From the intelligence received from India, it appears that there is likely to be another Burmese war. A naval squadron, under Commodore Lambert, having been sent to Rangoon to demand satisfaction for certain aggressive proceedings on the part of the King of Ava. The King offered ready submission to this demand, and displaced the governor of Rangoon by whom it had been first opposed. But these amiable professions turned out insincere; for scarcely had the new governor, or viceroy, been placed in authority than he commenced a series of annoyances and insults against all British subjects. Commodore Lambert sought an interview with the viceroy, which was not only refused, but all communication between the shore and the fleet strictly prohibited. Many of the British took refuge on board the English vessels, while those who remained behind desirous of securing their property were cast into prison. The fleet remained at anchor for 24 hours on the opposite side of the river, when intimation was received from the viceroy that he should fire on the squadron should the Commodore attempt to move down the river. On the 10th of January the Fox was towed down, and anchored within a few hundred yards of the stockade erected by the viceroy, when the steamer, having returned to bring away with her a Burmese man-of-war, was fired on, which was immediately returned with great vigour. The enemy dispersed after some three hundred of them were slain. The squadron then proceeded on its course,

NARRATIVE OF FOREIGN EVENTS.

THE most important article of news from France is | to accept five per cent. stock in lieu of their deposits that the President has effected another coup d'état, the conversion of the Five per Cent. Rentes into Four-anda-half; a measure which will lessen the interest on the Stock by eighteen millions and a half of francs, and is in fact a robbery on the stock-holders to that extent. A very large proportion of the rentiers, who will suffer this loss, are poor people of the working classes, who had money in the savings banks in 1848, and were obliged

A decree has seized by the provisional government. been promulgated regulating the relations of the chambers with the President. Each senator may propose to present to the President the basis of a bill of great national interest. A national interest. Any proposals of modifications of the The corps constitution must be signed by ten senators. legislatif cannot reject a bill without discussing all the articles separately. The president is to receive 100,000

francs salary. The severest penalty applied to a deputy of them, too, seeing their stock diminish too rapidly, is fifteen days' exclusion. Another decree has been providently desired to eke it out. An order, however, published, whereby the retirement of judges of the has been issued, to the effect that every baker shall Court of Cassation is enforced at the age of seventy-five, bake daily such quantity of bread as the police may on the ground of presumed infirmity, and of all inferior prescribe, and sell it at the price fixed by the police. judges at the age of seventy; the power of the Court of Disobedience is to be punished in every case with a fine Cassation to suspend judges for specified misconduct is of 31., or a fortnight's imprisonment, and repeated also enlarged by empowering that court to dismiss them infraction with expulsion from guild. on the same ground. The measure will give the government a great deal of patronage; and there can be no doubt that the new judges will all be men thoroughly to be depended upon, either to uphold confiscation or to condemn political prisoners.

A decree has been published imposing severe restric- | tions the sale of materials for printing. Entries upon are to be made of the names and addresses of purchasers, and copies of this register sent to the Prefect of Police. No private press, however small, can be possessed without authorisation. Printers' licenses are in future to be conferred by the Minister of Police.

The Exchange of Hamburg, on the 10th instant, presented the spectacle of the Execution of a Bankrupt. At noon, when the tide of business was at the highest, two drummers in the civic uniform came up and rolled their drums for ten minutes. Workmen were seen over the principal gateway of the building elevating a black board, on which was painted in white letters the name of a merchant of the city who had lately suspended payment and absconded with all his assets. When the name had been fairly set up, a bell, called the "schand-glocke," or shame bell, only rung on such occasions, was sounded for two hours from a tower of the Bourse. This penalty of disgrace, called the "execution of a fraudulent bankrupt," is ordained by a law which can be traced to the 14th century, when the Hanseatic League was at the height of its greatness.

The voyage of the Emperor of Austria from Venice to Trieste on the 4th inst., was attended with the loss of a fine steamer, the Marianna, with all hands on board. The morning was so stormy that the most experienced pilots protested against putting to sea, but their counsel was overruled by the military men forming the Emperor's suite. The consequence was, that the vessel on board of which the Emperor was, was separated from the other vessels, and next day reached Rovigno with difficulty. Of the Marianna nothing was ever seen again, but some fragments washed ashore, it appearing that she had gone to pieces near the mouth of the Po. Sixty-six persons perished, among whom were several military officers, engineers, and soldiers.

The accounts from nearly every part of Germany speak of great distress through dearth of provisions. In Lithuania, bands of from thirty to forty individuals overrun the country, and carry off by force whatever cereals they can find on the farms. In Upper Silesia, and more particularly in the circle of Rybniker, sickness and death have so increased, that the clergy are unequal to the duties of visitation and burial imposed upon them. It is feared that the hunger-fever of 1847 and 1848 will be renewed. The people of the Thuringian Forest are emigrating in despair; and in the Oberland of Weimar a whole parish, with priest and schoolmaster, has left the country. The same thing has been repeated in the duchy of Gotha. The government has bought the village, and is taking down the houses. In the Odenwald, in Hesse, the pressure is so great that the government has sent troops thither, fearing an insurrection. Not long ago, Prussia was the granary from which the Low Countries, France, and England, drew supplies; and, to-day, France is exporting corn to Prussia by sea and land. The Emperor of Russia has ordered the free admission into his dominions of lowpriced flour and meal. At Berlin, on the 2nd instant, the Minister of Finance announced that the duties of entry on importation of corn, flour, and vegetables, are suspended for all the States of the Zollverein till the 31st of August. At Cassel, where the price of bread is fixed by the police, the bakers found their business a losing concern, in consequence of the high price of corn, and were in some cases unable, by reason of the existing scarcity, to furnish the usual quantity of bread; some

The "Prague Gazette" of the 13th contains a proclamation by Count Clam-Gallas, which shows that the population of Bohemia is still in a state far from tranquil. Secret societies, the commandant says, yet exist in great numbers; and unlawful and unauthorised writings, such as revolutionary proclamations, addresses, and comments upon public affairs, circulate, chiefly in manuscript, among the people. The public is reminded that the mere possession of such documents is a crime punishable by the courts-martial with imprisonment and hard labour for a year. The Vienna courts-martial were still sitting, and, in the week ending March 15, had sentenced twenty persons, convicted of petty offences deemed political, to various imprisonments of from seven days to four months, diversified with blows with a rod, blows with a stick, fasts, and irons.

The chambers have just been opened in Wurtemberg, Nassau, and Oldenburg. The chief business in all these assemblies is to revise the constitutions, with a view to cancelling all clauses that guarantee popular rights, or enable the popular will in any way to influence affairs of state. The governments of the three States named have strong majorities, as everywhere else in Germany.

Accounts from Athens state that a secret republican society, with ramifications extending to Constantinople, had been discovered. In the night of the 12th of February, the police, supported by the gendarmerie, surrounded the houses of some Polish refugees resident at Athens, and of Messrs. Negris and Bouyoncli, Greek citizens, known to be on terms of friendship with them. All the parties were arrested and their papers seized. Military measures of the most stringent character were taken to overawe the population. General Milbitz, and fourteen other Polish refugees, were ordered to quit the Greek territory in 24 hours. They embarked at the Piræus, some for Sardinia and others for Alexandria. The subject having been brought forward by the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies, the ministry promised to produce documents, showing the necessity of the measure, and M. Provellegio, Minister of Justice, distinctly denied that the measure had been adopted on the demand of any foreign power.

By accounts from St. Petersburg, it appears that the perennial war with the Circassians continues to rage with violence. Bulletins from the army of the Caucasus state, that on the 10th and 18th of January different columns, which had been directed upon the valley of the lesser Tchetchina, encountered bodies of mountaineers, of whom they slew great numbers, and set fire to their villages. The Russian loss in these various combats was 49 killed and 233 wounded. Among the former was Major-General Kroukowski, who was struck by a ball while investing a village at the head of his cavalry. A hotter contest took place in Doghestan. A column was sent out on the 14th of January, which, after destroying the village of Mischkil on the 17th, on the 18th invested Schellagi, rendered almost impregnable by the fortifications which the mountaineers had raised there. After a fierce struggle the place was taken and burnt, but the Russians lost first 130 men killed and 341 wounded; among the latter were two colonels. All the inhabitants perished. Incidents such as these have filled the bulletins of the Russian army of the Caucasus for these last six years. Once in twelve months the Russian forces advance some distance into the territory of the indomitable mountaineers, according to a plan prepared in the military chancery at Tiflis, destroying the villages, lighting up the primitive forests by incendiarism, and seizing upon the herds of the natives. These operations are, however, of brief duration, and may be renewed for many years without procuring the

