Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

MARRIAGE OF THE EMPEROR OF BRAZIL

AND THE

PRINCESS TERESA CHRISTIANA MARIA, SISTER OF THE KING OF THE TWO SICILIES.

From our own Correspondent.

Naples, May 31st, 1843. The close of our season has been considerably enlivened during the last few days by the marriage of the king's youngest sister, the Princess Teresa Christiana Maria, with the Emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro the Second. You are aware the Courts of Naples and the Brazils have long continued a correspondence, for the purpose of concluding this happy event. Report says the king's elder sister refused the emperor, who is quite a youth, and not very prepossessing in his appearance. Be that as it may, the Princess Teresa, the younger sister of his majesty, is now Empress of the Brazils.

A few days since, some Brazilian frigates arrived, bringing the special ambassador, his Excellency Carneiro Leao, and a few Brazilian dames d'onore, for the purpose of solemnizing the marriage by proxy. The Brazilian Ambassador read several to his majesty, and other branches of the royal family, wherein the emperor formally demanded the hand of the princess. The king expressed his utmost satisfaction at the mission of the embassy; after which preparatory formalities, the marriage ceremony took place on the 30th inst.

At an early hour the streets were enlivened by the equipages of the nobility and ambassadors thronging towards the royal palace. At ten o'clock, the Count Siracusa, the brother of the royal bride, (and proxy to the emperor,) conducted the princess to the royal chapel in the king's palace, where his majesty, the queen dowager, and all the members of the royal family, with the ecclesiastical authorities, were in waiting for the performance of the ceremony. The princess was elegantly dressed, and looked exceedingly pretty. Her features are regular and pleasing, and no doubt her light hair and blue eyes will be much esteemed at the court of Don Pedro; where, if we may judge from his Brazilian majesty's subjects now in Naples, all wear "the shadow'd livery of the burning sun." The count, acting as proxy, placed the ring on the princess's finger, after which she received the holy sacrament, and the company left the royal palace.

The empress will leave Naples in a few days, by one of the Brazilian frigates, which is fitted up in the most costly style. She has received a quantity of very valuable presents from her royal husband, and a most brilliant reception awaits her imperial majesty on her arrival at Rio de Janeiro. Nearly all the ministers of his Neapolitan majesty have received valuable presents from the emperor.

The king has given some very gay dinners and balls on the occasion, to which a few English have been honored by invitations. The whole of the royal party attended San Carlo on the evening of the marriage, and the house was crowded to excess. The whole city was brilliantly illuminated in the evening, and nothing which pertains to an Italian festa was forgotten. The Brazilian Ambassador is to give a grand entertainment previous to the departure of the princess.

There are but few English now residing at Naples. Among the loiterers, however, we may mention, Lady Vernon, Earl and Countess of Winchelsea, Mr. Cholmondeley and family, Gen. Sir J. Vandelere, Lady Caroline Greville, and Colonel and Lady Meyrick.-Court Journal.

STATISTICS OF TRAVELLING.-The following appears in a provincial paper. We cannot vouch for its entire accuracy: "Only eleven mail coaches now leave London daily for the country. A few years since, before railways were formed, there were nearly eighty that used to leave the General Post-office. The number of miles which the mail coaches going to and from London daily travel on turnpike roads is about 5,000. The number of miles which the different railway companies convey mails daily is 4,435. Cross-road mails in England, Scot land, and Wales, run over nearly 12,000 miles of ground every day. Thus, by principal conveyances, the correspondence in this country is conveyed over more than 20,000 miles of ground every 24 hours. From these principal conveyances, innumerable mail carts and horse and foot letter-carriers branch off, and every road, lane, street, and court in the kingdom, is traversed from sunrise to sunset."-Colonial Magazine.

SHAKSPEARE. Some interesting discoveries relating to Shakspeare and his family have been transmitted from Warwickshire to the London Shakspeare Society, and confided to the charge of Sir F. Madden and Mr. John Bruce, for publication. They are said, inter alia, to trace the poet's father, John, and his mother, from Snittersfield to Stratford, and to establish the fact that the former, as justice of the peace and bailiff of Stratford, could not write his name, and consequently made his mark. In 1577 he was in difficulties; and in 1579, with his wife, sold property in Snittersfield to Robert Webbe. In 1597 it appears that William Shakspeare of Chapelstreet ward had ten quarters of malt in his possession, probably raised on his own land, and, at any rate, malted on his premises. Other papers relate to his purchase of tithes, &c., and some extend to a date beyond the poet's death, and refer to his surviving relatives.-Lit. Gazette.

