American families that live here as residents, are of course obliged to bring up their daughters in the French fashion. They never leave their mother's side, and walking, driving and theatre-going with them is as much out of the question as keeping company with

firm belief. His heart is thoroughly in the enterprise, and as long as a vestige of hope remains his hand will not fail to adopt those measures most necessary to discover the missing navigator and his party.

this

further than the honor of the dance. Again, self by his intelligence and the energy he disif the same facilities were allowed in France played. He stands especially preeminent for the intimacy of young women and young in one essential qualification-confidence. men that are permitted in America, the most That Sir John Franklin still exists, and can disorganizing consequences would ensue. At be rescued by human means, is Dr. Kane's home I believe that the freedom of intercourse between the sexes leads to but little disorder and laxity of morals. I have heard that our young ladies go alone to the theatre with young men, go to walk with them, to ride with them (sleigh-riding even), and come Although success has not attendedevious home no wiser than they went, or perhaps expeditions, there are yet many grounds for only a kiss or two the worse. This would be further and continued efforts being made. utterly out of the question here. A young The discoveries up to the present time afford lady, seen walking or riding with a gentleman conclusive proofs that Sir John Franklin in Paris, would be at once supposed to have passed the winter of 1845-6 on Beechy lost all she had worth keeping; and probably Island, at the mouth of Wellington Channel. the supposition would be correct. If insur- Whether in the spring he proceeded up mountable obstacles are thrown in the way of channel westward or northward is doubtful. a greater familiarity between masters and The former course was enjoined by his inmisses, it is because they have been found structions, but a search by means of sledges indispensable. in that direction, extending along the south shore to long. 103° 25', and along the north shore to long. 114° 20′, has afforded no indication that such was the course actually pursued. That the two missing ships may be blocked up in some of the passages or inlets not yet explored is still very possible. Both the English and the American officers enterBut families not familiar with Paris, some- tain the opinion that Sir John Franklin times make a very strange appearance without proceeded by the open sea north-west of Welknowing it. I remember to have seen, some lington and Victoria Channels, and is closed time since, a very beautiful young lady walk-in by the almost unlimited region of water, ing arm-in-arm with a daring-looking New ice, and land, extending between Victoria Yorker, on the Champs Elysées! They had Channel and the lofty and immense tracts of been accustomed to do so, I believe, on Fifth- land north of West Georgia, considered by avenue. I thought it my duty to go straight to some as a continuation of a range of mounthe fair offender's mother, and remonstrate tains seen off Cape Jakan, on the coast of against a proceeding so inadmissible. The Asia. Two years ago Captain Penny stated young lady hates me to this day, though she it to be his decided conviction that there is a now knows enough of French manners to blush great polar basin with a higher temperature scarlet whenever she thinks of the appear- than that of the Arctic zone, abounding with ance she must have made, on her first and animal life and ample means for human sublast promenade. In an American parlor, too, sistence. Captain Englefield, who lately one night, I saw a Boston girl, who supposed returned from a short cruise in the Arctic herself still in Summer-street, get behind a Ocean, substantiates this opinion of Penny's. door and talk through the crack with a Bal- He attained the latitude of 78° 35′, or one timore boy! Two French ladies who were in hundred and twenty miles further to the the room, seriously contemplated rushing out northward than the highest point ever before of the house, as they were hardly sure that reached. Having passed through a channel, the place was respectable. Not wishing to earn this girl's hatred, too, I got somebody else to immolate himself, and to restore the two French ladies' composure.

the stars.

SECOND AMERICAN EXPEDITION IN
SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

THE new Grinnell Arctic expedition, which is shortly to proceed in search of Sir John Franklin, is to be commanded by Dr. Kane, an officer eminently qualified for the task. Though serving previously in only a subordinate capacity, he greatly distinguished him

the width of thirty-five miles, he found before him a vast expanse of open water. He endeavored to proceed further, but was obliged to desist in consequence of a terrific gale of wind, which his steamer was inadequately adapted to encounter. Captain Englefield is of opinion that Baffin's Bay is a wrong term that it is, in reality, an arm of communication between the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

The past explorations tend rather to strengthen than weaken the chances of the safety of Sir John Franklin's expedition. If, at the outset, it was improbable that the two ships should have simultaneously perished, it

is still more improbable that they should have been so utterly lost as not to leave behind some remnant of wreck to tell their fate. No such remnant, however, has been found, either by the vessels in search, or by the parties who, on sledges, have explored the coasts for hundreds of miles. There is no satisfactory proof that the disappearance of the Erebus and Terror is to be attributed to storms, or to the want of sufficient food to support the existence of their crews. We rejoice, therefore, to find that this humane search has not been abandoned that, through the liberality of Mr. Henry Grinnell and Mr. George Peabody, a second expedition is fitting out, reflecting honor on the name of America and much credit on the American government for the interest it evinces in, and the active cooperation it has afforded to, the enterprise. May the undertaking be as successful in its result as it has been noble in its aim!-Times.

From the Times.

ENGLISH DULNESS AND STUBBORNNESS.

cal; but let them suspend their judgment till
they have heard us out, and then deny the
truth of our assertion if they can.
To begin
with the objects nearest to us. The atmos-
phere we breathe is contaminated by the
smoke of a hundred and fifty thousand chim-
neys. We live in the contact and under the
influence of dirt, because it is impossible
to apply well known scientific principles to the
purification of our atmosphere. We submit
to boundless imposition and insolence from a
legion of privileged ruffians called cabmen, be-
cause it is "impossible" to place them under
police regulations. Of six bridges over the
Thames three must bear the whole traffic and
be prematurely worn out in the service,
because it is "impossible" to buy up the tolls
and throw the others open to the public.-
Hundreds of thousands of the poorer classes
perish annually because it is "impossible" to
enforce the most ordinary cleanliness or carry
out the most obvious sanitary regulations.
The Thames is converted from a noble river

into a putrid ditch, because it is " impossible," in this poverty-stricken metropolis, to find money to carry out a complete system of drainage. The air is poisoned by intramural THE proper description of human progress interments, because it is " impossible" to may be said to be from the impossible to the deal with the vested interests involved in pilpossible, from the possible to the probable, ing up our pestilential churchyards with fresh and from the probable to the actual. These heaps of festering mortality. We are condifferent stages are, however, by no means of demned to drink water full of filthy elements, the same length. The great difficulty with which filtration may clarify but cannot purify, those who would innovate and improve is to because it is "impossible" to fix on one out persuade the English mind that such innova- of half-a-dozen excellent sites from which the tions and improvements are possible. This pure fluid might be brought into the metropopoint once gained we may be sure success is lis. It was long "impossible" to remove near at hand; for it seems to be a habit of the Smithfield, and that possibility has only been public stubbornly to deny the practicability of recognized on condition of its transference to anything which is not about immediately to a spot which will soon be as objectionable for take place. Napoleon told Bourienne never a cattle market as its present position, and to mention to him "that beast of a word," from which of course it will be equally "imand we heartily wish that a similar exclusion possible" to remove it. Nineteen-twentieths could be enforced in favor of the English of this city of London are denied the privilege vocabulary. A man's life in these days is of corporate self-government, and a twentieth spent in the realization of impossibilities, in has that privilege in such a way as to make fervently denying one week what he sees put one regret the exception, and wish the depriin practice the next. So wedded are we to vation universal. But this absurdity cannot custom, so hampered by precedent, so enslaved be remedied, because it is "impossible" to by habit, that we cannot bring ourselves to alter the constitution of the Corporation of believe that what is wrong in our proceedings the City of London. Everybody feels that it can possibly be corrected, or what is right in is a disgrace, an anomaly, and an anachronism the practices of our neighbors can possibly be that its resources are wasted and its offices adopted. The Committee of the House of disgraced; but it is "impossible" to reform Commons which pronounced railways "impos- it. This same corporation, has, by a successible," scoffed at the draining of Chat-moss, sion of clauses fraudulently introduced into and rejected the Liverpool and Manchester private acts of Parliament, and, lastly, by the Railway Bill out of mercy to the demented barefaced trick of smuggling four words into projectors, was too faithful a type of the Eng- an interpretation clause, rendering tributary lish mind. Active and indefatigable within to its revenues the rural population residing its own range it recoils with a pusillanimous horror before whatever is new and untried.

