The Express.
London, England, 1858-04-01 00:00:00

UNIVERSITY INTBLLIGENCE.

CAMBRIDOR, MAACK 31.
MODERN HISTOZT.—On each Tuesday, Wednes-
day, Thursday, sad Friday in the ensuing Baster Term (be-
ginning on Thursday, the 22nd April, 1858), the Professor
of Modern History proposes to deliver, in the Arts' School,
at noon, a °ours of lectures on " the origin and develop-
ment of the politiosl and judicial institutione of the Rost
India Company in British India."

WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS.-The taste for at-
' quiting water-colour drawings appears to be in no way di-
, miniebed since lest season. At a sale of a collection at
Messes. Fosters, in Pall-mall, yesterday, which was very
numerously attended, a good competition was maintained for
many of the lots. We subjoin the prices of some of them : -
Lot 46. Cattle, S. Cooper, 17 guineas ; 46. Fruit, W. Hunt,
24 guineas; 61. Farm Yard, W. Hunt, 20 guinea.; 96. The
Hostelrie, G. Cattermole, 11 guineas; 97. Arundel Castle,
Copley Field iag 26 guineas ; 98. Landscape, D. Cox, 36
guineas ; 100. Stieep, T. 8. Cooper, 221 guineas; 103. Can-
tert7 Cathedral, Turner (early), 23 guineas; 104. Boy
and Goat, W. Hunt, 47 guineas; 105. Portsmouth,
Stanfield, 24 guineas; 116. Sheep, T. 8. Cooper, 271
passer 118. On the Wye, Turner (early), 31 ratan
21ro 1. Al Rome, Put, 22 guineas ; 122.
W. Hunt, 30 guineas ; 123. Ewe and C'th:,'
8. Cooper, 46 guineas ; 128. Sheep and Cattle, S.
63 guineas ; 129. Hunting, F. Taylor, 42 guinsm ir
e.,
Wild Roses, W. Hunt, 30 guineas; 131. Klaus, S. Front,
20 (Mama ; 132. Highland Cattle, F. Taylor, 32 guineas ;
133. Apple Blomom, IV. Hunt, 43 guineas. A few English
pictures sold at the same time:-Lot 65. Goodall, Rustic
Courtship, 101 in. 181 in., 65 guineas ; 66. T. 8. Cooper,
Cattle, 211 is. by 1 in., 64 einem ; 67. D. Roberts, In-
terior of • Chapel, I in. by 15 la. 88 guineas; 68. C. Stan-
field, Off the Dutch Coast, 14 in. by 9 in., 70 guineas; 89.
Baxter, Girl's Head, 20 in. by 17 in., 84 guineas ; 70. P. F.
Poole, A Welch Girl, 151 in. by 12 in., 66 • 71.
E. 111. Ward, Beene from Friesen of the Peak, 201 x. by 17bx,
160 guineas ; 72a. W. P. Frith, The Artist in a Fix-the
Smell finished sketch (his diploma picture), 16 in. by 10 In.,
64 guineas ; 72. T. Feed, Home, 166 guineas. The amount
realised by the day'. sale was 2.4991. 71.
THE SCOTCH FIRS AT BRAMSIIILL.-I delight in
In their forme, from James the First's gnarled giants, up in
Bramehill Park-the only place in England where a painter
can learn what Scotch firs are-down to the little green py-
ramids which stand up out of the heather, triumphant over
tyranny, and the strange woes of an untoward youth. Seven
years on an average have most of them spent in ineffectual
eßirts to become a foot high. Nibbled off by hares, trodden
down by cattle, cut down by turf-parers, seeing hundreds of
their brethren cut up and carried off in the turf-fall,
are as gnarled and stubbed near the ground as an old thor*-
bush in a pasture. But they have conquered at last, and are
growing away, eighteen inches a year, with fair green brushes
silver-tipt, reclothing the wilderness with a vegetation which
it has not seen far-how many thousand years ? No man
can tell. Fer when last the Scotch fir was indigenous to
England, and mixed with the larch, stretched in one vast
forest from Norfolk into Wales, England wee not as it is
now. Snowdon was, it may be fifteen thousand
feet in height, and from the edges of its gla-
ciers the marmot and the musk ox, the elk and the bear,
wandered down into the Lowlands, and the hyena and the
tiger dwelt in those laves where fox and badger only now
abide, Aad how did the Scotch fir die out ? Did
the whole land sink slowly from its sub-Alpine
elevation into a warmer climate below ? Or was it never
raised at all ? Did some change of the Atlantic sea-Bow turn
for the first time the warm gulf stream to them shores ;
and with its soft sea-breezes melt away the "Age of Ioe,"
till glaciers and ppitnoss,, marmots and musk oxen, perspired
to death, and vanishd for an (Eon ? Who knows ? Not
I. But of the fact there can be no doubt. Whether, as we