DRAWINGS IN WESTMINSTER HALL.-It affords us great and unfeigned pleasure to state, and that from authorities of such taste and judgment as to be most worthy of public reliance, that the drawings sent in to the Royal Commission on the Fine Arts, and now preparing for exhibition in Westminster Hall, in order to ascertain the competency of British artists to embellish the new Houses of Parliament with fresco-paintings, fully to justify the highest opinion entertained of the ability of our native school to meet this occasion. We understand that nearly 150 designs in chalk have been offered in competition; and that, though one-third of them may be deemed failures, there is yet among the other two-thirds many productions of great genius in conception and skill in execution. In short, that the generality have far exceeded the expectations formed by these distinguished artists and connoisseurs who are appointed to judge of their merits. We have reason to suppose that several Royal Academicians are among the candidates; but, we believe we may also truly add, that the hand of no individual painter has been recognized in the style of the pictures examined by the commissioners. They are all now in process of being hung up; and in ten days or a fortnight the exhibition will be opened to the public. If we might presume to suggest aught to those who have the direction of the affair, we would advise the admission for a week or two to be charged at a shilling, by which a considerable fund would be raised for the encouragement of the arts herein embarked; and afterwards throw the hall open to the public gratuitously. This plan would conduce to more orderly and less crowded

assemblages. But, however managed, it is certainly a most gratifying result, to be assured that there need be no call upon foreign artists to display their talent upon an English national structure; and that the demand for an almost novel species of ornament, on a grand scale, has been nobly met by our own countrymen.-Ib.

PUNCH'S RECIPES.

TO MAKE SHOES WATERPROOF.-Take a pound and a half of rose-pink, an ounce of camphor, with a quart of the liquid in which a rabbit has been boiled; stir these gently together, and pour the shoes full of the mixture when you go to bed at night.

TO TAKE STAINS OUT OF TABLE-LINEN.-Spread the damask cloth on the table, and with a sharp pair of scissors cut holes half an inch in each direction beyond the edge of the stain. There is another, but more expensive method, which is, simply, to put the linen into the fire.

A DELICATE LIP-SALVE.-Wash and grate four carrots, add to these a dram of assafoetida, and two ounces of Norway tar; tie it down close, and put into a small saucepan with as much water and ground oyster-shells as will come nearly to the top of the gallipot. Do not let it boil over; pour into small boxes for present use.

PASTE FOR CHAPPED HANDS.-At the full of the moon, take a pound and a half of coarse brown sugar, immerse it in a pint of aquafortis, one ounce of gum benjamin, one ounce of Florence iris; simmer these ingredients in a gall-bladder for an hour, then pour off into gallipots. The application will not only whiten the hands, but produce double joints, which are so much admired.-Charivari.

AURORA BOREALIS.-The aurora borealis seen at Paris, Rheims, Brussels, and other places, on the 6th instant, was described as follows:

M. Desdouits, at Paris, remarked that the direction of the luminous band was not that of the magnetic meridian, it inclined slightly towards the east. M. Moigno says the inclination of this band to the horizon was at an angle of about 70°. He had observed the almost sudden appearance of two great centres of diffused light to the right and to the left of Cassiopeia, but a little higher. These two centres, for nearly a quarter of an hour, gave out light sufficiently bright to dim stars of the 4th magnitude. At Brussels, M. Quetelet had observed that the phenomenon was accompanied by magnetic disturbance of greater force than any noted there for four years. during which time regular observations on terrestrial magnetism have been made. The mean of the magnetometer is nearly at the division of 63 00; at 11 h. 46 m. on the even ing of the 6th May the instrument marked 77-67, a difference compared with the mean state of about 15 divisions, or 54 minutes. M. Coulvier-Gravier had seen, about eleven o'clock, a meteor shoot from near the tail of the Great Bear in a direction from S. W. to N. E., traversing the square of the Little Bear, and a mass of very bright light entirely covering this square. He distinctly observed the meteor, obscured by this luminous mass, regain its brightness after having passed it. Another meteor, at about 11 h. 18 m., traversing the heavens from S. to N., and meeting with this luminous cloud, was eclipsed for some time. M. Coulvier-Gravier deduces from these two observations that the height of these shooting stars is much greater than that of the fluid or luminous gas which gives rise to the aurora Lorealis.-Lit. Gazette.

