Читать книгу The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 - Various - Страница 10

In a late number of the Archives for Scientific Information Concerning Russia, a Russian publication, are some interesting facts upon the colonization of Siberia, and its present population. It seems that that country began to be settled in the reign of the Czar Alexis Michaelowich, who issued a law requiring murderers, after suffering corporeal punishment and three years' imprisonment, to be sent to the frontier cities, among which the towns of Siberia were then included. Indeed, under the Empress Elizabeth Petrowna (1741—1761), the whole of Southern Siberia was called the Ukraine. The beginning of regular transportation to Siberia was made by the Czar Theodore Alexeiwich, who ordered in 1679 that malefactors should be sent with their families to settle in Siberia. About this time many serfs escaped to Siberia from service in Europe, and stringent measures were adopted to reclaim the fugitives, and prevent such an offence from being repeated and continued. In 1760 a ukase was issued permitting landlords and communes to send to Siberia, and have entered as recruits, all persons guilty of offences of any kind or degree. In 1822 another ukase allowed the crown serfs of the provinces of Great Russia to emigrate to Siberia, where they became free, a privilege which they still enjoy. The main part of the present inhabitants of the country is composed of the descendants of these colonists and exiles, of the banished Strelitzes, and of the captured Swedes and Poles. The varied habits, customs, creeds, ideas, costumes, and dialects of these motley races have by long contact with each other become reduced to something like unity. The former extreme rudeness of the people has also of late years undergone a great improvement from the influence of new-comers. Still, however, Siberia is socially any thing but a tolerable country, even in comparison with Russia, and vices which in enlightened lands would be thought monstrous, are not occasions of any astonishment or special remark to the mass of the inhabitants.

A work by William Humboldt, just published at Breslau, excites a good deal of attention in Germany. It is called Notions toward an attempt to define the Boundaries of the Activity of the State. It was written many years ago, at the time when the author was intimate with Schiller, who took an interest in its preparation, but other engagements prevented its being finished. It is now published exactly from the original manuscript, under the editorial care of Dr. Edward Cauer. Its doctrinal starting point is found in the nature and destiny of the individual. Its philosophy is essentially that of Kant and Fichte, and is of course liberal in its tendencies, though by no means satisfactory to the democracy of the present day.

The Journal of the Russian Ministry for the Enlightenment of the People, for December last, reports a statement made by Mr. Kauwelin to the Russian Geographical Society in the previous September. The Society had received, by way of reply to an appeal it had issued, more than five hundred communications, from various parts of the empire, in relation to the Sclavonic portion of the people. These documents, as he said, contain a mass of valuable information, not only as to ethnography, but also as to Russian archæology and history. He showed by several examples how ancient local myths and traditions reached back into remote antiquity. He proposed the publication of the entire mass of documents, because "they enrich history with vivid recollections of the most ancient ante-historic life-experience of which the traditions of the non-Sclavonic portion of Europe have preserved only obscure intimations and vague traces."

Hertz, of Berlin, has just published a book which we think can hardly fail of a speedy reproduction in both English and French. Its title is Erinnerungen aus Paris (Recollections of Paris) 1817-1848. It is written by a German lady, who passed these eventful years, or most of them, in the French capital, and here narrates, in a lively and genial style, her observations and experiences. She was connected with the haute finance, moved among the lords of the exchange and their followers, and being endowed by nature with remarkable penetration, taste for art, no aversion to politics, and a genial social faculty, she knew all the more prominent personages of the time in public affairs, society, art, science, and money-making, and brings them before her readers with great success. Louis XVIII. and the members of his family, Talleyrand, Decazes, Courier, Constant, Humboldt, Cuvier, Madame Tallien, De Stael, Delphine Gay, Gerard, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, Liszt, are among the actors whom she introduces in most real and living proportions. Here is a charming specimen of her skill in portraiture. She is speaking of Madame Tallien, then Princess of Chimay, whom she saw in 1818: "She was then some forty years old. Her age could to some extent be arrived at, for it was known that in 1794 she was scarcely twenty, and her full person, inclining to stoutness, showed that the first bloom of youth was gone, but it would be difficult again to find beauty so well preserved, or to meet with a more imposing appearance. Tall, commanding, radiant, she recalled the historic beauties of antiquity. So one would imagine Ariadne, Dido, Cleopatra; a perfect bust, shoulders, and arms; white as an animated statue, regular features, flashing eyes, pearly teeth, hair of raven blackness, hers was a mien, speech, and movement, which ravished every beholder." Had we space we might give some longer translations from this interesting volume, for which our readers would thank us, but we must forbear.

