PUERTA DEL SOL, MADRID. Puerta del Sol, or Gate of the Sun, Madrid, is the most famous and favorite public square in the Spanish city of Madrid. It was the eastern portal of the old city. From this square radiate several of the finest streets, such as Alcala, one of the handsomest thoroughfares in the world, Mayor, Martera, Carretas, Geronimo. In our engraving the post office is seen on the right.... more...

Lives of the Irish Bishops, published by Ware, in 1665, and rewritten by Harris in the beginning of the last century, have been long regarded as authentic history; and the statements of these learned writers have been generally accepted without hesitation, being supposed to rest on ancient and indubious documents. It is thus, to take a quite recent example, that the Rev. W. Maziere Brady, D.D., in the... more...

THOMAS JEFFERSON, AS SEEN BY THE LIGHT OF 1863. Mr. Jefferson, in his lifetime, underwent the extremes of abuse and of adulation. Daily, semi-weekly, or weekly did Fenno, Porcupine Cobbett, Dennie, Coleman, and the other Federal journalists, not content with proclaiming him an ambitious, cunning, and deceitful demagogue, ridicule his scientific theories, shudder at his irreligion, sneer at his courage,... more...

Grand Entrance to Hyde Park.Frieze. The great Lord Burleigh says, "A realm gaineth more by one year's peace than by ten years' war;" and the architectural triumphs which are rising in every quarter of the metropolis are strong confirmation of this maxim. One of these triumphs is represented in the annexed engraving, viz. the grand entrance to Hyde Park, erected from the designs of... more...

We all held our breath as the coach rushed through the semi-darkness of Galloper’s Ridge. The vehicle itself was only a huge lumbering shadow; its side-lights were carefully extinguished, and Yuba Bill had just politely removed from the lips of an outside passenger even the cigar with which he had been ostentatiously exhibiting his coolness. For it had been rumoured that the Ramon Martinez gang of... more...

COUPON BONDS. PART I. On a certain mild March evening, A. D. 1864, the Ducklow kitchen had a general air of waiting for somebody. Mrs. Ducklow sat knitting by the light of a kerosene lamp, but paused ever and anon, neglecting her stocking, and knitting her brows instead, with an aspect of anxious listening. The old gray cat, coiled up on a cushion at her side, purring in her sleep, purred and slept as... more...

For several weeks the attention of the curious has been more and more attracted to a remarkable ethnological exhibition at the Society Library. Two persons, scarcely larger than the fabled gentlemen of Lilliput, (though one is twelve or thirteen and the other eighteen years of age), of just and even elegant proportions, and physiognomies striking and peculiar, but not deficient in intellect or... more...

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. The author of Fanny, Burns, Marco Bozzaris, etc., was born at Guilford in Connecticut, in August, 1795, and in his eighteenth year removed to the city of New-York. He evinced a taste for poetry and wrote verses at a very early period; but the oldest of his effusions I have seen are those under the signatures of "Croaker," and "Croaker & Co.," published in the... more...

THE HAVRE MARITIME EXHIBITION. The Havre Maritime Exhibition opened on the 7th of May. Will this exhibition awaken general interest, or will it prove a local affair simply? This is a secret of the weeks that are to follow. Should nothing chance to discourage the general interest that surrounds Havre, to dampen the enthusiasm of the public, or to act to the prejudice of the exhibitors, whose very... more...

I. There are words which have careers as well as men, or, perhaps it may be more happily said, as well as women. Mere words breathed on by Fancy, and sent forth not so much to serve man's ordinary colloquial uses, apparently, as to fascinate his mind, have their débuts. their season, their vogue, and finally a period in which it is really too bad if they have not the consolation of reflecting... more...