least submission of the people. The failure of provisions into the United States Senate, ceding the 'public lands and the early snows compel an early retreat. The to the states in which they lie, at certain prices. It Circassians, led by Schamyl or one of his Naibs, follow was announced in the House of Representatives that the retreating Russians, and harass their ranks, attack drafts of the federal government were actually being the convoy, cut off the weak and failing, and revenge protested, for want of funds in the quartermaster's themselves for the desolation of their village by similar department to meet them. devastations on the Russian territory on the other side of the Sundscha and Terck. In the Western Caucasus the war has never been carried on with so much bitterness and constancy. By the true Circassian people, who speak three distinct languages, and are divided into a number of small tribes, a pacific attitude will be maintained, almost unchanged, for several years. But still hostilities have never entirely ceased in the Circassian mountain-land. After After years of inactivity, attacks upon the Russian posts on the Black Sea recommence, from some unknown cause of warlike passion-a Berserkerlike fury suddenly seizes the valiant race, when the chiefs of all the tribes assemble under the sacred oak, and there devote their swords to Seaseros, the god of battles, who, like many other deities of the place, maintains his ancient honours in spite of the introduction of Islamism, and sustains a more considerable part here than Allah, or the prophet. All the politic attempts of Prince Woronzow to captivate the western mountaineers by offers of material advantages, lucrative trade, are scorned, and the French may hope to civilise and settle Kabylia long before Russia will have gained peaceful possession of Circassia.

Advices from New York come down to the 10th instant. The intelligence is not of much importance. In the United States Senate on the 8th instant, a bill was reported by the finance committee, the object of which was to increase the value of silver, and thereby retain it in the country. It was said that this measure would greatly tend to alleviate the inconvenience to which the trading community are frequently subjected for want of small change. A bill had been introduced

his

Advices from Buenos Ayres give the important intelligence of the complete overthrow of the power of General Rosas, the Dictator of Buenos Ayres. On the morning of the 3rd of February, a severe and decisive action was fought, between Merlo and the Passo del Rey, between the forces of Rosas and the allied Brazilian and Oriental armies, under the command of Gen. Urquiza ; the battle terminated in the defeat of the Buenos Ayrean troops. It is said 4000 men were killed and wounded in this engagement, and Rosas himself. During the night of the 3rd General Urquiza slept at the country residence of General Rosas, at Palermo, and took up head-quarters there, previous to marching upon Buenos Ayres. Rosas, with his daughter Manuelita and several of his suite, escaped on board her Majesty's ship Locust. He was disguised as a marine, and his daughter as a sailor boy; they were afterwards transferred to her Majesty's ship Centaur, at Buenos Ayres. That city was commanded by General Mancilla, who offered to capitulate. The diplomatic agents of the various foreign powers had gone to arrange matters amicably, if possible. Urquiza's army comprised 28,0000 men, 5000 horses, and 40 pieces of artillery, with the necessary baggage. Mr. Payne, master of her Majesty's ship Locust, who rode out to see the fight, was met by some gauchos retreating, who demanded his horse, but on his refusing to give it up they took it from him, and wounded him so severely that he died in consequence. Previous to his defeat, Rosas shipped a considerable amount of treasure, and it is supposed that he would go to England either in a British ship of war or by the next mail steamer.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

|

mans' traveller's library.

Occupying a middle place between biography and history, the first volume of Lord Holland's Memoirs of the Whig Party during my Time is also a contribution to last month's literature. This first volume comprises the period from the break-up of the old Whig party by the French Revolution, to the death of Charles Fox. Another small volume by Mr. Hampden Gurney, partaking equally of biography and history, under the title of Historical Sketches deals with a selection of such important events or epochs, as may be most emphatically represented by the names of the prominent movers in them; as that of the expulsion of the English from France by Joan of Arc, the invention of printing and diffusion of thought by Caxton, modern discovery and commercial enterprise by Columbus, and the ReformaOn the other hand, tion and free inquiry by Luther. a book of memoirs of the Men and Women of France in the Last Century belongs as little to actual history as to actual biography, occupying rather the neutral ground between the latter and pure fiction. It is a collection of sober facts interwoven ingeniously with witty and fanciful inventions, in a style and with a skill which immediately reveals its French origin and manufacture.