ELECTRICAL SOIREE-It is with pleasure that we record an evening passed at Mr. Gassiot's, Clapham, devoted to electrical exhibition. The purpose of the assembling on Monday was also highly creditable-to do honor to M. de la Rive, an eminent continental electrician, and to display to him the spirit with which electrical inquiry is conducted in this country. No private individual in Great Britain stands higher in this respect than Mr. Gassiot; he ranks with Mr. Cross and Lord Rosse, the former an electrician, the latter a practical me chanic and chemist on a gigantic scale. As proof, on Monday a Grove's battery of 100 pairs was in action, also a very extensive series of the gaseous battery, and a water battery, comprising 3,520 pairs; the latter has been in action upwards of two years, and sparks at a hundreths of an inch and in seconds of time have been obtained from it. The effulgence of the light from the carbon points of the first arrangement was almost beyond belief. To look at it direct was painful. Its effect, bowever, we fully appreciated, by observing the brilliancy it imparted to the natural colors of foreign moths and butterflies in a case suspended against the wall. Had they been in fluttering existence, winging their way through tropical sunlight, they could not have looked more bright or beautiful. Another pleasing proof of the power of the electrical light was the distance, through the window, it penetrated the outer darkness, shooting over the lawn; but now softened into the sweetest moonlight, and yet clothing the shrubs and turf with inof this extensive series were,-the influence of the tense green. The experiments with the electrodes magnet on the luminous arc; the difference of heating effects in the two poles; the sulphuret of antimony, a non-conducting substance, rendered a conductor by fusion, &c. &c. In another and another room were objects of attraction ;-a Wheatstone's electro-magnetic machine; electrotypes; microscopic objects, amongst them the Acarus Crossii; metalochromes; cum multis aliis.-Lit. Gazette.

UNBURNT BRICKS FROM THE PYRAMIDS.-Some specimens of unburnt bricks from the Pyramids of Daskoor (Egypt) were exhibited by Mr. Newton. From the description by Mr. Perring, who brought them to England, it appeared that they were made from the alluvial soil of the Valley of the Nile, mixed up with chopped straw; that they were made with cavities in the sides like the modern bricks, and that the interior of the Pyramids was formed of arches, the bricks composing them being either packed behind with pieces of flat pottery, There existed at Thebes some extensive ranges of or cut away to radiate equally from the centre. arches, of about twelve feet span, the bricks of which they were built bearing the name of Sesostris, and consequently they must have stood uninjured upwards of 3180 years; the arches were turned in concentric half-brick rings.-Ibid.

EDUCATION OF THE ROYAL INFANTS.-The public will observe with much satisfaction the appearance above the walls of the garden of Buckingham Palace, two green wooden uprights, with a rope's end attached to each of them. On making inqui ry, we have discovered that the objects in question belong to a swing which has been erected in the garden for the use of the Royal Infants. By this admirable arrangement it will be inculcated into their minds at an early age, that even princes are subjected in this life to ups and downs, and that we must go backward as well as forward; a truth that cannot be too soon impressed on the understanding of infancy.-Charivari.

SCIENCE AND ARTS.

THE WORLD A VOLTAIC TELEGRAPH !-Be not alarmed, gentle reader, at the startling announcement: though "the great globe which ye inhabit" is now proved to be one vast voltaic battery, with power equal to effect its own destruction, there is no present danger of its committing suicide. He who has detected the latent torpedo has no intention of employing it to annihilate the world, but solely for the annihilation of space. Yes, truly, we and the Antipodes may soon be placed in contact by galvanic influence-mentally at least-with heads to heads in lieu of feet to feet.

