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ROYAL INCOMES.

The income of the King of England is somewhat more than L400,000. per annum; but its amount does not perhaps exceed, in a duplicate ratio, the receipts of some opulent subjects; and may be advantageously compared with the French King’s revenue, a civil list of about one million sterling, free from diplomatic, judicial, and, we believe, from all other extraneous charges.  Our late excellent king’s regard for economy led him, in the early part of his reign, to approve a new arrangement of the civil list expenditure, by which he accepted of a fixed revenue, in lieu of those improvable funds which had formerly been appropriated to the crown.  On the revision of the civil list in 1816, it appeared, that had George III. conducted the entire branch of expenditure with those funds which had been provided for his predecessors, there would at that period have remained to the crown a total surplus of L6,300,000. which sum the public had gained by the change of provision. Quarterly Review.

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BRITISH ALMANAC AND COMPANION.

Swift, if our memory serves us aright, compares abstracts, abridgments, and summaries to burning-glasses, and has something about a full book resembling the tail of a lobster.  The French too have a proverb—­“as full as an egg”—­but these home similes will hardly give the public an idea of the vast variety of useful matters which these two Year Books contain.

The Almanac, besides an excellent arrangement, astronomical, meteorological, and philosophical, contains a list of common indigenous field plants in flower, and even the taste of the epicure is consulted in a table of fish in season, at the foot of each month.  The Miscellaneous Register includes nearly all the Court, Parliament, and other Lists of a Red Book; and a List of Mail Coach routes direct from London, with the hours of their arrival at the principal towns, is completeness itself:  but how will these items be deranged by Steam Coaches?  Among the Useful Tables, one of Excise Licenses is especially valuable.

The Companion is even more important in its contents than last year.  An Explanation of the Eras of Ancient and Modern Times, and of various countries, with a view to the comparison of their respective dates,—­stands first; next are “Facts pertaining to the course of the Seasons,” under the “Observations of a Naturalist;” an excellent paper on the Tides; and a concise Natural History of the Weather—­to be continued in the Companion for 1831; this is a delightful paper.  The Comparative Scales of Thermometers are next, with a wood-cut of the Scales and Explanation.  We have only room to particularize a Chronological Table of the principal Geographical Discoveries of Modern European Nations; a paper on French Measures;