THE SULTAN'S EXTRAVAGANCE.-The murmurs of the Turks at the extravagance of Abdul Medjid are growing louder and more general. The Sultan receives, out of a revenue of less than £8,000,000, a civil list of £1,200,000; but, not content with that, he has contracted debts to the amount of £40,000,000, and such is his mania for building palaces for himself and the different members of the family, that he has now in the course of construction eight palaces, and five kiosks, or smaller buildings, which are estimated to cost from £8,000,000 to £10,000,000. The present ministry seem desirous to bring about a financial reform in the palace. They first asked for the reduction of the pay of divers functionaries, and for the abolition of certain offices which are absolutely unnecessary. A gracious answer was returned, but the hint was not taken; the extravagance of his Imperial Highness continued, so that the ministers, finding more direct measures necessary, at last found courage to send in a new representation, signed by them all, giving a deplorable picture of the financial condition of the country, and pointing out the impossibility of going on any longer at the present rate. What the effect will be remains to be seen. If, as is feared, some self-seeking members of the ministry try to gain favor by pleading that they. were secretly opposed to such a bold and irreverent proceeding, there will be a change, not of the system, but of the ministry.

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.-One of the most interesting incidents connected with the completion of the Atlantic telegraph is, that its first news dispatch was a peace message, and much more than this. It reported the settlement of the Chinese War, the throwing oper of the hole empire to foreigners, and its universal toleration of the Christian religion; thus, in a moral sense, the Wall of China has fallen! and the Atlantic cable bears the first intelligence of it, in its first news dispatch, to the New World! This news is of great importance, also, in a commercial point of view, and the greatest results may be expected from the opening of the empire to foreign commerce. The practical recognition of this right now cannot fail to confer immense advantages on the commercial interests of the two nations, and, as a matter of course, to the trade of the United States.

ANTIQUITY OF CHEESE.-Cheese and curdling of the milk are mentioned in the book of Job. David was sent by his father Jesse to carry ten cheeses to the camp, and to look how his brother fared. "Cheese of kine" formed part of the supplies of David's army at Mahanaim, during the rebellion of Absalom. Homer says that cheese formed part of the ample stores found by Ulysses in the cave of the Cyclop Polyphemus. Euripides, Theocritus, and other early poets mention cheese. Ludolphus says that excellent cheese and butter were made by the ancient Ethiopians; and Strabo states that some of the ancient Britons were so ignorant that, though they had abuudance of milk, they did not

understand the art of making cheese. There is no evidence that any of these ancient nations had discovered the use of rennet in making cheese; they appear to have merely allowed the milk to sour, and subsequently to have formed the cheese from the caseous part of the milk, after expelling the serum or whey. As David, when too young to carry arms, was able to run to the camp with ten cheeses, ten loaves, and an ephah of parched corn, the cheeses must have been very small.

THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVES.-The first locomotives in the United States, says the Journal of the Franklin Institute, were brought over from England by Horatio Allen, of New York, in the fall of 1829, or the spring of 1830; and one of them was set up on the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, at Carbondale, Penn., but being found too heavy for the track, its use was abandoned. The first locomotive constructed in this country was built by the West Point foundry, at New York, in 1830, for the South Carolina Railroad, and named the Phoenix. A second engine was built the same year, by the same establishment and for the same road, and named the West Point. In the spring of 1831 a third engine was built by the same establishment for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, from Albany to Schenectady, and called the De Witt Clinton; this was the first locomotive run in the State of New York. The first Stephenson locomotive ever imported into this country was the Robert Fulton. This engine was brought out in the summer of 1831, for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad; it was subsequently rebuilt and named the John Bull.

CROMWELL'S HEAD.-The embalmed head of Cromwell, it is said, is in the possession of a daughter of Hon. Mr. Wilkinson, at that gentleman's residence, in England. It is carefully preserved, wrapped in costly envelopes, in a strong antique box. Cromwell was buried in Westminster Abbey. At the Restoration his embalmed body was taken and hung up at Tyburn. Afterward his head was cut off, a pike driven up through the neck and skull, and exposed at Westminster Hall. The pike was broken and thrown down. A soldier picked it up, and it has descended to its present owner. head is almost entire, the flesh black and sunken, the hair remaining, and even a large wart over the eye. The splintered piece of a pike and the rusted iron are still attached to the head. It is a curious relic.

The

The remains of such vagabonds as Charles Second, George Fourth, etc., are carefully preserved, and are allowed to rest in peace in their ill-merited graves in Westminster Abbey, while those of one of the greatest men that England ever knew were treated with the ignominy above recited. England owes it to justice, that the monument to this patriot and able ruler should at once be restored, or else that the monuments to sundry of her crowned reprobates should be removed or covered up.

