Dr. Cornill publishes a dissertation upon Louis Feuerbach and his position toward the religion and philosophy of the present time. The author finds in every thing the famous professor does a farther religious development. But it is very doubtful if Feurbach has advanced at all since his memorable essay in the Halle Book of the Year, upon the relation of philosophy to theology. Since then he has only varied this theme, and his last work, upon the transcendental thesis Man is what he eats, in which the worthy Professor with Teutonic energy seeks to seduce the immorality of the age from the potato disease, the German critics declare to be totally devoid of that bold and thoughtful spirit which formerly fought so well for the emancipation of the understanding from its long scholastic thraldom.
A most mystical and metaphysical treatise is that of Ernst, A new Book of the Planets, or Mikro and Makrokosmos. It sings with Klopstock of the souls of the stars. It speculates with Jacob Böhme, with Retif de la Bretonne, with the Rabbins, and other mighty mystics, upon the origin of thought. The essential difference in speculative science between ether and thought, the unity of matter and spirit, the eternity and evanescence of matter, the thoughts, feelings, and sensations of God, and the final explication of the trinity. All this and more. In fine, says a German critic, it is a very jocose book, strongly to be commended for the consolation of political prisoners.
Waldmeister's Bridal-Tour, a story of the Rhine, Wine, and Travel, is the pleasant and appropriate title of the last book of Otto Roquette. It is the story of a spring tour along the Rhine. The fire of its wine, the golden gleam of its vineyards, the faint, penetrant delicacy of the grape-blossom, the luring look of the Love-Lei, the mystery of ruins, the distant baying of the wild huntsman's pack,—they all breathe, and bloom, and sound through the little book. It is a genuine song of spring. The poet is young,—he feels, dreams, and sings—what needs poet more?
A German version of Copway the Indian's work is announced under the title of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bouh, Hauptling d'Ojibway Nation: Die Ojibway Eroberung: Translated from the English, by N. Adler, and published at Frankfort-on-the-Main. This we presume is an after-shot from the Peace Convention.
Among the new books announced in Germany we see The Institutions of the United States, and their Lessons of American Experience to Europe. It appears to be anonymous. One or two other German works on this country we shall notice particularly in our next number.