The Sun.
London, England, 1849-08-09 00:00:00

'IU! , ..N ti IC - 114 41 Nr T.) 0 Ifit; TFt'RS Vs A Y

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MARKET NEWS —(THIS DAY.)
NMWGZ-_17.7. 23 LIZ-P.M.MNI-A.4:-Za...
Prim Beef and Mutton commanded a ;:te:v-V sale, r.t
full pilafs. Otherwi:e the trade was in a Elu;gi,;ll state.
Beef, from 2s 2 1 to 3s 4d ; Muttc.ll, 2s Sd to 33 101;
Lamb, 3s 10d to 4s 10d; Ve:.l, 2s 101 to 3s 6d ; and
Polk, 3s to 3s 10d per Sib. by the carcase.

EtAy mari=l-ncs.
SNITIIFIELD.-01,1 Meadow flay, 31 03 to 31 153;
New ditto, 2/ 5s to 3/ Os; Old Clover, 4/ Os to 41 Iss;
New ditto, 31 to 4/; and Straw, 11 Os to 1/ 123 per
cad. A full average supply, and a heavy demand.
CUMBERLAND.—OId Meadow Hay, 3( Os to 31 16;;
New ditto, 2/ 5s to 3103; Old Clover, 3/ 183 to 41145;
Nevn dittf,, 31 Os to 4/ Os; and Straw, 1/ 6s to 11 12s per
load. Supply moderately gocd, and trade dull.
WHITECHAPEL.—OId Mea,iow Hay, 3/ Os to 31 153
New ditto, 2/ 5s to 31.; Old Clover, 41 Os to 4/ 15s;
New ditto, 3/ Os to 4l Os; and Straw, 1/ Cs to 1/ 12s per
load. Trade dull, at the above quotations.

NEAT IVILLIZIEMTI3.
SOUTHALL, AUG. B.—Our raraket to-day was fairly
d with each kind of fat stook, the demand for
which was steady, at full prices. Beef, from 33 44 to
4s; Mutton, 33 4d to 43 2d; Lamb, 43 to 43 103; Veal,
33 to 3s 8d; and Pork, 33 4.1 to 3s 10d per 81b3, to rink
the offal. —

ROMFORD, AuG. 13,:asts and Sheep moved
off steadily, at fully last wetk's quotations. In all other
kinds of stock very few sales toA place. Beef; from
3s 4d to 43 Mutton, 3s 4d to 4s 2d; Lamb, 4s to 4s 103;
Veal, 3s 23 to 3s 8 ; and Pork, 3s 4d to 3s 10d per
Sibs. Suckling Calves, 'Ss to 255; Quarter• old Store
Pigs, 16s to 21s; and Mulch Cows with their small
Calf, 161. to 181. each. _

- ,
Lr,wis, AUG. 7.—Berf, from 3s 4d to 4,2 cl; Mutton,
33 4cl to 4s 2d; Lambs, 4s to ss; Veal, 3s 4d to 3s 8c1;
and Pork, 3s 4d to 3s 10d per Blbe. A moderate supply,
and a steady trade.

COAL MARK E'
Buddle's W. Hartley 15s Odl
Chester Main l4s 3d,
Hasting's Hartley lss Odl
Holywell Main .... 15s 0,1
North Percy Hartley lss Od'
Old Tanfield
Canfield Moor ... 13s Od
Canfield Moor Butes l2s 6d
Townley l4s Odl
West Wyl am
Wall's End, &c.

T.— YESTEIIDAY.
IHaswell l7s 9d
Lumley l6s Od
'Morrison lss 6(i
Caradoe ..... ....., 166 9d
'llowdon
Heugh Hall
Heseidea
IKelloe l6s Sd
\Vest Hetton l6s 0,1
Adelaide Tees
Clavering Tees .. 14s 6d
Denison
West Pease
Seymour Tees
Tees
Derwentwater Hartley Ir. s Od
ilartley —......
Ships at market, 62.

•
Brown's
Bensham
Northumberland
Walker
Eden Main.......• l6s 9d
Bell
Belmont l6s 9d
Hetton

CORN AVERAGES.
GENERAL AVERAGE PRICES OF BRITISH CORN
For the Week ended Aug. 2, 1849, made up from the Returns of the
Inspectors in the different Cities and Towns in England and Wales
per Imperial Quarter.
WHEAT. 1 BARLEY.' 1
OATS. RYE. BEANS. PEAS.
1
PRICE .. 48s Oct 26s 3d 19s 4d I 25s 6d, 31s 10d 323 Id
DUTIES ON FOREIGN CORN.
WHEAT. I BARLEY. I OATS. I
C.
1 BEANS. I PEAS.
IS Oct Is Od Is Oct. Is Oct Is Oct Is Od

SHERIFFS' COURT.-(THIS DAY.)
(Before Mr. Under-Sheriff BURCHELL.)
BENNETT V. LIVESEY.
This was an action to recover the sum of 11/. ss. for
rent of a house in Ledbnry-road, Bayswater. There
was no defence, and a verdict was given for the amount
I claimed.

MAGAZINES, &c.—(CONTINUED).

FRASER.

Fraser opens this month with a graphic deseription
of the new Palm House at Kew-gardens. " Wander-
ings through the Coeservatories et Kew," will do for
Kew gardens what Professor Wilson has done for the
Scottish lakes and moors, and will make the study of
botany fashionable. Of pelitical articles, we have
two, one entitled " The Russians in Hungary," written
in au admirable spirit ; the other on " Financial Re-
form," full of akuse of all who dare to hint a doubt of
the perfect right of the aristocracy to plunder the
people, and of the absolute duty of the people to
submit to be plundered without complaint, and pro-
posing a union between the Protectionists and Peelites,
for the purpose of passing an Act of Parliament de-
claring the objects sought by the Financial Reformers
illegal. It is well that the people should be thus
informed beforehand of the objects of the Tory fac-
tion : having been put in possession of the informa-
tion, if they ever Puffer the Tory aristocracy to
regain power, they will deserve all that they may meet
ith. Morgan Rattler, that most amusing professor
of paradox, furnishes an entertaining paper on the
subject of "Music in Italy," in which he proves to his
own perfect satisfaction, and to the great amusement
of his reader, that the Italians are not only not mu-
sical, but that as a nation they are positively the most
unmusical on the face of the earth. Ensign Faunce
continues his " Peace Campaigns," and this we are
glad to say is the only continuation of the month.
The article entitled " Ulrich Van Ilutten and his
Times" is a biographical account of that
celebrated reformer, who, by his writings
and his actions, deserves to be considered
as one of the principal founders of the
Reformation : more energetic than Erasmus, more
learned than Luther, he was the friend of both, and
by his attacks cn the vices of the Rornish priesthood,
which preceded those of either of them, he first roused
the attention of Europe to a, sense of the ignorance,
the sensuality, and the tyranny of the monks, and thus
commenced the glorious movement in favour of the
emancipation of the human mind from the thraldom
of superetitition, which was perfected by Luther, Me-
lancthon,
and Zuinglius. We have also an admirable
drollery entitled " Our New Curate," a well-written
paper on Aristophanes, and a car&ul analysis of Cal-
deron's Los Tres Illayores Prodigies, besides the cur-
rent history of the month.

LITERATURE.
BUMBOLDTS COSiTiOS.

Cosmos : Sketch of a PI ysicul Description of the
Universe. By Alexander Von llumboiJt. 2 Fols.
Translated under the Superintendence of Lieut.- Col.
E. 'Sabine, B. A. For. Sec. R. S.
The Same. 2 Vols. Translated front the German
by E. C. Otte.
. _ _

