The Press.
London, England, 1854-07-01 00:00:00

Ptianb.

STATISTICS OF THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES COURT.
The following is an official summary of proceedings
from the filing of the first petition, the 21st of
October,lB49,to the 12th of June, 1854, inclusive :-
1. Number of petitions presented, including those for
partition and exchange, as well as for sale
(Of the above, in or about 470 were supple-
mental or dismissed petitions.)
2. Number of absolute orders for sale
2. Number of matters in which owners were bankrupts

or insolvents
4. Number of matters in which owners presented

petitions
b. Number of conveyances executed by the cora-

miasioners
6. Number of lots sold—viz., By public auction in court,
4,600 • by provincial auction, confirmed by the
commissioners, 1,017; by private contract, con-
finned by the commissioners, 1,261
7. Number of accounts opened in the aocounts.nt's

3,441

2,146

4,60

8,878

1,234

office
8. Number of boxes (containing upwards of 2,000,000
documents and muniments of title) deposited in
the Record-office
9. Number of Bank orders or checks issued by the com-
missioners for payment of money or transfer or
funds, iu or about
10. Groin amount of purchase•money realised
by the sales—viz.,
By public suction in court
By provincial auctions, confirmed by the
commissioners
By private contract, end confirmed by the
commissioners

2,000

1412,996,933 13 6

DISTRIBUTION Or FI'NDS.

11. Gross amount of money distributed iu cash
and stock
Total amount of absolute credits allowed
to encrtuubsucers who were purchasers 1,294,840 0 0

t 0,350,800 18 8
The difference between the amount realised by the sales and
the funds distributed is thus accounted for :—Funds allocated iu
trust ; provisional credits not yet made absolute; the balance of
cash and Government stock standing to the credit of the coin-
nilesioners iii the Dank of Irelaixi; payments already ordered
by the commissioners, and not called for by the parties entitled
thereto; and the purchase-money of recent sales not yet lodged.
IN THE COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, OD Saturday
last, an action for libel was decided against the pro-
prietor of the Kilkenny Moderator. The plaiunff
was Mr. Frederick Dobson, and the libel was con-
tained in a letter signed " A Looker-on." Damages
3001., and Od. costs.

FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE.
Tuesday, June 27.

BANKRUPTS.—JOHN RUNT. HOBERN and STEPHEN FROUD
Orchard-street, Alfred-road, Harrow-road, Paddington, builders
—RICHARD CLARK, West Strand, lamp merchant—HENßY
PEARS*, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, and Finsbury place South,
merchant—NATHAN I.ANDLANDS, Dartford, Kent, grocer—Roir.
Morr, King's Lynn, builder—THomAs BRAY, Chelmsford, archi-
tect SAMUEL TURNER PROUT, Addle street, Wood-street,
Cheapside, licensed victualler —OwEN EviNs, Westboume-
terrace, Hyde-park, surtreon—lltcHAnn DEAN, Bath-street,
London-road, Southwark, builder—Jon?' HARVEY, nen.. and GOD-
FREY GREGORY PixE, Birmingham, grocers—JAMES I.ArEv,
Wolverhampton, builder—THOMAS CatAPMAN, I ,eicester, worsted
spinner—JAmErt T►YLUR, Ovenden, near Halifax, worsted spin-
ner—THOMAS BARNSLEY, Asbton•under•Tyue, tailor.
SCOTCH SEQUESTRATIONS.—d. P. BARKER, Aberdeen,
manufacturer—J. DEwER, New Scone, Factory, near Perth, ma-
nufacturer—W. and P. NICHOLL, Glasgow, marble merchants.
Friday, .lune 80.
BANKRUPTCY ANNULLED —RICHARD CLEMENTS, Mill.
bank-street, coal merchant—THOMAS H onosox, Leeds, grocer.
BANKRUPTS. JAMES SHERMAN, Brentwood, grocer
DANIEL MITCHELL. DAVIDSON and COSMO WILLIAM GORDON,
Upper Thames-street, colonial brokers and metal agents—
RICHARD CLARK and JOHN INGLIS, King's-eross.drApers—JAmEa
PALMER, Brideatowe, Devon, inaltster and brewer—GEoßoE
STANLEY and GEORGE GURR, Queen-street, London, fishing
tackle makers—RICHARD TIMMER, Addle-street, London, ware-
houseman—WlLLlAM FOWLER, Monmouth, grocer—SAMUEL
JAMES BIRD, Bath, brewer—WILLIAM PINNF.CK, Saint James's-
terrace, Harrow-road, flour and corn factor—Tama...a BELL,
Saint Stephen's-place, Uxbridge-road, Hammersmith, brick
maker.

