Projectile Science The Physics Behind

Kicking a Field Goal and Launching a

Rocket with Science Activities for Kids
Matthew Brenden Wood
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/projectile-science-the-physics-behind-kicking-a-field-g
oal-and-launching-a-rocket-with-science-activities-for-kids-matthew-brenden-wood/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The Science of Science Fiction Matthew Brenden Wood

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-science-of-science-fiction-
matthew-brenden-wood/

Probability with Applications in Engineering Science

and Technology 2nd Edition Matthew A. Carlton

https://textbookfull.com/product/probability-with-applications-
in-engineering-science-and-technology-2nd-edition-matthew-a-
carlton/

Probability with Applications in Engineering Science

and Technology 2nd Edition Matthew A. Carlton

https://textbookfull.com/product/probability-with-applications-
in-engineering-science-and-technology-2nd-edition-matthew-a-
carlton-2/

Mindfulness Skills for Kids Teens A Workbook for

Clinicians Clients with 154 Tools Techniques Activities
Worksheets Debra Burdick

https://textbookfull.com/product/mindfulness-skills-for-kids-
teens-a-workbook-for-clinicians-clients-with-154-tools-
techniques-activities-worksheets-debra-burdick/
Solar and Space Physics A Science for a Technological
Society Committee On A Decadal Strategy For Solar And
Space Physics (Heliophysics)

https://textbookfull.com/product/solar-and-space-physics-a-
science-for-a-technological-society-committee-on-a-decadal-
strategy-for-solar-and-space-physics-heliophysics/

Rocket Science From Fireworks to the Photon Drive Denny

Mark

https://textbookfull.com/product/rocket-science-from-fireworks-
to-the-photon-drive-denny-mark/

Marine Science for Cambridge International AS A Level

Coursebook 2nd Edition Matthew Parkin

https://textbookfull.com/product/marine-science-for-cambridge-
international-as-a-level-coursebook-2nd-edition-matthew-parkin/

Science in seconds for kids over 100 experiments and

activities you can do in ten minutes or less 2nd
Edition Samuel Cord Stier

https://textbookfull.com/product/science-in-seconds-for-kids-
over-100-experiments-and-activities-you-can-do-in-ten-minutes-or-
less-2nd-edition-samuel-cord-stier/

Introduction to Rocket Science and Engineering, Second

Edition Travis S Taylor

https://textbookfull.com/product/introduction-to-rocket-science-
and-engineering-second-edition-travis-s-taylor/
 Titles in the Technology Today book set

Check out more titles at www.nomadpress.net

Nomad Press
A division of Nomad Communications
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © 2018 by Nomad Press. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from
the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review or for
limited educational use.

The trademark “Nomad Press” and the Nomad Press logo are trademarks of Nomad
Communications, Inc.

Educational Consultant, Marla Conn

Questions regarding the ordering of this book should be addressed to

Nomad Press
2456 Christian St.
White River Junction, VT 05001
www.nomadpress.net

Printed in Canada.
 Contents

Timeline

Introduction
The Science of Projectiles

Chapter 1
What Goes Up: The Laws of Motion

Chapter 2
Projectile Motion: Tracking Trajectories

Chapter 3
Slingshots, Catapults, and Cannons: Mechanical Energy

Chapter 4
Curveballs and Spirals: Air Resistance

Chapter 5
When What Goes Up Doesn’t Come Down: Rockets

Glossary | Metric Conversions

Resources | Essential Questions | Index
 Interested in Primary Sources?
Look for this icon. Use a smartphone or tablet app to
scan the QR code and explore more! Photos are also

primary sources because a photograph takes a picture at

the moment something happens.

If the QR code doesn’t work, there’s a list of

URLs on the Resources page. Or, try searching
the internet with the Keyword Prompts to find other
helpful sources.

projectiles
 TIMELINE

1304 CE: King Edward of England uses a giant

trebuchet known as the “Wolf of War” to help

conquer Stirling Castle in Scotland.

1337 CE: The English longbow is used in the

Hundred Years’ War between England and

France.

1346 CE: The Mongol army uses catapults to

infect the city of Caffa with bubonic plague.

1415 CE: At the Battle of Agincourt, English

forces use longbows to defeat a French army

nearly 10 times larger.

1520 CE: Gun barrels are first made with spiral

grooves that spin projectiles, called “rifles.”

1638 CE: Galileo Galilei shows that the motion

of a projectile is a curved path called a

parabola.

1812 CE: The British Navy uses rockets to attack

Fort McHenry, inspiring Francis Scott Key to

write the words “the rocket’s red glare.”

1846 CE: Isaac Newton’s law of universal

gravitation is used to discover the planet

Neptune.
1849 CE: Claude-Etienne Minié invents the
modern, streamlined bullet.

c. 1850 CE: The first slingshots using rubber

are made.

1853 CE: German physicist H.G. Magnus

describes how spinning objects curve in flight.

c. 1853 CE: Scottish physicist William Rankine

coins the term “potential energy.”

October 7, 1867: William Arthur “Candy”

Cummings throws the first curveball in a

baseball game.

1905: Pitcher Eddie Cicotte earns the nickname

“knuckles” for the strange grip he uses for a

pitch that seems to zig and zag on its way to the

plate.

September 5, 1906: Bradbury Robinson

throws the first spiral pass in American football.

March 16, 1926: The first liquid-fueled rocket

is launched by Robert Goddard.

September 8, 1944: The first V2 rocket attack

happens on London, England.

1953: The Wiffle ball is invented.

1959: Engineer and physicist Lyman Briggs

proves that a curveball really curves.

October 4, 1957: Sputnik becomes the world’s

first artificial satellite.

February 9, 1959: The Soviet Union’s R-7
becomes the world’s first operational

intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

April 12, 1961: Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin,

riding on top of a Soviet R-7 ICBM, becomes the

first human in space.

May 5, 1961: Alan Shepard becomes the first

American in space.

1966: Hollis Wilbur Allen builds the first

compound bow.

November 9, 1967: The first launch of the

Saturn V, the rocket that took humans to the

moon.

