_Miscellaneous.

The Crown Prince of Wurtemberg arrived at St. Katherine's Dock on Thursday morning, from Rotterdam, after a visit of some days to the Prince and Princess of Orange at the Court of the Hague. His Royal Highness took up his abode at Mivart's Hotel ; where Baron Hugel, the Wurtemberg Minister, was in attendance. • Mr. Pemberton is to have the seals of the Duchy of Lancaster as Chancellor. The Honourable John Talbot, son of the Earl of Talbot, is to succeed Mr. Pemberton as Attorney-General to his Royal High- ness the Duke of Cornwall.—Standard.

The office of Inspector of Prisons, vacant by the death of Dr. Shortt, has been conferred by the Secretary of State upon Mr. J. G. Perry, Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital, and late Secretary to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London.

Lord Brougham gave a grand dinner on Sunday to a distinguished circle, including Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Ash- burton, the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Jersey, the Earl of Essex, Sir William Follett, the Honourable Sidney Herbert, Colonel North, Mr. Brougham, and Commissioner Phillips.

Lord and Lady Ashburton, Lord Brougham, and Mr. and the Honourable Mrs. Spalding, left town on Monday for Belvoir Castle, on a visit to the Duke of Rutland.

A gentleman of the name of Bird, who claims to be a descendant of the owners of Brougham Hall and the annexed estates, has come forward to dispute the ownership with the noble Lord ; and on Tuesday last proceeded with an appraiser to take a schedule of the goods of one of the tenanta—Kendal Mercury.

The death of the Duke of Manchester, which took place at Rule on the 18th March, causes a move in the Peerage. William Montague, fifth Duke and Earl of Manchester, Viscount Mandeville, and Baron Montague of Himbolton, in the Peerage of Great Britain, was born 21st October 1768, and succeeded to the title on the death of his father hi. 1788. In 1793, he married Lady Susan Gordon, third daughter of the fourth Duke of Gordoo. He was for some years Governor of Jamaica and Postmaster-General. He was Lord-Lieutenant and Custos Rota- lornm of Huntingdonshire for many years, but resigned in consequence of his indifferent health last year. By his death, a pension of 2,928/. reverts to the Crown, which he enjoyed on the abolishment of the office of Collector of Customs. He is succeeded in the family ho- nours and estates by his eldest son, Viscount Mandeville ; who was born on the 9th July 1799, and married Miss Sparrow, daughter and heiress of the late General Robert Bernard Sparrow. The present Duke has three sons and a daughter.

The papers publish a correspondence between the Duke of New- castle and Mr. Walter on the result of the late Nottingham election inquiry. The Mike condoles with Mr. Walter ; avowing that when he succeeded at the election he was "really gratified "—

" You have been most unfortunate: to what is that owing? Have you been ill-used? Have you been run down ? Have you been persecuted ? If so, why ? Is your advocacy thorny, inconvenient, or troublesome ? Have you outraged the laws of your country; or have you corrupted by wholesale, and inflicted a grievous injury, by debasing those who but for you would have been pure and spotless ? "

He avers that to Mr. Walter, Nottingham "justly owes a debt of gratitude for amended proceedings, a better tone and feeling, and, con- sequently, a much improved character "; and he ventures "to assert, that if Nottingham Castle were now as it was twelve years ago, it would not now, as then, be a prey to the flames." The Duke expresses alarm at the suspension of the writ and the possible disfranchisement of the borough. Mr. Walter says, that it was "really his intention " to thank the Duke for his known kind wishes at the close of the proceedings of the late election ; but those proceedings had led to a result which, he believes, "was anticipated by none but the Members of the Committee them- selves." Responding to the Duke's condolences, Mr. Walter says, that he has seen, "with the pride of a true Englishman, our beloved Queen placed on the highest throne on which monarch ever sat " ; and he has laboured to accomplish what he is "sure must be her dearest wish, that the humblest of her subjects should be as happy as she is great "—

" Fully persuaded that her Majesty's greatness has been founded and con- summated on the good old principles of the constitution, I have ever thought that the happiness of her subjects must rest on the same solid basis. I have, therefore, strenuously opposed all deviations from them of any marked or ex- travagant character; I have resisted all attempts at speculative or theoretic good, as calculated to terminate in disappointment and misery; and it has been most painful to me to observe the humbler classes of my fellow-subjects in- duced by false representations to oppose those who have only sought their good upon the truest, the best-tried, and the most unerring principles of the con- stitution.

