gifts,
still lingers for a while on the scene.

* * * * *

The Paris papers report the death, in that city, in his eighty-fifth
year, of M. LOUIS BERTIN PARANT, a painter on ivory and porcelain of
great eminence. As early as the days of the First Consulship he was
distinguished by Napoleon; and his works on ivory executed by sovereign
order during the Empire found their way as Imperial gifts into the
collections of various princes of Europe. The _Journal des Debats_
refers particularly to his Table representing the great generals of
antiquity, as having been presented by Louis the Eighteenth to the
Prince Regent of England, and as being now in the possession of Queen
Victoria.

* * * * *

The Paris _Journal des Debats_ reports the death, in his fifty-fifth
year, of M. BENJAMIN LAROCHE, a translator into French of some of the
works of Shakspeare and of Byron, and an original poet of some
traditional reputation--having been popularly known in early life for
attempts which gave false promise of greatness.

* * * * *

EUGENE LEVESQUE, author of two volumes on the United States, and of a
large work on the State of Russia died in Paris, Jan. 4, aged 81.

* * * * *

MR. THOMAS WILLIAMS, a well-known and much respected man of letters, for
several years the consul of the government of Venezuela, for New-York,
died suddenly, of disease of the heart, in this city, on the night of
the second of February. We had known Mr. Williams a great many years,
and shared in the general regard inspired by his amiability, and the
quiet bravery of his life, of which many illustrations are known to his
more intimate acquaintances. He was an Englishman, of good family, born
in London in 1790, and educated we believe at one of the great
universities. We have heard him say, that in early life he was as thin
almost as Calvin Edson, but for the last fifteen or twenty years he was
the most obese and plethoric-looking person in New-York--a sort of
Lewis, or Lambert, of astonishing breadth and rotundity. We must not
enter into details respecting his domestic life, but it may be mentioned
that he was a party to a clandestine marriage, that his wife was an
invalid for very many years, and that he toiled with his pen incessantly
to promote her happiness. He was best known as a translator, and gave to
the press a vast number o