Authors and Books
Gutzkow's Ritter vom Geiste (Knights of the Spirit) is at last finished, the ninth volume having made its appearance. It has faults of detail, and there are deficiencies in spots, but as a whole it is praised as eminently successful, and truly a new work. The idea in some respects recalls the Wilhelm Meister of Goethe, and the Nathan the Wise of Lessing, but the execution has more force and a larger and more imperious movement than either. The Knights of the Spirit are a body of men who are combined in an order to which they give that name, and this book is their history and that of the order. At the same time there is nothing mystical, supernatural, or merely fantastic about it, though its spirit is humanitary and even socialistic. The scene is in modern times, but though the names of the heroes are German, and the circumstances in which they are placed German, the author has succeeded in producing a truly cosmopolitan romance. The nine volumes are sold in Germany for about $8 00.
Henry Taylor, the author of Philip Van Artevelde, is the subject of an article in the Grenzboten. The writer takes him, as the acknowledged first living dramatic poet of England, to be the best illustration of the nature and characteristics of the English drama. This drama is said to be more remarkable for sharply-outlined and detailed characters, than for the invention of exciting and consistent action. The characters in all their peculiarities are first created, and situations are made and arranged for them afterward. The evil of this is, that the whole thus becomes fragmentary, and the particulars outweigh and obscure the general spirit and intention of the piece. Even Shakspeare, with his gigantic genius, was not free from this defect. His Merry Wives of Windsor, for instance, is rich in comic situations and figures, but they are arbitrarily put together, and every scene has the character of an episode; the action does not go forward in a true and consistent course. Now-a-days the evil is worse, because it is the fashion to substitute reflection for natural feeling. Taylor is like those portrait painters who paint the features so carefully as to destroy the general character of the face. His men and women are not alive and genuine. Still their language is grave and noble, their thoughts comprehensive, often striking, and their emotions, though artificial, are elaborated with great insight and knowledge of the world. Compared with the wretched creations of the French romanticists, they are worthy of all praise. The critic then proceeds to analyze Isaac Comnenus, Philip Van Atevelde, and Fair Edwin, setting forth with great fairness the excellencies and faults of each.
A new contribution to an obscure but most interesting part of European history is Deutschland in der Revolutions periode von 1522-26, (Germany, in the Revolutionary Period from 1522 to 26,) by Joseph Edmund Jörg. The author has had access to a great mass of original and hitherto unused materials, especially diplomatic correspondence and other documents in the Bavarian archives. His view of the subject is very different from that taken by Zimmermann, in his Peasants' War, or by any other writer. He mocks at the idea that this revolution grew out of the evils and oppressions suffered by the people, and finds its most powerful impulse in the passion for innovation that sprung up along with the revival of classical studies in the middle ages.
The antique fashion of presenting poetic works to the public, is revived in Germany with great success. Professor Griepenkerl of Brunswick, whose tragedy of Robespierre made a great sensation a year or more since, is now reading his new play of the Girondists to large audiences in the principal cities. He has already been heard at Brunswick, Leipzig, Dresden, and Bremen, and proposes to visit other places on the same errand. The play, which is a tragedy of course, is much admired, though it is not thought to be adapted to the stage. The Girondists were not men of action, but orators and thinkers. The final scene in the play is the famous banquet before they were taken to execution. Charlotte Corday is among the characters; the women are said not to be drawn as truly and powerfully as the men.
Carlyle's Life of Stirling is criticised in the Grenzboten, which calls Carlyle the strangest of all philosophers. This book is said, however, to be, on the whole, clearer and more intelligible than most of his former productions. Still, like most works of the new romantic school in England, of which Carlyle is the chief, it aims rather to give expression to the ideas and abilities of the author, than to do justice to its subject. But it is in Warren's Lily and the Bee, that the school appears in full bloom. This is said to consist mostly of exclamation points, and is written in a sort of lapidary style, that deals in riddles, pathos without object, sentimentality with irony, world-pain, and allusions to all the kingdoms of heaven and earth, without any explanation as to what relation these allusions bear to each other, and with a Titanic pessimism as its predominating tone, which first rouses itself up to take all by storm, and finishes by being soothed into happy intoxication by the odors of a lily. This is better treatment than The Lily and the Bee gets at home.
In the second volume of Shakspeare as Protestant, Politician, Psychologist and Poet, by Dr. Ed. Vehse—spoken of as being "even more uninteresting than the first," we find the two following extraordinary ideas. Firstly, that Shakspeare followed a theory of physical temperaments in his characters—that Hamlet was a representative of the melancholy or nervous, Othello of the choleric, Romeo of the sanguine, and Falstaff of the phlegmatic. Secondly, that in Falstaff, Shakspeare parodied—himself! Or to give his own words, "We may suppose that Shakspeare's physical constitution inclined to corpulence, and inspired in him the disposition to the life of a bon vivant. His intimacy with the Earl of Southampton may have favored this disposition, since they led for a long time a dissipated tavern-life, and were rivals in love matters!" The work is principally made up of extracts from Shakspeare's plays, to every which extract we find appended "How admirable,"—"Excellent," and similar aids to those who are not familiar with the English bard.
