sembled on the Quaid'Orsay, watching with great interest, the evolutions of a boat, of singular construction, which glided up and down the Seine, with and against wind and stream without oars or sails, and having as its sole moveable power, a sort of aerial wheel, where, in boats hitherto belonging to this lower earth a sail or steam chimney should be. M. Eugene de Fresne, is the inventor of this apparatus, to which he gives the name of "Moteur Atmospherique."

OVERLAND. A carriage for conveyance through Egypt has been constructed, under the direction of Mr. Waghorn, by Messrs. T. Jones and Co., of Spitalfields, calculated to hold six persons, their stores, water, &c, which has not the smallest portion of wood in its construction. The frame-work, the wheels, shafts, flooring, benches, &c., are all wrought iron bars, either flat or round, according to the purpose required; as, for instance, the floor is composed of light flat bars in two rows, one row runs parallel to the side of the machine, and another row lies across them at right angles; the bars are set at two

inches asunder, which leave the bottom open like a network, to allow the tem. perate air to come up freely, and drive out the hot air as it generates through the top valves. The whole of the body and roof are covered with the best sort of storm staysail canvass instead of wooden or leather panelling; the roof frame is simply that of the tilted waggou. There are two strong iron shafts for one horse, but so constructed that two other horses may be yoked to the machine all three abreast. One horse will, it appears, be quite sufficient for the ordinary work. There are cushions placed on the benches which form seats quite as comfortable as those of any other coach. The machine is hung ou the centrica spring principle, which discharges the weight from the horse, and throws it on the wheels-this is another great advantage in a hot coun-. try.

The Oriental Steam Company have purchased the iron steamer Dallia, which is on the point of starting for Egypt on the Nile, under license of the Pasha, to convey the East India mail and passengers through Egypt.

MINSTRELSY.-At the period when we first became acquainted with the Anglo Saxons, society was in that state in which all literature is comprised under the one characteristic head of poetry; and all literary genius centres in one person, the minstrel, who equally composed and sang. This was the literature which, in the year 449, the Saxons brought with them into our island, and during the first period of their establishment here, poetry heid a high place both by its comparative importance and by its own intrinsic beauties. Life itself, and the language of life, were in those early ages essentially poetic; man lived and acted according to his impulses and passions; he was unacquainted with the business like movements and feelings of more civilized existence; but, when he was not occupied in imitating the famous deeds of his forefathers, he listened to the words of the ministrel who celebrated them. The song in which the gigantic movements of an earlier period- already clothed in a

traditionary garb of the supernaturalbad been told, was the instrument to which his mind owed its culture; his very conversation was moulded upon it, and even in the transactions of the council he spake in poetry. Among the many examples of the poetic feeling of the Saxons, furnished by old historians, Bede gives us one which is peculiarly beautiful. When Pauli. nus preached the doctrines of Christ before the Court of King Edwin, one of his nobles arose and said, "Thou hast seen, O King, when the fire blazed, and the hall was warm, and thou wast seated at the feast amid thy nobles, whilst the winter storm raged without, and the snow fell, how some solitary sparow has flown through, scarcely entered at one door before it disappeared by the other. Whilst it is in the hull it feels not the storm, but after the space of a moment, it returns to whence it came, and thou beholdest it no longer, nor knowest where or to what it may be exposed. Such, as it appears to me,

löst in wonder and astonished admira tion; you take out your tablets to write a somuet on the return of the nymphs and dryades to earth, when up comes John Tompkins, and says, It's only the Farmer's Daughter! What! live farmers such daughters now a days? Yes; I tell you they bare such daughters-those farm-houses are dangerous places. Let no man with a poetical imagination, which is but another name for a very tindery heart, flatter himself with fancies of the calm delights of the country; with the serene idea of sitting with the farmer in his old-fashioned chimneycorner, and hearing him talk of corn and mutton-of joining him in the pensive pleasures of a pipe, and brown jng of October; of listening to the gossip of the comfortable farmer's wife; of the parson and his family, of his sermons and his tenth pig-over a fragrant cup of young hyson, or lapt in the delicious luxuries of custards and whip creams; in walks a fairy vision of wondrous witchery, and with a curtsey and a smile, of most winning and mysterious magic, takes her seat just opposite. It is the Farmer's Daughter! A lively creature of eigh. teen. Fair as the lily, fresh as May dew, rosy as the rose itself; graceful as the peacock perched on the pales there by the window; sweet as a posy of violets and clove gillivers; modest as early morning, and amiable as your own imagination of Desdemona, or Ger

trude of Wyoming. You are lost! It's all over with you. I wouldn't give an empty filbert, or a frog bitten strawberry, for your peace of mind, if that glittering creature be not as pitiful as she is fair. And that comes of

going into the country, out of the way of vanity and temptation; and fancying farm-houses only nice oldfashioned places of old-fashioned contentment."- Heads of the people,