THE most important publications of the past month | appearance in the portable form of the Messrs. Longhave been contributed to the departments of biography and history. Lord Cockburn has completed, in two volumes, a Life of Lord Jeffrey, which, by a very reasonable indulgence of the art of book-making, might have been extended to thrice the length, the sole profit of such extension accruing to the publisher. The biographer appears more wisely to have published only such and so many letters as would suffice to illustrate prominent features in the character and intellect of his old friend. The book presents less than usual, therefore, of that indiscriminate public use of private correspondence which has had too free a sanction of late from even high authorities, and to which something of the scandal of the literary forgeries lately perpetrated, must, without doubt, be assigned. Another biography, evidently the work of a scholar and a man of conscientious judgment, who writes anonymously, is that of Gustavus Vasa (with extracts from his correspondence), which appears to have originated in a regard for Swedish literature, and a more than ordinary acquaintance with the language, the volume being in fact a compendium of Geijer's History in so far as it relates to the great Swede king, reinforced and illustrated by original authorities. A very different sort of life, the subject chosen and the motive for choosing it presenting startling contrasts to that just named, is a compilation from a thorough-going Roman Catholic writer of France, M. Audin, and purports to be The Life of Henry VIII. and History of the Schism in England, which title says all that need be said of the work. A more pleasing title is that which introduces us to Robert Blake, Admiral and General at Sea, that old English worthy having found a biographer in Mr. Hepworth Dixon. Another great Englishman is celebrated in a republished volume on Sir Christopher Wren and his Times, by Mr. Elmes. And the well-known Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft, which Hazlitt formerly edited, has made welcome re

appear

to

Lamartine's second volume of the History of the Restoration of the Monarchy in France has been completed in English. It closes with Napoleon's flight from Waterloo, after a description of the battle in which the Homeric periods and the Homeric invention have been equally objects of emulation to the lively historian. Whether the Duke of Wellington will think it incumbent upon him, in vindication of the memory of his old and faithful Copenhagen, to take notice in any way of the statement that he had seven horses slain under him, by shot or fatigue, on that memorable day, and that the eighth was severely wounded before Blucher

came up, it is for the Duke to determine. But if his Grace resolves to take any notice of that grave assertion, perhaps he will also inform the English public at the same time, whether it be really true (as Lamartine not less gravely asserts) that, on the final charge of the English cavalry, he ordered the curb-chains to be taken off the bridles that the horses might plunge more violently down hill; and that, to make the fatal launch upon the French yet more precipitate and terrific, by "intoxicating the men with liquid fire, whilst the sound of the clarion should intoxicate the horses," he issued orders on the field for a plentiful distribution of brandy to the dragoons.

Professor Newman (of University College) has supplied some useful additions to Niebuhr, and several valuable illustrations of the early language and history of Rome, in a small scholarlike volume called Regal Rome. Mr. Grote, in a ninth and tenth volume, has brought his great work of the History of Greece to the triumphant close by Epaminondas of the struggle between Sparta and Thebes. The leading subjects dealt with in the volumes are the character and exploits of the Theban General, the expedition of Cyrus, the Retreat of the ten thousand, the Asian career of Agesilaüs, and the victories of Pelopidas against the Lacedæmonians. Strangely unlike such history as this, and yet in subject allied to it also, we have next to mention a History of the Island of Corfu, and of the Republic of the Ionian Islands, by an intelligent officer of Artillery, who has also published during the month a Manual of Field Operations for the use of officers on service, in which, amid other matters not uninteresting even to the non-professional reader, will be found a rationale of street-fighting upon the very latest and most approved principles. Mr. Gladstone has completed his translation of the third volume of Luigi Carlo Farini's Roman State, or history of the modern troubles and insurrection of Italy. Dr. Whewell has made public a series of eighteen short Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England, containing interesting criticisms of the successive investigators of that science from the Elizabethan divines down to Bentham. Colonel Sabine has issued his third translated volume of Humboldt's Cosmos, pursuing the astronomical portions of the great philosopher's physical description of the universe. And from Mr. Robert Grant we have received a History of Physical Astronomy from the Earliest Ages to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, treated both popularly and learnedly, and containing, in addition to very careful notices of the early history and masters of the science, and in especial of the establishment of Newton's great theory of gravitation, certainly the most detailed account which has yet been given of the progress and results of strictly modern research in the wide field of celestial physics.

a most useful Manual of Geography; and Mr. Keith Johnstone has issued two admirable School Atlases of Physical and General and Descriptive Geography; containing all the most recent discoveries and rectifications. William and Mary Howitt have given us a book, in two thick volumes, on the Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, embodying copious translated specimens both in verse and prose, very pleasingly executed, of the most celebrated early as well as recent writers of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. Mr. Pashley, one of her Majesty's counsel, has issued an elaborate treatise on Pauperism and the Poor Laws. Mr. Campbell of the Bengal Civil Service has made public, under the title of Modern India, a sketch of the entire system of civil government of our Eastern empire, with some account of the natives and their habitations, which the committee about to sit on the renewal of the India Charter will possibly find worth looking into. And Mr. Seymour Tremenheere, shocked by the number of poisonous doctrines and pernicious teachings on the subject of government, which, in the course of his experience as a government commissioner he has met with in cheap and widely diffused publications, has done his best to provide an antidote in a little volume on the Political Experience of the Ancients in its bearings on Modern Times; which is more likely, however, to attract the attention of students already familiar with Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero, than of the parties for whom it is intended.

