and crown rather on one side, trimmed with a sprig of Persian lilac, attached near the top of the crown, and drooping over to the middle of the brim. The inside of the brim was trimmed with a small wreath of lilac flowers without leaves; the wreath placed in front. A rose-coloured crape hat, of the form I have just described, was ornamented by a long point of blond lace, attached on the crown, and descending a little on a rosace of gauze ribbons, cut in foliage, and placed in the middle of the front of the crown. The ends of the blond lace point descended on each side, and formed brides. This is a novel and graceful style of trimming. A rice straw hat, ornamented with a wreath of ronces, placed obliquely, and intermingled with blond lace, which serpentined through it, was much admired. || It was trimmed under the brim with blond | lace, arranged en éventail, but in such a manner as to form a drapery. Watered gros de Naples, gaze d'Asie jaconie, and several new patterns of mousseline de soie, are the new materials for evening dress. Corsages of the newest forms are cut low and square, and the front entirely covered with folds in the shape of a fan. We see also several crossed in front, so as to display a little of the chemisette, but without folds. any Short sleeves are of a more moderate size than they have been for some time past. Many are made in compartments, and in with two short bows, and three ends of unequal length; the one in the centre should be a third longer than the others. Ribbons are still much in favour for trimmings, particularly party-coloured wreaths of foliage, which surmount the hem considerably below the knee, and are brought rather high on the left side, where they terminate with a bouquet composed of a large flower with buds and foliage. Another very pretty style of trimming consists of a wreath of satin cock's-combs, each edged with narrow blond lace. Ribbon aprons are a new and very pretty accessory to full dress. They are composed of gaze satinée; are narrow across the waist, but increase gradually in breadth to the other extremity. The ribbon is gathered at both sides, and fastened by a narrow agraffe of ribbons, but not at the bottom, which terminates in cut ends. Head-dresses of hair are more in favour than any other coiffure for soirées. The hind hair is arranged in bows and braids, which are of a moderate and graceful height; the front hair is disposed in bands, or curls; the former are most fashionable. Flowers or ribbons ornament the coiffure; if for grand costume, pearls are mingled with the flowers, or the hair is ornamented with diamonds or coloured gems, and birds of paradise or ostrich-feathers. The most fashionable colours are lilac, each interval is placed a small knot with-rose-colour, salmon-colour green, blue, out ends; or else a large nœud de page is jaune Oiseau, peach-blossom, and creamplaced upon the shoulder. This is made colour. Monthly View OF NEW PUBLICATIONS, MUSIC, THE ENGLISH AND FOREIGN MURRAY'S "Family Library" seems to improve to assume a higher character-in each succeeding volume. It was through his intimate acquaintance with Saxon literature, that Mr. Turner was enabled to throw a flood of new light upon the history of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Turner has had many followers, yet none that has taken the field with success so eminent as Mr. Palgrave (Francis Palgrave, F.R.S., and F.S.A.) to whose pen the Family Library is just indebted for the first volume of another "History of England" a history as different from that by Sir James Mackintosh, as a brilliant and exciting romance from a dry philosophical treatise. Mr. Palgrave has been long known as one of the ablest of English antiquaries; and his writings, unlike those of most of his brethren, are full, not only of learning, but of mind, of spirit, of beauty. His history, philosophical in the best sense of the term, abounds with rich and varied information, and displays, more distinctly, more vividly, than any other work that we are acquainted with, the character, manners, and customs of the Anglo-Saxons, with the nature of their government, and all their public institutions. In fact, it is a work by itself: even the preface is a curiosity-an essay, or treatise, of no mean value. From this first volume, which commences with the earliest period, and terminates with the battle of Hastings, we actually learn more than from many a bulky quarto; and the publisher, evidently aware of its high literary worth, has greatly enhanced its value by four maps, and by an unusual number of cuts illustrative of antiquarian remains, &c. The maps are of Britain under Ella, the first Bretwalda of Saxon Race ;-Territories constituting the Anglo-Saxon Empire, south of the Firths;-Britain south of the Firths, after the conclusion of Alfred's Treaty with the Danes, A.D. 833, 884;—and The Great Earldoms, &c., under Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1051. We know not whether the volume will prove more attractive to the youthful or to the adult reader: to the former it will present all the charm of romance; by the latter it will be found to exhibit the most enlightened views of historic fact, of civil and religious government, of the state of society and of the arts, amongst our ancestors.