"I study with my eyes on my book, and | intrusted with "a dozen groats' worth of my mind is in the court; I preach without ballads," goes on to say, that their emspirit; I trust not of God, but of my sove-ployer, "if they prove thrifty, makes them reign, which is God's lieutenant, and so pretty chapmen, able to spread more pamanother god to me. For of such it is said, phlets, by the state forbidden, than all the 'Vos estis dii.' I eat without stomach; I booksellers in London; for only in this sleep without rest; I company without city is straight search: abroade small suscomfort; and live as one dead. You labor pition, especially of such petty pedlars :" daily to cherish other bishops set up by it hathe been said they bragge they hath others, and will you throw down him you gained their 20s. a day." Twenty shillings have set up yourself?" The last remark a day! why, even allowing the highest seems to allude to the mischievous power price of the period for a pamphlet-a groat, which Hatton, the only truly "high church"--their daily sale must have been three-score. minister which Elizabeth ever had, exercised in ecclesiastical affairs. * There is great reason to believe that the combined efforts of Whitgift, Aylmer, and Hatton, who was then vice-chamberlain, and from his office took great share in ecclesiastical affairs, were the chief cause of the persecuting measures adopted against the stricter puritans between 1580 and 1590. And these measures roused up a host of writers, whose works, in the form of pamphlets, were so numerous, that, taking into account those surreptitiously printed as well as those duly licensed, we greatly doubt whether their number would not fully equal those of the present day. There must have been a large reading public then, and the eagerness with which the newest pamphlet, especially if on controverted subjects, was sought after, proves the public were intelligent too. "Pamphlets," as a late reviewer has truly said, were the mode of agitation of that day, and admirably they fulfilled their purpose." Admirably indeed, did they, but in no scoffing sense would we say it. Our space is far too limited, or we could give passages from these little black-letter quartos that would fully prove, that like as the bud is to the fruit, the dawn to the perfect day, so in their initiatory form are the noble principles of the commonwealth period displayed in these pamphlets. We have a curious remark in "Kinde-harte's Dream," where Chettle, after lamenting over the increase of ballad-singers, who we find were regularly trained for the purpose, and then From some remarks of Nash, in "Piers Pennilesse," we find that, even at this early period, printed paper was a mere drug, so extensive was the use of the printing press. "Look you at the chandlers' shop, or at the flax-wives' stalls, if you see no tow, or sope, wrapt up in the title page of such a pamphlet." From the examination relating to the Mar-Prelate tracts, we find pamphlets were pulled off by seven hundred or a thousand. No wonder there was no lack of waste paper. 66 One of these" petty pedlars" was doubtless Humfrey Newman, the active disperser of the Mar-Prelate tracts, who first appeared at Sir Robert Knightley's house, in a green coat and green hat, like a forester; and afterwards wore the good knight's livery--the blue coat and silver badge; and who again went about as a travelling cobbler. This was doubtless when the tracts were consigned to his care; and then the large pack, which the travelling shoemender always bore, was filled with "Epistles," and "Supplications," and "Have you any worke for the Cooper" instead of lapstone and leather. A romance of printing might the veritable details of the publication of the Mar-Prelate tracts form; and here female agency is conspicuous, too. 66 Two sortes of letters," left at a merchant's house in London. Another "sorte of letters," brought to Mistress Crane's house, also in London, and a "loade of stuffe" provided, in which they were conveyed to her house at Moulsey, at Penry's request. Then the press set up at Newtonlane, near Manchester, whither Mistress Crane seems to have conveyed the types. Then some of the printers apprehended, but the press conveyed to Sir Robert Knightley's, at Fausely, where the "Epitome" was printed; and then the press moved to another house belonging to the knight, at Norton, from whence it, and Waldegrave the printer, removed to Mr. Hale's house, at Coventry; and how two more of the tracts were there printed. Thus was "the mill kept going," to use Waldegrave's phrase. But again was there danger of detection, and the press appears to have been seized; and then Mistress Crane, to whose house Penry and Udal "oft resorted," obtained the aid of Madam * * Mistress Crane was among those who appeared before the High Commission Court; but although in the presence of Whitgift and Aylmer, she steadfastly refused to answer any questions, either concerning as Weekston-we must entitle her " Madam," so; indeed, with her principles she could because her husband is expressly designated not be. Thus, if the habits were strictly Roger Weekston, gentleman," who, imposed, it was for order and comeliness; with true womanly management, moved if the passing bell was to be tolled, it was her husband to have a piece of work done solely to remind the living of their morin his house." Little did the servants tality; and when, in 1576, the proclamadream of the real character of "the piece tion came forth for a more rigid observance of work," done "in a low parlor" there; of Lent and Ember days, it was expressly for Hodgkin, the printer, was introduced stated it was "not for any liking of popish as an embroiderer," there were many ceremonies," but only to maintain the male embroiderers in those days, so mariners and navy in this land, by setting "Martin, senior," and "Martin, junior" men a-fishing." Nor did Elizabeth ever were set up and pulled off in the low par- exhibit towards any of her bishops the lor, the household probably wondering at friendship she displayed toward Walsingthe clumsy frame of the embroiderer, but ham, the Sidneys, but especially Burghley; expecting to see marvellous knots of flowers, no reverence for the episcopal office ever or the family arms, "wroughte in silke and marked her conduct; and the queen who crewel," perhaps King Solomon and the once threatened to "unfrock" a proud Queen of Sheba, instead of mere pam- prelate, would soon have sent little Laud to phlets. Honor to the writers and the prin- the rightabout. Although Elizabeth, proters of the Mar-Prelate tracts, violent and bably from love of a gorgeous ceremonial, coarse as many of them are: these were the preferred "forms and ceremonies," it is faults of the age, but the enunciation of the curious to observe how many of her chief great principles of religious freedom was a advisers actually held puritan opinions. credit which no man can take from them. Walsingham was openly charged with them, And honor, too, to Mistress Crane and Leicester was favorably disposed towards Madame Weekston, the women who so de- them, Secretary Davidson and his assistant votedly aided in hiding this leaven in the Beale actually got into trouble on this acthree measures of meal, where it worked, count; Essex, her last favorite, sheltered until those principles for which their advo- silenced preachers in his house; even cates willingly endured the gallows-tree, Burghley was complained of, both by Par became the common heritage of the land. ker and Whitgift, for his unceasing efforts It is in connexion with the proceedings in mitigating, indeed opposing, their enagainst Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry, deavors after uniformity. Now, we think that the character of Elizabeth appears in that the wisdom displayed by Elizabeth in its worst light; but we must bear in mind adhering to her faithful and wise counselthat these legalized murders, if they were lors, although they held different religious not indeed simply murders, were the inevi- views, was one of the chief causes of the table result of those Erastian principles set attachment with which the queen was reforth by her godfather Cranmer, even as garded by all her subjects. However vioearly as 1540. In strict accordance with lent are the attacks on the church, however these principles, Elizabeth commanded a roughly the bishops are handled, no disrecertain form of church polity to be adopted, spectful word have we ever met with in any and opposition to this was viewed as oppo- pamphlet against Elizabeth. Men who sition to the laws of the realm, and pun- laid down their lives for denying the ished accordingly. There is in some quar- queen's supremacy in ecclesiastical matrather favorable view taken of ters, prayed fervently for her as their temErastianism, but we should ever bear in poral sovereign; and when in the next mind, and especially at the present time, generation a bolder tone was assumed that the meddling of the government with towards the king, still the memory of Elizathe religious teachings of the merest infant beth was reverently cherished. school is as mischievous in principle as the power of the holy Inquisition. Elizabeth has sometimes been viewed as (( high church." Now, few sovereigns were less ters a herself or others, remarking that in conscience she could not accuse others, while, in regard to herself, she said, with true English spirit, "she would not be her own hangman." There was certainly much in Elizabeth, as viewed in connexion with her age, to attract public homage. The daughter of a royal race, when the prestige of a long line of ancestry was still at its height-one of the most learned women of an age that cultivated learning with the intensity of an overmastering passion-a queen whose mother and whose godfather had both suf- Jence of the nation. And therefore bound fered death for what popular opinion view-together by the tie-the strong tie of a ed as the cause of the reformed faith-common danger, did the people cling round who herself had suffered imprisonment for Elizabeth, the queen-bee of the hive, upon the same cause-all these greatly endeared whose life not only their civil polity, but the young queen to her subjects. And their very existence as a nation depended. then,-from the very day of her entrance Our space is too fully occupied, to coninto London, when she took the branch of template Elizabeth in private life. The rosemary from the poor woman at Fleet-abusive and disgusting details of her proflibridge, and held it till she arrived at West-gacy-all of which may be traced to a minster, to the day when, tired and aged, she stopped her "carroch" at the gate of Coudray, and sat "with her masque off, in the wet and rain," till the wearisome farewell speech was ended, her intercourse with her subjects was always marked by a courtesy, which, save in the long past days of the Plantagenets, had never been displayed. foreign and papal source are easily accounted for by the malignity with which she was regarded by the adherents of Mary. But that Elizabeth was strictly moral, seems to us emphatically proved, not only by the absence of all such charges against her by the Brownists, who certainly would have felt it their duty to "testify" against all "wickedness in high places," had her In the year '88, I did live," says conduct been stained by vice; but by the Bishop Goodman, "in the Strand," and very character of her ministers and associfrom thence he ran, he tells us, one winter's ates-all, with the single exception of Leinight, to see the queen come from the cester, pious, decorous, family men. With council. "The yard was full, there being these we know she was in habits of strict a great number of torches, and the queen intimacy; and, from some of her letters, came out in great state." Then we cried, she appears to have valued them highly. "God save your majesty !-God save your Surely, then, it was in strict correctness majesty!" Then the queen turned, and that her favorite title, "Parthenia," was said, "God bless you all, my good peo-applied to Elizabeth. There is one touchple." Then we cried again, "God save ing incident, when her faithful Burghley your majesty!” Then the queen said was on his death-bed, that seems to prove, again unto us, "You may well have a notwithstanding her violence of temper, that greater, but you shall never have a more she was susceptible of gentler emotions. loving prince;" and so, looking one upon Burghley, in a letter to his son, relates how another awhile, "the queen departed." the queen, who, though she be not a moAnd yet this was the very year when the ther, yet showeth herself as a careful nurse, dreaded Armada had just been dispersed, by feeding me with her own princely hand."* and plots without number might be form- Those who bear in mind the strict line of deing against her; but then Elizabeth-the marcation preserved in those days between most truly English monarch, as regards even the highest noble and the sovereign, race, who ever sat on the English throne can alone adequately estimate this little had the thorough fearlessness of her coun- trait; and then, few incidents will appear try, and the spirit that rose higher as dan- more affecting than the venerable lordgers thickened around her. Never was keeper, reduced to the helplessness of incountry menaced with such dangers as fancy, and the mighty, but aged Elizabeth, England in the reign of Elizabeth, and with woman's warm feeling, proffering with never was monarch more threatened, too. her own hand refreshment to the faithful At the outset of her career, she pledged counsellor of forty years! herself to the Protestant cause-that cause dearest to her subjects; and hence as year by year passed on, and still "The glorious semper eadem, the banner of our pride," flung out its defiance, arose the almost unbroken succession of plots, which threatened her life-that life, on whose single thread depended the religion, and the independ We must conclude, although much more might be added, to show the marvellous progress of what, intellectually considered, may be called the "golden period" of our history. Well pleased shall we be, however, if these desultory remarks should awaken in one mind a wish for further in * Vide Wright's Letters of the Reign of Elizabeth, vol. ii. quiry into the character of an age, which has great Protector, bore honorable testimony, dwelt on the popular mind for seven genera-as that lady, that great queen-Elizabeth tions, linked with the emphatic phrase, "the of famous memory; we need not be ashamed golden days of good Queen Bess"-a sove- to call her so."-(Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. reign, to whom a greater ruler, even the ii., p. 240.) From Lowe's Magazine. LIGHT AND MAGNETISM: FARADAY'S DISCOVERIES. IF, after having been manifested to the these burning lenses to combustion, were senses of men for near six thousand years, certainly known to the ancients, even if we unveiling the home landscape with the far suppose the oft-told tale of Tzetzes to be off sublimities of the creation, and win- a fiction, respecting the destruction of the ning universal homage to the sentiment so Roman ships in this way at the siege of beautifully expressed by the royal teacher, Syracuse. "When," says he, "the fleet "truly light is sweet, and a pleasant thing of Marcellus was within bowshot, the old it is for the eyes to behold the sun;" and man, Archimedes, brought an hexagonal if, after the loftiest intellects have been mirror, which he had previously prepared, employed in the endeavor to search it out, at a proper distance from which he also the nature of the grand element still remains placed other smaller mirrors of the same somewhat enigmatical, a large amount of kind that moved in all directions on hinges, knowledge has been acquired respecting its which, when placed in the sun's rays, diproperties and connexions, not only of the rected them upon the Roman fleet, whereby highest interest, but of positive utility in it was reduced to ashes." Buffon, who the economy of human life. Some new elaborately canvassed this curious story, views have also been recently presented of succeeded in igniting beech wood at a disits more recondite relations, founded upon tance of 150 feet, with the faint rays of the direct experiment, which we propose to no- sun in the month of March, by means of tice, and which seem to intimate the con- a combination of 168 plane mirrors ; and clusion that the mighty influences of the M. Villette melted copper ore in eight material world, the main forces of the ma- seconds, iron ore in twenty-four seconds, chine, electricity, magnetism, and light, are silver in seven seconds, and tin in not only bound together by fine affinities, three seconds, by a lens condensing the and mutually dependent, but so convertible solar rays 17,257 times, generating a degree as to proclaim their common unity of source of heat 490 times greater than that of an and actual identity. First, however, it ordinary fire. It is probable, from the simay not be unnecessary to a class of read- lence of the older historians relative to the ers, or uninteresting to any, cursorily to re- particular feat of the Syracusan- -a man cur to the progress of discovery, and to the possessing the inquiring and inventive simpler truths of optical science, illustra- genius in the highest degree-that he extive of the great agent upon which vision, perimentalized on various occasions with vegetation, color, and an endless series of burning mirrors, and also fired the enemy's beneficial phenomena, depend-an agent ships by machines constructed to throw consecrated by inspired appropriation as lighted materials into them, later writers the symbol of Divinity, and the emblem of erroneously connecting the two circumthe condition of humanity glorified-the stances together.* However this may be, importance of which is emphatically declared by the magnificent command inaugurating its visible activity in the present cycle of terrestrial history-"Let there be light, and there was light." I. The concentration of the sun's rays by concave mirrors, and the application of * Sir D. Brewster, however, states that Kir- thirty paces distant from Archimedes. Two theories have chiefly divided the suffrages of the scientific world respecting the nature and propagation of light, the undulatory and the corpuscular or Newtonian. The former had precedence of the later, but was almost completely supplanted for upwards of a century, when it was revived in 1801, and gradually obtained the ascendency. The corpuscular hypothesis supposes light to consist of excessively minute material particles projected from the Romans as well as the Greeks were | philosophical inquiry has gone off with unconversant with the laws of the reflection flagging pace in new directions, reaching of objects from the surface of polished by delicate investigations and exact memetals; and at Rome, we are told, if the thods of research, occult and unsuspected sacred fire in the temple of Vesta went out properties of the subtle, benign, and beautithrough the carelessness of the attendant, ful element. the chief pontiff scourged the vestal-virgin in the dark, the city mourned, and the fire could only be re-ignited by the pure rays of the sun. While holding a false and perfectly gratuitous hypothesis upon the subject of vision, the Platonists, three centuries before the Christian era, had arrived at two remarkable properties of light-its propagation in straight lines, and the equality of the angles of incidence and reflection when it falls on bright and polished surfaces, which are assumed as axioms luminous bodies, the sun, fixed stars, and in the optical treatise ascribed to Euclid. The effect of the atmosphere in changing the direction of the rays of light was also known to Ptolemy, who, though unable to appreciate the amount of its refractive power, clearly perceived its influence on the altitude of celestial objects, was aware of its increase with the distance from the zenith, and assigned it as the cause of the greater magnitude of the solar and lunar discs at the horizon. These statements comprise the knowledge upon the science of light possessed by the ancients, who seem to have been as inapt generally in the various departments of natural philosophy, as they were expert in pure geometry and abstract reasoning. The successful cultivation of this branch of physics is entirely of modern origin, and dates from the dawn of the seventeenth century. It opened with Kepler explaining the true theory of vision, and suggesting the astronomical telescope, which gave an impulse to the study of the optical properties of light in consequence of their application to that instrument, and with Snellius discovering the true law of refraction. It closed with the grand conclusion of Newton, that a beam of light, white as emitted from the sun, was not homogeneous, but consisted of seven different colors possessing different degrees of refrangibility; and with Huyghens observing the polarization. Since that period, some views have been renounced, others modified, while structed was made of flint glass, by Mr. Parker of Fleet Street, 212 pounds in weight, 3 feet in diameter, 3 inches thick at the centre, exposing a surface of 330 square inches to the sun's light. It melted platina, gold, silver, copper, tin, quartz, agate, jasper, flint, topaz, garnet, asbestos, in a few seconds, cost £709, and passed into the possession of the Emperor of China. incandescent substances. It was advanced as an objection, that no sensible diminution has been observed of the solar mass and volume since the epoch of observation commenced, notwithstanding the presumed incessant projection of luminous particles from every part of his surface. But calculation shows that no perceptible waste could have transpired. If we take the sun's apparent diameter to be 2000, which it is nearly, a second of a degree, at his distance, will correspond to about 460 miles. Now supposing the solar substance to undergo a daily waste of two feet-an amount in excess, considering the vast magnitude of the body, and the extreme rarity of light-it would require a period of 3000 years for a diminution of 460 miles, or 1" of apparent diameter to occur. But this loss in the lapse of even thirty centuries would still not be apprehensible, so small a variation as 1" being scarcely appreciable by our best instruments. The undulatory hypothesis supposes a highly attenuated medium, or ether, to pervade all space, so rare as not to offer perceptible resistance to the movements of the planets, and not to be cognisable by our senses while at rest, light resulting from luminous bodies setting its particles in motion, propagating waves or vibrations through it in all directions, as sonorous bodies propagate vibrations through the atmosphere, conveying sound. theory of emission, while more open to popular appprehension, and affording an easy and intelligible explanation of many observed facts, completely fails to account for an extensive class of phenomena. On the other hand, the theory of undulations, though less apparently natural, and not so readily embraced by the mind, possesses The |