Notes On Litrrature, Science, And Art.

men of the company , or , in default of sons of freemen , others that migh be properly recommended , should be erected out ofthe said fnn . ls . ' ' Mv . John Camden Hollen writes to a contemporary : —But I ' OAV persons are . ware , indeed , many of his most intimate friends , I have ii .-doubt , never before heard , that Macaulay composed verses while yet in a piuaforo , and at a preparatory school . When ten years of age he wrot . poems on every conceivable subject , and before ho had entered hi .-

twelfth year some versos , entitled "An Epitaph on Marlyn" ( the eel _ - bratod missionary to Persia ) , ivere inscribed iu his sister ' s album , and copies AA-ere scut off to Bristol and to the Babington family in Leiesteisbire . Macanlay ' s idolatry of Milton is well known . His first an . famous essay in the Edinburgh , and the numerous anecdotes narrate , by Sydney Smith and Moore of his fondness for reciting whole books o the "Paradise Lost" have long made his admirers acquainted ivith tin

fact , but feiv knoAvthat whilst yet a child he produced in excellent vers " An Address to Milton . " When not quite fourteen he wrote " Tin Vision . " Soon after , the memorable defeat of Napoleon engaged hi ; youthful attention , aud the family received from his jien a yioem , eutitlec " Waterloo , " and another , " An Inscription for the Column of Waterloo ' on occasion of the obelisk being erected on the famous battle field Political subjects appear to have engaged his attention from an earl ;

period , for before he went to school at Shelf ord he indited some " Line to the Memory of Pitt , " "A Radical Song , " and "A New Ballad . " Th . poem called "A . Tory , " which has already beeu published , was write about this time . Macanlay ' s character is popularly believed to liai-. been stern and his affections cold—perhaps from the fact of his neve ; marrying—but some of his schoolboy pieces betray a sympathy ivith tin tender passions that feiv of those who kneiv him in after life would hav . expected . Ho wrote a little love song , called '' Venus crying aftei Cupid , "—some "Verses on the Marriage of a Friend , "—others in "Im tation of Lord Byron , "— "Tears of Sensibilitv , "—a ' Translation of ;

French Song , "—and " Lines written in a Lady ' s Album . " A mud graver subject AA-as treated of in a poem entitled " A Sermon written ii . ft Churchyard . " These particulars of Lord Macanlay ' s youthful compo sitions have been gleaned from an old album recently discovered , which contains , besides Macanlay ' s pieces , some verses by Coleridge , and other poems by gentlemen ancl ladies not known to the literary world . . Dr . Todd , F . R . S ., the eminent physician , died suddenly on Monday

last . He was Ijovu and educated in Ireland . He ivas a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Dublin , and a graduate in medicine of the University of Oxford . Dr . Todd was a Felloiv ot tbe lloyal College of Physicians in London , and enjoyed for many years a very extensive practice . In conjunction with Mr . BoAvinan , AVIIO ivas for many years joint Professor of Physiology ivith him in King ';; College , he published the "Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man . " Ho has besides

published many works , which have given him a wide reputation as a practical physician . Earl De Grey and Ripon , as President of the lloyal Geographical Society , will receii'e the Fellows on the evenings of Wednesday , Feb . Sth , loth , and 20 th , at his mansion , No . VI , Carlton House Terrace , at half-past nine o ' clock . Sir Thomas Phillips presided at the last meeting of the Societ y of Arts on which occasion the paper read ivas " On the Arts and

Manufactures of Japan , " by Dr . M . 'Gowuii . 'The author said it might perhaps seem more natural that China , in whicli be had resided so many years , should be his theme rather than Japan , AA'hich he , had merely visited . But the Land of the Rising Sun , being the terra incognita , presented features of such striking interest , and was noiv attracting so much attention from every class of thinking men , that he had been induced to ' . iffovd to the society _ AACII information us he possessed in reference to it .

VicAVecl from any standpoint , it wa ' -s a remarkable country . The geologist found it a foens ot volcanic action , there being more i-olcauoes in active operation there than in any other part of the earth ' s surface of the same area , and nowhere AA'ould be found such a variety of metalliferous wealth . It affji'ded to the botanist a wide field of discovery , some of the forest trees being , in his opinion , quite neiv . The zoologist also would find in

the lower scale of animal existence not a little that AA . IS novel ancl interesting . So also the politician , the statistician , and the philanthropist , would each find matter of peculiar interest in the study of this singular empire . The specimens of their manufactures AA'hich he hacl before him spoke for themselves , proclaiming in unmistakable language the hi gh civilization of the Japanese race . They ivould seem to say to the manufacturer and to the merchant , these people have no wants ; they would even seem to adord arguments in favour of tariffs and a restricted policy , as , iu consequence of the long seclusion of the Japanese , their ingenuity

and industry had been stimulated so as to mako them almost wholly independent of the rest of the world , lie thought , however , that , as regarded the prospect of a market for some products of Western industry , their advance in civilization and the arts was a better augury than if wo had found them in a semi-savage state—the lies' customers being probably those people who are themselves farthest advanced in tho industrial arts . Dr . M'G . nvan ' s paper was illustrated by a large ancl . interesting collection ,

of the products of Japan , consisting- of arms and other works in metal , ceramic ware , silk and other woven fabrics , as well as specimens of raw products of various kinds . At the meeting of the Geological Society on the ISthnll ,, Sir Charles Lyall was in the chair . J . P . M'Donald , Esq ., W . Purdon , Esq ., and J . Winter , M , D ., ivere elected FelloiA's . The folloiving communications were read - . — "Notice of some Sections of . the Strata near Oxford , " b y

J . Phillips . From the Yorkshire coast to that of Dorset , evidence of unconformity between the Oolitic and the Cretaceous strata is readiiy observed , the latter resting on several different members of tho former along this tract . This is especially seen in the neighbourhood of Oxford , where it is diffieut to trace out correctly the limits of the Lower Cretaceous beds . The Oolitic rocks having been deposited whilst the relative position of the land and sea was being changed , many of the

deposits are subject to local limitation ; thus , the Coraline , Oolitic , and the Calc-grit , die out rapidly , and . the Kimmeridge Clay comas to rest on the Oxford Clay . It is on the surface formed by these irregular beds , and that surface considerably denuded , owing to elevations before the Oolitic period AA-as ended , that the Loiver Cretaceous beds have been laid doivn . From their close propinquity , the sanclbeds of different ages , when without fossils , are scarcely to be defined as Oolitic or Cretaceous , ancl where one clay lies upon a similar clay , the occurrence of fossils only can secure their distinction . The Farringdon sands , the

sands of Shotover Hill , and those near Aylesbury , are still open to research , —their Lower Greensancl character .-: not having been clearly established . At Culham , a few miles south of Oxford , a clay pit is worked , which presents , at the top , three feet of gravel ; next about twenty feet of Gault with its peculiar fossils ; then nine feet of greenish sand , Avith a feAv fossils ; and lastly , twenty-three feet of Kimmeridge Clay , with its peculiar Ammonites and other fossils . In ivinter the clay

pit , being AA'et , offers little eA'idence of any distinction between the upper and the loiver parts of the clay ; hut in summer the Gault and its fossils are more easily recognized . The intervening sand contains Peel en orbicularis ( a Cretaceous fossil ) , 'Fhrucia depressa , Cardiura-Acini slum , and au Ammonite resembling one found iu the Kimmeridge Clay . Although this sand at first sight resembles tho Loiver Greensancl , and yields a fossil found also in the Lower Greensancl , yet it is probably

more closely related to the Kimmeridge Clay . Puzzling as this sand is in tho pit , another enigma is offered by the railway section at Culham , where the IGmiiieridge Clay is overlaid by a sand , equivalent to that of Shotover Hill , not that of the clay pit ; Avhilst the Gault , which lies on it uncomforiiiably , can be connected with that of the clay pit . At Toot , Baldon also , though Lower Grociisancl probably caps the hill , yet an Oolitic Ammonite ivasjfoiuid on the eastward slope of the hill , in a ferruginous sand , lying conformably on . the Kimmeridge Clay . From these

and other instances the difficulty of mapping the country geologically may be shown to be very great—the sands of any one bed dilfering ii colour from greeu to red , according to the amount of oxidation produced by exposure and other causes ; and if fossils are absent , the Portland Sand ancl the Lower Greensancl , lying against each other , may i ei'er be defined . From the great and irregular denudation , too , of thcrocks , and the unequal deposition oil many of the beds , it AA'ill prove a

difficult problem to trace the several sands aud define their age—a problem to be solved only by close perseverance and strict search foi organic remains . ' ' On tho Association of the Lower Members of the Old Rod Sandstone and tho Metamorphio Rocks on the Southern Margin of the Grampians , " hy Prof . R . Harkness , " On the . Old Red Sandstone of the South of Scotland , " by A . Goikie , Esq . The Allteueeum has the following remarks : — "Mr . H . O'Neil and Mr .

W . C . T . Dobson are the happy elected Associates of the Royal Academy . Wo do not see hoiv the Forty could have made a iviser choice . The competitors who mig ht liai-e seriously interfered with the claims of either gentleman to a place in the Associateship were not ou the list oil candidates . The tivo gentlemen came in at a canter . Mr . O'Neil had an overAvhelmmg majority over Mr . Dobson at the first ' ' scratching . ' Mr . Dobson hud an unusually large majority for tho second vote . The Academy has done AA'ell , and may be congratulated on the accession ol streiii'th . "