-Confirmatory of our favourable opinion, however, all that we can find room for is one slight excerpt, as a specimen of the manner rather than of the matter of our author. It is from the close of the volume, after a most graphic sketch of the battle of Hastings-the search for the dead body of Harold-its presumed discovery by his mistress, Editha, and subsequent interment in Waltham Abbey. "Years afterwards, when the Norman yoke pressed heavily upon the English, and the battle of Hastings had become a tale of sorrow, which old men narrated by the light of the embers, until warned to silence by the sullen tolling of the curfew, there was a decrepit anchorite, who inhabited a cell near the Abbey of St. John, at Chester, where Edgar celebrated his triumph. This recluse, deeply scarred, and blinded in his left eye, lived in strict penitence and seclusion. Henry I. once visited the aged hermit, and had a long private discourse with him; and on his death-bed he declared to the attendant monks that he was Harold. As the story is transmitted to us, he had been secretly conveyed from the field to a castle, probably of Dover, where he continued concealed until he had the means of reaching the sanctuary where he expired. "The monks of Waltham loudly exclaimed against this rumour. They maintained most resolutely that Harold was buried in their abbey: they pointed to the tomb, sustaining his effigies, and inscribed with the simple and pathetic epitaph, Hic jacet Harold infelix;' and they appealed to the mouldering skeleton, whose bones, as they declared, shewed, when disinterred, the impress of the wounds he had received. But may it not still be doubted whether Osgood and Ailric, who followed their benefactor to the fatal field, did not aid his escape?-They may have discovered him at the last gasp; restored him to animation by their care; and the artifice of declaring to William, that they had not been able to recover the object of their search, would || readily suggest itself as the means of rescuing Harold from the power of the conqueror. The demand of Editha's testimony would confirm their assertion, and enable them to gain time for Harold's security; and whilst the litter, which bore the corpse, was slowly advancing to the Abbey of Waltham, the living Harold, under the tender care of Editha, might be safely proceeding to the distant fane, his haven of refuge. "If we compare the different narratives concerning the inhumation of Harold, we shall find the most remarkable discrepancies. It is evident that the circumstances were not accurately known; and since those ancient writers, who were best informed, cannot be reconciled to each other, the escape of Harold, if admitted, would solve the difficulty. I am not prepared to maintain that the authenticity of this story cannot be impugned; but it may be remarked, that the tale, though romantic, is not incredible, and that the circumstances may be easily reconciled to probability. There were no walls to be scaled, no fosse was to be crossed, no warden to be eluded; and the examples of those who have survived after encountering much greater perils, are so very numerous, and familiar, that the incidents which I have narrated would hardly give rise to a doubt, if they referred to any other personage than a king." "Whence it is that two persons who seem to have been born only to hate each other, should, under any circumstances, ever fancy that they actually love each other, is a phenomenon which even philosophers may have encountered, but which they certainly have not yet explained." No, nor ever will they; the phenomenon can be accounted for only on the principle of destiny-or, as the old women say we forget exactly what Lord Byron says on the subject—that “marriages are made in heaven;" and to this impression, it is presumed, we are indebted for the production of "Destiny, or the Chief's Daughter," by the author of those admirable works, Marriage," and "The Inheritance." The