Chapter VIII: Introduction (6)

_Tut._ It ascends into the air, and unites with it. But if in its way it be stopped by any cold body, it is _condensed_, that is, it returns to the state of water again. Lift up the lid of the teapot and you will find water collected on the inside of it, which is condensed steam from the hot tea beneath. Hold a spoon or knife in the way of the steam which bursts out of the spout of the teakettle, and you will find it immediately covered with drops. This operation of turning a fluid into vapour, and then condensing it, is called _distillation_. For this purpose, the vessel in which the liquor is heated is closely covered with another called the head, into which the steam rises and is condensed. It is then drawn off by means of a pipe into another vessel called the receiver. In this way all sweet-scented and aromatic liquors are drawn from fragrant vegetables, by means of water or spirits. The fragrant part being very volatile rises along with the steam of the water or spirit, and remains united with it after it is condensed. Rosewater, and spirits of lavender, are liquors of this kind.

_Pup._ Then the water collected on the inside of the teapot-lid should have the fragrance of the tea.

_Tut._ It should—but unless the tea were fine, you could scarcely perceive it.

_Pup._ I think I have heard of making salt water fresh by distilling.

_Tut._ Yes. That is an old discovery lately revived. The salt in seawater, being of a fixed nature, does not rise with the steam; and therefore, on condensing the steam, the water is found to be fresh. And this indeed is the method nature employs in raising water by exhalation from the ocean, which, collecting in clouds, is condensed in the cold region of the air, and falls down in rain.

But our tea is done: so we will now put an end to our chymical lecture.

_Pup._ But is this real chymistry?

_Tut._ Yes, it is.

_Pup._ Why, I understand it all without any difficulty.

_Tut._ I intended you should.

THE KIDNAPPERS.

Mr. B. was accustomed to read in the evening to his young folks some select story, and then ask them in turn what they thought of it. From the reflections they made on these occasions, he was enabled to form a judgment of their dispositions, and was led to throw in remarks of his own, by which their hearts and understandings might be improved. One night he read the following narrative from Churchill’s Voyages:—

“In some voyages of discovery made from Denmark to Greenland, the sailors were instructed to seize some of the natives by force or stratagem, and bring them away. In consequence of these orders, several Greenlanders were kidnapped and brought to Denmark. Though they were treated there with kindness, the poor wretches were always melancholy, and were observed frequently to turn their faces toward the north, and sigh bitterly. They made several attempts to escape, by putting out to sea in their little canoes, which had been brought with them. One of them had got as far as thirty leagues from land before he was overtaken. It was remarked that this poor man, whenever he met a woman with a child in her arms, used to utter a deep sigh; whence it was conjectured that he had left a wife and child behind him. They all pined away one after another, and died miserably.”

“Now, Edward,” said he, “what is your opinion of this story?”

_Ed._ Poor creatures! I think it was barbarous to take them from home.

_Mr. B._ It was, indeed!

_Ed._ Have civilized nations any right to behave so to savages?

_Mr. B._ I think you may readily answer that question yourself. Suppose you were a savage—what would be your opinion?

_Ed._ I dare say I should think it very wrong. But can savages think about right and wrong as we do?

_Mr. B._ Why not? are they not men?

_Ed._ Yes; but not like civilized men, sure?

_Mr. B._ I know no important difference between ourselves and those people we are pleased to call savage, but in the degree of knowledge and virtue possessed by each. And I believe many individuals among the Greenlanders as well as other unpolished people, exceed in these respects many among us. In the present case I am sure the Danish sailors showed themselves the greater savages.

_Ed._ But what did they take away the Greenlanders for?

_Mr. B._ The pretence was, that they might be brought to be instructed in a Christian country, and then sent back to civilize their countrymen.

_Ed._ And was not that a good thing?

_Mr. B._ Certainly, if it were done by proper means; but to attempt it by an act of violence and injustice could not be right: for they could teach them nothing so good as their example was bad; and the poor people were not likely to learn willingly from those who had begun with injuring them so cruelly.

_Ed._ I remember Captain Cook, brought over somebody from Otaheite; and poor Lee Boo was brought here from the Pelew islands. But I believe they both came of their own accord?

_Mr. B._ They did. And it is a great proof of the better way of thinking of modern voyagers than former ones, that they do not consider it as justifiable to use violence even for the supposed benefit of the people they visit.

_Ed._ I have read of taking possession of a newly-discovered country by setting up the king’s standard or some such ceremony, though it was full of inhabitants.

_Mr. B._ Such was formerly the custom; and a more impudent mockery of all right and justice can scarcely be conceived. Yet this, I am sorry to say, is the title by which European nations claim the greatest part of their foreign settlements.

_Ed._ And might not the natives drive them out again, if they were able?

_Mr. B._ I am sure I do not know why they might not; _for force can never give right_. Now, Harry, tell me what _you_ think of the story.

_Harry._ I think it very strange that people should want to go back to such a cold dismal place as Greenland.

_Mr. B._ Why what country do you love best in the world?

_Har._ England, to be sure!

_Mr. B._ But England is by no means the warmest and finest country. Here are no grapes growing in the fields, nor oranges in the woods and hedges, as there are in more southern climates.

_Har._ I should like them very well, to be sure—but then England is my own native country, where you and mamma and all my friends live. Besides it is a very pleasant country, too.

