Italian Painting, in the second number of the Foreign Review.

Frederick the Great, in a letter to Voltaire, says, "I look on men as a herd of deer in a great man's park, whose only business is to people the enclosures."—This is one of the great men of history.

POTATOES.

A few years after the discovery, potatoes were carried to Spain at first as sweetmeats and delicacies. Oviedo says that "they were a dainty dish to set before the king," Labat describes potatoes a hundred years ago, as cultivated in Western Africa, and says of them, "Il y en a en Irlande, et en Angleterre," and that he had seen very good ones at Rochelle.

PAINTING

Represents nature, or poetic nature at the most, and, therefore, addresses itself as much as poetry does to the feeling and imagination of man. Though it deals in nature exalted by genius, embellished by art and purified by taste, still it is nature, still it makes its appeal to the men of this world, and by them it is applauded or condemned. It works for men, and not for gods; therefore every man, as far as his taste is natural and sound, is a judge of its productions.—For. Rev.

LAVER.

Such of our readers as are not addicted to epicurism may have been somewhat puzzled at the display of "Fine Fresh Laver" in the Italian warehouses and provision shops of the metropolis. The truth is, laver is a kind of reddish sea-weed, forming a jelly when boiled, which is eaten by some of the poor people in Angus with bread instead of butter; but which the rich have elevated into one of the greatest dainties of their tables. In Scotland, laver is called slake; and Dr. Clarke mentions that it is used with the fulmar to make a kind of broth, which constitutes the first and principal meal of the inhabitants. It is curious to know that what is eaten at a duchess's table in Piccadilly as a first-rate luxury, is used by the poor people of Scotland twice or thrice a day. It is an expensive dish; but knowledge of this fact may perhaps abate its cost.

GARDENS.

Ferdinand I. of Naples prided himself upon the variety and excellence of the fruit produced in his royal gardens, one of which was called Paradise. Duke Hercules, of Ferrara, had a garden celebrated for its fruits in one of the islands of the Po. The Duke of Milan, Ludovico, carried this kind of luxury so far, that he had a travelling fruit-garden; and the trees were brought to his table, or into his chamber, that he might with his own hands gather the living fruit.

SNUFF.

Even among the rudest and poorest of the inhabitants of Scotland, and at a period when their daily meal must have been always scanty, and frequently precarious, one luxury seems to have established itself, which has unaccountably found its way into every part of the world. We mean tobacco. The inhabitants of Scotland, and especially of the Highlands, are notorious for their fondness for snuff; and many were the contrivances by which they formerly reduced the tobacco into powder. Dr. Jamieson, the etymologist, defines a mill to be the vulgar name for a snuff-box, one especially of a cylindrical form, or resembling an inverted cone. "No other name," says he, "was formerly in use. The reason assigned for this designation is, that when tobacco was introduced into this country, those who wished to have snuff were wont to toast the leaves before the fire, and then bruise them with a bit of wood in the box; which was therefore called a mill, from the snuff being ground in it." This, however, is said to be not quite correct; the old snuff-machine being like a nutmeg-grater, which made snuff as often as a pinch was required.

Estimating the population of London and its environs at 1,200,000, its proportion of paupers would amount to 100,000!

SCOTCH LIVING.

Roast meat was formerly seldom seen among farmers in Scotland; and is even now rare, compared with its use among the same class in England. Less than half a century ago, a mart was regularly bought or fattened by the most respectable farmers, and even by many citizens. This was a cow or ox killed and salted at Martinmas for winter provision; a custom which, though not uncommon in England, perhaps, one hundred years ago, has certainly not been followed, except in remote and sequestered districts, or by very old-fashioned farmers within that period.

Falstaff's "Buck-Basket" has puzzled the commentators; but Dr. Jamieson thus explains it:—Bouk is the Scotch word for a lye used to steep foul linen in, before it is washed in water; the buckbasket, therefore, is the basket employed to carry clothes, after they have been bouked, to the washing-place.

PLEASURES OF EGYPT.

Sweet are the songs of Egypt on paper. Who is not ravished with gums, balms, dates, figs, pomegranates, circassia, and sycamores, without recollecting that amidst these are dust, hot and fainting winds, bugs, mosquitos, spiders, flies, leprosy, fevers, and almost universal blindness.—Ledyard's Travels.—The same writer also says the people are poorly clad, the youths naked, and that they rank infinitely below any savages he ever saw.

There cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation, than when the people, to avoid hardships at home, are forced by heaps to forsake their native country.—Milton.

TOBACCO.

As the devil is a deceiver, and hath the knowledge of the virtue of herbs, so he did show the virtue of this herb, that by the means thereof they might see their imaginations and visions that he hath represented unto them.

WHISKY.

From official documents it appears that long previous to 1690, there had been a distillery of aqua vitae, or whisky, on the lands of Farintosh, belonging to Mr. Forbes, of Culloden.

TRAVELLING INCENTIVES.

If there be a sudden accession of fortune, the earliest use of it is in passing over to the continent; if misfortunes occur, the first suggestion is that of seeking solace in another land. The assumption of the toga virilis by our youth, may be practically translated, the putting on of the travelling cloak. Marriage, instead of being the means of more extended family union, is the plea for immediate separation; and the newly-married pair drive from the church to the packet-boat. If the elders of a family are snatched away by death, the first idea which occurs to their successors, is that of distant removal from home. Sorrows are not endured, but fled from; and misfortune becomes the signal for dispersion to those who survive it.—Q. Rev.

Christoval Acosta, speaking of the pine-apple, says that "no medicinal virtues have been discovered in it, and it is good for nothing but to eat."

SMOKING.

Joshuah Silvester questioned whether the devil had done more harm in latter ages by means of fire and smoke, through the invention of guns, or of tobacco-pipes; and he conjectured that Satan introduced the fashion, as a preparatory course of smoking for those who were to be matriculated in his own college:

As roguing Gipsies tan their little elves,
To make them tann'd and ugly, like themselves.

LAW

Must be kept as a garden, with frequent digging, weeding, turning, &c., for that which was in one age convenient, and, perhaps, necessary, becomes in another prejudicial.—Roger North.

THE GATHERER.

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles."
SHAKSPEARE

THE WIFE'S