Chapter VIII (3)

Those who are conversant with the curiosities of the Middle Ages, and have read the entertaining history of "_Ye Nigromancer Virgilius_," in which the Mantuan bard lives no longer in the magic of song, but that of literal sorcery, will peruse with pleasure the _Virgil’s Fortleben im Mittelalter_, or The Life of Virgil continued in the Middle Ages, by G. RAPPERT. Of all the wild romantic legends which the romantic time brought forth, none surpass in singularity and interest this singular narration.

TEMPERANCE TALES are produced in Germany as well as elsewhere. JEREMIAS GOTTHELF is the best author who there cultivates this style of composition. His _Dürsli, the Brandy drinker_, has just passed through a fourth edition, and _How five Maidens miserably perished in Brandy_, to a second. Gotthelf has the talent of combining great dramatic interest and artistic freshness of narration, with a moral purpose. Hence the popularity of these little books.

NIEHL’S _Bûrgerliche Gesellschaft_ (Civil Society) is greatly praised by critics, as the most valuable work lately published in Germany, or indeed in Europe, upon the State of Society and the causes operating to change it. Especially good are its pictures of the different classes in Germany, such as the nobility, the peasantry, the industrious middle class, and the proletaries. These pictures are said to have the minuteness and fidelity of daguerreotypes. The chapter on the "proletaries of intellectual labor," gives any thing but a flattering account of the literary classes on the continent. Those classes are held up as in a great measure perverted, empty, and dangerous. Niehl divides Society in Germany into four great classes, namely: the peasantry, the aristocracy, the _bourgeoisie_ or middle class, and the proletariat, or mere laborers for wages. The last he regards as the decaying and corrupting class, a sort of scum in hot effervesence. This is, however, one of the classes that produce social movement; the other is the middle class; the conservative or stationary classes are the peasantry and aristocracy. The learned professions he reckons among the middle class. He makes no distinction between the proletaries who live by the soil, and those who live by working in connection with manufactures and mechanical trades.

Another contribution to Goethean literature is the Correspondence between the great Poet and his intimate friend Knebel, which has just appeared in Germany in two volumes. The letters extend from 1774 to 1832, and contain the free expression of Goethe’s opinions on a great variety of important subjects, as well as many interesting particulars in his personal history, hitherto unknown.

MR. WETZSTEIN, Prussian Consul at Damascus, has returned to Europe, bringing a valuable collection of Arabic, Turkish and Persian manuscripts, which he expects to sell to the Royal Library at Berlin. Of especial value is a history of Persia during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which casts light on several portions of Persian history that have hitherto been obscure.

LONGFELLOW’S _Evangeline_ has been translated into German and published at Hamburg. The name of the translator is not given. The critics find that the poem has a very marked resemblance to Goethe’s Herman and Dorothea.

DR. MAYO’S _Berber_ has been translated into the German by Mr. L. Dubois, and published at Leipzig.

A new and splendid edition of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ has been published at Leipzig, in German. It is curious to see the good old book discussed by the critics as if it were a new production.

German Historical Literature has lately been enriched by numerous valuable works. Among these we notice WENCK’S _Fränkische Reich_ (Frankish Empire), which treats that subject, from A.D. 843 to 861, with instructive thoroughness and philosophical insight; two essays by FICKER, the one on Reinhald von Dassel, the Chancellor of Ferdinand I., and the other on the attempt of Henry VI. to render the German empire hereditary; ARNTHEN’S _History of Carinthia_; RINK’S _Tirol_; PALAZKY’S _History of Bohemia_; MINUTOLI’S _History of the Elector Frederic I._; RIEDEL’S _Ten years of the History of the Ancestors of the Royal House of Prussia_; the _History of Schleswig Holstein_, by GEORGE WAITZ; RUCKERT’S _Annals of German History_; G. PHILIP’S _Outlines of the History of the German Empire and German Law_; GENGLER’S _History of German Law_; the _Coins of the German Emperors and Kings in the Middle Ages_, a large work by CAPPE; the _Celts and Ancient Helvetians_, by J. B. BROZI; and the _Campaigns of the Bavarians_ from 1643 to 1645, by J. HELLMANN; MAYR’S _Mann von Rinn_ (Man of Rinn) deserves special mention. The man of Rinn is Joseph Speckbacher, the hero of the war of 1809 in the Tyrol. His deeds, and those of his countrymen, are here narrated in a style as attractive as the facts are authentic.

In all the States of the German Confederation there are 2,651 booksellers, 400 of whom deal only in their own publications, 2,200 sell books, but do not publish, and 451 keep general assortments of books, and publish also. At Berlin there are 129 booksellers, at Leipzic, 145, at Vienna, 52, at Stuttgard, 50, and at Frankfort, 36. A hundred years ago there were only 31 at Leipzic and 6 at Berlin, and at two fairs held at Leipzic in 1750, only 350 German booksellers’ establishments were represented. No one is allowed in Germany to become a bookseller without a license from the government, and in Prussia the applicant has to pass a special examination.

Those desirous of acquiring languages by wholesale, may try a recent work by Captain J. NEPOMUK SZÖLLÖZY, with which the scholar can learn, according to the Ollendorffian system, French, German, English, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Hungarian, Wallachian and Turkish. Phrases and vocabularies of all the languages are appended.

A second edition of ADOLF STAHR’S _Preussische Revolution_, has appeared in Germany, revised by the author and dedicated to Macaulay. No recent book in Germany has been more successful than this.

MAX SCHLESINGER’S _Wanderings through London_ are announced at Berlin; the first volume is already published. One of the chapters treats of "Linkoln’s-In-Fields."

We learn from the last number of the _Journal Asiatique_, that M. WÖPCKE, a mathematician who devotes himself to Arabic studies, has discovered in some Arabic manuscripts two works purporting to be by Euclid, which have not been preserved in the Greek original, nor are any where referred to as his by ancient mathematical writers. One is a treatise on the lever, and the other on the division of planimetric figures. The authenticity of the two is thought to be perfectly established by collateral evidence.

The Hungarian author. Baron Eötvös, has just published a work called _Ueber den Einfluss der Neuen Ideen auf den Staat_ (On the influence of new ideas upon the State). He argues that the students of social and political science should confine themselves strictly to the method received in the natural sciences, and employed there with such success; first establish what are the genuine experimental phenomena, and then by induction settle the law which produces and governs them.

We expect a treat from MORITZ WAGNER’S _Reise nach Persien und dem Lande der Kurden_ (Journey to Persia and Kurdistan) the first volume of which is advertised in our last files of German papers. Wagner is one of the best of travellers, and we shall look for the book itself with some impatience. The second volume is announced as to appear in three weeks after the first.

The second part of the third volume of HUMBOLDT’S _Kosmos_, has just appeared at Stuttgart. It treats of the heavenly nebulae, suns, planets, comets, aurora borealis, zodiacal light, meteors, and meteoric stones. This completes the uranological part of the description of the physical universe. Humboldt has already begun his fourth volume, and expects to finish it before June next.

KOSSUTH is speculated on by a German bookseller, who advertises a work giving a complete account of his sayings and doings since the capitulation at Vilagos, including his flight to Turkey and his residence there, the negotiations for his release, his journey from Kutahia to England, and his tarry there up to sailing for America, with a portrait.

THE REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER’S _Life in the Sandwich Islands_ (noticed by us lately in the _International_), is reprinted in London, by Bentley, and translated in German for a publisher at Berlin.

SILVIO PELLICO, so famous for his works, his imprisonments and sufferings, is passing the winter in Paris.

The complete works of CLEMENS BRENTANO, have been brought out at Frankfort, in seven volumes.

Two books of travels in Scandinavia have just appeared in Germany. One is the _Bilder aus dem Norden_ (Pictures of the North), by Professor OSCAR SCHMIDT of Jena; and the other _Hägringar_, or a Journey through Sweden, Lapland, Norway, and Denmark, in 1850, by a young author. Professor Schmidt amply repays the reader, which is more than can always be said of the author of _Hägringar_. Both works are, however, especially worthy the attention of those who wish to study the natural history and ethnography of the countries in question.

MADAME VON WEBER, widow of the composer, who has for some years resided at Vienna, has applied to the Emperor of Austria for permission to dispose of the three original MSS. scores of her husband’s operas, _Der Freischütz, Eutryanthe_, and _Oberon_. These were in the Royal Library at Vienna; and she purposes offering them to the three sovereigns of Saxony, Prussia, and England,—in which respective countries they were originally produced. The Emperor has caused the MSS. to be delivered to her.

PROFESSOR NUYTZ, whose work on canon law was recently condemned by the Holy See, has resumed his lectures at Turin. The lecture-room was crowded, and the learned professor was received with loud applause. He adverted to the hostility of the clergy, and to the Papal censures of his work, which censures he declared to be in direct opposition to the rights of the civil power. He expressed his thanks to the ministry for having refused to deprive him of his chair.

A valuable contribution to Italian history is _Die Carafa von Maddaloni, Neapel unter Spanische Herrschaft_ (Naples under Spanish Domination), just published in Germany, by ALFRED VON REUMONT, a member of the Prussian Legation at Florence, who, more than almost any other man, has made a study of the history of that part of Italy, and who in this work has had access to a great mass of new documents. He writes as a monarchist, but his facts may be relied on. The work is in two volumes.

Every body remembers the noise made in New-York some fifteen years since by the revelations of MARIA MONK. We notice a translation of her famous disclosures advertised, with all sorts of trumpet blowing, in our German papers.

An edition of the complete works of KEPLER is preparing in Germany, under the supervision of Prof. FRISCH, of Stuttgart. The manuscripts of the great astronomer, preserved at St. Petersburg, have been examined for the purpose, with rich results. It is also proposed to erect a monument to Kepler at Stuttgart.

Sixteen German books were prohibited in Russia in August last; among them were FONTAINE’S _Poems_, GÖRRE’S _Christian Mysticism_, KUTZ’S _Manual of Sacred History_, SCHMIDT’S _Death of Lord Byron_, KINKEL’S _Truth without Poetry_, and STRAUSS’S _Life Questions_. Of eleven other works, a few pages from each were prohibited; among these was the German version of Lieutenant LYNCH’S _United States Expedition to the Jordan and the Dead Sea_. These works are allowed to enter Russia after having the objectionable pages cut out.

The science of landscape gardening is enriched by a new work of value just published at Leipzig, by RUDOLPH LIEBECK, the director of the public garden in that city. It is called _Die bildenden Garten Kunst in seinen Modernen Formen_ (The Modern Constructive Art of Gardening). It has twenty colored plates.

COTTA, of Stuttgart, is preparing to publish a splendid illustrated edition of Goethe’s _Faust_. The designs are to be by an artist well known in Germany, Engelbert Seibertz. The work is to be published in numbers.

The historical remains and letters of George Spalatin have been published at Weimar. They are a valuable addition to the history of the Reformation.

It is remarkable that the only oriental nation whose literature has much resemblance to ours, and has a direct practical value for us, is the Chinese. For instance, the works of this people upon agriculture abound in practical information, which may be made immediately useful in Europe and America. We noticed, some time since, the treatise on the raising and care of silk worms, translated and published at Paris, by M. STANISLAS JULIEN, which was so warmly welcomed in France as a timely addition to what was there known upon the subject. It seems that this work was but a small portion of an extensive Cyclopedia of Agriculture in use in China, where the science of tilling the soil has in many respects been developed to an astonishing degree of perfection. This cyclopedia, M. Hervey, a French scholar, whose knowledge of the Eastern languages is accompanied by an equally profound love of farming, has undertaken to translate entire. This is a difficult and tedious enterprise, especially on account of the mass of botanical and technical expressions which occur in the work, and of which the dictionaries furnish no explanation. Meanwhile M. Hervey has published some of the results of his studies in a work called _Investigations on Agriculture and Gardening among the Chinese_. He mentions several varieties of fruits, vegetables, and trees, which might advantageously be introduced into France and Algiers; he also analyzes the Cyclopedia, and shows what are the difficulties in translating it.

A remarkable contribution to our knowledge of China, is M. BIOT’s recent translation of the book called _Tscheu-li_. It seems that in the twelfth century before Christ, the second dynasty that had ruled the country, that of _Thang_, fell by its own vices, and the empire passed into the hands of Wu-wang, the head of the princely family of _Tscheu-li_. Wu-wang was a great soldier and statesman; he confided to his brother Tscheu-Kong, a man evidently of extraordinary political genius, the moral and administrative reformation of the empire. He first laid the foundation of a reform in moral ideas by an addition to the Y-King or sacred book, which the Chinese revere and incessantly study, but which still remains an unintelligible mystery for Europeans. Of his administrative reforms a complete record is preserved in the _Tscheu-li_, and nothing could be easier to understand.

When the Tscheus thus came into power, they found in existence a powerful feudal aristocracy, from which they themselves proceeded, and which they must tolerate. Accordingly, they recognized within the imperial dominions sixty-three federal jurisdictions, which were hereditary, but whose rulers were obliged to administer according to the laws and methods of the empire. Having made this concession, they abolished all other hereditary offices, and established instead, a vast system of centralization, such as the world has never seen equalled elsewhere. The administration, according to the _Tscheu-li_, is divided among six ministries, which were also divided into sections, and the executive functions descend regularly and systematically to the lowest official, and include the entire movement of society. The emperor and the feudal princes are restrained by formalities and usage, as well as by the expression of disapprobation; and the officials of every grade by their hierarchical dependency, and by a system of incessant oversight; and finally, the people by proscription, and the education, industrial, as well as mental and moral, which the State dispenses to them. The sole idea in which this astonishing system rests, is that of the State, whose office is to care for all that can contribute to the public good, and which regulates the action of every individual with a view to this end. In his organization, Tscheu-Kong excelled every thing that the most centralized governments of Europe have devised.

The Tscheu family remained in power for five centuries, and was finally broken down by the feudal element they had preserved. But so deep was the impress of Tscheu-Kong upon the nation, that after centuries of revolutions and civil war, it returned to his institutions and principles, and it is by them and in a great degree in their exact forms, that China is now governed.

In form the _Tscheu-li_ is like an imperial almanac of our own times. It is, however, much more complete, because Tscheu-Kong gives in it a mass of detailed instructions, in order to make the officials aware of their duties and the precise limits of their authority. Thus the work affords a quite exact picture of the social condition of China at that time. There is no other monument of antiquity with which it can be compared, except the _Manus_, the Indian book of law. The difference is, that in China the intellectual activity was altogether political, and the public organization altogether imperial and political; while in India the mental activity was metaphysical, and the public organization altogether municipal.

The translation of the _Tscheu_ was not published till after M. Biot’s decease; it was brought out by his father, with the assistance of M. Stanislas Julien.

The library of the famous Cardinal Mezzofanti is about to be sold, and the catalogue is already printed—in Italian, of course. It is one of the most extensive and valuable collection of works in various languages ever made, and it is to be hoped that it may not be disposed of at the sale, but pass all together into some public library—that of some university would be most appropriate. To indicate the contents of the catalogue, we give the titles of the different parts: Books in Albanian or Epirotic, Arabic, Armenian, American (Indian dialects of Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, United States), Bohemian, Chaldaic, Chinese (Cochin-Chinese, Trin-Chinese, Japanese), Danish (Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Laplandic), Hebrew (Antique, Rabbinic, Samaritan), Egyptian, or Coptic-Egyptian and Coptic, Arabic, Etrusean, Phœnician, Flemish, French (Breton-French, Lorraine-French, Provençal), Gothic and Visi-Gothic, and Greek and Greek-Latin, Modern Greek, Georgian or Iberian, Cretian or Rhetian, Illyrian, Indo-oriental (Angolese, Burmese or Avian, Hindostanee, Malabar, Malayan, Sanscrit), English (Arctic, Breton or Celtic, Scotch-Celtic, Scotch, Irish, Welch), Italian (Fineban dialect, Maltese, Milanese, Sardinian, Sicilian), Kurdistanee or Kurdic, Latin, Maronite and Syriac Maronite, Oceanic (Australian), Dutch, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (various dialects), Slavonian (Carniolan, Serbian, Ruthenian, Slavo-Wallachian), Syriac, Spanish (Catalan, Biscayan), Russian, Turkish, Hungarian, Gipsey.

The French historian MICHELET, deprived of his professorship in the College of France, is devoting himself more than ever to literature. His last work, of which an authorized translation has just appeared in London, is _The Martyrs of Russia_.

MICHEL NICOLAS, one of the ablest among the French theologico-ethical writers, has published a translation of the _Considerations on the Nature and Historical Developments of Christian Philosophy_, by Dr. RITTER, of the University of Gottingen.

