Thus he spoke, and snatched a trumpet

Swiftly from a soldier's hand,

And therein he blew so shrilly,

That along the rocky strand

Rang the war-note, till the echoes

From the distant hills replied,

Hundred trumpets wildly wailing,

Poured their blast on every side;

And the loud and hearty shout of Britain rent the skies,

"Three cheers for noble Palmerston! another cheer for Wyse!"

XI.

Gentles! I am very sorry

That I can not yet relate,

Of this gallant expedition,

What has been the final fate.

Whether Athens was bombarded

For her Jew-coercing crimes,

Hath not been as yet reported

In the columns of the _Times_.

But the last accounts assure us of some valuable spoil:

Various coasting vessels, laden with tobacco, fruit, and oil.

XII.

Ancient chiefs! that sailed with Jason

O'er the wild and stormy waves--

Let not sounds of later triumphs

Stir you in your quiet graves!

Other Argonauts have ventured

To your old Hellenic shore,

But they will not live in story

Like the valiant men of yore.

O! 'tis more than shame and sorrow thus to jest upon a theme

That for Britain's fame and glory, all would wish to be dream!

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.

THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE will present monthly a digest of all Foreign

Events, Incidents, and Opinions, that may seem to have either interest

or value for the great body of American readers. Domestic intelligence

reaches every one so much sooner through the Daily and Weekly

Newspapers, that its repetition in the pages of a Monthly would be dull

and profitless. We shall confine our summary, therefore, to the events

and movements of foreign lands.

* * * * *

The AFFAIRS OF FRANCE continue to excite general interest. The election

of member of the Assembly in Paris has been the great European event of

the month. The Socialists nominated EUGENE SUE; their opponents, M.

LECLERC. The first is known to all the world as a literary man of great

talent, personally a profligate--wealthy, unprincipled, and

unscrupulous. The latter was a tradesman, distinguished for nothing but

having fought and lost a son at the barricades, and entirely unqualified

for the post for which he had been put in nomination. The contest was

thus not so much a struggle between the _men_, as the _parties_ they

represented; and those parties were not simply Socialists and

Anti-Socialists. Each party included more than its name would imply. The

Socialists in Paris are all Republicans: it suits the purposes of the

Government to consider all Republicans as Socialists, inasmuch as it

gives them an admirable opportunity to make war upon Republicanism,

while they seem only to be resisting Socialism. In this adroit and

dangerous manner LOUIS NAPOLEON was advancing with rapid strides toward

that absolutism--that personal domination independent of the

Constitution, which is the evident aim of all his efforts and all his

hopes. He had gone on exercising the most high-handed despotism, and

violating the most explicit and sacred guarantees of the Constitution.

He had forbidden public meetings, suppressed public papers, and outraged

private rights, with the most wanton disregard of those provisions of

the Constitution by which they are expressly guaranteed. The nomination

of EUGENE SUE was a declaration of hostility to this unconstitutional

dynasty. He was supported not only by the Socialists proper, but by all

citizens who were in favor of maintaining the Republic with its

constitutional guarantees. The issue was thus between a Republic and a

Monarchy, between the Constitution and a Revolution. For days previous

to the election this issue was broadly marked, and distinctly recognized

by all the leading royalist journals, and the Republic was attacked with

all the power of argument and ridicule. Repressive laws, and a stronger

form of government, which should bridle the fierce democracy, were

clamorously demanded. The very day before the polls were opened, the

_Napoleon_ journal, which derives its chief inspiration from the

President, drew a colored parallel between the necessities of the 18th

_Brumaire_, and those of the present crisis, and entered into a labored

vindication of all the arbitrary measures which followed BONAPARTE's

dissolution of the Assembly, and his usurpation of the executive power.

The most high-handed expedients were resorted to by the ministry to

assure the success of the coalition. The sale of all the principal

democratic journals in the streets was interdicted. The legal

prosecutions of the Procureur General virtually reestablished the

censorship of the Press. Placards in favor of the democratic candidate

were excluded from the street walls, while those of his opponent were

every where emblazoned. Electoral meetings were prohibited; democratic

merchants and shop-keepers were threatened with a loss of patronage; and

the whole republican party was officially denounced as a horde of

imbeciles, and knaves, and fanatics. No means were left unemployed by

the reactionists to secure a victory.

It was all in vain. On closing the polls the vote stood thus:

EUGENE SUE 128,007

M. LECLERC 119,420

-------

SUE's majority 8,587

And, what is still more startling, _four-fifths_ of all the votes given

by the Army were cast for SUE. The result created a good deal of alarm

in Paris. Stocks fell, and there seemed to be a general apprehension of

an outbreak. If any such event occurs, however, it will be through the

instigation of the Government. Finding himself outvoted, LOUIS NAPOLEON

would undoubtedly be willing to try force. In any event, we do not

believe it will be found possible to overthrow Republicanism in France.

Previous to the election there was a _Mutiny in the 11th Infantry_. On

the march of the 2d battalion from Rennes to Toulon, on the 11th April,

the popular cry was raised by the common soldiers, urged on by the

democrats of the town, and they insulted their officers. At Angers the

men were entertained at a fete; and in the evening the soldiers and

subaltern officers, accompanied by their entertainers, paraded the

streets, shouting again and again, "Vive la Republique democratique et

sociale!" The Minister of War, on receiving intelligence of this affair,

ordered the battalion to be disbanded, and the subalterns and soldiers

drafted into the regiments at Algiers.

Besides this disgrace, an involuntary and _Appalling Calamity_ befell

this regiment. When the 3d battalion was leaving Angers, on the 16th, at

eleven o'clock in the morning they met a squadron of hussars coming from

Nantes, which crossed over the suspension-bridge of the Basse Maine,

without any accident. A fearful storm raged at the time. The last of the

horses had scarcely crossed the bridge than the head of the column of

the third battalion of the 11th appeared on the other side. Reiterated

warnings were given to the troops to break into sections, as is usually

done, but, the rain falling heavily, it was disregarded, and they

advanced in close column. The head of the battalion had reached the

opposite side--the pioneers, the drummers, and a part of the band were

off the bridge, when a horrible crash was heard; the cast-iron columns

of the right bank suddenly gave way, crushing beneath them the rear of

the fourth company, which, with the flank company, had not stepped upon

the bridge. To describe the frightful spectacle, and the cries of

despair which were raised, is impossible. The whole town rushed to the

spot to give assistance. In spite of the storm, all the boats that could

be got at were launched to pick up the soldiers in the river, and a

great number who were clinging to the parapets of the bridge, or who

were afloat by their knapsacks, were immediately got out. The greater

number were, however, found to be wounded by the bayonets, or by the

fragments of the bridge falling on them. As the soldiers were got out,

they were led into the houses adjoining, and every assistance given. A

young lieutenant, M. Loup, rendered himself conspicuous for his heroic

exertions; and a young workwoman, at the imminent danger of her life,

jumped into the water, and saved the life of an officer who was just

sinking. A journeyman hatter stripped and jumped into the river, and, by

his strength and skill in swimming, saved a great many lives. One of the

soldiers who had reached the shore unhurt, immediately stripped, and

swam to the assistance of his comrades. The lieutenant-colonel, an old

officer of the empire, was taken out of the river seriously wounded, but

remained to watch over the rescue of his comrades. It appears that some

people of the town were walking on the bridge at the time of the

accident, for among the bodies found were those of a servant-maid and

two children.

When the muster-roll was called, it was found that there were 219

soldiers missing, whose fate was unknown. There were, besides, 33 bodies

lying in the hospital, and 30 wounded men; 70 more bodies were found

during the morning, 4 of whom were officers.

_M. Proudhon was arrested_ on the 18th, and sent to the fortress of

Doullens, for having charged the ministry in his own paper, the "Voix du

Peuple," with having occasioned the disaster of Angers by sending the

11th Regiment of Light Infantry to Africa. In a letter from prison he

acquitted the government of design in producing the catastrophe, but in

a tone which hinted the possibility of so diabolical a crime having been

meditated.

A _Notorious Murderer_ has been arrested in France, whose mysterious and

criminal career would afford the materials for a romance. He was taken

at Ivry; in virtue of a writ granted by the President, on the demand of

the Sardinian government, having been condemned for a murder under

extraordinary circumstances. He was arrested in 1830, at Chambery, his

native town, for being concerned in a murder; but he escaped from the

prison of Bonneville, where he was confined, and by means of a disguise

succeeded in reaching the town of Chene Tonnex, where he went to an inn

which was full of travelers. There being no vacant beds, the innkeeper

allowed him to sleep in a room with a cattle-dealer, named Claude Duret.

The unfortunate cattle-dealer was found dead in the morning, he having

been smothered with the mattress on which he had slept. He had a large

sum of money with him, which was stolen, and this, as well as his

papers, had, no doubt, been taken by Louis Pellet, who had disappeared.

Judicial inquiries ensued, and the result was that Louis Pellet, already

known to have committed a murder, was condemned, _par contumace_, to ten

years' imprisonment at the galleys by the senate of Chambery. In the

mean time Louis Pellet, profiting by the papers of the unfortunate

Claude Duret, contrived to reach Paris, when he opened a shop, where he

organized a foreign legion for Algeria, enrolled himself under the name

of his victim, and sailed for Oran in a government vessel. From this

time up to 1834 all trace of him was lost. He came to Paris, took a

house, amassed a large sum of money, and it turns out he was mixed up

with a number of cases of murder, swindling, and forgery. These facts

came to the knowledge of the police, owing to Pellet having been taken

before the Correctional Police for a trifling offense, when he appealed

against the punishment of confinement for five days. The French

government immediately sent an account of the arrest of this great

criminal to the consul of the government of Savoy resident at Paris.

* * * * *

Political movements in ENGLAND are not without interest and importance,

although nothing startling has occurred. The birth of another Prince,

christened ARTHUR, has furnished another occasion for evincing the

attachment of the English people to their sovereign. The event, which,

occurred on the 28th of April, was celebrated by the usual

demonstrations of popular joy. Few years will elapse, however, before

each of the princes and princesses, whose advent is now so warmly

welcomed, will require a splendid and expensive establishment, which

will add still more to the burdens of taxation which already press, with

overwhelming weight, upon the great mass of the English people. Thus it

is that every thing in that country, however fortunate and welcome it

may appear, tends irresistibly to an increase of popular burdens which

infallibly give birth to popular discontents.

The attention of Parliament has been attracted of late, in an unusual

degree, to the intellectual wants of the humbler classes, and to the

removal, by legislation, of some of the many restrictions which now

deprive them of all access even to the most ordinary sources of

information. Even newspapers, which in this country go into the hands

of every man, woman, and child who can read, and which therefore enable

every member of the community to keep himself informed concerning all

matters of interest to him as a citizen, are virtually prohibited to the

poorer classes in England by the various duties which are imposed upon

them, and which raise the price so high as to be beyond their reach. Mr.

