Authors and Books.
Ludwig Fuerbach, the last great philosopher of Young Germany, whose doctrines have been complacently declared as "more utterly irreconcilable with pietism or orthodox Christianity than those of any of his predecessors," has at length published his course of lectures "On the Existence of Religion," delivered at Heidelberg, from the month of December 1848 to March 1849. With regard to the apparent apathy with which he has regarded the great political events of these latter days, and the reproach that he has taken no active part therein—in which he forms a somewhat unfavorable contrast with Fichte and other great thinkers of the last generation—he remarks: "It will not appear strange that these lectures have not before been published; for what could, at the present day, be more seasonable than a remembrance of the year 1848? And by this souvenir I would also remark, that these lectures have been my only public intimations of activity during the so-called time of the Revolution. My own share in all the political and unpolitical deeds and movements of those times, was merely that of a critical beholder and listener, for the very simple reason that I could take no part in aimless, and consequently headless (silly) undertakings, having foreseen, or at least felt, from the very beginning of the whole movement, that such would be its result. A well-known Frenchman lately put me the question, Why I took no active part in the revolution of 1848? I replied, Mr. Taillandier,[14] if another revolution should break forth, and I take an active part therein, then may you, to the terror of your God-believing soul, be certain that this would be an overpowering revolution, bringing with it the judgment-day of monarchy and hierarchy. This revolution I should, alas! never survive. But I now also take an active part in a great revolution, but one whose true effects and results will be first developed in the course of centuries. For you know, Mr. Taillandier, according to my theory—which recognizes no Gods, and, consequently, no miracles in the sphere of politics—according to my theory, of which you know and understand nothing, though you assume to pass judgment on me instead of studying me, if time and space are the fundamental conditions of all being and existence, of all thought and action, of all prosperity and success. Not that believers in God were wanting to the parliament, as some one humorously asserted in the Bavarian State council-chamber—the majority, at least, were believers, and the good Lord always sides with the majority—but because it had no comprehension of place or time, on which account it came to such a disgraceful and resultless end."
This, certainly, will appear to most readers to be, despite its bitterness, a lame and weak apology for neutrality, though we imagine that but little good could result from the intensest activity, when directed by such principles. Taillandier has also, in his own unassuming way, done, for so young a man, a full share of work "in the great revolution, whose true effects and results will be first developed in the course of centuries."
August Kopisch, well known as the collector and translator of Agrumi—a choice selection of Italian Popular Songs—has recently published by Ernest and Korn of Berlin, a Description and Explanation of the Monument to Frederic the Second. A far more elegant work on the same subject, with no less than twenty excellent views of the monument, taken from as many points, appears from Decker, to which we may add another by Kohlheim, illustrated with a selection of ancient and modern poems relative to the memory of "Old Fritz."
We observe from a prospectus recently sent forth by the publisher, J. G. Muller, in Gotha, that the Janus, a well known and ably edited quarterly, devoted to medical literature, history, biographies, and statistics, the publication of which was suspended in 1848, on account of the political difficulties which then agitated Germany, is again to make its appearance, under the editorial charge of Doctors Bretschneider, Henschel, Hensinger, and Thierfelder, who will be aided in their efforts by many learned correspondents and contributors in different countries. Like most revived publications, it will be published in a style superior to its original, and to judge from the type and paper of the prospectus, which is given as a specimen of that with which the work is to be issued, its appearance will be truly exquisite.
Franz Kugler the great historian and critic of Art, has made his appearance in a small brochure of thirty pages, entitled, Three Articles upon Theatrical Affairs,—which, however, appears to have met with but little admiration, if we may judge from the hard knock which a reviewer gives it with the word—"Unpractical as the suggestions are, which we find allied to these observations, they would still give us no occasion for remark, had not Herr Kugler made them a pretence for political discussion." Apropos of Kugler we may observe that a very excellent work entitled Denkmaler der Kunst (Souvenirs of Art), consisting of very neatly engraved and very extensive illustrations of Art in all ages and nations, intended specially as a companion work to the Berlin professor's History, has just been published for the first time in a compact form by Ebner and Seubert of Stuttgart. Among its authors or contributors we see the names of Dr. Ernst Guhl, Jos. Caspar, and Professor Voit of Munich.