Few of our readers will probably agree to remarks at once so sweeping and so paradoxi

within twenty miles of St. Paul's; but the rural population must bear it as they may, for it is" impossible" to undo any iniquity which the Corporation of London has once

keep a channel open and preserve a revenue of four thousand a-year. There appear to be public works in Madras which would yield from fifty to a hundred per cent.; but it is "impossible" to execute them. The extract will show that India is the very paradise of impossibilities.

We apprehend that we have made out our case, though we have by no means exhausted our subject- a feat which we believe to be, among all the "impossibilities" we have mentioned, the only real and insuperable impossibility.

From the Athenæum.

ARCHEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES.

perpetrated. Travellers by railway never feel | Greece. In another column will be found confident when they start whether they shall a sample of Indian imposibilities. It is reach their journey's end or be ground to "impossible" to spend fifty pounds a-year to powder in the process of locomotion; but travellers must be content to take their chance, for it is "impossible" to meddle with the management of railways. Directors advertise time tables, and give notice, fully carried out in fact, that they do not mean to adhere to their promise; but such divinity doth hedge a director that it is "impossible" to make him keep his word. Excursion trains have been proved to have a decidedly homicidal tendency, and goods' trains, sent to find their way as they can, to be the constant cause of destruction and of death. But it is "impossible" to prohibit excursion trains and oblige luggage trains, like those which carry passengers, to start and arrive at a particular hour. We have a coinage made as if on purpose to ONE of the most important and interesting render computation difficult and intricate; but archæological discoveries that has for some it is "impossible" to do violence to the habits time been made has been effected in that part of the people by introducing the simple remedy of the Kingdom of Naples commonly known of a decimal system. A penny cannot be by the name of Puglia (Apulia), which formed anything except the twelfth part of a shilling, a portion of Magna Græcia. I believe it is or a farthing anything but the fourth part of a known to many that Cavalier Carlo Bonucci, penny. Our usual heaped measures are pecu- architect and director-general of antiquities liarly liable to fraud; but it would be "im- and excavations in this kingdom for twentypossible" to sell by weight. Pint and quart five years, has recently discovered, near Canobottles are rapidly receding into the regions sa, founded by Diomede, a subterranean neof ancient, or even mythical, history; but it cropolis, quite entire. Its principal entrance is "impossible" to enact that all bottled is decorated with four doric columns, two liquors which are sold shall contain an aliquot part of a gallon. There is no stronger wish in the public mind than to be allowed to form partnerships with limited liability; but this, though it can be done everywhere else, is impossible" in England. France and America have reduced their laws to a code; but the English law cannot be codified. Our statutes are a mass of verbiage, contradiction, and repetition; but, though everybody is bound to understand them, it is "impossible" for anybody to simplify them or reduce them to common sense. Ancient Rome and modern America could assess the whole property of the country at its actual value, and levy taxes upon it with ease and simplicity; but, though it is quite feasible in England to tax income, which is one kind of property-land, which is another or legacies, which are a third, it is "impossible" to assess all property and make the tax just by making it uniform. We are afraid of invasion, but it is "impossible" to recall our troops from Canada, where they are useless; or from the West Indies, where they perish ingloriously of the yellow fever; or from the Cape, where they are worse than useless, to defend the citadel and centre of our empire. Something might, indeed, be done by our fleet; but it is impossible" to keep a fleet in the Channel, or recall from the Mediterranean a squadron alternately engaged in frightening the kings of Naples and of

66

niches for statues, and a second line of Ionic columns, all of slight and elegant proportions, and of a workmanship which recalls the best age of art- that between Pericles and Alexander. This elegant entrance was painted in various colors, which produced an effect not less pleasing than surprising. This specimen of the polychromatic architecture is valuable for its high state of preservation, its freshness, and for the classic time to which it belongs. Entering the city in question, over which time and death have spread an eternal silence, we find streets which lead to various groups of dwellings. The gates are decorated with elegant ionic columns, whose capitals present the accessory ornament of a festoon. Signor Bonucci tells me, that on entering the chambers he found everything arranged in its place as it had been left twelve centuries ago. The walls were covered with linen embroidered in gold; — garlands of flowers, withered it is true, but preserving all their forms, hung in festoons from the ceiling. All kinds of furniture and precious vases were distributed about in the most varied and graceful manner. Here were to be seen statues of marble-busts of deities and priestesses in terra cotta, beautifully painted vases of "creta" of an extraordinary size, on which are represented the most interesting scenes of private life, and the most classical traditions of mythology. Of these I spoke

CLING TO THY MOTHER.