_Mr. B._ As to your first reason, you must be sensible that the Greenlander can say just the same; and the poor fellow who left a wife and children behind, must have had the strongest of all ties to make him wish to return. Do you think I should be easy to be separated from all of you?

_Har._ No; and I am sure we should not be easy, neither.

_Mr. B._ Home, my dear, wherever it is, is the spot toward which a good heart is the most strongly drawn. Then, as for the pleasantness of a place, that all depends upon habit. The Greenlander, being accustomed to the way of living, and all the objects of his own country, could not relish any other so well. He loved whale-fat and seal as well as you can do pudding and beef. He thought rowing his little boat amid the boisterous waves pleasanter employment than driving a plough or a cart. He fenced himself against the winter’s cold by warm clothing; and the long night of many weeks, which you would think so gloomy, was to him a season of ease and festivity in his habitation underground. It is a very kind and wise dispensation of Providence, that every part of the world is rendered most agreeable to those who live in it.

Now little Mary what have you to say?

_Mary._ I have only to say, that if they were to offer to carry me away from home, I would scratch their eyes out!

_Mr. B._ Well said, my girl! stand up for yourself. Let nobody run away with you—_against your will_.

_Mary._ That I won’t.

EVENING XI.
]

ON MANUFACTURES.

_Father_—_Henry._

_Henry._ My dear father, you observed the other day that we had a great many manufactures in England. Pray, what is a manufacture?

_Father._ A manufacture is something made by the hand of man. It is derived from two Latin words, _manus_, the hand, and _facere_, to make. Manufactures are therefore opposed to productions, which latter are what the bounty of nature spontaneously affords; as fruits, corn, marble.

_Hen._ But there is a great deal of trouble with corn: you have often made me take notice how much pains it costs the farmer to plough his ground, and put the seed in the earth, and keep it clear from weeds.

_Fa._ Very true: but the farmer does not make the corn; he only prepares for it a proper soil and situation, and removes every hinderance arising from the hardness of the ground, or the neighbourhood of other plants, which might obstruct the secret and wonderful process of vegetation; but with the vegetation itself he has nothing to do. It is not _his_ hand that draws out the slender fibres of the root, pushes up the green stalk, and by degrees the spiky ear; swells the grain, and embrowns it with that rich tinge of tawny russet, which informs the husbandman it is time to put in his sickle: all this operation is performed without his care, or even knowledge.

_Hen._ Now, then, I understand; corn is a _production_, and bread is a _manufacture_.

_Fa._ Bread is certainly, in strictness of speech, a manufacture; but we do not in general apply the term to anything in which the original material is so little changed. If we wanted to speak of bread philosophically, we should say, it is a preparation of corn.

_Hen._ Is sugar a manufacture?

_Fa._ No, for the same reason. Besides which, I do not recollect the term being applied to any article of food; I suppose from an idea that food is of too perishable a nature, and generally obtained by a process too simple to deserve the name. We say, therefore, sugar-works, oil-mills, chocolate-works; we do not say a beer-manufactory, but a brewery; but this is only a nicety of language, for properly all those are manufactories, if there is much of art and curiosity in the process.

_Hen._ Do we say a manufactory of pictures?

_Fa._ No; but for a different reason. A picture, especially if it belong to any of the higher kinds of painting, is an effort of genius. A picture cannot be produced by any given combinations of canvass and colour. It is the hand, indeed, that executes, but the head that works. Sir Joshua Reynolds could not have gone, when he was engaged to paint a picture, and hired workmen, the one to draw the eyes, another the nose, a third the mouth: the whole must be the painter’s own, that particular painter’s, and no other; and no one who has not his ideas can do his work. His work is therefore nobler, of a higher species.

_Hen._ Pray, give me an instance of a manufacture.

_Fa._ The making of watches is a manufacture: the silver, iron, gold, or whatever else is used in it, are productions, the materials of the work; but it is by the wonderful art of man that they are wrought into the numberless wheels and springs of which this complicated machine is composed.

_Hen._ Then is there not as much art in making a watch as a picture? Does not the head work?

_Fa._ Certainly, in the original invention of watches, as much, or more, than in painting; but when once invented, the art of watchmaking is capable of being reduced to a mere mechanical labour, which may be exercised by any man of common capacity, according to certain precise rules, when made familiar to him by practice: of this painting is not capable.

_Hen._ But, my dear father, making books surely requires a great deal of thinking and study; and yet I remember the other day at dinner a gentleman said that Mr. Pica had manufactured a large volume in less than a fortnight.

_Fa._ It was meant to convey a satirical remark on his book because it was compiled from other authors, from whom he had taken a page in one place, and a page in another; so that it was not produced by the labour of his brain, but of his hands. Thus you heard your mother complain that the London cream was manufactured; which was a pointed and concise way of saying that the cream was not what it ought to be, or what it pretended to be: for cream, when genuine, is a pure production; but when mixed up and adulterated with flour and isinglass, and I know not what, it becomes a manufacture. It was as much as to say, art has been here where it has no business; where it is not beneficial, but hurtful. A great deal of the delicacy of language depends upon an accurate knowledge of the specific meaning of single terms, and a nice attention to their relative propriety.

