SPECTABILIA.

The following table, constructed by Dr. Granville from an examination of 876 cases in lying-in hospital, &c., is the first ever submitted to females to exhibit their chances of marriage at various ages.

Years of Age. Years of Age. Years of Age.

3 at 13

11

— 14 16 — 15 43 — 16 45 — 17 67 — /8 115 — 19 118 — 20 86 — 21 85 at 22, 59 — 2:3 53 — 24 :36 -- 25 24 — 26 28 — 27 22 — 28

17 — 26

9 — 30 7

at

:n

5 — 32 7 — 33 5 — 34 2 — 35 0 — 36 2 — 37

0 —

38 1 — 39

It is a curious fact, that if a woman marries at twenty-one or twenty-two, and is placed under precisely similar circumstances for the following fifteen years, as women at fourteen, fifteen, and nineteen, marrying at that age, may be supposed to be under, she will produce the.same number of Children as the latter would, though the party marry eight years later.—Dr. Gran- ville. House of Commons Report.

The Quarterly Review (just published) is loud in its lamentation over the neglect of astronomy by the Government. It says there is " only one, and scarcely one, observatory supported by the Government. Such is the state of practical astronomy in Scotland, that within these few years, a Danish vessel, which arrived at Leith, could not obtain, even in Edinburgh, the time of the day for the purpose of setting its chronometers. Under such circum- stances, (says the Quarterly) it would be a painful task to enumerate the thriving institutions in which astronomy is cultivated in all other kingdoms of civilised Europe. It is sufficient to state, that in such a list Great Britain would he placed beside Spain or Turkey." This is absurd : why should it be painful that other nations have more particularly attended to this study ? Its flourishing condition abroad should rather console the lover of the science for its neglect here. To talk in this way, is not to show a respectable attachment to science, but a narrow pride in Great Britain. The writer too is wrong in only reckoning the Government observatory : although the observatories of Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, Edinburgh, Ar- magh. and Glasgow, are corporate and not national establishments ; yet in this popular country, where the public acts for itself and not by its Government, there is no error in reckoning such establishments as part of the public stock.

DISTANCE OF THE FIXED STARS.—Dr. Brinkley (the Bishop of Cloyne) has found, that the star a Lyra: hiss a parallax of 1.1 ; or, what is the same thing, that the radius of the earth's annual orbit would, if seen from that star, subtend an angle of ir.1; hence it follows, that its distance is 20,159,665,000,000 miles, or twenty billions of miles. Sir William Hers- chel, from repeated measurements, considers the diameter of this star as three-tenths of a second ; end, consequently, its diameter must be three thousand times greater than that of our sun, or 2,659,000,000 miles, or three-fourths of the size of the whole solar system, as circumscribed by the orbit of the Georgium Sidus.— Quarterly Review, No.75.

Captain Clapperton, it appears. did not come to his end by violence, ['Mut sunk under the effects of the climate. at Saccatoo, after a month's illness. Sultan Bello, it is true, broke faith with Clapperton in every way ; and it is supposed by his servant that this hastened hie death. The cause of this Mange turn in Bello is supposed to have been some Congreve rockets which Major Denham gave to the Sheik of Bornom and which had been successfully employed in burning a town of the Felialas. The whole of Clapperton's journals have been saved.—Quarter/a Review. Nu. 75. BEGGARS IN FRANCE.—At post-houses and towns where you pass through, they are as regular in their attendance at the door as the landlord or the waiter, and place themselves in positions to catch the eye, turn which way you will, making a monotonous buzz, like a distant swarm of bees ; they will open the door of the carriage, if the blinds are shut, and present such a picture of real or fictitious misery, that, I believe, few travellers persevere in their resolutions to resist the importunities of these people. In large cities, in coming out of one house you are fairly hunted till you get into another; the fraternity, however, appear to have this point of etiquette, that only one hunts you at a time.—Milford's Tour in France. BEGGARS IN ITALY.—As we step out of our house (at Naples) twenty hats and open hands are stretched out towards us. We cannot take ten steps in the street without meeting a beggar, who croeses•onr path, and with groans and piteous exclamations solicits our mite. Women, often dressed in black silk and veiled, intrude themselves impudently upon us. Cripples of alt sorts hold up their stump of a leg or an arm clue to our eyes; noseless faces, devoured by disease, grin at us ; children, quite naked, nay, even men, are to be seen lying and moaning in the dirt a dropsical man sits by the wall, and shows us his monstrous belly ; consumptive mothers lie by the road-side, with naked children in their laps, who are compelled to be continually crying ;amid. If we go to church, we must pass through a dozen such deplorable objects at the dem.; and when we enter, as many fall down on their knees before us.—Kotzebue's Travels.

A BOTANIST'S ENTHUSIASM ON ARRIVING AT MADEIRA.—Captivated by the powerful fascination of every object around him, Smith was no longer inactive. (Christian Smith of Norway, in company with the eminent natu- ralist Von Ruch.) In a fit of transport he rushed towards the Cactus bushes which covered the rocks in the most fantastic forms, to ascertain whether it was reality or deception : he leaped walls to reach the woods of Donan, whose summits the breezes waved gently and delightfully over the vines that grew among them. As he ran enthusiastically from flower to flower, it was scarcely possible to prevail en him to enter the town. On an elevated situ- ation, appeared a lawn of lofty trees of justicia, melia azederach, and datur arborea, completely covered with gorgeous and gigantie flowers, that loaded the air with perfumes. The large leaves of the banana were waving over the walls, and the splendid palm-trees rose high above the houses. The sin- gular shape of the dragon-tree, the all-pervading fragrance of the blossoms, and the massive leaves of the orange-trees, attracted us involuntarily to the gardens. Here the coffee-trees form hedges and copses, inclosing large beds, on which ananas without number are cultivated in the open air. 141i- moss, eucalyptus, melaleuca, protea, mamma, clitoria, and eugenia, all plants of which we only observe mere fragments in our hot-houses, are here elevated to tall and stately trees, displaying their far glittering blossoms in the most delightful climate on earth. How shall I relate to you, (said. Smith, in a letter to his friends in Norway,) how shall I express what I have seen and felt—how can I convey to you an idea of the variety and brilliancy of these colours, and the general glorious aspect of nature with which I aim surrounded ! We have climbed the declivity of the mountains that en- viron the lovely Funchal—we have at length seated ourselves on the marghe of a rivulet which leaps from fall to fall through bushes of rosemary, jessa- mine, laurel, and myrtle. The town with its fortifications, its churches, ire gardens, and its vessels in the roadstead, are lying at our feet. Groves of chestnut and pine-trees are stretched above us, among which are scattered flowers of spartium and lavender. The vast number of Canary birds among the branches are filling the air with their warblings ; and the snow, some- times appearing through the clouds that wrap the summits of the mountains, is the only object that can recall my native land.