These curious results of scientific investigation are probably capable of many other and of even more important applications than Mr. Bain at present contemplates. To military men, for example, it may suggest the idea of applying the galvanic agency of the earth to the means of impregnable defence against invaders, by converting the islands of Great Britain and Ireland into gigantic torpedos. It is well known, that instant contact with a few plates of metals differently oxidizable will melt the hardest rocks and convulse the strongest animals: who then can calculate the effects when all the copper and tin in the bowels of Cornwall combine with the iron of Wales to produce a never-ending succession of shocks?-Spectator.

In a former notice of the improvements effected by Mr. Bain in his electrical telegraph, we communicated his discovery that the circuit of a voltaic GAULISH ANTIQUITIES.-There has just been battery may be completed, by the earth as a con- discovered in the ground excavated for the railroad, ductor, from any points however distant. We then between St. Leu d'Essevens and Montalair, a girdle anticipated that the next step would be the appli- of solid gold, wrought to imitate a cord, having a cation of the air as a conductor for the return cur-hook at each end. The weight is 342 grammes, rent, so that earth and air might call and respond and the gold is valued at 880fr. It was found within to each other from all quarters of the globe. Mr. | two and a half feet of the surface, and no other arBain has, however, shown that he can do more ticle was discovered near it. It is supposed to bethan this. He has converted the globe itself into a long to the Gaulish period, about Julius Cæsar's constant voltaic battery, and proved that it may be time.—Athenæum. rendered the means of carrying on instantaneous correspondence through the earth. This result ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.-In September, 1838, a was the sequence of the previous discovery: for, valuable piece of mosaic, representing Orpheus having ascertained that the moisture of the earth is and Ceres, with her attributes, was discovered in sufficiently conductive of the electric current of a the forest of Brothonne, in Normandy. Since then voltaic battery, he inferred that by placing a plate the Archæological Society of Caen have extended of copper and a plate of zinc under ground and con- the researches, and found a long suite of Roman necting them with an isolated wire, an electric apartments, and several baths. One of the rooms current would be formed. The experiment was is splendidly decorated, and on the walls are the tried in Hyde Park, with zinc and copper plates finest specimens of mosaic work, representing variplaced a mile asunder; and with complete success. ous aquatic birds. One side is a large stove, with This discovery made, it was readily applied to sim-flues to convey the heat, and on the hearth were plify and work the electric telegraph. A single charcoal and ashes, as fresh as if newly brought wire, connected with a copper plate at one terminus there. Another room was entirely paved with moand with a zinc plate at the other, is now all the saic, but unfortunately only a few fragments remain electrical apparatus required. The principle on entire, the rest having been crushed by the falling which the telegraph operates with this simple self-in of a wall. There were also found coins, with acting battery is this-At each terminus there is a corresponding apparatus, with series of wheels like clock-work, which are set in motion by powerful springs or weights: this apparatus is so contrived, that when the hand of a dial is stopped at any letter marked thereon, that letter is printed on paper; the hands on the dials at each station are adjusted alike; therefore, when set in motion and stopped at the same instant, the hand of each dial will point to and print the same symbol. Electrical agency is required only to set the apparatus in motion: this it effects, whenever the voltaic connexion is broken, by deflecting a coil of wire, which action removes a stop; the instant the voltaic circuit is renewed, the machinery ceases to act. The communications may thus be carried on for any time with great rapidity; the symbol indicated on one dial being indicated on the other instantaneously, however far apart. As the velocity of electricity is immeasurable; and as the conducting power of the earth is without stint, there appears to be no assignable limit to the action of this terrestrial voltaic telegraph. Should the Lords of the Admiralty conclude satisfactorily their pending negotiation with the patentees for the construction of a telegraph on PLANTS," by William Haseldine Pepys, Esq.-The this principle between Portsmouth and London, the author gives an account of a series of experiments copper sheathing of the guard-ship in Portsmouth on the products of the respiration of plants, and harbor would form a magnificent negative plate for more particularly of the leaves; selecting with this the actuating battery; the positive pole of which view, specimens of plants which had been previ could be supplied by the water-tanks at the Admi-ously habituated to respire constantly under an inralty, the space between them constituting an earthenware cell, on a large scale.

the profiles of Nero, Antoninus, Gallienus, Clandius, and other Roman emperors, with bricks, tiles, double-headed nails, vases of terra cotta of different colors, pieces of stone, marble, and glass, and several articles in iron, bronze, and ivory. There were also numerous stags' horns, boars' tusks, and bones of animals.-Ibid.

