Oct. 17. Ther. 48°. The Banks.—The arrival of every mail continues to be watched with unabated interest to ascertain the progress of suspension. The banks of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, have all declared their resolution to continue to pay specie; those of Rhode Island and the banks to the south and west of Philadelphia, with few exceptions, have suspended. The stock of the United States' Bank has been down to $70 in New York. The consequences to trade are ruinous. The difference of exchange between Philadelphia and New York was at one time 13 per cent. If a merchant had $1000 in his banker's hands in Philadelphia, and owed that sum, payable in New York, he must have added to it $130 of exchange, before he could have retired his note in New York. If, previous to the suspension, a merchant in New York had sold $1000 worth of goods to a merchant in Philadelphia, and taken the purchaser's promissory-note for the amount payable in the latter city, he would have received payment, after the suspension, in a depreciated currency consisting of suspended banknotes, and he would have lost 13 per cent, in exchange before he could have converted it into the currency of his own domicile. On the other hand, if a merchant in New York had owed $1000 payable in Philadelphia, he would have gained 13 per cent.; for he could have bought up Philadelphia banknotes from the brokers in New York at that rate of discount, which, when sent to Philadelphia, would have discharged his debt to the extent of their nominal amount.

The classical muse has by the local custom of the University been in times past much called upon; as certain thick folios in College libraries testify. These volumes contain the Gratulationes Academiœ offered to Royalty and illustrious Personages, Carmina Parentalia, Epicedia, Threnodia, Comitia Philologica, composed in every species of metre and in every one of the learned languages, for the celebration of interesting events: and we may add that for authors these productions of the muse boast of men since distinguished in the several walks of science and literature.

One of these poetical scribes thus speaks for himself:

So writes Joshua Barnes to the Duke of Marlborough.

“When any member of a College dies within the walls it is customary for some scholars to write verses and pin them (with their own hands, on the morning of the funeral) on the pall, like escocheons.”

Perhaps it will not be uninteresting to the reader, to vary a little the monotony of description which is entailed upon us by the character of the work, and give some account of the varieties of sporting on the Potomac.

This noble river abounds in fish, of which the principal are the white shad, the herring, and the sturgeon. The latter is taken in a way that, as far as we know, is entirely peculiar to this part of the country. The sturgeon is a noble denizen of the waters, weighing from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty pounds. His enormous leaps out of the water, and his alacrity at mounting a cascade, are accomplishments for which he is, as the advertisements phrase it, “favourably known.” He has a habit, however, of scratching himself against any stationary object he finds in the river, which has been detected by the Potomac fishers, and employed, very successfully, to his detriment. A stout line, with a weight attached to it, is lowered from a boat, and a large hook, of peculiar contrivance, but without a bait, fastened to the extremity. The rubbing of the sturgeon against the line informs the fisherman of his neighbourhood, and, with a little skill, he succeeds in hooking him under the belly. The fish makes off with prodigious speed; the fisherman pays out line, and casts loose his painter; and away flies the boat with a speed and suddenness that seems like magic.

Either Nature has wrought with a bolder hand in America, or the effect of long continued cultivation on scenery, as exemplified in Europe, is greater than is usually supposed. Certain it is that the rivers, the forests, the unshorn mountain-sides and unbridged chasms of that vast country, are of a character peculiar to America alone—a lavish and large-featured sublimity, (if we may so express it,) quite dissimilar to the picturesque of all other countries.

To compare the sublime of the Western Continent with the sublime of Switzerland— the vales and rivers, lakes and waterfalls, of the New World with those of the Old—to note their differences, and admire or appreciate each by contrast with the other, was a privilege hitherto confined to the far-wandering traveller. In the class of works, of which this is a specimen, however, that enviable enjoyment is brought to the fire-side of the home-keeping and secluded as well; and, sitting by the social hearth, those whose lot is domestic and retired, can, with small cost, lay side by side upon the evening table the wild scenery of America, and the bold passes of the Alps—the leafy Susquehanna with its rude raft, and the palace-gemmed Bosphorus with its slender caique. So great a gratification is seldom enjoyed at so little cost and pains.

