least submission of the people. The failure of provisions
and the early snows compel an early retreat. The
Circassians, led by Schamyl or one of his Naibs, follow
the retreating Russians, and harass their ranks, attack
the convoy, cut off the weak and failing, and revenge
themselves for the desolation of their village by similar
devastations on the Russian territory on the other side of
the Sundscha and Terek. In the Western Caucasus the
war has never been carried on with so much bitterness
and constancy. By the true Circassian people, who
speak three distinct languages, and are divided into a
number of small tribes, a pacific attitude will be
maintained, almost unchanged, for several years. But still
hostilities have never entirely ceased in the Circassian
mountain-land. After years of inactivity, attacks upon
the Russian posts on the Black Sea recommence, from
some unknown cause of warlike passion—a Berserker-
like fury suddenly seizes the valiant race, when the
chiefs of all the tribes assemble under the sacred oak,
and there devote their swords to Seaseros, the god of
battles, who, like many other deities of the place,
maintains his ancient honours in spite of the introduction of
Islamism, and sustains a more considerable part here
than Allah, or the prophet. All the politic attempts of
Prince Woronzow to captivate the western mountaineers
by offers of material advantages, lucrative trade, are
scorned, and the French may hope to civilise and settle
Kabylia long before Russia will have gained peaceful
possession of Circassia.

Advices from New York come down to the 10th
instant. The intelligence is not of much importance.
In the United States Senate on the 8th instant, a
bill was reported by the finance committee, the object
of which was to increase the value of silver, and thereby
retain it in the country. It was said that this measure
would greatly tend to alleviate the inconvenience to
which the trading community are frequently subjected
for want of small change. A bill had been introduced
into the United States Senate, ceding the public lands
to the states in which they lie, at certain prices. It
was announced in the House of Representatives that
drafts of the federal government were actually being
protested, for want of funds in the quartermaster's
department to meet them.

Advices from Buenos Ayres give the important
intelligence of the complete overthrow of the power of
General Rosas, the Dictator of Buenos Ayres. On the
morning of the 3rd of February, a severe and decisive
action was fought, between Merlo and the Passo del Rey,
between the forces of Rosas and the allied Brazilian and
Oriental armies, under the command of Gen. Urquiza;
the battle terminated in the defeat of the Buenos Ayrean
troops. It is said 4000 men were killed and wounded
in this engagement, and Rosas himself. During the
night of the 3rd General Urquiza slept at the country
residence of General Rosas, at Palermo, and took up his
head-quarters there, previous to marching upon Buenos
Ayres. Rosas, with his daughter Manuelita and several
of his suite, escaped on board her Majesty's ship Locust.
He was disguised as a marine, and his daughter as a
sailor boy; they were afterwards transferred to her
Majesty's ship Centaur, at Buenos Ayres. That city was
commanded by General Mancilla, who offered to
capitulate. The diplomatic agents of the various foreign
powers had gone to arrange matters amicably, if possible.
Urquiza's army comprised 28,0000 men, 5000 horses,
and 40 pieces of artillery, with the necessary baggage.
Mr. Payne, master of her Majesty's ship Locust, who
rode out to see the fight, was met by some gaucbos
retreating, who demanded his horse, but on his refusing
to give it up they took it from him, and wounded him
so severely that he died in consequence. Previous to
his defeat, Rosas shipped a considerable amount of
treasure, and it is supposed that he would go to England
either in a British ship of war or by the next mail
steamer.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

The most important publications of the past month
have been contributed to the departments of biography
and history. Lord Cockburn has completed, in two
volumes, a Life of Lord Jeffrey, which, by a very
reasonable indulgence of the art of book-making, might
have been extended to thrice the length, the sole profit
of such extension accruing to the publisher. The
biographer appears more wisely to have published only
such and so many letters as would suffice to illustrate
prominent features in the character and intellect of his
old friend. The book presents less than usual, therefore,
of that indiscriminate public use of private
correspondence which has had too free a sanction of late
from even high authorities, and to which something of
the scandal of the literary forgeries lately perpetrated,
must, without doubt, be assigned. Another biography,
evidently the work of a scholar and a man of conscientious
judgment, who writes anonymously, is that of
Gustavus Vasa (with, extracts from his correspondence),
which appears to have originated in a regard for Swedish
literature, and a more than ordinary acquaintance with
the language, the volume being in fact a compendium of
Geijer's History in so far as it relates to the great
Swede king, reinforced and illustrated by original
authorities. A very different sort of life, the subject
chosen and the motive for choosing it presenting
startling contrasts to that just named, is a compilation
from a thorough-going Roman Catholic writer of France,
M. Audin, and purports to be The Life of Henry VIII.
and History of the Schism in England, which title says
all that need be said of the work. A more pleasing title
is that which introduces us to Robert Blake, Admiral
and General at Sea, that old English worthy having
found a biographer in Mr. Hepworth Dixon. Another
great Englishman is celebrated in a republished volume
on Sir Christopher Wren and his Times, by Mr. Elmes.
And the well-known Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft,
which Hazlitt formerly edited, has made welcome re-
appearance in the portable form of the Messrs. Longmans'
traveller's library.

Occupying a middle place between biography and
history, the first volume of Lord Holland's Memoirs of
the Whig Party during my Time is also a contribution
to last month's literature. This first volume
comprises the period from the break-up of the old Whig
party by the French Revolution, to the death of Charles
Fox. Another small volume by Mr. Hampden Gurney,
partaking equally of biography and history, under the
title of Historical Sketches deals with a selection of such
important events or epochs, as may be most emphatically
represented by the names of the prominent movers
in them; as that of the expulsion of the English from
France by Joan of Arc, the invention of printing and
diffusion of thought by Caxton, modem discovery and
commercial enterprise by Columbus, and the Reformation
and free inquiry by Luther. On the other hand,
a book of memoirs of the Men and Women of
France in the Last Century belongs as little to actual
history as to actual biography, occupying rather the
neutral ground between the latter and pure fiction. It
is a collection of sober facts interwoven ingeniously
with witty and fanciful inventions, in a style and with!
a skill which immediately reveals its French origin and
manufacture.

Lamartine's second volume of the History of the
Restoration of the Monarchy in France has been
completed in English. It closes with Napoleon's flight from
Waterloo, after a description of the battle in which the
Homeric periods and the Homeric invention appear to
have been equally objects of emulation to the lively
historian. Whether the Duke of Wellington will think
it incumbent upon him, in vindication of the memory
of his old and faithful Copenhagen, to take notice in
any way of the statement that he had seven horses slain
under him, by shot or fatigue, on that memorable day,
and that the eighth was severely wounded before Blucher