The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 346, December 13, 1828

A glittering pocket-sized portal into December 1828, when London readers could buy this weekly magazine for threepence and find everything from phrenology debates to poetry about moonlight. This particular issue wanders through Old Covent Garden on the eve of its transformation, traces Celtic word-roots, explains which Roman festivals involved dancing goats, and marvels at the newly fashionable science of reading skulls. Dr. Gall gets a proper biographical treatment. Animals behave in instructive ways. Original verse fills the final pages. There's no unified argument or narrative here, and that's precisely the point: this is what educated early-Victorians picked up to amuse and improve themselves over a single evening. The essays are short, the tone is confident, the curiosities are endless. For anyone who wants to hear the actual voice of 1828 rather than a historian's summary of it, these pages deliver.