be in regard to the speech in question, he is now at issue with the Orleanists, by open hostility; with the Legitimists, by hostility, still more decided;—with the Red Republicans, by decided remuneration on their | part;-and with the Moderates and the Assembly as a body, by lack of confidence, and (if his speech is not belied) by open defiance. The President then stands on his name, and his vigor; we shall see how they will sustain him.

A criminal trial which, at the last advices, was in progress at Mons, in Belgium, has excited a very large share of attention throughout Europe. Those implicated hold high stations, and the alleged crime is of a most revolting kind-viz., the murder of a brother at the table of his own sister! We speak of the trial of the Count and Countess of Becarmé; an infirm brother of the latter paid them a visit at their chateau; he was reputed very rich, and had announced to them his intention of speedily marrying: on a certain day he dined with them, when (contrary to custom) the children and servants were excluded from the saloon. After dessert was served some ten minutes elapsed, when there was heard a cry for help-in the tones of the brother of the countess. Upon the entrance of the servants the man was dying; the poison supposed to be used was nicotine, an extract of tobacco. From the testimony we have seen thus far, (reported in the Courrier des Etats Unis,) it appears that the husband accuses the wife, and the wife the husband. There was undoubted collusion in the matter of the murder, and the probability is that both will meet condemnation.

The proposal to buy up the Crystal Palace for a permanent exhibition has been much bruited; but it would seem without a due consideration of the immense stake involved. In relation to it we quote the following very sensible remarks from the London Athenæum.

"To pay the entire expenses of the Exhibition, and to buy the building as a perpetual palace for the people, will require about £300,000. Towards this sum £65,000 have been raised by subscription, £65,486 have been received for the sale of season tickets, and up to Thursday night the amount received at the doors for admission was £37, 702; making altogether, at the end of only three weeks, a total of £168,188. As the

masses have yet to come in at the reduced rates, the receipts at the doors will probably not fall below the average of £1500 a day for the next hundred days; and if so, we may add to the present total a prospect of £150,000. There have been divers hints of buying up, not only the Crystal Palace, but all that it contains. Nothing seems impossible in face of the huge facts before them-and even figures would seem to have acquired a new power as applicable to the Great Exhibition. We are sorry to interfere with this calenture of the imagination-but Cocker must have his rights even in the Palace of variously estimated; but we heard no one appraise them at less than twelve millions, and some calculations go up as high as thirty. Let us assume the lowest figure to be correct, for the sake of a sum to be worked after the fashion of the venerable shade whom we have invoked. How soon could the Royal Commission raise twelve millions of money, even were they certain to receive from the public at the doors £2,000 daily, over and above all the expenses of management? In just 6,000 days; after deducting Sundays and other religious days, when the palace must of course be closed, in exactly 20 years! Look at the question in another point of view. At £5 per cent. per annum, the interest on twelve millions is £600,000 a year; or, leaving out Sundays and a few other non-productive days, just £2,000 a day! If the contents of the Exhibition be really worth twenty millions, a daily income of £3,300 would not discharge the mere interest Palace. The suggestions, therefore, of puron the capital lying dead in the Crystal chasing the Exhibition, in order to keep its contents together, is one which merely shows to what wild poetic heights the imagination may climb up to the wonderful shafts of the Palace of Glass.

Glass. The value of its contents has been

"The world once possessed of an encyclopædia of knowledge like this, who can bear to think that the volume shall ever be closed, and its pages scattered to the distant corners of the earth. The workers in silk, wool, worstand other woods-the makers of musical and ed, gold, silver, iron, and copper, mahogany, scientific instruments, watches, chronometers, carriages, agricultural machines, and fountains: the producers of flowers and plants, decorators and stained-glass makers, sculptors and carvers in wood and ivory, printers and hand-workers of most kinds, would in all probability be glad to have such a universal and permanent exhibition-room for their wares, works, and discoveries. Many things of more curiosity and rarity would no doubt be removed; but the absence of the Koh-inoor, the Spanish jewels, the Indian diamonds, and similar articles, if it should be proved to lessen the mere splendor of the exhibition, would not materially detract

