Читать книгу The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 - Various - Страница 7

A book which we cannot too highly recommend is the Briefe über Humboldt's Kosmos (Letters on Humboldt's Cosmos), published at Leipzic, in two octavo volumes, from the pens of Professor Cotta and Professor Schaller. It is intended to serve as a commentary upon that work, which it is well worthy to accompany. Without attempting an exhaustive treatise on the details of the various topics touched on by Humboldt, the writers have expanded some of the leading points of his work into scientific essays, whose practical utility is none the smaller for an elegant and attractive style, and a genial enthusiasm, of which Humboldt need not be ashamed. The first volume, by Professor Cotta, contains forty letters on the following themes: The enjoyment of nature; matter and forces, growth and existence; natural philosophy; the fixed stars, their parallaxes, groups, movements, nebulæ; double stars, structure of the universe, resisting medium; the solar system; the laws of motion, Kepler and Newton; density of the heavenly bodies; our moon, its orbit, no atmosphere, no water; comets; meteors, and meteoric stones; form of the earth; magnetism; volcanic activity; gas-springs; geysers; internal structure of the earth; history of organisms, their first origin, and developments; the surface, its forms, and their influence on animated life; the gradual rising and sinking of the surface in Sweden; the tides; circulation of water on the earth—springs, cold, warm, mineral, artesian—rivers, seas, ocean currents, evaporation and condensation; glaciers; the atmosphere, climate, weather, winds, storm-clouds; organic life on the earth, its nature, differences, origin of the differences, original production, creation, first appearance; man, his origin, races, forms, phrenology, &c. These letters offer, as we have already said, in a pleasing and attractive form, a condensed and comprehensive view of what is now known with reference to the sciences treated. The letter upon Man is especially interesting. Professor Cotta belongs to those who think the human race to be "the gradual perfection, through thousands of generations," of a lower order of creatures. "The human individual," he says, "even now, in the embryonic state, passes through the condition of various sorts of animals. The most eminent anatomists have shown that before birth we for a time resemble a polypal animal, then for a time a fish, next a reptile, till at last appear the characteristics of a mammalia. This is a fact which bears strongly in favor of our view. The genesis and development of the entire species seem to be here condensed in the growth of the individual." But while setting forth this peculiar view, Professor Cotta, with true German comprehensiveness, takes care to give a fair statement of opposing doctrines, and evinces nothing like a narrow dogmatism. The second volume, like the second volume of the Cosmos, is that which will most interest and delight the general reader. It contains thirty-two letters, mainly on the following subjects: the view of nature in general; the religious view; the various forms of the religious view; the æsthetic view; the inward connection of the æsthetic enjoyment of nature with its artistic representation; the scientific view as empirical science and natural philosophy; the relations of the various views of nature to each other; the poetic comprehension of nature among the Indians; the poetic comprehension of nature among the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans; the Christian contemplation of nature; German poetry in the middle ages; Italian poetry; the poetic comprehension of nature in modern times; the representation of nature by painting, and its gradual appearance in the history of art; the physiognomy of plants in connection with the physiognomy of nature in general; description of several plant formations; general outlines of the animal world; history of the physical view of the universe; natural science among the Phenicians, the Greeks, at the time of the Ptolemies, at the time of the Roman Empire, and in the middle ages; natural history of modern times, Bacon, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton; the mechanical doctrine of modern physics; the dynamic view of nature; Fichte's doctrine, and the natural philosophy of Schelling and Hegel. This volume, as will be easily understood, gives at once a history of religion, philosophy, art, literature, and science, in their relations to the outward universe. For instance, under the head of natural science among the Greeks, we have among other things an account of the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle; in treating the middle ages, Professor Schaller speaks of the Scholastics, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Giordano Bruno, and Paracelsus. One of the most interesting parts of the whole is that on the poetic view of nature among the Hindoos, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Germans, and Italians, the historical statement being every where illustrated by copious quotations of admirable passages from the poets of those nations. The strictly scientific portions are illustrated by excellent engravings, and are free from mere technicalities. Sold in New-York by R. Garrigue.

The Vestiges of Creation has been translated into German by Charles Vogt, a savan who in late years has become noted as a radical politician. The translation is highly praised. Published at Brunswick.

The translation of Hegel's Aesthetik into French is now nearly completed at Paris, the fourth volume, which is devoted to the consideration of music and poetry, having just been published. One volume more will complete the work. The translator is M. Charles Bénard.

The Human Race and its Origin.—Under the title of Histoire Générale des Races Humaines, M. Eusebe-François de Salles has just published at Paris an elaborate work on Ethnography, for which he had prepared himself by long and careful personal observation of most of the races on the globe, his travels having extended into nearly all climes and regions. He takes the ground of the descent of the entire human family from a single pair, created adult and perfect in mind and body, not by any simple evolution of nature, but by a direct act of the Divine Being. The paradise or home of this pair he places to the north of India and the east of Persia. All the varieties of men now existing he attributes to the influence of climate and circumstances. "The first light of history," he says, "shows us the human family in possession of a language, and of a certain degree of science, the inheritance of the past. Its aptitudes, its passions, and outward circumstances, may increase this inheritance, keep it the same, or diminish it. In peoples enervated by luxury and by doubt, in tribes softened by too favorable a climate, or separated too long from the stronger and better educated masses,—in a family or a couple exiled by a catastrophe, a shipwreck,—we are to seek the origin of the decline into the various degrees of corruption, barbarism, the savage state, and brutality. Imagine a boat from the coast of America, or from the South Sea Islands, cast by a tempest on some unknown shore or some desert island. A few young persons, a few children, alone escape from the shipwreck, knowing imperfectly the language, the arts, and the family traditions of their parents. Such is the origin of the unfortunates sometimes met with, who are ignorant even of the use of fire." Against the spontaneous generation of the human race in several localities he argues at length as an utter absurdity, the point of his argument being, that isolated couples so produced would be unable to resist the inhospitality of nature without miraculous aid, and one miracle, he contends, is more admissable than ten or a dozen. But the chief grounds upon which he labors to establish his doctrine are the similitude of the most ancient traditions among all branches of the human species, the affiliation and analogy of languages, and the identity of organization and equality of aptitudes. He finds similar traditions among the Hebrews, the Chaldeans, the Phœnicians, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Chinese, the Thibetans, the Scythians, and the Americans. In the theogonies and cosmogonies of the Aztecs of America, he says that the traditions of ancient Asia are plainly to be found, while some vague traces of these primitive narratives are to be found even among the savages of Oceanica, and the most barbarous and miserable negroes of western Africa. To the negroes he devotes perhaps the most careful and learned portion of the work. Starting from the discovery of M. Flaurens as to the pigmentum or coloring matter of the skin, he contends with great force that nothing but the gradual influence of climate, giving a greater and greater intensity to the action of this coloring matter, which exists in every race and every individual, has caused the essential difference between whites and blacks. For, he argues, there is no other difference between them than that of color, all the other features, such as the prominent mouth, the woolly hair, the facial angle, being in no wise exclusively peculiar to the Africans. And so, after having gone over the entire race in detail, proving the identity of organization in every division, M. de Salles concludes that the primitive complexion was olive, somewhat like the color of unburnt coffee, and the original men had red hair. On the affiliation of languages he reasons at great length, with a striking affluence of curious and learned detail. Languages, he remarks, become more and more complicated and perfect as we ascend toward their origin. Next he considers the modifications by which the present races of men have departed from the first family, and in so doing he takes up every people that has ever been known. America, he thinks, was first settled by Mongol emigration, with religious traditions, between the eighteenth and the fifteenth century before our era: then, six or eight hundred years later, there was a second emigration of Hindoo races, with traditions of architecture. With the Bible and the facts of geology as his starting point, he demonstrates the falsity of the Egyptian, Hindoo, Chinese, and Mexican chronologies. The six days of creation he takes as so many great epochs; the deluge he places at five thousand years before Christ.

