pable of improvement by the lessons of adversity or the lessons of civilization, for which they were indebted to their masters. When left to themselves, with all the advantages which they ought to have derived from long association with the Romans, they were unable to protect themselves against a comparatively feeble enemy; they meanly called in the Saxons to their aid; in turn, they suffered themselves to be defeated, routed, and crushed by them as they had before suffered themselves to be defeated, routed, and crushed by the Romans; the Saxons chased them like affrighted deer into their woods, their strongholds, and their mountain fastnesses, and in their place assumed for ever the rule and sovereignty of the island. And still-notwithstanding the Norman de. scent-still we are Saxons. The Norman conquest was the conquest of the country, not of the people; and though, to the improvement of the race, great uniting with great, a portion of high Norman blood is infused amongst, us still the body of the people is Saxon. It was after the Scots had urged, or rather compelled Charles II. to take the Covenant oath, that they crowned him king at Scone, on the first of January, 1651. The horse on which the king rode at his coronation in England was bred and presented to him by Thomas Fairfax, the parliamentary general. Since the Union of Ireland with England, thirty-eight years have elapsed. On the same day (January 1, 1801) Piazzi, an eminent Italian astronomer, discovered the planet Ceres Ferdinandea. 66 Lorenzo de Medici the Magnificent was born on New Year's Day, 1448. In wisdom and moderation, in magnanimity and splendour, he, surpassed all preceeding members of his family; while in active zeal for the arts and sciences, he also greatly exelled them. Nothing could exceed the exertions he made for the improvement of literature; and he died in the zenith of his renown, in 1492, honoured by all the princes of Europe, beloved by his fellow citizens, and almost worshipped by the votaries of learning and the arts at home and abroad." Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de Medici" is a lasting monument of his and of its author's fame. Edmund Burke, another intellectual colossus, was born on New Year's Day, 1730. in 1797. He died The heroic Wolfe, who achieved the conquest of Canada, and sealed it with his blood, on the 13th of September 1759, was born on the 1st of January, 1727. Roger Ascham, Latin secretary to Edward the VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, died on the 2nd of January, 1568. Ascham taught Elizabeth to write, and instructed her in the Greek and Latin languages. Queen Bessy did her writing master credit, for, as her autographs testify, she wrote a noble hand. Archbishop Usher, an eminent antiquary, historian, and divine, was born on the 4th of January, 1580. He was much courted by Cromwell, who was proud of expressing his regard for so great and so good a man. He was buried with great pomp in Westminster, in 1656, Cromwell bearing half the expense of his funeral. As it has been recently decided, that "prayers for the dead are not a popish rite," we say-Requiescat in pace. THE CLOSING YEAR. TIME has issued his warrant, and soon will the year, And, with consciences free from reproach and from pain, Feel that mercy had not been extended in vain : their bloom, We should meet where triumphant no more is the tomb. May the year that is coming bring grace on its wing, And the hearts that we love still remain to delight; Shall escape to proclaim it is painful to die. BOOK OF THE WEEK. THE BRITISH NAVY, RUSSIA, &c.* WHEN We took up Mr. Stephens's volumes, indicated below, we naturally expected that they would put us in possession of some important information as to the actual state of the Russian navy; a navy by which that of Great Britain has lately been threatened to be swept from the *Incidents of Travel in the Russian and Turkish dents of "Travel in the Holy Land." Empires. By J. L. Stephens, Esq. Author of Inci2 vols. post 8vo. Bentley. 1839. seas. We do not say that Russia herself has threatened this, ambitious and daring as she is known to be: no, the threat has emanated from some of our own degenerate fellow-countrymen-weak or mischievous alarmists, who seem to derive pleasure and enjoyment from aught that may tend to place their own government and nation in a degraded or humiliating point of view. France also, might, by her superior naval force, if she chose, assail, burn, and destroy the shipping in our harbours-ravage our coast towns-and even seize and carry off our gracious Queen from Brighton, or from any other watering place where she might happen to be inhaling the fresh breeze of the ocean. For our own part we have no fears. On the point referred to, Mr. Stephens's book has disappointed us. However, as we feel the subject to be one of vital interest, we cannot refrain from availing ourselves of the opportunity which presents itself for shewing that the navy of Britain is by no means in that feeble or despicable state, either in itself or comparatively, that the alarmists have represented. For this gratifying opportunity we are indebted to The Naval and Military Gazette, one of the most impartial, best-informed, and best conducted journals of the metropolis. From a long and detailed statement we copy the following brief passages, which contain facts. abundantly sufficient for our present purpose. line-of-battle ships in a more or less serviceable state, since mustered twenty eight sail-of-the-line: but it is well known that many of these are crazy ships, utterly unfit