either from its moral interest or its practical usefulness. The earnest seeker after knowledge is more attracted by a collection of minerals and metallic ores than by the Russian or the Portuguese diamonds valued at millions. "Specimens of the jewelry, which borrow their highest value from the genius of the artist, would probably be left as examples and advertisements. We do not doubt that it would be worth the while of our most eminent goldsmiths to maintain a show-room in the Great Exhibition, to be from time to time supplied with whatever is new and excellent in their current manufactures. The same may be surmised of our great drapery and silk mercers. What artist would not be glad to have a certain space assigned to him on the walls of the National Gallery on the easy condition of always having a picture hung there! In the Crystal Palace, the artist and artisan in silk, cotton, wool, metal, and so forth, might, under some such arrangement as we are proposing, obtain their National Gallery and Academy. Even in the series of costly and complicated machines in motion, we imagine that not a few of the most beautiful and interesting would be willingly allowed to remain. Most of these machines, we believe, are made in model. They cannot be sold or used in actual factories. If taken away, they will be either broken up or buried in local museums. Their proprietors would naturally prefer that they should remain as their advertisements and representatives in the great centre of observation. There is plenty of room, besides, for a winter garden. Indeed, the place is a garden now; and its beauty,-in that respect would increase with every year. The contributions of industry leave plenty of space for trees, and shrubs, and flowers. The elm and the palm tree here grow side by side; and there will be room abundant for exotic plant and indigenous parterre. The works of mind and the works of nature already blend here with a harmony of tints and tones beyond the power of imagination to have conceived. There never was an epic thought or an epic poem at once so vast and so full of beauty. The infinite multiplication of the varieties have produced the first great unity, The place is even now all that the heart, the senses. and the imagination can desire."

THE BOOK WORLD.

and reflects very much credit upon Mr. Gutierrez who has had the care of both letter-press and engravings. As for the designs, some are exceedingly effective, some are tame, and some, though effective-are of highly questionable taste; we allude particularly to the Beauty and Death, in illustration of a few lines by Mrs. SIGOURNEY. If we are not greatly mistaken in the character of the poetess, Mrs. S. will be sadly shocked by such a horrible exaggeration of her meaning. The literary execution of No. 1 is by no means equal to the mechanical nicety of the book; and the articles scarce rise above, if indeed they equal, the ordinary contents of the "Lady Magazines.” It is an ambitious, but a worthy project, and we hope for it all success.

Mr. HART, of Philadelphia, has recently published, in his usual, neat, and eminently readable manner, a new tale by Mrs. LEE HENTZ. The success of her other

writings will secure for the present issue, we cannot doubt, a rapid sale.

Among the Philadelphia magazines, for the month, that of SARTAIN distinguishes itself the present month by an increased quantity of matter, and by a great variety of engravings, GRAHAM has, however, the gem of the July engravings, in a stipple by MOTE, after one of HAYTER'S drawings. We had supposed, however, that GRAHAM was strictly an American affair;-how is it then, that we find in it an engraving by MOTE?

The British monthlies for June, which came to hand at an unusually late date, have their usual variety. "My Novel," and "Maurice Tiernay" are continued in the columns of Blackwood, and of the Dublin University Magazines; and Fraser has a new installment of Mr. BRISTED'S "Sketches

by a New Yorker." We have marked a portion of the paper for insertion, and by way of contrast with his sketch of Long Island Trotting, we shall publish in the next issue, a glimpse of an English Raceground, from Household Words.

THE Mansion House, at the corner of Walbrook and King William-strect, is the official residence of the Lord Mayor, the chief magistrate of London, who is renewed annually. The building occupies the site of a market, and was begun in 1739, by the elder Dance. The façade, which is crowded and overloaded without being rich, has allegorical sculpture in the pediment, designed by Sir Robert Taylor, which, like the only other ornament of the kind, that of the East India House, being turned to the north, is not intelligible; yet its contrast with that lately executed upon the Royal Exchange is not flattering VOL II.-31

to our progress in sculpture between 1745 and 1845. A long narrow attic which originally ran across the centre of the roof, and was called the Mayor's (mare's) nest, has been removed. The Mansion House contains some handsome rooms, of which the principal is called the Egyptian Hall, being an imitation of what Vitruvius describes under that name. The Mayor here gives a splendid private entertainment on Easter Monday, and is always expected to spend during the year, on other festivities and for public purposes, at least the £8000 which he receives as salary, and much more is usually spent.

The buildings of this class in London are all of a most elegant character. The "Traveller's" has, however, obtained a distinction which has not fallen to the lot of any other cotemporary structure, it having been the subject of an elegant volume of architectural illustrations, (published by Mr. Weale ;) a circumstance that has, perhaps, contributed to diffuse an acquaintance with the genius and resources of that so-called Italianpalazzo style, all the chief features and details of that club-house being there shown at large.

As the arrangement and management of Club-Houses will be new to most of our readers, we extract for insertion here, a general notice of their design and character from a late London publication :

CLUB-HOUSES.

As at present constituted, the London clubs and club life have produced a new phase in English society, at least in the metropolis-one that will claim the notice of some future Macaulay, as showing the very "form and pressure of the time;" while to the more patient chronicler of anecdotes, club-house traditions and reminiscences will afford materials all the more interesting, perhaps, for not being encumbered with the dignity of formal history. Our task is merely to touch upon and attempt a slight characteristic outline of them; not to trace the history of clubs to their origin in the heroic ages of Greece. We shall not go back even to the clubs of the last century, except just to indicate cursorily some of the special differences between them and those of the present day.

Until about thirty years ago a club was seldom more than a mere knot of acquaintances who met together of an evening, at stated times, in a room engaged for that purpose at some tavern, and some of them held their meetings at considerable intervals apart. Most of them were any thing but fashionable-some of them upon a footing not at all higher than that of a club of mechanics. Among the regulations of the Essex-street Club, for instance, (instituted by Dr. Johnson shortly before his death, and

one was, that each person should spend not less than sixpence; another, that each absentee should forfeit threepence, and each of the company was to contribute a penny as a douceur to the waiter! At that period the chief object of such associations was relaxation after the business of the day, and the enjoyment of a social evening in a homely way in what would now be called a snug party. The celebrated "Literary Club," which was founded by Reynolds in 1763, and whose meetings were held once a week at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard-street, Soho, now a very unfashionable locality, consisted at first of only nine members, which number was, however, gradually increased to the large number of thirty-five; yet, limited as it was, it would not be easy even now to bring together as large a number of equally distinguished characters. That club dined together once a fortnight, on which occasions

the feast of reason and the flow of soul" were, no doubt, enjoyed in perfection. In most clubs of that period, on the contrary, the flow of wine, or other liquor, was far more abundant than that of mind, and the conversation was generally more easy and hilarious than intellectual or refined. The bottle, or else the punch-bowl, played too prominent a part; and sociality too frequently partook of bacchanalian festivity, if not revelry, at least, or what would now be considered such according to our more temperate habits;-and it deserves to be remarked that, though in general the elder clubs encouraged compotation and habits of free indulgence as indispensable to goodfellowship and sociality, the modern clubs, on the contrary, have done much to discourage them as low and ungentlemanly. "Reeling home from a club" used to be formerly a common expression; whereas now, inebriety, or the symptom of it, in a clubhouse, would bring down disgrace upon him who should be guilty of such an indiscretion.

The old clubs have passed away, for though some of them, or similar societies, may still exist, it is behind the scenes instead of figuring conspicuously upon the stage. Quite a new order of things has come up, the clubs of the present time being upon quite a different footing, and also, comparatively, gigantic in scale. From small social meetings held periodically, they