It is with a strange unsatisfied feeling, that the native of a mountainous country takes his second or his third constitutional at Cambridge. The first time he goes abroad to see the scenery of the neighbourhood, he is most probably in academical habit; and whilst his shoulders feel the gown's gentle clasp, and its crisp new folds rustle fondly round him, it is little wonder if his thoughts—and perhaps his eyes—do not wander very far off it; and the cap commonly fits close enough to keep him in continual remembrance of the laurels which he hopes will one day encircle his temples. But imagine all this fresh feeling at an end: he takes a walk, with attention alive to all that is new, and a temper ready to admire all that may be beautiful. At last he reaches a slight eminence (a few such there are, and a very slight elevation will afford him an extensive prospect)—and looks round. He sees perhaps nothing which is destitute of beauty; but his eye wanders restlessly over the plain, then from the horizon, up to the sky,—then to the plain again,—and he feels unsatisfied without knowing for why. The truth is, he misses the hills which surrounded the home of his boyhood, and among which he has dwelt perhaps eighteen summers without knowing how much he loved them.

The peculiar distinction of an English University, its subdivision into Colleges, possesses at least one prominent advantage; that by connecting each student closely with a fraction of the vast number around him it offers means for encouraging sociality and good feeling, scarcely to be expected under any other system. Perhaps the most striking instance of the close tie which connects members of the same College is exhibited on the morning on which the results of the Examination for Honors is published. The interest excited by the question “how many wranglers have we?” is not confined to Undergraduates. Fellows and Tutors crowd to the Senate-house and even dignified D.D.s take care to secure the earliest intelligence. And the form in which the question above is put, is no small proof of the close identification of interest between members of the same College.

It would be strange were it otherwise under the Cambridge system. At this period especially young men are social creatures, and throughout the day those who belong to the same College are constantly thrown together. They meet in the same Chapel, attend the same Lectures, and above all take the principal meal of the day together. Nor will it be considered that we have assigned to the last circumstance too high a place in promoting social feeling, when we remember the results expected from the practice among the nations of antiquity.

Francis Willughby, the friend and companion of Ray, and distinguished like him for his attainments in Natural History, was the only son of Sir Francis Willughby, Knight, of Middleton in Warwickshire. He was born in 1635. He received his education at Trinity College, where he took the degree of A.B. in 1656, and that of A.M. in 1659. From his childhood he addicted himself to hard study; and by incessant application acquired great skill in almost every branch of learning. Natural History, however, was the science for which he evinced the greatest partiality, and to which he devoted the largest share of his attention. He was of opinion that the study of animals had been much neglected up to his time, and he was anxious to do what he could for its advancement. In these pursuits he was much aided by the advantages of birth and fortune which he knew how to appreciate and to apply to just and useful purposes. Previously to commencing a system of original observations, he was careful to read what had been already written by authors on his favourite department. It was probably with this view that in 1660 he was resident at Oxford for a short time to gain the benefit of the Public Library. On leaving that place, he travelled, in company with Ray and others, over a considerable part of Europe and several times over his native country, for the purpose of extending his knowledge of Natural History.

The annexed etching is after a portrait in the Combination Room of Jesus College, presented by Jarvis Kenrick, LL. D. in 1808. It is commonly described as a portrait of the renowned William Harvey by Rembrandt. The genuineness of the painter seems to be negatived by the character of the handling and colour: there is a freshness and a softness which does not belong to Rembrandt's works. There is in the Museum at the Hague, a painting precisely similar to this, which is marked in the catalogue as probably the portrait of le grand pensionnaire Cats. The execution however in this picture is not unworthy of Rembrandt's pencil. But the question of the genuineness of the portrait should be decided by comparing it with others which exist.

The instances for comparison are four.

