The Sun. — London, England, 1849-01-23 00:00:00

the ith oni dm Dch sti t it ion my 1130 ion quil 0 15 cao° nier rein . Tb° s ea e i 4 ter ' f Of 1 by Arer , tha t idea 0 31 a °tea rev by 01 P a ire O,P t tie °. , of os ire te o ,ch MONE V and COMMERCI AL NE SVS. CITY, QUARTER TO THREE. The Cotton Market at Liverpool yesterday closed with animation, and prices of all descriptions were very s tiffs The sales, including 1,500 Aniericen on specula tion and 800 for exportation, were estimated at 9.000 to 10,000 bales, viz., 7,000 to 8,000 Americen at 3i-1. to 5 1d.; 250 Pernam 4irl. to 54 , 1.; 200 Egyptian at 52d. to 6 (1.; 800 Surat 3d. to 3 8 . 5 -d ; and 40 Sea Islande Bd6 t ° 10 d. Railway Shares were much the same. at The continental news received to day is not of promi nent interest, and, in its commercial tone, may generally be regarded still as tending towards improvement. In the accounts from the United Stites, per Europe, "e have evidence of the favourable impression excited by the intelligence received out from England, and we hear that some good orders have been received by the present insll . The produce markets were in a favourable state, and liberal exports will be made to Europe, in a manner to ensure low prices, it may be hoped. The following oaneneereial item deserves attention ; ",We understand th a t the Secretary of the Treasury apollt to instruct the various collectors of the ens - 1 1 ? but that in all cases where they have reason te ue "eve that goods have been invoiced below their value, with a view to defraud the revenue, the amount of duty Chargeable by law shall be taken in kind. Teat is the proportion of goods necessary to cover the duties shall be taken for the duties, without regard to the value. 1,6 3 , tiller course the temptation to import goods falsely invoiced will be effectually done away with, and the honest importer protected against the tricks of dishonest !,?mPetitors. An old revenue law gives this power to „lute Treasury Department, without the necessity of any further legislation." Advices from Venezuela, dated December 2, afford 2°1130 encouragement in respect to the settling down of political affairs in that disturbed country. General yaez' s party at Carracas was increasing every day, ant 44 0 nagas, since the capture of Maracaibo, was considered be lost. The Mexican accounts are not later from Vera Cruz, ( toe but the following from a New Orleans paper of the 21 st alt., furnishes some disagreeable items of intel ligence whi c h we may hope are overcharged:— "Eve n t s i n T amp i co are h asten i ng to a cr i s i s . W e 'earn from a passenger who arrived last night, in the schooner John Roalitf, which left Tampico on the sth Ul t., that General Tenorio, with six hundred men and 5'X Pieces of artillery, was encamped at Old Tampico, where he was awaiting the arrival of General Garriere, who was daily expected, at the head of three hundred men. Generals Tenorio and Garriere belong to the war Party—the party which opposed the treaty of peace with th e United States—and, without the countenance of th e general Government they meditate taking possession of the city and fort of Tampico. Pablo Castillo who commands the National Guards of Tampico, has hitherto, with his force, steadily resisted all attempts to introduce troops into the city ; but it is supposed that, by this time, Tenorio and Garriere lare in possession of it, as Castillo and hi s assoc i ate eader, Pepe Gonzales, have only fi ve h un d re d men the National Guard, and only one hundred and fifty of them were armed, and they had n o ar till er y, th e can non they obtained some time ag o by f orce f rom M r . Chase the United States Consul, having been returned to hi m . Th e possess i on o f Tamp i co by Te opo and Garriere will lead to events of exciting in te.est in that quarter." Not the least change is to be noted in respect to the general tone of feeling in the City; but the Funds have receded a little on account of a few sales for transfer. T ? t l'ols have been 901, and since 89i to 90 for Money. stocks lu agains have not been effected under 90. Bank, 189 to 190. Exchequer-bills are 435. to 46. Premium. wh a i le Foreign Se c urities are quiet, except Mexican bch hav e b een drooping and have ranged from 27 to ai• Peru v i an are 48k. Spanish Five per Cent. sag bee n 15* 1 . Portuguese F our per C ents . 271 ; ad been Oid 771 to 7S?e. Dutch Four per Cents. a % 7 8 to i.",ailwa ' Shares are firm on the whole, although there laale less doing, and Caledonian are not so good. Mid- Great Western, Great Northern, North •Western, th e York, Ab erdeen, and several other li nes are hi g h er. The French rather easier. BRI TISH FUNDS THIS DAY AT ONE O'CLOCK. (From the Official List.) Bank Stock 190 189 3 per C en t. R e d uced Annuit i es 9 0 14% 90 3 per C en t. C onso l s Arms 901;, 1 / 89 7 , New 3 1 4 per Cent. Anns 9l 91 1 4 90% Long Annuities, Exp. Jan. sth, 1860 8 34 Do. 30 Years, Expire Jan. 5, 1860 B% India Stock — Do. Bonds, 10001 Ditto under 1.0001 Consols for Account Exchequer Bills. 2 1 / 2 d. 2d. March. June. 1,000/. ..................... 43 46 p 45 p 500/. ......... .. ......... 43 46 p 45 44 47 p Small ........................ 43 46 p 45 448 p PRICE OF FOREIGN FUNDS AT ONE O'CLOCK. Brazilian Bonds, 5 per Cent Ditto Small Ditto New 80nd5,1829 and 1839 77 77% Equador Bonds ...................... . 3 3 1 % Mexican Bonds, 1846, 5 per Cent.. Ditto for the Account ...• ... Peruvian Bonds, 6 per Cent — Ditto for the Account ....... Portuguese Bonds, 5 per Ce n t Ditto 4 per Cent. Spanish Bonds, 5 per Cent,lB-10 Ditto for the Account 1 5 14 Spanish Bonds, 3 per Cent 2 B l /$ Dividends on the above payable in London. Dutch 2% per Cent.,l2 Guild — Ditto 4 ner Cent. Certificates Pca SUAILE. 4,t )brdeen a ir Ditto DONE IN ILAILWALS LD II . .ALtEi AT ON 6 o OLOCK RA I LWAYd. 50 ..... 23 IA to a to . ibtro Notting., Boston, &c. 4 1 4 — to fiyrshire and Galloway ;-' Licelfast and County Down .. 20 7.2 •• •• . 1 .1 rks and Hants Extension _ ,Jot. West. Perpet. 5 per ct.) 5 tsirin ingh am & OxfordJ uncto Z 'll3 duly pd, or with guar. 20 ir 0:, without a guarantee... 20 ... ominghamWol.,& Dudley, to ?ails duly pd, or with guar. 10 ••• • to 8. 1 1-10 .• without a guarantee... 10 • B. rn 'ing., Wol., & Stour Val. 131.145.... ••••• to - rkenhead Lancashire, and Cheshire Junction lO to Boston,, Starnf., & Birming... 5 bristol and Exeter B Do., Thirds . . 27% l9 ...... to - u e al e e ki ri on g i h a a n nashi; e 7 to 16/. 4s - - Di d ' o, Quarter Shares D' 111 h ........ 26%...... to to _ 26 ittoNew 101. Preference 7% 8%%... to Ditto,„. Clydesdale Junction 50 - Dittouhester and Holyhead .. 5O ..... 22 PreferenceCln • .............. • ........ 7814 ••••• -"A' , to Do., lit Class, 6 per Cent... 10to D0.,2d Class, 5 per Cent... 10 to Do., Grov. to Loan, 4 er Cent. 0 pi,,t London. & Ports 1 5 1 4 to M re, Litt and Belfast Junction.. 35 talk pu and E nn i s kil len ... 22% —6 ... t t o o -±% a Anglia, 23/. L. & E., sad ... .... Ditto, 18/., E. &LI ~.. Ditto, 31. 10s., E. & H... 3% 25/, 1 ;4 % to .e.istern Counties . D o. New G uarant. 6 per Ot. 10 ll% to DDo. Perpet.,s per ct. No. 1,6/. 13s. 4d... 0., d 0... , .... N 0.2,6/. 13s. 4d..• Vs P to 0., Northern & Eastern... 50 Do - DO. , ~ 0 per cent. '-' O ., Quarter .... . ...... * ..... 12 1 ... .. „t l O., Ne w xekstern Union, Class A (late E. U. Shares) ......... .. 25 Ditto, ditto, Class A, ditto 3%. — Ditto, do, Class B (I. &B) 22% . — to Ditto, do, Class C, ditto... 20 Ditto Scrip (gua. 6 per et.) 20 .. l9 .. to D itto (C. & E.), 5 p er c t. 2% — to 't Lancashire D itto, New Do., New Quarters . 00 ., 6 per Cent. Preference 6 1 4 .. . qoarter Shares ... 25 cast Lincolnefiljre to dinburgh and Glasgow 5O — 20 ..... Ditto,Halt Shares to ) Editiburgh and Northern ~ Ditto, New p0rt..... l5 . . n r-..xt:ter, Yeovil, & Dorchester 2% - to : 4 z.et v r and Exmouth... tilas e, .., Dumfries, & Carlisle 8/. ba.Bd... .. ... to I ' ll & gow, Kilmarnock, & Ayr 50 ...... ~, uo.Preference Consolidated —•—• — 8 7, „ x.i. 19 wet.t Northern 130, 1 / 2 A. Deferred .• 12% 80. 1 : B 6 per Cent. Guar. 6% 4 3 /4 x.i. .. to to L , O. Extension ..• ..... ••••• 2 " t. South. & West. Vs" est. (Ireland) 45 Ur eat No r th o f E ng l an d 100 D itto, New 401. 4O Ditto,_ ditto ... - Ditl. 0, New 301 .. 30 .. .. ~,, D itto, Ne w 15/......nat ... ...... 14 ...... . ~re Western 100 D-tto, I tt, Half Sha res 5O c, 23 ~ (narter Shares Ditto, Fifth Do * ~..- '! 2 19 1 :.. ... t to o _21 1 4 Hudd "" 171 -. (4'stield and Manchester 1 3 5 0 11 ...... 13744%... tto° ---'litte T i. . -- Hull , third s lO - to Di ,;tui s elby 5O lOl btt ; o• (Ulf Shares ........25 •••••• to L, Itto, Quarter Shares 12% — .011 c aster Carlisle.... 0 ~,, . and ,.. 50 to 4 4 . , thirds... 10 to Dittoire and Yorkshire ... 93 , ditto . 86 .Di ...,. 