Berghaus has also lately issued a complete work of the highest interest, especially now that so much attention is every where paid to Ethnographic studies. Its title is Grundlinien der Ethnographie (Outlines of Ethnography). It is in two parts, and contains a universal tabular description of all the races of the globe, arranged ethnographically and geographically, and according to languages and dialects, with a comparative view of their manners, customs, and habits. No person who undertakes to investigate the origin of the human family and the mutual relations of its different members, can afford to be without this work. Published in Stuttgart.
Berthold Auerbach has just brought out a little volume of tales, which we may well infer from his previous performances are charmingly replete with grace, good humor, and a keen perception of whatever is peculiar to his subject. The title of the book is Deutsche Abende (German Evenings). It contains three stories: "Nice People," "What is Happiness?" and "The Son of the Forester." Published at Mannheim.
Baron Sternberg, a dilettante book-maker of Germany, who generally resides at Berlin, has just added a new romance, or rather the beginning of one, to his previous publications. It bears the promising, if not pretentious title, of The German Gil Blas (published at Bremen), and claims to be comic, as a matter of course. As a whole, the book is a failure. Though there are passages here and there which may be read with satisfaction, there is not enough unity and connection between the different parts, and the humor is generally but a thin potation. It must be said, however, that the absence of continuous interest is the fault of most comic novels, as well as poems. Even the matchless works of Jean Paul grow tedious by the endeavor to read much of them at a time, a fact which may be ascribed to the sentimentality and mere fantastics with which the kernels of his wit are overburdened. It is certain that no German humorous work can be compared with those great originals in that kind, Gil Blas and Don Quixote, or even with the much inferior works of Smollett and Dickens. Baron Sternberg's last effort forms no exception to this remark, and there is little hope that the second and concluding volume, whose appearance in Germany ought to be made by this time, will prove superior to the first. His "Royalists," an anti-democratic novel, which he had the courage to publish in the chaos of 1848, and which excited much attention, and a great deal of severe criticism, was far better.
"The New Faith sought in Art," is the title of an anonymous little book lately issued at Paris, which, though not of great value, has more poetic originality of thought than is often found in printed pages. The author thinks that the time has gone by in which the subjects of art could properly be sought in the lives of saints and legends of the Church, and wishes to substitute for them the lives of artists and celebrated inventors, who have sprung from the bosom of the people. With this writer, every thing is democratic and popular. For him the people is alone King, and worthy of all honor. "Nothing," he says in one place, "is truer than the song of Beethoven. It is the song of life, the voice of truth, an infallible voice, which will create a world, and cause the old false world to crumble. Born of the people, the people sing in him, although they know him not." In painting, the heroes of the author are Ruysdael, Rembrandt, Claude-Lorraine, and Paul Potter.
The Poet Freiligrath has received orders to leave the village of Bilk, in the neighborhood of Dusseldorf; where he was residing, and to quit the Prussian territories. He will probably go back to England, where he passed some time in a counting-house or perhaps come to the United States, where he has several friends, to whom he has written of such an event as possible.