military have been sent away to make room for them.
Every day there are fresh arrivals. There is a
continued parade of some one or something entering
Bucharest, and all the world at the windows or in the
streets to see them pass; nothing but music and marching
all day and every day; all colours and shapes of
uniforms; the wearers certainly well dressed, but not
very fine men, some of them with hay-coloured moustaches
positively half a yard long! I need not tell you how
bitterly the peasantry and the middle class, or what here
represents the middle classes, are ground down. Heaven
only knows what will become of this unhappy country."

The accounts of the Movements of Omar Pasha have
for some time been meagre and contradictory; but it
would appear that a considerable portion of his army
are stationed on both banks of the Lower Danube,
keeping watch upon Ismail and the line of the Pruth;
and that a large reserve is held at Varna for use in the
Crimea should it be needed.

The latest accounts from Oporto regarding the
present vintage are even more unfavourable than were
anticipated. One writer states his conviction that there
are not above 20,000 pipes of port made this year within
the factory district, and adds, that the produce of the
vineyards bordering on that district scarcely amounts to
anything. These statements come from interested
parties, but there is no reason to doubt their correctness,
and they are confirmed in a great degree by
instances furnished of the comparative produce of
various estates, several vineyards having yielded only
from 15 to 23 per cent. of their ordinary quantity. One
locality is mentioned in which the usual amount has
been 1,000 pipes, and where it is this year under 50.
This state of affairs operates as a heavy blow to the
country, and will be felt in many ways, the numerous
failures just announced at Lisbon being more or less
among its consequences. Under these circumstances, a
project, said to have been forwarded to London, for a
new railway line to Cintra, with a splendid pier from
Lisbon to Belem and large and commodious docks, is
not likely to meet with much attention, even if the
dishonesty of the Portuguese Government to the foreign
bondholders were not such as to check all disposition on
the part of British capitalists to have anything to do
with public undertakings in that country.

The accounts from New York are to the 14th instant.
The negociation for the annexation of the Sandwich
Islands was in progress. The proposal of annexation
came originally from the islands. General Pierce
received it with favour, and a special messenger was
despatched with the reply to the American commissioner.
When the matter was laid before the council of state it
was approved by every member except Prince Alexander,
the heir apparent, and Paki, a high-chief. The
stipulations of the treaty of annexation were definitively
arranged. The treaty itself was duly signed, and is now
in the hands of the American President, awaiting the
meeting of congress, for the ratification of the senate.

A novel species of exhibition took place at Springfield,
in the state of Ohio, on the 2th instant. One hundred
and twenty babies were entered, to compete for four
premiums; the first of a tea-set, with a salver of three
hundred dollars, for the finest baby of two years old or
under. This was carried (several lengths ahead) by the
baby of Mrs. Ronne, of Vienna, Ohio. The second
premium, a tea-set of two hundred dollars, was awarded
to the next best, which was the baby of Mrs. M'Dowell,
of Cincinnati. The third premium, of two hundred
dollars, for the finest child under twelve months, went
to Mrs. Arthur, of Philadelphia; while the fourth—a
Parian marble group—was decreed to Mrs. Howe, of
Cincinnati. An old woman who appeared with her
seventeenth child claimed a premium for her achievement;
but that baby having no special merits of its
own was "distanced." It was, on the whole, a very
curious and amusing convention.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART

A most scanty monthly list of new books again
proclaims the presence of war and its distractions. Mr.
Bell has judiciously included the admirable and too
much neglected satirist, Oldham, Dryden's favourite,
in his Annotated Edition of the Poets. Mr. Henry
Merritt has written an ingenious little essay on picture-
cleaning, calling it Dirt and Pictures Separated in the
Works of the Old Masters. The First Lieutenant of
the unfortunate Tiger has published his personal
narrative, to illustrate the treatment of The English
Prisoners in Russia, and display how much he was
impressed by all he saw and experienced in the enemy's
country. Mr. Moultrie collects some thoughtful and
fanciful verses, with the title of Altars, Hearths, and
Graves; Mr. Palgrave publishes a volume of Idyls and
Songs; and from Mr. W. B. Scott we have Poems,
fancifully illustrated. Dr. Marshall Hall communicates
his experience of the slave-holding American populations
in a small volume on the Two-Fold Slavery of the United
States. Dr. Michelsen publishes a volume, chiefly of
statistical information, on England Since the Accession
of Queen Victoria; and from Mr. Fairholt we have a
most abundantly and usefully illustrated Dictionary
of Terms in Art. Pliny Miles contributes to the Messrs.
Longman's Traveller's Library his Rambles in Ireland;
and for Mr. Bohn's Antiquarian Library, Mr. Thomas
Wright edits a new edition of Marco Polo's Travels.
In Mr. Murray's British Classics Mr. Cunningham
commences a new and carefully annotated edition of
Johnson's Lives of the Poets. Sir William Hamilton
continues his Collected Works of Dugald Stewart. Mr.
R. J. Wilberforce justifies his withdrawal of his
acknowledgment of the Queen's supremacy in an elaborate
Enquiry into the Principles of Church Authority; Mr.
Chapman publishes in his Catholic Series a view of the
Sphere and Duties of Government from the German of
Humboldt; and Mr. Toulmin Smith discusses, in a
volume of considerable length and elaboration, The
Parish, its obligations and powers, its officers and their
duties. From the Chevalier Bunsen we receive the second
volume of his Egypt's Place in Universal History, translated
by Mr. Cottrell; and Professor Eastwick publishes
in a large and handsome volume the Anvari Suhaili,
or the Lights of Canopus, which, being further
translated, turns out to be no other than a most careful
literal version, in prose and verse, of the Persian
text of Pilpay's Fables. Sir George Larpent re-edits
some valuable notes on the East, published by a
celebrated diplomatist of the last century, Sir James
Porter, adds much research and information collected by
himself, and issues the whole in two octavos, with the
title of Turkey, its History and Progress. Lord
Carlisle makes public his Diary in Turkish and Greek
Waters; Commander Oldmixon gives us Gleanings from
Piccadilly to Pera; the Rev. Thomas Milner describes
the Baltic, its gates, shores, and cities; and Mr. Wraxall
translates from the German A Visit to the Seat of War
in the North. The only new three-volume novel is the
Young Husband, by Mrs. Grey, but the successors to
Goldsmith's Mr. Newbery in St. Paul's Churchyard,
Messrs. Grant and Griffith, have added another
to the countless editions of the Vicar of Wakefield,
with illustrations by Mr. Absolon. Our
summary will be sufficiently complete if to these we
add, a volume on the Second Burmese War by
Mr. Lawrie; a biography of Edward Irving by Mr.
Wilks; the first volume of a History of the Irish
Brigade in the Service of France by Mr. O'Callaghan;
an illustrated treatise on The Steam Engine by Mr.
Robert Scott Burn; a poem on Chess; a series of
Oxford sermons by the Bishop of Lincoln, The Witness
of The Spirit; a collection of Traditions and
Superstitions of the New Zealanders, with illustrations of
their manners, by Mr. Shortland; and a volume by
Mr. Gerstaecker, of Wild Sports in the Far West, with
tinted illustrations by Mr. Harrison Weir.