40 R alf s i t • a ; .. ........... 43 to 1...4u,', ...... :luta Quarters ...... 17% • to ---• to D.`tto si z j lns ... ............... 10 .... to Ditt o , r,..‘eellths . ... 6 1 4 to - , New Guar (ite~ ) ;Do. Liver. eper cent. 7% — to .. bO. cra pool and Bury... 43 10 0., vi t a L 4(l Z ‘ s : and Shell.) 43 - andl3,.,o:wEii,;ll, ................. .... 50 to .... to —L ~ Preston and W il y n r i e n. ..... 25 —* . —. 21h .. Lex . " dO ., Izi:'-1f Shares (A) 9% to 1 4 2 and Bradt or :1 ............ 50 .....100 ... to -,, 5,11, web to ....• Do t i 111 7, & Manehes. 50 b ; :: alf Shares ............ 25 ...... Lee ,l -' 4 ' Blue f scrip) ..... —2%...... •••••• t° iitttaotin„;TY Irak ........ ....... 50 1) 0 ! ' ew e ..... ..... ...... -40 . - '4,4e1•,(.0,Prfer., 6 per Cent 3%. ...• 11001 •Crosb tO rt y,andSouth- ...... to —.• .. to --. „.. , ....... ...v e. ...... ...... . ........... 3% — •• Nz 01 _Manchester, and b e! , rea_tle Ju ncti0n.......... 2% — - i;`,..°.1& 131ackwall ......13/. 6s. 8d.... —•••-• t° --- I,'"' e ,; ., r-,:. xtension ........ . ..... 22% ...... d l „ . P!r u lght. Ditto, dit co , :c v. B:uth Coast 50...... 85 %,i 3 4 , 13 to - b e , iraranteedsper Cent. 9 ...... ... per Cent. 50 ...... p o. v _ to ........... 1852 50 ..... ... -to --. ' "WI Mr. 6 per cont. 6 ...... •■•. •••,,, W I " . - ..... .. to - to -- f.ondon and Greenwich... 121.155. 4d... to Ditto Preference 2O London & North Western.....loo 132 131 to 132 Do. Quarters (L. and B.) 22 New Do. Fifths Do. 40, Shares.....L. & NI 25 lOL ... M. and 13. (A.) 10 .... to Do. 101. .. M. and B. (B.) 10 Do. 101- M. and B. (C.) _1 London and S. Western 50 .. 43 42 Ditto, New 501......... 42q..,.. 31 ...... to Ditto, New 401..... ... . 34 Do. Tenths (Consolidated) 50 .. to Do. Tenths (Consolidated) 10 Ditto. Thirds... Do., New Scrip, 1848, Pref. 7 per Ct. on Deposit and 5 per Ct. on Calls London, Salisbury, & Yeovil 1% — to Londonderry and Coleraine... 30 Londonderry and Enniskillen 30 L.westoft (guar. 4 per cent.) 20 Ditto (guar. 6 per cent.... 13 ...... __ llanch, Vaxton,' & Matlock 4t/ — .... to qanchr, Sheffield, and Linc. 100 Ditto 1 ,,i Shares( No. 1) ... 18 Ditto, ditto (No. '2) '2s Ditto, 1 , Shares (No. 3)... 11 1 A, ...... Do., New 10.. Preference.. 10 ..... ... . to Ditto Grimsby .. Ditto, ditto. .,. l3 Ditto, ditto Ditto Sheffield and Line. 15 Ditto, Grimsby Dock Ditto, Man. & Lin. Union 41. 25.... .................100 Ditto, Consol. Pre:erence...100 Ditto, 50/. 5hare5.........,. 25 ...... 19 1 X to Ilk:hand, Birm., and Derby...loo ..... 11idland, Consol. Bristol and Birmingham. 6 per cent.... 100 11idland, Bristol and Glouc. 40 ... Ditto ditto 181.25. 6d .. Leices. and Swan nington (8 per ct.gua.)....100 . idld. Great Western (Irish) 45 Nliddlesbro' and Redcar. 6 per cent. guar. SO Newcastle and Car lisle lOO Ditto quarter Shares . 25 to Nn!wrnarket Ditto Extension Scrip... 2?, 12s. — Newport Abergy., and Heret. 6 Newry an Enniskillen ...... ? ',. ewry, Warrenpoint, and Rostrevor ..... ...,......... 20 *Cortolk IOO Ditto New 20/. Ditto Guaranteed 5 per ct Do. Do. 5% per cent Do. do. Waveney Valley... 2 tirortheni Counties Union ... 4 N r orth British Ditto Pall Shares ..... ..... 12 1 ,4 — ...... to Do. Quarters Ditto. Extension ..... 5 4 3 Ditto Thirds ... ......... .............. 8 N - orth and South-Western... 2 North Staffordshire... .. ...... 15 .orth Wales - ..... to North Western lO )xford, Worcester, and Wol verhampton Reading, Guildtd., & Reigate 10 ..... Royston and Hitchin ..... .. 2 ...... 2% to Scottish Central Scottish Midland .. 25 Ditto, New... 17% — to heffield, Rotherham, and Goole , lO ...... to Do. do. (South Div.) 5 - hrewsbury and Birmingham 9 — to , ditto. Ditto, Class B. 5 __ .._... .... Ditto, New Guaranteed 8 Shrewsbury and Hereford .. 2 ___ __ __ - hrewsbury and Chester ( Nor. W . .lin. ) Ditto Halves, Ditto... 9 ... Ditto, Uswestry 18%...... ...... to Ditto „New )., Ditto 8 per Cent. Pref....... 10 hropshire Union .. South Devon Ditto, Preference 25 'outh Staffordshire.... 7%. — .. .. to South Eastern Ditto, No. I. Ditto, No. 2. Ditto, No. 3. Ditto, Registered No. 4.... 10 Ditto. Scrip N0.:4.. ...... lO .. VA% ex.i to South Wales South Yorkshire, Doncaster and Goole ..... ....... _ _ `•wans. and I.3ughor and Ca meron's Stm. Coal . 6 raw Vale Extension ........ 8 000000 to Thames Haven Dock and Railway 17% — to Vale of Neath Waterford and Kilkenny l 7 l /2 Waterford and Limerick... Waterford, Wexford, Wicklw, and Dublin Wear Valley 6 per Cent. Guaranteed ...... ........... 50 Do. do. do. Do. do. do. West Cornwall 6 - West London Ditto, First Class. Ditto, Second Class.... Whitehaven and Furness l4 ..... ..... to Windsor, Staines, and South Western..... Wilts,Somerset,&Weymouth 40 — ...... to York, Newcastle, and Berwick 25 Do. Original New & Ber ck 25 ...... `z774 co Do. Exten. No.l (Y. & N.) 20 Do. do. No. 2, New &B. 20 ...... 20 3 / .... to Do. G. N. E."Pur. or Pref. 8 ... .. 84. 5 / 8 to York and North Midland .. 50 Ditto, Preference Ditto East and 4 est Riding Extension FOREIGN RAILWAYS. Anglo Italian (late Italian and Austrian Boulogne and Amiens 2O Central of France ( Orleans and Vierzon) ... Ceylon .. l /2 — to Demerara. Dendre Valley - Direct Bombay and Madras ss. ..... Dutch Rhenish East Indian Great Indian Peninsular JA ...... ...... to Louvain ala Sambre ......... 7 1 / 2 to --. Luxembourg - Ditto.... Nladrid and Valentia Namur and Liege 2O Northern of France Orleans and Bordeaux_ ... .. 7 Paris and Lyons - Do. Da Paris and Orleans... 2O - Paris and Rouen Paris & Strasbourg ..,.. ..... 9 Rouen and Howe 20 Sambre and Meuse .!.trasburg and Bale ..... ..-- 14 Tours & Nantes ... .. ...... .. 9 Tournay, Jurbise, Landen, and Hassell ~ „,. 20 .•...• ••. - • West Flanders B : 3 /4 -. ..._,. to JOINT STOCK BANKS. Australasia ... - British North American .... 50 Colonial ..... .. .. ..... ........ 25 Commercial of London London Joint Stock -... ..... 10 ...... 16 Loudon and Westminster... 20 . __ National Provincial of Engld. 35 - Ditto, New National of Ireland 2 2 1,E — .... to Provincial of Ireland Ditto, New ****** •• •••••• lO ••••• ..".• •••••• to - Union of Australia Ditto, New...... 24 — to Union of London ...... .. ..... 10 - Union of Madrid - MINES. Anglo Mexican lOO ...... A%turian Mining Company... 14 ...... Australian ...... Barrossa Range Mining Corn. 285....... Blaenarvon Iron and Coal ... 50 Bolanos Scrip ..... ••• ••• ..... - British Iron . Brazilian Imperial ...,. .. ... 24 1 ,4..«.. —.— to Ditto Cocaei and Cuiaba... 30 Ditto St. John Del Rey ... 15 Cobre Copper ... 40 General Mining ...... .... 20 Real del Monte, Unregistered Do. Black Debentures — Do. Red Debentures — Santiago de Cuba ..... . _ _ 10 UnitedAlexican ... .. to LLOYD'S SHIPPING.—(THIS DAY.) LONDON, JAN. 23.—Wind this day at noon S.W., light breeze, and fine. STATE OF WIND AND WEATHER AT THE PROVINCIAL PORTS THIS MORNING, AT 9 A.M. Gosport Gloucester S. by W., fine. Colchester N.E., ditto. Lowestoffe .. W., cloudy. Liverpool Portsmouth Southampton variable, very fine. Yarmouth S.W., fine. DEAL, JAN. 22.—Wind W.N.W.—Arrd. Elizabeth, Alexander, Calcutta; Cassibelaunus, Armstrong, ditto; Bellhaven, Gilkison, Singapore. Arrd. from the river, Mermaid, Anderson, Bombay; Cairo, Hogg, Jamaica; Underley, Bowden, Swansea, &c.; Dispatch, Olden, Algoa Bay; Ada, Constance, Mogadore. Arrd. from the river and sld., China, Livesay, Bombay. PORTSMOUTH, JAN. 22. Wind N.W.—Arrd. 11.M.S Bittern, Sierra Leone. • I WESTPORT, JAN. 21.—The Gem, Murray, from New York to Galway, which went on shore 18th inst., in Killeries Harbour, was floated off and put on shore in another part of the harbour; she is making water fast, and her bottom is supposed to be injured. The cargo is heated and damaged. KILRUSH, JAN. 21.—The Heir Apparent, for Liver pool, from Limerick, went on shore near this place to day, but if the weather moderates, will be got off with out discharging. RAMSGATE, JAN. 22.—The Armin, Neath to Ham burgh, which was abandoned in the Downs yesterday, and afterwards put on shore, was got off atter discharg ing part of cargo, and brought in here. DOTER, JAN. 22.—The Tigris, Linton, from Ceylon to London, which came on shore about two irides to the westward of this harbour to•day, is bilged, has filled, and it is feared will be a total wreck. The cargo is being AH dischargedolLtnhldovurE Honduras to uko i o n raL t e c e , or jr, bkAoiNar is ssm, wrecked2a2illi.