1824.1 Habits of Rooks 



paid liberally too, are committed, 

 through a species of undue and inju- 

 rious favouritism, to booksellers who 

 vamp them in a style so extravagant, 

 as to put them out of the reach of all 

 but persons of large fortune, or public 

 libraries. The great mass of the peo- 

 ple are wholly deprived of all chance 

 of obtaining that which is theirs, as 

 having been paid for out of the taxes 

 levied upon them. While those in- 

 dividuals who can and do purchase 

 them, have reason to complain that 

 they are made, in some measure, to 

 pay for them, at least twice over. 



Observe, Sir, \ would be the last 

 man to make the smallest deduction 

 from any advantages that the merito- 

 rious officers may derive from the 

 present mode of publication. I would 

 give them all, and more than any 

 dealer in books could afford to give 

 them for their interest. But, in being 

 kind and liberal to the officers, I would 

 be just to the public ; and according 

 to that view, I see no reason why the 

 public should pay a premium to Mr. 

 Murray, or to any one, for letting 

 them have at an enormous, and for 

 the most part an unattainable, price, 

 that which is their own ! — I say then, 

 Sir, that the great body of the people 

 are unfairly dealt with, inasmuch as 

 to furnish a job for a bookseller; they 

 are shut out from all rightful partici- 

 pation in those beneCts, which, if they 

 have any meaning or object at all, 

 must have been designed for their 

 behoof. I do not insist here on the 

 injury sustained by the community, 

 (a point, by the bye, well deserving 

 the attention of any government,) in 

 being cut off from sources of infor- 

 mation of the most useful kind, pos- 

 sessing all the essential characters of 

 truth, and calculated to promote the 

 acquisition of sound knowledge, and 

 consequently to generate correct 

 habits of thinking and acting. 



In pursuing these views, I am led 

 to the mention of a circumstance which 

 is, by this time, familiar to all your 

 readers. — A work, of our glorious 

 Milton, has been lately rescued from 

 oblivion ; its subject (de Dei Cultu,) is 

 worthy of the author, and is deeply in- 

 teresting to all. The manuscript has 

 come into the possession of his ma- 

 jesty, and the home secretary has 

 signified the intention (worthy of a 

 king) that it should be immediately 

 pid)li»hed. Now, it cannot, 1 should 



■Roman Stone. 293 



imagine, be here alleged that any 

 party has a pecuniary interest, or 

 ought to have a profit in such a pub- 

 lication. Let it then be, in one re- 

 spect, a gift from the king to the 

 people ; that is, let it be published in 

 such a form, and in such a manner, 

 that the public pay no more for it than 

 the bare amount of necessary charges 

 for printing and publishing. Let no 

 book-manufacturing bookseller be per- 

 mitted to step in and levy an exor- 

 bitant per centage on that which, at all 

 events, is the property of his majesty, 

 and, if he graciously waive his claim, 

 becomes the property of the people. 

 Oi-, if it should be determined that a 

 moderate additional price be charged, 

 let the surplus thence arising be ap- 

 propriated to the representatives, if 

 they wish or require it, of the illus- 

 trious dead. This will, indeed, be to 

 consecrate the boon ! It is such acts 

 as these, Mr. Editor, and not the trap- 

 pings and trumperies of ceremonials, 

 that, in my humble judgment, con- 

 stitute the true glories of regality. 

 April, 1824. Justus. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 



SIR, 



YOUR correspondent, E. S. who 

 dates his letter from " the Banks 

 of the Darent," in the Monthly Ma- 

 gazine for January last, is mistaken in 

 his idea that rooks have an aversion 

 from building their nests in chesnut- 

 trees; as there is at Lower Wallop, in 

 this county, a very fine avenue of 

 chesnut-trees entirely covered with 

 the nests of these birds, notwith- 

 standing there are many elm-trees, of 

 large dimensions, in the immediate 

 neighbourhood, perfectly unoccupied. 

 Neither should I think they prefer 

 building their nests in elm-trees to 

 any other, as a rookery has this year 

 been established in a meadow in this 

 parish, and the birds have indiscri- 

 minately taken possession of the ash- 

 trees as well as the elm. 

 Broughton, Hants. M. S. 



April 14, 1824. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 



SIR, 



MY attention having been directed 

 by an article in your valuable 

 Magazine, to some of the purposes 

 to which a Mr. Austin had applied 

 that important discovery, the Koman 

 Stone ; may I be permitted, through 



the 



