Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest living American writer born in the present century, has just published, through Ticknor, Reed and Fields, a volume for juvenile readers, in the preface to which he says:
"It has not been composed without a deep sense of responsibility. The author regards children as sacred, and would not for the world cast anything into the fountain of a young heart that might embitter and pollute its waters. And even in point of the literary reputation to be aimed at, juvenile literature is as well worth cultivating as any other. The writer, if he succeed in pleasing his little readers, may hope to be remembered by them till their own old age—a far longer period of literary existence than is generally attained by those who seek immortality from the judgments of full grown men."
An attentive correspondent of the International, at Vienna, mentions that letters have been received there from the eccentric but daring and intelligent American, Dr. Mathews, formerly of Baltimore, who, some years since, assumed the style of the Arabs, with a view to discovery in Northern and Central Africa. We hope to obtain further information of Dr. Mathews, respecting whose adventures there has not hitherto been anything in the journals for several years.
Professor G.J. Adler, of the New York University, the learned author of the German and English Dictionary, is now printing a translation which he has just completed, of the Iphigenia in Taurus, by Goethe. Of the eighteen that remain of the sixty to ninety plays of Euripides, the Iphigenia at Tauri is one of the most remarkable. When Goethe returned from Italy, his spirit was infused with the love of ancient art, and his ambition tempting him to a rivalry of its masters, he selected this subject, to which he brought, if not his finest powers, his severest labor; and the drama of Iphigenia—which is in many respects very different from that of Euripides,—is, next to Faust, perhaps the noblest of his works. We are not aware that it has hitherto appeared in English. The forthcoming translation, (which is in the press of the Appletons,) strikes us very favorably. It is exact, and is generally flowing and elegant.
The Official Paper of China has a name which means the Pekin Gazette. It is impossible to ascertain when its publication was first commenced, but it seems to be the oldest newspaper in the world. There is a tradition that it began under the Sung dynasty in the latter part of the tenth century. It is originally a sort of handbill, containing official notices, posted up on the walls of the Capital and sent in manuscript to provincial officers. At Canton it is printed for the public at large and sold. It appears every other day in the form of a pamphlet of ten or twelve pages. It consists of three parts; the first is devoted to Court news, such as the health and other doings of the Imperial family; the second gives the decrees of the Sovereign; the third contains the reports and memorials of public functionaries made to the imperial government on all subjects concerning the interests of the country. The decrees are concise in style; the reports and memorials are the perfection of verbiage. The former have the force of laws, the Emperor being both legislative and executive. As a record of materials for history the Gazette is of little value, for a little study shows that lies are abundant in it, and that its statements are designed as much to conceal as to make known the facts. Since the English war the number of documents published relating to affairs with foreign nations is very small. Something is given respecting the finances, but that too, is of very little value.