The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-17 00:00:00

North of Spain .......... 342 50 342 50
Saragossa ......................... 405 403 75
Ditto to 8arce10na..........,,,, —

EXCISION of THE TONGUE.—Newspaper readers
will not fail to remember that two distressing cases
of excision of the tongue have occurred within the last
two or three years ; and, as these cases terminated fatally,
it seems only fair to record the fact that a successful case
of excision of the tongue has recently taken place. The
patient was a Manchester man, the operation was performed
in Edinburgh by Professor Syme, without the aid of chlo-
roform, and the unhappy sufferer, who for some time after
the operation returned to his own home, has since written
to Professor Syme stating that he never felt better in his
life than lIONT.--avettracan.

LITERATIMB.

••••••••••••••••5.............

Dorothy Firebrace; or, The Armourer's Daughter of
Birmingham. By the Author of " Whitefriars."
Three Vols. Bentley.
The history of England in the days of the
Charleses appears to possess a peculiar attraction
for the brilliant author of " Whitefriars " and
"Whitehall." " Whitefriars" is a tale of the
time of the " Merrie Monarch," and " Whitehall,"
like this new work, " Dorothy Firebrace," refers to
the disastrous days of Charles I. Birmingham is
the scene of the chief incidents of this story, and
the religious excitement of the time, as exemplified
in the fanatical demagogue Wrath-of-God-White-
hall and his companions, is powerfully described.
Here is the introductory sketch of Birmingham at
that period:—

BIRMINGHAM TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
"Birmingham was a very different town in its external
aspects, in 1642, to what it presents at the present day. It
was a manufacturing town, it is true, and had been so from
the earliest ages of English history. It enjoyed almost a
unique reputation in England for all the arts of Tubal Cain
—all the products of the bellows and the forge. But its
size was not in any proportion to its renown ; and, had not
the whole mass of the inhabitants been engaged in the
staple industry of the place, it would be difficult to im-
agine how it could have supplied the wants, even of scat-
tered and unpopulous communities like those of England- -
and of Europe in general—at the time.
" Instead of a population of 290,000 living souls, Birming-
ham reckoned scarcely 6,000.
" Fifteen streets and nine hundred houses lodged this
population, according to the lively, but, perhaps, too ima-
ginative, local historian, Hutton. Equal to the demand,
certainly, even if Birmingham had already acquired its sen-
sible liking for space and separation into families that now
distinguishes it. But the lofty chimneys, towering like the
burning genii of the place, in an Arabian tale, did not yet
exhibit their sombre majesty over a sea of murky smoke
and cloud. The smithies, scarcely raised above the gene-
ral run of two-storied houses, and chiefly confined to the
lower portion of the town, sent forth their temperate
volumes of sooty vapour, each from its separate range of
open timber-work, to the streets. Iverywhere else, Bir-
mingham presented the aspect of a quiet country town, re-
posing in the midst of fields and woodlands, not yet stripped
of vegetation and verdure by the flaming breath of a thou-
sand furnaces."

It is at Birmingham, in the midst of a fanatical tu-
mult among the townspeople, that we encounter the
charming Dorothy, and here, too, she is first beheld
by the heir of Aston, the hero of her life's romance.
The following extract is a happy specimen of the
style and character of the tale, and the author's
descriptive power :