—r d armb b rought in here; about 700 bales of ci nnamon have already been got out. e unregahr Lady tthoe vc A oo d r, °Pa Cruz, i r a a i d d e e a ,. f Tw r from lost " the A 1110411 44 Ist ult. Arrd. 21st, Freeman, 'TEN 1415Ns imNDON, TUESDAY EVENIN4O JAICIYAnir 28, 1840. MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. FROM TL' E ACCES:iION OF JAMES Tin SECOND, VOLS. I. AND 11. Already renowned as an Orator, admired as a PoE t esteemed as a Statesman, respected as a Critic, and distinguished as an Essayist, Mr. Macaulay has nou risen to the celebrity of an Historian. We greet his appearance in this new character with the cordiality due to one who has resigned office as a Cabinet Minister to record the annals of his country, and, who, in so doing has added another master-piece to those great productions which constitute the glory of our national literature. We appreciate the sacri fice made by the late Paymaster of her Majesty's Forces, in abandoning the charms of Administrition. for the purpose of dedicating his Genius and his Ambition to tie service of Letters. Nor is our esti mation of this sacrifice diminished by a sense of the extraordinary toil required in the composition of such volumes as are here submitted to our criticism. To write a narrative of the foundation of an empire, to describe the rise of a colony into existence, or to record the origin and development of a nation, is a task very different indeed from the one undertaken by Mr. Macaulay. For the further the time of history is removed towards the ages of antiquity, the less difficult is it to accumulate the requisite authorities, and, on the other hand, the nearer the time of history approaches towards ourselves the more are the labours of investigation, of compilation, and of discrimina tion, enhanced. We say thi s w i t h ou t i n an y man ner wishing to depreciate the compositions of such a scholar as Mr. Grote, or of such an annalist as M. Niebuhr. But we conceive it to be sufficiently mani fest that the toils of an historian in collecting together the materials of his narrative must be proportionately increased with the increase of those materials. There is no question but :that more care is required in the collation of manuscripts penned at a remote period, than in the acceptance, as facts, of assertions com mitted to paper at an epoch more within our own cognizance. Yet, even after taking this circumstance into consideration, we do not hesitate to affirm that the obstacles which have to be overcome in recount ing the vicissitudes of the Athenian Republic from the reign of Pericles down to the invasion of the Goths under Alaric, are in no degree comparable to those which remain to be vanquished in recording the progress of the English Monarchy, from the accession of James the Second downwards. In order the more fully to understand the vast energy and the unremitting assiduity essential to success in the latter instance, we need only refer to the multiplicity of the resources from which Mr. Macaulay has obtained his details. And in r e f err i ng to those resources we are filled with absolute amaze ment at the patience with which they have been ex amined, notwithstanding the obscurity of some, the difficulty of obtaining access to others, and the bewildering voluminousness of nearly all. MSS. at the Hague, in the archives of France, in the Government establishments of the Peninsula, in the State-paper Offices scattered throughout London, have all been conned, no matter how recondite in character, or how illegible in penmanship. Enormous masses of Journals—both the Parliamentary Journa'S of the House of Commons, and the Public Journals, beginning with the Observator of Sir Roger L'Estrange, and coming down to contemporary news papers—have been pored over with a scrupulous cau tion almost amounting to punctilio. Fragmentary chapters, such as those of Lord Clarendon, of Charles Fox, and of Sir James Mackintosh, have been sub mitted to innumerable tests for the purpose of tracing out an inaccuracy. Memoirs and autobiographies, correspondence and tracts, philosophical treatises and theological disputations, fly leaves and folios, doggrels and epics, pasquinades and eulogiums, have each been thrown into the crucible of inquiry to contribute their grain of gold towards the fabrication of the Great Work. Acts of Parliament, the mere enumeration of which would be beyond the capacity of most men's endurance, have found in Mr. Macaulay an unflag ging and laborious annotator. One while he ac knowledges in graceful terms (I. 391. note), the benefit he has derived from scrutinizing the miscel laneous papers of his " dear and honoured friend" Sir James Mackintosh. At another moment he pays a magnificent tribute of respect to the genius of the late Prime Minister of France (I. 465. note,) when, alluding to the copies of dispatches obtained through the instrumentality of that remarkable but fallen statesman, he says, " It is with peculiar pleasure, that, at this time, I acknowledge this mark of the friendship of so great a man." [The homage is the more beautiful seeing that M. Guizot is now in exile and in misfortune.] In a third note our historian mentions as his authority for the account given by him of the cruelties inflicted upon the rebels sen tenced to transportation during the Bloody Assizes (I. 653. note,) an original MS. written by a car penter named Coad, in 1685, the year of the Mon mouth Rebellion. In a fourth (I. 351. note,) he refers for corroboration to Ward's scurrilous periodical the London Spy, and, in the very act of confe ss i n g his authority, makes this significant declaration — " I am almost ashamed to quote such nauseous balder s dash; but I have been forced to descend even lower, if possible, in search of materials." It is thus that he sometimes condescends to transcribe a phrase from an epigram of Pomfret, or from a farce of Buckingham. Out of such abysses of research, and from this distracting chaos of books, MSS., dia ries, charts, pictures, al manacks, diagrams, pamphlets, and epistles, has come forth the co mmencement of a i history which gives promise of symmetry nits enormous proportions, and of a nobly sustained and sonorous eloquence in its treatment. Of the sym metry, however, we can scarcely speak otherwise than in the language of conjecture, judging it as we do ex pede Ilerculem—the narrative opening with the Ac cession of James 11., and the two volumes before us closing with the Accession of William 111. Of the eloquence;on the contrary, we can speak from the ful ness of a rare and memorable experience. The annals of the reign of the last Roman Catholic Sovereign of England are written in periods worthy of so eminent a rhetorician. Mr. Macaulay has here coincided practically in the opinion expressed by his most recent panegyrist : " Wit charms the fancy, wisdom guides the sense ; To make men nobler—that is eloquence." King Arthur, V. 15. And to demonstrate at once that the couplet is appli cable to our historian even i n the quality which might be least expected, we may adduce numerous instances in which his sarcasm is either mellowed into dry humour or crystallized int o w it. In such a vein• he describes the Puritan coffee-houses (I. 370.), no oath was heard, and where lank haired men dis cussed election and reprobation through " where noses ; re or, while recounting the manner in which these same Puritans were quartered on th e i n h a bitants of the me tropolis, he says (I. 149.) that "the wealthy citi▪ zens grudged nothing to a red coat, and were indeed so their liberal of their best wine, that warlike saints were sometimes seen in a condition not very honourable either to their religious or to their military character." Again, take his mention of the scholarship of the pro vincial Cavaliers, (I. 393.) "An esquire passed among his neighbours for a great scholar, if Hudibras, and Baker's Chronicle, Tarlton' s Jests, and the Seven Champions of Christendom, lay in his hall window among the fishing-rods and fowling-pieces." Or, where after record. ing the uproar of the slaughter at Sedgemoer, between the belligerent forces of Monmouth and Churchill, he writes thus (I. 610.)—" Feversham had been awakened by the firing, had got out of bed, had adjusted his cravat, had looked at himself well in the glass, and had come to see what hi▪ s men were doing." Or, what he says of Lawrence Hyde, the second son of Chancellor Clarendon, (L 254,) " The clergy especially looked upon i him as their own man, and extended to his foibles an ndualsgntdeonoa in indulgence of which, to say the truth , he some hhe ewa swores n i e n e a like d ; a rage—andpfoo r r t e r h. he drank very often was in a rage— deep ; Alluding again to the Eng lish esquire of the se venteenth century, he says i n th e same felicitous tone, half-comic, half-serio us (1. 