Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

Dean Ramsay's Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character , are likely to become as popular in the United States as they have In England . Our noble Bro ,, thc Earl of Carnarvon , thus descibes the scenery of the Lebanon , in his recently published volume : — "After traversing the plain of Beyvout , with its groves of pine , — one of AA-hich IA-MS planted by the famous Emir , Fakreddin , lA'hose

romantic history and boasted lineage from the house of Lorraine brings , during the seventeenth century , the Druse emirs of the Lebanon into connection ivith the royal families of Europe , —the road soon ascends the sides of the Lebanon , and winds along the lace of precipitous hills , where the crumbling soil often gives a scanty footing to the horse ' s hoof , then doim into deep valleys and across mountain streams , and nii-ay through a wilderness of mingled rock and wood , AA-hich at every step groAvs more fine and striking .

At one moment the hills toivered high aboi'e our heaps , A \ -ith dark grey masses of stone starting from their sides , and shooting up into strange and ragged forms ; at another the landscape softened , mid Ave rode through dense woods of fir or thickets of olive trees . But the further that you penetrate into the bosom of the mountains the mors striking are the signs of human industry and cultivation . Man has trinmpheil A \ 'liere Nature interposes her greatest obstacles , and sometimes where she seems almost to deny access . The scant

y soil of the valleys has ivith infinite care and labour been conveyed in baskets up and along the hill-sides , as in the Tyrol and the Mountain Alps , and as been built up into terraces , AA'hich rise like the graduated steps of some large and natural amphitheatre . Thus the parsimony of Nature within these rugged fastnesses is more than compensated by tho security which their precipitous sides and

defensible defiles have for generations past afforded against the misgovernment and oppression of Turkish rule . From these terraces the hardy population of the Lebanon draws the greater part of its sustenance aud support for the year . The mulberry , which nurses the silk trade of the entire district , mingles AA'ith the long alleys of grey olive trees , and the vines and melons succeed to the slender patches of corn which manual labour has raised on . the occasional ' strips of level ground ,- whilst between the intervals of

this painful cultivation the mountain streams , clearer than crystal , break from the living' rocli , and are conducted m numberless channels over and round each declivity , to eke out , by artificial Irrigation , the resources of stony soil . As the traveller Avinds his svay about sunset through these mountain paths , each bend of the load brings before him some fresh picture of Eastern life and habits —pretty villages and flat-roofed cottages Avith no slight look of comfort ; Christian convents ivith high Avails , AA'hich speak as much

of military defence as of religious seclusion , crowning the heights ; women drawing water from the Avayside springs , shepherds tending i ) v driving their herds of long black-haired goats , or some old villager labouring with his sons on a plot of land AA'hich perhaps has descended to him in succession from his forefathers . As the long train of English travellers , AA'ith their servants aud mules and horses , scales in single file the mountain road , the old man pauses hi mid-work to see you [ lass—for time is not of the same moment

to an Eastern as it is to the restless business-loving nature of the . European—he greets you with some homely salutation , and folloAi-s you perhaps ivith ivondering eyes till the cavalcade is hid by the long straggling street of Deil el Kammar—the Convent of the Moon . "

The Rev . Thomas Guthrie , D . D ., in his Seed-time and Marrest of ' . Ragged Schools , says .- — "Before the ragged schools Avere opened our city SAvarmed with many hundreds iu a condition as helpless and as hopeless . NOAV the juvenile beggars are all gone . The race is extinct . What has become of them ? They are not moulderingin the grave , the last refuge of wretchedness ; nor are they pining in prison cells , turning the weary crank , and cursing those Avho nave dealt them out nothing but neglect and punishment . They

aro off the streets , and in our schools . Once no care ivas taken of them , and no provision made for them ; therefore a humane public , supplying them ivith money , fostered a system much more ruinous to those AA'ho got than costly to those that gave . Their vocation is gone . If any now solicit charity , the answer , is not money , or a rough repulse , or a curse , but— 'Go to the ragged school . ' There is no excuse left either for begging or giving . And the consequence is , that Ave have done what neither police nor magistrates could

lib . "We have succeeded in thoroughly putting a stop to juvenile . mendicancy . " The Atheneeum , AA-hich recently sneered at Freemasonry as being only tolerated at present , makes the folloAA'ing really Masonic remarks , in noticing the Recorder of Birmingham's neiv book , Our Exemplars , Poor and Mich •— " There has of late been a pernicious ami corrupting use made of the lii'es of men who have bettered their social condition through brave exertion , aided by fortunate circumstances , amongst ivhieh thc possession of rave intellectual

