The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-31 00:00:00

FRANCE•

L' Union observes almost in a tone of anguish PAtas, Friday, July 31.
to-
day, -'Assuredly it is a singularly painful situation,
in the presence of permanent anxieties of opinion,
to have the power of replying
only with silence to
the questions pressing upon us now so urgently !
More particularly when the situation has reference
to an alternative no less momentous than that of
peace or war." Continuing in the same strain,
the writer adds frankly, "For ourselves we have
no pretension to repeat the echoes of the Diplo-
matic Olympus . . . No, Alas! we known
nothing ! We know nothing, that is as to the
positive disposition of the three Courts; and the
Royal Speech at the closing of the English Parlia-
ment does not tend in any way to enlighten us in
other hand, appears disposed
our ignorance."
of what is behind the scenes, but almost to
going on
notL nanFlyrat)ozcaeff, oneot the
usual an intimate knowledge
e
predict very confidently something like an amicable
settlement.
.'Opinion Nationale contents itself with refer-
ring, in a tone of satisfaction, to the continuance
still of the perfect identity visible in the Polish
policy respectively France, England, and Austria.
Le Siecle remarks, for its part, rather enigmati-
cally, for the phrase might mean just anything or
nothing, "we are now traversing that phase of
conjectures which invariably preceeds great move-
ments and decisive events."
cossi
Le Pays, on the contrary, deems it advisable in
i teo
regard to the situation of France (and conse-
quently, of course, of all Europe), so far as its re-
marks can at all tend to do so—to dissipate ill-con-
sideredandto snoallimeituads noeminrh a
reference to that
the "
impatience
of all.
THE BOURSE, July 30.—The market continues
firm, but without much animation. Threes, for the
Account, are now unvaried at 67f. 10c "
. Railway
Shares well maintained at previous quotations.
The market closed as follows ;--

-50
Austrian
It per Cents. ...... 96 80 Italian Loan 7l 50
Do. end month...• Do. end month —
3 per Cents ...... 67 15 New ditto
Do. end month.. •• 6_6 95 Do, end month.... --
110')47 - Russian
..
3355
Bank Shares ...... 70 Spanish Threes 52 75
CDroe.dei tnd Mionboinlitehr .... .
. . .
Credit Fancier ..... 12 home Debt
RAILIPAYB.

Cash. Account.
Orleans lOO2 50 .. 998 75
Northern 985 .. 985
New ditto
Lyons and Nedituranean 1015 .. 1013 75
Geneva.. 4BB 75 .. 487 50
Southern .............. 670 .. 66.5
Western
Eastern • ...
Sardinian 407 50 .. 407 50
Austrian
LOW hard
North of Spain
Saragossa .. 685 .. 672 50
Ditto to Barcelona .... 350 .. 357 50

BEWICK'S BlRDS.—There is no man who has set
forth natural history so captivatingly as Bewick ;
and that, not because of the dry bones of a text, but through
the art which Horace says brings objects before the faithful
eyes—the pictorial art. And in a double way. His birds
themselves are admirable, perfect in shape and attitude,
glossy of feather, and placed characteristically on bough,
rock, or marsh-encircled island; but, besides, they are
served up with a garnish of vignettes, or tailpieces, which
sometimes admirably illustrate bird .life and bird-habits ; at
others, relieve the monotony of the subject by a dash into
the highest realms of humour. It is more particularly in
this last aspect of a genial artist that we would now chiefly
regard Thomas Bewick . . . . We value our Bewick be-
cause nowhere else do we find within the compass of two
volumes such a full and quaint pictorial exhibition of a
lively fancy, of a half-mournful satiric vein, of an acquain-
tance with nature; such vivid proofs that the artist has
been on many a lonely moor, has leant his ear in many a
solitary place, has watched the wild, the farmhouse, the
snow-storm, the wimpling brook, and the ocean, at hours
when no eye but his was watching ; has caught animal
motion and passion in the act of moving and feeling, and
has struck such a rapid diapson of human life from infancy
to age, that to call him poet were not to exaggerate his
achievements.—Dickens's "All the Year Round."
A WONDERFUL ORCHESTRAL ACCOMPANIMENT.
—The lovely movement of the adagio, commencing
with the words " Notte d'amor, tutta splendor," in Gounod's
"Faust," is led up to, says an able musical critic in the
Saturday Review, by about a dozen.bars in which the com-
poser has displayed his especial skill in the use of the harp,
in combination with flutes, hautboys, bassoons, horns, and
the strings ; the strings and the wind at last falling away,
so to say, into an ascending and a descending scale, in a key
far removed from that of the opening phrase, absolutely re-
quiring a distinctly marked crescendo, and yet terminating
I in a prolonged chord. so soft and equably sustained, not-
. withstanding the sudden entrance of trumpets, trombones,
and drums, as to allow the harp arpeggios, which have been
I continued unbroken, to be heard clear throughout the whole
volume of sound,