GIBSON, in the House of Commons, brought forward resolutions, on the

16th of April, to abolish what he justly styled these _Taxes on

Knowledge_: they proposed 1st, to repeal the excise duty only on paper;

2d, to abolish the stamp, and 3d, the advertisement duty on newspapers;

4th, to do away with the customs duty on foreign books. In urging these

measures Mr. GIBSON said, that the sacrifice of the small excise duty on

paper yearly, would lead to the employment of 40,000 people in London

alone. The suppression of Chambers' Miscellany, and the prevented

re-issue of Mr. Charles Knight's Penny Cyclopaedia, from the pressure of

the duty, were cited as gross instances of the check those duties impose

on the diffusion of knowledge. Mr. GIBSON did not propose to alter the

postal part of the newspaper stamp duties; all the duty paid for

postage--a very large proportion--would therefore still be paid. He

dwelt on the unjust Excise caprices which permit this privilege to

humorous and scientific weekly periodicals, but deny it to the avowed

"news" columns of the daily press. He especially showed by extracts from

a heap of unstamped newspapers, that great evil is committed on the

poorest reading classes, by denying them that useful fact and true

exposition which would be the best antidote to the pernicious principles

now disseminated among them by the cheap, unstamped press. There is no

reason but this duty, which only gives L350,000 per annum, why the poor

man should not have his penny and even his halfpenny newspaper, to give

him the leading facts and the important ideas of the passing time. The

tax on advertisements checks information, fines poverty, mulcts charity,

depresses literature, and impedes every species of mental activity, to

realize L150,000 per annum. That mischievous tax on knowledge, the duty

on foreign books, is imposed for the sake of no more than L8000 a year!

Mr. GIBSON concluded by expressing his firm conviction, that unless

these taxes were removed, and the progress of knowledge by that and

every other possible means facilitated, evils most terrible would arise

in the future--a not unfit retribution for the gross impolicy of the

legislature. He was supported by Mr. ROEBUCK, but the motion was

negatived, 190 to 89. In his speech he instanced a curious specimen of

the manner in which the act is sometimes evaded. A Greenock publisher

himself informed him that, having given offense to the authorities by

some political reflections in a weekly unstamped newspaper of his of the

character of _Chambers's Journal_, he was prosecuted for violation of

the Stamp Act, and fined for each of five numbers L25. Thereupon he

diligently studied the Act; and finding that printing upon _cloth_ was

not within the prohibition, he set to work and printed his journal upon

cloth--giving matter "savoring of intelligence" without the penny

stamp--and calling his paper the _Greenock Newscloth_, sent it forth

despite the Solicitor to the Stamp Office.

The _Education Bill_ introduced by Mr. Fox came up on the 17th, and was

discussed at some length. The general character of the measure proposed,

is very forcibly set forth in an article from the _Examiner_, which will

be found upon a preceding page of this Magazine. The bill was opposed

mainly by Lord ARUNDEL, a Catholic, on the ground that it made no

provision for religious education, and secular education he denounced as

essentially atheistic. Mr. ROEBUCK advocated the bill in an able and

eloquent speech, urging the propriety of education as a means of

preventing crime. He asked for the education of the people, and he asked

it upon the lowest ground. As a mere matter of policy, the state ought

to educate the people; and why did he say so? Lord Ashley had been

useful in his generation in getting up Ragged Schools. It was a great

imputation upon the kingdom that such schools were needed. Why were they

needed? Because of the vice which was swarming in all our great cities.

"We pass laws," said he, "send forth an army of judges and barristers to

administer them, erect prisons and place aloft gibbets to enforce them;

but religious bigotry prevents the chance of our controlling the evil at

the source, by so teaching the people as to prevent the crimes we strive

to punish." It was because he believed that prevention was better than

cure; it was because he believed that the business of government was to

prevent crime in every possible way rather than to punish it after its

commission, that he asked the house to divest themselves of all that

prejudice and bigotry which was at the bottom of the opposition to this

measure. The bill was warmly opposed, however, and its further

consideration was postponed until the 20th of May.

The ministry during the month has been defeated upon several measures,

though upon none of very great importance. In the first week of the

meeting of parliament after the Easter holidays, the cabinet had to

endure, in the House of Commons, three defeats--two positive, and one

comparative; and, shortly after, a fourth. On a motion, having for its

object improvement in the status and accommodation of assistant-surgeons

on board Her Majesty's ships, ministers were placed in a minority equal

to eight votes. On the measure for extending the jurisdiction of county

courts, to which they were not disposed to agree, they voted with a

minority, which numbered 67 against 144 votes. These were the positive

defeats; the comparative one arose out of a motion to abolish the

window-tax. Against this the cabinet made come effort, but its

supporters only mustered in sufficient strength to afford a majority of

three. Their last disaster was in a committee on the New Stamp Duties

Bill. The ministry seem disposed to gratify the public by economy so far

as possible. Lord JOHN RUSSELL having introduced and carried a motion

for a select committee on the subject.

Great preparations are making for the Industrial Exhibition of 1851. It

has been decided that it is to take place in Hyde Park in a building

made of iron to guard against fire. The _Literary Gazette_ has the

following paragraph in regard to it:

"We are informed that an overture has been received by the Royal

Commissioners from the government of the United States of America,

offering to remove the exhibition, after its close in London, to be

reproduced at New York, and paying a consideration for the same which

would go toward the increase of the English fund. With regard to this

fund, while we again express our regret at its languishing so much, and

at the continuance of the jobbing which inflicted the serious wound on

its commencement, and is still allowed to paralyze the proceedings in

chief, we adhere to the opinion that it will be sufficient for the

Occasion. The Occasion, not as bombastically puffed, but as nationally

worthy; and that the large sum which may be calculated upon for

admissions (not to mention this new American element), will carry it

through in as satisfactory a manner as could be expected."

The _Expeditions to the Arctic Seas_ in search of Sir JOHN FRANKLIN

attract a good deal of attention. It is stated that Captain Penny was to

sail April 30th from Scotland, in command of the two ships the Lady

Franklin and the Sophia. He will proceed without delay to Jones's Sound;

which he purposes thoroughly to explore. The proposed expedition under

the direction of Sir John Ross will also be carried into execution. He

will sail from Ayr about the middle of May; and will probably be

accompanied by Commander Philips, who was with Sir James Ross in his

Antarctic Expedition. Another expedition, in connection with that of Sir

John Ross, is under consideration. It has for its object the search of

Prince Regent's Inlet by ship as far south as Brentford Bay; from whence

walking and boating parties might be dispatched in various directions.

This plan--which could be carried into effect by dispatching a small

vessel with Sir John Ross, efficiently equipped for the service--is

deemed highly desirable by several eminent authorities; as it is

supposed--and not without considerable reason--that Sir John Franklin

may be to the south of Cape Walker; and that he would, in such case,

presuming him to be under the necessity of forsaking his ships this

spring, prefer making for the wreck of the Fury stores in Prince

Regent's Inlet, the existence of which he is aware of, to attempting to

gain the barren shore of North America, which would involve great hazard

and fatigue. As a matter of course this second expedition would be of a

private nature, and wholly independent of those dispatched by the

Admiralty. These various expeditions, in addition to that organized by

Mr. HENRY GRINELL of New York, will do all that can be done toward

rescuing Captain FRANKLIN, or, at least, obtaining some knowledge of his

fate.

The death of WORDSWORTH, the Patriarch of English Poetry, and that of

BOWLES, distinguished also in the same high sphere, have called forth

biographical notices from the English press. A sketch of each of these

distinguished men will be found in these pages. The propriety of

discontinuing the laureateship is forcibly urged. About L2000 has been

contributed toward the erection of a monument to Lord JEFFREY.

* * * * *

The LONDON SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES present nothing of extraordinary

interest for the month. At the meeting of the Geological Society, March

28, Sir RODERICK MURCHISON read a paper of some importance on the

Relations of the Hot Water and Vapor sources of Tuscany to the Volcanic

Eruptions of Italy. On the 10th of April, a paper was read from Prof.

LEPSIUS on the height of the Nile valley in Nubia, which was formerly

much greater than it is now.

At the Royal Society, April 12, the Rev. Professor O'BRIEN, in a paper

"on a Popular View of certain Points in the Undulatory Theory of Light,"

restricted his illustration to a single topic, namely, the analogy of

the mixture of colors to the mixture of sounds, having first explained

generally what the undulatory theory of light is, and the composition of

colors and sounds. At the meeting on the 19th, Mr. STENHOUSE, in

concluding a paper on the artificial production of organic bases, said

he did not despair of producing artificially the natural alkaloids, and

the more especially as, thirty years ago, we could not produce any

alkaloids. Before the chair was vacated, Mr. FARADAY submitted a

powerful magnet which had been sent to him by a foreign philosopher;

indeed, it was the strongest ever made. A good magnet, Mr. Faraday said,

weighing 8 lbs., would support a weight of about 40 lbs. The magnet he

exhibited had surprised him; it weighed only 1 lb., and it supported

26-1/2 lbs. This magnet, so beautifully made, was, we believe,

constructed by M. Lozeman, on a new method, the result of the researches

of M. Elias, both of Haarlem.

At another meeting of the same society, Dr. MANTELL submitted a paper

upon the _Pelorosaurus_, an undescribed, gigantic terrestrial reptile,

of which an enormous arm-bone, or humerus, has recently been discovered

in Sussex. It was found imbedded in sandstone, by Mr. Peter Fuller, of

Lewes, at about twenty feet below the surface; it presents the usual

mineralized condition of the fossil bones from the arneaceous strata of

the Wealden. It is four and a half feet in length, and the circumference

of its distal extremity is 32 inches! It has a medullary cavity 3 inches

in diameter, which at once separates it from the Cetiosaurus and other

supposed marine Saurians, while its form and proportions distinguish it

from the humerus of the Iguanodon, Hylaeosaurus, and Megalosaurus. It

approaches most nearly to the Crocodilians, but possesses characters

distinct from any known fossil genus. Its size is stupendous, far

surpassing that of the corresponding bone even of the gigantic

Iguanodon; and the name of _Pelorosaurus_ (from [Greek: pelor], _pelor_,

monster) is, therefore, proposed for the genus, with the specific term

_Conybeari_, in honor of the palaeontological labors of the Dean of

Llandaff. No bones have been found in such contiguity with this humerus

as to render it certain that they belonged to the same gigantic reptile;

but several very large caudal vertebrae of peculiar characters, collected

from the same quarry, are probably referable to the Pelorosaurus; these,

together with some distal caudals which belong to the same type, are

figured and described by the author. Certain femora and other bones from

the oolite of Oxfordshire, in the collection of the dean of Westminster,

at Oxford, are mentioned as possessing characters more allied to those

of the Pelorosaurus, or to some unknown terrestrial Saurian, than to the

Cetiosaurus, with which they have been confounded. As to the magnitude

of the animal to which the humerus belonged, Dr. Mantell, while

disclaiming the idea of arriving at any certain conclusions from a

single bone, stated that in a Gavial 18 feet long, the humerus is one

foot in length, _i.e._, one-eighteenth part of the length of the animal,

from the end, of the muzzle to the tip of the tail. According to these

admeasurements the Pelorosaurus would be 81 feet long, and its body 20

feet in circumference. But if we assume the length and number of the

vertebrae as the scale, we should have a reptile of relatively

abbreviated proportions; even in this case, however, the original

creature would far surpass in magnitude the most colossal of reptilian

forms. A writer in the _Athenaeum_, in speaking of the expense of marble

and bronze statues, which limits the possession of works of high art to

the wealthy, calls attention to the fact that _lead_ possesses every

requisite for the casting of statues which bronze possesses,

while it excels that costly material in two very important

particulars--cheapness, and fusibility at a low temperature. As evidence

that it may be used for that purpose, he cites the fact that the finest

piece of statuary in Edinburgh is composed of lead. This is the

equestrian statue of Charles the Second, erected in the Parliament

Square by the magistrates of Edinburgh in honor of the restoration of

that monarch. This statue is such a fine work of art that it has

deceived almost every one who has mentioned its composition. Thus, a

late writer in giving an account of the statuary in Edinburgh describes

it as consisting of "hollow bronze;" and in "Black's Guide through

Edinburgh" it is spoken of as "the best specimen of bronze statuary

which Edinburgh possesses." _It is, however, composed of lead_, and has

already, without sensible deterioration, stood the test of 165 years'

exposure to the weather, and it still seems as fresh as if erected but

yesterday. Lead, therefore, appears from this instance to be

sufficiently durable to induce artists to make trial of it in metallic

castings, instead of bronze.

Intelligence from Mosul to the 4th ult. states that Mr. LAYARD and his

party are still carrying on their excavations at Nimrood and Nineveh. A

large number of copper vessels beautifully engraved have been found in

the former; and from the latter a large assortment of fine slabs

illustrative of the rule, conquests, domestic life, and arts of the

ancient Assyrians, are daily coming to light, and are committed to paper

by the artist, Mr. Cooper, one of the expedition. Mr Layard intends to

make a trip to the Chaboor, the Chaboras of the Romans, and to visit

Reish Aina, the Resen of Scripture, where he hopes to find a treasure of

Assyrian remains.

* * * * *

THE LITERARY INTELLIGENCE of the month is not of special interest. The

first part of a new work by WILLIAM MURE, entitled a "Critical History

of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece," has just been

published in London, and elicits warm commendation from the critical

journals. The three volumes thus far published are devoted mainly to a

discussion of HOMER. Mr. CHARLES MERIVALE has also completed and

published two volumes of his "History of the Romans under the Empire,"

which extend to the death of Julius Caesar.

Mrs. SARA COLERIDGE, widow of HENRY NELSON, and daughter of S.T.

COLERIDGE, has collected such of her father's supposed writings in the

Watchman, Morning Post, and Courier, ranging between the years 1795 and

1817, as could with any certainty be identified for his, and, with such

as he avowed by his signature, has published them in three duodecimo

volumes, as _Essays on his own Times_, or a second series of _The

Friend_. They are dedicated to Archdeacon Hare, and embody not a little

of that system of thought, or method of regarding public affairs from

the point of view of a liberal and enlarged Christianity, which is now

ordinarily associated with what is called the German party in the

English Church. The volumes are not only a valuable contribution to the

history of a very remarkable man's mind, but also to the history of the

most powerful influence now existing in the world--the Newspaper Press.

A more complete and elaborate work upon this subject, however, has

appeared in the shape of two post octavo volumes by Mr. F. KNIGHT HUNT,

entitled _The Fourth Estate_. Mr. Hunt describes his book very fairly as

contributions toward a history of newspapers, and of the liberty of the

press, rather than as a complete historical view of either; but he has

had a proper feeling for the literature of his subject, and has varied

his entertaining anecdotes of the present race of newspaper men, with

extremely curious and valuable notices of the past.

Of books on mixed social and political questions the most prominent has

been a new volume of Mr. LAING's _Observations on the Social and

Political State of the European People_, devoted to the last two years,

from the momentous incidents of which Mr. Laing derives sundry warnings

as to the instability of the future, the necessity of changes in

education and political arrangements, and the certain ultimate

predominance of material over imaginative influences in the progress of

civilization, which his readers will very variously estimate, according

to their habits of thinking; and Mr. KAY's collections of evidence as to

the present _Social Condition and Education of the People in England and

Europe_, the object of which is to show that the results of the primary

schools, and of the system of dividing landed property, existing on the

Continent, has been to produce a certain amount of mental cultivation

and social comfort among the lower classes of the people abroad, to

which the same classes in England can advance no claim whatever. The

book contains a great deal of curious evidence in support of this

opinion.

Of works strictly relating to modern history, the first volume of

General KLAPKA's memoirs of the _War in Hungary_, and a military

treatise by Colonel CATHCART on the _Russian and German Campaigns of

1812 and 1813_, may be mentioned as having authority. Klapka was a

distinguished actor in the war he now illustrates by his narrative, and

Colonel Cathcart saw eight general actions lost and won in which

Napoleon commanded in person.

In the department of biography, the principal publications have been a

greatly improved edition of Mr. Charles Knight's illustrations of the

_Life of Shakspeare_, with the erasure of many fanciful, and the

addition of many authentic details; a narrative of the _Life of the Duke

of Kent_, by Mr. Erskine Neale, in which the somewhat troubled career of

that very amiable prince is described with an evident desire to do

justice to his character and virtues; and a _Life of Dr. Andrew Combe_,

of Edinburgh, an active and benevolent physician, who led the way in

that application of the truths and teachings of physiology to health and

education, which has of late occupied so largely the attention of the

best thinkers of the time, and whose career is described with

affectionate enthusiasm by his brother Mr. George Combe. Not as a

regular biography, but as a delightful assistance, not only to our

better knowledge of the wittiest and one of the wisest of modern men,

but to our temperate and just judgments of all men, we may mention the

publication of the posthumous fragments of Sydney Smith's _Elementary

Sketches of Moral Philosophy_.

To the department of poetry, Mr. BROWNING's _Christmas Eve and Easter

Day_ has been the most prominent addition. But we have also to mention a

second and final volume of _More Verse and Prose_ by the late Corn-law

Rhymer; a new poetical translation of _Dante's Divine Comedy_, by Mr.

Patrick Bannerman; and a dramatic poem, called the _Roman_, by a writer

who adopts the fictitious name of Sydney Yendys, on the recent

revolutionary movements in Italy. In prose fiction, the leading

productions have been a novel entitled the _Initials_, depicting German

social life, by a new writer; and an historical romance, called

_Reginald Hastings_, of which the subject is taken from the English

civil wars, by Mr. ELIOT WARBURTON.

* * * * *

The DEATHS OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS, during the month, have not been

very numerous, though they comprise names of considerable celebrity in

various departments.

Of WORDSWORTH and BOWLES, both poets, and both friends of COLERIDGE,

LAMB, SOUTHEY, and CRABBE, more detailed mention is made in preceding

pages.

Lieut.-General Sir JAMES BATHURST, K.C.B., died at Kibworth Rectory,

Leicestershire, on the 13th, in his 68th year. When he entered the army

in 1794, if his age be correctly stated, he could have been only twelve

years of age. He served at Gibraltar and in the West Indies, the capture

of Surinam, the campaign in Egypt in 1801, in the expedition to Hanover,

and in the actions fought for the relief of Dantzic, as well as in those

of Lomitten, Deppen, Gutstadt, Heilsberg, and Friedland. Subsequently he

served at Rugen, and at the siege of Copenhagen. In 1808 and 1809, he

served with the army in Portugal and Spain as assistant

quartermaster-general, and as military secretary to the Duke of

Wellington.

Madame DULCKEN died on the 13th, in Harley-street, aged 38. She was the

sister of the celebrated violinist, David, and had been for many years

resident in England, where she held a conspicuous position among the

most eminent professors of the piano-forte.

Sir ARCHIBALD GALLOWAY, Chairman of the Hon. East India Company, died on

the 6th, in London, aged 74, after a few hours' illness. He transacted

business at the India House, on the 4th, and presided at the banquet

recently given by the directors of the East India Company to Lord Gough.

Rear-Admiral HILLS died on the 8th, aged 73. He became a lieutenant in

1798, and a post-captain in 1814. The deceased was a midshipman of the

Eclair at the occupation of Toulon, and was lieutenant of the Amethyst

at the capture of various prizes during the late war.

Dr. PROUT, F.R.S., expired in Piccadilly, on the 9th, at an advanced

age. He was till lately in extensive practice as a physician, besides

being a successful author.

Captain SMITH, R.N., the Admiralty superintendent of packets at

Southampton, died on the 8th, unexpectedly. He was distinguished as the

inventor of paddle-box boats for steamers, and of the movable target for

practicing naval gunnery. He entered the navy in 1808, and saw a good

deal of service till the close of the war.

Madame TUSSAUD, the well-known exhibitor of wax figures, died on the

10th, in her 90th year. She was a native of Berne, but left Switzerland

when but six years old for Paris, where she became a pupil of her uncle,

M. Curtius, "artiste to Louis XVI.," by whom she was instructed in the

fine arts, of which he was an eminent professor. Madame Tussaud prided

herself upon the fact of having instructed Madame Elizabeth to draw and

model, and she continued to be employed by that princess until October,

1789. She passed unharmed through the horrors of the Revolution, perhaps

by reason of her peculiar ability as a modeler; for she was employed to

take heads of most of the Revolutionary leaders. She came to England in

1802, and has from that time been occupied in gathering the popular

exhibition now exhibiting in London.

* * * * *

Affairs in ITALY seem very unpromising. The POPE returned to Rome on the

12th: and in this number of this Magazine will be found a detailed and

very graphic account of his approach, entry, and reception. From

subsequent accounts there is reason to fear that the POPE has fallen

entirely under the influence of the Absolutist party, which now sways

the councils of the Vatican; and the same arbitrary proceedings appear

to be carried on in his immediate presence as were the order of the day

when he resided at Portici. The secret press of the Republican party is

kept at work, and its productions, somehow or other, find their way into

the hands of PIO NONO himself, filling him with indignation. It is said

that the Pontiff is very much dissatisfied with his present position,

which he feels to be that of a prisoner or hostage. No one is allowed to

approach him without permission, and all papers are opened beforehand by

the authority of Cardinal ANTONELLI. It is generally feared that his

Holiness is a tool in the hands of the Absolutists--a very pretty

consummation to have been brought about by the republican bayonets of

France! ITALY, for which so many hopes have been entertained, and of

whose successful progress in political regeneration so many delightful

anticipations have been indulged, seems to be overshadowed, from the

Alps to the Abruzzi, with one great failure.

* * * * *

The two Overland Mails from India which arrived during the month brought

news that there had been some fighting in the newly acquired

territories. On the 2d of February a body of Affredies, inhabitants of

the Kohat hills, about a thousand strong, attacked the camp of a party

of British sappers, employed in making a road in a pass between Peshawur

and Kohat. Twelve of the latter were killed, six wounded, and the camp

was plundered. To avenge this massacre a strong force under Colonel

Bradshaw, Sir Charles Napier himself, with Sir John Campbell,

accompanying him, marched from Peshawur an the 9th. The mountaineers

made a stand in every pass and defile; but although the troops destroyed

six villages and killed a great number of the enemy, they were obliged

to return to Peshawur on the 11th without having accomplished their

object. On the 14th February another force was sent to regain the passes

and to keep them open for a larger armament.

* * * * *

Accounts from EGYPT to the 6th, state that the Pacha, who had been

residing at his new palace in the Desert, had returned to Cairo. The

proximity of his residence has drawn his attention to the _Improvement

of the Overland Route_; and he has said that means must be adopted to

reduce the period of traveling between the ships in the Mediterranean

and Red Sea to 60 or 65 hours, instead of 80 or 85 hours. He has sent a

small landing steamer to ply in Suez harbor; and he is causing the work

of Macadamizing the Desert road to be proceeded with vigorously. An

agreement has been made with contractors to enlarge the station-houses

on the Desert, so as to admit of the necessary stabling accommodation

for eight or ten relays of horses, instead of four or five, by which

means 50 or 60 persons will be moved across in one train, instead of, as

at present, half that number. Mules, again, are to be substituted for

baggage camels in the transport of the Indian luggage and cargoes, with

the view to a reduction of the time consumed in this operation between

Suez and Cairo, from 36 to 24 hours. It is easy to perceive the benefits

which will be derived from these measures.

* * * * *

Mr. P. COLQUOHON sends to the _Athenaeum_, the following extract of a

letter from Baron de Rennenkampff, the Chief Chamberlain of H.R.H. the

Grand Duke of Oldenburg, and President of the Museum of Antiquities at

Oldenburg, which is almost entirely indebted to that gentleman for its

collection--narrating an important discovery of Roman silver coins:

"A most interesting circumstance, the particulars of which have much

occupied my attention, has occurred here lately. Some poor day laborers

in the neighborhood of the small town of Jever, on the border of Marsch

and Gest, found, in a circle of a few feet, at a depth of from 7 to 8

feet, a heap of small Roman coins, of fine silver, being 5000 pieces of

Roman denarii. The half of them immediately fell into the hands of a Jew

of Altona, at a very inconsiderable price. The greatest portion of the

remainder were dispersed before I gained intelligence of it, and I only

succeeded in collecting some 500 pieces for the Grand Duke's collection,

who permitted me to remunerate the discoverers with four times the value

of the metal. The coins date between the years 69 and 170 after Christ

while the oldest which have hitherto been discovered on the European

Continent, in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, &c., date from 170 or

180. Each piece bears the effigy of one of the Emperors of the time, the

reverse is adorned with the impression of some occurrence (a woman lying

down with a chariot wheel, and beneath it the legend _via Trajaceae_, a

trophy, and on the escutcheon _Dacia capta_, &c.), and these are so

various that pairs have only been found in a few cases. The discovery is

so much the more wonderful, as, historically, no trace can be found of

the Romans having penetrated so far down as Jever."

The French Minister of the Interior has decided on postponing the

Exhibition of Painting in Paris this year until November. The

comparative absence from the capital during the fine season of strangers

and of rich amateurs likely to be purchasers of pictures, is the motive

for this change in the period of opening the Salon.

The French papers state that the submarine electric telegraph between

Dover and Calais is to be opened to the public on the 4th of May, the

anniversary of the proclamation of the French Republic by the

Constituent Assembly.

The Indian Mail brings copies of a new journal published in China on the

first day of the present year, and called the _Pekin Monitor_. It is

written in Chinese, and carefully printed, on fine paper. The first

number contains an ordinance of the emperor, Toa-kouang, forbidding the

emigration of his subjects to California or the State of Costa Rica.

It is stated in the _Berliner Allgemeine Kirchen Zeitung_, that the Jews

have obtained a firman from the Porte, granting them permission to build

a temple on Mount Zion. The projected edifice is, it is said, to equal

Solomon's Temple in magnificence.

The creation of a university for New South Wales is a striking

expression of the rapid development of the history of a colony founded,

in times comparatively recent, with the worst materials of civilization

grafted on the lowest forms of barbarism existing on the earth. The new

institution is to be at Sydney; and a sum of L30,000 has been, it is

said, voted for the building and L5000 for its fittings-up. It will

contain at first chairs of the Classical Languages, Mathematics,

Chemistry, Natural History, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Physiology,

and the Medical Sciences; and professorships of History, Philosophy, and

Political Economy are to be hereafter added. There is to be no faculty

of Theology--and no religious tests.

The late Dr. POTTS, inventor of the hydraulic pile-driving process, and

other mechanical inventions, expired at his house in Buckingham-street,

Strand, on the 23d ultimo. Dr. Potts belonged originally to the medical

profession; but by inclination, even from school-boy days, and while a

class-fellow with the present Premier and the Duke of Bedford, he

appears to have devoted himself to mechanical and engineering pursuits.

His name, however, will be most closely associated for the future with

the ingenious process for driving piles.

It is said that "among the agriculturists of Gloucestershire,

Worcestershire, and Herefordshire," there is a grand scheme of

emigration afloat, which projects the purchase of a million acres of

land in one of the Western States of America.

Some of the paper slips dropped by the telegraphing balloons, sent up

experimentally by the Admiralty at Whitehall, have been returned by post

from Hamburg and Altona, a distance of 450 miles direct.

Box tunnel, London, which is 3192 yards in length, was an object of some

interest on Tuesday, the 9th of April, as on that morning at twenty-five

minutes past five the sun shone through it. The only other periods that

such an event occurs are on the 3d and 4th of September.

An oak tree, forty feet high, with three tons of soil on its roots, has

been transplanted at Graisley, near Wolverhampton. The tree was mounted

on a timber-carriage, and, with its branches lashed to prevent damage to

windows, passed through the streets, a singular but beautiful sight.

The Plymouth Town-Council are about to lay down a quantity of glass

pipes, jointed with gutta percha, as an experiment, for the conveyance

of water.

The French, Belgian, and Prussian governments appointed a commission in

1848 to draw up the base of an arrangement for an international railway

communication; the commission is about to commence its sittings in

Paris.

The Russian Geographical Society has decided upon exploring that portion

of the Northern Ural which lies between Mount Kwognar and the pass of

Koppol; an extent of 2000 wersts, which has not yet been explored by the

Ural expedition. The expedition will consist of only three persons--a

geognort, who also determines the altitude, a geographer, and one

assistant. A great number of attendants, interpreters, workpeople, and

rein-deer sledges, have already been engaged. The expedition will set

out immediately, and it is hoped will complete the investigation by

September.

* * * * *

It is said that nothing indicates the social and moral condition of any

community more accurately or impressively than its RECORDS OF CRIME. The

following instances, selected from English journals of the month, will

not, therefore, be without interest and instruction.

On the 2d, Thomas Denny was tried at Kingston-on-Thames, for _Murdering

his Child_. He was a farm-servant, and so poor that he lived in a

hay-loft on his master's premises, with his reputed wife. In August a

child was born, and died immediately. Suspicions arose, and an

investigation took place, which led to the prisoner's commitment,

charged with murdering the infant. On the trial the prisoner's son, an

intelligent boy of eight years old, told the following graphic story of

his father's guilt: "We all," he said, "lived together in the hay-loft

at Ewell. When mother had a baby, I went to my father and told him to

come home directly. When we got back my father took up the baby in his

arms. He then took up an awl. [Here the child became much affected, and

cried bitterly, and it was some time before he could proceed with his

testimony. At length he went on.] My father took up the awl, and killed

the baby with it. He stuck the awl into its throat. The baby cried, and

my father took the child to its mother, and asked her if he should make

a coffin for it. Before he said this, he asked her if she would help to

kill it, and gave her the awl. She tried to kill it also. My father gave

her the child and the awl, and she did the same to it that he had done.

I was very much frightened at what I saw, and ran away, and when I came

back I found mother in bed." The woman (Eliza Tarrant) had been charged

as an accomplice, but the bill against her was ignored by the grand

jury. On the trial she was called as a witness; to which the prisoner's

counsel objected, she being a presumed participator in the crime. The

woman, however, was called, and partly corroborated her son's testimony;

but denied that she took any share in killing her offspring. The

prisoner was convicted, and Mr. Justice Maule passed sentence of death,

informing him that there was no hope of respite. Subsequently, however,

the objections of the prisoner's counsel proved more valid than the

judge supposed, for the secretary of state thought proper to commute the

sentence. The unfortunate man received the respite with heartfelt

gratitude. Since his conviction he appeared to be overcome with grief at

his awful position.

_A Tale of Misery_ was revealed on the 3d to Mr. a Beckett, the

magistrate Of Southwark police court. He received a letter from a

gentleman who stated that as he was walking home one evening, his

attention was attracted to a young woman. She was evidently following an

immoral career; but her appearance and demeanor interesting him he spoke

to her. She candidly acknowledged, that having been deserted by her

parents, she was leading an abandoned life to obtain food for her three

sisters, all younger than herself. Her father had been in decent

circumstances, but that unfortunately her mother was addicted to drink,

and owing to this infirmity their parents had separated, and abandoned

them. The writer concluded by hoping that the magistrate would cause an

inquiry to be made. Mr. a Beckett directed an officer of the court to

investigate into this case. On the 4th, the officer called at the abode

of the young woman, in a wretched street, at a time when such a visit

could not have been expected. He found Mary Ann Bannister, the girl

alluded to, and her three sisters, of the respective ages of eight,

eleven, and fourteen, in deep distress. The eldest was washing some

clothing for her sisters. There was no food of any description in the

place. Altogether the case was a very distressing one, and although

accustomed to scenes of misery, in the course of his duties, yet this

was one of the most lamentable the officer had met with. The publication

of the case had the effect of inducing several benevolent individuals to

transmit donations to Mr. a Beckett for these destitute girls, to the

amount, as he stated on a subsequent day, of above L25. He added that

it was in contemplation to enable the girls to emigrate to South

Australia, and that meanwhile they had been admitted into the workhouse

of St. George's parish, where they would be kept till a passage was

procured for them to the colony. More than one person had offered to

take Mary Ann Bannister into domestic service; but emigration for the

whole four was thought more advisable.

A female named Lewis, who resided at Bassalleg, left her home on the 3d

to go to Newport, about three miles distant, to make purchases. She

never returned. A search was made by her son and husband, who is a

cripple, and on the night of the following day they discovered her

_murdered in a wood_ at no very great distance from the village, so

frightfully mangled as to leave no doubt that she had been waylaid and

brutally murdered. The head was shockingly disfigured, battered by some

heavy instrument, and the clothes were saturated with blood. For some

days the perpetrators escaped detection, but eventually Murphy and

Sullivan, two young Irishmen, were arrested at Cheltenham, on suspicion.

Wearing apparel, covered with blood, and a number of trifling articles

were found on them. They were sent off to Newport, where it was found

they had been engaged in an atrocious outrage in Gloucestershire, on an

old man whom they had assailed and robbed on the road near Purby; his

skull was fractured; and his life was considered to be in imminent

peril. Both prisoners were fully committed to the county jail at

Monmouth to take their trial for willful murder.

_A Dreadful Murder_ has been discovered in the neighborhood of Frome, in

Somersetshire. On the 3d, a young man named Thomas George, the son of a

laborer residing near that town, left his father's house about eight in

the evening, and never returned. Next morning, his father went in search

of him, and found his body in a farmer's barn; he had been apparently

dead for some hours, and there were deep wounds in his head and throat.

A man named Henry Hallier, who had been seen in company with the

deceased, the night he disappeared, close to the barn where his body was

found, was apprehended on the 18th on suspicion, and committed to the

county jail.

An act of _Unparalleled Atrocity_ was committed during the Easter week

in the Isle of Man. Two poor men named Craine and Gill went to a

hill-side to procure a bundle of heather to make brooms. The proprietor

of the premises observed them, and remarked that he would quickly make

them remove their quarters. He at once set fire to the dry furze and

heather, directly under the hilly place where the poor men were engaged.

The fire spread furiously, and it was only by rolling himself down the

brow of the hill, and falling over the edge of a precipice into the

river underneath, that Gill escaped. His unfortunate companion, who was

a pensioner, aged 80 years, and quite a cripple, was left in his

helpless state a prey to the flames. After they had subsided, Gill went

in search of Craine, whom he found burned to a cinder. The proprietor of

the heath has been apprehended.

_A Shot at his Sweetheart_ was fired by John Humble Sharpe, a young man

of 21, who was tried for it at the Norfolk Circuit on the 9th. The

accused, a young carpenter, had courted and had been accepted by the

prosecutrix, Sarah Lingwood. She, however, listened to other vows; the

lover grew jealous, and was at length rejected. In the night after he

had received his dismissal, the family of the girl's uncle with whom she

lived were alarmed by the report of a gun. On examining her bedroom it

was discovered that a bullet had been fired through the window, had

crossed the girl's bed, close to the bottom where she lay, grazed a

dress that was lying on the bed-clothes, and struck a chest of drawers

beyond. Suspicion having fallen on the prisoner, he was apprehended. The

prisoner's counsel admitted the fact, but denied the intent. The

prisoner had, he said, no desire to harm the girl, whom he tenderly

loved, but only to alarm her and induce her to return to him. The jury,

after long deliberation, acquitted the prisoner.

