Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

And why is this? The reason is, that a friend is somebody and the public nobody; a friend has a face, the public has not; a friend is a being, present, hearing, looking, a real being--the public is an invisible being, a being of the reason, an abstraction; a friend has a name, and the public is anonymous; a friend is a confidant, and the public is a fiction. I blush before the one, because he is a man; I do not blush before the other, because it is an idea. When I write or speak before the public, I feel myself as free, as exempt from the susceptibilities of one man to another, as if I were speaking or writing before God and in the desert; the crowd is a solitude; you see it, you know that it exists, but you know it only as a mass. As an individual it does not exist. Now this modesty of which you speak, being the respect of one's self before some other person, when there is no person distinct on account of the multitude, becomes without a motive. Psyche blushed under a lamp because the hand of a single god passed over her, but when the sun gazed at her with his thousand rays from the height of Olympus, that personification of the modest soul did not blush before the whole heaven. Here is the exact image of the modesty of a writer before a single auditor, and of the freedom of his utterance before all the world. Do you accuse me of violating mysteries before you? You have not the right: I do not know you, I have confided nothing to you personally. You are guilty of impropriety in reading what is not addressed to you. You are _somebody_, you are not the public. What do you want with me? I have not spoken to you: you have nothing to say to me, and I nothing to reply.

So thought St. Augustine, Plato, Socrates, Cicero, Cæsar, Bernardin de St. Pierre, Montaigne, Alfieri, Chateaubriand, and all other men who have confided to the world the genuine palpitations of their own hearts. True gladiators they are in the human Colosseum, not playing miserable comedies of sentiment and style to distract an academy, but struggling and dying in earnest on the stage of the world, and writing on the sand, with the blood of their own veins, the heroism, the failings, or the agonies of the human heart.

Having said this, I resume these notes where I left them, blushing for one thing only before these critics, that is, for not having either the soul of St. Augustine or the genius of Jean Jacques Rousseau, in order to merit, by indiscretions as sacred and touching, the pardon of tender hearts and the condemnation of narrow minds, that take every movement of the soul for an obscenity, and hide their faces whenever they are shown a heart.

* * * * *

BALZAC.

We have news from Paris of the death of Honore De Balzac, one of the most eminent French writers of the nineteenth century. "Eighteen months ago," says a Paris letter, "already attacked by dropsy, he quitted France to contract a marriage with a Russian lady, to whom he was devotedly attached. To her he had dedicated 'Seraphitus,' and he had accumulated in his hotel of the Beaujoin quarters all the luxuries which could contribute to her pleasure. He returned to France three months ago, in a state of extreme danger. Last week he underwent an operation for abscess in his legs: mortification ensued. On the morning of the 18th he became speechless, and at midnight he expired. His sister, Madame de Surville, visited his deathbed, and the pressure of her hand was the last sign he gave of intelligence." We must defer for another occasion what we have to say of the great novelist-the idol of women, even at seventy-the Voltaire of our age, as he was accustomed to style himself in private--the historian of society--French society--as it is. The author of _Le Peau de Chagrin, Le Physiologie du Marriage, Le Dernier Chauan, Eugene Grandet_, and the _Scenes de la Vie Parisienne_, and _Scenes de la Vie de Province_, was one of the marks of the era, and being dead, we will speculate upon him. At present we can only translate for the _International_ the following funeral oration by Victor Hugo, pronounced at his grave:

"GENTLEMEN--The man who has just descended into this tomb is one of those whom the public sorrow follows to the last abode. In the times where we are all fictions have disappeared. Henceforth our eyes are fixed not on the heads that reign but on the heads that think, and the whole country is affected when one of them disappears. At this day, the people put on mourning for the man of talent, the nation for the man of genius.

"Gentlemen, the name of Balzac will be mingled in the luminous trace that our epoch will leave in the future.

"M. de Balzac belonged to that potent generation of writers of the nineteenth century who came after Napoleon, just as the illustrious pleiades of the seventeenth century came after Richelieu, and in the development of civilization a law caused the domination of thought to succeed the domination of the sword.

"M. de Balzac was one of the first among the greatest, one of the highest among the best. This is not the place to say all or that splendid and sovereign intelligence. All his books form only one hook, living, luminous, profound, in which we see moving all our contemporaneous civilization, mingled with I know not what of strange and terrible; a marvelous book, that the poet has entitled comedy, and which he might have called history; which assumes all forms and all styles: which goes beyond Tacitus and reaches Suetonius, which crosses Beaumarchais and reaches Rabelais; a book which is observation itself, and imagination itself; which is prodigal of the true, the passionate, the common, the trivial, the material, and which at moments throws athwart realities, suddenly and broadly torn open, the gleam of the most somber and tragic ideal.

"Without knowing it, whether he will or not, whether he consents or not, the author of this strange and immense work is of the mighty race of revolutionary writers. Balzac goes directly to his object. He assails modern society face to face. From all he forces something: from some illusions, from others hope, from these a cry of pain, from those a mask. He unvails vice and dissects passion. He penetrates and sounds the heart, the soul, the sentiments, the brain, the abyss that each man has within him. And by a gift of his free and vigorous nature, by a privilege of the intelligences of our times,--who, having seen revolutions nearly and with their own eyes, perceive better the end of humanity and comprehend better the course of Providence,--Balzac came forth serene and smiling from those redoubtable studies which produced melancholy in Moliere and misanthropy in Rousseau.

