sailed with the same destination a few days before. Vessels, palpably fitted up for the conveyance of slaves, were to be seen in the ship-builders' yards, and lying in the river publicly for sale. This was not all; the handcuffs, the iron-fetters, the thumbscrews destined for the refractory limbs of the tortured negroes on board, were to be seen by hundreds in the forges.

ITALY.

The annual census (ending at Easter, 1825) of the Roman population has been recently published; the following are extracts:-"Entire population of the capital, 138,750; families, 33,271; priests, 1,488; monks and friars, 1,662; nuns, 1,502; marriages, 1,158; births, 4,243; deaths, 4,446; in the hospitals, 2,002; in the prisons, 1,020; 'heretics,' Turks, and infidels (exclusive of the Jews), 217; increase of the population since the preceding year, 220.

Important discoveries of antiquities have been made at Tusculum. Not only has an ancient theatre been found, but the streets leading to it have been cleared: an aqueduct, a public fountain, baths, vases, a head of Jupiter, other marble ornaments, elegant paintings in fresco, and other precious objects, have been brought to light.

PRUSSIA.

Suicides, it appears by a calculation of Dr. Caspar, are increasing wonderfully in Berlin. From 1780 to 1797, the proportion was one in 1,000; from 1799 to 1808, one in 600; and from 1813 to 1822, one in 100. He attributes the increase principally to the increase of drinking-houses, which, it appears, compose the fourth part

of the houses of Berlin.

TUSCANY.

The population of Tuscany does not exceed a million-certainly not a million and an eighth; and, to provide for the spiritual wants of this little state, we find 7,957 se cular priests, and 2,581 persons in orders of a lower rank; 2,433 regular priests, and 1,627 lay brothers, distributed over 2,013 convents, together with 7,670 nuns, occupying 136 establishments of seclusion. The whole number of persons thus taken from the business of life, to conduct the exercise of public worship, or to spend their days in the ignorance and seclusion of the cloister, amounts by this statement to 22,268. Thus the religious population is to the secular as one in fifty; or, allowing for children, and persons unable to work in the latter, the inhabitants of convents and the secular clergy are, to the active and industrious portion of the community, as one to twenty-five or thirty. London exceeds in the number of its inhabitants the whole of Tuscany.

557

Collin, sub-rector of the academy at Malmæ, on the question proposed by the society:-" What are the best means to prevent concubinage and the constantly increasing number of illegitimate children in Sweden ?" Among other proposals made by the author of the essay, is one to appoint in each province a moral-censor, to transmit to the chief-censor (to be appointed in the capital) reports on conduct; in which those persons should be named who merited civil infamy, and who, on the report of the chief-censor, should be punished as follows:-the nobleman, to the loss of his nobility; the citizen and peasant, by the loss of his right of voting at elections, and of holding places of public trust; and the clergy and civil officers, by the loss of their offices, &c. Several of our journals have expressed themselves with some severity, not only on the author of the essay, but on the society which crowned it; and one of them calls it an attempt to introduce into Sweden an inquisition worse than the Spanish: it declares the principles laid down in this essay as contrary to the constitution; because, if the plan were carried into execution, such a chief-censor would have a greater power than the constitution allows to the king himself.

SICILY.

At Macaluba, a hill near Girgenti, composed chiefly of blue clay, there is a continual disengagement of gas (carbonic acid and carburetted hydrogen) from small cavities, shaped like craters, which are filled with muddy water, mixed with petroleum. There are times, when the quantity of gas emitted is so great as to throw up the mud to the height of 200 feet, so as almost to justify the name common in the country, where these jets are called Air-Volcanoes.

Near the town of Sciacca (the ancient baths of Selinus, on the slope of Mount Calogero, the ancient Mons Cronius, at the back of the above town), are baths, of which the temperature is no less than 120°. Fahr., and which seem to contain sulphate of magnesia and sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Like the Harrowgate waters, they are much used for cutaneous disorders. At a higher level, the rocks belonging to the blue clay formation are lost, and a white compact saccharoid of limestone is met with, containing kidney-shaped masses of flint, similar to those in chalkstrata, which continues to the top of the mountain.

SWEDEN.

