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ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

T. W., York.-Certainly more than seven years. If the exact date is necessary, you had better write again, and we will endeavour, although there will be some difficulty, to obtain it for you.

A. F., Chelsea.-This difficulty is easily removed. To convert the degrees of the thermometer of Reaumur into those of Fahrenheit, as used in this country-multiply by 9, divide by 4, and add 32. On the other hand, to reverse the process, deduct 32, divide by 9, and multiply by 4. Reaumur's thermometer is used in France and most parts of the continent.

J. W., Derby.-The Halcyon Days. These were fourteen in number, until the vigil of Christmas. The first appearance and incubation of "the modest Halcyon"-the social bird that woos the shore, called by Ovid the Wintry Queen, was supposed by the Greeks to be the harbinger of some calm and happy state; the departure rather of Pan, and the birth of Thalia, which is the Pastoral muse. It is properly a record of the dispersion of all the ruder elements of nature at the solstice,

when the sun returns.

G. C., Chichester.-1. It was the son of the celebrated Indian freebooter, Dhoondiah, whom

the late Duke of Wellington took under his protection, and for the expense of whose education he left in India a large sum of money.-2. The assassination of the Duke was attempted at Paris, by an old soldier, named Carillon, who was tried, but acquitted for want of sufficient evidence. He was, however, not forgotten by Napoleon in his will, who left him a legacy of £400, as a small trifle in acknowledgment of his murderous attempt.

J. W.-James Cowles Prichard, M.D., whose ethnographical researches have placed him high in the ranks of science, was born at Ross, in Herefordshire, 1786; settled as a physician at Bristol, in 1810, where he rose to eminence; and after devoting five-and-thirty years to professional duties, varied only by literary avocations, removed to London in 1845 as one of Her Majesty's Commissioners in Lunacy-a branch of medical science with which he had long been familiar. Dr. Prichard's contributions to medical and scientific inquiry were neither few nor unimportant; but the work on which his reputation chiefly rests, is his "Researches into the Physical History of Mankind," which has been translated into almost every European language, and generally regarded as an authority. He died in the year 1848.

C. A., Bath.-Pompeii, an ancient city of Naples, was destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79. Though not buried so deep under ashes and lava as Herculaneum, which was overwhelmed at the same time, it remained hidden till 1750, when it was discovered by some peasants digging in a vineyard near the river Sarno; since when, temples, theatres, shops, and houses, with paintings, statues, arms, utensils, &c., have been found. Speaking of the buildings, &c. which have been discovered in this subterranean city, Mr. Mac. laren observes, that "the impression it gives of the actual presence of a Roman town, in all the circumstantial reality of its existence 2,000 years ago, is so vivid and intense, that it requires but a small effort of imagination, to place yourself among the multitudes which once thronged its streets and theatres, and occupied its now voiceless chambers."

W. F., Dorchester.-Emanuel Grouchy was a distinguished marshal of France, and a scion of a noble Norman family; he was born at Paris in 1766. In 1789 he was a sub-lieutenant of the royal gardes du corps; but embracing the new ideas, he took part in the wars of the Revolution, and gained great distinction, especially in the Alps and La Vendée, where he was named general of division in 1793. The decree which deprived all the nobles of France of military rank fell heavily upon him; but nothing daunted, he joined the army as a private, and his distinguished gallantry soon led to his restoration. Despatched in 1798 to the army of Italy, under the command of Joubert, he planned the abdication of the king of Sardinia, and thus united Piedmont to France. He took a glorious part in the battle of Novi, where he received fourteen wounds, and fell into the enemy's hands. His bravery was no less conspicuous on the fields of Hohenlinden, Eylau, Friedland, marshal's baton from the hands of the emperor Wagram, Moscow, &c.; and he obtained the shortly before his abdication. During the hundred days he was opposed to the Duke d'Angoulème in the south, and made him prisoner. He was then summoned into Belgium, where he played an important part. He had already carried the villages of Fleurus (June 16), and Ligny (June 17), and was marching according to his instructions in pursuit of Blucher with a body of 30,000 men, when the battle of Waterloo was fought. Not getting instructions in time, he could not take part in the battle, and his absence may in some measure be said to have decided the fortune of the day. At the Restoration, his title of marshal was not acknowledged, and remained so till 1830. In 1832 he was created a peer. He died in 1847.

S. T. A.-Poet Laureate. The style Poeta Laureatus originally was an actual academical degree in rhetoric, which embraces laudatory verses. An instance occurs at Oxford in 1470; and again, for the last time, in the person of Robert Whittington, 1512. It is clear the king's Laureate was no more than "a graduated rhetorician employed in the service of the king." The first royal" Versificator" graced with the appellation of "Laureate" was John Caius, of Cambridge, who published in 1506, a prose traduction of the "Siege of Rhodes," addressed to King Edward IV., in which he subscribes himself, hys humble poete Laureate. Whether he received the versifier's pension of 100s. does not appear. Bernard Andrews, an Augustine monk, served as laureate and historiographer, under the two Tudor kings, and received a salary of ten marks. John King, his successor, was followed by Skelton, upon whose testimony we learn that Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate enjoyed no such distinction:-"they wanted nothing but the laurel." Then came a splendid train of names: Spencer, Daniel, Johnson, Davenant, and Dryden. Shadwell was succeeded by Tate; and Rowe by Eusden and Cibber. Whitehead was the forerunner of Warton; and Henry Pye, the harbinger of Mr. Southey, known no less for his vast literary attainments and poetical genius than for his exemplary virtues. The form of creation of three laureat poets at Strasburgh, in 1621, is very remarkable: "I create you, being placed in a chair of state, crowned with laurel and ivy, and wearing a ring of gold, and the same do pronounce and constitute Poets Laureate, in the name of the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

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