"This is what he has accomplished among us. Such is the work he has left us, lofty and solid, a pile of granite, a monumental edifice, from whose summit his renown will henceforth shine. Great men make their own pedestals: the future charges itself with their statues.

"His death has struck Paris with stupor. But a few months since he returned to France. Feeling that he was about to die, he desired to see his country, like one who on the eve of a long voyage comes to embrace his mother.

"His life was brief, but crowded; fuller of labors than of days.

"Alas, the powerful and indefatigable laborer, the philosopher, the thinker, the poet, the man of genius, lived among us the life of storms, of struggles, of quarrels, of combats, common in all times to all great men. Today, behold him here at peace. He leaves collisions and hostilities. The same day he enters on glory and the tomb. Henceforth he will shine above all the clouds over our heads, among the stars of our country.

"And you all who are here, are you not tempted to envy him?

"Gentlemen, whatever be our sorrow in the presence of such a loss, let us resign ourselves to these catastrophes. Let us accept them in their poignancy and severity. It is good perhaps, and necessary, in an epoch like ours, that from time to time a great death should communicate a religious book to minds devoured by doubt and skepticism. Providence knows what it does when it thus puts a whole people face to face with the supreme mystery, and gives it Death to meditate upon, which is at once the great equality and the great liberty.

"Providence knows what it does, for here is the highest of instructions. There can be in all hearts only austere and serious thoughts when a sublime spirit majestically makes its entrance upon the other life; when one of those beings whom the visible wings of genius have long sustained above the crowd, suddenly puts forth those other wings that we cannot see, and disappears in the unknown!

"No, it is not the unknown! No, I have already said it on another mournful occasion, and I shall not weary in repeating it, it is not darkness, it is light! It is not the end, it is the beginning! It is not nothing, it is eternity! Is not this true, I ask all that hear me? Such graves as this are proofs of immortality. In the presence of the illustrious dead we feel more distinctly the divine destinies of this intelligence called man, which traverses the earth to suffer and to be purified; and we know that those who have shone with genius during life, must be living souls after death."

* * * * *

DR. GUTZLAFF, THE MISSIONARY.

CHARLES GUTZLAFF the famous missionary in China is described in the _Grenzboten_ by a writer who lately heard him preach at Vienna, as a short, stout man, with a deep red face, a large mouth, sleepy eyes, pointed inward and downward like those of a China man, vehement gesticulations, and a voice more loud than melodious. He has acquired in his features and expression something like the expression of the people among whom he lives. His whole manners also, as well as his face, indicate the genuine son of Jao and Chun, so that the Chinese when they encounter him in the street salute him as their countryman. We translate for _The International_ the following sketch of his life and labors:

Charles Gutzlaff was born in 1803, at Pyritz, a village of Pomerania. His zeal as an apostle was first manifested some fifteen years ago. He married an English woman, who was animated with the same aspiration as himself and who accompanied him on his voyages as a missionary. His extensive acquaintance with the Chinese and kindred languages even then made deep impression on Robert Morrison, the founder of the Evangelical Mission in China, whom he joined in 1831 at Macao, and caused his Acquaintance to be much sought by the merchants. In 1832 and 1833 he was employed as an interpreter on board ships engaged in smuggling opium, but turned this occupation, which in itself was not of a very saintly character, to his religious ends, by the dissemination of tracts and Bibles. A missionary journey to Japan which he undertook in 1837 was without any result. After Morrison's death Gutzlaff was appointed Chinese Secretary to the British Consulate at Canton, and in 1840 founded a Christian Union of Chinese for the propagation of the Gospel among their countrymen. His present journey through Europe has a similar purpose, the foundation of Missionary Societies for the spread of Christianity in China.

His literary labors have had an almost incredible extent and variety. He Himself gives the following enumeration of his writings: "In Dutch I have written: a History of our Mission and of distinguished Missionaries, and an appeal for support of the Missionary Work; in German: Sketches of the Minor Prophets; in Latin: The Life of our Savior; in English: Sketches of Chinese History; China Opened; Life of Kanghe, together with a great number of articles on the Religion, History, Philosophy, Literature and Laws of the Chinese; in Siamese: a Translation of the New Testament, with the Psalms, and an English-Siamese Dictionary, English-Cambodian Dictionary and English-Laos Dictionary. These works I left to my successors to finish, but with the exception of the Siamese Dictionary they have added nothing to them. In Cochin-Chinese: a Complete Dictionary Cochin-Chinese-English and English-Cochin-Chinese; this work is not yet printed. In Chinese: Forty Tracts, along with three editions of the Life of our Savior; a Translation of the New Testament, the third edition of which I have carried through the press. Of the Translations of the Old Testament the Prophets and the two first books of Moses are completed. In this language I have also written The Chinese Scientific Monthly Review, a History of England, a History of the Jews, a Universal History and Geography, on Commerce, a short Account of the British Empire and its Inhabitants, as well as a number of smaller articles. In Japanese: a Translation of the New Testament, and of the first book of Moses, two tracts, and several scientific pamphlets. The only paper to which I now send communications is the Hong Kong Gazette, the whole Chinese department of which I have undertaken. Till the year 1842 I wrote for the Chinese Archives."

