Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield.--_Q. Rev._


[5] It is a remarkable proof of the amount of improvement effected
in some of the Cornish steam engines, that the result obtained
from a given quantity of coal, estimated in the manner alluded
to above, is nearly three times as great now as it was twenty
years ago. Nor will the spectator find more cause for
astonishment in the magnitude of these engines, than in the
order, or even beauty, of every minute part pertaining to them.
The furniture of a drawing-room is not more scrupulously
arranged, or preserved in a state of higher polish, than are
those huge representatives of human power.

* * * * *


LEARNING FRENCH.

Fashion dominates in this, as in other things. Of late its dictation has
been to cradle children in French; often, even to prohibit English in
the nursery and school-room; and, frequently, at a later time, to detach
our youth from their own country, for the sake of forwarding the same
object in foreign _pensions_, or schools. We have seen this fashion
extending itself to more mature life; and serious and discreet men,
senators and judges, toiling painfully through elements, vocabularies,
and rules of pronunciation, to acquire an amount of speech sufficient to
attract ridicule, and produce inconvenience, but very inadequate to any
useful or ornamental purpose.--_Ibid._