The Latest German Novels.—Theodore Mügge, who is somewhat known in this country through Dr. Furness's translation of his novel on Toussaint L'Ouverture, has published at Ensleben König Jacob's Letzte Tage (the Last Days of King James), a historical romance, with the English James II. for its hero. The principal characters, that of the King, of Jeffreys, and William of Orange, are drawn successfully. The critics complain, however, that it lacks continuous interest, and a continuous and connected plot. To understand it, one must have a history of the period at hand to refer to. Mügge is not a great romancer, even for Germany. In politics he is one of those democrats who would yet have a hereditary chief at the head of the government. Glimpses of this tendency appear in this novel. Arnold Ruge has also spent a portion of his enforced leisure (he is an exile at London) in writing a romance called the Demokrat, which he has published in Germany, along with some previous similar productions, under the title of Revolutions-Novellen. It is full of Ruge's keen, logical talent, and on-rushing energy, but is deficient in esthetic beauty and interest. He never forgets the Hegelian dialectics even when he writes novels. Clemens Metternich, and Ludwig Kossuth, by Siegmund Kolisch, is a skilfully done but not great production. Uffo Horn has a new series of tales, which he calls Aus drei Iahrhunderten (From three Centuries.) They are stories of 1690, 1756, and 1844, and are worth reading. Horn seizes with success upon the features of an epoch, but is not so good in depicting individual character. The Freischaren Novellen (Free-corp Novels) of W. Hamm, are stories of modern warlike life, and are written with point and spirit. Stifter has published the sixth volume of his Studien, which, to those who know this charming off-shoot of the disappearing romantic school, it is high praise to say, is as good as any of the former volumes, if not better. Stifter always keeps himself remote from the agitations of the time, and sings his song, and weaves his still and lovely enchantments, as if they were not. This new volume contains a complete romance, the Zwei Schwestern (Two Sisters), which cannot be read without touching the inmost heart, while it delights the fancy. Spindler has a humorous novel, whose hero, a travelling clerk or bagman, meets with a variety of amusing adventures. Like many other books of the comical order, it is tedious when taken in large doses. The reader, at first amused, soon lays it down. Caroline von Göhren appears with a series of Novellen, which receive no great commendation. The Ostergabe (Easter Gift), by Frederica Bremer, which has just appeared in Germany, is spoken of as her best production. It contains pictures of northern life, and of those domestic influences which Miss Bremer so delights to glorify. The Gesammelte Erzählungen (Collected Tales) of W. G. von Horn, lately published at Frankfort, are worth the attention of those whose novel reading is not confined to our own language. The style is clear and pleasing, and the characters full of truth and naturalness. The Erzählungen aus dem Volksleben der Schwerz (Tales of Popular Life in Switzerland) by Ieremias Gotthelf, also deserves a respectful mention. Gotthelf is a religious moralist, who sets forth the doctrines of virtue, religious trust in God, and the blessed influence of domestic life, in a pleasing and effective manner.

Dr. Schäffner's Geschichte der Rechtsverfassung Frankreichs ("History of French Law"), just published, is noticed with high praise by the Frankfurt Oberpostamts Zeitung. The work has just been completed by the publication of the fourth volume, which only confirms the reputation which the earlier portions gained for the author among the jurists of all Europe. Dr. Schäffner, with equal learning and perspicacity, sets forth the relation of French law, and the changes it has undergone, to the history of the political institutions of the country. In this respect the work interests a much wider public than is ordinarily addressed by a juridical treatise. It opens with an account of the conflict between the elements of Roman and German law in France. Then it exposes the establishment of the feudal aristocracy and its contests with the power of the Church; next, the culmination of the royal authority, based on a bureaucratic administration, its final fall into the hands of the triumphant revolution, and its subjection to the various powers that have succeeded each other within the last sixty years. The fourth and last volume contains the history of the Constitution, of Law, and of the administration from the revolution of 1789 to the revolution of 1848. Dr. Schäffner exhibits in this volume no admiration for the various attempts to re-create the State according to abstract theories; he goes altogether for moderate progress, gradual reform, and keeping up the relation between the present and the past.

