man, sitting on the grass, weeping like a child. In reality there was something depressing and shocking in the horrible desolation we had witnessed; yet withal so strangely fascinating, that we returned to it again and again. But we made no new discovery; except of the crater of an extinct volcano, in the vicinity of the charred forest already described.

At this point the party broke up, and Maclure and myself took leave. But there are mysterious whisperings afloat of subsequent explorations by a "select few ;" and in particular of some supposed ethereal or angelic beings discovered in Vesta. Their shape, it is said, cannot be distinguished; nor are they visible whilst within the disc of the planet, which is a very bright one; but when beyond its edge they are discernible, against the dark sky, hovering about with a soft greenish light, like that of the fire flies one sees on the banks of the Rhine. As soon as I can obtain any authentic particulars you shall hear from me again. In the meantime, adieu.

Yours ever,

CHARLES MAITLAND KILGour.

I omitted to mention that, observing how everybody rubbed their eyes after looking through the telescope, I determined to watch my own sensations, and detected a slight drawing or shooting pain in the organs, of course from the immense power of the lenses overstraining the optic nerve. I have just learned that several of the party are suffering from the same cause, one of them even with a temporary blindness of the right eye.

219

ANECDOTE

OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT.

BY THE AUTHOR OF REAL RANDOM RECORDS."

THE Consort of our gracious Queen is, as everybody knows, a Prince of the house of Saxe Gotha. Whether the famous Marshal Saxe was a member of the same family I cannot trace; but the place is celebrated for its well-known Almacks. Not that it was the first work of the kind by any means. Poor Richard's Almanack preceded it by many years. So did Francis, or Frances, Moore's; and there was a Popular one called Partridge's. One of his descendants is a Professor of Astrology, or Astronomy, or Anatomy-at any rate of something beginning with A, at one of our Universities or Colleges. I am not sure that the name was not Woodcock; but it reminded me of some wild bird of the kind. That notorious sporting character, Colonel Thornville, of Thornton Royal, once shot sixty brace of them on the same day. Another celebrated sporting character was Sir John Lade, or Ladd. I forget how much he betted to drive some sort of a vehicle, with two, or four, or six horses, a certain number of miles in a certain number of hours, and whether he won or lost; but it was reckoned a great feat. Then there was Merlin's carriage, without any horses at all. I am sure, at least, it went without horses; but am not positive if it was moved by springs or steam. Perhaps steam was not then invented. There are still carriages in the present day called Merlins, or Berlins-which is it but they are drawn by horses. The last invented vehicles, I believe, are called Broughams, or Brooms. But to return to

Prince Albert of Prussia, the son or brother-no, the cousin of the present king. There are some curious particulars about the Court of Prussia and Frederick the Great in the Memoirs of his aunt, the Margravine of Auspach and Bareuth. I remember reading them in the original French -who, by the way, excel in their biographies. The only thing we have to compare with them is the life, by himself, of Lord Herbert of Cherburg. A noted place in war time for harbouring the enemy's privateers. They did a great deal of damage to our export, and picked up some very rich prizes in the Channel. One of them, called the Jones Paul, or some such names, terribly infested the Scotch and English coasts, till, according to a memorandum now lying before me, she was driven ashore in Kent by Commodore G. P. R. James, and the pirates were taken prisoners at Sevendroog Tower on Shooter's Hill

REVIEW.

ETCH'D THOUGHTS. By the ETCHING CLUB.-Longman & Co.

THE process called Etching, although patronised and practised by the highest personage in the kingdom, is little. known or understood by the public in general, who commonly suppose the term to be synonymous with engraving. It may be briefly defined as drawing on copper with a steel point or needle, for the shape of which see a representation of the "sharp thing" in the title-page of the work itself. The design thus scratched through a waxen coat on the metal, is corroded or bit in with aqua fortis; the finest lines of all being afterwards scratched on the copper with the tool

without the use of the acid, or, as it is called, with the dry point. The roughness at the sides of the slight furrows thus made in the metal is called the burr, which, in printing, retains some of the ink that would otherwise be wiped off the surface of the plate, and produces that soft smeary tint so much admired by the initiated. An etching, properly, is never touched by the graver, a sharp cutting tool that makes deep lines in the copper, as the surgeons would say, by the first intention, without the help of the aqua fortis. And in etchings, painter's etchings at least, the effect is produced, more artistically, and less mechanically, than in engravings where the various tints are obtained by ruled lines of different degrees of closeness and thickness, according to the shade required.

The vulgar eye, accustomed to the sleekness of modern engravings, and especially those executed on steel, will be very apt to take fright at what would probably be called the scratchy appearance of an etching by a painter-just as some foreigners would object to a coat of English broadcloth, compared to those glossy ones to be seen abroad, shining as if fresh from a drenching shower of rain. Nevertheless, as fine or finer tints and tones of colour are produced by the hand, than by the ruler or machine-as in the plates called the Burial Place and the Village Church, both by Creswick, in the handsome work before us.

In one essential particular the etching point brings the power of the artist to the test, namely drawing, in which our native painters are generally supposed to be somewhat deficient. There is no striking the outline with the sharp decisive needle as may be done with a soft pencil, a crayon, or a brush-full of colour. All deformities or disproportions are glaringly apparent a glance shows whether the designer can or cannot draw, however he may affect a careless execu

tion and a disregard for details. Every touch is visibly good or bad, right or wrong; and judging from the book before us, we are rather disposed to concur in the opinion above alluded to as to the character of our countrymen as draughtsmen. In colouring they are unrivalled in modern times and masterly at effect, of which there are some favourable examples in the "Etch'd Thoughts," as well as of the besetting sin of painter etchers in exaggerated light and dark, positive white opposed to blacker shadows than are at all consistent with nature, except during severe thunder-storms and awful conflagrations. As illustrating the reverse of this fault, and the mock-heroical clare obscure, let the reader refer to the gem called the Chase, by Frederick Townsend, breathing the very cool, dewy, breezy freshness of nature, shiuing with the tender, pearly light of the young morning! On the other hand there are exceptions where blackness is a merit and even aids the sentiment. Witness the beautiful plate by Cope, called the Wanderer's Return, with that yew of a sable hue overhanging the grave-stone like a tree in mourning. But surely again a little colour might have been spared from the face-looking as if it wanted shaving all over-of the English Peasant, so named, but mistaken by us, at first, for Mr. Wordsworth, in the character of his own Waggoner. There is fine truth of colour in the face of Knight's Gipsy Boy.

These last mentioned subjects induce us to remark, en passant, on the title of the work, "Etch'd Thoughts"clearly, as regards nine-tenths of the illustrations, a misnomer, inasmuch as it implies a collection of what the old writers called conceits, only expressed graphically instead of verbally. A mere half length of a countryman in a smock frock, or a gipsy boy drawn literally, are no more thoughts than our bare description in words of the same objects. Neither arc