The writer in the _Grenzboten_ goes on to say that "so vast a surface as these writings cover, requires a surprising facility of mind and an indefatigable perseverance. When you see the man engaged in his missionary toils you understand the whole at once. He arrives in a city and hastens to the church which is prepared for his reception. After preaching for an hour with the greatest energy he takes up his collection and is gone. He speaks with such rapidity that it is hardly possible to follow him. Such rapidity is not favorable to excellence in the work. Of all his writings, only one work is known to me, that published in Munich, in 1847, under the title of 'Gutzlaffs History of the Chinese Empire from the earnest times to the Peace of Nankin'. In our imperfect acquaintance with Chinese history this compendium is not without value, but it displays no critical power, and is a mere external compilation and poorly written. From it we learn as good as nothing of the peculiar customs and state of mental culture of the country. The whole resembles a Christian History of the World written in the eighteenth century, Beginning with Adam and Eve, and leaving the Greeks and Romans out altogether because they were without a divine revelation."

Mr. Gutzlaff's family were recently for several months in the United States, and the proceedings of the great missionary--second in eminence only to our own Judson--have always been regarded with much interest by the American churches.

AUTHORS AND BOOKS

The Asiatic Society at Paris has just held its twenty-eighth yearly session. According to the report of its Secretary and Financial Committee, this society has suffered little from the disastrous times which have fallen on literature generally. In 1848, being uncertain as to the future, it stopped receiving subscriptions to works with a view to their publication, and arrested the printing of those which were already commenced, with the single exception of the Asiatic Journal, which the members determined not to alter in any case. The series of this journal is of great value, containing already fifty-five volumes, to which two new ones are added every year. For many years it has contained only original articles, though formerly it admitted translations from other European languages. Of course, in so voluminous a periodical work, the contents vary in character, but the whole is of the greatest importance to History, Belles Lettres, and Philology, and should not be wanting in any public library. The society has now resumed the suspended publications, beginning with the "Chronicles of Cashmir", by the Austrian Orientalist Captain Troyer, two volumes of which were issued some time since. Troyer is a remarkable man. As an Austrian artillery and staff officer he served in all the wars, from the breaking out of the French Revolution to the Peace of Paris. While in Italy, he passed some time at the head-quarters of Lord William Bentinck, as an Austrian Commissioner, and so gained his esteem and confidence that he was invited to go with Lord William to Madras as his military secretary. When Lord William resigned the government of Madras, Troyer remained for some time as Director of the East India Company's School for Artillery and Engineers, till finally he resigned and came to Paris. In 1829, Lord William went again to India as Governor-General, and persuaded Troyer to go with him. While in India at this time, among other offices Troyer filled that of Secretary of the Hindoo College. In 1834, when Bentinck again left India, Troyer once more resigned his functions, and has since been in Paris, devoting an active and honorable old age to constant labors upon Persian and Indian literature.

* * * * *

The FRENCH ACADEMY held its annual public session on the 8th of August, in the presence of a large audience, including almost all the literary celebrities of the metropolis, both masculine and feminine. The prizes of victory were given to Napoleon Hurney, who had saved the lives of fourteen persons, and to Marguerite Briand, for having supported and taken care for forty-five years of her mistress, who had fallen from wealth into the extremest poverty. M. de Salvandy, who bestowed these prizes, delivered the usual eulogy on virtue in general, winding up with praise of Louis Philippe and his reign, a thing more creditable perhaps to the fidelity and consistency of the speaker, who has never renounced his allegiance to the Orleans family, than proper to the occasion.

The literary prizes were distributed by M. Villemain. The grand prize of ten thousand francs for the best work on the history of France, was given to Augustin Thierry. Emile Angier received a prize of seven thousand francs for his comedy of "Gabrielle," and M. Antran one of three thousand for his "Daughter of Æsehylus." Three ladies got prizes worth two thousand francs each for works of a popular nature on moral subjects; M. A. Garnier got one of one thousand for his _Morale Sociale_; M. Martin the same for his _Philosophie Spiritualiste de la Nature_, and M. Kastus the same for his _Psycologie d'Aristote_. The crown for the best specimen of eloquence was awarded to M. Baudrillast for his Eulogy on Madame de Stael, in which the literary history and character of the subject were served up in the most florid style. The same writer once before won the same prize by a eulogy on Turgot. His productions are more elaborate and showy than substantial and permanent in their character.

It must be said that this Academy is rather a respectable and slow-moving institutution. The most illustrious names of France are not always included in the list of its members. Neither Beranger nor Lamenais belong to it. A writer in the Paris _National_ says that after three hours at its meeting everybody he met in the street seemed to belong to the time of Louis XI.

