MISCELLANY.

GRAVE OF JOHN RANDOLPH.-A writer in the Norfolk Beacon describes a visit to the grave of this remarkable man. Speaking of the former residence of Mr. Randolph he says:

insisted on their doing so, and stood by until his di rections were obeyed. Of the meal thus prepared he and all his children partook; in the kitchen, the servants refused to eat it; and their share was given to four calves, all of which died shortly after. The following morning, Dr. Grattan was actually engaged After a ride of two or three hours, we entered a in investigating the extraordinary occurrence, which forest of tall oaks, and were told by Mr. Cardwell, had immediately been spread abroad among the that we were on Mr. Randolph's estate. Shortly, ignorant peasantry as the effect of the Indian corn, the houses that were occupied by the great and when his eldest son called him to breakfast, mentioneccentric genius, appeared through the intervening ing at the same time that they had just breakfasted trees, built up in the midst of the woods. Not a on flummery, and, what was very curious, that they stump to be seen, not a bush grubbed up; all stand- were every one of them sick and vomiting. And true ing, as if the foot of man had never trodden there. it was: when he reached the house, he found Mrs. Mr. Randolph would not suffer the primitive aspect Grattan, the four children, and a servant-maid, exof things to be disturbed in the least. Not a tree, or hibiting all the symptons of poisoning by arsenic. The branch, or a switch, was allowed to be cut. During Doctor having by accidental absence escaped partakhis absence in Europe, a limb of an oak, projecting ing of the poisoned food, was able to give instant towards a window of one of the houses, grew so near, assistance to the unfortunate sufferers, and had used that old Essex, fearing the window would be broken, the ordinary antidotes and remedies hours before cut the limb off. On Mr. Randolph's return, he at medical assistance could possibly have reached them once discovered the mutilation; old Essex was called from any other quarter. To this most providential up, and the reasons demanded for cutting off the occurrence it may in all human probability be attriblimb. The old negro told his master he feared the uted that any of them are now living. In spite of window would be broken. Then,' said Mr. Ran- every care, his eldest son died within twenty-one dolph, why did you not move the house?'" hours, and the others of the family are not out of AST The writer here met John, the former body-servant danger." An inquest has been held on the son, a of Mr. Randolph, who treated him and his compan-youth of fifteen, and a verdict returned implicating ion with great politeness, conducting them to the the cook. She has been committed to gaol. winter and summer-houses, and other objects of interest in the vicinity. We copy the description of his last resting-place:

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The

SPECIE FREIGHT.-Captain John Gordon, brother of the Earl of Aberdeen, was tried by court martial At my request, John directed us to his master's on Wednesday, for sailing from Valparaiso to Enggrave, at the foot of a lofty pine, just a few steps in land with the America fifty-gun frigate, in disobethe rear of the summer-house. The place was dience of the orders of Rear-admiral Sir George selected by Mr. Randolph, twenty years before his Francis Seymour, the Commander-in-chief. death; and by his direction, the head was laid to the court was held on board the Victory, at Portsmouth, east, instead of the west, the usual position. It was under the Presidency of Admiral Sir Charles Ogle. observed to John that his master had ordered his Captain Gordon was assisted in his defence by Mr. body to be thus laid, that he might watch Henry Hoskins, solicitor. Disobedience of orders was adClay. John replied, that he had never heard him mitted, but the pressing nature of the case was say anything of the kind. I suppose the position pleaded. Upwards of 2,000,000 dollars had been was preferred by Mr. Randolph, because it is the shipped on board the America at Mazatlan and other Indian sepulchral posture, his descent from Pocahon- places, to be conveyed to Valparaiso, there to be tas, the Indian princess, being one of the things he transhipped into another vessel of war and conveyed much boasted of. A rude unchiselled mass of white to England. The merchants addressed a strong rock, found by Mr. Randolph on a distant part of his representation to the British consul at Tepic, requestestate, many years before his death, and used by ing him to use his influence with the commander-inhim, at the door of one of his houses, as a wash-chief to induce him to allow the America to comstand, marks the head of the grave. A huge mass of brown stone, also selected by Mr. Randolph, and used as a step-stone to mount his horse, marks the foot of the grave. These rocks were procured and kept for the purpose to which they are now appropriated, and particular direction given to John on the subject.

