the fifth century. IMIRETIA became a separate state, when Alexander I., king of Georgia, divided his dominions, 1424, among his three sons. He gave Imiretia to one of them; but the fortunes of this little country, which fell under the dependance of Turkey, 1576, present too little interest to need mention. It is a fertile territory; and being protected from the northern winds by the Caucasus, its climate is mild, and in many parts the trees blossom and produce fruit twice in the year. The population is 100,000; the language is akin to the Georgian; and the religion is mostly Armenian. The lower classes are very laborious, and remarkable for their physical strength. The Georgian tongue itself is like the Armenian, and evidently springs from it; but though it has possessed an alphabet fourteen centuries, it has yet no definite rules, no constructed grammar. The kings of Georgia have at times endeavoured to remedy this defect; but all their encouragement of literature has produced nothing beyond a Georgian dictionary. The population of Georgia Proper is 226,000 males; and the Russian emperor, on amalgamating the country with his own, respected the class divisions of the state. These were four: the tavadis, or high nobles, literally 'heads;' the asnauris, or nobles; the mokalaks, or citizens; and the glekhs, or peasants; and the tavadis are now styled princes, and the asnauris nobles, both having the privileges of the Russian nobility, and the same right to possess serfs. The ecclesiastical affairs of the Armenian church of Georgia are directed by their patriarch, who resides at Echmiadzin; and those of the Georgian (Russian) church by the catholicos, or metropolitan of Georgia. The Moslims have a mooshtend, who is acknowledged by the Russians as their religious chief. Tiflis is the ancient Georgian capital, wherein are a college for the Georgian clergy, and a large Armenian school; and the town is the seat of government

for all the Caucasian provinces of Russia. The produce of the Caucasian countries consists of wine, brandy, silk, cotton, rice, and madder. The cotton is badly cultivated, or it might rival the best productions. The mountains are known to be rich in minerals, but are very little worked; and it may be said, without exaggeration, that were a nation, such as the English, with all its acquired scientific knowledge, in possession of the Caucasian country, it would soon be rendered the paradise of the globe.

CIRCASSIA, part of the Caucasian district, occupies the northern declivity of Mount Caucasus, and comprehends the whole of that tract from the Black sea to the Caspian. The whole country is a succession of mountain ranges; and the people, who are tributaries of Russia, have no towns, their habits being opposed to the concentration of a great number of houses on one spot. They live in small villages, the site of which is often changed; and while they very negligently raise their vegetable food, they sedulously attend to the breeding of cattle and horses, of which latter they are remarkably vain, keeping their genealogies like the Bedouins-like the British. The Circassians (called also Kabardians, from one of their provinces,) are Moslims in faith, and consist of eleven tribes, independent of each other, and governed, on the feudal plan, by their own hereditary princes and nobles. Their persons are proverbially handsome; and it is from one or two of their tribes, and from the Georgians, that the Mamluks of Egypt derived their origin.

THE PEACE OF AMIENS, 1802,which lasted but a complete year, was the only compact entered into with Buonaparte by Great Britain. It was a peace to which all the tory party objected, and which the whigs declared they were not proud of; and its termination appeared to give general satisfaction to the country. One curious feature should be no

due to him, were unavailing. This soured his temper, and led to his crime. The scheme he proposed, however, was so ridiculously arrang

DESPARD'S CONSPIRACY, 1803. In the beginning of this year, a plot was discovered to assassinate the king, and establish a revolutionary government. Colonel Despard, who had been regarded as a meritorious officer, was the ostensible head of the conspiracy; and he and six men in the lowest ranks of life, were convicted of high treason, and executed on Kennington common. In July of the same year, an insurrection, said to have been connected with Despard's disappointed party, broke out also in Dublin; when lord Kilwarden, chief justice of the king's bench, with his nephew, Mr. Wolfe, were dragged from his lordship's carriage, and put to death, before the rioters could be dispersed. Edward Marcus Despard, born in Ireland, served in the British army in the American war, and in 1779 defended Jamaica, as an officer of engineers. He next assisted in the capture of the Spanish settlements on the Mosquito shore; and the territory being given up to the English at the peace of 1783, Despard was appointed its commander and superintendant. In 1786 he was superseded and sent to Europe, on account of some disputes in the colony; and, though bringing with him very honourable testimonials as to conduct, his applications to government for redress, and for the payment of sums which he claimed as

