and altogether there are about two miles of wharf way,
at a cost of 2,000,000 dollars. Harbours are
constructed in which a 74 can lie. Piles are driven in 15
feet of water, and houses erected upon them in which a
large proportion of the inhabitants reside and have their
warehouses. In short (says a letter from which we take
these particulars) any person who may leave the town
for a month will scarcely know it again on his return,
so rapid are the changes, so wonderful the march of
improvement!

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART

THE remarkable feature in the literature of the past month has been the extraordinary influx of tracts on
the question of the Papal Aggression. Their number makes it hopeless even to print their titles.
From a city or county meeting to Mr. Ridgway's shop has been always a not unnatural transition; but the
connection of platform and pamphleteering oratory has probably never had such curious and ample
illustration as in the present Anti-Papal excitement. Let us add that platform oratory never proposed to itself
a higher or worthier aim than that which animated a recent meeting in Manchester, to establish, for the
benefit of the workingclasses of that great town, a free public museum and library. There were incidents
connected with it which could not have been paralleled in any other city or country in the world. Its
principal promoter was the Mayor of Manchester; and he produced to the meeting, no less a sum than between
six and seven thousand pounds, already subscribed, and exclusively the result of the private contributions
of the merchants of the town, aided by a donation from the overseers of the township! No sooner was the
proposal started, than it was nobly completed. The matter had been in agitation not many months; yet,
before the 1st of July in the present year, a library of reference containing eight thousand books will have
been opened, freely accessible to all, and a supplementary or lending library of five thousand volumes more
will have been collected in the same building, for the use of artisans and their families at home. Nor is it
the least gratifying part of this extraordinary achievement to reflect that such exertions could only have
been called forth by a class of men in all respects eminently deserving of them. There was not a speaker
at the meeting who did not bear eager testimony to the marked improvement in the feeling of the working
classes during the last few years, and to a singular increase in their desire for education, and the means of
intellectual pursuits.

The current of general publication during the month
has set less exclusively than usual in the direction of
what is commonly termed light literature, and is so
often literature of distressing heaviness. The Memoirs
of the Dukes of Urbino, by Mr. Dennistoun of Dennistoun,
a goodly work in three large octavos very
abundantly illustrated, exhibits the quality of enthusiasm
and zeal for a subject which is so desirable in an
author; and the slight but expressive engravings of the
Raffaelle portraits (executed by Italian gravers) are
quite exquisite. In connection with this book may be
mentioned a new edition of Sir Charles Eastlake's
Handbook of Italian Art by Kugler, with upwards of
a hundred outlines from the pictures of old masters,
executed by Mr. George Scharf, which, though
necessarily minute, supply really a very vivid and interesting
comment to the eye on the schools of Art respectively
described.

To the department of history an agreeable contribution
has been made by Mr. Manners Sutton, in the
Lexington Papers, which deal chiefly with the men and
manners, native and foreign, of the latter years of
William, and the whole of Anne's reign, and to the
general reader are principally interesting for several
characteristic letters of Prior and Stepney. One of the
manuscripts left by the late Lord Holland has also
been published by his son, with the title of Foreign
Reminiscences. It is slight in texture, but contains,
shrewd observation, and anecdotes remarkably well
told. An elaborate volume on the traces of the Roman
Wall between the Tyne and the Border, by an
enthusiastic and intelligent North Country clergyman and
antiquarian, is a contribution to history somewhat more
remote. For another contrast to which, upon the extreme
modern side, let us add that Mr. Archibald Prentice has
published Historical Sketches of Manchester during the
last half-century.

Travellers and tourists have been active in their way.
Across the Atlantic, is a rapid but keen glance at the
manners and abodes of our transatlantic cousins. The
Golden Horn, is an intelligent ramble in parts of Asia
Minor and the less trodden country east of the Jordan,
by a son of the Bishop of Gloucester. The Bridal and
the Bridle, describes a honeymoon trip on horseback
through the East. Life in the Arctic Regions, is an
account of the last unsuccessful expedition in search of
Sir John Franklin, by the second in command of the small
but stout little ship fitted out by Lady Franklin herself.
In general literature wo have to mention a tory survey
of England as it is, by Mr. Johnston; a translation of
Fourier's Passions of the Soul, by the Rev. Mr. Morell;
a republication by Lord Mahon, from his history, of the
account of the rising of The Forty Five, with curious
original letters, descriptive of the character of Charles
Edward; a narrative of the Second Sikh War, by
General Thackwell's aide-de-camp; a republication, in
single volumes, of the works of Sir James Macintosh,
and those of Joanna Baillie; a volume on the order and
physical structure of the Planetary System, by Doctor
Nichol; new editions of Mr. Hogarth's Memoirs of
the Opera, of Coleridge's Table Talk, and of Sir
Humphry Davy's Salmonia and Consolations in
Travel; a translation by an evidently superior hand of
the Professor's Wife of Berthold Auerbach; a volume
of original and somewhat startling investigation on
Social Statics by Mr. Herbert Spencer; a new novel by
Mrs. Marsh called Time the Avenger; a companion
discovery to the Historic Doubts of Archbishop Whately,
in the shape of Historic Certainties, having the same
witty purpose, and very evidently by the same hand;
and (to single out the one book relating to the Papal
Controversy most worthy of mention for its vigour and
originality) a volume entitled "The Idol demolished by
its own Priest" by Mr. Sheridan Knowles, the author
of "Virginius."

There only remains to be mentioned a volume of
poetry by Mr. Chaunccy Hare Townshcnd, called
Sermons in Sonnets, with a Text on the New Year, a collection
of poetical Stories that might be True by Miss Dora
Greenwell, and the first volume of a new and valuable
edition of Robert Burns by Mr. Robert Chambers.

The attention of the theatrical world, during the
month, has been chiefly occupied with Mr. Macready's
farewell performances at the Haymarket. They are
now very nearly brought to a close, and in a few days
this great actor will leave the stage for ever.

There is now on view at Mr. Hogarth's gallery in the
Haymarket, a painting by Mr. Maclise, of which the
subject is taken from Lord Byron's tragedy of Werner;
and the principal figure is a full-length portrait of Mr.
Macready, as the hero of the piece. A line-engraving
of this picture is in preparation.

A new comedy in live acts, entitled The Old Love
and the New, has been produced at Drury Lane. A
three-act drama, called All that Glitters is not Gold, at
the Olympic; and a melo-drama (taken from the French)
called Belphegor the Mountebank, at the Adelphi; all
of them with success.