction in each square mile, on an average. But the waste lands of the country, scarcely inhabited, amount to rather less than a sixth part of the surface, or 8000, square miles; the remainder being 41,000. This will increase the average number of residents, on an inhabited square mile, to 151. The proportion of the lowest to the upper and middle ranks, in these numbers, or those who might receive their education in the parochial schools, cannot be estimated extravagantly at two thirds, or 100 to a square mile. But considering that a great influx of youths of both sexes, trained to maturity in the country, is constantly flowing into the towns, it is evident, that the proportion of children in the former must be much greater than their general proportion to the whole population. It is not therefore too much perhaps to conclude, that in the country, the number of children always in existence, of an age to be the immediate objects of parochial instruction, will bear a proportion of one in ten of each sex to the whole of the lowest orders resident there, or ten of each sex in each square mile.

Forty children might attend at each school; some of whom would have to walk, including circuitous paths, more than a mile and a half; a distance beyond which very little prospect would be afforded of regular attendance.

In a country parish, as populous as most others, a school exists, conveniently situated for the neighbouring habitations: here twentysix boys, on an average, are educated, chiefly at the expense of the patron, but most of the parents pay a proportion of the school expences. The boys are taught reading, and the practice of it upon the bible, and other good books plainly written for the use of the Jower orders; and learn their catechism. A few of the most acute are taught writing and arithmetic. The whole expense to the patron as £26 10s. per annum, including books, &c for the twenty-six boys, and it is incurred by payments of so much per head weekly for

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each scholar. Ten or a dozen more are educated at the expence of their parents, or other charitable individuals; and it would not be easy to find, within a competent distance, six more children to attend: some, who attempted it, were obliged to leave the school, on' account of the remoteness of their cottages.

Many thousand acres, which a century or two ago did not contain an inhabitant with a soul to be attended to, nor a blade of corn to contribute towards the remuneration of a pastor's care, are now covered with smiling cottages and waving crops; presenting employment to the already overcharged incumbent, which he cannot attend to, and affording an addition of tithe, which should clearly be bestowed upon one whose time will allow his discharging the appointed duties in return. Where the number previously existing is sufficient to occupy the incumbent's time and attention, surely all subsequent increase of produce and population, from additional enclosures, should be placed in fresh hands; i. e. the number of incumbents should be increased in proportion to their labour.* Otherwise a part of the people must suffer under a want of spiritual care, and fly into the arms of sectaries.

M.. W. wishes for a reformation among the higher classes of our population we wish for it too: though we would not, with him, hold up past ages, as exemplary to the present. Not the practice of any age, or of any nation, should be our pattern: we should conform to nothing less than the standard, the authoritative injunctions which are the rule of our duty. Even the horrid vice of swearing, which Mr. W. reproves at length in a forcible manner, was too distinguishing of our ancestors; for Joan of Arc, at her her judges, trial, spoke out plainly, when she told their present power, nor a hundred thou"that neither they, with sand God dammee's more, should succeed in conquering France."

We are sorry to remark that this practice seems to be gaining ground every day at the public theatres; which we have on various occasions severely condemned. [Compare Panorama, Vol. IV. page 301.] It impresses foreigners with the idea, and too justly, even at this time, that

we are a nation of swearers. We remember an anecdote of the celebrated Beau

The number of lay impropriations, like all other diversion of funds from their legiti mate application, would certainly throw difficulties in the way of a salutary reform in some instances; but I do not think these difficulties would be of an insuperable nature.

marchais which passed between him and one of our collaborateurs,, and which strongly assimilates with Joan of Arc's sarcasm, while at the same time it explains why he satirized the English by saying in a Folle Journée, [the Follies of a Day] that" God-dam est le fond de la langue," On a first visit to M. B. at Paris, in August 1787, after the usual compliments of Je suis charmé de vous voir dans ce pays-ci, c. &c. he jocosely added, Ah! voilà encore un Goddam à Paris! We subjoin the passage for the amusement of our readers. It is in Act 3, scene 5. The conversation is carried on between the Comte Almaviva and his intriguing dependant Figaro, who, as the reader will perceive, does not speak English, yet pretends to know the depth of the language.

