The Sun. — 1865-07-21 (London, England)

GREECE. ATHENS, Jutr 13. The Chamber has just terminated its verification of the elections, and is consequently now definitively constituted. The elections have all been confirmed, some of them after long and violent debates, but the discussions and depositions made before the sections of the Chamber by the persons interested have only tended to confirm the fact that the elections have everywhere passed off very satisfactorily, and that the Government has employed no reprehensible means to influence the electors. Certain unimportant illegalities, and a few isolated acts of violence, which are, moreover, inevitable during elections, have been the only facts which have transpired. Nevertheless the contest has been very severe in certain districts, but this is only to be attributed to violent passions, and the irritation of the various parties. These parties are not yet clearly defined, but the Ministry now appear certain of a majority of 30 votes, which may still be increased after the Ministerial changes which Will take place upon the King's return. The _Ministers of the Interior and Marine have failed to be re-elected, and the Minister of War did not even solicit the. suffrages of the electors. Constitutionally speaking, however, his presence in the Cabinet is useless, because it forms no addition to the Parliamentary strength of the Ministry. It is therefore more than probable that the portfolios entrusted to these three Ministers will shortly become vaomit ; and it is already stated that negotiations have been opened by the President of the Council with the view of inducing some members of the Opposition Coalition, which would thus be considerably weakened, to enter the Ministry. An understanding is also spoken of between the twMiohiiniicihwstiriastnhuden adherents r tat osc t adhere odf nh oe or t feh o t to. h e theß Numerousu l g famousr is h cp oali arty signsof a want of concord between the fractions of the Opposition have already been manifested during the verification of the elections. The people are much disturbed at the daily extension of the cholera in Turkey. The ravages made by this malady in Greece in 1854 and 1855 are still within the memory of all. The Government have hastened to take every precaution rendered necessary by the circumstances. All arrivals from Turkey are Aubmitted to a vigorous quarantine.  Deprecating (as it seems to us quite unnecesarily) any blame that might, he think, be imputed to him for having ventured thus inth print, although himself no higher in the social scale than a humble serving man—the writer of these pages reminds his readers among other things, through, his Preface, that " A little library might readily be formed of the works of those poor men and girls who have written books whilst filling very humble stations." Adding, in evidence of this fact, the following pleasantly anecdotal retrospect of a purely literary character : "One of tho earliest instances is that of Stephen Duck, the Wiltshire thresher, who sang the praises of Queen Anne, and received for his pains a pension and a cottage at Windsor. Affliction overtook Stephen, and, in despair, the poor fellow committed suicide. Phillis Wheatley was a female slave at Boston about the middle of the last century. She wrote a volume of verses which passed through several verse; and her publication assisted in obtaining bar freedom. James Ripley was hostler of the Red Lion, at Barnet, in Dr. Johnson's days. He penned a volume of essays which met with the approval of the groat lexicographer, and the portrait of this servant of the stable was I handsomely engraved. Anne Yearsley was a milkwoman at Bristol. This servant's poems passed through four edition; and on her subscription list are the names of the principal personages of Gloucester, Somerset, Devon, and Wiltshire. Later still, Samuel Drew, the shoemaker and metaphysician of St. Austell, wrote some of his most profound pieces upon a humble pair of bellows during the spare moments of his daily toil. The casa of Robert Bloomfield is almost too well known to be mentioned hero but his bootmaker's card, issued from Bell-alley long before he was known as a poet, affords a parallel instance to Drew's."  Not—let it be :at once understood—that Robert Awde affects for one moment to be another Robert Bloomfield. But simply that he conceives himself to be no more debarred from, let us say— " Tuning his merry throat Unto the blackbird's note"— by the fact of his wearing a gold-laced band or a cockade, or a pair of worsted aiguielletes—than was Jean Jacques Rousseau, who—(let us remind him) more illustrious than any he has above named—also wore the livery of a serving man! Or than Robert Dodsley, who did the like in his day before he became a bookseller! Or than honest Edward Capern, who in our own day, has long trudged about Bideford in Her Majesty's Livery as a Postman, metrically cultivating letters while in the very act of delivering them. Such as it is, the book here published by Mr. llotten of Piccadilly—that intelligent and systematic publisher of very curious books, indeed, of various character—this little volume of Robert Awde's is well worthy of a respectful examination, an examination at any rate the very opposite of either the superficial or the supercilious.  Hints on Hats. By Henry Melton. One Vol., pp  102. J. C. Rotten.  Another of Mr. Hotten's whimsical little books— books, one by one, as they come to us over his counter, intensely sui generis. As a fitting frontispiece, the present volume has an equestrian effigy fo Count Alfred D'Orsay, that preux chevalier armed cap-a-pie, neither in chain mail nor in burnished plate, but in cravat, coat, waistcoat, amilodnechclinounldeYhrv:'imagined, such as trousers,exquisite D'Orsay's handsome form and face alone could have set off to so much advantage ! As to the author anyinquiryH.R.H.to audacious streetHenry Melton here announcing himself on his very title-page to be " Hatter to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales." One thing only is still wanting to complete the excellence of this pleasant little gossipping volume about Hats (" adapted," as the writer says facetiously, " to the Heads of the People ") one thing only is yet wanting to complete the excellence of it as an anecdotal collection of " Hints about Hats "—namely, the throwing out by Henry Melton (in his capacity as Hatter to His Royal Highness), the throwing out by him at last of some felicitous suggestion of a covering for the male human-head, such as shall be at once comfortable and picturesque, a hat that shall at once and for ever put an extinguisher on the old unsightly chimney-pot.  Can you Forgive Her? By Anthony Trollope. No.