_Hen._ Have all nations manufactures?

_Fa._ All that are in any degree cultivated; but it very often happens that countries naturally the poorest have manufactures of the greatest extent and variety.

_Hen._ Why so?

_Fa._ For the same reason, I apprehend, that individuals, who are rich without any labour of their own, are seldom so industrious and active as those who depend upon their own exertions: thus the Spaniards, who possess the richest gold and silver mines in the world, are in want of many conveniences of life which are enjoyed in London and Amsterdam.

_Hen._ I can comprehend that: I believe if my uncle Leger were to find a gold mine under his warehouse, he would soon shut up his shop.

_Fa._ I believe so. It is not, however, easy to establish manufactures in a _very poor_ nation: they require science and genius for their invention, art and contrivance for their execution; order, peace, and union, for their flourishing. They require, too, a number of men to combine together in an undertaking, and to prosecute it with the most patient industry; they require, therefore, laws and government for their protection. If you see extensive manufactures in any nation, you may be sure it is a civilized nation, you may be sure property is accurately ascertained and protected. They require great expenses for their first establishment, costly machines for shortening manual labour, and money and credit for purchasing materials from distant countries. There is not a single manufacture of Great Britain which does not require, in some part or other of its process, productions from the different parts of the globe, oils, drugs, varnish, quicksilver, and the like: it requires, therefore, _ships_ and a friendly intercourse with foreign nations, to transport commodities and exchange productions. We could not be a manufacturing, unless we were also a commercial nation. They require time to take root in any place, and their excellence often depends upon some nice and delicate circumstance; a peculiar quality, for instance, in the air or water, or some other local circumstance not easily ascertained. Thus, I have heard that the Irish women spin better than the English, because the moister temperature of their climate makes their skin more soft and their fingers more flexible: thus again we cannot die so beautiful a scarlet as the French can, though with the same drugs, perhaps on account of the superior purity of the air. But though so much is necessary for the perfection of the more curious and complicated manufactures, all nations possess those which are subservient to the common conveniences of life;—the loom and the forge, particularly, are of the highest antiquity.

_Hen._ Yes; I remember Hector bids Andromache return to her apartments, and employ herself in weaving with her maids; and I remember the shield of Achilles.

_Fa._ True; and you likewise remember, in an earlier period, the fine linen of Egypt: and to go still higher, the working of iron and brass is recorded of Tubal-Cain before the flood.

_Hen._ Which is the most important, manufactures or agriculture?

_Fa._ Agriculture is the most _necessary_, because it is first of all necessary that man should live; but almost all the enjoyments and comforts of life are produced by manufactures.

_Hen._ Why are we obliged to take so much pains to make ourselves comfortable?

_Fa._ To exercise our industry. Nature provides the materials for man. She pours out at his feet a profusion of gems, metals, dies, plants, ores, bark, stones, gums, wax, marbles, woods, roots, skins, earth, and minerals of all kinds! She has likewise given him tools.

_Hen._ I did not know that nature gave us tools.

_Fa._ No! what are those two instruments you carry always about with you, so strong and yet so flexible, so nicely jointed, and branched out into five long, taper, unequal divisions, any of which may be contracted or stretched out at pleasure; the extremities of which have a feeling so wonderfully delicate, and which are strengthened and defended by horn?

_Hen._ The hands?

_Fa._ Yes. Man is as much superior to the brutes in his outward form, by means of the hand, as he is in his mind by the gifts of reason. The trunk of the elephant comes perhaps the nearest to it in its exquisite feeling and flexibility, (it is, indeed, called his hand in Latin,) and accordingly that animal has always been reckoned the wisest of brutes. When Nature gave man the hand, she said to him. “Exercise your ingenuity and work.” As soon as ever a man rises above the state of a savage, he begins to contrive and to make things, in order to improve his forlorn condition: thus you may remember Thomson represents Industry coming to the poor shivering wretch, and teaching him the arts of life:—

“Taught him to chip the wood, and hew the stone,
Till by degrees the finished fabric rose;
Tore from his limbs the bloody-polluted fur,
And wrapped them in the woolly vestment warm,
Or bright in glossy silk and flowing lawn.”

_Hen._ It must require a great deal of knowledge, I suppose, for so many curious works; what kind of knowledge is most necessary?

_Fa._ There is not any which may not be occasionally employed; but the two sciences which most assist the manufacturer are _mechanics_ and _chymistry_; the one for building mills, working mines, and in general for constructing wheels, wedges, pulleys, &c., either to shorten the labour of man, by performing it in less time, or to perform what the strength of man alone could not accomplish; the other in fusing and working ores, in dying and bleaching, and extracting the virtues of various substances for particular uses; making of soap, for instance, is a chymical operation; and by chymistry an ingenious gentleman has lately found out a way of bleaching a piece of cloth in eight-and-forty hours, which by the common process would have taken up a great many weeks. You have heard of Sir Richard Arkwright, who died lately?

_Hen._ Yes, I have heard he was at first only a barber, and shaved people for a penny apiece.

_Fa._ He did so; but having a strong turn for mechanics, he invented, or at least perfected a machine, by which one pair of hands may do the work of twenty or thirty; and, as in this country every one is free to rise by merit, he acquired the largest fortune in the country, had a great many hundreds of workmen under his orders, and had leave given him by the king to put _Sir_ before his name.

