--THE LITERARY SOUVENIR.

One hundred guineas is stated to be the lowest cost of either of the
engravings in "the Literary Souvenir for 1829;" some of them, indeed,
cost from 150 to 170 guineas each. A circulation of less than from 8
to 9,000 copies, would entail a loss upon the proprietors; so that the
expense of "getting up" this superb "Annual" probably exceeds 3,500l.;
and taking this sum for the average of six others published at the same
price, and with a proportionate advance for two more published at one
guinea each, the outlay of capital in these works is from 35 to
40,000l.[4] This sum would purchase _Five Million_ numbers of THE
MIRROR, or 80 million printed pages, with 10 million impressions of
woodcuts!

[4] The portion of this sum paid for the literary department would form
a curious item in the records of genius, especially in contrast with
Milton's five pounds for his _Paradise Lost_.

* * * * *

TRUE CONSOLATION.

A citizen of Geneva having lost his wife, he, according to the custom of
the country, attended the funeral to the cemetery, which is out of the
city. Somebody meeting him on his return from this painful ceremony,
assumed a sorrowful countenance, and in the tenderest manner possible,
asked him how he did. "Oh," replied the widower, "I am very well at
present; this little walk has set me up; there is nothing like country
air."

* * * * *

HARD RAIN.

Mr. Rae Wilson tells us, that he saw some huge stones of granite on his
road to Mecklenburgh, which he says actually seem to have been rained
there; in which belief he is strengthened by a story in a Philadelphia
newspaper, of "a spitting of stones, which ended in a regular shower at
Nashville, in May, 1825!"--There is seldom a good story without its
match.

* * * * *

FRENCH PRISON.

A recent letter from Paris gives the following account of the Debtors'
Prison, compared with which, it seems, our _Fleet_ is a perfect
Arcadia:--Each room contains four beds, small, dirty, and damp; so that
the eyes of the unfortunate inmates become red and inflamed; not even a
window can be shut to keep out a current of air. If a creditor visits a
debtor who wishes to be revenged, the latter has only to cry _au loup_,
when all parties assail the unlucky creditor, and _perhaps murder him!_
Gambling is the great resource of the ignorant, so that freq