We commend to the attention of philologists Das Gothische Runenalphabet, (or The Gothic Runic Alphabet,) recently published by Hertz of Berlin. "Before Wulfila, the Goths had an alphabet of twenty-five letters, formed according to the same principles, and bearing nearly the same names as the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons and Northmen, and probably arranged in the same order of succession. Wulfila adopted the Grecian alphabet, which through his modification was received by the Goths to the old twenty-five letters." This is the theory propounded in the work, which is not wanting, as we learn, in instructive information. In connection with this we may notice a book which has been deemed worthy of a modern English republication in elegant style, the often referred to Scriptural Poems of Cædmon, in Anglo-Saxon, an edition of which, by R. W. Bouterwek, with an Anglo-Saxon Glossary, has recently been published by Bædeher of Elberfeldt.
The Preussische Zeitung states that M. Hanke, a learned Bohemian, is publishing, in Prague, a fac-simile of the Gospels on which the Kings of France have always been sworn at their coronation at Rheims. The manuscript volume is in the Slavonian language, and has been preserved at Rheims ever since the twelfth century, but it has only been lately discovered in what language it was written.
The eleventh volume of the Monumenta Germaniæ Historica inde ab anno Christi 500 usque ad annum 1500 auspiciis societ, aperiendis fontibus serum German medii ævi edid, G. H. Pertz, has just made its appearance. This work is regarded as a stupendous effort of erudition and historical acumen, even in Germany.
Dr. Hagberg, a professor at the University of Upsal, has just published at Stockholm a version of the complete works of Shakspeare, the first ever made in the Swedish language. It is in twelve thick octavo volumes. The Shaksperian Society of London having received a presentation copy of this translation, has returned a vote of thanks to Dr. Hagberg, accompanied by forty volumes of the Society's publications, all relating to the great dramatist and the state of dramatic art in his time.
Dunlop's History of Fiction has been translated into German by Professor Liebrecht of Liege, and enlarged so as to be much more complete than the original. The version bears the title of Geschichte der Prosadichtung oder, Geschichte der Romane, Novellen und Mährchen (History of Prose Poetry, or History of Romances, Novels and Traditional Tales). It gives a complete account of the most prominent fictions from the Greek romances down to the present day, and is quite as valuable for those who like to take their novels condensed, as for those who make a historical study of literature.
Holtei, the German poet, has published a four-volume novel, called Die Vagabunden (The Vagabonds). It is a curious and successful book. It treats of the various classes that get their living by amusing others, not merely of theatrical and musical artists, but of circus-riders, ventriloquists, jugglers, rope-dancers, puppet-showmen, &c. Indeed, actors and musicians are only introduced casually, while the lower classes, if we may so call them, of wandering artists, make up the book; and they make it up not in the form of caricatures or exaggerations, but as genuine living characters, with the faults and virtues that really belong to men of their respective professions The story is a good one, and is varied with all sorts of strange adventures.
In poetry we observe the attractive title of The Æolian Harp of the World's Poetry, a collection of poems of all countries and ages, "dedicated to German ladies and maidens," by Ferd. Schmidt. Also by the same collector, a Household Treasury of the most beautiful Ballads, Romances, and Poetic Legends of all Times and Nations; by Bruno Lindner, Four Tales, and from the Countess Agnes Schwerin, a new edition of What I heard from the bird. Were we confident that the Countess were intimately familiar with English poetry, we should feel half inclined to accuse her of having taken this title from
"High diddle ding, I heard a bird sing."
G. Puslitz has "thrown forth," as Bacchus threw the wreath of Ariadne, a "garland of Stories," entitled What the Forest Tells. Whether, like the wreath alluded to, it will reach the stars, we must leave our readers or his to decide.
In Science, we observe the publication of a piece of eccentric nonsense such as emanates at the present day only from a weak brother in Germany, or occasionally from a would-be original in New England. The work to which we refer is the Natur und Geist (or Nature and Spirit) of Dr. Johann Riohers. In the second volume he attempts to utterly overwhelm, confound, and destroy Newton's Theory of Attraction, by such an argument as the following. "Let any man jump from a height, in descending he feels no attraction to the Earth. How hasty and absurd therefore is it to attribute the movement in question to such an attraction."
A new collection of German Domestic Legends (Haus Mährchen) has been published at Leipzig, by J.W. Wolf, a distinguished German philologist. His Legends closely resemble those collected by Grimm, and, like them, are curious and instructive. He obtained them, one from a Gipsey, others from peasants in the mountain districts, and others from some companies of Hessian soldiers. He remarks that many such ancient legends are yet floating about among the German people, and that they ought to be collected before they are lost.
