The Emperor of Russia has presented to the Observatory of Dorpat, a magnificent telescope by Franenhofer, with a focal length of 13 feet, and an aperture of 9 inches; the cost was £1,300. The king of Bavaria followed his example by ordering a still finer instrument for the same purpose; and the king of France, with a liberality still more patriotic, has had executed in his own capital, an achromatic telescope, surpassing them all in magnitude and power. What a misfortune it is to English science, that the name of the most accomplished prince who has as yet occupied the throne of Charles I. does not appear in the list of sovereigns, who have been thus rivalling each other in the patronage of astronomy! What a mortification to English feeling, that the subject of sidereal astronomy created by the munificence of George III. should thus be transferred to the patronage of foreign monarchs. A slight exception must be made in the case of Edinburgh. During the King's visit, the observatory had permission to take the name of the Royal Observatory of George IV.; and it has received from government £2,000. to purchase instruments.—Quarterly Rev.
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS
DINNERS.
A Family Dinner! Pot-luck, as it is called, in Scotland—when the man's wife is in the sulks, the wife's man proportionably savage, the children blear-eyed from the recent blubber in the nursery—the governess afraid to lift her eyes from her plate—the aunt sourer than the vinegar cruet—and we—alas! the stranger, stepping in to take pot-luck—we, poor old Christopher North, thanklessly volunteering to help the cock-y-leekie, that otherwise would continue to smoke and steam unstirred in its truly classical utensil! What looking of inutterable things! As impossible to break the silence with your tongue, as to break pond-ice ten inches thick with your knuckle. In comes the cock that made the cock-y-leekie, boiled down in his tough antiquity to a tatter. He disappears among the progeny, and you are now tied to the steak. You find there employment sufficient to justify any silence; and hope during mastication that you have not committed any crime since Christmas, of an enormity too great to be expiated by condemnation to the sulks.
A Literary Dinner! apparently the remains of the Seven Young Men sprinkled along both sides of the table—with here and there "a three-times skimmed sky-blue" interposed; on each side of the Lord of the Mansion, a philosopher—on each hand of the lady, a poet—somewhere or other about the board, a Theatrical Star—a Strange Fiddler—an Outlandish Traveller—and a Spanish Refugee. As Mr. Wordsworth rather naughtily sayeth,
"All silent, and all damn'd!"
Still the roof does not fall, although the chandelier burns dim in sympathy,
"And all the air a solemn stillness holds."