Dr. David Friedrich Strauss, the famous rationalist, has published a work entitled Christian Marklein, a picture of life and character from the present time, giving charming if not very new views of the Wurtemberg theological schools.
In the German Universities, it appears from the census just taken, with the exceptions of those of Königsberg, Kiel, and Rostock, the numbers for which have not been officially returned, there were for the last term on the registers 11,945 students. The universities may be classed, according to the number of students at each, in this order: Berlin, Munich, Bonn, Leipsic, Breslau, Tubingen, Göttingen, Wurzburg, Halle, Heidelberg, Giessen, Erlangen, Friburg, Jena, Marburg, Greifswalde. Berlin has 2,107 students, and Greifswalde only 189. The number studying the law is 3,973; of theological students, 2,539; pursuing the study of philosophy and philology, 2,357; medical students, 2,146; and there are 549 engaged in political economy. Halle reckons the greatest proportional number of theological students, there being 330 out of a total of 597; Heidelberg has most students of law; Wurzburg, most of medicine; and Jena, most students of theology. The greatest numbers of foreign students are to be found at Heidelberg, Gottingen, Jena, Wurzburg, and Leipsic.
The Independence Belge gives an account of Frau Pfeiffer, a woman who left Vienna several years ago to travel alone in the most distant and unfrequented parts of the world. After visiting Palestine and Egypt, Scandinavia and Iceland, she landed in Brazil, penetrated the primitive forests, and lived among the natives; from Valparaiso she traversed the Pacific to Otaheite, thence to China, Singapore, Ceylon, Hindostan, to the caves of Adjunta and Ellora to Bombay, whence she sailed up the Tigris, to Bagdad, and then entered upon the arduous journey to Babylon, Nineveh, and into Kurdistan; and passing to the Caucasus, she embarked for Constantinople, visiting Greece in her way home to Germany. She is now in London, visiting the Great Exposition.
Ferdinand Hiller, Superintendent of the Cologne Musical Academy, and a contemporary and friend of Mendelssohn, whom, in the beginning, it was supposed he would surpass as a composer, has been recently in Paris, renewing his old experiences. He saw there most of the famous literary and artistic notabilities, and gossips pleasantly about them in the feuilleton of a German journal. He saw Henry Heine, whose body is almost dead, but whose mind is as vigorous as ever. Hiller says that Heine chatted with him about God and himself, of the King of Prussia, and of Hiller—of the Frankfort Parliament and his own songs. Heine's features, he says, are interesting, and even more beautiful than they were formerly. The fallen cheeks leave the noble oval of the head and the delicately chiselled nose mournfully apparent. The eyes are closed. He can only see with the left, by elevating the lid with his finger. He wears a close-trimmed beard, and his hair is as brown and luxuriant as ever. The slim white hand is ideally beautiful. It belongs, according to the doctrine of Carns, to the class of the purely psychological. Heine had just written a song for a German composer; and that no poet can sing more sweetly for music, the many of his verses which Schubert has "married to immortal" tune sufficiently indicate. Mendelssohn also composed the most dreamily delicate music to Heine's "Moonlight on the Ganges."
Ingres, the painter, now seventy years old, the pride and model of the severe classicists of the French school, is a comely old man, with rich dark hair, luminous eye, and smooth brow. He is still light and active in movement, and a genial serenity broods over his whole character and manner. His love of music is no less enthusiastic than that of a lover for his mistress. The great German composers are great gods to Ingres. The remembrance of a beautiful sonata fills his eyes with tears. Ingres has recently finished a portrait, which is not inferior to any thing he has ever done.
Of musical men, Hiller saw Halevy, a successful composer and genial companion, with a gentle strain of irony in his conversation. Hector Berlioz has not grown to be fifty without some of the snowy tracks of time, but the volcanic genius is still alive. His conversation is like an eruption, now a burning lava-stream of glowing inspiration, now sulphurous mockery and scorn, and now, wide-flying, a shower of sharp stones of criticism. He tells the most laughable stories of his London life, and his musical difficulties and experiences there. In Paris he is only librarian of the "Conservatoire," and director of great concerts.
Jules Janin, the sparkling "J. J." of the Journal des Débats, and the grand seigneur of the Parisian feuilletonistes, leads the most loitering, pleasant life, and grows merry and fat thereby. He sits upon a luxurious ottoman, wrapped in a gorgeous robe de chambre, by the fire-place of his beautifully adorned study, and there among his books and bijoux of taste and art, gives audience to all the world. He has visits without end. He gives instruction and advice, hears all that every body has to say, applauds extravagantly, as he writes, all things in this world and some more, until it is time to go to dinner, or to see a new vaudeville. He has beside a beautiful wife, and suffers with the gout. Could his cup be fuller?