gle specimen here engraved) as sundry other sam- | la Concorde and the Champs de Mars, is spoken of ples of the taste of our ancestors. as one of the schemes to be tried during the great gathering in Paris next year. A MARBLE group, representing Leda and the Swan, recently brought from Florence by Mr. Millais, has been deposited in the North Court of the South Kensington Museum. By some, this work has been attributed to Michael Angelo. MR. ISAAC BUTT, the Irish barrister, is also a azines, he has often sketched the salient points of literary man. In fugitive articles supplied to mag Irish counsellors. He has just furnished a charac Contemplating such unmitigated deformities as the specimen plate of a service executed for Lord Nelson, and another, scarcely less ugly, executed in with the French Emperor. M. Mame, the publisher GUSTAVE DORÉ very recently had an interview 1806 for the Duke of Cumberland, we cease to of Tours, who produced this artist's profusely illus wonder that the Frenchmen and the Saxons, who trated Bible, begged permission to be allowed to knew what Sèvres and Dresden could do, so long treated our English pretensions to art manufacture present a copy to Napoleon. The Emperor is said -a phrase, by the way, not then invented with to have granted the request on one condition, which was that the artist should accompany the publisher. a quiet contempt. As a record of the manners of After complimenting Doré upon his extraordinary the day, the account of the visit of Nelson when he the order for the said service is one of the most success, the Emperor suggested subjects for two picgave interesting of the anecdotes in Mr. Binns's book. Hetures, which he commissioned the artist to paint for him. came to Worcester on a Sunday evening, and was received by an enthusiastic concourse, who took the horses from his carriage, and drew it to the Hop-pole Inn. Sir William and Lady Hamilton were of his party, and so was the Reverend Dr. Nelson, and the Reverend Doctor's wife. Lady Hamilton hung upon the hero's arm, and her portrait was painted upon a vase in the china service, as a companion to another with Nelson's own portrait. This service ultimately passed from the family, and is now dispersed among collectors. The most curious thing in the history of Wor-teristic trait of his own which is worth literary annotation. On Friday, last week, in the great will cester pottery is its origin. It was started chiefly as a political move. case, Fitzgerald v. Fitzgerald, now being tried in Dr. Wall, a clever physician and the Dublin Court of Probate, Mr. Butt cross-examchemist, was stirred at once by an enthusiasm for ined Mr. David Courtnay, a most respectable pracold china and Liberal principles. The predomi- titioner, so hurriedly that Judge Keating interfered. nance of Toryism weighed heavily on his spirit, and as such rapidity deprived the witness of clearness justly arguing that the "working man of 1747 would be of the same politics as the working man had that very end in view, namely, of depriv of recollection. Mr. Butt replied, that his method of 1866, he put his shoulder to the wheel, exper-ing the witness of recollection. "There is no other imented carefully in clays and glazing, and finally assisted in starting the manufacture which, as Mr. Binns triumphantly proclaims, has caused during the last one hundred years the circulation of two millions sterling in the ancient and once Tory ridden city of Worcester. How the workers in pottery got their votes Mr. Binns does not say, but it appears that both politically and commercially the scheme was very soon successful. way," he said, "of testing a liar!" Judge Keating come a gentleman in Mr. Butt's position at the bar; gravely remarked that such language did not be but that gentleman retorted, "I think it language I ought to use," and added, "I say again, there is no other way of testing a liar except by cross-examination," not, he further said, that he meant "to apply that language to the gentleman" he was cross-examining! They who think that the Irish barrister of the Irish novelists of a bygone time has died out, will find by this little incident that he is as lively as of old. On the whole, though Mr. Binns's volume is a fresh proof of the seductive influences of the "nothing-like-leather" principle, it is a book that was worth writing, so far as it is a record of the gradual rise of a most attractive art, and of the processes AT the "Burns' Club" dinner which took place by which English porcelain has attained its present at Edinburgh on the anniversary of the poet's birthrespectable position. At the same time, this ac- day, Professor Masson told an anecdote which, as count of the original part played by the Worcester reported, seemed rather discreditable to Wordsmanufacture, of its after declension until 1851, and