In our account of this book we have not strictly followed the order of the author. Thus he makes the direct miraculous creation of man the concluding topic of his book, and treats it not without a certain poetic elevation as comports with such an event. We have aimed only to give the outlines of his doctrine, and for the rest recommend those of our readers who are interested in such studies to procure and read the work.

Joachim Lelewel (a name honored by all lovers of liberty,) has just published at Breslau a work on the geography of the middle ages, which is worthy of the warmest admiration. It consists of an atlas of fifty plates, engraved by the hand of the venerable author, containing one hundred and forty-five figures and maps, from eighty-eight different Arabic and Latin geographers of different epochs, with eleven explicative or comparative maps and two geographical essays. The whole work exhibits the most thorough acquaintance and conscientious use of the labors of previous explorers in the same direction. The cost of importing a copy into this country would be about eight dollars.

More new German Novels.—The Siege of Rheinfels, by Gustave von See, is a historical romance, founded on an episode from the wars of Louis XIV., against the German empire. While the Palatinate and the left bank of the Rhine were ravaged by the French armies, the fortress of Rheinfels held out obstinately against a siege which was prosecuted with fury by a much superior force. Amid the scenes of this siege, passes the love-story that forms the kernel of the novel, which is written with originality and talent. The historical part is equally attractive and vraisemblant. A collection of romances under the title of Germania, has appeared at Bremen. It is intended to serve as the beginning of an annual publication. The first number contains seven tales, some of them by well known romance writers. The first is Eine Leidenschaft (A Passion), by Louise von G., and is highly praised by the most reliable critics; it abounds in arch and graceful humor. Spiller von Hauenschildt is the least successful of the contributors in respect to the artistic treatment of his subject. His novel is socialistic. Adolph Hahr and Alfred Meissner are also among the contributors. On the whole the book is a good one.

Leopold Schefer has published lately in Berlin The Bishop's Wife, a Tale of the Papacy, in which the great Napoleon of the church, Hildebrand, figures as the hero. The Germans have never succeeded in the historical novel. With vast resources in materiel, they have always a vagueness, a want of definite interest, of picturesque arrangement, and of sustained and disciplined power. Schefer is a scholar, and his didactic purpose is plain enough, and well enough managed. The Teutonic character has always instinctively revolted against the practice of celibacy, a form of ascetism quite natural, and sometimes perhaps inevitable, as a reaction against the unbridled sensualism of the Africans and Asiatics, but quite out of place in climes so temperate and races so moderate, conscientious, and self-respecting as those of Northern Europe. It needed all the genius and determination of Hildebrand himself to enforce the celibacy of the German clergy, and certainly they have never ceased more or less covertly to revolt against it. It is well understood that, at the present time, there is a very general wish among the Catholics of Germany—more especially of South Germany, where they are not jealous of Protestant encroachments—to have marriage allowed to the parochial clergy; and the clergy themselves are foremost in this tendency, though it may not accord with their interest unreservedly to display it. It has, however, betrayed its existence in various ways, especially in anonymous literary productions, in prose and verse. So general is this feeling, and so profound the conviction that something must be done, that in 1848 it was very generally credited that the Pope was prepared to sanction a relaxation of the laws of the church in this respect. For this belief, however, there could have been no just foundation, since Pius IX. is the reputed author of the official reply, made while he was but a priest, to the Brazilian Archbishop Feijo, upon this very subject, in which it was alleged that such a relaxation of discipline would be an abandonment of the "integrity of the church." Yet without something of the kind, it is thought that a very extensive schism in catholic Germany will be inevitable.

Der Mensch im Spiegel der Natur (Man in the Mirror of Nature), is an excellent little work for popular use, by Mr. E. A. Rossmässler, published at Leipzic, in two neat volumes, with wood-cuts. It sets forth, in the most attractive form, the elementary facts of science, they being ingeniously interwoven into a narrative of the journeys, friendships, and adventures of the author. The work well deserves a translation into English.

A work of extreme interest to geologists is the Gaea Norwegica, edited by Professor Keilhau of the Christiana University, and published at that place. The first volume is just completed. No country of Europe is more important in respect of geological science than Norway, and the labors of Professor Keilhau and his associates are of the most thorough and solid kind. The volume contains 516 pages folio. Cost in America $4.50.

A German nobleman lately wrote to the French Academy, offering to give that body a yearly income of 10,000 francs to be spent in two prizes, one of 5,000 francs for the best essay in defence of Catholicism, and another of the same sum for the best essay in defence of Absolutism. The Academy declined the offer.

A System of Christian Ethics has lately been published at Regensburg, by Dr. Werner, Professor in the Catholic Theological Seminary of St. Polten. The writer holds that all virtue flows from the mystic fountain of regeneration, and is confirmed and supported solely by the sacraments of the church.

Wilhelm Meinhold, author of the Amber Witch, lately the pastor of a parish in Pomerania, is now in Berlin, preparing for admission into the Roman Catholic Church. It is not long since he forfeited his place in the Protestant Church by a street fight, for which, we believe, he was imprisoned.

The College of Rabbis, at Padua, offers 1000 florins ($400) as a prize for the best descriptive and critical work on the political and religious history of the Israelites from the first siege of Jerusalem to the time of the latest writers of the Talmud.

Mrs. Robinson's (Talvi's) History of the Colonization of America, originally published in the German language, has been translated by Mr. William Hazlitt, and printed in London.

Gedichte von Jeanne Marie (Poems by Jeanne Marie) is the title of one of the latest products of the German muse. The authoress is well known and well liked by those readers of German novels who take delight in the genius of authoresses, and think ladies can write as well as men. Jeanne Marie has seen much, felt much, and thought almost if not quite as much as she has seen and felt. Her poetic culture is however still defective, and her stories are better than her lyrics. The latter lack finish and correctness, and abound in mere conceits rather than in genuine poetic images. Where she attempts simply to narrate an event in the ballad style she is more successful.

A book of curious historical interest is now in course of publication in Germany, the first volume of which has already made its appearance. It is the Diary of General Patrick Gorton, who served in Russia during a large part of the seventeenth century, where he attained the highest military rank. He was in the habit of noting every thing that passed around him, or with which he was connected, whether of a political, military, or personal nature. His field of service extended throughout the entire empire, and embraced the most important events in the reign of Peter the Great. He participated in the suppression of the corps of Strelitzes, made two campaigns against the Turks, was active in Peter's reorganization of the army, &c., &c. The first volume comes down to 1678; the remainder will soon follow. As the whole was written without any design of being communicated to the world, it is especially valuable for its glimpses at the domestic habits of the country at that peculiar period.