I. The portrait in the Library of the College of Physicians, an authentic one. It is a full length, in a sitting posture, by Corn. Jansen. A line engraving was made after it by J. Hall, for the Frontispiece to an Edition of Harvey's Works in Quarto published by the College of Physicians in 1766. They have also a bust, an engraving from which was done to ornament the certificates given by Dr. Hunter to his pupils.

II. The bust upon his monument in the Church of Hempstead in Essex, which bears strong resemblance to the portrait just mentioned.

William Alabaster, born at Hadleigh in Suffolk, was a Fellow of Trinity College. His University career is remarkable for his having kept a Greek Act with Francis Dillingham, B.D. of St. John's College. Having been appointed chaplain to Robert Earl of Essex, he attended him in his voyage to Calais on a projected expedition to assist Henry IV. against the League, in the year 1591. While in France, he was induced to change his church and to become a Roman Catholick; he soon, however, became dissatisfied with his new persuasion and returned to his former opinions. In the preface to his work entitled “Ecce sponsus venit,” he relates that, certain doctrines of his having become obnoxious to the Court of Rome, he was enticed to that city and imprisoned there by authority of the inquisition; on his liberation, he was confined to the city-walls, but escaping at the peril of his life he returned to England, and soon after became Prebendary of St. Paul's and Rector of Hatfield, in Hertfordshire. He died about A. D. 1640.

He was a great Hebrew scholar and skilled in Cabalistic learning, which he displayed in various discussions on the mystical meaning that he supposed to be involved in the words of Scripture; especially in his clerum at Cambridge on commencing Doctor of Divinity, when he took for his text the first words of the first book of Chronicles “Adam, Sheth, Enosh;” the mystical meaning of these he supposed to be, “Man is put or placed for trouble.”

The Patuxent, which is leaped over so lightly at this place by the arches of the Viaduct, becomes, ere long, a stream which is not only respectable in size, but most respectable in story. It will ever be associated with the name and fame of the gallant Barney, who, though his exertions could not prevent ultimate defeat, did much to sustain his country's honour, and has made his own imperishable.

While the British squadron was blockading the eastern coast during the summer of 1814, Commodore Barney sailed from Baltimore in command of a flotilla consisting of a cutter, two gun-boats, a galley, and nine large barges, for the protection of the inlets and harbours in the several parts of the bay. On the 1st of June, being at the mouth of the Patuxent, he discovered two schooners, one of which carried eighteen guns; and immediately gave chase. The schooners were joined, however, by a large ship, which despatched a number of barges to their assistance; and the commodore sailed up the Patuxent to avoid being cut off from the Potomac. The schooners and barges following him, he engaged and drove them back, and then anchored within three miles of the seventy-four. In the course of a few days, the enemy was reinforced by a rasee and a sloop of war; and joining the barges of these vessels, they followed the flotilla into St. Leonard's Creek, across which Commodore Barney formed his boats in line of battle.

The classical descriptive ‘rus in urbe’ has a powerful charm for the imagination: it implies the attraction of rarity, the force of contrast, and promises all that is delicious in the centre of all that is odious.

There are several spots in our town which merit this praise; but no where perhaps is it more literally applicable than in the instance submitted to view; and a partial admirer might be disposed to adopt the sentiment of a Jersey householder, who, enamoured of his garden, has set up over the entrance this motto,

The scene presented to view is that of a ‘terra incognita’ to all but a few: the reader therefore is informed that he is to suppose himself in the Fellows' Garden of Caius College.

Now, as far as the cause relating to the attractions of this College has been pleaded before the public, only the evidence against us has been given. It is Carter's testimony that “This College being surrounded with lanes on three sides and the street, in the Founder's time called ‘vicus major’, on the east, cannot be thought to contain much garden ground: yet besides the garden belonging to the Master, the Fellows have a small one, or rather orchard; and the court next the street (for it has three) is handsomely planted with lime-trees.”