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other countries of Europe ; and then proceeds after the following fashion : — " I have been musing so desperately , that I have lost sight of what was going on about me . What awful profanation of the Sabbath ! Could this hallowed day be more sacriligiously desecrated at Petersburg or at Moscow , than it is profaned here in . London ? The streets are crowded with buyers and sellers of the

most objectionable staples . Shops are open ; infidel publications impudently exposed for sale ; poor children , uncared for ancl unprotected , almost publicly trained in broad daylight for the hulks or gallows . What monstrosities and enormities are these ivhich are constantly thronging upon my reluctant observation ! Oh , one half of the treasure which lias been recklessly thrown away on the slaughtering of our flesh and blood , hacl been spent upon tho reformation of our rising generation , what a different aspect might not the streets of London present , especially on the Sabbath-dnv .

"The street is blocked up , a terrific incite , ' with confused noise , garments rolled in blood . ' Some sturdy Britons are fighting out some interesting difference of opinion . Hundreds of fellow subjects watch most attentively the issue of the dispute ; no one attempts to propose a compromise between the parties . Some individuals are very busy examining the pockets of the enraptured spectators . There is ' no go' that way , I am obliged to turn in at a narrow by-lane in order to continue my perambulation and

meditation . Boom , Cannons , boom ! "Interupted again in my walk and in thought . The police are leading three brave fellows to tho station . Multitudes of fellowcountrymen take part in the procession , all of them in very high spirits , so very high that ifc would perplex them to tell whether thoy are in their bodies or out of their bodies . Several , however , are wide awake , and take care of little articles and small properties belonging to their elated friends . ' Who are these parties , who

are forced to go contrary to their own wishes and their own way ?' ' They belong , sir , to a gang of'Chttbb-deners . ' Boom , Cannons , boom ! "Disentangled and stopped once more ! Three females , with tresses unconfineel , and with raiment neglige , are escorted by half-adozen beaux from Bow Street , ancl accompanied by a mixed crowd ot equally facinating females , with equally dishevelled hair , with apparel equally insufficient for the exigencies of neck and shoulders , ankles and feetwho shouting and screaming with

, are an energy ¦ and emphasis which set at defiance all the Ten Commandments The weaker sex is lustily supported by tho stronger . Disentangled and stopped again , and again , and again . Boom , Cannons , boom ! Churchmen ancl statesmen may , peradventure , turn their minds anil their influence to heal the manifold diseases of the daughters of Great Britain . Every loyal ancl patriotic Englishman is obliged to take up the words of the ' llebrow patriot , and say , ' Is it nothing to

you , all ye that pass by ? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow . ' " The bard of 'Anti-Maud' is right , he speaks as he is moved b y genuine loyalty and patriotism : —

" ' Plenty of work to be done in the filthy and crowded street , AVhere the li ght of the gin palace flares in the hollow eyes Of the girl who has pawned her shawl that her starving cliild may eat ; But turns aside for a penn ' orth of drink to comfort her ere she dies . ¦ " 'Plenty of work , where the children stare through the workhouse

gate , Crushed and stunted in body and mind , and doomed to steal or to beg . Hatched into mendicant life by the blundering care of the state , Fatherless , motherless children , paupers anil thieves in the egg . "' Plenty of work to be done . But how to be done , and by whom ? Men's hearts are and hot AVe feast warlike

angry . upon scenes . AVe listen all day for the clash of bells and the cannon ' s triumphant boom . Our hands are full . AVe have wasted our wealth . AVe have neither the time nor the means . '

"Ah ! if half the money which lias been thrown away—worse than thrown away—on the late war , had been spent in ameliorating the condition of the weak and the wicked , how many less prison bouses should we have had ! If the millions which had been lavished upon slaughtering our fellow Christians had been used for the erection of churches , schools , almshouses , and penitentiaries , what different views would not the streets of London , Manchester , Liverpool , Dublin , and all the other large towns present on the » abbath-day !" AVe forbear quoting more from the same chapter , though the whole of it is very much apropos to the present time . The work

