changed, by the "Revised Statutes," which, repealing
certain sections of the law, that would have saved the
slaves to their owner, left the first section operative, and
made slaves "imported, introduced, or brought" into
the State of New York, absolutely free. He adjudged
that the eight coloured persons mentioned in the writ of
habeas corpus obtained by Lemmon be discharged. In
accordance with this judgment, the slaves were delivered
up to Louis Napoleon, placed in coaches, and driven off,
amid the cheers of other coloured people.

Advices from California state that the city of Sacramento
has been almost entirely destroyed by fire.
Nearly every house was burned, and many lives were
lost. Destructive fires have also occurred in San
Francisco and Marysville. The fire in Sacramento city
laid waste an extensive area of the city, leaving nine-
tenths of the population houseless. The loss is
estimated at 10,000,000 dollars. The Democratic State
Journal office was destroyed; also the State Hospital,
the patients in which suffered dreadfully. During the
nine days which elapsed since the occurrence of the fire
and the departure of the steamer, 350 buildings had
been restored.

NARRATIVE OF LITERATURE AND ART.

THE pent-up stream of publication, confined so long
by the various accidents of the year, has come down in a
flood at last, and the Christmas counters of the booksellers
are fairly inundated with new books and new editions.
Of course our summary deals with the former only.

The Hon. Capt. Devereux has written, in two octavo
volumes containing many original letters set in a
well-arranged narrative, the lives of his most famous
ancestors, The Earls of Essex, in the century between
Elizabeth and the Commonwealth. Sir Archibald
Alison has published his first instalment of what
promises to be a mournful History of Europe, from the
fall of Napoleon I. to the rise of Napoleon III. A third
volume of illustrative essays and correspondence has
been added to the Life and Letters of Niebuhr, to
which the Chevalier Bunsen prefixes a valuable disquisition
on the character of his teacher and friend. Captain
E. Buckle has written a Memoir of the Services of the
Bengal Artillery, which is well edited by Mr. J. W.
Kaye. Lord Belfast has favoured us with his opinion
of the Poets and Poetry of the XIX. Century, in which
the poetical extracts are interesting and the critical views
not too recondite. Mrs. Charles Meredith, a lady who as
Miss Louisa Twamley wrote pleasantly on nature and
flowers, has now written her nine years' experience of
a Home in Tasmania, in which, the book being full of
every day domestic incidents and details, a very large
reading public is likely to find themselves more than
commonly interested. Lieutenant-Colonel Burn has
compiled, with great labour and care, a Naval and
Military Technical Dictionary of the French Language.
Mr. James Fergusson has published a very pithy
treatise on French Fleets and English Forts, or what
he calls "the perils of Portsmouth;" and Capt. Elliott,
apropos of the same vitally important theme, has
drawn up a very striking and apparently feasible
Plan for the formation of a Maritime Militia. Mr.
Hallam has selected and presented from his book on
the Literature of Europe, a scries of Literary Essays
and Characters. M. A. de la Rive has issued a
Treatise on Electricity; and Mr. J. A. Langford a
volume on Religion and Education. Mrs. Jameson
has added to her former very beautiful volume on
Scriptural Art another not less beautiful on Legends
of the Madonna. Mr. William Grattan has described,
in two foolscap volumes, the Adventures of the Connaught
Rangers; and another Irishman has set forth, in three,
his Reminiscences of an Emigrant Milesian with
Souvenirs of the Brigade.

Lord John Russell has given us the first instalment of
the Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas
Moore, in which a diary is begun which promises before
it ends to rival, in minuteness and honesty, even the
immortal confidences of Pepys. Captain Keppel has
made public another Visit to the Indian Archipelago,
with fresh extracts from that "diary of Sir Janus
Brooke," which, whatever of the romantic may once
have seemed to belong to it, has been sadly stripped of
its romance during the last four years. Mr. John Mac
Gregor has discoursed on the Results of Recent
Commercial and Financial Legislation; Sir Edward
Colebrook on the Indian Civil Service; and an anonymous
writer, of very marked ability, on the Morality of
Public Men. The writer of the denunciatory Letters of
an Englishman has collected them into a book by way
of a Christmas present to the new French Emperor;
and Mr. Andrew Scoble has translated, for one of Mr.
Bohn's Libraries, M. Guizot's not less timely History of
Representative Government. Dr. Dunmore Lang has
republished his History of New South Wales, with
additions bringing it down to the summer of the present
year; and has added to it a volume of remonstrance on
the alleged grievances of the colony, claiming Freedom and
Independence for the Golden Lands of Australia. Mr.
P. J. Stirling has also treated, at the length of an entire
volume, on The Australian and Californian Gold
Discoveries; and Mr. C. Barter has described Six months in
Natal. A volume has come over to us from New York,
very pleasantly depicting the Homes of American
Authors; and an American Doctor of Divinity has compiled
for his countrymen, and for us, a large goodly volume of
Select British Eloquence, comprising speeches of the
best English orators from the Commonwealth to our
own day, beginning with Eliot and ending with
Brougham.

Among the books issued with a view more particularly
to the season, story books appear to hold the first place.
The names of the principal ones may be given. Agatha's
Husband is a tale in three volumes, very earnestly told by
the same writer who gives her younger readers in one
small volume, Philip's Book, her idea of A hero. Talpa,
or the Chronicle of a Clay Farm, is a Christmas volume
for farmers which puts something of the graces of
fiction into even sub-soil drainage, and which contains
some designs by George Cruikshank, of first-rate humour
and fancy. Mr. Charles Reade has told in one freshly-
written volume that story of Peg Woffington, which has
moved so many tears and smiles at the Haymarket
Theatre; and the original of which is no doubt this
narrative, for it is too full of spirit and movement to be
regarded as the after-thought or copy. Katie Stewart is a
pretty little tale out of Blackwood's Magazine. The Little
Dreamer is a tale from the German, very nicely
illustrated; so is a Leaf of a Christmas Tale. Arbell,
the Adventures of a Bear, and a Day of Pleasure, are
stories all devised for the young, and all very prettily
ornamented by clever artists. Retail Mammon, or the
Pawnbroker's Daughter, is addressed with a somewhat
graver moral to taller readers. The Experience of Life
is one of those pleasingly written tales of religious feeling
which would he the better for removal of their touches
of Tractarianism. To these various story-books, may be
added some gift-books of a general kind, which owe
much of their attraction to their features of ornament,
but in which the literature is of a higher average than
used to prevail in books of a similar character ten
or twenty years ago. The Poetry of the Year, and the
Poets of the Woods, contain many beautiful designs
printed in colours, and extracts not less beautiful or
bright from the most famous English poets. Mr.
Bartlett gives us a series of Pictures from Sicily, well
executed, both with pencil and pen. And finally, Mr.
Sandys describes, in a seasonably illustrated volume,
Chrismastide: its History, Festivities, and Crowds.

Of the shoals of new editions newly furbished up for
the time, it is impossible to speak; nor indeed is this
list we have offered of the strictly new books by any
means complete. But it will sufficiently show how busy
the publishers have been, and in what various ways.