writer, we believe, is Miss Ferrier, of Edinburgh, a friend, or protegée of Sir Walter Scott, who sanctioned the appearance of her first novel, and to whom the present is dedicated. This lady has been termed-and justly termed-and a higher compliment cannot be paid her-the Miss Austin of the north. She has Miss Austin's beauty of style, her high-toned thought and feeling, her skill in the delineation of character. Though her scenes may be occasionally too much expanded, her details too minute and lengthy, still they present nothing that is trashy or common-place. The sketchesfinished pictures we would rather say-of the dramatis persona, are strikingly graphicwhat in painting might be termed a combination of history and portrait; character is developed in all its force, yet with all its minuteness and finish; incident abounds; and, without the slightest approach to the meretricious airs of melodrame, the highest dramatic effect is produced. We dare not venture to touch upon the plot, nor do we wish it, for even the attempt would impair the interest with the reader of the work; but, though it will be far from doing the author justice, we must abstract some little "bits" as slight specimens of the rich treat she has prepared. Glenroy, the Highland chief—" a tall handsome man, with fine regular features, a florid complexion, an open, but haughty countenance, and a lofty, though somewhat insolent air"-is, in a thousand shades of thought, feeling, and expression, most nobly sustained. "No two human beings born and bred in a civilised country, could be more different than the chief" and his second wife, the Lady Elizabeth-not the mother of Edith, the Chief's daughter, and the heroine of the story. "She had been admired for her talents, her manners, her music, her taste, her dress; and although the admiration had been long on the wane, the craving still continued. She was, in fact, when without her adventitious aids, a mere shewy, superficial, weak woman, with a fretful temper, irritable nerves, and a constitution tending to rheumatism, which she imputed entirely to the climate of Scotland." Then || we have Benbowie, a friend and clansman of the Chief's the very apple of his eye : The Laird of Benbowie was an elderly man, of the most ordinary exterior, possessing no very distinguishing traits, except a pair of voluminous eyebrows, very round shoulders, a wig that looked as if it had been made of spun yarn, an unvarying snuff-coloured coat, and a series of the most frightful waistcoats that ever were seen. Benbowie's mental characteristics were much upon a par with his personal peculiarities. He was made up of stupidities. He was sleepyheaded and absent. He chewed tobacco, snored in presence, slobbered when he ate, walked up and down with a pair of creaking shoes, and drummed upon the table with a snuffy hand. Nay, more; with that same obnoxious snuffy hand he actually dared to pat the head or shoulder of the elegant, refined Miss Waldegrave, as often as she came within his reach." After an early separation of the Chief and his lady, halcyon days returned in the castle. "Even Benbowie, although in general obtuse as a hedge-hog, seemed to feel this as an epoch to be commemorated; and he therefore ordered a new waistcoat ten times more hideous than any of its predecessors. His characteristics also began to expand more freely, and as if they owned some genial influence. He slept more, and snored louder, than ever; he inhaled his soup with an inspiration that might have sucked in a fleet; his wig grew more small and wiry; and when his feet were not creaking up and down the room, they were to be found reposing on the bars of his neighbour's chair." Nothing can be better in its way than Molly Macauley, an elderly woman," a sort of half-and-half gentlewoman," the fag-end of Glenroy's clan, and governess, &c., to Edith. "She was one of those happily-constituted beings, who look as if they could ‘extract sunbeams from cucumbers;"" sans nerves, sans spleen, sans bile, sans every thing of an irritable or acrimonious nature; - with " a good, stout, sound, warm heart-which would cheerfully have given itself and its last drop for the honour and glory of the race of Glenroy ;"-with "just as much religion as an irreligious man could tolerate; for her religion was a compound of the simplest articles of belief, and certain superstitious notions of second-sight, visions, dreams, and so forth;"-and, amongst her multitudinous accomplishments, such as they were, she was a perfect adept in needlework; "and, besides the more vulgar arts of hemming, running, stitching, splaying, basting, &c., she