September 8, 1974: Daredevil Robert “Evel”

Knievel jumps across the Snake River Canyon in

his custom-built “Skycycle X-2.”

June 2, 1987: Joey Meyer of the Denver

Zephyrs hits a 582-foot home run, probably the

longest home run in baseball history.

2009: The game Angry Birds uses projectile

science to enterain humans for hours.

2010: The U.S. Navy fires the fastest projectile

ever, traveling at more than 8,000 feet per

second.

2011: “Chucky III” sets the world record for

catapult distance, flinging a pumpkin 3,636

feet.
December 8, 2013: Matt Prater of the Denver
Broncos kicks the longest field goal in NFL

history—64 yards!
 Introduction

THE SCIENCE OF

PROJECTILES

Down by a point with only seconds left in the game, you

square up your shoulders to take the final shot. Over the
outstretched hands of the defender, you release the
basketball and watch as it soars through the air into the
hoop with a swoosh. The buzzer sounds and the crowd
cheers—you’ve won the game!

You might think that nailing a three-pointer is just luck.

There are many forces at work, however, that determine if
you’ve made a game-winning shot or the final out.
 If you’ve ever thrown a ball, launched a model rocket, or
even played video games, you’ve explored the amazing
world of ballistics. Ballistics is the study of projectiles
and of projectile motion—or how objects such as bullets
and baseballs move. The study of projectile science can
involve something as simple as tossing a soda can into a
recycling bin from across the room or as complicated as
sending a rocket into outer space. If it can be launched,
thrown, fired, or flung, it’s a projectile!

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

Why did ancient humans develop methods of

sending projectiles farther, faster? How did

this ability make life better?

WORDS TO KNOW

force: a push or pull applied to an object.

ballistics: the science that studies the movement of

objects that are shot through the air.

projectile: an object that is thrown or launched and

does not move by its own power.

projectile motion: the path that a projectile takes as

it travels.
 projectile science: the study of how projectiles

move.

buoyancy: the force that makes something able to

float, either in the air or in the water.

prehistoric: having to do with ancient times, before

written human records.

tundra: a treeless Arctic region that is permanently

frozen below the top layer of soil.

prey: an animal caught or hunted for food.

wary: suspicious.

lance: a long, straight wooden spear.

spear: a weapon with a long shaft and pointed tip,

used for thrusting or throwing.

All projectiles follow the same rules of motion, no

matter what they are. Understanding those rules is the
science of ballistics. How hard do you need to throw a
football to complete a pass? How do you aim an arrow to
hit a bulls-eye? All these things require an understanding
of ballistics and projectile motion.

If you think about it, you’ve been studying ballistics your

whole life without knowing it! But to people throughout
history, the study of ballistics was an even more important
part of their lives.
 Projectile or Not?
When is an object a projectile? Not all things flying

through the air are projectiles! Projectiles don’t move

under their own power. Therefore, airplanes, helicopters,

and hot air balloons are not projectiles because they use

wings, engines, or buoyancy to determine how they

move.

ANCIENT PROJECTILES

Imagine you’re a prehistoric human, living with your

prehistoric family in the harsh tundra of northern Siberia
20,000 years ago. Survival isn’t easy! You must hunt large
and dangerous beasts to provide for your family. But
getting close to a bear or giant woolly mammoth is
difficult. How do you hunt a fearsome animal without
putting yourself in danger?
 Ancient humans painting images of woolly mammoths on cave walls

credit: Charles R. Knight

Ancient people around the world solved this problem by

using projectiles. Many used rounded stones as weapons,
hurling them with great force to stun or knock down their
prey. Others made slings, which allowed them to throw
rocks with even greater force. Using projectiles to hunt had
two big advantages for ancient people—it allowed them to
sneak up on wary prey, and it kept them away from
dangerous teeth and tusks.

An even more dangerous weapon made by ancient

people was the lance, or spear. The first spears were
simple, sharp sticks that could be thrown. People learned
pretty quickly that attaching a small, sharpened rock to the
tip made spears more accurate—and even more deadly.

WORDS TO KNOW

catapult: a large war machine used to hurl objects at

an enemy.

Middle Ages: the period of European history after

the fall of the Roman Empire, from about 350 to

1450 CE.

trebuchet: a large, catapult-like structure with a

moveable arm that launched damaging items into or

over castle walls.

siege: surrounding and attacking a fortified place,

such as a fort, and cutting it off from help and

supplies.

siege engine: a machine built to help forces break

through walls—or go over them.

culture: the beliefs and way of life of a group of

people, which can include religion, language, art,

clothing, food, holidays, tools, and more.

fire lance: a very early gunpowder weapon.

 Hurling spears worked well, but you still needed to be
pretty close to your prey. A new tool, the bow and arrow,
gave hunters an even better way to hunt from afar. For the
first archers, making bows and arrows was much harder
than fashioning a spear. They needed to find the right kind
of wood to make a bow—something that could bend but
not break. Plant and animal materials were needed to
make the bow string, and the arrows needed to be shaped
and carved as straight as possible.

Finding all the right materials and creating the bows

and arrows would have been difficult, but worth it. A well-
made bow and arrow is much easier to aim than a spear.
It’s also lighter and easier to carry.

Projectiles were terrific for hunting

food more easily and more
efficiently. They were also used in
battle.
 ANCIENT WEAPONS

Have you ever seen a catapult? During the Middle

Ages, catapults were used to send boulders over castle
walls or even break them down. Catapults work a lot like a
bow. A flexible piece of wood is pulled back into a firing
position and loaded with a projectile. When it’s released,
the wood springs back, hurling the boulder at its target.

Trebuchets were another kind of catapult used in

ancient warfare. Trebuchets used a large weight to send
heavy objects flying. These siege engines dominated
battlefields for hundreds of years until a new invention
replaced them—firearms.

In the tenth century, a new kind of weapon was

invented in China. The fire lance was a hollow bamboo
tube filled with black powder and attached to the end of a
spear. When it was lit, the black-powder exploded, sending
fire and small projectiles toward the enemy.