C.

:

Comte Almaviva. J'avais quelqu'envie de t'emmener à Londres, courier de dépêches.... mais toutes réflexions faites..............

Figaro.-Monseigneur a changé d'avis? Comte.- Premièrement, tu ne sais pas l'Anglais.

Figaro.-Je sais God-dam.
Comte.-Je n'entends pas.
Figaro.-Je dis que je sais God-dam.
Comte.-Hé bien ?

Figaro-Diable! c'est une belle langue que l'Anglais; il en faut peu pour aller loin. Avec God-dam en Angleterre, on ne manque de rien nulle part.-Voulez-vous tâter d'un bon poulet gras? entrez dans une taverne, & faites seulement ce geste au garcon, (Il tourne la broche,) God-dam! on vous apporte un pied de boeuf salé sans pain. C'est admirable! Aimez-vous à boire un coup d'excellent Bourgogne ou de Clairet? rien que celui-ci, (Il débouche une bouteille,) God-dam! on vous sert un pot de bierre, en bel étain, la mousse aux bords. Quelle satisfaction! Rencontrez-vous une de ces jolies personnes, qui vont trottant menu, les yeux baissés, coudes en arrière, et tortillant un peu des hanches? mettez mignardement tous les doigts unis sur la bouche. Ah! God-dam! elle vous sangle ከበ soufflet de crocheteur; preuve qu'elle entend.-Les Anglais, à la vérité, ajoutent par-ci, par-là, quelques autres mots en conversant; mais il est bien aisé de voir que God-dam est le fond de la langue.

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THE maxims of prudence, as well as of piety, which occur in Sacred Writ, are such as rise from the incidents narrated, or are scattered in various parts, without that kind of arrangement which results from what the European part of the world calls system. Our author has employed himself in collecting the leading rules of conduct comprised in Scripture, and has adapted them to an order, by which they are brought together, and the lessons they teach are seen at one view. He has added notes, some of which are proper enough; but the Hebraisms, and especially those relating to the ascription of human parts, powers, and passions to the Deity, should have been further explained.

The work is of a practical description, and we are glad to see the rules of Scripture disseminated among us, under whatever form. The public would be unspeakably benefited, were these maxims fixed in the heart, and called into exercise in the daily occupations of life. The book is neatly printed.

A Concise Gazetteer of the most remarkable Places in the World; with brief Notices of the principal historical Events, and [of the] most celebrated Persons connected with them. By Thomas Bourn, Teacher of Writing and Geography. 8vo. Price 8s. bds. Mawman, London, 1807.

YOUTH are liable to be deterred from acquiring so much knowledge as they really desire, by the magnitude of the treati ses offered to their study; so that works of less extent are more likely to do them essential service, by engaging their cheerful attention so far as they go. The present seems to be well adapted to the purpose of its author: it comprises short accounts of many places, some of which we could wish had been enlarged. The volume forms a proper companion to Mr. Butler's "Chronological Exercises," noticed in Panorama, Vol. II. p. 1184; and this may apologize for the insertion of some places, which we should not have. thought of sufficient importance for admission. Mr. B.'s reference to modern authorities adds much to the value of his work.

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The Nature and Importance of a good Education: a Sermon preached before the Promoters of the Protestant Dissenters' Grammar School at Mill Hill. By David Bogue, A.M. 8vo. pp. 39. Price Is. Conder, London, 1808.

