The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-30 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, MARCEI 30, 1868.

ROMAN AFFAIRS.

(From the Roman Correspondent of the Westminster Ciazette)
ROME, March 21.

The ceremonials connected with the creation
of the new cardinals have overflowed into this
week. The public consistory was held on
Monday, in which the hats were conferred and
the titles assigned ; they are, I think, identical
with the list I sent you before with one error,
that instead of taking his title from the Pace,
Cardinal Bonaparte succeeds Cardinal Wise-
man at Sta. Pudenziana.

The telegrams will doubtless have super-
seded the necessity of sending you, now so
many days after, the names of the new bishops
and new dioceses appointed; it suffices to allude
to them to recall the fecundity of the present
pontificate in spreading and multiplying the
agency of the Church.
In the afternoon the new proporati met at
the Gesii, and, attended by an escort of dra-
goons, went in state to visit the shrine of the
apostles together. In the evening the hats
were carried round to each in state, serving-
men with torches walking by the side of the
carriage, and Mgr. Ricci, who-delivered them,
had to make an address at each presentation.
To do honour to its reception the grandest of
the three ricevirnenti is always that given on
this evening, and those of Monday were bril-
liant reunions, although the regulation of
attending in court dress made them less
crowded than when that restriction has not
existed. Those at the Spanish and French
Embassies were, from the fact of their being
at ambassadors' palaces, of course, the most
brilliant.. Sefior de Castro, who received for
Cardinal Moreno in his absence, displayed a
truly Castilian state. That Cardinal Bona-
parte's was held at the palace of the Emperor's
representation instead of at his own can only
be ascribed to his modest and retiring habits,
and his disinclination for the pomp his im-
perial cousin may have considered befitting the
occasion.

Some Italian papers have written silly things'
about the gold-coloured sand strewn before the
embassy, as if it had been ostentatiously done
as a presage of the exalted expectations in
that quarter, but though it is true gold-
coloured sand marks the line of the Pope's pro-
gress on all occasions of state, it is certainly
not confined to his use, and is frequently
thrown down for the commonest purposes, such
as when the streets are slippery, probably
because yellow sand is the easiest to obtain in
the neighbourhood. On the evening in ques-
tion, however, it was certainly not confined to
the Piazza of the Dodici Apostoli. I rather
think it was laid down at the localities of all
the ricevimenti to dull the sound of the car-
riages on the pavement, but I can, at all
events, testify to its being abundantly used at
the Propaganda, where Mgr. Capalti and
Gonella presided, as well as at the Spanish
Embassy.
The Times has, I see, drawn similiar infer-
ences from premises which warrant them no
more. The writer of its article on the Con-
sistory infers that because Cardinal Bonaparte
was created separately from the other cardi-
nals, he will, therefore, certainly succeed to the
Apostolic See. Without touching on the pro-
babilities of that idea, I may remark that it
has always. been the custom here, in con-
ferring the cardinalitial dignity on members
of a royal or imperial family, to make them
the subject of a distinct and 'special ceremony
of creation, generally at an interval of some
weeks, at least, from any other. I understand
that in the present instance the precedent was
departed from out of regard to the wishes of
the prelate in question, who shrank from the
special honour. So that though it was com-
muted into a separate repetition of the creative
formula, it was certainly not by any means an
extraordinary homage, but the contrary.
Perhaps here, while commenting on those
little inaccuracies in the correspondence of
other papers, I may be allowed to say a word
with reference to some comments on my own.
I have not seen the attack, but I am told
the Weekly Register had some weeks back an
angry remark because, at the time the Con-
sistory was first announced, I mentioned that
the name of the Archbishop of Westminster
was spoken of among those likely to be among
the new eminentissimi. Now, I know there
are correspondents who claim a sort of gift
of omniscience, and write as if they wanted
people to think they had private supernatural
intuitions as to the future, but I hold all
such pretension ridiculous, and consider it
one's province only to chronicle judiciously the
most probable of the countless statements
which are discussed in various circles around
one, and to cull from the multitude of reports
those likely to be interesting to one's readers.
competition, the name of the proxime
Aa:cesin any
sistis looked for with equal interest to that
of the winner; for there must be but the faintest
shade of difference between the ultimately de-
cided for, and the reluctantly decided against,
just so it seemed to me that readers at home
would find as much pleasure in finding those
they knew and revered among the latter as in
reading the bare names of comparatively
strangers among the former. The only ques-
tion as to the right to make the report had to
be decided by the weight of the authority
from which it was received, and I take this
opportunity, therefore, of affirming that, while
I am never very indiscriminate in the selec-
tion of proofs, I had the most excellent grounds
for what I said on this occasion.

To return to Cardinal Bonaparte. I would
not have it understood, by anything I have
said above, that I by any means mean to deny
that he is made the subject of more frequent
and more animated discussion just now than
any of his colleagues. It could not be other-
wise. The circumstances of his family and
position afford reasons for special interest and
curiosity. He has undoubtedly been received
very graciously in high quarters here. His
father's base ingratitude in gettinc, himself
made President of the Constituent Assembly
of 1849, and then proclaiming a Roman Re-
public and the abrogation of the Temporal
Power, has been put out of sight, and only
his own and his mother's virtues remembered ;
while individually he has not afforded oppor-
tunity for one unfavourable comment. Then in
person and in manner he is winning. When
he speaks he is dignified, without self-asser-
tion, and when he abstains from speaking it
seems to be from a certain sad, soft mistrust of
himself, which has a charm in one so high-
placed, and not from hauteur. He has the
fine massive forehead of the first Napoleon,
with a still greater likeness to the well-known
bust of young Augustus Caesar, while he de-
cidedly has the advantage over him in height.
In replying to Mgr. Ricci's address on Monday
night his words were felt to go beyond mere
set phrases. Though it was one of those occa..
sions of ceremony in which a man cannot help
feeling that what he has to say is so nearly
identical with what must have been said thou-
sands of times before ; that, while no formula
is prescribed, it is yet hardly possible to avoid
falling into a fortuitous one—the honour is
great—the Pope is good—the recipient is un-
worthy—he can but trust to the grace of God
to make him a not unfit representative of the
dicrnities of Holy Church, &c. ; yet it was felt
that there was a depth in his utterances which
deprived them of conventionality, and men
who have such expressions by heart, from hav-
ing to hear them often on such occasions
through the course of their lives, were inti-
mately touched by his earnestness. It seemed
as if the symbol of high rank only recalled to
him a perception of the end of all dignities,
and that as it was placed on the table before
him there came under his mind's eye a vision
of the day when by Roman custom that very
galerum mbrum would be laid on a sable bier,
surrounded as now by the rank of Rome, while
he himself, instead of standing erect to receive
it, would be laid low beneath the pall, and his
soul already gone to its account. In a tone
suggestive of some such impression he falter-
ingly expressed his desire that the Holy
Father's benediction might procure for him the
inestimable blessing of being ready for the

dread and final call whenever it might come,
so that this token of a dignity he had so little
merited might at least not hare to rest upon
the feretrum of a castaway.

liis language and his attitude have been
scarcely less the subject of disclssion than the
words with which the Pope accompanied the
conferring his cardinalitial berretta. Speaking
of the high dignity newly bestowed, and the
responsibilities it entailed in the influence ex-
ercised on other men, for good or evil, accord-
ing to the example set to those who wear it,
he would borrow, he said, a comparison from
a matter of modern industry. It was like a
train borne along the rails by steam power. If
there was an obstruction on the metals the
whole system was thrown °it of its course
with the most disastrous results. And then
he alluded to some who trotbled him thus
and it has been thought he meant to imply
that Cardinal d'Andrea is kept away from all
the cappellas and cardinalitial functions by
something more under his own control than
the indisposition he alleges as the impediment;
and to give the Emperor to tnderstand that
he was not likely to yield it the matter of
making a cardinal of a certain favourite, and
thus, perhaps, avoid further importunity in
the matter.

