further announcement—"The General-in-Chief, sensible
of the great exertions which have been made by
Militia officers tn bring their regiments to their present
high state of efficiency, and of the sacrifice which they
are now called upon to make, has authorised me to
state, that he is prepared to place at your disposal, for
any officer in your regiment, whom you may wish to
name, an Ensigncy in the Line, without purchase, for
the first seventy-five men who shall volunteer from your
regiment and have been passed and accepted in the
Regulars or Marines, and another for the second seventy-
five, and a third Ensigncy for a third seventy-five, if the
strength of your regiment enables you to give them."

The accounts from Rome describe the solemnities
attending the promulgation on the 8th inst., of the
Papal Bull declaring the dogma of the immaculate
conception of the Virgin Mary as an essential tenet of the
Catholic faith. It was celebrated with extraordinary
pomp and ceremony in the presence of a concourse of
ecclesiastical dignitaries from all parts of the world
(including Cardinal Wiseman, who took an active part
in the proceedings), and vast crowds of people. In the
evening, the cupola of St. Peter's, the churches and
public buidings, and many private houses were brilliantly
illuminated.

The Piedmontese Parliament reassembled on the 28th
November, after the recess. In the Chamber of Deputies,
the Minister of Justice introduced a bill for the suppression
of convents and other religious establishments, and
measures for bettering the condition of the poorer classes
of parish-priests. In the course of the sitting, replying
to an opposition deputy, the Minister of Finance observed
that the fact of an abundant harvest being followed by a
rise in the price of corn, proved that in the best years the
production of the country was not equal to its consumption.
The average yearly importation ranged between 1,000,000
and 600,000 hectolitres. The harvest of the year had been
above the average; and a very abundant supply has
been obtained from the Black Sea. He thought that
the free exportation of wheat ought not to be stopped.

The Berlin papers describe the marriage of Prince
Frederick of Prussia with the Princess Anna Maria of
Dessau, on the 29th of November. The ceremonial was
exceedingly pompous, and somewhat ludicrous from its
antiquated character.

Accounts from St. Petersburgh speak of the Empress
as being in very bad health. It is stated that from the
moment when the news of the battle of Inkermann
arrived, her Majesty's health became worse. It is said
that Prince Menschikoff's despatch was brought to the
Czar in his wife's bed-room, on reading it an angry
exclamation escaped him which frightened the Czarine.
She fancied that some misfortune had happened to her
sons, and fainted away. It was very long before she
recovered her senses, and ever since that time she has
suffered from constantly increasing fever. Even in
court circles her death was spoken of as an event to be
expected from one moment to another.

The dates from New York are to the 9th instant. On
the 4th, the President delivered his annual message to
the Senate at Washington. As usual it is a lengthy
document, entering very fully into the domestic affairs
as well as foreign relations of the United States.

   NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

The last month of the year has brought not only less
than its average number of new books, but fewer than ever
of important ones. The list, very miscellaneous in its
character, comprises several novels and story-books; and
these, as more particularly designed for Christmas
holidays, may claim to be mentioned first. Among
them we find The House of Baby, or Our Lady of
Darkness, a novel of which the groundwork is the taint
of hereditary madness in a family; Stories from History,
by the Rev. W. H. Rule; the Quiet Heart, and General
Bounce, republished from "Blackwood" and "Frazer; ''
a new juvenile book by Mr. Howitt, a most successful
writer for children, called A Boy's Adventures in
Australia, or Herbert's Note-Book; a tale of the last
century, by the author of "Mary Powell," the Old
Chelsea Bun-House; a new novel, Women as They Are,
by One of Them, written by the author of " Margaret;"
another story of the last century, but written for
children, The Blue Ribbons, by Miss Drury; Dashwood
Priory, or Mortimer's Cottage Life, by Mr. May, a
book for the upper sixth, with clever illustrations by Mr.
Gilbert; a History for Boys, by Mr. Edgar; a tale of
adventure, The Forest Exiles, by Captain Mayne Reid;
a tale by Mr. Leitch Ritchie, Weary-Foot Common; a
serious story, Alice Nugent, or Seed for Coming Days;
two novels by writers new to the circulating libraries,
Charles Random, and Oakleigh Mascott; two short
girls' stories, Laura Talbot, by Miss Tilt, and Mildred
the Daughter, by Mrs. Newton Crosland; a story-book
for children, bv the author of "Sunlight through the
mist," called The Monastery and the Mountain Church;
and a wonderfully merry Christmas pantomime written
by Mr. M. A. Titmarsh, and called The Rose and
the Ring.

Turning to publications of greater importance, we
find Mr. Rawdon Brown's Four Years at the Court of
Henry VIII. , being a selection and translation of the
curious old despatches written from London to his Court
between 1515 and 1519, by the Venetian Ambassador;
A Manual of Civil Law, by Dr. Humphreys; the first
volume of a new edition of Chaucer, in Mr. Bell's
Annotated Poets; A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of
Christianity, by Mr. Robert William Mackay; a short
essay On the Study of Language, meant as an exposition
of Home Tooke's Diversions of Purley, by Mr.
Charles Richardson the lexicographer; a third volume
of Lord John Russell's Memoirs and Correspondence of
C. J. Fox; a first volume of a History of the Ottoman
Turks, by Mr. Creasy, founded on Von Hammer's
book; a political disquisition on the foreign administrations
of Lords Aberdeen and Palmerston,by the author of
the political biography of Mr. Disraeli, and entitled Thirty
Years of Foreign Policy; the first volume of a somewhat
elaborate History of the Constitution of the United
States, by Mr. Ticknor Curtis; a detailed History of
British Guiana, by Doctor Dalton; a new edition of
Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, with a memoir
of Lord Nugent; a History of the English Poor Law,
by Sir George Nicholls, one of the late chief commissioners;
The Englishwoman in Russia, a volume of
shrewd and well written observations of manners and
society during ten years' residence in St. Petersburgh
and other Muscovite towns; A Handbook for Young
Painters, by Mr. Leslie, full of information and
suggestion; a volume of Studies from Nature, by a German
naturalist, Masius; a new volume of Miss Strickland's
Lives of the Queens of Scotland, still treating of the
unfortunate Mary Stuart; a short but concise Biographical
Catalogue of the principal Italian Painters, edited
by Mr. Wornum; a life of Nicholas the First, by Mr.
Mayne, and a Life of Mr. Barnum, a more innocent
impostor than Nicholas, by himself; a volume with the
title, Knowledge is Power, by Mr. Charles Knight, presenting
a condensed view of the productive forces of modern
society; and some valuable hand books of popular science,
on British Mosses by Mr. Stark, and on British Conchology
by Mr. Sowerby, issued by the Messrs. Reeve.

A mention of some few of the mere illustrated books
of the season, such as Goldsmith's masterpieces with.
designs by the Etching Club, Scott's Marmion lavishly
adorned by Mr. Birket Foster and others, the same
artist's edition of Milton's Allegro and II Penseroso, an
Animal Painter's Illustrations of Scripture, and Mrs.
Howitt's Pictures for Children, may conclude our list.