EARTHQUAKES.-A communication has been made by the French Minister of War to the Academy, being the letter of an inhabitant of Guadaloupe, dated, dated March 7, which gives an account of a phenomenon apparently connected with the catastrophe of February 8. The gentleman relates, that between the eastern point of Mariegalante and Guadaloupe, and in mid-channel, a column of water, black in color, and of large diameter, arose from the sea with great force. All around it, to a considerable distance, a quantity of vapor covered the sea. This appearance lasted about half an hour. No doubt was entertained by him of its being the effect of a submarine volcano.-Ibid.

"ON THE RESPIRATION OF THE LEAVES OF

closure of glass; and employing for that purpose the apparatus which he had formerly used in ex

perimenting on the combustion of the diamond, and
consisting of two mercurial gasometers, with the
addition of two hemispheres of glass closely joined
together at their bases, so as to form an air-tight
globular receptable for the plant subjected to exper-habits of intemperance.—Ib.
iment. The general conclusions he deduces from
his numerous experiments, conducted during sev-
eral years, are, first, that in leaves, which are in a
state of vigorous health, vegetation is always ope-
rating to restore the surrounding atmospheric air to
its natural condition, by the absorption of carbonic
acid and the disengagement of oxygenous gas; that
this action is promoted by the influence of light,
but that it continues to be exerted, although more
slowly, even in the dark. Secondly, that carbonic
acid is never disengaged during the healthy condi-
tion of the leaf. Thirdly, that the fluid so abun-
dantly exhaled by plants in their vegetation is pure
water, and contains no trace of carbonic acid.
Fourthly, that the first portions of carbonic acid gas
contained in an artificial atmosphere, are taken up
with more avidity by plants than the remaining
portions; as if their appetite for that pabulum had
diminished by satiety.-lb.

ried on in the open air, and that if they are obliged
to choose some in-door employment, it should be
one requiring strong exercise, and that they, more
than others, should avoid exposure to dust and

A GIGANTIC BIRD.-At a late meeting Dr. Buckland read some interesting letters detailing the discovery of the bones of a gigantic bird, which must have recently inhabitated New Zealand, should it not be proved to be still an inhabitant of that colony. The first announcement of its supposed existence was conveyed in a letter from Mr. Wm. Williams, dated February 28, 1842, in which he says, that hearing from the natives that an extraordinary monster inhabited a cave on the side of a hill near the river Weiroa, he was induced to offer a reward to any one who should produce either the bird, or one of its bones. In consequence, a large bone, but much worn, was soon produced; and shortly after, another of smaller size was found in the bed of a stream which runs into Poverty Bay. The natives were then induced to go in large numbers to turn up the mud in the bed of the same river, and soon brought a large number of bones, which proved to have belonged to a bird of gigantic dimenINFLUENCE OF EMPLOYMENTS UPON HEALTH.sions. The length of the large bone of the leg is The materials from which this paper was compiled, two feet and ten inches; they have been found a were obtained from the registers of the out-patients little below the surface, in the mud of several other of King's College Hospital, and comprised upwards rivers, and in that situation only. The bird to of 3000 individuals, all engaged in various occupa- which they belonged is stated to have existed at no tions. A series of elaborate Tables accompanied very distant period, and in considerable numbers, the paper, showing the different diseases to as bones of more than thirty individuals had been which males and females had been subject, from collected by the natives. Mr. Williams had also which the author arrives at the following conclu- heard of a bird having been recently seen near sions. In females, the ratio of cases of pulmonary Cloudy Bay in Cook's Straits, by an Englishman consumption to those of all other diseases, is high-accompanied by a native, which was described to est in those following sedentary employments, less be not less than fourteen or sixteen feet in height, in those having mixed in-door employments, and least in those occupied out of doors. The highest ratio occurs in the case of females whose habits of life are irregular. In men, the ratio of cases of pulmonary consumption to those of all other diseases is somewhat higher in those following in-door occupations, than in those working in the open air The ratio of cases of pulmonary consumption to those of all other diseases in the case of men following in-door employments varies inversely as the amount of exertion, being highest where there is least exertion, and lowest in employments requiring strong exercise. Neither a constrained posture, nor exposure to a high temperature nor a moist temperature appear to have any marked effect in promoting pulmonary consumption. The ratio of cases of pulmonary consumption to those of all other diseases, is highest in the case of men whose employments expose them to the inhalation of dust, there being, in persons so employed, two cases of consumption, for less than three of all other diseases. The ratio is also high in the case of persons addicted to habits of intemperance, there being two cases of pulmonary consumption to five of all other diseases. The age at which pulmonary consumption makes its attack varies with the employment, being earlier in those occupations characterized by a high ratio of consumptive cases. Thus it is earlier in those following in-door occupations than in those employed in the open air, and in those using little exertion than in those using much. It also occurs very early in those who indulge in intemperance, and in those whose occupations lead to the inhalation of dust. The practical rule to be deduced from the preceding observations, is, that those persons who have an hereditary tendency to consumption should make choice of occupations which are car

