THOMAS CHATTERTON. In the history of English literature there is no name that inspires a profounder melancholy than that of the "marvellous boy" Chatterton, of whom it must be said that in genius he surpassed any one who ever died so young, and that in suffering he had larger experience than almost any one who has lived to old age. Shelley says of him:"'Mid others of less note came one... more...

WITH THE AUXILIARY PATROL. I do not think there was a single man of the ship's company who bore the loss of poor Mnemosyne dry-eyed. From the lieutenant down to the trimmer we had become sincerely attached to this affectionate little creature, and when unhappily, during the temporary absence of the steward, she ventured to circumvent the rim of an open condensed milk-tin, missed her footing and... more...

KING ALFRED'S GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. The sketch of Europe, which our illustrious Alfred has inserted in his translation of Orosius, is justly considered, both here and on the Continent, as a valuable fragment of antiquity; and I am sorry that I can commend little more than the pains taken by his translators, the celebrated Daines Barrington and Dr. Ingram, to make it available to ordinary readers.... more...

OPORTO.OPORTO.Persons who are looking for "news from the seat of war" will probably hail the timely appearance of this Engraving, and regard it as folks sitting at a play do a drop-scene between the acts. The reader knows our pacific politics: we are of the pen, not of the sword; but we cannot be indifferent to a great political result, when Old men, and beldams, in the streets Do prophesy upon... more...

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CAVERN OF ROBERT THE DEVIL. ROBERT THE DEVIL. All the town, and the country too, by paragraph circumstantial, and puff direct, must have learned that every theatre in this Metropolis, and consequently, every stage in the country, is to have its version of the splendid French opera Robert le Diable. Its success in Paris has been what the good folks there call magnifique, and playing the devil has been... more...

THE AMIN OF KALAA.Emerging from these gloomy caflons, and passing the Beni-Mansour, the village of Thasaerth (where razors and guns are made), Arzou (full of blacksmiths), and some other towns, we enter the Beni-Aidel, where numerous white villages, wreathed with ash trees, lie crouched like nests of eggs on the summits of the primary mountains, with the magnificent peaks of Atlas cut in sapphire upon... more...

orrible though the civil war was, heartrending though it was that brother should fight against brother, there remains as an offset the glory that has accrued to the nation by the countless deeds of heroism performed by both sides in the struggle. The captains and the armies who after long years of dreary campaigning and bloody, stubborn lighting brought the war to a close have left us more than a... more...

THE WONDERS OF WORDS. Every nation has its legend of a 'golden age'—when all was young and fresh and fair—'comme les couleurs primitives de la nature'—even before the existence of this gaunt shadow of Sorrow—the shadow of ourselves—that ever stalks in company with us;—an epoch of Saturnian rule, when gods held sweet converse with men, and man primeval bounded with all... more...

ARMOUR PLATES. The earliest recorded proposal to employ armour for ships of war (for body armour, &c., see ) appears to have been made in England by Sir William Congreve in 1805. InThe Timesof the 20thDefence for ships.of February of that year reference is made to Congreve’s designs for an armoured, floating mortar battery which the inventor considered would be proof against artillery fire. Among... more...