to leave the Baltic; and it may be safely said that fifteen-sail-of-the-line are as many as Russia could trust on a voyage into the Channel, for if ever so quixotic, she could not leave her own coast altogether unprotected. And is England, which the world could not bow, to be frightened at the idea of "Since 1836 the navy of England has been strengthened in the number and force of the ships in fifteen Russian line-of-battle ships making their apcommission, and a large fleet has been brought for-pearance on our shores? our tars would soon give a ward and partially prepared for sea, as "demonstration good account of them.” ships," which might be fully equipped at a short notice in the event of emergency. The Whigs have also added 5,000 men to the navy, and introduced the extended system of apprenticeship, thus providing for the rearing of seamen attached to the service, and perfectly acquainted with their duty. By them also the seamen gunnery has been brought to a state of perfection, and the ordinary has been rendered efficient as a provision for manning sea-going ships; and whatever may be said as to the advantage or disadvantage, in a scientific point of view, of the system of ship-building introduced by the present surveyor of the navy, nobody can deny that he has constructed more formidable fighting ships, and rendered the same class of English vessels better able to cope with those of foreign powers." Again: "Let us refer to the grossly exaggerated statements which have been put forth respecting the naval force of other powers, merely premising that we make no assertions that we are not prepared to prove by reference to public documents or other satisfactory evidence. First, then, we are told that the French navy exceeds our own in numbers and in strength. What is the fact? France has forty-nine sail-of-the-line, including all that are in commission, building, ordered to be built, or are mere hulks. England has eighty good We have said that Mr. Stephens's book has disappointed us on the score of information relative to the Russian navy. So also has it disappointed us respecting that of Turkey. Mr. Stephens, however, (who is an American,) is a pleasant, gossiping, and amusing writer; and his volumes are well stocked with anecdotes, personal adventures, and miscellaneous notices by the thousand. If not very new in his statements, he is at least agreeable. Here is an account of a laughable rencontre in Poland, very similar to one which occurred to us a few years since in France. "I was almost asleep, when I noticed a strapping big man, muffled up to the eyes, standing at my feet and looking in my face. I raised my head, and he walked round, keeping his eyes fixed upon me, and went away. Shortly after he returned, and again walking round, stopped and addressedm, Spreechen sie Deutsch?' I answered by asking him if he could speak French; and not being able, he went away. He returned again, and again walked round as before, looking steadily in my face; I rose on my elbow, and followed him with my eyes till I had turned completely round with him. when he stopped as if satisfied with his observations, and in his broad est vernacular opened bluntly, Had'nt we better speak English?" I need not say that I entirely agreed with him. I sprang up, and catching his hand, asked what possessed him to begin upon me in Dutch; he replied by asking why I had answered in French, adding that his stout English figure ought to have made me know better; and after mutual goodnatured recriminations, we kicked my straw bed about the floor, and agreed to make a night of it. He was the proprietor of a large iron manufactory, distant about three days' journey, and was then on his way to Warsaw. He went out to his carriage, and one of his servants produced a stock of provisions like the larder of a well-furnished hotel; and as I had gone to bed supperless, he seemed a good, stout, broadshouldered guardian angel sent to comfort me. We sat on the back seat of the carriage, making a table of the front; and when we had finished, and the fragments were cleared away, we stretched our legs on the table, lighted our pipes, and talked till we fell asleep on each other's shoulder. Notwithstanding our intimacy so far, we should not have known each other by daylight, and at break of day we went outside to examine each other. It may, however, perhaps hardly worth while to retain a recollection of features; for, unless by some such accident as that which brought us together, we never shall meet again. We wrote our names in each other's pocketbook as a memorial of our meeting, and at the same moment started on our opposite roads." One of the most interesting chapters in Mr. Stephens's work is devoted to the state of Poland, historical and political; but it is too long for the purpose of extract. All that we can further find room for, and that with some diffi. culty, is the author's description of the salt mines of Cracow, into which he descended. Having reached the bottom "We were furnished with guides, who went before us bearing torches, and I followed through the whole labyrinth of passages, forming the largest excavations in Europe, peopled with upward of two thousand souls, and giving a complete idea of a subterraneous world. These mines are known to have been worked upward of six hundred years, being mentioned in the Polish annals as early as twelve hundred and thirty-seven, under Boleslaus the Chaste, and then not as a new discovery, but how much earlier they had existed cannot now be ascertained. The tradition is, that a sister of St. Casimer, having lost a gold ring, prayed to St. Anthony, the patron saint of Cracow, and was advised in a dream that, by digging in such a place, she would find a treasure far greater than that she had lost, and within the place indicated these mines were discovered. There are four different stories or ranges of apartments; the whole length of the excavations is more than six thousand feet, or three quarters of an hour's walk, and the greatest breadth more than two thousand feet; and there are so many turnings and windings that my guide told me, though I hardly think it possible, that the whole length of all the passages cut through this bed of salt amounts to more than three hundred miles. Many of the chambers are of immense size. Some are supported by timber. others by vast pillars of salt; several are without any support in the middle, and of vast dimensions, perhaps eighty feet high, and so long and broad as almost to appear a boundless subterraneous cavern. In one of the largest is a lake covering nearly the whole area. When the King of Saxony visited this place in eightteen hundred and ten, after taking possession of his moiety of the mines as Duke of Warsaw, this portion of them was brilliantly illuminated, and a band of music, floating on the lake, made the roof echo with patriotic airs. We crossed the lake in a flat boat by a rope, the dim light of torches, and the hollow sound of our voices, giving a lively idea of a passage across the Styx: and we had a scene which might have entitled us to a welcome from the prince of the infernals, for our torch-bearers quarrelled, and in a scuffle that came near carrying us all with them, one was tumbled into the lake. Our Charon caught him, and, without stopping to take him in, hurried across, and as soon as we landed beat them both unmercifully. My From this we entered an immense cavern, in which several hundred men were working with pickaxes and hatchets, cutting out large blocks of salt, and trimming them to suit the size of barrels. With their black faces begrimed with dust end smoke, they looked by the light of the scattered torches like the journeymen of Beelzebub, the prince of darkness, preparing for some great blow-up, or like the spirits of the damned condemned to toil without end. guide called up a party, who disengaged with their pickaxes a large block of salt from its native bed, and in a few minutes cut and trimmed it to fit the barrels in which they are packed. All doubts as to their being creatures of our upper world were removed by the eagerness with which they accepted the money I gave them and it will be satisfactory to the advocates of that currency to know that paper money passes readily in these lower regions. We are under the necessity of abruptly breaking off, but shall finish this interesting extract next week. CORRESPONDENCE. To the Editor of The Aldine Magazine. THE GREENWICH RAILWAY. SIR,-I was glad to see your notice of what you justly term "the crying and daily increasing nuisance of the Railroads." The imposition practised by the Directors of the Greenwich Railway, on its completion and opening, will I trust ere long cure itself. The fares are now advanced from 6d. to 8d. for the second class carriages, and to a 1s. for the first class. Tolerable, perhaps, for persons residing in the neighborhood of Gracechurch Street; but how are the westend people to be advantaged by it? I live in the vicinity of Charing Cross; consequently, I can go to Greenwich in an omnibus for 9d., or in a coach for a 1s.; but, should the fancy take for a trip by the Railway in preference, I must " pay for my whistle," by a long and disagreeable walk, or by disbursing an extra sixpence, shilling, or eighteen pence, before I can arrive at the starting place of the train, near the lost them. southern part of London bridge. Such, upon a small scale, is the economy induced by Railway travelling. I am, &c. ANTI-HUMBUG. [Extract of a Letter from "AN OLD BOOKSELLER'S 1838. To the last he never would believe that Chatterton was the author of "The Poems." "What sir," he would say, "he write Rowley! No, no, no! I knew him well; he was a clever fellow, but could not write Rowley. There was a mystery about The Poems' beyond me, but Tom no more wrote them than I did; he could not." Such was the undeviating opinion of Chatterton's every-day companion.-Gentleman's Magazine. Old Rules for Purchasing Land. "Who so will be wise in purchasing, And that it stand in danger, Of no woman's dowrie. I HAVE just returned from the Corse (course) a street so called, as there are horse races there every day of The following rules are copied from a work entitled the Carnival; and this was its eighth and last day," A Book of the Arte and Manner how to plant and distinguished by one of the most curious customs I graffe all Sorts of Trees, &c," translated from the ever witnessed. This street, which runs in a straight French by Leonard Mascall, dedicated to Sir John line almost through Rome, and is one of the finest, Paulet, Knt., Lord St. John, and printed by John has been, for the time mentioned, full of maskers, in Wyghte, or Wight, in 1586:carriages and on foot, pelting their acquaintances with sham and real sweetmeats, but principally the latter. The people in fact (although naturally rather grave, and in this respect unlike the rest of Italy) seem just now literally mad, and amusements of the most ludicrous nature are carried on. The Horse Races are pretty as they run this long line without riders, between a double row of spectators, on the foot path on each side. They carry their own spurs, which are little balls full of spikes, that slap against the horses' sides. But the scene I have just witnessed surpasses all description, and is the finest of the Carnival. It is the same custom as one I described at Pisa, yet there is hardly a comparison between the two. This immense street is filled, from one end to the other, with lights in the air (by means of long rods) in the windows, balconies, in carriages, and in the hands of foot-passengers masked. The windows and fronts of the houses, hung with rich tapestries; the costumes; the beauty of the women; the excitement of the maskers, combined to produce a scene I shall not forget. The object is to put out these lights, with long flags, handkerchiefs, feathers, &c. the whole of which is conducted with perfect good temper. Every group was a picture; their lovely Italian faces, rich costumes, animated expressions, by the light of their tapers, in a thousand ways bewildered me with pleasure and delight, and I intend to commence to-morrow some sketches of it. All is now silent, except a troop of maskers near me, who are dinning the ears of a woman with the rough music of kettles, &c. for having married a month after her first husband died. night all Rome is surfeited with an excess of eating. To-morrow begins with fasting and praying. ADIEU. To William Bradford Smith was Chatterton's bosom friend; See whether the tenure be bond or free, Poetical Catalogue. The following poetical catalogue of the authors of Jerom the father, 'mong a thousand sons, All that Adhelmus wrote, and all that flows And as the names sound from the roll of fame, An honoured place-and Servius joins the band, NOTICE OF NEW BOOKS, &c. Heads of the People taken off by Quizfizzz. No.II. and nothing more! He walks and talks unwatched amid a crowd; and spinsters who, but a year before, would have scarcely suppressed a short, shrill shriek' at his approach, let him pass with an easy and familiar nod-it may be, even with a nod of patronage; or, if it happen that they remember his merits of the past season, they speak of them with the same philosophical coldness with which they would touch upon the tails and ears of a long-departed spaniel. It is a sad thing for a Lion' to outlive his majesty; to survive his nobler attributes, it may be, lost to him in the very prime of life, thus leaving him bereft of all life's graces. And yet, how many men'Lions' once, with flowing manes, and tails of wondrous length and strength-have almost survived even the recollection of their leonine greatness, and, conforming to the meekness and sobriety of tame humanity, might pass for nobodies. At page 34, we find a most pungent piece of satire-the more pungent because literally true-we Can OURSELVES vouch for its truth-on the fierce rapacity of certain fashionable and ARISTOCRATIC contributors to certain fashionable annuals, which Mr. Brownrigg knows as well as we know, it would be no difficult task to name. THE THEATRES, CONCERTS, &c. Either in this super-philosophical age, pantomime is going out of fashion, or our theatrical managers have lost the art of its manufacture. Harlequins and columbines, pantaloons and clowns, are not the same sort of things now that they were when Follet, with his hanging sleeves, used to swallow carrots by the bunch for the delectation of George III., or when Joe Grimaldi made faces and threw himself into every possible and impossible posture to excite the risible muscles of children of every age from a twelve Ar the moment when we received No. II. of this amusing and exceedingly clever periodical, our time and space were sufficient only for the mention of its four "Heads."-The Lion, The Medical Student, The Maid of All Work, and The Fashionable Phy-month to three-fourths of a century. More recently sician. We therefore need not apologise for reverting to it, for the purpose of giving one brief extract (we wish we could quote the whole) from Henry Brownrigg's description of "The Lion' of a Party." -incomparably the best illustration of the whole. Here is the introduction-a thing of life. 6 we were accustomed for several seasons to gaze with delight upon the beautiful and instructive panoramas of Stanfield, the Grieves, &c., productions which, by their pictorial excellence, reflected credit upon the state of the fine arts in this country. Even these are now discontinued, and we have little to occupy their place but the most wretched mummery and contemptible burlesques of Fairy Tales. "A Subtle Italian, no less a man than the Count 66 -the boldest hold their breath, Let us glance for a moment at the exhibitions of Monday evening. At Drury Lane, after the almost sacrilegious performance upon such an occasion of the two first acts of Bellini's Sonnambula, was given what was termed a new grand comic_pantomime, under the title of Harlequin and Jack Frost, or Old Goody Hearty. The title in a great measure tells the story—at least, all of it that is necessary to be known. Wieland, as the Clown, was, as he always is excellent. Yates and the Bayaderes were miserably introduced,and though the burlesque Bayadere swallowa red-hot poker, even that failed to please the enlightened galleries. A mock Van Amburgh Academy for Brute-taming followed, and, after that, the real Van Amburgh with his real Lions. Another attraction was attempted by the members of the Lehmann and Winther families who performed some very clever tricks, but without much apparent effect upon the audience. Even the little boys and girls seemed too but a mere biped-simply, a human animal-a man, fastidious to be pleased without knowing why. |