Stlistellaneotts.

The Queen's tenancy of Osborne House, in the Isle of Wight, com- menced on the 1st instant. It is expected that the Royal Family will pay a ten-days visit to the place early this month ; but that the Queen will not venture to sea until her August visit, the present state of her health forbidding risk.

The King of the French is said to have stated to Mr. Peel, brother of oar Premier, his intention to visit England this summer.

The Windsor Express records a pleasant trait of just feeling in the Dutchess of Kent. An let of Parliament which annexed Frogmore to the Crown exempted it from local rates. Understanding that it caused serious loss to the inhabitants, the Dutchess has ordered that a donation be made to the local .rates equal to what the contribution would have been for the seat. kr It is understood tha h utchess of Kent will return to England in the third week of Jun

A Frankfort jonrna announces that the reigning Prince of Saxe, Coburg-Gotha will henceforth be called " Highness ' instead of "Ducal Highness."

In the House of Lords, on Thursday, Lord Brougham stated that Sir William Follett was rapidly recovering from his recent malady, and likely soon to be restored to the public.

Lady Pollock, the wife of the General Pollock, arrived in town on Thursday, from India, with her daughter.

Sir Robert and Lady Sale are expected in England as passengers in the Great Liverpool steamer, due at Southampton on the 8th instant.

Accounts from Florence mention the death of Count Vittorio Fossonr- broni, for many years Prime Minister and Minister of all work for the Court of Tuscany. The Count was also distinguished as a literary and scientific scholar. He was in his eighty-ninth year.

Galignani's Messenger contradicts the report that Rachel has retired from the stage : she is only taking a very needful temporary rest.

The New YorA. Express repeats a rumour of an event, anticipated some time back—that Mrs. Butler, our Fanny Kemble, " has separated herself from her husband, and awaits only the termination of a pending arrangement as to the custody of their children to part from him and the country entirely."

A number of French physicians have decided Mr. Dyce Sombre to be in full possession of his faculties, the result of the English commis. sion of lunacy in his case notwithstanding.

A Court of Directors was held at the East India House on Wednes- day ; when Major-General Sir George Pollock, G.C.B., was appointed a Provisional Member of the Council of India. Mr. Ferrand has sent to the papers a letter which he wrote to Mr. Hogg, the Member for Beverley, on Saturday. It is dated from the Carlton Club. The proceedings in the House of Commons having ter- minated, the writer volunteers an explanation of what his words at Leeds were intended to convey ; an explanation which he never should have withheld on personal and private application. Had the House asserted its right to interfere, either by " censuring " him, " or by any other act of a tangible nature," it was his intention to have resisted such an assumption of power, "and to have tried its right in another and a eonstitutional court." He regrets that Mr. Hogg was not satisfied with the assurance that he was labouring under a mistake when he supposed that he was charged with what was dishonest and dishonourable-

" On Monday night I distinctly told you what I did not mean; I now tell you what I did mean. It always was and still is my opinion, that your deci- alon respecting the Nottingham election was unjust, and directly opposed to the evidence laid before you : it is further my opinion, that in coming to this decision you were influenced by a bias, of which you were probably un- conscious, that such decision would be acceptable to a Government whom you were anxious to support, and more particularly acceptable to that individual member of it to whose favourite legislative measure Mr. Walter had ever been the strenuous opponent. Further than this I never did, I never could, intend to say. I never for one moment believed that you had been personally cor- rupted, or that you either were or are to receive the reward of that corruption. Had I so believed, or had 1 intended to convey such belief, it would have been done in plain English, and not by faint inuendo. I therefore wish to express my regret that your feelings as a man of honour should have been wounded by unfortunately straining my words into a meaning they were never intended to convey."

The following notice was issued at the several district post-offices, on Saturday-

" London District Post.office, 1st May.

" On and from this day, there will be ten deliveries of letters in London daily, and the despatches will be made from this office at the following times-8, 10, and 12 in the forenoon, and at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 in the afternoon. By this alteration, letters for the country districts posted before 3 o'clock will be delivered the same evening, and those posted before 5 will be delivered within a circle of six miles from the General Post-office the same night. Letters for the last delivery must be pouted before 6 o'clock ; and this delivery includes all places within a circle of three miles from the General Post-office.

" N.B. Letters for the first delivery in the morning must be posted before 8 o'clock the previous night."

A deputation from the Metropolitan Improvement Society, headed by Dr. Southwood Smith, and from the Master Carpenters Society, headed by Mr. Biers, had an interview with the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, in Downing Street, on Saturday, to endeavour to procure some change in the window-duties, favourable to ventilation. Dr. South- wood Smith and Mr. Toynbee, one of the surgeons of St. George's Dis- pensary, attributed much of the fever, scrofula, and other diseases pre- valent among the poor, to impure and unchanged air. Mr. Toynbee had frequently succeeded in arresting or curing disease by simply in- troducing into close rooms a ventilator of perforated zinc plates. The Chancellor of the Exchequer gave no hope of any change in the Win- dow-tax; but he promised to consider a bill which the deputation brought. A Commissioner of Stamps and Taxes, who was in attend- ance on Mr. Goulburn, said that perforated zinc plates might be intro- duced in external walls free of duty.

Trafalgar Square was opened on Wednesday, though not quite finished. It differs from the other " squares " of London in not having a garden in the midst, but an open space, surrounded by posts, and paved with asphalte. As the rising ground has been levelled by excavating the Northern side, the road in front of the National Gallery rises a little above it, walled off with a parapet ; and thus the national abode of the fine arts borrows an importance which it had not originally. Trafalgar Square is the first open place or piazza, properly so called, like those of the Continental cities, made in London ; which has hitherto been without that imposint,' and agreeable feature. A holyday crowd is never seen to such advantage—never looks so gay, or shows itself in such lively and shifting groups—as in a broad airy space like our first piazza.

It had been represented that Mr. Dorey had abandoned his wife, allowing himself indifferent to her fate ; on which he writes to the Times in terms, creditable to himself, and saying much also for the nature of the erring but unhappy woman who has inspired so steadfast auaffec- tion- " I beg to state, that through the whole of the protracted period which has preceded her trial, I have visited her daily, or as often as the regulations of the prison would allow, alone, and in company with Mr. Flower, my solicitor ; and although my distress has amounted to agony, and has almost deprived me of self-possession, I have nevertheless striven to afford her all the support which compassionate sympathy could yield, as well as to procure for her the most efficient legal assistance in my power. "Believing her participation in crime to be imputable to the despotic ascend- ancy which her guilty confederates had acquired over her, I still cherish the strongest affection for her, and shall receive her again into my house and my home, if Providence should in mercy permit her to survive the imprisonment .assigned her."