The London Leader destroys the romance of Lamartine's visit to England. It seems, according to that paper, that he did not go for the philosophic purpose of studying the country, but to make bargains for the publication of his History of the Directory, which he offered for five thousand pounds. The publishers, he urged, could issue it simultaneously in England, France, and Germany, and so secure an enormous profit. "Our countrymen," says the Leader, "with an indifference to Mammon worthy of a philosopher, declined the magnificent proposal: and Lamartine returned to France and sold his work to an association of publishers for 12,000 francs, which he hopes to get." He is also to publish a new novel in the feuilleton of the Siècle.
Edmond Texier, a French journalist, has published a very lively history of French journals and journalists. It is a small and unelaborate book, but is exceedingly readable. Political writers in France, it will be remembered, are required to sign their names to their articles. The Vote Universel recently contained a strong essay signed by Gilland. The Attorney-general prosecuted the paper, alleging that the article was written by George Sand, and citing the bad spelling of Gilland's private letters as a proof that he could not have been the writer. Madame George Sand peremptorily denies having written a line of the article, and avers that Rousseau himself, in a single letter in her possession, makes three mistakes in spelling three lines, owing to the difficult and capricious rules of the French language.
Lady Morgan has published a pamphlet on the Roman Catholic Controversy. It is in the form of a letter to Cardinal Wiseman, and is a defense of herself against an attack upon a passage in her book on Italy. In that book she had related a curious anecdote. She said that when Bonaparte entered Italy the enthroned chair of St. Peter, contained in the magnificent shrine of bronze which closes the view of the nave in St. Peter's Cathedral, was brought into a better light and the cobwebs brushed off. Certain curious letters were discovered on the surface, which were deciphered and found to contain the Arabian formula, "There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet." Cardinal Wiseman branded this story as "false, foolish, slanderous, and profligate." Lady Morgan gives as her authority for it the eminent savans Denon and Champollion, who saw the inscription, deciphered it, and told its meaning in her presence. Her letter is ably written, and excites attention.—Lady Morgan is said to be the oldest living writer who continues to write: for though Miss Joanna Baillie is some five years, and Rogers perhaps ten years her senior, neither of the latter has touched a pen in the way of authorship for a long time; whereas Lady Morgan, for all her blindness, has, according to the Liverpool Albion, for a good while back, been a regular contributor to one of the London morning journals.
The British government has bestowed a pension of £100 a year upon the widow of the celebrated Belzoni, who died fifteen years ago. The public satisfaction at this announcement is tempered with surprise that the pension was not bestowed fifteen years ago. Mr. Poole, the author of "Paul Pry," and other literary works of a light character, has received a retiring pension of the same amount. Similar pensions have been granted to George Petrie, LL.D., author of "The Round Towers of Ireland," and other antiquarian works; and to Dr. Kitto, editor of the "Pictorial Bible," "Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature," and other works in that department of letters. Dr. Kitto, although deaf from an early age, in consequence of an accident, has traveled over many lands in connection with the Missionary Society.
Letters from Rome announce the death in that city of Mr. Ritchie, the sculptor, of Edinburgh. The circumstances are peculiarly melancholy. It had been the dream of Mr. Ritchie's life to go to Rome; this year he was able to travel, and he arrived in that city in September last, with some friends as little acquainted with the nature of the malaria as himself. With these friends it appears that he made a visit to Ostia; the season was dangerous; the party took no precautions, and they all caught the malaria fever. He died after a few days' illness, and was followed to the grave by most of the English and American artists in Rome.
Austen Henry Layard, whose enterprise has opened a new field for historical research, was born in Paris, March 5, 1817. His father, who was Dean of Bristol, filled a high civil office in Ceylon, between the years 1820 and 1830. The early years of the future explorer of Nineveh were spent in Florence, where he early acquired his artistic tastes and skill as a draughtsman. On returning to England, young Layard commenced the study of law, but his love of adventure rendered this profession distasteful to him, and he abandoned it. In 1839 he left England, with no very definite object in view, visited Russia and the North of Europe, and spent some time in Germany. Thence he took his course toward the Danube, and visited the semi-barbarous provinces on the Turkish frontier, which form the debatable ground between the Orient and the Occident. In Montenegro he passed some time, aiding an active young Chief in his efforts to ameliorate the condition of his subjects. From hence he passed into the East, where he led the life of an Arab of the desert, and acquired a thorough knowledge of the languages of Arabia and Turkey. We next find him in Persia, Asia Minor, and Syria, where he visited almost every spot made memorable by history or tradition. He now felt an irresistible desire to penetrate to the regions beyond the Euphrates, to which history and tradition point as the birth-place of the wisdom of the West. At Constantinople, he fell in with the English Embassador, Sir Stratford Canning, by whom he was encouraged to undertake and carry on those excavations amid the Assyrian and Babylonian ruins, which have conclusively demonstrated that a gigantic civilization had passed away before what we are accustomed to call ancient civilization dawned, a civilization stretching back almost to the days when the ark rested upon Ararat; a civilization which was old when the pyramids were young. And, what is still more remarkable, the relics of this civilization are more perfect and beautiful in proportion to the remoteness of their date, the earlier of these ancient sculptures being invariably the noblest in design, and the most exquisite and elaborate in execution.
In 1848, Mr. Layard visited England for a few months, where, notwithstanding the monthly attacks of an aguish fever contracted in the damp apartments which he was obliged to inhabit while prosecuting his excavations at Nimroud, he prepared for the press the two volumes of his Nineveh and its Remains, executed the drawings for the hundred plates, and a volume of inscriptions in the cuneiform character for the British Museum.
The last survivor of Cook's voyage, a sailor named John Wade, is said to be now begging his bread at Kingston-on-Thames. He is within a few months of completing his hundredth year, having been born in New York in May, 1751. He was with Cook when he was killed on the Island of Hawaii; and is said to have served at the battles of Cape St. Vincent, Teneriffe, the Nile, Copenhagen, Camperdown, and Trafalgar.
An interesting collection of sketches, by members of the Sketching Society has been opened to the public. This society numbers among its members the two Chalons, Bone, Christall, Partridge, Stump, Leslie, Stanfield, and Uwins. What gives to the present collection a unique interest is that they are entirely impromptu productions, three hours being the limit allowed for their completion. At each meeting of the society the president announces a subject, and the drawings are made on the spot.
Sir Roger de Coverley's chaplain is familiar to the recollection of all. He has lately found an imitator. The Vicar of Selby announced a few weeks since, that he should that day commence reading the sermons of others, as there were many productions of the ablest divines which were altogether unknown to his parishioners; and he thought the time spent in writing so many new sermons might be more usefully employed in other matters connected with his profession. He then proceeded to read a sermon which he said he had heard preached at the University with great effect.