A London publisher advertises a collection of Nursery Tales as a "handsome present for youth." Here the schoolmaster is surely behind-hand.

IMPROMPTU.—TO A LADY.

(From the Italian.)

E.L.J.

This trifle was sent to the Mirror a few days since, and last Saturday it appeared in the Literary Gazette, with the same signature, E.L.J.—Is not this double-dealing?

Pantomimes.—Four hundred persons are nightly employed in the pantomime at Covent Garden Theatre, on the stage, behind the scenes, and in the orchestra. Of this number are 90 carpenters in the machinery, property, and scenic department. The usual cost of one of these relics of olden Christmas at a patent theatre is £2,000.; and upwards of £10,000. are annually expended in producing pantomimes for the amusement of the large and little children of this great metropolis.

How to keep away the Cholera.—Fear has proved at all times, but more particularly during the prevalence of cholera, a fruitful predisposing cause of disease; be firm, therefore, and confident. Cheerfulness of disposition, equanimity and serenity of mind, are essential means of preservation from epidemic disorders, cholera especially. You have now the consoling assurance of the New Board of Health, in confirmation of what we, the anti-contagionists, in regard to cholera, had long before declared and contended for, that the disease does not pass to those about the sick, and seldom spreads in families. Cholera, therefore, is thus disarmed of one of its worst terrors. You only run the average share of risk of one in 1,200,000 individual inhabitants of the metropolis, of being affected by the epidemic influence of the atmosphere, while that influence lasts; and as you are put in possession of several means to counteract that influence, the chances are greatly in your favour that you will not be attacked by cholera at all. To this conclusion I am authorized to come by my experience, which has been very considerable, and my observations, in more than one general epidemic, and by what I have read in all the authors (twenty or thirty of them) who have treated of cholera.—Dr. Granville.

The Cholera.—An interesting experiment was tried at Newcastle last week, on the state of the atmosphere. A kite was sent up, having attached to it a piece of fresh butcher's meat, a fresh haddock, and a small loaf of bread. The kite ascended to a considerable height, and remained at that elevation for an hour and a quarter. When brought to the ground, it was found that the fish and the piece of meat were both in a putrid state, particularly the fish; and the loaf, when examined through, a microscope, was discovered to be pervaded with legions of animalculae. It may be worth while to repeat the experiment in other places to which cholera may unfortunately extend itself.—Evening Paper.

Foreign Books.—From official accounts it appears that the foreign books imported into the United Kingdom in the year 1830, weighed 3,441 cwt. 3 qrs. 13 lbs. the amount of duty upon which was £11,865 4s. 4d. We find this in a paper on the Duties on Foreign Books in the Foreign Quarterly Review, just published; in which the imported old books have obtained a considerable ascendancy over the new ones.

The lovers of the Fine Arts will hear with sorrow, the destruction by fire of Mr. Wilmshurst's splendid Painted Window of the Tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, described at page 246, vol. xv. of The Mirror. It was completed about two years since at a cost of nearly 2,000l., and three years' labour of the artist.

FAMILIAR SCIENCE.

This Day was published, with many Engravings, price 5s.,

Abridged from the Transactions of Public Societies, and Scientific Journals, British and Foreign, for the past year.

*** This volume will contain all the Important Facts in the year 1831—in the

Printing for John Limbird, 143, Strand; of whom may be had volumes (upon the same plan) for 1828, price 4s. 6d., 1829—30—31, price 5s. each.

Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic. G.G. Bennis, 55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers.