PAPE! The Lord Chamberlain's Licenser frightened at a cracker! Mr. Colman and Mr. Shee deserve, however, the thanks of the country. They have made a ridiculous powerat one time intrusted to a saint, at another to a sinner-at one time discovering pruriency in every pun, at another hearing sedition in every rhapsody-they have made this ridiculous power too ridiculous to be much longer tolerated. It is with great regret, my Public, that I am debarred from giving you a capital article, called "My Sick Room." It is full of natural and tender associations. With one part, however, we have been particularly struck ;-it is the description of a dream-" Egroti vana somnia",-but delineated with such truth and power that the Opium-Eater could not have dreamed better;-at the same time we must premise, that we are as sick of the name of the great subject of the dream, as we are of that of Bonaparte: 66 My first anxiety was naturally how to pass my time. Books? Yes, but one cannot always read-and, besides, I am just now rather difficult in my choice. One great symptom which always attends me when I am ill-or, rather, I may say, a medicine which I invariably prescribe as my mental diet at such times, is a course of trashy novels-" one degree above Mr. Newman's," as I wrote to my librarian. I say trashy novels, because good ones are apt to contain real pathos, or strongly-painted horrors, or at least something likely to agitate the mind, or people the dreams of one weakened and rendered sensitive by suffering and illness. I have had, indeed, a shrinking fear of any thing calculated to operate the latter effect. When under the action of strong fever, I read a detailed account of the late trials and execution at Hertford; and, for night after night, those wretched men haunted me in a manner which it makes me uneasy even to recollect. They were to me what the crocodile was to the Opium Eater's visions. There was no quitting them or making them quit me. Death even seemed to have no power to release me,-for, over and over again, I dreamed that I was the unhappy victim whom they murdered. I felt the death-struggle, and the horrible sense of being overmatched, and then overpowered in the conflict. I experienced the agony of those dreadful blows in the brain, of which I had read so minute a description. I underwent even the bitterness, and felt the choaking gasp of death, and yet the next moment, by one of those "changes" which "come over the spirit" of dreams, I was again alive, and again in their hands and power. Neither did their death, even, free me from them,-or rather the death of my chief tyrant and torturer, the murderer himself;-for I fancied myself present at his execution, and gazing at that strange and stone-like imperturbability, which seemed almost too unmoved for courage, and yet had none of the characteristics of the moral numbness of despair. But as soon as the horrid crisis was over, and the "death-ruckle" had passed, -he was again in full life and strength, and I was once more at his mercy, or rather at his will. There was also another way in which these people mingled in my dreams, which was, perhaps, the most painful of all. I fancied that I occupied a house which had once belonged to one of them, and that I was in consequence, (the sleeping mind is not very logical,) implicated in the accusation. I have still before me the leering look of malicious triumph which the wretch turned upon me, knowing my innocence, but seeing I could not exculpate myself, as I struggled under that inability to articulate a word, which all dreamers must have felt, and which may be denominated a mental night-mare. In these agonies, for truly they were so, I would awake with the sweat streaming from my brow, and would turn to the woman, who watched beside me during the height of my disorder, with almost frenzied supplications for protection and support." I have many compunctions in mutilating an Essay on "CHEAP POPULAR LITERATURE," which is too long for insertion. But I have no remedy. The author thus commences:— "It is somewhat more than twelve years, since the system of educating the children of the working classes upon a broad and almost universal scale, has been in activity amongst us. It may not be too much to assert, that the tendencies of that system were not, at its outset, very accurately calculated by any of the parties who were either foremost in its advancement, or most opposed to its introduction. There was, indeed, on the one hand, a strong, though somewhat vague, conviction of the advantages of a general diffusion of knowledge; on the other, there was an equally powerful, and more indistinct prejudice against the admission of the people to a participation of that intelligence which has so long constituted the peculiar strength of the middle and more elevated classes of the community in this country. The system, like many other of those discoveries, which have largely influenced the destinies of mankind, owes very much of its success to fortuitous causes, which, even at this short distance of time from its origin, appear very inadequate to the production of its great results. National Education is indebted for a large portion of its extension, and not an inconsiderable measure of its right direction, to the spirit of party. And, this very circumstance furnishes a spendid testimony to the value of its principles. It is not within our purpose, and fortunately at the present day the merits of the question do not depend upon such accidents, to determine whether the Church of England or any body of sectaries have the best claim to the high honour of originating the system of mutual instruction. But it is of importance to bear in mind, that, however the application of the principle may have been condemned and vilified by individuals of every denomination, the Church of England as a body, and the most illustrious and influential and sagacious of her adherents, at once saw the impossibility, and therefore the danger, of resisting its extension; and consequently, in its very earliest stages, applied themselves, not to smother or counteract it, but to give it that direction which they considered most consonant with the established interests of this country, whether of a religious or a civil nature. From this view of the circumstances attending the introduction of National Education, it may be inferred, that the zeal which, from two very opposite quarters, was committed to its establishment, was too much engaged in the direction of the new machine to look very extensively, or very accurately, at the probable course of its wide and complicated motions. It is perhaps only upon this principle to be understood how the most warm, the most enlightened advocates of National Education for a long time regarded the question as one affecting only the interests of boys and girls. As far as those interests were limited, these benevolent persons did their duty well. They inculcated sentiments which would make the rising generation of the working classes peaceful subjects and sober Christians, as far as education can secure these qualities of the good citizen; but they did not provide, nor was it exactly in their province so to do, for the growing appetite for knowledge which they had created; they did not calculate upon the cravings for intellectual food of these children when they should be grown up into men and women; they did not see how impossible it was to assign limits to the desire for improvement, when a whole population should be excited by the same discipline to the same ends. We do not object this as a fault of the promoters of National Education, but as one of the many evidences of the inadequacy of human calculation to attain the greatest results. The whole frame-work of civilized society has twice been changed by accident-by the discovery of Gunpowder, and by the invention of Printing; and we can yet form no perfect idea of the consequences which may be produced, by what' originally appeared a scheme for writing on sand instead of paper, of substituting the fool's cap for the rod, and of bringing down the discipline of an army to the regulations of a parish school. However imperfectly the results of National Education may have been calculated by its supporters, and however accurately in a certain degree they may have been predicted by its enemies, it is a fact, and we most unfeignedly rejoice in it, that a new power has been created in the social state of England. This power is the power of the working people (we of course allude to the more youthful, and consequently the more active and important part) to read, and therefore to think; to compare opinions, and therefore to throw off the sway of prejudices; to desire intellectual excitements, and therefore to reject the coarser stimulants of physical debauchery. It will be the object of this paper to shew the provision which has been made to satisfy this new appetite, and to point out, as far as we may, the duty which still weighs upon those who see the connexion of an intelligent population with national prosperity, of not wholly leaving to chance the future course of the new power which they have so mainly contributed to call forth." man. He next proceeds to take a rapid view of the provision for popular knowledge a few years since. He describes, in somewhat strong terms, the puerile trash which was then circulated amongst the poor, in relations and arguments which were adapted to the meridian of the South Sea Islands, rather than to British mechanics and labourers. He assigns the great merit of introducing a more rational mode of dealing with an intelligent population, to the authors of the Plain EnglishHe hails the re-publication of the national portion of that work, in a cheap and attractive volume; and he proceeds to describe upwards of fifty cheap publications, the greater part of an innocent tendency, if not of a very didactic form, which are at present enjoying a circulation amounting to several hundred thousands each week. These are important facts, and must have a great influence on the future condition of society. The writer of this paper, finally, calls upon those who anxiously watch over the destinies of this nation, to apply their wealth and their industry to keep the sources of popular knowledge, as far as possible, unsullied; and he concludes by a description of the necessary union of intelligence with morality, which it is essential constantly to have in view, when we speak of National Education: "The morality of a nation, if morality that can be called which, enlightened by no ray of intelligence, is an abstinence from evil, rather than a choice of good, may exist under a bigotted priesthood, or an arbitrary government; it may be derived from custom, or convenience, or the authority of preceding ages; it may slumber through a long course of time, clinging to prescription in the place of reason, rejecting improvement, and sanctifying error. The popular intelligence, on the other hand, which spurns the sober guidance of moral principle, is the hurried and incautious speed of innovation; the arrogance of superficial acquirements; the blindness of mere mortal wisdom; the collision of new theories with existing institutions. The abstract influence of the one principle renders a nation inert, poor, powerless; the preponderance of the other stamps a government daring, ambitious, profligate. It is the popular union of morality and intelligence, of methodical virtue and aspiring intellect, of civil obedience and personal freedom, of temperate practice and bold speculation, of public simplicity and private elegance, which builds up or maintains a good government. It is the same union in that government, of respect towards the popular rights, and the proper tenaciousness of its own privileges; of inflexible purity in its religious observances, but of universal toleration to other creeds; of caution in violating the peace of the world, and promptitude in revenging its own wrongs; of tenderness to the oppressed, and of hatred to the oppressor, which lifts a nation above the storms of tyranny, preserving to its people their integrity, happiness, and prosperity." I have two other productions, my Public, which I regret the necessity of curtailing. They are some Verse Letters from the Metropolis, which contain some tolerable passages. We must be content with two extracts.-The first on PUFFS-the second on PLAY-HOUSES: I sat musing awhile, With my lips slightly curl'd 'twixt a sneer and a smile, |