than from its absolute remoteness. These captives were made so on various pretences: one was that the English were coquetting with Egypt to deliver over the old Coptic regions to her control, and that the actual purport of all the English residents in his dominions, official | as well as non-official, was to spy out the weakness of the land, and to inform the Pasha of the result. sanguinary atrocity ever perpetrated in war, and a dis- | that distant region, distant rather from inaccessibility honour to the French, Belgian, and Austrian officers who carried it out. The King of the Belgians who, contrary to the interests and the guaranteed neutrality of his kingdom, assisted his son-in-law in his freebooting expedition, was said to have disapproved of such massacre, and to have advised the Emperor of the French to withdraw from the expedition and advise his protégé to abandon the hopeless task he had proposed to himself. The emperor had written a letter to the Queen of England, to which no reply was ever returned, and ot which no notice was taken in consequence of the neglect of the foreign office. On the 20th of April, however, letters arrived at the foreign office from Aden, which were more promptly made public than was usual with foreign-office documents intended for publicity. A lette from Captain Cameron, dated Magdala, February 26th, informed the minister for foreign affairs that the pr soners had been released from chains the day before, and were about to be given up to Mr. Rassam, the British consul. The letter represented the emperor as nat unfriendly, and stated that Messrs. Steres and Rosentha. were not to be subjected to any further trial." It was thought in London that Captain Cameron painted affairs couleur de rose under compulsion, and tha idea was borne out by events. The emperor continued his persecutions, and did not give up the prisoners until a British army stood before his stronghold, long after the date of these letters. The withdrawal of the French troops soon took place after the proclamation to that effect in Paris. The edict for the invasion went forth from the Palace at St. Cloud, and from the same chamber went forth the edict proclaiming the emperor's own disgrace in having to retire at the dictum of a foreign power and a republic. For years after the event the impolicy of the emperor became a subject of discussion in the Parisian press and the Chambers. The expense was enormous, and the French people were unwilling to pay for toys so costly. Their national pride was hurt by defeat, by the dictation of the United States, and by the caricatures and squibs" against France, the emperor, the army, Marshal Bazaine, &c., in the comic press of England, Germany, and America. The proclamations of Juarez, the president of the Mexican republic, and of his generals, were very hurtful to French dignity. The language used in the Congress of the United States amounted to denunciation and might have provoked war. On the whole in France the affair was an embarrassment, and had not died away even when, four years later, the empire fell and Bonaparte surrendered himself a prisoner to the King of Prussia. AFRICA. Much interest was felt in the safety of the great African traveller, Dr. Livingstone. Many fears were felt that, like other intrepid explorers of that continent. he had perished. It therefore afforded unbounded satisfaction when, on the 18th of December, intelligence * his safety arrived from his own hand, in a brief bat graphic letter, setting forth modestly his perils and his In other European nations, especially England, the whole transaction of the invasion and the retirement caused a distrust of the emperor as a reliable ally such as was never removed. England felt that she had been deceived, cajoled, and betrayed from the outset, that while the emperor in proposing to England one object-performances. the redress of wrongs inflicted upon British and French subjects-was all the while secretly devising a scheme of imperial propagandism and of territorial aggression, for it afterwards transpired that his Austrian protégé had engaged to cede to France a certain portion of Mexican territory, and to concede commercial and political privileges of an important nature. England had not forgotten the faithlessness of French diplomacy, and the whimsical and unreliable conduct of the emperor upon the termination of the war with Russia, nor the selfish policy of France in China, wherever British interests or influence was concerned. Spain also felt that she was lured into the Mexican expedition by false pretences, and ought not to rely upon the emperor. The Belgian people resented the desertion of the son-in-law of their king by what they considered the cowardice of the emperor in view of the power of the United States. Austria was utterly indignant; the kaiser and his family and court did not conceal their disgust at the manner in which a prince of the imperial house was coaxed against his will into an enterprise, in which the most solemn pledges that he should be supported to the last were given, and then abandoned to his fate (a terrible fate, as the sequel shewed), when it became more convenient to the emperor to forsake than sustain him. England had not only her own private sense of wrong, but she sympathised with Austria, Spain, and