and obviously refers with pride to the consciousness of its readers that
they live in a period of the world’s history when Science reigns supreme
over human affairs, having achieved unimaginable triumphs, and
altogether superseded most of the pursuits of mankind in ruder ages,
such as War, the Chase, Literature, Art, and Religion. This appropriate
title is printed, we may remark, in the largest and clearest possible
Roman type, instead of in the Old English character now commonly used
for a similar purpose. No fount, indeed, which we have ever seen
employed, save in a few old Italian folio _éditions de luxe_, has type
so large and legible as that in which the whole newspaper is printed,
the greatest care apparently being taken to spare the eyes—or perhaps we
should say the spectacles—of the readers, since, judging from the
opticians’ advertisements of “Spectacles for Infants,” “Spectacles for
Elementary Schools by the gross,” and “Cautions to Mothers” against
allowing babies to use their eyes, it would appear that unassisted
vision had become rare, if not unknown. There are ten columns on each
page, each ten times as long as it is broad, and there are a hundred
pages in the journal, proving that the decimal system has been
thoroughly adopted even in such details. Spread out open, the _Age of
Science_ would cover the floor of a very large hall, and we apprehend
from certain marks that a convenient method of suspending it on pulleys
from the ceiling, must have superseded our clumsy practice of holding
our papers with extended arms.
Proceeding to peruse the intensely interesting contents of the _Age of
Science_, we first note that it is written in English differing from our
own chiefly by the use of a strange and, to our eyes, barbarous
orthography, (intended, we presume, to facilitate elementary education,)
and by the introduction of a vast number of technical terms of the class
we reserve for scientific treatises, but which are apparently brought
into use in everyday parlance. The familiarity of the contributors with
all gases, fluids, and substances of chemistry, all the bones of all the
beasts, birds, and fishes which live, or ever did live, on this planet,
and all the diseases incidental to humanity, speaks volumes for the
superiority of their scientific education over our own. At the same
time, on two or three occasions when illustrations have been chosen from
past History or Poetry, the writers betray that their studies have not
been much extended in the direction of Literature. One gentleman thinks
that Mr. GLADSTONE wrote the Iliad on hints afforded by Dr. Schliemann,
and that MILTON was the author of the Book of Genesis. Another refers to
the period when Rome was founded by ROMEO and JULIET, while a third
mentions the “once celebrated _Divina Commedia_ by MOLIERE,” and regrets
that “so curious a specimen of archaic Japanese art as Titian’s
‘Assumption’ should not have been spared from the pile in which the
‘Transfiguration’ of _Phidias_ and the ‘Last Supper’ of _Praxiteles_
were so judiciously destroyed by order of the Committee of the Royal
Academy, to put a stop to the propagation of bad æsthetic taste.” For
the intelligence of our readers we shall be compelled to translate the
singular phraseology of the _Age of Science_ as nearly as possible into
familiar English, and our present spelling; and shall only quote a few
of the Leading Articles, touching on specially interesting topics, out
of the twenty-five which the vast newspaper publishes as its daily
contribution.
The arrangement of the _Age of Science_ is a little different from and
more logical than that of our journals. The first page is rationally
devoted to TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE, which everyone may be supposed to
desire first to read. Instead of political news, however, or records of
battles, deaths of eminent personages, floods, storms, or fires, these
telegrams consist exclusively of minute verbatim reports of the
proceedings of above ninety Scientific Congresses, which seem to be
taking place at the same time in Europe, Asia, America, Australia, and
even in one instance (a Geographical Meeting) in Africa, on the shore of
Lake Albert Nyanza. The various sections of the British Association have
been obviously long broken up, and again divided and subdivided till
separate congresses have been found desirable for each department.
It would occupy more space than the whole of this volume to offer even
the briefest condensation of these Reports, as the discussions and
papers of the learned members of the different congresses are carried on
chiefly in terms quite unintelligible to us, and refer to scientific
disputes to which we do not possess a clue. We must pass over these
columns of the _Age of Science_, and proceed to the next department,
which is a Report of the ASSEMBLY OF CONVOCATION—a topic which we were
surprised to find possessed such prominent interest, till we discovered
that the Convocation of 1977 will consist exclusively of Medical men.
The Upper House seems to be formed of Physicians and Surgeons who have
obtained titles of Nobility, and take rank according to the dioceses
over which they exercise medical supervision, and the Lower House to be
a representative body elected by medical graduates throughout the
kingdom.
The meetings for the Province of Canterbury take place respectively in
Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, and in the nave of Westminster Abbey;
Jerusalem Chamber and the Board Room of the Bounty Office having
probably proved inconveniently small, and the whole Abbey (as we learn
accidentally from a paragraph in another part of the paper) having been
“set aside, since the Dissolution of the Churches, for the use of the
Medical Profession, and for anatomical and physiological lectures and
craniological researches, for which latter purpose the vaults beneath
offer peculiarly interesting specimens.”