RESTORATION OF THE JESUITS, 1803.-This society had been suppressed thirty years, when pope Pius VII., at the solicitation of various sovereigns, who, alarmed at the convulsions which agitated the world, imagined that had the Order of Jesuits continued, it might have proved a powerful means of maintaining tranquillity, issued briefs for its reinstitution, 1803; and on his own reinstatement, 1814, the same pope gave back to it the house of the Gesù, and subsequently the Roman college, in the capitol.

DEATH OF COLONEL MONTGOMERY.-This was in a duel at Chalk Farm, 1803, Captain Macnamara being his adversary. As both were men of good connexion, the unhappy affair was matter of great public interest at the time.

REVOLT OF ST. DOMINGO, 1803.— Hispaniola, or Little Spain, also called St. Domingo, and Hayti, is one of the Great Antilles, or larger islands of the West Indies, and was discovered by Columbus, and named by him Hispaniola, in his first voyage. Soon after, it was colonised by the Spaniards; and they remained in quiet possession until 1697, when the French seized a full third of the isle. Hispaniola continued thus shared until the French revolution; during which convulsion the national convention of Paris ventured, in 1794, to emancipate the negro slaves of the Gallic portion of the colony. The consequence was a rise of the slaves; who, resolved on expelling the whites, made Toussaint L'Ouverture andJean D'Essalines, both born in slavery, and persons of colour, their leaders, and

the intelligence that my name appeared in the list of conscripts. No representation was left untried with those in authority; but none was sufficient to get me exempted. At last the utmost that could be obtained was, that I might be permitted to provide a substitute; but even to this was annexed the condition, that, in case of his desertion, I must again come forward, and make good his place in the ranks. The substitute was accordingly provided, and marched off so soon as required by his regiment; and I remained quietly in the bosom of my family. Five months had soon passed; and we were now far advanced in the year 1805, when the news came that the substitute had deserted. This was a terrible blow to my poor father, who looked upon me from that moment as lost to him for ever. No sooner was the fact certified to the military commandant, than the regular warrant under the conscription was issued against me, and the most diligent search for me commenced. But I was nowhere to be found; for, feeling an abhorrence to this compulsory mode of service, I had, by my father's wish and connivance, on the very first intimation, withdrawn secretly from the house, and was lurking in different hiding-places of the neighbourhood both day and night. When the government saw that all attempts to find me were ineffectual, measures were taken to compel my family by persecution to deliver me up. The Erst method resorted to was the quartering of troops upon our house, whose number was augmented every day, for the purpose of completely exhausting and reducing it to poverty. But my father's firmness was such, that he submitted to this without a murmur, thinking that the government might be wearied out, and would perhaps desist when the means were found to fail of their object; but he was mistaken, and exasperation was the only consequence. Accordingly, my father and my younger brother were seized, and thrown into

prison, where they were debarred from all communication; the property was confiscated; and I thus saw the utter ruin of my whole family inevitable, if I did not, of my own act, go and deliver myself up to the authorities.—I therefore made up my mind to a voluntary surrender.'

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND COLONIZED, 1804, by the English.-This island is at the south-east of New Holland, 210 miles long, and 150 broad, nearly the size of Ireland. It was first called Tasmania, from its discoverer, Tasman, 1642; but received its present name in honour of the governor of the Dutch possessions in India, Antony Van Diemen. In 1803, an attempt was made to settle a colony of convicts from New South Wales, but fruitlessly; in 1804, however, captain Collins took possession of the parts about the mouth of the Derwent in the name of George III., and commenced Hobart Town, the present capital, so called in honour of lord Hobart, then colonial secretary. The captain had 400 convicts with him, and was made lieutenantgovernor, with orders to act under the governor of New South Wales. That system still continues; but in 1825 it was agreed that in local matters the governor of Van Diemen's Land should act independently, with an executive and legislative council. The general face of this island is mountainous, not in ranges, but in isolated peaks, varied by lofty tablelands, and extensive fertile valleys and plains. The bays and anchorage are excellent; and Hobart Town is a very neatly-built place, standing on a rising ground, next to which in rank is Launceston, distant from the capital 121 miles. When first discovered, Van Diemen's land was densely peopled by a dark race of inhabitants, differing somewhat from the aborigines of the adjacent coast of New Holland, in the more negro-like cast of countenance, woolly hair, and nearly black colour. Contests, however, soon began between the white and black races, which continued,

with occasional interruptions, until 1835, when the blacks were hemmed into one corner of the island, and finally removed, under the protection of government, to Flinder's Island, in the adjoining straits. Their numbers have since very rapidly diminished, through smallpox, famine, and the retaliation of the colonists for the murders of their relations and friends. The principal exports of the colony are wool, whale and seal oil, whalebone, and bark, to England; and provision and live-stock to the neighbouring colonies. There are several banks, and a fair amount of specie: manufactures of every sort are on the increase, and the rate of labourers' wages is more than adequate to the support of the artisan and his family. Port Arthur is now the penal settlement of the island. It is situated at the extremity of a point called Tasman's Peninsula; the neck of which is guarded by a military detachment, who have numerous fierce dogs to apprize them of the approach of runaways. To Port Arthur the educated convicts of Great Britain are sent boy convicts are also ordered there, and placed under teachers qualified to make them useful in various trades. Colonial convicts, and prisoners re-convicted in the settled districts, are likewise removed thither; where they are employed in felling, sawing, cutting, splitting, and loading timber, in ship-building, constructing wharfs, prisons, barracks, &c., in shoemaking, tanning, in the coal-mines, and various ways. On landing, they are stripped, and clothed in tanned sheep-skin; and the hours of labour are from sunrise to sunset. To Port Arthur and Norfolk Island alone, convicts of all grades are, by recent enactments, at present consigned.

THE MODERN Roscius.--William Betty, the son of Irish parents, was advertised to appear, aged only 13, on the boards of Covent-garden theatre, December 1, 1804, in the character of Achmet in Dr. Brown's play of Barbarossa. As early as one o'clock

in the afternoon, the crowd began to assemble in the piazzas of that house; and at the proper hour, every popular art was practised to gain admission. The utmost danger was apprehended, because those who had ascertained that it was quite impossible for them to get in, could not, for the dreadful pressure behind them, get back. At length they themselves called for the soldiers, who, with their usual temper and firmness, soon cleared the fronts of the entrances, and then posting themselves properly, lined the passages, permitting any one to return, but none to enter. The pit was half filled by gentlemen who had sprung down from the boxes. The actual occupiers of the boxes by force, retained them against the owners of the places and the police officers who attempted to be their ushers. All that the gallantry of the men would permit was allowing ladies in some cases to occupy the front seat, while the remainder of the box was held by the strongest of all rights, possession. Mr. Charles Kemble came forward with an address for the occasion; but the house would not have listened to the address of even Dr. Johnson, unless Master Betty himself had delivered it. The play, therefore, proceeded through the first act, with a tempest rather stronger than that which announces the first appearance of a pantomime. At length Barbarossa ordered Achmet to be brought before him; 'attention held them mute; not even a whisper could be heard, till the highly-honoured object of their curiosity stood in their presence. In reply to the thunder of applause that ensued, the youth bowed respectfully, but with self-possession, and immediately turned himself to the business of the stage. With a voice considerably deeper than that of his age, he began his part, and supported it to the close of the piece, with that accuracy of emphasis and manner, and that attention to stage routine, which belong to practised manhood. There were grievous vul