FOOTNOTES:
[B] The Female Poets of America: By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Philadelphia, Henry C. Baird, 1851.
[C] From Nanuntenoo, an Indian Romance. By Frances H. Green. Philadelphia, 1850.
JEANNE MARIE, AND LYRICAL POETRY IN GERMANY.
We are induced to translate for The International the following crisply written critique from Die Grenzboten, not only from its giving for the benefit of certain of our dilettanti German scholars a few judicious remarks on the true merit of their "new celebrity," Jeanne Marie, but because the preceding account of the present state of lyrical poetry in Germany, is very nearly as applicable to lyrical poetry as it now exists among the rising bards of America and England as to that of the father-land:
"It is now about a century since the beginning of our most brilliant German lyrical era, and we are at the conclusion of a series of developments, which individually display all of the peculiarities indicative of the decline of a great epoch in art. The incredible number of subjects which have been artistically treated, has inspired the minds of our cotemporaries with an almost superfluity of poetically adapted figures, forms, tones and materials, with which we are familiar from our first breath. Vast numbers of corresponding series of similes, and combinations of words and sentences have been naturalized in our language, and the spirit of the rising generation cannot be other than powerfully influenced by the incredible variety of forms and phrases, which it acquires during education. From all which a limitation of the creative power naturally results—since there is hardly a sentiment, hardly a perception of the present day, which has not been rendered applicable to poetic art; and the array of these imposing creations ring in the soul of the young poet wonderfully through each other. It is almost impossible to experience a new feeling which has not been sung, and yet the impulse still exists to win for the again and again experienced, a value, and a certain degree of originality. From which results the most desperate efforts, by means of bold, artificial, highly polished or tasteless images and comparisons, to form a style and acquire a peculiar literary physiognomy: efforts which should by no means be despised, even when the critic is compelled to blame its results; for it is natural and unavoidable. Such a superabundance of poetic forms of address, applications, words, and measures, are at present current in the world, that for every poetic feeling a prosaic or metrical reminiscence rings and echoes consciously or unconsciously, and more or less clearly, through the poetic soul. To avoid this wearisome beaten path, our poets are driven, on the one hand, into unheard of refinements of metre and words—or on the other, into an affected barbarism and roughness. And since the quantity of poetic metres, applications, and forms of speech, has become so incredibly large that they every where pass and are received as a sort of spiritual small change, it has become infinitely easier to express an idea in tolerably good poetic language, than it was fifty years ago. Gleim, Holty, and Bürger, are to us great men, not because their poems are so much better than those manufactured at the present day, but because their every poem was a victory gained over the barbarism and want of form in the German language as it then existed—a true conquest for the realm of beauty and art. At present, any fool who has by heart his Schiller or his Heine, can collect and write that which may pass for his 'poem'—though perhaps not an atom of the whole is the result of aught save mere reproduction. What is really wanting to all our writers is the correct and artistic adaptation of terms. For this modern dilettanti reproduction and combination of the thoughts and forms of others is but a rough and uncomely parody of those poetic creations, which were consecrated by an earnest striving and silent battle with the force of language. Among the numerous modern poets in Germany, there live not a dozen who can write a truly correct verse and make just applications of our so poetically adapted language. The which assertion, seemingly a paradox—is nevertheless natural enough.
"And yet the creative impulse lives in many a soul, nor has there for a long time existed a more generally diffused or more exquisite appreciation of lyrical poetry than during the past year. New poets of an aristocratic or pious tendency are eagerly purchased and admired, which is also according to rule, since they reflect the spirit of the age, and correspond with modern wants. Such a peculiar influence on the interest of the public at large has naturally conducted to the most elegant style of publication of recent poems. It has become a real pleasure to see their paper, type, and binding, and their neat garments of fine linen, delicately trimmed and lettered with burnished gold. Such a highly ornamented work at present adorns every table, and appears right well in the white little hand of its fair possessor.
"The poems of Jeanne Marie, the popular romance writer, are by an intelligent and well educated lady. She has evidently observed and reflected much in the world, and had also her own experiences therein—yet knows how to express with propriety and consciousness her most passionate feelings. She is, however, in her poems, rather witty and calculating, than inspired with heart and soul. Those productions are, for the greater part, images and comparisons—not unfrequently very exquisitely conceived and executed—the point being occasionally a gross antithesis, as for example in the poem, Alles nur Du:
"'What I most longed for, thou hast to me given,
What I possess, belongeth all to thee;
Thou art mine I—thine is my life and heaven,
My life is thine, and thine my all To-Be.'
"Or in other poems, the conclusion merely amounts to the explanation of a comparison, as in the New Cloak Song, in which on a rusty nail, a torn cloak explains itself as the cloak of Christian love. But where our poetess simply narrates or describes, her art is truly agreeable, only that the lively and closely detailed perceptions, which shoot forth in her soul, often appear obscure from a want of practice in poetic language, and not unfrequently entirely perverted on account of an utter deficiency in logical acuteness.
"But since this poetess is endowed with far more than her cotemporaries—id est, a peculiar talent to conceive and represent in a lively manner epic details—let us, for the sake of art, gently beg of her to do something for this her talent. She is by far too ignorant of the art of application of terms in lyrical poetry, her delivery is too variable and inaccurate, while botched-up expressions (Flickwörter) and startling instances of incorrectness in language are in her writings every where to be met with. As yet she is a mere amateur and dilettant, and her right, to lay before the literary world her poetic inspirations, may very correctly be doubted; and yet she has evidently in her the material for something far better. This she can attain in only one way. She must lay aside all the flaunt and tawdriness of her similes and figures, and then strive to express a lively emotion or an interesting expression, with the simplest words, first in prose—and then in verse. What she has written should then be carefully thought over—every line and word tested, and no inaccuracy in poetical perceptions, no oblique expression, and no metrical defect be suffered to remain."
Authors and Books.
A new German work, entitled Klopstock in Zurich from the years 1730 to 1751, gives quite a new portrait of the poet of the Messias, who, both by the time of his appearance and by the dignity of his theme, is held as the patriarch of German poetry. In this sprightly little volume the mystic halo with which an exaggerated homage has invested the head of the genial young German rolls away, and we behold a pleasant fellow in gay summer costume, floating about upon the blue lake of Zurich, surrounded by a circle of fair and admiring votaries, to whom he chants strains from his immortal poem, and reaps a harvest of kisses in return. We behold a chivalrous equestrian dashing through the still streets of old Zurich, draining unreasonable depths of beer with wild students, biting glass, and swallowing coal, until the old Bodmer with whom he was living—a reverential admirer of the great Prophet of the Messias, and in whose imagination Klopstock sat separate in a godlike and passionless serenity—was bitterly grieved by these earthly experiences of a Greek rather than of a Christian divinity, complained, remonstrated, rebuked, until the jovial poet was forced to leave the good Bodmer's house, and betake himself to Rape's, with whom he sat in silken hose, and speculated upon the universe. It is always pleasant to hear these human facts of the heroes of fame and imagination. Few things remove Washington farther from the general sympathy than the unbending austerity of hue in which his mental portrait is always colored. Why should our great men, whose humanity makes them dearer, go so solemnly and sadly through all posterity? Burns could draw the tired hostlers of village inns from their beds to listen open-mouthed and open-hearted to his wondrous and witching stories. Shakspeare shall always have stolen sheep, even though De Quincy proves by splendid and resonant reasoning that he could never have done it. Raphael shall have been a warm-blooded man, spite of our cold-blooded speculations upon his saintship, so that we shall not wonder at De Maistre's delicate and dainty truth that the Fornarina "loved her love more than her lover." Not that sheep-stealing, or any other peccadillo is beautiful, or in any way to be commended or imitated, but that these are the signs of human and actual sympathy which these great and glorious geniuses show us—as stately sky-sailed galleons, sweeping the sea into admiring calm at their progress, might hang out simple lanterns to the fishing-smacks around, to show their crews that the same red blood was the sap of all that splendid life. "Is he not the Just?" "Yes—and because he is the Just, I have done it." Poor old Herr Bodmer could not see with equanimity the illustrious guest of his imagination boating about the lake with the girls at Zurich, and selling the stanzas—of priceless worth to him—for a snatched and blushing kiss. For our own part, we are glad that generous Mr. Morikofer has pulled off the bleached horse hair wig of factitious gravity, and shown us the natural moist and waving hair of a human-hearted poet.
