The decidedly bad moral tendency of some of the most popular novels of the times is forcibly depicted in a magazine recently established in England, by two of the sons of William Cobbett, in the following language:—
"Would you seduce a wife? Falkland shall teach you to do it with gravity and dignity. Would you murder? Eugene Aram shall show you its necessity for the public advantage. Would you rob? Paul Clifford shall convince you of the injustice of security, and of the abominableness of the safety of a purse on a moonlight night.—Would you eat? Turn to Harry Bertram and Dandy Dinmont to the round of beef. Would you drink? Friar Tuck is the jolliest of companions. Would you dance, dress, and drawl? Pelham shall take you into tuition. Would you lie, fawn, and flatter? Andrew Wylie shall instruct you to crawl upward, without the slime betraying your path. Would you yawn, doze, sleep, or dream? Cloudesly shall do it for you, for the space of the first volume."
THOMAS MOORE.
Hostile feelings to the Americans having been imputed to the poet Moore in the first number of the (London) Westminster Review, the following paragraph appeared in the London Times of the 4th Feb., 1824.
"In the first number of the Westminster Review, just published, there is an article upon a late work of Mr. Moore's, in which the writer says, 'Mr. Moore has resided in America, and, we understand, speaks of the Americans with unbounded dislike and contempt.' In this assertion we can confidently state, the writer is entirely mistaken. Whatever opinions Mr. Moore may have hastily formed, when a very young man, with respect to the character and institutions of the Americans, we know that he has long since learned to correct them, and to feel towards that people all the admiration and respect which the noble example they set to the other nations of the world demands."
Boston Telegraph, 1824.
From the "Salem Gazette," Sept. 6, 1811.
Aiken's blood-letting Sermon
for ſale by Cuſhing & Appleton.
From the "Boston Transcript," Dec., 1834.
Old times.—Mr. Thatcher stated, in his Lecture before the Boston Lyceum, that the Old Latin School in this City was commenced two hundred years ago, according to the records of the Town, which begin at the same year. For a long time it was the only school; and there was no writing school among us until November, 1684, (just 150 years since.) Master Cheever presided over the Latin 38 years, till he died at 93. He was the teacher of two of the Mathers, and the second Doctor said of him in an obituary essay, with his own peculiar felicity, that
Lovell was his second successor, and held on 92 years, till in 1776 he left the town a Loyalist. The old gentleman had a house furnished for him in School street, and a garden that reached nearly to Court street, which his best boys were allowed to till; and they had also the privilege as a reward of merit of sawing his wood and bottling his cider.—The Lecturer remarked that this was the first manual labor school he had heard of.
A quotation from Scripture.
"In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired."
From the "Salem Observer," 1840.
Literary Curiosity. The following letter was written by a young gentleman to his "lady love," under the direction and eye of a rigid old father. The understanding, however, between the lovers, was, that she should read only every other line, beginning with the first. Love is full of expedients.
Madam,—