ealth and strength, little less than princes. For
a time her treasure was wisely and munificently expended; and the works
she wrought, and the good deeds she performed, are her honour and our
shame. She spread a table to the hungry; she gave lodgings to the
houseless; welcomed the wanderer; and rich and poor, and learned and
illiterate, alike received shelter and hospitality. Under her roof the
scholar completed his education; the historian sought and found the
materials for his history; the minstrel chanted lays of mingled piety
and love for his loaf and raiment; the sculptor carved in wood, or cast
in silver, some popular saint; and the painter gave the immortality of
his colours to some new legend or miracle."--All who have visited the
cathedrals and churches of the continent, or who have studied their
history at home, must acknowledge the truth and force of these excellent
observations. They are copied from an ably-written article on the
History of Italian Painting, in the second number of the _Foreign
Review_.

* * * * *

Frederick the Great, in a letter to Voltaire, says, "I look on men as a
herd of deer in a great man's park, whose only business is to people the
enclosures."--This is one of the _great men_ of history.

* * * * *

POTATOES.

A few years after the discovery, potatoes were carried to Spain at first
as sweetmeats and delicacies. Oviedo says that "they were a dainty dish
to set before the king," Labat describes potatoes a hundred years ago,
as cultivated in Western Africa, and says of them, "_Il y en a en
Irlande, et en Angleterre_," and that he had seen very good ones at
Rochelle.

* * * * *

PAINTING

Represents nature, or poetic nature at the most, and, therefore,
addresses itself as much as poetry does to the feeling and imagination
of man. Though it deals in nature exalted by genius, embellished by art
and purified by taste, still it is nature, still it makes its appeal to
the men of this world, and by them it is applauded or condemned. It
works for men, and not for gods; therefore every man, as far as his
taste is natural and sound, is a judge of its productions.--_For. Rev._

* * * * *

LAVER.

Such of our readers as are not addicted to epicurism may have been
somewhat puzzled at the display of "_Fine Fresh Laver_" in the Italian
warehouses and provision sho