Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

try if you can lay your hands on it . ' His host assured him ' that Mrs . Hoppner had no such secret stores ; but Porson insisting that a search should be made , a bottle was at last discovered in the lady ' s apartment , to the surprise of Hoppner and the joy of Porson , who soon finished its contents , pronouncing it to be the best gin he had tasted for a long time . Next day Hoppner , somewhat out of temper , informed his wife that Porson had drunk every drop of her concealed dram . 'Dnmlc every drop of it ! " cried she . 'My God ,

it was spirits of wine for the lamp ! ' " And he quotes the following from Eogers's Table Talk : — "One Sunday morning , when lie was at Eton , he met Dr . Goodall , the provost , going to church , and asked him where Mrs . Goodall was ? 'At breakfast , ' replied the Doctor . 'Very well , then' rejoined Porson , 'I'll go and breakfast with her . ' He accordingly presented himself at Mrs . Goodall ' s table , and being asked what he chose to take , answered ' porter . ' Porter was in consequence sent for , pot after pot , and the sixth pot was just being carried into the house when Dr . Goodall returned from church . "

The son of a poor weaver and of a shoemaker's daughter , and indebted for his initiation into learning to the kindness of a poor country clergyman , named Hewitt , and remarkable through life for his thorough honesty , not less than for his familiarity withthe Greek poets , there is much to admire in the character of Poxsoii ; and we quote tlie foregoing from no morbid love of showing up the failings

of great men , but rather as a warning to those who may peruse our columns . It is easier to rival poor Porson in his failings than in his many merits , and we will do well ever to have in mind that temperance in all things is one of our Masonic virtues . It is stated that , in 1 S 03 , the London booksellers oftsred Porson the handsome sum of £ 3 , 000 for an edition of Aristophanes , which he was fully capable of executing in a few months , but he could not he induced to undertake the task , although the Greek Professorship only brought him a paltry £ 40 a year . AVell might Porson be poor !

A building of some historical importance , the palace of the East India Company in Leadenhall-street , is now up for sale . The Secretary of State in Council of India , at noon of Thursday , the 20 th inst ., will attend at the India-office , Victoria-street , Westminster , to open sealed tenders from persons desirous of purchasing the once famous East India House . No tender will he received nless

accompanied by a deposit of £ 5 , 000 . The highest tender is to he accepted , provided that the amount shall exceed a reserved price determined by the Secretary of State , and placed under seal prior to the opening of any of the tenders . Our own opinion is , th at Government ought to have made of the East India House ( what it before was on a small scale ) a museum of everything relating to our immense Asiatic possessions .

Mr . John Petherick , F . R . G . S ., Her Britannic Majesty ' s consul for the Soudan , in his recent book , Fg / jpt , the Soudan , and Central Africa , thus describes an African Patriarch of the present day : — " Long before tho appointed time , Dood and a crowd of men and striplings , with their inseparable accompaniments of clubs and lances , on the shore , awoke me from my slumbers ; and as I appeared on decka rush took lace towards mewith cries of' The

, p , Benj ! the Benj ! ' ( the chief ) , followed by salutations innumerable . As soon as these shouts subsided , Dood , disembarrassing his mouth with some difficult y' of a quid of tobacco the size of a small orange , sat down by my side . My first remark was astonishment at the number of his followers , having expected none hut his sons . ' Oh , it ' s all right : you don't know my family yet ; but , owing to your kind promise , I sent to the cattle-kraals for the boys ; ' anil with

the pride of a father , he said , ' There are my fighting sons , who many a time have stuck to me against the Dinka , whose cattle have enabled them to wed . ' Notwithstanding a slight knowledge of negro families , I was still not a little surprised to find his valiant progeny amount to forty grown-up men and hearty lads . ' Yes , ' he said , ' I did not like to bring the girls and little boys , as it would look as if I wished to impose generosit' 'What ! more

upon your y . little boys and girls ! what may he their number , and how many wives have you ? ' ' AVell , I have divorced a good , many wivesthey get old , you know ; and now I have only ten and five . ' But when he began to count his children , he was obliged to have Teeourse to a reed , and , breaking it up into small pieces , said , ' I take no notice of babies , as they often die , you know : women are so foolish about children that I never care for them until they are

able to lay a snare . ' Like all negroes , not being able to count beyond ten , he called over as many names , which he marked byplacing a piece of reed on the deck ; before him ; a similar mark denoted another ten , and so on until he had named and marked the number of his children . The sum total , with the exception , as he had explained , of babies and children unable to protect themselves , was fifty-three hoys and twenty ghls , —viz . seventy-three . "

The Eoyal Gold Medal of the Institute of British Architects , which is every third year given to some foreign architect of distinction , has this year been awarded to M . Lesneur , of Paris , who designed the Hotel de Ville of that metropolis . Dr . Fischer , Writing in the Wiener Allgetneine Zeitung , states that vomitings after inhaling chloroform may he prevented by the

patients taking a glass of wine before the inhalations . The Government Astronomer at Madras has discovered a new planefc , which is to be called the Asia . J . Henry Bennet , M . D ., Physician-Accoucheur to the Eoyal Free Hospital , writing in the Lancet , says : — " The authors whoso

works I have read on winter climates have , it appears tome , made an extraordinary but all important omission . They have studied winds , sunshine , cloud , temperature , protection , and all the various elements which constitute climate , forgetting hygiene . And yet are not the laws of hygiene of more importance to the invalid than all the rest put together ? Of what avail is it to place a patient suffering from a constitutional disease , such as phthisis , in the most favourable climatic conditions if every law of

hygiene is violated—if he is made to live in the midst of a foul , badly-drained , badly-ventilated town , such as Florence , Rome , or Naples ? In these unhealthy centres of southern population , where the mortality is habitually very high amongst the healthy natives ( much higher , as we have seen , than in our most unhealthy manu . facturing localities ) , what right have we to expect the general health of our patients to rally ? In reality , it would he as reasonable to send consumptive patients , in the summer months , to live in the worst parts of AAliitechapel , Liverpool , or Glasgow , as it is to send them in winter to live in the centre of

these unhealthy Southern towns . In former days , when the laws of hygiene were ignored by the medical profession as well as by the non-medical public , when fevers and plagues were merely studied and treated as inscrutable , dispensations of Divine wrath , it was , perhaps , excusable for writers on climate to devote their undivided attention to meteorological questions . But now that the mist and darkness have been dispelled , that typhus fever and other town diseases have been traced to their cause , filth , defective

drainage , & c , we know that attention to hygienic laws is even more necessary for the recovery of health than it is for its retention . In chosing a winter residence , therefore , hygienic conditions should be first considered , even before warmth and sunshine . If we are to be guided by such considerations , however , I must candidly confess that I have not yet seen a large town in the South of Europe , thehygienic state of whicli is such as to render it a safe winter residence for an invalid . In most of those towns , moreover , —Rome ,

Florence , Pisa , Naples , —the positions selected for , and devoted to invalids are central , and owe their protection in a great measure to buildings , which secure to them the town atmosphere midiluted . Thus is explained the frequent deaths Irom ' fever' amongst our countrymen , ill or well , residing in them , which we every year see chronicled . On the spot you are told that they have died from [ the fever of 'the country . ' But this fever of the country , as far as I could gatherfrom minute inquiryis no other than our old enemy

, , , typhus , under a continental garb . Its characteristic features maybe modified by some malarious or catarrhal element , but the type is the same . The cause , too , is identical , in the Italian marble palace and in the St . Giles ' s hovel—foul air inside and outside the house everywhere . "

According to Mr . J . R . Hind , the comet approached the nearest to the earth on the 5 th ult ., when it was upwards of thirty millions of miles from . us . Its brightness will now gradually diminish , and it will soon entirely disappear . We cannot call it a very near neighbour at any time .

The Lectures on the Science of Language , recently delivered at the Eoyal Institution of Great Britain , by Professor Max Muller , M . A ., Fellow of All Souls' College , Oxford , are preparing for immediate publication . AVilliam Fairburn , Esq ., C . E ., LL . D ., F . E . S ., F . G . S ., & c , is now preparing for publication the second vulnme of his "Treatise on