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.