Leigh Hunt's London Journal

FURTHER REMARKS ON THE DESIGN OF which he contributed, signing himself “Dinneness, ** The object of this Publication, which is devoted en- THIS JOURNAL. POOR RICH MEN AND you would listen to us, even without a loaf on your tirely to subjects of miscellaneous interest, unconnected RICH POOR MEN. A WORD OR TWO table, and see how far we could bear out the reputation with politics, is to supply the lovers of knowledge with

THE PERIODICAL WRITINGS OF

of the Lydians, who are said to have invented play as

THE EDITOR an English Weekly Paper, similar in point of size and

a resource against hunger. But Dr. Johnson knew he variety, to Chambers's, Edinburgh Journal, but with a Pleasure is the business of this Journal: we own had his remedy in his wits. The wants of the poor in character a little more southern and literary. The acute- it: we love to begin it with the word: it is like com- knowledge are not so easily postponed. With deep ness and industry of the writers of the Edinburgh Journal mencing the day (as we are now commencing it) with reverence and sympathy would we be understood as are understood to have obtained a very large demand for sunsbine in the room. Pleasure for all who can receive speaking of them. A smile, bowever closely it may their work; the illustrated information of the Penny pleasure ; consolation and encouragement for the rest : border upon a grave thought, is not to be held a levią Magazine, with its admirable wood-cuts, bas obtained this is our device. But then it is pleasure like that in us, any more than sun betwixt rain. One and the for it one still more stupendous ; and though we may implied by our simile, innocent, kindly, we dare to same sympathy with all things, fetches it out. not be able to compete with either of these pheno- add, instructive and elevating. Nor shall the gravest But to all but the famished we should say, with the Irena, and, indeed, are prepared to be content with aspects of it be wanting. As the sunshine floods the noble text, “Man does not live by bread alone.” “A a sale of reasonable enormity, yet there still remain sky and the ocean, and yet nurses the baby buds of the man,” says Bacon, in words not unworthy to go by the gaps in the supplies of public intellect, which its roses on the wall, so we would fain open the largest side of the others, “is but what he knoweth.” "I consumers would willingly see filled up ; and one of and the very least sources of pleasure, the noblest that think” said Descartes ; "therefore I am.” A man these we propose to accommodate. It may briefly be expands above us into the heavens, and the most fa- has no proof of his existence but in his consciousness of described as consisting in a want of something more miliar that catches our glance in the bomestead. We it, and the return of that consciousness after sleep. connected with the ornamental part of utility,—with the would break open the surfaces of babit and indifference, He is therefore, in amount of existence, only so much as art of extracting pleasurable ideas from the commonest of objects that are supposed to contain nothing but his consciousness, his thoughts, and his feelings amount objects, and the participations of a scholarly experience. In so much brute matter or common place utility, and show

to. The more he knows, the more he exists; and the the metropolis there are thousands of improving and what treasures they conceal. Man has not yet learnt pleasanter his knowledge, the happier his existence. enquiring minds, capable of all the elegancies of intel- to enjoy the world he lives in ; no, not the hundred- One man, in this sense of things, and it is a sense lectual enjoyment, wbo, for want of educations worthy thousand-millionth part of it; and we would fain help proved beyond doubt, (except with those merry philosoof them, are deprived of a world of pleasures, in which him to render it productive of still greater joy, and to phers of antiquity who doubted their very consciousthey might bave instructed others. We hope to be delight or comfort bimself in his task as he proceeds. ness, nay, doubted doubt itself), is infinitely little comread by these. In every country town there is always We would make adversity hopeful, prosperity sympa. pared with another man. If we could see his mind, we a koot of spirits of this kind, generally young men, thetic, all kinder, richer, and happier. And we have should see a pigmy; and it would be stuck perhaps into who are known, above others, for their love of books, some right to assist in the endeavour, for there is a pint of beer, or a scent-bottle, or a bottle of wine ; as for the liberality of their sentiments, and their desire scarcely a single joy or sorrow within the experience of the monkey stuck Gulliver into the marrow-bone. Another to be acquainted with all that is going forward in con- our fellow-creatures, which we have not tasted ; and man's mind would shew larger ; another larger still; nection with the graces of poetry and the fine arts. We the belief in the good and beautiful has never forsaken till at length we should see minds of all shapes and hope to have these for our readers. Finally, almost us. It has been medicine to us in sickness, riches in sizes, from a miscroscopic body to that of a giant or every village has its cottagers of a similar tendency, poverty, and the best part of all that ever delighted us a derni-god, or a spirit that filled the visible world. wbo, notwithstanding their inferior opportunities, have in health and success.

