The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-03 00:00:00

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

RUSSIA.

FREEDOM OF THE CROWN PEASANTS.

BERLIN, AUGUST 3.

Intelligence received here from St. Petersburg
to the Ist inst. states that the Emperor of Russia
has issued a ukase, declaring free landholders the
two million peasants who are tenants of the Crown
domains and appanages.
ST. PETERSBURG, AUG. 2.

A despatch has been published from Prince
Gortschakoff to Councillor de Knorring, charge
d'affaires at Vienna, on the 27th ult., with regard
to the Note of Count Rechberg of the 12th.

The despatch expresses surprise to find that Count
Rechberg has hinted the possibility of Russia enter •
taining a reservation, and proceeds
" If this view of the subject has been put forward
by Count Rechberg from a desire to remove all
idea of a separate agreement, which might be
judged incompatible with the engagements con-
tracted by Austria, and with the point of departure
with which she connects her measures, let -us
hasten to bear witness that no agreement whatever
has taken place between her any:, ourselves upon
the subject of the lste overtraes. We have deduced
no approbation from tlie Austrian Note of the 18th
of June, and have anticipated her refusal of a Con-
ference. We have not dreamt of establishing any
assimilation between Galicia and Poland, but tradi-
tion, precedents, and the assistance received by the
insurgents from Galicia, attest their common inte-
rests, and show the necessity of an understanding
in a friendlybetweenthe three Northern Courts.
" The proposition for a Conference was conceived
spirit, in conformity with the relations
and interests of the two Courts, and we should
reject any different interpretation."

The despatch terminates with an expression of
Prince Gortschakoff's regret that the Note of Count
Rechberg presages
a different impression.

..................

PORTUGAL,
LISBON, JULY 30.

(Per the Magdalena.)
The royal tunny continues to reside at Mafra.
the state of the Queen's health is very satisfactory.
The King and the Due de Penthievre are to-day
on board the Portuguese war steamer Minden°,
which is practising her artillery.
The Due de Penthievre, who has been staying on
a visit to the King► leaves shortly for New York on
board the American war frigate Macedonia, which
latti arrived here.

It is said that the King intends to open the
Agricultural Exhibition at Braga.
The reported resignation of the Bishop of Oporto
is unfounded.

Thereprobability that the Ministers will
no
present tobacco contract, and that
t renew is every
the
the commerce in this article will be thrown open.
The Government are prosecuting the Company
formed for supplYing Lisbon with water, for breach
of contract.

reis in the Portuguese funds,
of reis
the diamonds recently sold.
The Government has purchased on account of the
Crown
with
The sale was effected in Lisbon to the agent of a
French house.
the
0500 p
oecneteods
so

The misunderstanding between the Government
and the representatives of Senor Salamanca con-
tinues. The lo3t section of the line of railway from
Crato
by t o
o the Spanish frontier continues closed to
of the Government surveyors.
The Viscountess de Cartacho is dead.
traffic
rde r
The subscription in Lisbon for the survivors
amounts
mf tohuen
ts wreckto £2OO. of the Catalonian has been closed, and
£2OO.

The keels have been laid at the Royal Arsenal of
two new corvettes, to be named Duke of Palmella
and Duke de Terceira.

The vine disease continues to be developed.

Rentes, 481. Coupons, 48. Z. Exchange on Lon-
don, 54 at 90 days. Paris, 528. Hamburg, 48.
Bank of Portugal shares, 535. Bank of Oporto
shares, 252.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
LISBON, Wednesday, July 29.
In the Gazeta de Portugal we observe a deeply
interesting and recently completed report of the
Commission charged, as far back as 1860, to inquire
into the question of the Enfants Trouves, the
Foundlings. From this report it unahappily appears
that the mortality among illegitimate children
amounts, o
per
in various quarters, to no less than
8
cent. And this in spite of the fact that
2,200,000 francs are expended by the State in sup-
port of the interests of the poor Foundlings. The
commission recommends, in its report, certain new
measures of supervision, together with the more
direct interference of the administrative au-
thorities and of the levies in aid of those
who cannot unhappily contribute to the
support of their illegitimate offspring. This
new authorisation, however, would be carried on
simultaneously with the continuance of the Found-
ling establishments already in existence, as asylums
for those poor human waifs and strays—though
without the continuance of the old systen.l of
the bell and turn-table, a system found to
offer too great facilities for indiscrimina to
admissions. Upon this head, however, thk,
Portuguese Government intimates that it asks
the advice of the Prefects, with a view, of coorse,
to the confirmation of its own judgment through the
aid of a more extended experience.
The temperature is described by the Gazeta as
cooler than it had been. The capital is beginning
to thin airaady from the withdrawal of visitors into
the country for their late summer, er early autumn
holidays.

