in the secretary's hands). I am here nearly as much out of the full stream of scientific matters as you at Rome. We had a full and very satisfactory meeting at Cambridge of the British Association, with a full attendance of continental magnetists and meteorologists, and within these few days I have learned that our Government meant to grant all our requests and continue the magnetic and meteorological observations. Humboldt has sent me his Cosmos (Vol. I.), which is good, all but the first 60 pages, which are occupied in telling his readers what his book is _not_ to be. Dr. Whewell has just published _another_ book on the Principles of Morals, and also _another_ on education, in which he cries up the geometrical processes in preference to analysis.... Yours very faithfully, J. HERSCHEL. * * * * * The Prince and Princesse de Broglie came to Rome in 1845, and Signore Pellegrino Rossi, at this time French Minister at the Vatican, gave them a supper party, to which we were invited. We had met with him long before at Geneva, where he had taken refuge after the insurrection of 1821. He was greatly esteemed there and admired for his eloquence in the lectures he gave in the University. It was a curious circumstance, that he, who was a Roman subject, and was exiled, and, if I am not mistaken, condemned to death, should return to Rome as French Minister. He had a remarkably fine countenance, resembling some ancient Roman bust. M. Thiers had brought in a law in the French Chambers to check the audacity of the Jesuits, and Rossi was sent to negotiate with the Pope. We had seen much of him at Rome, and were horrified, in 1848, to hear that he had been assassinated on the steps of the Cancelleria, at Rome, where the Legislative Assembly met, and whither he was proceeding to attend its first meeting. No one offered to assist him, nor to arrest the murderers except Dr. Pantaleone, a much esteemed Roman physician, and member of the Chamber, who did what he could to save him, but in vain; he was a great loss to the Liberal cause. Towards the end of summer we spent a month most agreeably at Subiaco, receiving much civility from the Benedictine monks of the Sacro Speco, and visiting all the neighbouring towns, each one perched on some hill-top, and one more romantically picturesque than the other. It was in this part of the country that Claude Lorraine and Poussin studied and painted. I never saw more beautiful country, or one which afforded so many exquisite subjects for a landscape painter. We went all over the country on mules--to some of the towns, such as Cervara, up steep flights of steps cut in the rock. The people, too, were extremely picturesque, and the women still wore their costumes, which probably now they have laid aside for tweeds and Manchester cottons.