ALLEGORICAL LITERATURE.-The late Mr. Hill, of the Royal Society of Literature, had long busied himself with collecting materials for a history of those works which, resembling in their character the world-renowned masterpiece of John Bunyan, had anticipated, and, as he seemed inclined to believe, had suggested, The Pilgrim's Progress." The papers which he left behind him at his death have fallen into most conscientious and painstaking hands: the result is a volume full of deep interest to the admirers of John Bunyan, and of no small value in illustrating the history of religious allegories. The Ancient Poem of Guillaume de Guileville, entitled "Le Pelerinage de l'Homme compared with the Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan, edited from Notes collected by the late Mr. Nathaniel Hill of the Royal Society of Literature, with Illustrations and an Appendix," is a literary curiosity, produced with all the elegance of the Chiswick Press; and containing much information not only respecting De Guileville and his curious poem, but also respecting his early translators, Chaucer and Lidgate. The book, indeed, is a pleasant discourse touching the prevalence of allegorical literature in the Middle Ages; the popularity of De Guileville in England; the parallelisms between De Guileville and Bunyan; and contains notices also of other early predecessors of our great allegorist. The work, let us add, is illustrated with facsimiles of old woodcuts and illuminations; and is altogether a quaint, pleasant, and instructive volume.

THE DEPOSIT OF THE MISSISSIPPI.-A party of engineers have been making experiments on the Mississippi, opposite Columbus, Ky., for the past six months, and having nearly concluded them at that point, are about to make similar ones opposite Cape Girardeau. A letter dated September 4, addressed to the Cairo Gazette says:

The amount of sediment carried down the Mississippi is daily ascertained by the following method: Four beer quarts of water are taken from four points of the river; the water is filtered through filtering papers which have been previously weighed, and the difference in weight gives the amount of deposit. From the amount of sediment collected from a beer gallon of water thus obtained, it is easy to calculate the amount which passes down the river in a day. Captain Philibrown says that the sediment which passes Columbus in one day would be sufficient to form a dam across the river, provided the water could remain motionless. The last flood deposited from eight to fourteen inches of sediment on the Missouri side, which will in some degree compensate for the great losses which the farmers of the river counties have sustained.

LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS.-Mr. Redding, in his Literary Recollections, tells us that he was dandled on the knee of Howard the philanthropist, and that he saw Lord North, although unable now to recollect either. John Wesley he both saw and heard in childhood. "A servant taking me out to walk, I saw him in a black gown, his long white hair over his shoulders, as in his portraits, at which I

stared as at something wonderful. Children were clambering on the timbers, close to where I stood. On a sudden he stopped in his discourse, turned round toward them, and called out in a clear, loud tone: Come down, you boys, or be quiet.'" Another divine of eminence in America, called Murray, he likewise remembers; the same who received from his countrymen the sobriquet of Salvation Murray, to distinguish him from another of the same name styled Damnation Murray. Franklin preferred the doctrine of the former, remarking that "it was more natural than otherwise that God should reconcile a lapsed world to himself."

THE LOVER AND THE ECHO.-We clip the following from the New York Observer: Lover. Echo! mysterious nymph, declare Echo.

Of what you're made, and what you areAir! Lover. Mid air, cliff, and places high, Sweet Echo! listening love you lie Echo. You lie! Lover. Thou dost resuscitate dead soundsHark! how my voice revives, resounds! Echo. Zounds! Lover. I'll question thee before I go— Come, answer me more apropos! Echo. Poh! Poh! Lover, Tell me, fair nymph, if e'er you saw So sweet a girl as Phebe Shaw! Echo. Phaw! Lover. Say, what will turn that frisking coney Into the toils of matrimony? Echo. Lover. Has Phebe not a heavenly brow? Is it not white as pearl-as snow? Echo. Ass! no! Lover. Her eyes! Was ever such a pair? Are the stars brighter than they are? Echo. They are! Lover. Echo, thou liest, but can't deceive me; Her eyes eclipse the stars, believe meEcho. Leave me! Lover. But come, thou saucy, pert romancer, Who is as fair as Phebe? Answer Echo. Ann, sir!

Money!

SUNDAY IN FRANCE.-Proudhon says that Sunday in France is an "occasion of display for women and children, of consumption in restaurants and wine shops, of degrading idleness, of surfeit and debauchery." "The tradesman alone is busy." The Abbe Gaume asks where the great mass of the people resort to on the Sabbath, and replies:

Ask the barrieres, the theaters, the taverns, the places of debauchery. For them the tables of surfeit and excess have displaced the holy table; licentious songs are their sacred hymns. The theater is their church, dances and shows engage them instead of instruction and prayers. The night brings no end to this fearful scandal. At this evil hour innocence is most frequently seduced; and, under the shade of evening, the mysteries of iniquity are finished. On the morrow they return to labor with bodies worn out by the intemperance of the night, with spirits fatigued by dissipation and intrigue, with hearts corrupted, with consciences stung by remorse, and the week begun with the curse of God. Thus, by a disorder which cries for vengeance to heaven, the holy day is the day of the week most profaned.

place in his forty-second year, may be summed up in a paragraph. He was born in the town of Hingham, Massachusetts, on the 23d of January, 1733. His father, says Headley, from whom a greater part of this sketch is derived, joined the two occupations of farmer and maltster. I know not to what branch of the mechanical profession a maltster belongs, but, like the business of Mr. Tite Barnacle's office, which was something about tonnage, I suppose it is something about brewing. Though there are, and, I believe, have been academies and high schools in Hingham from time immemorial, young Benjamin VOL. XIII.-26

education. His father being the commander of a regiment of militia, it was quite natural that he should take to soldiering in his youth, and we accordingly find him, in his twenty-second year, an adjutant in his father's regiment. He was afterward raised to the dignity of lieutenant-colonel. In 1775 he was elected a member of the Provincial Congress. Next year he was appointed brigadier-general, and soon after major-general of the militia.

He took charge of Boston, after the American army left it for New York, and then joined Washington in the Jerseys. Here he came very near losing his life,

of the British lines, the word was given by the latter to fire, and the artillery and infantry opened on the advancing ranks. They were stunned, as it were, by the terrible discharge, but instead of flying, as might have been expected, they began to fire back. They either forgot that they had been ordered to use their bayonets, or it was impossible to resist the temptation of paying the enemy in their own coin. It was half an hour before Lincoln could arrest their firing, though they had driven the English back in disorder. While he was preparing them for the charge, the British commander, Maitland, succeeded in rallying his forces, and they now presented a firm front. They again opened on the Americans, who halted, and again returned their fire. Lincoln found it impossible to check them; for more than an hour the whole field was wrapt in flame. It is more than probable that the Americans would have driven them back the second time, but while the conflict was undecided the scale was turned by a fresh accession to the English ranks. Before the battle began General Provost had withdrawn a portion of his troops to attack General Moultrie, who had thrown himself into Charleston, but, hearing the fire in his rear, he immediately retraced his steps. Not being able to make head against these fresh troops, Lincoln ordered a retreat; to gain time he ordered Pulaski's cavalry to charge on the pursuers. They sounded their bugles and swept forward with loud shouts; but before they could reach the enemy, Maitland had closed his ranks, and they threw their bayonets forward and awaited the onset. The horses of the cavalry swerved from the wall of steel before them, and the column wheeled to the right about. It was now the turn of the British to shout, which they did right lustily. It was, however, only a shortlived triumph, for Mason and his brave Virginians charged them so fiercely that they staggered back in dismay, and the retreat was secured. The loss was about equal, being about two hundred in killed and wounded on each side.

About this time Count D'Estaing, having made a successful cruise in the West Indies, in the course of which he had taken St. Vincent and Grenada, arrived on the coast of Florida with a large fleet. A combined attack on New-York was now thought of, and Washington called upon several of the

middle states for supplies and militia; but he was disappointed in the co-operation of D'Estaing, who was persuaded into helping Lincoln and the southern army in an attempt to recover Savannah, which had fallen into the hands of the British in the preceding year. The French and American armies formed a junction and sat down before the town. Had they immediately stormed it there is no doubt but that it would soon have been captured, for the English commander, Provost, was in sad straits. But D'Estaing, like a true son of le grande nation, fresh from conquest, and covered with glory, sent a haughty summons to Provost, and commanded him to surrender in the name of the King of France. The wily Englishman evidently knew the weak side of his vain-glorious antagonist, for he prolonged the correspondence as long as he could, and then demanded twenty-four hours to consider the proposition. At first his garrison was small, and his fortifications in bad repair, few of his cannon being mounted, but what with his incessant labor during the procrastination into which he beguiled D'Estaing, and the arrival of his coadjutor, Maitland, with a body of choice troops, which swelled his force to three thousand men, he was in a fair way to resist successfully. At the end of the stipulated twenty-four hours he had nearly one hundred cannon lining the rampart. Fortified by such strong arguments, he sent D'Estaing a polite refusal, saying that he had resolved to hold out to the last. It would have been madness to have stormed his works, so the French and American armies, amounting to six or seven thousand men, opened a regular siege. The workmen opened trenches amid a heavy fire of artillery, and by the 4th of September succeeded in pushing a sap to within three hundred yards of the abatis. Their batteries were completed on the night of the 4th of October, and the work of death began. Thirty-seven cannon and nine mortars opened at once, accompanied by sixteen heavy guns from the fleet.

The garrison replied with their cannon. Night and day without cessation the bombardment went on. The houses of the town were soon on fire, and the crackling, blackening rafters came tumbling round the heads of the affrighted inhabitants, crashing in the flight of the deathful shot and shell. A heavy fog