chises of these places passed both Houses, and received the royal assent. The Alsatians and Savoyards were furious. Anonymous letters, containing menaces of assassination, were received by members of Parliament who had made themselves conspicuous by the zeal with which they had supported the bill; but such threats only strengthened the general conviction that it was high time to destroy these nests of knaves and ruffians. A fortnight's grace was allowed; and it was made known that, when that time had expired, the vermin who had been the curse of London would be unearthed and hunted without mercy. There was a tumultuous flight to Ireland, to France, to the Colonies, to vaults and garrets in less notorious parts of the capital; and when, on the prescribed day, the Sheriff's officers ventured to cross the boundary, they found those streets where, a few weeks before, the cry of A writ!' would have drawn together a thousand raging bullies and vixens, as quiet as the cloister of a cathedral." In the gallery of portraits of British statesmen furnished by Mr. Macaulay we rank none higher than those of Montague and Somers. The historian seems to love these men; and well he may, for they were the intellectual founders of the Whig party. Montague is nobly and judiciously presented: "Another director of the Whig party was Charles Montague. He was often, when he had risen to power, honors, and riches, called an upstart by those who envied his success. That they should have called him so may seem strange; for few of the statesmen of his time could show such a pedigree as his. He sprang from a family as old as the Conquest: he was in the succession to an earldom, and was, by the paternal side, cousin of three earls. But he was the younger son of a younger brother; and that phrase had, ever since the time of Shakspeare and Raleigh, and perhaps before their time, been proverbially used to designate a person so poor as to be broken to the most abject servitude or ready for the most desperate adventure. Charles Montague was early destined for the Church, was entered on the foundation of Westminster, and after distinguishing himself there by skill in Latin versification, was sent up to Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge the philosophy of Des Cartes was still dominant in the schools. But a few select spirits had separated from the crowd, and formed a fit audience round a far greater teacher. Conspicuous among the youths of high promise who were proud to sit at the feet of Newton was the quick and versatile Montague. Under such guidance the young student made considerable proficiency in the severe sciences; but poetry was his favorite pursuit; and when the University invited her sons to celebrate royal marriages and funerals, he was generally allowed to have surpassed his competitors. His fame travelled to London : he was thought a clever lad by the wits who met at Will's, and the lively parody which he wrote, in concert with his friend and fellow student Prior, on Dryden's Hind and Panther, was received with great applause. At this time all Montague's wishes pointed towards the Church. At a later period, when he was a peer with twelve thousand a year, when his villa on the Thames was regarded as the most delightful of all suburban retreats, when he was said to revel in Tokay from the Imperial cellar, and in soups made out of bird's nests brought from the Indian Ocean, and costing three guineas apiece, his enemies were fond of reminding him that there had been a time when he had eked out by his wits an income of barely fifty pounds, when he had been happy with a trencher of mutton chops and a flagon of ale from the College buttery, and when a tithe pig was the rarest luxury for which he had dared to hope. The Revolution came and changed his whole scheme of life. He obtained, by the influence of Dorset, who took a peculiar pleasure in befriending young men of promise, a seat in the House of Commons. Still, during a few months, the needy scholar hesitated between politics and divinity. But it soon became clear that, in the new order of things, parliamentary ability must fetch a higher price than any other kind of ability; and he felt that in parliamentary ability he had no superior. He was in the very situation for which he was peculiarly fitted by nature; and during some years his life was a series of triumphs. Of him, as of several of his contemporaries, especially of Mulgrave and of Sprat, it may be said that his fame has suffered from the folly of those editors who, down to our own time, have persisted in reprinting his rhymes among the works of the British poets. There is not a year in which hundreds of verses as good as any that he ever wrote are not sent in for the Newdigate prize at Oxford and for the Chancellor's medal at Cambridge. His mind had indeed great quickness and vigor, but not that kind of quickness and vigor which produces great