538 
bare; but, as there has been little, if 
any, competition, the adjudication has 
been deterred till another year! The 
short advertisement in which this no- 
tice appears is one of the most extra- 
ordinary compositions which ever 
issued, even from a Royal society. 
Tt would disgrace the grammatical 
learning of a country grocer or tailor. 
It begins, “ Extract of the minutes of 
council ;” now we have heard of ex- 
tract of sarsaparilla, and other nos- 
trums, but never of ‘extract of the 
minutes of council.” It appears, then, 
by these minutes, that ‘ the decision of 
the several prizes was postponed until 
the 23d of March, 1823; the authors 
being at liberty to withdraw their 
compositions, for the purpose of any 
alterations they may think proper.” We 
have heard of decisions on the merits 
of productions, and of adjudications or 
awards of prizes; but, till this Society 
began to write, we never heard of de- 
cisions of prizes. Any school-boy will 
correct the latter clause, and render 
it, “for the purpose of making any 
alterations which they may think pro- 
per.” But the highest joke follows: 
we are then gravely told, that the 
King’s premium of one hundred gui- 
neas, and the Society’s of fifty guineas, 
(are) tobe addressed to Mr. T. Yeates, 
the provisional secretary. If so—if 
they are to be presented or addressed 
to this fortunate gentleman,—why ad- 
vertise for competitors?—Is the Eng- 
lish language to be purified,—is our 
taste to be amended,—by a society 
which cannot dicta‘e even a brief pub- 
lic notice in logical or syntactical 
English? ’ 
The Life and Times of Daniel de 
Foe, with a copious account of his 
writings, and anecdotes of several of 
his contemporaries, are preparing by 
WALTER WILSON, esq. 
Osmond, a tale, by the author of 
“the Favourite of Nature,” is printing 
in three volumes, 12mo. 
In his late admirable speech on the 
necessity of a reform in parliament, 
Lord John Russell gave the following 
state of public intelligence, as evi- 
denced by the state of the bookselling 
trade :— 
From the year 1785 to 1792, he ob- 
served that the average amount of our ex- 
ports of British manufactures was about 
13,000,0001. a-year. From 1792 to 1799 
it was 17,000,000, ; but the exports of the 
year 1821 are stated to amount. to 
40,000,0001. When to this is added the still 
Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. 
{Aug. 1 
larger consumption of our manufactures at 
home ; and, when it is considered that out of 
these 40,000,000/. our export of cotton goods 
amounted to 23,000,000/., our woollens 
and linens to 7,000,000/., it must be in- 
ferred, that a very large proportion of the 
inhabitants of the country subsist by those 
manufactures, I will notnow dwell upon 
this new phenomenon in the state of the 
country, but for the present confine myself 
to astatement of the fact. With this im- 
mense iicrease in manufactures and com- 
merce, the dissemination of instruction, and 
the improvement in knowledge, have ad- 
vanced even in more than equal propor- 
tion. Indeed, this is a circumstance 
which must strike the most careless ob- 
server, from the vast increase of books, 
and the very high prices which are paid for 
the exercise of literary talents. From the 
immense distributiou of works of every de- 
scription throughout the country, one 
would infer, that, as the opportunities of 
information are thus increased, the educa- 
tion of the lower classes must be enlarged 
in the same proportion. Being curious to 
gain some information on this subject, I 
some time ago applied to an eminent 
bookseller’s house in the city, (that of 
Messrs. Longman and Co.) from which I 
learned a number of interesting facts. 
From the firm to which I applied, I 
learned that their own sale amounted to 
five millions of volumes in the year ; that 
they employed sixty clerks, paid a sum of 
5,500/. in advertisements, and gave con- 
stant employment to not fewer than 250 
printers and bookbinders. Another great 
source of information to the country is the 
increase of circulating libraries. In the 
year 1770, there were only fourcireulating 
libraries in the metropolis; there are at 
present one hundred, and about nine hun- 
dred more scattered throughout the coun- 
try. Besides these, there are from 1,500 to 
2,000 book-clubs, distributing throughout 
the kingdom large masses of information on 
history, voyages, and every species of 
science by which the sum of human know- 
ledge can be increased, or the human mind 
improved. Here I may also remark on 
the increase of periodical works. Ofthese 
there are two (the Edinburgh and the 
Quarterly Reviews), many articles in 
which are written with an ability equal to 
some of the best original writings of for- 
mer times, and having a greater circulation 
than all the periodical works of thirty 
years ago put together. 
While so many and such fruitful sources 
of information are thus opened to the 
higher orders, the means of improving the 
minds of the poorer class have advanced at 
a pace not less rapid or less steady. First 
came the establishment about twenty-five 
years ugo of the Lancasterian schools, 
which have distributed so widely the bles- 
sings of early instruction ; and after these 
followed 
