Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/231

For between 1823 and 1850 three hundred annuals had been published in England, and the end was very near. Exhausted nature was crying for release. It is terrible to find an able and honest writer like Miss Mitford editing a preposterous volume called the "Iris," of inhuman bulk and superhuman inanity; a book which she well knew could never, under any press of circumstances, be read by mortal man or woman. There were annuals to meet every demand, and to please every class of purchaser. Comic annuals for those who hoped to laugh; a "Botanic Annual" for girls who took country walks with their governess; an "Oriental Annual" for readers of Byron and Moore; a "Landscape Annual" for lovers of nature; "The Christian Keepsake" for ladies of serious minds; and "The Protestant Annual" for those who feared that Christianity might possibly embrace the Romish Church. There were five annuals for English children; from one of which, "The Juvenile Keepsake," I quote these lines, so admirably adapted to the childish mind. Newton is supposed to speak them in his study:—