The Brecon Reporter and South Wales General Advertiser

THE COURT. i'iusviocs to the Queen leaving Windsor for Osborne- house, her Majesty held a private Investiture of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. Her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Louisa, entered the White Drawing Room at three o'clock on Saturday, when the following Knights Grand Cross were severally introduced into the presence °f the Sovereign by the Lord-in-Waiting, attended by -"Ir. Albert W. Woods (Lancaster Herald), Registrar Secretary of the Order, bearing the Insignia of a Knight Grand Cress upon a crimson velvet cushion, and Rested by her Majesty with the Riband and Badge of the Military Division of the First Class :—Lieutenant- general Sir John Lysaglit Pennefather, Admiral Sir paries Howe Fremantle, Major-General Sir Arehdale "ilson, Bare., Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Lugard, f general Sir John Aitchison, General the, Hon. Sir Carles Gere, and General the Marquis of Tweeddale. The following Knights Commanders were then in like I!llllner severally introduced to the presence of the Sove- li!gll, and received the honour of knighthood (except |ce-Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, who had already re- vived that honour), and invested by her Majesty with the insignia of their respective divisions in the second "lass of the order :—Vice-Admiral Henry John Codring- tou, Vice-Admiral Joseph Nias, Vice-Admiral Sir Ed- ward Belcher, Lieutenant-General Edmund Finucane ilorris, Lieutenant-General Peter Edmonstone Craigie, lieutenant-General John Bloomfiekl Gough, Lieutenant- general George Henry Lockwood, Major-General Mau- rice Stack, Major-General Edward Green, Lieutenant- general George Brooke, Vice-Admiral Thomas Matthew Uiarles Symonds, Major-General George Bell, Inspector- general of Hospitals and Fleets David Deas, Lieutenant- general Thomas Holloway Captain Sir William Salton- j^all Wiseman, Bart., R.N., Lieutenant-General Wil- Bell. Lieutenant-General John Bloomfield, Lieu- tenant-Geneml Anthony Blaxland Stransham, Major- general William Bates Ingilby, and General William Thomas Xnollys (Civil). The Queen was attended by Lady Churchill (Lady in Raiting), the Earl of Bradford (Lord Chamberlain), Lord Raglan (Lord-in-Waiting), Major-General F. Sey- mour, C.B. (Groom-in-Waiting), and Lord Alfred Paget 'Kquerry-in-Waiting). R F>-RN>'CESS LOUISA, attended by Lady Churchill and ord Alfred Paget, went to London on Saturday even- \t°' a.Ec!" honoured the performance at the Prince of Wales s Theatre with her presence. The Hon. Mrs. Wellesley had the honour of accompanying her Royal Highness. Her Royal Highness afterwards returned to Windsor Castle. THE Queen, Princess Louisa, Princess Beatrice, and ^ince Christian, and the Ladies and Gentlemen in 'aiting, attended Divine service 011 Sunday morning in he private chapel. The Rev. R. Duckworth preached the sermon. THE Prince of Wales attended Divine service at the UhapelRoyal, St. Jantes's, on Sunday morning. The eommuniou service was read by the Rev. Thomas Hel- tt'ore, the Rev. Dr. Vivian, and the Rev. G. A. F. Hart. Antherc, Since by man came death (Handel). Sung Master Coward, and Messrs. R. Barnby, Benson, and bawler. Mr. Cooper presided at the organ. The ser- mon was preached by the Rev. G. A. F. Hart, from 1 St. John v. 4. IT is said that apartments are being fitted up at the British Embassy in Paris for the Prince of Wales, though the name of the Princess has also been added. must be premature, albeit it is most gratifying to hear that great progress has taken place in the health of her Royal Highness. The Royal Family went about to the Fine Art Collections during the Easter week, which opened to the public the following Monday. THE Queen, it has been reported, would visit Coburg this year, but the present complication in foreign poli- tics makes this doubtful. If all should be soon settled pacifically, the intention may be carried out, but Bal- moral is more likely to be selected for the summer trip. There are many changes and improvements going on, more especially in the laying out of the ornamental gardens. One of the additions is to be a cricket-ground. The visit c f the Prince and Princess of Prussia to this country, which was to have taken place this year, has been deferred. In fact, everything seems to depend upon war or no war.

POLITICAL GOSSIP. Tilt; Ai'.n tj and, Navy Gazette says, with regard to the statutes of the Order of the Bath, we do hope that some revision will take place. It is very absurd that, accord- ing to the wording of these statutes, an officer who is not eligible for the C.B. is perfectly qualified for the higher distinctions. One would suppose the spirit of the law must be that no one should be- come a K.C.B. who had not served in the lower grade and. if the authorities acted upon this wholesome principle, there would be less room for the abuse which is now the subject of so much just complaint. Telling an applicant that you cannot make him C.B., but will recommend him a K.C.B., is only to be equalled by the fancy of cue of the Georges, who refused a friend the privilege of driving through the Horse Guards, but expressed his readiness to give him an Irish peerage. Yet such a thing has been done. A CROWDED Reform meeting was held in the Free- trade-Iiall, Manchester, on Friday. Mr. George Wilson was in the chair. Mr. Bazley, M.P., Mr. Hugh Mason, Mr. Robert Ivell, Mr. Jacob Bright, Rev. G. W. Conder, Mr. J. B. Torr, Mr. Alderman Heywood, and other gen- tlemen addressed the meeting. Resolutions were passed strongly condemnatory of the Government Reform Bill, and expressing th<3 unabated confidence of the Liberal party in the leadership of Mr. Gladstone. The follow- -1 ing letter has been received from Lord Amberley, but was not read at the meeting Rodborough Manor, Stroud. April 24, 1867.-Sir,-I regret that I shall not be able to attend the Reform meeting at Manchester on Friday next, which is to be held for the purpose of con- demning the Government Reform Bill. At the same time I beg to assure you of my sympathy in the object you have in view for I believe the only hope of either materially improving the bill, or procuring its rejection if it cannot be improved, now lies in an emphatic and unequivocal expression of the opinion of the country. As far as I am concerned, I -should be very glad if the measure could be so amended as to establish household suffrage 1:1 all boroughs, irrespective of the local arrange- ments as to rating; but I am afraid there is little pro- bability ol this or any other result. satisfactory to real reformers being reached during the present session of Parliament.—Your obedient servant, AMBERLEY." GENERAL WILLIAM THOMAS KNOLLYS, Comptroller ;md Treasurer of the Household of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, is to be an extra Member of the Civil Division of the Second Class, or Knights Com- manders of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. MR. GLADSTONE has plainly told certain bishops who applied to him for advice, that he would strenuously oppose any attempts to curtail the liberty of the Anglican -Church, with regard to external religious ibservances. VISCOUNT NEWPORT, M.P., Lieutenant 1st Life Guards, is about to retire from the service, and Sub- Lieutenant Lord Alexander Gordon Lennox, of the same regiment, is about to exchange to the Foot < luards. A SC OTTISH Peer has suggested a reform of the House • > £ Lords—enough in the sound to make one open one's eyes with astonishment. He wants all Irish and Scotch Peers to be admitted t the House of Lords equally with all English Peers. Whether he will get what he asks for is doubtful, but he has the merit of floating a iiew lvhe-i the market will float nothing that is new. THE Court Journal says we have had Parliaments nicknamed, Parliaiiieilttin, Insanum," Parliamentum Do La Blande," "The Gunpowder Parliament," "The Republican Parliament," "The Rump Parliament," "Cromwell's Long Parliament," "The Barebones Par- liament," "Parliamentum Incloctum," "Parliamentum It rI Diabolicum," "The Catholic Exclusion Parliament," "The Revolution Parliament," "The Reform Parlia- ment." "The Free Trade Parliament," &c.; but the present Parliament will be known as The Personal Rating Parliament."

