respect, with a more general practice of carrying
revolvers and consequently more frequent rows and
murders.

A dreadful massacre of American gold-diggers by the
Indians has been perpetrated near Rattlesnake Creek.
The men, seventy-two in number, were working in a
chasm, and had stacked their arms, not apprehending
any danger. The Indians came upon them by stealth,
and having secured their arms, deliberately murdered
them one by one.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

OF all the questions likely to be endangered by any temporary exile of the Liberal party from power, that
of the University Commission would probably suffer most. All through the recent crisis, in the midst
of tottering and tumbling Cabinets, the Oxford Commissioners continued to meet, as they meet still, "at the
official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury;" and we hear on good authority that the result of their
inquiries hitherto has greatly exceeded expectation, in the character and amount of information collected.
But who can doubt that one of the first acts of a "Conservative" Ministry would have been to cancel this
Commission, or at least to render it as inoperative and unproductive as possible? Among the various lines
of separation between the great parties of politicians which the occurrences of the last twenty years have
tended to efface, we cannot count Education. There the difference is still broadly and deeply marked; and
by the kind of resistance offered to this University inquiry, as well as by the continued and discreditable
opposition to the Privy Council Committee, its intensity and virulence may be understood. A curious
exemplification of this was made public the other day. The Commission has now been in existence nearly a
year: and though some of the Colleges were restive at first in reply to the demand for information, the
surrender of All Souls carried with it all the rest, and the only difficulty now likely to arise in putting the
inquiry to practical use, will turn on the extraordinary mass of evidence collected, and certainly not on any
lack of it. Matters standing thus, the Commission received the other day from the Heads of Houses and
Proctors, in answer to a civil and deferential request for assistance and information dated five months ago, a
peremptory refusal of all information, and a legal opinion to the effect that the Commission was unlawful,
that the Crown had no authority to issue it, and that the University were justified in disobeying it. Of
course this piece of insolence will be disregarded; but it shows what this body would do if it dared, and
is the unanswerable reply to those affected friends of University Reform who would have left it to be
accomplished by the University Authorities.

The publishers have resumed something of their old
activity during the past month, and in general literature
several books well worthy of mention have appeared.

The first volume of the Stones of Venice, by Mr.
Ruskin, is a re-assertion and illustration of the principles
of his former work on architecture by appeal to the
buildings of the great city of the Italian republics. Mr.
Mariotti's Italy in 1848 is a narrative of the eventful
year of the Sardinian struggle against Austria, which is
as little likely to please the party opposed to Italian
independence, as to satisfy those who are in favour of it.
The second volume of Mr Leone Levi's Commercial Law
carries out with undiminished care and labour his
project of a comparison of the principles and administration
of all the various commercial laws of foreign
countries with those of the mercantile laws of Great
Britain, with ultimate regard to his great and generous
conception of the possibility of establishing a national
and international code of commerce among all civilised
countries. Mr. Muscutt has published a brief but useful
survey of the History of Church Laws in England;
Sir Henry de la Beehe has expanded his little volume
on "How to observe" geological facts, into a massive
survey of the results of modern researches in geology,
with the title of the Geological Observer; Mr. Hazlitt
has compiled a useful Classical Gazetteer for schools;
and Mr. Thomas Wright has collected, into two very
interesting volumes, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic,
illustrative of the history of superstitious belief over a
wide range of times and countries.

To the department of biography, Mr. Baillie Frazer
has contributed A Military Memoir of Lt. Col. Skinner,
a half-caste officer of great celebrity in the modern history
of Indian conquests; Mr. R. P. Gillies has sent forth
three volumes of autobiographical reminiscences, under
the title of the Literary Veteran; and Mr. Hepworth
Dixon has written a new Life of William Penn from
materials not accessible to the great quaker's former
biographers.

Several works of imagination have also been given to
the world, and among them more novels than it would
be profitable to recount. But exception should be made
for Mr. R. H. Home's Dreamer and Worker, which
is meant to refute the common fallacy that thought and
work are separate things, and that the thinker does not
take practical part in the vigorous business of life; for
Mr. Howitt's Madam Dorrington, a country story well
suited to the display of its author's descriptive powers;
for clever and well told Tales and Traditions of
Hungary, by Francis and Theresa Pulzsky; and for the
republication (from Frazer's Magazine), of a novel by
the author of Alton Locke, of which the object is to
preach what is called Christian Socialism. In poetry
three works deserving mention have appeared. The
first, a poem on the scenery and associations of the Isle
of Wight, called the Fair Island, by Mr. Edmund Peel;
the second, a collection of Hartley Coleridge's Poems,
with a memoir by his brother of that unfortunate
man of genius; and the third, Mr. Charles Knight's
first volume of his (truly called) National Edition of
Shakespeare.

Several books of travels have appeared— on Cuba, on
Mexico, on the Pacific, on the Nile, on Goa and the
Blue Mountains; and we have had Notes on North
America, Agricultural, Economical, and Social, from
the very competent and impartial pen of Mr. James
Johnston, one of the scientific Readers in the University
of Durham.

Two not unimportant contributions to English history
claim a concluding word. Mr. M. A. Lower has translated
for the first time the often quoted Chronicle
of Battel Abbey, appending excellent notes and
illustrations; and the Rev. J. Forshall has printed and
published, also for the first time, that Remonstrance
against Romish Corruptions in the Church, addressed
to the People and Parliament of England as long ago
as the eighteenth year of Richard the Second's reign;
which English historians have occasionally, but only
slightly referred to, in evidence of the views of the
Wycliffites on ecclesiastical doctrine. Nothing could be
more timely than the appearance of this tract. It turns
out to have a far wider range than that hitherto attributed
to it. It is not only a remarkable and satisfactory
illustration of the state of our vernacular language at
the early period when it was written, but also of the
state and spirit of English feeling five centuries ago.
It is a contemptuous rejection of the Papal pretensions,
and a noble assertion of the supremacy of the Royal
authority, and of the spiritual as well as temporal
independence of the realm.

Mr. Macready took his Final Leave of the Stage on
Wednesday the 26th of February. Drury-lane Theatre
was the scene of this memorable event. He performed