_Hen._ Did that do him any good?

_Fa._ It pleased him, I suppose, or he would not have accepted of it; and you will allow, I imagine, that if titles are used, it does honour to those who bestow them, when they are given to such as have made themselves noticed for something useful. Arkwright used to say, that if he had time to perfect his inventions, he would put a fleece of wool into a box, and it should come out broadcloth.

_Hen._ What did he mean by that? Was there any fairy in the box to turn it into broadcloth with her wand?

_Fa._ He was assisted by the only fairies that ever had the power of transformation—art and industry: he meant that he would contrive so many machines, wheel within wheel, that the combing, carding, and various other operations, should be performed by mechanism, almost without the hand of man.

_Hen._ I think, if I had not been told, I should never have been able to guess that my coat came off the back of the sheep.

_Fa._ You hardly would; but there are manufactures in which the material is much more changed than in woollen cloth. What can be meaner in appearance than sand and ashes? Would you imagine anything beautiful could be made out of such a mixture? Yet the furnace transforms this into that transparent crystal we call glass, than which nothing is more sparkling, more brilliant, more full of lustre. It throws about the rays of light as if it had life and motion.

_Hen._ There is a glass shop in London which always puts me in mind of Aladdin’s palace.

_Fa._ It is certain that if a person, ignorant of the manufacture, were to see one of our capital shops, he would think all the treasures of Golconda were centred there, and that every drop of cut-glass was worth a prince’s ransom. Again, who would suppose, on seeing the green stalks of a plant, that it could be formed into a texture so smooth, so snowy-white, so firm, and yet so flexible as to wrap round the limbs, and adapt itself to every movement of the body? Who would guess this fibrous stalk could be made to float in such light undulating folds as in our lawns and cambrics; not less fine, we presume, than that transparent drapery which the Romans called _ventus textilis_, _woven wind_?

_Hen._ I wonder how anybody can spin such fine thread!

_Fa._ Their fingers must have the touch of a spider, that, as Pope says,

“Feels at each thread, and lives along the line;”

and, indeed, you recollect that Arachne was a spinster. Lace is a still finer production from flax, and is one of those in which the original material is most improved. How many times the price of a pound of flax do you think that flax will be worth when made into lace?

_Hen._ A great many times, I suppose.

_Fa._ Flax at the best hand is bought at fourteen pence a pound. They make lace at Valenciennes, in French Flanders, of ten guineas a yard—I believe, indeed, higher—but we will say ten guineas; this yard of lace will weigh probably more than half an ounce: what is the value of half an ounce of flax?

_Hen._ It comes to one farthing and three quarters of a farthing.

_Fa._ Right: now tell me how many times the original value the lace is worth.

_Hen._ Prodigious! it is worth 5760 times as much as the flax it is made of!

_Fa._ Yet there is another material that is still more improveable than flax.

_Hen._ What can that be?

_Fa._ Iron. The price of pig-iron is ten shillings a hundred weight; this is not quite one farthing for two ounces: now you have seen some of the beautiful cut-steel that looks like diamonds?

_Hen._ Yes, I have seen buckles, and pins, and watchchains.

_Fa._ Then you can form an idea of it: but you have only seen the most common sorts. There was a chain made at Woodstock, in Oxford shire, and sent to France, which weighed only two ounces, and cost 170_l._ Calculate how many times that had increased its value.

_Hen._ Amazing! it was worth 163,600 times the value of the iron it was made of!

_Fa._ That is what manufacture can do: here man is a kind of creator and, like the great Creator, he may please himself with his work, and say it is good. In the last-mentioned manufacture, too, that of steel, the English have the honour of excelling all the world.

_Hen._ What are the chief manufactures of England?

_Fa._ We have at present a greater variety than I can pretend to enumerate, but our staple manufacture is woollen cloth. England abounds in fine pastures and extensive downs, which feed great numbers of sheep: hence our wool has always been a valuable article of trade; but we did not always know how to work it. We used to sell it to the Flemish or Lombards, who wrought it into cloth; till, in the year 1326, Edward the Third invited some Flemish weavers over to teach us the art; but there was not much made in England till the reign of Henry the Seventh. Manchester and Birmingham are towns which have arisen to great consequence from small beginnings, almost within the memory of old men now living; the first for cotton and muslin goods, the second for cutlery and hardware, in which we at this moment excel all Europe. Of late years, too, carpets, beautiful as fine tapestry, have been fabricated in this country. Our clocks and watches are greatly esteemed. The earthenware plates and dishes, which we all use in common, and the elegant set for the tea-table, ornamented with musical instruments, which we admired in our visit yesterday, belong to a very extensive manufactory, the seat of which is at Burslem, in Staffordshire. The principal potteries there belong to one person, an excellent chymist, and a man of great taste; he, in conjunction with another man of taste, who is since dead, has made our clay more valuable than the finest porcelain of China. He has moulded it into all the forms of grace and beauty that are to be met with in the precious remains of the Greek and Etruscan artists. In the more common articles he has pencilled it with the most elegant designs, shaped it into shells and leaves, twisted it into wickerwork, and trailed the ductile foliage round the light basket. He has filled our cabinets and chimney-pieces with urns, lamps, and vases, on which are lightly traced, with the purest simplicity, the fine forms and floating draperies of Herculaneum. In short, he has given to our houses a classic air, and has made every saloon and every dining-room schools of taste. I should add that there is a great demand abroad for this elegant manufacture. The emperess of Russia has some magnificent services of it; and the other day one was sent to the king of Spain, intended as a present from him to the archbishop of Toledo, which cost a thousand pounds. Some morning you shall go through the rooms in the London warehouse.