had a hand for "Tent-work, raised-work, laid-work, frost-work, net-work, Most curious pearls, and rare Italian cut-work, Fine fern-stitch, finny-stitch, new-stitch, and ling in all directions. All artists admit, that chain-stitch, Brave bred-stitch, fisher-stitch, Irish-stitch, and queen-stitch, bone, and maw-stitch, there is as much character displayed in hands as in heads, and Mrs. Malcolm's hands were perfectly characteristic; they proclaimed at once The Spanish-stitch, rosemary-stitch, herring- that they could do nothing; that they were utterly helpless, and morally, not physically imbecile. * Not that she was ugly, for she would have looked very well in a toy-shop window. She had pink cheeks, blue eyes, and a set of neat yellow curls ranged round her brow. The smarting whip-stitch, back-stitch, and cross-stitch." Here is the Glenroy pastor :— "The Reverend Duncan M'Dow was a large, loud-spoken, splay-footed man, whose chief characteristics were his bad preaching, his love of eating, his rapacity for augmentations (or, as he termed it, owgmentations), and a want of tact in all the bienséances of life, which would have driven Lord Chesterfield frantic. His hands and feet were in every body's way the former, indeed, like huge grappling irons, seized upon every thing they could possibly lay hold of; while the latter were commonly to be seen sprawling at an immeasurable distance from his body, and projecting into the very middle of the room, like two prodigious moles or bastions. He dealt much in stale jokes and bad puns; he had an immense horse-laugh, which nothing ever restrained; and an enormous appetite, which nothing seemed to damp, and which he took care always to supply with the best things at table. He used a great quantity of snuff, and was for ever handing about his mull, an ugly cow's horn, with a foul dingy cairngorm set in silver on the top. To sum up his personal enormities, when he spoke he had a practice of always advancing his face as close as possible to the person he was addressing. Although a strong bodied, sturdy man, he was extremely careful of his health; and even in a fine summer's day was to be seen in a huge woolly great coat that reached to his heels, trotting along on a stout dun pony, just high enough to keep its master's feet off the ground." The Laird of Inch Orran is a " particular that of his wife, which is more compact; * 备 She had neither passions, feelings, nerves scarcely sensations. She seemed precisely one of those whom Nature had destined to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer;' but fate had denied her the fools, and Inch Orran had debarred her from all interference even with small beer." "An Only Son, a Narrative, by the Author [Mr. Kennedy, the poet, we believe] of 'My Early Days,'" is comprised in a little volume altogether free from pretension, yet full of the most touching interest. The writer is one who understands human nature who is well acquainted with the springs of human action. His chief aim here has been to present a vivid and affecting picture of the consequences attendant on a wrong system of education, that of governing by force rather than by love. Robert Earnshaw, the hero, is the son of a strict and stern presbyterian ;-of a man who, regarding the world as a wilderness of temptation and defilement, and them who inbation, if they indulge even in innocent rehabit it as consigned to everlasting reprocreation, educates his only son-a son whom he loves with the intense though hidden love of a deeply impassioned yet bigoted nature-in all the strictness and gloom of intentions, he renders his childhood and sectarianism. Thus, though with the best early youth seasons of gloom and sorrow, rather than of brightness and hilarity; and religion, or at least its outward forms, is converted into a severe penance. Every childish fault, every boyish frolic, is deemed a sin of deep magnitude, and as such is visited with the sternest reprehension; until, as a natural consequence, Earnshaw, though loving his seemingly cold, but se cretly warm-hearted, father, detests the thraldom of his home. With all the wilfulness of youth, he at length breaks his chain, forsakes his father and that home; and, by the persuasion of a friend, embraces that profession which his own inclination had long urged him to select, and joins the British army in the Peninsula, as a volunteer. There he signalizes himself-acquires fame and promotion. Yet he is unfortunate. Secretly attached to the sister of his friend,|| Thought, Kate Connor, We'll see about it, an officer in the same army, he is yet forced into a duel, in