On the 3rd of January, 1863, the Athenæum announces that "the municipality of Florence Marble slab have done honour to themselves and to the placed by the municipality memory of Mrs. Barrett Browning by placing a of Florence. marble slab in the wall of the house she occupied in that city. The slab bears an inscription in Italian to this effect:-Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived, wrote, and died in this house. She was a woman who, with a woman's heart, possessed the wisdom of a sage and the spirit of a true poet, and made her poetry a golden band between Italy and England."

Palgrave.

Sir Francis Palgrave died on July 6th, 1861, at Sir Francis the age of seventy-three. He was born Cohen, but changed his name to Palgrave on his conversion from Judaism and his appointment to office. The Athenæum of the 13th states: "His works are numerous and voluminous; but his fame will mainly rest upon his contributions to early English History. His 'History of Normandy and England,' with some conspicuous faults, is a very able and valuable book.— The Master of the Rolls has appointed Mr. T. Duffus Hardy Assistant-Keeper of the Public Records, in the place of Sir Francis Palgrave."

The Paper Duty, the last of the taxes on knowledge, was repealed on the 1st of October, Price of the and the Athenæum, true to its policy of giving Athenæum to the public the benefit of every change in the threepence.

reduced to

New Place, Stratford-on. Avon.

law, reduced its price on the 5th of October from fourpence to threepence.

New Place, Stratford-on-Avon, was advertised to be sold on the 25th of October, and the Athenæum of the 19th contains an appeal to the "moneyed and right-minded public" to interfere. This is followed on the 26th by the gratifying announcement that "Shakspeare's Gardens are saved to the public for ever! New Place was not sold yesterday, as advertised, by auction, but was disposed of, on the 22nd inst., by private contract. The purchase - money was 1,400l. Half of that sum has been already subscribed; and there cannot be the slightest doubt but that the other half will be immediately forthcoming, and that Mr. Halliwell, who has, in the mean time, secured the property, will have no reason to do other than congratulate himself on his assuming what we may well call this national agency......In affording this intelligence, we feel it would be altogether incomplete and unsatisfactory if we did not add that this 'Holy Land' of England, as we have ventured to call it, will be conveyed, under trust, to the Mayor and Corporation of Stratford-on-Avon. Henceforth it is the honourable mission of that municipality to guard this hallowed ground. They are nominally the proprietors, on the reasonable condition that never shall a building be erected

in the gardens, and that to the latter the public shall be freely and gratuitously admitted for ever. It is impossible, so far, that anything could be more complete and satisfactory than this arrangement, the accomplishment of which is most creditable to Mr. Halliwell."

The Laureateship.

The death of Mrs. Pye-the widow of Henry Mrs. Pye. James Pye, who succeeded Tom Warton in 1790, "not in the enjoyment of the tierce of Canary, but of 271. a year, substituted for the old and pleasant guerdon "-is announced on the 2nd of November. "Pye held the laureate crown, or was supposed to hold so magnificent a symbol, during three-and-twenty years, when much more fun was made of him than he deserved, and Pindar, Pye et Parvus Pybus' was a phrase with which our sires were familiar. Pye had an honest admiration for Thomson, who would have been glad to have been Laureate, and whose 'Rule Britannia' shows how worthy he would have been of such an office. When Pye died, in 1813, the vocation had increase of dignity conferred on it by the appointment of Southey, who did not disdain it, as Gray proudly did, because the office had been enjoyed by mediocre men. Mrs. Pye lived to see three successors to her old master and husband, Southey, Wordsworth, and Tennyson. Gray was not the only poet who refused the

Sir John
Forbes.

crown.

It was alike refused by Hayley, Moore, and Scott. Campbell applied for it, for the sake of the pension, when Southey died, but Peel gave it to Wordsworth. Leigh Hunt would willingly have worn it when Wordsworth passed away, and his verses written in acknowledgment of the pension conferred upon him by the Queen prove that there was the stuff of a true courtly poet in him, but the office was assigned to Mr. Tennyson. He was the first Laureate appointed under the present reign."

The distinguished physician Sir John Forbes died on the 13th of November. The obituary notice, on the 23rd, states that he was born at Cuttlebra, in Banffshire, on the 18th of October, 1787, and received his early education at the Fordyce Academy, after which he studied medicine at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and at Edinburgh. "He was one of the first physicians in this country to appreciate the value of the methods of percussion and auscultation, introduced on the Continent by Avenbrugger and Laennec. In 1831 he published a translation of Laennec's Treatise on Auscultation and Diseases of the Chest'; and in 1833 he translated the work of Avenbrugger, giving a series of 'original cases illustrating the use of stethoscope. the stethoscope.""

The

In 1836 he started the British and Foreign

Medical

Review.

Medical Review, and was its editor and pro- The British and Foreign prietor for twelve years. Although a loser by this speculation, he published a copious index, "which is, indeed, a model of how such a work should be executed, and will always remain a most valuable guide to the literature of a highlyinteresting period in the history of medicine. His connexion with this Review ceased with a remarkable contribution from his pen 'On Homœopathy. Homœopathy, Allopathy and Young Physic.' In it he protested against the senseless practice of administering large quantities of medicine in disease, without a precise knowledge of either one or the other. He advocated the necessity of a rational study of the nature of disease, and an abandonment of the practice of giving medicines whose actions were unknown. He gave great offence by this essay."

Prince Consort.

The year closed with a deep and sudden sorrow to the nation. At ten minutes to eleven on Saturday night, the 14th of December, his Death of the Royal Highness the Prince Consort died at Windsor after a few days' illness. It was only on the morning of that day that the serious illness of the Prince became known. The Court Circular of the previous Monday stated that the Prince Consort had been confined to his apartments from a feverish cold. The first bulletin was issued on the 11th, to the effect