322) He kn ew the genealogies and coats of arms of all his neighbours, and could tell which of them had assumed supporters without any right, and which of them was so unfortunate as to be great grandsons of alderme n ." Ridiculing the exqui sites of the sam e e ash ashamed, and without sink them, epoch, he obser v es in a congenial mood (I. 4 00 ) " The new breed of wits and fine eentlemen never opened their mo u ths without uttering rib a ld r y o f callingwh ich a o n porter th e their il l a l kr d e no w b to curse confound them, blast them, and damn them." Inci dentally, ho wev er, we shall, in the course o f our remarks, show that, besides an occasional grotesque ness of diction, the historical writings of Mr. Ma caulay are characterised by a variety of far loftier excellences. Nevertheless, even as a rhetorician, it is possible sometimes to detect him tripping : as where he tortures a fine Saxon sentence into a construction of awkward Latinity (I. 45) :—" While the Government of the Tudors was in its highest vigour, took place an event which has coloured the destinies of all Christian nations, and in an especially manner the desti n i es o f Eng land." Nor can we absolve hi▪ m from the casual vice of pedantry, whether in syntax or in punctua- 1 White, Janalea; Janet, Nro-br, New York. 22d, atha mian, Iliawkins, Canton; Blorenge, Banks, Calcutta; Band, Hoskins, ditto; Matilda, M`Dowell, ditto; Hy (laves, Grebon, ditto; Pala , ine, Stubbs, ditto; Elsinore, Itioy, New Yurk; '31...-.ry Moses, B: - )s.ton. Put back, Prince of Orange, for Bombay, with losi of main ) a:d. Off port, Warwick, Carena. WEXFORD, JAN. 21 .—The Protcus, Laird, from Liverpool to Newfoundland, struck on the Long Bank, off this pert, 19th inst., but got off and sank in twelve fathonal water; crew saved. HULL, JAN. 22.—1 t has been blowing a severe gale here since Saturday, from S.W. to W.; but it is now more moderate. The Commerce, Jeffery, which sailed hence for Sligo, 19th inst., has put back, with loss of foremast, and other damage, having bsen in contact with the Prussian brig Martha and Max, in the Humber, this morning. A brig was driven on shore yesterday on the Sunk Sand, but is exrc!ed off this tide. WIVENHON, JAN. 22.—The Victoria, from South Shields, went on shore on the G unfleet sand, 20th inst., but came off with assistance, and proceeded. MARKET N E WS.-( THIS DAY.) COLONIAL. SUGAR.—The market for British Plantation con tinues steady, and the sales were 710 hhds, at fully pro - vious rates. The public sales have comprised 2,200 bags Mauritius, 0,800 bags Bengal, 1,000 bags Madras, 2,100 bags 500 baskets Penang, 230 boxes Ilavannah, and 1,550 bags Manilla. The Mauritius went off without much spirit at former rates; Bengal sold briskly, particularly the grainy sorts, which realised 47s to 48s for very fine white, 41s to 43s 6(1 for said to good white Decc a and Dhobah, 35s 6d to 41s for low to fine yellow, 39s 6d to 42s for low to good white Benares; the Madras was withdrawn at 30s to 31s for low to mid brown. Penang sold briskly at 30s to 34s for low brown to low yellow damp and syrupy; llsvannah realised 18s to 21s for low to fine brown in bond, and Manilla at 37s to 393 6d for clayed yellow of similar description, duty paid. Privately 400 chests low yellow Ilavannah sold at 203 6d, and a floating cargo of 3,500 bags Pernambuco at 19s 6d, for a near port of the Continent. The quantity of British Plantation landed last week at the East and West India Docks was 1,103 hhds 100 tierces 54 barrels ; there were taken for home consumption 1,966 hhds 221 tierces 466 barrels. The stock in the same places is 18,408 hhds 2,583 tierces 3,895 barrels. COFFEE.-110 casks 950 bags Plantation Ceylon and 140 barrels Rio were offered by auction. The Ceylon consisted chiefly of small lots, which went off heavily at rather easier rates, the better descriptions being nearly all withdrawn at full prices, importers evincing no incli nation to force the market. The Rio sold readily for exportation at 30s for fine ord washed of old import. Privately 1,000 bags native good ord changed hands at an average price of 34s 3d. Rust.—The quantity landed last week at the East and West India Docks was 158 puns 8 hhds. There were taken for home consumption 376 puns 35 hhds, and ex ported 9 puns 76 hhds. The stock in the same places is 21,092 puns 1,932 hhds. s B A s. T according pEi RE. t 3 o s q o u b a a l t ,bein Bengalg 6 6 d p d e e r a r c e e r n . RICE.-1,200 bags Aracan all damaged sold from 6s gs to t. refraction sold at 26s 6d, being barely previous rates. SPICES.-310 bags black Pepper was all taken in at 2ftd to 24d for half heavy Malabar. TALLOW.—P.Y.C. is 41s to 41s 3d per cwt on the spot, and Town, 43s 6d. - TEA.—The market is steady and the deliveries are good. ICILY MAILEETS. SMITIIFIELD.—Meadow Hay, 21 8s to 31 12s; Clover ditto, 31 8s to 4/ 133 ; and Straw, 11 3s to 11 93 per load. A fair average supply, and a sluggish demand. CUMBERLAND.—Meadow Hay, 21 9s to 31 15s ; Clover ditto, 3/ 8s to 41 103 ; and Straw, 11 4s to 11 105 per load. Supply but moderate, and trade rather dull. WHITECHAPEL. Meadow Hay, 21 8s to 31 13s; Clover ditto, 31 8s to 41 15s; and Straw, 1/ 3s to 1/ 9i por load. Trade dull, at the above quotations. EXCHEQUER.-(THIS DAY.) The CHIEF BARON intimated this morning that argu ments upon rules for new trials would only be taken in country cases during the remainder of the present term, in order that the parties might be in time to give notice of trial for the next assizes. Rules for new trials in town cases would not be taken, as it would be too late to give notice for the next sittings. By pursuing this course the Court thought they would be enabled to get through all the rules for country new trials. NIAGGIONE v. DELAFIELD. This action was brought by the plaintiff, who was em ployed as foreign correspondent and interpreter at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden, to recover balance of salary alleged to be due to him, judgment having been obtained by default, the case came before the Under- Sheriff a few days back, when the damages were assessed at 1951. Mr. KENNEDY now moved, on the part of the defendant, for a new trial, on the ground that the judg ment had been obtained by mistake, and in the event of that not being sufficient, on the the ground that the damages ought to be reduced by 801.—Rule nisi granted. SITTINGS IN ERROR. The Judges sat in the Exchequer Chamber this morn ing, and appointed the following days for hearing errors in the several Courts of Common Law :—Queen's Bench, Ist, 2d, and 3d of February, and on the 7th, if necessary. Common Pleas and Exchequer, sth and 6th of February. MA RLBRO'-STREET-( THIS DAY.) Ann Keeling, a well-irossed middle-aged woman, was brought before Mr. Bingham, charged with having ob tained a situation as cook to Mr. Foynbee, surgeon, No. 12, Argyle-place, by means of a false character. The prosecutor stated that, about a fortnight ago, in consequence of an advertisement which he inserted in a morning paper, the prisoner and her husband applied to him for situations, the former as cook and the latter as footman and general servant. In reply to his in. quiries the prisoner said both she and her husband could have good characters from their last place, where they had lived more than two years. She then referred him to a Mrs. Hunt, No. 11, Tauntere-place, Regent's Park. Witness subsequently received such information that, on the prisoner coming to his house last night, he gave her in charge. Mrs. Harriett Foynbee, wife of the last witness, said she was in the room when the conversation took place between the prisoner and Mr. Toynbee. On the 15th instant witness went to No. 11, Tauntere-place, and in quired for Hrs. Kent. Witness was shown into a room, and saw a person who answered to that name, who stated, in answer to witness's inquiries, that the prisoner and her husband had lived with her for more than two years, and that they were sober, steady, honest, and truly excellent servants. Upon these re presentations witness engaged them, and made arrange ments for them to enter her service on Saturday week. In consequence of seeing a report in the papers relative to a woman by the name of Stephenson, who was com mitted for three months from this court on Saturday last, for giving a false character, witness proceeded to Tauntere- place, and discovered there that Mrs. Kent and the woman Stephenson were one and the same party. The prisoner, who declined offering any defence, was fined 201., with 10s. costs, and in default Mr. BINGHAM committed her for three months. Viscount Palmerston, we are happy to learn, is much better, and will shortly be able to resume his official duties at the Foreign-office. MAJOR GENERAL SIR JOSEPH THACICWELL.— This gallant and distinguished officer entered the ser vice of his country so far back as the year 1800. His first commission as cornet in the 15th Light Dragoons, bears date 23d April in that year ; he obtained the rank of lieutenant in 1801 ; captain in 18 0 7 ; major, 1815 ; brevet lieut.-col., 1817 ; lieut.