* * * * *

EDWARD EVERETT has been many years engaged in the collection and arrangement of materials for a systematic Treatise on the Modern Law of Nations; more especially in reference to those questions which nave been discussed between the governments of the United States and Europe since the Peace of 1783. This will be Mr. Everett's "life poem." Hitherto he has written nothing very long except the "Defense of the Christian Religion," published when he was about twenty-one years of age. We have just received from Little & Brown their edition of the "Orations and Speeches" of Mr. Everett, in two very large and richly-printed volumes, which we shall hereafter notice more largely. These are to be followed, at the author's leisure, by his Political Reports and Speeches and Official Papers, in two large volumes, and his contributions to the _North American Review_, which, if all included, we think will make four others: so that his works, beside the new treatise above mentioned, will be completed in not less than eight volumes. We are gratified at the prospect of such a collection of these masterpieces of rhetoric, so full of learning and wisdom, and infused by so genial a spirit. We wish some publisher would give us in the same style all the writings of Alexander Everett.

CHARLES MACKAY has lately published in London, a work upon which he had long been engaged, under the title of "Progress of the Intellect." We suspect, from the reviewals of it which appear in the journals, that it is of the German free thinking class of philosophical histories. It embraces dissertations on Intellectual Religion, Ancient Cosmogony, the Metaphysical Idea of God, the Moral Notion of God, the Theory of Mediation, Hebrew Theory of Retribution and Immortality, the Messianic Theory prevailing in the days of Jesus, Christian Forms and Reforms, and Speculative Christianity. And these dissertations are written with an eloquence and power unexampled in a work of so much learning.

* * * * *

M. AND MAD. DE LAMARTINE having returned from the East, are at present Staying at the Villa du Prado, a branch of the Hotel des Empereurs, a pleasant house on the banks of the Huveaune, in the midst of the most beautiful landscape. It was in a country box, upon the Avenue du Prado, that Lamartine wrote, in 1847, his "Histoire des Girondins." Lamartine is pleased with his Smyrna estate; he was received there by his vassals _en grand seigneur_, but he found that he would be obliged to expend a good deal of money before the estate would be profitable.

* * * * *

THEODORE PARKER'S "Massachusetts Quarterly Review," is dead, and--God be Praised that New England refused to support it any longer. Mr. Parker says in the farewell to his readers, that the work "has never become what its projector designed that it should be;" and expresses a hope that "some new journal will presently be started, in a more popular form, which will promote the great ideas of our times, by giving them an expression in literature, and so help them to a permanent organization in the life of mankind."

* * * * *

CAPT. SIR EDWARD BELCHER, R.N., known in the literary and scientific world by his extensive voyages of survey and discovery, is now on a visit to New York, whence he will shortly proceed to Texas. Sir Edward Belcher is a gentleman of remarkable energy of character, and of eminent abilities.

* * * * *

A LETTER from M. Guizot, assigning the motives of his refusal to appear as a candidate of the Institute for a seat in the Superior Council of Public Instruction, is published by the _Espérance_ of Nancy. The Principles avowed by M. Guizot lead directly to a separation of Church and State.

* * * * *

JOHN G. SAXE will soon publish a new poem which he delivered recently at the commencement of Middlebury College, with the applause which crowns all his efforts in this way.

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A RE-ISSUE of the Complete Works of Eliza Cook will be shortly commenced in her Journal, and continued weekly until completed.

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THE INSTITUTE OF GOETHE has just been founded by the government of Saxe Weimar. It consists simply of a prize of twenty thousand francs offered to the competition of the literary and artistic world. The first year it will be given to the best among the poems, romances, and dramatic works submitted; the second year to the best picture; the third year to the best piece of statuary; the fourth year to the best piece of music, whether sacred or profane, opera or oratorio. This circle having been completed, the prize will next be given as at the first year; and so on in regular succession. The successful competitor is to remain proprietor of his work, as are all the others. The prize will he allotted by two committees, one at Weimar the other at Berlin. The establishment of the fund was celebrated at Weimar on the 23d of August.

* * * * *

GIFFORD, some five-and-twenty years ago, declared that all the fools of the country had taken to write plays; and it would appear that all the dull Englishmen of our day have taken to write pamphlets on the slave-trade. The London _Times_ is very severe upon a book just issued by Mr. W. Gore Ouseley, who was several years British Charge d'Affaires at Rio, as such conducted a voluminous correspondence on the subject with the government of Brazil, and might have been expected to have there learned something on the slave-trade worth telling. According to his reviewer he appears, however, to be one of that class of persons described by Sterne, who, traveling from Dan to Beersheba, found all to be barren; and no amount of observation can in any human being supply defective reasoning faculties. So, says the _Times_, he has little or nothing to say about the Brazilian slave-trade that has not been better said a thousand times before; and when he does venture on a special statement of his own, it topples down the whole superstructure of his argument.

A work of rather more interest is "Seven Years' Service on the Slave Coast of Africa", by Sir Henry Huntley, who, when a lieutenant in the navy in 1831, was ordered to the scene of his observations. Shortly after his arrival, he was appointed to the independent command of a small vessel, in which he visited stations, looked out for slavers, chased them when he saw them, and captured them when he could. A few years subsequently he was nominated Governor of the settlements on the Gambia. His two volumes contain his adventures during the whole or nearly the whole of his seven years' service upon the station; the last closing abruptly in the middle of preparations for a congress of black kings. The public is already familiar with many of the topics, from the occasional narratives of voyages and adventures along the coast. Visits to the commandants of the so-called castles; a description of the European and native mode of life at the settlements; accounts of the slave-stations, the slave-dealers, the slaves, and the slave-trade, together with sketches of more legitimate commerce, and occasional trips to the islands lying off the coast, for change of air and fresh supplies, are frequent features. Sir Henry Huntley's duties sometimes brought him in contact with native chiefs, and continually with slavers, in the search, the capture, and the pursuit. During the latter part of his career, the office of Governor gave great variety and largeness to his subjects; consisting of public business, palavers with native potentates, and matters connected with home policy. In point of literary character this work very nearly resembles the author's "Peregrine Scramble." Indeed, the "Seven Years' Service" is a sort of continuation of that book, without the form of fiction.

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M. JULES LECHEVALIER, known in this country chiefly as one of the foreign Correspondents of _The Tribune_, but in Europe as an able writer on the Social Sciences, has recently delivered in Paris and Berlin, and in London, (where he is residing as a political exile,) a series of lectures, which will soon be given to the world in a volume, upon the subject of his favorite studies. M. Lechevalier's system, which he denominates "New Political Economy," is based upon the principle of association, in opposition to that of competition and _laissez-faire_, which constitute the groundwork of the school of the present political economists. In the course of his series he pointed out the gradual tendency of the competitive principle to produce extremes of riches and poverty, and ultimately revolutions, and maintained, that by the adoption of the associative principle alone, society can be preserved from confusion and destruction. He contends that the new political economy, or _Socialism_, is essentially Conservative, while the present system of unlimited competition, or buying cheap and selling dear, is destructive, M. Lechevalier pretends to base his system on the moral principles of Christ, and maintains that Christianity cannot be practically carried out in any other way. His lectures abound in examples of the working of the two opposing systems.

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The Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, Boston, are going forward in the work of re-publishing the old standard works of the New-England theology. They have issued a fine edition of Bellamy and have procured an edition of Edwards the younger. They are now about commencing the stereotyping of Catlin's Compendium, and the whole works of Dr. Hopkins. We wish they would go back a century further, and give us the best works of Mather and his contemporaries.

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There is a political novel by OTTO MULLER, of Manheim, announced, under the title _Georg Volker: ein Vreiheits Roman_, which is said to give a faithful picture of the Baden revolution, and to open with the rise of the peasantry in the _Ottenwald_.

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THE DUC DE LA ROUCHEFOUCAULD's celebrated "Moral Reflections, Sentences, and Maxims," have just appeared in a new and very much improved translation, and with notes, pointing out similarities of sentiments in ancient and modern authors, and sometimes proving that Rochefoucauld's good things have been made use of without sufficient acknowledgment, by moderns. There is also an introduction, which dissertates well on the purpose and quality of the reflections. Such books were once very popular; but in this country they have not been much read. We have indeed had numerous editions of "Lacon," and Dr. Bettner's "Acton" has found a thousand purchasers; but the Rev. Dr. Hooker's "Maxims," which, in our opinion, are as good as anything of their kind in the English language, we believe have not attracted attention, and Mr. Simms's "Egeria" has been printed only in the columns of a newspaper.

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A new theory has just been propounded at Paris in a book called "Armanase," (a Sanscrit word, meaning the "Reign of Capacity"). The author asserts the present forms of administrative government are injurious instead of useful to society, and ought to be replaced by institutions of a new and different order. His principle is, that the sovereignty of the individual ought to be instituted for that of governments, and that great associations of mutual assurance may be advantageously substituted for the existing system of management by office-holders. The author shows also that the progress of the natural and mechanical sciences will deliver man from the pressure of the more painful sorts of labor; and that wealth, freed from the barriers which now hinder its circulation, would be distributed freely throughout society. Intellectual property would be seriously guaranteed, and would enrich the men of genius, whose inventions and discoveries are now profitable, not to the authors, but to the capitalists who take advantage of them. By this means an important element of revolutions will be removed. The author proposes, that in order to prevent all suffering, a civil list shall be set apart for the people, who will be the king. This civil list is to be composed of a tax of one per cent., levied on all who have property in favor of those who have nothing. But, says he, let no one imagine that all would be dissolution and ruin in this system, without law or government. Crimes and offenses will be tried by juries, that is to say, by a living code. Property will no longer be seizable for debt, and the courts will become useless. Everybody shall have the absolute right to buy land by paying its possessor ten per cent, on its value: this is to give a chance for carrying on all sorts of grand public enterprises without trouble from the proprietors of little pieces of land. It may perhaps be doubted, whether the "Reign of Capacity" has exhibited any astonishing endowments in that respect.

* * * * *

THACKERAY, in _Pendennis_, has given offense, it appears, to some of the gensd'armes of the Press, by his satirical sketches of the literary profession. Those whose withers are unwrung will admit the truth of many pages and laugh at the caricature in the rest. In the last number of the _North British Review_ is a clever article upon the subject, written with good temper and good sense. Hitherto publishers have been ridiculed and declaimed against as "tyrants" and "tradesmen,"--made to bear the onus of "poetical" improvidence, and to sustain the weight of a crime which no author can pardon--the rejection of manuscripts. The _authors_ have painted the portraits of publishers; but an ancient fable suggests that if the _lion_ had painted a certain picture, it would not have been a lion we should see biting the dust.