"Your Grace asks me if 'I have been ill-used, run down, or persecuted; and, if so, why ? ' In reply to these obliging inquiries, I have to say, that if I have so suffered, it is owing to that cause to which I have above alluded— the error into which their treacherous advisers have misled a warm-hearted people with respect to their real comforts and rights, and the best methods of obtaining them. But beyond this I have only suffered as public men who choose an independent course are doomed to suffer. They are generally, during their lifetime, exposed to slander and misrepresentation ; the good they do will survive them-1 hope also endear their memory to their countrymen : and this is aU the reward of my labours I have ever hoped for ; nor shall I cease from striving for that reward so long as I live, and shall recommend the same pur- suit to those who come after me."

He comforts the Duke with the assurance, that though the writ is suspended, Nottingham will not be disfranchised, or he must have heard of it.

The long-expected "Journal of Events in Afghanistan," kept by Lady Sale, has at length arrived, and has been intrusted for publication to Mr. Murray of Albemarle Street.

The Story-Teller, a new periodical by Mr. Robert Bell, explains the circumstances of a correspondence between Mrs. Southey and Mrs. Sigourney the American authoress, who has published a passage re- specting the health of Southey, which has given great pain to his wife- " Mrs. Sigourney, a perfect stranger, wrote to Mrs. Southey to request her correspondence. Mrs. Smthey, having other objects to engross her thoughts, declined the honour, but simply and politely answered her inquiries as to Mr. Southey's health. All this, of course, was under the recognized seal of private correspondence ; which ought to have been considered all the more sacred from the way in which Mrs. Sigourney had herself brought it about. Mrs. Southey, to her utter astonishment, afterwards saw her letter not only printed in the public journals, but interpolated with phrases implying intimacy, andejacula- tions of pathos, not one of which she ever penned."

Accounts of the new "Aerial Steam Carriage" are floating about the papers ; delicious food for the wonder-mongers. One account is furnished by a correspondent of the Times. The difficulty in the con- struction of aerial carriages has been, to combine machinery adequate to the power of sustension and propulsion with the lightness requisite for floating in a medium so thin as air. The idea of the carriage in- vented by Mr. Henson is an ingenious plan of partly evading and partly subduing that difficulty. It is observed, that birds of strong flight, as the rook, take a great effort to rise from the ground, but that once in flight they skim along the air, by its own resistance to their expanded wings, with little effort, only requiring sufficient forward motion for progress and for keeping up the resistance of the air beneath their wings. Hence the principle of the new machine : a motion is imparted to it at starting by a foreign agency, so that the rise from the ground is performed by a power which is left behind and does not add to the weight. Then the expanded wings of the rook are imitated, so that machinery is only needed for propulsion and for a very small share in the act of sustension ; and finally, by a new economy, the weight of the motive power is greatly reduced in comparison with its force. The machine is thus described--- " Its car, enclosed on all sides, and containing the passengers, managers, burden, and steam-engine, is suspended to the middle of a framework, which is so constructed as to combine great strength with extreme lightness, and is covered with any woven texture which is moderately light and close. This main frame or expanded surface, which is 150 feet long by 30 feet wide, serves in the most important respects as wings ; yet it is perfectly jointless and with- out vibratory motion. It advances through the air with one of its long sides foremost and a little elevated. To the middle of the other long side is joined the tail, of 50 feet in length, beneath which is the rudder. These important appendages effectually control the flight as to elevation and direction, and are governed by cords proceeding from the car. Situated at the back edge of the main frame, are two sets of vanes or propellers, of 20 feet in diameter, driven by the steam-engine.

"We have already said that the velocity of the machine is imparted at its starting. This is effected by its being made to descend an inclined plane : during the descent the covering of the wings is reefed, but before the machine reaches the bottom that covering is rapidly spread : by this time the velocity acquired by the descent is so great, that the resistance produced by the oblique impact of the sloping under-surface of the wings on the air is sufficient to sustain the entire weight of the machine, just as a brisk wind upholds a kite but while the pneumatic resistance thus procured by the velocity pre- vents the falling of the carriage, it opposes also its forward flight : to over- come this latter and smaller resistance is the office of the steam-engine.