A History of German Literature, from W. Wackernagel, is coming out in parts at Basle. Since Gervinus there has been no broad treatment of the subject. But Gervinus gives us rather a history of the cultivation than of the literature of Germany. Vilmar is much too partial and partisan, and Hillebrand treats only the period from Lessing to the present time. Wackernagel surveys the whole ground from the beginning. The first part of his work is occupied with the elder literature of Germany, but he has handled it so dexterously that it interests the general reader, even while he develops the laws by which the old high German proceeded from the Gothic, and the middle high German from that. He divides the literary history into three parts. 1. The old high German era, Frank, Carlovingian, of the German Latinity of the bards. 2. The middle high German, beginning with the Crusades, and treating all the chivalric, social, and international relations which they inspired. 3. The new German style. The treatise is original and profound, and lacks only a little more elaboration of the biographical notices.
A somewhat curious proof of the influence which America at present exerts, even in language, may be found in the title of a dictionary (English and German), recently published at Brunswick. The title alluded to, is as follows: A new and complete dictionary of the English and German languages, compiled with especial regard to the American idiom for general use; containing a concise grammar, &c., &c.: by William Odell Elwell.
Carl Heideloff, whose exquisite work on the architectural ornaments of the Middle Ages, should entitle him to the gratitude of every student of mediæval art, will publish, before the end of this month, by Geigar of Nuremberz, a folio, illustrated with the finest steel engravings, entitled Architectonic Sketches, and complete buildings, in the Byzantine and Old German styles.
It has long been a mooted point among the philosophers of the beautiful in Germany whether the art of gardening was a legitimate branch of æsthetic culture. Bouterweck denied that the artificial perversions of an old-fashioned French garden had the slightest relation to art, but admitted that the Landschafts-gartenkunst, or art of landscape gardening, might very properly be ranked with painting and sculpture. Thiersch passes the subject by in silent contempt, while Tittman, whose work on beauty and art is fast becoming a universal hand-book of æsthetics, declares, on the other hand, that it is, even more than architecture, closely allied to the study of the beautiful, since its object is far less directly connected with human wants, and more nearly related to the attractive and fascinating. Herr Rudolph Siebeck would appear, however, to have put the question for a time at rest, by a work at present publishing by Voigt, in Leipsic, entitled Die Vildende Gartenkunst, in ihren modernen Formen, which, as he very correctly asserts, "embraces in one comprehensive theory all those laws of the art of gardening which æsthetics present, by the application of natural and artificial methods, in order to plan and execute walks and grounds, according to the dictates of a refined taste." In pursuance of this great aim, Herr Siebeck, (who was, by the way, formerly the imperial Russian court-gardener at Lazienka, and is at present council-gardener at Leipsic,) after completing his education as a practical gardener, scientifically studied the higher principles of his art at the universities of Munich and Leipsic, both of which, but particularly the former, have long been celebrated for the facilities which they afford for this study. After which, under the kind patronage of Baron Hugel, he journeyed to "every country" the natives of which had so far advanced in the art of gardening as to deserve the honor of a visit. The results of this study and labor are given in the above-titled volume, which embraces all things, if not exactly from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, at least from the largest royal park to the smallest garden in a city. The work is illustrated with twenty colored garden plans, arranged according to the following categories: 1. Kitchen Gardens. 2. Pleasure Gardens. 3. Pleasure and Kitchen Gardens. 4. Public Gardens. 5. A Botanical Garden.
The first volume of a new Life of Goethe, by J. W. Schafer, has been published, of which we find flattering accounts. Also the Life and Times of Joachim Jurgins, with Goethe's fragments upon his works by G. C. Guhsaner. He was the contemporary of Galileo, Kepler, Cartesius, &c.
Franz Liszt, the famous pianist, has written a pleasant pamphlet in favor of the project of a Goethean Institute of Art in Weimar, where he is chapel master.
Weil—not Alexander of the Corsaire, but Dr. Gustav Weil, Professor of Oriental languages and History at Heidelberg—is publishing at Mannheim, a History of the Khalifs,[D] which, as regards extent, erudition, and accuracy, may be fairly ranked with any work on this subject extant. The title is, however, only partial; that of "An Universal History of Islamism," would be far more appropriate. The Khalifate forms, so to speak, a nucleus around which are grouped as integral parts all of the numerous dynasties which were in any degree connected with the Khalifate, while those which were more nearly within its influence, as the Saffarides, the Tulinides, Bujides, and Saljucks, are illustrated with extraordinary learning and research. An excellent history of Arabic literature to the midst of the fourth century of the Hegira is appropriately introduced. The reader will remember that Schlosser, in the introduction to his fourth volume of the Weltgeschichte, remarks that in the oriental portion of that work he had been guided solely by the "Life of Mohammed," by Weil, and this "History of the Khalifate," of which, however, only the first volume had then appeared. Weil, remarks the great "modern Tacitus," "is at present universally recognized as one of the first oriental scholars in Germany or France. He has brought from manuscripts many new things to light, and his works may be regarded as historical sources."
Von Rahden, a German officer of note, has published some very interesting Reminiscences of a Military Career. The third part, which is just completed, contains the history of his campaigns with the earliest army in Spain. He is a soldier of the old type, and was devoted body and soul to Don Carlos—and if his story occasionally expands into romance, it is readily forgiven for the greater local truth and impression thereby obtained. He paints battle-pieces in a most vivid manner, pervaded by that interest in the individual which lends so fascinating a charm to all narration. In his first Spanish battle, when stationed as an outpost in the very tempest of bullets and balls, he quietly takes time to draw the country and the situation of the enemy. His hero is Lichnowsky—the young German Prince, who was so inhumanly butchered during the session of the German Parliament in Frankfort. He was in Spanish battle as cool, skilful, and death-despising, as he was chivalric against the crudeness of the political philosophers, and noble against the beastly brutality of his assassins, in central Germany.
The third part of the life of Baron Von Stein, the celebrated Prussian statesman, is published. The chief interest of this part is the history of Stein's sympathy with the Emperor Alexander of Russia, whom he regarded as the Saviour of Europe.
Adelbert Keller, one of the most zealous among the mediæval romantic antiquaries of the Tubingen school, and well known by his accurate editions of the Gesta Romanorum, Les Romans des Sept Sages, Romancero del Cid, and Gudrun, has recently, in company with Wilhelm Holland, prepared for the press a new edition of the songs of Guillem IX., Count of Poictiers and Duke of Aquitania. In addition to the chair of Professor Extraordinary of Modern Languages, (which our readers need not be informed is nothing very extraordinary at a German university,) Keller holds the far more important office of teacher of the German Language and Literature at the university of Tubingen. We presume that few men, even in France or Germany, have more carefully or enthusiastically hunted over the various MS. libraries of Italy or his own country, in search of Minnesinger and Provençal literature than Keller.
