The Dresden Free Conference is still in session, and matters seem as

impracticable as the Genius of Mysticism could desire. Enough has

transpired to show that the minor Powers have not been alarmed without

good reason. The cordial understanding between Austria and Prussia is

displayed perhaps too ostentatiously to be altogether sincere; but there

can be no doubt that the two governments have combined to aggrandize

themselves at the expense of the others. It seems to be determined that

the new Executive Committee will be composed of eleven votes, of which

Austria and Prussia are each to have two. The Committee of the old

Confederation consisted of seventeen votes, of which those Powers had

one each, and even then it was complained that their influence was

excessive. It is admitted on all hands that any approach to a nearer

union is impracticable at present; that the Dresden Conference is quite

as incapable of improvising a German Nation, as was that assembly of

pedants and pettifoggers that called itself the Frankfort

Parliament.----Hostilities have ceased in Schleswig-Holstein, the

stadtholderate of which have yielded their functions to the

commissioners of the Confederation.----The first trial by jury at

Vienna, took place, under the new Austrian Constitution, on the 15th of

January.

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART, PERSONAL MOVEMENTS, ETC.

UNITED STATES.

The literary incidents of the month have not been very noteworthy.

JAMES, the English novelist, has been lecturing at Albany to large and

interested audiences. He has bought a residence at Stockbridge, Mass.,

where he will reside, in the immediate neighborhood of Longfellow, the

Sedgwicks, and other literary celebrities. A series of valuable lectures

upon Art have been delivered before the Artists of New York, in

pursuance of a very excellent plan adopted by their Association. The

first of the series was delivered by HENRY JAMES, Esq., and was an

excellent critical exposition of the nature and characteristics of Art.

He was followed by GEORGE W. CURTIS, Esq., in a fine sketch of the

condition and prospects of Art on the Continent. The leading idea of his

lecture was that Art never promised more abundant results than now.

Congress at its last session appropriated two thousand dollars to

commence the purchase of a library for the use of the President of the

United States. It is a little singular that a project so eminently

useful should have been so long neglected. Its execution has been now

undertaken with spirit, under the direction of Mr. Charles Lanman.

The birth-day of BURNS was celebrated by a public dinner on the 25th of

January at the Astor House, in New York. The poet BRYANT was present as

a guest, and made a very happy speech, in which he said that the fact

that Burns had taken a local dialect, and made it classical and given it

a character of universality, was of itself sufficient to stamp him as a

man of the highest order of genius.

Mr. HOE, celebrated for his printing presses, has just completed a new

one, having eight cylinders, and thus throwing off eight sheets at each

revolution, for the use of the _Sun_ newspaper in New York. He was the

recipient lately of a public dinner given to him by the proprietors of

the paper, at which several of the most eminent literary celebrities in

the country were present as guests. The occasion was one of interest: we

hope it may be deemed indicative of a growing disposition to tender

public honors to the benefactors, as well as to the destroyers, of their

race.

The literary productions of the month will be found noticed in another

department of this Magazine. Several works of interest are promised by

the leading publishers. The Harpers have in press a volume of traveling

sketches, entitled _Nile Notes_, by an American, which will be found to

be one of the best of its kind. It is written with great vivacity and

with very marked ability. Many of its chapters are fully equal to

_Eothen_, and the work in its general characteristics is not at all

inferior to that spirited and admirable book. The Harpers have also in

press a work by Mr. H.M. FIELD, giving a succinct history of the _Great

Irish Rebellion_ with biographical sketches of the most prominent of the

Irish Confederates. It will find a wide circle of readers. The Harpers

are also about to publish MAYHEW'S _London Labor and the London Poor in

the Nineteenth Century_, made up of his Letters in the London _Morning

Chronicle_ upon that subject, revised and extended. These papers reveal

a state of things not at all creditable to the English people or to the

age in which we live. As originally published in London they excited

great attention and have done much toward arousing the public sense of

justice to the poor.

COOPER, the novelist, has a work in preparation upon the Social History

of this country. It will probably, however, not be published until fall.

Mr. Putnam has in progress a new and very elegantly printed uniform

edition of his novels. Another New York house promise a complete edition

of Joanna Baillie's poems, with a new edition of Elizabeth Barret

Browning.

Prof. AGASSIZ, the celebrated Naturalist, is making a survey of the

Florida reefs and keys, in the hope that he may throw some light upon

their formation and growth. He is nominally attached to the Coast

Survey.

American scholars still continue their valuable contributions to

classical learning. Prof. DRISLER, of Columbia College, one of the most

thorough and accurate linguists in the country, is engaged upon an

_English-Greek Lexicon_, which will be a most valuable aid to the

classical student, in connection with similar works by the same author

hitherto issued.

In the departments of religious and theological literature, we find

indications of renewed activity among the divines of our country. Prof.

J. ADDISON ALEXANDER, of Princeton, has a new critical and exegetical

work in the course of preparation. Rev. Dr. SPRING will soon publish,

through M.W. Dodd, a volume under the title of _First Things_, a series

of lectures designed to set forth and illustrate some of the facts and

moral duties earliest revealed to mankind. From Rev. Dr. CONDIT, of

Newark, we are to have a work entitled _The Christian Home_, setting

forth the relations, duties, and benefits of the domestic institution.

Rev. H.A. ROWLAND, author of a work on the Common Maxims of Infidelity,

has in press a volume under the title of _The Path of Life_.

The late EDMOND CHARLES GENET, Embassador from the Republic of France to

this country at the close of the last century, left behind him, at his

decease, a vast amount of papers, consisting of journals of his life,

letters from the prominent statesmen and politicians of this country,

and correspondence with his sister, the celebrated Madame Campan. It is

understood that members of his family are arranging them with a view to

publication. From the close social and political relations which M.

Genet, after his dismissal from the embassy, bore to the prominent

politicians of the Democratic party, there can be no doubt that these

papers, if judiciously edited, will throw much light upon the political

history of the period preceding the war of 1812.

It is known by those familiar with current Continental literature, that

the wife of Prof. EDWARD ROBINSON published, some time since, in

Germany, under her usual pseudonym, TALVI, a very full and excellent

history of the early Colonization of New England. This work has lately

been translated from German into English by William Hazlitt, and

published in London. It was published originally at Leipsic in 1847. We

presume it will be reprinted here.

Rev. H.T. CHEEVER's _Whale and his Captors_ has been reprinted in

London, with a preface by Dr. SCORESBY, who commends it very highly.

EUROPEAN.

The London _Leader_ destroys the romance of Lamartine's visit to

England. It seems, according to that paper, that he did not go for the

philosophic purpose of studying the country, but to make bargains for

the publication of his _History of the Directory_, which he offered for

five thousand pounds. The publishers, he urged, could issue it

simultaneously in England, France, and Germany, and so secure an

enormous profit. "Our countrymen," says the _Leader_, "with an

indifference to Mammon worthy of a philosopher, declined the magnificent

proposal: and Lamartine returned to France and sold his work to an

association of publishers for 12,000 francs, which he hopes to get." He

is also to publish a new novel in the _feuilleton_ of the _Siècle_.

EDMOND TEXIER, a French journalist, has published a very lively history

of French journals and journalists. It is a small and unelaborate book,

but is exceedingly readable. Political writers in France, it will be

remembered, are required to sign their names to their articles. The

_Vote Universel_ recently contained a strong essay signed by GILLAND.

The Attorney-general prosecuted the paper, alleging that the article was

written by GEORGE SAND, and citing the bad spelling of Gilland's private

letters as a proof that he could not have been the writer. Madame George

Sand peremptorily denies having written a line of the article, and avers

that Rousseau himself, in a single letter in her possession, makes three

mistakes in spelling three lines, owing to the difficult and capricious

rules of the French language.

Lady MORGAN has published a pamphlet on the Roman Catholic Controversy.

It is in the form of a letter to Cardinal WISEMAN, and is a defense of

herself against an attack upon a passage in her book on Italy. In that

book she had related a curious anecdote. She said that when Bonaparte

entered Italy the enthroned chair of St. Peter, contained in the

magnificent shrine of bronze which closes the view of the nave in St.

Peter's Cathedral, was brought into a better light and the cobwebs

brushed off. Certain curious letters were discovered on the surface,

which were deciphered and found to contain the Arabian formula, "There

is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet." Cardinal Wiseman branded

this story as "false, foolish, slanderous, and profligate." Lady Morgan

gives as her authority for it the eminent _savans_ Denon and

Champollion, who saw the inscription, deciphered it, and told its

meaning in her presence. Her letter is ably written, and excites

attention.--Lady Morgan is said to be the oldest living writer who

continues to write: for though Miss Joanna Baillie is some five years,

and Rogers perhaps ten years her senior, neither of the latter has

touched a pen in the way of authorship for a long time; whereas Lady

Morgan, for all her blindness, has, according to the Liverpool Albion,

for a good while back, been a regular contributor to one of the London

morning journals.

The British government has bestowed a pension of £100 a year upon the

widow of the celebrated Belzoni, who died fifteen years ago. The public

satisfaction at this announcement is tempered with surprise that the

pension was not bestowed fifteen years ago. Mr. Poole, the author of

"Paul Pry," and other literary works of a light character, has received

a retiring pension of the same amount. Similar pensions have been

granted to George Petrie, LL.D., author of "The Round Towers of

Ireland," and other antiquarian works; and to Dr. KITTO, editor of the

"Pictorial Bible," "Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature," and other works

in that department of letters. Dr. Kitto, although deaf from an early

age, in consequence of an accident, has traveled over many lands in

connection with the Missionary Society.

Letters from Rome announce the death in that city of Mr. Ritchie, the

sculptor, of Edinburgh. The circumstances are peculiarly melancholy. It

had been the dream of Mr. Ritchie's life to go to Rome; this year he was

able to travel, and he arrived in that city in September last, with some

friends as little acquainted with the nature of the malaria as himself.

With these friends it appears that he made a visit to Ostia; the season

was dangerous; the party took no precautions, and they all caught the

malaria fever. He died after a few days' illness, and was followed to

the grave by most of the English and American artists in Rome.

AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD, whose enterprise has opened a new field for

historical research, was born in Paris, March 5, 1817. His father, who

was Dean of Bristol, filled a high civil office in Ceylon, between the

years 1820 and 1830. The early years of the future explorer of Nineveh

were spent in Florence, where he early acquired his artistic tastes and

skill as a draughtsman. On returning to England, young Layard commenced

the study of law, but his love of adventure rendered this profession

distasteful to him, and he abandoned it. In 1839 he left England, with

no very definite object in view, visited Russia and the North of Europe,

and spent some time in Germany. Thence he took his course toward the

Danube, and visited the semi-barbarous provinces on the Turkish

frontier, which form the debatable ground between the Orient and the

Occident. In Montenegro he passed some time, aiding an active young

Chief in his efforts to ameliorate the condition of his subjects. From

hence he passed into the East, where he led the life of an Arab of the

desert, and acquired a thorough knowledge of the languages of Arabia and

Turkey. We next find him in Persia, Asia Minor, and Syria, where he

visited almost every spot made memorable by history or tradition. He now

felt an irresistible desire to penetrate to the regions beyond the

Euphrates, to which history and tradition point as the birth-place of

the wisdom of the West. At Constantinople, he fell in with the English

Embassador, Sir Stratford Canning, by whom he was encouraged to

undertake and carry on those excavations amid the Assyrian and

Babylonian ruins, which have conclusively demonstrated that a gigantic

civilization had passed away before what we are accustomed to call

ancient civilization dawned, a civilization stretching back almost to

the days when the ark rested upon Ararat; a civilization which was old

when the pyramids were young. And, what is still more remarkable, the

relics of this civilization are more perfect and beautiful in proportion

to the remoteness of their date, the earlier of these ancient sculptures

being invariably the noblest in design, and the most exquisite and

elaborate in execution.

In 1848, Mr. Layard visited England for a few months, where,

notwithstanding the monthly attacks of an aguish fever contracted in the

damp apartments which he was obliged to inhabit while prosecuting his

excavations at Nimroud, he prepared for the press the two volumes of his

Nineveh and its Remains, executed the drawings for the hundred plates,

and a volume of inscriptions in the cuneiform character for the British

Museum.

The last survivor of Cook's voyage, a sailor named John Wade, is said to

be now begging his bread at Kingston-on-Thames. He is within a few

months of completing his hundredth year, having been born in New York in

May, 1751. He was with Cook when he was killed on the Island of Hawaii;

and is said to have served at the battles of Cape St. Vincent,

Teneriffe, the Nile, Copenhagen, Camperdown, and Trafalgar.

An interesting collection of sketches, by members of the Sketching

Society has been opened to the public. This society numbers among its

members the two Chalons, Bone, Christall, Partridge, Stump, Leslie,

Stanfield, and Uwins. What gives to the present collection a unique

interest is that they are entirely impromptu productions, three hours

being the limit allowed for their completion. At each meeting of the

society the president announces a subject, and the drawings are made on

the spot.

Sir Roger de Coverley's chaplain is familiar to the recollection of all.

He has lately found an imitator. The Vicar of Selby announced a few

weeks since, that he should that day commence reading the sermons of

others, as there were many productions of the ablest divines which were

altogether unknown to his parishioners; and he thought the time spent in

writing so many new sermons might be more usefully employed in other

matters connected with his profession. He then proceeded to read a

sermon which he said he had heard preached at the University with great

effect.

Professor OWEN, in 1840, had submitted to him for examination, a fossil

body, which he was enabled to identify as the tooth of some species of

whale. It was subsequently discovered that certain crags upon the coast

of Suffolk, especially one at Felixstow, contained an immense quantity

of fossils of a similar character, which examinations, undertaken by

Owen and Henslow, showed to be rolled and water-worn fragments of the

skeletons of extinct species of mammals, mostly of the whale kind. This

discovery has been shown by a recent trial in the English courts, to be

of immense pecuniary value. A Mr. Lawes took out a patent for the

manufacture of super-phosphate of lime, as a substitute for bone-dust,

for agricultural purposes, by applying sulphuric acid to any mineral

whatever, known or unknown, which might contain the phosphate of lime.

It was found that these fossil remains contained of this from 50 to 60

per cent., and Mr. Lawes undertook to extend his patent so as to include

the production of the super-phosphate from them. In this he was

unsuccessful, the court deciding that he could not claim a monopoly of

all the fossil remains in the country. It was shown on the trial, that

an income of more than $50,000 a year has been derived from the use of

this phosphate.

A number of classical works of decided interest have recently been

published; among them are: _Platonis Opera Omnia_. This new edition of

Plato is edited by Stallbaum, whose name is a sufficient guarantee for

the faithful editorial care bestowed upon it. It is in one volume, small

folio, uniform with the edition of Aristotle by Weisse, and that of

Cicero by Nobbe.--Lachmann's edition of _Lucretius_ supplies a want

which has been long felt of a good critical edition of the philosophical

poet. The volume of the text is accompanied by a critical commentary in

a separate volume.--The second part of the second volume of Professor

Ritschl's edition of _Plautus_ containing the "Pseudulus," has appeared.

The editor has the reputation of being the best Plautinian scholar in

Germany. He has spent years in the preparation of this edition, having

undertaken an entirely new recension of the works of the great dramatic

poet.--_Corpus Inscriptionum Græcarum._ This important work, under the

editorial charge of the veteran Böckh, with whom is associated Franz, is

rapidly approaching completion. The third part of the third volume is

published. A fourth part, which will complete the work, is promised

speedily.

From the press of the Imperial Academy at St. Petersburgh has appeared

the first volume of a collection of _Mohammedan Sources for the History

of the Southern Coasts of the Caspian Sea_. The volume contains 643

pages of the Persian text of the history of Tabaristan, Rujan, and

Massanderan, by Seher-Eddin, edited, with a German introduction, by

Bernhard Dorn, Librarian of the Imperial Library. It gives a history,

commencing with the mythical ages and ending with the year 1476, of the

various dynasties which have ruled those regions, which have scarcely

been brought within the light of authentic history, but to which we must

look for the solution of many interesting problems in relation to the

progress and development of the race. The editor promises forthwith a

translation of the history, with annotations.

Professor HEINRICH EWALD, of Göttingen, has just put forth a translation

of and commentary upon the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, marked by

that free dealing with the sacred text characteristic of the

Rationalistic school. He proposes to himself the task of separating what

he supposes to be the original substance of the evangelical narrative

from subsequent additions and interpolations--"to free the kernel from

the Mosaic husk." The author had intended to delay the publication of

this commentary until after the publication of his History of the Jews;

but he thought he perceived in the present state of religion in Germany,

and especially in the alarming decline of the religious element among

the masses of the people, a call upon him to furnish an antidote--such

as it is. In the preface he takes occasion to make some severe

criticisms upon the politics of the day, and in particular those of

Prussia.

OBITUARIES.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, the Ornithologist, died at his residence a few miles

from New York, on the 27th of January. He was born in Louisiana, about

1775, of French parentage, traces of which were apparent through life in

the foreign intonation with which he spoke the English language,

although he wrote it with great vigor and correctness. He early

manifested that enthusiastic love of nature, which subsequently became

his ruling passion, and the mainspring of all his endeavors through

life. In the preface to his "Ornithological Biography," he gives a vivid

sketch of the growth of his fondness for the winged creation. "None but

aerial companions," says he, "suited my fancy; no roof seemed so secure

to me as that formed of the dense foliage under which the feathered

tribes were seen to resort, or the caves and fissures of the massy rocks

to which the dark-winged cormorant and the curlew retired to rest, or to

protect themselves from the fury of the tempest." With increasing years,

a desire for the actual possession of his favorites grew up in his

mind. But this longing was nowise satiated by the possession of them

dead: with their life their charms were gone. At this period his father

showed him a book of illustrations--of no very high artistic excellence,

we may well believe. A bush thrown into certain solutions, in a

particular state, will cause crystalization. The young enthusiast's mind

was in such a state--the vague desires, the indefinite longings

crystalized around that Book of Illustrations. He longed to be a

creator. To imitate by lines and colors the beings he loved, became the

passion of his life. But like all true artists, he was at first doomed

to experience the disappointment of being unable to realize his ideal:

his drawings so far from truly representing the originals, were even

inferior to the engravings in his book. Every year he made hundreds,

which he regularly burned upon every succeeding birthday.

In his sixteenth year he was sent to Paris to pursue his education.

There he studied drawing under the revolutionary painter David. But his

heart was ever in his native woods, and after a stay of eighteen months

he gladly returned. His father now gave him a farm near Philadelphia, at

the junction of the Pekioming Creek and the Schuylkill. Here he married,

and entered into mercantile transactions, apparently with ill success.

He was in the forests when he should have been in the counting-house, if

he would succeed in business. His friends looked askance at him, as one

who only made drawings when he might have made money. They were

doubtless correct in their estimate of his capacity. That indomitable

spirit which bore him thousands of miles through the untrodden

wilderness, softened the earth or the branch of a tree for his bed;

"bore bravely up his chin" when he swam the swollen stream, with his

rifle and painting materials lashed above his head--was doubtless

adequate, if directed to that end, to have gained any given amount of

money. Pegasus made an indifferent plow-horse; and Audubon but a poor

trader. So after ten years of this divided pursuit, one bright October

morning found him floating down the Ohio in a skiff in which were his

wife and child, his scanty wares, and a couple of negro rowers. He set

up his household gods at Henderson, Kentucky, where he resided for some

years, and engaged again, with a partner, in trade. Still he was

accustomed to make long excursions, with no companion but his dog and

rifle, a tin box strapped to his side containing his brushes and paints.

All this while his collection of drawings, which was subsequently to

constitute the "Birds of America," grew under his hand; yet strange to

say, the thought of publishing never entered his mind.

One spring day in 1810, a stranger entered the counting-room of Audubon,

presented specimens of a book he was preparing, and requested his

patronage. The stranger was Alexander Wilson, and the book was his

"American Ornithology." Audubon was about to subscribe for it, when his

partner asked him, in French, why he did so, assuring him that his own

drawings were far better, and that he must be as well acquainted with

the habits of American birds as the stranger could be. Wilson asked if

Audubon had any drawings of birds. A large portfolio was exhibited: and

the veteran ornithologist could not avoid the conclusion that his own

efforts were far surpassed. He became sad, and though Audubon showed him

every attention, loaned him drawings, and accompanied him through the

neighboring woods, the thought of being excelled was more than he could

bear. He departed, shaking the dust from his feet, and entered in his

diary that "literature or art had not a friend in the place."

