The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-09 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

Evenings at Home. By Dr. Aikin and Mrs. Bar-
bauld. One vol., pp. 212. Longman and Co.
Another delightful nursery classic has here been
added to that series of charming story-books now
being published, in quarterly volumettes, by the
Messrs. Longman, under the title, collectively, of
J. S. Laurie's Shilling Entertaining Library. Half
a dozen good reasons we have now had for praising
this most welcome collection of narratives—
" Beloved as fable and believed as truth :"
to wit, "Robinson Crusoe," " Gulliver's Travels,"
" Christmas Stories," " Sandford and Merton,"
" The History of the Plague of London," and now,
completing the half dozen, this welcome re-issue of
that celebrated " Juvenile Budget of Miscellanies,"
better known by its old familiar name of "Evenings
at Home." What Mr. and Mrs. Howitt were, not
so very many years back to ourselves wnen we
were children, what they still are to our own
children, while yet these are children, Dr. Aikin
and Mrs. Barbauld were to the children of an
earlier generation. The clever, simple-hearted,
fiction-weaving husband and wife of to. day,
in other words, have been but the re-
petition, in an entirely new way, of the clever,
simple-hearted, fiction-weaving brother and sister
of yesterday. As Mr. Thackeray says of Swift,
that he strode into the nursery with the step of an
Ogre, our fathers might have said, on the contrary,
of lir. Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld, we ourselves
might say again, now-a-days, of William and
Mary Howitt, that they come hand in hand
among the little people like dear old friends—
friends, as they are, welcomed there, whenever they
cross the threshold, with childish prattle, and—
better than smiles—with peals of gleeful laughter.
They come there, this man and wife, this brother
and sister, like a sort of Gaffer and Gammer
Grethel—a couple to bo made much of in the cosiest
of arm chairs, confronting each other in the snug-
gest of corners, upon the opposite sides of the nur-
sery hearth on a winter's night; to be clustered about
alternately, and listened to with breathless interest
by the bright-eyed boys and girls fur whom they
ring out their merry rhymes, or tell in
clear and comprehensible prose the funniest tales
about Tom, Dick, or Harry, Kitty, Polly,
or Susan. As pretty a gathering together of these
same charming stories in prose and verse as any of
them ever yet jotted down upon paper, for the de-
light of the youngsters, is this very juvenile Budget
of Miscellanies yclepped the "Evenings at Home."
Such evenings! One while, for example, we are
laughing at " Tit for Tat," where the sagacious ele-
phant, having had a cocoa-nut cracked upon his skull
by his driver, another day, in his turn, cracks a cocoa-
nut upon the driver's (cracking skull and nut together,
as it happens) by way of retaliation ! Another
while, again, we are laughing at "Phatheon
junior" wildly careering with his gig and
tandem, halter - skelter, through the village
fair, among pigs, poultry, and apple-women,
until spilt, at the close of his disastrous escapade,
plump into the muddiest of ditches ! Linnet
and goldfinch, swallow and tortoise, lapdog
and monkey, dove and phoenix, eyes and no eyes,
flying and swimming, adventures of a cat, and story
of a little dog—these are among the subjects here
commented upon for our entertainment. And
even, w© may say, many "children of a
larger growth" than such as are usually to
be found trotting about in knickerbockers,
or trundled along the streets in perambu-
lators, might listen with advantage to Dr. Aikin
and Mrs. Barbauld as they here, alternately, prattle
in prose and verse ! Certain of this—both young
and old—that from these storied pages of " Evenings
at Home" innocent sources of mirth and delightful
morsels of information are attainable by all who
list—literally—at pleasure ! We doubt whether
any prettier edition of this dear old book was ever
printed than the one now procurable from the
Great House in the Row, at the "ridiculously small
amount" of one shilling. A companion volume it is,
of course, in every way to its five predecessors
already enumerated, and already noticed by us, as
they deserved to be noticed, at the time of their pub-
lication, in the columns of our journal. Bat, in one
particular, there is observable, in regard to this
addition of a sixth volume, to Mr. Laurie's series of
illustrated story-books, a merit beyond that dis-
coverable, at any rate in so marked a way, in the
majority of its predecessors. The embellishments
here introduced by " S." into this fresher instal-
ment of the Entertaining Library possessing the
distinctive merit of peculiar animation. The
frontispiece affords a remarkable instance of this
with its pencilled memorial of J ehu'e destructive
slapdash, with his high-mettled, runaway ponies, in
among the jumbled herd of squealing pigs and
piglings. Capital, too, in its way, is the humorous
delineation of the upset of the carrier's cart, and
the indoor glimpse of that rascally tame Raven,
who coolly walked off, for the purpose of after-
wards as coolly walking into, the bag of meal be-
longing to Robinet, the peasant of Lorraine.

THE TIME-GUN.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Six,—l have just returned from Paris, and when there I
succeeded in procuring from the best authority (Messrs.
Le Roy and Son, watchmakers to the King of the French)
a history of the Time-Gun in the Palais Royale. The
following translation of this document may be intresting to
your readers, more particularly as Time-Guns will in all
likelihood be ere long placed in every impGrtant town of the
kingdom. I was gratified to find on my recent visit to
Newcastle and Shields, the great satisfaction the inhabi•
tants of these towns have with their audible signal, and
that Sunderland is contemplating to have one, also Aber-
deen. I was glad during my visit to the continent to see
from the Times that Glasgow has established a Time-Gun.
I am informed that four are spoken of for London, one to
be placed on the Tower, another on the Regent's Park,
Hyde Park, and St. James'. I may here mention that it
was from this small Time-Gun in Paris I got the notion,
nearly 20 years ago, of an audible signal, and which has
been so happily established in our own city.—l am, &0.,
JOHN HEWAT.

Edinburgh, 12, St. Andrew-square,
7th October, 1863.

[TRANSLATION.]

The celebrated cannon of the Palais Royale was made in
1819 by a gunsmith of the Rue Richelieu, who proposed to
the Duke of Orleans, afterwards King Louis Philippe, to
establish it in the garden of the Palais Royale. It was
placed there that same year on the site where it is to this
day. It cost 300 f. Its form is that of a howitzer ; the
diameter of the inside is five centimetres. It is loaded with
50 grammes (the unit French weight) of powder, costing
Bf. the kilogramme (1,000 grammes), each shot therefore
costing abeut2oc. The noise of the firing cannot be heard
beyond the buildings of the Palais Royale. It is firmly
fixed upon a pedestal of granite, and covered with a copper
cap, which shelters it from the inclemency of the wea-
ther, That cover is removed as often as the weather allows
to make use of the cannon (i.e., when it is fine weather).
It is set facing the east, to indicate by its detonation the
passage of the sun over the meridian of Paris. A lens or
magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun, which
sets fire to the powder. That lens is moveable upon a gra-
duated marked semicircle; thus it can be displaced high or
low, according to the height of the sun above the horizon,
each degree corresponding to a displacement of five days.
The administration of the palace give 150 francs a-year to
as
tthakees
tCaa Tt
ea
ooffthite,
andthe gtus nksemieptiht,
iwnwho
oi sr
k ti
hn
ge inventor
ol
of ni gt
atmosphere permits. Tho conditions imposed upon him for
his service do not seem to be very strict, and the adminis-
tration do not seem to attach much importance to the exac•
titude of his duty. Amateurs who come to the garden to
await the detonation, in order to put their watches correct,
are apt to register great variations. The majority do not
reckon the difference between tho real time and the mean
time ; and we must say that the gunsmith himself does not
know or that he does not seem to trouble himself muc
about it. At the moment which we write these lines (Sep..
tensber, 1863), the sun passed the meridian at Paris at 11h
51m 235, and we see the gunsmith upon the point of setting
his cannon at 11h 56m, that is four minutes after the pas-
sage of the sun. We hear the detonation at 12h 4tH 30s
mean time, while it ought to have been heard at 11h 51m
225. This complaisant toleration has given rise to the fol-
lowing popular saying—" The cannon of the Palais Royale
is good (bon) to tell the time to the soldiers and nurse-
maids." We hope that the members of the Observatory at
Paris determine to take as a model the regularity and pre-
cision of the cannon at Edinburgh.

THE Loss OF A HULL STEAMER.—The loss of
the screw steamer Zealand, of Hull, with her cap-
tain (William Lewis) and six of her crew, appears now, by
the continued absence of any tidings of the ship or her
crew, to be all but certain..

THE COLOSSAL MAP OF LONDON Dow being
issued by the Messrs. Cassell, the eminent publishers, is on
the magnificent scale of Dille inches to the

,g_a• '-'
Crint tirtilsfAr.

THE QUEEN IN SCOTLAND.

BALMORAL, OCt. 7.

The Queen, accompanied by Princess Louise, and
attended by Lady Churchill, went out yesterday

morning.

In the afternoon, the Queen, accompanied by the
Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and Princess
Louise, drove round by the Lynn of Muich.

•
Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse, Princess
Helena, and Prince Arthur, rodo up the Glen of
Muich and drove back from Alt-na-Guithasach.

The King of the Greeks.

His Majesty the _king of the Greeks, and his
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, attended by
Lieut. Funch and Capt. Grey, went yesterday morn-
ing to Richmond Park, and spent the day shooting,
in company with his Royal Highness the Duke of
Cambridge.

Last evening the King of the Greeks and the
Prince and Princess of Wales honoured the perform-
ance at the Haymarket Theatre withtheir presence.
The suite in attendance consisted of Baron Gul-
dencrone, Captain Grey, and the Hon. Mrs. W.
Grey.

M. Joan G. Cladda had an audience of the King
of the Greeks on Wednesday, at Marlborough

douse.

Mr. George Papayanni, Mr. Constantine Ralli,
and Mr. A. G. Eumorfopulo have been deputed
by the members of the Greek community resident
in Liverpool to present an address to his Majesty
George King of the Greeks. The presentation will
take place at Marlborough House on Saturday
morning. The original of the address is in Greek.