There are connected with the newspapers a considerable number of weak-minded and absurd persons, who delight in strange coincidences and the most inconceivable relations, and who, for a certain consciousness they have of their own slight claims to consideration are anxious to find on every occasion, some indication of regard for their vocation, as if credit won by any journalist or writer were portion of a common fund of respectability from which they could draw a dividend. In no other way can we account for the thousand-and-one articles in which the appointments of Dr. LAYARD and Mr. D'ISRAELI have been referred to as "honor," "homage," &c., to literature. Dr. Layard was selected by Lord Granville to be an Under-Secretary of State, because he had shown himself in the admirable manner in which he discharged certain important diplomatic functions in the East, better fitted, in Lord Granville's opinion, than any other person for the new duties to which it was proposed to summon him. Mr. D'Israeli has long been one of the most conspicuous and astute politicians in England, and owes his present office solely to his activity and eminence in affairs. There was as little of "recognition of the claims of literature" in either case, as there was praise of fiddlesticks or Carolina potatoes. It would not be a whit more ridiculous to say that the French people, remembering the happy genius displayed by Napoleon Bonaparte in his "Supper of Beaucaire," chose him to be their emperor. In the new British ministry are an unusual number of book-makers. The most conspicuous in authorship is the now Right Honorable Benjamin D'Israeli, "the wondrous boy who wrote _Alroy_, in rhyme and prose, only to show how long ago victorious Judah's lion banner rose." Sir Emerson Tennent, Sir Edward Sugden, Lord John Manners, Mr. Whiteside, the Earl of Malmesbury, Lord de Roos, are all known as authors, as well as politicians. The Duke of Northumberland also is favorably known as a zealous promoter of arts and learning. * * * * * The author of _Life in Bombay and the Neighboring Stations_, pays the following testimony to the abilities of the manoeuvring mammas of Bombay: "The bachelor civilians are always the grand aim; for, however young in the service they may be, their income is always vastly above that of the military man, to say nothing of the noble provision made by the fund for their widows and children. We remember being greatly amused, soon after our arrival in the country, at overhearing a lady say, in reference to her daughter's approaching marriage with a young civilian: 'Certainly, I could have wished my son-in-law to be a little more steady; but then it is £300 a-year for my girl, dead or alive!'" * * * * *