Item of the Day: Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece (1804)

Full Title: Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece. During the middle of the fourth century, before the Christian era. Vol. I. By the Abbe Barthememi, Keeper of the Medals in the Cabinet of the King of France, and Member of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. Translated from the French. Vol. I. First American edition. Philadelphia: Published by Jacob Johnson & Co. . . . , 1804.

[The following advertisement is taken from the popular novel by Jean Jacques Barthelemy, which recounts the narrative of Anacharsis, a young Scythian who travels to Greece in the fourth century B.C.].

ADVERTISMENT

BY THE AUTHOR.

I imagine a Scythian, named Anacharsis, to arrive in Greece, some years before the birth of Alexander; and that from Athens, the usual place of his residence, he makes several excursions into the neighborring [sic] provinces; every where observing the manners and customs of the inhabitants, being present at their festivals, and studying the nature of their governments; sometimes dedicating his leisure to enquiries relative to the progress of the human mind, and sometimes conversing with the great men who flourished at that time; with Epaminondas, Phocion, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, &c. As soon as he had seen Greece enslaved by Philip, the father of Alexander, he returns to Scythia, where he puts in order an account of his travels; and, to prevent any interruption in his narrative, relates in an introduction the memorable events which had passed in Greece before he left Scythia.

The aera I have chosen, which is one of the most interesting that the history of nations presents, may be considered in two points of view. With respect to literature and the arts, it connects the age of Pericles with that of Alexander. My Scythian has conversed with a number of Athenians, who had been intimately acquainted with Sophocles, Euripides, Artistophanes, Thucydides, Socrates, Zeuxis, and Parrhasius. I have mentioned some of the celebrated writers who were known to him. He has seen the masterly productions of Praxiteles, Euphranor, and Pamphilus, make their appearance, as also the first essays of Apelles and Protogenes; and in one of the latter years of his stay in Greece Epicurus and Menander were born.

Under the second point of view, this epocha is not less remarkable. Anacharsis was a witness to the revolution which changed the face of Greece, and which, some time after, destroyed the empire of the Persians. On his arrival, he found the your Philip with Epaminondas: he afterwards beheld him ascend the throne of Macedon; display, in his contests with the Greeks, during two and twenty years, all the resources of his genius; and, at length, compel those haughty republicans to submit to power.

I have chosen to write a narrative of travels rather than a history, because in such a narrative all is scenery and action; and because circumstantial details may be entered into which are not permitted to the historian. These details, when they have relation to manners and customs, are often only indicated by ancient authors, and have often given occasion to different opinions among modern critics. I have examined and discussed them all before I have made use of them; I have even, on a revisal, suppressed a great part of the, and ought perhaps to have suppressed still more.

I began this work in the year 1757, and, since that time, have never intermitted my labours to complete it.* I should not have undertaken it if, less captivated by the beauty of the subject, I had consulted my abilities more than my courage.

*These was written about the latter end of 1788, when the original work was published.

Item of the Day: Letters from America (1792)

Full Title: Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive; Comprising Occurrences from 1769, to 1777, Inclusive. By William Eddis, Late Surveyor of the Customs, &c. at Annapolis, in Maryland. London: Printed for the author, and sold by C. Dilly, in the Poultry, MDCCXCII. [1792]

LETTER V.

Annapolis, June 8th, 1770.

Though we are yet far behind the mother country, with respect of cultivation and improvements, yet, in a comparative view, Maryland may boast considerable advantages. The inhabitants are enterprising and industrious; commerce and agriculture are encouraged; and every circumstance clearly evinces, that this colony is making a rapid progress to wealth, power, and population.

Provisions of every kind, are excellent and plentiful; and the Chesapeak [sic], with our numerous rivers, affords a surprising variety of excellent fish. Poultry, and wild-fowl, abound amongst the humble cottagers; and beef, mutton, pork, and other provisions, are at least equal to the production of the best British markets.

Deer, a few years since, were very numerous in the interior settlements; but, from the unfair methods adopted by the hunters, their numbers are exceedingly diminished. These people, whose only motive was to procure the hide of the animal, were dextrous [sic], during the winter season, in tracing their path through the snow; and from the animal’s incapacity to exert speed, under such circumstance, great multitudes of them were annually slaughtered, and their carcases [sic] left in the woods. This practice, however, has been though worthy the attention of the legislature, and an act of assembly has taken place, laying severe penalties on “persons detected in pursuing or destroying deer, within a limited term;” and it is probable, the apprehension of punishment may very greatly restrain, if not totally eradicate an evil founded on cruelty and rapacity.

