the roof of the Palace and lighted by a Dome, covered from floor to dome with the Frescoes of REUBENS and his Pupils. The Queen's Sitting Room is furnished with exquisite taste, and contains four beautiful Pictures, including a MURILLO. We drove back to Dinner at 5 o'clock. At the Table d'Hote, Holland's Dignitaries and Literati talked Dutch in its purity and with much animation. The Hague, like other Dutch Cities, was long since finished. This is so literally. There is no employment here for the Architect, the Carpenter or the Mason. Their work was done, as the Iron numerals on the Buildings show, a century, a century and a half, or two centuries ago. And the City is as still and noiseless as the smallest hamlet. Here, as elsewhere, in Holland, everything "is as neat as a pin." XXXVI. LONDON, MAY 12, 1862. I BREAKFASTED yesterday with a distinguished and influential English gentleman who has heretofore insisted that the North must break down under the enormous and exhausting expenses of the War. He is constrained, however, to admit that the resources and devotion of the North not only disappoints him, but challenges admiration. No other Government, he says, has, or could, from its own means, thus maintain its credit. He admits, also, that our Army is proving equal to the emergency. Mr. RUSSELL, the Times' correspondent, I learn, speaks in the highest terms of the Discipline and Gallantry of our Troops, and of the hopelessness of the Rebel cause. After Breakfast my old friend, Mr. PARKES took me to the venerable JOHN TAYLOR, many years ago Editor of the "London Review," and who, in 1816, startled the Literary and Political World with his "JUNIUS IDENTIFIED a volume with such an array of facts and circumstances as to leave little, if any, doubt that Sir PHILIP FRANCIS was the Great Unknown. The peculiarity of Mr. TAYLOR'S Book was, that the evidences which went to prove Sir PHILIP FRANCIS the Author of the Junius Letters, at the same time disproved the claims in favor of the distinguished men (Lord CHATHAM, Mr. BURKE, &c.,) to whom they had been attributed. While it is difficult to imagine an intelligent, unbiased mind, after the perusal of Mr. TAYLOR'S Book, refusing its assent to the conclusion it reaches, yet such minds did reject the evidences, and the question was revived, in England and America, with earnestness and acrimony. Those who could not answer, contented themselves with abusing Mr. TAYLOR. Among the distinguished writers who entered the field against Mr. TAYLOR was Mr. MACAULEY. In America, several leading newspapers, and two or three distinguished writers also took ground against Mr. TAYLOR's view of the question. In a most humble way, but with much earnestness, I espoused the other side; and I wrote, in "bad grammar and worse taste," I doubt not, several articles, proving to my own satisfaction, that Sir PHILIP FRANCIS, of whom until reading "Junius Identified" I had never heard, was JUNIUS. This early interest in the controversy made my interview with the Author peculiarly interesting. He is 81 years old, and in delicate health, but cheerful and bright. He was a cotemporary and friend of CHARLES LAMB, and, like him, is a Bachelor, living with an only Maiden Sister. It is now nearly half a century since "Junius Identified" was published, and although now, as then, nothing has occurred to impeach the Letter in which "Junius" says he is the "sole depository of my own secret, and it will die with me," yet before the present year closes all doubt or question as to the Authorship of these Letters will be removed! I went yesterday afternoon to visit a ROMAN BATH, built by the Romans, over a Spring, when they occupied London, of bricks and cement, precisely such as are now seen in all Ancient Roman ruins, viz.: the Palace of the Cæsars, the Baths of Caricalla, the Coliseum, the Villa of Adrian, &c., &c. This old Bath House is some thirty feet long by twenty in width. The Bath is eighteen feet long, eight feet wide and four feet deep. The water in it is as clear as crystal It is used now, as it has been for Centuries, for Bathing, and though situated in Strand Lane, not six rods from the Strand, I do not believe its existence is known to one thousand of the three millions of People who inhabit London. At four o'clock we received by Telegraph the news of the capture of New Orleans. As on |