The year following, we find Audubon far down among the bayous of

Florida, still engaged in collecting materials for his work; yet still,

apparently, with no definite purpose of publication. Of the next ten or

twelve years of his life, we have no particular accounts. But we

understand that he has left behind him an autobiography, which will

doubtless be made public, and which we venture to predict, will exceed

in interest and adventure the lion-king Cumming's African exploits,

springing as Audubon's did from high devotion to science, instead of the

mere animal instinct of destruction. All this while his great work was

growing. But in a single night the result of the labor of years was

destroyed by a pair of rats, who selected a box containing two hundred

drawings, with more than a thousand figures, as a place in which to rear

their plundering brood. "The burning heat," says he, "which rushed

through my brain was too great to be endured without affecting the whole

of my nervous system. I slept not for several nights, and the days

passed like days of oblivion, until the dormant powers being aroused

into action through the strength of my constitution, I took up my gun,

my note-book, and my pencils, and went forward to the woods as gayly as

though nothing had happened." In three years his portfolios were again

full.

In 1824, Audubon found himself at Philadelphia, on his way to the great

lakes. Here he was introduced to Lucien Bonaparte, who seems to have

induced him to determine upon the publication of his work. A year and a

half of happy toil ensued, enlivened by a new object. He had loved and

wooed Nature for her own dear self; but now he began to feel

presentiments that his bride would raise him to a throne among the

immortals. In 1826 he set sail for England. His first feeling was that

of despondency. What was he, whose acquirements had been won by the

solitary wanderings of more than a quarter of a century, amid lonely

forest solitudes; what could he be in comparison with those who had been

trained and taught by intercourse with civilized life? But these

feelings were of brief duration. The wonderful backwoodsman was warmly

welcomed by the best and wisest men of Europe. Cuvier was his admirer,

Alexander von Humboldt became his cherished friend and correspondent.

"The hearts of all," wrote Wilson, "warmed toward Audubon, who were

capable of conceiving the difficulties, dangers, and sacrifices that

must have been encountered, endured, and overcome, before genius could

have embodied these, the glory of its innumerable triumphs."

And so Audubon was encouraged to publish his work. It was a vast

undertaking. It would take sixteen years to accomplish it; he was now

somewhat declined into the vale of years, and would be an old man when

it was completed; and when the first drawings were put into the hands of

the engraver he had not a single subscriber. But his heart was upborne

by reliance on that Power, on whom depends success. After three years

spent in Europe, he returned to America in 1829, leaving his work in

process of execution in Edinburgh. Toward the close of 1830 his first

volume, containing one hundred plates, every figure of the size and

colors of life, was issued. It was hailed with universal applause; royal

names headed his subscription list, which, at one thousand dollars each,

reached the number of 175, of whom eighty were Americans. His name was

enrolled among the members of the learned Societies of Great Britain

and the Continent, and the world claimed him among her great men.

In the Autumn of 1831, Audubon visited Washington, where he received

from Government letters of protection and assistance, to be used at all

national ports, revenue, and naval stations. Having been delayed by

sickness, he proceeded upon his expedition toward the close of the

following summer. He tracked the forests of Maine, explored the shores

of the British provinces, bringing back rich spoils; and returned to

Charleston, to spend the winter in the preparation of his drawings and

the accompanying descriptions. In 1834 he published his second volume.

The three following years were passed in exploring expeditions, mostly

to the South, one of which was to Florida, another to Texas, in a vessel

placed at his disposal by Government, and in the preparation of his

drawings and descriptions. At the close of this period he published the

fourth and last volume of plates, and the fifth of descriptions. The

whole work contained 435 plates, comprising more than a thousand figures

of birds, all drawn of the size of life, in their natural attitudes and

circumstances, and colored from nature.

In 1839 Audubon commenced in this country the republication of the

"Birds of America," in seven large octavo volumes, which were issued

during the succeeding five years. Before the expiration of this period,

however, he commenced the preparation of the "Quadrupeds of America," of

which he had materials for five large volumes: in the literary

department of which he was assisted by Dr. Bachman, of Charleston. This

has recently been concluded, and forms a monument to his memory hardly

less imposing than his earlier work. In the meanwhile, though more than

sixty winters had passed over his head, he projected an expedition to

the Rocky Mountains, with all the adventurous spirit of his youth. But

he perhaps over-rated his physical capabilities; at least the expedition

was not made. The concluding years of his life were passed on the

beautiful estate of Minniesland, upon the Hudson, some ten miles from

New York. For several years his health had been giving way, until the

time when he passed from earth to the still land of the immortals. His

was a happy life. He had found his vocation, and pursued it for long

years, earnestly, faithfully, and triumphantly. The forms of beauty

which won his early love, and drew him into the broad forests, he

brought back to cheer us who can not follow his footsteps. He has linked

himself with the undying loveliness of Nature; and, therefore, his works

are a possession to all men forevermore.

JOSEPH BEM, the famous Polish General in the late Hungarian war, died at

Aleppo in the early part of December. It is somewhat singular that

during the whole course of hostilities he declared his conviction that

he should survive until the year 1850. Bem was born in 1795 at Tarnow in

Gallicia. Having completed his education at the Military School in

Warsaw, he entered the army, and served as lieutenant of artillery in

the divisions of Davoust and Macdonald. On the conclusion of peace, he

remained with the Polish army, who were now in the Russian service,

where he attained the rank of captain and adjutant, and was finally

appointed teacher in the Artillery School at Warsaw. Dissatisfied with

his position, he applied for a discharge, which was granted; but for

some unexplained cause he was summoned before a court-martial, and

sentenced to an imprisonment of two months. From 1825 to the outbreak of

the Polish insurrection in 1830, he resided at Lemberg, where he busied

himself with mechanical and mathematical studies. When the rising of the

Poles took place, he hastened to Warsaw, was appointed major, and

obtained the command of a regiment of flying artillery. For his

distinguished services at the battles of Igania and Ostrolenka he was

raised successively to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and colonel, and

received the command of the Polish artillery. At Ostrolenka he was

wounded, but as he lay upon the ground, he directed the movements of his

guns. When the cause of Poland was lost, he headed the first emigration

to France, where the greater portion of the next eighteen years was

spent. In 1833 he entered into negotiations with Don Pedro of Portugal

to raise a Polish regiment for his service; but the project was

unsuccessful; and Bem incurred the suspicions of his fellow exiles, by

one of whom an attempt was made to assassinate him. The following years

he passed in France and England, where we trace him by several treatises

which he published upon the organization of artillery, the manufacture

of powder, the distillation of brandy, the modes of working in wood and

metal, and a system of mnemonics. He also taught languages, for a time,

for very scanty pay, at London and Oxford, but was obliged to abandon

this occupation in consequence of a surgical operation for the

extraction of a bullet; for a time he was in receipt of the few

shillings weekly which the Polish Association were able to bestow upon

destitute exiles. The bread of exile which Dante found so bitter, was

sweet compared with that which Bem, for long years, was forced to taste.

He made an attempt to establish a Polytechnic Company, near Paris, which

failed from the want of adequate funds.

Upon the breaking out of the revolutions of 1848, we find Bem in the

thick of the conflict. On the 14th of October he made his appearance at

Vienna, where he endeavored to organize the revolt in the Austrian

capital. Here he could never have anticipated success; but he was aware

that resistance in Vienna would give the Hungarians time to arm. Finding

the cause hopeless in Vienna, he betook himself to Kossuth, at Comorn.

Here he had some difficulty in proving his identity; but at length Bem

succeeded in winning the confidence of the Hungarian ruler. At Pesth,

where he concerted future operations with Kossuth, another attempt was

made to assassinate Bem by a young Pole who had conceived the idea that

he had betrayed the popular cause at Vienna. From Pesth Bem was

dispatched by Kossuth to Transylvania, in order to organize the revolt

against Austria. The transactions in Transylvania formed perhaps the

most brilliant portion of the whole Hungarian war. In the course of ten

weeks, with a newly raised army, always inferior in force to the enemy,

by a series of hard fighting and skillful manoeuvres, he placed

Transylvania in the hands of the Hungarians. The accession of Russia to

the side of Austria was decisive of the contest. Bem, sorely pressed in

Transylvania, was summoned by Kossuth to assume the command in chief;

and at Temesvar, on the 10th of August 1849, he lost the last battle of

Hungary; though he here displayed the highest qualities of the soldier

and the general. The Austrians were repulsed at all points, mowed down

by the terrible fire from the Hungarian artillery, which Bem had posted

with his accustomed skill; but his troops were exhausted, and a fresh

body of Austrians under Prince Lichtenstein, decided the day. "A single

draught of wine to each hussar," said Guyon, "would have saved the

battle." In the rout which ensued, Bem, who was weakened by his wounds,

was thrown from his horse, and broke his collar bone. The day following

the disastrous battle of Temesvar, Kossuth resigned the dictatorship

into the hands of Görgey, who two days after, on the 13th of August,

surrendered his whole army, consisting of 24,000 men with 144 pieces of

cannon, to the Russians.

Bem at first made some efforts to prolong the hopeless contest; but it

was in vain, and on the 17th of the month he bade farewell to the

country from which he had hoped so much. Kossuth, Dembinski, Bem, and

some others took refuge in Turkey, where their residence or extradition

was made a political question by the powers of Europe. In the

anticipation of being given up, Bem embraced Mohammedanism, and entered

the Turkish service, under the name of Murad Bey. There is nothing to

wonder at in this procedure. His one principle through life had been

hatred to Russia, and to this he would not hesitate to sacrifice any and

every other consideration; his only religion was to avenge his country

upon the Czar; if that could be done, it mattered little to him whether

it was effected under the banner of the cross or the crescent. He

persisted to the last in his profession of Mohammedanism, and was buried

with military honors, greatly lamented by the Ottoman government, into

whose military organization he had introduced many beneficial reforms.

