NOTES OF A READER.

NAVARINO.

Towards the close of the battle of Navarino, one of our midshipmen, a promising youth of about fourteen, was struck by a cannon-shot, which carried off both his legs, and his right-hand, with which the poor fellow had been grasping his cutlass at that moment. He lay in the gun-room, as nothing could be done for him; and I was informed by one of the men, that he repeatedly named his mother in a piteous tone, but soon after rallied a little, and began to inquire eagerly how the action was going on, and if any more Turkish ships had struck. He lingered in great agony for about twenty minutes.—From a spirited description in No. 2, United Service Journal, intended for abridgment probably in our next.

FRENCH THEATRES.

The revenue of the thirteen theatres of Paris during last year, amounted to the great sum of £233,561 sterling; that of the two establishments for the performance of the regular drama amounting only to £26,600, or not more than a tithe of the whole.

ROUSSEAU.

A mask taken upon the face of Jean Jacques Rousseau after death, recently fetched, at the sale of the late M. Houdon, 500 francs. The purchaser has since refused an offer of 15,000 francs for it.

BRUSSELS.

May be said to be next to Paris, the largest English colony on the continent; and that there are not fewer at this moment than six thousand English residents there. This is not at all surprising. Cheapness of living, of education, of amusements—a mild government and agreeable society—the abundance of all the necessaries of life, of fine fruits and vegetables in particular, are temptations; though we pity those who have not the virtue to resist them.

WRITING FOR THE STAGE.

Is it not extraordinary that the manager of a theatre is the only purveyor who does not know the value of his wares? A bookseller will, if he approves of a work, pay a certain sum for the copyright, and risk an additional sum in the publication, at the hazard of losing by the fiat of a very capricious public, the reading public. But the writer of a drama must make up his mind to stake the labour of months on the fortune of a single night.—New Monthly Mag.

EXPEDITIONS OF DISCOVERY.

Narratives of these important and interesting enterprizes multiply so fast, that we are happy to announce, as preparing for publication, a series of abstracts of the most recent Voyages and Overland Journeys. They will be printed in an economical volume adapted to all classes of purchasers, and will contain all the new facts in nautical and geographical science; details of the Natural History of the respective countries, the manners and customs of the natives, &c.—Fernando Po, Timbuctoo, Clapperton's African adventures, and Capt. Dillon's discoveries relative to the fate of La Perouse, will, of course, form prominent portions of this work, the popular title of which will be, "The Cabinet of Recent Voyages and Travels."

BEEF-EATING.

A facetious gourmand used to say, that he had eaten so much beef for the last six months, that he was ashamed to look a bullock in the face.—Twelve Years' Military Adventures.

THE SABBATH.

If we believe in the divine origin of the commandment, the Sabbath is instituted for the express purposes of religion. The time set apart is the "Sabbath of the Lord;" a day on which we are not to work our own works, or think our own thoughts. The precept is positive, and the purpose clear. He who has to accomplish his own salvation, must not carry to tennis courts and skittle grounds the train of reflections which ought necessarily to be excited by a serious discourse of religion. The religious part of the Sunday's exercise is not to be considered as a bitter medicine, the taste of which is as soon as possible to be removed by a bit of sugar. On the contrary, our demeanour through the rest of the day ought to be, not sullen certainly, or morose, but serious and tending to instruction. Give to the world one half of the Sunday, and you will find that religion has no strong hold of the other. Pass the morning at church, and the evening, according to your taste or rank, in the cricket-field, or at the Opera, and you will soon find thoughts of the evening hazards and bets intrude themselves on the sermon, and that recollections of the popular melodies interfere with the psalms. Religion is thus treated like Lear, to whom his ungrateful daughters first denied one half of his stipulated attendance, and then made it a question whether they should grant him any share of what remained.—Quart. Review.

POCKET BOOKS.

Among the works under this denomination for 1829, we notice two, which from their almost indispensible utility, deserve the name of Hardy Annuals. The first is Adcock's Engineers' Pocket Book, and contains tables of British weights and measures, multiplication and division obtained by inspection, tables of squares and cubes and square and cube roots, and mensuration; tables of the areas and circumferences of circles, &c.; the mechanical powers, animal strength, mills and steam-engines, treatises on hydraulics, pneumatics, heat, &c., and on the strength and heat of materials. To these are superadded the usual contents of a pocket book, so as to render the present volume a desirable vade-mecum for the operative, the manufacturer, and engineer.

One of Mr. Adcock's most popular illustrations will not be uninteresting to the reader:—

"Force of Gunpowder."—"If we calculate the quantity of motion produced by gunpowder, we shall find that this agent, though extremely convenient, is far more expensive than human labour; but the advantage of gunpowder consists in the great rarity of the active substance; a spring or a bow can only act with a moderate velocity on account of its own weight; the air of the atmosphere, however compressed, could not flow into a vacuum with a velocity so great as 1,500 feet in a second; hydrogen gas might move more rapidly; but the elastic substance produced by gunpowder is capable of propelling a very heavy cannon ball with a much greater velocity."

Of an opposite character, but equally useful, and more attractive for the general reader, is the second,—The Spoilsman's Pocket Book, by a brother of the author of the preceding. Here are the usual pocket-book contents, and the laws, &c. of British sports and pastimes—as shooting, angling, hunting, coursing, racing, cricket, and skating: from the latter we subjoin a hint for the benefit of the Serpentine Mercuries; which proves the adage ex liguo non fit Mercurius:—

"Care should be taken that the muscular movements of the whole body correspond with the movements of the skates, and that it be regulated so as to be almost imperceptible to the spectators; for nothing so much diminishes the grace and elegance of skating as sudden jerks and exertions. The attitude of drawing the bow and arrow, whilst the skater is forming a large circle on the outside, is very beautiful, and some persons, in skating, excel in manual exercises and military salutes."

The whole series of pocket books by the Messrs. Adcocks, extend, we believe, to eight, adapted for all descriptions of industriels, as well as for the less occupied, who are not "the architects of their own fortunes."

Dr. Parr was the last learned schoolmaster who was professedly an amateur of the rod; and in that profession there was more of humour and affectation than of reality, for with all his habitual affectation and his occasional brutality, Parr was a good-natured, generous, warm-hearted man; there was a coarse husk and a hard shell, like the cocoa-nut, but the core was filled with the milk of human kindness.—Quarterly Review.

CRANIOLOGY.

On a celebrated craniologist visiting the studio of a celebrated sculptor in London, his attention was drawn to a bust with a remarkable depth of skull from the forehead to the occiput. "What a noble head," he exclaimed, "is that! full seven inches! What superior powers of mind must he be endowed with, who possesses such a head as is here represented!" "Why, yes," says the blunt artist, "he certainly was a very extraordinary man—that is the bust of my early friend and first patron, John Horne Tooke." "Ay," answers the craniologist, "you see there is something after all in our science, notwithstanding the scoffs of many of your countrymen." "Certainly," says the sculptor; "but here is another bust, with a greater depth and a still more capacious forehead." "Bless me!" exclaims the craniologist, taking out his rule, "eight inches! who can this be? this is indeed a head—in this there can be no mistake; what depth of intellect, what profundity of thought, must reside in that skull! this I am sure must belong to some extraordinary and well-known character." "Why, yes," says the sculptor, "he is pretty well known—it is the head of Lord Pomfret."

PRYNNE.

Anthony A'Wood has informed us that when Prynne studied, "his custom was to put on a long quilted cap, which came an inch over his eyes, serving as an umbrella to defend them from too much light, and seldom eating any dinner. He would be every three hours munching a roll of bread, and now and then refresh his exhausted spirits with ale."

GERMAN STUDENTS.

The German students are a set of young men who certainly pursue their studies with zeal, but who nevertheless are more brutal in conduct, more insolent in manner, more slovenly and ruffian-like in appearance, and more offensive from the fumes of tobacco and beer, onions and sourcrout, in which they are enveloped, than are to be met with in any other part of Europe. In a small town of a small state a German university is a horrible nuisance; and how the elegant court of Weimar, in particular, can tolerate the existence of one within an hour's ride of its palace, where we have seen ragamuffins fighting with broad-swords in the market-place, moves "our special wonder." To the university of Bonn is attached a rich collection of subjects in natural history, and a botanical garden; and such is its success, from the celebrity of its professors, among whom is numbered the illustrious William Schlegel, that, Dr. Granville states, "there are at this time about one thousand and twenty students who, for twenty pounds in university and professors' fees, and forty more for living, get a first-rate education." The climate and the situation on the banks of the Rhine are most inviting; and a beautiful avenue of chestnut trees, nearly a mile in length, joins the castle of Popplesdorf, which contains the cabinets of natural history, with the university.

GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND.

The Great Seal itself, when not in the king's own custody, was entrusted to the "Chancellor," whose salary, as fixed by Henry I., amounted to five shillings per diem, besides a "livery" of provisions. And the allowance of one pint and a half, or perhaps a quart of claret, one "gross wax-light," and forty candle-ends, to enable the Chancellor to carry on his housekeeping, may be considered as a curious exemplification of primitive temperance and economy.—Quarterly Rev.

The good people of Weimar appear to be most enthusiastic lovers of music, affording strong proofs of melomania. Every householder of any importance subscribes an annual sum to a band of musicians, who go round in long cloaks to each house, singing fugas and canons, unaccompanied by instruments, in "the most beautiful and correct style imaginable,"—something, we suppose, in the style of the Tyrolese minstrels.—Ibid.

TRAVELLING.

A friend of ours recently went to Russia by steam, and actually breakfasted in Moscow the thirteenth morning after he left London. There is now, he says, a road as good as that to Brighton over three parts of the distance between St. Petersburg and Moscow—what a change from 1812!—Ibid.