which that friend falls by his hand, and thus his cherished hopes are blighted. Wounded himself in the same duel, he suffers the amputation of an arm, and at length returns to England, where he learns that his broken-hearted father is no more! Jack the Shrimp, Irish Settlers in an English Village, Mark Connor's Wooing and Wedding, Luke O'Brian, Larry Moore, Mary Macgoharty's Petition, and The Last of the Line. More or less, they all possess the freshness, the vividness, the truth to nature, by which the former volume was strongly characterized. Mabel O'Neil's There are scenes and descriptions in this Curse, is a fine, bold, dramatic sketch, of volume that would reflect credit upon the the Meg Merrilies order; the Rapparee is lamented author of "Gilbert Earle." We full of picture, character, and the most spiparticularise Earnshaw's childish sufferings rited effect; and The Last of the Line is on the death of his mother-his parting yet richer, deeper, and more powerful in from his father_his duel-and his return colour. Nor is there one piece in the vohome; also, the capture of Rodrigo-the lume, so varied are its contents, unentitled rescue of a Spanish girl, who afterwards dies to praise for some especial merit of its own. heart-broken in his arms-a lemonade cellar | Alas! for our own gratification and that of at Madrid-an interview with the prior of our readers, that we have no room for exthe convent of St. Isidore, &c.-An incident | tract! Yes, here is a scrap-a 66 wee bit" at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo is thus specimen of the clack of an innkeeper's wife, rapidly but vividly sketched :unexpectedly visited by the great, in one of the mountainous districts of Ireland : "At the first discharge of the enemy's guns, we, who were to head the assault, were propelled towards the point of attack by the whole force of the column in the rear. On we rushed in a tumultuous mass, while here and there our dense array was broken by the inroads of shot and shell. By what means I eventually topped the breach, earliest and unwounded, I know not; elsewhere I could not have contrived to be, unless I had slumbered with the slain. One scene of the dread drama is vividly before me. In the glare of some combustibles, a French grenadier covered me with his musket-a general officer suddenly intervening, received the bullet in his arm. His fate would have been consummated by the assailant's bayonet, but for the rapidity with which I used my piece. I shot the man through the head: they yet haunt me-the quick convulsion of his grim features the exclamation of his blasphemous "O, sacre!" as he leaped upwards ere his senseless carcass measured the ground we had maintained with fidelity contemptuous of fear." 66 The Second Series of Mrs. S. C. Hall's "Sketches of Irish Character" is inscribed to Miss Edgeworth, with whose as we re. marked in our notice of the First Series*they will not in the slightest degree suffer by a comparison as a tribute of gratitude, respect, and affection." These sketches, one or two of which have appeared in LA BELLE ASSEMBLEE, and some in other periodical publications, are thirteen in number :-Mabel O'Neil's Curse, Annie Leslie, The Rapparee, Norah Clarey's Wise "Miss Dartforth, my lady !-(Mary Murphy, will ye never have done picking the few feathers off that bird !)—my lady, I humbly ask y'er pardon on account of the smoke, and—(Nelly Clarey, Nelly Clarey, may-be its myself won't pay you off for your villany; don't tell me of the crows; what do I give you housemaid's wages for, but to look after my best sitting-rooms?) Miss Dartforth, ma'am, is that baste (the calf, I mane) disagreeable to ye ?-it's a pet, ye see, on account of its being white-quite white, Miss, every hair-and lucky-Billy Thompson, ye little dirty spalpeen! will ye have done draining the glasses into ye'r well of a mouth! its kind, father, for ye to be afther the whiskey, yet I'll trouble you to keep y'er distance from my counter-Corney Phelan, it 'ud be only manners in yee to take the doodeen out o' y'er teeth, and the lady to the fore; I remember when ye'd take it out before me-why not!-the day ye married me, dacency and dacent blood entered y'er barrack of a house, and made it what it is, the most creditable inn in the country. Peggy Kelly, y'er a handy girl, jump up, astore, on the rafters, and cut a respectable piece of bacon off the best end of the flitch-asy-asy !-mind the hole in the wall, where the black hen is sitting -there, just look in, for I'm thinking the chickens ought to be out to-morrow or next day. Larry, ye stricken devil! have ye nothin' to do, that |