Bem possessed military genius of a high order; he was bold and rapid in

his decisions, fertile in resources, whether to take advantage of a

victory or to retrieve a defeat. He clearly perceived that the most

effective arm in modern warfare is artillery, the service of which he

always superintended in person. Previous to a battle he appointed the

positions his guns were to assume, examined and leveled them in person,

whence he was nicknamed, by his German legion, "the Piano-forte player."

At the time of his death, he had reached his fifty-sixth year, but the

severe exposures which he had undergone, and his numerous wounds, gave

him the appearance of a still greater age. As a man, all who knew Bem

were enthusiastic in his praise. Generous in disposition, gentle and

modest in demeanor, he inspired deep personal attachment in all with

whom he came in contact.

VISCOUNT ALFORD (John Hume Cust) died on the 2d of January. In 1849 he

succeeded to the vast Bridgewater estates, and assumed, by royal

license, the name of Egerton, in place of that of Cust. He was a member

of the House of Commons from 1836 to 1847. He inherited an estate from

the late Earl of Bridgewater, under a will of very singular character.

By this document it was provided that unless Lord Alford should, within

five years, succeed in gaining a rank in the peerage higher than that of

earl, the estate should go to his brother, with a like condition, which

also failing, it was to pass to another branch of the family.

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE (Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham Clinton) died Jan.

12, at the age of 66. He was one of the most consistent and unbending of

the Tory conservative nobility of England, and a most strenuous opponent

of every measure of reform. He said of himself that "on looking back to

the past, I can honestly assert that I repent of nothing that I have

done. _Vestigia nulla retrorsum._ Such has been the cradle of my

opinions: time may have matured them, and given them something like

authority; at all events, the sentiments that might have been doubtful,

are now rootedly confirmed." Thus incapable of learning by experience,

of becoming wiser as a man than he was when a boy, his political career

was thoroughly consistent. He was alike opposed to Catholic

emancipation, the repeal of the Test Act, and any modification of the

Corn Laws. When Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, he refused, in spite

of the positive demand of Government, to insert in the commission of the

peace the names of two gentlemen who were not members of the Established

Church. When the Reform Bill was in agitation, he stood up manfully for

the rotten boroughs which enabled him to return six members to the House

of Commons, the disfranchisement of which cost him a large sum which he

had invested in property of which the franchise constituted the main

value. His hereditary possessions were very large, and by his wife he

obtained estates to the value of £12,000 per annum, besides personal

property to the amount of £200,000; yet, owing to extensive purchases of

unproductive estates, he was embarrassed in pecuniary matters. Apart

from his narrow and bigoted politics, his character was marked by many

noble and excellent traits.

FREDERICK BASTIAT, the leader of the free-trade party in France, died at

Rome, on the 24th of December. He was a member of the National Assembly;

and his death was hastened by his severe and protracted labors during

the last session. His essays, bearing the general title of _Sophismes

Economiques_, originally published in a periodical, the _Journal des

Economistes_, of which he was editor, have been made known to the

American public through the columns of the _Evening Post_, which is a

sufficient guarantee of their authority with the upholders of that

policy.

W.H. MAXWELL, the Irish novelist, died at Musselburg, near Edinburgh,

December 29. In early life he was a captain in the British army, and

noted for his social qualities. He subsequently entered the Church, and

obtained the benefice of prebendary of Balla, a wild district in

Connaught, with an income, but no congregation or official duties. Among

his works we recollect "Hector O'Halloran," "Story of My Life," "Wild

Sports of the West," and many humorous sketches in the periodical

literature of the day.

PROFESSOR SCHUMACHER, the Astronomer of the Observatory at Altona, died

on the 28th of December, in his 71st year. For many years he conducted

the _Astronomische Nachrichten_, in which capacity he was well known in

the scientific world. He had been successively Professor of Astronomy at

the University of Copenhagen, and Director of the Observatory at

Manheim, in Baden. From 1817 to 1821 he measured the length of the

degree of longitude from Copenhagen to the western coast of Jutland, and

that of the degree of latitude from the northern extremity of Jutland to

the frontiers of Hanover. He subsequently executed for the English

Government the measure of the difference of longitude between the

observatories of Greenwich and Altona.

Literary Notices.

_The Howadji; or, Nile Notes_ (published by Harper and Brothers), is a

new volume of Oriental travels, by a young New-Yorker, describing a

voyage on the Nile and the marvels of Egypt, with a freshness and

originality that give it all the fascination of a romance. Speaking in

the character of the Howadji, which is the name given by the Egyptians

to foreign travelers, the author describes a succession of rare

incidents, revealing the very heart of Eastern life, and transporting us

into the midst of its dim, cloud-like scenes, so as to impress us with

the strongest sense of reality. He does not claim the possession of any

antiquarian lore; he has no ambition to win the fame of a discoverer;

nor in the slightest degree is he a collector of statistical facts. He

leaves aside all erudite speculations, allowing the moot points of

geography and history to settle themselves, and gives himself up to the

dreamy fancies and romantic musings which cluster round the imagination

in the purple atmosphere of the East. His work is, in fact, a gorgeous

prose-poem, inspired by his recollections of strange and vivid

experiences, and clothed in the quaint, picturesque costume which

harmonizes with his glowing Oriental visions. No previous traveler has

been so richly imbued with the peculiar spirit of the East. His language

is pervaded with its luxurious charm. Bathed in the golden light of that

sunny clime, his words breathe a delicious enchantment, and lull the

soul in softest reveries. The descriptive portions of the book are often

diversified with a vein of profound and tender reflection, and with

incidental critical allusions to Art, which have the merit both of

acuteness and originality. From the uncommon force and freedom of mind,

exhibited in this volume, with its genuine poetic inspirations, we

foresee that a brilliant career in letters is opened to the author, if

his ambition or tastes impel him to that sphere of activity.

_Crumbs from the Land o' Cakes_, by JOHN KNOX (published by Gould and

Lincoln), is a rapid sketch of a tour in Scotland, by an enthusiastic

admirer and native of that country. It makes no pretensions to

originality or literary skill, but written without affectation, and from

recent actual experience, it makes a very readable volume. The title is

quaintly explained in the preface. "Crumbs are but trifles, though a

morsel of manchineel may poison a man, and the same quantity of

gingerbread may tickle his palate; but the crumbs here presented do not

belong to either class. All Scotchmen know that the cakes for which

their native land is celebrated are made of oatmeal (baked hard); which,

though substantial, are very dry: this consideration will show the

propriety of the title. It is also appropriate in another respect, for

the writer is conscious that these fragmentary notes of travel in his

native country are, in comparison to the richness of the materials and

the subject, but as the crumbs to the loaf."

Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston, have published a third volume of DE

QUINCY's _Writings_, comprising his _Miscellaneous Essays_ on sacred

subjects, of which the quaint peculiarity of the title is suggestive of

the bold, fanciful genius of the author. Among them, we find "Murder,

considered as one of the Fine Arts;" "The Vision of Sudden Death;"

"Dinner, Real and Reputed," and others, all redolent of the strange

imaginative conceits, the playful toying with language, and the

startling intensity of description which characterize the Visions of the

English Opium Eater.

The same house have issued a neat duodecimo edition of GOETHE's _Faust_,

translated by HAYWARD, of which the curious aesthetic and philological

merits are well known to every German scholar. It is an almost literal

transcript of the original into English prose, but executed with such a

profound appreciation of its spirit, such nice verbal accuracy, and such

exquisite handling of the delicate mechanism of language, as to present

a more faithful idea of the wild and marvelous beauty of the great

German poem, than the most successful translation in verse. According to

Mr. Hayward's theory of translation, "If the English reader, not knowing

German, be made to stand in the same relation to Faust as the English

reader, thoroughly acquainted with German stands in toward it--that is,

if the same impressions be conveyed through the same sort of medium,

whether bright or dusky, coarse or fine--the very extreme point of a

translator's duty has been attained." The loudly-expressed verdict of

competent literary judges (so far as we know without a dissenting

voice), and the numerous editions it has gone through on both sides of

the Atlantic, are ample proofs of the felicitous and effective manner in

which the translator has completed the task thus imposed upon himself.

The Preface and Notes attached to this volume, show the vivacity of his

genius, and his rich stores of choice learning.

_Lavengro: The Scholar--The Gipsy--The Priest_, by GEORGE BORROW

(published by Harper and Brothers, and George P. Putnam), is the title

of certain portions of the unique autobiography of the erratic author of

"The Bible in Spain." Among the many things which he professes to have

aimed at in this book, is the encouragement of charity, and free and

genial manners, as well as the exposure of humbug in various forms. The

incidents related are in accordance with this design. Borrow's early

life was filled with strange and startling adventures. With a taste from

the cradle for savage freedom, he never became subject to social

conventionalisms. His soul expanded in the free air, by the side of

running streams, and in the mountain regions of liberty. He received the

strongest impressions from all the influences of nature. He was led by a

strange magnetism to intimacy with the most eccentric characters. An

ample fund of material for an interesting narrative was thus provided.

He has made use of them in his own peculiar and audacious manner. A more

self-reliant writer is not to be found in English literature. He has no

view to the effect of his words on the reader, but aims only to tell the

story with which his mind teems. Hence his pages are as fresh as morning

dew, and often run riot with a certain gipsy wildness. His narrative has

little continuity. He piles up isolated incidents, which remain in his

memory, but with no regard to regular sequence or completeness. On this

account he is sometimes not a little provoking. He shuts off the stream

at the moment your curiosity is most strongly excited. But the joyous

freedom of his spirit, his consummate skill as a story teller, and the

startling eccentricities of his life, so little in accordance with the

tameness and dull proprieties of English society, give an elastic

vitality to his book, and make it of more interest to the reader than

almost any recent issue of the English press.

Harper and Brothers have commenced the publication of a new series of

juvenile tales by JACOB ABBOTT, entitled _The Franconia Stories_. The

first volume, called _Malleville_, is a very agreeable narrative of life

in New Hampshire, abounding in attractive incidents, and related in the

fresh and natural style for which the author is justly celebrated. This

series is intended by the author to exert a kindly moral influence on

the hearts and dispositions of the readers, although it will contain

little formal exhortation and instruction. He has no doubt hit upon the

true philosophy, in this respect, nothing being so distasteful to a

young reader as the interruption of the narrative by the statement of a

moral, unless he can contrive to swallow the sugar, while he rejects the

medicine. Mr. Abbott relies on his quiet and peaceful pictures of happy

domestic life, and the expression of such sentiments and feelings as it

is desirable to exhibit in the presence of children. He is far more sure

of the effect aimed at by this method, than by any insipid dilutions of

Solomon or Seneca.

