The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-08 00:00:00

We regret to hear that Sir A. Alison is ill.

A " PoLYARTTST."---Sohn Howell, the polyartist,
died at Edinburgh, on Saturday, in his 75th
After serving his apprenticeship to a bookbinder, John
commenced business on his own account as a bookbinder.
This he carried on with great success for some time, Si;
Walter Scott, Lord Glenlee, Macvey Napier, and many
other of the leading men of the day, pleased with his ori-
ginality and talent, having employed him. At this time
he invented "the plough," an instrument now in universal
use by bookbinders for cutting the leaves of books. But
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Full of self-confidence, and strong in his own convictions,
the difficulties which to an ordinary mind appeared
insuperable were overlooked or despised by him. Hence
his eccentric attempts to rival the bird and fish it
flying and swimming. His debut in the flying line was
made in a park which now forms the West Princes-street
Gardens. At that time the ruins of an old tannery stood at
the bottom of the west bank of the Earthen Mound, from an
elevated point near which John took his soaring flight; but
he was not long of coming precipitately to the ground
amidst'a heap of old stones, by which he had one of his
legs broken. Nothing daunted, however, by his failure in
imitating the bird, he some time aferwards essayed to
rival the fish. Having constructed, at considerable ex-
pense, a large model of a fish, which was to be propelled
by the arms and legs of a person placed inside, a trial of
the machine was made in a deep pool on the Water of
Leith. On this occasion a brother of John's was present,
and so satisfied was John of the value of his invention, that
he gravely proposea to his brother that he should for the
nonce play the part of the fish, as in the event of any-
thing happening to him (John), he would be prevented
from perfecting his invention. The brother, however,
declined this proposal, and John accordingly entered the
belly of the fish himself, and was fairly launched into the
stream. We should have 'stated that the fish was pro.
vided with a keel, so as to give it a proper hold on the
water; but by some miscalculation of the centre of gravity,
scarcely had the fish entered the water when it cap-
sized, the keel turning upwards, and, as a consequence,
poor John was submerged. Sounds of an alarming kind
were heard to issue from the belly of the fish, and no time
was lost in dragging it to the bank, when the inventor was
liberated from his perilous position; but it took nearly half
an hour before "suspended animation" was fully restored.
In plain English, John was nearly drowned. These eccen-
tricities, however, though characteristic of the man, were
mere specks on the sun—his pursuits as a polyartist hav-
ing generally been directed to much more useful and profit-
able results. He was held in high esteem by the late Lord
Murray, and for many year assisted his lordship in his
scientific and other pursuits. In repairing old china and
ether antiquities of every kind, John's patience and neat.
handedness rendered him unrivalled. In the fabrication of
false teeth he equalled the best dentist. He was the first who
introduced themanufacture of Pompeian plates, at a great loss
to himself; and there was scarcely a common thing con-
nected with art manufactures on which he had not tried
his band with success. Even in the curative art, John's
salve for ringworm was considered highly efficient. But
perhaps John's literary capacity formed h s chief merit.
His essay on the " War Galleys of the Ancients" is a
learned and excellent work, and his ' Journal of a Soldier
of the 71st," one of the most spirited and readable books of
the kind in our language. He also wrote the lives of John
Nicol, the mariner; Alexander Alexander, and A. Selkirk,
the original of " Robinson Crusoe"—all very entertaining
and well-written publications. He further contributed
some of the best stories to " Wilson's Tales o, the Bor-
ders;" and having been one of the unfortunat'ss who, on
the occasion of the late Lord Eldin's sale, sustained injuries
from the falling of the floor, he wrote and published a
graphic account of the accident, which is appended to the
large paper edition of the catalogue. He also supplied
Chambers's .7-atonal, some years ago, with a thrilling
story, whose title we forget, and for which he was libe-
rally remunerated by his old friend Robert Chambers
Scotsman.

It is said that Dean MilmAn was asked what ht
thought of Bishop Colenso's book on the Pentateuch the
Dean replied that the Bishop of Natal appeared to be very
well up in Numbers, but that ho did not seem to under-
stand Exodus I