Authors and Books.
The magazine literature of Germany is quite different from ours, a fact which generally speaking is not to its discredit. Indeed there are several periodicals in Germany which may be compared with the best English magazines for their varied excellence, while their cost is comparatively trifling. Among these are the Deutsche Monatschrift, a republican monthly, edited by Adolf Kolatscheck, and published at Stuttgart; and the Grenzboten, a weekly, of conservative and constitutional opinions, edited by Gustav Freytag, and Julian Schmidt, and published at Leipzig. The American reader of these two periodicals, will have an excellent apprehension of the general scope and tendencies of current thought in Germany, as well as some knowledge of the new books as they make their appearance. Those who wish a convenient and cheap mode of becoming acquainted with the productions of German novelists, may find it in the Illustrirtes Familienbuch, (Illustrated Family Book), published monthly at Treves. This is mainly made up of romances by the best writers of the day; there is also a department for artistic criticism, but it is not very good. The engravings are tolerable.
German Poets are prolific just now. Mr. Hoppl has brought out a volume at Stuttgart, full of suppressed tears and melancholy miseries. He is unloved and unappreciated, and must, therefore, have a bad time in this dreary and woeful world. Of a similar strain is the second edition of Carl August Lebret's Gedichte, likewise published at Stuttgart; if anything he is more pitiable and stupid than Hoppl. Adolph Glassbrenner, of Berlin, serves up poems of another sort, in his freshly printed third edition. He is known to every reader of current German literature as a comic writer of no small ability, and these poems prove his talent. They are mostly political in their tendency, and are good of their kind. Dunkles Laub (Dark Leaves) is a youthful poem of Mr. Frederik Ruperti, published at Bremen. It recounts the awful experiences, and spiritual and other struggles of the author's youth. He suffers especially from an unhappy passion, and is apparently convinced that the man never lived who endured so much. Still, he shows great poetic ability, and now that his youth is disposed of something may be hoped from him.
Freiligrath, the German poet, is the subject of a searching, yet mildly expressed criticism, in that excellent periodical, the Grenzboten, of Leipzig. The writer finds that he is superficial in feeling, without a genuine sense of poetic melody, and not remarkable for mental power.
A tenth edition of Brockhaus's Conversations-Lexicon is now passing through the press. The first edition was published in 1796. Of the fifth edition, which appeared in 1818, 32,000 copies were sold; of the seventh (1826) 27,000; of the eighth (1832) 31,000; of the ninth (1843) 30,000. The supplementary works issued between the editions, and devoted to current matters, have also had a large sale. Of the Conversations-Lexicon der Neuesten Zeit und Literatur, (4 vols. 1832-34) 27,000 copies were sold; of the Conversations-Lexicon der Gegenwart (4 vols. 1838-1841) 18,000; and the Gegenwart which is now appearing is also sold largely. The new edition promises to be written in the same spirit of moderation and liberalism as its predecessors, but if the articles of the Gegenwart afford an indication, it will be more "progressive" and radical, and less careful to satisfy all parties.