Several shocking instances of _Agrarian Crime_ have been mentioned in

the Irish papers. At Glasslough, in the county of Monaghan, a shot was

fired into the bed-room window of Mr. John Robertson, land steward to

C.P. Leslie, Esq., on the night of the 10th. Arthur O'Donnel, Esq., of

Pickwick Cottage, in Clare, was murdered near his own house, on the

night of the 11th. He was attacked by a party of men and killed with a

hatchet. The supposition was that this deed was committed by recipients

of relief whom Mr. O'Donnel was wont to strike off the lists at the

weekly revision by the board of the Kilrush union, of which he was one.

A man was arrested on strong suspicion. There was another murder in

Clare. The herdsman of Mr. Scanlon, of Fortune in that county, went out

to look after some sheep, the property of his master, when he was

attacked by some persons who had been lurking about the wood, and his

throat cut.

Two evidences of the _Low Price of Labor_ were brought before the

magistrates. One at Bow-street on the 10th, when W. Gronnow, a

journeyman shoemaker, was charged with pawning eight pairs of ladies'

shoes intrusted to him for making up. He pleaded extreme distress, and

said he intended to redeem the shoes that week. The prisoner's employer

owned that the man was entitled to no more than 4_s._ 8_d._ for making

and preparing the eight pairs of shoes. "Why," said the magistrate,

"that price is only _sevenpence_ a pair for the workman. I am not

surprised to hear of so many persons pawning their employers' property,

when they are paid so badly." The prisoner was fined 2_s._ and ordered

to pay the money he had received upon the shoes within fourteen days; in

default, to be imprisoned fourteen days. Being unable to pay the money,

he was locked up.

On the previous day a man named Savage, a slop shirt seller, was

summoned at Guildhall for 9_d._, the balance due to Mrs. Wallis for

making three cotton shirts. When delivered, Savage found fault with

them, and deferred payment. Eventually 1_s._ 3_d._ was paid instead of

2_s._ The alderman said he was surprised at any tradesman who only paid

8_d._ for making a shirt, deducting 3_d._ from so small a remuneration;

it was disgraceful. He then ordered the money to be paid, with expenses.

Alexander Levey, a goldsmith, was tried at the Central Criminal Court on

the 10th, for the _Murder of his Wife_. They were a quarrelsome pair:

one day, while the husband, with a knife in his hand, was cooking a

sweetbread, the wife came in, and, in answer to his inquiry where she

had been, said she had been to a magistrate for a warrant against him.

On this, with a violent exclamation, he stabbed her in the throat; she

ran out of the house, while he continued eating with the knife with

which he stabbed her, saying, however, he hoped she was not much hurt.

She died in consequence of the wound. The defense was, that the blow had

been given in the heat of passion, and the prisoner was found guilty of

manslaughter only. He was sentenced to fifteen years' transportation.

On the same day, Jane Kirtland was tried for the _Manslaughter of her

Husband_. They lived at Shadwell, and were both addicted to drinking and

quarreling, in both which they indulged. Kirtland having called his wife

an opprobrious name she took up a chopper, and said that if he repeated

the offensive expression, she would chop him. He immediately repeated it

with a still more offensive addition, and at the same time thrust his

fist, in her face, when she struck him on the elbow with the chopper,

and inflicted a wound of which he died a few days afterward. The

prisoner, when called upon for her defense, burst into tears, and said

that her husband was constantly drunk, and that he was in the habit of

going out all day, and leaving her and her children in a destitute

state, and when he came home he would abuse her and insult her in every

possible way. In a moment of anger she struck him with a chopper, but

she had no intention to do him any serious injury. The jury found the

prisoner Guilty, but recommended her to mercy on account of the

provocation she had received. She was sentenced to be kept to hard labor

in the House of Correction for six months.

A coroner's inquest was held in Southwark on the same day, respecting

the death of Mrs. Mary Carpenter, _an Eccentric Old Lady_, of

eighty-two. She had been left, by a woman who attended her, cooking a

chop for her dinner; and soon afterward the neighbors were alarmed by

smoke coming from the house. On breaking into her room on an upper

floor, the place was found to be on fire. The flames were got under, but

the old lady was burnt almost to a cinder. Mrs. Carpenter was a very

singular person; she used at one time to wear dresses so that they did

not reach down to her knees. Part of her leg was exposed, but the other

was encased with milk-white stockings, tied up with scarlet garters, the

ribbons extending to her feet, or flying about her person. In this

extraordinary dress she would sally forth to market, followed by an

immense crowd of men and children. For some years past she discontinued

these perambulations, and lived entirely shut up in her house in

Moss-alley, the windows of which she had bricked up, so that no light

could enter from without. Though she had considerable freehold property,

she had only an occasional female attendant, and would allow no other

person, but the collector of her rents, to enter her preserve.

On the 12th, Mrs. Eleanor Dundas Percival, a lady of thirty-five,

destroyed herself by poison at the Hope Coffee-house, in Fetter-lane,

where she had taken temporary apartments. _A Distressing History_

transpired at the inquest. She was the daughter of a Scotch clergyman,

and lost the countenance of her family by marrying a Catholic, a captain

in the navy; while her husband suffered the same penalty for marrying a

Protestant. About a year ago he and their infant died in the West

Indies; she afterward became governess in the family of Sir Colin

Campbell, governor of Barbadoes; her health failing, she returned to

England in October last, and had since been reduced to extreme distress.

Having been turned out of a West-end hotel, and had her effects detained

on account of her debt contracted there, she had been received into the

apartments in Fetter-lane, partly through the compassion of a person who

resided in the house. While there, she had written to Miss Burdett

Coutts, and, a few days before her death, a gentleman had called on her

from that benevolent lady, who paid up the rent she owed, amounting to

L2 14_s._, and left her 10_s._ On the evening above-mentioned she went

out, and returned with a phial in her hand containing morphia, which, it

appeared, she swallowed on going to bed between five and six, as she was

afterward found in a dying state, and the empty phial beside her. The

verdict was temporary insanity.

_Elias Lucas and Mary Reeder were executed_ at Cambridge on the 13th.

Lucas was the husband of the female convict's sister, whom they had

poisoned. Morbid curiosity had attracted from twenty to thirty thousand

spectators. In the procession from the jail to the scaffold there was a

great parade of county magistrates.

Louisa Hartley was charged at the Southwark Police Court, on the 16th,

with an _Attempt to poison her Father_, who is a fellowship porter. On

the previous morning she made the coffee for breakfast, on tasting it,

it burnt Harley's mouth, and he charged the girl with having put poison

in his cup, which she denied; he then tasted her coffee, and found it

had no unpleasant flavor. His daughter then snatched away his cup, and

threw the contents into a wash-hand basin. But in spite of her tears and

protestations of innocence, he took the basin to Guy's Hospital, where

it was found that the coffee must have contained vitriol. The girl, who

was said to be of weak intellect, and stood sobbing at the bar, being

questioned, only shook her head, and said she had nothing to say. At a

subsequent hearing the magistrate decided that there was sufficient

evidence for a committal.

A man named William Bennison, a workman in an iron-foundry, has been

committed to prison at Leith on suspicion of having _Poisoned his Wife_.

The circumstances of the case are extraordinary. The scene of the murder

is an old-fashioned tiled house in Leith. Bennison and his wife occupied

the second floor of a house, in which also resides Alexander Milne, a

cripple from his infancy, well known to the frequenters of Leith Walk,

where he sits daily, in a small cart drawn by a dog. Mrs. Bennison,

after, it is said, partaking of some gruel, became very ill, and died on

Monday, the 22d inst. The dog which drew the cripple's cart died about

the same time; suspicion was drawn upon the husband, and he was

apprehended, and the dog's body conveyed to Surgeon's Hall for

examination. Some weeks before, Bennison had purchased arsenic from a

neighboring druggist, to kill rats, as he said. When suspected he called

on the druggist, and requested him and his wife not to mention that he

had purchased the arsenic. He even pressed for a written denial of the

fact, adding that there might be arsenic found in his wife's stomach,

but he did not put it there. On the Monday previous to her death it is

said he enrolled her name in a benefit society, by which on her death he

was entitled to a sum of L6. At the prisoner's examination before the

sheriff, the report of the chemists pronounced the contents of the dog's

stomach to have been metallic poison. The accused was eventually

committed for trial. The deceased and her husband were members of the

Wesleyan body, and bore an excellent character for piety. Bennison

professed to be extremely zealous in behalf of religion, and was in the

habit of administering its consolations to such as would accept of them.

His "gifts" of extempore prayer are said to be extensive.

_Two Men were shot at by a Gamekeeper_ lately in a wood belonging to

Lord Wharncliffe, near Barnsley. The game on this estate is preserved by

a solicitor, who resides near Wokefield, who employs Joseph Hunter as

gamekeeper. Both the men were severely injured, and Cherry, one of them,

sued Hunter as the author of the offense, in the Barnsley County Court,

and the case was heard on the 19th instant. Cherry stated, that on the

23d February he went to see the Badsworth hounds meet at the village of

Notton, and in coming down by the side of a wood he saw the defendant,

who asked plaintiff and two others where the hounds were. Plaintiff told

him they were in Notton-park. These men left Hunter, and walked down by

the side of Noroyds-wood. They went through the wood, when one of the

men who was with him began cutting some sticks. Plaintiff then saw

Hunter, who was about twenty-five yards from them, coming toward them:

the men began to run away, when plaintiff said to the other, "He's going

to shoot us;" and before he had well delivered the words, he was shot in

the arm and side, and could not run with the others. A surgeon proved

that the wounds were severe and in a dangerous part of the body. The two

men who were with the plaintiff corroborated his evidence. The judge

said that defendant deserved to be sent to York for what he had done

already. The damages might have been laid at L100 or L1000 had plaintiff

been acting lawfully; but he thought plaintiff had acted with discretion

in laying the damages at L10 for which he should give a verdict, and all

the costs the law would allow.

_An Affecting Case_ occurred at the Mansion House on the 23d. William

Powers, a boy, was brought up on the charge of picking a gentleman's

pocket of a handkerchief. A little boy, who had seen the theft, was

witness against him. The prisoner made a feeble attempt to represent the

witness as an accomplice; but he soon abandoned it, and said, with

tears, that he "did not believe the other boy to be a thief at all." The

alderman, moved by his manner, asked him if he had parents? He said he

had, but they were miserably poor. "My father was, when I last saw him,

six months ago, going into the workhouse. What was I to do? I was partly

brought up to the tailoring business, but I can get nothing to do at

that. I am able to job about, but still I am compelled to be idle. If I

had work, wouldn't I work! I'd be glad to work hard for a living,

instead of being obliged to thieve and tell lies for a bit of bread."

Alderman Carden--If I send you for a month to Bridewell, and from thence

into an industrial school, will you stick honestly to labor? The

prisoner--Try me. You shall never see me here or in any other

disgraceful situation again. Alderman Carden--I will try you. You shall

go to Bridewell for a month, and to the School of Occupation afterward,

where you will have an opportunity of reforming. The wretched boy

expressed himself in terms of gratitude to the alderman, and went away,

as seemed to be the general impression in the justice-room, for the

purpose of commencing a new life.

On the 5th a pilot-boat brought into Cowes the master of the Lincoln,

sailing from Boston for California. He had reached the latitude of 4 deg. N.

and longitude 25 deg. W., and when at 10.30 p.m. of March 2, during a heavy

shower of rain, and without any menacing appearance in the air, the ship

was _Struck with Lightning_, which shivered the mainmast, and darted

into the hold. On opening the scuttle, volumes of smoke were emitted,

and finding it impossible to extinguish the fire, the crew endeavored to

stifle it by closing every aperture. In this state they remained for

nearly four days, with the fire burning in the hold, when they were

relieved from their perilous situation by the providential appearance of

the Maria Christina, and taken on board. Previous to leaving the

ill-fated brig, the hatches were opened, when the flames burst forth,

and in thirty minutes afterward the mainmast fell over the side. The

unfortunate crew were most kindly treated by Captain Voss, the master of

the Maria Christina, who did every thing in his power for their relief.

A Miss Downie met, on the 4th, with an _Extraordinary Death_ at

Traquair-on-the-Tweed. She had suffered, since childhood, from severe

pains in the head and deafness; her health had been gradually declining

for the last three years, and in August last she was seized with most

painful inflammation in the left ear, accompanied by occasional

bleedings also from the ear. On the 20th of March an ordinary-sized

metallic pin was extracted from the left ear, which was enveloped in a

firm substance with numerous fibres attached to it; several hard bodies,

in shape resembling the grains of buckwheat, but of various colors, were

also taken out of the right ear. The poor girl endured the most intense

pain, which she bore with Christian fortitude till death terminated her

sufferings. It is believed the pin must have lodged in the head for

nearly twenty years, as she never recollected of having put one in her

ear, but she had a distinct remembrance of having, when a child, had a

pin in her mouth, which she thought she had swallowed.

THE POET BOWLES.--The canon's absence of mind was very great, and when

his coachman drove him into Bath he had to practice all kinds of

cautions to keep him to time and place. The poet once left our office in

company with a well-known antiquary of our neighborhood, since deceased,

and who was as absent as Mr. Bowles himself. The servant of the latter

came to our establishment to look for him, and, on learning that he had

gone away with the gentleman to whom we have referred, the man

exclaimed, in a tone of ludicrous distress, "What! those two wandered

away together? then they'll never be found any more!" The act of

composition was a slow and laborious operation with him. He altered and

re-wrote his MS. until, sometimes, hardly anything remained of the

original, excepting the general conception. When we add that his

handwriting was one of the worst that ever man wrote--insomuch that

frequently he could not read that which he had written the day

before--we need not say that his printers had very tough work in getting

his works into type. At the time when we printed for Mr. Bowles we had

one compositor in our office (his death is recorded in our paper of

to-day), who had a sort of knack in making out the poet's hieroglyphics,

and he was once actually sent for by Mr Bowles into Wiltshire to copy

some MS. written a year or two before, which the poet had himself vainly

endeavored to decipher.--_Bath Chronicle._

ARCHIBALD ALISON.

[Illustration: Portrait of Archibald Alison]

Mr. Archibald Alison, author of the "History of Europe," is son of the

author of the well-known "Essay on Taste." He holds the office of

sheriff of Lanarkshire, and is much respected in the city of Glasgow,

where his official duties compel him to reside. Though educated for the

profession of the law, and daily administering justice as the principal

local judge of a populous district, Mr. Alison's tastes are entirely

literary. Besides the "History of Europe," in 20 volumes--a work which,

we believe, originated in the pages of a "Scottish Annual Register,"

long since discontinued--Mr. Alison has written a "Life of Marlborough"

and various economic and political pamphlets. He is also a frequent

contributor to _Blackwood's Magazine_. It is, however, upon his "History

of Europe" that his fame principally rests. If Mr. Alison be not the

most successful of modern historians, we know not to whom, in preference

to him, the palm can be conceded. His work is to be found in every

library, and bids fair to rank hereafter as the most valuable production

of the age in which he lived. This success is due, not only to the

importance and interest of his theme, but to the skillful, eloquent, and

generally correct manner in which he has treated it. He has, doubtless,

been guilty of some errors of omission as well as of commission, as we

have heard of a literary amateur, whose chief amusement for some years

past, has been to make out a list of his mistakes; but, after all

deductions of this kind, enough of merit remains in the work to entitle

its author to a place in the highest rank of contemporary authors.

The bust of Mr. Alison, of which we present an engraving, was executed

in the year 1846, and presented in marble to Mr. Alison by a body of his

private friends in Glasgow, as a testimonial of their friendship to him

as an individual; of their esteem and respect for him in his public

capacity, as one of their local judges; and of their admiration of his

writings. It is considered a very excellent likeness.

THE CORN-LAW RHYMER.

Ebenezer Elliott not only possessed poetical spirit, or the apparent

faculty of producing poetry, but he produced poems beautiful in

description, touching in incident and feeling, and kindly in sentiment,

when he was kept away from that bugbear of his imagination a landed

gentleman. A man of acres, or any upholder of the corn-laws, was to him

what brimstone and blue flames are to a certain species of devotee, or

the giant oppressor of enchanted innocence to a mad knight-errant. In a

squire or a farmer he could see no humanity; the agriculturist was an

incarnate devil, bent upon raising the price of bread, reducing wages,

checking trade, keeping the poor wretched and dirty, and rejoicing when

fever followed famine, to sweep them off by thousands to an untimely

grave. According to his creed, there was no folly, no fault, no

idleness, no improvidence in the poor. Their very crimes were brought

upon them by the gentry class. The squires, assisted a little by kings,

ministers, and farmers, were the true origin of evil in this world of

England, whatever might be the cause of it elsewhere.

This rabid feeling was opposed to high poetical excellence. Temper and

personal passion are fatal to art: "in the very torrent, tempest, and (I

may say) whirlwind of your passion, you should acquire and beget a

temperance that may give it smoothness." It is also fatal to more than

art: where a person looks with the vulgar eyes that Ebenezer Elliott

used on many occasions, there can be neither truth nor justice. Even the

satirist must observe a partial truth and a measure in expressing it, or

he sinks down to the virulent lampooner.

Part of this violence must be placed to the natural disposition of the

man, but part of it was owing to his narrow education; by which we mean,

not so much book-learning or reading, of which he had probably enough,

but provincial and possibly low associates. Something, perhaps, should

be ascribed to a self-sufficiency rather morbid than proud; for we think

Elliott had a liking to be "head of the company," and that he resented

any want of public notice as an affront, even when the parties could not

know that he was entitled to notice.

These defects of character operated very mischievously upon his works.

The temper marred his political poems; though the people, their

condition, vices, and virtues, is a theme that, properly sung, might

stir the Anglo-Saxon race throughout the world and give immortality to a

poet. The provincial mind affected the mass of Elliott's poems even

where the subject was removed from his prejudices; for he had no

habitual elevation or refinement of taste: it required a favorable theme

or a happy moment to triumph over the deficiencies of nature and

education. His self-sufficiency coupled with his provincialism seems to

have prevented him from closely criticising his productions; so that he

often published things that were prosaic as well as faulty in other

respects.

The posthumous volumes before us naturally abound in the author's

peculiarities; for the feelings of survivors are prone to err on the

side of fullness, and the friends of the lately dead too often print

indiscriminately. The consequence is, that the publication has an air of

gatherings, and contains a variety of things that a critical stranger

would wish away. It was proper, perhaps, to have given prose as a

specimen of the author; and the review of his works by Southey, said to

have been rejected by the _Quarterly_, is curious for its total

disregard of the reviewer's own canons, since very little description is

given of the poems, and not much of the characteristics of the poet.

Much of the poetry in these volumes would have been better unpublished.

Here and there we find a touching little piece, or a bit of power; but

the greater part is not only unpoetical but trivial, or merely personal

in the expression of feeling. There is, moreover, a savageness of tone

toward the agricultural interest, even after the corn-laws were

abolished, that looks as like malignity as honest anger.--_London

Spectator._

MADAME GRANDIN, the widow of M. Victor Grandin, representative of the

Seine Inferieure, who died about seven or eight months since, met with a

melancholy end on the 6th, at her residence at Elboeuf. She was confined

to her bed from illness, and the woman, who had been watching by her

during the night, had left her but a short time, when the most piercing

shrieks were heard to proceed from her room. Her brother ran in alarm to

her assistance, but, unfortunately, he was too late, the poor lady had

expired, having been burned in her bed. It is supposed that in reaching

to take something from the table, her night-dress came in contact with

the lamp, and thus communicated to the bed.

T. BABINGTON MACAULAY.

[Illustration: Portrait of Thomas Babington Macaulay]

Mr. Macaulay, though ambitious at one time, and perhaps still, of a

reputation for poetry though an acute critic and a brilliant essayist,

and though a showy and effective orator, who could command at all times

the attention of an assembly that rather dislikes studied eloquence

seems at present inclined to build up his fame upon his historical

writings. Most of his admirers consider that, in this respect, he has

judged wisely. As a poet--however pleasing his "Lays of Ancient Rome"

and some of his other ballads maybe--he could never have succeeded in

retaining the affection of the public. Depth of feeling, earnest and

far-seeing thought, fancy, imagination, a musical ear, a brilliancy of

expression, and an absolute mastery of words, are all equally essential

to him who, in this or any other time, would climb the topmost heights

of Parnassus. Mr. Macaulay has fancy but not imagination; and though his

ear is good, and his command of language unsurpassed by any living

writer, he lacks the earnestness and the deep philosophy of all the

mighty masters of song. As a critic he is, perhaps, the first of his

age; but criticism, even in its highest developments, is but a secondary

thing to the art upon which it thrives. Mr. Macaulay has in him the

stuff of which artists and originators are made, and we are of the

number of those who rejoice that, in the vigor of his days; he has

formed a proper estimate of his own powers, and that he has abandoned

the poetical studies, in the prosecution of which he never could have

attained the first rank; and those critical corruscations which, however

beautiful, must always have been placed in a lower scale of merit than

the compositions upon which they were founded; and that he has devoted

his life to the production of an original work in the very highest

department of literature.

There was, at one time, a prospect before Mr. Macaulay of being one of

the men who _make_, instead of those who _write_ history; but his recent

retirement from parliament and from public life has, for a while at

least, closed up that avenue. In cultivating at leisure the literary

pursuits that he loves, we trust that he, as well as the world, will be

the gainer, and that his "History of England," when completed, will be

worthy of so high a title. As yet the field is clear before him. The

histories that have hitherto appeared are mostly bad or indifferent.

Some are good, but not sufficiently good to satisfy the wants of the

reader, or to render unnecessary the task of more enlightened, more

impartial, more painstaking, and more elegant writers. There never was a

work of art, whether in painting, sculpture, music, or literature, in

which lynx-eyed criticism could not detect a flaw, or something

deficient, which the lynx-eyed critic, and he alone, could have

supplied. Mr. Macaulay's history has not escaped the ordeal, neither was

it desirable that it should; but the real public opinion of the country

has pronounced itself in his favor, and longs for the worthy completion

of a task which has been worthily begun.

The bust of Mr. Macaulay was executed shortly after that of Mr. Alison,

and is, we believe, in Mr. Macaulay's own possession. It is a very

admirable likeness.

MOSCOW AFTER THE CONFLAGRATION.

