The death of Lord Alvanley, after a very short illness ,
creates a blank in a wide circle that had long been animated by his lifesome qualities. Even the pub- lic has had some acquaintance with Lord Alvanley's amusing conversation, through the bon mots that were attributed to him. Some are still remembered; as his epitaph on an uncommonly " distinguished" gambler—" Here lies ** **** awaiting the last trump "; and his question when some one said that he had called upon the same patrician—"Did you mark your card ? " "No; why?" " Because if you did not, he cannot take it for an honour." This habit of Lord Alvanley, and his jovial condition of person, laid him open to Mr. O'Connell's coarse attack: provoked by Lord Alvanley's question to Lord Melbourne, after the "Lichfield House Compact "—whether the Ministers "had secured the ser- vices of Mr. O'Connell, and on what terms? "—the Liberator called the wit "a bloated buffoon "; and afterwards, in reply to a challenge, pleaded his "vow" against duelling; but appeared on the bloodless field by proxy, in the person of his son Morgan. The Barony of Alvanley was created in favour of the late Lord's father, a successful lawyer. William Arden, the wit, was born in 1789, and suc- ceeded to the Peerage in 1804; he was never married. Richard, his brother, who succeeds to the title, was born in 1792; and was married, in 1831, to Lady Ara- bella Vane, daughter of the first Duke of Cleveland.
Lieutenant Gale's proposition to use balloons for surveying the Arctic regions in search of Sir John Franklin, has been provisionally accepted by Lady Frank- lin: in a letter to Mr. Gale, Lady Franklin says that it will .give her great pleasure if his plans, "when examined, are approved by men of science capable of estimating them."
A letter signed " L. Grattan" informs the Morning Post that the reported re- solve of Mr. James Grattan to sell his Irish estates, leave his native country for ever, and settle in Old Virginia, is altogether unfounded: he "has no intention whatever of selling his estates, nor of leaving his native land for ever."
The press is becoming a department of official administration. While the Morn- ing Chronicle is superseding the Government of the day by its inquiry to ascer- tain the actual condition of the people, the Medical Times announces a series of articles on Drainage, " which shall embody a practical outline of the whole of this subject, and comprise a summary of its many important bearings upon the health, wealth, and morality of society.'
We are at liberty to state, that the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, on Thursday night, determined to apply to the Secretary of State for power to grant relief to members of the College, of twenty years' standing, de- sirous of being admitted to the Fellowship.—.3fedical Times.
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