The twenty-fifth publication of the Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten (History of the States of Europe) consists of continuations of histories of Austria and Prussia. The series is edited by the well-known scholars Heeren and Ukert. It has been in progress more than twenty years, and is designed to embrace a complete body of American history, by competent authors. Fifty volumes have already been issued, embracing in complete works, Italy, by Leo, finished 1832; German Empire, by Pfister, 1836; Saxony, by Bottiger, 1837; Netherlands, by Van Kampen, 1837; Austria, by Mailath, 1850; France to the Revolution, by Schmidt, 1848; France, from the Revolution, by Wachsmuth, 1844; the Histories of Denmark, by Dahlmann (vol. III. in 1844); of Portugal, by Schafer (vol. III. in 1850); of Russia, continued by Herrmann after Strahl's decease (vol. IV. 1849); of Prussia, by Stenzel (vol. IV. 1850) are all far advanced, and their completion may be looked for at no distant period. Single volumes, also, have appeared, by Zinkeisen, on the Ottoman Kingdom; by Ropel, on Poland; and by Bulau on the Modern History of Germany. The Athenæum observes that when the series is completed, the Germans and those who read German in other countries will have, in no immoderate compass, a body of European history, uniform in its general plan, and maintaining a standard of competent authorship such as cannot, we believe, be found in any other language.
The well-known Countess Spaur, the wife of the Bavarian Ambassador at Rome, is engaged upon a series of memoirs of events connected with the flight of the Pope from Rome in 1849. It will be remembered that the Pope escaped under convoy of the Bavarian ambassador, and the consequent completeness of information added to the graceful elegance of her style, will produce a brilliant and interesting book.
A singular occurrence which took place very recently in Berlin affords a curious illustration of a line in The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, in which, speaking of German idioms, the writer somewhat inaccurately remarks, that "the u, twice dotted, is pronounced like e;" inaccurately, we say, since this pronunciation is not found in the pure north German. Dr. Wirth, director of the opera at Berlin, was during the past month confounded by some not very intelligent police agents of that city with the revolutionary Wurth (who was however deceased in 1848), arrested, and subjected to much personal inconvenience, before he could prove to their satisfaction that he was not the ci-devant disturber of kingly peace.
The Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, has written her spiritual experience in a work published in Mannheim, entitled, From Babylon to Jerusalem. It is a history of her own soul, showing how it journeyed from confusion and doubt to peace. In it she says of the famous holy coat of Treves: "It was not comprehended—what did that show? How wonderful and incredible it was that thousands and thousands journeyed up the Rhine and down, not alone of the lower classes, but of the intelligent, of the cultivated and elegant class. And could this be really the Saviour's garment? And were the cures real which had been reported in all the journals as wrought by it? Like all the rest, I shared the religious enthusiasm of which no Protestant can conceive. Instead of ridiculing and scorning, I wrote that I knew not if this was the identical garment, but this was certainly the same faith that cast the woman at the feet of Christ, and caused her to kiss the hem of his robe, and be healed. My instinct was just, but my reasoning false. For if the old faith was so fast, so glowing, and so immortal in the old church, how could I ever say better no church than one only?"
A singular book is announced in Germany, a country in which we are not aware that singular books have ever been rare, under the title of Intercourse with the Departed by means of Magnetism. "A book for the consolation of Humanity, containing the most irresistible evidence of the personal continuance and activity of the soul after its separation from the body, collected from contemporary notes taken from extatic somnambulists, by Luis Alphonse Cahagnet, with a critical preface by Dr. J. Newberth, authorized magnetizer in Berlin and Associate of the Imperial Leopold Academy of Sciences." A prospectus, modest enough in style but of very large pretensions, sets forth that it is not a speculation, but a communication of truth, which is nowise contrary to the Christian religion, but is calculated to exercise a genial influence upon the faithful to disperse all doubts and to advance the kingdom of Faith and Love. Who will fail warmly to wish "God-speed" to a work that proposes to accomplish such rich results?
In Russia the singular prejudice has long obtained that the old Sclavonian dialects had nothing in common with the Russian language. But there is now a change in the opinions of the learned, and many skilful philologists are at present engaged in scientific speculations upon the subject. Sresnewsky, Dawydoff, and Schewyreff have recently published works upon the question. The first has "Memoirs upon the new efforts towards a philological investigation of the old Sclavonian Language," and "Thoughts upon the History of the Russian Language." Dawydoff has published "An attempt at a Grammar of Universal Comparison of the Russian Language," and Schwyreff "A Journey to the Convent of Kirillo-Bjeloserski," an archæological work, represented as a model of its kind. Schewyreff is a well known, educated, and learned man, fully cognizant of the results of philogical study in the west. It is evident that Russia constantly aims to put herself abreast of western science. Wostokoff is busy upon a complete grammar of the old Sclavonic language, and a dictionary of the same. Both works will soon go to press. Since Dobrowsky, the area of old Sclavonian philology has much extended itself, and there can be no doubt that Wostokoff has made use of all the new material. The study of the Sclavonian language and literature has more than a merely philological interest. It will throw much light upon the confused history of Eastern Europe from the sixth to the ninth century,—a light sadly needed, even after Schaffarik's Sclavonian antiquities.
In Munich, we observe that Thiersch, Professor of Fine Arts at the University of the "German Athens," and whose Aesthetik, if not the most philosophic, is at least the most agreeable and practical, (though we know that Krug disposes of it in conversation very briefly with the expression "merely eclectic,") has published a new edition of his Ziber das Erechtheum auf der Akropolis zu Athen, with excellent colored illustrations by Metzger. Out of Germany the reputation of Thiersch rests principally upon his researches into and elucidations of Athenian antiquities.
A drama by an unknown poet, Robert Prölss, The Right of Love, attracts much attention in Germany, from its clear and interesting style, its fresh and lively dialogue, and the delicate drawing of its characters. The author seems to have modelled himself upon Shakspeare, but his work shows traces also of Italian study, and the critics, without questioning Prölss' originality or asserting an imitation, are reminded of Machiavelli's Mandragora. They find in the author the material of a genuine dramatist—experience, feeling, a sharp insight into character, and great skill in dialogue. The literary eye must be fastened upon such promise. It is so refreshing to find a Phenix in a mare's nest.
Pictures of Travel and Study, from the North of the United States of America, is the title of a new book of travel by Mr. Charles Quentin, a German gentleman and official from Prussia. It is a diary of impressions, and without aiming at any high literary or philosophical excellence, abounds in sharp and smart observations. Some things do not escape the shrewd eye of Mr. Quentin, that not all Americans observe. As an illustration, we remark his notice of the American female habit in "shopping," of tumbling over all the goods in the shop and departing without finding "anything to suit." Hence our author infers the social supremacy of women in America. A new way of arriving at the old fact—a fact which the sane and sensible of the sex cannot fail to perceive and acknowledge. The book is written in a vivacious, colloquial humor.
Ernst Forster, well known as having married the daughter of Jean Paul Richter, but more celebrated for his translation of and notes to the best version of Vasari ever published, and who would deserve an honorable mention were it only for his well-known hospitality to all Americans visiting Munich, has recently given to the world, through the eminent bibliographist and publisher Kaiser, a brochure, entitled, Wem Gebuhrt der Krang? (Who deserves the Wreath?) a holiday-gift on the occasion of uncovering the colossal bronze statue of Bavaria. Next to King Ludwig himself, there are no Germans of the present day who entertain more comprehensive or sounder views of art in its manifold relations than Dr. Ernst Forster.