dramas or odes: and it is most unjust to him that his Man of Honor and his Epistle on the Battle of the Boyne should be placed side by side with Comus and Alexander's Feast. Other eminent statesmen and orators, Walpole, Pulteney, Chatham, Fox, wrote poetry not better than his. But fortunately for them, their metrical compositions were never thought worthy to be admitted into any collection of our national classics. It has long been usual to represent the imagination under the figure of a wing, and to call the successful exertions of the imagination flights. One poet is the eagle: another is the swan: a third modestly compares himself to the bee. But none of these types would have suited Montague. His genius may be compared to that pinion which, though it is too weak to lift the ostrich into the air, enables her, while she remains on the earth, to outrun hound, horse, and dromedary. If the man who possesses this kind of genius attempts to ascend the heaven of invention, his awkward and unsuccessful efforts expose him to derision. But if he will be content to stay in the terrestrial region of business, he will find that the faculties which would not enable him to soar He into a higher sphere will enable him to distance in politics he stands in the highest rank. all his competitors in the lower. As a poet Mr. Disraeli is a novelist of the third rankMontague could never have risen above the crowd. But in the House of Commons, now a poet of the thirtieth in the House of fast becoming supreme in the State, and extend- Commons he is a great power. Lord John ing its control over one executive department Russell is a conspicuous example of the after another, the young adventurer soon ob- relation of faculties in the two services. tained a place very different from the place has tried every form of literary exercise : which he occupies among men of letters. At thirty, he would gladly have given all his chances in life for a comfortable vicarage and a chaplain's scarf. At thirty-seven, he was First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Regent of the Kingdom." the " practical man," drama, history, poetry, essay, biography, — and in none can his warmest friends assert that he has taken high rank. Yet the genius that has failed to earn distinction in literature has sufficed to rule the House of Commons and govern England. Montague offers one more example of a man failing in literature and succeeding in In closing these volumes of Mr. Macaulay's politics. The comparison of genius against History we must record, in a few words, our genius - man against man-has often been impression of them as a whole. They have made and generally, we believe, in favor of great beauties and great defects. They are the statesman, unusually copious in knowledge and in utteras one dull fellow generally likes to call ance. They are exciting, various, and emianother dull fellow, by way of compliment. nently pictorial. They are also full of Yet we scarcely know of an example in which prejudice -personal prejudice and party prethe man of letters has entered the House of judice. In many parts they are hasty in Commons without making in that House a judgment as well as passionate in expression. more distinguished figure than he made in his Many will object to characters and passages; own sphere. Montague would have ranked and there is more than one excessively below Prior as a poet as a man of affairs rancorous attempt to blacken a bright he beat Godolphin. Sir E. B. Lytton goes reputation. Yet, with all their defects, into the House and becomes a chief of his par- these volumes are a fine addition to our ty—a coming Minister. Mr. Gladstone, in library, the greatest historical work of our literature, would be a second-rate essayist: generation. more copies will soon be ready. These issues will amount to the full sale of the old volumes; the total sum of the many editions of these latter, including the unsold stock, being forty thousand copies. The history of the London book-trade offers no example of such sales in former times; except, perhaps, in the case of Byron, whose boast it was that thirty thousand copies of one of his poems were sold in one day. BOOKS IN ENGLAND. The book-buying pow-| er of England is every year increasing, as we see by the increasing sale of favorite works that are new, and by the advancing price of favorite books that are old. Mr. Dickens and Mr. Macaulay have more readers this Christmas than ever. Thirty-five thousand copies of the first number of "Little Dorrit " have been sold; and there will soon be thirty-five thousand copies of the "History of England" in the market. In Mr. Murray's sale last week offers further evthe Preface to "Bleak House," Mr. Dickens idence of the vigorous and healthy state of the told us that he had found more readers for that book trade. In spite of the depressing influence work than for any other in the long procession of