Frederic Louis Jahn, the celebrated German professor, who invented the modern system of gymnastics, is writing his personal memoirs. He is about seventy years of age, and his long life has been full of significant incidents.
To those who seek a good acquaintance with the current belles-lettres literature of Germany, we can cordially recommend the Deutsches Museum, published semi-monthly at Leipsic, under the editorial care of Professor Robert Prutz and Wilhelm Wolffson, and sold in this city by Westermann, 290 Broadway. Each number contains eighty-five close pages, filled by some of the leading writers of German science, art and politics. In the number now before us, are articles by Gutzkow, Böch, the philologist, Berthold Auerbach, Emanuel Geibel and Julius Mosen. The entire range of politics, philosophy, antiquities, art, poetry, romances and literary criticism is included in the scope of the Museum, except that it is designed not for the learned world, but for the mass of the people, and accordingly aims at general not technical instruction. Among the art notices, we observe a brief criticism on the Gallery of Illustrious Americans, in which the lithography of the pictures is praised as well as the faces themselves. The critic is delighted with the energy, originality and freshness of character expressed in their features.
A valuable contribution to current political history is the Verfassungskampf in Kurhessen (Constitutional Struggle in Electoral Hesse), by Dr. H. Gräfe, which has just made its appearance in Germany. The conflict of the people and parliament and public officers, against the selfish, arbitrary and foolish Elector, is the turning point of recent German politics, and the defeat of the former after their patience and firmness, acting always within the limits of the constitution, had gained a decided victory, and compelled the faithless prince to fly the country,—a defeat accomplished only by the intervention of Austrian and Prussian troops, was the final downfall of every form of political liberty in Germany. Dr. Gräfe has wisely abstained from treating the events of this crisis as a philosophical historian; they are too fresh, and his own share in them was too decided to allow him to undertake that successfully. He accordingly does little more than simply report the transactions in a compendious way, with all the documents necessary to a full understanding of the subject. Whoever wishes for a thorough apprehension of the German tragi-comedy, may derive aid from his work.
The resources of philology have just been enriched by the publication at Tubingen of a dictionary of six of the dialects of Eastern Africa, namely, the Kisuaheli, Kinika, Kikamba, Kipokomo, Kihian, and Kigalla. This is accompanied by a translation of Mark's Gospel into the Kikamba dialect, and a short grammar of the Kisuaheli. The author of these works is the Protestant minister Krap, who has been for fifteen years in Ethiopia, and has collected and presented to the University at Tubingen a considerable number of most valuable Ethiopian manuscripts.
A notable and interesting book is Behse's Geschichte des preussischen Hofes und Adels (History of the Prussian Court and Nobility) of which the two first volumes have just been published at Hamburg by Hoffman & Campe. The whole work will contain from thirty to forty small volumes, and will treat all the states of Germany, only some half dozen volumes being devoted to Prussia. The two now published bring the history down to the reign of Frederic William II. They abound in most curious historic details. For instance, the acquisition of the title of King of Prussia by the Elector of Brandenburgh, Frederic III., is narrated at length. It seems that this prince, who was deformed in body, but as politic as he was ambitious in spirit, after many fruitless efforts obtained from the Emperor at Vienna the grant of the royal dignity, by a bribe of two hundred thousand thalers, paid to the Jesuit Father Wolff, as a compensation for the influence of the Society, whose members were flattered that the most powerful of the Protestant princes of Germany should solicit their assistance. The whole cost of the grant was six millions of thalers, an enormous sum for these times. The Papal Court refused to recognize the new king, and did not until Frederic the Great.