It was both a strange and a horrible spectacle. Some houses appeared to

have been razed; of others, fragments of smoke-blackened walls remained;

ruins of all kinds encumbered the streets; every where was a horrible

smell of burning. Here and there a cottage, a church, a palace, stood

erect amid the general destruction. The churches especially, by their

many-colored domes, by the richness and variety of their construction,

recalled the former opulence of Moscow. In them had taken refuge most of

the inhabitants, driven by our soldiers from the houses the fire had

spared. The unhappy wretches, clothed in rags, and wandering like ghosts

amid the ruins, had recourse to the saddest expedients to prolong their

miserable existence. They sought and devoured the scanty vegetables

remaining in the gardens; they tore the flesh from the animals that lay

dead in the streets; some even plunged into the river for corn the

Russians had thrown there, and which was now in a state of

fermentation.... It was with the greatest difficulty we procured black

bread and beer; meat began to be very scarce. We had to send strong

detachments to seize oxen in the woods where the peasants had taken

refuge, and often the detachments returned empty-handed. Such was the

pretended abundance procured us by the pillage of the city. We had

liquors, sugar, sweetmeats, and we wanted for meat and bread. We covered

ourselves with furs, but were almost without clothes and shoes. With

great store of diamonds, jewels, and every possible object of luxury, we

were on the eve of dying of hunger. A large number of Russian soldiers

wandered in the streets of Moscow. I had fifty of them seized; and a

general, to whom I reported the capture, told me I might have had them

shot, and that on all future occasions he authorized me to do so. I did

not abuse the authorization. It will be easily understood how many

mishaps, how much disorder, characterized our stay in Moscow. Not an

officer, not a soldier, but could tell strange anecdotes on this head.

One of the most striking is that of a Russian whom a French officer

found concealed in the ruins of a house; by signs he assured him of

protection, and the Russian accompanied him. Soon, being obliged to

carry an order, and seeing another officer pass at the head of a

detachment, he transferred the individual to his charge, saying

hastily--"I recommend this gentleman to you." The second officer,

misunderstanding the intention of the words, and the tone in which they

were pronounced, took the unfortunate Russian for an incendiary, and had

him shot.--_Fezensac's Journal._

TRUTH.--Truth is a subject which men will not suffer to grow old. Each

age has to fight with its own falsehoods: each man with his love of

saying to himself and those around him pleasant things and things

serviceable for to-day, rather than things which are. Yet a child

appreciates at once the divine necessity for truth; never asks, "What

harm is there in saying the thing there is not?" and an old man finds in

his growing experience wider and wider applications of the great

doctrine and discipline of truth.--_Friends in Council._

A provincial paper mentions the discovery of the _Original Portrait of

Charles the First_, by Vandyck, lost in the time of the Commonwealth,

and which has been found at Barnstaple in Devonshire. It had been for

many years in the possession of a furniture-broker in that town, from

whom it was lately purchased by a gentleman of the name of Taylor, for

two shillings. Mr. Taylor, the account adds, has since required L2000

for it.

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT.

[Illustration: Portrait of William H. Prescott]

William H. Prescott, the American historian, is a native of Salem,

Massachusetts, where he was born on the 4th of May 1796. He is a son of

the late eminent lawyer WILLIAM PRESCOTT, LL.D., of Boston, and a

grandson of Colonel WILLIAM PRESCOTT, who commanded the forces in the

redoubt on Breed's Hill in the memorable battle fought there on the 17th

of June 1775. Mr. Prescott entered Harvard college in 1811, where his

chief delight consisted in the study of the works of ancient authors. He

left Harvard in 1814, and resolved to devote a year to a course of

historical study, before commencing that of the law, his chosen

profession. His reading was suddenly checked by a rheumatic inflammation

of his eyes, which for a long time, deprived him wholly of sight. He had

already lost the use of one eye by an accidental blow while at college;

doubtless the burden of study being laid upon the other overtaxed it,

and produced disease. In the autumn of 1815 he went to Europe, where he

remained two years, a greater portion of the time utterly unable to

enjoy the pleasures of reading and study. He returned to Boston in 1817,

and in the course of a few years married a grand-daughter of Captain

Linzee who commanded one of the British vessels at the battle of Bunker

Hill. His vision gradually strengthened with advancing age, and he

began to use his eye sparingly in reading. The languages of continental

Europe now attracted his attention, and he soon became proficient in

their use. These acquirements, and his early taste for, and intimate

acquaintance with, the best ancient writers, prepared him for those

labors as a historian in which he has since been engaged.

As early as 1819, Mr. Prescott conceived the idea of producing an

historical work of a superior character. For this purpose, he allowed

ten years for preliminary study, and ten for the investigation and

preparation of the work. He chose for his theme the history of the life

and times of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; and at the end of nearly

twenty years, pursuant to his original plan, that great work was

completed. He had resolved not to allow it to be published during his

lifetime, but the remark of his father, that "The man who writes a book

which he is afraid to publish, is a coward" decided him, and it went

forth to the world in 1838. It was quickly republished in London; every

where it was pronounced a master-piece, and his fame was firmly

established. But little did those who read his delightful pages know of

the vast toil, and patient, persevering industry, in the midst of a

great privation, which the historian had employed in his task. His rare

volumes from Spain and other sources were consulted through the medium

of a reader; the copious notes were written by a secretary; much of the

work in its final shape was written by himself with a writing machine

for the blind, and in the whole preparation of this and subsequent

works, he relied far more upon his ear than his eye for aid.

The "Conquest of Mexico" next followed, and his publishers sold seven

thousand copies the next year. It was published at the same time in

London, and translated in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, and Mexico. His

"Conquest of Peru" followed soon afterward, and was received at home and

abroad with equal favor. The "Conquest of Mexico" has had three separate

translations into the Castilian, and the "Peru," two. They have been

reprinted in English in London and Paris, and have gone through repeated

editions in this country. Whether we shall soon have another work from

Mr. Prescott's pen, is a matter of doubt, as it is understood that he

proposes to employ the last ten years of his historic life in preparing

a History of the Reign of Philip the Second of Spain. His eyes have

somewhat failed in strength, and he is now able to use them for reading

less than an hour each day; "But," he says in a letter to a friend, "I

am not, and never expect to be, in the category of the blind men."

Our allotted space will not permit us to take an analytical view of the

character and writings of Mr. Prescott. We can only say that great

industry, sound judgment, comprehensive views, purity of diction, and

fine, flowing style in description and narrative, all governed by a

genius eminently philosophical, place him in the first rank of modern

historians. Americans love him as a cherished member of their

household--throughout the Republic of Letters he is admired as one of

its brightest ornaments.

THE ENCHANTED BATHS.

These warm springs are natural phenomena, which perhaps have not their

equal in the whole world. I am, therefore, quite inconsolable at the

thought of having made the long and difficult journey from Bona, and

having been five whole days here in Guelma, within the distance of

five-and-twenty miles from those wonderful springs, yet unable to see

them. At the distance of a mile or two from Hammam Meskutine, thick

clouds of vapor are seen rising from these warm springs. The water is

highly impregnated with calcareous properties, whose accumulated

deposits have formed conical heaps, some of which are upwards of thirty

feet high. From amidst these cones the springs jet forth lofty columns

of water, which descend in splendid cascades, flowing over the ancient

masonry, and covering it with a white calcareous stratum.

The mass produced by the crystalization of the particles escaping from

the seething waters, has been, after a long lapse of years, transformed

into beautiful rose-colored marble. F---- brought me a piece of this

substance from the springs. It is precisely similar to that used in

building the church at Guelma, which is obtained from a neighboring

quarry. From the remains of an ancient tower and a fort, situated near

Hammam Meskutine, it is evident that these springs were known to the

Romans. An old Arab legend records that, owing to the extreme wickedness

of the inhabitants of these districts, God visited them with a

punishment similar to that of Lot's wife, by transforming them into the

conical heaps of chalk I have mentioned above. To this day, the mass of

the people firmly believe that the larger cones represent the parents,

and the smaller ones, the children.

Owing to the high temperature, the surrounding vegetation is clothed in

the most brilliant green; and the water of a tepid brook, which flows at

the foot of the cascades, though in itself as clear as a mirror, appears

to be of a beautiful emerald color. F---- told me that he was not a

little surprised to see in this warm rivulet a multitude of little

fishes sporting about, as lively as though they had been in the coolest

water. This curious natural phenomenon is explainable by the fact, that

in this rivulet, which is of considerable depth, the under-currents are

sufficiently cool to enable the fish to live and be healthy, though the

upper current of water is so warm, that it is scarcely possible to hold

the hand in it any longer than a few seconds. The hilly environs of

Hammam Meskutine are exceedingly beautiful, and around the waters

perpetual spring prevails.--_Travels in Barbary._

LITERARY NOTICES.

LETTERS OF A TRAVELER; or, Notes of Things seen in Europe and

America. By William Cullen Bryant. 12mo, pp. 442. New York: G.P.

Putnam.

Every one will welcome a volume of descriptive sketches from the eminent

American poet. The author has made a collection of letters, written at

wide intervals from each other, during different journeys both in Europe

and in this country, rightly judging that they possess sufficient

elements of interest to claim a less ephemeral form than that in which

most of them have been already presented to the public. They consist of

the reminiscences of travel in France, Italy, England, the Netherlands,

Cuba, and the most interesting portions of the United States. Arranged

in the order of time, without reference to subject or place, the

transition from continent to continent is often abrupt, and sometimes

introduces us without warning into scenes of the utmost incongruity with

those where we had been lingering under the spell of enchantment which

the author's pen throws around congenial objects. Thus we are

transported at once from the delicious scenery and climate of Tuscany,

and the dreamy glories of Venice, to the horse thieves and prairie

rattlesnakes of Illinois, making a break in the associations of the

reader which is any thing but agreeable. The method of grouping by

countries would be more natural, and would leave more lively impressions

both on the imagination and the memory.

Mr. Bryant's style in these letters is an admirable model of descriptive

prose. Without any appearance of labor, it is finished with an exquisite

grace, showing the habitual elegance and accuracy of his mental habits.

The genial love of nature, and the lurking tendency to humor, which it

every where betrays, prevent its severe simplicity from running into

hardness, and give it a freshness and occasional glow, in spite of its

entire want of _abandon_, and its prevailing conscious propriety and

reserve.

The criticisms on Art, in the European portions of the work, are less

frequent than we could have wished, and although disclaiming all

pretensions to connoisseurship, are of singular acuteness and value. Mr.

B.'s description of his first impressions of Power's Greek Slave, which

he saw in London in 1845, has a curious interest at the present time, as

predicting the reputation which has since been gained by that noble

piece of statuary.

We notice rather a singular inadvertence for one who enjoys such

distinguished opportunities of "stated preaching" in a remark in the

first letter from Paris, that "Here, too, was the tree which was the

subject of the first Christian miracle, the fig, its branches heavy with

the bursting fruit just beginning to ripen for the market." If the first

miracle was not the turning of water into wine, we have forgot our

catechism.

ELDORADO; OR, ADVENTURES IN THE PATH OF EMPIRE; comprising a Voyage

to California, _via_ Panama; Life in San Francisco and Monterey;

Pictures of the Gold Region, and Experiences of Mexican Travel.

By Bayard Taylor. In two vols., 12mo, pp. 251, 247. New York:

G.P. Putnam.

California opens as rich a field for adventure to the collector of

literary materials, as to the emigrant in pursuit of gold. We shall yet

have the poetry, the romance, the dramatic embodiment of the strange

life in the country of yellow sands. Already it has drawn forth numerous

authors, describing the results of their experience, in nearly every

variety of style, from the unpretending statement of every-day

occurrences, to the more ambitious attempts of graphic descriptive

composition. The spectacle of a mighty nation, springing suddenly into

life, has been made so familiar to us, by the frequent narratives of

eye-witnesses, that we almost lose sight of its unique and marvelous

character, surpassing the dreams of imagination which have so wildly

reveled in the magnificent promises of the nineteenth century.

