The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-06 00:00:00

THE OUTLET OF THE FLEET,

An engineering work of considerable complexity and
magnitude for the improvement of the sewage system has
now been for some weeks in progress at the approach to
Blackfriars-bridge, where the old Fleet, long since con-
verted into a sewer, is carried to the Thames between
other subterranean structures that cross either above
or below it. Within the space exposed at
the end of Bridge-street the foundation stone
of the old Blackfriars-bridge, for which search
had been made in vain when the present
bridge was in progress, was last week discovered. Beneath
the stone were found a guinea, a half-guinea, a crown, a
half-crown, a shilling, two sixpences, 31 halfpence, and a
farthing, and upon it was the following inscription, which
bears testimony to the place held by the elder Pitt in the
minds and affections of Englishmen at the time when he
resigned office as Secretary of State :
" On the last day of October, in the year 1760,
and in the beginning of the most auspicious reign
of Gorge the 3d,
Sir Thomas Chitty, Knight, Lord Mayor,
Layd the first stone of this Bridge,
undertaken by the Common Council of London
in the height of an extensive War,
for the Public accommodation
and ornament of the City,
Robert Mylne being the Architect,
and that there may remain to posterity
a monument of this City's affection for the man
who, by the strength of his genius,
the steadiness of his mind,
and a kind of happy contagion of his probity and spirit,
under the Divine favour

and fortunate auspices of George the Second,
recovered, augmented, and secured
the British Empire
in Asia, Africa, and America,
and restored the antient reputation
and influence of his Country
amongst the Nations of Europe,
the Citizens of London have unanimously voted
this Bridge to be inscribed with the name. of
William Pitt."

Times.

LITERATURE

The Innocents Abroad, a BoOle of Travel in Pursuit of

Pleasure. By Mark Twain. John Camden Hotten.
• Perhaps the most interesting chapter in this very
attractive volume is the introduction by Edward P.
Hingston, in which we make the personal acquaintance of
Mark Twain, the editor of the Territorial Enterprise, and
a literary celebrity of California. It was in 1863 that
Mr. Hingston, having business in Nevada, paid his first
visit to the office of the Territorial Enterprise, a " daily
paper, well edited, copious in its inforniation, fortunate in
its rtisements, of large dimensions, and published
every morning, where a year or two previous there had
been the silence of the wilderness, and the tents of the
Indian Savage." "In Mark Twain," he tells ns " I
found the very man I had expected to see, a flower of the
wilderness, tinged with the colour of the soil, the man of
thought, and the man of action rolled into one, humourist
and hard worker, Momus, in a felt hat and jack-boots.
In the reporter of the Territorial Enterprise, I became
introduced to a Californian celebrity, rich in eccentricities
of thought, lively and racy, quaint in remark, whose
residence upon the fringe !of civilisation had allowed
his huinour to develop without restraint, and his speed to
be racily idiomatic." Such is Mark Twain, as de-
scribed by an admiring countryman. The book
before us is a record of an expedition of in-
quiry among the celebrated• places of the Old
World by a party of expectant visitors from the New.
The " Innocents Abroad " describes the voyage ; and
while the new Pilgrim's ProgresS chronicles the adven-
surous. return home, both volumes will more than repay
perusal, for they are full of the raciest humour, and are
provocative at times of inextinguishable laughter.

Honduras : Descriptive, Historical, and Statistical. By
E. G. Squiers, M. A., F.S.A. Triibner & Co.
Believing that recent events, and more especially the
commencement of the great Inter-Oceanic highway through
its territories, have invested the Republic of Honduras
with especial interest, this book has been issued by Don
Carlos Gutierrez, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Honduras in Great
Britain. It is a very concise and comprehensive history
and description of Honduras, taken from a well-known
work on the States of Central America by Mr. Squierb,
formerly Representative of the United States in the
Central American Republic, and recently Commissioner
in Peru. Considering the small dimensions of the book,
we are surprised at the variety of interesting information
which we find here amassed. Possessed of " vast re-
sources, a climate adapted to every caprice, not less than
to the products of every zone, the author believes that
" high power and greatness are yet in store for the
hitherto little known, long distracted, and as yet utterly
undeveloped Republic of Honduras."

Fairy Life and Fairy Land. A Lyric Poem. Illustrated.

L. Booth.

This charming picture of the ways and doings of Fairy
Land is singularly original in its design, and eminently
graceful in its execution. It lays claim to indisputable
authenticity, being communicated to mortal intelligence
by no other than Titania herself, through her secre-
tary, Thomas the Rhymer, or Thomas of Ercildonne.
To " Break a butterfly upon the wheel" were as nothing
to the heartless audacity of the critic who shout,' attempt
with any severe handling to analyse the peculiar merits
of such a work ! Without aspiring to any particular
poetic excellence, the versification is pleasing and graceful,
and flows on in an untiring current of undulating and
humorous lines. In giving a glimpse of the favourite
resorts of the fairies, Titania, like her subject iPuck,
"puts a girdle round the earth," and in rapid and vivid
panoramic view " Himalaya far," " the flowery land of old
Cathay," " the languid shores of fair Japan," " Indus'
banks," "Ganges shores," "Our own loved gardens of
Cashmere," and other spots of kindred interest pass
before us. The writer evidently possesses a very keen
appreciation of the beauties of nature in every land.
The scene is principally laid in Portugal, in the neigh-
bourhood of Monserrat. The fairy queen, after describing
to us her powerful sway, not alone in Eastern lands, but
over all Europe's climes, exclaims with rapture— .
" But I love beyond them all,
The sunny realm fair Portugal.
By Douro's and Minho's mountains
And all their sparkling crystal fountains,
My gay court their revels keep
When the drowsy world's asleep.
Then seek me straight the fabled strand
Where Tagus rolls his golden sand
And Setubal's rich landscape glows."
It would appear that at the present moment, at all events,
the fairy queen has made a discreet selection, Portugal
being as yet undisturbed by the war which is agitating
the greater portion of the European Continent.