Zend Avesta, or On the things of Heaven and the World beyond the Grave, is the title of a new book in three volumes just published at Leipzig, in German, of course, by Gustav Theodor Fechnor. The author attempts to prove the possibility, if not the certainty, of a future life of the individual after death. His demonstrations are drawn from the analogies of the natural world. He exhibits a wide acquaintance with nature and with literature, but is not thought to have made any positive additions to psychological science.
Those who are conversant with the curiosities of the Middle Ages, and have read the entertaining history of "Ye Nigromancer Virgilius," in which the Mantuan bard lives no longer in the magic of song, but that of literal sorcery, will peruse with pleasure the Virgil's Fortleben im Mittelalter, or The Life of Virgil continued in the Middle Ages, by G. Rappert. Of all the wild romantic legends which the romantic time brought forth, none surpass in singularity and interest this singular narration.
Temperance Tales are produced in Germany as well as elsewhere. Jeremias Gotthelf is the best author who there cultivates this style of composition. His Dürsli, the Brandy drinker, has just passed through a fourth edition, and How five Maidens miserably perished in Brandy, to a second. Gotthelf has the talent of combining great dramatic interest and artistic freshness of narration, with a moral purpose. Hence the popularity of these little books.
Niehl's Bûrgerliche Gesellschaft (Civil Society) is greatly praised by critics, as the most valuable work lately published in Germany, or indeed in Europe, upon the State of Society and the causes operating to change it. Especially good are its pictures of the different classes in Germany, such as the nobility, the peasantry, the industrious middle class, and the proletaries. These pictures are said to have the minuteness and fidelity of daguerreotypes. The chapter on the "proletaries of intellectual labor," gives any thing but a flattering account of the literary classes on the continent. Those classes are held up as in a great measure perverted, empty, and dangerous. Niehl divides Society in Germany into four great classes, namely: the peasantry, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie or middle class, and the proletariat, or mere laborers for wages. The last he regards as the decaying and corrupting class, a sort of scum in hot effervesence. This is, however, one of the classes that produce social movement; the other is the middle class; the conservative or stationary classes are the peasantry and aristocracy. The learned professions he reckons among the middle class. He makes no distinction between the proletaries who live by the soil, and those who live by working in connection with manufactures and mechanical trades.
Another contribution to Goethean literature is the Correspondence between the great Poet and his intimate friend Knebel, which has just appeared in Germany in two volumes. The letters extend from 1774 to 1832, and contain the free expression of Goethe's opinions on a great variety of important subjects, as well as many interesting particulars in his personal history, hitherto unknown.
Mr. Wetzstein, Prussian Consul at Damascus, has returned to Europe, bringing a valuable collection of Arabic, Turkish and Persian manuscripts, which he expects to sell to the Royal Library at Berlin. Of especial value is a history of Persia during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which casts light on several portions of Persian history that have hitherto been obscure.
Longfellow's Evangeline has been translated into German and published at Hamburg. The name of the translator is not given. The critics find that the poem has a very marked resemblance to Goethe's Herman and Dorothea.
Dr. Mayo's Berber has been translated into the German by Mr. L. Dubois, and published at Leipzig.
A new and splendid edition of the Pilgrim's Progress has been published at Leipzig, in German. It is curious to see the good old book discussed by the critics as if it were a new production.
German Historical Literature has lately been enriched by numerous valuable works. Among these we notice Wenck's Fränkische Reich (Frankish Empire), which treats that subject, from A.D. 843 to 861, with instructive thoroughness and philosophical insight; two essays by Ficker, the one on Reinhald von Dassel, the Chancellor of Ferdinand I., and the other on the attempt of Henry VI. to render the German empire hereditary; Arnthen's History of Carinthia; Rink's Tirol; Palazky's History of Bohemia; Minutoli's History of the Elector Frederic I.; Riedel's Ten years of the History of the Ancestors of the Royal House of Prussia; the History of Schleswig Holstein, by George Waitz; Ruckert's Annals of German History; G. Philip's Outlines of the History of the German Empire and German Law; Gengler's History of German Law; the Coins of the German Emperors and Kings in the Middle Ages, a large work by Cappe; the Celts and Ancient Helvetians, by J. B. Brozi; and the Campaigns of the Bavarians from 1643 to 1645, by J. Hellmann; Mayr's Mann von Rinn (Man of Rinn) deserves special mention. The man of Rinn is Joseph Speckbacher, the hero of the war of 1809 in the Tyrol. His deeds, and those of his countrymen, are here narrated in a style as attractive as the facts are authentic.
In all the States of the German Confederation there are 2,651 booksellers, 400 of whom deal only in their own publications, 2,200 sell books, but do not publish, and 451 keep general assortments of books, and publish also. At Berlin there are 129 booksellers, at Leipzic, 145, at Vienna, 52, at Stuttgard, 50, and at Frankfort, 36. A hundred years ago there were only 31 at Leipzic and 6 at Berlin, and at two fairs held at Leipzic in 1750, only 350 German booksellers' establishments were represented. No one is allowed in Germany to become a bookseller without a license from the government, and in Prussia the applicant has to pass a special examination.