Extraordinary inspectors of the public schools,
intended to go all over the country upon a tour of
examination, have recently been appointed by the
Government.

THE BRAZIL MAILS.

SOUTHAMPTON, AUG. 3.

The Royal Mai! Company's steamship Magda-
ena, Captain Robert Woolwai:d, with dates from

Buenos Ayres, June 27 ; Monte Video, June 30 ;
Rio de Janeiro, July 9; Bahia, July 13; Pernam-
buco, July 15; St. Vincent, July 22; and Lisbon,
July 30, has arrived here.
She brings 124 passengers, and landed 119 at
Lisbon, and £15,788 in specie; jewellery value £BO,
4 packages of diamonds, and a general cargo, con-
sisting of 300 rolls tobacco, 100 barrels tapioca, 50
serons ipecacuanha, 23 cases plants, 87 bales cotton,
232 boxes apples, 46 boxes pears, and 147 packages
sundries.

PERNAMBUCO, JULY 15.

The Confederate steamer Georgia, Maury com-
mander, captured the American ship City of Bath,
736 tons, W. J. Cooper, master, on the 28th June,
in lat. 20.30, south, long. 29.30, west, off the desert
island of Trinidad, belonging to Brazil. This vesse
was from Callao, with a cargo of guano on French
account, bound for Antwerp; the master being com-
pelled to give a ransom bond for 20,000 dole., the
vessel waseallowed to proceed on her voyage.
The Georgia had taken the American ship Con-
stitution (on 25th June), with 1,300 tons coals front
Philadelphia, bound for Shanghai, and was dis-
charging the coal for the purpose of fitting out the
ship as a cruiser ; also the ship Good Hope, released
on giving ransom, and the Deserter burned. The
Vanderbilt has proceeded to Trinidad.

The American ship Samuel Robertson, 421 tons,
Hunter, master, which vessel pat in here 15th June
on her voyage from New Bedford to Honolulu,
having been condemned, was sold by auction for
8,040 rs.

The bark Respigadera, of and from Liverpool,
for Callao, was wrecked off Cape Tres Puntas, on
the south-east coast of America, in lat. 47.8 south,
and crew eeeaped in three boats. The master,
James Joss, and six of the crew, had arrived at
Buenos Ayres. The jolly boat and gig, with seve❑
others, were lost sight of, and had not been heard
of by those who had reached Buenos Ayres.
Vessels spoken by the Magdalena—July 14, in
lat. 10.47 S,, long. 36,19 W., the French mail
steamer, going south ; 17th, lat. 2.57 long.
31.10 W., the English bark Montezuma,
from Glasgow for • Valparaiso, 40 days out ;
21st, lat. 13.27 N., long. 26.17 W., the outward
mail steamer Oneida; 26th, lat. 27.58 N., long. 19
W., the Bremen ship Willey, steering south.
Political affairs are unsettled in the River Plate
Republics. General Penaloza, the great demagogue
of Riuja, held supreme power in the second city of
the Republic, Cordova.

The Northern Railway was opened as far as Los
Olivas,

Business dull at Buenos Ayres, and money
tight. Rain had fallen at last, and the pasture
lands were again in good condition. Exchange on
England, 665. to 665. 6d. ; on France, 83f. to 839 t
Doubloons, 459 dols. paper currency each.
Rio coffee-market inactive. Sales from the Bth
of June to the 7th of July, 58,840 bags, of which
20,500 for the States, 34,900 for the Channel, 960
for the Mediterranean, and 2,480 for the Cape of
Good Hope. Quotations:—Superior, washed and
pulped, 8,000 to 8,700 ; 7,400 to 7,500 ; first good,
7,100 to 7,300; first ordinary, 6,900 to 7,000; se-
cond, 6,400 to 6,800. No sales of hides ; stock,
8,200, held at 220 to 260 rs. Exchange on London,
268 to 27d. ; Paris 353 to 356.