Mr. Taylor's book is presented to us at the right moment. It completes

the series of valuable productions which have been born of the

Californian excitement, supplying their deficiencies, and viewing the

subject from the highest point that has yet been attained by any

traveler. He possesses many admirable qualifications for the task which

he has performed. With a natural enthusiasm for travel, a curiosity that

never tires, and a rare power of adapting himself to novel situations

and strange forms of society, he combines a Yankee shrewdness of

perception, a genial hilarity of spirit, and a freshness of poetical

illustration, which place him in the very first rank of intelligent

travelers. His European experiences were of no small value in his

Californian expedition. He had learned from them the quickness of

observation, the habit of just comparison, the facility of manners, and

the familiarity with foreign languages, which are essential to the

success of the tourist, and enable him to feel equally at home beneath

the dome of St. Peter's, or in the golden streets of San Francisco.

Mr. Taylor visited California with no intention of engaging in traffic

or gold-hunting. He had no private purposes to serve, no offices to

seek, no plans of amassing sudden wealth to execute. He was,

accordingly, able to look at every thing with the eye of an impartial

spectator. He has described what he saw in a style which is equally

remarkable for its picturesque beauty and its chaste simplicity. His

descriptions not only give you a lively idea of the objects which they

set forth, but the most favorable impression of the author, although he

never allows any striking prominence to the first person singular. As a

manual for the Californian traveler, as well as a delightful work for

the home circle, these volumes will be found to be at once singularly

instructive and charming, and will increase the enviable reputation

which has been so well won by the youthful author, as a man both of

genius and of heart.

We must not close our notice without refreshing our pages with at least

one specimen of Mr. Taylor's felicitous descriptions. Here is a bit of

fine painting, which gives us a vivid idea of the scenery on the road

between San Francisco and the San Joaquin:

SCENERY OF THE INLAND.

Our road now led over broad plains, through occasional belts of

timber. The grass was almost entirely burned up, and dry,

gravelly arroyos, in and out of which we went with a plunge and a

scramble, marked the courses of the winter streams. The air was

as warm and balmy as May, and fragrant with the aroma of a

species of gnaphalium, which made it delicious to inhale. Not a

cloud was to be seen in the sky, and the high, sparsely-wooded

mountains on either hand showed softened and indistinct through a

blue haze. The character of the scenery was entirely new to me.

The splendid valley, untenanted except by a few solitary

rancheros living many miles apart, seemed to be some deserted

location of ancient civilization and culture. The wooded slopes

of the mountains are lawns, planted by Nature with a taste to

which Art could add no charm. The trees have nothing of the wild

growth of our forests; they are compact, picturesque, and grouped

in every variety of graceful outline. The hills were covered to

the summit with fields of wild oats, coloring them, as far as the

eye could reach, with tawny gold, against which the dark, glossy

green of the oak and cypress showed with peculiar effect. As we

advanced further, these natural harvests extended over the plain,

mixed with vast beds of wild mustard, eight feet in height, under

which a thick crop of grass had sprung up, furnishing sustenance

to the thousands of cattle, roaming every where unherded. The

only cultivation I saw was a small field of maize, green and with

good ears.

Mr. Taylor occasionally indulges in a touch of natural

transcendentalism, as in his comparison between the Palm and the Pine,

with which we take our leave of his fascinating volumes:

I jogged steadily onward from sunrise till blazing noon, when,

having accomplished about half the journey, I stopped under a

palm-tree and let my horse crop a little grass, while I refreshed

myself with the pine-apple. Not far off there was a single

ranche, called Piedra Gorda--a forlorn-looking place where one

can not remain long without being tortured by the sand-flies.

Beyond it, there is a natural dome of rock, twice the size of St.

Peter's, capping an isolated mountain. The broad intervals of

meadow between the wastes of sand were covered with groves of the

beautiful fan-palm, lifting their tufted tops against the pale

violet of the distant mountains. In lightness, grace, and

exquisite symmetry, the Palm is a perfect type of the rare and

sensuous expression of Beauty in the South. The first sight of

the tree had nearly charmed me into disloyalty to my native Pine;

but when the wind blew, and I heard the sharp, dry, metallic

rustle of its leaves, I retained the old allegiance. The truest

interpreter of Beauty is in the voice, and no tree has a voice

like the Pine, modulated to a rythmic accord with the subtlest

flow of Fancy, touched with a human sympathy for the expression

of Hope and Love and Sorrow, and sounding in an awful undertone,

to the darkest excess of Passion.

STANDISH THE PURITAN. A Tale of the American Resolution. By Edward

Grayson, Esq. 12mo, pp. 320. New York: Harper and Brothers.

A novel by a sharp-eyed Manhattaner, illustrating some of the more

salient aspects of New York society at the period of the revolutionary

war, and combining many of the quaint traditions of that day in a

narrative of very considerable interest and power. The author wields a

satirical pen of more than common vigor, and in his descriptions of the

state of traffic and the legal profession at the time of his story,

presents a series of piquant revelations which, if founded on personal

history, would cause many "a galled jade to wince," if revivified at the

present day. His style does not exhibit a very practiced hand in

descriptive composition, nor is it distinguished for its dramatic power;

but it abounds in touches of humor and pathos, which would have had

still greater effect if not so freely blended with moral disquisitions,

in which the author seems to take a certain mischievous delight. In

spite of these drawbacks, his book is lively and readable, entitling the

author to a comfortable place among the writers of American fiction, and

if he will guard against the faults we have alluded to, his future

efforts may give him a more eminent, rank than he will be likely to gain

from the production before us.

TALBOT AND VERNON. A Novel. 12mo, pp 513. New York: Baker and

Scribner.

The plot of this story turns on a point of circumstantial evidence, by

which the hero escapes the ruin of his reputation and prospects, when

arraigned as a criminal on a charge of forgery. The details are managed

with a good deal of skill, developing the course of affairs in such a

gradual manner, that the interest of the reader never sleeps, until the

final winding-up of the narrative. Familiar with the routine of courts

of law, betraying no slight acquaintance with the springs of human

action, and master of a bold and vigorous style of expression, the

author has attained a degree of success in the execution of his plan,

which gives a promising augury of future eminence. In the progress of

the story, the scene shifts from one of the western cities of the United

States to the camp of General Taylor on the plains of Mexico. Many

stirring scenes of military life are introduced with excellent effect,

as well as several graphic descriptions of Mexican scenery and manners.

The battle of Buena Vista forms the subject of a powerful episode, and

is depicted with a life-like energy. We presume the author is more

conversant with the bustle of a camp than with the tranquil retirements

of literature, although his work betrays no want of the taste and

cultivation produced by the influence of the best books. But he shows a

knowledge of the world, a familiarity with the scenes and topics of

every day life, which no scholastic training can give, and which he has

turned to admirable account in the composition of this volume.

Fashions for Early Summer.

[Illustration: BALL AND VISITING DRESSES]

There is a decided tendency in fashion this season to depart from

simplicity in dress, and to adopt the extreme ornamental elegance of the

middle ages. Bonnets, dresses, and mantles are trimmed all over with

puffings of net, lace, and flowers. A great change has taken place in

the width of skirts, which, from being very large, are now worn almost

narrow. Ball dresses _a tablier_ (apron trimming, as seen in the erect

figure on the left of the above group) are much in vogue, covered with

puffings of net. The three flounces of lace, forming the trimming of the

bottom of the dress, have all a puffing of net at the top of them; the

whole being fastened to the apron with a rosette of ribbon. A precious

gem is sometimes worn in the centre of the rosette, either diamond,

emerald, or ruby, according to the color of the dress. Wreaths are worn

very full, composed of flowers and fruits of every kind; they are placed

on the forehead, and the branches at the end of them are long, and fall

on the neck. Bouquets, in shape of bunches, are put high up on the body

of the dress. Such is the mania in Paris and London for mixing fruits of

every kind, that some even wear small apples, an ornament far less

graceful than bunches of currants, grapes, and tendrils of the vine. The

taste for massive ornaments is so decided, that roses and poppies of

enormous dimensions are preferred. For young persons, wreaths of

delicate flowers, lightly fastened, and falling upon the shoulders, are

always the prettiest. Silks of light texture, in the styles which the

French manufacturers designate _chine_, will be generally employed for

walking dresses until the extreme heat of summer arrives, when they will

be superseded by French bareges, having flounces woven with borders,

consisting of either satin stripes or flowers. Many of the patterns are

in imitation of _guipure_ lace. The most admired of the French light

silks are those wrought upon a white ground, the colors including almost

every hue. In some the ground is completely covered by rich arabesque

patterns. These _chines_, on account of the Oriental designs, have

obtained the name of Persian silks. Worsted lace is the height of

fashion for mantles, which are trimmed with quillings of this article,

plaited in the old style. The dresses are made with several flounces,

narrower than last year, and more numerous. Nearly all the sleeves of

visiting dresses are Chinese, or "pagoda" fashion. The bodies are open

in front, and laced down to the waist, as seen in the figure in the

group, standing behind the sitting figure. Low dresses are made falling

on the shoulders, and straight across the chest; others are quite

square, and others are made in the shape of a heart before and behind.

Opera polkas are worn short, with wide sleeves, trimmed with large bands

of ermine.

[Illustration: STRAW HATS FOR PROMENADE.]

[Illustration: STRAW BONNET.]

[Illustration: TULIP BONNET.]

Broad-brimmed straw hats are used for the promenade; open-work straw

bonnets, of different colors, are adopted for the earlier summer wear,

trimmed with branches of lilac, or something as appropriate. White drawn

silk bonnets, covered with foldings of net, are much worn. Also, drawn

lace and crape bonnets, and black and white lace ones, are worn.

Branches of fruit are much worn upon these last-mentioned bonnets. The

tulip bonnet is composed of white silk, covered with white spotted

_tulle_; the edges of the front foliated, so as to give it a graceful

and airy appearance. Many of the straw bonnets are of dark-colored

ground, ornamented with fine open straw work. _Crinoline_ hats, of open

pattern, trimmed generally with a flower or feathers, are worn to the

opera. They are exceedingly graceful in appearance, and make a fine

accompaniment to a fancy dress.

[Illustration: THE LACE JACQUETTE.]

Elegant black lace jackets, with loosely-hanging sleeves, are worn, and

form a beautiful portion of the dress of a well-developed figure. There

is a style of walking dress, worn by those who have less love for

ornaments. The robe is of a beautiful light apple-green silk, figured

with white. The skirt is unflounced, but ornamented up the front with a

row of green and white fancy silk buttons. Bonnet of pink crape, drawn

in very full _bouillonnees_; strings of pink satin ribbon, and on one

side a drooping bouquet of small pink flowers. Corresponding bouquets in

the inside trimming. Shawl of pink China crape, richly embroidered with

white silk.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Words surrounded by _ are italicized.

Letters preceded by ^ are superscripts.

Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired, other punctuations have

been left as printed in the paper book.

Erroneous page numbers in Table of Content corrected.

Captions added to captionless illustrations.

Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent

spellings have been kept, including:

- use of hyphen (e.g. "death-bed" and "deathbed");

- accents (e.g. "Republique" and "Republique");

- any other inconsistent spellings (e.g. "fairy" and "faery").

Following proper names have been corrected:

- In the Table of Content:

"Farraday" corrected to be "Faraday" (Faraday, and Mantell);

"Oldenburgh" corrected to be "Oldenburg" (Duchy of Oldenburg);

- Pg 116, "Lecler" corrected to be "Leclerc" (whether M. Leclerc or).

In the Table of Content, word "of" added (Arrest of M. Proudhon).

Pg 33, word "I" removed (I <I> don't see).

Pg 77, title added to article (Tunnel of the Alps).

Pg 85, word "is" removed (is <is> expressly mentioned).

Pg 113, word "been" changed to "be seen" (to be seen riding).