Belgium in their regrets and wrongs. The English people applauded the assurances of the ministers that they would involve the country in no future entanglement concerning Mexican affairs. ABYSSINIA. Much concern was felt in England for the suffering of the English and German captives held bound in chains and otherwise persecuted by Theodore, the emperor of He wrote from "the country of the Chepits," and as follows" It has been quite impos sible to send a letter coastwise ever since we left the Rovuma. The Arab slave-traders take to their heels as soon as they hear the English are on the road. I am a perfect bugbear to them. Eight parties thus ske daddled; and last of all my Johanna men, frightened eat of their wits by stories told them by a member of a ninth party who had been plundered of his slaves, walked off and left me to face the terrible Mazitu with nine Nassick boys. The fear which the English ner has struck into the souls of the slave-traders has thus been an inconvenience. I could not go round the north end of the lake for fear that my Johanna men, at sight of danger, would do there what they actually did at the southern end; and the owners of two dhows now on the lake kept them out of sight, lest I should burn them as slavers, and I could not cross in the middle. Rounding the southern end, we got up Kirk's Range, and among Manganja not yet made slave-sellers. This was a great treat, for, like all who have not been contaminated by that blight, they were very kind; and, having bee worried enough by unwilling Sepoys and cowardly Johanna men, I followed my bent by easy marches among friendly generous people, to whom I tried to impart some new ideas in return for their hospitality. The country is elevated, and the climate cool." Ada tions were made to the above in January, when the traveller was among the Bibisa, and in February, when he was in Bemba; but this last-named intelliger of safety under his own hand did not reach England till April, 1868. DECEASE OF EMINENT PERSONS. QUEEN MARIE AMELIE.-Among the very eminent individuals who passed away from life and from Engust society in 1866 was the Ex-Queen Marie Amelie of CHAP. X.] upper house-such as the Limited Liability Bill, &c.,and also in those relating more particularly to Irish affairs. In 1861, he opposed unsuccessfully the abolition of the paper duty. His lordship was a commissioner of the state-paper office, a trustee of the National Gallery, a member of the senate of the London Univer France. She was the consort of Louis Philippe, the He died on the 7th of February, at his seat, Mount LORD MONTEAGLE.-The Right Hon. Thomas SpringRice, Lord Monteagle, of Brandon, co. Kerry, in the peerage of the United Kingdom, F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., who held, during his long political career, some of the most considerable offices in the state, was the only son of Stephen Edward Rice, Esq., of Mount Trenchard, by Catherine, daughter of Thomas Spring, Esq., of Ballycrispin, co. Kerry, and was born at Limerick on the 8th of February, 1790. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1833, and for some time studied for the bar, but relinquished that profession on the occasion of his first marriage. He entered parliament in 1820, as one of the members for his native city, which he continued to represent in the Whig interest down to the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832, when he was chosen for Cambridge, and sat for that borough until his elevation to the peerage in 1839, during the whole of which time he had lent his support to every liberal measure that was proposed by his party, including the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, the Roman Catholic Relief and Reform Acts. He was under-secretary for the home department for a short time in 1827, and held the secretaryship of the treasury from November, 1830, to June, 1834, in which latter year he was also for a short time secretary of state for the colonies. In 1834, he was sworn a member of the privy council. On the return of Lord Melbourne's administration to office, in April, 1835, he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, but resigned that office in September, 1839, succeeding the late Sir J. Newport as comptroller-general of that department, and being at the same time raised to the peerage. His lordship frequently acted as a member of royal commissions on matters of taste and art, and bestowed considerable pains on the work of examining and reporting upon the decimal coinage question. He took a prominent part in the discussion of monetary and commercial subjects in the SIR HARRY JONES.-Sir Harry David Jones, G.C.B., Royal Engineers, and Governor of the Royal Military College, died on the 2nd of August at Sandhurst. This distinguished veteran officer, who was born at Landguard Fort on the 14th of March, 1792, obtained his commission as second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in September, 1808, and in the following year served in the expedition to Walcheren. He also served in the campaigns from 1810 to 1814 in the Peninsula. In February, 1815, he joined the army under General Lambert in Dauphin Island, and, by the return of an American flag of truce, was sent to New Orleans on special duty. On his return to Europe he proceeded to join the army in the Netherlands, and landed at Ostend on the 18th of June, 1815. He was appointed commanding engineer in charge of the fortifications on Montmartre after the entrance of the British troops into Paris in 1815, and was appointed a commissioner to the Prussian army of occupation in 1816. At the commencement of the war against Russia, in 1854, he was appointed a brigadier-general for particular service in the Baltic, and commanded the British forces at the siege operations against Bomarsund in the Aland Isles. For his services in the Baltic he was promoted to majorgeneral. He was appointed in February, 1855, to command the Royal Engineers in the Eastern campaign, which he retained until the fall of Sebastopol. He was wounded in the forehead by a spent grapeshot on the 18th of June. He was made a Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath, and was created a Grand Cross of that order in 1861. He also received the following distinctions and decorations: 1st Class Military Order of Savoy; 2nd Class Mejidie; Baltic Medal; Medal and Clasp, Siege of Sebastopol; Sardinian Medal; Turkish Medal for services in the East. In 1856 he succeeded General Sir G. Scovell, K.C.B., as governor of the Royal Military College, and of the Staff College at Sandhurst. He was employed also in the discharge of various other duties, one of the most important of which was that of president of the defence commission, from which emanated the extensive works for the defence of our harbours and dockyards. During the forty-eight years spent in the service of his country the deceased general earned and maintained the character of a thoroughly efficient, able, and gallant soldier, unsparing of himself and devoted to the duties of his profession. DR. WHEWELL.-The Rev. William Whewell, D.D., V.P.R.S., M.R.I.A., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge,-one of the most celebrated scientific and philo. sophical writers of his day, whose lamented death, from the effects of a fall from his horse, occurred on the 6th of March,-was born at Lancaster in 1795. He was of humble parentage; and it is said that his father intended to devote him to his own handicraft, but he was sent to the free grammar-school of Lancaster, and proceeded in due course to Trinity College. His position in the mathematical tripos as second wrangler, followed by the acquisition of the Second Smith's Prize, proved the possession of the intellectual powers which he cultivated up to the day when he suffered the accident which proved fatal. That a second wrangler should be in due time Fellow and tutor of his college, is a matter of course; but Mr. Whewell possessed an intellectual vigour which was not satisfied with the mere work of a college tutor. In 1828 יד he was elected professor of mineralogy, succeeding to the chair which had been founded for Dr. Clarke; and when the British Association was formed, he was requested to draw up a report on the condition of that science. It was in connection with the British Association (of which he was president in 1841) that he drew up the "Reports on the Tides, and on the Mathematical Theories of Heat, Magnetism, and Electricity," which rank among the first of his mathematical productions. Before this he had been chosen to write the "Bridgewater Treatise on Astronomy;" and it is, perhaps, this circumstance which first suggested to him the " History of the Inductive Sciences," published in 1837, followed, in 1840, by the "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," which are un- | doubtedly the works by which he will be best known in after-years. In 1832 he resigned the professorship of mineralogy, but in 1838 accepted the professorship of moral philosophy, which he held ti 1855. In 1841, during the ministry of Sir Robert Peel, he was nominated to the mastership of Trinity, on the resignation of Dr. Wordsworth; and in this position he took an active part in introducing into Cambridge the new studies which have since been recognised by the institution of the natural and moral sciences triposes. As professor of moral philosophy, he founded prizes for the encouragement of that study, which he himself always pursued with avidity. He edited Sir James Mackintosh's "Introduction to the Study of Ethical Philosophy," published two volumes of his on "Morality," and among his latest productions were some translations of the "Ethical Dialogues of Plato." If we add to this list, in which we have taken no notice of mere University text-books, "Lectures on Political Economy," delivered at the desire of the late Prince Consort before the Prince of Wales and other students; an edition of the works of Richard Jones on "Political Economy," "Architectural Notes on Churches in France and Germany," and "Some Specimens of English Hexameters," published in a book containing similar efforts by Sir John Herschel, the late Archdeacon Hare, and Mr. Lockhart, we may give some idea of his extraordinary versatility and industry. His Cambridge men all over the world associated Dr. Whewell with their recollections of the University. The master of Trinity was the head of the residents at Cambridge no less by the vigour of his intellect and the range of his acquirements, than by his position as the head of its greatest college; and the place he held in academic society was due more to himself than to his office. towering figure was one of those soonest known by the undergraduate, who had heard of his renown long before he came into residence; and when he quitted the University at the end of his career, the master of Trinity was the man above all others whom he remembered as the representative of Cambridge learning and Cambridge dignity. Men of such wide and varied attainments as Dr. Whewell possessed are always open to the suspicion of being but superficially acquainted with some of the branches of knowledge on which they write; and the master of Trinity was sometimes disparaged, as Leibnitz was in his day. The saying that "Science was his forte and omniscience his foible" is well known, though it had, in truth, less real ground than even epigrams usually have. Some seven or eight years before his death he built, at his own expense, a hostel for the reception of some of the overflowing students of Trinity, who had been compelled to live in lodgings for want of rooms in college; nd at the time of his death he had commenced still arger works by way of addition to the former building, which he had unwillingly deferred in consequence of difficulties in obtaining the necessary site, but the completion of which he took care to provide should be independent of the accident of his death. Dr. Whewell was twice married, and twice a widower. His first wife was Miss Marshall, a sister of Lady Mont eagle, and he caused a mortuary chapel in the cemetery at Cambridge to be built after his own designs as a memorial of his affection. She died in 1854, and he married, secondly, in 1858, the widow of Sir Gilbert Affleck, a sister of the lato Mr. Leslie Ellis, himself a Fellow of Trinity. The funeral of the deceased took place, in the chapel of Trinity College, on the 10th of March, and was attended by the Duke of Devonshire, Chancellor of the University, the bishops of Worcester and Ely, the representatives of the University, the Right Hon. S. H. Walpole and Mr. Selwyn, Sir J. F. W. Herschel, Bart., General Sabine, the Astronomer Royal, General Malcolm, the Provost of Oriel, the Hon. G. Denman, M.P., the Vice-Chancellor | and heads of houses, the whole college, several former Fellows, and a large number of other members of Senate. THE BISHOP OF CALCUTTA.-The Right Rev. George Edward Lynch Cotton, D.D., Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan in India and Ceylon, was accidentally drowned on the 6th of October at Kooshtea, on the Gorai river, while disembarking from a steam-boat, to the deep regret of his friends, and the great loss of the Church in India over which he presided. He was the son of Captain Thomas Cotton, of the 7th Fusiliers, who was killed only a month after the birth of the future bishop, at the head of his brigade, in storming the fortress of Nivelle, in the Peninsula. The boy was sent at an early age to Westminster School, from whence he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1832, | taking with him a fairly high character for scholarship, though he himself always spoke most modestly of his own attainments. Having taken his B.A. degree in 1836 as a senior optime, and eighth in the classical tripos, he was appointed by Dr. Arnold to a mastership in Rugby School, where he had the charge of a boarding-house, and also of a form of some fifty boys. Shortly afterwards he was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College; but he did not allow the attractions of University life to tear him away from his work at Rugby. Dr. Cotton was the sixth bishop who has held the see of Calcutta since its foundation, in 1814. The first was Dr. Thomas Fanshawe Middleton, who died in 1822; the second was Reginald Heber, who died in 1827; i next came Dr. James, who held it scarcely two years: then Dr. Turner, whose tenure of it was scarcely longer. To him succeeded Dr. Wilson, in 1832; on whose death the see was offered to, and accepted by, Dr. Cotton. LORD NORTHBROOK.-The Right Hon. Sir Francis Thornhill Baring, Baron Northbrook, of Stratton, in the county of Southampton, and a Baronet, whose death occurred on the 6th of September, at his seat Stratton Park, near Winchester, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Baring. He was born April 10, 1796, and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he greatly distinguished himself, having obtained a double firstclass in 1817, and graduated M.A. in 1821. He wa called to the bar by the Hon. Society of Lincoln's Inn, in 1823. In 1826 he was first returned to parliament for the borough of Portsmouth, in the Liberal interest, and he continued to represent that borough nearly forty years, up to the last dissolution of parliament. He was a thorough Whig, and was always a staunch and earnest supporter of the measures of his party. In 1830 he was appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury, which office he held up to June, 1834, when he became one of the joint secretaries of the Treasury, and so continued with the exception of a short interval up to 1839. He then accepted the post of chancellor of the exchequer, and held it up to September, 1841. From 1849 he was for three years first lord of the admiralty, after which period he retired from official life. THE REV. JOHN KEBLE.-Eminent as a theologian, but much more admirable as a poet, and the author of a volume which is esteemed among the most cherished treasures in thousands of English households, and has exerted a very powerful influence on the religious thought and feeling of the nation, the Rev. John Keble, vicar of Hursley, Hants, died at Bournemouth on the 29th of March, at the age of seventy-three. The deceased (who came maternally of a Scottish Jacobite family) was a son of the Rev. John Keble, some time Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for fiftytwo years vicar of Coln St. Aldwyn's, Gloucestershire, by | Sarah, daughter of the Rev. John Maule, vicar of Ringwood, Hants. He was born at Fairford, Gloucestershire, on the 25th April, 1792; and, having received his early education under his parental roof, proceeded to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where, before he had completed his fifteenth year, he was a successful candidate for a scholarship, and where he graduated B.A., in first-class honours, both in classics and mathematics, in Easter Term, 1810 (being at that time only just eighteen). He was soon afterwards elected to a fellowship at Oriel College, where he was the contemporary and friend of Dr. Arnold, as he had been at his former college; and where he took his degree of M.A., May 20, 1813. Mr. Keble, in 1813, gained the Chancellor's prizes for an English essay on "Translations from the Dead Languages," and for a Latin essay on "A Comparison of Xenophon and Julius Cæsar." He was ordained deacon by Dr. William Jackson, bishop of Oxford, on Trinity Sunday, 1815, and priest in the following year. He had already become one of the tutors of Oriel College, and he acted as examiner in the University in 1814-16; and again, 1821-23. About this latter date he ceased to reside, and retired to his father's living at Fairford, where he had a few pupils, and whence he made frequent visits to Oxford. He also filled successively the curacies of East Leach and Burthorpe, and afterwards of Southrop. These parishes are extremely small and contiguous to each other, near also to Fairford, whence he might count on the assistance of his father. He was pretty regularly, during the vacations, residing at Fairford, and during term time he rode from Oxford, on alternate Saturdays, for the duty of the Sunday. In the autumn of 1825, Mr. Keble accepted the curacy of Hursley, which, however, he held but for a short time; for, owing to the alarming illness and subsequent death of his younger sister, he withdrew from Hampshire, and resumed his residence with his father and only surviving sister at Fairford, where he remained until 1835. In 1827 was commenced the publication of "The Christian Year," "than which," says a competent critic, "no book of modern times has come nearer to what we may call a divine work." The greater part had already existed for some time in albums, written under great variety of circumstances. Some of the poems were the work of a day-a few hours. It was only when half, or more than half, the year had been written, that Keble would listen to those who wanted the whole year, and in print. The work appeared anonymously, and has probably cxercised more influence on English religious thought than any volume of poems for very many generations. Its motto was, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength;" and its object was to promote "a sober standard of feeling in matters of practical religion," and to show "the soothing tendency of the Prayer-book." The wonderful popularity of "The Christian Year" enabled the venerable author to rebuild the parish-church of Hursley at a very great cost. The work not only gained a very wide circulation in this country, but its popularity in America is unbounded. Concurrently with the preparation of "The Christian Year" for publication, and for some long time after, Keble was engaged in his edition of Hooker. "This," says Sir J. T. Coleridge, "was a most important work, which he embarked in with great interest, and executed with conscientious industry. It is now the standard edition. His preface is an elaborate work, and throws dear light on the serious question of the authenticity of the sixth and eighth books. Hooker had been a great favourite with Keble from his youth, as a man and a writer." After the passing of the Reform Bill, in 1832, Mr. Keble formed one of the four eminent members of the University of Oxford who met together to devise a remedy for the evils which they regarded as sapping the very foundations of the church. The object of these friends was to enunciate in simple language the true views of church government, the apostolical commission of the clergy, the value of ordinances, and the testimony of antiquity to church principles. The first of the now famous "Tracts for the Times" appeared in 1833. Although these Tracts, many of which created a prodigious sensation, were published anonymously, there is no great secret as to Mr. Keble's authorship of Tracts 4, 13, 40, 52, and 89; and it may be said that the movement which they originated for more than thirty years leavened the whole English Church. From 1831 (when he succeeded Dean Milman without any opposition) to 1842, Mr. Keble was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and his lectures attracted crowds of students. On Sunday, July 14, 1833, Mr. Keble preached an assize sermon at St. Mary's, on the national apostasy, which he declared then to have set in, and which he invited the church to follow him in treating as Samuel had done Saul and the children of Israel. That Lermon may be said to have been the great epoch, if not the turning-point, of Keble's life. It explains not only why he joined the Oxford movement, and became one of the mighty men in its foremost rank, but also, and still more, the special part he took in it. His line ever since was one continued protest against secular indifference and civil assumptions; though it is only fair to add, that this protest was rather of a passive than an active character. The venerable divine and poet was buried in Hursley churchyard on the 6th of April, in the presence of large numbers of distinguished members of the University of Oxford and others, who had made a journey to Hursley to do honour to his memory. JOHN GIBSON, R.A.-This very eminent sculptor, whose works reflect so much honour upon the country of his birth, died at Rome, where a great part of his life had been passed, on the 27th of January, aged seventy-five. Mr. Gibson, whose ancestors were of Scottish extraction, was the son of a market-gardener at Conway, in North Wales, where he was born in 1790. The father removed to Liverpool when his son was about nine years old, with a view of emigrating to America, but was led by circumstances to change his intention and to settle in Liverpool. As a child, John Gibson had shown an instinctive fancy for drawing, and at an early age was in the habit of sketching pictures of such domestic animals as he saw around him. A new world opened upon him at Liverpool, and he tried his youthful hand with success in reproducing upon paper the pictures that he saw in the shop-windows. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, and subsequently to a carver in wood. About two years later he was relieved from this irksome business by Mr. Samuel Francis, who, detecting his artistic talents, purchased the remainder of his time, and gave the youthful sculptor every encouragement. He also introduced the young artist to the late William Roscoe, who frequently invited him to his country-seat, and allowed him to copy some of the choice specimens of ancient art in his gallery. The friends of Mr. Roscoe, remarking the great promise of future excellence which young Gibson displayed, subscribed a sum of money for the purpose of defraying the expense of his journey to Rome, and of a residence of two years in that metropolis of art. Gibson left England for Rome in 1817, and carried with him an introduction from Flaxman to Canova, then in the height of his fame, who received him with the greatest cordiality. Gibson entered his studio, and soon earned the reputation of being one of his most able and industrious pupils. Setting up on his own account in 1821, he produced his first important work, a group of "Mars and Cupid," which was much praised by Canova, and was reproduced in marble by the order of the Duke of Devonshire. This group now occupies a prominent position in the collection at Chatsworth. His next production was "Psyche and the Zephyrs," for the late Sir G. Beaumont; copies of this group were executed for Prince Torlonia and the Grand Duke of Russia. After the death of Canova, Gibson did not disdain again to become a learner, and accordingly was, for a time, a pupil under Thorwaldsen. Thus trained under the two master-minds of modern sculpture, he entered on his career with a hand and a mind more thoroughly disciplined than perhaps any other English sculptor, yet without losing anything of his originality or individual character. Mr. Gibson was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1833, and became R.A. in 1836. He was, however, but a fitful contributor to the annual exhibitions of the academy of which he was so distinguished a member. With the exception of short visits made at intervals to this country, Mr. Gibson resided almost entirely at Rome since his first visit to that city in 1817. No one was more ready than himself to extend the hand of friendly assistance to young students on their first arrival in that great metropolis of art. It has been objected that, as a monumental sculptor, he insists on draping his figures in ancient and classical costume. Within the last few years Mr. Gibson lent the weight of his high reputation and example to an innovation which caused considerable discussion in various quarters-namely, that of applying colour to marble in sculpture. This he did in his statue of her Majesty, and in some of his other works-particularly in his exquisite Venus, which attracted so much attention at the International Exhibition of 1862-but, as may be supposed, very cautiously, and with the best taste; in the drapery and accessories of his great seated statue of the Queen, the same principle is carried out more freely. It is only necessary to add, that England is tolerably rich in the works of Gibson, some one or more of which have found a place in every good collection. Liverpool is particularly well supplied with specimens of his chisel; and the inhabitants of that city have not been backward in showing their appreciation of his merits, and in regarding him with pride as a fellow-townsman. There is a fine collection of about twenty casts from Gibson's best grouped statues at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. Mr. Gibson's studio at Rome was visited by every stranger; and no one who had the privilege of an introduction to him will ever forget the simple and lucid manner in which he used to narrate his favourite Greek legends, illustrative of the immortal figures he created. When the Prince of Wales visited Rome in 1857, Gibson was a frequent and honoured guest at his royal highness's table, and her Majesty, whose high appreciation of all that is great in art is well known, gave Gibson many commissions, and conferred on him many marks of her confidence and admiration. It is a fact equally honourable to the Queen and her distinguished subject, that a telegram despatched by her Majesty's orders arrived at Rome the morning of the day before his death, inquiring after the health of the great artist. He was then still sensible, and his friends, thinking it would give him satisfaction, placed it in his hands. On attempting to withdraw it, he held it so fast that they were compelled to leave it; and with this mark of royal favour and kindness in his hands he died. Other sovereigns and other countries delighted in doing honour to Gibson. He was decorated by the Emperor of the French with the Order of the Legion of Honour; his statue now stands in Munich by direction of King Ludwig, together with those of Tenerani, Schwanthaler, and Routh, selected by his Majesty as men who have dignified sculptural art. A Royal Academician, and member of the Society of St. Luke, in Rome, he was associated with many other artistic societies in various countries. The qualities of the man ought not to be lost sight of in the merits of the artist. His modesty and unpresuming bearing won the confidence and affection of all men, while they led to the concealment of numerous acts of charity unknown to the world. There are many in Rome who bear grateful testimony to the kindness which he ever showed in counselling and forming their taste, and who lament his loss as that of a father. The deceased was interred in the English Protestant burial-ground, in the neighbourhood of Rome, on the 29th of January, his funeral being attended by the members of the art academies of Rome, the various embassies, and a large number of the English residents and visitors, besides many foreigners. CHAPTER XI. Opening of the Year-Parliamentary Session: the Queen's Speech; North American Provinces Confederation Bill; Canadian Railway Loan; Metropolitan Poor-Law Bill; Trades' Unions-Parliamentary Reform: Resolutions proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; Speech in explanation of the Resolutions; general Debate on the subject, with drawal of the Resolutions; Mr. Disraeli brings in his Bill to carry the Ministerial Scheme of Reform; the Bill is read a second time; it goes into Committee; the "Compound Householder;" concessions of the Government; adoption of Mr. Laing's Motion for new plan of distribution of Seats; Mr. Disraeli's Propositions in consequence of Mr. Laing's Motion; third reading; the Bill passes the House of Lords and receives the royal assent; the Bill for Scotland is read a second time. A.D. 1867. THE THE opening of the year 1867 was not auspicious. The financial and commer cial failures of the previous year had paralysed trade and terrified investers. Fears, happily not realised, were entertained of still greater disasters; but a long period of commercial stagnation was too truly foreseen. In addition to the alarm felt in connection with trade and finance, a spirit of popular agitation was abroad, the results of which could not be calculated. Happily the issues were satisfactory, and although the effects of the panic of 1866 remained with varying power to the end of the year, the popular discontent led to no outbreak. The opening of the year was very severe as to the weather, and the sufferings of the poor were considerable. A heavy fall of snow took place in London, followed by a severe frost, which continued about a fortnight. On some of the days traffic was almost put a stop to in the metropolis. When the thaw came much damage was caused by the ice and floods in the river. PARLIAMENTARY SESSION. Parliament was opened on the 5th of February by the Queen in person. It afforded the public unbounded satisfaction that her Majesty consented to abandon that privacy which she had maintained since the death of her royal Consort, and had resolved once more to show herself among her loyal and dutiful people. The line of route from Buckingham Palace to the Victoria Tower was early occupied by dense crowds. anxious to see her Majesty once more. On such occasions provincials are a very large contribution to this multitude, but on this occasion Londoners, who generally do not manifest much curiosity about the royal family, assembled in great numbers, desirous to testify their pleasure at again seeing their sovereign in public life. Along the line of route the windows were occupied with ladies, and men mounted every house-top. Seats were erected against every spot at all available. A battalion of the Grenadier Guards, with their band, were posted near the entrance to the Victoria Tower, and, opposite, a battalion of the Coldstream. Her Majesty was borne in her state coach, drawn by |