neck, and selling: her by auction. Lord Palmerston
comes in for his share of the satire, and, of course, Sir
Charles Napier and his last year's promenade sur mer
play a conspicuous figure. Amongst other pieces of
wit is a scene in the house of lords, in which a 'milord'
gets up, and asks why the blockading squadron do not
go up to the White Sea through the Gulf of Bothnia,
which, he maintains, is the nearest route. The
Petersburg Zeitung, in alluding to this, affirms that it
is by no means an exaggerated picture of the ignorance
of the English, for that the children of the middle and
lower classes never heard of God, and have not the least
idea who Victoria is, adding, by way of a clincher to its
veracity, that a monster petition was lately presented to
parliament by the schoolmasters of England, which
contained no less than 836 crosses in lieu of signatures.

The government of Saxe–Coburg Gotha has just
promulgated the law of succession for the duchy. It is to
the effect, that in case the reigning duke should die
without leaving direct heirs, the succession shall pass to
Prince Albert and his descendants, but that the reigning
king of England and the heir presumptive to the throne
of England shall be excluded. It is further enacted,
that if, when the succession shall become vacant, there
shall be no descendant qualified to succeed, other than
the king and heir presumptive of England, the king
and heir shall be bound to cause the duchies to be
administered by a governor, until a descendant qualified
to succeed shall have attained his majority. The appanage
of the heir presumptive to the duchies is fixed
from his majority at 18,000 florins (about £1,800) a–year.
According to this arrangement, upon the death of the
reigning duke, who has no child, Prince Alfred would
become the heir presumptive, Prince Albert immediately
succeeding.

The advices from Naples describe an eruption of
Vesuvius, of extraordinary duration and violence. From
the latest intelligence, dated the 19th instant, it appears
that there had been a suspension of the flow of lava for
eighteen hours, and that all fear of further damage was
over. It is consolatory to be able to state that not one
life has been lost, though many have been in danger,
from mere foolhardiness, from walking over ground
where no other person had been, or peering into fissures
vomiting fire and smoke, for no other earthly reason
than to be able to say that they had done it. As to the
material loss which the landholders on the line of the
streams have suffered, it is nothing compared with what
it might and must have been had it not been for the
temporary suspension and cooling of the lava; whole
townships must then have been swept away, and a
blackened waste appeared where once was smiling
vineyards and pretty villas.

The intelligence from New York is to the 16th inst.,
but it contains nothing of importance.

The last dates from California are April 24, with
gold to the amount of above a million dollars. The
mining districts are reported in a favourable state, and
business recovering.

       NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

Still the war lies heavily on the issue of new
books, and the last month's list is even less abundant
and various than its predecessor. The concluding
volumes of that portion of the Grenville Papers published
as Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George
III. have appeared. Sir William Domville has published,
in a volume entitled The Sabbath, an enquiry
into the supposed obligation to the sabbaths of the
Old Testament. Mr. John James Tayler has collected
a series of pulpit discourses on Christian Aspects of
Faith and Duty. From a Roman Catholic writer of
America, Mr. J. G. Shea, we have received a History
of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes
of the United States from 1529 to 1854. Mrs. Marsh
has written a novel called the Heiress of Houghton,
which appears to be the sequel of one of her former
novels. A second part of the Nature–Printed work on
British Ferns, under Dr. Lindley's editorship, has been
published. A fourth volume of Chaucer has been given
in Mr. Bell's Annotated Edition of the Poets. The
Roman Empire in the West forms the subject of four
lectures collected by Mr. Richard Congreve. Mr.
Brudenell Carter has discussed the Influence of Education
on Diseases of the Nervous System. Lord Ormonde
has translated a small volume of Meditations and Moral
Sketches, by M. Guizot. Mr. Planche has published
the first careful and complete translation of the
celebrated Fairy Tales of the Countess d'Aulnoy. Sir
James Emerson Tennent has discussed, in a book of
highly entertaining statistics, Wine, its Use and Taxation.
Doctor Macvicar has published a Treatise on
The Philosophy of the Beautiful. Major John Butler
has described his Travels and Adventures in the
Province of Assam during Fourteen Years. Mr. J. V.
Kaye has made valuable Selections from the Papers of
Lord Metcalfe. Lieutenant Peard has published his
Narrative of a Campaign in the Crimea. An historical
account of tbe adventures of the most famous pirates and
buccaniers, under the title of the Monarchs of the Main,
has been written by Mr. George Thornbury Mr. Conybeare
has collected his Essays Ecclesiastical and Social,
written in the "Edinburgh Review." Mr. Weld has
described a Vacation Tour in the United States and
Canada. A thick little volume called the Calendar of
Victory, projected and commenced by the late Major
Johns, of the Royal Marines, and continued and completed
by Lieut. Nicolas of the same service, opportunely
reminds us, in these days of war, that each day in the
year has witnessed one or more triumph of British
valour and conquest by sea and land. A Vindication
of Luther against his Recent English Assailants,
which appeared originally as an appendix to one of
Archdeacon Hare's charges, has been republished in
a separate form, with many considerable additions
from the papers of that lamented scholar and divine.
The still surviving Indian practice of Widow Burning
has been denounced by Mr. H. I. Bushby. Dr Leonard
Schmitz has published a condensed Manual of Ancient
History from the Remotest Times to the Overthrow of
the Western Empire. Doctor J. D. Forbes has described
a scientific Tour of Mont Blanc and of Monte Rosa.
Mr. Kempe, the Rector of St. James's, has collected a
Course of Lectures on Job. Mr. David Constable has
translated from the Latin and French the first volume
of Dr. Jules Bonet's annotated reproduction, from the
original manuscripts, of the Letters of John Calvin.
Mr. George MacDonald has published a dramatic poem,
called Within and Without. Our friend the Roving
Englishman has collected a series of Pictures from the
Battle Fields. From Mr. Hannay we receive a sea
novel called Eustace Conyers; from Miss Sewell a tale
called. Cleve Hall; and from its French proprietor the
novel ascribed to Sir Walter Scott, Moredun, which has
only to be read to clear the great novelist of all suspicion
of its paternity. Mr. William Tooke has managed to
include, in one octavo volume, brief records of the
Monarchy of France from its earliest time to the last
revolution. Mr. Richard Jennings has published a
treatise on National Elements of Political Economy.
Mr. Day has described Monastic Institutions in their
various forms and tendencies. Captain Shadwell has
published Notes on the Management of Chronometers.
General Sir Wm. Napier has republished, from his
great work on the Peninsular Campaigns, a condensed
account of all the principal English Battles and Sieges in
the Peninsula. Captain Biddulph has continued his
Topographical Sketches of the Ground before Sevastopol.
And Archdeacon Anthony Grant has added another to
the many existing historical sketches of that great battleground
on which the fate of nations promises in our day
mainly to depend,—The Crimea.