The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-15 00:00:00

MADAME CATALAN'.

A notice of Catalani will always interest the pre-
sent generation in England. Mrs. Trollope, in her
" Visit to Italy," has the following :
" Instead of going as usual to the Casina after
dinner yesterday, I was taken a mile or two out of
Florence to pay a visit from which I promised myself
great pleasure, and received more. I went to see
Europe's whilom wonder and delight, Madame Catalan i
Valabrique. She is residing in a very beautiful villa
which stands in the midst of an extensive podere, of
which she is the owner. Nothing could be more amiable
than the reception she gave us. I think of all the
nations who joined in the universal chorus in praise of
her high character, her charming qualities, and her un-
equalled talent, she loves the English best . . . per-
haps they best understand her worth, and the rare
superiority of a mind that, in the midst of flattery
and adulation, which really seem to have known no
limits, preserved all its simple purity and goodness
unscathed. I was equally surprised and pleased to
see to what an extraordinary degree she had preserves
her beauty. Her eyes and teeth are still magnificent;
and I am told that, when seen in evening full dress
by candlelight, no stranger can see her for the
first time without inquiring who that charming-
looking woman is. A multitude of well-behaved
mm
.eyn
tfidres
st
rintroduction,
e I felt
once
i from
reasons would have prevented me, especially at this
re t onhamearintghetnhoetevseorty.
a vveohice-e,
that had so often enchanted me. Perhaps if I had
not seen her looking so marvellously young and hand-
some, the idea might neither have seized upon nor
tormented me so strongly as it did; but, as it was, I
certainly never longed more, perhaps never
so much,
to hear her sing as I now did. Her charming
daughter, Madame de V—, was sitting near me ;
and I think I ventured to ask her if her mother
ever sang now. To which she most gaily and
promptly answered in the affirmative • and
then . . . what happened next I hardly know. lam .4
afraid that I must have said something about my
secret longings . . . for the daughter whispered to
the mother a few words, and in a moment Madame
Catalani was at the piano. . . . No, in her very
best days she never smiled a sweeter smile than she
did then, as she prepared to comply with the half
expressed wishes of a stranger, who had no claim
upon her kindness but that of being an Englishwoman.
I know not what it was she sang ; but scarcely had
she permitted her voice to swell into one of those
bravura passages of which her execution was very
peculiar, and sp perfectly unequalled, than I felt as if
some magical !process was being performed upon me
which took me back again to something . . . . IL
know not what to call it . . . . which I had neither
heard nor felt for nearly twenty years. Involuntarily,
unconsciously, my eyes filled with tears, and I felt as
much embarassed as a young lady of fifteen might
do, who suddenly found herself in the act of betray-
ing emotions which she was very far indeed from
wishing to display."

PUBLIC EDUCATION IN NAPLES.