Those desirous of acquiring languages by wholesale, may try a recent work by Captain J. Nepomuk Szöllözy, with which the scholar can learn, according to the Ollendorffian system, French, German, English, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Hungarian, Wallachian and Turkish. Phrases and vocabularies of all the languages are appended.
A second edition of Adolf Stahr's Preussische Revolution, has appeared in Germany, revised by the author and dedicated to Macaulay. No recent book in Germany has been more successful than this.
Max Schlesinger's Wanderings through London are announced at Berlin; the first volume is already published. One of the chapters treats of "Linkoln's-In-Fields."
We learn from the last number of the Journal Asiatique, that M. Wöpcke, a mathematician who devotes himself to Arabic studies, has discovered in some Arabic manuscripts two works purporting to be by Euclid, which have not been preserved in the Greek original, nor are any where referred to as his by ancient mathematical writers. One is a treatise on the lever, and the other on the division of planimetric figures. The authenticity of the two is thought to be perfectly established by collateral evidence.
The Hungarian author. Baron Eötvös, has just published a work called Ueber den Einfluss der Neuen Ideen auf den Staat (On the influence of new ideas upon the State). He argues that the students of social and political science should confine themselves strictly to the method received in the natural sciences, and employed there with such success; first establish what are the genuine experimental phenomena, and then by induction settle the law which produces and governs them.
We expect a treat from Moritz Wagner's Reise nach Persien und dem Lande der Kurden (Journey to Persia and Kurdistan) the first volume of which is advertised in our last files of German papers. Wagner is one of the best of travellers, and we shall look for the book itself with some impatience. The second volume is announced as to appear in three weeks after the first.
The second part of the third volume of Humboldt's Kosmos, has just appeared at Stuttgart. It treats of the heavenly nebulae, suns, planets, comets, aurora borealis, zodiacal light, meteors, and meteoric stones. This completes the uranological part of the description of the physical universe. Humboldt has already begun his fourth volume, and expects to finish it before June next.
Kossuth is speculated on by a German bookseller, who advertises a work giving a complete account of his sayings and doings since the capitulation at Vilagos, including his flight to Turkey and his residence there, the negotiations for his release, his journey from Kutahia to England, and his tarry there up to sailing for America, with a portrait.
The Rev. Henry T. Cheever's Life in the Sandwich Islands (noticed by us lately in the International), is reprinted in London, by Bentley, and translated in German for a publisher at Berlin.
Silvio Pellico, so famous for his works, his imprisonments and sufferings, is passing the winter in Paris.
The complete works of Clemens Brentano, have been brought out at Frankfort, in seven volumes.
Two books of travels in Scandinavia have just appeared in Germany. One is the Bilder aus dem Norden (Pictures of the North), by Professor Oscar Schmidt of Jena; and the other Hägringar, or a Journey through Sweden, Lapland, Norway, and Denmark, in 1850, by a young author. Professor Schmidt amply repays the reader, which is more than can always be said of the author of Hägringar. Both works are, however, especially worthy the attention of those who wish to study the natural history and ethnography of the countries in question.
Madame Von Weber, widow of the composer, who has for some years resided at Vienna, has applied to the Emperor of Austria for permission to dispose of the three original MSS. scores of her husband's operas, Der Freischütz, Eutryanthe, and Oberon. These were in the Royal Library at Vienna; and she purposes offering them to the three sovereigns of Saxony, Prussia, and England,—in which respective countries they were originally produced. The Emperor has caused the MSS. to be delivered to her.
Professor Nuytz, whose work on canon law was recently condemned by the Holy See, has resumed his lectures at Turin. The lecture-room was crowded, and the learned professor was received with loud applause. He adverted to the hostility of the clergy, and to the Papal censures of his work, which censures he declared to be in direct opposition to the rights of the civil power. He expressed his thanks to the ministry for having refused to deprive him of his chair.
A valuable contribution to Italian history is Die Carafa von Maddaloni, Neapel unter Spanische Herrschaft (Naples under Spanish Domination), just published in Germany, by Alfred von Reumont, a member of the Prussian Legation at Florence, who, more than almost any other man, has made a study of the history of that part of Italy, and who in this work has had access to a great mass of new documents. He writes as a monarchist, but his facts may be relied on. The work is in two volumes.
Every body remembers the noise made in New-York some fifteen years since by the revelations of Maria Monk. We notice a translation of her famous disclosures advertised, with all sorts of trumpet blowing, in our German papers.
An edition of the complete works of Kepler is preparing in Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Frisch, of Stuttgart. The manuscripts of the great astronomer, preserved at St. Petersburg, have been examined for the purpose, with rich results. It is also proposed to erect a monument to Kepler at Stuttgart.
Sixteen German books were prohibited in Russia in August last; among them were Fontaine's Poems, Görre's Christian Mysticism, Kutz's Manual of Sacred History, Schmidt's Death of Lord Byron, Kinkel's Truth without Poetry, and Strauss's Life Questions. Of eleven other works, a few pages from each were prohibited; among these was the German version of Lieutenant Lynch's United States Expedition to the Jordan and the Dead Sea. These works are allowed to enter Russia after having the objectionable pages cut out.
The science of landscape gardening is enriched by a new work of value just published at Leipzig, by Rudolph Liebeck, the director of the public garden in that city. It is called Die bildenden Garten Kunst in seinen Modernen Formen (The Modern Constructive Art of Gardening). It has twenty colored plates.
Cotta, of Stuttgart, is preparing to publish a splendid illustrated edition of Goethe's Faust. The designs are to be by an artist well known in Germany, Engelbert Seibertz. The work is to be published in numbers.
The historical remains and letters of George Spalatin have been published at Weimar. They are a valuable addition to the history of the Reformation.
It is remarkable that the only oriental nation whose literature has much resemblance to ours, and has a direct practical value for us, is the Chinese. For instance, the works of this people upon agriculture abound in practical information, which may be made immediately useful in Europe and America. We noticed, some time since, the treatise on the raising and care of silk worms, translated and published at Paris, by M. Stanislas Julien, which was so warmly welcomed in France as a timely addition to what was there known upon the subject. It seems that this work was but a small portion of an extensive Cyclopedia of Agriculture in use in China, where the science of tilling the soil has in many respects been developed to an astonishing degree of perfection. This cyclopedia, M. Hervey, a French scholar, whose knowledge of the Eastern languages is accompanied by an equally profound love of farming, has undertaken to translate entire. This is a difficult and tedious enterprise, especially on account of the mass of botanical and technical expressions which occur in the work, and of which the dictionaries furnish no explanation. Meanwhile M. Hervey has published some of the results of his studies in a work called Investigations on Agriculture and Gardening among the Chinese. He mentions several varieties of fruits, vegetables, and trees, which might advantageously be introduced into France and Algiers; he also analyzes the Cyclopedia, and shows what are the difficulties in translating it.
A remarkable contribution to our knowledge of China, is M. Biot's recent translation of the book called Tscheu-li. It seems that in the twelfth century before Christ, the second dynasty that had ruled the country, that of Thang, fell by its own vices, and the empire passed into the hands of Wu-wang, the head of the princely family of Tscheu-li. Wu-wang was a great soldier and statesman; he confided to his brother Tscheu-Kong, a man evidently of extraordinary political genius, the moral and administrative reformation of the empire. He first laid the foundation of a reform in moral ideas by an addition to the Y-King or sacred book, which the Chinese revere and incessantly study, but which still remains an unintelligible mystery for Europeans. Of his administrative reforms a complete record is preserved in the Tscheu-li, and nothing could be easier to understand.
When the Tscheus thus came into power, they found in existence a powerful feudal aristocracy, from which they themselves proceeded, and which they must tolerate. Accordingly, they recognized within the imperial dominions sixty-three federal jurisdictions, which were hereditary, but whose rulers were obliged to administer according to the laws and methods of the empire. Having made this concession, they abolished all other hereditary offices, and established instead, a vast system of centralization, such as the world has never seen equalled elsewhere. The administration, according to the Tscheu-li, is divided among six ministries, which were also divided into sections, and the executive functions descend regularly and systematically to the lowest official, and include the entire movement of society. The emperor and the feudal princes are restrained by formalities and usage, as well as by the expression of disapprobation; and the officials of every grade by their hierarchical dependency, and by a system of incessant oversight; and finally, the people by proscription, and the education, industrial, as well as mental and moral, which the State dispenses to them. The sole idea in which this astonishing system rests, is that of the State, whose office is to care for all that can contribute to the public good, and which regulates the action of every individual with a view to this end. In his organization, Tscheu-Kong excelled every thing that the most centralized governments of Europe have devised.
The Tscheu family remained in power for five centuries, and was finally broken down by the feudal element they had preserved. But so deep was the impress of Tscheu-Kong upon the nation, that after centuries of revolutions and civil war, it returned to his institutions and principles, and it is by them and in a great degree in their exact forms, that China is now governed.
In form the Tscheu-li is like an imperial almanac of our own times. It is, however, much more complete, because Tscheu-Kong gives in it a mass of detailed instructions, in order to make the officials aware of their duties and the precise limits of their authority. Thus the work affords a quite exact picture of the social condition of China at that time. There is no other monument of antiquity with which it can be compared, except the Manus, the Indian book of law. The difference is, that in China the intellectual activity was altogether political, and the public organization altogether imperial and political; while in India the mental activity was metaphysical, and the public organization altogether municipal.
The translation of the Tscheu was not published till after M. Biot's decease; it was brought out by his father, with the assistance of M. Stanislas Julien.
The library of the famous Cardinal Mezzofanti is about to be sold, and the catalogue is already printed—in Italian, of course. It is one of the most extensive and valuable collection of works in various languages ever made, and it is to be hoped that it may not be disposed of at the sale, but pass all together into some public library—that of some university would be most appropriate. To indicate the contents of the catalogue, we give the titles of the different parts: Books in Albanian or Epirotic, Arabic, Armenian, American (Indian dialects of Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, United States), Bohemian, Chaldaic, Chinese (Cochin-Chinese, Trin-Chinese, Japanese), Danish (Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Laplandic), Hebrew (Antique, Rabbinic, Samaritan), Egyptian, or Coptic-Egyptian and Coptic, Arabic, Etrusean, Phœnician, Flemish, French (Breton-French, Lorraine-French, Provençal), Gothic and Visi-Gothic, and Greek and Greek-Latin, Modern Greek, Georgian or Iberian, Cretian or Rhetian, Illyrian, Indo-oriental (Angolese, Burmese or Avian, Hindostanee, Malabar, Malayan, Sanscrit), English (Arctic, Breton or Celtic, Scotch-Celtic, Scotch, Irish, Welch), Italian (Fineban dialect, Maltese, Milanese, Sardinian, Sicilian), Kurdistanee or Kurdic, Latin, Maronite and Syriac Maronite, Oceanic (Australian), Dutch, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (various dialects), Slavonian (Carniolan, Serbian, Ruthenian, Slavo-Wallachian), Syriac, Spanish (Catalan, Biscayan), Russian, Turkish, Hungarian, Gipsey.
The French historian Michelet, deprived of his professorship in the College of France, is devoting himself more than ever to literature. His last work, of which an authorized translation has just appeared in London, is The Martyrs of Russia.
Michel Nicolas, one of the ablest among the French theologico-ethical writers, has published a translation of the Considerations on the Nature and Historical Developments of Christian Philosophy, by Dr. Ritter, of the University of Gottingen.
M. Schonenberger, a music-publisher at Paris, has purchased from the heirs of Paganini the copyright of his works, and is now publishing them, under the editorial supervision of M. Achille Paganini, the son of the great violinist. The edition will comprise every thing that he left behind in writing. Hector Berlioz speaks with enthusiasm in the Journal des Debats of the two grand concertos which have just appeared, one of them containing the marvellous rondo of the campanella. Berlioz speaks in high praise of Paganini's genius as a composer. A volume would be required, he says, to indicate the new effects, the ingenious methods, the grand and noble forms which he discovered, and even the orchestral combinations, which before him were not suspected. In spite of the rapid progress which, thanks to Paganini, the violin is making at the present day in respect of mechanical execution, his compositions are yet beyond the skill of most violinists, and in reading them it is hardly possible to conceive how their author was able to execute them. Unfortunately he was not able to transmit to his successors the vital spark which animated and rendered human those astonishing prodigies of mechanism.
M. Philarete Chasles, one of the literary critics of the Journal des Debats, has published, at Paris, a book called Etudes sur la Litterateur et les Mæurs des Anglo-Americanis, which abounds in those curious blunders that some French authors seem to be destined to when they write upon topics connected with foreign countries. For instance, he makes the pilgrims of Plymouth to have been the founders of Philadelphia, New-York, and Boston. Buffalo he sets down opposite to Montreal, speaks of the puritans of Pennsylvania as near neighbors of Nova Scotia, and extends Arkansas to the Rocky Mountains. At New-York his regret is that a railroad has destroyed the beauty of Hoboken, and at New Orleans he laments that marriages between whites and Creoles are interdicted. Of Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Audubon, and Longfellow, he speaks in terms of just praise, but Willis is not mentioned. Bancroft and Hildreth are mentioned as historians, Prescott is spoken of briefly in connection with his Ferdinand and Isabella, while his other works are not alluded to. To Herman Melville, M. Chasles devotes fifty pages, while Mr. Ticknor has not even the honor of a mention. The author of this work is very far from doing justice either to American literature or to himself.
Five of the nine intended volumes of Lafuente's General History of Spain from the remotest times to the present day, have appeared in Paris.
In Paris a new edition is announced of the best French versions of Fenimore Cooper's works—six or eight illustrated volumes.
M. Guizot is about to publish a new volume at Paris, with the title of Shakspeare et son Temps (Shakspeare and his Times). It is to be composed of his Life of Shakspeare, and the articles that he has written at various times upon different plays. The only novelty in it is a notice on Hamlet which was prepared expressly for this publication. He regards both Macbeth and Othello as better dramas than Hamlet, but thinks the last contains more brilliant examples of Shakspeare's sublimest beauties and grossest faults. "Nowhere," says Guizot, "has he unveiled with more originality, depth and dramatic effect, the inmost state of a great soul: but nowhere has he more abandoned himself to the caprices, terrible or burlesque, of his imagination, and to that abundant intemperance of a mind pressed to get out its ideas without choosing among them, and bent on rendering them striking by a strong, ingenious, and unexpected mode of expression, without any regard to their truth and natural form." The French critic also thinks that on the stage the effect of Hamlet is irresistible.