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concludes with a tale , though small in dimensions , exceedingly comprehensive and voluminous in its suggestive moral lessons . It tells us , in a very taking style and manner , the versatile vicissitudes of the Rev . Stephen Armitage , one of "The Curates of Riversdale . " The novel under review is by no means devoid of the romantic ingredient , nor is it wanting in fun and frolic , but it is all clone in a very refined ancl original style , so that an archibishop or a

lordchancellor might be justified to laugh heartily at the sober drolleries which the work contains . The editor seems to have availed himself of the author ' s permission , ancl added many a note to the foot of many a page , which enhances the interest of the work . From " The Editor ' s Epilogue , " of which the following is the last extract we give for the present , it appears that we are to expect more volumes from the same penthe sooner the expectation is realised the better , say we : —

"When we rashly undertook the responsibility of introducingthe Author's work to the British public , we reckoned without our host . AVe found the manuscript so closely penned , and that in the smallest possible character , as to be capable of shelving a moderate library ,- so that no publisher , notwithstanding the originality , and the immense interest which the narratives possessed , would entertain the project of publishing the work , unless ifc was epitomised , abridged , and reduced to the miserable minimum of

three modern volumes . The alternative proved most perplexing to us . AVe deemed every chapter , every sketch , every biographical notice of paramount interest . AVe were in a strait . AVe knew not which to publish at once , and ivhich to reserve for a future season . "We could not find it in our hearts to leave out ' Maeworthy ' s Course of True Love , ' such a tbrillingly interesting story as it is ! AVe could not spare ' Wright ' s Presbyter in Search of a Bishop ;' it is an affecting tale which might draw tears from many an angel , if not from many a bishop . AVe could not possibly reconcile ourselves to the keeping hack of the fascinating ' Romance in Beal Life , ' which tells so feelingly and so truthfully of all the conflicts and eonciuests ivhich fell to the nortion of A eritv and A'ictoria . Nor

could we pacify our conscience as to the omission of the painfully instructive lesson ivhich the melancholy development of the characters of the Vicars of Brimstone and Hailstone furnish . AVe found ' The Quarrels of Fowl Bentsneak , A'icar of Palenettle , with bis Parishioners'highly entertaining , and jiainfully suggestive . . . . No less interesting did we think the chapters on 'Bishops ' Examining Chaplains '—on ' Pastoral Aids ancl Curates' Aids' — on 'The Death-lied Confessions of Certain Popular Preachers '—on

'The Lewes Sermon Case '—on "The Brimstone Tract Suit' ; and on ' The Justice of Clerical Juries . ' AVe did not like to keep from the public the vicissitudes of the German and French deserter , which furnish so vivid a picture of life in Central Africa . It went to our very soul to be obliged to postpone the chapters on the cities of the Czar , and those of Abdoul Medjid , and a hundred other important aud interesting episodes . But they are all coming —all , all in good time ' . . . . AVe pledge our editorial reputation , that they shall appear , sooner or later , in some of the posthumous works of the late lamented Frederick Verity , one of ' 'The Curates of Rivcrsdale . ' "

At present , however , we cannot too highly recommend the book , of which we have given a somewhat lengthened notice . It will lie plain to many of our readers who is the author of " The Curates of Riversdale . " His learning , travel , profession , brotherhood , all point to one individual Brother of the Order , whose zeal and attainments in the Craft , and out of the Craft , are , as they deserve to be , fully recognised . We shall anxiously expect the continuation of " The Curates of Riversdale . "

ANTIQUITY or STENCII ,. —In the Philosophical Transactions for 1738 , we read that Procopius , in his Hislorice Arcana , says : —The Emperor Justimus , not being able to write his name , had a , thin , smooth piece of board , through which were cut holes in the form of the four letters J . V . S . T ,. wliich , laid on the paper , served to direct the point of his pen—his hand was guided by another . Possibly this way likewise has given the hint to the first of our card-makers , who paint their cards in thesame mannerby plates of pewter or

, copper , or only pastboard , with slits , in them in forms of the figures that are to be painted on the cards . Such is the art of Stencil , wliich has been applied , in our time , to decorating the walls of rooms , as well as tlie making of linen . — ' l'imb ' -s Curiosities of Science , Second Series .