siege in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom was abolished;
all persons convicted of offences against the person of
the sovereign were pardoned, and others under
accusation set at liberty. A limited amnesty has been
granted to persons convicted of political offences.

The dates from New York are to the 12th inst. On the
10th, in the House of Representatives, Mr. Dean laid
before the house the following resolutions in reference
to the position of the United States in the present
European struggle:—"Resolved—That in the war
which now seems impending in Europe, it is the duty,
as well as the manifest interest of the government of the
United States, to observe and maintain a strict neutrality
between all the belligerents; and in the event of a
war, the rights of our citizens and the security of our
commerce demand the maintenance of the principle
heretofore asserted and strenuously contended for by
this government, but not hitherto admitted or established
as the law of nations, that free ships make free goods,
except as to articles clearly known as contraband of war,
and that the neutral flag protects from unreasonable
search and seizure, the ships bearing it, and also that
neutral property on board a vessel of any of the
belligerents, is not subject to seizure and confiscation.
Resolved—That the President of the United States be
requested, if in his opinion not incompatible with the
public interests, to communicate to this house whether
any, and, if any, what arrangements have been made,
and what correspondence has taken place, between this
government and any of the governments of Europe to
establish the foregoing principles as international law,
and to protect the neutral commerce of the United
States, in the event of a war between any of the Powers
of Europe. After some discussion, the resolutions were
referred to the committee on foreign affairs.

The spirit of incendiarism, says one of the New
York papers, appears to be destroying property by
wholesale in Philadelphia. Eight or ten fires occurred
there between sunset on the 8th and daylight of the
10th, most of which were ignited by the hands of
incendiaries. One man was killed and two or three
injured by being run over by engines; 26 horses were
burned to death, and various dwellings, stores, stables,
and lumber-yards were consumed. During the period
alluded to false alarms were of frequent occurrence,
and fire companies were continually racing through the
streets, and coming into collison.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

The new publications of the last month have been
singularly few, and have hardly embraced any book of
real importance. Doctor Waagen's Treasures of Art
in Great Britain is in some degree the reproduction of
a former work, though now enlarged to three goodly
octavos by so many interesting additions in every part,
as fairly to claim the consideration due to a new
production. Not its least valuable feature in this form is its
ample classified index, which is so arranged that the
number of pictures by any famous artist in our English
collections is at once ascertainable, together with the
public gallery or private mansion in which they will be
found. And of the results, as compared with the art-
possessions of any other country, Englishmen have no
reason to be ashamed; for it would seem that there are
not only naturalised amongst us two hundred and forty
Vandycks, and one hundred and forty-eight Rubenses
(a fact rendered less marvellous by the consideration
that these great masters could profit by the help of
pupils), but, of works that must have been the
unassisted production of single hands, no less than seventy-
two Ruysdaels, ninety-one Cuyps, a hundred and fifteen
Rembrandts, a hundred and forty-seven Tenierses, and
so on in like proportion. Another book which
claims mention, though not absolutely new in all
its contents, is a collection of the Remains of the
late Edward Copleston D.D. Bishop of Llandaff, to
which Archbishop Whately has prefixed some reminiscences
of his friend's life, which are chiefly interesting
for their incidental illustration of the Oxford Tractarian
heresy and its abettors. A third work of some importance,
but of which the substantial part ranks with the
oldest literature on record, is a new edition of Herodotus,
with a commentary by the Rev. J. W. Blakesley, which
appears in the valuable classical series edited by Mr.
George Long and Mr. Macleane. To these publications
may be added, another curious and learned volume by
the Rev. Charles Forster on the One Primeval
Language; a volume on the Laws of War affecting
Commerce and Shipping, by Mr. Byerley Thomson;
two works, of what must be called sentimental history,
translated from the popular French volumes of
Bungener, one on Julian, or the Close of an Era, the other
on Voltaire and his Times; a volume in something of
the same manner by a Roman Catholic writer, Mr.
Jones Barker, illustrative of three several periods of
English history before and since the Reformation,
called the Three Days of Wensleydale; a translation
of a popular German lecturer's Historical Survey of
Speculative Philosophy from Kant to Hegel; two
volumes by Mr. Chorley, partly old and partly new, of
recollections and criticisms connected with Modern
German Music; a volume, by an Officer of the Fusileers,
on Russia and the Russians, comprising an account of
the Czar; and the first portion of an enlarged and
greatly-enriched edition of Mr. A. K. Johnston's justly
celebrated Physical Atlas.

A few other new editions issued during the past month
may also perhaps claim mention, in the absence of more
direct novelties. Among them have been, a prettily
illustrated and cheap edition of Doctor Stanley's
Familiar History of Birds; new volumes of the respective
editions of Gibbon, in the "British Classics" of
Mr. Murray and Mr. Bohn; the commencement of
Cowper, both in Mr. Gilfillan's edition of the English
poets, and in Mr. Bell's very pleasing annotated
edition; cheap volumes of Madame D'Arblay's
Diary, and Miss Strickland's Queens; the first four-
shilling volume of a duodecimo edition of Hume and
Smollett with the continuation by Mr. Hughes; new
illustrated volumes of M. Thiers's French Revolution;
another and more compactly printed edition of
Companions of my Solitude; and "March" editions of
those gigantic revelations of London, the Commercial
Directory by Watkins, and the still more surprising
Post Office Directory of Kelly.

The principal works of fiction have been a collection
of tales by Miss Mitford, with the title of Atherton; a
one-volume story by Mr. Gwynne called Nanette and
her Lovers; another called Julie by Emilie Carlen;
the completion of Mr. Lever's Dodd Family Abroad;
a two-volume novel by Mrs. Moodie, Flora Lyndsay; a
novel "of the world's struggles," or the Great Highway,
by Mr. Fullom, in three volumes; and, in the
same form, Phemie Millar, by the author of the
"Kinnears;" and Aubrey, by the author of "Emilia
Wyndham." There have also been several volumes of
verse, of which it will suffice to mention Mr. Frederick
Tennyson's Days and Hours, and Mr. Theodore
Martin's translation of Oehlenschläger's tragedy of
Correggio. And finally, in the form of pamphlets, the
various subjects have been discussed of the Monitorial
System at Harrow, by Lord Galloway; the Chemistry of
Common Life, by Mr. J. F. W. Johnston; the dwellings
of the London poor, or Homes of the Thousands, by
Mr. Godwin; the University of Oxford Reform, by
Mr. Neate, Sir John Awdry, and Mr. Justice Patteson;
Rational Gymnastics, by Doctor Roth; the Routes to
Australia, with relation to commercial and postal
interests; the Fluctuations of the Money Market, by
Mr. Joplin; Railway Legislation; the Nunnery
Question; Decimal Coinage; the Electoral System;
the Curability of Consumption; the Czar Unmasked,
and other topics of the War, in pamphlets endless; the
Augmentation of Small Livings by a Clerical Income-
Tax; and the Civil Service Reform.