The Sun. — London, England, 1821-01-05 00:00:00

NAPLES. .16 NAPLES, DEC. 11.—It is impolit for a moment, that every syllable of what passes during the august interviews at Laybach, will be of the highest interest and importance to the whole Peninsulaof Italy. It must be conceded on all hands, that the general peace and integrity Of this country are matters of grave consideration -with the various Sovereigns about to assenle. Austria, on all accounts, is most especially inte rested in the result of affairs within 111110 own ter ritory ; and Russia and Prussia have a great stake in the maintenance of general tranquillity, and in the support of that balance of power so beneficially established in 1815. Great Bri tain herself, without any direct interposition which might or might not be inconsistent with her present system of policy, cannot look with in difference upon this kingdom. At this time, however, her own internal state, and various other circumstances, have prevented her from taking any step regarding recent and distressing trans actions, more immediately affecting ourselves. To the proceedings at Laybach, we shall devote an unremitted attention, and shall publish from day to day such authentic details as may reach us, in order to satisfy the anxious curiosity of all who wish well to their country in these times of peril and innovation. The subjects of his Ma jesty may rest assured that he has but one object in view, the promotion of the freedom and happi ness of his subjects, and he will spare no exer tion, and object to no sacrifice consistent with the -welfare of the rest of Europe, to accomplish that object in its fullest extent. DEC. 12.—The proposition of his Majesty was received with tumultuary disapprobation : the house was in a moment converted into a scene of confusion and indignation : several of the mem bers declaimed with great warmth, but the an swer to the King was postponed to the following day. The same evening printed copies of the King's letter, with the letter of the Emperor of Austria annexed, were distributed about the city ; the confusion anchumult produced inconsequence were great ; and there were not wanting endeavours to aggravate every circumstance, and expose the city to the horrors of a popular insurrection. It was whispered that the King was preparing his departure, and that in the night he and all his family intended embarking on board the English Admiral, (who, with five other English and seven French ships of war, is lying just off the harbour), and leaving the capital and the king dom to their fate. The blind affection .of the lower classes of this city to their King has been often proved, and is well known. " 0 ye mfoctro"—" 0 77:WSCiO patrono," is for them the very centre of the universe, which being to doubt removed, confusion and horror must ensue.- About dusk, grbat crowds were gathered in the square before the Royal Palace—some in mute sorrow, some in noisy displeasure—and nearly all anxious to get a sight of their Sove reign, nr at least to obtain a certainty of his in tentions. In moments of agitation and excite ment, trifles too often become of tragical import. ance. When the bells of the churches rang their Ave Maria, and the soldiers on guard at the Palace presented arms as usual in sign of devotion, one of the men by accident let his piece fall to the ground; in the ooncussion,the gun went off : shouts and shrieks ensued : " the soldiery is firing on the people ! run ! fly !" was echoed on all sides ; and except a few who were sufficiently near to see the accident, and a few who had courage enough to attend the result, that great crowd was dispersed with the conviction that scenes of death and blood were already commencing. The activity of the military, and particularly the well-dispos ed troops and patroleS of the National Guards, certainly saved.the city that night from anarchy and devastation." DEC. 14.—i There was every appearance las Eight of a rising on the part of the populace, but the exertions of the Civil and Military Authori ties had tkie effect of restoring tranquillity, and some publications, issued for the purpose of in spiring confidence, have had the desired effect. This morning, all is tolerably quiet, and I hope that this'state of things will continue. There is a sort of apprehension here (I need not infrom ou that it prevails only among the lower orders) that the' King will never return, as if he were to he detained prisoner at Layhach, but this idea is ridiculous. lam happy to say that considerable confidence is placed in the Parliament, and this fact has tended to remove a great degree of anxiety. ' The Corporation of Cambridge have ordered ten chaldrons of coals to be distributed among the poor inhabitants of that town. LITERARY and SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE [FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.] (No. II(.) ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. - Some new discove ries of great interest and importance have been made in the Vatican Library by M.1\1:11, the 'principal librarian. In a Greeklntlimpsete manuscript (where the first writing has been effaced, in order to make the parchment serve a second time), containing the Harangues of the orator Aristides, the learn ed librarian has succeeded in discovering a part of the Extracts of Constantine Porphyro-genetus, belonging to the Chapters of Sentences, Ha rangues, Succession of Kings, Inventors -of Things, and Sententious Answers. As the By zantine Prince had made extracts from a multi tude of historical and political works, which have been long lost to the world, this discovery has naturally promised an ample harvest of inte resting gleanings. M. Mai announces that he has discovered parts of the lost books of Poly bius, Diodorus Siculus, and Dion Cassius, and fragments of Aristotle of Ephorus, of Timeus, of• Hyperides, and of Demetrius Phalereus. There are also some fragments of the Byzantine writers, such as Eunapius, Menander of Byzantium, Pris cus, and Petrus Protector, historic authors of a very interesting period. Among the fragments of Polybius, there is one of the 39th books, in which he announces, that the 40th and last was to treat of Chronology. In another palimpsete, M. Mai has found a political treatise posterior to the time of Cicero, in which that orator is quoted with many other Greek and Latin authors. M. Mai has further discovered several speeches of Aristides, seven books of the physician'Ori barius, which will be of much value to the phy sical sciences, fragments of Philo, a copy of Verines, &c. It has been also just announced, that in the .MSS. of Herculaneum, lately unrolled at Naples, some treatises of Epicurus have been discovered, of more importance than any of which we are yet in possession. In one of these, MSS. there are quotations from a treatise on Political Economy, by Aristotle, very different from the work which We possess under that title. M. Hase, Professor of Modern Greek to the School of Oriental Languages at Paris, who haa just returned from a literary tour through Italy, has further increased the number of these disco veries. He has found in the Ambrosia!' library at Milan a complete MS. of a Byzantine histo rian, George Acropolito, of whom we have hi the: to had nothing but an extract. The Abbe Amadeus Peyran, Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Turin, has discovered some fragments of Cicero, in a manuscript from the monastery of St. Columban de Rabbi°, a town on the Trebia, in the domi- nions of the King of Sardinia. This MS. pre sents important new readings of Orations already known, and confirms the identity of several texts that have been tortured by indiscreet critics. It contains also fragments of the Orations Pra , ScaurO , Pro ill. Tullio, In Clodium—orations un fortunately lost. A manuscript of. Eutropius's Roman History, supposed to have been carried from Rome to. Bamberg by the Emreror Henry, the founder of the bishopric of that place, has been found in the Royal library there by Mr. Jacks, the librarian. It is mere complete than-any of the printed edi tions, and will probably furnish means for cor recting many. false readings. ORGANIC 11E5IA1:CA.—The Calcutta' Mirror of the 23d March last, contains a letter 'from Dr. TYTLEIt, announcing that in an expedition to Kallingar, he picked up a fossil oyster shell on the .summit of a high hill, above the village of Bheeamow, in union with granite and basalt rocks. " This proves that,these : kills were formerly all under water." Or: TYTLER has met with some thing still more wonderful. " In the bed of a river near Russur, I also found," says he," the fossil remains of the first joint of a human finger. It is evidently the first.phalanx of a finger, and I think the first finger of the right hand." The bed of a river might be considered rather a doubtful place for such a fossil ; but we imagine no doubts will remain respecting the real value of this sin gular discovery, when we add what the writer further says respecting this bone :—" It is more than twice the size of the joint of an ordinary man ; ergo, the person it belonged to must have been at least twelve feet high." These twb sin gular curiosities he was-about to dispatch to the Asiatic Society. DIVING Mactmaa.—Some time ago it was an nounced in most of the Papers on the Continent, that Mr. FRANCIS FARKAS, an Hungarian, had invented.a machine; named a Dolphin, by means of which a person may dive to the bottom of the deepest rivers, lakes, and the sea. The machine enables the diver to walk at his ease on the bot tom, to work his hands and feet with freedom, and mount at pleasure, without any assistance, to the surface, or remain stationary in the middle of the water, or in any depth, and . continue as long as he may wish, without the least interruption or effort. The object of this use ful invention is to give prompt and effec tual relief to vessels wrecked, to collect from the bottom, with greater facility, pearls, coral, and amber, and to augment our fine collec tion of shells ; also to raise from the cavities of the sea, treasures which perhaps are to us at pre sent unknown. An experiment was made' with this machine at Vienna on the Ist of October last ; in the Military Swimming School at the Prater. Count JOSEPH ESTERHAZ Y de GALANTHY, COUlli FERGAS de..GIIYMES, (Court Secretary), the act. ing Chamberlain Neasmas SanGon, several learn. ,Englishmen, and many . persons of distinction, were present. The servant of the inventor plung ed with the dolphin in 24 feet water, and walked upon the bottom over the whole square of the swimming school. To prove that there could be no want of light the inventor sent down a lanthorn, and when it was taken up again the light was still burning. - After the man had remained one hour under water he returned without the least assistance to the surface of the water, not because he wanted air, a thing *hich never oc curs, but because the persotis who were witnesses of the experiment declared they were perfectly satisfied, and requested that he might be direct ed to come up. I•;lti.v 1 3 ,i,bcron.