Milton's would be like that of his own archangel. “ His caught from stray pieces of poetry and fiction, a sense There is not a man living perhaps in the present stature reached the sky.” Shakspeare's would stretch of what their nature requires, in order to elevate its state of society, -certainly not among those who have a

from the midst of us into the regions of “airy Gothing," enjorments or to console its struggles; and we trust we surfeit of goods, any more than those who want a suffici

and bring us new creatures of his own making. Bacon's shall become the friends of these. In a word, (withoui ency,--that has not some pain which he would diminish,

would be lost into the next ages. Many a “great meaning to disparage our excellent contemporaries, and some pleasure, or capability of it, that he would in- man's” would become invisible ; and many a little whose plans are of another sort, and have been most

We would say to him, let him be sure he can

one suddenly astonish us with the overshadowing of his triumphantly borne out by success), as the Edinburgh diminish that pain and increase that pleasure. He will greatness, Journal gives the world the benefit of its knowledge of ind out the secret, by knowing more, and by knowing

Men sometimes, by the magic of their knowledge, business, and the Penny Magazine that of its authorities that there is more to love. “ Pleasures lie about our partake of a great many things which they do not posand its pictures, so the London Journul proposes to fur- feet.” We would extract some for the unthinking rich man sess : others possess much which is lost upon them. It Dish ingenuous minds of all classes, with such helps as out of his very carpet, (though he thinks he has already is recorded of an exquisite, in one of the admirable it

possesses towards a share in the pleasures of taste got as much as it can yield); and for the unthinking exhibitions of Mr. Matthews, that being told, with a grave and scholarship. For, to leave no class unspecified, it or unhoping poor one, out of his bare floor.

face, of a mine of silver which had been discovered in is not without the hope of obtaining the good will of Can you put a loaf on my table?" the poor man may

one of the London suburbs, he exclaimed, in his jargon, the highest of the well-educated, who love the very ask. No. but we can shew him how to get it in the

• A mine of sil-van! Good Gaud! You dont tell me so ! talk on such subjects, as they do that of a loving friend, best manner, and comfort him while he is getting it.

A mine of sil-vau! Good Gaud! I've often seen the apart from any want of his information, and who have If he can get it not at all, we do not profess to bare little boys playing about, but I had no idea that there been rendered too wise by their knowledge not to wish even the right of being listened to by him. We can

was a niine of sil-vau." ; well to speculations wbich tend to do justice to all men, only do what we can, as his fellow.creatures, and by This gentleman, whom we are to understand as reand to accompany the “March of Intellect” with the other means, towards hastening the termination of so peating these words out of pure ignorance and absurmusic of kind thoughts. frightful an exception to the common lot.

dity, and not from any power to receive information, It is proposed, as the general plan of the Journal, but “Can you rid me of my gout, or my disrelish of all would be in possession, while he was expressing his not without the power of change or modification, as things ?" the rich man may ask. No: nor perhaps astonishment at a thing unheard of and ridiculous, of a circumstances may suggest, that it should consist of even diminish it, unless you are a very daring or a very

hundred real things round about him, of which he knew One Original Paper or Essay every week, from the pen sensible man ; and if you are very rich indeed, and old, nothing. Shakspeare speaks of a man who was “inof the Editor ; of matter combining entertainment with neither of these predicaments is very likely. Yet we

capable of his own distress ;" that is to say, who had information, selected by bim in the course of his read

We are inextinguishable friends of en

not the feelings of other men, and was insensible to ing, both old and new; of a weekly Abstract of some deavour.

what would have distressed every body else. This popular or otherwise interesting book, the spirit of If you had the gout, however, and were Lord Holland, dandy would be incapable of his own wealth, of his own which will be given entire, after the fashion of the ex- you would smile and say, “ Talk on.” You would furniture, of his own health, friends, books, gardens; cellent abridgments in Johnstone's Elinburgh Magusine; suspend the book, or the pen, or the kindly thought you

nay, of his very hat and coat, except inasmuch as they and, lastly, of a brief current notice of the Existing were engaged in, and indulgently wait to see what contributed to give him one single idea; to wit, that of State of Poetry, Painting, and Music, and a general recipes or amusing fancies we could add to your stock. * Impransus. It might mean simply, that he had not dined ;

but there is too much reason to believe otherwise. And yet how sprinkle rof Notes, Verses, Miscellaneous Paragraphs, Nay, if you

a kind of start Dr. Johnson, who much good and entertainment did not the very necessities of and other belps to pleasant and companionable perusal.

such a man help to produce us! wrote a letter one day to the editor of the magazine to

[SPARROW AND CO. CRANE COURT,

crease.

would try.

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Leigh Hunt's London Journal, المجلدات 1-2