The Sun.
London, England, 1853-08-10 00:00:00

THE HUDSON RIVER

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I thank God I was born on the banks of the Hud-
son ! I think it an invaluable advantage to be born
and brought up in the neighbourhood of some grand
and noble object in nature—a river, a lake, or a moun-
tain. We make a friendship of it- —we in a manner ally
ourselves to it for life. It remains an object of our
pride and affections—a rallying point to call us home
again after all our wanderings. "The thin
old whichter," we
have learned in our childhood," says a wri
"grow up with our souls, and unite themselves to
it. ' So it is with the scenes among which we have passed
our early days ; they influence the whole course of our
thoughts and feelings ; and I fancy I can trace much
of what is good and pleasant in my own heterogeneous
compound to my early companionship with this gasm,lorioul
s
river. In the warmth of my youthful enthusilmost to
used to clothe it with moral attributes, and a
give it a soul. I admired its frank, bold, honest, cha-
racter, its noble sincerity and perfect truth. Here
was no specious, smiling surface, covering the dangerous
ous
sand-bar or perfidious rock, but a stream, deep
broad, and bearing with honourable faith the barque that
trusted to its waves. I gloried in its simple, quiet, ma-
jestic, epic flow ; ever straightforward. Once, indeed, it
turns aside for a moment, forced from its course by
opposing mountains, but it struggles bravely through
them, and immediately resumes its straightforward
march. Behold, thought I, an emblem of a good man's
course through life, ever simple, open and direct, or if
overpowered by adverse circumstances,ecovers h
his onward
e deviate into
error, it is but momentarily, he soon r
and honourable career, and continues it to the end of
his pilgrimage.—Washington Irving.

EARL OF ZETLAND.—We understand that a pub,
dinner is to be given to the Earl of Zetland by his
tenantry, feuars, and others, in the new hall, Grange-
mouth, on Friday next, the 12th current. Mr. Forbes,
of Callendar, and several other Scotch members of Par-
liament, are expected to be present.--Scotsman.
BATTERSEA-PARK.—Yesterday, a short, act, which
lately received the Royal assent, was issued to provide
for the purchase and extinguishment of all rights of
common and lammas and other commonable rights over
the site of Battersea,-park, in the county of Surrey. It
is enacted that the Battersea-park Commissioners are to
pay 1,5001. to the churchwardens of St. Mary, Batter-
sea, to be applied to such purposes as a vestry, to be
convened for that purpose, shall direct, and thereupon
all rights of common are to cease and determine.
TELEGRAPHIC CONVENTION BETWEEN ENGLAND,
FRANCE, BELGIUM, AND PRUSSIA.—The vote of 30,0001.,
just granted in committee of supply by the House of
Commons, is intended to defray, to March, 1854, the
expense of laying down an independent line of telegra-
phic wires from London to the Continent, and to enable
her Majesty's Government to join
.a convention recently
concluded between Fraime, Belgium, and Prussia, for
regulating the tra,nsmission ?f messages by electric tele-
pra,ph, and lately entered into by Messrs. J. and J.
Brett, inventors of the submarine telegraph, with those
nations' on behalf of the European
ie T.Telegraph Compan
re-
y.
VIENNA.—The advises from Vienna
markable statement of the downward
a course
the deficit each
year from that period has been in sterling as. follows,
namely, 706,0331. in 1847, 4,511,064/. in 1848,
12,190,5801. in 1849, 5,344,7331. in 1850, 6,222,.363./.
in 1851, and 5,344,733/. in 1852, making a total in six
years of 34,461,260/., or an average of 5,743,610/. per
annum. There seems, also, every probability that the
difference between revenue and expenditure will be
equally disastrous in 1853.
TUSCANY.—A concession has just been granted by
the Tuscan Government to Messrs. Gandell Brothers,
of Paris, for a railway of 80 miles, from Florence to
Areazo, the frontier town of Tuscany next to the Roman
States. By its connection with the Northern and Cen-
tral lines, it will open an uninterrupted communication
between the northern States of Italy and the Roman
dominions, and proposals have been submitted to the
Pope for its extension to Rome, a distance of about 200
gules,