the War, his new works found ready purchasof his tales the circulation, we believe, was ers, as the following list of a few of the sales thirty-two thousand. "Little Dorrit," there will show:- Mr. Grote's twelfth volume of fore, begins her story to an audience increased "The History of Greece," 1,200 — Dr. Liddell's by three thousand purchasers. The first im- Rome," 800 - Mr. Porter's "Five Years in pression of Mr. Macaulay's former volumes con- Damascus," 600 Dean Milman's "Latin sisted, we believe, of five thousand; the first Christianity," 600- "Puss in Boots," 2,000 impression of the volumes which we review to- The Englishman in America," 1,000— day was twenty-five thousand. But the work Mr. Fergusson's "Handbook of Architecture," is again in the press, and ten thousand 1,000. From Graham's Magazine. DR. KANE. A SKETCH, BY DR. WILLIAM ELDER. DR. ELISHA KENT KANE is not quite thirtyfour years old, yet he has done more than circumnavigate the globe he has visited and traversed India, Africa, Europe, South America, the islands of the Pacific, and twice penetrated the Arctic region to the highest latitude attained by civilized man. He has encountered the extremest perils of sea and land, in every climate of the globe; he has discharged in turn the severest duties of the soldier and the seaman; attached to the United States Navy as a surgeon, he is, nevertheless, engaged at one time in the coast survey of the tropical ocean, and in a month or two, we find him exploring the frigid zone; and all the while that his personal experiences had the character of romantic adventure, he was pushing them in the spirit of scientific and philanthropic enterprise. soundness of health. He solicited an appointment in the Navy, and upon his admission, demanded active service. He was appointed upon the diplomatic staff as surgeon to the first American Embassy to China. This position gave him opportunity to explore the Philippine Islands, which he effected mainly on foot. He was the first man who descended into the crater of Tael; lowered more than a hundred feet by a bamboo rope from the overhanging cliff, and clambering down some seven hundred more through the scoriæ, he made a topographical sketch of the interior of this great volcano, collected a bottle of sulphurous acid from the very mouth of the crater; and, although he was drawn up almost senseless, he brought with him his portrait of this hideous cavern, and the specimens which it afforded. Before he returned from this trip, he had ascended the Himalayas, and triangulated Greece, on foot; he had visited Ceylon, the Upper Nile, and all the mythologic region of Egypt; traversing the route, and making the acquaintance, of the learned Lepsius, who was then prosecuting his archæological researches. At home again, when the Mexican war broke out, he asked to be removed from the Philadelphia Navy Yard to the field of a more congenial service; but the government sent him to the Coast of Africa. Here he visited the slave factories, from Cape Mount to the river Bonny; and, through the infamous Da Souza, got access to the baracoons of Dahomey, and contracted, besides, the Coast Fever, from the effects of which he has never entirely recovered. As a boy, his instinctive bent impelled him to the indulgence and enjoyment of such adventures as were best fitted to train him for the work before him. His collegiate studies suffered some postponement while his physical qualities pressed for their necessary training and discipline. It was almost in the spirit of truancy that he explored the Blue Mountains of Virginia, as a student of geology, under the guidance of Professor Rodgers, and cultivated, at once, his hardihood of vital energy and those elements of natural science which were to qualify him for his after services in the field of physical geography. But in due time he returned to the pursuit of literature, and achieved the usual honors, as well as though his college From Africa he returned before the close studies had suffered no diversion-his mus- of the Mexican war, and, believing that his cles and nerves were educated, and his brain constitution was broken, and his health lost nothing by the indirectness of its devel- rapidly going, he called upon President Polk, opment, but was rather corroborated for all and demanded an opportunity for service that the uses which it has served since. He might crowd the little remnant of his life graduated at the University of Pennsylvania with achievements in keeping with his amfirst in its collegiate, and afterwards in bition; the President, just then embarrassed its medical department. His special relishes by a temporary non-intercourse with General in study indicated his natural drift: chemistry and surgery; natural science in its most intimate converse with substance, and the remedial art in its most heroic function. He occupied by the enemy. went out from his Alma Mater a good