BANKRUPTCY of W. H. POBTANS.—ERRATUM.—'
Among the Gazette intelligence in last week's PRESS
the bankruptcy of William Holmes Postans, of En-
field, Middlesex, trading as a wine-merchant in
copartnership with Charles Smith, of the same place,
was erroneously printed as involving both partners,
instead of referring only to Mr. Postans. While
much regretting this error, for which an apology is
due to Mr. Smith, we must state that it was origin-
ally committed by our contemporary the Sun, from
whose columns our printer transcribed the bank-
ruptcy notices of yesterday week.

Yittraturt.

Memoirs of Celebrated Characters. By Alphonse

do Lamartine. In 2 vols. Vol. I. London :

Bentley.
NOTWITHSTANDING his obvious faults, we have a
vague yet hearty sympathy for Lamartine.
After more than a cursory examination of his
works and his career, it might still seem
difficult to determine whether in him a species
of melodramatic extravagance or a genuine
and glowing genius predominated; but sustain
your attention—study the subject out—and
you will, in the end, give it for the genius.
Yet it is not this which will account for the
secret pleasure with which his brilliant merits
are acknowledged, or for the regret with which
his defects are gently described. We have
seen him indeed savagely assailed, and made,
even in English journals—remote as they
might be thought from the personal and poli-
tical frenzies agitating at times the critics
of his own country—a theme for rancorous
obloquy; and we ascribed it to something
unknown in the motives of Peelite or Anglo-
Philippist writers. He was not answerable
for the revolution which bad just triumphed,
but he might claim the imperishable glory
of having assuaged its fatal animosities—of
having attempered, repressed, and subdued,
by the most marvellous exploit which his
eloquence had ever achieved, the blood-greedi-
uess of its opening days—and of having
persuaded France to prefer the tricolor to the
pirate flag, mercy to vengeance, and amnesty
to havoc. In its dangerous moment—when
nono would approach it, when Fociety held its
breath lest the wild beast of the revolution,
broken loose and raging, should rend its
keepers—the poet, the student, the orator, the
pale and refined votary of letters stepped
calmly into the gap from which soldiers and
statesmen had shrunk in dismay, and with
white hair streaming over the bare brows,
grown old before their time, addressed to his
countrymen those immortal accents of hu-
manity which, to the honour of his listeners,
and surely to his own, were victorious over
their passions, and over the unparalleled
hazards of that dark emergency. Cicero de-
served not so well of Rome in the Catiline
conspiracy as Lamartine has deserved of
Europe and of Christendom in the last French
revolution.
But if we come to the conclusion that none
but" ill•conditioned" tempers can insist on even
the obvious defects and infirmities of Lamar-
tine without a certain reluctance, we are
far from ascribing the general existence
of this feeling to the mere influence of his
genius. We are often hard on men whose
genius is unquestionably greater, and still we
feel no such regret. It is that his own heart
" is in the right place "—that he is one of the
better spirits—that his is the taap.i;.,y—that
his influence is ever ameliorating, humanising,
improving—that all his efforts (abstracting en-
tirely from their greater or smaller success
and power) have been, at least, aimed and di
iected to kindly and beneficent ends—that his
struggles, whether right or wrong, have been
invariably generous, pure, and exalted in their
purposes and in their tendency. None that
read him can doubt it—there is a. sort of he-
roism and chivalry breathing in every line.
Before such a merit, after all, a higher or
lower degree of mere artistic excellence,
of mere literary execution, sinks into in-
significance. We feel that a very different
order of valuation must be used to esti-
mate the glitter of a Macaulay, the
bloodless rhetoric of a Gibbon, or the
fleering scoffs of a Voltaire. Lamartine's
heart is in his writings : in everything he
does we see that he is not dead to the
lasting interests of men and of society.
He is friendly,—and speaks; he is de-
voured with zeal,—and would be serviceable;
he is anxious for praise,—but we verily
believe that he would much sooner gain it
by deserving the love of society than by
exciting its wonder. That is his character,
and that is the reason why all generous critics
will think twice before they speak of his
defects with too much harshness. In spite of