M. SCHONENBERGER, a music-publisher at Paris, has purchased from the heirs of Paganini the copyright of his works, and is now publishing them, under the editorial supervision of M. ACHILLE PAGANINI, the son of the great violinist. The edition will comprise every thing that he left behind in writing. Hector Berlioz speaks with enthusiasm in the _Journal des Debats_ of the two grand concertos which have just appeared, one of them containing the marvellous rondo of the _campanella_. Berlioz speaks in high praise of Paganini’s genius as a composer. A volume would be required, he says, to indicate the new effects, the ingenious methods, the grand and noble forms which he discovered, and even the orchestral combinations, which before him were not suspected. In spite of the rapid progress which, thanks to Paganini, the violin is making at the present day in respect of mechanical execution, his compositions are yet beyond the skill of most violinists, and in reading them it is hardly possible to conceive how their author was able to execute them. Unfortunately he was not able to transmit to his successors the vital spark which animated and rendered _human_ those astonishing prodigies of mechanism.

M. PHILARETE CHASLES, one of the literary critics of the _Journal des Debats_, has published, at Paris, a book called _Etudes sur la Litterateur et les Mæurs des Anglo-Americanis_, which abounds in those curious blunders that some French authors seem to be destined to when they write upon topics connected with foreign countries. For instance, he makes the pilgrims of Plymouth to have been the founders of Philadelphia, New-York, and Boston. Buffalo he sets down opposite to Montreal, speaks of the puritans of Pennsylvania as near neighbors of Nova Scotia, and extends Arkansas to the Rocky Mountains. At New-York his regret is that a railroad has destroyed the beauty of Hoboken, and at New Orleans he laments that marriages between whites and Creoles are interdicted. Of Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Audubon, and Longfellow, he speaks in terms of just praise, but Willis is not mentioned. Bancroft and Hildreth are mentioned as historians, Prescott is spoken of briefly in connection with his Ferdinand and Isabella, while his other works are not alluded to. To Herman Melville, M. Chasles devotes fifty pages, while Mr. Ticknor has not even the honor of a mention. The author of this work is very far from doing justice either to American literature or to himself.

Five of the nine intended volumes of LAFUENTE’S _General History of Spain_ from the remotest times to the present day, have appeared in Paris.

In Paris a new edition is announced of the best French versions of FENIMORE COOPER’S works—six or eight illustrated volumes.

M. GUIZOT is about to publish a new volume at Paris, with the title of _Shakspeare et son Temps_ (Shakspeare and his Times). It is to be composed of his Life of Shakspeare, and the articles that he has written at various times upon different plays. The only novelty in it is a notice on Hamlet which was prepared expressly for this publication. He regards both Macbeth and Othello as better dramas than Hamlet, but thinks the last contains more brilliant examples of Shakspeare’s sublimest beauties and grossest faults. "Nowhere," says Guizot, "has he unveiled with more originality, depth and dramatic effect, the inmost state of a great soul: but nowhere has he more abandoned himself to the caprices, terrible or burlesque, of his imagination, and to that abundant intemperance of a mind pressed to get out its ideas without choosing among them, and bent on rendering them striking by a strong, ingenious, and unexpected mode of expression, without any regard to their truth and natural form." The French critic also thinks that on the stage the effect of Hamlet is irresistible.

A Capital work on Paris has just been published at Berlin, from the pen of FRIEDRICH SZARVADY, a Hungarian, who has resided for several years in Paris. The titles of the chapters are:—Paris in Paris; Strangers in Paris; Parisian Women; Street Eloquence; the Temple of Jerusalem (the Bourse); Salons and Conversation; Dancing, Song, and Flowers; the Ball at the Grand Opera; Artist Life; the Press; the Feuilleton; History on a Public Square; Lamartine, Cavaignac, Thiers; Louis Bonaparte. Szarvady observes sharply, and writes with as much grace and _esprit_ as a Frenchman. Nothing can be more taking than his pages. They deserve a translation from the German into English.

VILLERGAS, the Spanish historian, who in one of his recent works drew a parallel between Espartero and Narvaez which excited great attention at Madrid and in other parts of Spain, has just been condemned by the court which has charge of the offences of the press, to a fine of twenty thousand reals, or twenty-five hundred dollars, for the sin against public order and private character contained in that parallel.

An interesting and valuable series of articles reviewing historically the systems of land tenure which have prevailed in different countries, is appearing in the _Journal des Débats_ from the pen of M. HENRY TRIANON. The systems of India and China have already been examined.

The termagant wife of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton has just published _The School for Husbands_, a novel founded on the life and times of Moliere. Probably her own husband is shot at in all the chapters.

The books on modern French history would already fill an Alexandrian library, and every month produces new ones. M. LEONARD GALLOIS, a well-known historical writer, announces a _History of the Revolution of February, 1848_, in _five_ large octavos, with forty-one portraits. M. BARANTE’s _History of the Convention_ will consist of six octavos, of which three are published, and the last is accompanied by it biographical sketch of each of the seven hundred and fifty members. The period embraced in this work is from 1792 to 1795, inclusive. There is a new _History of the City of Lyons_, in three octavos, by the city librarian.

The _Letters and unpublished Essays of Count_ JOSEPH DE MAISTRE have been brought out at Paris, in two volumes octavo. The letters show the celebrated author in a new and pleasing light; a tone of genial unreserve prevails in many of them, which those who have become familiar with his brilliant, dogmatic, and paradoxical intellect, in his more elaborate writings, would hardly suppose him capable of. No writer, of this century at least, has more powerfully set forth the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church than he.

The _Political Situation of Cuba_, a volume published in Paris, by Don ANTONIO SACO, is commended in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Don Antonio was one of the most distinguished intelligences and liberals of the precious island: he argues against independence, or annexation to the American Union: he suggests various arrangements by which Spain could safely establish political freedom in Cuba, and he thinks administrative and judicial reforms to counteract the worst ills of her present situation, might be accomplished.

