foes into allies was gone. He was pledged in America had established, and in France to various reforms, with Lord Thurlow for were preparing, a republic. The state of his colleague and George III. for his sover- Ireland alone, in spite of concessions, which, eign. To retain the countenance of the indeed, by separating her more from the sisKing, to preserve union in the Cabinet, yet ter kingdom, rather tended to restore her to to convince the people of his good faith and anarchy than reconcile her factions to social integrity, was a task in which a vigilant order, was sufficiently critical to demand the Opposition might well hope to expose his most temperate forethought, and strain the failure, and strand him upon either shoal- most vigorous intellect. An army of volunroyal desertion or popular reprobation. The teers numbering not less than 40,000, and majority in the House of Commons, however according to some authorities exceeding large, was composed of sections that seemed 70,000 men, had for four years occupied the little likely long to amalgamate-here, the island, defied its parliament, startled the opponents to every change, who saw in Pitt streets of its metropolis with files of soldiers but the destroyer of the Whigs; and there, (opening a path to the congregation of polit the ardent enthusiasts, who hailed him as the ical reformers), and dictated to either kingrepresentative of progress. dom "as a national convention of military delegates," acting under no legal control; holding no communication with the execu tive, and equally formidable as subjects justly aggrieved and insurgents treasonably armed.

If the personal difficulties of the minister were thus great, little had occurred to improvo the prospects of the country since the date at which, in an earlier part of this sketch, we reviewed its calamitous and menacing condition. True that peace was now A future occasion may be found to pursue concluded; but that peace, not less galling the marvellous career which commenced unto her pride because essential to the very der difficulties so complicated- dangers so springs of her existence, found England alarming. That in the scope of the survey, utterly drained of blood and treasure. Her errors in policy, fallacies in opinion will ap utmost resources were believed to be inade- pear, no rational admirer of Mr. Pitt will quate to meet the debt she had incurred. dispute; but the more minute the criticism, Her income, unable to support even a peace the more salient will become the countervail establishment, was three millions less than ing merits of rectitude and wisdom; the her expenditure, including the interest of an more partial inconsistencies will vanish in enormous unfunded debt. Credit was still the symmetry of uniform principles regulat shaken to its centre by the startling fall of ing definite and majestic action the more the funds under the preceding government: the graver charges which the carelessness of the 3 per cents. were between 56 and 57. the public has permitted to the injustice of The chances of a national bankruptcy fur- party will receive the contradiction of facts, nished a theme to solemn pamphlets and de- and Despotism and Intolerance lose all prespondent talk. Our military power ap- text to the sanction of that logical intellect peared literally annihilated. At the close of and liberal heart. Yet to others less restrictthe war 3000 men were the utmost force that ed in space and more competent to the task could have been safely sent forth on any of- than ourselves, we would fain commend the fensive duty; and even Pitt had been com- ample and searching inquiry how a Sovepelled, in defending the treaties of peace, to reign whom Temple pronounced to be unshow that our naval supremacy had melted grateful, and Shelburne insincere, - who into a "visionary fabric." In the eyes of possessed even more than a Tudor the always foreign nations the name of England was kingly, often perilous, faculty of Will,more abased than when the Dutch admiral who had induced North for three years to be had swept the Thames with his besom. For lie his deepest convictions, who had comher weakness was now considered not the pelled Yorke in spite of honor the most senconsequence of a malady, not the effect of a sitively fastidious to violate his promise to blow, but the fatal symptom of incurable Lord Rockingham, accept the Great Seal, decay. "No man," said Mirabeau, in one and hurry home to die, whether of noble of his early writings, "would believe me grief or by his own despairing hand* - with when I prophesied that England would yet recover that there was enough sap in her boughs to repair the loss of their leaves." At home the discontent which disasters abroad invariably produce was aggravated by the prospects of additional burthens, and fraught with danger to monarchy itself, by the contagion of those principles, which, identifying freedom with absolute democracy,

"My brother," says Lord Hardwicke, in his journal "went into the levee, was called into the closet, and in a manner compelled by the King. At his return from Court, about three o'clock, he broke in upon me, who was talking with Lord Rockingham, and gave us the account. word, at so sudden an event; and I was particularly We were both astounded, to use an obsolete but strong shocked at his being so overborne, in a manner I had never prince." Lord Hardwicke adds, in a letter to Lord Rock heard of, nor could imagine possible between subject and ingham-"My poor brother's entanglement was such as

whom every minister hitherto brought in by stimulating her recruited energies; her contact had wrecked either public character malcontents united to her laws; her empire or political ambition; how a Sovereign made consolidated in Ireland, as in India, from its so dangerous to his councillors, not less by centre to its verge; and realizing in the his virtues than his faults, was conciliated tribute to her marts and the reverence yieldwithout loss of personal integrity or popular ed to her flag the aspirations of Chatham favor-how the people, expecting so much, and even the designs of Cromwell; how: and necessarily in some hopes disappointed, amidst the storm which swept from France yet continued to rally heart and hand round the institutions of man and the monuments the lofty, tranquil, solitary minister; how of God, her altars became more reverenced from the attitude of a despairing suppliant and the orb more assured to her sceptre; and to which Fox had humbled her at the foot- how, when reluctantly COMPELLED into war stools of Frederic and Joseph, dismissed here which suspended the reforms but not the with a shrug of the shoulders, there with a prosperity of peace, that Nation, when Pitt sneer of disdain, England, exalted by those came to its succor, without the power to mighty hands, rose high above the Royalties recruit the remnants of a beaten army, and that had looked down upon her sorrow; her comtemplating bankruptcy as a relief from exhausted resources multiplied a thousand- its burthens, coped, and not vainly, with fold, her imposts but increasing her wealth

"A

history can scarce parallel." On the 17th Yorke had accepted the Great Seal; on the 20th he was a corpse. mystery," says Lord Albemarle ("Rockingham's Memoirs," Vol. n. p. 164), "still hangs over the immediate cause of his decease; it was known that his death was attended by a copious effusion of blood. This was attributed to burst ing a blood-vessel and to having been bled four times. Walpole says that every one believed he had fallen by his own hand,-whether on his sword or by a razor was uncertain."

him who united the hosts of Charlemagne nobler far than conceived by their owners to the genius of Alexander, saved for ends the thrones it retained as the landmarks of Europe, and animated by the soul breathed into its ranks (even when that soul was on earth no more) ensured the crowning victory by which the hand of Wellington accomplished the thought of Pitt.

the singular results was that, instead of augmenting in price, wool diminished, and has never been so dear since.

THE WOOL TRADE IN FRANCE.-M. Petit, one of the oldest and most considerable of the cloth manufacturers of Louviers, has published in the Journal des Debats, a very interesting ac- No one is so able to explain the causes of this as count of the woollen trade and of the making | M. Petit, not only because of his own manufacturof cloth in France. M. Petit is a staunch free-ing experience, but from the circumstance of his trader, and his object is to show that the sys- brother having married in Spain a lady of the tem of protection has worked infinite harm to France.

M. Petit begins by pointing out certain English cloth of the best quality, which no French cloth ean compete with in price. This difference M. Petit states to be chiefly owing to the duty on wool, some twenty or twenty-five per cent., which is kept up in France, while the English have the advantage of untaxed foreign and colonial wool.

Ulloa family, and having settled on her estates in Estramadura, where the producing and washing of wool became his chief occupation. The Spanish growers, says Mr. Petit, having no such ready market as France, continued to send their wool thither notwithstanding the duty, merely lowering their own price proportionately, and making the sacrifice to procure the sale. But being so badly remunerated, they no longer took the same care either with the breed of their sheep or the The more curious portion of M. Petit's obser- care of their wool, and the consequence was that in vations has reference to the trade in wool. The some years Spanish wool came to lose its supeimportation of wool into France was free from rior qualities, and fine cloth manufacturers were 1815 to 1822. During that period a considera-obliged to turn to Saxony first, and finally to ble quantity of Spanish wool was imported, the Australia, for their raw material. Spanish sheep-owners considering France as their regular and assured market. But in 1822, on the French squires obtaining full political power, they discovered that French wool brought much too low a price, and they placed accordingly a duty upon Spanish wool. One of

So great is the cogency of M. Petit's remarks, that the French Government will probably not delay to open their parts to Australian wool on the same terms as the mother country at pressent grants. — Examiner, 20th Oct.

746

OLD FAMILY CLOCK.

AUTUMN IN AMERICA.-
-TO THE C
From the New York Evening Post.
AUTUMN IN AMERICA.

BY WM. ROSS WALLACE.

GLOOMILY strikes the coward Blast
On the sad face of the Mere :
To and fro are the dead leaves cast-

To and fro:

The Year is now but a dying Year-
The poor old heir of an icy bier!
As he goes, we must go.

They have said, in a glorious Land away,
In a Land beyond the sea,
That as Autumn here has gorgeous hues,
We should paint her gorgeously.

I know that the Frost-King brightly sheens
The mazy wood in the cool, calm eyes,
And at morning the Autumn proudly leans
Like a glorious woman on the leaves;
But the hue on her cheek is a hectic hue,

And the splendor soon must leave her eyes, And a mist creep over the orbs of blue,

Whenever the rainbow-lustre flies

From the larch and the ash and the maple-tree,
And the orchis dies and the aster dies,

And the rain falls drearily.

The rain comes down on the lonely Mere,
And the mist goes up from the Wave,
And the pale west Wind sobs low and drear,
At night o'er the little grave;

Like a weeping mother the pale Wind sobs
Over the little grave.

Then the trees-that gave, in the summer time,
Each one his different tone,
This, glad and proud as a cymbal's chime,
That, making a harp-like moan-
All falling in with the Wind that grieves
O'er the little grave and the withered leaves,
Together make a moan,

While the desolate moon weeps half the night
In a misty sky alone;

Not a star to be seen in the misty night-
The moon and the sky alone.

Yet a grandeur broods over all the woe,
And a music's in every moan-
As through the forest-pass I go,
The cloud and I alone;

I face the blast and I croon & song,

An old song dear to me,

Because I know that the song was made
By a Poet-now in the grave-yard laid-
Who was fashioned tenderly.

O, great mild Heart!-0, pale dead Bard!
For thee, on the withered grass,
When the Autumn comes, and the pale Wind
counts,

Like a weak wan nun with fingers cold,
Her string of leaves by the forest founts,

I chant a Poet's mass;

And the Mist goes up like incense rolled,
And the Trees bow down like friars stoled.

Away! away! for the mass is said,

And it breaks the heart to think long of the dead;
But where can I go that the winds do not sing?

To the house? Ah, there from the far bleak shores

They will stalk, with a pale-mouthed muttering,

Like ghosts through the lonesome corridors.

O, Land away o'er the dark blue sea!
The good God loves us too;
The year is with us as it is with thee-
For he weareth every hue.

It is from the darkness and the blight
That we love the bloom and we know the light

Gloomily strikes the coward Blast
On the sad face of the Mere ;

To and fro are the dead leaves cast-
To and fro;

The Year is now a dying Year-
The poor old heir of an icy bier!
As he goes, we must go.

TO THE OLD FAMILY CLOCK SET UP IN
A NEW PLACE.

BY REV. N. L. FROTHINGHAM.

OLD things are come to honor. Well they might,
If old, like thee, thou reverend monitor!
So gravely bright, so simply decorated,
Thy gold but faded into softer beauty,
While click and hammer-stroke are just the same
As when my cradle heard them. Thou holdest on
Unwearied, unremitting, constant ever.
The time that thou dost measure leaves no mark
The pulses of thy heart were never stronger,
Of age or sorrow on thy gleaming face;
And thy voice rings as clear as when it told me
How slowly crept the impatient days of childhood.
More than a hundred years of joys and troubles
Have passed and listened to thee, while thy tongue
Still told in its one round the unwearied tale-
The same to thee; to thee how different,
As fears, regrets, or wishes gave it tone!
My mother's childish wonder gazed as mine did
On the raised figures of thy slender door;
The men, or dames, Chinese, grotesquely human,
The antlered stag, beneath its small round win-
dow,

The birds above of scarce less size than he;
The doubtful house, the tree unknown to nature.
I see thee not in the old-fashioned room
That first received thee from the mother-land.
But yet thou 'mindst me of those ancient times,
Of homely duties and of plain delights,

Whose love, and mirth, and sadness sat before
thee.

Their laugh and sigh both over now, their voices
Sunk and forgotten, and their forms but dust.
Thou, for their sake, stand honored there awhile,
Honored wherever standing; ne'er to leave
The house that calls me master. When there's
none such

I thus bequeath thee, as in trust, to those
Who shall bear up my name,

For each that hears

The music of thy bell strike on the hours,
Duties between and Heaven's great hope beyond

them.

was one of great suffering, scurvy attacked the party, and at one time every man of the Expedition except Dr. Kane and Mr. Bonsell were laid up by this disease. To aggravate their misfortunes there was a deficiency of fuel, and they were even obliged to adopt the habits of the Esquimaux, and live upon raw walrus flesh. As it was impossible to disengage the ship from her icebound position, it was resolved to abandon her, and on the 17th of May, 1855, the party commenced their journey to the south in boats and sledges, and finally arrived on the 6th of August at the North Danish settlements in Greenland, having travelled 1,300 miles. Here they were rescued by the American Government Expedition, despatched this year in search of them. The Expedition had the misfortune to lose three men, two from tetanus, and one from abscess following frost bites. With these exceptions, the party have returned in good health, and Dr. Kane is reported to be even improved in personal appearance by his hardships.