EDUCATION appears to us to be a promotion, an improvement of the human mind and faculties: we therefore think it incorrect to speak of those who do not communicate education to others as

"brutifying the human mind:" neither are we perfectly certain, that when a person has not been taught to read, some one has been guilty of a heinous sin." We are clearly of opinion, that an individual who knows his duty is more likely to perform it than he who does not know it and that the ability to read is a principal way of acquiring such knowledge. It is opening an inlet to information, in addition to that of the ear, which it is extremely desirable to improve, and which benevolence will delight in improving. But, the education for which the preacher pleads is of a higher description, and embraces more liberal attainments. "It consists of two parts-good principles and ⚫ literary acquisitions." Every considerate mind will desire the union of these; and whoever reflects on the danger to which good principles are exposed in an immense city, will applaud the wisdom of choosing a situation for this institution at some distance from town.-Mr. B. treats on the importance of liberal education as a mean of enlightening the mind;-of engaging the faculties on subjects of a beneficial tendency, in lieu of dissipation; -of employing leisure hours to advantage;-of contributing to the honour of God and of religion in the world;-and of qualifying persons to fill important stations. He hints pretty strongly at a race "of truly Christian magistrates from among Dissenters.-This is not that part of his discourse which pleases us best, We wish well to education in every shape; and an education which professes to be secluded from immorality, liberal as to what it communicates, and reasonable as to its terms, cannot but insure respect · The names of the committee, and of the present subscribers, masters, &c. are annexed.

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A Letter to Wm. Roscoe, Esq. containing Strictures on his late Publication, intitled "Considerations on the Causes, Objects, and Consequences of the present War." Kaye, Liverpool; Longman and Co., London ; 1808. 8vo. pp. 119. Price 2s. 6d.

As it holds good in literary warfare, as well as in military tactics, that attack is always more spirited than defence, the writer of this pamphlet should have converted his justification of certain measures adopted by Great Britain, into accusation of French aggression and of Mr. Roscoe's labours in behalf of that aggression. He might then have stated his arguments with greater effect in a much smaller space. His tract embraces a great variety of inci dents, and indeed, in our opinion, too many, to be treated with justice and power adequate to their importance. Neither does he appear to have been in the secret, or to have had any but public authorities before him. We shall restrict our consideration to a single subject, on which we could have added, that Buonaparte commissioned his agents to purchase some of the newspapers printed in London, in order to render them subservient to his purposes. The terms he offered, to our certain knowledge, were what might have been thought handsome, and even extravagant, had they not been qualified with his favour and patronage, the tenour and obligation of which was too obvious to be mistaken.-Says our author,

The freedom of the press, more unequivocally than any thing beside, marks the difference between a free and an enslaved state. It

is, when unfettered by illegal restraints, the engine of the greatest possible good to a free people, but let it be touched by the wand of power and it is converted into a mere passive instrument of tyranny; it loses its energy because free discussion is proscribed, and it forfeits public confidence because it is suspected. The language of truth will not then be spoken, except when it is dictated by interest; and as interest is oftener, in the present state of things, connected with falsehood than with truth, it will oftener deceive than direct, truth, conveyed through such a medium, and more frequently injure than benefit. Even

loses half its force.

I will, however, freely admit with you, that the licentiousness of the press ought to be restrained; that many publications of an indecent kind, and offensive to foreign go

vernments, have been issued :—but why so tender of Buonaparte ?

LITERARY PROSPECTIVE,

You have given part of an answer of lord Hawkesbury to the representation of the The Rev. Mr. Stawell, of Cork, has inFrench minister; but you might have found a dispatch of his lordship's which would more Virgil, with copious notes and, annotations, the press a translation of the Georgics of forcibly have displayed the merits of the sub-illustrative of the rural economy and agriculture of the ancients.

