The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-02 00:00:00

EXUHANGE.

Gibraltar" .......... ....
Leghorn •••••• •••••• 11 31
Geaoa•••••••••••••••• 1115 40
Milan .. --

Venice" •• •• •• ••••
Naples •• •• •• •• .• .• •• 40%
Palermo, perm. .• .• •• 121
Messina •• •••• •• •... •• 121%
Lisbon•• •• •• .• •• •• •• •• 63%
0p0rt0."... •• •... •• 53 4
Rio Janeiro • • ...... ••

Buenos Ayres .. ••.. • •
New York, 21 daysisight
Philadelphia .... • • ....
?RICE'S OP BI7LLION, PSI OS.
Foreign Gold labors.. 43 17 9
Portugal Gold Coin .. 0 0 0
!Spanish Doubloons .. 0 0 0
New Dollars 0 4 101,E
Silver fa bar...

.. 0 4 10;

PARIS AND ROUEN ItAILWAY.—It is proposed, at
the next meeting of the proprietors, to introduce modifi-
-0 itions in the statutes relative to the regulations of the
siuking fund.

MAGAZINES, &c.—(CONTINUED.)
BENTLEY'S iILISCELLANY.
The new y ear's number of Bentley opens with five
fresh chapters of .I\ilr. Itob;q1 Bede:, excellent, racy,
and thercu7hly E glesi2 eery, " v h La:-!elLr of GA."
As a describer of 32,Clitry ti - excellences of ilir.
Robert Bell have been long hi-.own sn..l opp:related:
In his " Wayside Pictures" he has shown himself the
Gaspar of the pen, and the following extinct frotn
" The Ladder of Gold," shows that he can also rival
the Dutch painters in their own peculiar excellences.
It is a perfect cabinet picture 1--
" Mrs. McStiurl was remarkably small in stature,
quick and terse of speech, with a sharp Scotch accent,
painfully neat iu her household, and perfect mistress of
the secrets of domestic economy, which appeared to
constitute the principal business of her life. Her cot-
tage stood in its own garden, through which a gravel-
walk, closely boxed at each side, and buttoned up at
top and bottom with vases of stone crop, that drooped
out over the edges in the same pattern, as if they bed
grown to order, went straight from the little gate to the
door. You could see, in a moment, that a careful
hand presided over the place. Trees were dropped
exactly opposite to each other; every shrub on the left
had its counterpart on the right; the door-step was as
white as a cambric handkerchief; the creepers on the
front of the house betrayed no vagrant luxuriance, every
tendril clung close to the wall, and was nailed accu-
rately to the very tip, so that not a solitary bud escaped
into the air; and the interior was a model of precision,
from the hell mat, that looked so dry and crisp, to the
little dimity curtains in the attic window, that pierc,d
the centre of the blue slates, and had as prim an aspect
as if they were starched to the glass. Even in the
winter-lime, notwithstanding the snow which mottled
the ground, Bermuda Cottage, for such it was called, bud
a gay and bright exterior."
There are two illustrations to the " Ladder of Gold"
this month. The " Note Book of a Coroner's Clerk"
is continued, and is as full of power as ever. Sylva-
nus gives us much amusing gossip on sport and
sporting men in his " Bye Lanes and Downs of
England ;" and Alfred Crowquill some gossip quite
as amusing about the City of London. He has also
contributed three beautiful lyrics, one of which " The
Snap Dragon's Song" will, we opine, be the regular carol
to be sung in every household on the introduction of
snap dragon, during the present and every future
Christmas. " The Big Bear of Arkansas" is an
admirable American drollery by T. B. Thorpe, of
Louisiana, and is extracted from " The Library of
American Humorous Writers." We hope the editor of
Bentley will ever and anon favour us with more
extracts from this most amusing library. The present
number of Bentley contains a variety of other excel-
lent papers, and is as amusing a fireside companion
as any one could desire.

ELIZA COOKS JOURNAL.

Having advanced into a second volume, the fair

editress of this popular publication evinces yet more
and more her capacity to cater to the literary appetites
of the multitude, and in doing so she consults invari-
ably their improvement as well as their happiness. Her
contributors have manifestly imbibed from her genius
that genial and elevating spirit which directs its every
energy to the assuagement of the spasms of
prejudice and the dissipation of the blindness of
ignorance. Almost every article in the two
last numbers published, Numbers VII. and VIII., for
November and December, is marked by that twofold
aspiration. The pervading merit of the Journal is
that of intelligence, its most conspicuous charm that
of a bewitching and ameliorative benevolence. Prose
and poetry, tale and essay, serial and paragraph, are
all alike characterized by a desire to better the
heart as well as to develope the intellect of the reader.
The cause of the whole periodical is the cause of
social advancement. The text upon which it
enlarges hebdomadally is comprised in a single
word—humanity. It is that which peculiarly
imparts to Eliza Cook's Journal its easily
recognised and universally understood attrac-
tion. Seven or eight lyrical effusions from the
hand of Eliza Cook herself are all invested with this
pre-eminent excellence. Their chiming stanzas can-
not be perused without that exquisite sensa-
i lion, half physical, half intellectual, which
is the inevitable delight resulting from sounds
"most musical." Her hand in touching the chord of
her lyre causes one or other of the chords of our
heart to vibrate with it in unison—as the resonance
of any particular note of the human voice in
a room where there is a harp, a piano, or
any stringed instrument, causes the corre-
sponding wire of that instrument to thrill with
a sympathetic vibration. So with the authoress of
" Melaia," and the editress of this popular Journal—
her voice can wake an answer in any heart not ossi-
fied by selfishness. And her recent efforts as a song-
stress have in one or two instances fully equalled any
of her earlier ventures into the aerial realms of
imagination. This circumstance of itself would be
sufficient to secure the popularity of the publication
now under review, even it it chanced to be other-
wise undeserving of public patronage. Such, how-
ever, is assuredly not the case with Eliza Cook's
Journal a miscellany conducted with an
seamy commensurate, in a great measuir,
with the entrepreneur's reputation. Aware that in
similar melange's of literature the principal advan-
tage is that of an agreeable variety, the contents of
the weekly magazine before us are blended with an
eye to contrast and piquancy ; from which
attention to the general arrangement it happens
that, while resembling each other in intention,
every number differs from its predecessor in having
some peculiar and distinguishing characteristic.
The last part issued for the month of December
is, perhaps, of all the eight yet published, the
gentlest, wisest, best. As a propitious augury, then,
we regard it—an augury promising good fortune to
the periodical—and with this conviction we close our
allusions to the journal, wishing Eliza Cook a happy
new year for herself and a God-speed for her en-
terprise.

THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL
By the Rev. Messrs. Conybeare and Howson.

Part I.
A novel and beautiful idea is here being carried
out under the joint superintendence of
,the gentlemen
above. mentioned. With the assistance of the geo-
graphic knowledge of the latter, the biblical scholar-
ship of the former, and the general intelligence of both
combined, we shall have acquired, on the completion
of the present serial, an ample biography of perhaps
the greatest and noblest man that ever trod the globe.
The romantic history, the extraordinary vicissitudes,
the miraculous conversion, the burning and matchless
eloquence of Saul of Tarsus, will invest his
memory, even when viewing him in his merely
human and uninspired capacity, with a glory of pecu-
liar and absorbing fascination. Hence, for a multi-
tude of reasons, it will be with particular interest
that we shall watch the development of a design so
elevated and bewitching as the one here commenced.
This being only the initial number, the text is, of
course, little more than purely introductory ; and the
opening engravings are restricted to a representation
of Damascus, another of Ephesus, and a vignette
illustrative of Tarsus. With the aid of the
brilliant and truthful pencil of W. H. Bartlett, the
work cannot fail to be superbly embellished
throughout.

THE NAUTICAL MAGAZINE.
In the current number of this useful and favourite
organ of the naval profession- will be found, as usual,
a variety of contributions of indisputable value and
excellence. Prom its pages we extract the following
interesting announcement : '

"` PERPETUAL LOG FOR SHIPS.
"Another valuable contribution to a ship's furniture
has been matte by the Rev. E. Berthoun of Fareham, in
the shape of a perpetual log, which is likely to become
not only a favourite, but will hereafter be considered
almost an essential to her safety. Ws propose in an
early number to describe it, at present it being before
the Royal Society. Unlike Massey's or Walker's it has
no machinery to get out of order, or require repair, and
being (with the exception of about three inches) all
inside of tb a ship, is free from any external accident.
It consists of a small tube in which the pressure of the
water occasioned by the way of the ship, acting on a
column of mercury, indicates the velocity of sailing.
The index, which very much resembles in size and ap-
pearance a common thermometer, may be fitted to hang
in the captain's cabin, or in any other part of the ship,
being at once ornamental and useful. We understand it
is being at present fitted in 11. M. S. Dauntless, and we
fully anticipate every ship afloat being hereafter sup-
plied with it. It not only indicates the velocity, but
also the lee-way should the vessel be sailing by the
wind; and is highly creditable both to the judgment and
good taste of the inventor."
Other papers will be found in the number for
January of the Nautical Magazine eminently de-
serving perusal.

ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. Illus

trated Edition.

Vol. X.

Another volume of this library edition brings the
narrative down to a period fraught with a solemn and
affecting interest—almobt every incident recounted by
the annaliat containing in truth a dismal presage of the
imperial disasters. Appropriately enough the volume
which reveals the Emperor in his loftiest pomp and
most gigantic dominion is embellished with a portrait
of the great captain, copied from a bust in the posses-
sion of the historian. Unfortunately, however, the
likeness is the least felicitous of any yet published in
this illustrated edition, conveying in no respect an
adequate notion of the beauty and majesty
combined in the classic features of Napoleon.
It is the least fortunate engraving amongst
those forming a gallery of portraits to Alison, and,is
the mare to be regretted seeing that there are so
many glorious paintings from which a more grateful
and more agreeable representation of the Emperor
Napoleon might have been given without difficulty.
Th ,e noble Atlas, by Alexander Keith Johnstone, brings
thft series of maps and charts down to the ever
emorable victories gained by the " Little Corporal"
Lutzen And Bautzen. The circumstance calls at

once to our recollection the account given:oy: Alison
of the death of Duroc on the latter occasion,
.oue of the most touching and beautifully descriptive
p.:ssages in the language. It was at that particular
epoch thgt the inext-in.uttihle rotonrccs ci the genius of
Emperor Nap:de.on ban to be re.vJaled in a more
remarkz,b!e [claimer than at, tiny anterior porti,.,n of his
extraordinary career, :.Ind hence it is that the naiva -
Live now in course of republication—a narrative at all
times clothed, as it were, with an atmosphere of
fascination—assumes again, -as on the first perusal, is
supreme and enthralling interest.