DID YOU KNOW?

Bows, spears and other tools were invented by

diverse cultures in different ways. The earliest

evidence of archery comes from projectile points

 that are nearly 70,000 years old and found in

South African caves. In Europe, the oldest bows and

arrows are about 15,000 years old.

SAFETY FIRST
While you’re building, exploring, and experimenting,

remember to be safe. When working with projectiles,

ALWAYS wear eye protection. Never point a projectile at

something you don’t want to hunt or damage, including

people, pets, and valuable items. As you build and

experiment, remember that things can pinch, snap, and

even break, so be careful of your fingers and hands.

Always practice safe science!

WORDS TO KNOW

physics: the study of physical forces, including

matter, energy, and motion, and how these forces

interact with each other.

air resistance: the force that acts on an object as it

travels through the air.

spear-thrower: a stick that makes it possible to throw

spears farther and faster.

 prototype: a model of something that allows

engineers to test their idea.

Eventually, the bamboo tube was replaced by a metal

tube. A single projectile—the first bullet—was put inside.
Loaded with gunpowder, the weapon was more powerful
than a bow and deadlier than an arrow. Cannons, mortars,
and modern rifles came later, firing larger projectiles even
greater distances.

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968) became the first

person to go into space, riding atop a ballistic missile that
followed the same basic laws as basketballs and bullets.
How does it work? What’s behind the motion projectiles
make once they leave your hand or shoot out of a device?

Projectile Science: The Physics Behind Kicking a Field Goal

and Launching a Rocket examines the ups and downs of
projectile motion by exploring the math and physics
behind hitting the bulls-eye and reaching orbit. Along the
way, you’ll conduct experiments and safely build your own
devices, such as slingshots, catapults, and water rockets.

You’ll learn how to predict the paths of objects,

including how far they’ll fly and where they’ll land. You’ll
also discover how things such as air resistance and spin
can affect the flight of projectiles, including how curveballs
curve and how bullets can be so accurate. Ballistics is an
exciting way to explore the math and physics behind
projectile motion!

Heads Up!
Many cultures created a tool to help throw spears farther

and faster. Called an “atlatl” by the Aztecs and “woomera”

by aboriginal Australians, a spear-thrower acts like an

extension of the hunter’s arm, giving greater power and

accuracy.

You can watch modern people

using ancient throwing tools in
this video.
spear thrower Ice

Age

Engineering Design Process

Every engineer keeps a notebook to keep track of their

ideas and their steps in the engineering design process.

As you read through this book and do the activities,

keep track of your observations, data, and designs in an

engineering design worksheet, like the one shown here.

When doing an activity, remember that there is no right

answer or right way to approach a project. Be creative

and have fun!

Problem: What problem are we trying to solve?

Research: Has anything been invented to help solve the

problem? What can we learn?

Question: Are there any special requirements for the device? An

example of this is a car that must go a certain distance in a

certain amount of time.

Brainstorm: Draw lots of designs for your device and list the
materials you are using!

Prototype: Build the design you drew during brainstorming.

Test: Test your prototype and record your observations.

Evaluate: Analyze your test results. Do you need to make

adjustments? Do you need to try a different prototype?

Each chapter of this book begins with an essential

question to help guide your exploration of ballistics.

Keep the question in your mind as you read the chapter.

At the end of each chapter, use your engineering

notebook to record your thoughts and answers.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION
 Why did ancient humans develop methods of

sending projectiles farther, faster? How did

this ability make life better?

Activity

FIND PROJECTILES AROUND

YOU
Projectiles can be almost anything—a ball, an arrow, and a
bullet are all examples. While these are very different
objects, do they move the same?

› Observe the motion of several different projectiles you

can find around you. They can be a ball, stone, arrow—

anything that can be safely thrown.

What does it take to get the objects moving? Can you throw

it or kick it? Does it need a device to move? Remember to

practice safe science. Never point a projectile at something

you don’t want to hurt, including people, pets, and valuable

items.

What are the motions of your projectiles like? How are they

alike and how are they different?

What brings them to a halt? Are they fired at a target or do

they simply land on the ground? What do you think

happens when the objects stop moving?

 Try This!

Play Angry Birds online! Using a slingshot, you can hurl birds,

which are the projectiles, and follow their paths to the target.

What do you notice about the motion of the projectiles in

Angry Birds? Record your observations. How does changing

the angle of the launch change the flight of projectiles? How

does changing the stretch of the slingshot change the path of

a bird? What is more important, the angle or how fast the

bird flies?
 play

Angry Birds
 Chapter 1

WHAT GOES UP:

THE LAWS OF MOTION

Have you ever thought about what really happens when

you throw a ball or fire a slingshot? What gets projectiles
moving? And what brings them to a stop? You know that
a baseball doesn’t just send itself flying over the outfield
fence, a golf ball won’t move until it’s struck by a club,
and a soda can won’t toss itself into a recycling container.
For anything to move, a force needs to be applied. So
let’s get moving!

A force can be something simple, such as pushing a

skateboard or pulling a wagon, or it can be something
more complicated, like the thrust from a jet engine. Forces
are all around us, but they are invisible—you can only see
their effect.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

What are the different forces that control

movement, and what would life be like

without these forces?

When you apply a force to something, what happens? If

the force is big enough, you can get things moving. If you
push or pull something, does it keep going? Or does it
eventually stop?

WORDS TO KNOW

thrust: a force that pushes an object forward.

physicist: a scientist who studies physical forces,

including matter, energy, and motion, and how these

forces interact with each other.

mechanics: the working parts of something.

BCE: put after a date, BCE stands for Before Common

Era and counts down to zero. CE stands for Common

Era and counts up from zero. These non-religious

 terms correspond to BC and AD. This book was

printed in 2018 CE.

natural state: according to Aristotle, the way an

object behaves when nothing is acting on it.

astronomy: the study of the sun, moon, stars,

planets, and space.

MECHANICS: STUDYING MOTION

Ancient scientists and philosophers from every culture

were fascinated by how and why things move. These first
physicists looked closely at the world around them and
tried to explain what they saw. The study of motion and
forces is called mechanics.

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and

scientist who studied lots of things, including physics,
math, and biology. By looking closely at how things moved
in the world around him, he developed a theory of motion
to describe what he saw.

Aristotle believed that everything had a “natural state”

it wanted to be in. According to Aristotle, water flowed
because its natural state was to move, and a stone was
motionless because its natural state was to be at rest.
Aristotle believed that to change something’s natural state,
a force must be applied to it, and the force must continue
to be applied to keep it moving. Without an applied force,
the object would return to its natural state.

Feel the Force!

Although there’s no “Force” like the kind you see in

science fiction, forces are everywhere. What forces are

acting on you right now? How many can you think of?

Check out this video—it might

surprise you!

Veritasium forces

acting

The Motion of the Heavens

One of the first ways ancient peoples studied motion was

by observing the sky. By carefully watching and

recording the movements of the sun, moon, planets, and

stars, many different cultures used astronomy to create

calendars. These calendars helped the Maya of Central

America determine when to plant crops and told the

Egyptians when the Nile River was likely to flood. What

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 LXVI
A person who is full of secrets is a knave or a fool, or both.
 LXVII
The error of Mandeville, as well as of those opposed to him, is in
concluding that man is a simple and not a compound being. The
schoolmen and divines endeavour to prove that the gross and
material part of his nature is a foreign admixture, distinct from and
unworthy of the man himself. The misanthropes and sceptics, on the
other hand, maintain the falsity of all human virtues, and that all
that is not sensual and selfish is a mere theatrical deception. But in
order that man should be a wholly and incorrigibly selfish being, he
should be shut up like an oyster in its shell, without any possible
conception of what passes beyond the wall of his senses; and the
feelers of his mind should not extend their ramifications under any
circumstance or in any manner, to the thoughts and sentiments of
others. Shakspeare has expressed the matter better than the pedants
on either side, who wish unreasonably to exalt or degrade human
nature.—‘The web of our lives is as of a mingled yarn, good and ill
together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not,
and our vices would despair, if they were not cherished by our
virtues.’
 LXVIII
People cry out against the preposterous absurdity of such
representations as the German inventions of the Devil’s Elixir and
the Bottle Imp. Is it then a fiction that we see? Or is it not rather a
palpable reality that takes place every day and hour? Who is there
that is not haunted by some heated phantom of his brain, some
wizard spell, that clings to him in spite of his will, and hurries him on
to absurdity or ruin? There is no machinery or phantasmagoria of a
melo-drame, more extravagant than the workings of the passions.
Mr. Farley may do his worst with scaly forms, with flames, and
dragon’s wings: but after all, the true demon is within us. How many,
whose senses are shocked at the outward spectacle, and who turn
away startled or disgusted might say, pointing to their bosoms, ‘The
moral is here!’
 LXIX
Mr. L—— asked Sir Thomas —— who had been intimate with the
Prince, if it was true that he was so fine a gentleman as he was
generally represented? Sir Thomas —— made answer, that it was
certainly true that the Prince was a very fine gentleman indeed: ‘but,’
added he, ‘if I am to speak my mind, the finest gentleman I ever saw,
was Sadi Baba, the ambassador to Constantinople, from the Usbek
Tartars.’
 LXX
‘Man is in no haste to be venerable.’ At present, it seems as if there
were no occasion to become so. People die as usual; but it is not the
fashion to grow old. Formerly, men subsided and settled down into a
respectable old age at forty, as they did into a bob-wig, and a brown
coat and waistcoat of a certain cut. The father of a family no longer
pretended to pass for a gay young fellow, after he had children grown
up; and women dwindled, by regular and willing gradations, into
mothers and grandmothers, transferring their charms and
pretensions to a blooming posterity; but these things are never
thought of now-a-days. A matron of sixty flaunts it in ‘La Belle
Assemblée’s dresses for May:’ and certainly M. Stultz never inquires
into the grand climacteric of his customers. Dress levels all ages as
well as all ranks.
 A CHAPTER ON EDITORS

The Monthly Magazine.]

[November, 1830.
‘Our withers are unwrung.’

Editors are (to use an approved Scotch phrase—for what that is

Scotch is not approved?) a ‘sort of tittle-tattle‘—difficult to deal with,
dangerous to discuss. ‘A capital subject for an article, great scope,
complete novelty, and ground never touched upon!’ Very true; for
what Editor would insert an article against himself? Certainly none
that did not feel himself free from and superior to the common
foibles of his tribe. What might, therefore, be taken for a satire in
manuscript, turns to a compliment in print—the exception in this, as
in other cases, proves the rule—an inference we have endeavoured to
express in our motto.
With one exception, then, Editors in general partake of the usual
infirmity of human nature, and of persons placed in high and
honorary situations. Like other individuals raised to authority, they
are chosen to fill a certain post for qualities useful or ornamental to
the reading public; but they soon fancy that the situation has been
invented for their own honour and profit, and sink the use in the
abuse. Kings are not the only servants of the public who imagine that
they are the state. Editors are but men, and easily ‘lay the flattering
unction to their souls’ that they are the Magazine, the Newspaper, or
the Review they conduct. They have got a little power in their hands,
and they wish to employ that power (as all power is employed) to
increase the sense of self-importance; they borrow a certain dignity
from their situation as arbiters and judges of taste and elegance, and
they are determined to keep it to the detriment of their employers
and of every one else. They are dreadfully afraid there should be any
thing behind the Editor’s chair, greater than the Editor’s chair. That
is a scandal to be prevented at all risks. The publication they are
entrusted with for the amusement and edification of the town, they
convert, in theory and practice, into a stalking-horse of their own
vanity, whims, and prejudices. They cannot write a whole work
themselves, but they take care that the whole is such as they might
have written: it is to have the Editor’s mark, like the broad R, on
every page, or the N. N. at the Tuileries; it is to bear the same image
and superscription—every line is to be upon oath: nothing is to be
differently conceived or better expressed than the Editor could have
done it. The whole begins in vanity, and ends too often in dulness
and insipidity.
It is utterly impossible to persuade an Editor that he is nobody. As
Mr. Horne Tooke said, on his trial for a libel before Lord Kenyon,
‘There are two parties in this cause—myself and the jury; the judge
and the crier of the court attend in their respective places:’ so in
every periodical miscellany, there are two essential parties—the
writers and the public; the Editor and the printer’s-devil are merely
the mechanical instruments to bring them together. There is a secret
consciousness of this on the part of the Conductor of the Literary
Diligence, that his place is one for shew and form rather than use;
and as he cannot maintain his pretended superiority by what he does
himself, he thinks to arrive at the same end by hindering others from
doing their best. The ‘dog-in-the-manger’ principle comes into full
play. If an article has nothing to recommend it, is one of no mark or
likelihood, it goes in; there is no offence in it. If it is likely to strike, to
draw attention, to make a noise, then every syllable is scanned, every
objection is weighed: if grave, it is too grave; if witty, it is too witty.
One way or other, it might be better; and while this nice point is
pending, it gives place, as a matter of course, to something that there
is no question about.
The responsibility, the delicacy, the nervous apprehension of the
Editor, naturally increase with the probable effect and popularity of
the contributions on which he has to pass judgment; and the nearer
an effusion approaches to perfection, the more fatal is a single flaw,
or its falling short of that superhuman standard by a hair’s-breadth
difference, to its final reception. If people are likely to ask, ‘Who
wrote a certain paper in the last number of ——?’ the Editor is bound,
as a point of honour, to baulk that impertinent curiosity on the part
of the public. He would have it understood that all the articles are
equally good, and may be equally his own. If he inserts a paper of
more than the allowed average merit, his next care is to spoil by
revising it. The sting, with the honey, is sure to be left out. If there is
any thing that pleased you in the writing, you look in vain for it in the
proof. What might electrify the reader, startles the Editor. With a
paternal regard for the interests of the public, he takes care that their
tastes should not be pampered, and their expectations raised too
high, by a succession of fine passages, of which it is impossible to
continue a supply. He interposes between the town and their vicious
appetite for the piquant and high-seasoned, as we forbid children to
indulge in sweetmeats. The trite and superficial are always to be had
to order, and present a beautiful uniformity of appearance. There is
no unexpected relief, no unwelcome inequality of style, to disorder
the nerves or perplex the understanding: the reader may read, and
smile, and sleep, without meeting a single idea to break his repose!
Some Editors, moreover, have a way of altering the first
paragraph: they have then exercised their privileges, and let you
alone for the rest of the chapter. This is like paying ‘a pepper-corn
rent,’ or making one’s bow on entering a room: it is being let off
cheap. Others add a pointless conclusion of their own: it is like
signing their names to the article. Some have a passion for sticking in
the word however at every opportunity, in order to impede the
march of the style; and others are contented and take great pains
(with Lindley Murray’s Grammar lying open before them) to alter ‘if
it is’ into ‘if it be.’ An Editor abhors an ellipsis. If you fling your
thoughts into continued passages, they set to work to cut them up
into short paragraphs: if you make frequent breaks, they turn the
tables on you that way, and throw the whole composition into
masses. Any thing to preserve the form and appearance of power, to
make the work their own by mental stratagem, to stamp it by some
fiction of criticism with their personal identity, to enable them to run
away with the credit, and look upon themselves as the master-spirits
of the work and of the age! If there is any point they do not
understand, they are sure to meddle with it, and mar the sense; for it
piques their self-love, and they think they are bound ex-officio to
know better than the writer. Thus they substitute (at a venture, and
merely for the sake of altering) one epithet for another, when
perhaps the same word has occurred just before, and produces a
cruel tautology, never considering the trouble you have taken to
compare the context and vary the phraseology.
Editors have no misplaced confidence in the powers of their
contributors: they think by the supposition they must be in the right
from a single supercilious glance,—and you in the wrong, after
poring over a subject for a month. There are Editors who, if you
insert the name of a popular actor or artist, strike it out, and, in
virtue of their authority, insert a favourite of their own,—as a
dexterous attorney substitutes the name of a friend in a will. Some
Editors will let you praise nobody; others will let you blame nobody.
The first excites their jealousy of contemporary merit; the last excites
their fears, and they do not like to make enemies. Some insist upon
giving no opinion at all, and observe an unarmed neutrality as to all
parties and persons;—it is no wonder the world think very little of
them in return. Some Editors stand upon their characters for this;
others for that. Some pique themselves upon being genteel and well-
dressed; others on being moral and immaculate, and do not perceive
that the public never trouble their heads about the matter. We only
know one Editor who openly discards all regard to character and
decency, and who thrives by the dissolution of partnership, if indeed
the articles were ever drawn up. We shall not mention names, as we
would not advertise a work that ‘ought to lie on no gentleman’s
table.’ Some Editors drink tea with a set of blue stockings and
literary ladies: not a whisper, not a breath that might blow away
those fine cobwebs of the brain—
‘More subtle web Arachne cannot spin;
Nor those fine threads which oft we woven see
Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee!’

Others dine with Lords and Academicians—for God’s sake, take care
what you say! Would you strip the Editor’s mantel-piece of the cards
of invitation that adorn it to select parties for the next six months?
An Editor takes a turn in St. James’s-street, and is congratulated by
the successive literary or political groups on all he does not write;
and when the mistake is found out, the true Simon Pure is dismissed.
We have heard that it was well said by the proprietor of a leading
journal, that he would take good care never to write a line in his own
paper, as he had conflicting interests enough to manage, without
adding literary jealousies to the number. On the other hand, a very
good-natured and warm-hearted individual declared, ‘he would
never have another man of talents for an Editor’ (the Editor, in this
case, is to the proprietor as the author to the Editor), ‘for he was tired
of having their good things thrust in his teeth.’ Some Editors are
scrubs, mere drudges, newspaper-puffs: others are bullies or quacks:
others are nothing at all—they have the name, and receive a salary
for it! A literary sinecure is at once lucrative and highly respectable.
At Lord’s-Ground there are some old hands that are famous for
‘blocking out and staying in:’ it would seem that some of our literary
veterans had taken a lesson from their youthful exercises at Harrow
or Eton.
All this is bad enough; but the worst is, that Editors, besides their
own failings, have friends who aggravate and take advantage of
them. These self-styled friends are the night-shade and hemlock
clinging to the work, preventing its growth and circulation, and
dropping a slumberous poison from its jaundiced leaves. They form a
cordon, an opake mass round the Editor, and persuade him that they
are the support, the prop, and pillar of his reputation. They get
between him and the public, and shut out the light, and set aside
common sense. They pretend anxiety for the interest of some
established organ of opinion, while all they want is to make it the
organ of their dogmas, prejudices, or party. They want to be the
Magazine or the Review—to wield that power covertly, to warp that
influence to their own purposes. If they cannot do this, they care not
if it sinks or swims. They prejudge every question—fly-blow every
writer who is not of their own set. A friend of theirs has three articles
in the last number of ——; they strain every nerve and make pressing
instances to throw a slur on a popular contribution by another hand,
in order that he may write a fourth in the next number. The short
articles which are read by the vulgar, are cut down to make room for
the long ones, which are read by nobody but the writers and their
friends. If an opinion is expressed contrary to the shibboleth of the
party, it is represented as an outrage on decency and public opinion,
when in truth the public are delighted with the candour and boldness
displayed. They would convert the most valuable and spirited journal
into a dull pamphleteer, stuffed with their own lucubrations on
certain heavy topics. The self-importance of these people is in
proportion to their insignificance; and what they cannot do by an
appeal to argument or sound policy, they effect by importunity and
insinuation. They keep the Editor in continual alarm as to what will
be said of him by the public, when in fact the public will think (in
nine cases out of ten) just what he tells them.
These people create much of the mischief. An Editor should have
no friends—his only prompter should be the number of copies of the
work that sell. It is superfluous to strike off a large impression of a
work for those few squeamish persons who prefer lead to tinsel.
Principle and good manners are barriers that are, in our estimate,
inviolable: the rest is open to popular suffrage, and is not to be
prejudged by a coterie with closed doors. Another difficulty lies here.
An Editor should, in one sense, be a respectable man—a
distinguished character; otherwise, he cannot lend his name and
sanction to the work. The conductor of a periodical publication
which is to circulate widely and give the tone to taste and opinion,
ought to be of high standing, should have connections with society,
should belong to some literary institution, should be courted by the
great, be run after by the obscure. But ‘here’s the rub’—that one so
graced and gifted can neither have his time nor his thoughts to
himself. Our obligations are mutual; and those who owe much to
others, become the slaves of their good opinion and good word. He
who dines out loses his free agency. He may improve in politeness;
he falls off in the pith and pungency of his style. A poem is dedicated
to the son of the Muses:—can the critic do otherwise than praise it? A
tragedy is brought out by a noble friend and patron:—the severe
rules of the drama must yield in some measure to the amenities of
private life. On the contrary, Mr. —— is a garretteer—a person that
nobody knows; his work has nothing but the contents to recommend
it; it sinks into obscurity, or addresses itself to the canaille. An
Editor, then, should be an abstraction—a being in the clouds—a mind
without a body—reason without passion.——But where find such a
one?
 THE LETTER-BELL

The Monthly Magazine.]

[March, 1831.

Complaints are frequently made of the vanity and shortness of

human life, when, if we examine its smallest details, they present a
world by themselves. The most trifling objects, retraced with the eye
of memory, assume the vividness, the delicacy, and importance of
insects seen through a magnifying glass. There is no end of the
brilliancy or the variety. The habitual feeling of the love of life may be
compared to ‘one entire and perfect chrysolite,’ which, if analysed,
breaks into a thousand shining fragments. Ask the sum-total of the
value of human life, and we are puzzled with the length of the
account, and the multiplicity of items in it: take any one of them
apart, and it is wonderful what matter for reflection will be found in
it! As I write this, the Letter-Bell passes: it has a lively, pleasant
sound with it, and not only fills the street with its importunate
clamour, but rings clear through the length of many half-forgotten
years. It strikes upon the ear, it vibrates to the brain, it wakes me
from the dream of time, it flings me back upon my first entrance into
life, the period of my first coming up to town, when all around was
strange, uncertain, adverse—a hubbub of confused noises, a chaos of
shifting objects—and when this sound alone, startling me with the
recollection of a letter I had to send to the friends I had lately left,
brought me as it were to myself, made me feel that I had links still
connecting me with the universe, and gave me hope and patience to
persevere. At that loud-tinkling, interrupted sound (now and then),
the long line of blue hills near the place where I was brought up
waves in the horizon, a golden sunset hovers over them, the dwarf-
oaks rustle their red leaves in the eveningbreeze, and the road from
—— to ——, by which I first set out on my journey through life, stares
me in the face as plain, but from time and change not less visionary
and mysterious, than the pictures in the Pilgrim’s Progress. I should
notice, that at this time the light of the French Revolution circled my
head like a glory, though dabbled with drops of crimson gore: I
walked comfortable and cheerful by its side—
‘And by the vision splendid
Was on my way attended.’

It rose then in the east: it has again risen in the west. Two suns in
one day, two triumphs of liberty in one age, is a miracle which I hope
the Laureate will hail in appropriate verse. Or may not Mr.
Wordsworth give a different turn to the fine passage, beginning—
‘What, though the radiance which was once so bright,
Be now for ever vanished from my sight;
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flower?’

For is it not brought back, ‘like morn risen on mid-night‘; and may
he not yet greet the yellow light shining on the evening bank with
eyes of youth, of genius, and freedom, as of yore? No, never! But
what would not these persons give for the unbroken integrity of their
early opinions—for one unshackled, uncontaminated strain—one Io
pæan to Liberty—one burst of indignation against tyrants and
sycophants, who subject other countries to slavery by force, and
prepare their own for it by servile sophistry, as we see the huge
serpent lick over its trembling, helpless victim with its slime and
poison, before it devours it! On every stanza so penned should be
written the word Recreant! Every taunt, every reproach, every note
of exultation at restored light and freedom, would recal to them how
their hearts failed them in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And
what shall we say to him—the sleep-walker, the dreamer, the sophist,
the word-hunter, the craver after sympathy, but still vulnerable to
truth, accessible to opinion, because not sordid or mechanical? The
Bourbons being no longer tied about his neck, he may perhaps
recover his original liberty of speculating; so that we may apply to
him the lines about his own Ancient Mariner—
‘And from his neck so free
 The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.’

This is the reason I can write an article on the Letter-Bell, and other
such subjects; I have never given the lie to my own soul. If I have felt
any impression once, I feel it more strongly a second time; and I have
no wish to revile or discard my best thoughts. There is at least a
thorough keeping in what I write—not a line that betrays a principle
or disguises a feeling. If my wealth is small, it all goes to enrich the
same heap; and trifles in this way accumulate to a tolerable sum. Or
if the Letter-Bell does not lead me a dance into the country, it fixes
me in the thick of my town recollections, I know not how long ago. It
was a kind of alarm to break off from my work when there happened
to be company to dinner or when I was going to the play. That was
going to the play, indeed, when I went twice a year, and had not been
more than half a dozen times in my life. Even the idea that any one
else in the house was going, was a sort of reflected enjoyment, and
conjured up a lively anticipation of the scene. I remember a Miss D
——, a maiden lady from Wales (who in her youth was to have been
married to an earl), tantalised me greatly in this way, by talking all
day of going to see Mrs. Siddons’ ‘airs and graces’ at night in some
favourite part; and when the Letter-Bell announced that the time was
approaching, and its last receding sound lingered on the ear, or was
lost in silence, how anxious and uneasy I became, lest she and her
companion should not be in time to get good places—lest the curtain
should draw up before they arrived—and lest I should lose one line
or look in the intelligent report which I should hear the next
morning! The punctuating of time at that early period—every thing
that gives it an articulate voice—seems of the utmost consequence;
for we do not know what scenes in the ideal world may run out of
them: a world of interest may hang upon every instant, and we can
hardly sustain the weight of future years which are contained in
embryo in the most minute and inconsiderable passing events. How
often have I put off writing a letter till it was too late! How often had
to run after the postman with it—now missing, now recovering the
sound of his bell—breathless, angry with myself—then hearing the
welcome sound come full round a corner—and seeing the scarlet
costume which set all my fears and self-reproaches at rest! I do not
recollect having ever repented giving a letter to the postman, or
wishing to retrieve it after he had once deposited it in his bag. What I
have once set my hand to, I take the consequences of, and have been
always pretty much of the same humour in this respect. I am not like
the person who, having sent off a letter to his mistress, who resided a
hundred and twenty miles in the country, and disapproving, on
second thoughts, of some expressions contained in it, took a post-
chaise and four to follow and intercept it the next morning. At other
times, I have sat and watched the decaying embers in a little back
painting-room (just as the wintry day declined), and brooded over
the half-finished copy of a Rembrandt, or a landscape by Vangoyen,
placing it where it might catch a dim gleam of light from the fire;
while the Letter-Bell was the only sound that drew my thoughts to
the world without, and reminded me that I had a task to perform in
it. As to that landscape, methinks I see it now—
‘The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail.’

There was a windmill, too, with a poor low clay-built cottage

beside it:—how delighted I was when I had made the tremulous,
undulating reflection in the water, and saw the dull canvas become a
lucid mirror of the commonest features of nature! Certainly, painting
gives one a strong interest in nature and humanity (it is not the
dandy-school of morals or sentiment)—
‘While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.’

Perhaps there is no part of a painter’s life (if we must tell ‘the secrets
of the prison-house’) in which he has more enjoyment of himself and
his art, than that in which after his work is over, and with furtive,
sidelong glances at what he has done, he is employed in washing his
brushes and cleaning his pallet for the day. Afterwards, when he gets
a servant in livery to do this for him, he may have other and more
ostensible sources of satisfaction—greater splendour, wealth, or
fame; but he will not be so wholly in his art, nor will his art have such
a hold on him as when he was too poor to transfer its meanest
drudgery to others—too humble to despise aught that had to do with
the object of his glory and his pride, with that on which all his
projects of ambition or pleasure were founded. ‘Entire affection
scorneth nicer hands.’ When the professor is above this mechanical
part of his business, it may have become a stalking-horse to other
worldly schemes, but is no longer his hobby-horse and the delight of
his inmost thoughts—
‘His shame in crowds, his solitary pride!’

I used sometimes to hurry through this part of my occupation, while

the Letter-Bell (which was my dinner-bell) summoned me to the
fraternal board, where youth and hope
‘Made good digestion wait on appetite
And health on both—’