—A plovh has been invented for tilling rough land, call ; a rid-iileugl. his prevented from getting choaked up before and behind the coulter. The principal alteration is in the beam and coulter, and it is more easily guided and drawn than the common plough. FOREIGN LITERATURE. A Manuscript of the Eleventh Century, con taining Illustrations of Juvenal, which was dis covered about two years ago in the Library of the Convent of St. Gallen, by Professor Cramer, is about to be committed to the press. A specimen was published by the Professor, on occasion of the King's birth-day, under the title of Specimen novae Editionis Scholasticce Juvenalis. The French Ambassador at Constantinople, M. Ciardin, lately sent to Paris fifteen valuable MSS. in Arabic, from the Imperial' ibrary there, among which are the complete works of Plutarch and Herodotus. The French literati are occupied at this time in a work of some iniportance—preparing Trans lations of Plutarch,• Sallust, Tacitus, Aristotle, Hippocrates, &c. from. the Arabic MSS., into which language many or all the best Greek and roman Authors are known to have been trans lated. LOYAL ADDRESSES. A Meeting of the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, and Freeholders of the County of Salop, will be held at the Shire Hall, in Shrewsbury, on Wed nesday next, to vote " a loyal Address to the KING, expressive of their continued attachment to his Crown and Person, and of their determi nation to resist, by every means in their power, all attacks on the Constitution in Church and State, as by Law established." The Requisition for this Meeting is signed by an unexampled pro portion of the Nobility and Gentry of weight and property in the County. A Meeting of the County of Flint was to be held yesterday, " for -the purpose of voting a Loyal 'Address to his Majesty, expressive of a determination to support the constituted Autho rities of the realm against the machinations of the seditious or disaffected, whatever guise they may now or hereafter assume." A Meeting of the County of Dumbarton was held on Saturday last, and a Loyal Address voted. A Meeting of the County of Berwick was held yesterday week at Greenlaw, where the Noble men, Freeholders, Clergy, and respectable inha bitants, voted a Loyal Address, in which they express their determination to " maintain the British Constitution against those disaffected and unprincipled men who are endeavouring to dis tract the public mind, by perverting and misre presenting the measures of his Majesty's Go vernment." THE WEATHER. Whilst in the Metropolis we are entirely free 'rom snow, we find by our letters of yesterday, .hat there has been a most heavy fall in different parts of the country. At Brighton (it will be seen by our Correspondent's letter,) the depth of snow is remarkably great; and on other parts thefall has been so heavy as to render the roads nearly impassable, it having drifted to the height of 'nine or ten feet. The river above Putney Pridge now appears one complete piece of ice, and its numerous ice bergs, between Chelsea and the Tower, give it a very picturesque effect. _ _ From the severity of the frost the ►nland navi gation is so much impeded by the ice, that the barges and other craft are unable to work. In the north of Scotlaud there has been so heavy a fall of snow, that in the glens and vallies, between the hills, it is at least ten feet in depth, and many sheep have been burled under it. The frost was so intense on Saturday night, that the river Stour was frozen over in many places in the marshes between Canterbury and Surrey. The navigation of Faversham Creek is so much impeded by ice, as to prevent vessels from approaching the town. At seven this morning (Tuesday, the 2d inst.) the thermometer stood at 24 degrees, eight below the freezing point.—(Canterbury Paper.) The following paragraph appeared only in the latter part of our impression yesterday No less than twenty Mails arrived from Ireland this day at the General Post Office, viz. 4 from Dublin, 8 from Waterford, and 8 from Don naghadee. This unprecedented circumstance has arisen from the prevalence of the gales from the eastward, which has prevented the Packets with the Mails on board putting to sea with any prospect of effecting their passage across the Channel. At Donnaghadee the wind from E. to E. S. E. blew with a violence unequalled since December 1798. At Waterford also the gales have been universally strong, and . the Packets were twice driven to that harbour, and the Camden Packet, which sailed from Milford for Waterford on the 26th ult. encountered a very severe gale, in which her boom and gaff were car ried away, and she was obliged to bear up for Cork." The frost has set in at Paris with as great se verity as in London. The French Papers state that the cold was intense. The thermometer was on the 28th last, four degrees below Zero. An experienced grocer has what he considers an infallible mode of detecting spurious silver coin. He keeps a piece of burned china at hand, upon which he gives the tendered shilling a single rub : if good, it makes a white, if bad, a red score. PRICE a THIS DAY AT T STOCKS VELVEp.CLOCK. 