POSTSCRIPT.

SATURDAY.

A half-quizzical, half-crazy mystification about a "reconstruction of the Cabinet "—a "coalition with the Peelite4," (meaning, we suppose, some three or four gentlemen so-called because they once held office under the late Sir Robert Peel)—has been treated so seriously as to be met with authoritative contradiction. Without "authority," we venture a contradiction, on the mere improbability, if not absurdity of the statement. Of "the Peelites," the most effective as colleagues, the most formidable to a Minister as adversaries, are known to be dissatisfied with the conduct, if it cannot be called policy, of the present Government. Mr. Gladstone makes no secret of his antagonism to the Government, especially in regard to its administration of foreign affairs. From what we have heard, we shall not be surprised to see him, at the opening of the session, in avowed opposition on this ground. We do not, however, understand, or believe, that he is a party to any combination for the overthrow of this and the construction of another Government. Mr. Gladstone is a man of warm feelings and high principle ; these may sometimes carry him beyond the line of perfect prudence; but intrigue and manoeuvre, either for selfish or factious ends, are foreign to his nature.

Mr. Sidney Herbert, we hear, expresses himself to the same effect as Mr. Gladstone on the current topics.

Three Cabinet Councils have been held this week ; one on Monday, a second on Tuesday, the third yesterday. They were all attended by the entire Cabinet. The Queen, it is understood, will not open Parliament in person. In the House of Lords, the Address will be moved by the Earl of Cork and seconded by Earl Cowper; in the House of Commons, the mover will be Sir John Ramsden, the seconder Sir Andrew Agnew.

Mr. Frederick Peel attended an Anti-Income-tax meeting of his constituents at Bury on Thursday. Resolutions desiring the reduction of the tax to the original sevenpence, and condemning the principle and operation of the impost having been passed, Mr. Peel addressed the meeting. His speech was merely an amplification of the reply of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a recent deputation in London.

Mr. Hope Johnstone has come forward as a candidate for Dumfriesshire, and has met with the support of a public meeting at Dumfries. The Duke of Buccleueh has intimated that he would not sanction the candidature of Lord Henry Scott in opposition to Mr. Johnstone.

The Gazette of last night contained a variety of despatches from India and China relating to the operations in the Persian Gulf and at Canton. The substance of these will be found in preceding columns. The new matter consists of a return of the artillery taken at Bushire.

Le Nord publishes a despatch from Teheran of December 21, which has been received at St. Petersburg. It states that the I'ersian Government were by that time informed of the English force having taken possession of a fort in the neighbourhood of Bushire, and that 60,000 Persian troops had been sent to the invaded province. [This does not agree with the report circulated by the Globe last Saturday, and not yet confirmed, that the Persians on the fall of Bushire accepted our conditions. Indeed, it seems probable that the acceptance of conditions of surrender by the garrison of Bushire, on the fall of Reshire, has been mistaken for the acceptance of conditions of submission by the Persian Government on the fall of Bushire..]

Further advises respecting the state of Naples have been forwarded from Paris : they come down to the 29th January. "In the two Calabrias, armed bands overrun the country without meeting with any resistance; and the Police of the provinces, even more than that

Diplomatic society has lost a distinguished member—the Princess de Linven, who died in her house at Paris on Monday. She was the daughter of the Russian General Benkendorf ; and married Andrew Lieven, the grandson of a Lieven who was brother to another Lieven who followed the fortunes of Charles the Twelfth. In 1807 Andrew Lieven obtained the Prussian embassy; and he and his wife, who shared his diplomatic functions, remained at Berlin until 1812, when they were sent to London. Here she became "a general favourite," and "an esteemed member of the corps diplomatique." They remained in London until after 1830, when they were recalled to St. Petersburg M. de Lieven was appointed governor of the present Emperor' and made with him the tour of Europe • but in 1839 he died at Rome. After the death of her husband, Madame Se Lieven fixed her head-quarters at Paris ; during the embassy of M. Guizot to this country she

resided in London, aiding i , it s charitably supposed, the Minister of Louis

Philippe. Returning to Paris, she was overtaken by the revolution of 1848; and from that time Brussels had been the scene of her busy labours. She was about to recommence operations at Paris when she died. She was at all times the intimate correspondent of the Czars of Russia and their Ministers. and her influence has been felt in most of the important transactions of half a century.

The opening Parliamentary dinners will be given on Monday, by Earl Granville and Lord Palmerston, who will entertain the movers and seconders of the Address in the two Houses. Mr. Disraeli will receive a number of Members of the House of Commons.

Lord John Russell arrived in town, from Florence, on Monday.

The Earl of Ellesmere is in such indifferent health that much anxiety is felt by his family.

Mr. Justice Keogh has been elected a member of the Dublin University Club—a very Tory body.

The King of the Belgians has conferred a gold medal on Mr. Robert Bell, for his literary services.

• The Lord Chancellor has appointed Mr. C. D. Bevan, of the Middle Temple, to be Judge of the County Court of Cornwall, in succession to Mr. Kekewich, deceased.

The Reverend Sydney Turner' of the Philanthropic School at Red Hill, has been appointed Inspector of Prisons, for service connected with the Reformatories for juvenile offenders.

A rumour is in circulation that Mr. Drummond M.P. one of the surviving apostles of the Irvingites has just separated from that singular body, and sold his " apostolic " chapdat Albury to the Roman Catholics.— Union.

The Reverend W. H. Milinan, son of the Dean of St. Paul's, is to be Archdeacon Kale's successor in St. Giles's Cripplegate. The Revue de Paris, to which some eminent Republican writers, such as

MM. Michelet, Jules Simon, Henri Martin, are contributors, is suspended for a month. It has been prosecuted for having published., in one or two recent numbers, a novel objectionable on the score of morality.