Gut of a very unfortunate rivalry in the world of
publication have originated these two remarkable
translations of the most* wonderful work of our gene-
ration. It is quite melancholy to reflect upon the
extraordinary amount of labour that must have been
lavished upon both English versions of the " Cosmos"
of Baron Humboldt, and to think that such labour
has been expended in vain. We say "in vain" ad-
visedly, for no ads quate compensation can be expected
either by the translators or by the publishers, in con-
sequence of the simultaneous appearance of Colonel
Sabine's version from the establishment ef Mr.
Murray, and of M. Otte's from that of Mr.
Bohn. We regret this ; for it is but a poor
satisfaction to know that the public are benefited
at the exceeding loss of its benefactors.
Of " Cosmos, " as the perfected production of a
great and richly stored intellect, it is scarcely pos-
sible to speak in terms of too respectful admiration.
To say that it is the masterpiece of the genius of
Alexander Von Humboldt is to pronounce its noblest
panegyric. Penned by that distinguished man, that
leviathen of travel (of physical travel and intellectnal
travail), that man who is to the sciences what
Doctor Johnson was to criticism, penned by
Humboldt in the sunny autumn of his years,
when the fruits of his great labours are still
heaped about him in all their !Awn and profusion,
when his mind has become ripened by a bog life of
varied and invaluable experiences—" Cosmos " has
grown up into one of the miracles of literature. It
is not an elegant column erected to perpetuate the me,
awry of its fabricator and to evidence his ingenuity
to posterity. Its structure, like that of the .A'ovum
Organum, is rather pyramidal and colossal—calculated
not only to withstand the triturating influences
of Time, but to survive a Deluge of Ignorance. No
work of such comprehensive scope, relating to the ma
terial universe, has ever before been attempted. To
do this required the immense researches, the long life,
the unconquerable industry, the insatiable curiosity,
and the daring ambition of a Humboldt. Here, at
length, repose before us the most memorable of all the
effusions of his genius—in which he has striven, and
not unsuccessfully, to avoid, on the one hand, the te-
diousness of interminable detail, and on the other the
vagueness of merely mystifying generalization. In
acting thus he has obeyed the conviction expressed by
him in his introductory Preface, when he says that
" a series of general results would be no less wean
some than a mere accumulation of detached facts." By
following out his gigantic design—" Physical Geo •
graphy, the limits of which have been hitherto some-
what vaguely defined, has been thus expanded, by,
perhaps (says he, with a noble diffidence), too bold a
plan, into a scheme comprehending the whole material
creation, or into that of a Physical Cosmo-
graphy." In carrying out this intention
the illustrious author has imparted the attractions of
rhetoric to the elucidation of general knowledge—
satisfied in his own mind " that a certain degree of
scientific accuracy in the treatment of natural facts is
not incompatible with animated and picturesque re-
presentation." In this he has yielded to the same as-
pirations which first evidenced themselves in the
" History of the Girondins," by Lamartine, and
subsequently in the " History of England," by
Macaulay ; for it is absurd for any critic like the one
writing in the Edinburgh Review to claim for Mr.
Macaulay the glory of having made the discovery
that history might be rendered as enthralling as ro-
mance, seeing that Lamartine's great annals of the
Revolutionists of the last century are, in point of
eloquence and dramatic splendour, about five times as
fascinating as the work of his English contemporary,
and knowing, moreover, that the eight volumes by
M. de Lamartine appeared just two years before the
publication of the to o volumes by Mr. Macaulay.
What Lamartine is to the French, and what Macaulay
is to the English Revolution, Humboldt has proved
himself to the general sciences or to physical cos-
mography—at once their rhetorician and their histo-
rian. The great truth laid down by him at the very
threshold of the palace of his deductions is that " the
aspect of external nature is that of unity in diversity."
Hence it is that he speaks further on of our " percep-
tion of an invisible and spiritual essence manifesting
itself whether in unfolding the flower and perfecting
the fruit of a food-bearing tree, or in the subterra-
nean movements which shake the ground, and the tem-
pests which agitate the atmosphere." That is the
most melancholy peculiarity of this great work, that
Baron Humboldt, at the very time when all his facts
tend to the proof of the existence of a Supreme Being,
he seems to be always jealous of acknowledging by
name the verity of a God. What marvels are
unfolded to the imagination in the perusal of " Cos-
mos" it is impossible from remembrance to enume•
rate. Now the author reassures those who tremble
lest in the multiplicity and the apparent confusion of
the comets whisking through and through the solar
system, and threading it with their orbits like a
spider's network, our globe and one of these eecentric
bodies might come into collision—proving the impos•
sibility of such a catastrophe by facts such as that
Biela's comet, which completes its course every six
years, and does really intersect the earth's path "can
only approach us when its perihelion coincides with
about Again the thel2 countlessth a n
d
of of
shooting
No-
vember, and the 10th and 11th of August, are
our winter
s ta solstice."rs seen
accounted for by him as arising from " a belt of
asteroids intersecting the orbit of the earth." As an
example of the vivid and beautiful colouring of the
descriptions we shall transcribe a brief passage selected
almost hap-hazard :
"In the Andes of Cundinamarca, of Quito, and of
Peru, furrowed by deep barrancas, it is permitted to
man to contemplate all the families of plants and all the
stars of the firmament. There, at a single glance, the
beholder sees lofty feathered palms, humid forests of
bamboos, and all the beautiful family of Musacem; and,
above these tropic forms, oaks, medlars, wild roses, and
umbelliferous plants, as in our European homes; there,
too, both the celestial hemispheres are open to his view,
and, when night arrives, he sees displayed together the
constellation of the Southern Cross, the Magellanic
clouds, and the guiding stars of the Bear which circle
round the Arctic pole. There, the different climates of
the earth, and the vegetable forms of which they deter-
mine the succession, are placed one over another, stage
above stage; and the laws of the decrement of beat are
indelibly written on the rocky walls and the rapid slopes
of the Cordilleras, in characters easily legible to the
intelligent observer."