The fate of Bonpland, the eminent traveller and naturalist, is a topic of discussion in Germany. It seems that in a speech made in the Senate of Brazil, in August last, Count Abrantes said that Bonpland, after being released from his eighteen years' detention in Paraguay, had so far lost the habits and tastes of civilization that he had settled in a remote corner of Brazil, near Alegrete, in the province of Rio Grande du Sol, where he got his living by keeping a small shop and selling tobacco, &c., and that he avoided all mention of his former scientific labors and reputation. It seems, however, that Bonpland still maintains a correspondence on scientific subjects with his old friend Humboldt, which exhibits no falling off either in his tendencies or powers. On the other hand, some suppose that he does not return to Europe because he has taken an Indian wife, and finds himself happier in the wilderness in her company.

An official Russian account of operations in Hungary during 1849 has been published at Berlin, in two volumes. It is by a colonel of the general staff, and gives a detailed narrative of the entire doings of the Russian forces in that memorable campaign. It casts a full light upon the differences between Paskiewich and Haynau, and accuses the latter, apparently not without reason, of the grossest mismanagement. Even his famous march to Szegedin, which has passed for as brilliant and well-planned as it was a successful manœuvre, is not spared. Of course, as regards matters of detail, this writer varies largely from previous statements of the Austrians.

The second volume of Bülau's Secret History and Mysterious Individuals has just been published by Brockhaus at Leipzic. The first volume was published at the beginning of last year, and has been made known to American readers by an interesting review of it in Blackwood's Magazine, accompanied by copious extracts. It is undeniable that Professor Bülau has had access to materials unknown to previous writers, which he has used with laudable conscientiousness, to clear up many obscure points in history, and to explain the motives of many persons whose actions have been wondered at but not understood.

A work of some pretensions has just been published at Stuttgart, with the title, Italiens Zukunft (Italy's Future), by Fr. Kölle, who gives in it the fruit of seventeen years' residence in the country he treats of. He begins with the original elements composing the Romanic Nations, and goes on to consider the state of the country at the time of the Revolution, the doings of the French, the Restoration, the cities, commerce and navigation, the nobles, the peasantry, the Church, monastical religious orders, the Jesuits, possibility of Church reform, foreign influence, intellectual and scientific activity, Mazzini, prospects in case of a future revolution, &c.

A German translation of selections from the works of Dr. Channing is being published at Berlin. There are to be fifteen small volumes, of which six or seven have already appeared. The Grenzboten does not think much of the author, but classes him with Schleiremacher and his school. It says that Dr. Channing was a special favorite with women, which it seems not to intend for a compliment.

M. Flourens, one of the perpetual secretaries of the French Academy of Science, has published at Paris a collection of elegant and valuable essays. They comprise a dissertation on George Cuvier, one on Fontenelle, who is said to have best succeeded in casting on the sciences the light of philosophy, and an examination of phrenology, which M. Flourens discusses in the spirit of a disciple of Descartes and Leibnitz.

Jacques Arago, author of Souvenirs d'un Aveugle (A Voyage Round the World), &c., and brother of the astronomer and ex-minister, is one of the most remarkable characters of Paris. He is stone blind, and has been so for years; and yet he placed himself at the head of a band of gold seekers, and conducted them to California. Recently he returned to Paris, with little gold—indeed, with none at all—but in his voyage he met some extraordinary adventures, and is about to communicate them to the public in a volume. Jacques Arago is eminent in Paris not more for his abilities as a man of letters than for his fastidiousness, devotion, and success as a roué. If Love is sometimes blind, he is keen-sighted for the sightless Arago, who boasts of having loved and been loved by the most beautiful women of France.

The military history of the Napoleonic period has received a new contribution in the War of 1806 and 1807, just published at Berlin, by Col. Höpfner, in two volumes. It is prepared from documents in the Prussian archives, and illustrated with maps and plans of battles. Not only does it add to our previous stock of information as to the military operations in Germany during these eventful years, but it serves at the same time as a history of the dissolution of that state which Frederic the Great erected with such labor and perseverance. We have here, in short, a picture of the downfall of the old Prussian military-system.

A new work on French History during the middle ages is La France au temps des Croisades, by M. Vaublanc, which has lately made its appearance at Paris, in four handsome octavo volumes. It is the fruit of long and conscientious researches, and is written in a style of seductive elegance. The author is no dry chronicler, or plodding statician, but an artist, fully alive to the picturesqueness of his topic. He carries his reader with him into the time and the scenes he describes, and makes him a participant in the romantic and adventurous life of the period. His book is thus as entertaining as it is instructive.

A convenient book of reference for those who deal with the more recondite and interesting questions of history is the Statistique des Peuples de l'Antiquité, by M. Moreau de Jonnés, just published at Paris. It is a work of great erudition and even originality. All sorts of facts as to the social condition of the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and Gauls, may be gathered from it. Another new work of a similar character is entitled Du Probleme de la Misére et de sa solution chez tous les Peuples Anciens et Modernes, by M. Moreau Christophe. Two volumes only have been published; a third is to follow. Price $1.50 a volume.

A translation of M'Culloch' Principles of Political Economy has appeared at Paris, in four vols. 8vo. The translator is M.A. Planche.

Louis Viardot has published in Paris a Histoire des Arabes et des Mores d'Espagne. The excellent translator of Don Quixote ought to produce a striking work on this subject. The Count Albert de Circourt, too, has published a new edition of his Histoire des Mores Mudejares et des Morisques; ou des Arabes d'Espagne sous la domination des Chrétiens. Few topics in history have been until recently so much neglected as that of the Moorish races in Europe, and a good deal of what has appeared on the subject has been put together rather with a view to romantic effect than with a proper respect for the responsibility of the historian; though all Spanish history, Christian or Saracen, so abounds in romantic interest that there is less excuse, as less necessity, for outstepping the limits of truth, or giving undue prominence to the pathetic and marvellous. From this defect of most of his predecessors, the work of the Count de Circourt is in a great measure free. He has made a dexterous and conscientious use of the materials within his reach, and produced a work which unites to an unusual degree popularity of style with matter of great novelty and interest. There are few spectacles in modern times more attractive, or hitherto more imperfectly understood, than the condition of the Spanish Moors, from the time when they became a subject race, until their final expulsion from Europe in 1610. The reason why more attention has not been given to this subject, must be looked for in the fact that the expelled people were Mahometans, and that they took refuge in Africa, not in Europe. They had not, as the Protestants of France had, an England, Holland, and Germany to sympathize with and shelter them;—though, taking it with all its consequences, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was not a more important event in history, or more pregnant with injury to the power that enforced it, than the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. In folly and perversity the last transaction has pre-eminence. Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, when he and his empire were at the summit of their power; but Philip III. chose the luckless moment for expatriating the most energetic and industrious of the inhabitants of Spain, when the virtual acknowledgment of the independence of the Dutch, and the concession to them of free trade to India, now assailed the prestige of Spanish supremacy in Europe, and the commerce of Portugal, at that time subject to Spain. From that hour the Peninsula declined with unexampled rapidity; and though, in course of time, the progress of decay became less marked, it was not finally arrested until two centuries after, when the invasion of Napoleon re-awakened Spanish energies, and freed them from the trammels which had impeded their development. Two centuries of degradation are a heavy penalty for a nation to pay for pride and intolerance; though not heavier than Spanish perfidy and cruelty to the Moors most richly deserved. In accordance with his design of treating of the Moors as a subject race, the Count de Circourt has given only a brief summary of their early history when they were ascendant in Spain. With the rise of the Christian and decline of the Mahometan power, the subject is more minutely, but still succinctly treated, the four centuries from the capture of Toledo to that of Granada being comprised in the first volume. The two remaining volumes are occupied exclusively with the history of the Moors from the overthrow of Grenada to their final expulsion from Spain. The various efforts made to convert and control them, and their struggles to regain their independence and preserve their faith, are copiously treated, but a subject so peculiar and hitherto so unjustly neglected, needed early discussion. We know not where the character of that worst species of oppression, where the antagonism of race is aggravated by differences of creed, can be so advantageously studied as in this portion of Spanish history. Nor is the early history when the Moors, still a powerful people, were treated with comparative consideration by their antagonists, deficient in traits of the highest interest, and lessons which oppressors of the present day would do well to lay to heart.