hold traditionally hare, the Scotch fir was re-introduced by
James the First when he built linunshill for
Raleigh's hapless pet, Henry the Prince, or what-
ever may have been the date of their re-introduction, here
they are, and no one con turn them out. In ootualese thou-
sands the winged seeds float down the south-west gales from
the older trees; and every seed which falls takes root in
ground which, however unable to bear broad-leaved trees, is
ready by long rest for the seeds of the needle-leaved ones.-
C. K. in Fraser's Magazine for April.
COMMERCIAL YEARNINGS.-We cannot afford to
leave comers of the world fallow, uncultivated, unleavened
by the commixture of our restless blood. The modern
spirit of conquest Airs at the thought of miles of virgin soil,
where flocks might feed, or corn grow or timber fit for the
masts of some high admiral fall beneath the axe of the
pioneer; and trade, an insatiate demon, burns with lofty
indignation at the thought of tribes and nations who know
ante of its benefits, and who are still content with the beg-
garly elements of mere sustenance, unaware of all they
might gain by the disinterested ministrations of the great
buyer and seller of civilised life. Thousands of men and
women, whose ambition aims no higher than scanty milk
and beef, or scantier maize-porridge, with an ox-skin or a
yard of calico for all their wardrobe, startle the ownmercial
soul into generous shame and yearnings of brotherhood.
If wrytnight but wrap those dinky forms in splendid prints
at Manchester in mueline of Paisley! if we could but
wreath those ebon brows with glorious Glasgow kerchiefs,
Turkey-red and wake the slumbering soul of African
womanhood with glimpses of unbelierable millinery, with
ribbons whits and red, with dazzling beads coloured like the
rainbow! But the commercial Geni pauses with all his
riches in his lap, and all Ms hungry over-productive chil-
dren urging him on. It is grievous to let so many half-
naked busmen creatures live and die in ignorance of all those
previewss of art and civilisation-harder still, and ever
harder, to lose crowds of customers, whose patronage might
keep many a mill going, and many a town employed, and
accumulate many a fortune.-Blerkwood'elfaianne for April.
COMPULSORY CHAPEL GOING AT OX I ORD.-By
far the laarer number of students look upon chapel-going as
a tedious duty, end one of their earliest calculations is, as to
bow many chapels they can miss in a week, without getting
a bed oharacter, or a sniffling reproof from the dean. The ordi-
nary under graduate wakesoltem from a drunken sleep,swallowe
a tumblerful of soda-water, jug dashes a sponge over his
foie, brothel hie hair, dregs on his lower garments, and,
covering all untidiness with a large great-cost, hurries down,
curving the chapel audibly, just in time to be pricked off by
the chapel-man or bible-clerk. He has no time to compose
his mind before attain, God's house, sad, if he had it, be
would not improve it. He is quits happy, if he can manage
to stuff • novel into his pocket, to read during the service, or,
if more exemplary, will pass the time in cramming Ms Greek
Testament for " greats? Many a man tells you proudly
that he posed a capital divinity examination in consequence
of his chapel studies ! Then, if perchance he set his miad
to pray Weed, there is Bolter on his right parodying the
Litany in an under-tone ' • or ticamperton on his left entrees-
* • with, accompanied by a stout expletive, that " the old
boy would shove along a little faster."-Titan for April.
I would
about
suggest that young people,
though they look , have larger eyes, and not near so
many wrinkles out their eyelids, are era as ertfal r
some of their elders. What little monsters at ounnlng your
frank school-boys see 1 hew they cheat mamma! bow Miry
hoodwink pops: how they humbug the housekeeper! bow
they cringe to the big boy for whom they fog at school!
what a long lie and ar year) hypocrisy and flattery to
their conduct toward. Dr. Birch ! And the little bays sir
tare? Are they any better, and is it only after they come
eat In the world that the little darlings learn a trick or
two ?-71* Tiryitimee, No. 6.