in 1831, and was Secretary of State for a short time
under President Tyler.

The Senators of the gold country having made a
formal demand for the Admission of California into the
Union, the measure has been under discussion in Congress;
there seems little doubt that the proposed junction
will be effected. An official document states that all
the gold-dust which had been received at the United
States Mint amounted in value to no more than
11,379,129 dollars. Neither, if our own eminent Geologist,
Sir Roderick Murcheson, do not err, is the store
inexhaustible. He has shown from known geological
facts, that the greatest part of the gold is not in mines,
but in the gravel and sand which cover the surface, and
form the detritus of the summits of former mountains;
and that, consequently, the supply of gold may be
exhausted in no great number of years. Still emigration
to California, from the United States, continues undiminished.

But we learn from California itself that the state of
society there is by no means encouraging to well-disposed
adventurers. Not more than one person in nine or ten can
be called fortunate in searching for gold, and many of these
afterwards get fleeced at the gambling tables of San
Francisco; women (especially Mexican) gamble there as well as
men; the merchants get most of the gold-dust that is
brought home—the diggers being little more than their
purveyors. The market is fast getting glutted with all
kinds of goods—many lots being spoiled by exposure in
the rain. There are people of all nations besides
Americans, especially Peruvians, Chilians, Sandwich
Islanders, Hindoos, Chinese, English, French, Italians,
Spaniards, and a pretty strong "delegation" of convicts
from New South Wales. At San Francisco there had
been three suicides, and in the mines two murders
Bull, cock, and bear fights are in full vogue, and
especially by the fair sex. In one of them, a bull of
immense magnitude and power was let loose on an old
Spanish bull-fighter and clown. In an attempt, on foot,
to thrust a short spear into his neck, the man's foot
slipped, and the bull thrust him against the rude fence
with such violence, that he survived the injury but a
short time. This, to the women, seemed the climax of
amusement, and the exhibition terminated amid shouts
of applause.

From Mexico, the bondholders of that state were not
pleased to hear that a new Minister of Finance was
appointed on the 1st ult., who, it was thought, would not
have sufficient vigour to organise the finances of the
country in a satisfactory manner. The cholera was on
the increase in the vicinity of Mexico City. The Indian
depredations were still the cause of constant alarm.

                                            NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

OUR recapitulation of the leading publications of the month sufficiently indicates its topics of literary
interest; but these will yield, in the estimation of most readers, to the feeling awakened by the death of
Wordsworth. The great poet had very recently completed a revision of his writings; but a few days before
his last illness had celebrated his eightieth birthday; and has passed to his final rest in the fulness of his
fame.

To the subject of the Fine Arts attention has been more than ordinarily directed by occasional
discussions raised in the House of Commons, and the result has been Lord John Russell's declaration of the
intention of Government to appropriate the whole of the building in Trafalgar Square to the reception of the
pictures belonging to the nation. The Royal Academy will have to provide itself with a building elsewhere,
but it will receive a vote of money in compensation for its loss of the tenement guaranteed to it by George
the Third, and its removal will not be insisted on without due notice and preparation. Meanwhile the
Vernon Gallery is to receive shelter in Marlborough House, which, when all the arrangements now in
prospect are completed, is to be set apart for the establishment of the Prince of Wales. Another evidence
of the growing interest of the public in matters of this nature is the change and improvement now promised
in the management of the British Museum, where a "responsible executive council" is recommended as a
substitute for the irresponsible mismanaging trustees. But the most remarkable and gratifying indication
of the same excellent spirit is the announced determination of the prime minister to issue a Commission
for the collection of evidence as to the existing state of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The PUBLICATIONS OF THE MONTH have not been
numerous, but they comprise several books of higher
pretension than usual both in respect of subject and treatment.

Mr. Charles Merivale has completed a portion of his
History of the Romans under the Empire, which appears
in two octavo volumes, and embraces the period
from the first Triumvirate to the death of Julius Cæsar.
It might be described as a history of the life and times
of the greatest of the Romans, of the revolution which
his genius brought about in the character of his
countrymen as well as of their institutions, and of his
assassination at the summit of human power and glory.
Cæsar is the central figure throughout, and the view
taken of his character and genius is extremely
favourable. It may be worth remarking, that Mr. Merivale
describes with some care the person and countenance of
his hero; and tells us to rely less on the coins,—from which
we derive our common notions of the vivid animation
and heroic majesty of Cæsar's lineaments,—than upon the
still remaining busts, which represent a long thin face, with
a forehead rather high than capacious, furrowed with
strong lines, and marked by an expression of patient
endurance and even suffering, such as might be expected
from frequent illness, and from a life of toil not unmingled
with dissipation. He was pale in complexion ("wrought
in him with passion," as Marlowe so grandly describes
his conqueror Tamburlaine); had a tall and spare figure,
and dark piercing eyes; was not only without beard, but
was very scantily supplied with hair; and did his best to
conceal this baldness, which the ancients regarded as a
deformity, by combing his locks over the crown of his
head.—Mr. Merivale's History will extend, in subsequent
publications, to the transfer of the seat of empire from
Rome to Constantinople.

Another book on a great classical subject, not
unworthily treated, is the first portion of Mr. Mure's
Critical History of the Language and Literature of
Ancient Greece, which has made its appearance in three
octavo volumes. The plan of this history embraces
six periods, of which the part now published contains
the first and second, or Mythical and Poetical periods,
devoted to the earliest authenticated productions of
Greek poetical genius, and terminating in point of time
at about the middle of the fifth century before Christ;
the four remaining periods, the Attic, Alexandrian,
Roman, and Byzantine, to be included in subsequent
publications. Thus the complete history will extend from
the primeval growth of the language, with the influences
which modified its early culture and stamped the peculiar
genius of the people upon it, down to the period
when the decay and corruption of ancient civilisation
finally extinguished it as a living language. In the
portion now given to the public, Homer is the theme most
prominently discussed; and certainly there exists in no
other English book so detailed an examination and
analysis of the Iliad and Odyssey. It is to be regretted
that Mr. Mure should too exclusively have addressed
himself to scholars, by leaving his extracts untranslated: