On the whole, it is highly gratifying to our respect for British soldiership; to see works of this rank proceeding from our military men. They have great opportunities, and may thus render national services in peace, not less important than their enterprise in war. The East India Company offers inducements of the most important order, to the accomplishment and scientific activity of its officers; and Major Harris must feel the distinction of having been selected for a mission of such interest, as well as the high gratification of having conducted it to so benevolent, solid, and satisfactory a close. * * * * * A WORD OR TWO OF THE OPERA-TIVE CLASSES. BY LORGNON. "Vai, ch'avete gl'intelletti sani, Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde, Sotto queste coperte, alte e profonde!"--BERNI. In the course of social transition, professions, like dogs, have their day. A calling honourable in one century, becomes infamous in the next; and vocations grow obsolete, like the fashioning of our garments or figures of speech. In barbarous communities, the strong man is king:-- "Le premier roi fut un soldat heureux." Where human statute is beginning to prize the general weal, the legist is of high account, and the priest paramount. Higher civilization engenders the influence of the man of letters, the artist, the dramatist, the wit, the poet, and the orator. Or when, with a wisdom surpassing the philosophy of the schools, we tumble down to prose, and assume the leathern apron of the utilitarian--the civil engineer, or operative chemist, starts up into a colossus. Sir Humphrey Davy, and Sir Isambert Brunel, are the true knights of modern chivalry; and Sir Walter--our Sir Walter--never showed himself more shrewd than in his exclamation to Moore--"Ah, Tam!--it's lucky, man, we cam' sae soon!" Great as was his influence, equaling that of the other two great Sir Walters, Manny and Raleigh, in their several epochs of valour and enterprise, it is likely enough, that, if born a century later, the MSS. of the Scotch novels would have been chiefly valuable to light the furnace of some factory! So much in exposition of the fact, that, so long as the world possessed only three of what we choose to call quarters, an executioner was an officer of state; and that, now it possesses five, the female of highest renown, and greatest power of self-enrichment, is the _danseuse_, or opera-dancer!