_The Practical Cook-Book_ (published by Lippincott, Grambo, and Co.) is

the title of a new work on gastronomic science, by a Lady of Boston,

which brings the taste and philosophy of that renowned seat of the Muses

to the elucidation of the mysteries of the cuisine. The young

housekeeper will be saved from many perplexities by consulting its lucid

oracles.

Edward H. Fletcher has published a new edition of the celebrated

_Discourse on Missions_, by JOHN FOSTER, delivered in 1818, before the

London Baptist Missionary Society, with a Preliminary Essay on the

Skepticism of the Church, by Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, of the Broadway

Tabernacle. It is republished in this country with a view to counteract

the impression since made by the extraordinary writer, in his critique

on Rev. Dr. Harris's popular work, "The Great Commission," in which

Foster alludes to the missionary enterprise in terms of disparagement,

giving the opposers of evangelical missions and evangelical religion the

sanction of his great name, and the authority of his latest opinions. In

the opinion of the Editor, no better refutation of his argument can be

given than is contained in the Missionary Discourse from Mr. Foster's

own pen. Being written in the maturity of his intellect, and regarded by

himself as one of his most successful efforts, it may be taken as a more

authentic expression of his opinions than the letter to Dr. Harris,

which was written in his old age: an old age rendered gloomy and morose

by seclusion from the world, and by the failure of the schemes which he

had fondly cherished in more ardent years. The character of the

Discourse is tersely summed up in a short paragraph by Mr. Thompson. "In

the thoroughness of its discussion and the comprehensiveness of its

view; in the clearness and strength of its reasoning, and the force and

beauty of its diction; in the glow of its sentiment, and the sublimity

of its faith, this discourse stands at the head of productions of its

class, as an exhibition of the grandeur of the work of missions, and of

the imperative claims of that work upon the Church of Christ. There is

nothing in it local or temporary, but it comes to Christians of this

generation with all the freshness and power which thirty years ago

attended its delivery." The Preliminary Essay by the Editor is a

vigorous and uncompromising attack on the prevalent skepticism of the

Church in respect to the obligations of the Missionary Enterprise.

J.S. Redfield has issued a work on _The Restoration of the Jews_, by

SETH LEWIS, in which the author maintains the doctrine of a literal

return of the Jews to Palestine, and the second coming of Christ in

connection with that event. Mr. Lewis, whose death took place one or two

years since, at an advanced old age, was one of the District Judges of

the State of Louisiana, and highly respected for his learning and

ability, as well as his exemplary private character. He was devoted to

the study of the Scriptures, and presents the fruits of his research

with modesty and earnestness, though hardly in a manner adapted to

produce a general conviction of the correctness of his views.

The same publisher has issued _A Practical System of Modern Geography_,

by JOHN F. ANDERSON, a successful teacher of one of the Public Schools

in this city. The leading features of this little work are brevity,

clearness, and simplicity. The author has aimed to present a practical

system of Geography, unconnected with subjects not pertaining to the

science, in a manner adapted to facilitate the rapid progress of the

pupil. We think that he has met with great success in the accomplishment

of his plan.

Tallis, Willoughby, and Co. continue the serial publication of _The Life

of Christ_, by JOHN FLEETWOOD, which beautiful work is now brought down

to the Twelfth Number. It is embellished with exquisite engravings, and

in all respects is worthy of a place in every family.

The same house are bringing out _Scripture Illustrations for the Young_,

by FREDERICK BAMBRIDGE, in a style of peculiar beauty--a work every way

adapted to charm the taste and inform the mind of the juvenile reader.

_The Dove and the Eagle_ (published by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields,

Boston) is a slight satirical poem, with some clever hits at

transcendentalism, socialism, teetotalism, woman's-rights-ism, and other

rampant hobbies of the day.

Among the latest republications of Robert Carter and Brothers, we find a

neat edition of _Young's Night Thoughts_, printed on excellent white

paper, in a convenient, portable form; _The Principles of Geology

Explained_, by Rev. DAVID KING, showing the relations of that science to

natural and revealed religion; _The Listener_, by CAROLINE FRY; the able

and elaborate work on _The Method of the Divine Government_, by JAMES

M'COSH; and _Daily Bible Illustrations_, by JOHN KITTO, in three

volumes. This last work has gained an extensive popularity in England,

and has the rare merit of presenting the scenes of Sacred History in a

vivid and picturesque light, with a rare freedom from bombast on the one

hand, and from weak common-place on the other.

The Carters have recently published a new edition of Mrs. L.H.

SIGOURNEY's popular contribution to the cause of Temperance, entitled

_Water Drops_, consisting of an original collection of stories, essays,

and short poems, illustrative of the benefits of total abstinence. The

Eighth Edition of Dr. G.B. CHEEVER's _Lectures on the Pilgrim's

Progress_, is also just issued by the same house.

_The History of the United States_, by RICHARD HILDRETH, Vol. IV.

(published by Harper and Brothers), commences a new series of his great

historical work, embracing the period subsequent to the adoption of the

Federal Constitution in 1789, and reaching to the close of Mr. Monroe's

first Presidential term in 1821. The volume now issued is devoted to the

administration of Washington, and gives a condensed and intelligible

view of the early development of American legislation, of the gradual

formation of the parties which have since borne the most conspicuous

part in our national politics, and of the character and influence of the

statesmen who presided over the first operations of the Federal

Government.

With a greater vivacity of style than is shown in the preceding volumes,

the present exhibits the results of no less extensive research, and a

more profound spirit of reflection. Mr. Hildreth evidently aims at a

rigid impartiality in his narrative of political events, although he

never affects an indifference toward the pretensions of conflicting

parties. His sympathies are strongly on the side of Washington,

Hamilton, and Jay, with regard to the questions that soon embarrassed

the first administration. While he presents a lucid statement of the

principles at issue, he takes no pains to conceal his own predilections,

always avoiding, however, the tone of a heated partisan. This portion of

his work, accordingly, is more open to criticism, than his account of

the earlier epochs of American history. The political devotee may be

shocked at the uncompromising treatment of some of his favorites, while

he can not fail to admit the ability which is evinced in the estimate of

their characters.

Among the topics which occupy an important place in this volume, are the

Inauguration of the Federal Government, the establishment of the Revenue

System, the Financial Policy of Hamilton, the Growth of Party Divisions,

the Insurrection in Pennsylvania, Mr. Jay's Treaty with England, and Mr.

Monroe's Mission to France. These are handled with great fullness and

clearness of detail, with a sound and discriminating judgment, and in a

style which, though seldom graphic and never impassioned, has the

genuine historical merits of precision, energy, and point. We rejoice to

welcome this series as an admirable introduction to the political

history of our Republic, and shall look for its completion with

impatience.

LOSSING's _Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution_ (published by Harper

and Brothers) has now reached the close of the First Volume. Its

interest has continued without diminution through the successive

Numbers. The liveliness of the narrative, as well as the beauty of the

embellishments, has given this work a wide popularity, which we have no

doubt it will fully sustain by the character of the subsequent volumes.

The union of history, biographical incidents, and personal anecdotes is

one of its most attractive features, and in the varied intercourse of

Mr. Lossing with the survivors of the Revolutionary struggle, and the

descendants of those who have deceased, he has collected an almost

exhaustless store of material for this purpose, which he has shown

himself able to work up with admirable effect.

_The United States: Its Power and Progress_ (published by Lippincott,

Grambo, and Co.) is a translation by EDMUND L. DU BARRY of the Third

Paris edition of a work by M. POUSSIN, late Minister of France to the

United States. It presents a systematic historical view of the early

colonization of the country, with an elaborate description of the means

of national defense, and of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and

education in the United States. M. Poussin had some excellent

qualifications for the performance of this task. Residing in this

country for many years, he was able to speak from experience of the

practical working of republican institutions. Connected with the Board

of Engineers appointed by the American Government for topographical

surveys in reference to future military operations, he had attained an

exact knowledge of our geographical position, and the whole organization

of our internal improvements. A decided republican in feeling, his

warmest sympathies were with the cause of political progress in this

country. Free from the aristocratic prejudices of the Old World, the

rapid development of social prosperity in the United States was a

spectacle which he could not contemplate with indifference. Hence his

volume is characterized not only by breadth of information, but by

fairness of judgment. If he sometimes indulges a French taste for

speculative theories, he is, in general, precise and accurate in his

statements of facts. His description of our organization for the defense

of the coast and the frontiers is quite complete, and drawn to a great

degree from personal observation, may be relied on as authentic. We can

freely commend this work to the European who would attain a correct view

of the social condition, political arrangements, and industrial

resources of the United States, as well as to our own citizens who are

often so absorbed in the practical operations of our institutions as to

lose sight of their history and actual development.

_Salander and the Dragon_, by FREDERIC WILLIAM SHELTON (published by

George P. Putnam and Samuel Hueston), is a more than commonly successful

attempt in a difficult species of composition, and one in which the

disgrace of failure is too imminent to present a strong temptation to

any but aspirants of the most comfortable self-complacency. Mr. Shelton,

however, has little to fear from the usual perils that beset this path

of literary effort. He has a genius for the vocation. With such a fair

fruitage, from the first experiment, we hope he will allow no rust to

gather on his implements.

Salander is a black, or rather greenish monster of a dwarf, without

bones, capable of being doubled into all shapes, like a strip of India

Rubber, and stretching himself out like the same. He was committed for

safe-keeping to the jailer of an important fortress, called the Hartz

Prison. The jailer, whose name was Goodman, held the place under the

Lord of Conscienza, a noble of the purest blood, and very strict toward

his vassals. After suffering no slight annoyance from the pranks of the

horrid imp, the jailer applied to the lord of the castle for relief, who

told him that the rascally prisoner had been imposed upon him by forged

orders, but now that he had him in possession, he must guard him with

the strictest vigilance, and subject him to the most severe treatment.

