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It seems rather odd to find the practical philosopher going into raptures over the severe column of Luxor, and reckoning its transportation one of the “greatest triumphs of human genius;" what will the old gentleman say, when he gets to Rome, finds a huger one by half, standing upon bronze tripods, and yet seeming a pigmy milestone before the awful size of St. Peter's dome? However, there is no accounting for tastes; and ten to one, the object which will seem most admirable to Mr. GREELEY at Rome, will be the Cloaca Maxima-the greatest and stoutest and oldest sewer in the world.

It will be a rich gratification to English admirers of the Royal Academy, and to American admirers of Calvary church, to hear the inner court of the Palace of the Louvre set down as "nothing remarkable." Of French character and disposition, however, Mr. GREELEY seems to have a very fair conception, as this bit of a late letter will show:

"The Frenchman's pleasures are all social; to eat, drink or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to him: he reads his newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in one day than an Englishman in three: the theatres, balls, concerts, &c., which to the islander' afford occasional recreation are to him a nightly necessity he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is amusement more systematically, sedulously sought than in Paris; nowhere is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience of forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous, and humane; eager to enjoy, but willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual, and irreverent. Paris is the Paradise of the Senses; a focus of enjoyment, not of happiness. Nowhere are youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is old age less happy or less respected."

We have taken our readers, this week, to the other side of the water, and have engrossed our columns so much with French topic, that we have no room for mention of what is stirring at home. We regret this the less, however, for the reason that there is nothing of interest here to be noted; and our readers will surely agree with us, that nothing can so relieve the heat of this July season, as a stroll among the haunts which are made grateful by French gayety and French gossip.

THE BOOK WORLD.

Of Books we have scarce any thing to record. The monthlies of HARPER and STRINGER & TOWNSEND, have made their appearance, and are made attractive by very many articles, in the publication of which our journal had the good fortune to anticipate them weeks ago.

The booksellers of the town are sighing, one and all, over deserted shops; and all the book-readers have given over their occupation for the summer.

We are happy to see that the Courrier des Etats Unis, of which journal we have often spoken in terms of commendation, has become a daily issue. The same paper advertises a detailed account of the remarkable trial of the Count de Bocarmé,

Mr. BARNES, the enterprising publisher of John-street, has just issued new editions of WALTER COLTON'S " Ship and Shore, and "Athens and Constantinople,” (or, as it is now named,) “Land and Lee” They are both of them charming records of travel, and with their salt air odorous about them, will prove most delightful coolers for a summer in the country.

Mr. COLTON was a graphic narrator, and joined to his moral teaching an occasional spice of wit, which is the very thing to put piquancy into a book for good people.

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Lady Willoughby's Diary" of the old time is just issued by the same house. Its quaintness, good sense, and antique phraseology will actually occupy the attention of all ladies who wish to compare the mother of the seventeenth century with the mother of to-day. Mr. PICKERING's issue of the same book added quaintness of type to quaintness of matter; but the edition of Mr. BARNES is neat, readable, and equal to any of the reprints of the day.

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ONE of the first objects of attraction in London for the stranger, must necessarily be the new Houses of Parliament. They are certainly the most noticeable of all the architectural displays in England.

Critics have quarrelled much with the finical character of the work, and with the profusion of ornament; but their purpose, their size, their cost, and their durability must excite always a great deal of wonder and of curiosity.

The present magnificent pile was erected after designs by BARRY. There has been no limit in the matter of cost; the final and entire expense is estimated at sums varying from twenty to fifty millions of pounds.

The portions of the interior finished and accessible to the public are the committeerooms (occupying the greater portion of the river front) and the two legislative chambers, which are in the centres of the northern and southern halves of the building. The general public entrance, when complete, will be through Westminster Hall, up a flight of steps at its south end, into a square vaulted vestibule, called St. Stephen's Porch; thence, turning east, up another flight, and along the "St. Stephen's Hall," a fine passage, but a very poor substitute, alas! for the Edwardian chapel it replaces, into the octagon hall, in the centre of the whole edifice. This is about 60 ft. in diameter, and the same in height, covered by a massive Gothic dome, on which is to be raised a light open stone lantern and spire nearly 300 ft. high, which are an addition to the original design. From hence three passages will branch: that straightforward leading to the centre

of the long corridor of the committee-rooms, that on the north to the Commons' lobby and House, and that on the south to the Lords. These splendid approaches occupy altogether fully fifteen times the capacity of either House. The royal approach (from the great tower at the southwest corner) also fills about thrice the space taken by the House of Lords, and includes, besides robing-rooms, &c., a splendid lobby, about 45 ft. square, and a gallery 110 feet long, 45 wide, and 45 high, being the largest room in the modern palace. Its decoration is hardly yet begun. That of the House of Lords itself is nearly complete, and it has been used since April, 1847. It may be seen, during the session, on Wednesdays, between 11 and 4, by an order from the Lord Chamberlain, (which is obtainable at an office near the temporary entrance;) or without an order, on the days of hearing appeals, when the House, being a judicial court, is of course open. It is (if not intrinsically, at least effectively) the richest chamber erected since the fall of the mediaval church architecture; a gorgeous effect being produced by gilding all the mouldings, (which include the whole of the stone and most of the woodwork,) and covering the remaining surfaces with minute colored pat terns. The House is nearly an exact double cube of 45 ft.; the ceiling divided by cross ing beams into 18 squares, corresponding to the arched compartments of the walls, which are all similar, except that the six on each side are occupied by windows with colored devices, and the three at each end by frescoes, a species of painting now first attempted in England.

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POST OFFICE, (GENERAL,) St. Martin's le | ticoes, the centre one forming the entrance to Grand, (covering the site of a collegiate a hall extending through the whole depth church of that name.) The present building and height of the building, to its rear, was erected, 1825-9, from a design by Sir where is another entrance. The Ionic order Robert Smirke, R. A. It is isolated, and throughout is similar to that of the British covers a large compact rectangle, and is Museum, the column being enlarged from faced on all sides with Portland stone; but that of the little temple (now destroyed) on on the west side, which is about 400 feet the Ilyssus, and the entablature that from long, with a façade of very plain Grecian Teos, stripped of all carving. character, to which are attached three por

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also has been left to grow into a forest of the elegant and varied inventions of the chimney-doctor; it having by this time become an admitted and established rule, that these, and many other parts of buildings (in fact, to define them in short, all necessary or useful parts) were excluded from the architect's province-not expected to appear in his drawings, and, in the actual execution, made allowance for, as necessary evils, invisible to the practised and tutored eye, which is expected to see the building not as it stands, (and always will stand while in use,) but as it would appear with the necessary blots, the objects of vulgar utility, abstracted.

From Chambers' "Edinburgh Journal,"

THE DESERTED HOUSE.

HAVING been detained by the illness of a relative at the small town of Beziers, when travelling a few years since in the south of France, and finding time hang somewhat heavily on my hands during the slow progress of my companion's convalescence, I took to wandering about the neighborhood within a circle of four or five miles, inspect ing the proceedings of the agriculturists, and making acquaintance with the country people. On one of these excursions, seeing a high wall and an iron gate, I turned out of my road to take a peep at the interior through the rails; but I found them so overgrown with creepers of one sort or another, that it was not easy to distinguish any thing but a house which stood about a hundred yards from the entrance. Finding, however, that the gate was not quite closed, I gave it a push; and although it moved very stiffly on its hinges, and grated along the ground as it went, I contrived to force an aperture wide enough to put in my head. What a scene of desolation was there! The house, which was built of dark-colored bricks, looked as if it had not been inhabited for a century. The roof was much decayed, the paint black with age, the stone steps green with moss, and the windows all concealed by discolored and dilapidated Venetian blinds. The garden was a wilderness of weeds and overgrown rose-bushes; and except one broad one, in a right line with

the main door of the house, the paths were no longer distinguishable. After surveying this dismal scene for some time, I came away with a strange feeling of curiosity. "Why should this place be so entirely deserted and neglected?" thought I. It was not like a fortress, a castle, or an abbey, allowed to fall into ruins from extreme age, because no longer appropriate to the habits of the period. On the contrary, the building I had seen was comparatively modern, and had fallen to decay merely for want of those timely repairs and defences of the weather that ordinary prudence prescribes, "Perhaps there is some sad history attached to the spot," I thought; "or perhaps the race to whom it belonged have died out; or may be the cause of its destruction is nothing more tragical than a lawsuit !"

As I returned, I inquired of a woman in the nearest village if she could tell me to whom that desolate spot belonged.

"To a Spaniard,” she answered; "but he is dead!"

"But to whom does it belong now?" I "Why is it suffered to fall into

asked. ruin?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head, and re-entering the hovel, at the door of which she had been standing.

During dinner that day I asked the host of the inn if he knew the place, and could satisfy my curiosity. He knew it well, he answered. The last inhabitant had been a Count Ruy Gonzalez, a Spaniard, whose wife had died there under some painful circumstances, of which nobody knew the particulars. He had been passionately fond of her, and immediately after her decease had gone to reside in Paris, where he had also died. As the place formed part of the lady's fortune, it had fallen into the hands of some distant relation of hers, who had let it; but the tenant, after a residence of a few months, left it, at some sacrifice of rent; and other parties who subsequently took it having all speedily vacated under one pretext or another, an evil reputation gathered round and clung to it so tenaciously, that all idea of occupation had been relinquished.

It may be conceived that this information did not diminish my interest in the deserted house; and on the following day I was quite eager to see my invalid settled for her midday slumber, in order that I might repeat

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