Since the remarkable increase of late years of the use of stucco ornaments in our Atlantic cities, we deem it almost a duty to call the attention of our builders to a work by Professor Eisenlohr, recently published, at a very moderate price, by Veith, of Carlsruhre, entitled Architectural Ornaments, in Clay and Gypsum, for practical use, with Lithographed Illustrations. Folio, 1 volume.
The publishing house of Brockhaus, one of the largest in Germany, is printing a series of Russian novels and poems, translated into German by William Wólfsohn.
The History of the United States Exploring Expedition, under Lieutenant Wilkes, is just translated and published in Germany.
Count Moritz Strachwitz has published a new volume of poems. His former books have been well received.
Professor Bulau's Review of the Year 1850, has reached a second edition.
Bayard Taylor's El Dorado has lately appeared in a German translation.
In Paris the first volume of the collection of Greek and Latin Physicians has just appeared. To the profession this will be a work of the greatest interest and importance. The idea originated with Dr. Daremberg, a learned physician, enamored of his art, versed in the ancient languages—familiar with the study of MSS., and a visitor of all the principal libraries of Europe for the purposes of his work. The book will comprise the text of the authors, collated with manuscripts, and with the best editions, with a French translation and notes. To each division there will be a copious index. Daremberg has too well appreciated the scope and dignity of his work to suppose that it could be accomplished by any individual, and has therefore associated with himself several of the most distinguished savans in various departments of the undertaking, both in France and elsewhere. He comprehended no less the immense expense of the work, and applied in its inception under the monarchy, to the Government for aid. It was granted, and the Republic does not shrink from the fulfilment of that promise of its predecessor, in so truly a democratic work—for every thing which tends to the knowledge of the means of preserving health is essentially democratic. The French translation is admirably precise and clear; the notes are numerous but useful—chiefly upon natural history—the customs of the ancients—their hygiene, and upon all points which required elucidation. The work cannot be completed for several years, but Daremberg is young and ardent, and for his future labors he will have the solace of his first great and undoubted success.
The correspondence of Mirabeau during the last three years of his life, and the complete history of his relations to the Court, is announced in Paris by Le Normant, in three octavo volumes. According to the Journal des Débats, the greatest part of these papers have never been printed. Mirabeau, a few days before his death, (2d April, 1794,) delivered them to his friend the Count de Mark, from whose hands, when he died at Brussels in 1833, they came into the possession of M. de Barcourt. This gentleman, formerly Ambassador to the United States, has enriched the volume with historical notes and commentaries.
Louis Blanc has published a political pamphlet called Plus de Girondins (No more Girondins), in which the opposition of the extreme party to the moderate party is expressed with the greatest force. The freedom of the press, and the liberty of public meeting, he wishes entirely unlimited, and the clubs to be every where opened as popular schools of politics. Exile has but knit him more closely to the democratic ideas, for whose development he hoped so much in the Revolution of '48. His compeer, Ledru Rollin, achieved nothing by his last year's work upon the Decadence of England, but ridicule in England, and no great fame at home.
A curious anecdote is told of Scribe, the French vaudevilliste. He was one day at work in his cabinet, when a young man entered. It was Lacenaire. He seemed very modest, and stated delicately the occasion of his visit. He had been appointed to a situation in Belgium, but was entirely without means, and requested of Scribe thirty or forty francs to pay his way to Brussels. Scribe was attracted by the young man's tone and manner. "Thirty to forty francs," said he, "are too few. I must give you a hundred, and if you choose to repay them, you can do so to an old woman in Brussels, who was a servant of our family. Here is her address." So saying, Scribe went to his drawer and took out the gold for the young man, who expressed his gratitude with all the elegance of a cultivated and sensitive mind, and left a copy of verses with Scribe for a remembrance. Since then Lacenaire has confessed that he knew the arrangement of Scribe's chamber, and had chosen an hour when the servants were absent. "I put myself between Scribe and the bell-rope, and if he had refused me, I should have made short and noiseless work with my knife. Scribe owed his life to his generosity." In this little story is there not an averted tragedy as sad as Eugene Aram's?
A new work, of great importance to the oriental student, will soon reach England from Siam, where it has been already published. It is a new Siamese grammar, prepared by the Roman Catholic Vicar General, who has resided in Siam for twenty years. In the "Journal of the English Archipelago," Mr. Taylor Jones announces the work and its value, with some illustrative facts in the author's life. The bishop brings to the task not alone his own remarkable intelligence and devotion, but the results of the inquiries of his predecessors for two centuries. The work forms a quarto of two hundred and forty-six pages, and treats of a mass of matter necessary to the understanding of the language, but which is not elsewhere to be found. Among this the reckoning of time, of money, measures, and weights, as well as chronology, literature, and religion, are included. The eight or ten pages devoted to chronology afford a clear and just insight into the old history of Siam. The enumeration of Siamese books, although not complete, shows that Siamese literature is by no means poor. The miscellaneous list contains one hundred and fifty various books upon grammar, arithmetic, astronomy, astrology, and history, and many poetical works, especially romances. The various warlike romances of China are very faithfully translated and broadly diffused in Siam. Sometimes these ponderous productions climb to a series of ninety volumes. The historical reports of Siam make forty volumes, and there are no less than thirty-six holy Buddhist books. A sketch of Buddhism is given in the present work, and the good bishop is now about commencing a Siamese dictionary.
The literature of democracy has received another illustration in a social tragedy in five acts, by the citizen Xavier Sauriac, entitled The Death of Jesus. Its object of course is to embody dramatically the sentiment of the old Revolution that Jesus Christ was a Sans Culottes, akin to the feeling which causes ardent abolitionists to assert that he was a negro. This tragedy makes Jesus Christ a democratic philosopher, Herod an apostle, Magdalen a kind of Fleur de Marie. The hero rehearses a plan for the salvation of the world, which is simply crude communism. We quote an illustration:
"Quand l'etat, héritier de la famille éteinte,
Sera du sol entier possesseur sans contrainte,
Qu'il serve alors de pére à tous les citoyens
Et de la vie à tous dépense les moyens."
And again:
"Dans les bizars brillante du luxe industriel,
Il devienue lui seul, marchand universel."
This work is probably a very sincere one, and deserves a prominent place among the curiosities of literature. Nevertheless, such familiar presentation of the Saviour is not only blasphemous but ridiculous.
Mr. Alexander Dufaï has published in Paris a satire on socialist women, under the title of Lélila, ou la Femme Socialiste, and the journals of the sect are very angry with him that he illustrates the tendencies of socialism by presenting as his heroine its female apostle, George Sand. That there may be no doubt of his intention, he tells us in the preface that he has made Lélila narrate her childhood, education, and poetic dreams, her marriage with a sous préfet, who did not "understand" her, and her amours with a poet who did understand her, for he carried her off; he has also made Lélila marry by turns all the socialist systems in the persons of their chiefs; and finally, shows her in the revolution of 1848, presiding at Le Club des Femmes, and playing an active part in public life. "After this," observes the Leader, "he has the shameless audacity to say he attacks the 'species,' not the 'individual!'"
The two last volumes of the Remains of Saint-Martin have just been issued from the National Press in Paris, under the title, Fragments of a History of the Arsacides, posthumous work of M. Saint-Martin. He was a well-known French litterateur, and director of the library of the Arsenal. Strange stories are told of his unwearied diligence and devotion to details. He was the original proposer of a plan for a systematic and scientific investigation of oriental antiquities, and another for a collection of oriental classics. This latter was his darling project, for the execution of which Louis XVIII. granted a commission; but the revolution of 1830 ruined his hopes. Yet a new commission was named, and on the day upon which it was to hold its first session, Saint-Martin was stricken by the cholera, and died without knowing that the hope of his life would be fulfilled.
The Univers at Paris announces a newly-discovered document in relation to the trial of Louis XVI., proving that the report of the Debates in the Moniteur were falsified. This document is reported to have been published on the third of January, 1794, but has escaped all the historians. It occurs in the report of the commission appointed by the Convention to examine the papers found in Robespierre's possession. A letter turns up, written by the editor of the Debates of the Convention in the Moniteur to Robespierre, and of this import: "You know that we always report more fully the speeches of the Mountain than of the other side. In Convet's complaint against you, I printed only a short sketch of his first point, but the whole of your reply. And in the report of the King's trial I introduced on his side only enough to preserve an appearance of impartiality," &c., &c. Lamartine received these papers to examine when he announced his history of the Girondins, but returned them, saying that he could make no use of them.
An important work is announced by Joubert in Paris, Les Murailles Revolutionaries, being a complete collection of professions of faith, proclamations, placards, decrees, bulletins, facsimiles of signatures, inedited autographs, &c., from February, 1848, to the present day: three volumes quarto. It is to be published in twenty-four parts, one part every month, and will supply a very important want of the future historian of these last remarkable years.
M. Ubicini has just published in Paris a very interesting work on the Ottomans, Lettres sur la Turquie. These letters were first printed in successive numbers of the Moniteur, from March, 1850, to the present summer, and they treat with decided ability and with freshness the chief subjects connected with Mohammedan civilization, and with the present condition and prospects of the Turkish empire, as the government, administration, army, finances, agriculture, commerce, public instruction, organization of religion, &c.
The Collection of Sacred Moralists, which has been for some time in course of publication in Paris, under the editorial supervision of the famous editor of French classics, M. Lefèvre, has been just completed by the publication of the two volumes, of which one contains the Moral Thoughts of Confucius, and the other the work known as The Sacred Book of China.
M. Regnault's new book, which he would have regarded as a completion of Louis Blanc's Histoire de Dix Ans, is described as a very violent and not very clever pamphlet.
Lamartine's sentimental and lachrymose romance of Raphaël, has passed into a third edition in Paris.
The French poet Mery has just published a romance entitled Confessions de Marion Delorme. We cannot imagine any additional interest from fictitious coloring to a life such as it is believed was really led by the heroine.
"Marion Delorme was born in 1612 or 1615, but where is not exactly known, though probably in Champagne or Franche Comté. Of marvellous beauty and exquisite wit, she became, after certain amatory adventures, the mistress, and subsequently by secret marriage the wife, of Cinq Mars, and, as such, was persecuted by the terrible Cardinal Richelieu. Even before he was sent to the scaffold, she had formed other intrigues, and then had a long list of lovers, amongst whom were de Grammont and Saint Evremont; then she became the 'glass of fashion and the mould of form, the observed of all observers,' and the admired of all gallants of the good city of Paris; then she dabbled in politics, and eventually became one of the chiefs of the malcontent party; then she was in danger of arrest, like the Princes de Conti and de Condé; then to escape a jail she spread a rumor that she was dead, and actually got up a mock funeral of herself; afterwards, she escaped to England, married a lord, and in a short time became a widow with a legacy of £4000; then she returned to France, and on her way to Paris was attacked by brigands, robbed of her money, and made to marry the chief of the band; four years later she was again a widow, and then she wedded a M. Laborde; after living with him seventeen years, he died, and she went to Paris with the remains of her fortune; robbed by her domestics, she was reduced to beggary, and continued to lead a wretched existence to the extraordinary age of one hundred and thirty-four!"
M. Cuvillier-Fleury has published Portraits Politiques et Revolutionnaires, containing Louis Philippe and the Duchess d'Orleans, Causes of the Revolution, Lamartine, Louis Blanc, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Proudhon, &c., &c. M. Cuvillier-Fleury was one of the Secretaries of Louis Philippe.
Mr. Parke Godwin's beautiful romance of Vala (published by Putnam) has been translated into the Swedish language. One of the journals of Stockholm announces the translation in terms of just appreciation. "Our excellent Lind," it is observed, "is showered over with the California gold, but no tribute given her can equal in worth the exquisite gem which is here cast at her feet by this most imaginative author."
The author of "How to make Home Unhealthy" has published in London A Defence of Ignorance. It is addressed to the largest of the markets, but to one that buys few books.
A new novel by Charles Dickens is to be commenced early in the autumn. Neither the title nor the subject has been announced.
A noble author, Viscount Maidstone, has just published a poem in six cantos, under the title of Abd-el-Kader.
Mr. Thackeray, who promises to come and see us, and who, of course, will talk about us with the world afterwards, is delivering a course of six lectures in London upon the English humorists. The first was good, and as good as was expected, which is great praise—for few things are so difficult as for a famous man to satisfy public expectation. The London Leader thus speaks of it:
"On Thursday the great satiric painter of social life—the Fielding of our times—commenced at Willis's rooms the first of those 'Lectures on the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century,' which many months ago we announced as in preparation. We have never heard a lecture that delighted us more. It was thoughtful and picturesque, with some wonderful traces of pathos and far-reaching sentences. Dwelling upon the moral aspects of Swift's position and career, rather than attempting a criticism on his works, Thackeray held his audience from first to last. He gave a vivid picture of the early life and loneliness of the great satirist amidst the exasperating servilities and insults endured from Temple's household, as also of the turbulent political bravo coming up to London to carve for himself a pathway among lords whom he despised. In this part of the lecture it was felt that, while satirizing that condition of political corruption which made Swift a bravo, and used him as such, the censor still touched upon living foibles; at the allusion to the South Sea Bubble, with its railway parallel, we observed some fair shoulders wince! Nor were religious cant and formalism untouched in the admirable picture of Swift's sacrifice of his life to an hypocrisy. The audience was of the elite—Thomas Carlyle, Macaulay, Milman, Milnes, Sir Robert Inglis, the Duke and Duchess of Argyle, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Constance Leveson Gower, Lady Lichfield, with many others, not a few lovely women, and several men well known in literature and art."
Of his second lecture we quote the Times:
"The heroes of his second lecture were Congreve and Addison. For Congreve, while he admitted the brilliancy of his wit, he evinced no great respect. He characterized him as the greatest literary "swell" that ever lived. With an air of greatness, Congreve put on his best clothes, stalked among wits who all thronged to admire him, however eminent they might be, and approached fine ladies with a certainty of conquest. The "I am the great Mr. Congreve!" was the complacent ejaculation which seemed to break through all he said and did. His character as a man of gallantry was illustrated by citations from his poems, in which he adulates or insults the ladies whom he immortalizes, and every where appears as the irresistible seducer, sure to be victorious in the end. And who could resist that very great Mr. Congreve, with his very fine coat, squeezing a hand, covered with diamonds, through the ringlets of a dishevelled periwig? Of the moral principle of his comedies Mr. Thackeray spoke with disgust, and traced the worship of youth and recklessness, and the disrespect of old age, which are such leading characteristics in those brilliant works, through a whole series of dramatic categories from the comedy to the puppet-show. The constant tendency, he humorously described, is a recommendation to "Eat and drink, and go to the deuce, when your time comes, if deuce there be; and he confessed that he regarded these witty banquets without love as he would contemplate the ruins of Sallust's house at Pompeii, with all its ghastly relics of festivity. The foppish depreciation of his own literary productions with which Congreve met the compliments of Voltaire, Mr. Thackeray rather commended than otherwise, but not for a reason which would have pleased the great man. He really did think his productions worthless, if weighed against one kindly line of Steele or Addison.