A Capital work on Paris has just been published at Berlin, from the pen of Friedrich Szarvady, a Hungarian, who has resided for several years in Paris. The titles of the chapters are:—Paris in Paris; Strangers in Paris; Parisian Women; Street Eloquence; the Temple of Jerusalem (the Bourse); Salons and Conversation; Dancing, Song, and Flowers; the Ball at the Grand Opera; Artist Life; the Press; the Feuilleton; History on a Public Square; Lamartine, Cavaignac, Thiers; Louis Bonaparte. Szarvady observes sharply, and writes with as much grace and esprit as a Frenchman. Nothing can be more taking than his pages. They deserve a translation from the German into English.
Villergas, the Spanish historian, who in one of his recent works drew a parallel between Espartero and Narvaez which excited great attention at Madrid and in other parts of Spain, has just been condemned by the court which has charge of the offences of the press, to a fine of twenty thousand reals, or twenty-five hundred dollars, for the sin against public order and private character contained in that parallel.
An interesting and valuable series of articles reviewing historically the systems of land tenure which have prevailed in different countries, is appearing in the Journal des Débats from the pen of M. Henry Trianon. The systems of India and China have already been examined.
The termagant wife of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton has just published The School for Husbands, a novel founded on the life and times of Moliere. Probably her own husband is shot at in all the chapters.
The books on modern French history would already fill an Alexandrian library, and every month produces new ones. M. Leonard Gallois, a well-known historical writer, announces a History of the Revolution of February, 1848, in five large octavos, with forty-one portraits. M. Barante's History of the Convention will consist of six octavos, of which three are published, and the last is accompanied by it biographical sketch of each of the seven hundred and fifty members. The period embraced in this work is from 1792 to 1795, inclusive. There is a new History of the City of Lyons, in three octavos, by the city librarian.
The Letters and unpublished Essays of Count Joseph de Maistre have been brought out at Paris, in two volumes octavo. The letters show the celebrated author in a new and pleasing light; a tone of genial unreserve prevails in many of them, which those who have become familiar with his brilliant, dogmatic, and paradoxical intellect, in his more elaborate writings, would hardly suppose him capable of. No writer, of this century at least, has more powerfully set forth the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church than he.
The Political Situation of Cuba, a volume published in Paris, by Don Antonio Saco, is commended in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Don Antonio was one of the most distinguished intelligences and liberals of the precious island: he argues against independence, or annexation to the American Union: he suggests various arrangements by which Spain could safely establish political freedom in Cuba, and he thinks administrative and judicial reforms to counteract the worst ills of her present situation, might be accomplished.
A New edition of Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons has just appeared in London, with important additions and revision. The first edition of Turner's History was published in London more than fifty years ago. At the time when the first volume appeared, the subject of Anglo-Saxon antiquities had been nearly forgotten by the British public, although the most venerated laws, customs, and institutions of the nation originated before the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts lay unexamined in archives, and the important information they contained had never been made a part of general history. Mr. Turner undertook a careful and patient investigation of all the documents belonging to the period preserved in the kingdom, and the result of his labors was the work in question, which at once gave rise to an almost universal passion for the records and remains of the Anglo-Saxon people, and called forth general applause from the best minds of England. A good edition of his History was published several years ago by Carey and Hart of Philadelphia, but it is now, we believe, out of print.
The Rev. John Howard Hinton, author of a well-known History of the United States, has published, in London, a volume under the title of The Test of Experience, in which he has presented a masterly argument for the voluntary principle in matters of religion. The "test of experience" is in this, as in all other things, the best of tests, and the religious institutions of the United States can well bear its application. One of the most noticeable results of the non-interference of the State is pointed out in the following passage:
"To travellers in the United States, no fact has been more immediately or more powerfully striking than the total absence of religious rivalry. Amidst such a multitude of sects, an inhabitant of the old world naturally, and almost instinctively looks for one that sets up exclusive pretensions and possesses an actual predominance. But he finds nothing of the kind. Neither presbyterianism, or prelacy, nor any other form of ecclesiasticism, makes the slightest effort to lift its head above its fellow. And with the resignation of exclusive pretensions, the entire ecclesiastical strife has ceased, and the din of angry war has been hushed; and here, at length, the voluntary principle is able to exhibit itself in its true colors, as a lover of peace and the author of concord. It is busied no longer with the arguing of disputed claims, but throws its whole energy into free and combined operations for the extension of Christianity. The general religious energy embodies itself in a thousand forms; but while there is before the church a vast field to which the activities of all are scarcely equal, there is, also, 'a fair field and no favor,'—a field in which all have the same advantages, and in which each is sure to find rewards proportionate to its wisdom and its zeal. This inestimable benefit of religious peace is clearly due to the voluntary principle."
