The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1858-01-26 00:00:00

itlisceltatteous.

The King of Portugal's marriage is to take place at
the end of April.
The latest news of the health of the King of Wurtem-
burg is more favourable.
The death of Gerard, the " was lately
reported in the Independence Beige. He had been
devoured by a lion, it was said. This proves to be an
error; for Gerard is alive in London.
A solemn service of thanksgiving for the recent escape
of the French Emperor took place on Sunday, in the
presence of the French Ambassador, at the French
Chapel, King Street.
The number of foundlings in the hospital of Vienna,
or placed out by it in the country districts, last year,
was 15,400, or about 130 more than, in the precedini
year.
The Princess 'Proubetzkoi is about to marry her cousin,
and each rejoices in a fortune of £lOO,OOO a year! The
bridegroom, a young officer, lost an eye and an arm in
the Crimea ; but with them none of his fiancée's affec-
tion—so the story goes.
The London division of the Handel choral union has
commenced practising at Exeter Hall, under H. Costa's
superintendence, in preparation for the great com-
memoration festival of 1859 at the Crystal Palace.
Mr. E. M'Evoy, M.P.' for the county of Meath,
was accidentally shot in the face and one of his eye-
balls, whilst out shooting with Mr. George Henry Moore,
ex-M.P.
A new grand French Opera-House is to be built on
the site of the Hotel D'Osmont, facing the Rue de la
Paix.

_
An electric telegraph is expected to be completed
shortly between Adelaide and Melbourne. A great pro-
ject has also been mooted at the latter place, by some
private individuals, for securing telegraphic communica-
tion with London.

Sir William Ross, the famous miniature painter, is
suffering from severe illness. His numerous admirers
can scarcely venture to hope that he will ever be able to
resume the practice of his art again.
Lord Dalhousie has signified his readiness to take part
in perpetuating the name and services of the late Sir
Henry Lawrence, by rendering permanent the noble
institutions which he founded, and so largely supported
from his own purse.
The Archdeaconry of Carmarthen has become vacant
by the death of the Venerable Richard Venables, D.D.
Archdeacon Venables died in his eighty-fourth year.
The Countess de Morny has given birth to a son.
Six cases are said to have been registered in the city
of Boston in one year of intermarriages between black
men and white women. The white man has never been
known to marry the black woman.

A new mode'of clarifying sugar, by means of a solu-
tion of soap, has been brought under the notice of the
Academy of Sciences at Paris. It was invented by Mr.
Garcia, formerly a Louisinia refiner. By this process a
beautiful sugar is obtained, and the cane-juice yields
more.

The long-proposed international copyright convention
between England and the United States is likely to be
soon completed. The Athencewn says :—" Perhaps be-
fore another session closes, the pirates will be put down,
and honest men on both sides of the great waters will be
allowed to keep their own."
Two high functionaries in Paris are to be tried on a
serious charge. They are accused of embezzling property
to the value of 300,000 f. out of the stores from the
Crimea.

There is a rumour of the retirement of the Lord-Chief-
Justice of the Queen's Bench, on the ground of advanced
age and the harassing duties he has lately been called
upon to perform.
Mr. John Henry Foley, the sculptor, has been elected
a Royal Academician, in the room of Mr. T. Uwins.
. .

Aj Italian version 'of Balfe's "Bohemian Girl" is said
to be in rehearsal. This will indeed be something new—
so seldom is it that music of English origin has had in
England the advantage of Italian vocalisation.
A suggestion has been made to the commissioners to
admit sculpture into the parks by gift, as pictures are
accepted for the public galleries.
In Paris on Thursday the Daily News and E.rpress
were seized.

A despatch from Berne says :—" The Federal Council
has applied to the government of Geneva to institute an
inquiry to ascertain what have been the demeanour and
conduct of the Italian refugees in these latter times."
"Never, within the memory of man," says the Salta
Public of Lyons, "have the waters of the Rhine and of
the Saone been so low as at the present moment. Navi-
gation has become completely impossible, except by
boats of the lightest draft.
_

On hfondailast a person in Lincoln sold a horse after
a new fashion—viz., at 3s. 64. per stone, shoes and all,
just as it stood., . .