CLING to thy mother, for she was the first

and

To know thy being and to feel thy life; The hope of thee through many a pang she nursed,

And when, 'midst anguish like the parting strife,

agony

Be gentle to thy mother! long she bore

Thine infant fretfulness and silly youth;
Nor rudely scorn the faithful voice that o'er
Thy cradle played, and taught thy lisping.

truth.

in a recent letter as having just arrived at | Bonucci; and I am not aware that they the Museo Borbonico. They are not yet came under the notice of the Commissioners arranged, but yesterday I was favored with a from the Crystal Palace Company during nearer and a longer inspection. On the larger their hurried visit to the capital. vase, which is of gigantic size and is still In sending you the above notices, I feel unpacked, though lying exposed, Homer is almost as if they would be received with painted with the lyre in his hands, as if he incredulity;-indeed, as I write it appears were singing some passage of the Iliad or the that I am wandering again among fairy sceOdyssey. In the midst of all these treasures nery. But I have seen at least a portion of and miracles of art of every form, lay the the objects which have been recovered, mistress of the house reposing tranquilly as surely nothing so exquisite or graceful have though she slept. So great was the illusion, I ever beheld. that one might have almost said "She is not dead, but sleepeth." She rested on a gilt bronze bed, supported by friezes, figures, and genii, exquisitely carved in ivory. In the adjoining chambers, which were all filled with the same wealth, lay her daughters and servants. These young girls were still clothed with dresses embroidered with gold. Their heads were surrounded with garlands of gold which represented the sacred flowers of Proserpine, in the midst of which were sporting, The babe was in her arms, the as it were, birds and insects. Other garlands Was all forgot for bliss of loving thee. there were of roses :- some wore diadems covered with precious stones finished in the highest style of art. One of these I saw yesterday in private hands, and nothing can exceed its extreme beauty. The ears of these children of death were all ornamented with pendants of various forms, and their necks with necklaces in which emeralds and hyacinths were interwoven with chains of gold. Two of these, which were obtained by contraband means, I have also seen. The arms were ornamented with bracelets of a spiral form, or winding as a serpent. An abundant and sumptuous table was laid by their side. The fruits consisted of pomegranates, pines, the corns of the fir pine, and apples- whilst the flowers were narcissuses, hyacinths and asphodels, apparently fresh. They were made either of painted "creta," of colored glass, or of rock crystal. Their styles were made of metal threads, with green smalt, or simply gilt. The plates, basins, cups and every other article necessary for dinner, and the lamps which were to shed their light upon it, were of an extraordinary size, and all of glass. This glass was formed of a kind of paste worked in mosaic, with the most beau-Be tender with thy mother! words unkind, tiful designs, in which were interspersed Or light neglect from thee, would give a pang small bits, or dice, of gold. On some of the To that fond bosom, where thou art enshrined plates were painted landscapes, and others In love unutterable, more than fang were ornamented with lines of gold rep- Of venomed serpent. Wound not her strong trust, resenting elegant and sumptuous edifices. These discoveries were terminated only about As thou would'st hope for peace when she is dust. the middle of last year; and it has occurred Oh! mother mine! God grant I ne'er forget, to me that, now while we are seeking for Whatever be my grief, or what my joy, all the wonders of art with which to adorn the crystal palace at Sydenham, it is right The untreasured, the inextinguishable debt to make known to the British public the I owe thy love; but find my sweet employ above extraordinary facts. The plans and the Ever, through thy remaining days, to be designs are all in the hands of Cavalier Carlo To thee as faithful as thou wert to me.

Yes, she is old, yet on thy manly brow
She looks, and claims thee as her child e'en now.
Uphold thy mother! close to her warm heart

She carried, fed thee, lulled thee to thy rest; Then taught thy tottering limbs their untried art,

Exulting in the fledgling from her nest;
And now her steps are feeble, be her stay,
Whose strength was thine in thy most feeble day.
Cherish thy mother! brief perchance the time

May be that she will claim the care she gave
Passed are her hopes of youth, her harvest prime

Of joy on earth; her friends are in the grave. But for her children she could lay her head Gladly to rest among the precious dead.