PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8162, 25 January 1890, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL ITEMS.

M. Meissonier is the first painter ever raised to the dignity of Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.

Shortly after Mr. Spurgeon arrived at Mentons—the Mediterranean Bournemouth, the atmosphere had a peculiarly relaxing effect upon the throat. His voice became thick and husky, and almost disappeared. The latest Continental canard is that Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria is engaged to be married to Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh. As the Princess is but fourteen years old, the engagement will have to last a long time. Professor William Ramsay M'Nab, Professor of Botany at tho Royal College of Science, Dublin, author of numerous works on botany, and son of the curator of tho Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, died suddenly of apoplexy in Dublin on December 3. He was over 50 years of age.

Tippoo Tib, the great African slavo dealer, is getting tired of his wandering and dangerous existence and proposes co settle down :is a solid citizen on his estate at Casingo, 300 miles above Stanley Falls, where he lias built for himself a large and fine stone mansion. His sou, however, will carry on his father's trade. The Mr. F. Herbert Trench who recently gained the History Fellowship at All Souls, Oxford, is a nephew of tho lato Richard Chenevix Trench, Archbishop of Dublin, and author of several famous works on the study of the English language and other themes. Mr. Trench inherits something of his uncle's poetic faculty, though his poetry is as yet somewhat tentative. He is quite a young man. Mr. Swinburne, the poeb, is a man of somewhat remarkable appearance. His face is, as a rule, very pale, his beard is of a reddish hue, and his hair is now growing grey. A dome-like brow gives a look of trreat intellectual power to a face which would otherwise not over-impreßS the beholder. Mr. Swinburne'B eyes, however, indicate the poet, for they are soft and dream-like. The poet lives out beyond Putney, in the same house as Mr. Theodore Watts, tho critic of the Athenaeum, leading there a very retired and studious life. Mr. Watts has had a great influence for good over the poet, whp is now a sane and sober politician, utterly unlike the mild apostle of Revolution that he was some twenty years

ago. ' Deal, that prettiest of the south coast towns, has at least one interesting literary association. It is, and has been for many years, the home of Mr. Clark Russell, " the maritime novelist," as somebody, with more accuracy than elegance, has oalled him. Mr. Clark Russell has a pretty house in Sandown Place, lookingdown upon th»t sea which he paints so happily. He is not an old man, although a veteran with the pen, but rheumatism has seized him and made him a comparative invalid. Any day, when the weather is fine, he may be seen in his Bath chair on the sands or along the Downs, and troops of friends passing come to chat with him. Mr. Clark Russell has two sons, the eldest his father's amanuensis just now, and to be a journalist by-and-bye, and the other at Sandhurst. Exactly thirty-nine years ago, when Mr. Bradlaugh was a raw lad of sixteen, suffering keen privations in consequence of the difficulty in finding remunerative employment, the attraction of a bounty of £6 10s, which would enable him to pay off a few small debt*, induced him to enlist in the service of "John Company," with the hope, perhaps, that he, too, might shake the pagoda-tree to some purpose. He was not destined, however, to cross the sea until this year. It happened that the sergeant who enlisted him had, by an arrangement common in those days, borrowed a man from a sergeant of the 50th Foot, and he determined to pay his debt back with the person of Mr. Bradlaugh, so that, after the usual formalities had been gone through, the latber was surprised to find that he was enrolled iu the aforesaid 50bh Foob, and destined for home service. It is hardly necessary to add that the future member for Northampton did not tamely submit to the trick that had been played him, and that in the event, though he could nob be retransferred to the East Indian service, he was allowed his choice of the home regiments, with the result that be entered the 7th Dragoon Guards,