A New edition of SHARON TURNER’s _History of the Anglo-Saxons_ has just appeared in London, with important additions and revision. The first edition of Turner’s History was published in London more than fifty years ago. At the time when the first volume appeared, the subject of Anglo-Saxon antiquities had been nearly forgotten by the British public, although the most venerated laws, customs, and institutions of the nation originated before the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts lay unexamined in archives, and the important information they contained had never been made a part of general history. Mr. Turner undertook a careful and patient investigation of all the documents belonging to the period preserved in the kingdom, and the result of his labors was the work in question, which at once gave rise to an almost universal passion for the records and remains of the Anglo-Saxon people, and called forth general applause from the best minds of England. A good edition of his History was published several years ago by Carey and Hart of Philadelphia, but it is now, we believe, out of print.

The Rev. JOHN HOWARD HINTON, author of a well-known History of the United States, has published, in London, a volume under the title of _The Test of Experience_, in which he has presented a masterly argument for the voluntary principle in matters of religion. The "test of experience" is in this, as in all other things, the best of tests, and the religious institutions of the United States can well bear its application. One of the most noticeable results of the non-interference of the State is pointed out in the following passage:

"To travellers in the United States, no fact has been more
immediately or more powerfully striking than the total absence of
religious rivalry. Amidst such a multitude of sects, an inhabitant
of the old world naturally, and almost instinctively looks for one
that sets up exclusive pretensions and possesses an actual
predominance. But he finds nothing of the kind. Neither
presbyterianism, or prelacy, nor any other form of
ecclesiasticism, makes the slightest effort to lift its head above
its fellow. And with the resignation of exclusive pretensions, the
entire ecclesiastical strife has ceased, and the din of angry war
has been hushed; and here, at length, the voluntary principle is
able to exhibit itself in its true colors, as a lover of peace and
the author of concord. It is busied no longer with the arguing of
disputed claims, but throws its whole energy into free and
combined operations for the extension of Christianity. The general
religious energy embodies itself in a thousand forms; but while
there is before the church a vast field to which the activities of
all are scarcely equal, there is, also, ’a fair field and no
favor,’—a field in which all have the same advantages, and in
which each is sure to find rewards proportionate to its wisdom and
its zeal. This inestimable benefit of religious peace is clearly
due to the voluntary principle."

JUNIUS, since the publication of his Letters, never figured more conspicuously than during the last month. The _Paris Revue des Deux Mondes_ has a very long article on the great secret by M. Charles Remusat, a member of the Institute, well known in historical criticism. He arrays skilfully the facts and reasonings which British inquirers have adduced in favor of Sir Philip Francis, and the other most probable author, Lord George Sackville. He seems to incline to the latter, but does not decide. He pronounces that, on the whole, Junius was not "a great publicist." His powers and influence are investigated and explained by M. de Remusat with acuteness and comprehensive survey. Lord Mahon, in his new volumes, says, "From the proofs adduced by others, and on a clear conviction of my own, I affirm that the author of Junius was no other than Sir Philip Francis." We think not. The London _Athenæum_, last year, we thought, settled this point. It is understood that the editor of the _Grenville Papers_, now on the eve of publication, in London, is in favor of Lord Temple as a claimant for the authorship of Junius. The January number of the _Quarterly Review_ contains an article on the subject.

The _Natural History of the Human Species_, by Lieutenant-Colonel CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH, is the title of a duodecimo volume from the press of Gould & Lincoln of Boston. An American editor (Dr. Kneeland) has added an introductory survey of recent literature on the subject. The whole performance is feeble. The author and his editor endeavor to make out something like the infidel theory of Professor AGASSIZ, which, a year or two ago, attracted sufficient attention to induce an investigation and an intelligent judgment, in several quarters, as to the real claims of that person to the distinctions in science which his advertising managers claim for him. We have not space now for any critical investigation of the work, and therefore merely warn that portion of our readers who feel any interest in ethnological studies, of its utter worthlessness.

An Englishman, Mr. FRANCIS BONYNGE, recently from the East Indies, has come to this country at the instance of our minister in London, for the purpose of bringing before us the subject of introducing some twenty of the most valuable agricultural staples of the East, among which are the tea, coffee, and indigo plants, into the United States. He gives his reasons for believing that tea and indigo would become articles of export from this country to an amount greater than the whole of our present exports. He says that tea, for which we now pay from sixty-five to one hundred cents per lb. may be produced for from two to five cents, free from the noxious adulterations of the tea we import. He has published a small volume under the title of _The Future Wealth of America_, in which his opinions are fully explained and illustrated.

The first volume of a work on _Christian Iconography_, by M. DIDRON, of Paris, opens to the curious reader a new source of intellectual enjoyment, both in the department of ancient religious art, and in the archæology of the early paintings of the Catholic Church. The rich, profuse, and quaint plates of the original work are used in a translation ably made by E.J. Millington, published in London by Bohn, and in New-York by Bangs.

SIR FRANCIS BOND HEAD, so well known in this country as one of the former governors of Canada, and as an author of remarkable versatility and cleverness, has published an agreeable but superficial book on Paris—the Paris of January, 1852—under the quaint title of _A Bundle of French Sticks_; and Mr. Putnam has reprinted it in his new library.

A remarkable book published in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1847, by J. D. NOURSE, under the title of _Remarks on the Past, and its Legacies to American Society_, has just been reprinted in London, with an introduction by D. T. COULTON.