The adventures of the jailer with the infernal monster compose the

materials of the allegory, which is conducted with no small skill, and

with uncommon beauty of expression. The upshot of the story is to

illustrate the detestable effects of slander, a vice which the author

treats with a wholesome bitterness of invective, regarding it as one of

the most diabolical forms of the unpardonable sin. It could not be

incarnated in a more loathsome body than that of the hideous Salander.

We can only tolerate his presence on account of the exceeding beauty of

the environment in which he is placed.

Geo. P. Putnam has published the Fifth Volume of COOPER's

_Leather-Stocking Tales_, containing _The Prairie_, with an original

Introduction and Notes by the author. In this volume we have the last

scenes in the exciting career of Leather-Stocking, who has been driven

from the forest by the sound of the ax, and forced to seek a desperate

refuge in the bleak plains that skirt the Rocky Mountains. The new

generation of readers, that have not yet become acquainted with this

noble creation, have a pleasure in store that the veteran novel-reader

may well envy.

_An Address_ by HENRY B. STANTON, and _Poem_ by ALFRED B. STREET

pronounced before the Literary Societies of Hamilton College, are issued

in a neat pamphlet by Rogers and Sherman Utica. Mr. Stanton's Address

presents a comparative estimate of Ultraists, Conservatives, and

Reformers, as mingled in the conflicting classes of American Society,

using the terms to designate forces now in operation rather than parties

and with no special reference to combinations of men which have been

thus denominated. His views are brought forward with vigor and

discrimination, and free from the offensive tone which discussions of

this nature are apt to produce. In applying the principles of his

Address to the subject of American literature, he forcibly maintains the

absurdity of an abject dependence on the ancient classics. "I would not

speak disparagingly of the languages of Greece and Rome. As mere

inventions, pieces of mechanism, they are as perfect as human lip ever

uttered, as exquisite as mortal pen ever wrote; and the study of the

literature they embalm refines the taste and strengthens the mind. But

while the writers of Greece and Rome are retained in our academic halls,

they should not be allowed to exclude those authors whose researches

have enlarged the boundaries of knowledge, and whose genius has added

new beauties to the Anglo-Saxon tongue. Let Homer and Shakspeare, Virgil

and Milton, Plato and Bacon, Herodotus and Macaulay, Livy and Bancroft,

Xenophon and Prescott, Demosthenes and Webster, Cicero and Brougham,

stand on the same shelves, and be studied by the same classes."

Mr. STREET's Poem is a polished and graceful description of the romantic

scenery of the Mohawk Valley, interspersed with several striking Indian

legends, comparing the tranquil happiness of the present day, with the

carnage and misery of the old warfare. Mr. Street gives a pleasing

picture in the following animated verses:

View the lovely valley now!

Villages strew, like jewels on a chain,

All its bright length. Whole miles of level grain,

With leagues of meadow-land and pasture-field,

Cover its surface; gray roads wind about,

O'er which the farmer's wagon clattering rolls,

And the red mail-coach. Bridges cross the streams,

Roofed, with great spider-webs of beams within.

Homesteads to homesteads flash their window-gleams,

Like friends they talk by language of the eye;

Upon its iron strips the engine shoots,

(That half-tamed savage with its boiling heart

And flaming veins, its warwhoop and its plume.

That seems to fly in sullen rage along--

Rage at its captors--and that only waits

Its time to dash its victims to quick death).

Swift as the swallow skims, that engine fleets

Through all the streaming landscape of green field

And lovely village. On their pillared lines,

Distances flash to distances their thoughts,

And all is one abode of all the joy

And happiness that civilization yields.

Harper and Brothers have republished from the English edition Lord

HOLLAND's _Foreign Reminiscences_, edited by his son, Henry Edward, Lord

Holland--a book which has excited great attention from the English

press, and will be read with interest by the lovers of political

anecdote in this country. It is filled with rapid, gossiping notices of

the principal European celebrities of the past generation, and devotes a

large space to personal recollections of the Emperor Napoleon. Lord

Holland writes in an easy conversational style, and his agreeable

memoirs bear internal marks of authenticity.

_Jane Bouverie_, by CATHERINE SINCLAIR, is a popular English novel

(republished by Harper and Brothers), intended to sketch a portrait of

true feminine loveliness, without an insipid formality and without any

romantic impossibilities of perfection. The denouement has the rare

peculiarity of not ending in marriage, the heroine remaining in the

class of single ladies, designated by the author as par excellence "The

Sisters of England."

_London Labor and the London Poor_, by HENRY MAYHEW (republished by

Harper and Brothers), is the title of a work of the deepest interest and

importance to all who wish to obtain a comprehensive view of the present

condition of industry and its rewards in the metropolis of Great

Britain. It consists of the series of papers formerly contributed by the

author to the _Morning Chronicle_, entirely rewritten and enlarged by

the addition of a great variety of facts and descriptions. The author

has devoted his attention for some time past to the state of the working

classes. He has collected an immense number of facts, illustrative of

the subject, which are now brought to light for the first time. His

evident sympathies with the poor do not blind his judgment. His

statements are made after careful investigation, and show no disposition

to indulge in theoretic inferences. As a vivid picture of London life,

in the obscure by-ways, concerning which little is generally known, his

work possesses an uncommon value. It is to be issued in successive

parts, illustrated with characteristic engravings, the first of which

only has yet appeared in the present edition.

Harper and Brothers have published a new English novel by the author of

_Mary Barton_, entitled _The Moorland Cottage_, a pleasing domestic

story of exquisite beauty.

Three Leaves From Punch.

LECTURES ON LETTERS.

We find in a recent number of that well-known and reliable newspaper,

the London PUNCH, an interesting sketch of a new and improved system of

teaching the elementary branches of education. It proceeds upon

principles somewhat different from those which have generally obtained

in the popular methods of instruction. It was prepared by the Editor of

the journal referred to, for the Council of Education established a few

years since by the English Government, for the express purpose of

discussing and promoting improved methods of public teaching. In a note

accompanying the work, the author states that, as soon as it was

completed, he forwarded it, by

THE PARCELS CONVEYANCE COMPANY,

with a polite note to the Secretary of the Council.

[Illustration: The Parcels Conveyance Company]

We regret that our limits will not permit us to present to the readers

of the New Monthly Magazine a full description of this novel work. We

can only give a slight sketch of the manner in which it proposes to

teach the Alphabet. The author thinks that, in the systems in general

use hitherto, advantage has not been sufficiently taken of the pictorial

form, as capable of connecting with the alphabet, not only agreeable

associations, but many useful branches of knowledge.

[Illustration: Oscillation illustrated]

He would begin with the letter =A=, by rendering it attractive to

children as a swing, and the opportunity might then be taken of leading

the conversation to the swing of the pendulum, the laws which govern its

oscillations, and the experiments of Maupertius, Clairault, and

Lemmonier, upon its variations in different latitudes.

[Illustration: Legendary G]

=G=, the child might be told, stands for George, and the pictorial

illustrations of St. George and the dragon (the latter about to swallow

its own tail) would enable the teacher to enter upon a disquisition

relative to the probable Eastern origin of the legendary stories of the

middle ages.

[Illustration: Historical H]

=H= would naturally suggest reminiscences of modern English history. The

teacher would give some account of George Fox, the first Quaker, and of

the singular customs and opinions of the sect he founded. Thence the

child might be led to perceive the evils of schism, and the legitimate,

and mischievous consequences of that right of private judgment still

claimed by a small, but happily now an uninfluential minority in the

established church.

[Illustration: Selfish Ends]

=J= might introduce some profitable remarks upon Natural History, when

the difference could be explained between bipeds by nature, and

quadrupeds who become bipeds only for selfish ends.

[Illustration: Pneumatical K]

Advantage might be taken of the pictorial illustration of =K= to lay the

foundation of an acquaintance both with the science of Pneumatics, and

with Captain Reid's theory of the laws affecting the course of storms.

[Illustration: A Stilted Subject]

With the letter =M= the child might learn the meaning of what is termed

the centre of gravity, so important to be maintained by ladies walking

on stilts.

[Illustration: Pisces]

The letter =S=, reminding the teacher of _Pisces_--_fishes_--one of the

signs of the Zodiac, would furnish him with a suitable opportunity for

discoursing upon Astronomy. Afterward he might take up the subject of

Ichthyology, and speak of the five orders, _the apodal_, _the jugular_,

_the abdominal_, _the thoracic_, and _cartilaginous_ species, into which

the great family of fishes is divided.

The Editor of this work gives also a general outline of the manner in

which this system was received by the Council, when it was first brought

to their notice. The President was so highly delighted with it, that he

not only promised to give the matter still further consideration, but

invited the author to bring forward certain other works for infancy,

upon which, it was generally understood, he had been engaged. To this

polite invitation the Editor replied that he had been able as yet to

complete only two works of this description, namely, the delightful

Poem,

HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE,

and the equally interesting and still more tragic history of

COCK ROBIN.

[Illustration: How doth the little busy Bee]

[Illustration: Cock Robin]

He thought the teacher could not better follow out Dr. Watts's idea of

"improving the shining hour," than by rendering the same lesson of

industry available for a full account of the genus _apis_, taking care

not to confound in the child's mind the _apis_ of entomology with _apis_

the bull, worshiped by the ancient Egyptians. With regard to the

historical work referred to, it was high time that the juvenile mind

should be disabused of a popular error. The facts were, that a man of

the name of _Sparrow_ had robbed a farm-yard of its poultry, for which

offense, after being taken and made to confess his guilt, he was

transported. The crime and punishment were suggestive of many useful

reflections upon the importance of honesty; but the facts were

ludicrously distorted and deprived of all their moral force in the

spurious account published by certain booksellers in St. Paul's

Church-yard of the same transaction. A question is asked, "Who kill'd

Cock Robin?" and the following answer is given:

"I says the Sparrow,

With my bow and arrow,

I killed Cock Robin!!!"

In continuing his account of this interview, the Editor introduces the

new system of musical notation, which he also brought to the notice of

the Council, and which they all agreed would be found exceedingly useful

in

ASSISTING A PUPIL UP THE GAMUT.

[Illustration: Assisting a pupil up the Gamut]

But into this branch of the subject we can not follow him. In fact, the

Editor states that, at this point of his exposition, he was constrained

to desist by noticing that several members of the Council had become so

deeply impressed with the merits of his pictorial system, that they were

illustrating it in their own persons, by throwing themselves into the

form of

THE LETTER =Y=.

[Illustration: Yawning]

* * * * *

PUNCH ON SPECIAL PLEADING.

INTRODUCTION.

Before administering law between litigating parties, there are two

things to be done--in addition to the parties themselves--namely, first

to ascertain the subject for decision, and, secondly, to complicate it

so as to make it difficult to decide. This is effected by letting the

lawyers state in complicated terms the simple cases of their clients,

and thus raising from these opposition statements a mass of entanglement

which the clients themselves might call nasty crotchets, but which the

lawyers term "nice points." In every subject of dispute with two sides

to it, there is a right and a wrong, but in the style of putting the

contending statements, so as to confuse the right and the wrong

together, the science of special pleading consists. This system is of

such remote antiquity, that nobody knows the beginning of it, and this

accounts for no one being able to appreciate its end. The accumulated

chicanery and blundering of several generations, called in forensic

language the "wisdom of successive ages," gradually brought special

pleading into its present shape, or, rather, into its present endless

forms. Its extensive drain on the pockets of the suitors has rendered it

always an important branch of legal study, while, when properly

understood, it appears an instrument so beautifully calculated for

distributive justice, that, when brought to bear upon property, it will

often distribute the whole of it among the lawyers, and leave nothing

for the litigants themselves.

CHAPTER I. OF THE PROCEEDINGS IN AN ACTION, FROM ITS COMMENCEMENT TO ITS

TERMINATION.

Actions are divided into _Real_, in which there is often much sham;

_Personal_, in which the personality is frequently indulged in by

Counsel, at the expense of the witnesses; and _Mixed_, in which a great

deal of pure nonsense sometimes prevails. The Legislature being at last

sensible to the shamness of Real, and the pure nonsense of Mixed

actions, abolished all except four, and for the learning on these

subjects, now become obsolete, we must refer to the "books," which have

been transferred to the shops of Butter, from the shop of

Butterworth.[8]

There are three superior Courts of Common Law, one of their great points

of superiority being their superior expense, which saves the Common Law

from being so common as to be positively vulgar; and its high price

gives it one of the qualities of a luxury, rendering it _caviare_ to the

million, or indeed to any but the _millionaire_. These Courts are the

Queen's Bench--a bench which five judges sit upon; the Exchequer, whose

sign is a chess or draught-board--some say to show how difficult is the

game of law, while others maintain it is merely emblematic of the drafts

on the pockets of the suitor; and thirdly, the Common Pleas, which took

its title, possibly, from the fact of the lawyers finding the profits

such as to make them un-Common-ly Pleas'd.

The real and mixed actions not yet abolished, are--1st, the Writ of

Right of Dower, and 2d, the Writ of Dower; both relating to widows; but

as widows are formidable persons to go to law against, these actions are

seldom used. The third is the action of _Quare Impedit_, which would be

brought against me by a parson if I kept him out of his living; but as

the working parsons find it difficult to get a living, this action is

also rare. The fourth is the action of Ejectment, for the recovery of

land, which is the only action that can not be brought without some

ground.

Of personal actions, the most usual are debt, and a few others; but we

will begin by going into debt as slightly as possible. The action of

debt is founded on some contract, real or supposed, and when there has

been no contract, the law, taking a contracted view of matters, will

have a contract implied. Debt, like every other personal action, begins

with a summons, in which VICTORIA comes "greeting;" which means,

according to JOHNSON, "saluting in kindness," "congratulating," or

"paying compliments at a distance;" but, considering the unpleasant

nature of a writ at all times, we can not help thinking that the word

"greeting" is misapplied. The writ commands you to enter an appearance

within eight days, and, by way of assisting you to make an appearance,

the writ invests you, as it were, with a new suit.

The action of Covenant lies for breach of covenant, that is to say, a

promise under seal; and under wafer it is just as binding, for you are

equally compelled to stick to it like wax.

The action of _Detinue_ lies where a party seeks to recover what is

detained from him; though it does not seem that a gentleman detaining a

newspaper more than ten minutes at a coffee-house would be liable to

detinue, though the action would be an ungentlemanly one, to say the

least of it.

The action of Trespass lies for any injury committed with violence, such

as assault and battery, either actual or implied; as, if A, while making

pancakes, throws an egg-shell at B, the law will imply battery, though

the egg-shell was empty.

The action of Trespass on the Case lies, where a party seeks damages for

a wrong to which trespass will not apply--where, in fact, a man has not

been assaulted or hurt in his person, but where he has been hurt in that

tender part--his pocket. Of this action there are two species, called

_assumpsit_, by which the law--at no time very unassuming--assumes that

a person, legally liable to do a thing, has promised to do it, however

unpromising such person may be; and _trover_, which seeks to recover

damages for property which it is supposed the defendant found and

converted, so that an action might perhaps be brought in this form, to

recover from Popery those who have been found and converted to the use,

or rather lost and converted to the abuses, of the Romish Church.

Having gone slightly into the different forms of actions; having just

tapped the reader on the shoulder with a writ in each case, which, by

the way, should be personally served on him at home, though the bailiff

runs the risk of getting sometimes served out, we shall proceed to

trial--perhaps, of the reader's patience--in a subsequent chapter.

CHAPTER II. OF THE DECLARATION.

The writ being now served, it is next to be returned, and this is

sometimes done by giving it back at once to the bailiff or throwing it

in his face. Such quick returns as these would bring such very small

profit to a plaintiff that they are not allowable, and the writ can only

be returned by the sheriff bringing it back, on a certain day, into the

superior court. He then gives a short account, in writing, of the manner

in which the writ has been executed; but, if the bailiff has been pumped

upon--as we find reported in SHOWER--or pelted with oysters, as in

SHELLEY's case, or kicked down stairs, as he was in FOOT against the

Sheriff, it does not seem that the particulars need be set forth.

If the defendant does not appear within eight days after the writ has

come "greeting," as if it would say, "my service to you," the plaintiff

may, in most cases, appear for him; and this shows how true it is that

appearances are often deceitful and treacherous; for, when a plaintiff

appears for a defendant, it is only to have an opportunity of appearing

against him at the next step.

The pleadings now commence, which were originally delivered orally by

the parties themselves in open Court, when success might depend on

length of tongue; but the parties themselves being got rid of, in the

modern practice, and the lawyers coming in to represent them, success

usually depends on length of purse. The object of pleading, whether oral

or written, is to bring the parties to an issue; which means, literally,

a way out; but, in practice, the effect of getting plaintiff and

defendant to an issue is to let them both regularly in.

Almost all pleas, except those of the simplest kind, must be signed by a

barrister; who does not usually draw the plea, but he merely draws the

half guinea for the use of his name. The pleading begins with the

declaration, in which the plaintiff is supposed to state the cause of

action; but in which he gives such an exaggerated account of his

grievances, that not more than one-tenth of what he states, is to be

believed. For example, if A has had his nose slightly pulled by B, the

former proceeds to say that "the defendant, with force and arms, and

with great force and violence, seized, laid hold of, pulled, plucked,

and tore, and with his fists, gave and struck a great many violent

blows, and strokes, on and about, diverse parts of the plaintiff's

nose." If JONES has been given into custody by SMITH, without

sufficient reason; and JONES brings an action for false imprisonment;

instead of saying, "he was compelled to go to a station-house," he

declares that the defendant, "with force, and arms, seized, laid hold

of, and with great violence pulled, and dragged, and gave, and struck a

great many violent blows and strokes, and forced, and compelled him--the

plaintiff--to go in and along divers public streets and highways, to a

police office; whereby the plaintiff was not only greatly hurt, bruised,

and wounded, but was also kept."

If SNOOKS's dog bites THOMSON's pet lamb, SNOOKS declares, "That

defendant did willfully and injuriously keep a certain dog, he, the

defendant, well knowing that the said dog was and continued to be fierce

and mad, and accustomed to attack, bite, injure, hurt, chase, worry,

harass, tear, agitate, wound, lacerate, snap at, and kill sheep and

lambs, and that the said dog afterward to wit, on the -- day of ----,

and divers other days, did attack (&c., &c., down to) and kill one

hundred sheep and one hundred lambs of the plaintiff; whereby the said

sheep and the said lambs (it will be remembered there was only one

lamb), were greatly terrified, damaged, injured, hurt, deteriorated,

frightened, depreciated, floored, flustered, and flabbergasted, to the

damage of the plaintiff of £--, and therefore he brings his suit."

The various forms of declaration are so numerous, that they fill a

volume of 700 large pages of Chitty, who is quite chatty on this dry

subject, so much does he find to say with regard to it. To this able and

amusing writer we refer those who are curious to know how a schoolmaster

may declare for "work and labor, care, diligence, and attendance of

himself, his ushers and teachers, there performed and bestowed in and

about the teaching, instructing, boarding, educating, lodging, flogging,

enlightening, thrashing, washing, whipping, and otherwise soundly

improving divers infants and persons." These, and almost all other

conceivable causes of action, are dealt with fully in the pages to which

we allude, and all therefore who wish the treat of going to law, are

referred to the treatise alluded to.

* * * * *

SMITHFIELD CLUB CATTLE SHOW.

(FROM OUR OWN PROTECTIONIST.)

This melancholy event came off last week, when prizes were distributed

to the breeders of the very leanest stock--a brass band, the horns and

ophicleides draperied with black crape, playing funeral airs at

intervals. The results of free trade were never more shockingly

conspicuous than in the shadowy forms of steers and oxen; while there

was a pen of a dozen pigs, scarcely one of which was visible to the

naked eye. We observed more than one benevolent lady weeping pearls over

indefinite things that had vainly struggled to become porkers. There

were sheep that were nothing but the merest bladebones, here and there

covered with threads of worsted. The QUEEN and PRINCE ALBERT, with two

of the little Princes, visited the spectacle, contemplating it with

becoming gravity. The Prince carried away the prize for a bull that was

only visible when placed under a glass of forty Opera power.