"Addison is evidently Mr. Thackeray's favorite of the 'humorists' he has brought before the public. If Swift was the most wretched of mankind, Addison appeared to him as the most amiable. He admired the serene, calm character, who could walk so majestically among his fellow-creatures, and viewing with love all below him, could raise his eyes with adoration to the blue sky above. He admitted that Addison was not profound, and that his writings betray no appearance of suffering—which probably he never knew prior to his unlucky marriage—but at the same time he expatiated on the kindliness of his wisdom and the genuine character of his piety. The foible of drinking he did not attempt to conceal, but observed that we should have liked Addison less had he been without it, as we should have liked Sir Roger de Coverley less without his vanities. Greatly he admired the gentle spirit of Addison's sarcasm, as distinguished from the merciless onslaught of Swift, remarking, that in his mild court only minor cases were tried. Nor were words of commendation the only means by which Mr. Thackeray indicated his predilection for Addison. Of Swift he scarcely read a line; Congreve he illustrated, not by extracts from the comedies in which he lives for posterity, but by those minor poems which, though admired by his cotemporaries, are now little regarded; but he read several extracts from the Spectator, and also Addison's well known hymn, as a specimen of his deep feeling of devotion. Addison and Congreve were both prosperous men in a wordly point of view, and they were therefore introduced with a survey of that golden age, when an epithalamium on some noble marriage, or an ode to William III., was rewarded out of the public purse to an extent that made the poet comfortable for life. Congreve's first literary achievements earned for him, through the patronage of Lord Halifax, places in the commission for licensing hackney-coaches, in the Custom-house, and in the Pipe-office. 'Alas!' said Mr. Thackeray, 'there are no Pipe-offices now; the public have smoked all the pipes!"
Theodore S. Fay—of whom the literary world has heard nothing for a long time—has in the press of the Appletons, a poem, entitled Ulric, or the Voices. Mr. Fay wrote good verses twenty years ago, and we shall see whether he has lost his art.
Mr. Hart, of Philadelphia, has lately published, in a very handsome style, several handbooks in the mechanic arts, which are much commended. Among them are The Manufacture of Steel, by Frederick Overman; The Practical Dyer's Guide; the American Cotton Spinner's Guide, and the London Year Book of Facts.
We are soon to have a new book from Thomas Carlyle—a Memoir of the late John Sterling, the "Archæus" of Blackwood, and the author of some of the finest compositions in recent English literature. Sterling, it is known to his friends, from a devout believer became a skeptic, and then a deist, pantheist, or perhaps an atheist, and finally, having done all that he saw to do, deliberately shut himself up to die—wrote to his friends what time he should leave the world, and on the very day, as if by a mere volition, went to his place. All this is concealed or passed over very lightly by Archdeacon Hare, his biographer, and Carlyle therefore determines that the world shall have his friend's true history. Among Sterling's most intimate correspondents was Ralph Waldo Emerson, and even Carlyle cannot write his life, we suspect, without having access to the extraordinary series of letters the poet sent to his American friend—letters, we have reason to believe, that will command a greater fame for him than all his published works have won, letters that almost any man might die to be the author of.
The most noticeable event connected with literature in this country is an arrangement entered into between a New-York publisher and Thomas H. Benton, for the publication of the Historical Memoirs of the Life and Times of that eminent person. Mr. Benton is now about sixty-eight years of age, and for half a century he has been an active participant in affairs. He was thirty years a senator from Missouri, to which state he removed some time before its admission to the Union. His name has been connected with many great measures, and very few have exercised a more powerful influence upon our institutions or policy. The increase of his strength, as well as the increase of his fame, has been gradual but regular. He has been from his youth a student. To every question which has arrested his attention he has brought all the forces of his understanding, and what he has acquired by incessant and painful labor he has to an astonishing degree retained after the occasions which made it necessary have passed. At a period much beyond the noon of other men, he was still rising. He was of the age at which Cicero achieved his highest triumphs, before he displayed the fullness and the perfection of his powers, in several of the remarkable debates which have had relation to our empire on the Pacific. With his extraordinary experience, his faithful and particular memory, and wisdom which is master of his temper, he is perhaps before every man of his time in the requisites for such an undertaking as that which has occupied his leisure for many years, and the chief portion of his time since he ceased to be a senator. His work will probably make some five large octavo volumes, and it may be believed that in fame, authority, and length of life, it will equal the immortal production of Clarendon.
A new Life of Mr. Jefferson is soon to be published by Mr. Randall, who has been honorably distinguished in his connection with the government of this state. The work will embrace a very interesting sketch of the private life of Mr. Jefferson, by Mr. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the statesman's grandson and executor. Whatever we may think of the abilities or the special services of Mr. Jefferson, we are of that large number who regard his principles as altogether erroneous and injurious, and his character with little respect. The time is coming in which his history must be written, not by a maker of books, but by a philosophical statesman. Every year the materials are becoming more accessible. The writings of Adams and Hamilton, now in course of publication, are important contributions to them. The looked-for correspondence of Madison will serve largely for the same end; but Mr. Jefferson's life cannot be thoroughly understood until the collection of his papers in the possession of the government is carefully and intelligibly studied. The four volumes of his letters printed by Mr. Randolph, embrace but about eight hundred, but there were sold to the government by his executor the enormous number at forty-two thousand letters and other documents, of which nearly sixteen thousand were written or signed by Mr. Jefferson himself. A large proportion of these papers are doubtless most important for the illustration of contemporary French and American biography, but the whole of them should be read by whoever attempts to write the history of the apostle of the radical democracy in the United States.
A Memoir with a selection of the unpublished writings of the late Margaret Fuller, Countess d'Ossoli, is announced as in preparation by her friends Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Ellery Channing. The letters of Margaret Fuller to the Tribune, would fill a large volume, and we hope they will be reprinted with the collection of her private correspondence and inedited essays. And some of her later critical writings for the Tribune, in which the fame of more than one favorite of certain coteries was assailed—will her editors have courage to reproduce them? Pray you, gentlemen, consider that you propose bringing Margaret Fuller herself from the sea, to speak again to us in her own language; if the figure you present speak not as she spoke—all that she would speak, regardless of your regards—it will not be believed that you have commission for what you undertake.
The Rev. Frederick Ogilby, of Philadelphia, has in preparation a Memoir with selections from the Writings of the late Rev. John D. Ogilby, D.D., whose death at Paris was recently mentioned in these pages, and of whose life and character we have received an eloquent portraiture in the address delivered at his funeral by Bishop Doane.
An interesting article in the last Southern Quarterly Review on the life and writings of Edward Everett embraces some learned and elegant philological discussions, in which Mr. Everett (of whom Dr. Gilman, the writer, is a very warm admirer) is convicted of the use of several vulgarities, e. g. "in our midst," "in this connection," "reliable," &c. It is not often that such nice criticism is adventured in an American review. By the way, we are surprised that in none of the reviewals of Everett that have fallen under our notice has there been even the suggestion of a parallel between the classical orator of Harvard and Mr. Legaré. A feeble eulogist in a Philadelphia magazine compares him with Webster, which is merely ridiculous, as the two men have nothing in common. It would have pleased us if Dr. Gilman had weighed the merits of the illustrious Carolinian against those of the New Englander most deserving of critical comparison with him.
Mr. Gilmore Simms has in the press of a Charleston publisher a complete collection of his poems—or rather a collection embracing all his poetical compositions which so nearly meet the approval of his judgment that he is willing to preserve them under his name. Mr. Simms is a voluminous writer in verse as well as in prose, and we agree to an opinion in the Southern Literary Messenger, that as a poet he has by no means received justice from his contemporaries. Scarce any one in this country has produced more fair verses, and with the fair is much that is really beautiful. How much this proportion would be increased if he would but labor! and not turn off sonnets as editors do paragraphs.
