Letters from Dr. Layard have been received in London, to the 10th of April, dated from Arban, on the River Khabour. The last account from this quarter mentioned his purpose of penetrating into the desert, which he has explored for three weeks, meeting with numerous traces of ancient population, though not so many antiquities as he expected. His present site, however, is richer in archæological remains, and is important, as they are undoubtedly Assyrian, and prove the extent of that empire. Two winged bulls and other fragments are described as very remarkable, the meadows as rich in herbage, and the banks of the Khabour as literally gemmed with flowers; and Mr. Layard was desirous to examine this river to its mouth; but the Arabs were hostile to the plan, though it was trusted that arrangements would be made with the parties, wherever they interposed between Mr. Layard and his wishes. In his letter, he says he thinks Major Rawlinson wrong in some of his topography, and that the chronological deductions cannot as yet be considered settled.
Mr. Rogers, the poet, was lately knocked down by a cab, as he was returning from a dinner party, and so seriously injured as very much to alarm his friends. He was not restored sufficiently to see visitors at the last dates. Rogers, Montgomery, Moore, Hunt, Wilson, Savage Landor, and De Quincey, are "listening to the praises of posterity." Not any of them can last much longer.
Harro Harring, the Swedish republican novelist, had scarcely reached his own country after several years exile in America, before he was again imprisoned for some quixotic attack upon institutions which he has neither the ability nor the character, even if let alone by the government, to change.
Mr. W.E. Foster has published in London a new edition of Clarkson's Life of Penn, in the preface to which he has entered very fully into the points raised by Macaulay in his History in regard to the Quakers, vindicating them, and very ably sustaining the fame of their hero.
Rev. Dr. Judson, the missionary, is again reported in very feeble health, and in a decline. He is nearly sixty years of age.
The Poems of Frances A. and Metta V. Fuller, of Ohio, are in press, and to be published in a beautiful volume in the autumn.