I was shown yesterday the Golden Rose
which the Pope will bless oa Sunday, the
fourth of Lent. As one was sent lately to the
Queen of Spain, that for this year is a new one,
as, though the ceremony is always performed
on Mid-Lent Sunday, it is not given away
every year. There have been four given by
the present Pope. One, made in the reign of
Gregory XVI., to Maria Pia, daughter of Victor
Emmanuel,' at her baptism in 1847. 'One in
1849 to the late Queen of Naples, Maria
Theresa, daughter of Archduke Charles of
Austria, on the occasion of the baptism of her
daughter, Maria delle Grazie Pia. The third
to the Empress of the French at the baptism
of the Prince Imperial ; and the fourth, this
year, to her Catholic Majesty.
That now about to be blessed represents
a flowering shrub, seventeen or eighteen inches
high, bearing on thorny stems many leaves, and
thirteen blossoms and buds. The rose which
surmounts the rest is made to open, and con-
tains scent inserted at the time of its bene-
diction. It is of twenty-two carat gold, and
the workmanship is good, but it is made after
a long-prevailing pattern of no very striking
merit. Its value is about £l,OOO.

The vase in which it will be inserted admits
of greater variety of design. For to-morrow's
ceremony it stands in one belonging perma-
nently to the Sacristy of St. Peter's ; but that
in which it will ultimately be placed, before
it is regalato, is designed by Vespiniani, and
will be a very beautiful piece of work ; the
stand will be adorned with lapis lazuli and
other precious pietre dure. The body of the
vase bears in relief two subjects treated with
great care and success—the Presentation of
our Lady in the Temple and the Birth of our
Lord.

It is a labour of time, and it may well be a
year before it is ready, though it may be longer
still before it is wanted for use.

The Golden. Rose has so long been associated
with Mid Lent '6unday that its origin can now
no longer be traced with certainty. Cartari,
who was keeper of the Apostolic archives about
two hundred years ago, busied himself and
exhausted the appropriate means at his com-
mand in the investigation in vain. But his
researches proved that many were in error who
had previously ascribed its first use to Innocent
IV., and he re-published at the time a sermon
of nnocent 111., in which he speaks of it as
an ancient observance even in his time—at the
end of the twelfth century. And Torregio, in
his " Grotte Vatican," traces the distinct re-
cord of it up to,„the year 1130. Lonigo, who
was Master of the Ceremonies in the Pontifical
chapel to Urban VIII., also took great pains
to investigate the matter, and the earliest record
he could discover of it was, that about 1050
Leo IX. having built a convent at Bamberg
(Bamberg at that time belonged to the Popes
and was subsequently exchanged for Bene-
vento), and conferred a great many privileges
mud cacmptlungs yr, thcr xrevark, rotre;x-cal of thorn
as a sort of tribute that they should provide a
golden rose every year, or gold enough from
which it might be made. There is no reason,
however, to imagine this to have been the
origin of the custom : it points rather to its
having been long in use. A MS. preserved
in the library of the Monastery of Sta. Croce
in Gerusalemme, gives a sermon preached
there 111., in 1216, on the
occasiony
oPopfbelesHon
singotrhiues goldeu
rose, in which
he clearly ascribes its origin to the date of S.
have
satisfactory
Gregorybeeu
offered,l I. t
hThough
appears manyuo conjecturesverjy
seem to have been
symbolical meaning
idtewrivasattioonooeuitvhoeyr. forlt the s
would
simply part of the general intention of Mid-
Lent Sunday—a break in the long and weary
fast. The glad words of the Introit gave
it its cheering title " Laetare," the Gospel re-
minding us of Christ's power to feed those who
call upon Him even in the wilderness, and the
Pope, in the procession to the great function of
the day, bore in his hand a golden rose as a token
of rejoicing. The custom of making it a congra-
tulatory present seems to have been an after
growth. It consisted thus 'at first of a single
rose in its stem with a spray of leaves. For
some centuries it was the custom always to
give it to the Prefect of Rome, who bore it in
his hand on certain occasions of State. He had
for a bearing on his coat of arms a golden rose
held in one of the claws of a crowned eagle ;
and in this it appears of one single flower.
The only exception was in the year of the Em-
peror's coronation, when it was reserved for
him. In process of time, however, the import-
ance and beauty of the design was increased,
and the sphere of its destination extended.
Thus, in the reign of Martin V., one is men-
tioned of the year 1417, in MSS. of the time,
consisting of one rose still, but with the addi-
tion of a greater number of leaves ; and another
year the gift of one to the city of Florence is
recorded, which consisted of nine flowers with
sparkling sapphires for stamens, and within
the blossom balsam and myrrh contained in a
cunningly enclosed receptacle. Sixtus IV.
made a singular variation, on one occasion, at
least, by substituting for the rose a sprig of
oak. His name was della Rovere, and a sprig
of oak his armorial bearing. Under Calistus
111., that of the year 1456 had only one flower,
and it was ornamented with twelve pearls.
From the time of Alexander VI., however, it
was always of more or less ornamental design ;
those of his reign would seem to have been
more elaborate than those of any of his prede-
cessors, as might be expected from the splen-
dour of his habits. In a little church here,
called Sta. Lucia del Gonfalone, there is a
picture in which Clement VII. is represented
kneeling. before an image of our Lady, and by
his side is the golden rose of the year 1526.
It is an oval vase resting on three lions'
claws, and from the stem sprout ten roses.
It was when the Papal Court was removed
to Avignon that it ceased to be reserved for
the Emperors and the Prefects of Rome. At
Avignon it was given to the most worthy prince
who happened to be present at Court on the
fourth Sunday in Lent. On the return of the
Popes to Rome this custom was continued, and
when there happened to be no one worthy of
it in residence, it was sent, as at present, with
some ceremony, to some one at a distance on
whom the Pops and Cardinals decided to ad-
judge it.
There were, however, some few early ex-
ceptions to the rule of reserving it for the Pre-
fects of Rome. Thus Urban 11., after the
Council of Tours in 1096, in which the first
crusade was deliberated, presented Fulke,
Count of Angers, with the golden rose which
he had borne in procession from the church of
St. Maurice to that of St. Martha in that city,
where he had been labouring to stir the people
up to take the cross.
Again, Alexander 111. being in Paris on
Laetare-Sunday, 1163, gave it to Louis VII.,
who is consequently represented on all his seals
with a flower in his hand ; and Menestrier•

