ber 1st, 1834. The young King disembarked from a Greek vessel, under a salute of twenty-one guns. The regency and the municipality received him on landing the procession was formed by all the old Greek warriors, headed by General Church near the Temple of Theseus an arch of laurel and olive was formed, and under it the King entered into Athens. The royal residence was a quarter of a mile out of town, a very humble palace, consisting of twelve rooms, to which, however, a banquetting room was subsequently added, capable of containing four hundred persons. A few evenings after the entry the Countess Armansperg, the wife of the chief minister, gave a ball in the streets of Athens. Carriages were out of the question: the consequence was, that those of the ladies who had horses rode them to the ball, in the Queen Elizabeth style; those who had not, cased themselves in huge Turkish boots, and walked with large lanterns carried before them. About nine the dancing commenced, the King leading off one of the daughters of the Countess. The new sovereign is described as rather above the middle height, with a very fair complexion, his hair rather dark, his eyes blue, and his countenance good-natured. In figure, Mr. Cochrane says, "he is one of the very best made men I have ever seen. After having for some time observed this gay scene, he retired to the other suite of rooms, composed of three chambers of twenty feet square: they were very well furnished, had good Turkish carpets, and exhibited handsome sofas and chairs, covered with blue and white silk; the walls were papered with some ornamental scenery just brought from France; and the observer half forgot that he was in the heart of dilapidated Athens. The hours were early, and should be a lesson to our London fashionables. As the King arrived at half-past eight, the ball was over at half-past eleven. Our taste however cannot recommend the regale that followed it, for it was hot soup, handed about in coffee-cups. In about a quarter of an hour after, the King retired, and the party broke up. On a subsequent evening, Mr. Dawkins, the British Envoy, gave a ball to the King and the Athenian beau monde of Athens. There was a fine room for dancing, with two smaller rooms at the extremities. The Englishman gave a regular supper, which was a phenomenon in Greece, and the Greek ladies behaved, on the occasion, more decorously than was expected. English suppers are trying things, peculiarly when champagne gets into unpractised hands. However, the ladies were delighted, and so, of course, must every one else have been. They are now beginning to dress à la Française. They speak French, and look as French as they can. Those Frenchmen beat us in millinery, cookery, and coquetting, all round the world. But Mr. Cochrane makes one reserve for the sinking honour of his country-they cannot beat us in red coats. He says, with a sincerity becoming a patriot, that the ballroom on this night only confirmed the observation that he had often made before-namely, the infinite superiority of a red coat over every other colour, in attracting and fixing the female eye and attention. The light blue, the light green, the white, the dark blue, and all the different brilliant uniforms that were exhibited on this occasion were comparatively powerless in claiming the eyes of the "Grecian fair;" so there is still some hope for England. The Colonel. But Mr. Cochrane had more important, if not more interesting matters to manage. All foreigners are wonderfully caught by the exploits of British engineering and machinery. Take any five hundred foreign savans, and you may rely upon it that the first question asked by four hundred and ninety-nine of them is, "How goes on the Thames Tunnel?" The Greeks are all in a state of fever for the establishment of steam-boats; and after the war was ended, and the musket was hung up in their halls, Mr. Cochrane was sent back to London to construct a Greek Steam Company. He began prosperously; but a panic intervened from the depression of the Spanish Bonds: the shareholders shrank, and the project fell to the ground. In the mean time the French government have adopted the idea; and, in 1835, had obtained from the Chamber of Deputies a grant of four hundred thousand pounds to enable them to run steam-vessels to the Mediterranean. In 1835 one of these vessels was launched by a house at Marseilles to establish a communication between Greece and Constantinople. Mr. Cochrane describes the accommodations as of a very excellent order: the after-cabin had on each side six smaller cabins, with two berths in each; and beyond these was the ladies' cabin, similarly arranged. The whole was fitted up with toilettes, &c.; and, to meet the heat of the climate, the doors were fitted up with skreens of thick silk. Between each of the spaces was placed a handsome mirror, and the whole effect was striking and brilliant in a high degree. The French consul at Malta had been appointed the government agent for the steam-boat. He stated that four hundred thousand pounds sterling had been granted by the Chambers, but that three hundred thousand pounds would be quite sufficient to equip three large steam-vessels : that they were to run every day to Marseilles and Toulon; some of them to Algiers, others to Malta and Alexandria, and some to Athens, Smyrna, and Constantinople. That they were to be fitted up entirely for passengers; to be on a scale of magnificence equal to the present vessel, and to be officered entirely from captains and subalterns of the royal navy. The Rector. It must be always