I THE ARTS, LITERATURE, &e. A STATUE to the memory of the late Field-Marshal Lord Clyde is about to be erected on the Parade of St. James's-park. Sir, E. LANDSEEK has painted a new portrait of the Queen, mounted on her pony and attended by a High- land gillie, which will be found at the forthcoming Academy Exhibition. One 'or two unfinished works by the late Mr. John Phillip will also be exhibited. MR. THOMAS VERKOK, whose fine engraving from Mr. Cope's picture, The First-Born," has been so highly appreciated, has almost completed a large plate in the purest line manner, from a picture by Murillo, which is styled The Pool of Bethesda," a work formerly in the possession of Marshal Soult, and now owned by Mr. Tomlines, M.P. A CONTEMPORARY has the following:—" An un- precedented fact has occurred at the Exhibition of Paintings which opened last Monday at the Palais d'lndustrie. M. Jean de Waldeck, born at Vienna 16th March, 1766, but naturalised French, and who therefore has completed his 101st year, exhibits two oil-paintings, both of which he executed this winter. M. de Waldeck is the pupil of David and Prudhon." AMONGST the works which have been sent to the Royal Academy Exhibition, we hear of one by Mr. Sydney Hodges-a most charming picture of Godiva. It is not treated in the conventional manner, and the inevitable white horse does not appear on the scene. The Countess is appearing at the entrance of an ivy-mantled porch. She is unrobed, save for the brilliant bit of drapery that she bears on one arm, and which falls across her in front. SCRAPS of gossip concerning the approaching Exhibi- tion of the Royal Academy continue to float about. It is said that the complaints concerning the hanging last year have roused the committee to a sense of their duty, and that there will be a little more fairness exhi- bited towards the painters of cabinet pictures. Last year some of the best ivere 11 skied," and in one case this was particularly noticed and commented upon. Until some limit is placed upon the number of uninte- resting portraits which an R.A. may exhibit on the line, these complaints cannot be expected to cease. If the Hanging Committee have to cover at least one-half of their space with pictures of this sort, it is obviously impossible for them to do justice to the younger men who do not paint fashionable portraits. DR. CUMMING has published a book called The Last Woe," in which he says that the Jews are to be con- verted as a nation, and the Papacy extinguished between the autumnal equino'x of 1867 and the same period of 1868. A BOOK is announced which, as Mr. Wilkes once said about something, bids fair to discount propulsion and confound the thought." It is a book which, accord- ing to its publishers, Messrs. G. W. Carleton and Co., New York "is not an argument, but a pulsation." Prometheus in Atlantis" is the title of it, and it is A Prophecy of the Extinction of the Christian Civili- sation.' THE Athemaim says :-So long ago as 1856, Parlia- ment voted a considerable sum of money for the erection of a magnificent monument to the Duke of Wellington in St. Paul's Cathedral. The commission for this work was entrusted to Mr. A. Stevens, on the recommendation of Lord John Manners. We believe, on the authority of a, statement by Earl Granville in the last session of Parliament, th"1" n portion of the payment for this monu- ment ha sbeen advanced to the sculptor, and that frequent and very earnest remonstrances have been addressed to that gentleman, urging him to complete this long-delayed task. About 12 months since, it was stated that Mr. Penrose, Surveyor to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, had seen the models for the memorial, and found that it promised to be a vrork of very great importance and singular merit also, that about the month of August then next to follow, these models would be in a fit state for inspection. We are not aware that anybody has since seen even the models for this design. Will any member of Parliament inquire whether any further progress has been made with the work, and when it will be finished ? The explanations that were given at the time to which we have referred were of so painful a character that, for Mr. A. Stevens's sake, we trust they will not need to be repeated in a similar form.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. MR. B RIGHT'S SPEECH AT BIRMINGHAM. Seldom, if ever, has Mr. Bright spoken more effec- tively, gone more directly to the point, and kept the purpose of his speech more steadily in view, than he did at Birmingham on Monday. The great political change h which has taken place in the course of the last eight months might have been accounted for without recurring to a very innocent letter," or the gentle but united pressure" which it suggested. Mr. Bright was, however, in addressing a meeting held under the auspices of the Reform League, bound to pay the tribute which Mr. Beales expected to receive. It was also natural enough for him to take note c,f the circumstance that the vials' of vituperation which were poured out upon him during the last Parliamentary session had apparently been exhausted. This may admit of an explanation which does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Bright, who is not perhaps aware that he has himself contributed to the general change. But, passing over these excrescences, and making due allowance for the requirements of the platform, it is impossible not to perceive that Mr. Bright has taken what is, on the whole, an accurate measure of the Government Reform Bill. Post. MR. HIBBERT'S AMENDMENT. The compounding landlord is