-col., 1820 ;col onel, 1837 ; local rank of major-general, in India,in the same year ; and in England in 1846. He served with Sir John Moore in Spain, was engaged at Corunna, Vittoria (wounded), the Pyrenees, Orthez, Toulouse, and Waterloo ; in the latter he lost an arm. During the above service, it appears, by the " Records of the 15th Hussars," he frequently greatly distinguished him self, and was sever a l ti mes spec i a ll y recommen d e d f o r promotion. From 1820 to 1832 he commanded the 15th Hussars, and his servioes were oftentimes required in quelling riots at Nottingham, Birmingham, &c. In 1837 he proceeded to India, and being promoted to the G m w a a n i i d o s r in andth the n fi first the A s ff u g a h e a j n rank of major-general, held important and distinguished i campaign, 1846 . ?mom Ht He the orea campaign con spicuous part in the actions of Ghuznee, Maharajpore, and Sobraon : in the last his leading the cavalry with such effect against the Seikh batteries is fresh in the memory of our readers. ELOPEMENT IN HIGH LIFE.—A. paragraph has gone the round of the papers during the last week, de tailing the particulars of the elopement and marriage of a young nobleman—a resident, it is said, of this neigh bourhood (Enville)—to a young woman of great personal attractions, but of humble rank in life, whose parents reside at Cambridge, where the intimacy was formed some twelve or eighteen months since, while his Lord ship was pursuing his studies at that university. We believe that the nobleman referred to is the Earl of Stamford and Warrington, and that the youthful pair, after their marriage, proceeded to pass the honeymoon in Italy. The affair, as may be supposed, has been the occasion of much surmise and not a little animadversion; but wo believe that the young lady is very amiable and accomplished, and that her parents are respectable in habitants of Cambridge, but lacking the gifts of rank and fortune, both of which have been now acquired by the distinguished alliance of one of the wealthiest of the nobility of this country.—Biriningham Journal. FRIGHTFUL AND FATAL ACCIDENT WITH A GUN. —On Monday last, a lad named Taplin, aged fourteen, son of Mr. Taplin, Swan Inn, Northam, near Bideford, took his father's gun to go out in the garden to shoot small birds ; after he had loaded the piece he tried to fire, but it would not go off. After this, the lad brought the gun into the house, and put it on the kitchen table, opposite which his sister was sitting, a little girl about nine years of age ; it is supposed that with the jerk of the boy's putting it on the table the gun exploded, which it unfortunately did, and the contents entered the mouth of the child, literally smashing her head to pieces. On Tuesday morning an inquest was held on the body, be fore R. Bremridge, Esq., coroner for this district, when, a verdict of " Accidental death" was returned.— Wes. tern Times. An ingenious little instrument has recently been invented, coining immediately within our cognizance as journalists. This instrument is called Moise's Registered Hold , r, and is intended to act as a temporary binding for files of newspapers. A similar! application of orna mented rods, springs, and nut-screws has been made to the loose fly-leaves of music. The Holder is really a very clever and admirable contrivance, tion, saying, as he does, somewhat affectedly, " yet a COW months ; and the quiet village of Tothlington," is (1. 630), or recounting with equal affectation the capture of Rumbold (i. 566 ) thus—" Ile defended Himself desperately, and would have cut his way through them had not they hatnstringed his horse." Objections so minute would doubtless savour too much of hypercriticism; but that, regarding Mr. Macaulay as one who has already a , sumed his posi tion as a classic by the side of Burke, of Swift, and of Gibbon, we would see blemishes removed from a masterpiece, in which, if allowed to remain enshrined, they might rise into precedents tending ultimately to vitiate the language. Viewing his splendid under taking in one capacious glance, Mr. Macaulay has been enabled to preserve a proportionate dignity throughout the whole of its dimensions; hut in keeping his observation thus steadily fixed upon the aspect of the work as a whole, he has occasionally permitted its constituent parts to remain blurred with oversights. Hence it is :that his verbiage is not altogether devoid of Mannerism , : h> designates by the same stereotyped eiAliet a King, a Ch incellor, and a body of soldiers (L 407.), the tr wps of Fever sham are " the wicked ariti" (L 449), Jeffreys is "the wicked judge," and (L - 661) James 11. is " the wicked king." With a more reprehensible inadvert ency, Mr. Macaulay has penned this refliction (1.74) : —" During two hundred years all the sovereigns who had ruled England, with the single exception of Henry the Sixth, had been strong-minded, high spirited, courageous, and of princely bearing." And yet Edward IV. could scarcely be termed "strong minded" when absorbed in his effeminate voluptuous ness at Woodstock, and Edward V. and Edward VI. were both children ! In spite, nevertheless, of these isolated and interjectional errors, the "History of England" by Mr. Macaulay has the largest claims upon our respect for its accuracy, while in regard to its rhetorical splendour it may vie with the most ela borately perfected effusions in our literature. Already we have remarked upon the embarrassing contiguity of the epoch delineated in this history to the present generation. As if to afford a striking evidence of the brevity of the interval which has elapsed between that period and the days of Vic toria, it is mentioned in the description of the last battle ever fought in England—the battle of Sedge moor (I. 604)—that " many persons still living have seen the daughter of the servant-girl who waited on Feversham" when, on the eve of the conflict, he dined in a little cottage in the village of West Zoyland. It would be singularly erroneous, however, to imagine that in• this circumstance exists the principal diffi culty of the task upon which our great living annalist has adventured. The labour of the undertaking is immeasurably enhanced by the wonderful character of the years which have intervened. The marvellous development of our liberties and the almost miracu lous extension of our dominions since the downfal of the Stuart dynasty, render the era chosen by Mr. Macaulay as the subject of his lucubrations one so abounding in events and so intricately complicated in policy as almost to defy condensation into any reasonable limits. That the project, of which these two large volumes of 1339 octavo pages constitute merely the indication, is of a nature so replete with embarassment may be compre hended to some extent after the reader has listened to the voice of the historian relating to him—" how the new settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully defended against foreign and domestic enemies; how, under that settlement the authority of law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of indi vidual action never before known ; how from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a pros perity of which the annals of human affairs had fur nished no example ; how our country from a state of ignominious vassalage rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her martial glory grew together ; how by wise and resolute good faith was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to the states men of any former age would have seemed incredible ; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power compared with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance ; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was united to England, not merely by legal bonds, but by indisso luble ties of interest and affection ; how in America the British colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier than the realms which Cortes and Pizarro had added to the realms of Charles the Fifth ; how, in Asia, British' adventurers founded an empire not less splendid and more durable than that of Alex ander." Such are the sublime and glorious achieve ments which Mr. Macaulay has ambitioned to in scribe, and which he is now actually inscribing, not upon plates of brass, or on pyramids of granite, or on tablets of gold, but in the imperishrble characters of an eloquence which will prove as perennial as that Saxon tongue in which it is conveyed. _ Before the circumstances which - marked the acces sion of James the Second are narrated, the author preludes the history of that unfortunate Monarch with several prefatory chapters descriptive, in a rapid epitome, of the previous occurences, illustrating the introduction of Christianity and the dawn of civiliza tion into England. This comprehensive retrospect extends backwards to the fabulous ages prior to the subjugation of Britain by the Roman Emperors, and returns with hasty but measured steps down the path way previously trodden by the Chroniclers, by Bede, by Rapin, by Holinshed, by H ume , by Sharon . turner, y Henry, by Lingard, by Hallam by Clarendon, by Fox, by Macki n t os h, an d by kindred annalists. After commenting upon the effects pro duced upon the insular institutions of the Saxon race by the victorious incursion of the Normans, our his torian developes in one energetic paragraph (I. 17) the origin of the freedom, the prosperity and the glory of England, in the midst of the obscurity and sterility of the thirteenth century. " Other societies," he says further on (I. 25), " possess written constitu tions more symmetrical ; but no other society has yet succeeded in uniting revolution with prescrip don, progress with stability, the energy of youth with the majesty of immemorial antiquity." The truth of this elevated encomium affords a clue to the security of our political fabric and a guarantee for its future permanence. Nevertheless at the early period of which the author is there treating, the Ad ministration could scarcely be applauded in those unstinted terms of eulogium. And, conscious, evi dently, of the anomaly of any such precipitate panegyric, he remarks (1. 