worth, though, as the professor has since explained, of the revival to which Mr. Binns asserts that it has not intended in that sense. This drew a letter to since attained, only serves to bring out into stronger the Scotsman from the Bishop of St. Andrews light the claims and the influence of the one great After reminding Scotchmen how much his uncle English master of the ceramic art. Dr. Wall was did to show his respect not only for Burns, but Scott, an energetic, accomplished, and ingenious man; the Bishop gives us the following new and interestand the many workers in design and in executioning contribution to literary history: "When Scott who have made Worcester so long a representative name have often been laborious and clever artists. But, after all, there has been but one Wedgwood. FOREIGN NOTES. was on the point of setting out as an invalid for the Continent in 1831, he was anxious that Wordsworth should pay him a farewell visit, which he did; and as I happened to be staying at Rydal Mount at the time, I had the honor of accompanying my uncle to Abbotsford. After remaining there three days, -a MESSRS. TRÜBNER AND COMPANY, of London, day or two before we arrived, and had expressed his son of Burns, by the by, had left the house only a have just announced a volume that will find numerous readers on this side the water,-"Venetian Life. regret that he could not wait to meet my uncle,— By W. D. Howells, United States Consul at Venice." on the morning of our departure (which, if I reThe work is to be published simultaneously in Lon-himself also started for Italy), he was so good-namember rightly, was the same on which our host tured as to compose and write in the album of my don and New York. A BALLOON train, to ply between the Place de cousin (afterwards Mrs. Quillinan) four original March 17, 1806.] FOREIGN NOTES. 307 stanzas, which were, I believe, -as he himself said | the smallest remuneration, as the senders are "hard at the time they probably would be, — the last ver-up." ses he ever wrote. I do not think they have ever been published. The first stanza, I recollect, was as follows: 'Tis well the gifted eye which saw The first faint sparks of fancy burn, A cart-full of letters with pamphlets, into not one of which, of course, Mr. Punch ever thinks of looking. Jokes carefully transcribed from early volumes of Mr. Punch. He may as well mention that he keeps a Memory Boy, who knows every line in the volumes, and who has never been at fault except twice, on both of which occasions he was immediately put to death. writers admit to be under the mark, but which they Two thousand letters enclosing things which the beg may be inserted as encouragement to young beginners, who may do better hereafter. A touching record not only of the satisfaction felt by Sir Walter at Wordsworth's coming to see him at such a time, but of the fact—which proves, if proof be needed, the confidence which great Scotchmen have learned to place in Englishmen-that the MSS. of Scott's earliest poetry were submitted to my uncle's criticism, a fact of which I am otherwise asSeveral hundred letters from snobs who have not sured, and received, as I believe, his warm encour-down the scandalous press, not to imitate it. The even yet discovered that Mr. Punch arose to smite agement." : names of persons libelled by such writers are carefully expunged by Mr. Punch, but those of the ure. bish above described, but in future he intends to sell Hitherto Mr. Punch has been burning the rubit. Purchasers must remove the lots at their own risk of mental demoralization. MR. PUNCH administers the following neat re-scoundrels who send the letters remain for exposbuke to some of his slow correspondents: Though not disposed to go all lengths with Mr. Bright, and to declare that America is Paradise, inhabited only by angels, we have no objection to take a hint from our smart Transatlantic relations. It seems they sell the Dead Letters which lie at their Post-Offices. A great sale of this kind has just taken place at New York, and all kinds of articles, found in the unclaimed despatches, have been got rid of by auction. It has occurred to Mr. Punch, that in these days of dear meat and outrageous millinery, he may as well turn an honest penny by the sale of his Dead Letters; that is, the effusions of ninety-eight per cent of his correspondents. He hereby gives notice, therefore, that the first Dead Letter Sale will take place at a date to be announced in future bills. Among the letters will be found the following interesting lots: Five hundred and ninety-seven bad jokes upon the name of Governor Eyre, recommending Jamaica to try "change of Eyre," congratulating him on "cutting the Gordon knot," &c., &c. Nearly a thousand intimations (warranted original) that the Pope's Bull has got the Rinderpest. Fifty-three attempts at pathetic