a man who, in considera- tion of taking upon himself the responsibility of the rate for all his houses—in consideration of making good to the parish the payment of absent or defaulting tenants —is permitted to pay for good and bad tenants alike some 25 per cent. less than they are all alike rated at. The theory is that he is able to make good the unpaid rates of defaulters because of the per-centage he gets upon the payment of householders who are not defaulters. Mr. Hibbert's plan is one which pro- vides that the honest and solvent householder may take the per-eentage himself, and leave the landlord with the responsibility of the dishonest and pauperised house- holder. To whom is that a good and acceptable proposi- tion ? As an amendment to Mr. Disraeli's plan its j effect would undoubtedly be to avert a mischief and a wrong to the compound householder who desired to be placed on the register and to vote it is beneficial, that is to say, for the prevention of a contemplated injury but the remedy itself is the perpetration of an injury. Such a remedy may be acceptable to the householder, if he does not care for the justice of the case, but it is not likely to be acceptable to the land- lord, who has better reason for so caring. And has it never occurred to Mr. Hibbert, to Mr. Stansfeld, and the Saturday Review, that the landlord has a remedy for the injustice or the inconvenience that would thus be thrust upon him ?—a remedy which is the slight and simple" one of denying his tenant the liberty of voting conferred upon him by the legislature? Yet this is the case. The necessity of getting a house to live in is something which takes precedence of the desire to vote at some future election and what is to prevent the landlord, in all places where houses are hard to get- which is almost everywhere—what is to prevent his saying to an applicant for tenancy, I have had incon- venience and loss from tenants who insist upon paying their own rates in order to get upon the register. Now, if you talfe my house, you must agree with me to do no- thing of that kind. I don't deny that you are reasonable enough in wanting a vote but I can't consent to your having one at my expense. Of course, I have no ob- jection to your agitating for an amendment of the law?" Can Mr. Hibbeiu frame a clause which will prevent such a course as that 2 And is it not a natural (we do not say a patriotic) course for a landlord to take, especially if he happens to be a Conservative living in a Radical borough, or a Radical in a Conservative borough ? To be sure, there is an answer to the objection here stated—but only one. It is, that you may do away with the compounding system altogether; you may abolish the Small Tenements Act; as it certainly would be abolished very largely by the mere operation of Mr. ifibbert's amendment, since the landlords who generally govern parish affairs are not likely to enforce the act to their own disadvantage. Well, in that case, for the purpose of carrying out a particular franchise scheme which is condemned by -other con- siderations of equal weight, you do away with an economical law which has been found to work to great advantage, and the abrogation of which in many places would be Inischievous in a very high degree. Take the alternatives. The compound system is continued: then it works to the positive injury of the landlord, who in no way interferes with his tenant's desire for the franchise, and at the same time to the injury and irrita- tion of tenants, who are forced by less scrupulous land- lords into resigning what the legislature allows them. Or the Small Tenements Act is abolished, and with it is abolished a wise and most convenient measure, the operation of which is relied upon as a check against an inrush of ignorant and incapable electors.-—Pall-mall Gazette.

TVfLIB AND BEQUESTS. The will of Miss Mary C. Dickson, of Denmark-place, Camberwel!, was proved in the London Court on the 22nd ult., and the personalty sworn under X16,000 the executors and trustees being Sharon Grote Turner, Esq., of Red Lion-square, and George Puckle, Esq., of Herbert-house, Coldharbour-lane. The will is dated August 25, 1866, and the testatrix died in February last, at the age of 67. Her freehold property she directs to be sold and the proceeds equally divided among five persons, one of whom resided with her; and the per- sonalty, after paying some few legacies to her executors and others, she bequeaths to charitable purposes as under :-The Royal Hospital for Incurables, British Home for Incurables, North London Hospital, Smallpox Hos- pital, Metropolitan Free Hospital, Cancer Hospital, Sick Children's Hospital, Nightly Refuge for the Destitute; Female Orphan Asylum, Westminster; London Hos- pital for Consumption, and Brompton Hospital, each < £ 200 the Infant Orphan Asylum, Orphan Working School, London Orphan Asylum, the Asylum for Fatherless Children, Red-hill National Benevolent Institution, London City Missions, Lambeth Pension Society Penitent Female Institution, Red Lion-square Paralytic and Epileptic Institution, Ladies' Visiting Society Boys' and Girls' Schools, St. Matthew's, Den- mark-Iiill and Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, each £ 500 and a like sum of X500 to the Ragged School, London, with a share in the residue to the extent of £500, and any further surplus to be given to such institution as the executors may think proper. The will of John Stewart Margetson, Esq., of Broad- lands, Streatham, Surrey, and of Cheapside, warehouse- man, of the firm of Welsh and Margetson, was proved in the London Court on the 23rd ult., and the