unknown, and with magnificent subjects for such a
pencil as yours. I am sorry I did not know of your visit to
England. I have many influential friends, who would have been
glad to welcome you, and who might have been useful. I am now
passing a month or two at Cheltenham, for the benefit of my
health, which has suffered a little. I will write to you again
soon with something more interesting. Believe me, my dear
Kellogg, yours ever sincerely,

A. H. LAYARD."

Upon the publication of his great work on Nineveh and its Remains, thus
modestly announced, and his One Hundred Plates, he went back to the
East, to renew his researches. Of the results of his recent labors we
have already written, in the _International_ for December.

Dr. Layard is a person of the most amiable and pleasing character, with
all the social virtues which command affection and respect, and such
capacities in literature as make him one of the most attractive
travel-writers in our language. The world may yet look for several
volumes from his hand, upon the East, and we are sure they will deserve
the large and permanent popularity to which his first work has attained
in every country where it has been printed.

THE ASTOR LIBRARY.

[Illustration]

We present above an accurate view of the exterior of the ASTOR LIBRARY,
in Lafayette Place, from a drawing made for the _International_ under
the direction of the architect, Mr. Alexander Saeltzer. It is destined
to be one of the chief attractions of the city, and information
respecting it will be read with interest by the literary and learned
throughout the country.

It is now three years since John Jacob Astor died, leaving by his will
four hundred thousand dollars for the establishment of a Public Library
in New-York, and naming as the first trustees, the Mayor of the city of
New-York and the Chancellor of the state for the time being. Washington
Irving, William B. Astor, Daniel Lord, Jr., James G. King, Joseph G.
Cogswell, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Henry Brevoort, Jr., Samuel B. Ruggles,
Samuel Ward, and Charles Bristed. On the twentieth of May the trustees
held their first meeting, accepted the trust conferred on them, and
appointed Dr. Cogswell, one of their number, superintendent of the
Library. Of the bequest, $75,000 was authorized to be applied to the
erection of a building, $120,000 to the purchase of books and other
objects in the establishment of th