writing on the subject of the Royal Army of
France, says :—" It is not impossible that it
was from this circumstance that the King
adopted a banner powdered with flowers ; for
the name of rose is typical of all flowers ; the
lily was called by the ancients the rose of
Juno, and I have seen the so-called golden rose
of the Pope's bearing a form quite unlike that
of a common rose, so that what Alexander
gave to Louis the Young may very well have
been that of the iris or present fleur-de-luce
of France, and the Pope himself simply calls it
florem aurenm.' " In 1177 the same Pope,
having appointed to meet and conclude terms
of peace with Frederic I. at Venice, had occa-
sion thus to spend LaetareSunday of 1177 in
that city. He performed the rite of blessing
the golden rose in St. Mark's, and presented
it afterwards to the Doge, Sessano Ziani. It
was preserved in the treasury of St. Mark's,
with others subsequently received. Several
perished in a fire. That which one now secs
there is of much later date.

Henry VIII. of England received three, the
first from Julius 11., the second from Leo X.,
and the third, in 1524, from Clement VII.
Paul 111. gave it to Queen Mary. After this
time it would seem to have been more often
given to women than previously. Urban
VIII. sent it to Henrietta Maria, Queen of
Charles I.

The following is the form of conferring it
on those to whom, on account of their absence
from Rome, it has to be sent by proxy :
" Receive this rose from our hand, who con-
sign it to thee under special commission, given
us for this purpose by our Most Holy Father
in Christ and Lord Pius IX., Pope by the pro-
vidence of God. It symbolizes to thee the joy
of both the Jerusalems, that is the Church tri-
umphant and the Church 'militant, for which
reason this flower is seen to be beautiful by
all faithful Christian men, for it is the joy and
the crown of the saints. Receive it, beloved
daughter, who art, according to the measure of
this world, powerful and noble, and adorned
with many virtues, but that these be rather
ennobled by every virtue in Christ, like unto
a rose planted beside a fountain of running
water. The Lord grant thee of His overflowing
mercy, who. is Three and One, world without
end. Amen."

