( [ 340 j eR 
(Nov. 1, 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
—{=z——— 
UBLIC Sittings of the French Aca- 
demy.—The annual sitting was held 
on St. Louis’s day, the 25th August, un- 
der the presidence of Count Daru, direc- 
tor of the academy. It is customary to 
pronounce an eulogium on St. Louis on 
this occasion. The Abbé Roy contented 
himself with a sermon, in which he wished 
to inculcate as an axiom, that it is religion 
which makes great kings and true heroes. 
—The academy retired from church to the 
hall of the institute. The Baron de Mont- 
yon (the Howard of France) bequeathed 
‘to the French academy several legacies, to 
be distributed as prizes for merit and vir- 
tue. The grand prize of virtue, of ten 
thousand franes, was awarded to Pierre 
Antoine-Roch Martin, a poor day labourer, 
‘of the department of the Moselle. He was 
born in 178], enlisted as a soldier, and ob- 
tained his discharge in 1815; he possessed 
a fortune of 6,000 francs (£250), which had 
been paid him as a substitute. He married 
‘a poor girl, who had three blind brothers, 
and an infirm father. Martin supported 
them by his labour, and, in the dearth of 
1816-17, would suffer none of them to ask 
alms, thoughhe had then three children of his 
own to support ; he worked night and day, 
depriving himself of sustenance, that they 
should not want, till he frequently fell down 
from weakness, over exertion, and want of 
food. A respectable physician made known 
this case of heroic virtue in humble life, 
and solicited for him the Montyon prize, 
-which was unanimously accorded. The 
second prize, of 3,000 frances (£120) was 
given to a poor girl named Hermitte, of the 
department of the Basses Alpes, who took 
a-poor deaf and dumb chijd under her pro- 
tection, and without any knowledge of the 
methods in use, succeeded in teaching her 
little protegé to read and write. The Count 
paid a just and well-merited compliment to 
the ingenious humanity of this poor girl, 
which might be classed with the sublime 
conceptions of the Abbés de I’ Epée and Si- 
card.—The brave and faithful Mery, servant 
_of the Duke de Bourbon, obtained the third 
prize, of 1,200 francs, as arecompence for his 
courageous defence of his master against the 
assassin Lefort. Five medals, of 500 francs 
each, were awarded : —Ist, to Francaise and 
Catherine Douillot; one a workwoman, and 
the other a woolspinner :—2d, to Etienne 
Laget, shoemaker :—3d, Etienne Lasne, 
day-labourer, and to Jeanne Phillippine 
Dantine, his wife :—4th, to the wife of 
a workman named Dubois :—5th, to the 
wife of Cleach—all poor, and all bene- 
factors of infirm old age. Dubois served 
an ill-natured old woman, paralytic and 
afflicted with disgusting disorders, bestow- 
ing on her all the attentions of an affec- 
tionate daughter, and treated by the old 
woman as a seryant. . The two sisters 
Douillot, almost in want. of bread them- 
selves, gave asylum to an old female beggar 
who had stopped at their door, and had 
become quite childish, carrying her home 
on their backs when she had strayed too far 
from the house.—The prizes, for the works - 
most conducive to morals and virtue, were 
awarded as follows: The first, of 4,000 
francs, to the Baron de Gérando, for the 
work entitled, “‘ On Moral Improvement, 
or Self-Education,”—the other prize, of 
4,000 francs, was granted to the work of 
the late Madame Campan, entitled, “ On 
Education ;’’ to which is added, ** Advice to 
Young Girls.”"—A gold medal was granted 
at the same time to the memory of the 
Countess de Remusat, author of an Essay 
on Female Education.—Similar prizes are 
offered for next year; one, not granted this 
year, for an Essay on the Foundation and 
Legacies of the late Baron de Montyon, in 
favour of the hospitals and the academies. 
ASIATIC SOCIETY OF CALCUTTA. 
A meeting of this society was held 
on the 9th of March, J. H. Harington, 
Esq., president, in the chair; when se- 
_veral gentlemen were elected members. 
Various articles from Nipal, announced at 
a former meeting as being on their way from 
Mr. Hodgson, were laid on the table. The 
Secretary then read an interesting paper, 
by Mr. Hodgson, on the literature of 
Thibet. Some progress, as appears by the 
articles sent by Mr. Hodgson, has been 
made in the collection of Bhoteea works ; 
and as Mr. Carey is about to give to the 
world a grammar of that language, there 
will be little difficulty, it is presumed, 
in ascertaining their contents. Five of 
the works, procured by Hodgson, are from 
the archives of Swogoombhoc Nath, among 
which, {he was informed, their excellence 
had obtained them a station. The remain- 
der were all procured from the poor traf- 
fickers and monks, who annually visit Nipal 
on account of religion and trade. It is, 
no doubt, matter of surprise that literature 
of any kind should be common in such a 
region as Bhote, and that it should be so 
widely diffused as to reach persons covered 
with filth, and destitute of any of those ad- 
vantages which usually precede the luxury 
of books. Printing is evidently a main 
cause of this great diffusion of literature; yet 
the very circumstance of printing being in 
such general use among the Bhoteeas is 
astonishing. ‘They make use of wooden 
blocks for types, which are, however, often 
beautifully engraved; and the art has, no 
doubt, been brought from China. The 
writing of the Bhoteeas is said frequently 
to exhibit fine specimens of ready and grace- 
ful penmanship. Though the vernacular 
tongue of Bhote may be considered radically - 
distinct from the Sanscrit, its learned lan- 
guage and letters are said to bear a close 
affinity to those of India; for when Mr. 
Hodgson placed the Sanscrit alphabet be- 
fore a Lama, he at once recognized in it the 
parent of his own language, and upon com- 
paring the two alphabets, the difference 
seemed to be but trifling. PATENTS 
