GUERNSEY: H. REDSTONE. London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & Co. Jersey: WILLIAM Bristol: The Mirror Office. Bath The Gazette Office. Dublin : H. BROUARD, PRINTER. The Channel Islands Magazine. MAY, 1853. Literature in the Channel Islands. THE Channel is that silver strip of sea which severs merry England from the tardy realms of Europe. That belt of water has done great things for England; has kept the Anglo-Norman race pure from admixture with metaphysical Germans and vivacious Gauls; has given to modern ages a nobler, because a freer and more peaceful, asylum than that of Romulus and Remus on the seven hills of old. The Channel Islands are those specks upon the ocean-stream which, close upon the kindred B coast of France, yet appertain to the royalty of England. They are our sole reminders of the chivalrous days when Normandy was ours: an heir-loom from the Conqueror and his race, from the renowned Plantagenets. What race of men now dwell in them—what records they bear of antique chivalry and glory—we may in future numbers narrate, for the especial benefit of our English readers. To attempt the establishment of a Magazine in these Islands is a thing "As full of peril and adventurous daring, As to o'erwalk a torrent, roaring fast, On the unstedfast footing of a spear." A voyage round Cape Horn in the frailest of emigrant ships—a ride for life across the prairie with the fire-fiend at your horses' heels—is a matter of mere secondary hazard. The Editor of such a Magazine should be unique among men afraid of nothing earthly or otherwise; willing at any time to meet a lion with Gordon Cumming, or a ghost with Mrs. Crowe. That such an Editor has been found for the Channel Islands Magazine, we can scarcely venture to assert; but, as the first number of the |