which he supposes to be about the size of the largest of those to which the bones belonged. Of these bones one case has already arrived, and a second is daily expected. A letter from Professor Owen detailed the contents of the box, which has arrived; and from these fragments it was clear that they had belonged to the species of bird which the Professor had already described in the Zoological Transactions, vol. iii. from a fragment of a femur which he had received some time previous.—Ib.

PRESERVATION OF MEATS BY FERRUGINOUS SY

RUP.-A memoir was received from M. Dussourde on the preservation of meats by ferruginous syrup, -a syrup which undergoes no deterioration by keeping. Meat which has been steeped in this syrup dries with only a slight diminution of volume, and is not affected by the most active agents of putrefaction. When required for use, the meat is put into cold water, and it soon assumes its original size. Its color and odor are then like those of fresh meat, of which it has all the properties. The syrup is made by boiling iron in an impalpable powder with common syrup until the latter becomes sufficiently impregnated with the iron.—Ib.

CONTINENTAL RAILWAYS.- Negotiations have been opened between the Canton of Geneva and Sardinia for the construction of a railroad from Geneva to Chambery. Since the Government has come to the aid of the shareholders of the LombardoVenetian railway, the works have been going on very actively at all the unfinished sections. A Hamburgh journal mentions a project for a railroad between that city and Berlin by the right bank of the Elbe. A new section of the railroad of Upper

Silesia, that from Brieg to Oppein, was opened on the 29th ult. We learn from Brunswick that the railroads in that country are urged on with so much energy, that the road from the capital to Madgeburg will be finished in the course of the next month, and that from Brunswick to Hanover may be opened very shortly after.-Court Journal.

EARTHQUAKES PREVENTED BY ARTESIAN WELLS. M. Delpon believes that, by boring artesian wells, localities subject to earthquakes may be protected from such calamity: he says, whatever be the foree which causes subterraneous explosions, it would be neutralized by the opening of wells, which would serve for the escape of this force.-Lit. Gaz.

ANTIQUITIES.-The dredging machine, employ. ed in clearing the bed of the Soane at Chalons, has brought up many interesting remnants of antiquity. Among them are some coins of Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, of great rarity-a small brass plate, on which appears a Christ on the cross, with symbolical animals at the four corners, and some Gothic characters which have not yet been deciphered, apparently a work of the earliest part of the middle age-some amphoræ and cine rary urns in good preservation. But the most valuable prize is a beautiful vitrified cup. It is shallow and broad like a dish, but the outside is enriched with wavy and spiral ornaments in relief; affording a new proof that the art of moulding in glass was well known in ancient days, and indicating the residence of the Romans at Cabillonum, after the Eduens and previously to the Burgundians.-Ibid.

OBITUARY.

JOHN ALLEN, Esq.-April 3. In South street, aged 73, after a short illness, John Allen, Esq., M. D, Master of Dulwich College.