_Hen._ I should like very much to see manufactures, now you have told me some curious things about them.

_Fa._ You will do well! There is much more entertainment to a cultivated mind in seeing a pin made, than in many a fashionable diversion which young people half ruin themselves to attend. In the meantime I will give you some account of one of the most elegant of them, which is _paper_.

_Hen._ Pray do, my dear father.

_Fa._ It shall be left for another evening, however, for it is now late. Good-night.

The Two Robbers, p. 148.

EVENING XII.
]

A LESSON IN THE ART OF DISTINGUISHING.

_Father._ Come hither, Charles; what is that you see grazing in the meadow before you?

_Charles._ It is a horse.

_Fa._ Whose horse is it?

_Ch._ I do not know; I never saw it before.

_Fa._ How do you know it is a horse, if you never saw it before?

_Ch._ Because it is like other horses.

_Fa._ Are all horses alike, then?

_Ch._ Yes.

_Fa._ If they are alike, how do you know one horse from another?

_Ch._ They are not quite alike.

_Fa._ But they are so much alike, that you can easily distinguish a horse from a cow?

_Ch._ Yes, indeed.

_Fa._ Or from a cabbage?

_Ch._ A horse from a cabbage? yes, surely I can.

_Fa._ Very well; then let us see if you can tell how a horse differs from a cabbage?

_Ch._ Very easily; a horse is alive?

_Fa._ True; and how is every thing called which is alive?

_Ch._ I believe all things that are alive are called _animals_.

_Fa._ Right; but can you tell me what a horse and a cabbage are alike in?

_Ch._ Nothing, I believe.

_Fa._ Yes, there is one thing in which the slenderest moss that grows upon the wall is like the greatest man or the highest angel.

_Ch._ Because God made them.

_Fa._ Yes: and how do you call everything that is made?

_Ch._ A creature.

_Fa._ A horse, then, is a creature, but also a living creature; that is to say, an animal.

_Ch._ And a cabbage is a dead creature: that is the difference.

_Fa._ Not so, neither; nothing is dead that has never been alive.

_Ch._ What must I call it, then, if it is neither dead nor alive?

_Fa._ An inanimate creature; there is the animate and inanimate creation. Plants, stones, metals, are of the latter class; horses belong to the former.

_Ch._ But the gardener told me some of my cabbages were _dead_, and some were _alive_.

_Fa._ Very true. Plants have a _vegetative_ life, a principle of growth and decay; this is common to them with all organized bodies; but they have not sensation, at least we do not know they have—they have not life, therefore in the sense in which animals enjoy it.

_Ch._ A horse is called an animal, then?

_Fa._ Yes; but a salmon is an animal; and so is a sparrow; how will you distinguish a horse from these?

_Ch._ A salmon lives in the water, and swims; a sparrow flies and lives in the air.

_Fa._ I think a salmon could not walk on the ground, even if it could live out of the water.

_Ch._ No, indeed, it has no legs.

_Fa._ And a bird cannot gallop like a horse.

_Ch._ No; It hops upon its two slender legs.

_Fa._ How many legs has a horse?

_Ch._ Four.

_Fa._ And an ox?

_Ch._ Four likewise.

_Fa._ And a camel?

_Ch._ Four still.

_Fa._ Do you know any animals which live upon the earth that have not four legs?

_Ch._ I think not; they have all four legs, except worms and insects, and such things.

_Fa._ You remember, I suppose, what an animal is called that has four legs; you have it in your little books?

_Ch._ A quadruped.

_Fa._ A horse then, is a _quadruped_: by this we distinguish him from birds, fishes, and insects.

_Ch._ And from men.

_Fa._ True; but if you had been talking about birds, you would not have found it so easy to distinguish them.

_Ch._ How so? a man is not at all like a bird.

_Fa._ Yet an ancient philosopher could find no way to distinguish them, but by calling man a _two-legged animal without feathers_.

_Ch._ I think he was very silly; they are not at all alike, though they have both two legs.

_Fa._ Another ancient philosopher, called Diogenes, was of your opinion. He stripped a cock of his feathers, and turned him into the school where Plato, that was his name, was teaching, and said, “Here is Plato’s man for you!”

_Ch._ I wish I had been there, I should have laughed very much.

_Fa._ Probably. Before we laugh at others, however, let us see what we can do ourselves. We have not yet found anything which will distinguish a horse from an elephant, or from a Norway rat.

_Ch._ Oh, that is easy enough! An elephant is very large, and a rat is very small; a horse is neither large nor small.

_Fa._ Before we go any farther look what is settled on the skirt of your coat.

_Ch._ It is a butterfly: what a prodigiously large one! I never saw such a one before.

_Fa._ Is it larger than a rat, think you?

_Ch._ No, that it is not.

_Fa._ Yet you called the butterfly large, and you called the rat small.

