HISTORIC' SKKTCHKS. 



317 



the art of working metalt that is, tho extraction of metal from 



tli.- ore. 



/.',' /i iVs is the Bcionoe of morals that is, of right feeling and 



right doing. Tho word ethics resembles the word morals in 



origin. They both signify customs, and they intimate that with 



ifnt < J rooks and Romans, what i* customary was what 



bottom of such a notion there must have been 



a low standard of morality. Thus does a knowledge of language 



op, a to our eyes tho character of nations. The termination of 



like physics, mathematics, etc., denotes a science. Ethics 



is the science of morals. 



is, according to the derivation, the bearer of good 

 Tho Greek word for gospel namely, tuayjf\ioy (eu-aii- 

 gel'-i-on) means good news. (Luke ii. 10.) 



" The gastric juice, or tbo liquor which digests the food in the stomach 

 of iiniuials, is of all moiistruu the most active, the most universal." 

 l'ale<i, " Natural Theology." 



" Oxygen is a principle existing in the air, of which it forms the 

 tespirable part, and which is also necessary to combustion. Oxygen, 

 by combining with bodies, makes them acid, whence its name, signi- 

 fying gnmtor of acids." Todd'n Johnson. 



Hydrogen is water-producer. Hudor (Map), in its form "hydro, 

 is found also in TiycJrocephalous (Greek, Kt<j>a\i), keph'-o-le, the 

 lead), having water in the head (the brain) and in hydro- 

 phobia (Greek <f>o/3oy, phob-os, fear), ivater-madness. Hydropsy, 

 water-sickness, is shortened into our dropsy. 



" Soft, swollen, and pale, here lay the hydropsy, 

 Uuwieldly man, with belly monstrous round." 



Thomson, " Castle of Indolence." 



Hydrography is properly the opposite of geography; for as 

 the latter, considered in its component parts, is a description of 

 tlie land, so the former is a description of tJie water. By usage 

 these significations are modified, so that geography, signifying a 

 description of the surface of the earth, comprises hydrography, 

 which describes, by maps, charts, etc., the surface of the water, 

 and especially the sea-coast, with its rocks, islands, and shoals. 

 " Christopher Columbus, the first great discoverer of America, was 

 a man that earned his living by making and selling hydrographical 

 maps." Chambers. 



HISTORIC SKETCHES. XXIII. 



WILKES AND LIBERTY. 



ON the 3rd of December, 1763, the Eoyal Exchange was the 

 scene of a serious disturbance. The people tried, and to a great 

 extent succeeded, to prevent the execution of an order of the 

 House of Commons. Londoners of the better sort encouraged 

 the people, and the sheriffs had much difficulty in carrying out 

 their duty. 



Tho occasion was a curious one. Certain papers were to be 

 solemnly burnt in public by the common hangman. But the 

 people objected to the process, and hence the riot. The sheriffs' 

 folk had lighted the fire in which the condemned papers were to 

 be destroyed, when the populace thrust them aside, and substi- 

 tuted for the papers a jack-boot and a woman's petticoat, which 

 were burnt amid loud acclamations. " Wilkes and liberty for 

 ver!" shouted the people, who, content with having carried 

 their point in respect of the boot and tho petticoat, suffered the 

 sheriffs to perform the harmless pastime of burning some files 

 of a newspaper in the bonfire. 



The paper thus destroyed was No. 45 of the North Briton, 

 a, newspaper which was written and published by the bitterest 

 enemies of the existing Government, the Government of which 

 Lord Bute was the head. Started originally as the organ of 

 invective against the king's favourite ministers, it had on several 

 occasions exceeded itself in the tone and sting of its abuse, and 

 had commended itself, therefore, to the general public, who were 

 heartily obnoxious to the persons libelled. A belief had taken 

 liold of the public mind that the king intended to rule through 

 his " friends," as tho trusted statesmen called themselves, that 

 is, through those who aimed at exalting the royal authority far 

 above the authority derived from the people ; and they feared 

 for the abuses to which such a system of government is liable. 

