Adelbert Keller, one of the most zealous among the mediæval romantic antiquaries of the Tubingen school, and well known by his accurate editions of the Gesta Romanorum, Les Romans des Sept Sages, Romancero del Cid, and Gudrun, has recently, in company with Wilhelm Holland, prepared for the press a new edition of the songs of Guillem IX., Count of Poictiers and Duke of Aquitania. In addition to the chair of Professor Extraordinary of Modern Languages, (which our readers need not be informed is nothing very extraordinary at a German university,) Keller holds the far more important office of teacher of the German Language and Literature at the university of Tubingen. We presume that few men, even in France or Germany, have more carefully or enthusiastically hunted over the various MS. libraries of Italy or his own country, in search of Minnesinger and Provençal literature than Keller.
The twenty-fifth publication of the Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten (History of the States of Europe) consists of continuations of histories of Austria and Prussia. The series is edited by the well-known scholars Heeren and Ukert. It has been in progress more than twenty years, and is designed to embrace a complete body of American history, by competent authors. Fifty volumes have already been issued, embracing in complete works, Italy, by Leo, finished 1832; German Empire, by Pfister, 1836; Saxony, by Bottiger, 1837; Netherlands, by Van Kampen, 1837; Austria, by Mailath, 1850; France to the Revolution, by Schmidt, 1848; France, from the Revolution, by Wachsmuth, 1844; the Histories of Denmark, by Dahlmann (vol. III. in 1844); of Portugal, by Schafer (vol. III. in 1850); of Russia, continued by Herrmann after Strahl's decease (vol. IV. 1849); of Prussia, by Stenzel (vol. IV. 1850) are all far advanced, and their completion may be looked for at no distant period. Single volumes, also, have appeared, by Zinkeisen, on the Ottoman Kingdom; by Ropel, on Poland; and by Bulau on the Modern History of Germany. The Athenæum observes that when the series is completed, the Germans and those who read German in other countries will have, in no immoderate compass, a body of European history, uniform in its general plan, and maintaining a standard of competent authorship such as cannot, we believe, be found in any other language.
The well-known Countess Spaur, the wife of the Bavarian Ambassador at Rome, is engaged upon a series of memoirs of events connected with the flight of the Pope from Rome in 1849. It will be remembered that the Pope escaped under convoy of the Bavarian ambassador, and the consequent completeness of information added to the graceful elegance of her style, will produce a brilliant and interesting book.
A singular occurrence which took place very recently in Berlin affords a curious illustration of a line in The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, in which, speaking of German idioms, the writer somewhat inaccurately remarks, that "the u, twice dotted, is pronounced like e;" inaccurately, we say, since this pronunciation is not found in the pure north German. Dr. Wirth, director of the opera at Berlin, was during the past month confounded by some not very intelligent police agents of that city with the revolutionary Wurth (who was however deceased in 1848), arrested, and subjected to much personal inconvenience, before he could prove to their satisfaction that he was not the ci-devant disturber of kingly peace.
The Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, has written her spiritual experience in a work published in Mannheim, entitled, From Babylon to Jerusalem. It is a history of her own soul, showing how it journeyed from confusion and doubt to peace. In it she says of the famous holy coat of Treves: "It was not comprehended—what did that show? How wonderful and incredible it was that thousands and thousands journeyed up the Rhine and down, not alone of the lower classes, but of the intelligent, of the cultivated and elegant class. And could this be really the Saviour's garment? And were the cures real which had been reported in all the journals as wrought by it? Like all the rest, I shared the religious enthusiasm of which no Protestant can conceive. Instead of ridiculing and scorning, I wrote that I knew not if this was the identical garment, but this was certainly the same faith that cast the woman at the feet of Christ, and caused her to kiss the hem of his robe, and be healed. My instinct was just, but my reasoning false. For if the old faith was so fast, so glowing, and so immortal in the old church, how could I ever say better no church than one only?"