ject to your readers. With respect to the libels alleged to be published against the French government, he expressed his "

assurance

that his majesty could not and never would, in consequence of any representation or menace from a foreign power, make any concessions which could in the smallest degree be dangerous to the liberty of the press, as secured by the constitution of the country. That the constitution admitted of no previous restraints upon publications of any description but that there existed judicatures, wholly independent of the executive government, capable of taking cognizance of such publications, and, as had been repeatedly experienced, of publications defamatory of those in whose hands the administration of foreign governments was placed."- -Here then was a legitimate mode of proceeding pointed out; but it ill accorded with the summary process required by the man, who, having extinguished every spark of liberty in France, and forced the presses of that country and other European states into his own service, was indignant that the British press alone dared to investigate his character, to criticise his government, and to warn the world of the dangerous maxims of his policy. In p. 98, you demand with an air of lofty defiance," at what period since the Revotion has the French government proposed to us to relinquish any of our liberties and laws?" I answer, at this. That government wished the British press to be controlled by the executive, contrary to the constitution." Nothing it might deem offensive was to be published. Had this been admitted, would the system of interference have terminated here? Buonaparte complained of the speeches in parliament as well as libellous newspapers ; would you, Sir, have been ready to have conceded the freedom of speech in the senate as well as the liberty of the press? I believe not. Strong as your bias is towards France, unbounded as your con fidence appears to be in her military chief, I believe you could not. A stand must then have been made somewhere, and it was more honourable, as well as more effectual, to resist the first attempt upon our internal arrangements and established laws.......P. 33 et seq. Thank God, if we be true to ourselves, we can support the contest. Whilst our navy stands unshaken amidst the wreck of nations, our trade will not only be protected but enlarged. Difficulties only call forth the resources of a great people, and the resources of England are not exhausted....... P. 117.

Mr. Samuel Roole, has nearly finished a translation of the select works of Antony Van Leuenhoek, from the original Dutch and Latin editions, published by the author, which will form 2 vols. 4to.

The following works are in the Clarendon-` press-Lowth on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, 2 vols. 8 vo.-Vota Abdollatiphi, Arabian and Latin.-Grilsbach's Greek Tes tament, 2vols. 8vo.-Bishop Burnet's Abridgment of the History of the Reformation, 8vo.

Mr. Cumberland has a novel in the press, to be entitled John de Lancaster. It is the work which he announces in his Memoirs in the following words :- I have also planned and in great part finished, one more novel, upon which I have bestowed much time and care, anxious to leave something behind me, which may instruct the scholar as well as the idler, something which gravity may read without contempt, and modesty. without a blush: a work of fancy, that prove I have not quite exhausted my capaci ty to amuse, nor quite abandoned my exidea

vours to instruct.'

may

Mr. Smith intends to publish very soon, a work entitled Delworth, or Elevated Generosity, a Fiction in 3 vols.

Theodore, from the French of Le Brun, a work after the manner of Paul and Virginia, is expected to appear speedily.

Mr. C. Lucas, author of the Infernal Quixote, has a novel in 3 vols, nearly ready for publication, entitled the Abyssinian Reformer, or the Bible and Sceptre.

Mr. Lewts has in the press some new and original Romances in prose and verse.

Mrs. Hanway, author of Ellinor, or the World as it goes, has nearly completed another work, to be entitled Falconbridge Abbey, a Devonshire story, in 5 vols.

of the Horace of Corneille in blank verse. Mr. Byerley is employed in a translation

Mr. Charles Burney has made consideraPearson on the Creed, for the use of the upble progress in an abridgement of Bishop per forms of schools.

The sixth and last volume of the new edition of Holinshead's Chronicles, which has been writing for the Incorporation of the Indies, is in a state of considerable forwardness. The booksellers who undertook the publication of this work, and of other scarce

and valuable chronicles, have just sent that of Hall, to press.

The first two volumes of Monstralet, translated by Mr. Jones, are nearly completed at the Hasod press, and will probably soon be given to the public.

Mr. Robertson, of Edinburgh, is preparing for the press a work entitled the Diseases of Edinburgh, in which the sources of the permanent or regularly returning diseases of that city are pointed out, and the entire removal of these sources, as well as the method of cure of the diseases they endure are explained.

Mr. Woolley, surgeon, at Wootton Basset, will speedily publish a letter on the subject of vaccination, addressed to those classes of the community, whose example may influence the inferior order.