WEEKLY GOSSIP OF THE ATHENAEUM. | land." This part of Dr. Kane's explorations, as described in the above extract, is not clear. THE return of Dr. Kane's Arctic Expedition to We apprehend that by the Atlantic is meant a New York may be said to close the eventful Polar sea, which is claimed as the great dishistory of modern Arctic exploration, commenced covery of the Expedition. "The channel leadby the despatch of Sir John Franklin's Ex-ing to those waters was entirely free from ice, pedition in 1845. It is true that we have yet to and this feature was rendered more remarkable learn the results of the Expedition despatched by the existence of a zone, or solid belt of ice, this summer by the Hudson's Bay Company to extending more than 125 miles to the southsearch for the traces of Franklin and his party ward." The lashing of the surf against this which are said to exist near the mouth of the frozen beach is stated as having been most imFish River; but it is not probable that this pressive. The land attached to Greenland by Expedition will add to our geographical know-ice has been named Washington, and that to the ledge of the Arctic regions. The accounts of Dr. north and west of the channel leading out of Kane's proceedings, published in the New York Smith's Sound, Grinnell. The second winter papers, enable us to arrive at the conclusion that he has accomplished a very daring and adventurous voyage, which will add to his already high reputation as an Arctic navigator. The Expedition of which he had the command was equipped in the early part of 1853, and sailed on the 21st of May in that year from New York. It consisted of the brig Advance, which carried seventeen persons, including the officers, and provisions for three years. The ostensible object was to search for Sir John Franklin by a new route along the west coast of Greenland, passing through Smith's Sound, and, if possible, into a Polar Sea, which was supposed to exist to the north. Great success attended the Expedition during the first summer. The party reached the headland of Smith's Sound as early as the 6th of August, 1853, when further progress became difficult on account of the great accumulation of ice. The vessel was however warped through the pack, and the Expedition finally gained the northern face of Greenland at a point never before reached. "Here," says the account published in the New York papers, "the AN interesting manuscript copy of Leonardo young ice froze around the vessel, and compelled da Vinci's celebrated work on Painting has rethem to seek a winter asylum, in which they cently been discovered at Brussels. It is the same experienced a degree of cold much below any copy which, two centuries ago, was illustrated previous registration. Whiskey froze in Novem- by Poussin with a series of original drawings, and ber, and for four months in the year the mercury from which the first edition of Da Vinci's work, was solid daily. The mean annual temperature edited by Raphael Du Fresne, and embellished was five degrees below zero. This is the greatest with engravings after the very drawings now degree of cold ever experienced by man.' This discovered, was printed, at Paris, in 1651. The last assertion is not correct. The scurvy now MS.,-according to an autograph memorandum broke out, but was controlled by judicious treat- on one of the fly-leaves by a M. Chantelou, stewment. more terrible enemy, and one novel ard to the household of Louis the Fourteenth, in Arctic adventure, was tetanus, or lock-jaw, was brought from Rome to Paris in 1640. Not which killed fifty-seven of their sledge dogs. In having been heard of since 1651, it has now the ensuing Spring the search was commenced, turned up in a second-hand furniture sale, where Dr. Kane heading a party in March, along the M. Heussner, a bookseller at Brussels, north coast of Greenland, which was followed present happy possessor, bought it. until progress became arrested by a stupendous glacier. This mass of ice rose in lofty grandeur Fredegar Mone, of the University of Heidelberg, WE read in the Karlsruher Zeitung, that Dr. to a height of 500 feet, abutting into the sea. has discovered, in the Convent of St. Paul's, CarIt undoubtedly is the only obstacle to the insularity of Greenland, or in other words, the inthia, a codex of Pliny the Elder, containing only barrier between Greenland and the Atlantic. about the seventh part of the Natural History It is, however, an effectual barrier to all future (Libri XI. to xv.), being the largest of the palexplorations. This glacier, in spite of the impsests hitherto discovered. difficulties of falling bergs, was followed out to sea, the party rafting themselves across open water spaces upon masses of ice. In this way they succeeded in travelling eighty miles along its base, and traced it into a new northern

the

THE Dutch schooner Atalante has sailed, on the 17th of October, from Nieuwe Diep, for the Arctic Seas, in order to take a part in the investigations into the nature of the oceanic currents, after the system of Lieut. Maury.

