The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-07 00:00:00

EGYPT.

A letter, dated Alexandria, Nov. 28, says:—The
Viceroy left Cairo two days ago for a short excur-
sion up the Nile to his estates; his Highness is
expected back in about a week. The season for
sowing the new crops is coming on, and people are
beginning to feel the loss of their animals; very little
fresh cotton can be sown, but last year's plants will
be pruned. It is well known that cotton plants
will produce for two or even more years, but as it
is a very exhausting crop, the quantity is less, and
the quality much inferior each succeeding year, so
that the usual practice here is to root up the old
plants, and sow afrssh on new ground. The
production of cereals had very much fallen
off in Lower Egypt, and but for the cattle
disease, nearly all the beans and barley of the upper
country would have been wanted tofeed the animals
of if-101)dt" Now, unfortunately, the murrain has
broken out again in a most virulent form, and is
spreading up the river, and it is feared Upper
Egypt will be unable to plough and sow

the usual extent of land, and that next
years' crop will be a short one. Egypt cer-
tainly will not hold her accustomed place as an ex-
porting country, next session, neither for cotton or
grain. It is said that not only the oxen and buf-
faloes are dying, but also the camels and donkeys.
This report I cannot vouch for ; if it is true, the
loss to the unfortunate Fellahs will be incalculable.
The Bedouins say, too, that they find troops of
dead gazelles in the desert.
Et is rumoured that the Bedouins in the neigh-
bourhood of Mecca are giving trouble. It is a pity
the Porte does not give up all its territory on either
side of the Red Sea to the Egyptian Government,
who would keep the peace at very slight additional
expense to itself, while Turkey spends large sums
and cannot maintain order.

A great number of travellers have arrived here
lately on their way up the Nile; among others, the
Duke of Rutland, the Earl of Scarborough, Lady
Herbert of Lea, and Earl Spencer.

NEW MUSIC.

The Holiday Qqadrille. By Stephen Glover.

The Happy Family Quadrille. By Stephen Glover.
She Sang among the Flowers. Poetry by I. P.
Douglas. Composed by W. T. Wrighton.
In Search of the Primrose. Ballad. Written by
S. Streaks. Cdenposed by W. T. Wrighton.
Published by Messrs. Robert Cocks and Co.
A charming bundle of melodies, all lovers of song
and of dance-music may here find unrolled to their
view upon opening the pacquet containing these
two sweet ditties, and, together with them,
these two capital, exhilarating quadrilles. Melodies
we say expressly and advisedly, in each instance.
For, it is especially noticeable in regard to all four
of these publications, that it is so—that the dis-
tinctive peculiarity to be found in them is their pos-
session, or rather their articulation of melody. The
ballad last on the list is, among them all, the least
seasonable: yet even that is seasonable, too, in one
sense, by a far off anticipation—beyond December,
and January, and February, when the early buds
of the primrose, like the yet earlier ones of the
daffodils, may with a more genial atmosphere,
" take the winds of March with beauty." The
author of the Postman's Knock, in this, as in
the instance also of the tender love song, " She
Sang among the Flowers" indicates both by the
simple beauty of the air his pencil has here jotted
down, and in another way, also, by the almost
equally simple grace of the accompaniment he has
" made note of" beneath, for the hand of the pianist,
that the gift of composition has not in any way passed
from him ; but that his songs and ballads may still
be turned to with confident anticipation of plea-
sure. As to the two quadrilles they are both of
them most seasonable. And, beyond this, they
are inspiriting to the last degree both to the
feet and to the sense of frolic of the young people
for whom they have apparently been especially
composed. In each, many a delightfully familiar
melody will be recognised by the laughing dancers—
melodies here rearranged in a sort of catch sequence,
by one who is famous as an adept in his craft as an
adapter ! " The Happy Family" is that so well
known, and so often looked in upon by the children
trouping to the Z aological Gardens—that Family
gibbering, grinning, screeching, gambolling, climb-
ing, swinging, leaping hither and thither within
the swarming cages of the rather close and any-
thing but aromatic monkey-house ! As for the
Holiday Quadrille, the coloured title-page
indicates pretty plainly what genuine holidays
are there meant—the holidays, that is, of
the schoolboy home again And, among all
holidays those most welcome to him beyond
those of Easter, or Whitsuntide, or even, for that
matter, of radiant Midsummer—the blithe bright
holidays of Christmas time, the time of plum-pud-
ding and of pantomimes ! The dance music pro.
vided under this glowing cover of the Holiday
Quadrille of Mr. Stephen Glover is just the music
for opening the ball again when the champagne corks
have flown their last at the supper table. When
the M.C. who is leading the revels, softly claps his
white kids together' to the sotto voce cry (A.,-
" Quadrille!"

The Matrimonial Polka. By Clarissa Bell.
Was it Kind to Love Me Fondly ? A Ballad.
Written and composed by Clarissa Bell, Oetz-

mann and Co.

An almost forgotten bit of fun, dating back years
and years ago, has now appeared before us here—
redivivus !—glowing back to life with bright
colours and sparkling sounds of melody. For the
merry thought of which we have reason to feel
grateful to the fair and gifted composer
of " The Matrimonial Polka." Whoever Clarisse
Bell may be—for, we take it, the name is
no other, surely, than a pretty nom de plume
—she has manifestly more than one rare gift,
firstly as an equally vivid appreciator of fun and
sentiment, and, secondly, as a musical composer
endowed with a genuine capability of expressing
each—that is both the pathetic, or, at any rate, the
tender, and the humerous. The love song, of which
both the words and the music is Clarisse Bell's own,
will be turned to not unfrequently by those who
have once warbled it—super-sentimental though its
title undoubtedly is, as we think, unfortunately is
—that highly touching, and at first somewhat enig-
matical query, " Was it kind to love me fondly ?"
Turning, however, from the lovesong to the Matri-
monial Polka, we find the gifted and graceful
composer there, in the latter instance, manifestly
at her very best. As a piece of dance music it is
capital inciting the veriest " wallflower," or
loiterer in the doorway, to choose a partner, adjust
the glove buttons afresh, and away on the " light
fantastic !" The Frontispiece alone is worth
the cost thrice told of the dance music the
merits of which it serves to illustrate. For there,
beneath the Caudillo Forks of that crossed Ladder
of Wedlock embellishing the Matrimonial Polka, we
have touched off with a good deal of innocent
humour the ascending and descending scales so often
traversed, as the Divorce Court only too clearly indi-
cates, by many and many a married pair—Admira-
tion ! Flirtation ! Declaration ! Acceptation ! Pre-
paration ! Celebration! Felicitation ! Alteration !
Irritation ! Altercation ! Desperation ! Separation, !
Both as a piece of fun and as a piece of music, Clarisse
Bell's Matrimonial Polka is worthy of a place in
the drawer of every young lady's Canterbury.

According to the Scotsman of last Saturday the
remarkable narrative entitled " Pet Marjorie,"
which appeared in the last number of the North British
Review, from the pen of Dr. John Brown, having attracted
the notice of the Queen, her Majesty has commanded a
copy of the little work, published by Mr. Nimmo of .Edin-
burgh, with the same title, and containing the materials
whence the article was derived, to be forwarded to her.—
The Reader.

ROYAL GALLERY OF ILLUSTRATION.—WhiIe
managers generally are complaining of lack of
patronage during the worst period of the theatrical year,
this gallery continues to fill in every partwith the new opera
di camera of " Jeasy Lea," which, written in Mr. Macfar-
ren's happiest vein, and containing some of the loveliest
melodies that he has given to us, has caused quite a sensa-
tion in the musical world. By the happiest coincidence,
the artistes engaged have proved themselves fully equal to
the task of doing fail
,;:lstice to the airs and concerted pieces,
and are nightly applauded with enthusiasm. Mr. German
Reed's new entertainment, introducing Mrs. Reed and Mr.
John Parry, will, we hear, be brought put shortly after
Christmas.

A NEW RED.—Vegetable ivory, in contact with
concentrated sulphuric acid, takes a splendid red colour,
almost equal to magenta. At first it is pink, the bright red
beewning deeper and attaining a purple when the acid has
been allowed to act for 12 hours. Vegetable ivory dust can
in this way be readily distinguished from bone and ivory
filings. The change is owing to the action of this acid upon
albuminous substances in the presence of sugar, and this
reaction has been applied by Itaspail in microscopic re-
searches. The white portion of cocoanut is similarly
affected. The red colours disappear in water like the fine
reddish-brown colour produced by mixing essence of tur-
pentine with sulphuric acid.
IIIST AS A PROFESSION.—The most winning
player I ever knew was a good, but not a first-rate player,:
and, playing small stakes, though always the tosa.
11': ter wh i
he made a very handsome yearly income•. n 0
st
as a profession ins saying tead of the bar, ingenuously, "A t
the bar, if I devoted myself to it, Ith ing
inklcould make the
same yearly sum with pains which at whist I make with
pleasure. I prefer pleasure to pain when the reward is
equal, and I choose whist."—Vr 13. .Lytton 's GaVoniarta.