THE name and writings of this eminent | vincial. In 1840 he received the appointhistorian of the Netherlands have become ment of Secretary of Legation to the familiar to American readers. The pages American embassy to Russia. He held of THE ECLECTIC this year have been en- the post about eight months, when he reriched with a review of his works. The signed and returned to the United States. English quarterlies speak the language of In 1849 he produced a second historical high commendation of his talents as a his- fiction, entitled Merry Mount, a Romance torian. We have now the pleasure of pre- of the Massachusetts Colony. This work, senting to our readers a fine portrait of like the preceding, although well written, Dr. Motley, which we are quite sure will and giving abundant evidence of talent, be welcomed as an appropriate embellish- attracted little attention. Meanwhile he ment of our present number. The por- had contributed various articles to some trait has been engraved from a photo- of the leading reviews. Among these pagraph taken at Boston a few weeks since, pers, one on De Tocqueville's Democracy which Dr. Motley kindly consented to sit in America, and another on Goethe and for at our request, which we accompany his writings, appeared in the New-York with a brief biographical sketch. Review. Still another of very striking character on Peter the Great, was publish ed in the North-American Review for Oct. 1845. Soon afterwards he became interested in the history of Holland, and began to collect authorities for a work on that subject, writing enough to form two volumes; but, unable to gather such material at home as he deemed necessary for the thorough prosecution of the subject, he embarked for Europe with his family in 1851. On examination he became dissatisfied with his labors, threw aside all that he had written, and began his entire task anew. In Berlin, Dresden, and the Hague, he passed the principal portion of

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY was born in Dorchester, Mass., April fifteenth, 1814. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1831, and thence proceeded to the University of Göttingen, where he continued about one year, and another year at the University of Berlin, after which he traveled for some time in the south of Europe, chiefly in Italy. On his return to America he studed law, and was admitted to the bar in 1836-'7. He displayed little liking for the drudgery of the law, and scarcely practiced his profession. In 1839 he published a novel entitled Morton's Hope, or the Memoirs of a Young Pro

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his time during the next five years, engag | regular ambassador, Mr. Adams, arrived ed upon the composition of his history, in London. In the prosecution of his reentitled The Rise of the Dutch Republic. searches into the history of the sixteenth It was published in London in 1856, (3 century, Mr. Motley had not forgotten the vols. 8vo,) and was at once reproduced political history of his own country. He in New-York. It was also reprinted in was perfectly familiar with all the facts, English at Amsterdam, beside being trans- arguments and principles on which the lated into Dutch under the supervision of Unionists and the secessionists respective the historian M. Bakhuyzen van den Brink, ly relied, and he was perfectly familiar who prefixed an introductory chapter. A also with all those avenues to the English German translation was published at Leip- mind, by availing himself of which an sie and Dresden; and the first volume of American can hope to convey intelligence a French translation, with an introduction on American affairs to English statesmen by Guizot, was published in 1859. The and men of letters. sale of the work in England, to Nov. 1857, had reached fifteen thousand copies; and in America, up to June, 1860, seventyseven hundred and ninety copies had been printed. Mr. Motley visited the United States for a short time in 1858. He is now in Europe pursuing his researches regarding the history of Holland. A new work, entitled, The United Netherlands, (3 vols. 8vo,) is announced (Oct. 1860) for publication in London. Since the publication of his Dutch Republic he has been elected a member of various learned societies in Europe and America, among them of the Institute of France in place of Mr. Prescott, deceased. In 1860 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford, and that of LL.D. from Harvard College. Dr. Motley returned from Europe the past summer, (1861,) and after a few weeks' sojourn among his friends at Boston, he received his appointment as Minister Resident to Austria, concerning which the Boston Transcript, of August twentieth, has the following:

"His high social and his high literary rank afforded him the opportunities for influencing English opinion, not only by his masterly communications to the London Times, but by private conversations with Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, and other members of the British Cabinet. After the attack on Sumter, and the grand uprising of the people to defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, Mr. Motley, not Mr. Dallas, was really our Minister at the Court of St. James. He did all that the wide information, the untiring activity, and the bright intelligence of one man could possibly do, in disabusing Englishmen of the misinformation regarding the matters in dispute, which the diplomatic agents of the Confederates were industriously circulating. To this work he cheerfully gave up all literary activity which had previously engaged his attention, and into this new work he threw himself with all the chivalrous earnestness and patriotic fervor of his nature.

"We perceive that some journals con"John Lothrop Motley, the newly ap gratulate Mr. Motley that his office will pointed Minister to Austria, one of the give him the means and the leisure to conmost accomplished men ever sent by the tinue his history.' This, we feel assurGovernment of the United States to re-ed, is a consideration which has no promipresent it abroad, will sail from this city nence in his own ardent mind. He goes in the steamer to-morrow. Mr. Motley to Europe, not so much to obtain matedoes not, as some journals seem to think, rials for his history of the Thirty Years' owe his appointment to the influence of War, as to employ in the service of his powerful friends, or to his great literary country. all his knowledge, all his intellireputation among the scholars and histo-gence, all the charm of his frank and corrians of Europe, but to his demonstrated capacity for the performance of diplomatic duties, as shown by his services to the American cause in England, before our

dial manners, and all the consummate tact in dealing with men he has acquired by mingling freely in European society."

TWO NEW

From the Edinburgh Scotsman.

FAMILIES OF

ASTEROIDS.

SOMETHING NEW ABOUT PLANETS.

turbing action of an unknown planet (Neptune) was ascertained; and by marvelous refinements of calculation, its very place in the heavens pointed out. By a similar process, M. Leverrier was led to infer the existence of a ring of small bodies revolving between Mercury and the sun, and though no living astronomer has seen them, the reality of the discovery will most probably not be questioned. His paper was noticed in the Scotsman of September twelfth, 1859, under the title of "An Unpunctual Planet."

MONS. LEVERRIER, the celebrated as-puted longitudes of Uranus that the distronomer, read an interesting paper to the Academy of Sciences in 1859, on certain irregularities in the motion of the planet Mercury. These, carefully studied, led him to the curious conclusion that the planet's motions were disturbed by a quantity of matter revolving between it and the sun. Believing that if this matter had existed in the form of a planet it could not have escaped notice, he concluded that it must be distributed in a group of small bodies, like the asteroids, circulating between Mars and Jupiter. In confirmation of this idea, he found that Lemonnier, in 1772, saw, under some peculiarly favorable circumstances, a ring or chaplet of small bodies across the sun's disk, occupying some minutes in doing so. Further researches submitted to the Academy on the seventeenth of last month, have enabled him to advance a step farther in the path of discovery thus opened

up.

He observes that from the action of the planets on each other, their orbits are subjects to changes of three kinds. There may be a change in the plane of a planet's orbit, or the angle it forms with the ecliptic; secondly, in its orientation, or the part of the heavens to which its longer axis points; and thirdly, in its form, or the shape of the ellipse described by the planet. Now, the amount of such changes, ascertained by observation, affords data for computing the masses of the bodies producing them; and if we assume that the known planets are the only disturbing bodies, it follows that the results obtained -the value of the masses-should be the same whatever be the changes from which the computation is made. If the results do not exhibit this harmony, the discordance indicates the action of some body exterior to the planets, which has been overlooked. It was in this way, from the difference between the observed and com

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M. Leverrier has also been studying, and apparently revising, the theory of Mars. From the movements of the earth, he estimates the mass of that planet at one three millionth part" of the mass of the sun; that of the earth at " one three hundred and fifty-five thousandth part ;" and that of Venus at one four hundred thousandth part," of the mass of the great central luminary. In Sir John Herschel's Outlines, the mass of the earth is put down about one fifth, and that of Mars about one seventh part greater than the above estimates, while that of Venus is nearly the same. Setting out from these data, the French astronomer finds that to reconcile the ancient with the modern observations of Mars, it is necessary to accelerate his perihelion movement. To find an adequate cause for this again, we must assume an increase in the attractive force of the earth or Venus—that is, in the computed mass of one or both of these planets. But the action of Venus on Mars is from its position comparatively feeble; and the value of its mass rests on grounds that are considered unassailable. We have no alternative, then, but to add to the computed mass of the earth, and an addition of a tenth suffices. But there are good reasons against admitting such a change; and an equal quantity of matter, in another form, revolving round the sun

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