poetry on a subject which needs no bad verse to insure its being remembered, the loss of the London. Eighty-six caricatures of Dr. Pusey, with epigrams, the point of which is usually Pussy. Ninety-seven caricatures of Mr. Spurgeon, with epigrams, the point of which is usually Sturgeon. Forty-three protests against Lord Russell's trying to increase the respectability of his ministry by taking a Duffer in. Heaps of Nights in Something or other, bad imitations of the Casual Gent. A Night in the Charing Cross Hotel, a Night in the House of Lords, a Night in a Night-cellar, and similar rubbish, are among these. furnishes the subjoined description of a new Greek THE Athens correspondent of the London Times island: "A new island began to rise above the level 4th of February, and in five days it attained the of the sea in the Bay of Thêra (Santorin) on the height of from 130 to 150 feet, with a length of upwards of 350 feet, and a breadth of 100 feet. It continues to increase, and consists of a rusty black ed scoria which has boiled up from a furnace. It metallic lava, very heavy and resembling half-smeltcontains many small whitish semi-transparent partifelspar. The shape of Santorin on the map gives cles disseminated through the mass like quartz or the eastern half of an immense crater, stretching an idea of its volcanic formation. It appears to be in a semicircle round a bay in which the sea now covers the seat of volcanic action. The destruction water. of the southwestern rim of the crater let in the The northwestern portion is the island of long, and upwards of four broad. Near the centre Therasia. The bay is about six geographical miles there are three islands which have risen from the Nea, and Mikrê Kaïménê, or Old, New, and Little sea during eruptions recorded in history,-Palaia, west to east. Burnt (Island), naming them in their order from The present eruption commenced on lery was heard, but without any earthquake. On the 31st of January. A noise like volleys of artilthe following day flames issued from the sea, in a always discolored and impregnated with sulphur part of the bay called Vulkanos, where the water is from abundant springs at the bottom. The flames rose at intervals to the height of fifteen feet, and were seen at times to issue from the southwestern by a deep fissure, and the southern part sank conpart of Nea Kaïménê. That island was soon rent siderably. Several thousand obvious attempts on the part of auctioneers, hotel keepers, local nobodies, quack doctors, and the like, to obtain the awful puff which a paragraph in Punch would give them. The usual more violent and the sea more disturbed. Gas forced On the 4th of February the eruptions became dodge is to send a letter, purporting to come from itself up from the depths with terrific noise, resemsomebody who is surprised, or offended, at the pro-bling the bursting of a steam-boiler; flames arose at ceedings of the fellow who wants the puff, begging that Mr. Punch will "show up" such a character. Many hundreds of old jokes (sworn to have been heard on the date of the letters), with requests for intervals, and white smoke, rising steadily, formed it rose out of the sea at no great distance to the south of Nea Kaiménê. The new island has been visited by Dr. Dekigalla, a man of science and an able observer, who will record accurately all the phenomena of the present eruption as it proceeds. The heat of the sea rose from 62 Fahrenheit to 122 as near the vicinity of volcanic action as it was safe to approach. The bottom of the sea all round Nea Kaïméne appears to have risen greatly. In one place, where the depth is marked on the Admiralty chart one hundred fathoms, it was found to be now only thirty, and at another where it was seventeen, it is now only three fathoms. The new island, as it increases, will probably form a junction with Nea Kaiméne. It grows, as it were, out of the sea, the mass below pushing upwards that which is already above water. The lower part is hot, its fissures where they are deep being 170 Fahrenheit, and the upper part after four days' exposure was found to be still 80. THE Pall Mall Gazette says, that credit is taken for the Empress Eugenie for not having been present at General Fleury's party when Thérésa sang. The heroine of the Alcazar now finds the best salons open to her, and in the fashionable prints her movements are chronicled as carefully and respectfully as those of Mdlle. Patti, or any of the great musical artists. THE Americans in London celebrated the one hun dred and thirty-fourth anniversary of the birthday of Washington, by a dinner at Willis's Rooms. The Hon. Freeman H. Morse, United States Consul at London, took the chair, and among those present Professor Goldwin Smith, Professor J. E. Cairnes, were his Excellency the United States Minister, Hon. George Folsom, Mr. Benjamin