of common propriety on the part of Fishtail,
that I solemnly discarded him, and have
never entered his house since.

AN OLD BOOK OF GEOGRAPHY.

Here we have lying before us an old
geography book, printed early in the reign of
Charles the First. It is what Mr. Carlyle
happily designates "a dumpy quarto;" is plainly
bound in unsophisticated calf, guiltless of gold
lettering or devices, and presenting somewhat
the appearance of a modern school-book; and
is entitled— "Mikrokosmos: A Little Description
of the Great World. The Fourth Edition.
Revised. By Peter Heylyn. Oxford, Printed
by W. T. for William Turner and Thomas
Huggins. 1629." The first edition appeared
in sixteen hundred and twenty-one; so that
we see the work was held in no inconsiderable
estimation at the time. Indeed, Peter, though
now known only to a few inquirers, was a
man of some importance during his life; and,
for several years after his death, was quoted
as an authority. The substance of the quarto
now before us was originally delivered in the
form of lectures at Magdalen College, Oxford,
when the writer was only seventeen years of
age; and, being afterwards enlarged, was
published as a book. Subsequently, Heylyn
entered the Church; became one of the
chaplains of Charles I, a great favourite of Laud,
and a doughty champion of kingly and priestly
domination; suffered for his opinions under
the Commonwealth; and finally died in
prosperity after the restoration of the Stuarts.
He was a ready and voluminous author; and
will be regarded with interest as one of our
earliest newspaper-press men, having
published at Oxford a weekly paper called the
Mercurius Aulicus.

High Churchman and scholar though he
was, our friend Heylyn puts on no saturnine
or crabbed visage. His manner, on the
contrary, is gay, lively, unctuous, flavorous, good-
humoured, and full of character. His style
has a chuckle in it whenever he can tell you a
quaint story or an odd bit of national manners.
Great relish for a joke has Peter; and you
may now and then catch him telling a naughty
tale with a twinkle in the eye. With no
solemn pretence of abstruse wisdom does our
geographical mentor conduct us on the long
pilgrimage through a world; but rather with
the air of a genial and well-informed
companion, familiar with history, antiquity, and
tradition; full of anecdote and illustration;
observant of new forms and modes of life; not
deficient in the broad daylight of statistics
(such as were then known), yet having a
strong love for glimmering fables and twilight
myths; no indiscriminate swallower of lies,
though willing to believe any moderately
strange tale; and, poet-like, increasing in
riches as he passes onward into regions more
and more remote. Sometimes we laugh with
Peter, sometimes at him; yet there is no
denying that his book is the result of great
industry, great learning, much careful
research in many volumes, and considerable
literary tact in selection and condensation.
Let us dip a little into the old quarto, and see
how the world has altered in many things—
how remained stationary in some—since the
year sixteen hundred and twenty-nine.

To the end that his readers may be
thoroughly grounded in their geographical and
historical studies, and that nothing may be
done incompletely or slightingly, Heylyn
commences his volume with twenty-six pages of
"Præcognita," in which he discourses of
history and geography in the abstract, and
of the best writers of the latter. Speaking
of commercial intercourse between different
nations, he makes a remark which curiously
anticipates our modern free-trade doctrines.
He writes: "Our most provident and glorious
Creator so furnished countries with severall
commodities that amongst all there might be
sociable conversation; and, one standing in
need of the other, all might be combined in a
common league, and exhibite mutuall succours.
This abundance of all countries in everything,
and defect of every country in most things,
maintaineth in all regions and every province
a most strict combination. So that, as in the
body of the little world, the head cannot say
to the foot, nor the foot to the head, 'I stand
in no need of thee:' so, in the body of the
great world. Europe cannot say to Asia, nor
Asia to Africke, 'I want not your commodities,
nor am defective in that of which thou
boastest of abundance.'" Sensible enough,
this, and worthy to be spoken by
Manchester in the nineteenth century;* but an
opinion which our geographer adopts from a
previous writer, about the prosperity of great
cities being in part derivable from
"immunities from taxes and the like oppressions,"
we of the present day can in nowise father.
London is certainly a great city; and as
certainly it is not exempt from taxes.
Concerning rivers, we find a scientific opinion
which we fear will not pass muster with the
learned of our own times. It appears that
rivers are "engendered in the hollow
concavities of the earth," and are derived from
congealed air: to give us a lively idea of
which engendering, Peter informs us that it is
in the same manner "as we see the aire in
winter nights to be melted into a pearlie dew,
sticking on our glasse windowes." Here also
is a dictum in respect to the political position
and power of islands which, could the author
be suddenly reanimated, he would find had
been startlingly disproved in the course of a
few generations. "As concerning the situation
of ilands," says Peter, "whether

* Under the head of Florence, Heylyn mentions an
instance of "Protection" with a vengeance, which may be
commended to all advocates of monopoly. "The Duke,"
he states, "useth here to buy up almost all the corne in the
country at his owne price, and sel it againe as deere as he
list: forbidding any corne to be sold till his be all vented."
A more villanous use of power can scarcely be conceived.