irksome to speak of the tardiness of our own country. But the slowness, and even the disrelish, with which our public functionaries have proceeded in this important object of our communication with the Mediterranean and India amounts to little short of a national crime. It has been demonstrated by the every-day evidence of facts, that by the steam-boat system, well organised, a letter can be sent from London to Bombay in forty-one days; while the ordinary passage by sea is four months. In other words, that a letter or individual can be in India, in London, and in India again successively, in the time which it ordinarily takes to reach India at all by sea. Yet there are men of might in the India house, and who call themselves rational and national, who never hear the subject mentioned without lifting up their hands to the skies and protesting against the absurdity of the experiment; as if it were still an experiment; as if the pledge of all national improvement, and still more of colonial connexion, were not quickness of communication; as if India, of all countries, was not most dependent on communication with our government; or as if, on the breaking out of a war, the difference between a forty-one days' dispatch and a four months' might not make the difference between being attacked unprepared and attacking with full preparation-between the loss and the acquisition of an empire. The French are, as we see, already treading the path which we ought to have trod, and they may yet lead us the way to India. Agriculture, state and prospects of, 147- Alexander's Western Africa, reviewed, 437 Anatomical Specimens, imitation of, 150 Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, Architectural Magazine, the, No. 37, no- Asiatic Society, the, proceedings of, 146 Austria and the Austrians, reviewed, 130 Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, no- Bank of England, the, quarterly average of Beau of Byblos, the, by Alfred Crowquill, Berenger, Songs of, noticed, 287 Better Never than Late, a dramatic sketch, Biter, the, Bit, a tale of retaliation, 89 Campbell's Letters from the South, re- Carne, John, Esq., Lunacy in France, by, Aug.-VOL. L. NO. CC. Case of Furious Driving, by Alfred Crow- Charity, by the author of "Paul Pry," 519 City of the Sultan, the, by Miss Pardoe, Cochrane's Wanderings in Greece, noticed, Cockney Country Gentleman, a, by the Confessions and Opinions of Ralph Restless, Curtis on the Preservation of Health, Gleig's Family History of England, noticed, Grimaldi, some Recollections of, 375 Hall, Capt. H. B., Recollections of La High Connexions, 399 Hill, Benson, Esq., Sewing up the Fogies, Hook, Theodore, Esq., the Gurney Papers, Humorist, the, 83, 233, 375, 519 Landon, Miss L. E., memoir of (with a por- Learned Societies, 146 Lines written in the Album of Rotha 142-Heath's Shakspeare Gallery, 143— Lockhart's Life of Scott, noticed, 428 Lunacy in France, by John Carne, Esq., Maison des Fous at Paris, 15 Man in the Macintosh Cape, the, by J. B. Marryat, Captain, the Phantom Ship, by, Mr. Cabooze and James Bevan, 412 Najran and Shireen, by Alfred Crowquill, Natural History, Recreations in, 189 Norton, the Hon. Mrs., The Orphans of Note from the Gentleman who is ashamed Index. Perkin Warbeck, recent discoveries respecting, 146 Perplexity of a Deaf Gentleman, the, by Rejected Addresses :" St. George's Penitentiary, 116-The Penny-wise Age, 117 Phantom Ship, the, by Captain Marryat, 28, 181, 341, 496 Phipps, the Hon. E., Scenes in a Country Pleasures of Relationship, 333 Poetry:-Sonnet, by Lady Charlotte Bury, 22-The Lover's Lament, 41-The Orphans of Castle Menzies, by the Hon. Mrs. Norton, 76-The Biter Bit, a tale of retaliation, 89-Peter Pindarics, by one of the Authors of "Rejected Addresses: St. George's Penitentiary, 116; The Penny wise Age, 117-The Uninvited One, 128-The Reproach, by Mrs. A. Kerr, 166-Martial in London, 180, 340-Lines by a Young Lady of Fifteen, 188-The Artist's Portfolio, by the Hon. Mrs. Norton, No. I., The Picture of Sappho, 207-Christmas Day, 215-Bibo Perplexed, 239-The Pilgrims, 283Subjects for Pictures, by Miss Landon: The Carrier-Pigeon Returned, 318; Alexander on the Banks of the Hyphasis, 319-Farewell, Farewell, my Fatherland, 332-High Connexions, 399-Mr. Cabooze and James Bevan, 412 -- Lines written in the Album of Rotha Quillinan, by Leigh Hunt, Esq., 420-I would not be a Child again, 505-Take your Politics hence, by Haynes Bayly, Esq., 537— Improvising to Order, 555 Poole, John, Esq., Better Never than Late, a dramatic sketch, by, 103-A Cockney Country Gentleman, by, 241-Charity, by, 519 Potass, new means of manufacturing, 150 Practical Jokes, by Theodore Hook, Esq., 108 Queen Victoria, Memoir of, 441 Ragamuffins, Native and Foreign, 416 Recollections of La Mailleraie, by Captain Recreations in Natural History, 189 Salzburg, Visit to the Salt Mines of, 467 Scenes in a Country House, by the Hon. E. Phipps: Old Times and Modern Times, 59, 197 Sewing up the Fogies, by Benson Hill, Esq., 118 Shakspeare in China, by Douglas Jerrold, Esq., 233 Shovel-Hat, the, by Benson Hill, Esq., 531 Smith, James, Esq., Memoir of (with a Portrait), 230 Snarley Yow, or, the Dog Fiend, by Capt. Marryat, noticed, 431 Societies, Proceedings of, 146 Special Evening in the Life of a Musical Amateur, 406 Subjects for Pictures, by Miss Landon : The Carrier-Pigeon Returned, 318Alexander on the Banks of the Hyphasis, 319 Success in Life, 226 Sugar, Manufacture of, from chestnuts, 150 END OF THE SECOND PART. Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford-street. |