As to the precise character of " Cosmos" it may be
best comprehended from the subjoined paragraph :
" It is not the purpose of this work to attempt to re-
duce all sensible phrenomena to a small number of ab-
stract principles, having their foundation in pure reason
only. The physical cosmography of which I attempt
the exposition does not aspire to the perilous elevation
of a pure rational science of nature. Leaving to others,
who may perhaps adventure on them with more success,
these depths of a purely speculative philosophy, my
essay on the Cosmos consists of physical geography,
joined with the description of the heavenly bodies in space:
its aim is to present a view of the material universe,
which may rest ou the experimental foundation of the
facts registered by science, compared and combined by
the operations of the intellect."
Such is the profound and remarkable work which has
been simultaneously translated into the English
language by M. Ott‘ and by the lady of Colonel
Sabine—unfortunately for the rival translators, but
fortunately for the fame and popularity of the
venerable and illustrious author, Alexander Von
Humboldt.

HISTORY of the NATIONAL CONSTITU-
ENT ASSEiIiBL Y. 2 Vols. By. J. F.Corkran.
In these two lively and fascinating volumes—
volumes lively from their graphic excellence, and
fascinating from their romantic interest—Mr. Cork-
ran has produced a work destined to afford materials
of extraordinary value to the future historian. Not
the least of the many excellencies in the memorials
of the National Constituent Assembly is that,
besides containing an accurate and sequential
narrative of the events which followed upon
the first meeting of the Republican represen-
tatives in May, 1848, they comprise a vivid portrai-
ture of the many remarkable personages who figured
the most conspicuously in those occurrences. The
hand, moreover, which traced those outlines was that
of an Englishman whose good fortune it was to be
an eye-witness of the extraordinary results of the
Revolution of February. From an intimation con-
tained in the introduction, we obtain a knowledge of
the circumstance that the chapters placed before us
have originated from hurried notes made day by day
by the author, accordingly as events transpired, notes
put to paper by him principally after having attended
as an auditor in one of the galleries of the Assembly.
As such, we welcome the composition eagerly, and
on perusal we find it evidences several internal proofs
of its authenticity. Throughout the style is parti-
cularly animated; and considering the wonderful
character of the subject pourtrayed, there is no lack
of excitement during the perusal. We read on and
on, enthralled scarcely less by the facts recorded than
by the manner in which those facts are described.
On entering the new-born Parliament of French Re-
publicanism, under the guidance of Mr. Corkran,lwe
are not less struck than he is by the fact that " the
order of established Parliaments was reversed," and
that " the difficulties were in the way of reputation
and eminence." All the facilities, as he expresses it,
were for the unknown ; yet as the history developes
itself we recognise the gradual and almost impercep-
tible approach of the " moral" of those solemn and
affecting annals, that the old reputations are by
degrees in the ascendant. Following the inevitable
order of nature, the scum thrown up to the surface in
the perturbation of society subsides, and the great
men of the past become once more the influential men
in the present. kirora the very outset we obtain tin