or oftener I put it off till after dinner, that I might loiter longer and
with more luxurious indolence over it, and connect it with the
thoughts of my next day’s labours.
The dustman’s bell, with its heavy, monotonous noise, and the
brisk, lively tinkle of the muffin-bell, have something in them, but
not much. They will bear dilating upon with the utmost licence of
inventive prose. All things are not alike conductors to the
imagination. A learned Scotch professor found fault with an
ingenious friend and arch-critic for cultivating a rookery on his
grounds: the professor declared ‘he would as soon think of
encouraging a froggery.’ This was barbarous as it was senseless.
Strange, that a country that has produced the Scotch novels and
Gertrude of Wyoming should want sentiment!
The postman’s double knock at the door the next morning is ‘more
germain to the matter.’ How that knock often goes to the heart! We
distinguish to a nicety the arrival of the Two-penny or the General
Post. The summons of the latter is louder and heavier, as bringing
news from a greater distance, and as, the longer it has been delayed,
fraught with a deeper interest. We catch the sound of what is to be
paid—eight-pence, nine-pence, a shilling—and our hopes generally
rise with the postage. How we are provoked at the delay in getting
change—at the servant who does not hear the door! Then if the
postman passes, and we do not hear the expected knock, what a pang
is there! It is like the silence of death—of hope! We think he does it
on purpose, and enjoys all the misery of our suspense. I have
sometimes walked out to see the Mail-Coach pass, by which I had
sent a letter, or to meet it when I expected one. I never see a Mail-
Coach, for this reason, but I look at it as the bearer of glad tidings—
the messenger of fate. I have reason to say so. The finest sight in the
metropolis is that of the Mail-Coaches setting off from Piccadilly. The
horses paw the ground, and are impatient to be gone, as if conscious
of the precious burden they convey. There is a peculiar secresy and
despatch, significant and full of meaning, in all the proceedings
concerning them. Even the outside passengers have an erect and
supercilious air, as if proof against the accidents of the journey. In
fact, it seems indifferent whether they are to encounter the summer’s
heat or winter’s cold, since they are borne on through the air in a
winged chariot. The Mail-Carts drive up; the transfer of packages is
made; and, at a signal given, they start off, bearing the irrevocable
scrolls that give wings to thought, and that bind or sever hearts for
ever. How we hate the Putney and Brentford stages that draw up in a
line after they are gone! Some persons think the sublimest object in
nature is a ship launched on the bosom of the ocean: but give me, for
my private satisfaction, the Mail-Coaches that pour down Piccadilly
of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way before them
to the Land’s-End!
In Cowper’s time, Mail-Coaches were hardly set up; but he has
beautifully described the coming in of the Post-Boy:—
‘Hark! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright:—
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close-packed load behind.
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn;
And having dropped the expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch!
Cold and yet cheerful; messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
 With tears that trickled down the writer’s cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,
Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect
His horse and him, unconscious of them all.’

And yet, notwithstanding this, and so many other passages that seem
like the very marrow of our being, Lord Byron denies that Cowper
was a poet!—The Mail-Coach is an improvement on the Post-Boy;
but I fear it will hardly bear so poetical a description. The
picturesque and dramatic do not keep pace with the useful and
mechanical. The telegraphs that lately communicated the
intelligence of the new revolution to all France within a few hours,
are a wonderful contrivance; but they are less striking and appalling
than the beacon-fires (mentioned by Æschylus), which, lighted from
hill-top to hill-top, announced the taking of Troy, and the return of
Agamemnon.
 ON THE SPIRIT OF MONARCHY

The Liberal.]
[1822.
‘Strip it of its externals, and what is it but a jest?’
Charade on the word Majesty.

‘As for politics, I think poets are Tories by nature, supposing them to be by
nature poets. The love of an individual person or family, that has worn a crown for
many successions, is an inclination greatly adapted to the fanciful tribe. On the
other hand, mathematicians, abstract reasoners, of no manner of attachment to
persons, at least to the visible part of them, but prodigiously devoted to the ideas of
virtue, liberty, and so forth, are generally Whigs. It happens agreeably enough to
this maxim, that the Whigs are friends to that wise, plodding, unpoetical people,
the Dutch.’—Skenstone’s Letters, 1746.

The Spirit of Monarchy then is nothing but the craving in the

human mind after the Sensible and the One. It is not so much a
matter of state-necessity or policy, as a natural infirmity, a disease, a
false appetite in the popular feeling, which must be gratified. Man is
an individual animal with narrow faculties, but infinite desires,
which he is anxious to concentrate in some one object within the
grasp of his imagination, and where, if he cannot be all that he
wishes himself, he may at least contemplate his own pride, vanity,
and passions, displayed in their most extravagant dimensions in a
being no bigger and no better than himself. Each individual would
(were it in his power) be a king, a God: but as he cannot, the next
best thing is to see this reflex image of his self-love, the darling
passion of his breast, realized, embodied out of himself in the first
object he can lay his hands on for the purpose. The slave admires the
tyrant, because the last is, what the first would be. He surveys
himself all over in the glass of royalty. The swelling, bloated self-
importance of the one is the very counterpart and ultimate goal of
the abject servility of the other. But both hate mankind for the same
reason, because a respect for humanity is a diversion to their
inordinate self-love, and the idea of the general good is a check to the
gross intemperance of passion. The worthlessness of the object does
not diminish but irritate the propensity to admire. It serves to
pamper our imagination equally, and does not provoke our envy. All
we want is to aggrandize our own vain-glory at second-hand; and the
less of real superiority or excellence there is in the person we fix
upon as our proxy in this dramatic exhibition, the more easily can we
change places with him, and fancy ourselves as good as he. Nay, the
descent favours the rise; and we heap our tribute of applause the
higher, in proportion as it is a free gift. An idol is not the worse for
being of coarse materials: a king should be a common-place man.
Otherwise, he is superior in his own nature, and not dependent on
our bounty or caprice. Man is a poetical animal, and delights in
fiction. We like to have scope for the exercise of our mere will. We
make kings of men, and Gods of stocks and stones: we are not
jealous of the creatures of our own hands. We only want a peg or
loop to hang our idle fancies on, a puppet to dress up, a lay-figure to
paint from. It is ‘Thing Ferdinand, and not King Ferdinand,’ as it
was wisely and wittily observed. We ask only for the stage effect; we
do not go behind the scenes, or it would go hard with many of our
prejudices! We see the symbols of majesty, we enjoy the pomp, we
crouch before the power, we walk in the procession, and make part of
the pageant, and we say in our secret hearts, there is nothing but
accident that prevents us from being at the head of it. There is
something in the mock-sublimity of thrones, wonderfully congenial
to the human mind. Every man feels that he could sit there; every
man feels that he could look big there; every man feels that he could
bow there; every man feels that he could play the monarch there. The
transition is so easy, and so delightful! The imagination keeps pace
with royal state,
‘And by the vision splendid
Is on its way attended.’

The Madman in Hogarth who fancies himself a king, is not a solitary

instance of this species of hallucination. Almost every true and loyal
subject holds such a barren sceptre in his hand; and the meanest of