We have now authentic information as to the bequests of the late literary amateur, Mr. John Kenyon. It appears that he has left to his cousin, Rlizabeth Barrett Browning, 4000/., and to her husband, Robert Browning, 63001.; to Bryan W. Procter, better known as Barry Cornwell, 65001.; to Dr. Henry Southey, 8000!.; to Catherine, daughter of Robert Southey, the Poet Laureate, 2501.; and to each of the other daughters 1001.; the son and daughter of Mrs. Henry Nelson Coleridge, 250/. each; John Forster has 500/.; George Scharf 500!.; and Antonio Panizzi 5001., with all the wines in the cellars at Devonshire Place and at Cowes; Agnes Catlow, 1051.; and Walter Savage Landor, Henry Chorley, Mrs. Jameson, and Sir Charles Fellowes, each 100/. The furniture, books, prints, and articles of vertil in Mr. Kenyon's cottage at Wimbledon, are left to his friends Miss Bayley and James Booth, one of the executors, to whom is bequeathed 50001.; Thomas Hawthorne, the other executor, having 20,000/. The whole of the residue of the property, after payment of the legacies, is to be divided by the executors. A bequest of 50001. is made to the London University Hospital.

The King of Bavaria has given 37,000 florins from his privy purse for the promotion of literary and scientific ohleets. Dr. Moritz Wagner and Herr Gemminger are to receive 12,000 forms of the sum for a scientific expedition round the world in the Austrian frigate Novara : the collections they may make to be deposited in Bavarian institutions.

The French, their ingenuity sharpened by the late failures in the vintage, have struck out a very profitable if not 'an honourable trade—they import our cheap raw grain-spirit in large quantities, mix it with brandy produced from grapes, and then send the mixture to England and sell it as pure vinous spirit.

It is rumoured that the Austrian financial deficit for 1856 is 120,000,000 forms: Baron Bruck is said to be in despair at his ill success in combating the monster.

M. Chenol, a gentleman of Paris, is stated to have discovered a process of making steel very quickly and at one-third of the present cost, while particular sorts can be reproduced of identically the same quality.

The Paris Tribunal of Commerce have pronounced a decision casting a serious stigma on the conduct of Messrs. Fox and Henderson with regard to the Docks Napolgon. Fox and Henderson were the contractors ; litigation with the present directors ensued; the Tribunal has pronounced against Fox and Henderson, alleging that they had improperly allowed to former directors a "commission" of 1,800,000 francs on their contract for 24,000,000 francs—that is, made that present to be allowed a certain price for the works; and For and Henderson improperly received 32,000 shares —4,000,000 francs. The Tribunal decreed the restitution of those shares, or of the money, by Fox and Henderson, even under pain of imprisonment ; and it quashes two conventions made between Fox and Henderson and the late Directors, as "stained with fraud."

The latest news from Melbourne records a terrible tragedy. It appears that Ensign Pennefather of the Fortieth Regiment had, in a fit of insanity, rushed from his rooms armed with a revolver : meeting Ensign Keith, he shot him through the cheek ; shot Dr. M'Cauky, who was reading in the open air; fired at Ensign Lucas, wounding him severely in the jaw; and then blew out his own brains. The evidence at the inquest was conclusive as to Pennefather's insanity.

The Earl of Harewood, in hunting with the Bramham Moor hounds, on Saturday morning, met with a very serious accident, near Wetherby. He was seen to fall from his horse • and when persons hastened to his aid he was found senseless : it is supposed that his horse, having got his feet entangled in a sheep-net after leaping a fence, threw him, and then kicked him on the head, fracturing the skull. The sufferer was suickly removed to Harewood House, near Leeds ; and surgical aid was obtained from Leeds, while Dr. Ciesar Hawkins was summoned from London : the operation of trepanning was successfully performed, and the patient regained his consciousness. He has.since gone on favourably.

It has now been ascertained that the solitiuy passenger in the Violet, who must have perished with her crew, was Captain Von laing, of the Prussian Infantry..W.m widow is the sister of Cruvelli the vocalist.

The rescue of the Tyne from her chalk and gravel bed on the Dorsetshire coast becomes more problematical. She seems to have more leaks than had been at first supposed. The attempt to float her during the recent springtides failed. Another opportunity must now be waited for; in the Mean time rough weather may destroy the luckless ship.

The "oldest inhabitant" of Hexham has departed—John Bell, a farmer, who formerly was an active smuggler on the Border. He had attained at least his hundred-and-tenth year. He was rather short and slender, but " wiry " ; he was temperate both in eating and drinking. Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson have recently obtained high prices for sonic rare and curious articles. The bronze handle of a Greek vaso of fine quality brought 201.; a Greek gold car-ring, 27/. • a Greek necklace, Jul. 158. A Shakspere cup, said to be the one used by Garrick at the Shaksperian Jubilee, has been sold for MI.

A comical story comes from Berlin. Two ladies went to the Royal ball at the Operahouse in a furniture-van—no ordinary carriage could contain the immense dresses they wore !

The last fashionable eccentricity at New York is a rage for eating English mutton brought by the steamers—" no dinner is now perfect without a saddle or leg of English mutton." It is suspected that a good deal of this "English mutton" never left England.

A communication from China in the Paris Moniteur de la Flotte represents. the empire as a prey to highway robbers ; the Mandarins cannot touch them, but they behead inoffensive beggars in their stead. Yeh, the Viceroy of Canton, "is one of the most abominable and cruel men in the empire."

A rogue has put a new " dodge " in operation at Manchester : orders for goods were sent, with half-notes enclosed ; the goods were forwarded, but the other halves of the notes came not—they had been sent elsewhere with another order : thus 601. worth of goods were got for 30/. in notes. The two duped parties met, compared the halves, and divided the sum equally.