311istelautuus.

Sir Francis Head has forwarded the following letter to the Titnes. Its origin was this : Sir Francis Head sent to the Emperor Napoleon his letters to the Times in defence of that potentate ; and his Majesty honoured him with this answer.

" Palace of the Tuileries, March!.

"My dear Sir Francis—I thank you for having collected together, in order to send them direct to me, the different articles which you have had inserted in the English journals, for you thus give me an opportunity of expressing to you all my gratitude for the sentiments of which you have not feared the spontaneous manifestation in my favour. I have seen in them and I am much touched by it, a new proof that my old friends in England have not forgotten me, and that they know how much I always preserve for the English people the esteem and the sympathy which I felt during my exile in the midst of them. Even in writing to you today I de- tect myself in recollecting as a happy time the epoch, when proscribed, I saw you in England. It is that in changing one's destiny one only changes one's joys and sorrows. Formerly the afflictions of exile alone appeared to sue; today I see plainly the cares of power, and one of the greatest of them around me is, without doubt, to find oneself misunderstool and misjudged by those whom one values the most, and with whom one desires to live upon good terms Were en bonne intelligence). "Thus (arum) I consider it very natural that the parties whom it has been my duty to oppose and to repress should bear me and should seek the means to injure me ; but that the English, of whom I have al- ways been the most devoted and the most faithful ally, should attack me incessantly in the journals in the most unworthy and the most unjust manner, is what I cannot comprehend ; fort in truth (de bonne foe), I cannot discover any interest they can have in exciting the public mind against France. If' in own country, I chose to act in this manner, it would be impossible for me afterwards to restrain the passions which I should have let loose (dichainets).

"I have always entertained a great admiration for the liberties of the English people ; but I regret deeply that liberty, like all good things, should also have its excess. Why is it that, instead of reeking truth known, it uses every effort to obscure it ? Why is it that, instead of en- couraging and developing generous sentiments, it propagates mistrust and hatred ?

"I am happy, then, among all these manceuvres of falsehood (mensonge) to have found a defender, who, guided by the sole love of truth, has not hesitated energetically to oppose to them his loyal and disinterested voice. Believe, my dear Sir Francis, in my sentiments of friendship,

"Sir Francis Head, Croydon. " NAPOLEON."

It was stated, on Monday, that "at a meeting of the heads of the old Whig party on Saturday it was determined that Lord John Russell should move a resolution as an amendment upon the motion for the second Reading of the Reform Bill, declaring that the House of Com- mons will not assent to the disfranchisement of those electors who now possess county votes in respect of property situated in boroughs, or to the proposition that the non-resident proprietors of freeholds in boroughs should vote in respect of them for the election of borough Members. It is supposed that this resolution will unite in its support the whole of the Liberal party." The Globe, however, has stated that no such meeting had been held. What took place we stated ourselves on Saturday.

Mr. Gladstone returned to London on Tuesday, and took his seat in the House the same night. It is remarked that his stay in Paris was unexpectedly short.

During his stay with Sir James Hudson at Turin, Mr. Gladstone met Signor Farini, and General La Marmora at the table of the British Minister.

Lord Cowley left Vienna for London, via Prague, on Wednesday.

The Armstrong gun seems to have a rival. Mr. Wany, an armourer sergeant, has invented a very small cannon capable of throwing twenty shot or shell per minute. It is a breech-loader, and after an hour's firing still remains cool. The experiments have been made with Captain Nor- ton's percussion shells. These formidable missiles contain a composition which fires anything combustible it strikes—wet sails, wood. The shells can be made to explode with certainty on entering anything. Mr. Warry has an ingenious contrivance, which by a single movement cuts the cart- ridge, primes the nipple, doses the breech, and fires the gun, the whole of the operations enumerated being effected instantaneously. The accu- racy of the gun is very great.

The tribute paid to Burns, as wo have already remarked, is interest- ing, not only as attesting the general recognition of influences more primitive and simple than the pedantries which have for a time been in the aseeridant, but also as showing the remarkable unanimity which moves the Anglo-Saxon race in whatever part of the world it may be scattered. A friend calls our attention to a passage in the speech of William Cullen Bryant at the New York festival in honour of Burns ; a passage which certainly deserves to be recognized wherever the English language is spoken; for it gloriously carries out the proposition with which we started.

"If we could imagine a human being endowed with the power of making himself, through the medium of his senses, a witness of whatever i passing on the face of the globe, what a series of festivities, what successive mani- festations of the love and admiration which all who speak our language bear to the great Scottish poet, would present themselves to his observation, ac- companying the shadow of this night in its circuit round the earth ! Some twelve hours before this time he would have heard the praises of Burns re- cited, and the songs of Burns sung on the banks of the Ganges—the music flowing out at the open windows on the soft evening air of that region, and mingling with the murmurs of the sacred river. A little later, he might have heard the same sounds from the mouth of the Euphrates ; later still,

from the Southern extremity of Africa under constellations strange to our eyes—the Stars of the Southern hemisphere—and almost at the same mo- ment from the rocky shores of the Ionian Isles. Next they would have been• heard from the orange groves of Malta, and from the winter colony of Eng- lish and Americana on the banks of the Tiber. Then, in its turn, the Seine takes up the strain; and what a chorus rises from the British Isles—from. every ocean-mart; and- river, and mountain-side, with a distant response from the rock of Gibraltar! Last, in the Old World, on its Westermost verge, the observer whom I have imagined, would have heard the voice of song and of gladness from the coasts of Liberia and Simla Leone, among a race constitutionally. and passionately fond of music, to which we have given' our language and literature. "In the New World, frozen Newfoundland has already led lathe festival of this night; and next, those who dwell where the St. Lawrence holds an icy mirror to the stars; thence it has passed to the hills and valleys of New England ; and it is now our turn, on the lordly Hudson. The Schuylkill will follow, the Potomac, the rivers of the Carolinas,' the majestic St. John's, drawing his dark, deep waters from the Everglades; the borders of our, mighty lakes, the beautiful Ohio the Great Mississippi, with its folintains. gushing under fields of snow, and mouth among flowers that fear not the frost. Then will our festival, in its Westward course cross the Rocky Mountains, and gather in joyous assemblies those who pasture their herds on the Columbia, and those who dig for gold on the Sacramento.

"By a still longer interval, it will pass to Australia, lying in her distant solitude of waters, and now glowing with the heats of midsummer, where I feel the zealous countrymen of Burns will find the short night of the season too short for their festivities. And thus will this commemoration pursue the sunset round the globe, and follow the journey of the evening star till, the-. gentle planet shines on the waters of China." -

A letter from Rome in the Opfnione of Turin accuses Colonel Bruce of a. breach of etiquette in not allowing. the Prince of Wales to have a private interview with the Pope, but entering the presence with Ma H., although, observes the writer' the prince was received as sovereigns , are, and as each should have been introduced to his Holiness alone. " The writer of the letter is no doubt ignorant of the fact," observes Gadignani, "that' Colonel Bruce has positive instructions from home not to leave the Prince alone for a single minute, and that he could not therefore act otherwise than

he did." • Mr. Speaker Denison will hold his first levee at his official residence at the Palace of Westminster on the evening of Saturday, the 26th March, at 10 o'clock.

The Earl of Airlie, recently elected Lord Rector of the Marisehal College, Aberdeen, is to be installed on the 16th.

The Duke de Malakoff is at present in Paris on leave of absence. On Monday he dined with the Emperor.

Lord R. Grosvenor arrived at Chiosgo on the 9th ultimo, from the hunting ground on the Red River, accompanied by a guide, James M‘Kay, and with sledges drawn by dogs. He passed the Christmas holidays far .up the Qu'Apelle River (a tributary of the Assiniboinea killing buffalo.—Chester Chronicle.

During his stay at Malta, the Grand Duke Constantine was royally re-- ceived and entertained. He dined with the Governor, Admiral, and Cern- - mandant, and went to a ball where he saw Mrs. Codrington, Miss Grant,- and Colonel Stewart dance the Highland fling. The Grand Duke also in- spected the fortifications. It is remarked that he did not visit the Greek ea-- clesiatical authorities.

The various charitable institutions of Liverpool have just received dona-1, tions to the amount of 13001. from the Mayor, Mr. William Preston.

Mr. Hughes, her Majesty's Consul at Erzeroum, the last remaining Oriental attaché, has been promoted to the post of Oriental Secretary at the Embassy at Constantinople. Mr. Robert Dalyell, Acting Consul at Bel- grade during Mr. Fonblanque's absence, is to take the post at Erzeroum.

The competitive system at Addiscombe will, we understand, take effect from, the beginning of next year, which will allow the old system fairly to work itself out before the new one commences. Under the new system, cadets entering the senior department, after successful competition,. will remain at the College one year ; at the end of which they will be examined and posted according to merit to the Engineers and Artillery. The Engineers, we are informed, will then go to Chatham, as commissioned officers, for one year, and the Artillery Cadets, in the same position, to Woolwich for six months. To lessen the expenses of education, and to extend thereby the area of corn- petition, it is proposed, we believe, to give every Engineer and Artillery cadet 1001. after passing-his two terms at Addiseombe. These, we believe, are the main features of the scheme for the senior competitive department of Addiscombe. The competitive examination, it may be mentioned, will be in mathematics, including the higher branches of statics, dynamics, and hydrostatics ; and in any four, or less, of eight other branches of study, namely—English language and literature—language and history of France —language and history of India—experimental sciences—drawing (military and civil)—the use of astronomical and surveying instruments. The test is to be by marks, mathematics, in which examination is compulsory, having a much higher number than any.—Overland Mail.

The death rata in London fell to 1216 last week, or 100 less than the calculated average. There was a slight increase in deaths from small pox.

It is stated in a letter from Naples that ten days ago the gendarmes arrested at Cagliari a notorious bandit, named ,Vasa de Agin', who is accused of having committed more than seventy murders.