for which he has not hesitated to imperil a thirty years' peace, and convulse the relations of Europe?" Let me return, however, to the topic which led me into this subject, and express again my deep anxiety for the efficient management of our navy: adding a significant fact disclosed by the last number of _La Presse_--which announces that the Minister of Marine has just concluded contracts for ship-timber to be supplied to the ports of Toulon, Cherbourg, Brest, L'Orient, and Rochefort, to the extent of upwards of 25,000,000 francs, (_i.e._ upwards of a million sterling.) Does Louis Philippe meditate leaving to France the destructive legacy of a war with England, as a hoped-for prevention of the civil war which he may expect to ensue upon his death? * * * * * If I were to write a diary here, it would be after the following sort:-- _Monday._--Another shark! Mercy on us! What a brute! But not so big as the other. _Tuesday._--We had capital honey this morning to breakfast; eightpence per lb.--freshly expressed from the wax, and got from Granny Jolter's farm. _Wednesday._--My _Times_ did not come by to-day's post, and I feel I don't know how. _Thursday._--The "hot crab" which we had at the parsonage, where we dined to-day, was exquisite. The way it is done is--the whole of the inside, and the claws, having been mixed together with a little rich gravy, (sometimes cream is used;) curry-_paste_, not curry-powder, and very fine fried crumbs of bread, is put into the shell of the crab and then _salamandered_. If _my_ cook can do it on my return to town, I will give her half-a-crown. _Friday._--Nothing whatever happened; but it looked a little like rain, over the downs, about four o'clock in the afternoon. _Saturday._--A day of incidents. Ten o'clock A.M.--The coast-guard man told me, that about five o'clock this morning, as he was coming along ---- cliff, a young fox popped out of a thicket close at his feet, looked "quite steady-like at him for about five seconds," and then ran back into the furze. Eleven o'clock.--Saw a Cockney "gent" on a walking tour, the first of the sort that I have seen in these parts, and he looked frightened at the solitariness of the scene. Every thing that he had on seemed new: a dandified shining hat; a kind of white pea-jacket; white trowsers; fawn-coloured, gloves; little cloth boots tipped with shining French polished leather; a very slight umbrella covered with oil-skin; and a little telescope in a leathern case, slung round his waist. He fancied, as he passed me, that he had occasion to use a gossamer white pocket-handkerchief, with a fine border to it; for he took it out of an outside breast-pocket, and unfolded it deliberately and jauntily. Whence came he, I wonder? He cannot walk four miles further, poor fellow! for evidently walking does not agree with him: yet he must, or sit down and cry in this out-of-the-way place.