Col. Forbes, who was in Italy during the revolution, and many years previous, and who was himself, both in a military and civic capacity, one of the actors in that event, the _Evening Post_ informs us, is about to give public lectures on the subject of Italy in the various cities and towns of the United States. Col. Forbes was intimately connected with the revolutionary chiefs during the brief existence of the Roman Republic, and was directly and confidently employed by Mazzini. His knowledge of the country, its people, its politics, and its recent history, will supply him with materials for making his lectures highly interesting and instructive.
The Gem of the Western World, edited by Mrs. Hewitt, and published by Cornish & Co., Fulton street, is a very beautiful gift-book, and in its literary character is deserving of a place with the most splendid and; tasteful annuals of the season. Mrs. Hewitt's own contributions to it embrace some of her finest compositions, and are of course among its most brilliant contents.
FRENCH PERIODICALS.--A Parisian correspondent of the London _Literary Gazette_ observes, that if we exclude the _Revue des Deux Mondes_--a, sort of cross between the English _Quarterly_ and the monthlies,--if we exclude also a few dry scientific periodicals, and one or two theatrical or musical newspapers, we shall seek in vain for any _Quarterly_, or _Blackwood_, or _Art Union_, or _Literary Gazette_; and that even the periodicals and journals which make the nearest approach to the weekly, monthly, or quarterly publications of England, are either wretched compilations, or abominably ill-written and ill-printed. The _feuilleton_ system of the newspapers is no doubt the principal cause of the periodical literature being in such an extremely low condition. But though literary and scientific periodicals be, generally speaking, vile in quality, they can at least boast of quantity. There are, it seems, not fewer than 300 of one kind or another published in Paris alone. Among them are 44 devoted to medicine, chemistry, natural science, &c.; 42, trade, commerce, railways, advertisements; 34, fashions; 30, law; 22, administration, public works, roads, bridges, mines; 19, archæology, history, biography, geography, numismatics; 19, public instruction and education; 15, agriculture and horticulture; 8, bibliography and typography; 10, army and navy; 7, literary; the rest theatrical, musical, or of a character too hybrid to be classified.