In England, almost every country is distinguished by a peculiar dialect; even different habits, and different modes of thinking, evidently discriminate inhabitants, whose local situation is not far remote: but in Maryland, and throughout the adjacent provinces, it is worthy of observation, that a striking similarity of speech universally prevails; and it is strictly true, that the pronunciation of the generality of the people has an accuracy and elegance, that cannot fail of gratifying the most judicious ear.

The colonists are composed of adventurers, not only from every district of Great Britain and Ireland, but from almost every other European government, where the principles of liberty and commerce have operated with spirit and efficacy. Is it not, therefore, reasonable to suppose, that the English language must be greatly corrupted by such a strange intermixture of various nations? The reverse is, however, true. The language of the immediate descendants of such a promiscuous ancestry is perfectly uniform, and unadulterated; nor has it borrowed any provincial, or national accent, from its British or foreign parentage.

For my part, I confess myself totally at a loss to account for the apparent difference, between the colonists and the persons under equal circumstances of education and fortune, resident in the mother country. This uniformity of language prevails not only on the coast, where Europeans form a considerable mass of the people, but likewise in the interior parts, where population has made but slow advances; and where opportunities seldom occur to derive any great advantages form an intercourse with intelligent strangers.

You, my friend, are seated at the fountain head of literary and political intelligence, and from you I shall expect frequent, and circumstantial communications. Most sincerely do I wish you may be enabled to acquaint me, that the first transaction in the ensuing session of parliament, is a total repeal of acts, which are never likely to be productive of any considerable revenue; and which are esteemed in this country, to have no other tendency but to enforce claims, which the colonists universally consider as impolitic and unconstitutional. How far their sentiments are justly founded, I am by no means competent to determine; but it is a certain fact, that the statute imposing duties on glass, paper, and tea, has undermined the foundation of that cordiality, which the repeal of the stamp act had happily re-established; and it is with the utmost concern, I am necessitated to acquaint you, that a spirit of discontent and opposition is universally predominate in the colonies.

Item of the Day: Astronomy Explained upon Sir Isaac Newton’s Principles.

Full Title: Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton’s principles, and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics. To which are added, a plain method of finding the distances of all the planets from the sun, by the transit of Venus over the sun’s disc, in the year 1761. An account of Mr. Horrox’s observation of the transit of Venus in the year 1639: and, of the distances of all the planets from the sun, ad deduced from observations of the transit of Venus in the year 1761. Seventh edition. By James Ferguson. London: Printed for W. Strahan, J. Rivington and sons, T. Longman, B. Law, G. Robinson, T. Cadell, J. Johnson, J. Bew, J. Murray, R. Baldwin, T. Evans, W. Lowndes, and C. Bent, 1785.

Astronomy Explained upon Sir Isaac Newton’s Principles.

CHAP. I.

Of astronomy in general.

1. Of all the sciences cultivated by mankind, Astronomy is acknowledged to be, and undoubtedly is, the most sublime, the most interesting, and the most useful. For, by knowledge derived from this science, not only the bulk of the earth is discovered, the situation and extent of the countries and kingdoms upon it is ascertained, trade and commerce carried on to the remotest parts of the world, and the various products of several countries distributed for the health, comfort, and conveniency of its inhabitants; but our very faculties are enlarged with the grandeur of the ideas it conveys, our minds exalted above the low contracted prejudices of the vulgar, and our understandings clearly convinced, and affected with the conviction of the existence, wisdom, power, goodness, immutability, and superintendency of the SUPREME BEING ! So that without an hyperbole,

"An undevout Astronomer is mad.”

2. From this branch of knowledge we also learn by what means or laws the Almighty carries on, and continues the wonderful harmony, order, and connexion observable throughout the planetary system; and are led by very powerful arguments to form this pleasing deduction, that minds capable of such deep researches, not only derive their origin from that adorable Being, but are also incited to aspire after a more perfect knowledge of his nature, and a stricter conformity to his will. . . .

8. It is no ways probable that the Almighty, who always acts with infinite wisdom, and does nothing in vain, should create so many glorious Suns, fit for so many important purposes, and place them at such distances from one another, without proper objects near enough to be benefited by their influences. Whoever imagines they were created only to give a faint glimmering light to the inhabitants of this Globe, must have a very superficial knowledge of Astronomy, and a mean opinion of the Divine Wisdom: since, by an infinitely less exertion of creating power, the Deity could have given our Earth much more light by one single additional Moon.

9. Instead then of one Sun and one World only in the Universe, as the unskilful in Astonomy imagine, that Science discovers to us such an inconceivable number of Suns, Systems, and Worlds, dispersed through boundless Space, that if our Sun, with all the Planets; Moons, and Comets, belonging to it, were annihilated, they would be no more missed, by an eye that could take in the whole Creation, than a grain of sand from the sea-shore. The space they possess being comparatively so small, that it would scarce be a sensible blank in the Universe, although Saturn, the outermost of our planets, revolves the Sun in an Orbit of 4884 millions of miles in circumference, and some of our Comets make excursions upwards of ten thousand millions of miles beyond Saturn’s Orbit; and yet, at that amazing distance, they are incomparably nearer to the Sun than to any of the Stars; as is evident from their keeping clear of the attractive power of all the Stars, and returning periodically by virtue of the Sun’s attraction.

10. From what we know of our own System, it may be reasonably concluded that all the rest are with equal wisdom contrived, situated, and provided with accommodations for rational inhabitants. Let us therefore take a survey of the System to which we belong; the only one accessible to us; and from thence we shall be the better enabled to judge of the nature and end of the others Systems of the Universe. For although there is almost an infinite variety in the parts of the Creation, which we have opportunities of examining, yet there is a general analogy running through and connecting all the parts into one scheme, one design, one whole! . . .

15. What an august, what an amazing conception, if human imagination can conceive it, does this give the works of the Creator! Thousands of thousands of Suns, multiplied without end, and ranged all around us, at immense distances from each other, attended by ten thousand times ten thousand worlds, all in rapid motion, yet calm, regular, and harmonious, invariably keeping the paths prescribed them; and these worlds peopled with myriads of intelligent beings, formed for endless progression in perfection and felicity!

16. If so much power, wisdom, goodness, and magnificence is displayed in the material Creation, which is the least considerable part of the Universe, how great, how wise, how good must HE be, who made and governs the Whole!

Item of the Day: Pierpont’s The American First Class Book

Full Title: The American first class book; or, exercises in reading and recitation: selected principally from modern authors of Great Britain and America: and designed for the use of the highest class in publick and private schools. By John Pierpont, Minister of Hollis-street Church, Boston: Author of Airs of Palestine, &c. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins and Richardson, Lord & Holbrook, 1831.

Preface.

This book has been compiled with a special reference to the publick Reading and Grammar Schools of this city. It is the result of an attempt to supply the want—which has long been a subject of complaint among those whom the citizens of Boston have charged with the general superintendence of their publick schools, as well as with those who are appointed to the immediate instruction of them—of a book of Exercises in Reading and Speaking better adapted, than any English compilation that has yet appeared, to the state of society as it is in this country; and less obnoxious to complaint, on the ground of its national or political character, than it is reasonable to expect that any English compilation would be, among a people whose manners, opinions, literary institutions, and civil governments, are so strictly republican as our own.

But, though the immediate design of this compilation was a limited and local one, it has been borne in mind, throughout the work, that the want, which has been a subject of complaint in this city, must have been still more widely felt; especially by those, in every part of our country, who are attentive to the national, moral, and religious sentiments, contained in the books that are used by their children while learning to read, and while their literary taste is beginning to assume something of the character which it ever afterwards retains.

How far the objections, which have been made to other works of this sort, have been obviated in the present selection, it is for others to determine. I willingly leave the decision of this question to the ultimate and only proper tribunal—the publick; to whose kindness, as shown towards one of my efforts, in another department of literature, I am no stranger, and for which I should prove myself ungrateful should I not acknowledge my obligation. –I only hope that the kindness of the publick towards the past, many not have led into presumption and carelessness in regard to the present.

In as much, however, as this book departs, in some particulars, from most others of the same general character, it may be expected that the author should assign his reasons for such deviations. These relate principally to the omission of some things that are usually deemed essential to a school-reader; and to the arrangement of the materials of which this is made up.

First, then, it may be urged as an objection to this, as a compilation that is to be used by those who are learning to read, that it consists entirely of exercises in reading and speaking, to the exclusion of those rules, the knowledge of which is indispensable to any considerable proficiency in either.

I have observed, however, that that part of school-books which consists of Brief Treatises upon Rhetorick, Rules for Reading, and Essays on Elocution is, almost uniformly, little worn; --an evidence that it is little used; in other words, that it is of little use. I have construed this fact into an oracular monition not to devote to such Rules, Treatises, or Essays, any part of the present work.

The truth probably is, that reading, like conversation, is learned from example rather than by rule. –No one becomes distinguished, as a singer, by the most familiar knowledge of the gamut; so, no one is ever made an accomplished reader or speaker by studying rules for elocution, even though aided by a diagram. There is even less aid derived from rules in reading than singing: for musick is, in a great degree, a matter of strict science; while reading, after the alphabet is learned, is altogether an art: --an art, indeed, which requires a quick perception, a delicate taste, a good understanding, and, especially, a faculty of nicely discriminating and accurately expressing the various shades of an author’s meaning: --but, still, an art that is less capable than musick of being reduced to definitive rules, or of being taught by them.

To become a good reader or a good speaker, the best examples of elocution, in these respective departments, must be see, and heard, and studied. The tones that express particular emotions and passions must be caught by the ear. The same organ must inform us what is mean: by the very terms in which all rules must be expressed, --what is meant by a rapid or deliberate enunciation; what by speaking loudly or softly, on a high or low key, with emphasis or in a monotony, distinctly or indistinctly. We may amuse ourselves, if we please, with laying down rules upon these matters, but, till our rules are illustrated by the voice and manner of a good reader, they are totally inoperative; and, when thus illustrated, totally unnecessary. The learner imitates the example of reading which is given in explaining a rule, and the rule itself is forsaken and soon forgotten.

It seems to me that the readiest, indeed, the only good way, to teach children to read well, is, to give them the charge of instructers who are themselves good readers, --instructers, who, like teachers of musick, will not content themselves with laying certain rules for regulating the tones, inflexions, and cadences of the voice before your child’s eye, which can neither receive a sound nor give one, but who will address his ear with living instruction, --with the rich and informing melody of the human voice. . . .

Boston, June, 1823.

Item of the Day: Whimsical Method of Punishing Libellers in Russia.

Full Title: The Universal magazine of knowledge and pleasure: containing news, letters, poetry, musick, biography, history, geography, voyages, criticism, translations, philosophy, mathematicks, husbandry, gardening, cookery, chemistry, mechanics, trade, navigation, architecture, and other arts and sciences, which may render it instructive and entertaining to gentry, merchants, farmers and tradesmen: to which occasionally will be added an impartial account of books in several languages and of the state of learning in Europe also of the stage, new operas, plays and oratorios. Vol. LXI. Published monthly according to an act of Parliament. London: John Hinton.


[Extracted from The Universal Magazine for September 1777.]

Whimsical Method of Punishing LIBELLERS in Russia.
Recommended to the Consideration of the British Legislature.

Everybody knows that the government in Russia is arbitrary, and consequently ever watchful over the few daring subjects who presume to make any advances towards that liberty, to which, as natives of the earth, all men seem so duly intitled. The punishment inflicted upon such unconstitutional delinquents is, however, not so severe as one might expect: but, in my opinion, much more exemplary than is to be found in a country celebrated for the equity of its decisions, and the salutary purpose of its laws. –While I resided at Moscow, there was a gentleman who thought fit to publish a quarto volume in vindication of the liberties of the subject, grosly reflecting upon the unlimited power of the Czar Peter, and exposing the iniquity of the whole legislature (if it may be so called) of that empire. The offender was immediately seized by virtue of a warrant signed by one of the principal officers of state; he was tried in a summary way, his book determined to be a libel, and he himself, as the author, condemned to “eat his own words.” This sentence was literally carried into execution on the following day. A scaffold was erected in the most populous part of town; the imperial provost was the executioner, and all magistrates attended at the ceremony. The book was severed from the binding, the margins were cut off, and every leaf was rolled up, as near as I can recollect, in the form of a lottery ticker, when it is taken out of the wheel at Guildhall by the blue-coat boy. The author of the libel was then served with them separately by the provost, who put them into his mouth, to the no small diversion of the spectators. The gentleman had received a complete mouthful before he began to chew; but he was obliged, upon pain of the severest bastinado, to swallow as many leaves as the Czar’s serjeant surgeon and physician thought it possible for him to do without immediate hazard to his life. As soon as they were pleased to determine that it would be dangerous to proceed, the remainder of the sentence was suspended for that time, and resumed again the next day, at the same place and hour, and strictly conformable to the same ceremony. I remember it was three days before this execution was over; but I attended it constantly, and was convinced that the author had actually swallowed every leaf of the book. Thus, I think, he may be very justly to have eaten his own words. Some part of this punishment seemed to give the culprit little or no concern; but I could not help observing, that now and then he suffered great torture: which, from an accurate attention, I discovered to arise from particular leaves on which the strongest points of his arguments were printed.

On recollecting this mode of execution, I confess I wished it to be adopted by the law of England: for setting aside the ridicule which it naturally brings upon the offender, it contains a spirit of equity that renders it in a particular manner worthy of consideration of the British legislature.

An Old Traveller.