'Then I have been turning lazily over the pages of a certain "magazine" called the "Saturday Magazine", which the worthy chaplain has lent me. There are six double volumes of this astounding rubbish; or more properly six strata - a huge deposit of pudding-stone, rubble, detritus and scoriae in six thick stratifications; containing great veins of fossil balderdash, and whole regions of what the Germans call "loss" and "trass"; amongst which, however, sometimes glances up a fragment of pure ore that has no business there, or a gleaming splinter of diamond illuminating the foul opacity. After an hour's digging and shovelling, I meet perhaps with an authentic piece of "noster" Thomas himself - there are two of those in the whole six beds - and once I turned up what made my heart leap - "The Forging of the Anchor" - which I straight away rolled forth till the tweak timbers rang. There are a great many not intolerable wood engravings in the volumes, and some readable topographical description: but on the whole the thing is of very base material - "Amusements in Science" - "Recreations in Religion" - no, but "Easy Lessons on Christian Evidences" - much apocryphol anecdotage of history, but, above all, abundant illustrations of British generosity, valour, humanity...'