A CORRESPONDENT, who is interested in auto-be well were the trade generally, on moral grounds, respect rights-when celebrities, and in illustration of our own re- these rights are legitimately acquired by purmarks, an account of a curious case of autograph chase from the author, -so as not to provoke collecting, which occurred in France some little these perpetual lawsuits and conflicting decisions. time ago, although only recently brought to Mr. Bentley, we have reason to know, has a light. An ingenious rogue, being rather badly legitimate property in the works of Mr. Prescott, off, as rogues often are, hit upon a mode of and an interest in the sale which is shared by replenishing his exchequer by means of a novel the distinguished American historian. description of begging letter. Feigning himself MR. BENJAMIN THORPE is about to publish a to be in the deepest mental distress, overwhelmed translation of Dr. Lappenberg's "History of with an accumulation of agonizing miseries, England under the Norman Kings, or to the Acwhich had driven him to absolute despair, he cession of the House of Plantagenet. To which professed himself to be utterly disgusted with is prefixed an Epitome of the Early History of life, and on the point of terminating his troubles Normandy." The translator, we hear, proposes by committing suicide. In this state of mind, to make considerable additions to Dr. Lappenhe pathetically entreated the person addressed to berg's original work. inform him confidentially what he really thought of the right of the overburdened wretch to THE German edition of Dr. Barth's "Travels "shuffle off this mortal coil" Having crowded in Africa" will be published, we read in the into his letter all the touching and miserable German papers, by Herr Justus Perthes, of words at his command, he wrote copies of it to Gotha. Dr. Barth has repaired to Gotha, in many of the most distinguished persons in order to superintend in person the publication of Europe. In due time answers came crowding his work. in. Espartero replied laconically, "Sir, I do not advise you to kill yourself. Death is a bullet which we must all encounter, sooner or later, in the battle of life; and it is our part to wait for it patiently." Others-good-natured men- -filled the four sides of their sheet of paper MADAME and Herr Goldschmidt are expected with the high teachings of lofty philosophy or to arrive shortly in England, for the purpose of with sound religious advice replete with giving concerts. The Art-Journal states that studied argument and amiable eloquence. The Madame Goldschmidt has expressed her intention answer of Lacordaire was a masterpiece of evan- of devoting the profits of one of the series to the gelical persuasion. He offered to confer with the Nightingale Testimonial Fund. poor despairing wretch, and entreated him, with the warmest sympathy, to dismiss forever from his mind all thoughts of his meditated crime. Such letters were the very things which the impudent rascal wanted. As soon as received, they were taken off to a dealer in autographs, who purchased them at prices proportioned to the notoriety of the writer and the length of his effusion-5, 10, 20, and even 50 francs apiece. The trick was brought to light by a collector chancing to buy three of the answers. Finding them all upon one theme, his curiosity was excited; he called upon the dealer to inquire their history, and found that he had in his collection all purchased, within a few days, from one person five-and-forty similar letters. The whole were secured at the price of 600 francs. Amongst them are what the collectors call "admirable specimens" of Montalembert, Cardinal Antonelli, Fenimore Cooper, Xavier de Maistre, Sophie Gay, Abdel-Kader, Armand Marrast, Alexander Humboldt, Tony Johannot, Taglioni, Henri Heine, Alfred de Vigny, Rachel, Sontag, Charles Dickens, Emilie Souvestre, George Sand, Jules Lacroix, and many others.

THE Correspondence of Silvio Pellico is about to be published at Turin. Persons who have any letters from him in their possession are invited to send them to M. G. Stefani, in that city.

MR. BENTLEY, we see, is to produce three different editions of Mr. Prescott's "History of Philip the Second" (reviewed in another column), so as to meet the demand from all classes of purchasers. The law of copyright in England is very uncertain, as our publishers have found to their cost: and we think it would

MR. BRISTOW's "Rip van Winkle," the first opera by an American composer on an American legend in our recollection, has been produced in New York successfully, with Miss Louisa and Miss Pyne, Messrs. Harrison, Horncastle, and Stretton, in the principal parts. Of the merits of the composition it is impossible to form any opinion. The Musical Review and Gazette describes Mr. Bristow's music in language which may be submitted to those who can understand it: "This is not dramatic music which Mr. Bristow gives us," says the critic; "it is rather a sort of subjective musical expansion of different matters."

Have we all enten nightshade? of some unexpected event falling out. asks Somebody, in some play, on the occasion In the same strain we may inquire, Has the whole of the honors, presents, and compliments paid, world gone mad about music?" When we read in "foreign parts," toto -'s pair of hands, or -'8 c altissimo. - of silver locks engraven with Scripture text prepared for a Nightingale's chamber-door,-of a regiment of Russian soldiers placed under the colonelcy of Rubini, stand in need of a "Latter-day Prophet" to explain to us how such things can be. But among all odd homages, the oddest homage of modern times offered to exhibiting artist is that which (if newspaper report may be trusted) has been offered in the Brazils to that most quiet, most orderly, least eccentric of "lions"-M.

we