He was born in January 1770, at Redford, a few miles west of Edinburgh-a beautiful small property to which he succeeded by the death of his grandmother, and which was afterwards sold. He in 1791, and in 1792 he became a zealous and actgraduated at the University of Edinburgh as M. D. ive member of the Association then instituted at that city to forward Parliamentary Reform, along with Thomas Muir and many other promoters of the measure, of whom Mr. Robert Forsyth, advocate, and Mr. William Moffatt, solicitor, are believed to be the only survivors.

Mr. Allen gave lectures on comparative anatomy at Edinburgh, which were of such excellence as to have induced M. Cuvier eagerly to seek his acquaintance. At the beginning of the present century he left Edinburgh, and since that time was a constant inmate, first with Lord Holland, and, after the death of that amiable and enlightened statesman, with Lady Holland. All who resorted to Holland House valued his extensive research, his accurate knowledge, his ever ready and exact memory, and his kindness in imparting information to those who sought it. His facility in unravelling tre intricate and obscure parts of history was remarkable. His articles in the Edinburgh Review, and his other works, attest his various and profound learning. His zeal for the Constitution led him to search for its foundations in the Anglo-Saxon laws, and to study a language comparatively little known.

He published "An Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative, in England;" "A Vindication of the Independence of Scotland;" and a Reply to Dr. Lingard, who had remonstrated upon a criticism of his History of England which Mr. Allen had contributed to the Edinburgh Review. He wrote, indeed, more than one article upon that work, at first approving Lingard, but afterwards censuring his partiality, particularly his misquotation of Strada, with regard to the massacre of St. Bartholemew.

Mr. Allen was one of the members of the late

Commission on Public Records.

ELECTRICITY OF STEAM.-We have so recently (Lit. Gazette, No. 1369, page 239) given the results of Mr. Faraday's investigations in regard to the electricity of steam, that we should not again recur to them were it not for the relation they bear to that extraordinary operation of nature, the thunderstorm, to which many of the remarks on Friday evening had reference. How is the atmosphere electrified? Is it by evaporation? by means of it clouds and mists, rains and dews, are formed; but does the same operation carry up and supply electricity? Hitherto our knowledge extended to this: An inmate in Holland House for more than forty we knew that by pouring water into a hot crucible, years, Mr. Allen had the opportunity of becoming for instance, and by the first bursting into vapor, acquainted with all the distinguished men of all electricity could be obtained; and hence evapora- countries, and his long life may be said to have tion was supposed to be a source of electricity. been passed between the best reading and the best The discovery of the electricity of the steam-boiler conversation. Nor in a society where Romilly, and appeared likely to extend our views in this respect; Horner, and Mackintosh, were welcome and defor if the quantity of electricity produced were a re-lightful guests, was there a single person who did sult of the mere issue of steam, then might atmospheric electricity be affirmed to be due to evaporation. But Mr. Faraday asserts that there is no connexion between evaporation and atmospheric electricity; and proves that the electricity of steam is not produced by the evolution of steam, but by the friction of the water only, and that consequently there is no substance in nature so high in the scale of electric bodies as water: it takes rank above catskin, hitherto the head of the list.

Literary Gazette.

not listen with respect to the voice of one with whom Lord Holland searched the records of history for the materials of his speeches, and to whose friendly eye were submitted those admirable protests in which the cause of liberty was so eloquently pleaded.

In the Exhibition at the Royal Academy last year was a pleasing picture of Lord and Lady Holland and Mr. Allen, seated in the library of Helland House, painted by Leslie.

He was esteemed and loved by Lord Holland, which is eulogy in itself, and there can be no doubt that his affliction for the loss of such a friend shortened his life.

LIFE-COLORED DAGUERREOTIPES.-A letter from Nice, of the 27th March, announces that an artist named Iller has succeeded in obtaining daguerreo- *To Mr. Allen's article in the Edinburgh Review, XXVI types with all the colors of life, the rapidity of tak-341, Sir James Mackintosh refers as having been written by ing them being undimished.b.

one of the most acute and learned of our constitutional antiguaries." Hist. of England, 1. 241. Mr. Allen wrote the life of Fox in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

« AnteriorContinuar »