Moran, Secretary of the United States Legation, London; Mr. Dennis R. Alward, Assistant Secretary of the United States Legation, London; Mr. Henry Lord, United "At present the centre of the volcanic force lies States Consul, Manchester, &c. The chairman delivered a brief address upon the character of Washevidently far below the bottom of the sea, and onincumbent earth to the water, and escape in noise, drunk in solemn silence, the band playing "Washly gases and smoke work their way through the ington and his place in American history, and concluded by proposing "His memory." The toast was flames, and smoke to the surface. But should a fissure at the bottom of the sea allow the water coln " was then given from the chair, and similarly ington's March." "The Memory of Abraham Linto penetrate to the fires that throw up the melted honored, the band playing "The Dead March in metal of the new island to the surface, an eruption Saul." The next toast was "The Health of the may take place of a kind similar to that which President of the United States," spoken to by Colodestroyed Pompii, but far more terrible. The erup-nel Griffith, of Chicago, and Mr. Mason Jones. tion that formed the present island of Nea Kaïménê"The Health of the Queen" was next drunk upbegan in the year 1707, and the volcanic action continued, without doing any serious injury to the inhabitants of Thêra, until 1713. It is possible the present eruption may continue as long, and be as mild in its operation. But as late as 1650 a terrible eruption laid waste great part of the island, and raised an island on its northeastern coast, which soon sank again into the sea, leaving a shoal. The island of Old Kaïménê made its first appearance in the year 198 before the Christian era. Its size was increased by several eruptions mentioned in history. The first addition it received was in 1457. The Small Kaiménê, which is nearest to Thêra, was thrown up in 1573. All the eruptions in the bay have been attended with similar phenomena, and the best accounts of them will be found in the works of the Abbé Pégues and Dr. Louis Ross: 'Histoire et Phénomènes du Volcan et les Volcaniques de Santorin.' Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1842. Reisen auf den Griechischen Inseln des Aegaeischen Meeres. Von Dr. Ludwig Ross." Mr. Adams's health having been drunk, he made a standing, the band playing the National Anthem. speech in which he adverted to the reserve which was imposed on him by passing events, spoke of Washington's patriotism and his concern for the preservation of the Union, commending that great man's last patriotic counsels to the consideration of his countrymen. "Our whole country" was next given, and responded to by the Rev. C. W. Denison and Mr. T. Walker. Professor Goldwin Smith responded to the toast of "The United States and Great Britain." He drew a sketch of Washington English type of character even when English prinas the English gentleman, displaying an eminently ciples of liberty taught him to fight English soldiers, ship fashioned on the best English model, and that and distinguishing between his school of statesmanof Jefferson, whose ideas had been formed under the influence of the French Revolution. THE Moniteur states that the attention of the M. GLAIS-BIZOIN, the witty opposition deputy, French government was in the beginning of the last has just dedicated his play, which has been con- No instances of this affection have yet occurred in year directed to the new disease called trichinosis. demned by the censorship, to M. Rouher. It will France, but it has proved fatal in many cases in be remembered that last year M. Rouher answered M. Glais-Gizoin's speech in the Chamber asking for Germany. At the request of the Minister of Agrimore freedom in France by saying that France al-ed Dr. Delpech to collect information on the subject, culture, the Academy of Medicine last year appointready possessed every kind of freedom. MR. JAMES GREENWOOD-the author of "A Night in a Workhouse" is contributing a series of "Starlight Readings" to the London Evening Star, descriptions of queer spots and strange phases of life in the dark places of London. The Minister has now appointed Dr. Delpech and M. Raynal, professor of the Veterinary School at Alfort, to study the disease from a veterinary point of view. They will immediately go to Germany. passing through Hay (Belgium), where the malady has appeared. VOL. I.] A Journal of Choice Reading, SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE. SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1866. [No. 12. in every branch of literature, whether light as PlauGONE TO THE TRUNKMAKER'S. tus or heavy as Seneca. For this is the story of In the Apologetical Dialogue, so called, which their lives from year to year. And, as saith the fool forms the epilogue to Ben Jonson's learned and la-i' the forest, thus may we see (quoth he) how the borious, or to elaborate the labial emphasis world wags. learnedly labored comedy of "The Poetaster," the author is made to congratulate himself on the conviction that his lines shall flourish in vigor and renown long after those of his enemies shall have been turned to all base uses; -" when, what they write 'gainst me," he says, "Shall, like a figure drawn in water, fleet, And the poor wretched papers be employed Horace is the central figure in the high-comedy department of that play; and, in penning these lines, rare Ben was mindful of Horace's "Gold. Rags? O, ha! the paper. Yes, it can't be otherwise, you know. . . . . For as you say in one of your beautiful Parliament speeches "Sir Gilb. My speeches!.... Is it possible? have you met with my speeches? That amiable ex-tobacconist, Mr. Allison, in Southey's "Doctor," had acquired his liking for books by looking casually now and then over the leaves of those unfortunate volumes with which the shop was supplied for its daily consumption. It was not a bad thought to introduce a retired trunkmaker on the stage, who makes pithy allusions to the literature of his professional experience. Thus, in Goldthumb's interview with his neighbor, Sir Gilbert Norman, the ex-tradesman astounds the baronet by "Poan incidental "For, as the poet says etry!" exclaims Sir Gilbert, in amaze; and Goldthumb ambiguously explains, "For more than thirty "in vicum vendentem pus et odores, years I was up to my elbows in it. (Aside: He Et piper, et quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis." has n't heard that I was a trunkmaker?) And the Of which pungent passage it has been observed, that poet, speaking of wives, says he says-ha! I forthe practice of applying unsalable authors to the get the lines, but I remember the paper perfectly." ignoble uses of retail dealers in petty articles must have existed in Rome for some time before it could "Sir Gilb. The frequent fate of poetry with some have attracted the notice of Horace, and upon some people; insensible to its inspiration, they only dwell considerable scale as a known public usage, its rags. upon before it could have roused any echoes of public mirth as a satiric allusion, or have had any meaning and sting, Macaulay was yet a young man when he amused himself with turning over some recent volumes of periodical works, and seeing how many immortal productions had, within a few months, been gathered to the poems of Blackmore and the novels of Mrs. Behn; how many "profound views of human nature," and "exquisite delineations of fashionable manners," and "vernal, sunny, and refreshing thoughts," and " high imaginings," and " breathings," and "embodyings," and "pinings," and minglings with the beauty of the universe," &c., &c., the world had contrived to forget, the names of the books and of the writers being already buried in as deep an oblivion as the name of the builder of Stonehenge. It was in 1830 that the young Edinburgh Reviewer thus discoursed, all on the text of Mr. Robert Montgomery and the art of puffing; and he went on to say: "Some of the well-puffed fashionable novels of eighteen hundred and twentynine hold the pastry of eighteen hundred and thirty; and others which are now extolled in language almost too high flown for the merits of Don Quixote, will, we have no doubt, line the trunks of eighteen hundred and thirty-one." A safe prophecy, wellordered in all things and sure; and true not only of fashionable novels, but of panegyrized performances 66 - young "Gold. Upon my honor, you never published one that it did n't somehow fall into my hands. - Sir Gilb. This is strange, yet gratifying. And you really have dipped into my little orations? hours. And so, I think, I know whole sentences of Gold. Dipped in 'em? I've hammered over 'em for them." The orator's speeches have, therefore, in this one instance, gone to the trunkmaker's to some purpose such as it is, over and above the trunk line, or main branch, of his business. So, again, when D'Artagnan, Dumas's Gascon hero, expresses surprise at his old retainer, Planchet, quoting mathemathics and philosophy, "Monsieur," Planchet explains, " in my grocery business I use much printed paper, and that instructs me." One of the appliances of the street sweetstuff trade which Mr. Henry Mayhew saw in the room of a seller, was - Acts of Parliament. A pile of these, a foot or more deep, he tells us, lay on a shelf used to wrap up the peppermint rock, and ginger-drops, and bull's-eyes, and toffy. The seller in question bought his "paper" of the stationers, or at the old-book shops. Sometimes, he said, he got works in this way in sheets which had never been cut, and which he retained to read at his short intervals of leisure, and then used to wrap his goods