From Halle, we hear of the death, a short time since, of a voluminous German writer, John Godfrey Gruber, founder and principal editor of the "Universal Encyclopædia of Sciences and Arts"—a work which was at first carried on by him conjointly with Herr Ersch. Herr Gruber was also a large contributor to the Litteratur Zeitung and the Conversations-Lexicon. His separate works include: "The Destiny of Man," "The Dictionary of Esthetics and Archæology," "Researches into the Greek and Roman Mythology," "The Life of Wieland," and "The Dictionary of German Synonymes." These are but a few of his many writings.
M. Dupaty, one of the forty French academicians, died a few days ago. He was one of the most obscure of that learned corps. His literary reputation, such as it was, was based almost exclusively on vaudevilles and on the libretti of comic operas. He was held in esteem in the days of Napoleon; but then literary distinction was very easily earned. The most notable event in the last twenty years of his life was being chosen (to his own great astonishment) an academician in preference to Victor Hugo, then at the height of his fame.
The 16th, 17th, and 18th volumes of the complete works of Frederick the Great have just been published at Berlin. They are entirely occupied with his correspondence. There are 4000 letters written by him—two-thirds are in French, the other third, chiefly on military operations, are in German, and were addressed to his generals. The whole letters belong to the state archives. The edition of the great Frederick's works, now in course of publication, was undertaken by order of the present King of Prussia, and at his expense.
The indefatigable Eugene Sue, notwithstanding his daily labors as one of the 750 law-givers of the Republic are, or ought to be, rather heavy, has found time to write another romance, of which the publication has been recently commenced in one of the daily Paris journals. It is called "Fernand Duplesis; or, the Memoirs of a Husband;" and is, it appears, to be an exposure of what in France it is the fashion to call the miseries and iniquities of married life. Written in great haste, it will (judging from the opening chapters) be slovenly in style and negligent in language; but, en revanche, it will (as it seems) be of great dramatic interest, and will throw new light on Parisian society—that strange and striking assemblage of intrigue and passion, of vanity and folly, of elegance and refinement, of chivalry and corruption, of much that is good, and of more that is bad.
Don Hannibal de Gasparis, the Neapolitan astronomer, who has, in the course of the last few years, discovered no less than five new planets, has, by a royal decree of the 4th, been named Professor of Astronomy at the University of Naples.