_Ch._ It is very large for a butterfly.

_Fa._ It is so. You see, therefore, that large and small are _relative terms_.

_Ch._ I do not well understand that phrase.

_Fa._ It means that they have no precise and determinate signification in themselves, but are applied differently according to the other ideas which you join with them, and the different positions in which you view them. This butterfly, therefore, is _large_, compared with those of its own species, and _small_ compared with many other species of animals. Besides, there is no circumstance which varies more than the size of individuals. If you were to give an idea of a horse from its size, you would certainly say it was much bigger than a dog; yet if you take the smallest Shetland horse, and the largest Irish greyhound, you will find them very much upon a par; size, therefore, is not a circumstance by which you can accurately distinguish one animal from another; nor yet is colour.

_Ch._ No; there are black horses, and bay, and white, and pied.

_Fa._ But you have not seen that variety of colours in a hare for instance.

_Ch._ No, a hare is always brown.

_Fa._ Yet if you were to depend upon that circumstance, you would not convey the idea of a hare to a mountaineer, or an inhabitant of Siberia; for he sees them white as snow. We must, therefore find out some circumstances that do not change like size and colour, and I may add shape, though they are not so obvious, nor perhaps so striking. Look at the feet of quadrupeds; are they all alike?

_Ch._ No: some have long taper claws, and some have thick clumsy feet without claws.

_Fa._ The thick feet are horny: are they not?

_Ch._ Yes, I recollect they are called hoofs.

_Fa._ And the feet that are not covered with horn and are divided into claws, are called _digitated_, from _digitus_, a finger; because they are parted like fingers. Here, then, we have one grand division of quadrupeds into _hoofed_ and _digitated_. Of which division is the horse?

_Ch._ He is hoofed.

_Fa._ There are a great many different kinds of horses; did you ever know one that was not hoofed?

_Ch._ No, never.

_Fa._ Do you think we run any hazard of a stranger telling us, “Sir, horses are hoofed indeed in your country; but in mine, which is in a different climate, and where we feed them differently, they have claws?”

_Ch._ No, I dare say not.

_Fa._ Then we have got something to our purpose; a circumstance easily marked, which always belongs to the animal, under every variation of situation or treatment. But an ox is hoofed, and so is a sheep; we must distinguish still farther. You have often stood by, I suppose, while the smith was shoeing a horse. What kind of a hoof has he?

_Ch._ It is round and all in one piece.

_Fa._ And is that of an ox so?

_Ch._ No, it is divided.

_Fa._ A horse, then, is not only hoofed but _whole-hoofed_. Now how many quadrupeds do you think there are in the world that are whole-hoofed?

_Ch._ Indeed I do not know.

_Fa._ There are, among all animals that we are acquainted with, either in this country or in any other, only the horse, the ass, and the zebra, which is a species of the wild ass. Now, therefore, you see we have nearly accomplished our purpose; we have only to distinguish him from the ass.

_Ch._ That is easily done, I believe; I should be sorry if any body could mistake my little horse for an ass.

_Fa._ It is not so easy, however, as you imagine; the eye readily distinguishes them by the air and general appearance, but naturalists have been rather puzzled to fix upon any specific difference, which may serve the purpose of a definition. Some have, therefore, fixed upon the ears, others on the mane and tail. What kind of ears has an ass?

_Ch._ Oh, very long clumsy ears! Asses’ ears are always laughed at.

_Fa._ And the horse?

_Ch._ The horse has small ears, nicely turned and upright.

_Fa._ And the mane, is there no difference there?

_Ch._ The horse has a fine long flowing mane; the ass has hardly any.

_Fa._ And the tail: is it not fuller of hair in the horse than in the ass?

_Ch._ Yes; the ass has only a few long hairs at the end of the tail; but the horse has a long bushy tail when it is not cut.

_Fa._ Which, by the way, it is a pity it ever should. Now, then, observe what particulars we have got. _A horse is an animal of the quadruped kind, whole-hoofed, with short erect ears, a flowing mane, and a tail covered in every part with long hairs._ Now is there any other animal, think you, in the world, that answers these particulars?

_Ch._ I do not know; this does not tell us a great deal about him.

_Fa._ And yet it tells us enough to distinguish him from all the different tribes of the creation which we are acquainted with in any part of the earth. Do you know now what we have been making?

_Ch._ What?

_Fa._ A DEFINITION. It is the business of a definition to distinguish precisely the thing defined from any other thing, and to do it in as few terms as possible. Its object is to separate the subject of definition, first from those with which it has only a general resemblance, then, from those which agree with it in a greater variety of particulars; and so on till by constantly throwing out all which have not the qualities we have taken notice of, we come at length to the individual or the species we wish to ascertain. It is a kind of chase, and resembles the manner of hunting in some countries, where they first enclose a large circle with their dogs, nets, and horses; and then, by degrees, draw their toils closer and closer, driving their game before them till it is at length brought into so narrow a compass that the sportsmen have nothing to do but to knock down their prey.

_Ch._ Just as we have been hunting this horse, till at last we held him fast by his ears and tail.