30) that "as eloquence exists before syntax, and song before prosody, so government may exist in a high degree of excellence long before the limits of legislative, executive, and judicial power have been traced with precision." Although the ingenuity with which this is reasoned may dispose the mind at first to recoil from the de duction as from a sophism, reflection will only tend to verify its correctness. And, in proof of this, we are told with a considerable show of justice (1., 37) that, "though during the feeble reign of Henry the Sixth the State was torn first by factions, and at length by civil war, though Edward the Fourth was a prince of dissolute and imperious character, though Richard the Third has generally been represented as a monster of depravity, though the exactions of Henry the Seventh caused great repining, it is cer tain that our ancestors, under those kings, were far better governed than the Belgians under . Philip, sur named the Good, or the French under that Lewis who was styled the father of his people." The secret of all this may possibly be as Mr. Macaulay supposes (I. 39), the coincidence that " our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world." Whatever the cause, it is indisputable that our liber ties have, with few and momentary interruptions, steadily widened to their present grandeur in the teeth of every obstruction ; and that, since the moment of their dawning, they have wrested additional s m tr o e s n t g d t e h spti t o othemselves, evelnt wasfrom the hands that ma of our Charta was wrung from John upon Runnymede, that the Petition :of Bight was forced from Charles I. at the very time when he was plotting against his Parliament, and that Habeas Corpus was torn from Charles 11. at the juncture when he was pre paring to render the fortunes of his kingdom subser vient to the will of Lewis the Fourteenth. How gradually, and almost imperceptibly, and yet how steadily and surely, these advantages were accumu lating round the Constitution during the sway of se veral successive dynasties—under the dominion of the Plantagenets, of the Houses of York and Lancaster, of the Tudors, and of the Stuarts, down to the explosion of the great civil war, and the establishment of the Com monwealth—Mr. Macaulay has explained in language melodious as the utterance of oratory. His account of the bearing of Charles I. at his execution (I. 128), " the captive king retaining in that extremity all his regal dignity, and confronting death with dauntless courage ;" his description of the Puritan warriors (I. 121) " moving to victory with the precision of ma chines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism of crusaders ;" his portraiture of Oliver Cromwell (I. 139 and 155), whom he justly designates as " the greatest prince that has ever ruled England ;" his scorn of the affected sanctity of the Precisians (I. '163) in interdicting, on Christmas-day, such harm less recreations as " romping under the mistletoe, eating boar's head, and drinking ale flavoured with roasted apples ;" and his participation in the laughter t with which those fanatics were subsequently greeted, under such soubriquets as Tribulationa Wholesome, and i n t d o 11 Z 8 Zeal-of-the-Land -of- everyth e shred d d f B us theiry, throughout these skill with which Mr. Macaulay, historical volumes, interpolates sketches of we need only charac ters in the course of the narrative, of James 1., direct attention to / h t i N g mention iexhibited royalty to who, he says ( 1 . • sword, and talking in tears, trembling at are tr e a all tm eanti"raAbsle—tofetlit of a buffoon and of a peda gogue style alternately. .. ." or to his limning of the notorious Titus gogue . with " his short neck, his legs uneven Oates (I. 483), drawn sword, shedding unmanly the world stammering, as those of a badger, his forehead low as that of a baboon, his purple cheeks, and his monstrous length of chin," disclosing, in short, " those hideous features , on which viila n y seeme d t o h e wr itt en by the hand of God." Subsequently his delineation of the characters cf. Halifax, of Clarendon, of I‘:Lrlborougli, of Jef freys, and of Mac Callum More may be classed among the most successful achievements of a pea by no means habituated to failliee. The narrative of the Great Plague and of the Great Fire ; the description of the panic which seized upon London when the fleet of Holland was in the Thames ; the account of the anti-Popery rage, provoked by the fabrications of Oates, of Carstairs, of Bedloe, of Dugdale, of Tuber ville, and of Dangerfield—are all of them passages dictated in a spirit as life-like as Froissart and as picturesque as Boccaccio. it is, however, in the ac count of the demise of King Charles the Second that, to our thinking, Mr.' Macaulay has revealed his genius in its full vigour. We know nothing more eloquent than this in the language. It ii)..nks with a serene but sorrowful voice to the heart's core. We are not ashamed te cuufess th it it deeply touched our 6ensibtlities during the-1 perusal. That temperament would be frigid indeed that could read it unagitated by emotions of sympathy. It is the ebullition of a lung-cherished sentiment—a sentiment of tenderness for that " exquisite urbanity" which in the Merry Monarch had so often Foved " potent to charm away the resentment of a justly incensed nation." The historian has shown himself less lenient and, in our . estimation, more prejudiced, in his analysis of the character of James the Second. In this we conceive exists the principal blemish of the two vo lumes already published. King James was doubtless in many respects an enemy to the popular freedom — his mind was saturnine, his temper obdurate, his reli gious predilections stern almost to bigotry—but we can never believe in those unmitigated monsters of humanity which belong rather to romance than to reality, rather to fiction than to nature. Such a monster was James, according to Mr. Macaulay; and the hatred entertained towards the last Stuart King carries him to such lengths of vituperation that he regards James as malignant even in his acts of clemency (I. 659, 660), he vilifies him as unforgiving even while re cording his generous connivance at the escape of Wade, of Ferguson, and of Goodenough ! The argu meats with which the author strives to justify his condemnation upon these particulars are wretchedly overstrained ; and a more striking testimony could scarcely be discovered of the truth of the axiom, that extremes are beyond the rightful province of an his torian. Among the numerous peculiarities which charac terize the memorable work under consideration, and which isolate it, to a considerable extent, from all other historical productions, one of the most conspi cuous is the survey taken by the annalist of the con dition of the people, of their habits, of their dwellings, of their costume, of their furniture, of their amuse ments, of the appearance of the towns and the home steads, of the extent of the population, of the geographical aspect of the country, and of those other particulars in the life of a nation which are too fre quently forgotten in the records of campaigns or in the changes of administrations. It would be a grievous error, nevertheless, to regard Mr. Alacaulay as the originator of this scheme for the improvement of history. He stands by no means alone as the ex • ponent of the inner existence of an empire. What he has here deliberately and systematically accomplished has been incidentally performed by almost all his illustrious predecessors. Tacitus had already many centuries ago described the domestic manners of the German barbarians. In the seventeen books of his immortal History, Polybius had given to