But our list is not yet complete. The RegistrarGeneral has circulated a most striking Report on the Mortality of Cholera in England in '48-9, from which it appears that the victims of that terrible scourge during its last visitation numbered not less than fifty-three thousand two hundred and ninety-three, the deaths having averaged many more than a thousand a day for several days in succession. A volume of Miscellanies by James Martineau, on religious and philosophical themes, has been imported from America, as with the author's sanction re-published in that country. Mr. Bogue has imported from the same quarter The Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England. Mr. Angus Reach has collected under the title of Claret and Olives, his notes of a ramble in France from the Garonne to the Rhone. A little volume in Mr. Murray's Reading for the Rail" has been devoted to anecdotes of the British navy, exhibiting Deeds of Naval Daring; and in the same agreeable series several popular papers from the Quarterly Review have been reprinted, on Music and The Art of Dress, on The Flower-Garden, on The Honey-Bee, and on Theodore Hook. A new series of" Readable Books," issued by Messrs. Vizetelly, has commenced with a republication (from America) of Mr. Edgar Poe's Tales of Mystery and Humour. In another such series, in course of publication by Mr. Several volumes of a light and miscellaneous kind have Routledge, a circulation of Michaud's History of the also appeared during the month. Mr. Baxter has pub- Crusade has been commenced. Mr. Bohn has enriched lished some notes of his last year's travel in Portugal, his various and excellent "libraries" by several imSpain, and Italy, under the title of the Tagus and the portant books in their various departments, such as Sir Tiber. Mr. Frederic Hardman has reproduced from the Thomas Browne's Works, Pye Smith's Connexion of lucubrations of a German settler, Scenes and Adventures Science and Scripture, Humboldt's Cosmos, Plato, in Central America. Sir James Alexander has edited Cicero, Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses, and Mr. Allen's some posthumous papers of his friend Sir Richard Bon- Battles of the British Navy. Mr. Van Voorst has comnycastle, on Canada as it was, is, and may be. An menced a succession of small and valuable handbooks of ingenious city goldsmith has given the gold-digging Outlines of the Natural History of Europe, with a treaworld the timely benefits of his experience, in a thin tise by Mr. Henfrey on the Vegetation of Europe, its little volume cailed the Gold Valuer, containing tables Conditions and Causes. The Hakluyt Society has for ascertaining the value of gold, familiar explanations published some curious notes by one Captain Coats, of the art of assaying, and other helps to keep the on the Geography of Hudson's Bay, a century and a Californian and Australian miners from going astray as half ago. astray as half ago. Mr. Hullah has published a Grammar of to the value of their gains. A Fellow of Brasenose Musical Harmony. And finally, to Mr. Robert College, Mr. Bowen, who appears to be as well ac- Rockliff we are indebted for a pleasant verse translaquainted with modern as with ancient Greek, has fa- tion of the Literary Fables of Yriarte, a collection voured the world with his Diary of a Journey from which differs from other fables in being devoted excluConstantinople to Corfu, taking the monasteries of sively to subjects connected with literature and literary Mount Athos by the way, and riding through Thessaly men. and Epirus. Doctor Henry Holland has published some Chapters on Mental Physiology, treating of several moot questions in modern medical science, with original observation and philosophical candour. There has appeared a fifth edition, with many interesting new illustrations, of Sir Charles Bell's 'Bridgewater treatise on The Hand. To Mr. Hughes we are indebted for

The principal novels of the month have been Mrs. Crowe's Adventures of a Beauty, Mr. Madden's Wynville, or Clubs and Coteries, the Court and the Desert translated from the French, two anonymous novels called the Perils of Fashion and Lena or the Silent Woman. and an historical romance of old-English story entitled the Lily of St. Paul's.

cattle-Pale |

March 9th.-B. HOLMES, jun., Bradford, Yorkshire, cattle- Pale Seal, per 252 gals.,307. 10s. | Olive, Gallipoli, 447. to 451. Linseed, 271. to 277. 10s.

Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.