_Fa._ I should observe to you, that in the definition naturalists give of a horse it is generally mentioned that he has six cutting teeth in each jaw; because this circumstance of the teeth has been found a very convenient one for characterizing large classes: but as it is not absolutely necessary here, I have omitted it; a definition being the most perfect the fewer particulars you make use of, provided you can say with certainty from those particulars the object so characterized must be this and no other whatever.

_Ch._ But, papa, if I had never seen a horse, I should not know what kind of animal it was by this definition.

_Fa._ Let us hear, then, how you would give me an idea of a horse.

_Ch._ I would say it was a fine large prancing creature with slender legs and an arched neck, and a sleek, smooth skin, and a tail that sweeps the ground, and that he snorts and neighs very loud, and tosses his head, and runs as swift as the wind.

_Fa._ I think you learned some verses upon the horse in your last lesson? Repeat them.

_Ch._

The wanton courser thus with reins unbound
Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground;
Pamper’d and proud, he seeks the wonted tides,
And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides
His head, now freed, he tosses to the skies;
His mane dishevell’d o’er his shoulders flies;
He snuffs the females in the distant plain,
And springs, exulting, to his fields again.—POPE’S _Homer_.

_Fa._ You have said very well; but this is not a _definition_, it is a _description_.

_Ch._ What is the difference?

_Fa._ A description is intended to give you a lively picture of an object, as if you saw it; it ought to be very full. A definition gives no picture to those who have not seen it: it rather tells you what its subject is not, than what it is, by giving you such clear specific marks, that it shall not be possible to confound it with anything else; and hence it is of the greatest use in throwing things into classes. We have a great many beautiful descriptions from ancient authors so loosely worded that we cannot certainly tell what animals are meant by them: whereas, if they had given us definitions, three lines would have ascertained their meaning.

_Ch._ I like a description best, papa.

_Fa._ Perhaps so; I believe I should have done the same at your age. Remember, however, that nothing is more useful than to learn to form ideas with precision, and to express them with accuracy; I have not given you a definition to teach you what a horse is, but to teach you to _think_.

THE PHENIX AND DOVE.

A Phenix, who had long inhabited the solitary deserts of Arabia, once flew so near the habitations of men as to meet with a tame dove, who was sitting on her nest, with wings expanded, and fondly brooding over her young ones, while she expected her mate, who was foraging abroad to procure them food. The phenix, with a kind of insulting compassion, said to her, “Poor bird, how much I pity thee! confined to a single spot, and sunk in domestic cares, thou art continually employed either in laying eggs or providing for thy brood; and thou exhausteth thy life and strength in perpetuating a feeble and defenceless race. As to myself, I live exempt from toil, care, and misfortune. I feed upon nothing less precious than rich gums and spices. I fly through the trackless regions of the air, and when I am seen by men, am gazed at with curiosity and astonishment! I have no one to control my range, no one to provide for; and when I have fulfilled my five centuries of life, and seen the revolution of ages, I rather vanish than die, and a successor, without my care, springs up from my ashes. I am an image of the great sun whom I adore; and glory in being like him, single and alone, and having no likeness.”

The dove replied, “O, phenix, I pity thee much more than thou affectest to pity me! What pleasure canst thou enjoy, who livest forlorn and solitary in a trackless and unpeopled desert? who hast no mate to caress thee, no young ones to excite thy tenderness and reward thy cares, no kindred, no society among thy fellows? Not long life only, but immortality itself would be a curse, if it were to be bestowed on such uncomfortable terms. For my part, I know that my life will be short, and therefore I employ it in raising a numerous posterity, and in opening my heart to all the sweets of domestic happiness. I am beloved by my partner; I am dear to man; and shall leave marks behind me that I have lived. As to the sun, to whom thou hast presumed to compare thyself, that glorious being is so totally different from, and so infinitely superior to, all the creatures upon earth, that it does not become us to liken ourselves to him, or to determine upon the manner of his existence. One obvious difference, however, thou mayest remark; that the sun, though alone, by his prolific heat produces all things, and though he shines so high above our heads, gives us reason every moment to bless his beams; whereas thou, swelling with imaginary greatness, dreamest away a long period of existence, equally void of comfort and of usefulness.”

THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER.

