Chapter IV (10)

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.

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.

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.

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.