Occasionally, an acute ear might detect sounds that a liberal mind might

interpret as ghost-like bellowings--spectral bleatings--with now and

then an asthmatic attempt at a grunt. The DUKE OF WELLINGTON's

battering-ram is not to be seen when looked at in front; but only from

either side. It is said to have been fed upon old drum-heads, with

occasionally the ribbons of a recruiting sergeant chopped and made into

a warm mash. We ought, by the way, to have remarked that the DUKE OF

RICHMOND attended, as President, in deep mourning; and bore in his face

and manner the profoundest traces of unutterable woe. However, let us

proceed to give the list of prizes, all of them so many triumphant

proofs of the withering influence of Free-Trade.

OXEN OR STEERS.

The DUKE OF RUTLAND carried away the £30 prize for the thinnest steer.

It had been fed on waste copies of Protectionist pamphlets with the tune

of "The Roast Beef of Old England," played in A flat on a tin trumpet.

Some idea may be entertained of the nicety with which the animal had

been brought to the lowest point of life, when we state that five

minutes after the noble Duke received the prize, the thing died; all the

brass band braying "The Roast Beef of Old England" for half-an-hour, in

the vain hope of reviving it. The beast was distributed among the

Marylebone poor; all of them ordered to appear in spectacles to see, if

possible, their proper quantities.

LONG-WOOLED SHEEP.

The DUKE OF ATHOLL bore off the first prize of £20, for an extraordinary

specimen of Highland sheep, that both puzzled and delighted the judges.

The sheep had been reared upon Highland thistles, according to the

Duke's well-known hospitality; and these thistles so judiciously served,

that they had taken the place of the wool, growing through the animal's

sides, and coating them all over with their brushy points. The REV. MR.

BENNETT was present, and was much delighted with his wool of thistles;

he is to be presented with a comforter--the thing will be very popular

by Christmas, to be called the Atholl Bosom Friend--woven from the

fleece. The web, in place of the vulgar linen shirt, is expected to

become very general with the ladies and gentlemen who feed upon the

honey hived at St. Barnabas.

PIGS.

COLONEL SIBTHORP took the prize for the Pig of Lead; so small a pig,

that it might creep down the tube of a MORDAN's pencil. MR. DISRAELI

sent the shadow of a sow; one of his practical epigrams, showing he had

ceased to have even a real squeak for Protection; he also sent a porker

that, from its largeness of size--where smallness was the object--was

deemed hopeless of any reward. However, MR. DISRAELI carefully removing

a muzzle from the pig's snout, the animal collapsed flat as a crush-hat.

The fact is, MR. DISRAELI had, as he afterward averred, seemingly

fattened the hog upon a pair of bellows. There are, we have heard, pigs

that see the wind; whether MR. DISRAELI's pig is of that sort, the

eloquent Protectionist said not. He, however, took a second prize; and

next year promises to exhibit a whole litter of the smallest pigs in the

world, suckled upon vials of aquafortis.

COWS.

The leap of the Cow that jumped over the Moon was exhibited by the DUKE

OF RICHMOND. This Cow had been fed on the printer's ink from the

_Standard_ newspaper, which sufficiently accounts for the daring

altitude of its flight. The Duke was proffered the gold medal, but

resolutely refused any such vanity.

In conclusion, we are happy to say that the Exhibition was well

attended. The thousands of our countrymen who witnessed the wretched

condition of the cattle must have carried away with them the profound

conviction, that the days of Free Trade are numbered; and that a speedy

return to Protection is called for by the interests of man and

brute--from Dukes to steers, from Parliament men to pigs.

* * * * *

OUR GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES.

There is so much precious ore being brought from California, that people

are beginning to fear gold may become a drug as well as a metal. Already

gold fish are quoted at Hungerford market lower than silver, the recent

importations having acted even upon the finny tribe, and those with

silver scales have had the balance turned in their favor. In Europe, we

go to great expense in watering the road to lay the dust; but the gold

dust of California is so valuable, that no watering carts are employed,

and when a man comes home from a dusty walk he has only to shake his

coat, to shake a good round sum into his pocket. In California the

housemaids stipulate for the dust as a perquisite, and the "regular

dustman" of the place pays an enormous sum for the privilege of acting

as "dust-contractor for the district."

* * * * *

UNIVERSAL CONTEMPT OF COURT.

It seems that any person is liable to be committed to prison for his

lifetime by the Court of Chancery, as guilty of contempt of Court, for

not paying that which he has not to pay, and for not doing other

impossibilities. What a number of people might be committed for contempt

of the Court of Chancery, if we all expressed our feelings!

* * * * *

STARTLING FACT!

[Illustration: A startling Fact]

_Oxford Swell._ "DO YOU MAKE MANY OF THESE MONKEY-JACKETS NOW?"

_Snip._ "OH DEAR YES, SIR. THERE ARE MORE MONKEYS IN OXFORD THIS TERM

THAN EVER, SIR."

Early Spring Fashions.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--MORNING AND EVENING COSTUMES.]

March is a fickle month; one day dallying with Zephyrus in the warm

sunlight, and promising verdure and flowers, and the next playing

bo-peep with Boreas at every corner, and spreading a mantle of frost or

snow over the fields where the early blossoms are venturing forth.

"Now Winter lingers in the lap of Spring,"

and the ladies should remember the trite maxim, when preparing to lay

aside their heavy garments, that "one swallow does not make a Summer." A

few sunny days, during this month, will allow a change of out-of-door

costume, and for these Fashion has already provided; but generally the

winter fabrics and forms will be seasonable till near the close of the

month. The PROMENADE COSTUMES are the same as in February, and we omit

an illustration of them.

In the large plate, the larger figure on the left, shows a beautiful and

graceful style of MORNING COSTUME. It consists of a robe of blue

_brocade_; the high body opens in the front nearly to the waist. The

fronts of the skirt are lined with amber satin, and a fulling of the

same is placed on the edge of the fronts, graduating in width toward the

top, and carried round the neck of the dress.

The sleeves are very wide from the elbow, and lined with amber satin.

The edge of the sleeve is left plain, but there is a _rûche_ of satin

round the middle of the sleeve, just below the elbow. Underdress of

jaconet muslin, trimmed with lace, or embroidery. The cap is of _tulle_,

with blue trimmings.

The larger figure on the right, exhibits an EVENING DRESS of great

elegance. A skirt of white satin, the lower part trimmed with narrow

folds of the same, put on at equal distances. The sides are decorated

with an elongated puffing of satin, surrounded with a fulling of narrow

_blonde_. Over this is worn a short round tunic of white _tulle_,

encircled with a frilling of _blonde_, and decorated upon each side of

the front with two small white roses, surrounded with green leaves. The

body plain, pointed, draped with white _tulle_ and lace, forming short

sleeves. The small figure in the group shows a pretty style of dress for

a little Miss. It is of dark blue cashmere, the skirt trimmed with two

rows of ribbon-velvet. The cape is formed of narrow folds, open in the

front, and continued across with bands of velvet. Pantaloons of

embroidered cambric. The bonnet is formed of narrow pink fancy ribbon.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--MORNING COSTUME.]

FIGURE 2 represents another pretty style of MORNING COSTUME. It is a

high dress of pale blue silk, opening in front nearly to the waist,

which is long and pointed. It has a small cape, vandyked at the edge,

and trimmed with a narrow fringe, having a heading of velvet; the

sleeves to correspond. The skirt is long and full, with three broad

flounces deeply vandyked, and edged with two rows of narrow fringe

corresponding with those of the capes. The top flounce is headed by a

single row of fringe. Underdress and undersleeves, jaconet muslin,

trimmed with lace or embroidery. The cap is black lace, with a tie and

falls of the same. A full _rûche_ of white _tulle_ entirely surrounds

the face.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--VELVET BONNET.]

In bonnets there are a great variety of new and elegant patterns. The

front of the brims continue very large and open, the crowns round, low,

and small. FIGURE 3 is rather an exception to the extreme of fashion It

shows a very neat style of plain bonnets suitable for the closing

winter. It is of ultramarine velvet, with a broad black lace turned back

over the edge, and a deep curtain. A very fashionable style is composed

of Orient gray pearl, half satin, half _velours épinglé_, having a very

rich effect, and decorated with _touffés marquises_ made of _marabouts_.

Several very light and elegant bonnets have appeared, made entirely of

_blonde_, and ornamented with pink _marabouts_, and _sablés_ with

silver, which droops in _touffés_ upon the inclined side of the front,

while the other side is relieved with a bunch of pink velvet leaves.

Another style is very elegant for early Spring, represented in FIGURE 4.

It is made of light green fluted ribbon, a plain foundation, over which,

at the edge of the front and toward the crown, is the same material,

vandyked in pattern. The bonnet front is waved. Bonnets of white silk

(FIGURE 5) trimmed with lace, quite small and ornamented in the front

with small bunches of flowers, are fashionable for a carriage costume.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--RIBBON BONNET.]

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--WHITE SILK BONNET.]

The season for balls is nearly over. Dresses for these assemblies are

made of light material, and with two or three skirts. One charming model

is composed of white _tulle_, with three skirts trimmed all round with a

broad open-worked satin ribbon; the third skirt being raised on one

side, and attached with a large bouquet of flowers, while the ribbon is

twisted, and ascends to the side of the waist, where it finishes. The

same kind of flowers ornament the sleeves and centre of the corsage,

which is also trimmed with a deep drapery of _tulle_.

Feather trimmings are now much in vogue, disposed on fringes of

_marabout_, and placed at the edge of the double skirts of _tulle_.

FOR HEAD DRESSES, flowers and lace are in constant request.

FASHIONABLE COLORS are of deep and mellow hues; white predominates for

evening use.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Words surrounded by _ are italicized.

Words surrounded by = are bold.

Letters with unicode diacritical markings are represented as follow:

[=o] represents the letter o with a macron (straight line) mark above it;

[)a] represents the letter a with a breve (u-shaped) mark above it.

Captions added to captionless illustrations.

Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired, other punctuations have

been left as printed in the paper book.

Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent

spellings have been kept, including:

- use of hyphen (e.g. "moonlight" and "moon-light");

- accents (e.g. "Nüremberg" and "Nuremberg");

- proper names (e.g. "Leipsic" and "Leipzig");

- any other inconsistent spellings (e.g. "Machiavelian" and

"Machiavellian").

Pg 548, word "thing" removed (One thing [thing] only).