Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VII, December 1850, Vol. II

by Various

Mr. Godwin has addressed a letter to the Lord Mayor elect of London, on the subject of improving the character of the annual city "show" on the 9th of November, and urging that some little invention and taste might be exercised upon it, in lieu of repeating year after year the same dull and effete routine. He thinks that so ancient a custom ought not to be abandoned, and proposes to raise it out of the monotonous and prosaic routine into which it has fallen, by the introduction, among other changes, of emblems and works of art, accordant with its ancient character, and worthy of the present time.

The effect of the great Industrial Exhibition upon the health of London is engaging considerable attention. It is estimated that not less than a million of people will pour into the city at that time, and it is contended by medical men of eminence that, unless wise and vigorous measures be adopted, so vast and sudden an influx will create a pestilence. The remedy proposed is to secure in some way the daily distribution of the arrivals over a large area in London, and a series of cheap trains which would carry off a portion of the pressure daily, spreading the gathered millions over thirty or forty miles of movable encampment.

Sundry relics, ropes, canvas, bones, &c., were recently brought to England by the Prince Albert, which were found at Cape Riley, in the Arctic Seas, and were supposed to afford traces of Sir John Franklin. They were submitted by the Admiralty to Captain Parry, Sir John Richardson, and others for examination, and the conclusion arrived at is, that they were left at Cape Riley by Sir John Franklin's expedition about the year 1845. It is supposed that being stopped by ice, Sir John remained there for a short time making observations, &c. The reports are elaborate, and evince careful and minute investigation. The conclusion at which they arrive is very generally credited, so that the first part of Sir John's adventures in the Arctic Seas is supposed to be at length known.

The building for the Great Exhibition in London has been commenced, and the work upon it goes forward with great rapidity. It is said that the exhibition will probably have the effect to create several local museums of great interest and importance. The advantages of such institutions, especially to inventors, would be very great.

Delaroche's great picture of "Napoleon crossing the Alps," has reached London, where it is on exhibition. It is described as being wonderfully exact in copying nature, but as lacking elevation of purpose and the expression of sentiment. An officer in a French costume, mounted on a mule, is conducted by a rough peasant through a dangerous pass, whose traces are scarcely discernible through the deep-lying snow—and his aid-de-camp is just visible in a ravine of the towering Alps. These facts, the Athenæum says, are rendered with a fidelity that has not omitted the plait of a drapery, the shaggy texture of the four-footed animal, nor a detail of the harness on his back. The drifting and the imbedded snow, the pendent icicle which a solitary sun-ray in a transient moment has made—all are given with the utmost truth. But the lofty and daring genius that led the humble Lieutenant of Ajaccio to be the ruler and arbiter of the destinies of the largest part of Europe, will be sought in vain in the countenance painted by M. Delaroche.

A curious discovery has been made in a collection of ancient marbles at Marbury Hall, in Cheshire, formed at Rome in the middle of the last century. A fragment of the frieze of the Parthenon has been found, and is unmistakably identified by its exactly fitting the parent stone in the British Museum.

The people of Sheffield are subscribing and soliciting subscriptions in other cities for a monument to the memory of the poet Ebenezer Elliott. It is not intended that the monument should be vast or expensive, but that a neat cenotaph or column, at a cost of twelve or fifteen hundred pounds, should be erected and placed in a position suitable to do honor to the genius whose memory it is to perpetuate.

The statue in honor of Chief Justice Tindal is nearly completed. The inscription for the pedestal, contributed by Justice Talfourd, speaks of the illustrious man in whose honor it is erected, as "a Judge, whose administration of English law, directed by serene wisdom, animated by purest love of justice, endeared by unwearied kindness, and graced by the most lucid style, will be held by his country in undying remembrance."

The Roman Government has ordered the students of art, before admission to the academies of the city, to be examined as to the state of their morals and their opinions on politics. Mr. Hely, an English sculptor, has been commanded to quit the Roman territories; the marriage of his sister to the celebrated Dr. Achilli is supposed to have been the reason for this command. The London papers complain that the Americans are the only people in Rome who are permitted to "exhibit their political, artistic, and religious heresies with impunity;" and they cite in proof Powers's emblematic statue of the Republic of America trampling under its feet the kingly diadem; Crawford's design for the monument to Washington, which the Athenæum says is original and striking; and the fact, that the American residents have just obtained permission to erect a Protestant Church, the first ever built in the Eternal City.