The power conferred by Gonzago's immense riches silenced the whispered murmurs of the assembly. No man rose to higher eminence in the state than the idolized husband of the beautiful Giacinta; but a dark cloud hung upon his house, his children were all cut off in their infancy, and, after a few brief years of outward felicity, struck from his horse by the fragment of a building which fell upon him as he rode in pomp through the city, he received a mortal wound, surviving the accident only long enough to unburthen his soul to his confessor. His dying words were addressed to Alessandro, from whom since the hour of his nuptials he had been estranged; pressing his hand, he exclaimed--"She was innocent! she heard not of the murder until it had been accomplished."--_London Weekly Review_. * * * * * THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS. * * * * * RAFTS AND RHINE SCENERY. Between Andernach and Bonn I saw two or three of those enormous rafts which are formed of the accumulated produce of the Swiss and German forests. One was anchored in the middle of the river, and looked like a floating island. These _Krakens_ of the Rhine are composed of oak and fir floated in smaller rafts down the tributary streams, and, their size constantly increasing till they arrive hereabouts, they make platforms of from four hundred to seven hundred feet long, and one hundred and forty feet in breadth. When in motion, a dozen boats and more precede them, carrying anchors and cables to guide and arrest their course. The navigation of a raft down the Rhine to Dort, in Holland, which is the place of their destination,[4] is a work of great difficulty. The skill of the German and Dutch pilots who navigate them, in spite of the abrupt turnings, the eddies, the currents, rocks and shoals that oppose their progress, must indeed be of a very peculiar kind, and can be possessed but by few. It requires besides a vast deal of manual labour. The whole complement of rowers and workmen, together with their wives and children, on board one of the _first-rates_, amounts to the astonishing number of nine hundred or a thousand; a little village, containing from forty to sixty wooden houses, is erected upon each, which also is furnished with stalls for cattle, a magazine for provisions, &c. The dwelling appropriated to the use of the master of the raft and the principal super-cargoes was conspicuous for its size and commodiousness. It is curious to observe these rafts, on their passage, with their companies of rowers stationed at each end, making the shores ring again to the sound of their immense oars. [4] About twelve of these rafts annually arrive at Dort, in July or August; when the German timber merchants, having converted their floats into good Dutch ducats, return to their own country. When the water is low, those machines are sometimes months upon the journey.--_Campbell's Guide_.