"I can never forget my emotion while standing over the unornamented grave of the gifted and eccentric Randolph. The tall, unbroken forest by which I was surrounded, the silence and gloom that reigned undisturbed amidst the deserted place, the thought of the brilliant mind that once animated the remains, then mouldering beneath the sod upon which I was standing, the vanity of carth's promises, and hopes and distinctions, impressed my heart and mind with a degree of solemnity and interest I was unwilling to dissipate."

PREJUDICE AGAINST INDIAN CORN.-A diabolical

plete the voyage to England, to avoid the risk of having so large an amount of specie placed on board a small vessel; it was urged also, that as the insurance was effected on the America, a transfer of the risk to a smaller vessel might lead to difficulty in settling losses, should any occur. Owing to the length of time it would take to get an answer from the commander-in-chief, Captain Gordon, after consulting with his senior lieutenant and another officer of the civil branch, resolved to proceed to England. Mr. Hoskins repudiated the idea of his client's being actuated by any pecuniary motive; stating that he had directed his agents to pay the freight-money over to the captain by whose vessel the specie would have been brought to this country in regular course. Mr. Hoskins admitted that Captain Gordon had acted under an error in judgment. The officers consulted by him previously to sailing were examined; and their statement was, that at each station they had visited the usual naval force was present.

The court found the charge of disobedience to.

case of poisoning has occurred in the family of Dr. Grattan, of Drummond House, in the county of Kil-orders proved, but acquitted Captain Gordon of dare. In consequence of the potato failure, the Doctor wished to introduce Indian corn as a food for being actuated by motives of a pecuniary character. The sentence was, that he be severely reprimanded the people in the neighborhood; and he had a supply from Dublin. "Some prejudice against it having A QUESTION of much importance to life assurance been manifested," Saunder's News Letter reports, companies has lately been decided by the judges in "Dr. Grattan, in order to remove it if possible, deter- the Exchequer Chamber, on a bill of exceptions in mined to use it in his own family; and upon finding an action brought by the representatives of Schwabe that his domestic servants refused even to prepare it, against the Argus Life Assurance Company. The

and, being carried along by the wind, comes in contact with the trees and hedges, and is condensed upon the leaves and branches. Its immediate effect is to destroy the leaves; the bark then becomes affected; and the final result is to destroy the trees altogether. Up to the time that the works were established, Sir John's plantations were perfectly healthy. One of the witnesses, a timber surveyor, estimated the actual damage sustained during the past seven years at £5,826. On both sides, persons accustomed to rear and value trees, as well as scientific men, were examined. The plaintiff's witnesses attributed the damage to the alkali works; the defendants traced it to peculiarities of soil and management. After a trial, which lasted the greater part of two days, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; damages £1,000.

Another trial was entered upon of a similar nature; Sir John Gerard being the plaintiff, and Messrs. Crossfield and others, proprietors of alkali works, the defendants. According to the plaintiff's witnesses, the damages sustained by those parts of Sir John's plantations subject to the action of the works was about £3,400. In this case the jury returned a verdict for £400 damages.

AN UNJUST JUDGE.-In a letter to the Times, Miss Agnes Strickland, authoress of the Lives of the Queens of England, prefers a charge of gross plagiarism against Lord Campbell. The fair complainant states, that if her life of Eleanor of Provence be compared with Lord Campbell's biography of the same princess, under the title of the "Lady Keeper" in his Lives of the Chancellors, it will be seen "that his lordship has published an abridgment of that which has now been before the public six years

"He has transposed the language a little in the course of his labors, to disguise the fact, and discreetly transferred the references which I honestly gave to my authorities to his own margins; but he has not put forth a single fact in addition to those which I had put forth in my life of Eleanor of Provence; merely curtailing my matter, but preserving the arrangement, and adding a coarse joke of his own. He has even availed himself of the quotations of the old chronicle rhymes, and some interesting particulars of the dress of that queen, for the benefit of the lawyers, which, with his important avocations, he would scarcely, I should imagine, have seriously referred to books of costume to collect for such a purpose, or known anything about, had he not found them conveniently under his eye, in connexion with FRENCH FREE TRADE.-The Association of the Libre the rest of the information which he has drawn from Echangistes held its inauguration meeting on Fri- my work. I should have been proud of the convicday, in the Salle Montesquieu; the Duke d'Harcourt, tion that anything from my pen had been of such peer of France, president of the society, in the chair. great use to a learned dignitary of the law, and From 700 to 800 persons were present. The cham-regarded his abridgment of my life of Queen Eleanor ber, the press, and the commerce of the country, were as one of the highest compliments that had been paid represented at the meeting. The president addressed to my work, if his lordship had candidly referred to the company, demonstrating the advantages to be the source whence his information was derived; but derived from the abolition of high protective duties he has carefully abstained from even alluding to the and the introduction of liberal free-trade measures-existence of a previously published life of that "Our plans," he said, "are simple and natural; the sincere friends of the country cannot do otherwise than go with us: after the conquest of our civil and religious liberties, we claim another, that of labor. We wish labor to be free, to be no longer loaded with those shackles which prevent it from developing itself, and from arriving at those results which should be expected from it. France is rich, strong, and wise enough, to bear such emancipation without any danger of her being led away by it."

The chairman concluded by stating that subscriptions were about to be opened to carry out the objects of the association; and that the funds so raised would be used in a manner best suited to advance its principles.-Spectator.

queen."

Miss Strickland asks, whether it is fair in Lord Campbell to appropriate to himself the credit as well as the benefit of her labors? "The benefit I would freely allow; but as my principal reward for the years myself and my sister have spent in the task of preparing the Lives of the Queens of England is the reputation acquired in the course of the undertaking, I cannot see without some feelings of pain the cool manner in which Lord Campbell has reaped my field, and passed off the produce as gleanings of his own.

"In other passages of this work he has not been quite so correct in his historical assertions. He makes, for instance, Edward IV. the husband of Lady Jane Grey; and has made some amusing mistakes with regard to Wriothesley. But I forbear to enlarge on his errors, having found him a very correct retailer of my facts; and it is but justice to add, that he has not once contradicted anything I have asserted in that portion of my work which he has used."

THAMES TUNNEL.-There was a very low tide on Sunday; and as the Venezuela, a large steamer, was proceeding down the river, for Havre, heavily laden, she grounded on the Thames Tunnel. It remained in this position for two hours; but no apparent injury has been done to the tunnel.

BORDEAUX has emulated Paris in doing honor to Mr. Cobden. The Libre-Echangistes of that city invited him to a banquet on the 1st inst.; at which upwards of three hundred gentlemen "assisted." Nor were the fair sex backward on the occasion, "the galleries being filled with elegantly dressed ladies." The chair was taken by M. Duffour-Dubergier, the mayor of Bordeaux; who was recently the guest of the free-traders at Manchester, and had now been entertaining Mr. Cobden as a guest for some days at his private house. Among the guests were Baron Sers, peer of France and prefect of the Gironde; M. Roullet, first president of the Cour Royale; M. Dosquet, secretary-general of the prefecture; and M. Darin, one of the vice-presidents of the society of Libre-Echangistes. After the healths of the king, and of the queen and royal family, had been drunk with the "loudest acclamations," that of the English guest was proposed "with the greatest en- FOREIGNERS DYING IN BRAZIL.-A correspondent thusiasm." "Mr. Cobden returned thanks in a speech of the Times, writing from Rio de Janeiro, calls which was very able, but not new to the English attention to the state of law of Brazil, which leads to reader; except, perhaps, in the emphatic enunciation the practical confiscation of property held by British of the dictum, "that free trade is association, and subjects in that country. He describes this state of that monopoly is competition." The speech was re-things to result from an effort on the part of the Braceived" with thunders of applause."-Spectator. zilian government to retaliate upon England, for

THE French Scientific Congress opened its sittings at Marscilles on the 1st of September. An opening speech was delivered by M. Roux; after which, M. De Caumont was named president, and Messieurs. De Cussy, Forbin-Janson, Wulfrane Puget, and Cauviere, vice presidents.