 They objected also personally to the chief instrument employed 

 by His Majesty. At that time, there was an unreasoning and 

 violent hatred on the port of Englishmen towards the Scotch as 

 a nation ; Lord Bute was a Scotchman, and vulgar prejudice did 

 not fail to impute that fact to him as a disqualification, if not 



as a crime. But apart from this reason, which was no reason, 

 there were other causes which conspired to kindle animosity 

 against the earl. He was not an eloquent man, not an able man, 

 either an diplomatist or politician not a man who, by any act of 

 his own, had given warrant for the confidence which was reposed 

 in him and it was scarcely concealed that the motives which 

 induced the king so to confide in him sprang only from con- 

 siderations of private friendship. With Lord Bute, however, 

 it is possible the people might have pnt up, so long as he did 

 not interfere dangerously with the important principles of the 

 Constitution ; but he was suspected to be under the influence 

 and dominion of one whom the people wholly distrusted the 

 Princess Dowager of Wales, the mother of the king. The 

 princess had many times shown herself to be anything but 

 friendly to popular rights, and though her son had been but 

 throe years on tho throne, the people fancied they detected in 

 his conduct proofs not only of the school in which be had been 

 brought up, but of a continuance of the tutorship. Lord Bute 

 had been under the authority of the princess, the future king's 

 guide and elder companion up to the very moment of hia mount- 

 ing tho throne, and had been appointed to tho supreme command 

 of public business immediately on his pupil's accession. The 

 views of the princess and of Lord Bute were known to coincide 

 in every particular, and it was said, probably with truth, that 

 the lady took frequent occasion to exhort her friend to continue 

 in their common political faith. The king was believed to be 

 almost wholly under their influence, and when he acted inde- 

 pendently it was said that, clearly enough, the seed, sown by 

 the mother and watered by the tutor, had taken deep root. 



Lord Bute had many times been burned in effigy, and whenever 

 opportunity offered for a burning but no effigy was available, 

 the people acted the gross pun of burning a jack-boot (for John, 

 Earl of Bute) as the unpopular minister's representative. More 

 often than not, a petticoat was added, as typifying the princess, 

 who was equally disliked. On the occasion mentioned at the 

 beginning of this article, both the boot and the petticoat were 

 destroyed, to the cry, repeated again and again, of " Wilkes and 

 liberty ! " But why Wilkes ? 



John Wilkes was the author of the articles in the North 

 Briton which had excited so much attention, and drawn down 

 the anger of the Houses of Parliament. He had ever since the 

 paper started been one of the most constant contributors, and it 

 was pretty well known that all the fiercest denunciation, all the 

 most malignant writing, all the most scurrilous abuse which ap- 

 peared in the paper was from his pen. At tho present day we are 

 accustomed to tho greatest freedom in the public press ; names 

 are mentioned readily and without reserve, whatever the position 

 of their owners may be, and an editor feels no more compunction 

 in quoting the names of high personages in connection with what 

 he is writing about than ho has in naming the most obscure man 

 in the kingdom. But in 1763 things were different It was 

 uncertain how far tho law would hold an editor or publisher 

 harmless who should criticise too freely the conduct of public 

 men ; and it was certain, according to the principle of a law 

 which had among its maxims the monstrous proposition that the 

 truth of a libel was the reverse of a justification for uttering it, 

 that, unless the defendant could show he was directly benefiting 

 the public by his publication, he would be severely punished 

 in damages. Writing, such as we see every day in the news- 

 papers, about public men and public affairs was at that time 

 an unheard-of thing except in Grub Street, or when it issued 

 from some secret printing-press that dared not let its where- 

 abouts bo known. 



John Wilkes was the first journalist who wrote plainly and at 

 full length the names of the persons of whom he was writing. 

 Before he did so, tho practice was to allude to and not mention 

 a public man, and various expedients were resorted to some 

 ingenious, others coarse and vulgar for making the allusions 

 sufficiently pertinent to identify the person signified. In the 

 North Briton, not only were the names of Lord Bute, the Duke 

 of Grafton, George Grenville, and other ministers set forth 

 plainly, but even the name of His Majesty was used with a 

 freedom quite unprecedented, and the novelty of this personal 

 style of writing made it only the more stinging. On a calm 

 review of tho North Briton articles, at the present day, we might 

 consider them tame, abusive and irritating though they were, 

 beside much that we now read daily as a matter of course ; but 

 a hundred years ago the leaden of our party political organs 



