ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 471, 6 February 1850, Page 2

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Liverpool Financial Reform; Association. — The Liverpool Financial Reform Association have issued 15,000 tracts during the past year. Next year they hope to issue 150,000. — Leeds Mercury.

MONARCHS WHO HAVE VISITED IRELAND. — The only British Sovereigns who have visited Ireland, in peace or war, were, Henry 2nd, John, Richard 2nd, James 2nd, William 3rd, and George 4th, in August. 1821. Her Majesty is the first British Queen that has visited the country. — Leeds Mercury.

Irish Tourists. — The influx of English visitors during the present season has far exce ded anything witnessed in previous years ; and whilst the greater number of tourists are attracted by the Lakes of Killarney, the Gi ant's Causeway, or the beautiful scenery of the couniy of Wisklow, many have directed their attention to the far West, amidst the wilds and moors of Connought, with all its romantic grandeur and its misery and desolation. There are in (he midst of the wilderness of the West and its suffering and neglected population several English settlers, some actuated by legitimate enterprise, others by the purest benevolence. Amongst the latter is an English merchant, Mr. Ellis, a member of the Society of Friends, who, after securing a competence in trade, determined to make his home in the West of Ireland, and assist the peasantry by his experience in agriculture and the benefits of his personal outlay and example -as a farmer on a large scale. Mr; Ellis lias in cultivation a farm of fifteen hundred acres, and the result of his residence and intimate acquaintance with the peasantry, is the conviction on his mind that the people as well as the soil have been most sadly neglected, and that there is no better field for the exertions of the capitalist or the philanthropist. Mr. Ellis has an extensive farm, and he requires no police for the protection of his property. Mr. Samuel Gurney and Mr. Buxton, of London, are also daily expected in Dublin, on a tour during the autumn. In fact, the current of English inquiry, with the best and most benevolent objects, is now directed towards Ireland. — Atlas, September 1.

Popular Criticism of the Queen in Scotland. — The humbler classes of our citizens were prodigiously pleased with the plainness of her Majesty's dress, and the homely simplicity of her deportment towards her children. They were delighted to find the Queen, to use their own phrase, "so much like other folk." A group of the pure aborigines from the north quarter were overheard expatiating on these themes while her Majesty was in the cathedral. A shrewd weaver was loud in his praises of the Queen's economy of dress. " Mony a braw leddy that walks the streets in silks and satins micht follow the example of her Majesty, and no be less a leddy after a." "Deed many a shopkeepers's wife dresses better than the Queen, and can ill afford it," remarked a second. " The puirist araang us micht take a lesson frae the Queen," rejoined a third of the party. And afine gash old matron added, authoritatively, and withal in a tone of enthusiasm that did one's heart good to hear it,

" She's juit a rale decent woman at borne, and looks after her am weans." When I saw her sittin' beside them," said a motherly body, "my heart gaed to my mouth, and I could have ta'en her in my arms !" How true it is that "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin." — Scottish Guardian. The following are the portraits of Kossuth and Bern, as sketched by the authorities :—: — " Ludwig Kossuth, Journalist, Advocate, Minister of Finance, President of the Committee of Defence for Hungary, and lastly Governor of the Hungarian Republic ; born in Jass»Berengi, in Hungary, 45 years of age, Catholic religion, married, above the middle height, slight in figure but strong, has an oval countenance, pale complexion, high open forehead, blue eyes, chesnut brown hair, dark brown eyebrows, regularly formed nose, small and handsome mouth, teeth perfect, a round chin, and dark beard and moustache. He speaks the German, Hungarian, Latin, Slovakian, French, and Italian Languages. As special marks ; it may be noted that his hair slightly curls, and on the top of the head is thin almost to baldness ; the breast is tolerably broad, but rather flat than rounded ; his hands are white and delicate, his fingers long ; his bearing is calm and composed, at times solemn and of a certain seriousness ; his gestures are studied ; he walks uprightly ; his voice is pleasant and musical, winning, and even when he speaks low can be distinctly heard. He produces the impression on the observer that be is an enthusiast {Schwarmer). It is especially in his beautifully shaped eyes that this expression of enthusiasm resides ; it is increased by a peculiar habit of looking upwards. His general outward appearance does not denote ihe energy of his character. When he writes German, neither his grammar nor his orthography is correct." The pencil of the police seldom sketches so favourably ; the description includes all the attributes of the hero of a romance. The term schwarmer is not exactly rendered by '* enthusiast," it means rather a pensive dreamer, one absorbed in a subject, but still silent. The portrait of Bern is less elaborate, and thrown off in rougher strokes. "Karl Bern, General of the Insurgents, Rge from 50 to 55, middle height, thin, has a round face, brown aud ruddy complexion, low forehead, hair mixed with grey, grey eyebrows, nose pointe.l aud aquiline, broad mouth, round chin, and a moustache. He speaks Polish, French, and German ; bas a slight stoop. It, .is believed he has the scar of a gunshot wound in the face, received in the engagement before Pestb." The two men might be taken as the respective typts of thought and action. — Times.

American Criticism. — An American paper says of the celebrated Mr. Emeison : " It ia quite out of character to say that Mr. Emerson lectu.es — he does no such thing — he droj s nectar — be clips out sparks — he exhales odours — he lets off mental sky lockets and fire works — he spouts fire, aud, conjuror like, draws ribands out of his mouth. He smokes, he sptikles, he improvises, he shouts, he sings, he explodes like a bundle of crackers — be goes off in fiery eruptions like a volcano — hut he does not lecture." Another paper rhapsodizes in the following strain :—": — " We can hardly call it criticism, for he does not properly criticise —he plays around the subject like an humming bird round an honeysuckle — he darts at it like a fish-hawk alter u pike. He looms up like a thunder cloud, comes down in a shower of tinkling sleet, and rolls away like a fire upon the prairies. He plays with figures of speech like a juggler, balancing the sentences on his chin, and keeping up six with each hand. His fancy goes up like the jet of a fire-engine, and comes down in a spiral ecstacy like a Peruvian condor. He is a detonating mixture — a percussion eap — a meteoric shower — a spiritual shuttle, vibrating between the unheard of and the unutterable. Like a child he shakes his rattle over the edge of a chaos, and swings on the gates of the past, and sits like * nightingale in a golden ring, suspended by a silver cord from a nail driven into the zenith."