The vertue of this ring, if ye woll here,
  Is this, that if she list it for to were
  Upon her thombe, or in her purse it bere,
  There is no foule that fleeth under heven
  That she no shall understand his steven,[D]
  And know his meaning openly and plaine,
  And answer him in his language againe: 

as Canace does in her conversation with the falcon in The Squires Tale.  Nor is the ‘vertue’ of the ring confined to bird-intelligence, for the knight who came on the ‘steed of brasse,’ adds,—­

  And every grasse that groweth upon root
  She shall well know to whom it will do boot,
  And be his wounds never so deep and wide.

But we must return from these realms of fancy to a country hardly less wonderful; for Australia presents, in the realities of its quadrupedal forms, a scene that might well pass for one of enchantment.

[Footnote C:  Fairy Queen, book iv. cant. 2, et seq.]

[Footnote D:  Sound.]

* * * * *

The French Society of Geography have just given their grand gold medal to two brothers, Antoine and Arnaud d’Abadie, for the progress which geography has received from their travels in Abyssinia, which were begun in 1837 and finished in 1848.  This period they spent in exploring together, not only Abyssinia, but the whole eastern part of Africa.  Their enterprise was wholly at their own expense, and was undertaken from the love of science and adventure.

* * * * *

The French Government are now publishing at Algiers the History of the Berbers, by Ibn Chaldun, the greatest of Arabian historians.  It is printed in quarto form, with the types of the National Printing Establishment, sent from Paris for the purpose.  The French translation will appear as soon as the second volume of the original, which is now in press, is completed.

* * * * *

[From Fraser’s Magazine.]

MADAME DE POMPADOUR.

In the gallery of the Louvre at Paris there is, or was some few years ago, a crayon drawing by La Tour, which represents Madame de Pompadour in all the pride and luster of her early beauty.  The marchioness is seated near a table covered with books and papers, among which may be distinguished Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws and the Encyclopaedia, two of the remarkable works which appeared during her reign of favor.  An open album shows an engraving of Gay, chiseling some portrait of Louis XV., or his mistress.  The marchioness is represented with her hair slightly powdered; she is clad in an open, flowered brocade robe, and wears red-heeled shoes, of a delicacy, as regards size, worthy of an Oriental foot.  In this portrait there is much to admire:  the neck, which is slender and well-shaped, springs most gracefully from the shoulders; the head, which is also admirably proportioned, is a model of feminine