SIEGE OF BADAJOZ.-It was intended that the whole points should be assailed at once, and ten o'clock was the hour assigned for this attack. But a bomb having burst close to the third division, destined for the assault of the castle, and discovered their position, Picton was obliged to hurry on the assault; and as the ramparts now streamed out fire in all directions, the fourth and light divisions could no longer be restrained, but silently and

swiftly advanced towards the breaches while the guard in the trenches, leaping out with a loud shout, enveloped and carried the little outwork of San Roque, by which the column attack. ing the castle might have been enfi. laded in flank. They were discovered," however, as they reached the crest of the glacis, by the accidental explosion of a bomb, and its light showed the ramparts crowded with dark figures and glittering arms, which the next instant were shrouded in gloom. Still not a shot was fired on either side. Silently the hay-packs were let down, the ladders placed to the counterscarp, and the forlorn hopes and storming parties descended into the fosse. Five' hundred of the bravest were already down and approaching the breaches, when a stream of fire shot upward' into the heavens, as if the earth had been rent asunder; instantly a crash, louder than the bursting of a volcano, was heard in the ditch, and the explosion of hundreds of shells and powder barrels blew the men beneath into

atoms.

For a moment only the light division paused on the edge of the crater; then, with a shout which drowned even the roar of the artillery, they leaped down into the fiery gulf, while, at the same moment, the fourth division came running up, and poured over with the like fary.

And now a scene ensued unparalleled even in the long and bloody annals of the revolutionary war. intrepidity, the British columns came Boiling with rushing on; and, the rear constantly urging on the front, pushed down, no one knew how, into the ditch. Num. hers, from keeping too far to the right, drowned; but the dead bodies filled. fell into the part inundated, and were up the ditch and formed a ghastly bridge, over which their comrades pass. ed. Others inclining to the left, camo to the dry part, and shunned a watery grave; but they did so only to fall into the still more appalling terrors of fire. The space into which both divisions had now descended, was a ditch of very confined dimensions, with the enemy's rampart in front and both flanks; so that the troops, crowded together in a narrow space at the bot. tom, were exposed to a cross plunging fire on every side except the rear, where stood a ravine filled with British soldiers, whose loud cheers and incessant

though ineffectual fire against the pa. rapets rather augmented than dimihished the general confusion. The enemy's shouts, also, from the breaches and walls, were loud and terrible; and the bursting of the shells, the explo. sion of the powder barrels, the heavy crash of the descending logs, the continued stream of fire from the ramparts, the roaring of the guns from either flank, and distant thunder of the parallel batteries, which still threw howitzers on the breaches, formed a scene of matchless sublimity and horror. Still, even in this awful situation, the gallantry of the officers and the devotion of the men prompted them to the most heroic efforts; the loud shouts of defiance by the enemy were answered by vehement cheers even from dying lips, and roused the English to maddened effort; again and again bands of daring leaders, followed by the bravest of their followers, rushed up the breaches, and, despite every obstacle, reached the summits. Vain

attempt!--the ponderous beams, thickstudded with sword-blades, barred any further progress; the numerous spikes set among the ruins transfixed their feet; discharges of grape and musketry, within pistol-shot on their flank, tore down their ranks; and even the des peration of the rear, who strove to force the front forward, in order to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, failed in shaking the steady girdle of steel. Some even strove to make their way under it, and having forced their beads through, had their brains beat out by the but-ends of the enemy's muskets. Never since the invention of fire-armis had such a slaughter taken place in so narrow a space for two hours the men continued in that living grave, disdaining to retreat, unable to advance; that it was not till two-thousand had fallen in this scene of hor ror, that by Wellington's orders they retired to re-form for a second assault. Alison's History of Europe.

Enthusiasts, fanatics, spiritual despots, sciolists in education-the pas tors who slumber within the fold, and the robbers who spoil it, form a confederacy, the assailant of which should be encouraged by the gratitude of all good men. If the soul of William Cowper has transmigrated into any human frame, it is that of the histo. rian of Enthusiasm. Not, indeed, that the poet has found a successor in the magic art of establishing a personal and affectionate intimacy between himself and his readers. There is no new fireside like that of Olney round which we can gather; nor any walks like those of Weston Underwood, of which we are the companions; nor a heart at once broken and playful, whose sorrows and amusements are our own; nor are we surrounded by family group, with tame hares, spaniels, birdcages, and knitting-needles, as familiar to us as those of our own boyhood, and almost as dear, each in turn reflecting the gentle, thoughtful, elevated mind of him to

whom they belonged, in all its vicis. situdes of despondency and hope, of grave wisdom, and of a mirth as light and pnre as that of infancy. This is the high prerogative of genius, addressing mankind at large through the vernacular idiom of one land in the universal language of all. But Stanford Rivers, the dwelling place of the anonymous writer of these vo lumes, has given birth to a succession of efforts to exalt the national character, which might vie with those of Olney and of Weston in piety and earnestness, in genuine freedom of thought, in the relish for domestic pleasures, and for all the innocent delights of life, in the filial love of God, and the brotherly love of man.

There is in Christianity an expansive power, sometimes repressed but never destroyed; and that latent energy he strives to draw forth into life and action. Those mysteries which shroud the condition and the prospects of our race, however inscrutable to the slaves of appetite, are not absolutely

impervious to a soul purified by deTout contemplation; and to these empyreal heights he aspires at once to point and to lead the way. To him whose foot is firmly planted on the eternal verities of Heaven, there belong motives of such force, and a courage so undaunted, as should burst through all resistance; and he calls on those who enjoy this high privilege to assert their native supremacy above the sordid ambition, the frivolities, and the virulence of the lower world. The voice thus raised in expostulation will did away, not unheeded by the interior circle he addres. ses, nor unblessed by a meet recompense; but unrewarded, we fear, by the accomplishment of these exalted purposes. The Edinburgh Review.

The first part of the process consists in taking an impression from the copperplate in the usual way, but with a peculiar ink, on transfer paper peculiarly prepared.

TRANSFERS FROM COPPERPLATE TO ZINC

OR STONE.-The composition of this ink, which he calls chemical ink, is as follows:

3 oz. of shell lac;

bard curd soap, and lamp-black enough to colour it. The above ingredients are to be mixed together most intimately, and are then to be burnt in a pipkin for 10 minutes, stirring the mass carefully all the time. The residue by exposure to the air becomes dainp; so that by pounding it in a mortar it concretes into a paste of a very stiff consistence, and in this state is called by Mr. Redman, hard ink.

One part of this hard ink, rubbed and ground with two parts of common stiff lithographic ink, forms the transfer ink; which being applied to the surface of an engraved copperplate in the usual way, gives an accurate impression to prepared transfer paper.

The latter is prepared as follows:One quarter of a pound of the best flour is to be mixed with common porter, in such proportion that it shall form, by boiling, a thin paste of a perfectly uniform consistence; which paste is to be laid quite evenly on the smooth surface of a sheet of Inand is to be dried gradually.

dia paper,

The impression being obtained on this prepared paper, is to be transferred in the usual way to a smooth plate of zinc. When the zinc bas received the transferred impression, it is to be covered with an infusion of nut-galls, in the proportion of one ounce of galls to hatf a pint of water, the mixture to be then simmered for 10 minutes in any vessel not of iron. The liquor is to be left on the plate for from five to 10 minutes, its effect being to neutralise the alkali of the transfer ink, and thus to harden it and prevent it from spreading when sponged with water previous to printing from it. Mechanices Magazine.

REMARKS ON A FRENCH ROAD.-No hedges, no divided fields, zocattle grazing; women doing farm labour; horse talked to, and reasoning with, instead of If a peasant wants to being boaten. his roulage, and runs get on a little faster, he descends from on before the horse, who immediately sets off after to which you may suppose Mr. Jenkins, him. No comfortable-looking houses, Mr. Smith, or Mr. Higginbotham to have retired, after a life spent in business. No nice little gardens, with monthly-roses, bee-hires, cabbages, oninbeds, in front of the poor man's cottage; no wall-flowers near the door, nor tuft of house leek over, it; nor little patches of sweet-william, nasturtium, strawberry plants, currant and gooseberry bushes. Thinks I to myself, 'You may grumble at home, my boys; but you would be sorry to change with your own class in France, that is, as far as I saw of it. Lord bless me!' thought I, 'when you come to see a real French village, and compare it with a scene representing one at a London theatre,and then a STAGE RURAL BALLET crossed my imagination—scene; a beautiful wood. ed country in France, with a cottage on one side lively music: M. Gilbert comes on as a peasant, in a blue satin jacket with silk sleeves, tight white breeches, and silk stockings, which prove that he has not been to plough that morning, at any rate,-he taps at the cottage door, and Miss Ballin looks out at the window, and, although it is just sunrise, she is up and dressed, with flowers in her hair, with a close-fitting velvet bodice. and gauze petticoat made very full, and quite enough bustle to keep up the interest of the ballet. Ho lifts up his leg as high as he possibly