The following works, all of which have promising titles, will soon be published by J. S. REDFIELD: _Men of the Times in 1852_, comprising biographical sketches of all the celebrated men of the present day; _Characters in the Gospels_, by Rev. E. H. Chapin; _Tales and Traditions of Hungary_, by Theresa Pulzky; _The Comedy of Love_, and the _History of the Eighteenth Century_, by Arsene Houssaye; Aytoun’s _Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_; _The Cavaliers of England_, and _The Knights of the Olden Time, or the Chivalry of England, France and Spain_, by Henry W. Herbert; _Lectures and Miscellanies_, by Henry James; and _Isa: a Pilgrimage_, by Caroline Chesebro.

_The Westminster Review_ says of ALICE CAREY, whose _Clovernook_ we noticed favorably in the last _International_, that "no American woman can be compared to her for genius;" the Paris _Débats_ refers to her as a poet of the rank of Mrs. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING in England; the literary critic of _The Tribune_ (the learned and accomplished RIPLEY whose judgment in such a matter is beyond appeal) prefers her _Clovernook_ to Miss MITFORD’S _Our Village_, or Professor WILSON’S _Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life_.

MR. DANIEL S. CURTISS has availed himself well of large opportunities for personal observation, in his volume just published under the title of _Western Portraiture, and Emigrant’s Guide_, a description of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, with remarks on Minnesota and other territories. It is the most judicious and valuable book of the kind we have seen.

HERR FREUND, the Philologist, is in London, engaged in constructing a German-English and English-German dictionary upon his new system; and Professor SMITH, the learned editor of the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, announces a dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, the articles to be written by the principal contributors to his previous works.

THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS of the present season in England have not been very remarkable. Mr. DICKENS, in an extra number of his Household Words, printed _What Christmas is to Everybody_; and we have from WILKIE COLLINS, _A New Christmas Story_; by the author of "The Ogilvies," _Alice Learmont, a Fairy Tale of Love_; by the author of "The Maiden Aunt," a pleasant little book entitled _The Use of Sunshine_.

Under the title of _Excerpta de P. Ovidii Nastonis_, Blanchard & Lea of Philadelphia have published a series of selections from a poet whose works, for obvious reasons, are not read entire in the schools. The extracts present some of the most beautiful parts of this graceful and versatile poet.

THE FINE ARTS

The American Art Unions have not been successful in the last year, unless an exception may be made in regard to that of New England, at Boston. The American, at New-York, deferred indefinitely its annual distribution of pictures, on account of the small number of its subscriptions; and the Pennsylvanian, at Philadelphia, by a recent fire in that city has lost its admirably-engraved plates of Huntington’s pictures from the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, the last of which was just completed and placed in the hands of the printer. It will make no distribution.

A Sicilian artist, residing at Naples, has amused himself, and probably pleased his sovereign, by composing a life-sized group, representing Religion supporting King Ferdinand, and guarded by an angel, who places his foot on an evil spirit. On the other side of this group is a child bearing the scales of justice. "How much," writes a correspondent of the _Athenæum_, "the artist is to get for this plaster blasphemy, I know not; but a more impudent caricature (at the present moment) it would be difficult to imagine." Another artist has, however, beaten the Sicilian sculptor quite out. A small bronze group represents Religion triumphing over Impiety and Anarchy. Impiety is represented by a female figure, under whose arm are two books inscribed Voltaire and Luther! Anarchy has taken off her mask, and let fall two scrolls, on which are written _Communismo_ and _Constituto_.

PROFESSOR ZAHN, who has been engaged during a period of more than twenty years in examining the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, has exhibited at Berlin a collection of casts unique in their kind. These are 8,000 in number; and comprise all the remarkable sculptures of the above places, besides those found at Stabiæ, and those of the vast collection of the Museo Borbonico and other museums of the Two Sicilies. The casts from the Museo Borbonico are the first ever made,—the King of Naples having accorded the privilege of taking these copies to M. Zahn alone, in royal recompense for the Professor’s great work on Pompeii and Herculaneum.

A book which all students of art should possess, is DR. KUGLER’S _Geschichte der Kunst_ (History of Art), with the Illustrations (_Bilderatlos_) which accompany it, and which are now being published at Stuttgart. The ancient and modern schools of Art—Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture—are here represented in outlines of their most celebrated and characteristic works. Eleven numbers of these Illustrations have appeared, and the whole work will be completed in the course of the coming year.

In our musical world there have been several noticable facts in the last month. The opera company, perhaps from the utter incapacity of its director, has been divided, and the best portion of it has been singing at Niblo’s Theatre. Jenny Lind’s farewell series of concerts was prevented by intelligence of the death of the great singer’s mother, in Sweden. Catherine Hayes has been successful in several concerts at Tripler Hall, and Mrs. Bostwick, whom the best critics of the city regard as superior to any singer who has appeared among us, except Jenny Lind, has given a second series of her subscription concerts, which were extremely well attended.

A correspondent of the _Athenæum_, writing from Egypt, urges that a few young artists should be sent out with orders to copy all the hieroglyphics on the most important temples, as well as the numerous tablets and fragments which are daily brought to light. "A work pursued with such materials—all theories and arbitrary classification being excluded—would ever remain as a lasting monument, and would reflect great credit on the Government which should order its execution." Less than one-half of the money required for the removal of the Obelisk would amply cover all expenses.

A correspondent of _Kuhne’s Europa_ writes from Dresden that a number of humorous drawings, sketched by the pencil of Schiller, and accompanied by descriptions in his own hand, have been found in the possession of a Swabian family, with whom the great poet became acquainted during his residence at Loschwitz.

In Berlin, M. von Prinz, a pupil of Kiss, the sculptor, is erecting a group which he calls _The Lion-killer_ in imitation of the _Amazon_. Kiss himself is engaged on a set of groups from a fox-hunt, Rauch has almost completed a bust of Humboldt, and statues of General Gneisenau and of _Hope_.