Stockholm.-The Society in this city, "Pro Fide et Christianis Moribus," has

T

MR. JOHN BURGESS,

Wet's street, Canterbury, at the

WHO died Sept. 11, in St. Marga

advanced age of 96, was, for many years, one of the choristers of the cathedral; but infirmity having rendered the task irksome, he retired some time since, upon a liberal bounty provided by the dean and chapter. He was also parish-clerk of Saint Mildred, and belonged to the society of ringers.

MR. WILLIAM BICKNELL.

At no

At the residence of his son, in Lower Tooting, aged 76, Mr. William Bicknell. He was formerly master of an academy at Ponder's-End, near Enfield, which was afterwards removed to Tooting. period of life ambitious of public notice, he passed the evening of his day in tranquil retirement in the bosom of his family. A firm belief in the truth of the Holy Scriptures, and a diligent and fearless inquirer into the meaning of the sacred text, he experienced the consolations of the Gospel, and met death without fear. Humble as he was in station, and retiring in disposition he was yet firm in what he considered correct political sentiments. As a freeholder of the county in which he lived, and as a liveryman of the city of London, he always gave his vote in favour of those candidates who were the known advocates of the liberties of the subject, or to those whose professions he believed to be sincere on this important subject. Opposed to the war system, he formed various estimates of the national debt, which were published in some of the former volumes of this journal, and which present most fearful details. So. licitous, however, that reform should be brought about by peaceful and constitutional measures, he disapproved such public meetings as were rather calculated to ferment the public mind than to produce any real good. In the earlier part of his life he had been a member of the Established Church; but, in the firm belief that she was wrong, he withdrew from her worship, and connected himself with that denomination of Dissenters called Unita. rians. He was an active opponent of Lord Sidmouth's bill respecting Dissenters. But his chief excellencies were to be seen in private life. From the earliest period, he was a lover of science: he had acquired a considerable knowledge of the learned languages, and with the mathematics, in all their various parts, he was intimately conversant. By a diligent and steady course of reading, his mind also contained a treasure which was inexhaustible. These acquirements well fitted him for the arduous duties of a schoolmaster, which profession he followed, with unremitting diligence and success, for the long period of seventy-two years. His character, also, as a husband,

a father, and master of a family, is beyond all praise. He was seized, about three days before his dissolution, with a general paralysis; and he quitted the scenes of time without any desire of a more protracted stay, and entered into futurity without any mistrust as to its consequences.

DESFONTAINES.

Nov. 20. At Paris, aged 92, Desfontaines, the father of the present race of French poets.

COMMODORE JOSEPH NOURSE, C.B.

Commodore Nourse began his naval career in 1793, under the command and auspices of Admiral Sir Alexander Hood, afterwards Lord Bridport, in the Royal George. With the intention of enabling him to see more service, the Admiral placed him on board the Audacious, under the command of his nephew. After a time he returned to the Royal George; and, in 1795, was in the battle off Port L'Orient, with Lord Bridport. The Royal George had two ships engaged with her at the same time, one of eighty and one of ninety guns: the carnage was dreadful. In 1796, or the beginning of 1797, he was acting lieutenant on board the Alcmene, Capt. H. Browne. He was in the engagement off Algeziras Bay: he also formed a part of the detachment from the fleet at Vigo Bay, on the expedition under Sir James Pulteney. In 1802 he had the command of the Advice brig. He was soon afterwards appointed to the Cyane, and so successfully cleared the French privateers, that the merchants of Barbadoes presented government with a vessel soliciting that Capt. Nourse might command her. In 1813, he was appointed to the Severn, and so signalized himself in America, that on his return to England he was made a Companion of the Bath. In 1822 he sailed with the rank of commodore to take the naval command of the Cape of Good Hope station. He expired, Sept. 4, on board the Andromache, in all probability a victim to the effect of climate and the inconveniencies to which he was exposed.

GENERAL BESSIERES.