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M. DE LUYNES is now engaged at Paris in publishing a work on the antiquities of Cyprus. He has discovered a number of inscriptions in ancient Cyprian writing, and is having them engraved on copper. The writing is that which preceded the introduction of the Phoenician character upon the island, and seems to have no affinity either with that or with the Assyrian, which is discovered to have been once used there. The work of M. de Luynes will open a new problem for the philologists. It will be difficult to decipher the inscriptions and language, unless there can be found somewhere an ancient Cyprian inscription, with a translation in some known tongue; but in a time which has read the riddles of the pyramids, nothing of this sort is to be despaired of. M. de Luynes is the last of the great French nobles who makes a worthy use of his riches.

* * * * *

SIR ROBERT PEEL left full and specific directions in his will for the early publication of his political memoirs; and ordered that the profits arising from the publication shall be given to some public institution for the education of the working-classes. He believed his manuscripts and correspondence to be of great value, as showing the characters of the great men of his age; and directed that his correspondence with the Queen and Prince Albert shall not be published during their lives without their express consent. He confided the task of preparing these memoirs to Lord Mahon and Mr. Cardwell. Their duty will, however, be comparatively light, though delicate, from the admirable and orderly state in which he left his papers.

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MR. JOHN P. BROWN, author of "The Turkish Nights Entertainments," recently published by Putnam, is now on a visit to this country as the Secretary of the Commissioner of the Sublime Porte, Captain Ammin Bey.

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EUGENE SUE'S new romance "The Mysteries of the People," has been prohibited in Prussia.

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M. BURNET DE PESLE has just published the first part of his _Examen Critique de la Succession des Dynasties Egyptiennes_, a work to which competent critics assign a high value. He follows the method of Champollion, rejecting hypotheses and admitting only the testimony of the historians and monuments. At the same time he treats his subject with independence and originality, though he advances nothing for the sake of novelty. The second part of the work will be devoted to the discussion of the ancient inscriptions, dynasty by dynasty, and reign by reign.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON IRVING is claimed by the English as by both _birth_ and spirit a British author. In the question of copyright lately before the Vice Chancellor, the case rested in part upon a plea that Mr. Irving's father was from the Orkneys and his mother from Falmouth, so that, though he was born in New York, he was not an _alien_. Still, our "Diedrich Knickerbocker" was _Colonel_ Irving once, and served in this capacity against the king, and it will not he safe for him to establish the position assumed by his publisher.

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M. ARAGO, having completed his love-labor in honor of Condorcet, is again abstracting from scientific pursuits a portion of his time, to prepare a memoir upon the acts and doings of the Provisional Government of 1848 of which he was a member. It is said to be a curious work which will enlighten much that is yet dark in the history of that period, throwing additional obloquy upon some members, and relieving others of a portion of that which they have hitherto borne. M. Chemiega is also engaged upon his own account in similar historical labors.

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DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, on the 9th of September, delivered a poem, described by a correspondent of the _Commercial Advertiser_ as one of his finest compositions, before a large audience, assembled to dedicate a rural cemetery at Pittsfield, Mass.

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M. DUGANNE, some of whose songs and dramatic pieces have the ring of true metal, has just completed a satire entitled "Parnassus in Pillory," and with the motto, "Lend me your ears." We have seen some advance sheets of it, which are full of wit and spirit.

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SOUTH CAROLINA has always been prolific of epics. Those of Mr. Simmons, Dr. Marks of Barhamville, and some others, have been tried, and-the court of criticism has now before it from the same quarter "America Discovered, in Twelve Books."

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JOHN NEAL has given notice of his intention to write a history of American Literature "in two large octavo volumes," and he invites authors who are not afraid to show their books, to send them to him at Portland without delay.

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"GERMANIA, ITS COURTS, CAMPS AND PEOPLE," is the title of a brace of volumes by "the _Baroness Blaize de Bury_." And who, pray, is the Baroness Blaize de Bury? A writer in _The Leader_ answers after this wise:

"Why, sir, she is somewhat of a myth, making her avatars in literature with all the caprice and variety of Vishnou or Brougham; her maiden name of Rose Stewart has not, that we can discover, been stained with printer's ink, but we trace her as 'Arthur Dudley' in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ writing upon Bulwer and Dickens, we next find her as 'Maurice Flassan' in _Les Français Aeints par eux-mémes_. Rumor further whispereth that she had a finger in 'Albert Lunel,' one of the eccentricities of an eccentric law-lord, which was hurriedly suppressed, one knows not why; in the _Edinburgh Review_ she wrote a paper on Molière, and for Charles Knight's _Weekly Volume_ a pleasant little book about Racine, on the title-page of which she is styled 'Madame Blaize Bury;' since that time you observe she has blossomed into a Baroness _de_ Bury! Let us add that she is the wife of Henri Blaze, known as agreeable critic and the translator of Faust, that she is said to be a great favorite with the author of 'Albert Lunel,' and that she has the two novels 'Mildred Vernon' and 'Leonie Vermont' placed to her account: how many other shapes she may have assumed we know not; are these not enough? Whether, after all, a flesh-and-blood Madame de Bury exists is more than We can decide. _Une supposition!_ what if, after all, she should turn out to be Lord Brougham himself? The restless energy of that Scottish Phenomenon renders everything possible. _He_ does not agree with Pliny's witty friend, that it is better to be idle than to do nothing--_satius est otiosum esse quam nihil agere_."

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REV. CHARLES ELLIOT, D.D. of Cincinnati, has published, through the Methodist printing house of that city, an important work on Slavery, in two duodecimo volumes. Dr. Ellliot has declined the acceptance of the Biblical Professorship in McKendree College, on the ground that he is busily engaged in preparing works for the press, including a thorough investigation of the Biblical argument in defense of slavery.

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A NEW edition of a Lexicon of the Dakota language (of an Indian tribe near Lake Superior,) has just been completed by the missionaries. It contains upward of fifteen thousand words. Near thirteen years or more of labor have been expended upon it.

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JUDGE SYDNEY BREESE, late U.S. Senator, at the commencement of Knox College, delivered a discourse before the Literary Societies on the Early History of Illinois. It is said to be part of a volume he is preparing, and had reference to the first ninety years of Illinois history.

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MR. LAYARD, in excavating beneath the great pyramid at Nimroud, had penetrated a mass of masonry, within which he had discovered the tomb and statue of Sardanapalus, with full annals of that monarch's reign engraved on the walls.

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MR. H. H. WILSON, F.R.S., has published in London, a collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns, constituting the First Ashtaka, or Book, of the Rig-Veda, the oldest Authority for the religious and social institutions of the Hindus. The translation of the _Rig-Veda-Sonhita_ is valuable for the scholar who wishes to study the most ancient belief, opinions, and modes of the Hindus, so far as they can be gathered from hymns addressed to the deities. At the same time, their mystery or obscurity, increased by remoteness of years, is perhaps so considerable, that it will require peculiar learning to profit by the materials this most ancient and important of the Vedas contains.

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DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, author of "Mornings at Matlock," has been appointed, through the influence of Lord Brougham, to the office of official assignee to the Court of Bankruptcy, in Manchester.

* * * * *

The Fine Arts.

THE FINE ARTS IN AMERICA are not in a state of remarkable perfection, if we may credit a writer in the Augsburg _Allgemeine Zeitung_. This critic is evidently honest and impartial, but not perfectly well informed. He supposes that the majority of the artists as well as of the scholars in the country are emigrants from Europe; and affirms that artists of great talent, who have been esteemed and encouraged in Europe, have been reduced to misery in America, and compelled to resort to common labor for their living. Latterly, however, fashion has brought pictures into market; and we may now hear, in more refined circles, here and there a misapplied artistic term, which shows that art is somewhat thought of. It is characteristic that an American will often bargain for pictures by the square foot. The New York Art Union has done a good deal of good in the culture of taste for art, and from the Philadelphia Art Union much may also be expected. The daguerreotypes taken here may be compared with the best of Voightländer of Vienna and Williams of Liverpool. The talbotypes of this country are better than all others. Lithographing is done mostly by French and Germans; wood-cutting and steel-engraving by Englishmen and Americans. The products of the latter two resemble perfectly those of the same arts in England. Dramatic and musical art are in a feeble condition. The theaters in the great cities have been visited by the writer, and nothing admirable found in them. They are all private enterprises, and no great things are to be expected in that line without the aid of a government. The theaters are built and furnished in the most elegant and even luxurious style. The Italian Opera in New York is supplied by European artists whose best days are over. The actors never rise to any commendable excellence, and the pieces they perform are well adapted to their talents. Hardly ever is anything classical produced upon the stage.

The German drama in the United States is spoken of as being in a condition of even more desperate degradation. The writer's remarks on that subject will not specially interest our readers; but we trust that what we have given above from his strictures will be edifying to all whom it may concern.

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FROM ROME we hear of an extensive undertaking about to be commenced in the way of Catholic Art. The plan is this: Overbeck, whose designs from Scripture history are familiar to all lovers of Art who have not overlooked one of the most remarkable geniuses of the times, is now employed upon fourteen compositions representing the fourteen Stations or pauses of the Lord on his way to the cross. Part of them are already done, and to judge from them the series will surpass all previous works of this great master. These designs are to be multiplied to the greatest extent and put within the means of churches, convents and even the poorest classes of the people. They will appear of the size of the original in colored lithography, which will probably be executed in Germany. Engravings of half size on copper are to be executed by the eminent engraver Bartoccini, who is familiar with Overbeck's manner, and who has worked under him in Germany. Indeed Bartoccini is already best known from the engravings of Overbeck's designs to the New Testament, the best of which were from his burin. In addition there are to be editions of these compositions in middling and small sizes as well as in wood engravings. The object is to provide something which has real artistic merit in place of the wretched pictures which are offered for the devotion of the faithful in so many churches and in Catholic prayer-books. The Pope himself, to whom the first colored drawings have been shown, takes a lively interest in the enterprise, and will probably recommend it in a special circular to all the bishops.