Mrs. Oakessmith has published in the Tribune, ten numbers of an eloquently earnest performance under the title of Woman and her Needs. She has none of the silly and maudlin extravagances of the "Women's Rights" party, so called, and her work may safely be placed before those of Mary Wolstoncraft and Margaret Fuller, for ability; but we regard all these productions as uncalled for and injurious to the best interests of the sex. A book of much more real value may be looked for in Catherine Beecher's True Remedy for Woman's Wrongs, in the press of Phillips & Sampson, of Boston. There is no woman of stronger intellect than Miss Beecher's now writing in this country.
We learn with much regret that the Rev. Dr. Thomas H. Smyth, of South Carolina, of whose many and various contributions to religious and historical literature we gave some account in an earlier number of The International, is dangerously ill in Italy, where his family have recently joined him. Dr. Smyth, our advices state, had twice been stricken with paralysis, and had been compelled entirely to forego all his literary occupations.
The new novels of the last month have been numerous. The Harpers have published Caleb Field, by the author of Mrs. Margaret Maitland; Eastbury, by Harriet Drury; The Heir of Wast-Wayland, by Harriet Drury; Yeast, a Problem, by the author of Alton Locke; and some half dozen others. From T. B. Peterson, of Philadelphia, we have Ginevra, or the History of a Portrait, which we understand is by a daughter of the late S. L. Fairfield: it is much praised in some of the journals. M. Hart has given us another clever novelette, by Caroline Lee Hentz, under the title of Rena. From Lippincott, Grambo & Co., we have Lord and Lady Harcourt, one of the pleasantest books of the season.
Miss Bremer has passed the winter and spring in the south and west, where she has been received with much hospitality, and detained with the affection she seems every where to inspire. Within a few weeks she has visited Florida, with a family of her friends from Charleston, and she has given very careful attention, under the most favorable circumstances, to the institutions of the southern states. She is now on her way through Tennessee and Virginia to New-York, and will soon return to Sweden, by way of London.
H. Balliere has just published Vestiges of Civilization, or the Ætiology of History, Religious, Æsthetical, Political and Philosophical. It appears to be written with much ability, but we are by no means inclined to believe in the truth of the author's views. He applies to civilization the processes which the author of the Vestiges of Creation applied to Natural History; and without attaining to the fame of that work, the Vestiges of Civilization will probably share its condemnation.
All our readers who were accustomed to read the journals twenty years ago, will remember Shocco Jones, the immortal defender of the fame of North Carolina. We had thought the mortal part of him was sent to the bourne he was so fond of describing in fine rhetoric when he wrote duel-challenges until a few days ago, when a friend advised us that he had lately listened to him saying mass in a Roman Catholic chapel in Mississippi. Who would have thought it?
Mr. Charles Scribner, (successor of Baker & Scribner,) has in press a large number of interesting new works, among which are Incidents in the Life of a Pastor, by the Rev. Dr. Wisner of Ithica; The Captains of the Old World, by Henry William Herbert; Naval Life: the Midshipman, by Lieutenant Lynch, Commander of the late Dead Sea Expedition; The Fall of Poland, by L. C. Saxton; The Evening Book, by Mrs. Kirkland; Rural Homes, by G. Wheeler; The Epoch of Creation, in which the scripture doctrine is contrasted with the geological theory, by Eleazer Lord; &c.
We perceive by the religious journals that Mr. John Neal, who for twenty or thirty years has been the chief literary gladiator of the country, has recently given his attention to religion, and is now laboring with characteristic activity for its advancement in the city and vicinity of Portland. Of course this is very pleasing intelligence, but we cannot help a regret that the conversion of the author of "Randolph" had not taken place before he printed his reviewal of the Life of Poe.
Mrs. Frances H. Green has in press a collection of her Poems, which will soon be published in a stout duodecimo, by Mr. Strong, in Nassau-street. The merits of Mrs. Green may be partially inferred from the notice of her in the article on our Female Poets which we translate from the last number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, in another part of this magazine. She has remarkable powers of description, a rich fancy, and much poetical feeling.
Mr. Mitchell has published (Charles Scribner) a new edition of his Fresh Gleanings, one of the most delightful books of travel we ever read; a new edition, with a preface, in which he for the first time avows himself the author of The Lorgnette, (Stringer & Townsend); and he has a new work in the press of Mr. Scribner, besides a new and illustrated edition of The Reveries of a Bachelor.
Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, F.R.S., has returned to England, and will soon give to the world his views of society and manners in America. He said indeed on one or two occasions that he should write no book about us, yet we have it from excellent authority that he has matured his plan for the purpose, and will lose no time in bringing out the results of his summer's observation.
Dr. Holbrook, of Charleston, whose splendid work on reptiles entitles him to be ranked with the great naturalists of the time, has taken up his residence for the summer, we understand, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he will be occupied with his forthcoming book on American fishes, which in the beauty of its illustrations at least will equal his previous performance.
Mr. Judd has in the press of Phillips & Sampson, a new edition of his first and best novel, Margaret, a Tale of the Real and the Ideal. We hope it will be illustrated with the admirable sketches of Darley.
Mr. Schoolcraft, we are pleased to learn, has in the press of Lippincott, Grambo & Co., his personal memoirs. They will constitute a work of much and varied interest.
Mr. Melville will soon be again before the public in a romance. The title of his new work is not announced, but we believe it is in press.
We have before us the first volume—printed at Charleston, with an elegance that would do credit to our best northern printers—of the History of Alabama, and Incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the Earliest period, by Albert James Pickett. In The International for May we gave some account of the design. The work is executed throughout with great care, and Colonel Pickett may be congratulated upon having done a very important service to his State, by his arduous and intelligently prosecuted labors, of which he gives an interesting account in the following extract from his preface:
"About four years since, feeling impressed with the fact that it is the duty of every man to make himself, in some way, useful to his race, I looked around in search of some object, in the pursuit of which I could benefit my fellow-citizens; for, although much interested in agriculture, that did not occupy one-fourth of my time. Having no taste for politics, and never having studied a profession, I determined to write a History. I thought it would serve to amuse my leisure hours; but it has been the hardest work of my life. While exhausted by the labor of reconciling the statements of old authors, toiling over old French and Spanish manuscripts, travelling through Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, for information, and corresponding with persons in Europe and elsewhere, for facts, I have sometimes almost resolved to abandon the attempt to prepare a History of my State.
"In reference to that portion of the work which relates to the Indians, I will state, that my father removed from Anson county, North-Carolina, and carried me to the wilds of the 'Alabama Territory,' in 1818, when I was a boy but eight years of age. He established a trading house, in connection with his plantation, in the present county of Autauga. During my youthful days, I was accustomed to be much with the Creek Indians—hundreds of whom came almost daily to the trading house. For twenty years I frequently visited the Creek nation. Their green-corn dances, ball-plays, war ceremonies, and manners and customs, are all fresh in my recollection. In my intercourse with them, I was thrown into the company of many old white men, called 'Indian countrymen,' who had for years conducted a commerce with them. Some of these men had come to the Creek nation before the revolutionary war, and others, being tories, had fled to it during the war, and after it, to escape from whig persecution. They were unquestionably the shrewdest and most interesting men with whom I ever conversed. Generally of Scotch descent, many of them were men of some education. All of them were married to Indian wives, and some of them had intelligent and handsome children. From these Indian countrymen I learned much concerning the manners and customs of the Creeks, with whom they had been so long associated, and more particularly with regard to the commerce which they carried on with them. In addition to this, I often conversed with the Chiefs while they were seated in the shades of the spreading mulberry and walnut, upon the banks of the beautiful Tallapoosa. As they leisurely smoked their pipes, some of them related to me the traditions of their country. I occasionally saw Choctaw and Cherokee traders, and learned much from them. I had no particular object in view at that time, except the gratification of a curiosity, which led me, for my own satisfaction alone, to learn something of the early history of Alabama.
