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JUDGE SYDNEY BREESE, late U.S. Senator, at the commencement of Knox College, delivered a discourse before the Literary Societies on the Early History of Illinois. It is said to be part of a volume he is preparing, and had reference to the first ninety years of Illinois history.
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MR. LAYARD, in excavating beneath the great pyramid at Nimroud, had penetrated a mass of masonry, within which he had discovered the tomb and statue of Sardanapalus, with full annals of that monarch's reign engraved on the walls.
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MR. H. H. WILSON, F.R.S., has published in London, a collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns, constituting the First Ashtaka, or Book, of the Rig-Veda, the oldest Authority for the religious and social institutions of the Hindus. The translation of the Rig-Veda-Sonhita is valuable for the scholar who wishes to study the most ancient belief, opinions, and modes of the Hindus, so far as they can be gathered from hymns addressed to the deities. At the same time, their mystery or obscurity, increased by remoteness of years, is perhaps so considerable, that it will require peculiar learning to profit by the materials this most ancient and important of the Vedas contains.
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DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, author of "Mornings at Matlock," has been appointed, through the influence of Lord Brougham, to the office of official assignee to the Court of Bankruptcy, in Manchester.
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The Fine Arts.