They appear to have grown in this unnatural situation; three of them have retained their brilliant color, but some spots have appeared upon the fourth, which render it probable that exclusion from light may produce, though more slowly, the same effect upon them that it does upon vegetables. The spring which rises here was discovered by the workmen; the basin was made for their use, and a subterranean aqueduct carries off the waters.

The different parts of the catacombs are named, with strange incongruity, from the author or the purport of the inscription which is placed there. Thus, there is the Crypta de la Verité, the Crypta de la Mort et de l'Eternité, and the Crypta de Néant, the Allée de Job, and the Crypte de Caton, the Crypte de la Résurrection, and the Crypte de la Fontaine. Virgil, Ovid, and Anacreon have each their crypts, as well as the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel; and Hervey takes his place with Horace, Malherbes, and Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. The inscriptions

are numerous.

The album which is kept at the catacombs is not a little characteristic of the

French nation; it contains a great many effusions of sentiment, a few of devotional feeling, and numerous miserable witticisms and profligate bravadoes.

There are different calculations as to the number of bones collected in the catacombs. It is, however, certain that they contain the remains of at least 3,000,000

of human beings.

Two cabinets have been formed by M. de Thury, in this immense depository of

the dead. One is a mineralogical collection of all the strata of the quarries; the other is a pathological assemblage of diseased bones, scientifically arranged. There is likewise a table, on which are exposed the skulls most remarkable either for their formation, or the marks of disease which they bear.

In the month of April, 1814, the Russian troops formed a camp in the plain of Mont Souris. As soon as they learned that the catacombs were beneath it, they inspected the entrance, and eagerly visited the vast subterranean sepulchre. passing through the various galleries they manifested close observation, and expressed sentiments of piety. The catacombs are objects of visit and investigation with all curious travellers.*

History of Paris, iii. 324–352.

In

CAUTION TO MAIDENS. Violets.

April 7, 1738, died John King, a celebrated printseller in the Poultry. lie left behind him a property of £10,000. It would be pleasant to collectors to know more of his profession, from Peter Stent, George Humble, and others in the reigns of Charles I. and II. In that of William III. John Bullfinch flourished; and Granger mentions Rowlet, as selling the print of Dobson: but the celebrated

mezzotinter Smith was a kind of monopolizer of the trade. John Overton, of whom there is a portrait, at the age of succeeded him as, in his day, the prinsixty-eight, in 1708, appears to have cipal vender of engravings. Granger conjectures Overton to have been descended from the family of a place of that name in Hants, but Noble imagines that he was in some way concerned with Scott, who was the most eminent bookseller in Europe, and resided in Little books of every description. Several of Britain, then the grand emporium for the trade were men of learning; and there the literati went to converse with each other. They could do this nowhere so well as at Overton's; especially if they wished to know any thing relative to foreign literature, as he had warehouses at Frankfort, Paris, and other places. He contracted with Herman Moll, of St. trade; but, Moll failing, he lost half the Paul's Church Yard, to purchase his £10,000 he owed him. The next great Bowles, at the Black Horse, in Cornhill, a printseller, after King, was Mr. John catalogue of whose maps, prints, &c., dated

Lays of the Minnesingers.

I have met with an allusion to the idea is in Maturin's Sermons, where occurs the figurative expression "the tenth wave of human misery." His volume, travelling across the Atlantic, caused the subject to be discussed in America, as appears by the subjoined extract from the New York Gazette, August 5, 1823 :—

“Hartford, August 4. "The tenth Wave.-An expression in one of Mr. Maturin's works to this effect, the 'tenth wave of human misery,' induced a gentleman who communicated the result in a Boston paper last summer to watch and see if the largest and most overwhelming wave was succeeded by nine and only nine smaller ones, and he satisfied himself that such was the fact. But this seems to be no new thought of Mr. Maturin. A valued friend has turned us to two passages in Ovid, in which he expressly mentions the phenomenon.

One

66

wave is to be seen I am well assured. At the conclusion of my Ornithologia," page 434, under the head Valedictory Lines, is a note relative to this subject which perhaps you will be good enough to transfer to your pages. It is true an impertinent, and, I will add at the same time, ignorant critic, in the New Monthly Magazine, thought proper some years ago

to animadvert on this allusion of mine to the tenth wave in no very courteous or measured terms; but the everlasting laws of nature are not to be overturned by critics, who know little or nothing about

those laws.

The tenth wave has excited the attention of the poets. Maturin somewhere speaks of the tenth wave of human misery. In turning over lately some of our older poets, I met with an allusion to the ninth wave; in whose works I do not now recollect. Ovid alludes to it in his Tristia Elegia 2, and also in his Metamor

and fiftieth.