3 per Cent. Red. 70ii I Bank Lung Ann. . IR 1-16th 3 per Cent. Cons, 3i per Cent. .. 79 Ex, Bills, 2d. 4 per Cents. \ S per Cent. NaviAnn... shut . , 'S . ..• hIGH WATER AT LOND( Morning, 39 minutes after 3. )N BRIVGE TO-MORROW. 1 EvenitTg, 57 anilines alter 5. THE SUN. SOLEM OUIS DICERB FALSUM AUDEAT ? LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 1821; We have again to announce the non-arrival of Paris Papers. A Cabinet Council was held yesterday, which, we understand, was attended by many of his MAJESTY'S Ministers. The result was, as we have heard, that Lord CLANWILLIAM was to leave this Metropolis last night on a Special Mission to the Court of Vienna. We regret to find that the spirit of party, per haps we might say of faction, is as daring in some parts of Ireland as on this side 'of the water. — We refer to the account of a Meeting of the County of Dublin on Saturday, which will be found in our Paper this day. Sir lliacoca' LEES was present at this Meeting, and he stated, in a letter to the Editor of the Morning Post, part of which will be found among our " Daily Extracts from the London Journals," that the Loyal Address was supported by a majority of a. hundred to one. But The Times of this day declares that there was the same number against it. We leave the Public to decide which is most entitled. to credit, a Baronet distinguished for talents, rectitude, and patriotism ; or a Paper charac terised by all opposite qualities. We rejoice , that Sir RICHARD STEELE, the High Sheriff, acted on this occasion with a spirit of loyalty worthy of the name which he bears, and which does so much honour to British. Literature. We find. that among the refractory was Mr. liAmtvro.s: ROWAN, a proof how little he has profited by the lenity of that Government to which he ap.. pears to be now in resolute oppositton. We" should Ilve thought that this Gentleman would have been happy to remain for the rest of his life in quiet and harmless obscurity. FRANCIS CONST, Es Q .—Wehave only to'refer to the Proceedings at the Westminster Sessions this day to correct any mistake that may have arisen, on account of the similarity of the name between this Gentleman, the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, and Mr. dour: CoNsT, the Turner, and. Inhabitant of Clerkenwell. Letters from Quebec of a late date, give some account of the proceedings between the Hud son's Bay - and the North West Companies. The former advices stated, there had been some skir mishes of a serious nature between these parties, but these letters wholly contradict that state ment. The trade is carried ou by both these Companies iu the most amicable manner. THE BISHOP OF WINCIIESTER.—We felt much pleasure in announcing to our Readers, on Wed nesday, that the Life of our late wise and vir tuous Statesman, the late WILLIAM PITT, is forthcoming from the pen of this venerable Pre late. He was the tutor of Mr. PITT, and his confidential friend through life. None can be se well qualified to estimate the character of the de parted Minister as his Lordship; or be equally possessed of the views, principles, and intentions of his illustrious Pupil. The high moral and re ligious character of his Lordship must excite the fullest confidence in the Public that the Work will be marked with the strictest regard to truth ; and the literary powers of the learned. Prelate are so well known by productions which demonstrate a benevolent, enlightened, and pious mind, that the world may fairly expect a Monu ment of Biographical rectitude and elegance worthy of the subject, who may be deemed alto gether an unrivalled example of sound wisdom, genuine patriotism, and disinterested virtue. BRIGHTON, JAN. 3.--This has been the se verest and most . inclement day of the present season ; it commenced snowing before day-break, • and has incessantly continued since. The northern blast, increased almost to a hurricane, is desolat ing and freezing in its effects ; the snow is con• stantly kept in a cloud by it, from the earth's surface to many yards upwards. The ground, notwithstanding, exhibits a hoary covering, more than ankle deep, almost every where, and where it has drifted, it rises to a height of many feet. Travelling is difficult and dangerous, and painful has been the 'labour of those whom business has compelled to the common walks and streets.— Our beloved SovtunlaN, of necessity, has been confined to the Palace ; his MAJESTY has passed the whole of the day with his amiable and illus trious sister, the Princess AUGUSTA. Her Royal Highness, with his MAJEFTY, is in the happiest enjoyment of good- health. To meet the Prin cess there is a party at the Palace this evening ; a small select circle of Nobility, among whom are Lord and Lady WINCUE , TER, Sir THOMAS and Lady LYDDELL, and Mr. and Lady ANN BECKETT. Music is the leading feature of the entertainment. On Tuesday afternoon his Serene Highness Prince ESTEIIIIA ZY forwarded two Messengers with dispatches to the Court of Vienna and Troppau, from Chandos House. I V