"In relation to the invasion of Alabama by De Soto, which is related in the first chapter of this work, I have derived much information in regard to the route of that earliest discoverer, from statements of General McGillivray, a Creek of mixed blood, who ruled this country, with eminent ability, from 1776 to 1793. I have perused the manuscript history of the Creeks, by Stiggins, a half-breed, who also received some particulars of the route of De Soto, during his boyhood, from the lips of the oldest Indians. My library contains many old Spanish and French maps, with the towns through which De Soto passed, correctly laid down. The sites of many of these are familiar to the present population. Besides all these, I have procured from England and France three journals of De Soto's expedition.
"One of these journals was written by a cavalier of the expedition, who was a native of Elvas, in Portugal. He finished his narrative on the 10th February, 1557, in the city of Evora, and it was printed in the house of Andrew de Burgos, printer and gentleman of the Lord Cardinal and the Infanta. It was translated into English, by Richard Hakluyt, in 1609, and is to be found in the supplementary volume of his voyages and discoveries; London: 1812. It is also published at length in the Historical Collections of Peter Force, of Washington city.
"Another journal of the expedition was written by the Inca Garcellasso de la Vega, a Peruvian by birth, and a native of the city of Cusco. His father was a Spaniard of noble blood, and his mother the sister of Capac, one of the Indian sovereigns of Peru. Garcellasso was a distinguished writer of that age. He had heard of the remarkable invasion of Florida by De Soto, and he applied himself diligently to obtain the facts. He found out an intelligent cavalier of that expedition, with whom he had minute conversations of all the particulars of it. In addition to this, journals were placed in his hands, written in the camp of De Soto—one by Alonzo de Carmona, a native of the town of Priego, and the other, by Juan Coles, a native of Zafra. Garcellasso published his work, at an early period, in Spanish. It has been translated into French, but never into English. The copy in our hands is entitled 'Histoire de la Conquete de la Floride ou relation de ce qui s'est passé dans la découverte de ce pais, par Ferdinand De Soto, Composée en Espagnol, par L'Inca Garcellasso de la Vega, et traduite en Francois, par St. Pierre Richelet, en deux tomes; a Leide: 1731.'
"I have still another journal, and the last one, of the expedition of De Soto. It was written by Biedma, who accompanied De Soto, as his commissary. The journal is entitled 'Relation de ce qui arriva pendant le voyage du Captaine Soto, et details sur la nature du pas qu'il parcourut; par Luis Hernandez de Biedma,' contained in a volume entitled 'Recuil de Pieces sur la Floride,' one of a series of 'Voyages et memoires originaux pour servir a la L'Histoire de la Recouverte de L'Amerique publies pour la premier fois en Francois; par H. Ternaux-Compans. Paris: 1841.'
"In Biedma there is an interesting letter written by De Soto, while he was at Tampa Bay, in Florida, which was addressed to some town authorities in Cuba. The journal of Biedma is much less in detail than those of the Portuguese Gentleman and Garcellasso, but agrees with them in the relation of the most important occurrences.
"Our own accomplished writer, and earliest pioneer in Alabama history—Alexander B. Meck, of Mobile—has furnished a condensed, but well written and graphic account of De Soto's expedition, contained in a monthly magazine, entitled 'The Southern,' Tuscaloosa, 1839. He is correct as to the direction assumed by the Spaniards, over our soil, as well as to the character of that extraordinary conquest."
We shall recur to the work on receiving the second volume.
Lord Campbell, (who is himself a somewhat voluminous author, in history and general literature,) has reversed the decision of Baron Rolfe, given last year, and has decided that foreigners first publishing in England are entitled to copyright. He declared that the act of Anne for the encouragement of learning was furthered by allowing a copyright to aliens who first published in England, that Parliament had always favored the importation of foreign literature, and that the law would still protect the property of the foreign author, recognize his rights, and give him redress for all wrongs inflicted upon him in England.
This decision is one of very great importance, though not final, as the pirating booksellers have determined to carry the matter before the House of Lords, where Brougham, Lyndhurst, and several others of great authority, are known to be against them. Meantime, Bentley and the other purchasers of American copyrights, have issued advertisements warning the public against the purchase of unauthorized editions.
The Rev. Dr. Baird has added to the number of his works The Christian Retrospect and Register, a Summary of Scientific Moral and Religious Progress in the First Half of the XIXth Century. (12mo. M. W. Dodd.) It is an interesting compend of events, of which even a condensed history might fill a dozen volumes. In all respects it is superior to a work of the same design published by Dr. Davis, and formerly reviewed in this magazine.
The Parthenon, is the title of a new work, remarkable for the beauty of its typography and of its wood cuts, to be published by Loomis & Griswold. It will be in about a dozen parts, the price of each of which will be one dollar. The first number contains, with a new story by Mr. Cooper, the best poem ever published by Mr. Duganne, and two really excellent poems by William Ross Wallace.
Louisa Payson Hopkins has just published (Gould & Lincoln of Boston) an excellent little volume in practical religion, entitled Life's Guiding Star, and designed to illustrate the second and third questions of the Westminster Catechism.
The works of the late Rev. Walter Colton, U. S. N., will soon be completed in the edition of A. S. Barnes & Co. They have already published Ashore and Afloat, and Three Years in California, which appeared before the author's death, and since then, Land and Lee, embracing the volume published many years ago under the title of "Constantinople and Athens." The posthumous volumes are carefully and judiciously edited by the Rev. Henry T. Cheever, whose own works of a somewhat similar character we have always to notice with praise.
The Appletons have in press Io! a novel, by a member of the Canadian Parliament, which gives large promise in the proof sheets; The Philosophy of Mechanics, by Mr. Allen, of Providence; Campaigns in Mexico and by the Rio Grande, by Brevet Major Isaac J. Stevens, in which Major Ripley, author of the History of the Mexican War, published by Harpers, is likely to receive more hot shot than he encountered on the field; Sunbeams and Shadows, a novel, by Miss Hulse, of Baltimore, and several other new works.
The History of the Protestants of France, from the Commencement of the Reformation to the Present Period, by G. S. Felice, Professor of Theology at Montauban, has been published in a handsome octavo, by Edward Walker, Fulton street. In the April number of The International, we described this work, from a copy of the French original that fell in our way, not knowing that it was in course of translation. We renew our commendations.
The Traveller's and Tourist's Guide through the United States, Canada, &c., by W. Williams, (published by Lippincott, Grambo & Co., of Philadelphia), is the most convenient and comprehensive hand-book of the kind we have seen. It appears in time for the tourists of the summer, who will find in it all the information they need, as to routes, distances, &c.
The author of "Standish the Puritan," who indulges a natural taste for letters, after having won fortune and eminence at the bar, is now finishing the last sheets of a new novel for the Harpers, on his estate in Georgia.
Czerny's Method of the Piano Forte, which we believe to be in all respects as good a book of instruction for that instrument, as was ever made, has been reprinted in a good edition by Oliver Ditson, of Boston.
A new edition of Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of the Catholic Church, has been published by John Murphy & Co., of Baltimore. This is a very able work, though less interesting to the mass of readers than its eminent author's work on the connexion between Science and Revealed Religion.
Among the new poems of the month are several fine ones by a new candidate for favor—a young woman of Connecticut—who writes in the Tribune. We quote two of them: