the police and the sabres of the guards? In Japan the law is, under such circumstances, not to beat, but to slay, the intruder. The man who, coming from a distant country, is on sufferance as a visitor, and who does not respect the laws, is a fool, and pays the forfeit of his foolery by his death. It is a blunder, then, under those circumstances, to ask the nation to make reparation in so much money," and to execute the officers who executed the law. But if that was a blunder, to bombard Kagosima was a crime. We are told of the gallant exploit of the admiral engaged in the deed, as if there was anything gallant in firing shot upon an offenceless and harmless town! The excuse set up being that, owing to the high sea running, it was impossible to fire without some of the shot reaching the town. And in the name of humanity, then, why should the shot have been fired at all? The fact that now the admiral is endeavouring, through his friends and the Government, to palliate and excuse the act, is proof, without further words, that the bombardment of Kagosima is not justifiable, but quite the contrary.-J. J.

Few can approve the conduct of her Majesty's Government towards the people of Japan. Indeed, whatever be urged against the exclusiveness of the Japanese character and polity, it may be said that the behaviour of Englishmen generally is not at all calculated to command the respect and good-will of this singular people. Great and powerful at home, the Britisher is apt to be rude and arbitrary abroad. The indigenous urbanity of "the lord of the isles" is not easily acclimatized. Hence the semi-barbarous Orientalists are not slow to resent what they consider to be

obvious wrong, and accordingly hatred and outrage mark the intercourse into which they are coerced. But we doubt whether such retaliation as the recent bombardment of Kagosima be necessary, either to vindicate the honour of the British or to exact the subordination of the Japanese. We opine that the atrocious exploit of Admiral Kuper will serve to widen the breach between the two communities; that the last lesson in European civilization will tend to brutalize its recipients, if it do not lead to consequences more disastrous. Henceforth we may expect to see commercial treaties openly violated, and to hear the English name publicly execrated; for all must admit that humanity, honour, and justice, condemn this wanton destruction of life and property.-F. C. C.

It is undoubtedly the duty of the British Government to protect the meanest of its subjects in all parts of the world; but it is also the duty of the Government to see that in so doing it does not encourage its own subjects to treat those of another nation haughtily and contemptuously, or permit them to violate the existing laws and customs of the land in which they reside. Those who do so should certainly do it at their own peril, and receive reprimand rather than encouragement for their acts. This principle has generally been acted upon; but in the present case it has very unwisely been departed from. The bombardment of Kagosima arose in consequence of one of our countrymen being killed by the retinue of the Prince of Satzuma. It was not murder, and was brought on by the unwarrantable conduct of the gentleman himself.-R. J.

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QUESTIONS REQUIRING ANSWERS.

419. Can any of your readers give me a little information respecting the personal history and literary labours of the American writers, N. P. Willis and "Fanny Fern," and oblige-J. M.?

420. Please inform me what was the origin of the words "book" and "Bible," and also the date of the earliest known printed book.-S. A. S.

421. I see a name often quoted of late as that of a poetess, Dora Greenwell. Is it real or fictitious?-T. L. D.

422. Could you oblige me with any information about the Professor Huxley, whose work on "Our Knowledge of the Causes of Organic Nature" was so reviewed in April, 1863, as to excite me to know something more of him?-COUN

there is another poetical magazinet entitled "Modern Metre," one shilling, monthly; but I am inclined to think that the Poetic Magazine is greatly superior to it.-H. EVANS (Hirwain).

419. N. P. Willis and "Fanny Fern." -The following information may be of service to your correspondent B. S., and may be interesting to some of your other readers:-Mr. Nathaniel Parker Willis was born in Portland, in the United States, Jan. 20, 1817. While a child he was removed to Boston, and received his first education at that city and at Andover. He entered Yale College in the seventeeth year of his age, and about the same time produced a series of poems on sacred subjects. Immediately after he had graduated, in 1827, he was engaged by Mr. Goodrich ("Peter Parley") to edit the Legendary and the Token. In 1828 he established the American Monthly Magazine, which he conducted for two years and a half, when it was merged in the New York Mirror, and Willis came to Europe. On his arrival in France he was attached to the American Legation by Mr. Rives, the minister at the French Court, travelled in that country, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Turkey, and last of all, in England, where he married. The letters he wrote while abroad, under the title of "Pencillings by the Way," first appeared in the New York Mirror. 1835 he published "Inklings of Adventure," a series of tales, which appeared originally in a London magazine under the signature of Peter Slingsby. In 1837 he returned to the United States, and early in 1839 he became one of the editors of the Corsair, a literary gazette in New York; and in the autumn of the same year he came

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*The publication of "Modern Metre" has been discontinued.-ED.

again to London, where he published "Loiterings of Travel," in two volumes, and "Two Ways of Dying for a Husband." In 1840 appeared his " Poems and "Letters from under a Hedge." About the same time he wrote the descriptive portions of some pictorial works on American scenery and Ireland. In 1843 he, with Mr. G. P. Morrish, revived the New York Mirror, which had been discontinued for several years, first as a weekly, then as a daily paper; but withdrew from it upon the death of his wife in 1844, and made another visit to England, where he published "Dashes of Life with a Free Pencil," consisting of stories and sketches of European and American society. On his return to New York, he issued his works, collected in a closely printed imperial octavo volume. In October, 1846, he married a daughter of the Hon. Mr. Gunnel, and is now settled in New York, where be is associated with Mr. Norris, as editor of the Home Journal, a weekly literary gazette. Mr. Willis belongs to what has been styled the Venetian school in letters, there being less of accurate drawing than of colouring in his pictures; but the glitter of his style, and the abundance of ornamental details scattered over his writings, have gained for him considerable popularity in America, and some admirers in this country.

A sister of Mr. Willis-Mrs. Parton, better known by her nom de plume of "Fanny Fern" has gained a considerable literary reputation. She has been for many years a contributor of light articles to American periodical literature; most of these she reprinted under the collective title of "Fern Leaves," which had a very extensive sale. She has also written much for children, and is understood to be a constant contributor to one of the most popular daily journals at New York.-R. A. 420. Origin of the words Book and Bible. Instead of the beautiful 66 cream laid" or "blue wove paper that we use, our Teutonic forefathers

The first book printed with a date was the Latin Psalter of 1457. There is a copy in the Royal Library at Windsor.-X.

421. Dora Greenwell is the real name of a real poetess. She is a daughter of the late William Thomas Greenwell, of Greenwell Ford, in the county of Durham, and sister of the Rev. Wm. Greenwell, A.M., Minor Canon and Librarian of the Cathedral of Durham. She is the author of "The Patience of Hope," "Christina, and other Poems," "A Present Heaven," and "The Two Friends." She has contributed to many of the religious periodicals of the day. There is in her writings a good deal of genuine poetic merit.-R. M. A.

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422. Professor Thomas Henry Huxley, F.R.S, fc., fc., is one of the most earnest cultivators, and one of the most uncompromising expounders of the sciences of life, organization, and matter, of the present day. He is, we understand, the son of the late George Huxley. He was born in 1825, at Ealing, at the school of which Middlesex parish he was educated. He studied medicine in the school of the Charing Cross Hospital, West Strand, London. 1846 he was appointed assistantsurgeon to her Majesty's ship Rattlesnake. This vessel was sent out on a cruise for the surveying of the Southern Pacific Ocean and Torres Strait, which separates Papua from the most northerly point in Australia. On this cruise it was out for some years, and Huxley did not return to England till 1850. After this he contributed papers to the scientific societies-Linnæan, Geological, and Zoological. He was also engaged in the geological survey of Great Britain, carried on in connection with the Museum of Practical Geology,

Jermyn Street, London, under the direction of Sir H. T. De la Beche, author of "How to Observe in Geology," &c. On the appointment of the late Professor Edward Forbes (1815-1854) to the chair of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, vacant by the death of Professor Jameson, Huxley was appointed the successor of Forbes in the chair of Natural History in Jermyn Street, where he has maintained with great brilliancy, activity of mind, and restless energy, the reputation which the lectures at the School of Mines had acquired under the care of the early lost Manx naturalist. This position he yet holds usefully and popularly. He has acquired for himself a distinguished character for straightforwardness, ability, scientific acquirements, and dexterity in making the most abstruse matters of fact in natural history level to the commonest understanding. He is an intrepid thinker, perhaps too daringly materialistic, and almost too dogmatic. He is one of the leading spirits of the British Association of Science. He was offered the presidency of the Anthropological Society on its institution, but declined the honour. He is said to be preparing a Manual of Anatomy just now, and he has composed several works of considerable ability, e. g., " Man's Place in Nature," &c., as well as a multitude of papers of great scientific interest.R. M. A.

423. Interleaving is, in our opinion, very seldom advantageous. In pamphlets it is worthless, in bound books it is inconvenient. Besides, too often the patience flags before the interleaving is tilled up. We certainly would not recommend any of our friends to interleave any book, not even the Bible, which it is the fashion now to do, that each man may become "his own commentator." If the careful study of a

book really requires page by page annotation or analysis, we would recommend the use of paper sewed in limp wrappers, and opening freely, in preference to that system by which the paper is incorporated with the book; for then, among other reasons, the book is able to be used or shown without showing at the same time the labours of which one may have become ashamed, or disclosing to others the secrets of our studies.-ELEMENTS.

425. The saying quoted by C. H. E. occurs in Rev. C. Kingsley's lecture on "The Limits of Exact Science as applied to History," page 59, a work which, with many signs of haste, contains a good deal of thought, much of which is Coleridgean in matter, though not in form. The views contained in it are opposed to those of Goldwin Smith's on the debatable question, "Is History capable of a Scientific Construction and Exposition?"-Mat · THEW L.

twelve gentlemen, some of whom became distinguished in their different professions, met together and determined to institute a society which should have for its object the mutual improvement of its members; and that process was to be effected by the cultivation of the law of Scotland, and by the self-disci

pline incumbent upon young men who imposed upon themselves, and on each other, the arduous task of clearing up all the difficulties of Scotch jurisprudence. For five years the society prospered. The numbers increased, and the work was sedulously performed. Winter and summer, during the legal session, these zealous disciplinarians met in the Scots Law Class, or John's coffee-house, once a week, at seven o'clock a.m., subject to a fine of threepence if they missed the roll. They listened to discourses upon selected passages of John Erskine's "Institutes of the Law of Scotland," published in that same year (1773), posthumously, and joined afterwards in a discussion, that was compulsory on all, upon the subjects of discourse. They conducted, with due respect for all the tedium of court procedure, fictitious trials founded upon imaginary facts-a process that speaks volumes for their enthusiasm,— and they considered and discussed abstruse points of law with an ardour and ingenuity that threatened the solution of every difficulty, and the reduction of legal knowledge to a certainty. But five years of this gratuitous labour was more than human nature could endure, and under such exactions the zeal of the young enthusiasts began to flag. The minute-books of 1778 show no increase of numbers, but point unmistakably to an irregularity of attendance. On November 16, 1778, the minute of the night runs in these melancholy terms,-"Present, Mr. James Home, solus. There being no quorum, nothing was done." For three years from this time there is no recorded meeting of the society; but in the session 1781-82 new life was breathed. into it by the influx of eighteen members, among whom were James Wolfe Murray, Thomas Cranstoun, and John Clerk, and the society revived. From that time till now it has gone on flourishing. In 1782 the first volume of the "Juridical Styles" was published, and fetched the sum of £420, an offering that was not unacceptable to the

treasurer; and the library, which commenced with a ballot-box and a volume of Erskine's "Small Institutes," began to approach to the dimensions that it has now reached. In 1797 the Logical Society was amalgamated with the Juridical, on the understanding that speculative questions were occasionally to take the place of legal questions, and that essays were to be read by members of the society-a point which afterwards raised much uneasiness, as appears from the fact that a motion was brought forward to the effect that, "as it has been ascertained by woeful experience that essays are an intolerable nuisance, at once burdensome to individuals and corruptive to the good taste of the society, it is highly expedient to annul the law imposing the duty of essay-writing;" and this motion, though ultimately negatived, met with very considerable support. For the next twenty years the society went on the even tenor of its ways; but in 1822 it made a great advance towards permanent prosperity. Up to this time it had led a species of vagabond existence. The meetings had been held sometimes in the College, sometimes in the Hall of the Writers to the Signet, sometimes in a room at the foot of Carrubber's Close, and aftewards in Clyde Street, James's Court, Bank Street, George Street, and in the Royal Society's premises. In this year it was determined that a jubilee dinner should be held on the 26th February, the fiftieth anniversary of the first meeting. It came off with great splendour. Solicitor-General, Mr. James Wedderburn, was in the chair, and was supported by Mr. James Nairne and Mr. James L'Amy acting as croupiers, and by Sir Walter Scott, the wizard of the North; Mr. Jeffrey, the critic; Mr. Cockburn, biographer of Jeffrey; Mr. Moncreiff, Mr. Cranstoun, and Mr. Macvey Napier, editor of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," &c. At this dinner the question of a permanent habitation was mooted, and a subscription opened which soon put the society in a position.

The