" The chief peculiarities of this important member of the carriage are the respective constructions of its boiler and condenser. The former consists of hollow inverted truncated cones, arranged above and around the furnace ; they are about fifty in number, and large enough to afford 100 square feet of evapo- rating surface, of which half is exposed to radiating heat. 1 he condenser is an assemblage of small pipes exposed to the stream of air produced by the flight of the machine. It is found to produce a vacuum of from 5 to 8 pounds to the square inch. The steam is employed in two cylinders, and is cut off at one- fourth of the stroke. Our engineering readers will be able to gather from these particulars, that the steam-engine is of about 20-horse power, supposing the evaporating power of the boiler to be equal, foot for foot, to that of the loco- motive steam-engine. [And it weighs, with its condenser and the water, but .6001b.

.‘ The area of the sustaining surface will be, we understand, not less than 4,500 square feet; the weight to be sustained, including the carriage and its total burden, is estimated at 3,000 pounds. The load is said to be considerably less per square foot than that of many birds. It may assist the conceptions of our non-mechanical readers to add, that the general appearance of the machine is that of a gigantic bird with stationary wings ; that the mechanical principles concerned in its support are strongly exemplified in the case of a kite ; and that its progress is maintained by an application of power like that which propels a steam-boat. In the operations of nature, particularly in the flight of birds, will be found many striking illustrations of the principles on which the inventor has proceeded."

The comet still puzzles the world ; and, in the teeth of the most emi- nent astronomers, people doubt whether it is really a comet after all. Some say that it is the zodiacal light ; others are disposed to consider it an unclassified phcenomenon. According to Galignanis Messenger, Dr. Forster, who observed it at Bruges, is of this opinion : "He states, that though it does not appear to be a comet, it is not an atmospheric pro- duction, but exists as a connected mass of extended luminous matter in the higher regions of the heavens, and may possibly have a motion towards the sun."

The Journal des Dibats, from news of the celestial visiter furnished by M. Arago, states that M. Plantamonr, the astronomer of Geneva, has come to the conclusion that this long-tailed comet has so closely approached the Sun, that it must in part have plunged within its ht- minous atmosphere. The tail is calculated at the enormous length of sixty-three millions of leagues ; and the distance of the comet from the Sun at less than twice that of the Moon from the Earth. History men- tions some comets having an analogy with the present-

" In 1702, a comet was observed at .Rome; which also appeared in the month of March, and had a narrow tail like the present. That comet of 1702 was believed to be the same with one that Cassini observed at Bologna in 1668. According to that astronomer, the comet observed in 1668 was the same of which Aristotle speaks, and which must have appeared in the year 373 before Christ ; and it will have made sixty revolutions of thirty-four years each." A correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, who calls himself" Read- ingensis," [extreme oddus Latinus t] supplies an extract about the comet of 1668, from the Sphere of Manlius, a work printed in 1675, which con- tains a record of a vast number of comets that have appeared- " March, 1688. On the 5th and 10th of March a comet was observed by Sig. Cassini, at Bologna, about the first hour of the night (after the Italian way of counting). The head or body was not seen, being hid under the horizon ; the tail was of a stupendous length, being extended, as it appeared at Lisbon, in Portugal, over almost the fourth part of the visible heavens, from West to East—from the Whale, through Eridanus, to the star which precedes the eare of Lepus, as observed at Bologna, by Sig. Cassini."

The National mentions, with equal incredulity and rancour, a variety of rumours respecting the relations of France and England. One re- port is, that the English Cabinet consents to enter into negotiations on the question of the right of search, and to substitute for the treaties of 1831 and 1833 other conventions founded on the principle of the reci- procal independence of the flags of the two countries ; the acknowledg- ment expected for this concession being the conclusion of the long- talked-of treaty of commerce. The British Government is also stated to consent to the French's taking possession of the Society Islands, but to require in return the abolition of slavery in their colonies. The National adds, that the French Government, anxious to return procede pour procede, is hastening the conclusion of the treaty of commerce, and will shortly bring in a bill for the immediate abolition of slavery in the French colonies.

The National states, that Admiral Dupetit-Thonars has not only ac- cepted the alliance offered him by the Queen of Tahiti, but that be has really taken possession of the Society Islands. He has already installed a number of civilians ; and a garrison is about to be despatched thither, which will be provisionally composed of four companies of artillery and five companies of marines. Several vessels, and among them a frigate, are to be employed to transport those troops to Tahiti.