Teheran, a hundred years hence; and one official inquirer who records everything, and is replaced when he departs, and is always protected and treated with civility, can, in that space of time, accumulate much knowledge, and will cost but little money. It is organised and protracted inquiry, not a mere spasmodic effort, that we want to see, and that will benefit mankind. Let the Societies hunt for their rare orchids, and plants with lovely blooms, and all manner of scientific novelties, and let the Governments promote the search for prosaic things which the ordinary inquirer will neglect. We shall find no new edible animal, we fear, unless it be some variety of goat which can be bred into fatness, and made to yield sweet meat—kid properly cooked, that is, roasted to death, is better than most mutton—but a new cereal is clearly a possibility, and might be worth all the botanical discoveries made since the settlers in Virginia sent home the potato. The late Mr. Bagehot, who was always dropping witty wisdom, used to say that the wildest speculator he ever heard of was the first man who dropped grain into the earth and waited till it grew up, and to regret that his name, like that of the discoverer of fire, and of the first man who mastered a horse, was for ever lost. We think we may venture to say that the name of the man who next discovers a cereal of true value will not be.—_The Spectator._ A RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHER ON ENGLISH POLITICS. About five-and-twenty years ago, I happened to be engaged in the service of my country in a distant part of the world. The duties which devolved upon me threw me into a daily contact with a Russian officer similarly employed. Notwithstanding the conflicting interests which we severally represented, and the somewhat delicate and often strained relations resulting therefrom, we had not been long in each other’s society without becoming sensible of a personal sympathy too powerful to be resisted, and which soon ripened into an intimacy which lasted for many years; indeed we were thrown so exclusively upon our own resources, deprived as we were of all other society, that we must probably soon either have become bitter enemies or fast friends. A certain similarity of taste, I had almost said of aspiration, forced upon us the latter alternative; and it was probably due to this that we were enabled to bring the special duties upon which we were engaged to a successful conclusion, whereby we earned the approval of our respective Governments,—represented in his case by a decoration, and in mine by a curt complimentary despatch; for in those days C.B.’s and C.M.G.’s were not flung about with the lavish profusion which has since so largely depreciated their value. It was a relief, when the labors of the day were over—which had taxed all our powers of ingenuity and forbearance, and we had fatigued our brains by inventing compromises and devising solutions which should satisfy the susceptibilities of