personalty sworn under £ 140,000. The executors and trustees are Sir Benjamin Philips, Paul Margetson, Esq., testator's brother; Hannah Margetson, the relict and John Margetson, the son. The will bears date Feb. 2, 1867, and he died on the 18th of the same month, aged 55. The will is entirely a family disposition, leaving to his wife £ 500 immediate, several houses, and the sum of = £ 10,000 absolutely, and directing her to distribute amongst his servants the sum of £100. The residue of his property, real and personal, lie leaves to be divided equally amongst all his children on their respectively attaining the age of 24 years. The will of Ellis Watkin Cunliffe, Esq., of Upper Seymour-street, was proved in London on the 8th ult., under £140,000 personalty. The acting executors and trustees are Ellis Brooke Cuncliffe, Esq., the son, and William Fry Foster, Esq., the son-in-law—power being reserved to. Arthur Cunliffe, Esq., the son and other executor and trustee, to prove hereafter. The testator was of the firm of Cunliffe, Dobson, and Co., merchants, Fenchurch-street and Sweeting-lane, London, and Bor- deaux.. The testator died, in December last, at the family mansion, Acton-park, Wrexham, at the age of 79. The will is dated 1S63, and a codicil 1865. He leaves to Mdme. Tayeau, widow of his late manager at Bor- deaux, an annuity of 2,400f. ( £ 96.) The testator states in his will that he has made ample provision for his son Arthur, and also for his two daughters in his lifetime he therefore bequeaths all his partnership interest to his eldest son, Ellis Brooke Cunliffe, and appoints him residuary legatee of both his real and personal estate.— Illustrated London JS'ev;s.

EXT?? LI )HDLVARr SUNDAY REFORM DEMONSTRATION. A « camp meeting" of the Reformers of Finsbury was held on ClerkenweJI-green, on Sunday. At half-past ten a platform was erected, and at eleven o'clock the chair was taken by Mr. Owen, when a large number of those who have identified themselves with the Reform move- ment in Clerkenwell were present. Mr. Finlan pro- posed a resolution which stigmatised the Reform Bill introduced by the Tory Government as a monstrous insult to the unenfranchised masses, and asserted that nothing short of manhood suffrage and the ballot would furnish a settlement of the Reform question. The resolution was, of course, unanimously carried. At three o'clock the Reformers re-assembled on the green, and about an hour afterwards formed in processional order, headed by the officers of the Holborn branch of the League, and accompanied by a military band and bearing banners, proceeded to the Church of St. Alban the Martyr, where a special service "for the people," as announced in the pro- gramme, was held. The procession was augmented on its way by the Holborn branch No. 2 and the Marl- borough branch, which mustered at half-past three o'clock in Lincoln's-inn-Mcls. At the service the church was densely crowded, and a remarkable feature in the appearance of the congregation was the wearing of Reform tricolour scarves by those who marched from Clerkenwell. Reform banners were borne into the church, and the entire scene—the service being conducted in strictly ritualistic fashion—.was novel and impressive. The service was throughout intoned, and was conducted by the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie. The rev. gentleman took for his text the 1st chapter of St. John, part of the 4th verse-" The Word was made flesh." The preacher proceeded to show that as Christ was a man his sympathies were with men, and he exhorted those Reformers who had passed resolutions that day in support of the principles to which they adhered to add yet another and a greater resolution—that of fealty to the doctrine preached by the Saviour of the world. He concludedtby entreating them to remember him in their prayers, and by expressing a hope that any word he had delivered to them God would not allow to be profitless. throughout the sermon of the reverend preacher, which was listened to with marked attention, the delivery was emphatic and impassioned. At the conclusion of the service the Reformers returned to Clerkenwell-green, where another meeting was held. While proceeding to and returning from the church the Reform League hymn "We'll rally round the League" was sung, and the band played the .Marseillaise hymn. 4'

A LEiTEK has been published which purports to have been written in Paris by Kirwan, the Fenian Centre, who escaped about ten days ago from the Meath Hospital, where lie was under surgical treat- ment. He says I shall stop with until I feel able to start for the United States. My health is much better than you can imagine, but I think the excitement attendant on the journey had much to do in keeping up my spirits. I hope no reaction may follow. M.'s family surgeon examined the wound this morning, and says that I will be able to travel in 15 days I With one heavy curse on Ireland's hated oppressors, I remain, &c., JOHN KIRWAN." A SELL, "-A young man from town was seen in a village at evening looking about attentively in the gutter. "What are you looking for ] said the man whose shop was vis-a-vis. Some pieces of gold." Oh, I will assist you," and out he came with a lantern. The neighbours all came with lanterns, and were busily groping in the gutter at this news. After a time, during which the young man let them search by them- selves, the 'first spokesman said, "Are you sure you lost the gold pieces here ? "I said nothing about losing any money I only wanted to find some-that is the difference." He was careful to make himself scarce ¡ after this practical joke.

OUR MISCELLANY. THE Two GHOSTS.—Sir Walter Scott used to tell with much zest a story of a man who tried to frighten his friend by encountering him at midnight on a lonely spot which was supposed to be the resort of a ghostly visitant. He took his seat on the haunted stone wrapt in a long white sheet. Presently, to his horror, the real ghost appeared, and sat down beside him, with the ominous ejaculation, You are a ghost, and I am a ghost; let us come closer and closer together." And closer and closer the ghost pressed, till the sham ghost, overcome with terror, fainted away. This, we fear, is the fate which awaits the ritualist imitators of the Church of Rome. That mighty ghost—"the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire "-the ghost of the dead Middle Ages—will press closer and closer to our poor dressed-up ghost, till the greater absorbs the lesser or deprives it, by mere juxtaposition, of any true spiritual life.—Edinburgh Review. HALF A DOZEN PROVERBS. Dirty hands make clean money" is an adage to our liking. It is all English. It is industrial. A vision of the Black Country rises up before us. It is better than the notion of clean hands making dirty money. Good meat we may pick from a goose's eye," a learned writer upon the goose, in his work entitled The Goose," gives us to know. Next to the goose, his eye then, but the goose first. It is as great pity to see a woman weep as a goose to go barefoot," is in the book of 1526, and was of course part of our treasure-trove. It seems to fulfil all Mr. Ward's conditions. Can it be true, though ? "Money's round: it truckles." Short, plain, figura- tive, and, by your leave, true. Still swine eat all the draff." The quietest porker is the cunningest. He eats while the rest are singing or snoozing. The king must wait while his beer's drawing," has a fine touch of morality about it. We make the public a present of its suggestiveness.—Dickens's All the Year Round." THE BALLADS OF THE SEVEN DIALS.-Com- pared with a volume of the famous Roxburghe Bal- lads," which range between the years 1560 and 1700, our present five hundred from Seven-dials are models of purity and cleanliness. In the second volume of that famous collection there are about 580 ballads, or broad- sides, printed as ours still are on sheets of the thinnest and commonest paper; and at least three-fourths of these (especially of the later dates) are so grossly, openly indecent, as to be incapable of quotation. A few are slightly political, and refer to such topics as the "Meal-tub Plot;" and a few to such themes as ship- wrecks and naval fights but the majority are broadly and coarsely amorous evidently written by persons above the lowest rank, for the express purpose of raising indecent and unclean thoughts in the minds of their readers not by hinted indelicacy or vulgar coarse- ness of style, but by studied filthiness. No such nasti- ness is to be found in the halfpenny ballads of Seven- dials though there is abundance of slang, vulgarity, and occasional coarseness of expression. For open indecency and grosser pruriency we must go to a class of songs and song-books, authors and customers, of a higher class; to penny and twopenny and sixpenny packets of uncleanness, to some of the minor music- halls, where delicacies arc to be had at a price beyond the reach of the New-cut.—Quarterly Revicic. AN UNLUCKY PREACHER.—The author of the "Memoirs of Julius Hare," in the new edition of Guesses of Truth," writes There was an effort in the simplicity which conveyed the impression that he was cpreaching down' to them. To them, sermons often of 50, 60, or 70 minutes were I niortal long and hard.' The more homely the illustrations, the more entirely they misunderstood them. He spoke of the danger of men playing at nine-pins with the Truth,' and they thought lie was warning young labourers against beer and skittles. He likened fiery contro- versialists to men who 'walked with lucifer matches in their pockets,' and the farmers thanked him for the zeal with which he watched over their farm-yards and stacks. He referred, by way of illustration, to the devotion of Italian peasants to the Madonna, and he was reported to have told his congregation that they ought to worship the Virgin Mary, and believe that she would bless them if they prayed to her. Some consciousness, it may be, of this difficulty of reaching his hearers led him at times to reproduce, with indefinite alterations in detail, some of Arnold's sermons, or to adapt those of Andrewes or Leighton. His power for good in church was, perhaps, greater as a reader than a preacher. Few can forget and few could resist the effect of that rich voice, with its deep mellow tones, its transparent earnestness, its perfect, because undramatic emphasis, or the almost transfiguring brightness which in the most solemn moments and acts of worship lighted up his face." THE EXHIBITIONS A CENTURY AGO.—From the spring of 1761 there were two exhibitions of works of art in London. The exhibitors in Spring-gardens styled themselves the "Society of Artists of Great Britain; the whole committee of sixteen being at the head of the affairs of the new society. The designs on their catalogue by Wale and Hogarth demonstrated their intention to devote their revenue to the relief of the distressed. Of the catalogue, rendered attractive by these embellishments, 13,000 copies were sold. No charge was made for admission but the purchase of a catalogue was made imperative. The catalogue, how- ever, was a ticket of admission for the season. The receipts of the exhibition of 1761 amounted to X650. At the other exhibition in the Strand, to which 65 artists contributed, the old system prevailed. Visitors were at liberty to purchase a catalogue or not, as they chose but a check was placed upon the indiscriminate admission of all classes by requiring from visitors the production of tickets which had been distributed gra- tuitously by the exhibitors, and were readily obtain- able. After defraying all expenses the exhibition produced upwards of £150, which sum was appropriated to benefactions-to the Middlesex Hospital, -950 to the British Lying-in Hospital, Y,50 to the Asylum for Female Orphans, X50 the small balance after these donations being distributed among distressed artists.— Once « TVeek.

A WEDDING GIFT.-Are you about to have the marriage knot tied ? Are you on the eve of forming new ties by marriage ? Are you going to be spliced ? You will find all the information you can possibly require in The Book of Knots, illustrated by 172 Examples, showing the manner of making every knotr tie, and splice." Read it, and make an example of yourself. A STRAY CAST.—The accusations of insincerity, so frequently brought against the M.P. for Birmingham, have, we fear, more truth in them than we have hitherto been willing to acknowledge. We are assured that though he would wish to be considered the last person: who would be guilty of playing tricks with the borough or county franchise, yet he is never better pleased than when (north of the Tweed) he has either a six or U pounder on a line.' A JOURNALISTIC JOTTING.—The Glowworm, which started as a sporting paper, has of late given its atten- tion so much to racing that the lovers of other sports are hurt at the preference. We believe the disciples of Izaak Walton meditate starting a fishing organ, to be entitled the Lobworm. COMING OF AGE.—The Government measure of Re form, though rather a short measure for its age, has attained its majority—twenty-one. We are not sure whether it can be said to have reached years of discre- tion. Too B.aD.-Those who would "rob a poor man of his beer" are frequently the very peopde who would rob him of his 'bacca too. They should be known as "bar clay and Barclay's." LEGAL OBSERVANCE OF LENT.-The Ritualists will be shocked to hear that on Monday last week the Lord High Chancellor of England had the Lord Chief Justice, the Judges, and the other legal officers, including thei Queen's Counsel, to breakfast with him. Of course the ly Lord Chancellor s breakfast-party included the Master of the Rolls. SWEET WILLIAM.— Certain Tories are fond of sneering at Mr. Gladstone as The People's William." Of. course it is a question of taste but surely one may be allowed to prefer" The People's William" to Mr. Disraeli's Bill. "THE RIGHT MAN," ETC.—The application of this ancient saying, positively for the last time, was irresist- ible on reading that in the Oxford boat the Bow was Mr. Bowman. A DEFINITION.—" Making the most of it "-Fbcling; a bung and getting a barrel made for it.

SUICIDE OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN.—A suicide of a very extraordinary character was committed at the Trent Railway station, near Nottingham, on Sunday night. A young gentleman named Buckoll, said to be the son of a clergyman in Warwickshire, arrived at the- station, and was observed to enter one of the water- closets. A short time after one of the porters went tOl the place and found him in a dying state, he having; inflicted a fearful gash in his throat with a knife. He was at ciicc,, convcve(I to the General Hospital at Not- tingham, where he died on Monday night. It is stated that the deceased bad been greatly depressed in mind for some time past, the reason being that he had failed to. pass an examination for the medical profession is London,