The allusion made to the typical Jerusalem
arose from the ceremony of the Pope bearing
the rose in the public office of the Church,
being in early times performed at the Basilica
of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme, in Rome. The
present custom of blessing it within the Palace,
as well as that of celebrating many other
sacred functions in the Chapel, of the Apos-
tolic Palace, arises from the sojourn of the
Holy See at Avignon.
St. Sisto, one of the stational churches this
week, is remarkable for being that where St.
Dominic commenced his labours of preaching,
whence his order derived its subsidiary title,
and where he instituted the devotion of the
Rosary ; also, as the resting-place of no less
than seven canonized Popes—St. Sixtus,
Secundus, Felix, Zephirinus, Auterus, Lucius,
and Lucianus.
A curious tradition attaches to another
church, to which the station is assigned on
the same day—SS. Nereo e Achilleo : that
at the spot on which it stands a linen bandage,
which SS. Processus and Martinianno, the
gaolers, had bound round St. Peter's leg to
ease the galling from his chains, which, on the
occasion of his escape with St. Paul from the
Mamertine prisons, fell off in the haste with
which they journeyed, whence there attached
to it the title del fasciola.
Yesterday it was at St. Lorenzo in Lucina,
one of the occasions on which Guido's magni-
ficent crucifixion is uncovered, recalling the
good service rendered by the Zouaves in rescu-
ing it from a fire which threatened the church
some months ago.
The English Zouaves have just borne off
another peaceful victory in the cricket-field.
A short match between them and the English
residents came off on Thursday, in which they
carried the day, though their two best players
were laid up with Roman fever. A wet after.
noon again thinned the number of lookers-on,
hub many Irraircd th© rain to show their interest
in Zouave sports, and among them their colonel
and lieutenant-colonel.

There is some talk of forming three camps
for practising the army in campaigning ; the
last formed battalion of Zouaves is diligently
exercising in manoeuvres preparatory for a
promised field-day. The artillery, which has
as yet had the least work, is practised every
day at Tor di Valle, a little way out of Rome.
The Hungarian cavalry are expected by the
end of the month. They will wear a kind
of Hussar uniform, preserving their national
characteristics ; at least so it is said by those
who from their position ought to know ; but I
believe all preliminary difficulties have not
yet been arranged. I have not heard it said
so, but I should 'imagine a subordinate one
might arise from the fact of the National Hun-
garian colours being the same as the Italian.
For though arranged in different order (green,
white, and red, instead of red, white, and
green), to a casual observer they would look
i
much like it. It s a matter which would
certainly attract notice here, because the young
Italianissimi
i affect to wear their badge, dis-
played even n the arrangement ofl their shirts
and neckties. On the other hand, many of
the Papalini have lately shown their contempt
for such petty distinctions by themselves
adopting red or green scarfs, indiscriminately
so—the flag of the Hungarian horsemen might
be treated in the same light.
The Canadian Contingent was received in a
special audience by the Pope on Monday.
St. Joseph's Day, a festa of obligation here,
and which has sometimes been made the occa-
sion of a demonstration, being the nameday
of Garibaldi and Mazzini, passed very quietly.
The lesson of Mentana is felt still. It is
very commonly believed—l do not know on
what foundation, however—that Garibaldi
came into Rome in the disguise of a monk a
week before, with the double view of getting
up a demonstration, in which he failed, and of
taking a survey of the fortifications in pro-
gress.
The Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture
in the little gallery opposite Sta. Maria del
Popolo, is again open this year. An exhibi-
tion on the paying principle, however, does not
seem to find favour in a city of studios all
thrown open to the free entrance of the appre-
ciative, so that the exhibitors are few and the
greatest geniuses are not represented. It is
impossible not to be struck with the liberality,
not only of this arrangement, but of the tone
with which visitors are received in them. I
have often wondered how artists in great re-
quest, to whom every moment of daylight is,
to use a Hibernianism, worth its weight in gold
—will get leave of their easel or estrade to
welcome and attend to the inquiries of quite
unimportant people, and who do not look at
all likely to be patrons of art. But the in-
terest to be derived from such a visit where
the favourite works .of the artist are placed in
their truest light, and his own glowing words
tell of some incident which moulded or modi-
fied their conception, is of an altogether higher
order than that which any promiscuous col-
lection of competitive canvases can afford. At
the same time the Exhibition to which I allude
has many meritorious works well worth the
small entrance fee demanded. And in the first
place, to the English mind, in which the very
word exhibition calls up a recollection of long
days of weariness and bewilderment spent
within certain crowded precincts in Pall Mall
and Trafalgar-square, the sight of a dimly-
lighted room which only demands your atten-
tion to serve twenty or thirty pieces of sculp-
ture, and from which you pass through a
prettily planted cortile to another sale, where
a scarcely larger number of pictures have to
be scrutinized—conveys a positive sense of
repose and induces an indulgent tone of judg-
ment.

The centre of the sculpture room is occupied
by an imposing baldachino for Boulogne Cathe-
dral—the third, I believe, which has been
ordered here by different individuals for the

same destination. It contains a variety of
beautiful stones, from the hardest granite to
the softest alabaster. Grifoni has a subject
which has been often treated before, but never
with greater grace and tenderness un, primo
dolore—a young boy mourning the death of
his pet bird. Guglielmi has a grand marble
candelabrum, or unconventional design,
adapted for a banqueting hall, of Italian
architecture. Fusio sends a very sweet head
of our Lady, chiselled out of one of the most
exquisitely pure and translucent blocks of
marble that earth perhaps ever produced.
Tabbi has a nymph, whose coiffure might, in
its simple loveliness, wean any who care for
their appearance from the hideous top-knots
which have of late been climbing higher and
higher up ladies' heads. As a composition,
however, the whole figure is weak and want-
ing in originality. Baratta, of Modena, sends
,his colossal heads of Judith and Holofernes,
showing, especially the latter, great power of
conception; and Majoli, of Ravenna, a cha-
racteristic bust of Bernini ; a Florentine artist,
whose name I forget, has a very neat statuette
of a Roman peasant in the dress of the Cam-
pagna. The most striking piece in the collec-
tion, however, is undoubtedly Bizzi's Idle Boy.
The hair, rough and shaggy as the pillow made
it, falls over his half-opened drowsy eyes, and
the whole face is distorted, but not unpleasantly,
in the drollest and most natural of yawns.
Every muscle of the little fellow's frame is
contorted in a luxurious stretch, and the shirt
which he shrinks from putting on, as the token
that his pleasant sleep is over for that day, is
twisted into a hundred folds over his head. It
is a grotesque fancy, executed with so much
truth and vigour, that it forms a pleasing spe-
cimen of originality, out of the usual line of
subjects from the regions of religion, mytho-
logy, history, and romance.

In the Painting the English eye at once
notices, though pretty well trained to it by
residence of any time in Rome, the absence of
perseverance in water colour. There are not
half-a-dozen specimens here, and the author of
two, at least, is a German. These are heads
of the inevitable Stella and Giovannina, whose
oft-repeated portraits are so familiar as almost
to tire one of their exceeding beauty; the only
thing original in the treatment of these is the
introduction of an almost gold-coloured back-
ground, which suits them remarkably well.
Bisco sends several excellent studies of lions
dal vero, and Pio Jorio has one sketch, a charm-
ing bit of woodland scenery, with a foreground
figure, showing that if Romans wotild lay aside
their disdain for water colour, they need have
no fear of excelling. Desimoni exhibits a
marvellous work of patience and dexterity, a
head of St. Peter behind a labyrinth of lace-
work tracing, all executed with the pen, one
of those tours de force, which in their patient
and toilful elaboration never fail to raise a
feeling of mournful interest in the producer.
The collection is contributed to by almost
as many nationalities as there are pictures, and
affords another token that in art, as in religion,
Rome has gathered all men unto her. Broth-
coff, a Russian, sends a very ambitious picture,
which, though not equal to itself throughout,
has some very pleasing sunny effects, and most
interesting suggestions, of the interior life of
Romans of the time of Horace ; also a very
delicately conceived Adelgisa, a less successful
attempt at the burlesque in the depiction of an
ancient Parisian beau, whose poodle, however,
is inimitable. Rausch, a Swiss, has a clever
little Lenten episode, peasants kneeling before
the Grand Penitentiary. Mats, a Belgian by
descent, but long Romanized, has an evening
view of the lake of Albano with the shades of
night already fallen on the foreground shrubs,
and the sun's last glow yet lingering on the
fleecy clouds round the horizon, and shedding
a pale gilding over the enamelled sky. Rocio,
a Neapolitan' also sends a clever land and water
piece, and of Romans proper, the palm must be
given to Guiseppe Toeschi, whose Pasquino is
grouped in masterly style, and tells its story
perfectly. Berzzari and Sartori also deserve
" honourable mention," as well as a lady artist,
Virginia Mariani, who gives IA the interior of
a Roman cottage. Cherubini has two clever
pieces, the one showing the every day gear of
the Roman peasants' dining-table, the other
displaying with great perfection the plumage
of some of the birds of the Campagna, the
pizzardone, pica cardinals, and tarabuso.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

,
(From the Anglo-American Times.)
PARIS, March 26.

At a period when the opening of the Great
National Maritime Exposition at Havre is so near,
which will afford not only a new field of instruc-
tion with regard to the sea and all that therein is,
but furnish new bases of progress in respect to all
matters directly or indirectly appertaining thereto,
it may not be irrelevant to speak of a company
which is now organizing in France with a view
to develop its fisheries in the' Northern Seas, which
will probably exert a beneficial influence not
only in regard to the industrial resources of
France, but upon the commercial interests of the
Continent at large. The special operations of the
company will consist in fishing for and commerce
in cod, herrings, &c., the purchase, preparation, and
sale of the roe, which forms so important an element
in the Sardine Fisheries as a bait ; the preparation
and sale of the various fish oils used in medicine by
tanners and others ; the fabrication and importa-
tion of guano prepared from fish and the offal of
fish ; the exportation of salt to the great fisheries ;
and, in short, the treatment of all commercial ope-
rations relating to fisheries conducted upon a grand
scale. Amongst the inducements which have given
rise to this undertaking are the following :—The
fact that since the loss by France of her North
American Colonies her fisheries have declined in
importance, and her commerce, industry, and agri-
culture are tributary to foreign fisheries for the
supply of articles of the last importance and of uni-
versal consumption—a state of affairs requiring
remedy ; whilst the fact that, even under present
circumstances, employment is afforded to no less
than 500 ships and 20,000 sailors, offers itself as a
base for more extended• operations, in proof of
which are found the facts that, whilst the Sardine
fisheries on the coasts of Bretagne and La Vend&
afford employment to 10,000 seamen, France is
tributary to Norway for the supply of roe used as
bait, and pays in this manner a sum of no less
than two millions of francs per year. In like
manner the French fisheries supply a very trifling
proportion of the oils required for the medicinal and
tanning purposes, whilst the increasing developments
and requirements of her agriculture render France
dependent upon the foreigner for the fish offal as a
manure, which the extension of her own fisheries
would more than sufficiently supply. The com-
merce of salt, by no means in a flourishing condi-
tion, would also receive an impetus, whilst the ex-
tended supply and lowered price of salt fish as an
article of food would afford material benefits to a
population rapidly increasing in presence of high-
priced provisions. Without entering into the more
immediate details and explanations given in the
prospectus of the proposed working of the com-
pany, I think sufficient reasons have been adduced
by them to show that their object is one not only
patriotic, but likely to be eminently useful to com-
merce, and if well conducted to prove a remune-
rative speculation to those who engage in it.
The names of the directors at present given, and
which are all rAen of note and high standing in
France,afford a prima facie guarantee for further
examination, and although it at present comprises
French names only, I believe the company will
only have to make known its existence, objects,
and plan of action to find the list considerably re-
inforced, especially from England, so noted for
commercial enterprise, and between which nation
and France each day shows the necessity of and
brings about a closer alliance. The Government
itself has this week distinguished itself in the cause
of humanity by voting a credit of two 'billion of
francs for the suffering inhabitants of Algeria.
Tee Titres de la Dynastic Napolienne have been
attacked in all directions during the past
week by the Opposition journals. lam by no
means a blind partisan of the Government,