"We should like to know if it be true, and, if so, what is the reason of it. Perhaps some friend of ours, who may visit the sea shore for his health or amusement this season, may furnish us with an

necessary here to repeat.

This notion of the tenth wave has long been entertained by many persons conversant with the sea-shore: I have often heard it when I was a boy, and have repeatedly watched the waves of the sea, when breaking on the shore (for it is to this particular motion that the tenth wave, as far as I know, applies), and can state that, when the tide is ebbing, no such phenomenon as the tenth wave occurs; but when the servable; it is not, however, invariably tide is flowing, some such is often ob

the tenth wave: after several smaller un

dulations, a larger one follows, and the water rises. This is more distinctly seen on a sandy or smooth muddy shore, of more or less flatness.

As names in authentication of facts are

It is not an idle subject; for it is well known that landing through the surf is dangerous, and, if it be ascertained that this is true, it may save some boats) and some lives."

communication.

The Van Thol tulip is in full flower, while the standard tulips remain, as yet, unfolded.

April 9.

Raffaello Sanzio the eminent painter, was born April 9th (March 28th, O. S.) 1483, at Urbino in the states of the church. His father was himself a painter, though an indifferent one. Raphael, while yet a boy, took leave of his parents, with great fondness on both sides, to go under the care of Pietro Perugino, one of the earliest masters of modern art. Pietro's style was crude and monotonous, but he had a talent for expression, and thus the finest part of his disciple's genius remained uninjured; he afterwards introduced his old master by his side, in his famous picture of the school of Athens. On quitting Perugino, he designed at Sienna; but was drawn to Florence, by the fame of Da Vinci and Michael Angelo. After improving his manner by the admiration of their works, he fell with equal zeal and patience to the study of the ancient sculp, tures; and formed a style of sweetness and power which placed him on the throne of his art. His genius was original, easy, and fertile. His fame was at its height in his life-time; and he lived to see his school support it. His disciples, one of whom was the famous Giulio Romano, were so attached to him, that they followed him about like a guard of honor. He was one of the most handsome, graceful, and good-tempered of men. His life was comparatively short, and apparently full of pleasing images. His death is said to have been owing to the mistaken treatment of a nervous fever, but it is understood that his intense sense of the beautiful devoured him; yet, in some of his works, there is great absence of the love of rural nature. In his picture of Parnassus, instead of a luxuriance of laurel-trees, in the back ground, he has divided it into

three uniform parts with three little patches of them, and the Castalian stream issues out of an absolute rain-spout. As a painter of humanity, in all its varieties of thought as well as beauty, he was never approached. The translation of his works upon copper is more difficult than that of most painters, because he deals so much in delicacy of expression.*

ART IN THE CITY.

In the present year, 1831, many private lovers of art have associated with its professors, in the heart of the metropolis, under the denomination of "The City of London Artists and Amateurs Conversazione." The meetings of this society Coffee-house, Ludgate-hill; and at each are held in the evening at the London meeting there is a succession of fresh and delightful specimens of drawing, painting, the sole expense, constitutes a member, and sculpture. A guinea a year, which is with certain privileges of introduction to the friends of members. So laudable and spirited a purpose in behalf of art in the city has the strongest claims on residents. Strange to say, this is the first endeavour to form an occasional association of artists and amateurs eastward of Temple Bar. The meeting on the 17th of March was highly gratifying; another on the 23d of April closes the season until the winter.

A correspondent who made the sketch, obligingly transmitted it for the present engraving, with this intimation, that it represents "the old Raven Hostelrie" at Hook, on the great western road between Murrell-green and Basingstoke. The house, which faces the south, was built in 1653; the original portion now standing is the kitchen and stair-case; and this kitchen is remarkable for having been the temporary residence of "Jack the Painter," the incendiary who fired Portsmouth dockyard, on the 7th of December, 1776.

The real name of this man was James Aitken; he was also called Hill, otherwise Hind. He seems to have acquired the appellation of "Jack the Painter" from having been apprenticed to a painter at Edinburgh, where he was born, in Sep

W. A. D. Jun., who likewise communicated his drawing of the Prison of Chillon, engraved at p. VOL I.-15.

tember, 1752. At the age of twenty-one curiosity led him to take a voyage to America. He traversed several of the colonies, working at his trade; left America in March, 1775; and, in October following, enlisted at Gravesend, as a soldier, by the name of James Boswell, in the thirty-second regiment. This was during the war with America, towards which country he conceived strong partiality. His military life was brief, and spent in deserting and enlisting into different regiments, and devising means for destroying the English dock-yards. The fire which he effected at Portsmouth dock-yard broke out in the upper loft of the ropehouse. It was discovered and quenched soon after it broke out, but not before it had effected considerable damage; and, though the fire was presumed to have been maliciously done, there was no clue to the fact until more than a month afterwards, when, in the great hemp-house,

Q