posterity fragmentary hints of the same nature. In his ac count of the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides had proceeded upon a similar principle ; and so also had flerodotus in his elegant representation of the state of the Grecian Republics and of their contests with the Persians from Cyrus to Xerxes. The mytholo gical rites of the Romans, suggesting to us the cus toms of that glorious race, had in like manner been casually recounted by Livy. From Cicero we had acquired some knowledge of the homes, and the garbs, and the frivolities, and the appetites of his fellow-citizens. From Caesar we, in an especial manner, had obtained a glimpse into the situation of our forefathers—facts relating to their familiar exist ence being scattered through his " Commentaries" from Gallia est omnis divisa down to quam Belli ge reruli. The merit of Mr. Macaulay, therefore, is—not that he has opened a new vein for historical composition, not that he has adventured upon a region of research hitherto unexplored, not that he has contrived a novel embellishment with which to set off the austere love liness of Clio, but that he has judiciously compacted together what had been hitherto scattered neglectfully through similar memorials, that he has reduced to a resplendent system what had been heretofore em ployed as a casual decoration, that he has done, in fine, prepense, what other men similarly engaged had before him done inadvertently. Acting upon this felicitous principle, the annalist has here produced a chapter (Chap. 3, Vol. I.) upon the state of England at the period when King James, immediately after his coronation, had a solemn high mass chaunted for the last time in Westminster Abbey, and when, sin cerest among all the mourners for the departed Sove reign were his beautiful concubines Eleanor Gwynne, the most fascinating of all the succes sors of Lucy Walters, Barbara Palmer, the Duchess of Cleveland, Louisa of Queroraille, the Duchess of Portsmouth, Madame Carwell, and Hor tensia Mancini, the Duchess of Mazarin. Without depreciating in the smallest particular the more ele vated passages in the " History of England" by Mr. Macaulay, we must acknowledge that this portion of it, though of a less dignified character, has a charm for us superior to almost any composition we have recently had the privilege of perusing. In it the illustrious writer displays a capacity even beyond what has been happily described as an encyclopmdicin tellect. His mind reveals, indeed, a faculty kindred to that astonishing power of the steam•engine, which sometimes sets in motion the cumbrous and compli cated mechanism of a manufactory, while it some times draws out a wire to the attenuated thinness of a bristle, and perforates it with an orifice as minute as that made by a pin-point. Thus is it with the pliant and versatile genius of Mr. Macaulay. At one moment he expatiates upon that sublime scheme of the Prince of Orange, which, says he, in terms ex pressive of his admiration (1.218), "has an aspect of antique heroism, which, if it had been accomplished, would have been the noblest subject for epic song that is to be found in the whole compass of modern history." At another he informs us (I. 354) that " the practice of huzzaing after drinking heulths" originated at the time of the forfeiture of the old charter of the corporation of the city of London, when the Puritanical functionaries were replaced by magistrates analogous in their political partialities to the Cavaliers. Thus again he can, in fitting terms, pronounce his abhorrence of the barbarism which survived in Whitefriars at the very period when phi losophy, poetry, theology, and jurisprudence were cultivated by some of our most renowned country men (I. 364) a savage ignorance flourishing " within a short walk of the chambers where Somers was studying history and law, of the chapel where Tillotson was preaching, of the coffee-house where Dryden was passing judgment on poems and plays, and of the hall where the Royal Society was examin ing the astronomical system of Isaac Newton." Or he can condescend to trace the derivation of a pro verb (I. 316. note), and to indicate the precise year in which (I. 256) " our tongue was enriched" with two such words as Mob and Sham. Nor will this precision on the part of our author be objected to, as being frivolous, when he is found in like manner tracking the rise and development of the British Ca binet as the medium of administration (I. 211), or defining the origin of the Whigs and Tories (1. 99), as well as the appearance of that intermediate class of politicians known as Trimmers, a class of which Halifax was long the most distinguished orna ment. The miscellaneous character of the observa tions grouped together in this remarkable dissertation upon the resources and aspect of England contem porary with the accession of James, affords a brilliant token of the knowledge accumulated in the mind of an historian—accumulated not merely by a scholarly inquisitiveness into learning, purely for the sake of it as learning, and apart from any positive object in connexion with literature, but by the subsequent in quiries demanded as a preparation for such a work as the one here introduced to the notice of our readers. The retrospect is at once topographical, statistical,eex pression—popular. sanitary, literary, and—in the largest sense ofth witha After presenting us lances census of the population anterior t o the Rsevoluti evolution t and the final settlement, Mr. Macau ay g the financial wealth of the country a; at the . at the wages ob propur- tionate distribution of property; . gricultural and tained by the industrial classes, s ta b t7 t is h a of the principal manufacturing ; and at the York, Exeter, Wor cities such as Bristol,, Norwich,ster, Shrewsbury, and the center, Nottingham, a musing portrait of the country te Gloucester, metropolis. of the age of the He gives an Stuarts (I. country gentleman 321), " his wife and daughter being, in tastes an d ac quirements, be low a spinning housekeeper or a st ill -room in, ma id of the present day,—stitching . an d • b re wing gooseberry wine, curing mary golds, and making the crust for the venison pasty." He sketches with the same humourous touch the rural parson of the same epoch (I. 328), a poor starveling of a di vine, who, though permitted to di ne w i th the family, i might fill himself with t h e corn beef andthe carrots, but as soon as the tarts and cheesecakes made their appearance was compelled to quit his seat and stand aloof until summoned to return thanks for the re past from a grea t part of which he had been ex , c uded." Fu r th er on h e indulges in an admirable i delineation of the state of the capital, from the do mestic buildings to the shop-signs, from the coffee homes to the public thoroughfares, and from the mu nicipal authorities to the night rioters variously de signated as the Muns and the Tityre Tus, the Hectors - --> and the Scourers, the Nicker, the - Hawcubit°, sing the Mohawk. In the same comprehensive yet epi grammatic manlier he scans the characteristic excel lences and demerits of the contemporary writers — the poets, the dramatists, the ch.-Heal- scribes, the philosophers, end the Journalists. Of the comic dm tnatists he speaks in language of grievously deserved reprobation (I. 403). " Whatever they t o uched," eays he, " they tainted: in their imitations, the ho'uses of Calderon's stately and high spirited Caa titian gentlemen became sties of vice, Shak s pere's Viola a procuress, Moliere s misanthrope a ravisher, Moliere's Agnes an adultress." Alluding to those immortal bards who remained uncontaminateid, in the midst of this intellectual debauchery , our historian has penned this magnificent sentence upon I‘i .s 1 1t(n i sentence of touching and superb eloquence (I. (I. 40 1 ) • —"A mightier poet, tried al once .by pal poverty, oblopy, and blindness, meditated, u th (ia stu 7 , ger, -bed by the . obscene tumult which raged all around lain, a smiL, , so sublime and so holy that it would not hare mts become the lips of those ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold." If for nothing else, the chapter to which we are now making reference would deserve our most earnest approbation, fbr, inasmuch as it casts derision upon those who commend the preceding, at the expense of the present generation. "It is now the fashion," observes the writer (I. 427), " to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts, the wants of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers rued shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana." Previously he has demonstrated these facts by statistical comparisons ; he has shown that while the daily earnings of a brick layer were formerly half-a crown, they are now four and tenpence ; that while the ordinary loaves were formerly