A colossal statue of the Emperor Napoleon, thirty feet high, is to be placed on the top of the Triumphal Arch, at the end of the Champs Elysées, in Paris.

KAULBACH has undertaken to draw a set of sketches for an illustrated edition of Shakspeare, which will shortly be published by Nicolai, At Berlin.

MR. GREENOUGH, is now in New-York, awaiting the arrival of his splendid group for the Capitol, from Italy. He will soon be engaged on his statue of his friend the late Mr. Cooper, to be erected in this city.

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MONTH

The extraordinary abilities of Kossuth as orator, hid attractive personal qualities, and grandeur of his propositions, continue to occupy the generous regard of the people of the United States, but the impression which obtained at one time that the national government would in any manner or degree enter into his plans for confining a future contest for the liberty of Hungary exclusively to the two parties most immediately interested, appears to have been very generally given up. This country will continue to encourage and aid oppressed peoples by showing how wisely and efficiently its servants can attend to her own affairs. At the same time it is not to be doubted that citizens in their private capacity may and will do much for the illustrious exile who pleads among us for the means of opposing the oppressors of his nation. Kossuth has been entertained at public banquets since he left New-York by the authorities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Annapolis, and Harrisburg; he has been received by the President of the United States, the two houses of Congress, and the legislatures of Maryland and Pennsylvania; and on the 7th of January he dined with the representatives, senators, and other persons connected with the government, at Washington, and Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, William H. Seward, and Stephen A. Douglass, made speeches on the occasion expressive of their personal respect and sympathy, and their anxiety as individuals to see Hungary independent. Mr. Cass indeed went so far as entirely to endorse the doctrine of Kossuth respecting intervention to insure non-intervention. Kossuth is now in the state of Ohio, and he probably will remain in this country long enough—since the French revolution has at least deferred any great and united movement of the European democracy—to visit all the principal cities of the valley of the Mississippi.

But little important business has yet been accomplished in Congress, though numerous bills have been introduced, as is usual in the early weeks of the session. On the morning of the 24th of December, a portion of the capitol, occupied by the national library, was destroyed by fire, with nearly sixty thousand printed volumes, and many MSS., maps, medals, portraits, sculptures, and other works of art.

The legislature of several of the states are now in session. Those of Ohio, Michigan, Mississippi, Wisconsin and California, met on the 5th of January; those of New-York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, on the 7th; those of Maryland and Massachusetts, on the 7th; that of Indiana, on the 8th; those of Virginia and Illinois, on the 12th; that of New Jersey, on the 13th; that of Maine, on the 14th, and that of Louisiana, on the 19th. No great national questions have been prominently before the state legislatures, except that of our foreign relations, with special reference to Hungary, upon which the assemblies in the several states appear to be less conservative than Congress. The most important subject of local administration, is that of the suppression of the sales of intoxicating liquors. The law of Maine, enacted last year, will probably be sustained in that state; in Massachusetts a petition with more than one hundred thousand signatures, has been offered in the legislature for such a law, and similar efforts are being made in New-York and other States.

In Mexico there is a continuance of the imbecility of the government and the agitations of factions. Rumors, constantly varying, in regard to the conduct and prospects of Caravajal, leave us in doubt whether any thing of real importance will grow out of his attempts at revolution in the northern provinces. The administration appears to have acted with decision, but probably with impotence so far as the final result is concerned, in regard to the Tehuantepee railroad contract.

South America presents the usual series of disturbances, with some facts which indicate a prospect of repose; but all such prospects in the Spanish states of this continent are apt to be deceptive. The birthday of Bolivar was celebrated at Caracas on the 28th of October with great public festivities. Treaties between Brazil and Uruguay were formed for alliance, military aid, commerce and navigation, and the mutual surrender of criminals, on the 12th of October. We learn from Buenos Ayres that, through November, Rosas was making great preparations to meet Urquiza. He had established a corps of observation in the direction of Entre Rios to look out for an invasion. A considerable emigration was taking place from Buenos Ayres to Montevideo, mostly of previous residents of the latter city.

In Great Britain the most important recent event is the retirement of Lord Palmerston from the cabinet, in which he held the place of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. This occurred on the 22d of December. The causes of Lord Palmerston’s retirement are a subject of much unsatisfactory speculation, and the fact is generally regretted by the friends of political liberty in Europe. His successor is Lord Granville, a nobleman of manly and liberal character, heretofore connected with the government. It is apprehended that the popular feeling may induce the recall of Lord Palmerston to be the head of a new Ministry. Great Britain has now no envoy resident in the United States, but it is not improbable that Sir Henry Bulwer will return to this country for the final settlement of affairs connected with Central America. It is understood officially that the attack of a British man-of-war on the United States steamer Prometheus, at Greytown, was entirely unauthorized.

The Admiralty have determined not to send another expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, by way of Behring’s Straits. The Plover is to be communicated with each year by a man-of-war—the Amphitrite is the next. The proposed overland expedition of Lieut. Pym has been abandoned.

The English war at the Cape of Good Hope continues with little change, though a few important successes by the English are reported. The war appears to be condemned by a large and respectable portion of the journals and the people at home. In its character and details it continues to resemble our own contest with the Indians in Florida.

The month of December, 1851, witnessed, in FRANCE, the successful accomplishment of a _coup d’état_ not less daring than any that marked the earlier annals of that country. It is asserted that the personal security of the President was menaced with imminent danger, when, on the evening of the 1st of December, he came to the resolution to strike the first blow. The measures he immediately took were, to issue an appeal to the people denouncing the conduct of the Assembly, and declaring it dissolved; a proclamation to the army, telling them that "to-day, at this solemn moment, I wish the voice of the army to be heard;" and a decree "in the name of the French people," of which the articles were—"1. The National Assembly is dissolved; 2. Universal Suffrage is re-established—the law of the 31st May is abrogated; 3. The French people is convoked in its elective colleges from the 14th of December to the 21st of December following; 4. The state of siege is decreed through the first military division; 5. The Council of State is dissolved; 6. The Minister of the Interior is charged with the execution of the present decree." The appeal to the people contained these further propositions; "Persuaded that the instability of power, that the preponderance of a single Assembly, are the permanent causes of trouble and discord. I submit to your suffrages the fundamental basis of a constitution which the Assemblies will develop hereafter—1. A responsible chief named for ten years; 2. The Ministers dependent on the executive alone; 3. A Council of State formed of the most distinguished men, preparing the law, and maintaining the discussion before the legislative corps; 4. A legislative corps, discussing and voting the laws, named by universal suffrage, without the _scrutin de liste_ which falsifies the election; 6. A second Assembly formed of all the illustrious persons of the nation—a preponderating power, guardian of the fundamental pact and of public liberty." At an early hour, on the 2d, these manifestoes were found covering the walls of Paris, and at the same time the principal thoroughfares were filled with troops of the line.

The President had taken precautions that the National Guard should not be called out. The Generals Changarnier, Cavaignac, Bedeau, Lamoricière, Leflo, Colonel Charras, MM. Bazé, Thiers. Brun, the Commissary of Police of the Assembly, and others of the leading heads of parties, were arrested before they had risen for the day. Many members of the Assembly gathered at the house of M. Daru, one of their Vice-Presidents and, having him at their head, proceeded to their ordinary place of meeting, but found access effectually barred by the Chasseurs de Vincennes, a corpse recently returned from Algeria. These men forcibly withstood the entrance of the members, some of whom were slightly wounded. Returning with M. Daru, they were invited by General Lauriston to the Marie of the 10th arrondissement, where they formed a sitting, presided over by two of their Vice-Presidents, M. Vitel and M. Benuist d’Azy (M. Daru having meanwhile been arrested), and proceeded to frame a decree to the following effect: "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is deprived of his functions as President of the Republic, and the citizens are commanded to refuse him obedience; the executive power passes in full right to the National Assembly; the judges of the High Court of Justice are required to meet immediately, on pain of dismissal, to proceed to judgment against the President and his accomplices. It is enjoined on all functionaries and depositaries of authority that they obey the requisition made in the name of the Assembly, under penalty of forfeiture and the punishment prescribed for high treason." While this decree was being signed, another was unanimously passed, naming General Oudinot commander of the forces, and M. Tamisier chief of the staff. These decrees had scarcely been signed by all present, when a company of soldiers entered, and required them to disperse. The Assembly refused to do so, when, after some parley, two commissaries de police were brought, the presidents were arrested, and the whole body of members present, 230 in number, were marched across the city to the barracks of the Quai d’Orsay. The next day they were distributed to the prisons of Mount Valerien, Mazas, and Vincennes; and the generals Cavaignac, Lamoricière, Bedeau, and Changarnier, were sent to Ham. During the day the population viewed the soldiers in the streets merely as a spectacle, and no violent excitement occurred. At ten o’clock on Wednesday morning some members of the Mountain appeared in the Rue d’Antoine, and raised the cry _Aux armes!_ The party they collected immediately began to erect a barricade at the corner of the Rue St. Marguerite. Troops were quickly at the spot, when the barricade was carried, and the representative Baudin was killed. Some other barricades were raised in the afternoon, but as quickly destroyed. General Magnan, the Commander-in-chief of the army of Paris, seeing the day was passed in insignificant skirmishes, now determined to withdraw his small posts, to allow the discontented to gather to a head. On the morning of the 4th it was reported that the insurrection had its focus in the Quartiers St. Antoine, St. Denis, and St. Martin, and that several barricades were in progress. The General deferred his attack until two o’clock, when the various brigades of troops acted in concert. The barricades were attacked in the first instance by artillery, and then carried at the point of the bayonet. There were none which offered very serious resistance, and the whole contest was over about five o’clock. In the evening, however, fresh barricades were raised in the Rues Montmartre and Montorgueil, and others in the Rues Pagevin and des Fosses Montmartre, which were successfully attacked in the night by the officers in command of those quarters. On the 5th the last remains of street-fighting were effectually quelled. The loss to the military in these operations was twenty-five men killed, of whom one was Lieut-Col. Loubeau, of the line, and 184 wounded, of whom seventeen were officers. The number of insurgents killed is unknown, but they are estimated it from two to three thousand, including, unfortunately, many indifferent persons, who were accidentally passing along the boulevards when the soldiery suddenly opened their sweeping fire. The insurgents taken with arms in their hands were carried to the Champ de Mars, and there shot by judgment of court martial. Most of the political prisoners arrested were discharged after a few days, some of the more formidable only being longer detained.

By a decree of the President dated the 2d December, the French people were convoked in their respective districts for the 14th of the month to accept or reject the following _plébiscite_: "The French people wills the maintenance of the authority of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, and delegates to him the powers necessary to frame a Constitution on the bases proposed in his proclamation of the 2d December." On that day the voting consequently commenced by universal suffrage; and the President has been re-elected for ten years by a majority greatly exceeding that of his contest with Cavaignac. In Paris, of 394,049 registered voters 197,091 have voted in the affirmative; 95,511, in the negative; and 96,819 abstained from voting. The majority for Louis Napoleon being 191,500. In the provinces he has had a majority of eight to one. The inauguration of the usurper took place in the church of Notre Dame on the 3d of January, and the new order of things has been recognized by all the courts of Europe.