We must give a few extracts; but how to select them we scarcely know, where the exact taste and tact of the writer has put down nothing, even for the eyes of her dear sister, and her as dear friend Mrs. Locke of Norbury-park (for whom alone the "Diary" was written) but what is, on some account or other, worth not merely record, but preservation.

As a proof of the sterling and permanent historical value of this Diary, in fixing the characters of persons who have played conspicuous parts in our annals, we may give what is perhaps the first exact account of the most remarkable single event in the life of George the Third,-the murderous attack on him by Margaret Nicholson,-and of his own conduct and bearing during and immediatety after that event. So far as we remember, it will be now for the first time known that the queen and princesses remained unacquainted with the peril and escape of their beloved husband and father until he himself returned to tell them of it.

No information arrived here of the matter before his Majesty's return, at the usual hour in the afternoon from the levee. The Spanish Minister had hurried off instantly to Windsor, and was in waiting, at Lady Charlotte Finch's, to be ready to assure her Majesty of the King's safety, in case any report anticipated his return.

The Queen had the two eldest Princesses, the Duchess of Ancaster and Lady Charlotte Bertie with her when the King came in. He hastened up to her, with a countenance of striking vivacity, and said, "Here I am!-safe and well, as you see!-but I have very narrowly escaped being stabbed!"

His own conscious safety, and the pleasure he felt in thus personally showing it to the Queen made him not aware of the effect of so abrupt a communication. The Queen was seized with a consternation that at first almost stupified her, and, after a most painful silence, the first words she could articulate were, in looking round at the Duchess and Lady Charlotte, who had both burst into tears,—“ I envy you !—I can't cry!"

The two Princesses were for a little while in the same state; but the tears of the Duchess proved infectious, and they then wept even with violence.

The King, with the gayest good-humour, did his utmost to comfort them; and then gave a relation of the affair, with a calmness and unconcern that, had any one but himself been his hero, would have been regarded as totally unfeeling.

You may have heard it wrong; I will concisely tell it right. His carriage had just stopped at the garden-door at St. James's, and he had just alighted from it, when a decently-dressed woman, who had been waiting for him some time, approached him with a petition. It was rolled up, and had the usual superscription" For the King's Most Excellent Majesty." She presented it with her right hand; and at the same moment that the King bent forward to take it, she drew from it, with her left hand, a knife, with which she aimed straight at his heart!

The fortunate awkwardness of taking the instrument with the left hand made her design perceived before it could be executed;—the King started back, scarce believing the testimony of his own eyes; and the woman made a second thrust, which just touched his waistcoat before he had time to prevent her; and at that moment one of the attendants, seeing her horrible intent, wrenched the knife from her hand.

"Has she cut my waistcoat?" cried he, in telling it-" Look! for I have no time to examine."

Thank Heaven, however, the poor wretch had not gone quite so far. "Though nothing," added the King, in giving his relation, "could have been sooner done, for there was nothing for her to go through but a thin linen and fat."

While the guards and his own people now surrounded the King, the assassin was seized by the populace, who were tearing her away, no doubt to fall the instant sacrifice of her murtherous purpose, when the King, the only calm and moderate person then present, called aloud to the mob, "The poor creature is mad!-Do not hurt her! She has not hurt me!"

He then came forward, and showed himself to all the people, declaring he was perfectly safe and unhurt; and then gave positive orders that the woman should be taken care of, and went into the palace and had his levee.

Nor did he rest here; notwithstanding the excess of terror for his safety, and doubt of further mischief, with which all his family and all his household were seized, he still maintained the most cheerful composure, and insisted upon walking on the terrace, with no other attendant than his single equerry. The poor Queen went with him, pale and silent,-the Princesses followed, scarce yet commanding their tears. In the evening, just as usual, the King had his concert: but it was an evening of grief and horror to his family; nothing was listened to, scarce a word was spoken; the Princesses wept continually; the Queen, still more deeply struck, could only, from time to time, hold out her hand to the King, and say, "I have you yet."

Here is a snatch of a courtier's account of the miseries of a court life, for which he himself, like all the rest of the world, is willing to barter every comfort that wealth, station, and independence can give. The sufferer" is Colonel Goldsworthy, one of the king's equerries.

“I vow, ma'am,” cried the Colonel, " I would not have taken such a liberty on any account; though all the comfort of my life, in this house, is one halfhour in a day spent in this room. After all one's labours, riding and walking, and standing, and bowing-what a life it is! Weli! it's honour! that's one comfort; it's all honour! royal honour!-one has the honour to stand till one has not a foot left; and to ride till one's stiff, and to walk till one's ready to drop, and then one makes one's lowest bow, d'ye see, and blesses one's self with joy for the honour !"

His account of his own hardships and sufferings here, in the discharge of his duty, is truly comic.

How do you like it ma'am?" he says to me, "though it's hardly fair to ask you yet, because you know almost nothing of the joys of this sort of life. But wait till November and December, and then you'll get a pretty taste of them! Running along in these cold passages; then bursting into rooms fit to bake you; then back again into all these agreeable puffs !-Bless us! I believe in my heart there's wind enough in these passages to carry a man-of-war! And there you'll have your share, ma'am, I promise you that! you'll get knocked up in three days, take my word for that."

I begged him not to prognosticate so much evil for me.

"Oh, ma'am, there's no help for it!" cried he; "you won't have the hunting, to be sure, nor amusing yourself with wading a foot and a half through the dirt, by way of a little pleasant walk, as we poor equerries do! It's a wonder to me we outlive the first month. But the agreeable puffs of the passages you will have just as completely as any of us. Let's see, how many blasts must you have every time you go to the Queen? First, one upon your opening your door; then another as you get down the three steps from it, which are exposed to the wind from the garden door downstairs; then a third, as you turn the corner to enter the passage; then you come plump upon another from the hall-door; then comes another, fit to knock you down, as you turn to the upper passage; then, just as you turn towards the Queen's room, comes another; and last, a whiff from the King's stairs, enough to blow you half a mile off!"

"Mere healthy breezes," I cried, and assured him I did not fear them.

"Stay till Christmas," cried he, with a threatening air, "only stay till then,

and let's see what you'll say to them; you'll be laid up as sure as fate! you may take my word for that. One thing, however, pray let me caution you about-don't go to early prayers in November; if you do, that will completely kill you! Oh, ma'am, you know nothing yet of all these matters!—only pray, joking apart, let me have the honour just to advise you this one thing, or else it's all over with you, I do assure you!"

It was in vain I begged him to be more merciful in his prophecies; he failed not, every night, to administer to me the same pleasant anticipations.

"When the Princesses," cried he, "used to it as they are, get regularly knocked up before this business is over, off they drop, one by one:-first the Queen deserts us; then Princess Elizabeth is done for; then Princess Royal begins coughing; then Princess Augusta gets the snuffles; and all the poor attendants, my poor sister at their head, drop off, one after another, like so many snuffs of candles, till at last, dwindle, dwindle, dwindle-not a soul goes to the chapel but the King, the parson, and myself; and there we three freeze it out together!"

One evening, when he had been out very late hunting with the King, he assumed so doleful an air of weariness, that had not Miss P- exerted her utmost powers to revive him, he would 'not have uttered a word the whole night; but when once brought forward, he gave us more entertainment than ever, by relating his hardships.

"After all the labours," cried he, "of the chase, all the riding, the trotting, the galloping, the leaping, the-with your favour, ladies, I beg pardon, I was going to say a strange word, but the-the perspiration-and-and all thatafter being wet through over head, and soused through under feet, and popped into ditches, and jerked over gates, what lives we do lead! Well, it's all honour! that's my only comfort! Well, after all this, fagging away like mad from eight in the morning to five or six in the afternoon, home we come, looking like so many drowned rats, with not a dry thread about us, nor a morsel within us-sore to the very bone, and forced to smile all the time! and then after all this what do you think follows?- Here, Goldsworthy,' cries his Majesty so up I comes to him, bowing profoundly, and my hair dripping down to my shoes; Goldsworthy,' cries his Majesty. Sir,' says I, smiling agreeably, with the rheumatism just creeping all over me! but still, expecting something a little comfortable, I wait patiently to know his gracious pleasure, and then, Here, Goldsworthy, I say he cries, will you have a little barleywater?" Barley-water in such a plight as that! Fine compensation for a wet jacket, truly!-barley-water! I never heard of such a thing in my life! barley-water after a whole day's hard hunting!"

"And pray did you drink it?"

"I drink it?-Drink barley-water? no, no; not come to that neither! But there it was, sure enough !-in a jug fit for a sick-room; just such a thing as you put upon a hob in a chimney, for some poor miserable soul that keeps his bed! just such a thing as that!-And, Here, Goldsworthy,' says his Majesty, 'here's the barley-water!'

And did the King drink it himself?"

"Yes, God bless his Majesty! but I was too humble a subject to do the same as the King!-Barley-water, quoth I!-Ha! ha!-a fine treat truly!— Heaven defend me! I'm not come to that, neither! bad enough, too, but not so bad as that."

The volume is one series of personal traits, anecdotes, sketches, characters, &c. &c. ; and it will remove all doubt (where any remained) that the "Diary and Correspondence of the author of Evelina" will, when completed, form the most agreeable as well as the most valuable book of its kind, not merely of the season, but of any season since that which gave "Boswell's Johnson" to the world.

NOTES ON NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Illustrations of Scripture. By the late Professor Paxton, D.D., of Edingburgh.-A small and cheaper edition, of a companion to the Bible, especially desirable for those readers of the scriptures who have little or no acquaintance with general literature. For such persons it supplies a fund of interesting and corroborative information relating to the customs and manners of the East: the fruit of extensive learning, great industry, and wide research. The present issue is revised with considerable additions to the text, by the Rev. Robert Jamieson, of Currie.

Telegraphic Railways. By W. Fothergill Cooke, Esq.-The author of this pamphlet -a copartner with Professor Wheatstone, in the invention of the Electric Telegraph -insists on the greater safety of a single rail with such an apparatus, than of a double rail without it; and that many vital sparks would be preserved by the transmission of a voltaic one along either. It has been proved by many serious collisions, that human punctuality and vigilance are not to be relied on:-all mortal virtues are remittent ; the steadiest regularity will sometimes flag; the greatest watchfuluess occasionally relax; and even Sobriety, go now and then, off the line. To avert the dreadful consequerces of such lapses or material breaking down and accidental stoppages, nothing can be more effectual than the immediate transmission of the intelligence from station to station, with a velocity infinitely beyond that of the fastest train. Such a desideratum is beautifully and scientifically supplied by a system of dials and indexes operated upon instantaneously, through great distances, by the galvanic current. The practicability and efficacy of the invention having been tested on the Blackwall, Great Western, and Glasgow and Edinburgh lines, and its merits and value vouched for by Sir M. I. Brunel and Professor Daniell, its general application to railways becomes, we apprehend, a simple question of cost.

THE WHISPERING GALLERY.

THE Copyright Bill has been passed by the Commons, and of course will meet with no obstacle from the Lords. It will be worth while now to write as well as to draw Cartoons.

We must decline C.'s account of his visit to the Walpolian Villa; although it contains some passages worthy of the great Robins himself; for instance that "Strawberry Hill has been suffused with the cream of society."

To W. B. Laudatory Odes to Spring are as common as buttercups. Let him try his hand at an abusive one, with a cutting invective against the east wind.

We must seriously protest against the length and bulk of the "short, light articles" that are offered to us by certain correspondents. They inquire if we have a vacancy for a Page-and then send us a Footman as big as the Duke of Devonshire's porter.

Our rhyming correspondent of Leeds may send us a sample of his metal, and depend on a fair assay. Nothing is so scarce as the true stuff, or more abundant than the counterfeit, and it would please us accordingly to find that there existed a real poetic vein to be worked.

N.B. Several books including "Knight's Library Shakspeare," and the first number of the Abbotsford Edition of the Waverley Novels, were intended for notice in the present number; but our principal Critic being afflicted with rheumatic fever, we did not think proper to intrust any reviews to him, under such a severe trial of the temper.

The failure of her first little culinary experiment reduced her again. to despair. If there be not already a Statue of Disappointment, she would have served for its model. It would have melted an Iron Master to have seen her with her eyes fixed intently on the unfortunate cup of paste, as if asking herself, mentally, was it possible that what she had prepared with such pains for the refreshment of a sick parent, was only fit for what?-Why, for the false tin stomach of a healthy bill-sticker!

Dearly as she rated her professional accomplishments and acquirements, I verily believe that at that cruel moment she would have given up all her consummate skill in Fancy Work, to have known how to make a basin of gruel! Proud as she was of her embroidery, she would have exchanged her cunning in it for that of the plainest cook, -for oh! of what avail her Tent Stitch, Chain Stitch, German Stitch, or Satin Stitch to relieve or soothe a suffering father, afflicted with back stitch, front stitch, side stitch, and cross stitch into the bargain?

Nay, of what use was her solider knowledge ?-for example, in History, Geography, Botany, Conchology, Geology, and Astronomy? Of what effect was it that she knew the scientific name for coal and slate, or what comfort that she could tell him how many stars there are in Cassiopeia's Chair whilst he was twisting with agony on a hard wooden one?

"It's no use talking !" exclaimed Miss Ruth, after a long silence, "we must have medical advice!"

But how to obtain it? To call in even an apothecary, one must call in his own language, and the two sisters between them did not possess German enough, High or Low, to call for a Doctor's boy. The hint, however, was not lost on the Reverend T. C., who, with a perversity June.-VOL. LXV. NO. CCLVIII.

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