honored and admired-one of the great names that fill all lands, and ennoble their own." That time has at length come, and Foley's noble statue of the quondam sizar of Trinity College, adorns the front of the edifice. How thoroughly it seems to embody the man: he is reading a book, with a pencil in his hand for annotating; some idea seems suddenly to have occurred to him, and he stops in his walk-for the figure is in the attitude of walking-to reflect a moment. A realistic statute truly; easy, graceful, natural, with all the difficulties of the costume of the period triumphantly overcome: a noble tribute to the genius of one Irishman from the hand of another.-Art Journal. The Chinese Collection at the Crystal Palace. When the summer palace of the Emperor of China at Pekin was destroyed by the combined armies of England and Franee, it was felt that a useful lesson had been read to a government that had met "barbarian" "conciliation and trustfulness, by "civilized" treachery and murder; but it was also felt that a royal museum had been destroyed in the confiscation of this favorite residence, leaving a void that could never be similarly refilled. All that Oriental luxury and wealth could do to make a terrestrial Paradise appears to have been done for this favored retreat. It was a veritable palace of Aladdin. Its walls were panelled with ivory, and covered with silks of fabulous price; crystal chandeliers hung from its ceilings; its furniture was of the costliest kind, rendered still more precious by the most skilled labor of the artisan; its bijouterie" and general "garniture" comprised the most ancient, rare, and valuable, as well as the most costly works of their class. The Art-history of China for a thousand years was enshrined in these walls. The owner of the present collection-Captain de Negroni-was posted with his regiment in this famed palace when it was sacked and burned. He secured many exquisite objects, now in this collection, and, having ample means, purchased others from the soldiery. The result has been the formation of a collection of an enormous money value, and the highest excellence. It is, however, necessary to think over the material of many of these works, and the difficulty of their manufacture, before they can be entirely appreciated. Differing in taste so much from our selves, the jade ornaments are cut into figures and fashions which give little pleasure to European eyes. The material is so extremely hard, that no important work, with the utmost diligence, can be finished in less than twenty years. The finest work of this kind known is the jewel-stand used by the Empress of China, now the principal feature of this collection: it much surpasses that in the Mineralogical Museum at Paris, valued at 72,000 francs. The jewelry is not restricted to Chinese works, but comprises some of the finest European productions presented at various times to the emperors of China. They are rivalled by the jewel-case of the Chinese empress, a work of the most beautiful design, encrusted with precious stones; and by the hand-glass used at her toilet. The collection of porcelain, though small, is characterized by the same qualifications. All the works exhibited are chef d'œuvres. Here we see the imperial yellow porcelain, the rare old grey cracklin, the secret of making which has been lost for many centuries; and the still rarer cracklin of dark, ruby color, the enamel said to be composed of pulverized gems. The vase of this rare ware here exhibited is thought to have been manufactured some two hundred years before Christ. There is little doubt that we look upon works of profound antiquity in this collection, which have been highly treasured and religiously preserved as royal heirlooms for many ages. Lovers of precious stones will be abundantly gratified by the sight of the largest sapphire in the world: it weighs 742 carats, and is "estimated" to be worth £160,000. The imperial dresses tell their own tale in the rich character of their fabrique, and the elaborate style of their needlework; but their real value in some instances might escape detection. Thus, the mantle composed entirely of strips of fur, taken only from the throats of white foxes, is valued at £2,000, and it is calculated that about four hundred of these animals must have been killed to obtain fur enough to make this mantle. It will thus be seen that this very recherché gathering of much that is rich and rare represents the highest flight of the Art-industry of this ancient nation, and is a more extraordinary exposition of its claims than Europeans could have hoped to see irrespective of the chances of war, which enables each "barbarian" to see for a shilling what the most highly privileged Chinese could scarcely hope to gaze upon.-Art Journal. VARIETIES. Effects of Imagination.-Once, at a large dinner-party, Mr. Rogers was speaking of an inconvenience arising from the custom, then commencing, of having windows formed of one large sheet of plate-glass. He said that a short time ago he sat at dinner with his back to one of these single panes of plate-glass: it appeared to him that the window was wide open, and, such was the force of imagination, that he actually caught cold. It so happened that I was sitting just opposite to the poet. Hearing this remark, I immediately said, "Dear me, how odd it is, Mr. Rogers, that you and I should make such very different use of the faculty of imagination. When I go to the house of a friend in the country, and unexpectedly remain for the night, having no night-cap, I should naturally catch cold. But, by tying a bit of packthread tightly round my head, go to sleep imagining that I have a night-cap on; consequ. ntly I I catch no cold at all." This sally produced much amusement in all around, who supposed I had improvised it; but, odd as it may appear, it is a practice I have often resorted to. Mr. Rogers, who knew full well the respect and regard I had for him, saw at once that I was relating a simple fact, and joined cordially in the merriment it excited. Mr. Babbage. Australian Gems.-Gems of various kinds, some very pure and valuable, have been found at various places in the colony during the last three or four years. Diamonds have been found in the Beechworth district, and so have sapphires of every shade of blue, from nearly black to the palest blue. Specimens of the green sapphires-the Oriental emerald-have also been picked up. Topazes are abundant in the Ovens and about Donolly, and, in smaller crystals of great beauty, in Flinder's Island; beryls have been found in several places lately at or near Northcote; garnets, hyacinths, and zircons have been found in various gold-fields, the latter in considerable numbers; opals, amethysts, jaspers, and agates are known to be abundant in the Ovens district, and specimens of some of them have been picked up on other gold-fields. There are also isolated instances of gems having been found at Northcote, and other places in the immediate vicinity of Melbourne. As to the value of these gems, in some cases it was considerable. The best yet discovered was a magnificent diamond, weighing above three carats in the rough, which was found in the Beechworth district. Its worth, after being cut, was estimated at £35 or £40. The diamonds in general bore a strong resemblance to those of the richest diamond-yielding localities of Brazil.-Melbourne Australasian. Mr. John Cassell.-The name of Mr. Cassell, in connection with popular literature. has become, it has been truly said, "a household word:" as the projector and publisher of a very large number of works, which give employment to numerous artists and engravers. His death, on the 2d of April, can not be passed over without some notice in our columns. With little or no scholastic education, and employed through many years of his early life as a hard worker" among the working classes, he managed, by untiring energy and great perseverance, to raise himself above his fellows, and acquired no little popularity and influence by the zeal with which he advocated the temperance movement. He was, moreover, enabled in time to engage in some successful commercial pursuits; and afterwards embarked in the business of a publisher, and commenced that long catalogue of literary works with which his name, as the senior partner in the firm of Cassell, Petter and Galpin, is associated, and so extensively known. What Charles Knight and Robert and William Chambers have done for the middle classes, Mr. Cassell has done for the classes below these. To enumerate even one-half of the publications which have is sued from the extensive printing establishment on Ludgate Hill, would be to write a longer list than we have space for. He died at the comparatively early age of forty-eight; but he lived long enough to effect much good, and to leave a name entitled to sincere respect.-Art Journal. Newspaper Reporting.-At the annnal festival of the Newspaper Press Fund, Mr. Dickens gave his personal recollections of newspaper reporting: "I went into the gallery of the House of Commons as a parliamentary reporter when I was a boy not eighteen, and I left it-I can hardly believe the inexorable truth-nigh thirty years ago; and I have pursued the calling of a reporter under circumstances of which many of my brethren at home in England here-many of my brethren's successors can form no adequate conception. I have often transcribed for the printer from my shorthand notes important public speeches in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would have been to a young man 1 severely compromising, writing on the palm of my hand by the light of a dark lantern in a postchaise and four, galloping through a wild country in the dead of night at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The very last time I was at Exeter I strolled into the castle-yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot on which I once " took," as we used to call it, an election speech of my noble friend Lord Russell, in the midst of a lively fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the country, and under such pelting rain that I remember two goodnatured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my note-book, after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery of the old House of Commons; and I have ous pen in the old House of Lords, where we worn my feet by standing to write in a preposterused to be huddled like so many sheep kept in waiting till the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning home from excited political meetings in the country to the waiting press in London, I do verily believe I have been upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this country. I have been, in my time, belated on miry by-roads towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a rickety carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken post-boys, and have got back in time before publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by Mr. Black in the broadest of Scotch, coming from the broadest of hearts I ever knew. The pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its exercise has never faded out of my breast. Whatever little cunnning of hand or head I took to it, or acquired in it, I have so retained as that I fully believe I could resume it to-morrow."-Leisure Hour. Dogs in Ireland.-In a debate in the House of Commons on a Bill for the Protection of Sheep in Ireland it was stated that, in the year 1861, no less than 8809 sheep were destroyed in Ireland by dogs; while the number reported by the police as killed in 1863 was 7324. And the position of sheep-owners had been rendered much worse by the "Poisons Prohibition Act" of last session. As to the number of dogs in Ireland, the number of inhabited houses in the country, according to the census of 1861, nearly 1,000,000, and it would probably be below the average to allow one dog to each house; so that that would give 1,000,000 of dogs to Ireland-one dog to nearly every three and a half head of cattle in the country, and one to every pig, and one to every sheep. Congress Hall, Saratoga Springs-As new generations of visitors go to Saratoga each successive year, we do a good service in directing the strangers among our readers to Congress Hall, than which, for comforts to the visitor and all which he requires at a watering place, it has no superior, and few equals among all the hotels of the land or world. Messrs. Hathaway & McOmber are the attentive and gentlemenly proprietors, ever watchful for the comfort of all their guests. We advise all our readers, who go to that beautiful valley of fountains and mineral springs for relaxation and health, to commit themselves to the care of Congress Hall during their summer sojourn. |