reduction of the national debt is, 5,141,410l. 8s. 7d.—Ibid.

SOAP.

According to the Parliamentary Returns, the quantity of soap charged with the excise duty in great Britain, in the year ending the 5th of January, 1830, was—of hard soap, 103,041,961 lbs.; of soft soap, 9,068,918 lbs. In the year ending the 5th of January last, the quantity was—of hard, 117,324,320 lbs.; and of soft, 10,209,519 lbs. The number of licenses granted to soap-makers in the United Kingdom in the former year was 585, and in the latter 542.—Ib.

AUTOGRAPHS.

We have the pleasure of resuming these innate illustrations of genius. Some of the present specimens are copied from the plate appended to the Edinburgh Literary Journal, whence the page in No. 478 of the Mirror was taken. First is

LEIGH HUNT.—Leigh Hunt’s writing is a good deal like the man: it is constrainedly easy, with an affectation of ornament, yet withal a good hand. The signature is copied from a letter written to a friend in Edinburgh, in 1820; and as one part of this letter is curious and interesting, we have pleasure in presenting it to our readers. We are inclined to believe that there are many good points about Leigh Hunt. We like the spirit of the following extract from his letter:—

“And this reminds me to tell you, that I am not the author of the book called the Scottish Fiddle, which I have barely seen. The name alone, if you had known me, would have convinced you that I could not have been the author. I had made quite mistakes enough about Sir Walter, not to have to answer for this too. I took him for a mere courtier and political bigot. When I read his novels, which I did very lately, at one large glut (with the exception of the Black Dwarf, which I read before), I found that when he spoke so charitably of the mistakes of kings and bigots, he spoke out of an abundance of knowledge, instead of narrowness, and that he could look with a kind eye also at the mistakes of the people. If I still think he has too great a leaning to the former, and that his humanity is a little too much embittered with spleen, I can still see and respect the vast difference between the spirit which I formerly thought I saw in him, and the little lurking contempts and misanthropies of a naturally wise and kind man, whose blood perhaps has been somewhat saddened by the united force of thinking and sickliness. He wishes us all so well that he is angry at not finding us better. His works occupy the best part of some book-shelves always before me, where they continually fill me with admiration for the author’s genius, and with regret for my petty mistakes about it.”—Edinburgh Literary Journal.

J. SINCLAIR—the signature of the venerable Sir John Sinclair, Bart., who has written and edited upwards of 25 useful works.

CAROLINE NORTON—the Honourable Mrs. Norton, author of the “Sorrows of Rosalie,” the “Undying One,” &c., and grand-daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Sheridan. This signature is from a superb portrait in a recent Number of the New Monthly Magazine: a lovelier and more intellectual head and front we never beheld.

B.R. HAYDON—peculiarly characteristic of the writer’s style of painting—large and bold. Whoever has seen his Napoleon, just opened for exhibition, must, we think, acknowledge the above identity. In our next Number we intend to notice the above triumph of art.

ALARIC A. WATTS—an elegant hand, worthy of the editor of the most elegant of the Annuals: this, however, is not Mr. Watts’s ordinary signature.

J. MONTGOMERY.—This hand is far more redundant in ornament than one would have expected from so gentle and talented a Quaker; but the Quaker has been lost in the poet, as an old grey wall is concealed under a luxuriant mantling of ivy. The autograph now engraved is copied from the signature attached to the original of his beautiful poem on Night, beginning—“Night is the time for rest.”—Edinburgh Literary Journ.

CH. MAURICE DE TALLEYRAND—whose life will hereafter be traced throughout a volume of the history of the last and present century. His age is 77. This signature is copied from the Frontispiece to the last edition to the Court and Camp of Bonaparte, in the Family Library, which is a fine portrait of Talleyrand, engraved by Finden, from a picture by Girard.

H. MACKENZIE—author of the Man of Feeling, &c. He died during the past year, in Edinburgh.

FINE ARTS.

PANORAMA OF HOBART TOWN.

Mr. R. Burford, the most successful panorama painter of his day, has lately completed a View of Hobart Town, Van Dieman’s Land, and the surrounding country, which he is now exhibiting in the Strand. It is not, perhaps, the most striking picture this ingenious artist has produced, yet it is certainly one of the most interesting. The embellishments of books of travels, the sketches of tourists, and the extravagant annual prints, have familiarized the stay-at-home reader with almost every city on the European continent; but a view in Van Dieman’s Land is much more of a novelty. It is comparatively a terra incognita, about which every one must feel some curiosity, though more rationally expressed than that of a King of Persia, who asked what sort of a place America was—“underground, or how?” For the purpose of giving a general idea of a country, a panoramic painting is well adapted: the size of the objects is at once natural, there is no straining of eyes to make them out, and the effect of the whole scene is that of being dropped in the midst of the country, and its surface at once spread before us.

Of Hobart Town we quote a brief description from Mr. Burford’s pamphlet, or key to the picture:—

“The capital and seat of government of Van Dieman’s Land, or Tasmania, is delightfully situated at the head of Sullivan’s Cove, on the south-east side of the river Derwent, about twelve miles from its mouth. The town is built on two small hills and the intermediate valley, the whole gently sloping towards the harbour from the foot of Mount Wellington—a rock which suddenly rears its snow-clad summit to the height of 4,000 feet. Through the centre of the town a rapid stream takes its course, giving motion to several mills, and affording a constant supply of most excellent water for all domestic purposes, as well as increasing the salubrity and beauty of the neighbourhood. From the summit of one of these hills, the present panorama was taken, which, although it does not include the buildings in the lowest part of the valley, exhibits every object particularly deserving notice, as well as the broad expanse of the Derwent, covered with ships, boats, &c. Beyond the town, and on the opposite side of the river, the eye ranges over a vast extent of country, richly variegated and diversified by gently rising hills, broad and verdant slopes, farms, and pasture lands, in the highest state of cultivation, presenting the most agreeable scenes, replete with the useful product of a rich soil and fine climate; the whole bounded by lofty mountains, clothed with rich and almost impervious forests of evergreens, occasionally intermixed with high and nearly perpendicular rocks, whose summits are, for a great part of the year, covered with snow;—the whole forming one of the most agreeable, picturesque, and romantic scenes that can be conceived.

“Van Dieman’s Land is, from north to south, one hundred and sixty miles in length; and from east to west, one hundred and