oaten, they are now wheaten ; that while the farm labourer formerly gained five shillings a week, he now gains fourteen. He has advanced, as a striking illustration of the enormous increase in our commercial transactions, the fact that whereas the customs of London amounted in 1685 to about 330,000/. a year, the net duty paid annually in that single port, from 1842 to 184,5, very nearly averaged 11,000,0001. He has contrasted the splendour of our highways— stretching out into a length of almost thirty thousand miles—with the miserable paths trodden of old by our ancestors. He has compared the darkness of their miry streets with the paved expanses in our provincial towns and watering-places, illuminated by a thousand jets of gas, brighter than the feast of lan terns in the pagodas of the Chinese. He has placed cheek-by-jowl the ignorance of yesterday and the in telligence of to• day, the packhorse and the railway, the news-letter and the daily journal, the book stalls and the libraries, the beershops and the mechanics' institutions, the alchemist and the natural philosopher. Coupling these things together, he has found himself impelled to acknowledge the immeasurable superiority of that age of which we are fortunate enough to be contemporaries, when mea sured by the standard of its vaunted predecessors. " The more carefully we examine the history of the past," he says in conclusion (I. 420), " the more reason shall we find to dissent from those who ima gine that our own age has been fruitful of new social evils: the truth is, that the evils are, with scarcely an exception, old : that which is new is the intelligence which discerns and the humanity which remedies the m ." Such are the encouraging reflections of one who has conned the lessons of the past not lightly ; and his reasons for congratulation are in no respect restricted to mere matters of provisions, traffic, or conveyance. They extend equally to the habits of the population and to the morals of the Government. A. cursory investigation into the prin ciples which of yore guided the acts of English states men will flood the heart of every patriotic observer with an exhilarating sense of improvement. It may there be discerned that turpitude and corruption were not merely the most Prominent qualifications of the leaders of The Cabal—Arlington, Buckingham, Shaftesbury, and Lauderdale—but that they were conspicuous in their immediate successors, in Osborne, and Capel, and Sunderland, and down through their successors again even as recently as the first repre sentatives of the reigning dynasty of Brunswick. There, also, it may be perceived that of old the law was not well administered when the diabo lical Jeffreys was Chancellor ; that the army was but indiff..rently organised when Feversham commanded the troops at Sedgemoor ; that the naval service was in deplorable plight when Albemarle blundered on the tack to larboard (1. 301) ; that the ideas of phi lanthropy were inculcative, even in the purest tem peraments, of a disgusting laxity, when William Penn —that " mythical person whose name has become a synonyme for probity"—could become a channel for extortion to gratify the cupidity of maids-of honour, or could visit Guildhall to see Cornish strangled on the gallows, and hasten thence to Ty burn to behold Elizabeth Gaunt burnt alive upon faggots. To Mr. Macaulay we are grateful for hav ing thus endeavoured to dissipate one of the most pernicious illusions of the day—that illusion which disposes the mass to repine at the degeneracy of their fortunes, when, if the truth were only once revealed to their iinaginations, they would recoil with horror before the atmosphere of debasement, of poverty, of wrongs, of darkness, and of brutality, which enve loped their envied forefathers in the golden days of the Stuarts and the Plantagenets. Our remarks upon this extraordinary composition must close : and, in uttering our last syllables of com mentary upon the commencement of the " History of England" by Mr. Macaulay, we would express to him with simplicity, with cordiality, and with earnest ness, those felicitations to which he has rendered himself eminently entitled—felicitations on his ad mission to the \Valhalla of Historical Literature. '. JAMES'S THEATRE. Last evening we had three lively operettas, the works of different composers, and each an example of a dif feratt school of music, performed at this theatre. The performances commenced with Le Nouveau Seigneur de Village, an opera of Boildieu, whose graceful and melo dious style of composition is a pleasing medium between the steady-going of Gretry, and the brilliant, sparkling, corruscating, dazzling style of Auber. The subject of this opera is well known to the English public. The valet of a French Marquis, sent down to a country village, passes himselt, like the mock Duke in the Honeymoon, for his master, and on the arrival of that master of course there are some most amusing contretemps. M. Beauce acted the mock Marquis with great effect, and he was well supported by Madlle. Martial, who is not only an excellent artist but a very pretty girl. This was succeeded by the operetta of Le Boil& et le Tailleur, the composition of Gayeaux, who was the contemporary of S a li er i an d G retry. The plot is simple. A musical tailor mistakes the servant of an Italian singer for the master, and undertakes to give him a coat for a song. The servant takes advantage of the fact that his master is singing in the next room, and induces the musical tailor to believe that it is himself, and thus is the schneiderian votary of music victimized. The tailor's daughter and the Italian servant are in love with each other, she having captivated him by her skill in a singing lesson. The principal parts were admirably sustained by M. Couderc and Made moiselle Charton, who, not content with the quaint but pleasing music of Gaveaux, introduced a variety of in cidental music. M. Couderc sang the once ce le , b , .- w at . e . d buffo aria by Fioravanti, .. Ab perche Ted pizsiclai, days; itti a spirit that reminded us of De Begnis in besth a is. and Mademoiselle Charton sang a new and a 01 meur, with a power of executiosi The singing of fioriture that was perfectly astoms I *accomplished by these two lesson was admirably given musical tailor, was artistes. Al. Baguet, ba.nd profusion exqui sitely humorous. is imitation servant who is in love superb. M. Chatesefort , II as the tioti of opera singing was as the very good, and his ima and the tailor was excel lentlyobehyairs g w i i n t a h ry th d e u t e a t il i e je e t s w d e a en eg n h i t m e r se , lf given. as he represented each cha nor's), a ltern at e o ccupatio t n h o e f t m h u e s s i w e (his own and h , 1 i pd e e ta most comic effect. The operetta of racter, produced Ills performed by Al Couderc,- Montfort, admirably dconcluded M. Beauee. and Meddle. Gui Polichinelk, char , the evening's entertain.. words by Scribe, The house was well and i nents. fashi onably attended. oLY:I7WPIC B r igands in the Bud was the title of a new drama pro duced here lust night. The brigands are runaway stu dents 'rem Upsal University, their representatives were the ladies of the Oly mp i c company, commanded by Mrs. Strling, who looked more fascinating than ever in her mustachios. Add to these attractions that Compton acted the part of an old woman, and the succuss of Brigands in the Bud will no longer be matter of surprise. The house was well filled. MARY LEBONE THEATRE. Mrs. Mowatt's interesting drama of Armand was re peated here last evening, and drew down the enthusi astic applause of a house crowded to the ceiling. 13 ALL IN AID OF THE ANNUITY FUND FOR THE ORIGINATOR OF THE GOVERNESSES' BENEVOLENT IN STITUTIoN.—AIf our readers have no doubt heard of the existence of that exc Hint charity, the Governesses' Be nevolent Institution, but few perhaps of them are aware that the originator of that excellent institution, Miss Jane Tucker, is at this moment dependent upon the casual assistance of private friends for her subsistence. A number of benevolent and influential individuals have formed themselves into a committee for the purpose of endeavouring to raise a fund for the purchase of an annuity for Miss Jane Tucker, who has now passed the 67th year of her age, and a bull is to take place this evening, at the Hanover-square Rooms, is aid of the fund. The members of the musical profession have been on this, as on all other co.misions, the first to offer their valuable services gratuitously in the cause of charity. Mademoiselle Nissen, Misses Bassano, Messent, Pyne, L. Pyne, and Ransford, and Mr. Bodda and Mr. Sims Reeves will all sing in the course of the evening; and Miss Kate Loder will perform on the pia no f orte . W e feel assured that the rooms will be crowded, and this will be the best atter.d.d ball of the 80%301].