* * * * *

The candidateship between Lord Palmerston and the historian Alison for
the office of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, resulted in a
majority for the latter, on the gross poll, of 69. As, however, of the
"four nations" into which the students were distributed, each of the
candidates had two, the election should have been decided by the vote of
the present Rector, Mr. Macaulay; but he declines the duty, and would
not go to the university during the contest.

* * * * *

The Official Gazette announces that "the Queen has been pleased to
appoint ALFRED TENNYSON, Esq., to be Poet Laureate in ordinary to her
Majesty, in the room of William Wordsworth, Esq., deceased." There have
been poorer poets than Tennyson among the laureates; but this
appointment does not and ought not to give much satisfaction. Mr.
Tennyson had already a pension from the government, and was in no need
of the salary of this office, as one or two others, and as we conceive,
greater poets, are; and it had been hoped that the queen would appoint
to the place the _greatest poet of her own sex_ who has lived in
England--Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

* * * * *

The original MS. of "WAVERLEY,"--wholly in the handwriting of Sir Walter
Scott,--the same which was sold in 1831 with the other MSS. of the
series of novels and romances--has been presented to the Advocates'
Library at Edinburgh, by Mr. James Hall, brother of the late Capt. Basil
Hall. Several of the MSS. of Scott are in this country, having been sold
here by Dr. Lardner, soon after his arrival here with Mrs. Heavyside.

* * * * *

MR. HORACE MAYHEW, author of the metropolitan "Labor and the Poor"
articles, has ceased to write for the London _Morning Chronicle_, the
conductors of that journal wishing him to suppress, in his reports on
the condition of the working classes, facts opposed to free trade. This
appears to be characteristic of the advocates of that side.

* * * * *

D'ISRAELI has published an edition of his father's "Curiosities of
Literature," with a "View of the Character and Writings of the Author."
He is now engaged upon a Life of Lord William Bentinck, which he has
undertaken at the request of the Duke of Portland. We do not think the
author of the "Wondrous Tale of Alroy" will do very well in history.