and successfully, by precept and example, raised them to a state
of the highest moral conduct and feeling. Of fruits and edible
roots they have at present abundance, which they exchange
with the whalers for clothing, oil, medicine, and other
necessaries; but the crops on the tillage ground begin to deteriorate,
land-slips occur with each succeeding storm, and the declivities
of the hills, when denuded, are laid bare by the periodical rains.
Their diet consists of yams, sweet potatoes, and bread-fruit; a
small quantity of fish is occasionally caught; their pigs supply
annually upon an average about 50 lb. of meat to each
individual: and they have a few goats and fowls. Their want of
clothing and other absolute necessaries is very pressing, and I
am satisfied that the time has arrived when preparation, at
least, must be made for the future, seven or eight years being
the most that can be looked forward to for a continuance of their
present means of support. The summary of the year 1851 gives
—births, 12; deaths, 2; marriages, 3. On their return from
Tahiti they numbered about sixty, of whom there were married
thirteen couple; the rest from the age of sixteen to infancy.
Mr. Nobbs was anxious to avail himself of my offer to convey
him to Valparaiso, and thence enable him to proceed to England,
for the purpose of obtaining ordination. At a general meeting
of the inhabitants their consent was given, provided I would
leave the chaplain of the Portland until Mr. Nobbs returned;
the advantage is so obvious that I feel confident their Lordships
will approve my consenting. From the anxiety which has
been expressed by high authorities of the Church for Mr. Nobbs'
ordination, I anticipate that it will be effected with so little
delay that he will be enabled to return to Valparaiso by the
middle of January."

Mr. Nobbs, wbo is referred to in the above despatch,
and is now in London, is described as an intelligent,
kind, and open-hearted man. He landed at Pitcairn's
Island six months before John Adams died; he therefore
knew that very remarkable man, and succeeded him
as schoolmaster, minister, and physician, to one of the
most interesting colonies the world perhaps ever saw.
He describes the present descendants of the mutineers,
who form now the third and fourth generation from
them, as remarkable for their personal beauty, and for
their "evangelical religious principles." The Sunday
is kept most reverentially. The Christian law of marriage
is scrupulously observed by them, and the marriage
ceremony is one of great solemnity. Their chief magistrate
is elected on the 1st of January of every year. All
persons, male and female, above the age of 18, vote at
the election. The largest amount of specie that was ever
on the island was 200 dollars value. This was just
about the time when the intercourse first sprung up
between Australia and California. With this sum two
large boats were purchased. The boats, however, which
the natives use ordinarily for fishing are very small, and
are carried about on their shoulders. If they upset, no
serious accident ensues, as the islanders are all admirable
swimmers. The only animals on the island are fowls,
goats, and hogs. The place is not large enough to rear
animals of greater magnitude. Their agricultural
implements are the spade and hoe. If they could
obtain a cession of Norfolk Island, it would not be long,
it is believed, before they would migrate thither, as they
are anxious to grow wheat and rear herbivorous animals.
The inhabitants of Pitcairn's Island are now subject to
bilious disorders, which their envoy thinks is owing to
their subsisting so much ou the sweet potato.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

The publishing season has begun, but as yet its
promises have greater interest than its performances. The
Chevalier Bunsen's Hippolytus and his Age is a book
addressed to a limited class of readers; but for these it
will have a charm. It is the result of a discovery made
by M. Bunsen a year ago, when he applied his critical
learning to a treatise published as Origen's by the
University of Oxford, and discovered that it was not Origen's
at all, but a genuine production of Hippolytus, not only
one of the earliest Christian bishops, but one whose teaching
was in a direct line and connection with that of St.
John. Many interesting and instructive considerations
arose out of this discovery, relating to purity of doctrine,
absurdity of Roman Catholic pretensions, and yet more
egregious folly of "Anglican" imitations thereof; which
make the Chevalier's book well worthy of perusal. Other
books, not distantly related by their bearing and design
to similar studies, have also appeared during the month.
Such as the second part of the Rev. Mr. Forster's One
Primeval Language; Doctor Richard Lepsius's
Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Peninsula of
Sinai; a translation of M. Victor Cousin's Course of the
History of Modern Philosophy; the Rev. Mr.
Shepherd's Letter to the Rev. S. R. Maitland On the Writings
of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage; and new editions of
Bishop Ken's Approach to the Altar and Exposition of
the Creed.

Of course several lives of The Duke of Wellington
have been begun, and some indeed already have been
completed. Miss Strickland has also commenced, in her
series of Scottish Queens, a biography of Mary Stuart,
strongly leaning to the most favourable construction of
her character. The Cloister Life of the Emperor
Charles V. is a more novel contribution to biographical
research, illustrating by highly curious as well as agreeable
details an out-of-the-way nook both in character
and history. It is the work of Mr. Stirling, whose book
about Spanish art and artists was so lively and well-
informed. Mr. Morley's Palissy the Potter is another
very welcome investigation into unexplored regions of
biography, bringing forth into full view a remarkable
old Frenchman, who observed nature, wrote philosophy,
and made astonishingly beautiful earthenware, at a time
when the most part of his countrymen were plunged in
ignorance and wickedness, committing massacres of St.
Bartholomew, and otherwise disagreeably disporting
themselves. Mr. Bohn has published a new and cheap
edition of Foster's Life and Correspondence, which will
be gladly received by the dissenting community in
which he taught with such authority and zeal.

Connected with travels and general literature, the
books of any interest have not been numerous. A Polish
lady of quality has published her Revelations of Siberia,
but as the revelations had undergone the Russian
censorship before they were published, it can easily be
supposed that there is nothing very horrible in them.
A translation of the book written by the Hungarian
General and so-called traitor, Arthur Görgei, My Life
and Acts in Hungary, has been issued by Mr. Bogue;
and another General in the Hungarian army, George
Kmetry, has put forth A Refutation of Gorgei's
Misstatements. In the Illustrated Library there has ap-
peared a translation of Madame Ida Pfeiffer's very
lively Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy.
Captain Doveton has written his Reminiscences of the
Burmese War by way of comment on the new war
lately broken out. Under the title of Phaeton, Mr.
Kingsley has favoured the world with what he calls
"loose thoughts for loose thinkers." Mr. Knight has
given us a useful Pocket Cyclopædia of inventions and
curiosities in arts and manufactures. Another
illustrated edition, by a German resident in Edinburgh, has
been added to those already existing of The Story of
Reynard the Fox; and some dozen or more new editions
of the history of that very different character, Uncle Tom,
have kept gleaning in the harvest of a most extraordinary
success. Some stories of crime and criminal
jurisprudence have been collected by Mr. Burke as The
Romance of the Forum. Mr. Bayle St. John has put
some attractive personal experiences into his Village Life
in Egypt; and Mr. Lear has enriched with a series of
very picturesque lithographic drawings his Journals of
a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria.

In fiction we have had Mrs. Trollope's Uncle Walter,
Mr. Savage's Reuben Medlicott, a tale called the
Vicarage of Elwood, another story of sorrowful
American experience with the title of The White Slave, and
additional volumes of the new library edition of
the Waverley Novels. To history the only additions
have been a narrative of The Holy, Military, Sovereign
Order of St. John of Jerusalem; and a new volume of
Lamartine's Restoration.