1825.] 
-of twenty-four years, ‘between the publica- 
tion of the preceding volumes of this work 
and that of its present conclusion, has in- 
duced Mr. B. to conceive that some apo- 
logy was requisite for the delay, and that 
the best apology would be—a prefatory 
sketch of his life. In this respect, there- 
fore, cur author appears in a new charac- 
ter: and though we do not exactly see the 
necessary covnexicn between the birth, 
parentage, and education of Mr. Britton, 
and the long delay of the volume before 
us; yet, deeming this auto-biographic 
sketch, in itself, both interesting and in- 
structive, we shall not be very critical on 
the logic to which we are indebted for 
the memoir, but give it the notice to which 
it seems entitled. 
The father of Mr. Britton, it seems, was 
a baker and malster, and kept a country 
shop in the village of Kingston, St. Mi- 
chael, in Wiltshire; and our incipient to- 
pographer and F.RS. received, “at four 
different rustic schools,’ no other than the 
’ common village education of those times, 
** which consisted of a mechanical duli routine of 
Spelling, reading, writing, and swmming, or arith- 
metic. “I do not remember,’ continues he, ‘ ever 
£o have seen a book, in either of the schools, of any 
other description than Flemming’s, Dyche’s, and 
Dilworth’s Spelling-Books and Grammars, A%sop’s 
Fables, the Bible, and two or three Dictionaries.’— 
* I cannot charge my memory with one valuable or 
beneficial maxim, or piece of sound information, 
derived from that mechanical process of tuition, or 
any thing that could arouse the mental energies.” 
He had never beheld a newspaper, it 
seems, before he was fifteen, or heard of 
_ such a thing even as a magazine, or a re- 
view, &e. ; and, when he was an appren- 
tice in London, at the age of seventeen, 
having been told to fetch Guthrie’s Grammar 
out of the dining-room into the drawing- 
reom, he did not understand what was 
meant, “though his master (a wine-mer- 
chant) was bookish or learned enough to 
have a dozen or twenty volumes in his 
library!” The only anecdote of his boy- 
khood connected with literature, was his 
purchasing a lot of nine books, at the sale 
of the effects of the village Squire, for one 
shilling—among which were Robinson Cru- 
soe, the Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Life of 
Peter the Great; all which he devoured 
with equal avidity and equal credulity ; it 
meyer entering his mind, that the second 
was an allegory, or the first a fiction. 
The servile condition of his apprentice- 
ship and confinement for fourteen or fifteen 
hours a day, in the “cavern,” or bottling cel- 
lar of the London merchant, was not much 
more favourable to intellectual improye- 
_ ment, than his school-day state, in the re- 
gions of rural innocence and pustoral sim- 
_plicity: terms of which Mr. B. seems to 
__haye formed a tolerably accurate estimate : 
_ yet, even heré, he found, or rather created 
_ to himself, some means of enlarging his 
little stock of acquaintance with books. 
__» Montary Mace. No. 416, . 
Vi 
~~ 
Domestic and Foreign. 
B45. 
The steps, at first slow and difficult, by 
which he rose from this obscurity to his 
present celebrity, are interesting ; and the 
little incidental sketches that occur in the 
brief: narrative remind us of the rapid 
changes that have taken place in the state 
of society during the last thirty or forty 
ears. 
The first literary adventure, in which the 
author of so many splendid works (the pur- 
chase of a single set cf which would amount 
to more than 200 guineas) was the partner- 
ship publication of a single ballad or song, 
(written by his after-coadjutor in ‘‘ the 
Beauties of England,” &c., Mr. Brayley,) 
intituled The Guinea Pig, on the subject 
of the Hair-Powder Tax; and of which, 
printed on “fine wire-woye paper, price 
one penny,’ upwards of 70,000 copies were 
sold. Some of the single volumes of this 
joint adventurer in a penny song have since 
been published at twenty guineas each ; and 
itis eheering to find that the whole of the 
adyantages from these splendid labours have 
not been confined to booksellers and pub- 
lishérs. t 
<* I consider myself,” says Mr. B. (now in his fifty- 
fourth year), ‘* both rich and happy. My riches 
consist in paying my way, exemption from debt, in 
having many comforts around me; particularly a 
large library, well stored with the highest treasures 
of intellect, in literary composition and graphic exe- 
cution; and in a conviction, that the remainder of 
my life will enable me to increase these comforts, 
and even cbtain a few luxuries.”—‘* An amiable 
wife, the esteem of many good and estimable men— 
an intimacy, I hope friendship, with severaleminent 
and distinguished personages, are, with me, ad- 
ditional grounds of happiness.” 
What is there beyond this that the au- 
tumn of our life could wish for? If there 
be any thing, it is that this waning sunshine ~ 
should be enjoyed unenvying and unenvied.- 
And this, also, it seems that Mr. B., in 
some degree, can boast. 
«« It is commonly said,” continues he, ‘* that envy 
and jealousy belong to, and tend to degrade, the 
literary character. From my own feelings and ex- 
perience, I can safely say, that authorship is more 
exempt from these degrading passions than many 
other professions.” 
We hope, and indeed believe, that the 
picture is correct ; and sincerely wish that 
Mr. B.’s. remaining days may be as un- 
clouded, in this andall other respects, as 
his present prospects. . 
Napoleon and the Grand Army in Russia, 
or a Critical Examination of the Count de 
Ségur’s Work. By GeNrRaL GoURGAUD, 
formerly First Master of Ordnance, and 
Aide-de-Camp to the Emperor Napoleon.— 
We are still far from the time in which 
a calm and unimpassioned history of 
the events of 1812 could be written, or 
find readers prepared to receive and profit 
by it. The passions roused by political 
commotions are not yet appeased. Social 
positions and interests are changed, but the 
energetic passions haye not yet felt the in- 
ZY fluence 