George Sand's New Drama.—George Sand's Claudie has had a brilliant fortune at Paris, where it was first performed the second week in January. It is a drama of peasant life, in three acts, in prose. Jules Janin says of it: "The success of Claudie is a true, sincere, and energetic success. It has impassioned the calmest souls; it has calmed the most agitated. This poem is a veritable festival, full of the rustic delights of the country, of the most honorable passions of the human heart, of the noblest sentiments. Add to this, a charm altogether new, a charm both inspired and inspiring, in the style, which is reason and good sense in the most delicious costume. Neither effort nor study is there, but only that simplicity so much sought for in the most precious passages of Daphnis and Chloe translated to the Marivaux by Amyot himself. The piece was listened to with ravishment. There was universal praise among the audience, an inexpressible abundance of tears, of laughter, of gayety, of sighs, of words fitly spoken, of eloquent silence." Of the plot we take the following account from an article by Paul de Musset: From the beginning we feel the air of the country, the harvest, and the sun of August. Farmer Fauveau is preparing to pay the harvesters. His employer, Dame Rose, a young and pretty widow, has just returned from the city, where she had been for a lawsuit. Fauveau, a shrewd but good-natured man, skilfully calls her attention to the sad and agitated air of his son, who is no doubt in love with some one, and with whom can it be except his charming mistress? Dame Rose admits that Sylvain Fauveau is a handsome fellow, and a good and intelligent workman, who would manage affairs with discretion, but he would be jealous of his wife. Jealousy, replies the old man, is a proof of love, and so Dame Rose begins to cherish the idea that Sylvain is in love with her. This is not true, but the old man has said it purposely. He suspects Sylvain of being in love with Claudie, a simple laborer in the harvest field, without a penny, and gaining her living, with no other relative than a grandfather of eighty, who may any day become a charge upon her little earnings. Claudie comes in from work with her grandfather, and they ask for their pay, the harvest being finished, and it being six leagues to their home. They are paid, and Sylvain takes care that they shall receive more than his father intends, and that they shall be invited to the harvest festival. Claudie aids in the preparations, and Sylvain, reproaching her tenderly for working after a day so fatiguing, takes from her the severer part of the duties she has undertaken. But she only replies in monosyllables, and does not turn her eyes from the plates and other utensils she is engaged with. Sylvain, troubled by this, withdraws, murmuring at her coldness and indifference. We soon see the cause of this. A young peasant appears. It is the handsome Denis Ronciat, the beau and cajoler of the village girls, who utters an exclamation of surprise. A brief explanation informs us that Denis was betrothed to Claudie when she was fifteen, that he had deceived and abandoned her like a villain, leaving her a child, which had since died. This explains the gloomy air of Claudie, her indifference to the advances of Sylvain, and her almost fierce determination never to marry. To complete his outrages, Denis boldly avows his intention to marry Dame Rose, and offers money to her he has betrayed, in order to bribe her to silence. The band of harvesters appears, bearing in triumph the last sheaf, adorned with flowers and ribbons. The grandfather, Remy, full of joy, pronounces a discourse of rude and simple eloquence on the beneficence of Providence, and of the sun He causes to shine, after which a collection is proposed in favor of the orator and his granddaughter. Every one gives his offering. Dame Rose puts in a new five-franc piece, the father Fauveau a penny, Sylvain his watch, wishing that it were his heart, a child brings an apple, and finally the last contributor approaches. This is Denis Ronciat: seeing the seducer of his child, the indignation of the old man breaks out, he rejects the offering, and falls as if struck with apoplexy, pronouncing a sort of mysterious malediction, which freezes with horror all who hear it. In the second act Claudie is still at the farm, her grandfather having been sick there for two months. She has been engaged as a servant to the farmer Fauveau, but has not given the least hope to Sylvain, who has been constant in his attentions. Dame Rose, in the mean time, has fallen in love with him, and is astonished that he has not declared himself. Denis Ronciat, seeing his rival preferred, explains to the rich widow why the lover she desires will not present himself, and from vengeance and vanity divulges the secret of poor Claudie. Here we expect a storm of insults and reproaches to fall on the head of the dishonored girl. But, as in the rest of the work, the author has laid aside the ordinary traditions, customs, and conventionalities, to draw from the resources of her own genius. While all are preparing to expel the domestic who has deceived every body by her air of candor and innocence, the old man, whose reason has been wandering, listens. He recalls his recollections, and his presence of mind returns at the critical moment. He rises, throws his arms around his granddaughter, and naively recounts the story of the seduction and abandonment of Claudie: how she believed in Denis, and gave him her heart without distrust; how Denis shamefully abused her confidence, and abandoned her, when duty obliged him more than ever to be faithful. The old man adds that he himself had neither reproached nor cursed her, but that he consoled her, that he took her child upon his knees, and loved it, and despaired when it died. Finally he demands who would presume to be severer toward his child, and feel her wrong more keenly than he. His simplicity, magnanimity, and goodness, overpower all who hear him. A more gentle sentiment than even respect and pity takes possession of every heart. The devotion of the old man raises the fallen girl, and in the admiration he inspires the fault of Claudie is almost forgotten. But it is too late. The old man takes the arm of his daughter, and leads her away with him. When the curtain rises for the last scene, Dame Rose has retained Claudie and her grandfather at the house, a riot in the village having prevented their departure. Denis has come near being stoned to death. Finally he consents to repair his crime by marrying her he has betrayed. He is refused. Then Sylvain offers himself to Claudie, but she says she is unworthy of him, and refuses obstinately. Dame Rose, Fauveau, and even Sylvain's mother, try vainly to change her resolution. The old man at last decides, by saying that he reads her soul, and knows that she loves Sylvain. His authority makes her give a silent consent, and here the curtain falls. Claudie has been brought out in elegant form by a Parisian publisher. Why should not some poet attempt a version into English?

Several new Plays and Operas have lately attracted attention in Paris. Paillasse, in five acts, by MM. Dennery and Marc Fournier, produced at the Gaieté in November, was one of the greatest hits during the latter part of 1850. The character of the conventional French mountebank, Paillasse, the vagabond juggler of fairs and streets, was regarded as one of the finest creations of Frederic Lemaitre, and in one of the Christmas revues a symbol of the piece passed before the eyes of the audience as one of the types of the past year. It has since been brought out in London with quite as much success, Madame Celeste (the quondam star of our Bowery?) in the character of the wife of the mountebank. The musical season at Paris has been signalized by the production of two successful operas. L'Enfante Prodigue of Auber is running a prosperous career at the Académie de Musique. General opinion speaks highly of the music, and the piece appears to be one of the most ingenious of M. Scribe. At the Opera Comique another opera by Scribe and Halevy, La Dame de Pique, has been brought out with success. The libretto, taken from a Russian tale, translated by M. Merimée, is one of the most fantastic Scribe has constructed. It is founded on an old story about the Russian Empress Elizabeth, who had found out the secret of invariably winning at play by means of three cards, of which the Queen of Spades (la Dame de Pique) was one.

M. Combet, a Protestant clergyman of Cevennes, has just published at Paris in three volumes a work of great interest and value, under the title of Histoire de France sous le regne de Henry III. par Mazerai. It comprises a full, conscientious and philosophic account of the French religious civil wars, from the beginning of the Reformation down to the establishment of religious liberty under the Consulate. To the original work of Mazerai, M. Combet has prefixed an elaborate introduction, while he has added in the form of an appendix whatever relates to more recent matters, with copious notes and commentaries. The whole constitutes an invaluable contribution to the history of the modern religious movement.

Some new contributions to the history of labor have just appeared at Paris. The most important is the Histoire de la Classe ouvriere depuis l'esclave jusqu'au Proletaire de nos Jours, by M. Robert (du Var), four volumes. Less general and comprehensive in its aim is Le Livre d'Or des Metiers, Histoire des Corporations ouvrieres, by Paul Lacroix and Ferd. Serre, six volumes. Both these books are written without an intention to establish any special theory or system.

The Rev. G. R. Gleig, author of The Subaltern's Furlough, Saratoga, &c., is now Inspector-General of Military Schools, and lives in London.

Leopold Ranke, whose "Lives of the Popes of Rome" is familiar to American readers, has lately discovered in the National Library at Paris an important long lost MS., by the Cardinal Richelieu. In the MS. memoirs of the Cardinal, deposited at the Office for Foreign Affairs, an imperfection has existed, in the total absence of a series of leaves from the most interesting part of the collection. These appear to have been found accidentally, by M. Ranke, in a bundle of papers, gathered from some of the old mansions in Saint Germains. It has been a disputed question whether Richelieu was the real author of the works under his name; whether he availed himself of the literary abilities of others, contributing no more from his own resources than here and there an observation or a fact. These disputes have had reference to the Memoirs, the Testament, and the Histoire de la Mère et du Fils; for there seems to be good reason for believing that the books published previous to his political elevation, such as the De la Perfection du Chrétien, the theological tracts, and his political treatise of 1614, were written by him with no more than the ordinary aids of authorship. It is possible that the fragment, discovered by M. Ranke, may afford additional evidence on this curious subject, which was lately debated in the Academy.

Of bad spelling George Sand writes, apropos of some newspaper controversy in Paris, that so far from bad spelling being a proof of want of capacity, she has a letter of Jean Jacques Rousseau, in which there are ten faults of spelling in three lines. Moreover, she assures us, that she herself frequently makes a lapsus pennæ for which a school-boy would be chastised.

Lola Montes has made her debut in the literary arena, by the publication in the feuilleton of a daily newspaper of the first portion of what she calls her "Memoirs:" a quasi-impertinent epistle to the ex-king of Bavaria. Since, the publication has been suspended. It promised merely scandal, without wit.

The Count de Montalembert has been elected a member of the French Academy, in place of M. Droz. The election gives little satisfaction outside the Institute; but the Count is not without eminence as a man of letters. Some of his religious tracts are written with great eloquence and pungency.

The seventh and last volume of the Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis has just been published by the Didots at Paris. It is a perfect repertory of information as to the middle ages, and cannot be dispensed with by any one who aims to study the institutions, history, and monuments of that period.

A complete grammar of the Coptic language has been brought out at Berlin, by Professor Schwartze.

The Italian Revolution.—Books relating to the late revolution in Italy and the events which preceded it are now published in that country in considerable numbers. One by Farini, Lo Stato Romano dall' anno 1815 all' anno 1850, not yet completed, only two volumes having been published, will be found valuable to the future historian. Its author is a constitutionalist, and treats the reign of Pius IX. strictly from that stand-point. His book must therefore be read with discretion. With the third volume, which will soon appear, will be issued a second edition of the first two volumes. Marquis F. A. Gualtiero of Orvieto has just brought out at Florence the first volume of a large work, Gli Ultimenti Rivolgimenti Italiani, Memorie Storiche con Documenti Inediti. This is excellent in respect to the pre-revolutionary events, giving a great variety of information as to persons as well as circumstances, in considerable detail. It is to be followed by an account of the revolution itself, treated of course in the same manner. It hardly need be said that the Marquis must fail to do justice to Mazzini and the republicans. An elaborate and able article reviewing the whole question has lately appeared in the Rivista Italiana, from the pen of Signor Berti. One of the best books yet produced on the revolutionary side is General Pepe's Guerres d'Italie.

We noticed last month the anniversary meeting of the Archæological Institute at Rome. The same society has just published its Annals, or Annual Memoirs, for 1850, a volume of great value and interest. It contains Lanza's report on the excavations at Salona, continued down to the year 1848. An essay is contributed by Canina upon the three temples of Pietas, Spes, and Juno Sospita, on whose ruins is built the church of San Nicola in carcere, new remains of the temples having been discovered in 1848. The statue of Apoxyomenos, found a year since at Trastavere, as well as the series of Amazons in relievo now in the British Museum, which Emil Braun takes to be relics of the famous Mausoleum, are treated at length. A little triangular candelabra, found in the Baths of Titus, is made interesting from the relation of the figures upon it to the worship of Apollo. The series of Etruscan frescoes has been greatly enriched by the pictures in two tombs, one of which was discovered in 1846 by A. Francois, while the other was then for the first time copied and rescued from entire oblivion. These pictures, which, like most monumental works, represent funeral feasts and games, according to Braun, are valuable for a mass of details relating to antique athletic art, which were before unknown. A Pompeiian fresco, representing the twelve gods, hitherto little esteemed, is made the subject of a profound investigation by E. Gerhard. Among the essays on vases, a long one by Welcker deserves especial mention. It discusses all the known representations of the Death of Troilus. The sphere of numismatics is filled by a long essay by Cavedoni on the Roman coins of the time of Augustus. There are also many other articles of no less interest to scholars, antiquaries, and artists.

M. Antoine D'Abbadie received not long ago from President Bonaparte, the decoration of the Legion of Honor, for alleged geographical discoveries in Africa. An "Inquiry" into M. Abbadie's journey has just appeared in London, from the hand of Dr. Charles T. Beke, and it is not impossible that the traveller will turn out a Damburger or a Hunter. Dr. Beke is an Englishman; D'Abbadie, an Irishman by birth, but a Frenchman by name, education and allegiance. The latter professes to have been the first European who ever put foot in the African Kingdom of Kaffa; the former gives reasons for doubting his statements entirely, and does not believe the Frenchman has even been in the country he describes at all.

The great oriental scholar Monsignore Molsa has been appointed to the office of Chief Guardian of the Vatican Library, in the room of M. Laureani, whose melancholy death occurred a few months ago; and the Abate Martinucci has been nominated to fill the office of sub-chief, which is one of very considerable importance, and has hitherto been filled by some of the most eminent of Italian scholars.

We are to have from Paris a hitherto unpublished ode of Piron, the well-known author of La Metromanie. It is entitled Les Confessions de mon Oreiller, (Confessions of my Pillow,) and is considered by connoisseurs to be decidedly authentic. It is signed and headed thus: "To be given to the public a hundred years after my death."

The vacancy occasioned by the death of M. Alban de Villeneuve-Bargemont, in the list of members of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, has been filled by the election of M. Louis Reybaud, the author of Jerome Paturot, and husband of Madame Reybaud, who wrote the charming novels of Le Cadet de Calabriere, Helena, &c.

The sons of Rossi, the distinguished economist, and less distinguished minister of Pius IX., in which capacity he was assassinated, have published the third volume of his Cours d'Economie Politique. It treats of the distribution of wealth, and is marked by the same ability and tendencies as the volumes which preceded it, which were upon the production of riches.

H. Bailliere, the eminent publisher, of Paris, has established a branch of his house at 169 Fulton street, New-York, where American scholars may obtain all the best scientific literature of the time in suitable editions and at reasonable prices.

Of Mr. James Bailey, and the blasphemous rant and fustian and crude speculation which make up his poem of "Festus," which has had such extraordinary popularity among our transcendentalists, and which Shakspeare Hudson so excellently well reviewed in the Whig Review a year or two ago, we think a correspondent of The Tribune speaks justly in the following extract from a letter dated at Nottingham, in England:

"Apropos of Nottingham, I have seen Bailey, the author of 'Festus.' His father is proprietor of the Nottingham Mercury, and the editorial department rests with him. He is a heavy, thick set sort of man; of a stature below the middle size; complexion dark; and, in years about eight and thirty. His physiognomy would be clownish in expression, if his eyes did not redeem his other features. He spoke of 'Festus,' and of its fame in America, of which he seemed very proud. In England, it has only reached the third edition, while eight or nine have been published in the States. You know my opinion of the work. It is as far from being a great poem as the Thames, compared with the Mississippi or the Ohio, is from being a great river. Anxiously, anxiously have I sought one striking original idea in the whole poem (appalling in its length), but to no purpose. The transcendental literature of Germany absorbs all that, at first glance, arrests the attention. Without learning, imagination, or the attraction of a beautiful metre (like that of Tennyson's 'Princess'), I am at a loss to know what has given this poem its notoriety. Not its daring speculation, surely, for it is but a timid compromise between Orthodoxy and Universalism."

H. F. Clinton has published in London the concluding volume of his Fasti Romani: the civil and literary chronology of Rome and Constantinople from the death of Augustus to the death of Heraclius. The first volume, containing the chronological tables, was published in 1845, and formed a continuation of the Fasti Hellenici, by the same author. It came down to the death of Justin II., a. d. 578. The present volume continues the tables from the latter date to the death of Heraclius, a. d. 641; but the greater part of it consists of a series of learned dissertations on various points connected with the civil and literary history of the Roman and Byzantine empires.

Captain J. D. Cunningham, author of the "History of the Sikhs," who was dismissed from his political situation at Bhopal, by orders of the Court of Directors, for having published an official correspondence, without the permission of his immediate superiors, has been recalled to public employment by the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie having just appointed him general superintending engineer in the north-western provinces.

Mr. Hepworth Dixon, author of "Howard and the Prison-World of Europe," has published in London a Life of William Penn, which will be republished immediately by Lea & Blanchard of Philadelphia.

The Literary Women of England were never so active as now. Mrs. Crowe has commenced in The Palladium magazine a new novel entitled Estelle Silvestre. Miss Anne G. Greene has published the third volume of her Lives of the Princesses of England; Mrs. David Ogilvy, Traditions of Tuscany; Mrs. Gordon, Musgrave, a Story of Gilsland Spa; Maria de la Vaye, Eugenie, the Young Laundress of the Bastille; Mrs. Norton, a new poem; the author of "Olivia," Sir Philip Hetherington; Mrs. Ward, Helen Charteris, or Sayings and Doings in a Cathedral Town; Mrs. Hubbach, niece of the celebrated Miss Austen, The Wife's Sister, or the Forbidden Marriage; Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Madonna, forming the conclusion of her series illustrating Sacred and Legendary Art; the authoress of "Mary Powell" has commenced in Sharpe's Magazine a new work of the same description, under the title of The Household of Sir Thomas More.

Miss Martineau began on the first of February, a serial work under the title of "Half a Century of the British Empire; a History of the Kingdom and the People, from 1800 to 1850." It will be in six volumes, and it is intended to present, in handsome octavos at a rate of extraordinary cheapness, a connected narrative of the most important era in the history of the modern world. The work of Macaulay professes to be "the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down to the time which is within the memory of men still living." "Half a Century of the British Empire," will chiefly deal with events and states of society during a period in which many of our contemporaries have lived and acted.

The correspondence of Robert Sutton, Lord Lexington, British Minister at Vienna in 1694, has just been published by Murray in London, having recently been discovered in the library of the Suttons, at Kilham. There is not much absolute value in their contents, historically speaking; but the letters supply several striking and some amusing illustrations of characters already known in history, and are a contribution really important to the history of manners and society at the seventeenth century. The non-official letters are in this respect most curious and entertaining.

Pensions of £100 a year each have been granted in England to Mrs. Belzoni, the aged widow of the celebrated traveller; and to Mr. Poole, the author of Paul Pry, and of many contributions to periodical literature, who is a great sufferer from bodily infirmities.

Captain Medwin, whose book about Byron was once read by every body, and who for some time resided in this country, turns up in Holland, after an oblivion of several years. He contributes to the last number of the New Monthly an article entitled, Hawking at Loo.

John Clare, the peasant poet, sometimes called the "rural Burns," is now in the Lunatic Asylum at Northampton. There is much sweetness in some of poor Clare's verses, of which four volumes appeared many years ago. We believe he was among the proteges of Southey. His complaints to visitors of the madhouse are commonly of the injustice done to him by the public in not recognizing him, instead of Scott and Byron, as the author of "Marmion" and "Don Juan," and in refusing him the honor of having gained the battle of Waterloo. Clare was the writer, though not generally known as such, of the lines, "Here we meet too soon to part"—which, set to one of Rossini's most beautiful airs, were some time exceedingly popular.

A new volume of the writings of De Quincey has just been published by Ticknor, Reed & Fields, of Boston. It contains, with other admirable papers, those "On the Knocking at the Gate, in Macbeth," "Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts," "Joan of Arc," and "Dinners, Real and Reputed." These works of one of the greatest of living authors, have never before been collected, and the publishers confer a most acceptable benefit by their edition of them. We have from the same house a copy of the best English version of "Faust," that of Hayward.

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton is publishing a complete collection of his Poems and Dramas. This edition will include several pieces not hitherto published, and those that have appeared before will receive the author's last corrections and revision. Each volume will be illustrated with an appropriate vignette title; and the first will contain, in addition, a portrait, from a painting by Maclise.

One of the most delightful books in natural history that we have ever seen is "Episodes of Insect Life," recently published in England, and now in the press of Mr. Redfield, in this city. It is divided into three "scenes," representing spring, summer, and autumn, and is profusely and skilfully illustrated. It is even more entertaining than Lord Brougham's Dialogues on Instinct, which we had regarded as the pleasantest work in such studies.

Dr. Achilli, whose imprisonment in the Roman Inquisition is a familiar story, has published "Dealings with the Inquisition, or Papal Rome, her Priests and her Jesuits; with Important Disclosures." It is an autobiography.

Samuel Bailey, whose "Essays on the Pursuit of Truth and on the Progress of Knowledge," "Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions," &c., have been largely read in this country, has just published a volume entitled, "The Theory of Reasoning, with Comments on the Principal Points of Scholastic Logic."

Major Poussin's "United States, their Power and Progress," a translation of La Puissance Americaine, by Edmund L. Du Barry, U. S. N., has been published in a large octavo of about five hundred pages, by Lippencott, Grambo, & Co., of Philadelphia. We take the opportunity to give some account of the author.

Guillaume Tell Poussin was born in the autumn of the year 1796 in the department of the Seine and Oise, in France. His father was a painter of some celebrity, who has left many fine works in the galleries of Versailles and Rouen. Introduced, while a child, to the favor of Napoleon, it was ordered by a special decree that, as a descendant of the great Nicholas Poussin, whose works are among the chief glories of French art, William Tell Poussin should be educated at the imperial school of Rouen. There he spent seven years, and passed his examination for admission to the Polytechnic school. He entered this national academy of engineering, and in 1814, while yet a youth, distinguished himself by his patriotic spirit, which prompted him to join his comrades in the defence of the walls of Paris against an invading enemy. He was wounded at the village of Aubervilliers, in an attack against the combined force of British and Russian troops who occupied that position; and after the surrender of Paris his feelings were so excited that he could not bring himself to acts of submission to the Bourbon family, but was arrested on account of his opinions, and released only on the intervention of powerful friends. He soon embarked for America, and arrived at New-York in November, 1815, having for recommendation his ardent desire to be useful and a decided love of liberty. After a short residence in New-York he proceeded to Philadelphia, where he expected to meet with some encouragement in his profession as an engineer. Here he became acquainted with Mr. Fairman, the engraver, and worked for him a few months with advantage, boarding meanwhile at a French house, into which the landlady received him in consideration of the devotion of his leisure to the instruction of her children. The next spring he removed to Washington, where he had heard that he could be profitably employed in the rebuilding of the capitol, which the British army had destroyed in the late war. He now worked as an architect for about a year, when, several leading senators and representatives having become acquainted with him, and, taking a particular interest in him for his earnest and manly character and the remarkable abilities he had evinced as an engineer, in the incidental opportunities presented by his employment as an architect, they signed a petition to President Madison for his admission to the corps of Topographical Engineers, which was then to be organized, and he was at once transferred to the United States Army. A short time after, General Bernard, whom Mr. Crawford, the American Minister at Paris, had engaged to be the chief of the Topographical Engineers, arrived in Washington, and assuming his office proceeded to the necessary preparations for that survey of the physical resources of our territory for national defence, and for tracing the lines required to form a complete base of operations in time of war, on the assailable portions of our frontier, for which the service had been instituted. Before leaving France, General Bernard had received especial recommendations from the friends of young Poussin to look after his interests, and when they met, therefore, their acquaintance was made on the most intimate and agreeable terms on both sides. Upon the application of General Bernard to the Secretary of War, Poussin was attached to his person as an aid-de-camp, and left Washington with him for a military reconnaissance of the coast on the Gulf of Mexico, and of the delta of the Mississippi. They spent a year and a half upon their important duties, in New Orleans and its vicinity, regardless of the dangers of that climate, and in 1817 returned to the seat of government and submitted to the President a particular and elaborate memoir of their operations. It was upon this first report, presented by the Executive, on the Military Defences of the United States,—a report drawn up in a very large degree by the hand of M. Poussin, and illustrated throughout with his discovery and suggestion,—that Congress, by an almost unanimous vote, authorized the erection of the great line of our military defences, adopting the recommendations of the commissioner without even the slightest alteration. The Board of Military Engineers entered subsequently on the yearly execution of their important duty of examining the coast previous to determining the actual sites and descriptions of the works of defence which they afterwards delineated. The young topographical engineer continued in his arduous scientific labors, and thus contributed largely in the perfecting of that great national scheme. It was in these military operations, and afterwards in the surveys for roads and canals, which, under the supervision of a Board of Internal Improvements, where confided to a portion of the same officers, assisted by civil engineers, that Poussin rendered himself so efficient as a practical and scientific surveyor, and became so perfectly familiar with all the internal resources of our extensive country, which he had thus most remarkable opportunities to study and appreciate, by crossing it in all directions, and, in fact, by visiting every state, and by following up and down every valley and river of the eastern half of the continent. Few men have had such occasion of studying de visu the extent and resources of the republic; and the intelligent readers of the volume before us will acknowledge, that few persons have shown themselves more conversant with its astonishing advancement. His first publication was a description of the works to which he had contributed, under the title of "A History of the Internal Improvements of the United States;" his second, an account of all the railroads in this country, which had considerable influence in developing in Europe a disposition toward our policy in this respect, and entitles Major Poussin to the gratitude of all lovers of rapid and safe communication. It was reproduced in Belgium and Germany, and has long been a textbook upon its subject in those countries, as well as in France. His third work was the one now translated, La Puissance Americaine, in which he has displayed, most emphatically, his admiration of our institutions, and offered them as examples to communities aspiring after rational liberty. It may be said of it, that it is the American system rendered popular by practical and convincing illustrations.

Major Poussin returned to France early in 1832, in the hope to coöperate in rendering popular in his own country some of the political institutions of the United States, to which he always attributed our great prosperity; but he was not fortunate enough to be admitted to active official life. He employed himself in his profession of surveyor, and superintended several important public works, and frequently in pamphlets and in contributions to the journals, labored for the dissemination of American ideas. At last, when the Revolution of February, 1848, broke out, he was chosen, with the greatest unanimity by the Provisional Government, to be the Representative of Republican France near the Government of the United States. It was deemed the highest compliment of which France was capable, that she sent as her minister the citizen most conversant with our affairs, and most eminent for admiration of our institutions. His arrival in this country, and the misunderstanding with the cabinet at Washington, which resulted in his recall by President Bonaparte, cannot have been forgotten by the observant reader. We believe that few who have carefully studied the conduct of Major Poussin in that affair, will be disposed, in the slightest degree, to censure him, while the entire history will readily be consigned to oblivion by the American who is in any degree sensitive upon the subject of our national honor.

Guillaumin et Cie, the well known Parisian publishers, are about to add to their Collection des Principaux Economistes several American works in this department. One volume, at least, will be devoted to Henry C. Carey's masterly compositions, with a preface and commentaries; another volume will be given to the Free Trade party, and will embrace the best things of Mr. Walker, Mr. Raguet, Mr. Cardozo, Henry Middleton, Dr. Wayland, &c.; and essays by Mr. Phillips, Horace Greeley, and other Protectionists, will probably constitute another. The Collection now embraces Quesnay, Turgot, Dupont Nemours, Le Tronne, the Says, Galliani, de Montyon, Condillac, Lavoisier, Adam Smith, Hume, Ricardo, Malthus, Bentham, and a dozen more. The only American name in the list is that of Franklin quoted in the first volume of the Melanges, edited by Daire and Molinari.

Joseph Gales, of the National Intelligencer, has lately published several leading articles of such compactness and completeness, such weight and dignity, as distinguish only the greatest compositions in philosophy and upon affairs. The intellectual force acting through the press of this country is habitually underrated. There are a dozen journals here which may be advantageously compared with any in Europe, with the single exception of the Times. It would perhaps seem invidious to point them out, from the greater number that are conducted with ability and energy; but it will not be objected by any one who has the right to express an opinion in the case, if we say that Mr. Gales is of the first rank of public men who have ever influenced or illustrated the course of events by written eloquence or argument. The leading articles from his hand which in the last twenty-five years have appeared in the National Intelligencer, would fill many volumes; and if collected and so submitted to one view, they would astonish by their variety, by the extraordinary resources of information which they evince, by their soundness of logic, elevation of sentiment, and uniform adaptation to their several purposes. If they lack the pungent wit, and fiery energy of phrase, and adroitly venomous spirit of "Junius," they have, with their nobler calmness and uniform candor, a far wider sweep, a subtler apprehension of consequences, and a more statesmanlike aim and capacity. The diction of "Junius" was calculated to arrest attention, by its glitter and strength, and by its freshness; for it was in style, after all, that he was most creative, and since his style has by imitation become familiar, it is for the mystery of their authorship only that his works have continued eminence. As materials for history, and as suggestive guides of policy, we have in American literature very few works so important as the leading articles of Joseph Gales would constitute, fitly arranged, and illustrated by such notes as he could readily furnish, necessary now on account of the time since some of them were originally printed.

The Rev. Henry T. Cheever's "Whale and his Captors," (published last year by the Harpers,) has been reprinted in London under the title of "The Whaleman's Adventures in the Northern Ocean," with a highly and justly commendatory introduction by the Rev. W. Scoresby, D.D. F.R.S. We have great pleasure in recording evidences of the popularity of such works as Mr. Cheever's. They have a manly as well as a Christian spirit, and are needed to counteract the influences of the many infidel books in which the effects of the Christian civilization in the Island World are systematically misrepresented. We learn that Mr. Cheever is now engaged upon "The Autobiography of Captain Obadiah Conger," who was fifty years a mariner from the port of New-York. He is editing the MS. of the deceased sailor for the Harpers.

Mr. Job R. Tyson, whose careful researches respecting the colonial history of Pennsylvania have illustrated his abilities and his predilections in this line, is about to proceed to Europe, for the consultation of certain documents connected with the subject, preparatory to the publication of his "History of the American Colonies," a work in which, doubtless, he will not be liable to the reproach of histories written by New-Englanders, that they exaggerate the virtues and the influence of the Puritans. Mr. Tyson is of the best stock of the Philadelphia Quakers, and the traditional fame of his party will not suffer in his hands.

Mr. Henry James, the author of "Moralism and Christianity," must certainly be regarded by all who come into his fit audience as one of the greatest living masters of metaphysics. Mr. James has never been mentioned in the North American Review; but then, that peculiarly national work has not in all its seventy volumes an article upon Jonathan Edwards, whom Robert Hall, Dr. Chalmers, Dugald Stuart, Sir James Mackintosh, Kant, Cousin, and a hundred others scarcely less famous, have regarded as the chief glory in our intellectual firmament; it has never let its light shine upon the pages of Legaré; it has preserved the most profound silence respecting Henry Carey, William R. Williams, and Addison Alexander; so that it must not be considered altogether conclusive as to Mr. James's merits that he has not had the seal of the North American's approval. We regard him as one of the great metaphysicians of the time, not because, like Comte, he has evolved with irresistible power and majestic order any grand and complete system, but because he has brought to the discussion of the few questions he has attempted, so independent a spirit, so pure a method, such expansive humanity, and such ample resources of learning, as separately claim admiration, and combined, constitute a teacher of the most dignified rank, who can and will influence the world. We do not altogether agree with Mr. James; on the contrary, we have been regarded as particularly grim in our conservatism; but we are none the less sensible of Mr. James's surpassing merits as a writer upon the philosophy of society. We dedicate this paragraph to him on account of the series of lectures he has just delivered in New-York, upon "The Symbolism of Property," "Democracy and its Issues," "The Harmony of Nature and Revelation," "The Past and Future Churches," &c. We understand that these splendid dissertations will be given to the public in the more acceptable form of a volume. The popular lecture is not a suitable medium for such discussions, or certainly not for such thinking: one of Mr. James's sentences, diluted to the lecture standard, would serve for an entire discourse, which by those who should understand it, would be deemed of a singularly compact body, as compared with the average of such performances.

Professor Torrey, of the University of Vermont, is one of the few contemporary scholars, whose names are likely to survive with those of the great teachers of past ages. He has translated Schilling's Discourse on Fine Arts, and other shorter compositions from the German; but his chief labor in this way is, a most laborious and admirably executed version of Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, published in Boston, and now being republished in London, by Bonn, with Notes, &c., by the Rev. A. T. W. Morison, of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Neander has sometimes been called, but with scarcely sufficient reason, the Niebuhr of ecclesiastical history. The only point in which he resembles the historian of Rome, is in that vast range of complete erudition which makes the Past in its minutest details as familiar as the Present, which is never content with derivative information, but traces back every tributary of the great stream of History to its remotest accessible source. In this respect the two eminent historians were alike, but with this point of resemblance the similarity ends. Neander is entirely free from that necessity under which Niebuhr labored, of regarding every recorded aggregate of facts as a mass of error which the modern philosophy of history was either to decompose into a myth, or reconstruct into a new form more consistent with preconceived theory.

The Works of John C. Calhoun will soon, through the wise munificence of the state of South Carolina, be accessible by the students of political philosophy and history in a complete and suitable edition, with such memoirs as are necessary for their illustration, and for the satisfaction of the natural curiosity respecting their illustrious author. The first volume will comprise Mr. Calhoun's elaborate Disquisition on Government, and a Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, in which are displayed in a systematic manner the author's opinions upon the whole subject of the philosophy of government. These treatises were begun many years ago, and though they had not received the ultimate revision which was intended, they are very complete, and by the careful and judicious editing of Mr. Crallé, his intimate friend and confidential secretary, will perhaps appear as perfect in all their parts as if re-written by Mr. Calhoun himself. These are now nearly stereotyped; and to correct some misapprehensions which seem to prevail in South Carolina, we state that only the stereotype plates are made in New-York, there being no foundries for stereotyping in Charleston, where the book will be printed and published. For this purpose the Legislature has appropriated $10,000, which will meet the expenses for fifteen thousand copies of the first volume, all but five hundred of which, printed on large paper, for public libraries, will be sold for the benefit of Mr. Calhoun's family. Another volume will contain Mr. Calhoun's official papers, and another his Letters upon Public Affairs. This, we think, will be the most interesting of the series. Mr. Calhoun wrote always with sincerity and frankness, and his communications to his friends contain, much more than his speeches and state papers, the exhibitions of his feeling, his regrets, fears, expectations, and ambitions. His speeches will probably make three volumes; the collection formerly printed by the Harpers did not embrace half of them; many of them have never been printed at all, but (particularly some of his most elaborate performances previous to 1817) exist in carefully prepared manuscript reports. All these speeches will be revised and illustrated by Mr. Crallé: and the series will be completed with the memoirs of the great senator, for which that gentleman has the most ample and interesting materials.

Archbishop Whateley's very ingenious Historical Doubts Respecting Napoleon Bonaparte, is the cleverest book of the kind yet written, not excepting the high church pamphlet treating of the Archbishop's own existence in the same way. But the idea was not original with Whateley: Mr. William Biglow of Boston wrote half a century ago, The Age of Freedom, being an Investigation of Good and Bad Government, in Imitation of Mr. Paine's Age of Reason, and intended, by a similar style of argument respecting the Discovery of America, &c., to expose that infidel's sophistries. We perceive that the Life of Jesus, by Dr. Strauss, has been met by another such performance in England, under the title of Historical Certainties respecting the Early History of America, developed in a Critical Examination of the Book of the Chronicles of the Land of Ecnarf; By the Rev. Aristarchus Newlight, Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Giessen, Corresponding Member of the Theophilanthropic and Pantisocratical Societies of Leipsig, late Professor of all Religions in several distinguished Academies at Home and Abroad, &c. The author very satisfactorily disposes of the events between the first French Revolution and the Battle of Waterloo, by putting them through the "mythic" circle invented by Dr. Strauss. The joke is carried out with remarkable ingenuity, and with the most whimsical resources of learning. The good doctor finds, a la Strauss, a nucleus, for here and there a great tradition, but remorselessly wipes out as altogether incredible many of the most striking and familiar facts in modern history.

Of Mr. Schoolcraft's great work, which we have heretofore announced, the first part has just appeared from the press of Lippencott, Grambo & Co., in the most splendid quarto volume that has yet been printed in America. We shall take an early opportunity to do justice to this truly national performance and to its author.

Dr. Robert Knox—whose book of infidel rigmarole, The Races of Men, was lately reprinted by an American house which was never before and we trust will never again be guilty of such an indiscretion,—we understand is coming to New-York to lecture upon Ethnology. He has the "gift" of talking, and is said to have been popular as a demonstrator in anatomy; but we think it will be best for him to remain a while longer in England; the sham science of which his last book is a specimen is no longer, we believe, profitable in this country. The last Princeton Review says of The Races of Men:

"This book is fairly beneath argument or criticism. It is a curious medley of vanity, ignorance, malice, and fanaticism. At first it provoked our indignation, by the boldness and effrontery of its pretensions; but their very extravagance soon began to render them comical. It claims to originate views which are to overturn 'long received doctrines, national prejudices, stereotyped delusions,' &c., while any tolerable scholar in this department is perfectly familiar with them all in the works of Virey, Courtet, Bory de St. Vincent, Edwards, La Marck, Quetelet, &c. It has not the slightest claim to originality, except for the ridiculous ingenuity, with which it carries out the more cautious follies of these infidel philosophers, into the most glaring absurdities; and sets their ingenious physiological speculations, in broad contradiction to the most authentic and unquestioned truths of history. We certainly should not have noticed this thing at all, but for two reasons. In the first place, this subject is now rendered so interesting by the important bearings of modern ethnological researches, that some of our readers might be cheated by the mere title, and by newspaper puffs, out of the market price for the book; and in the second place, we wish to express our surprise and lift up our remonstrance against such issues from a quarter so respectable as that which has given this reprint to the American public. Whatever may be the social or scientific standing of any influential publishing house, we must say, that in our judgment they merit a deliberate rebuke from the true science of the country, for reprinting so crude and wretched a performance, to say nothing of the low malignity which it vents against the Christian sentiment and enterprise of an age like the present,—and even against men, who stand in the front ranks of science, because they happen to believe that the scriptures are entitled to some respect, as authentic records; or that other races of men are capable of being Christianized, beside the Teutonic. Cuvier was an ignorant and stubborn dogmatist, whose era is now past for ever. Buckland was an ingenious priest and Jesuit; and even Newton's brain was turned by chronology."

Mr. Boker's tragedy of Colaynos, has just been produced at the Walnut-st. Theatre in Philadelphia, and extremely well received. It had indeed a successful run. The Betrothal, which in our last we omitted to notice, is, we understand, to be brought out under the auspices of Charles Kean, in London. Mr. B. has yet another comedy quite finished, which will soon be performed in New-York.

A letter purporting to be by General Washington, and bearing date Cambridge, June 24, 1776, was read before the New-Jersey Historical Society a few weeks ago; the thanks of the Society were voted to Mr. Chetwood for it; and the Literary World characterizes it as "interesting," "admirable," &c. The Literary World does not, we believe, pretend to be an authority in such matters, but that a "historical society" should receive such a gross imposition is somewhat surprising. The letter is as much a forgery and imposture as the "exceedingly interesting letter from General Washington to his wife," published a few months ago in the Day Book. Without going into any further statement or argument on this subject, it may be sufficient to remark, that Washington was not within two hundred miles of Cambridge on the 24th of June, 1776.

The Rev. Henry W. Ducachet, D.D., the learned rector of St. Stephen's, in Philadelphia, has been several years engaged upon a Dictionary of the Church, which is now nearly ready for publication. Such a work is properly but a system and history of doctrine and ritual, in a form suited for the readiest consultation, and it demands, therefore, for its successful accomplishment, the highest and rarest faculties and acquisitions. Dr. Ducachet possesses in a very eminent degree, not only the requisite knowledge and judgment, but he has a certain temperament and felicity, with a love of and skill in dialectics, which promise even to the articles for a dictionary, from his hand, the utmost raciness and attractive interest. We understand this work will be very complete and voluminous.

The Poems of "Edith May," the finest artist among the literary women of this country, are to be published in a very beautiful edition next summer by E. H. Butler of Philadelphia.

The American Philosophical Society, which on account of some unfortunate investments of its capital, has for several years been compelled to suspend its publications, is now, we are gratified to be informed, again in a good financial condition, and new volumes of its important Transactions are in the press.

Professor Hows, during the last month, has given a very interesting series of readings from Shakspeare, in which he has displayed not only the finest capacity for histrionic effect, but a critical sagacity, and a thorough knowledge of the greatest of the poets, which justify his own reputation.

Mr. Redfield has in press "The Celestial Telegraph, or Secrets of the Life to Come, revealed through Magnetism, by M. Cahagnet," a book of the class of Mrs. Crowe's "Night Side of Nature;" and "The Volcano Diggings, a Tale of California Law, by a member of the Bar."

We believe it is about six years since the Rev. William W. Lord, then a resident graduate at Princeton College, published the volume of poems by which he was introduced to the literary world. That book had various and striking merits, and though it had many defects in an artistic point of view, upon the whole it illustrated a just apprehension of the poetic principle, and such capacities for execution as justified the sanguine hopes it occasioned among his friends of his future eminence in the highest and finest of the arts. From that time until the present, Mr. Lord has not appeared as an author; but the leisure that could be withdrawn from professional study has been devoted to the composition of "Christ in Hades," (Appleton & Co.) a poem displaying his best abilities in art, while it is a suitable offering to religion.

"It was my purpose," he says, "in undertaking this work, to give poetic form, design, and history to the descent of Christ into hell; a fact that has for so many ages attracted the curiosity of the human mind, as to furnish occasion for surprise that the attempt has not hitherto been made. As regards the end for which He descended, I have adhered to the Christian tradition that it was to free the souls of the ancient saints confined in the temporal paradise of the Under-world, embracing also in my design the less general opinion, that it was to demonstrate His universal supremacy by appearing among the damned.

"A source of additional human interest was suggested by the relation which men, as a distinct order of beings, might be supposed to sustain to demons in the place of their common doom, and under new conditions of existence; such, I conceived, as would make it possible in some degree to realize even the divine fictions of the Greek mythology, under the forms and with the attributes accorded them by ancient religions, and by the poetry of all time. This could not fail to suggest the further conception of introducing the divinities of our forefathers, and of other great families of mankind, thus bringing together in action and contrast the deified men, or various representatives of an heroic humanity, among different races: nor did it seem too great a stretch of imaginative probability to conceive that their general characteristics might be adopted and imitated by beings already invested by the human mind with an indefinite power, and inhabiting a world in which the wonderful becomes the probable.

"But it is, after all, the general purpose of exhibiting the triumph of moral power over all physical and inferior spiritual force, in the descent of Christ into hell, which gives my design the complex character of a mythic, heroic, and Christian poem, and, at the same time, constitutes the unity of its parts. The ancients, whose representative types I introduce, knew and appreciated but two kinds of power, brute or physical, and spiritual, including all occult and supernatural efficacy, and strength of intellect and will. Virtue, triumphant by the aid of adventitious force, or relying upon unconquerable pride and disdain to resist it, was the highest reach of their dynamic conceptions. Moral power is properly a Christian idea. It is not, therefore, without what I conceive to be a true as well as a poetic apprehension of the design of the Descent into Hell, that the heroes of profane, and the not fabulous Titans of sacred antiquity, by their rivalries and contentions, brought together in arms for a trial of their comparative strength, are suddenly confronted with a common and dissimilar antagonist, and 'all strength, all terror, single or in bands, that ever was put forth' opposed to that novel, and, save in the Temptation, hitherto untested power, represented by Christ, the author of the theory and master of the example.

"He is not supposed to appear among them 'grasping in his hand ten thousand thunders,' but endued with an equal power, the result and expression of perfect virtue and rightful authority. His triumph is attributed neither to natural, nor to supernatural power; but to moral superiority, evincing itself in His aspect, and exercising its omnipotence upon the soul and conscience. That in the conception of a great Christian poet, His appearance among the rebel angels in Heaven was distinguished by the former attributes, is due, perhaps, to the heroic prejudice of a mind thoroughly imbued with the spirit of pagan writers, and of the Hebrew Scriptures."

The volume opens with this noble invocation, in which there is fit recognition of Dante and Milton, whose lips aforetime for such song had been touched by the divinest fire: