ox
College, delivered a discourse before the Literary Societies on the
Early History of Illinois. It is said to be part of a volume he is
preparing, and had reference to the first ninety years of Illinois
history.

* * * * *

MR. LAYARD, in excavating beneath the great pyramid at Nimroud, had
penetrated a mass of masonry, within which he had discovered the tomb and
statue of Sardanapalus, with full annals of that monarch's reign engraved
on the walls.

* * * * *

MR. H. H. WILSON, F.R.S., has published in London, a collection of
Ancient Hindu Hymns, constituting the First Ashtaka, or Book, of the
Rig-Veda, the oldest Authority for the religious and social institutions
of the Hindus. The translation of the _Rig-Veda-Sonhita_ is valuable for
the scholar who wishes to study the most ancient belief, opinions, and
modes of the Hindus, so far as they can be gathered from hymns addressed
to the deities. At the same time, their mystery or obscurity, increased
by remoteness of years, is perhaps so considerable, that it will require
peculiar learning to profit by the materials this most ancient and
important of the Vedas contains.

* * * * *

DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, author of "Mornings at Matlock," has been
appointed, through the influence of Lord Brougham, to the office of
official assignee to the Court of Bankruptcy, in Manchester.

* * * * *

The Fine Arts.

THE FINE ARTS IN AMERICA are not in a state of remarkable perfection, if
we may credit a writer in the Augsburg _Allgemeine Zeitung_. This critic
is evidently honest and impartial, but not perfectly well informed. He
supposes that the majority of the artists as well as of the scholars in
the country are emigrants from Europe; and affirms that artists of great
talent, who have been esteemed and encouraged in Europe, have been
reduced to misery in America, and compelled to resort to common labor for
their living. Latterly, however, fashion has brought pictures into
market; and we may now hear, in more refined circles, here and there a
misapplied artistic term, which shows that art is somewhat thought
of. It is characteristic that an American will often bargain for pictures
by the square foot. The New York Art Union has done a good deal of good
in the culture of taste for art, and from the Philadelphia Art Union much
may also be expected. The