(From the Foreign Quarterly Review.)
Whatever travellers may have found to extol in
Naples, all agree in placing it about the last in the
list of all the lands of Christendom, as far as public
education is concerned. Even Dr. Mayer has but
little to say on this score in favour of his Neapolitans,
who, he admits, are the most ignorant of all the Ita-
lians. For the humbler classes there are no means of
education whatever, and the clergy, unable to judge
of the value of instruction from personal experience,
boldly declare mental cultivation mischievous to the
poor. Those in easy circumstances are but little bet-
ter instructed. Their education is in a great measure
confined to the enforcement of a certain set of reli-
gious observances ; to the acquisition of a few agree-
able accomplishments, such as music and verse-making;
and to an outward polish of manners. So long as all
colleges and schools, public and private, are under the
control of a Giunta dell' Istruzione Publica, composed
almost exclusively of Neapolitan clergyman, an im-
provement of the system is hardly to be hoped for.
There are in Naples probably from ninety to one
hundred thousand boys and girls between the ages of
five and eighteen. Of these, from four to five thou-
sand are supposed to receive some sort of instruction.
In the provinces the proportions are even less favour-
able. Two thousand girls, Galanti calculates, visit
some school or other; but of these two thousand, less
than a fifth, he says, are even taught to read ; their
teachers, in many cases, being themselves unequal to
the task of imparting this elementary branch of in-
struction. The children, in fact, are sent to school,
merely to be out of their parents' way ; and if they
learn to knit and sew, it is generally as much as is
expected.
There is in the whole kingdom of Naples but one
school which even professes to prepare young men for
the university ; and this school, the Real Liceo del
Salvatore, contains about one hundred and fifty pupils.
The demands made upon a Neapolitan scholar are,
however, extremely moderate. Greek is taught only,
nominally, and is not thought requisite even in a cler-
gyman. In Latin the students acquire great fluenv ;
a circumstance not be wondered at when the affinity .
between the two languages is taken into account.
Mathematics are also taught at the Lyceum with much
success. History is in a most deplorable position,
being made entirely subservient to theology. The
Neapolitan colleges are, for the most part, academics
attached to monasteries, and superintended by monks.
The Collegio di San Sebastiano, conducted by the
Jesuits, enjoys by far the best name. It contains
usually about five hundred pupils, and has a reputa-
tion for mathematics even beyond that of the Liceo..
The lyceums and colleges of the provincial towns
have rarely any existence but in the State calendar ;
inquire after one of them, and you seldom find any-
thing but a mere elementary school.
The University of Naples was founded by Frede-
rick 11., in 1224. To this university fifty-two pro-
fessors are attached ; six for theology, fourteen for
physical and mathematical science, sixteen for medi-
cine, eight for jurisprudence, and eight for philosophy
and literature. The small number of theological
professorships is easily accounted for by the fact that
the young men for the church are mostly educated at
the archiepiscopal seminary, or Seminario Urbano.
Theology, however, is wretchedly taught at both in-
stitutions. The teachers are watched with the most
anxious vigilance ; are obliged to confine themselves
to a mast rigid line of orthodoxy ; and have no op-
portunity of varying their lectures, except by an oc-
casional invective against heretics, or a humourous ac-
count of certain imaginary tenets which they fancifully
ascribe to the barbarous Protestants of the north. The
mathematical and physical sciences are sufficiently
well taught. The same remark will apply to medi-
cine ; the various hospitals and charitable institutions
forming excellent schools for the students. One abo-
minable abuse, however, prevails ; that, namely, of
granting medical diplomas to ignorant monks, who
have indeed to undergo an examination, but a much
less rigid one than the lay students. History, philo-
logy, and philosophy are in a melancholy condition.
There is a Hebrew professor attached to the univer-
sity ; and this man, anxious to have at least one pupil,
issaid for several years to have had a poor priest to at-
tend his class. The fact is that a clergyman suspected
of reading the Scriptures either in Greek or Hebrew,
is looked upon with great jealousy, and his orthodoxy
is held to be none of the soundest.
tion to every kind of study. Thurshdad.stiisva.l
happen
The number of holidays are alone a said. ianhteorlriduapy-
in all Italian schools, unless a church
at Easter, and one of four months in a
blie education,
• the 4th of July. However,. pu
tope trinsi-
nmg on
which is aboutn L.
in the week. Then there is a vacationuotfutihnrne,eb:'geeink!
such as it is, costs nothing,
iwho
daily. This lesson,
Thise lessonpu lasts half an hour, an&
choose to come.
held by the professor ;
value. Each professor Is
bilocunadndtofrgieev
consists usually of aetoalllessis,
discourseith decorous silence, but
the students listening
conclusion of the lecture, the
At the
.remarks.hands knocking
with clapping theiror
students appall canes. The f
theirlectures, besides
without attempting to take any note of
pthreoirestesoacrshearr'se
with their books
,or d
t.
(about
for
id. ifty uca t ten guineas)
et,
oofekcoeurosuei
r f three or four hu ded d •n r
Upon such an income, a trifling salary o. d ucati. Few
awryetecahredphreypa
receive
a or their
hay, more than six hun red ducati in 11 f •
public They are •
their means by giving private lessons, and ' those
private lessons it is that the students '
receive the little
instruction that falls to their share. The university
t hevcansenrovticseusb. sisUt.po
is attended nominally by twelve or fifteen hundred
students ; but professors and students are both equally
irregular in their
attendance, and nothing like an
effective control is - ever attemptea. When the student
comes to take his degree, the cfnl.)-- point rigidly in-
sisted on is a certificate attendance at
of re
church. On this subject of educatiorr we need only
add, that a military and a naval school ex ist at Naples,
but are entitled in their way to very 11;ttle higher
praise than the Universita or the Liceo.

(plot held
on Tuesday, before Mr. Higgs,
CAUSE OF SUDDEN DEATH.-AC an in
Deputy Coroncr for
Westminster, on the body of a lady who died
very sudden manner, the Coroner, in alluding to the
cause of sudden death, said that in all his experienoo
of Coroner for the last twenty-three years, he never
recollected holding an inquest on a medical man who,
died suddenly, and had but rarely heard of any one
dying in a sudden manner. This he thought arose
from their knowing the value of aperient medicines,
and, by taking them regularly, keeping the body in
a proper state. A juror said that in some cases of
sudden death a verdict of " Died by the visitation of
God,' was returned, whilst in others " Natural death"
was recorded ; he should like to know what difference
there was between them. The Coroner said, very
little; but he thought that in all cases where death
was very sudden, without any previous illness, "Died
by the visitation of God" was the most proper verdict
to be returned.

.
SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FRO3I THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
POST.—The intelligence from Canada, re-
ceived by the Great Western, will excite very
general surprise in this country. It announces
the conclusion of what may not improperly be
called a treaty of peace between the Governor-
General, Sir C. Begot, and the leaders of the
various parties in the- local legislation opposed to
his Government. In virtue of this treaty Mr.
Lafontaine, a French Canadian, of -considerable
indigence among his own section of the people,
az-quires the office of Attorney-General of Ca-
riada East, with a seat in the Legislative Coun-
cil; Mr. Baldwin, who is said to represent the
Retbrmers of Canada West, acquires the office of
Attorney-General of that division of the colony,
also with a seat in the Council ; and other offi-
cial changes of minor importance take place,
indicating, upon the whole, the possession
of considerable political influence in the coali-
tion of parties, by which the terms of the
treaty seem to have been imposed upon the
Governor-General. In the present state of our
infqrmation, we abstain from offering any opinion
P.el to the wisdom of this arrangement. It may
have been indispensible to the carrying on of the
Government under the new Constitution; but the
general impression it will create in this country
will be of an unsatistlictory character, inasmuch
as it must be regarded as a triumph to that party
in Canada which has hitherto been considered,
and certainly not without reason, as disloyal and
essentially anti-British. It appears, however,
that the compact is in unison with the all but
unanimous wishes and sentiments of the Cana-
dian Legislature, inasmuch, as resolutions have
passed the House, voting thanks to the Governor
fir his conduct, and declaring it to be the opi-
nion or the Merabera that an equal proportion of
Caaildians should be admitted to office, and the
vote upon these questions was carried by a majo-
ray oral to 5.
CHRONICLE. Thomas Cooper, as our
readers will perceive, has been acquitted of the
crime of arson, with which he was charged. 2+70
other verdict than " notguilty" could justly have
been returned on the evidence. Our report
merely states that the Chief Justice, in sum-
ming up the evidence, went minutely through
the different facts of the case as they had been
detailed by the various witnesses; but it would
appear from the observations of the peisener,
after the verdict had been returned, that he felt
he had been fairly dealt with. " You are right.,
Gentlemen, my alibi is as true as Gospel, My
Lord, I thank you fur your great kindoess, and
I iseg pardon for having interrupted you in your
address to the Jury." On two or three occasions
the prisoner had interrupted tite Chief Justice,
to point out circumstances in .lais favour. which
he thought likely to escape ?;is notice. We -trust
that fairness in an Enghin Judge will never be
of such rare occurrence as to call for -particular
remark. To those who have watched attentively
the judicial career of Sir N. Tindal it can excite
no surprise that the mildness and impartiality
which have uniformly characterised his con-
duct should • not have deserted him on this
occasion. He has, no doubt, opinions, and very
decided opinions too, on all the questions agitated
by the Chartists, hut he felt that his mission was
not to play the political partisan, but to admi-
nister the laws of his country. Had he larded
his charges with tirades against particular doc-
trines, and atrained his ingenuity to establish, in
those whe entertain them, the existence of cri-
mind ;attentions, of which neither they them-
selves nor others might be aware; or had he, in
Ms overweening self-conceit, given utterance to
doctrines betraying an ignorance now rarely to
be met with in weli-informed circles, the verdict
of an English Jury might have been the same ;
but the impression left, ort the public mind would
have been very different. The Judge can never
assume the character of the advocate or the poli-
tical partisan without weakening the confidence
of the people in the tribunals of their country.
A Judge ought not only to he impartial, but to
avoid, whatever has the semblance of partiality.
:LOBE.—That the article upon " The Last
Session" in the newly-published Number of the
Edinburgh Review, should have sorely disquieted
the heads of the Tory party, will excite no sur-
prise in those who have carefully read and pon-
dered its facts and arguments. The policy of the
late Ministry is therein not merely vindicated
from the imputations so plentifully cast upon
it by the Tories—the opposition which it
encountered in Parliament, and the mis-
representation and calumnies with which
it was daily assailed by the Tory press, are
not merely shown to have originated in faction,
and to have been sustained and impelled by rest-
less selfishness hungering for office, but the con-
duct of the then Opposition is made to recoil
upun itself now that it constitutes the Govern-
ment. - The triumph or the late Adetinistration
was not complete when it laid its free-trade
programme upon the table of Parliament, and
provoked the hostility of the monopplies, before
which it fell. That was the cause and the mo-
ment of its humiliation. Had nothing more
beet done, there would at least have been the
emit ,died views of the Whig Cabinet on conn_
meicial and fiscal policy to have been appealed
to, as a rallying-point, for the advocates
of free-trade, which they might have advantage-
ously contrasted with the plans of a monopoly-
conserving Government. This would have been
worth sothething. It would have been an enduring
and honourable monument to the Melbourne Mi-
nistry; the presence of which would have inspired
apprehensions in the class-interests'of an early
resurrection to life and vigour of those princi-
ples which were embodied in its plans, and which
they fondly hoped they had crushed by the de-
kat, and had buried in the tomb of the Govern-
ment with which they originated. The Trea-
sury-bench became, it is true, the seat of
a different set of men, who obtained posses-
sion of it by promises to goVern upon prin-
ciples far different to those whom they dis-
placed. But the delusion was short lived.
The very first Budget of the new Government
proclaimed the dishonesty of its authors. By
adopting the leading features of the 'system of
the Ministers -whom they had " pushed from
their stools," they convicted themselves of dk-
honesty—provoked the indignation of the classes
they had so egregiously deluded and deceived
—and pronounced the best imaginable eulogy
on the Government they had incessantly assailed
and opposed, on the ground of the very mea-
sures the principles of which they had adopted
as the bases of their own. To enable him to
carry out his grand scheme of fiscal revision and
modification, Sir Robert Peel was indebted to
the very men whom he had supplanted ; and but
for whose generous interposition, at the crisis of
his fate, he would have been defeated and dis-
placed, by means of a powerful section of mal-
contents in his own ranks. Then was the moral
triumph of the Whig Government complete.
Never in the history of party was there a more
gratifying spectacle than that which the House
of Commons exhibited on the occasion so well
remembered. The loss of office was, as it well
might be, forgotten by the Whig leaders.
STANDARD.—With pain, but without hesi-
tation, we lay before our readers the following
extract, from a hurried letter written on the '27th
of August at Bombay, by Major Messiter, of the
28th Regiment :

" Bombay, August 27, 1842.
* 4- * * *
" The Colonel is Foing away in command of a bri-
gade. I therefore tall into the command of the regi-
ment. We take the field immediately. Most disas-
trous news [have] arrived [from] the interior. The
41st cat to pieces.
[A reference to some private affairs follows.]
" Yours, &c.,
" JOHN MESSITER."
no
There is doubt of the authenticity of this
letter, andi
tisrtain that the writer, well-
known as
a gallant,suc?lxperienced, and able officer,l
would not make
full conviction of its trauctrmunication without a
this is, however,
the only statement upon theAs subject that has
reached Europe, it is necessary weigh carefully
the probabilities on both And first, we
will take the Considerations fa.
least e
to the
conclusions which we shouldle
Majorav, wish to find
,ofssiter, of
verified. The character of
has great
which we have already spoken
what is
weight; and there is nothing
known of the state of the campaign in
Can-
dahar to raise any violent presumption
against the correctness of his melancholy
statement. A. letter from the scene of that cam-
Paign, which we have copied from this morning's
Times, and which we find perfectly accordant
with the_ accounts in the Indian journals, shows
how dreadfully the British force in Candahar is
over-matched, and what frightful difficulties it
b 3 rnas hitherto had to encounter. We see, too,
aletter of July 29, in the Indian papers,
that the
41st was exposed to peculiar dan-
ger. This letter says that her Majesty's 41st,
panics the c23 t
of
. lßigoimabay Native Infantry, some Com-
m battalions, three or four of the
Shah's renime sc:f aßtc.raogop of his Horse Artillery,
two companies
some Poonahs, were a-p
_a.l Foot Artillery, and
,nnted to escort the bat-
tering train to QuettahPiaaseryice, the difliulty
and hazard of which
be extreme. To these considerationssucha country must
we must
add, that Major Messiter, being about to take an
important command, might naturallybe entrusted
with a knowledge of facts which the authorities !
would wish to withhold from the publicasl
possible. These are the probabilities on thepn Ina: i