Junius, since the publication of his Letters, never figured more conspicuously than during the last month. The Paris Revue des Deux Mondes has a very long article on the great secret by M. Charles Remusat, a member of the Institute, well known in historical criticism. He arrays skilfully the facts and reasonings which British inquirers have adduced in favor of Sir Philip Francis, and the other most probable author, Lord George Sackville. He seems to incline to the latter, but does not decide. He pronounces that, on the whole, Junius was not "a great publicist." His powers and influence are investigated and explained by M. de Remusat with acuteness and comprehensive survey. Lord Mahon, in his new volumes, says, "From the proofs adduced by others, and on a clear conviction of my own, I affirm that the author of Junius was no other than Sir Philip Francis." We think not. The London Athenæum, last year, we thought, settled this point. It is understood that the editor of the Grenville Papers, now on the eve of publication, in London, is in favor of Lord Temple as a claimant for the authorship of Junius. The January number of the Quarterly Review contains an article on the subject.
The Natural History of the Human Species, by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, is the title of a duodecimo volume from the press of Gould & Lincoln of Boston. An American editor (Dr. Kneeland) has added an introductory survey of recent literature on the subject. The whole performance is feeble. The author and his editor endeavor to make out something like the infidel theory of Professor Agassiz, which, a year or two ago, attracted sufficient attention to induce an investigation and an intelligent judgment, in several quarters, as to the real claims of that person to the distinctions in science which his advertising managers claim for him. We have not space now for any critical investigation of the work, and therefore merely warn that portion of our readers who feel any interest in ethnological studies, of its utter worthlessness.
An Englishman, Mr. Francis Bonynge, recently from the East Indies, has come to this country at the instance of our minister in London, for the purpose of bringing before us the subject of introducing some twenty of the most valuable agricultural staples of the East, among which are the tea, coffee, and indigo plants, into the United States. He gives his reasons for believing that tea and indigo would become articles of export from this country to an amount greater than the whole of our present exports. He says that tea, for which we now pay from sixty-five to one hundred cents per lb. may be produced for from two to five cents, free from the noxious adulterations of the tea we import. He has published a small volume under the title of The Future Wealth of America, in which his opinions are fully explained and illustrated.
The first volume of a work on Christian Iconography, by M. Didron, of Paris, opens to the curious reader a new source of intellectual enjoyment, both in the department of ancient religious art, and in the archæology of the early paintings of the Catholic Church. The rich, profuse, and quaint plates of the original work are used in a translation ably made by E.J. Millington, published in London by Bohn, and in New-York by Bangs.
Sir Francis Bond Head, so well known in this country as one of the former governors of Canada, and as an author of remarkable versatility and cleverness, has published an agreeable but superficial book on Paris—the Paris of January, 1852—under the quaint title of A Bundle of French Sticks; and Mr. Putnam has reprinted it in his new library.
A remarkable book published in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1847, by J. D. Nourse, under the title of Remarks on the Past, and its Legacies to American Society, has just been reprinted in London, with an introduction by D. T. Coulton.
The following works, all of which have promising titles, will soon be published by J. S. Redfield: Men of the Times in 1852, comprising biographical sketches of all the celebrated men of the present day; Characters in the Gospels, by Rev. E. H. Chapin; Tales and Traditions of Hungary, by Theresa Pulzky; The Comedy of Love, and the History of the Eighteenth Century, by Arsene Houssaye; Aytoun's Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers; The Cavaliers of England, and The Knights of the Olden Time, or the Chivalry of England, France and Spain, by Henry W. Herbert; Lectures and Miscellanies, by Henry James; and Isa: a Pilgrimage, by Caroline Chesebro.
The Westminster Review says of Alice Carey, whose Clovernook we noticed favorably in the last International, that "no American woman can be compared to her for genius;" the Paris Débats refers to her as a poet of the rank of Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning in England; the literary critic of The Tribune (the learned and accomplished Ripley whose judgment in such a matter is beyond appeal) prefers her Clovernook to Miss Mitford's Our Village, or Professor Wilson's Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life.
Mr. Daniel S. Curtiss has availed himself well of large opportunities for personal observation, in his volume just published under the title of Western Portraiture, and Emigrant's Guide, a description of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, with remarks on Minnesota and other territories. It is the most judicious and valuable book of the kind we have seen.
Herr Freund, the Philologist, is in London, engaged in constructing a German-English and English-German dictionary upon his new system; and Professor Smith, the learned editor of the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, announces a dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, the articles to be written by the principal contributors to his previous works.
The Christmas Books of the present season in England have not been very remarkable. Mr. Dickens, in an extra number of his Household Words, printed What Christmas is to Everybody; and we have from Wilkie Collins, A New Christmas Story; by the author of "The Ogilvies," Alice Learmont, a Fairy Tale of Love; by the author of "The Maiden Aunt," a pleasant little book entitled The Use of Sunshine.
Under the title of Excerpta de P. Ovidii Nastonis, Blanchard & Lea of Philadelphia have published a series of selections from a poet whose works, for obvious reasons, are not read entire in the schools. The extracts present some of the most beautiful parts of this graceful and versatile poet.