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CHARLES MULLER, a German sculptor, whose group, "The Singer's Curse," Received the second prize at the Exposition of 1849, at Paris, has arrived in this country, where he proposes to take up his residence. The _Tribune_ states that "The Singer's Curse" will soon be exhibited to the public in this city. It was suggested by one of the finest of Uhland's works.

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The city of Paris is about to erect along the grand avenue of the Champs Elysées three hundred statues, in marble, of Parisians distinguished in the administration of the city, in letters, in science, the fine arts or commerce. The statues will alternate with beautiful little fountains, and will form rows on each side of the avenue.

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POWER'S STATUE OF EVE is now-having been rescued from the waters off the coast of Spain--on the way to New York, and it will soon be here. The Prince Demidoff has purchased the figure of the Greek Slave, originally commenced for Mr. Robb of New Orleans, for £700, being £100 more than Mr. Robb was to have given for it. The Prince has placed it in a room by itself, in his palace at St. Donato, near Florence. He is one of the finest critics of art now living, and his collection of masterpieces constitutes to the man of taste one of the chief attractions of Italy. From a letter of Powers now before us, we learn that the model of his "America" was finished, and on the first of August the marble was about to be commenced, in the same size. This the sculptor and his friends think will be his greatest work. We are happy in being able to mention a fact eminently honorable to a distinguished American gentleman, in this connection. When the statue of Eve was lost, Powers wrote to the underwriters to pay the insurance ($6000) to Mr. J.S. Preston of South Carolina, upon whom the loss was to fall; but Mr. Preston instantly upon hearing the circumstance directed that every cent of the money should be sent to the artist, expressing only a regret that the country suffered the loss of a performance so admirable. Mr. Powers had not at this time heard of the loss of the statue of Mr. Calhoun. This great work has not yet been recovered, but Mr. Kellogg has still hopes of its being rescued in perfect safety.

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The Venice _Statuto_ of the 13th August announces that Venice and Italy have experienced an irreparable loss. The celebrated Barbarigo Gallery, known for ages, comprised amongst other masterpieces seventeen paintings of Titian, the Magdalen, Venus, St. Sebastian; the famous portraits of the Doge Barbarigo, of Philip XIV., &c. After the extinction of the Barbarigo family, Count Nicholas Giustiniani, the brothers Barbaco, and the merchants Benetti, who became proprietors of the collection, presented it to the Government. The Viceroy Raniere offered it for sale in 1847 to the Austrian Government, which refused to buy it. It has been lately purchased by the Court of Russia for five hundred and sixty thousand francs.

* * * * *

PAINTING AND SCULPTURES of the early northern artists from the eighth to the sixteenth century have just been discovered in great numbers in Gothland, by Dr. Marilignis, of the Stockholm Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He was sent to search for them by the Academy, and has spent eighteen months in his mission. A large proportion of the pictures were found in chapels built during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and were covered with thick coats of plaster, which had to be removed with great care. The results of Dr. Marilignis' investigations will be published by the Swedish Government.

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THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF LARREY, the famous surgeon of the Imperial army, at the Val-de-Grace, took place in Paris lately. Among the assistants at this solemnity not the least interesting portion was a corps of one hundred invalids upon whom Larrey had operated. The hero of the day was Dupin, who walked in to the flourish of drums and trumpets at the head of the commission of the monument. The statue of bronze, by David, of Angers, was unvailed amid the clang of "sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." Old Dupin, in a fit of happy inspiration, jumped up on the chair from which he presided, and delivered perhaps the best speech he ever made. He drew, in lively touches, the mission of the man whose hospital is the battle-field, of his intrepid coolness and humane devotion. Larrey was wounded, while binding the wounds of others, in Egypt and at Waterloo, in the days of glory and of disaster. The President of the Assembly spoke with much feeling, and when he came down from his chair a general rush was made by his friends to embrace him.

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THE STANDISH GALLERY OF PICTURES in the Louvre was decreed by the French courts, a few days before his death, to be the private property of the late Louis Philippe. It was left to the king by Mr. Frank Hall Standish, in 1838. The library of this collection is very valuable. It contains among other rare books the Bible of Cardinal Ximenes, valued alone at $5000. One of the last acts of Louis Philippe was to present it to the French people. He was desirous only of vindicating his rights in the courts. The gallery therefore will not be removed.

* * * * *

THE ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF PICTURES by Düsseldorf artists was opened in that city about the middle of July. Landscapes are rather predominant. In their line the works of Alexander Michelis, August Kossler, Weba and Fischer are the best. Ten pictures of peasant life in Norway by Adolf Tidemond, a Norwegian artist, are said to display very remarkable merit. They were retained in the exhibition only a few days, being destined for the royal chateau of Oskarshall. Of historical pictures there is nothing worth mentioning.

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The _Brussells Herald_ states that the artistic value of the works of art contained in the churches of Antwerp, eleven in number, is by the late financial report of the province estimated at 49,763,000 francs-nearly ten millions of dollars.

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LEUTZE'S PICTURE of Washington Crossing the Delaware is nearly finished at Düsseldorf, and is much praised by several letter-writers who have seen it.

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MR. POWELL, at Paris, expects to finish his picture for the Capitol about the first of February.

* * * * *

EDGAR ALLEN POE.

By R.W. GRISWOLD.