in. In this way he had read through two Histories of England. And give them to your cook, And then the Doctor suggests a nasty alternative, It is plain our linen manufacture is advanced, said Swift, by the great waste of paper made by our present set of poets; not to mention other necessary uses of the same to shopkeepers, especially grocers, apothecaries, and pastry-cooks. The topic is a favorite one with the Dean, as might be supposed. The mixed multitude of ballad-writers, ode-makers, translators, farce-compounders, opera-mongers, biographers, pamphleteers, and journalists he declares to be profitable to no living soul beyond the of pastry-cooks, grocers, chandlers, and tobaccoretailers. Writers of polemical pamphlets - Rejoinders and Replies - are specially doomed to this degrading end, in Lord Shaftesbury's estimate. "An original work or two," supposes the noble author of the Characteristics, " may perhaps remain ; but for the subsequent Defences, the Answers, Rejoinders, and Replications, they have been long since paying their attendance to the pastry-cooks." But to return to Swift. He makes Mrs. Curll, in her letter on her poor " empoisoned" husband's behalf, to his publisher, Mr. Lintot, conclude with a 'Pray recommend me to your pastry-cook, who furnishes you yearly with tarts in exchange for your paper." So, in the Dean's matchless verses on his own death: 66 "Some country squire to Lintot goes, ' Inquires for Swift in Verse or Prose.' Says Lintot, I have heard the name; He died a year ago.' The same.' He searches all the shop in vain. Sir, you may find them in Duck Lane; I sent them with a load of books, Last Monday, to the pastry-cook's. I find you 're but a stranger here.'" To his familiar friend, Doctor Sheridan, on his Art of Punning, Swift addressed a copy of verses containing these, among other benignant aspirations: — "May no vile, miscreant, saucy cook Of either living block or dead." : "Where grocers and where pastry-cooks reside, Thy book, with triumph, may indulge its pride: Preach to the patty-pans sententious stuff,And hug that idol of the nose, called snuff; With all its stories, cloves and ginger please, And pour its wonders to a pound of cheese." Mr. Boswell has his tu quoque always ready, even when a lady's in the case: - "Madam, your irony is wondrous fine! Sense in each thought, and wit in every line. Yours, to enjoy of fame the just reward, Boileau, as his manner is, again and again makes "awful mirth" of the rag-shop destinies of ephemeral literature, -now all the rage at the libraries, and anon selling at so much per pound: "Combien, pour quelques mois, ont vu fleurir leur livre, Dont les vers en paquet se vendent à la livre! Vous pourrez voir, un temps, vos écrits estimés Courir de main en main par la ville semés; Puis de là, tout poudreux, ignorés sur la terre Suivre chez l'épicier Neuf-Germain et la Serre," Elsewhere or any other equally forgotten name. he speaks of the large proportion of verses which "aussi peu lu que ceux de Pelletier, N'a fait de chez Sercy qu'un saut chez l'épicier." Sercy being the libraire du palais - whence at one bound, nay, at one step-like the fatal one step from the sublime to the ridiculous- these authors made their way to the grocer's shop, to be sold as so much dead weight avoirdupois. Again, in the Epistle of the King, "Il est fâcheux, grand roi, de se voir sans lecteur, Et d'aller, du récit de ta gloire immortelle, Habiller, chez Francoeur, le sucre et la canelle," Francœur being a fameux épicier, or, as modern Cockaigne would say, an eminent grocer, in the days of the Grand Monarque. Curious that in so complete a list of contingent remainders the Trunkmaker should be left out. One would have supposed him no more likely to be forgotten than he used to be in that mysterious Cockney toast of forty or fifty years since, worthy of dis- Christopher Anstey applies that very term, emicussion in "Notes and Queries," when to the post-nent, to a cook-in his lines" written at Mr. Gill's, prandial proposition," All friends round St. Paul's," an eminent Cook at Bath," of which one stanza is was invariably attached this rider, "Not forgetting pertly pertinent to this our theme: the Trunkmaker round the Corner." The good citizen had a meaning in it, no doubt, and knew the reason why. Tom Sheridan reciprocated, after a sort, the kindly deprecation of Jonathan Swift. At least he invoked the Dean's cookery vengeance against certain snappish verses of his own :— "Take those iambics which I wrote, "Immortal bards, view here your wit, To singe the fowl upon the spit There is an entry in Byron's Journal which describes that noble lord, at Ravenna, as out of spirits, reading the papers, and thinking what fame was, on seeing, in a case of murder, that " Mr. Wych, grocer, at Tunbridge, sold some bacon, flour, cheese, and, it |