In the course of next month will be published, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Philip Sidney, in 1 vol, 4to. by Dr. Zouch, Prebendary of Durham.

Mess. Mathews and Leigh, announce their intention of publishing Sir John Carr's new work, a Tour in Scotland, which will appear early this season. The work will form one handsome volume in quarto, with highly finished plates, from drawings by the author.

Mr. Parkinson is expected to publish the second volume of Organic Remains of a former world in the beginning of June. It will contain twenty plates coloured after nature, exhibiting the representations of nearly two hundred fossils of the remains of Zoophytes; among which are specimens determining that upwards of twenty species of the encrinus have existed. These fossils are found dispersed in several parts of Great Britain.

Mr.

Almost every tourist in Wales has found either the inconvenience of conveying and referring to many volumes, or the want of information in a single work, when the track of the author has been deviated from. G. Nicholson, of Fghnilt, near Ludlow, announces that he has endeavoured to overcome some of these obstacles, by a new publication which is in considerable forwardness at the press, called " The Cambrian Traveller's Guide and Pocket Companion," containing the collected information of the inost authentic writers, relating to the principality, and parts of the adjoining counties of England; augmented with considerable original additions, the result of various excursions.

The work is arranged under numerous heads of cities, towns, villages, inns, bridges, castles, palaces, mansions, abbeys, churches, mountains, rocks, inlets, waterfalls, ferries, passes, &c., in alphabetic order: with descriptions of what is remarkable in the intervening spaces, in every direction; as solitary

houses, forts, encampments, walls, ancient roads, caverns, rivers, aqueducts, woods, fields of battles, cromlechs, carnddau, tumuli, pillars, druidic circles, works of iron, copper, tin, and potteries. The distances are given, and by what respective tourists pursued, so as to reserve the distinct routs of Aikin, Barber, Bingley, Coxe, Donovan, Evans, Hutten, Malkin, Pennant, Skrine, Warner, and Wyndham, on a peculiar plan. The whole is interspersed with historic and biographic notices; with natural history, botany, mineralogy, agriculture, and remarks on the manners and customs of the inhabitants. It is printing in a middle sized 8vo. in double columns, so as to include a mass of interesting particulars in a small compass.

Mr. Fenton, who some time ago announced his intention of publishing a historical tour though the county of Pembroke, and who is known to have been long engaged in collecting materials for it, is now proceeding with that work, and will shortly put it to the press. It will be embellished with a variety of engravings from drawings by Sir Richard Hoare; Mr. Fenton intends this work as a part of a general description of South Wales, which he hopes to be able to complete, to form a companion to Mr. Pennant's account of North Wales; it is also Mr. Fenton's design to publish about the same time with his account of Pembrokeshire, a new and enlarged edition, in three volumes quarto, of Mr. Pennant's works; with this view he means to go over the ground which Mr. Pennant travelled, to collect what materials may have escaped the researches of his predecessor, and to explore other districts of North Wales, which Mr. l'ennant did not visit; in this excursion he will be accompanied by Sir Richard Hoare, who has in the most obliging manner volunteered his service to supply what drawings may be deemed desirable, and to superintend the engraving of them. Other drawings will also be given from the collection of Mr. Pennant.

This day will be published, the first part, of a work dedicated to the use of the patrons, professors and students of the fine arts, entitled, the Artist's Repository; or, Encyclopedia of the Fine Arts; calculated to assist the genius of the student, and gratify the taste of the professor. It will contain a very entertaining and instructive series of explanatory lectures on drawing the human figure.-Accounts of the methods of preparing colors, and using them. Instructions for painting in water colors, crayons and oil-for engraving in all the various styles-complete and familiar treatises on sculpture; perspective; architecture landscape; a dictionary explaining the peculiar terms used in the arts. A history of the arts; biographical sketches of the most famous artists; and all requisite information re

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