At Bahia exchange tratisections unimportant,
mostly passing at 27d., an later a few thousands at
26id. Coeton, 19,5000; sales few. Little coffee
at market, and selling at 5,800 to 6,000. No sales
os cocoa ; holders demand 3,700 to 3,800.

FRANCE.
FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.

PARIS, Monday, August 3.

A very telling article appears in L 'Union of this
morning apropos to the recent expatiation by La
France upon its famous thesis, or theory, as it
might be called, in regard to the probable " Isola-
tion of Russia." Any isolation of that kind being
scouted by L' Union as nothing less than a sterile
and peurile chimera!
Speaking of the Mexican war, L' Union ex-
claims :—" Catholicism ! monarchy ! Behold, the
immense benefits of which France can now insure
the enjoyment to Mexico ! Behold, the inestimable
price she can draw from her victory ! France, in
truth, has no other policy than this to pursue there,
that is in the sense of the Mexican expedition.
That of conquest would be ruinous ; that of retreat
insensate. That on the contrary is the constituting
henceforth in Mexico of a free and Catholic Royalty
is the only honourable and fruitful policy that
France can dream of carrying out there !
Prince Metternich, says the Pays, has returned
from Trouville to Paris, in order to receive the
last instructions from the Viennese Cabinet on the
subject of the accordant policy of the three Powers.
Referring to the late military events in Poland,
L'Opinion Nationale of to-day remarks that those
events show incontestably that Russia is now re-
ceiving check upon check.
Le Constitutionnel contains a very biting reply
to La Presse dubbed by Le Constitutionnel the
avowed advocate of the Russian Government.
While sarcastically congratulating the Govern-
ment of the Autocrat upon having in M.
Girardin so conciliatory a champion among
Russian journalists, Le Constztutionnel say,
with an ineffable sneer at La Presse, it would
have been better for Prince Gortschakoff to have
found one a trifle more concise, more logical, and
more inventive I
Le Siecle wittily remarks that the solicitude of
the Press in behalf of Poland increases in proportion
to the delays or slowness of diplomacy.

SPAIN.,
FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT•)
MADRID, August 1.

We can state confidently that the Spanish trans-
lation of M. Renan's insidiously beautiful but
Pagan Vie de Jesus has been prohibited from ap-
pearing by the Spanish Government.
According to a commuication from La Granja,
published in the Epoca, her Majesty Queen Isa-
belle is now in the fourth month of her pregnancy.

THE RHAMSIN.—This is the name of a wind
peculiar to Egypt, and which blows for 50 days
together, between Easter and Whitsuntide. M. Gregoire,
a member of the Egyptian Institute, has recently made it
the subject of a very interesting paper. Inconvenient to
men and hurtful to animals, this wind is particularly noxi-
ous to plants. Under the influence of its burning blast the
leaves wither, the flowers fade, and the fruit suddenly.
stopped in its development, dries up before it can get ripe
The atmosphere is filled with a large quantity of sand of the
desert, which will sometimes bury whole caravans under
the shifting hillocks it forms; on the contrary, the sand
brought into Egypt by the Rhamsin is an almost implac •
able powder, which will penetrate into any place, no matter
how carefully closed, even into a watch-case. This explains
tho opacity of the atmosphere, the elevation of the tempera-
ture, and dryness of the air during the prevalence of
this wind. M. Gregoire points out the principal losses
occasioned by this wind. Those kinds of fruit which have a
kernel never ripen, when exposed to it during the first pe-
riod of their development. It is also extremely pernicious to
silk-growers; for when it blows strong about the period when
' the silkworms cast their skins for the last time about one-
alf of the worms die. But the greatest loss occasioned by
this wind is the destruction of the corn harvest in the fol-
lowi, og way :—Every ear of corn is found in the morning
covered with small dew-drops adhering to each grain; their
globular form causes them to act the part of convex leaves,
which, concentrating the luminous rays of the sun upon
the young grai.a, produce an elevation of temperature which
not °My destroys the seed but the young plant, which,
though ,green a i'ew hours before, withers up, and must be
cut down after Exposure to the action described. To avoid
this misfortune M. Gregoire proposes to reap the corn be-
fore it is compl€ lely ripe, a practice which is generally fol-
lowed in the So uth of France.
-

Balmer Lfuton's " Strange Story," in Frencb,
forms the 580t' a to the 585th volumes of the "Bibliotheque
Choisie," pub' fished at Naumburg.

LITERATURE,

Rot=la. By George Elliot, author of " Adam

Bede." 3 vols. Smith and Elder.

We do not expect that " Romola" will be as
widely read or as generally admired as "Adam
Bede" or " The Mill on the Floss." The historical
epoch selected for the story is not of itself one
likely to be a popular favourite. The intrigues and
animosities of the Florentines of the 15th century,
the heart-burnings of the Mediceans on the death
of their great chief, the " Magnificent" Lorenzo, the
passionate philippics of the enthusiast Savonarola,
alternate intervals of popular excitement and de-
pression, revolting instances of individua: treachery,
and terrible but well-merited retribution—such
scenes and such characters, admirably well described
though they be, are not themes most attractive to
the novel-reader, and such are the contents of the
greater portion of these volumes of " Romola.''
The domestic story with which the political events
are interwoven is very remarkable as an evidence of
the writer's wonderful power in the development
of character. Tito Melema, the Greek hero—gay,
handsome, fascinating, eager to enjoy the pleasure
of the hour, winning all hearts, or rather attracting
all admiration, and yet in the pursuit of his own plea-
sure forgetful of every claim of gratitude or duty—is
a masterpiece. He begins his career by one fatal
error, and step by step is led on till he becomes the
very embodiment of treachery and falsehood, The
gradual development of the seeds of evil in the
fertile ground of that unprincipled heart is admir
ably well described. When we first behold Tito
asleep in the public thoroughfare, exhausted with
the perils of his recent escape from shipwreck, when
he rises at the summons of the itinerant Bratto and
falls into the friendly hands of the benevolent
barber, Nello—the very prince of gossips and of
barbers ! we do not foresee that we shall hereafter
look upon him with loathing, and turn from him
with indignation. We pity his youth and his mis-
fortunes—we are charmed with his gaiety and his
good humour, and we sympathise heartily with the
open welcome accorded to him on all hands by the
nobles and scholars of Florence. Tito Melema has
escaped from shipwreck, his only property being
some rare and valuable gems. These he disposes of to
great advantage, and is told, according to a phrase
of the day, they are worth " a man's ransom !"
At this unwary remark he startles, and then we learn
the secret of his history. His foster father, She
protector of his youth, BaldassarreCalvo,the scholar,
to whom he owes his education and his great
scholarship—to whom, in fact, he owes everything,
and who is the real owner of the gems in Tito's pos-
session, had been the companion of his voyage, but
was carried off a prisoner, while the younger Tito
escaped. " A man's ransom !" suggests to Tito that
the price of the gems, the property of Baldassarre,
should be devoted to his ransom from captivity, if,
as in all probability is the case, he is a prisoner at
Antioch. The duty on the one side is obvious, but
on the other hand the temptation is strong. Tito
is just becoming popular at Florence ; an influential
position is in his grasp. He is a welcome guest in
the studio of old Bardi, and the charms of the fair
Romola Bardi have not failed to impress his suscep-
tible heart. Tito puts off the evil day of decision.
At last the money is in his hand, and a prudent
friend offers to invest it for him. Then comes the
struggle. It is the turning paint of his career.
" Behold this day, I have set before thee good and
evil !" The conflict of his mind is so powerfully
because so naturally described, that we cannot do
better than transcribe the passage :
" Far in the backward vista of his remembered life,
when he was only seven years old, Baldassarre had rescued
him from blows, had taken him to a home that seemed like
opened paradise, where there was sweet food and soothing
caresses, all had on Baldassarre's knee; and from that time
till the hour they had parted, Tito had been the one centre
of Baldassarre's fatherly cares.
" And he had been doCile, pliable, quick of apprehension,
ready to acquire : a very bright lovely boy, a youth of even
splendid grace, who seemed quite without vices, as if that
beautiful form represented a vitality so exquisitely poised
and balanced that it could know no uneasy desires, no un-
rest—a radiant presence for a lonely man to have won for
himself. If he were silent when his father expected some
response, still he did not look moody ; if he declined some
labour—why, ha flung himself down with such a charming,
half-smiling, half-pleading air, that the pleasure of looking
at him made amends to one who had watched his growth
with a sense of claim and possession—the curves of Tito's
mouth had ineffable good humour in them. And then, the
quick talent to which everything came readily, from philo-
sophic systems to the rhymes of a street ballad caught up at
a hearing 1 Would any one have said that Tito had not
made a rich return to his benefactor, or that his gratitude
and affection would fail on any great demand ?
" He did not admit that his gratitude had failed; but it
was not certain that Baldassarre was in slavery, not certain
that he was living. _

" Do I not owe something to myself ?' said Tito, in-
wardly, with a slight movement of his shoulders, the first
he had made since he had turned to look down at the
florins. Before I quit everything, and incur again all the
risks of which I am even now weary, I must at least have
a reasonable hope. Am Ito spend my life in a wandering
search ? I believe he is dead. Cennini was right about
my florins : I will place them in his hands to-morrow,'
" When, the next morning, Tito put this determination
into act he had chosen his colour in the game, and had
given an inevitable bent to his wishes. He had made it
impossible that he should not from henceforth desire it to
be the truth that his father was dead ; impossible that he
should not be tempted to baseness rather than that the pre-
cise facts of his conduct should not remain for ever con-
cealed.

" Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of
guilty wishes, whoseunwholesorne infecting life is cherished
tnhlt
iehe
tamn e
ni
e,ne
by the darkness. The contaminating effect of deeds often
inoeuf
rtfhales
desires—theity commission;a
tml iheees n less ei
dos sfeothernt
hothe
ourde consequent
eee
lqfpu.uienrnit
fteyrai
ends adjust-
ment
in-
fluence of publi •
c confession springs from the fact, that by it
the hope in lies is for
ever swept away, and the soul recovers
the noble attitude of simplicity.
"Besides, in this first distinct colloquy with himself the
ideas which had previously been scattered and interrupted
had now concentrated themselves : the little rills of selfish-
ness had united and made a channel, so that they could
never again meet with the same resistance. Hitherto Tito
had left in vague indecision the question whether with the
means in his power, he would not return and ascertain his
father's fate : he had now made a definite excuse to himself
for not taking that course—he had avowed to himself a
choice which he would have been ashamed to avow to others,
and which would have made him ashamed in the resurgent
presence of his father. But the inward shame, the reflex of
that outward law which the great heart of mankind makes
for every individual man, a reflex which will exist even in
the absence of the sympathetic impulses that need no law,
but rush to the deed of fidelity and pity as inevitably as the
brute mother shields her young from the attack of the here-
ditary enemy—that inward shame was showing its blushes
in Tito's determined assertion to himself that his father was
dead, or that at least search was hopeless."
Onward and downward the career of Tito Melema
is rapid enough. When Baldassarre, at length
escaped from prison, arrives at Florence, his adopted
child does not dare to confess his own iniquity, and
denounces the friend and protector of his youth as
an impostor and a madman ! Fortune favours Tito,
but happiness, we need hardly say, does not attend
him. Very different is the gay adventurer of the
first volume from the treacherous coward of the
concluding chapters. " Falsehood," remarks the
faithful historian of his despicable career, "had
prospered and waxed strong, but it had nourished
the twin life Fear," Turn we now to a more noble
and attractive character—Romola, the faithful
daughter of the old blind scholar Barth. Here is
the first glimpse we have of her, in a chapter entitled