clas-marked by an adventure so romantic, and so sical scholar, a good chemist, mineralogist, illustrative of the character of the man, that Scott, charged the Doctor with despatches to the General, of great moment and urgency, which must be carried through a region This embassy was astronomer, and surgeon. But he lacked, or we are tempted to detail it. thought he lacked, robustness of frame and On his way to the Gulf he secured a horse in Kentucky, such as a knight errant would part of the colonel's beard off with the last have chosen for the companion and sharer of charge of his six-shooter; then grappling his adventures. Landed at Vera Cruz, he with them and using his fists, he brought the asked for an escort to convey him to the party to terms. The lives of the prisoners capital, but the officer in command had no were saved, and the Doctor received their troopers to spare - he must wait, or he must swords. As soon as General Gaona could accept, instead, a band of ruffian Mexicans reach his son, who lay at a little distance called the Spy Company, who had taken to the from the scene of the last struggle, the Docbusiness of treason and trickery for a liveli- tor found him sitting by him, receiving his hood. He accepted them, and went forward. last adieu. Shifting the soldier and resumNear Puebla his troop encountered a body of ing the surgeon, he secured the artery, and Mexicans escorting a number of distinguished put the wounded man in condition to travel. officers to Orizaba, among whom were Major The ambulance got up for the occasion conGeneral Gaona, Governor of Puebla; his son tained at once the wounded Maximilian, the Maximilian, and General Torejon, who com- wounded second-lieutenant, and the man that manded the brilliant charge of horse at Buena had prepared them for slow traveling, himself Vista. The surprise was mutual, but the Spy on his litter, from the lance wound received Company had the advantage of the ground. in defence of his prisoners! When they At the first instant of the discovery, and reached Puebla, the Doctor's wound proved before the rascals fully comprehended their the worst in the party. He was taken to involvement, the Doctor shouted in Spanish, the government house, but the old General, "Bravo! the capital adventure, Colonel, in gratitude for his generous services, had form your line for the charge!" And down him conveyed to his own house. General they went upon the enemy; Kane and his Childs, American commander at Puebla, heargallant Kentucky charger ahead. Under- ing of the generosity of his prisoner, disstanding the principle that sends a tallow candle through a plank, and that the momentum of a body is its weight multiplied by its velocity, he dashed through the opposing force, and turning to engage after breaking their line, he found himself fairly surrounded, and two of the enemy giving him their special attention. One of these was disposed of in When he recovered and returned, he was an instant by rearing his horse, who, with a employed in the Coast Survey. While blow of his fore foot, floored his man; and engaged in this service, the government by wheeling suddenly, the Doctor gave the other its correspondence with Lady Franklin became a sword wound, which opened the external committed for an attempt at the rescue of Sir iliac artery, and put him hors de combat. John and his ill-starred companions in Arctic This subject of the Doctor's military surgery discovery. Nothing could be better addressed was the young Maximilian. The brief melee to the Doctor's governing sentiments than terminated with a cry from the Mexicans, this adventure. The enterprise of Sir John "We surrender." Two of the officers made ran exactly in the current of one of his a dash for an escape, the Doctor pursued own enthusiasms- the service of natural them, but soon gave up the chase. When science combined with heroic personal effort; he returned, he found his ruffians preparing and, added to this, that sort of patriotism to massacre the prisoners. As he galloped which charges itself with its own full share past the young officer whom he had wounded, in the execution of national engagements of he heard him cry, 66 Senor, save my father." | honor; and besides this cordial assumption A group of the guerilla guards were dashing of his country's debts and duties, there was upon the Mexicans, huddled together, with no little force in the appeal of a nobly brave their lances in rest. He threw himself spirited woman to the chivalry of the Amerbefore them one of them transfixed his ican navy. horse, another gave him a severe wound in the groin. He killed the first-lieutenant, wounded the second-lieutenant, and blew a charged him without making any terms, and the old general became the principal nurse of his captor and benefactor, dividing his attentions between him and his son, who lay wounded in an adjoining room. This illness of our hero was long and doubtful, and be was reported dead to his friends at home. He was "bathing in the tepid waters of the Gulf of Mexico, on the 12th of May, 1850," when he received his telegraphic order to proceed forthwith to New York, for duty and rest would but give him leave to fill up upon the Arctic evpedition. In nine days his natural measure. His complexion is fair, from that date he was beyond the limits of his hair brown, and his eyes dark gray, with the United States on his dismal voyage to the a hawk look. He is a hunter by every gift North Pole. Of this first American ex- and grace and instinct that makes up the pedition, as is well known to the public, he was the surgeon, the naturalist, and the historian. It returned disappointed of its main object, after a winter in the regions of eternal ice and a fifteen months' absence. Scarcely allowing himself a day to recover from the hardships of this cruise, he set on foot this second attempt, from which he has returned, after verifying by actual observation the long questioned existence of an open sea beyond the latitude of 820, and beyond the temperature, also, of 100° below the freezing point. His "Personal Narrative," published early in 1853, recounts the adventures of the first voyage, and discovers his diversified qualifications for such an enterprise. The last voyage occupied two winters in the highest latitudes, and two years and a half of unintermitted labor, with the risks and responsibilities attendant. He is now preparing the history for publication. But that part of it which best reports his own personal agency, and would most justly present the man to the reader, will of course be suppressed. We would gladly supply it, but as yet this is impossible to us. His journal is private property, the extracts which we may expect will be only too shy of egotism, and his companions have not spoken yet, as some day they will speak, of his conduct throughout the terrible struggles which together they endured. To form anything like an adequate estimate of this last achievement, it is to be recollected that his whole company amounted to but twenty men, and that of this corps or crew he was the commander, in naval phrase; and when we are apprised that his portfolio of scenery, sketched on the spot in pencil, and in water colors kept fluid over a spirit-lamp, amounts to over three hundred sketches, we have a hint of the extent and variety of the offices he filled on this voyage. He was in fact the surgeon, sailing-master, astronomer, and naturalist, as well as captain and leader of the expedition. This man of all work, and desperate daring and successful doing, is in height about five feet seven inches; in weight, say one hundred and thirty pounds or so, if health character; an excellent shot, and a brilliant horseman. He has escaped with whole bones from all his adventures, but he has several wounds which are troublesome; and, with such general health as his, most men would call themselves invalids, and live on furlough from all the active duties of life; yet he has won the distinction of being the first civilized man to stand in latitude 82° 30′ and gaze upon the open Polar Sea -to reach the northernmost point of land on the globe-to report the lowest temperature ever endured — the heaviest sledge journeys ever performed -and the wildest life that civilized man has successfully undergone; and to return after all to tell the story of his adventures. The secret spring of all this energy is in his religious enthusiasm-discovered alike in the generous spirit of his adventures in pursuit of science, in his enthusiastic fidelity to duty, and in his heroic maintenance of the point of honor in all his intercourse with men. In his deportment there is that mixture of shyness and frankness, simplicity and fastidiousness, sandwiched rather than blended, which marks the man of genius, and the monk of industry. He seems confident in himself but not of himself. His manner is remarkable for celerity of movement, alert attentiveness, quickness of comprehension, rapidity of utterance and sententious compactness of diction, which arise from a habitual watchfulness against the betrayal of his own enthusiasms. He seems to fear that he is boring you, and is always discovering his unwillingness "to sit" for your admiration. If you question him about the handsome official acknowledgments of his services by the British and American governments, or in any way endeavor to turn him upon his own gallant achievements, he hurries you away from the subject to some point of scientific interest which he presumes will more concern and engage yourself; or he says or does something that makes you think he is occupied with his own inferiority in some matter which your conversation presents to him. One is obliged to struggle with him to maintain the tone of respect which his character and achievements deserve; and when the interview is over, a |