_Father._ I will now, as I promised, give you an account of the elegant and useful manufacture of _paper_, the basis of which is itself a manufacture. This delicate and beautiful substance is made from the meanest and most disgusting materials, from old rags, which have passed from one poor person to another, and have perhaps at length dropped in tatters from the child of the beggar. These are carefully picked up from dunghills, or bought from servants by Jews, who make it their business to go about and collect them. They sell them to the rag-merchant, who gives them from two pence to four pence a pound, according to their quality; and he, when he has got a sufficient quantity, disposes of them to the owner of the papermill. He gives them first to women to sort and pick, agreeably to their different degrees of fineness; they also with a knife cut out carefully all the seams, which they throw into a basket for other purposes; they then put them into the dusting-engine, a large circular wire sieve, where they receive some degree of cleansing. The rags are then conveyed to the mill. Here they were formerly beat to pieces with vast hammers, which rose and fell continually with a most tremendous noise, that was heard at a great distance. But now they put the rags into a large trough or cistern, into which a pipe of clear spring water is constantly flowing. In this cistern is placed a cylinder, about two feet long, set thick round with rows of iron spikes, standing as near as they can to one another without touching. At the bottom of the trough there are corresponding rows of spikes. The cylinder is made to whirl round with inconceivable rapidity, and with these iron teeth rends and tears the cloth in every possible direction; till, by the assistance of the water, which continually flows through the cistern, it is thoroughly masticated, and reduced to a fine pulp; and by the same process all its impurities are cleansed away, and it is restored to its original whiteness. This process takes about six hours. To improve the colour they then put in a little smalt, which gives it a bluish cast, which all paper has more or less: the French paper has less of it than ours. This fine pulp is next put into a copper of warm water. It is the substance of paper, but the form must now be given it: for this purpose they use a mould. It is made of wire, strong one way, and crossed with finer. This mould they just dip horizontally into the copper and take it out again. It has a little wooden frame on the edge, by means of which it retains as much of the pulp as is wanted for the thickness of the sheet, and the water runs off through the interstices of the wires. Another man instantly receives it, opens the frame, and turns out the thin sheet, which has now shape, but not consistence, upon soft felt, which is placed on the ground to receive it. On that is placed another piece of felt, and then another sheet of paper, and so on, till they have made a pile of forty or fifty. They are then pressed with a large screw-press, moved by a long lever, which forcibly squeezes the water out of them, and gives them immediate consistence. There is still, however, a great deal to be done. The felts are taken off, and thrown on one side, and the paper on the other, whence it is dexterously taken up with an instrument in the form of a T, three sheets at a time, and hung on lines to dry. There it hangs for a week or ten days, which likewise further whitens it; and any knots and roughness it may have are picked off carefully by the women. It is then sized. Size is a kind of glue; and without this preparation the paper would not bear ink; it would run and blot as you see it does on gray paper. The sheets are just dipped into the size and taken out again. The exact degree of sizing is a matter of nicety, which can only be known by experience. They are then hung up again to dry, and when dry, taken to the finishing-room, where they are examined anew, pressed in the dry-presses, which give them their last gloss and smoothness; counted up into quires, made up into reams, and sent to the stationer’s, from whom we have it, after he has folded it again and cut the edges; some too he makes to shine like satin, by hot-pressing it, or glossing it with hot plates. The whole process of papermaking takes about three weeks.

_Har._ It is a very curious process indeed. I shall almost scruple for the future to blacken a sheet of paper with a careless scrawl, now I know how much pains it costs to make it so white and beautiful.

_Fa._ It is true that there is hardly anything we use with so much waste and profusion as this manufacture: we should think ourselves confined in the use of it, if we might not tear, disperse, and destroy it in a thousand ways; so that it is really astonishing whence linen enough can be procured to answer so vast a demand. As to the coarse brown papers, of which an astonishing quantity is used by every shopkeeper in packages, &c., these are made chiefly of oakum, that is, old hempen ropes. A fine paper is made in China of silk.

_Har._ I have heard lately of woven paper; pray, what is that? they cannot weave paper, surely!

_Fa._ Your question is very natural. In order to answer it, I must desire you to take a sheet of common paper, and hold it up against the light. Do not you see marks in it?

_Har._ I see a great many white lines running along lengthwise, like ribs, and smaller that cross them. I see, too, letters and the figure of a crown.

_Fa._ These are all the marks of the wires; the thickness of the wire prevents so much of the pulp lying upon the sheet in those places, consequently wherever the wires are the paper is thinner, and you see the light through more readily, which gives that appearance of white lines. The letters, too, are worked in the wire, and are the maker’s name. Now, to prevent these lines, which take off from the beauty of the paper, particularly of drawing-paper, there have been lately used moulds of brass wire, exceeding fine, of equal thickness, and woven or latticed one within another: the marks therefore of these are easily pressed out, so as to be hardly visible; if you look at this sheet you will see it is quite smooth.

_Har._ It is so.

_Fa._ I should mention to you, that there is a discovery very lately made, by which they can make paper equal to any in whiteness, of the coarsest brown rags, and even of died cotton; which they have till now been obliged to throw by for inferior purposes.

_Har._ That is like what you told me before of bleaching cloth in a few hours.

_Fa._ It is indeed founded upon the same discovery. The paper made of these brown rags is likewise more valuable, from being very tough and strong, almost like parchment.

_Har._ When was the making of paper found out?

_Fa._ It is a disputed point, but probably in the fourteenth century. The invention has been of almost equal consequence to literature with that of printing itself; and shows how the arts and sciences, like children of the same family, mutually assist and bring forward each other.

THE TWO ROBBERS.

Scene—_Alexander the Great in his tent. Guards. A man with a fierce
countenance, chained and fettered, brought before him._

_Alex._ What, art thou the Thracian robber of whose exploits I have heard so much?

_Rob._ I am a Thracian and a soldier.

_A._ A soldier!—a thief, a plunderer, an assassin! the pest of the country! could honour thy courage, but I must detest and punish thy crimes.

_R._ What have I done, of which _you_ can complain?

_A._ Hast thou not set at defiance my authority, violated the public peace, and passed thy life in injuring the persons and properties of thy fellow-subjects?

_R._ Alexander, I am your captive—I must hear what you please to say, and endure what you please to inflict. But my soul is unconquered; and if I reply at all to your reproaches, I will reply like a free man.

_A._ Speak freely. Far be it from me to take the advantage of my power to silence those with whom I deign to converse!