The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-27 00:00:00

FRANCE.

BOURSE, Feb. 2G.—The market has been without
animation, but in the little business doing prices are
well maintained, Threes, for the Account, are now
at 66f, 65c. Mobilier are unvaried at I,oBof. Rail-
way shares quiet, but firm. The market closed as
follows :

41 per Cents 95 70
Do. end month
3 per Cents
Do. end month 66 55
Credit Mobilier 1073 75
Do. end month 1076 25
Bank Slattres 3300
Credit Fancier 1265
Roman 0000000000

Italian Loan GS 10
,Do, end month OS
'ew ditto —
Do. end month —
Russian
Austrian ~
Spani,h Threos
Home Debt ....•
Deferred

ItAlLwAva.

Cash. Account,
Orlerms lOlO 75 .. 1007 50
Northern 950 -- 952 50
New ditto
Lyous and Mediterranean
New ditto
Southorn ..
Western .
Eastern ...
Sardinian
Austrian ,
Lombard .
North of S?ain
Saragossa.
Ditto to liarcaona

930 - 930 --
885 -
665 665 --
517 50 -
480 - .. 480 -
376 25 .. 377 50
410 - ~ 410 -
520 - 521 25
497 50 .. 497 60
590 - 500 --
209 75

LITRATTTAYI

• Thonzson's ffinter. Annotated for the use of
Schools. By Walter N'Leod. Pp, 142. Long
man and Co.
The editor and annotator of this charming little
schoolbook has here, not by any means for the first
time, evidenced his remarkable skill in the way of
insinuating ktowledge delightfully, Of this rare
art, an art born of tact and experience (the one a
gift, the other an acquirement). Mr. M'Leod has
already shown himself to be in the fullest sense of
the term a!Sister-..namely, by a companion
volumetto of Thomson's Spring, now in its
second edition, and still more popularly by
his issue, upon precisely the same plan,
of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, now in its Tenth
Edition ! Each of these little books, it should be
said, is not on ,y as the title page intimates "For
the Use of Schools," but each of them is especially
adapted for eaudiclates about to undergo examina-
tion. At the head of the title page, in point of
fact, are sigtificantly enough printed "Oxford
Local Examinations," For the which, it may be
remarked, those kind of elementary brochures are
in effect the very thing. Preceding the Poem
itself, there is given a brief memoir of the Poet.
Thomson's " Winter," moreover, being accom-
panied by an abundanee of notes, every one of them,
so far as we have been enabled to examine them,
most aptly chosen, not one among them that we have
seen being in any way superfluous—notes critical,
explanatory and grammatical, as well as numerous
illustrative examples and remarks on the analysis
of sentences. Of the poem itself--.-what boots there
Englishhing
now to say one passing syllable. Who is there
who
ic knows
whatever of the poetical mas-
pLiterature, who is not familiar
with that magnificent Winter of Thomson—the first
in one sense, the last in another, at once the pre.-
te r ees i n anT
ludo and the climax of his noble tribute to " The
Season," and through the Seasons to the Maker of
them? For the preservation of Thomson's fame in
English literature—The Seasons are his Quadri-
lateral. And itie the ono of them that he first wrote,
it is the one crowning and completing this series of
four in their natural order when the three companion
poems had beeneompleted—itis Thomson's," Winter"
that Mr, M‘Leod has here selected as the theme
through which to inculcate so many valuable truths
of grammar and of rhetoric to the student in quit
of this very in;brination,

Vaelier's Parliamentary Companion again sup-
plies us with 1 wonderful little waistcoat-pocket
Lords and Commons, beautifully put
epitome of
fatnhde yet published, for all that, at the
"ridiculously limit amount" cf Sispence. The pre-
sent year of Brace, 1864, is the thirty-third year of
its sessional appearance as a Quids Book. It is as
full and complete a 3 ever; and its contents aro at
this moment pore than ever interesting, now that
the niceness of the balance of parties has become
such that the file of the Ministry may be said to be
trembling nigblly upon the suspension of a hair,

Nine cardinals' hats aro at present disposable.
Pius IX. has during his reign created 4 cardinals, and
seen CJ disappear from this world.

SIIAKSPERE AND BIRMINGHAM.—The People of
Birmingham, as wall becomes the men of our chief War-
wickshire town, propose to commemorate the 23d April
next, by founding a local Sbakspero Library.

William Roupell, the great forger, is at the pre-
sent time an inliato of the convict prison at Portsca. Ho
works in the yard, and is also engaged it:A levelling the
fortificAtiew §grrounclipg U 4,4 town.