General Bessieres was born in the south of France, of low and obscure parentage. His youth, it is generally asserted, was not without its errors, and it was generally reported that he fled his native country to escape the hand of justice. He chose Spain as his asylum, entered into the military service, and held the rank of Captain, when he was arrested on suspicion of forming one of a secret society for establishing a republic in the Peninsula. Being convicted, he was condemned to death by the tribunal

of

of Barcelona; but his life was thus preserved: By the laws of Spain, when an individual is condemned to death, he prepares for the execution of the sentence by three days' prayers and confessions, in a chapel where he is confined, and from which he is led to the place of execution; but if, by any extraordinary circumstance, the prisoner remains in the chapel of expiation beyond the term fixed, he is pardoned. Bessieres had this happiness: he afterwards solicited the clemency of the king, and upon a report made to Ferdinand by M. Bardoxi, the then minister of the interior, was pardoned; but his name was erased from the army-lists, and he was ordered to quit the Spanish territory. Bessieres took refuge on the frontiers, where he led a miserable existence. It was here he resided in 1820, when the events which took place gave him an opportunity of raising and disciplining a number of troops, and with them repaired to the environs of Madrid, in the province of Cuença. He assumed the rank of Fieldmarshal, and wore the uniform, and in this quality commanded the troops under his orders. Towards the end of the campaign, Bessieres had established his head-quarters at Huete, a small town, 20 miles from Madrid. It was here that he struggled against the constitutionalists with great intrepidity. He was excessively rigid in his mode of life; slept but seldom, and trusted no one-having been several times on the point of being betrayed to the constitutionalists. The removal of the government to Seville, then to Cadiz, and the arrival of the French troops, put a stop to or deranged all the projects of Bessieres; but he held out his position at Huete till the entry of the French into Madrid. The king, on his return, received Bessieres and confirmed his former rank. Since that time he constanly resided at Madrid, and always appeared at court, where, however, he was little noticed, undoubtedly on account of his origin, and became very discontented with the state of things, and at seeing men preferred before him, but still always appearing devoted to Ferdinand; and accompanied his majesty in 1824, to the waters of Sacedon. Perhaps Bessieres had secret motives in making this voyage. The king traversed a part of the province of Cuença, the theatre of Bessieres' efforts in the royal ist cause, and the populace spoke of him with enthusiasm. All this assiduity on the part of Bessieres towards the king, and his conduct at the head of the royalist party, apparently merited in his eyes greater favour than he enjoyed. But Ferdinand did not even bestow on him the cross of St. Ferdinand; and there is little doubt but discontent and ambition were the cause of the revolt of this inveterate royalist, for which he suffered.

MR. THOMAS RAVENHILL

several of the plates to Grose's Antiquities, besides various other topographical prints for the magazines. He worked for Hooper, the publisher of Grose, then keeping a shop in Holborn, facing Bloomsbury-square, where Bullock's auction-room now stands; beneath whose roof resided Captain Grose himself, for the convenience of publishing his work. Ravenhill at that time had considerable employment: but the great improvement in the style of topographical engraving deprived him of business, and he has latterly lived by taking sketches of antiquities in various counties for the purpose of illustration, particularly those places mentioned by Lysons in his Environs of London. About seven years ago he printed a small tract, entitled "A List of Topographical Sketches, accurately taken on the spot, years back, by T. Ravenhill, chiefly in London, and the counties of Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, and Essex. Many of these having never been engraved, they will be found useful for the illustration of Lysons, and other authors who have noticed the antiquities in and round London." This tract contained a list of about 350 subjects, with a brief address on the advantages of preserving our national antiquities. He frequently was employed to make copies of a great proportion of them: and certainly has been the means of preserving views of many public buildings, now destroyed, of which no other resemblance remains. In the richly illustrated copy of Lysons' Environs, belonging to J. Morice, Esq., are two views of every church mentioned in that interesting work, besides many others of antiquities, &c., from the pencil of the late Mr. Ravenhill. He was one of the last survivors of the old topographical engravers, whose work now would not be deemed worthy of insertion in a magazine. He was a small man, upwards of seventy; lively, with a great flow of spirits, and felt a strong interest in every thing connected with the illustration of Pennant's London, or Lysons' Environs. Just before his death he spoke with great enthusiasm of his copy of the latter work, illustrated with a great number of additional prints and original drawings. From the account on the inquest, it would appear he was destitute of effects; but the original sketches for his drawings, no circumstances would have induced him to part with: and although copies of them have been repeatedly made, they would still possess a value to the collector. His appearance bespoke poverty, but from his conversation nothing of the kind would be surmised; indeed, he seemed very indifferent about the sale of his drawings, and could scarcely be induced to exhibit any specimens, although they would frequently have produced him numerous orders. thought his list and a sketch was sufficient ; Lut of course, illustrators wished to see the style of execution, as well as the

He