We, Leer;le Mercury, happen to know that application
has been made this Christmas to four large training
institutions, three of them to London and one at Glas-
gow, for a teacher of a boys' school; and that in every
case the reply was, that there was not a single teacher
finishing his course of training who was not already
engaged.
Three hundred one-pound Bank of England notes—
forged—were found buried in a field at Pemberton last
week. They were contained in two tin eases, and were
dated 1814.

Perukh Khan has returned to Paris from London, and
purposes leaving Franoe for Persia in the course of next
month.

On Tuesday, Miss Tookey, an assistant teacher in a
ladies' school, was garotted near the old church, Hands-
worth, near Birmingham. She was twice thrown down
by the ruffian, but she screamed for help, and some per-
lions coming up he ran off across the fields and escaped.
He failed to obtain either the lady's money or her watch.
At Marlborough-street, on Monday last, Mr. Beadon
delivered an opinion as to the legality of receiving in
pawn the medals of soldiers even after the discharge of
their owners from the army. Mr. Beadon's opinion was,
that the Mutiny Act actually prohibits the " detaining,
buying, or receiving" such articles from any person
whomsoever, an opinion which is in strict accordance
with the words of the Act. It should, therefore, be
generally known that not only can such medals not be
legally pawned, but that they are not in any way what-
ever to be considered as commodities of sale or purchase.
The Judges of the Exchequer have ruled that Mr.
Johnson, the husband of the daughter of the Countess
Valsomachi (widow of Bishop Heber) is not liable for
the millinery bill of his wife, as he allowed her £2OO
per annum. The Lord Chief Baron said this sum was
sufficient for a married woman, living apart from her
husband, even if he had an income of £lO,OOO per
annum.

The late Madeumieselle Rachel appears to have been
• great believer in the virtue of talismans. The Court
Journal says :—" An immense quantity of these de-
ceptive articles have been found amongst her jewels.
Several of these have been left by will to old friends;
and one, in particular—which is of emerald, graven with
a Hebrew word—the great artist fully believed had
power to tarn aside the influence of evil spirits, and
which she always wore on first representations, she has
left to her sister Sarah, with • request that it may be
worn on all!great occasions through life."

E r arietiefs.

A lady fixed the following letters in the bottom of her
flour barrel, and asked her husband to read them:
OICURMT.
"My dear Tom," said old Sheridan one day to his
son, I wish you would take a wife." " I have no
objection, Sir," said Tom," whose wife shalt I take?"
To give brilliancy to the eyes, shut them early at night
and open them early in the morning; let the mind be
constantly intent on the acquisition of human knowledge
or the exercise of benevolent feelings. This will seldom
fail to impart to the eyes an intelligent and amiable ex-
pression.
What utility is there in killing hogs, if they are cured
directly afterwards?
Slander slays more than the sword.
M, Millaud, the millionaire owner of the Freese, is not
liked by the journalists, and is just now the butt of the
whole army of Bohemians of the press. The last pun
we have heard is the following: A gentleman, accosting
a friend, exclaimed, " Ah ! have you heard the news ?
Millaud is going to found • new journal." " Bah !
and what is he going to call it?" " The Es•Pressel"

- -
THE UNCLE AND NEPHEW. - Ah, yore at the
schole now are ye ?" was the interrogatory of a coun-
tryman to • little nephew, who had a short time before
commenced his education —"An: 'd'ye like the echoic,
my man?" "Yea," whispered the boy. "That's
right yell be • brew scholar, l'se warrant v—how far
are ye, hinny?" "Second dux." "Second dux; says
ye? od man, he deserves something for that" (thrusting
two whole penny-p4eces into the hand of delighted
urchin). "An' hoo molly's in ye'r class "Me an •
lassie."

We fancy that all our afflictions are sent no directly
from above, sometimes we think it in piety and contri-
tion, but oftner in moroseness and discontent. It would
be well, however, if we attempted to trace the causes of
them ; we should probably find their origin in some
region of the heart which we had never well explored'
or in which we had secretly deposited our worst indul-
gence. The clouds that intercept the heavens from us
come not from the heavens, but from the earth.—W, S.
Lander.

--ELOQUENCE OF THE DIFFIDENT—The moat eloquent
men have been among the most diffident, and ready to
say with Moses, "1 cannot speak—l am a child." Such
men's minds kindle and glow, as they grasp and deve-
lope an important principle. They are often most awk-
ward in introducing their subjects, manifest no life or
power, till they come to elucidate or enforce • principle,
from which radiations of life and truth break forth to
attract and fix attention, to sway and absorb the soul.
It was thus with Fox. Burke wadi the most tedious and
dull of all speakers, and yet, at times, the most tran-
scendently eloquent of all who stood on the floor of
Parliament.

_
MR. SPURGICON.—This gentleman having become an
author and there being consequently " a Spurgeon litera-
ture vended by direct Spurgeon authority, and under a
genuine Spurgeon signature, only at certain accredited
shops," the Athewsum takes Mr. Spurgeon as a preacher
and an author under notice. The review is strongly con-
demnatory, and extracts are made to warrant the remarks
of the critic. Among other charges made is that of
plagiary :—" At the conclusion of another discourse
Gabriel is invoked, Mr. Spurgeon interposing in behalf
of a wretched sinner—for the utter profanity of this
appeal we have met no passage at all comparable to it:
The sword of justice is about to descend; it is hanging
by a single hair. Stop, Gabriel, stop, spare him another
year, till I dig about him and dung him.' A silence,
and the preacher exclaims, 'I thank thee, 0 God! he
shall not die to-night--perhaps to-morrow.' Compare
this rant with the appeal of Whitfield, from whom the
invention is pilfered, and bedaubed with Mr. Spurgeon's
peculiar coarseness. 'The attendant angel is just about
to leave the threshold and ascend to heaven, and shall
he not bear with him the news of one sinner among all
this multitude reclaimed from the error of his way?
Then lifting up his voice, Whitfield exclaimed, 'Stop,
Gabriel, stop, ere you enter the sacred portals and carry
with you the news of one sinner won to heaven—.' This
is Miltonic. But what is Mr. Spurgeon's adaptation?'
Plagiary is bad enough, but to have pilferings concocted
so as to make them what is pretended to be an extem-
poraneous effusion, is certainly much worse.
SHERIDAN KNOWLES IN THE POLPIT.—A playwright
in the pulpit seems an anomaly. The stage and the
pulpit have generally been at bitter war. Sheridan
Knowles is an example of a still greater change, for he
has left the stage for the pulpit, and has consecrated the
evening of his life to the advocacy of Christian truth.
I fear in this latter character he is not so successful as in
his former. Knowles does not shine in the pulpit as he
did on the stage. Let us imagine ourselves in one of
the numerous Baptist chapels of the metropolis—for to
that denomination of Christians does Mr. Knowles be-
long—while he is preaching in the pulpit. You see a
shrewd, sharp-looking old gentleman, dressed in black,
with a black silk handkerchief around his neck, and
with a voice clear and forcible as the conventional old
sea captain of the stage. He takes a text but remotely
connected with his discourse, and begins. You listen
with great interest at first. The preacher is lively and
animated, and is apparently very argumentative, and
nods his head at the conclusion of each sentence in a
most decided manner, as if to intimate that he had con-
siderably the best of the argument. Now, this is all
most well for five minutes, or even ten ; but when you
find this lasting for an hour—with no heads for you to
remember—you naturally grow very weary. Knowles,
I imagine from his preaching, seems to think argument
is his forte; never was a man more mistaken in his life.
His sermons are bundles of little bits of arguments
tied up together as a heap of old stick, and just as dry.
He seems an honest, dogmatic man, certainly not a great
one, and clearly but a moderate preacher after all.