A recent book of travels published at Munich is not utterly devoid of interest, though it appears to be far inferior to what we should have expected from the subject. We refer to the Errimerungen an Italien, Sicilian and Grieohenland aus den Jahren, 1826-1844 (Recollections of Greece, Italy, and Sicily, in the Years 1826-1844), by Heinrich Farmbacher. In company with the king of Bavaria, and as his secretary, Herr Farmbacher travelled twice to Sicily, once to Greece, and frequently through Italy. The descriptions of scenes and events appear in no instance to rise above mediocrity, nor do we find any of that artistic spirit and observation which might have been anticipated from an intelligent attendant of the great royal connoisseur. His anecdotes relative to the monarch himself are rare, trivial, and worthless, for it does not seem to have occurred to the royal secretary that in such a work his master to the general reader is a far more attractive individual than himself. As regards style, the book gives from time to time curious glimpses of that court lackey language so habitual to the upper class flunkies of Herr Farmbacher's description, and which it is impossible for him to entirely suppress even in writing.
The distinguished and lamented orientalist Klaproth has left behind him a large map of Central Asia, in four sheets, engraved at Paris by Berthe, the geographer. This map is the product of ten years' researches, and exhibits the topography of those vast regions, with the cities it contains, many of which have hitherto been unknown, and the names of the tribes inhabiting it. The map is based not only upon the explorations of travellers, but on the Chinese maps made by order of the Emperor Kiang-Long, and by missionaries in China and Tartary. It extends on the north to the frontiers of Siberia, including the great lake Balaton; on the south to Hindostan; on the west to the sea of Aral and Persia; and on the east to China.
Hafis is the title prefixed to a new collection of poems, by G. F. Daumer, just published at Nuremberg. Daumer is one of the most original writers in the whole scope of the present German literature. His Evangelium is especially worthy of a far greater degree of attention than it has received. It is a volume of brief poems, discussing the gravest questions with as much warmth and freshness of imagination as elevation and beauty of style. In this country Daumer is known but to the few whose acquaintance with German literature extends beyond the classic writers whose names are familiar to all the world. A Catholic critic in Germany says of him, that the epitaph once proposed for the gravestone of Voltaire will suit equally well that of Daumer. It is as follows:
"In poesi magnus,
In historia parvus,
In philosophia minimus,
In religione nullus."
Gutzkow's Ritter vom Geiste has just appeared in a second edition in Germany—no trifling success for a romance in nine stout volumes; another German litterateur has also dramatized a part of it. Gutzkow is, beyond dispute, one of the foremost among the living writers of Germany. His collected works, published some years since, in twelve volumes, have lately been increased by a thirteenth, containing several fugitive stories, and one or two plays that he has brought out at various times.