endowments appeared only as one of many conditions present that were primarily independent of the volition of the individual . A fashion has recently come over the platform and the pamphlet , for the rich to inculcate In the poor a doctrine which on more than one occasion in the world's history the poor have signally declined to accept—that riches and honour are and ought to be synonymous . "Whatever may he the shortcomings of Mr . Davenport Hill ' s biographical collection , he merits applause and gratitude for raising

his A-oice like a man against this shameless idolatry of Mammon . The ' self-help ' that he admires is not the self-help of the mere hard man of practice ; the self-help that consists in helping one ' s self to the greatest possible quantity of this world ' s goods , and leaving as little as possible whereby others may help themselves ; the self-help of the lynx-eyed speculator , who seizes to his own use the discovery of a starving inventor ,- nor even the self-help of the plodding persevering patient workman who , by thrift and scraping ,

puts himself in a position that entitles him to the earnings of his old comrades of the workshop . Amongst Mr . Hill's ' Exemplars ' are both rich and poor—rich persons who have gloriously exercised the influence of their wealth—poor persons whose poverty never

goadeo . them into selfishness—poor persens still living who have proposed nobler work to themseli ' es than self-aggrandisement ! "AVell done , Mr . Hepivorth Dixon ! Only Avrifce in this style , and every true brother of the Craft , which , through ignorance of its high object , you appear to despise , will thank you in his heart for spreading abroad the true principles of -Masonry , albeit you knoiv it not . Yet the sentiments which alone give value to the foregoing extract are those ivhieh Masons have taught and practised in all ages and in

all climes ; and just in proportion to the warmth with which they have felt , and the zeal ivith which they haA'e followed out such precepts , has been their fidelity to the principles of the Craft . No , Mr . Dixon ; Freemasonry has tooholy amission to he merely tolerated . Neither persecution nor prosperity can destroy it , for its principles actuate every heart that is truly noble . A society has been commenced about Oxford , under the title of

"The Literary and Art Guild of St . Nicholas . " Its object and organisation is remarkably similar to " The Literary Brotherhood , " projected by Bro . Tiveddell , and a feAV other lovers of literature , science , ami art , Mien residing in the neighbourhood of Manchester , a feiv years ago , amongst whom we may mention the late Mr . John Bolton Itogerson . Its objects are stated to be : — " 1 . For the

improvement and diftusion of literary and art knowledge . 2 . To provide a fund to publish—subject to certain conditions—the MSS . of authors ( Avhose means are limited ) in felloAvship AA'ith the Guild * 3 . And to establish a fund to relieve the temporary wants of distressed literati . " The Av . ldbioyrajfliy of the Rev . Dr . Carlyle , Minister of 2 « -. vereslc ( only just publishedalthough he died in August , 18015 ) ,

, contains the folloiA-ing interesting reminiscence : —¦ " I was in the coffee-house with Smollett when the neivs of the battle of Culloden arrived , and AA'hen London all over Avas in a perfect uproar of joy . It ivas then that Jack Stuart , the son of the Provost , behaved in the manner I before mentioned . About nine o ' clock I wished to go home to Lyon's , in New Bond-street , as I had promised to sup Avith hini that night , it being the anniversary of his

marriagenight , or the birthday of one of his children . I asked Smollett if he was reiuly to go , as he lived at Mayfair ; he said he Avas , and would conduct me . The mob was so riotous , and the squibs so numerous and incessant , that we were glad to go into in a narrow entry to put our wigs into our pockets , and to take our swords from our belts and Avalk with them in our hands , as everybody then wore swords ; and after cautioning me against speaking a word , lest the mob should discover my country and become insolent ,

' for John Bull , ' says he , ' is as haughty and valiant to-night , as he was abject and coAvardly on the Black Wednesday , when the Highlanders were at Derby . ' After we got to the head of the Haymarket through incessant fire , the Doctor led me by narrow lanes , where we met nobody but a ICAV boys at a pitiful bonfire , who very civilly asked us for sixpence , ivhieh I gave them . I saAV not Smollett again for some time after , AA'hen he showed Smith and me the manuscript of his Pears of Scotland , Avhich ivas published not long affcei , and had such a run of approbation . Smollett , though a Tory , Avas not a Jacobite , but he had the feelings of a Scotch gentleman on the reported cruelties that ivere said to be exercised after thc Battle of Culloden . "

A writer in the Christian Intelligencer says ot Gray and Patrick ' s large printing establishment , at the corner of Jacob and Frankfortstreets , Neiv York : — "There are printed ivithin it nearly forty perioilicals , Aveekly and monthly , hooks by the thousand and tens of