We observe that M. de Circourt agrees very nearly with Madame Anita George (whose views upon the subject we recently noticed in The International) respecting Queen Isabella. He says:

"The Spaniards speak only with enthusiasm of this Princess. They place her in the rank of their best monarchs, and history, adopting the popular judgment, has given her the title of "Great." If we consider merely the grandeur of the fabric she erected, the appellation will appear merited; if its solidity had been taken into consideration, her reputation must have suffered. Nations in general make more account of talents than of the use that has been made of them. They reserve for princes favored by fortune the homage which they ought to pay to good and honest princes, who have exercised paternal rule. They deify him who knows how to subjugate them. Thus it happens in all countries that the king who has established absolute monarchy is styled the great king. But it happens often that such founders have built up the present at the expense of the future. In Spain absolute monarchy sent forth for a time a formidable lustre, and then came suddenly a protracted period of progressive decay, which ended in the revolutions of which we have been witnesses. Barren glory, shameful prostration, interminable and possibly fruitless revolution, are all the work of Isabella."

This is very different from the estimate of Mr. Prescott, but perhaps more just. In his forthcoming Memoirs of the Reign of Philip the Second, Mr. Prescott will have to trace the results of Spanish policy toward the Moors. We shall compare his views with those of MM. Circourt and Viardot.

M. de Villemerque has translated the Poème des Bardes Bretons du VI. Siècle, and the book is praised by the French critics.

Louis Philippe's last apology for his policy as King of the French has just made its appearance at Paris, and justly excites attention. It is a pamphlet written by M. Edward Lemoine, and bears the title of L'abdication du roi Louis Philippe racconteé par lui méme. It is the report of a series of conversations which M. Lemoine had with the deceased King during the month of October, 1849, and which he was authorized to give to the world after his death. The writer gives every thing in the words of Louis Philippe, as they were uttered either in reply to questions or spontaneously in reference to the topics under discussion. The exiled monarch defends his conduct in every particular with ingenuity and force, dwelling especially on his abdication, on his refusal to yield to the opposition and admit the demanded reform, which brought on the revolution, on his abandoning Paris with so little effort at resistance, on his peace policy, and on the Spanish marriages. He denies emphatically that he or his family had thought of or undertaken any conspiracy with a view to recovering the throne. His children, he said, had been taught that when their country spoke they must obey, and that the duty of a patriot was to be ready, whatever she might command. This they had understood, and in all cases practised. Accordingly they had always been, and always would be strangers to intrigues.

As for his persistence in keeping the Guizot ministry, that was commanded by every constitutional principle. That ministry had a majority in the Chambers as large even as that which overthrew Charles X.; how then should the King interfere against this majority? Besides, had not what happened since February demonstrated that he was right? The policy of every government since June, 1848, had resembled, as nearly as could be conceived, the very policy of the ministry so much and so unjustly complained of.

Guizot had in fact promised reform. He had said that the instant the Chambers should vote against him he would retire, and the first measure of his successors would be reform. As for himself, said Louis Philippe, he had understood that this was only a pretext. Reform would be the entrance on power of the opposition, the entrance of the opposition would be war, would be the beginning of the end. Accordingly he had determined to abdicate as soon as the opposition assumed the reins of government; for he no longer would be himself supported by public opinion. The want of this support it was which finally caused him to abandon the throne without resistance. He could not have kept it without civil war. For this he had always felt an insurmountable horror, and he had never regretted that in February Marshal Bugeaud had so soon ordered the firing to stop. Besides, nobody advised him to defend himself, but the contrary. He had then nothing to do but to follow the example of his ministers who had abdicated, of his friends who had abdicated, of the national guard who had abdicated, of the public conscience which had abdicated. He did not take this step till after the universal abdication. But if he had fought and lost, and died fighting, who could tell the horrors that would have ensued? Or if he had triumphed, all France would have exclaimed against him as sanguinary and selfish, a bad prince, a scourge to the nation, and ere many months a new insurrection would have made an end. Victory would have been more disastrous than exile. He had done well to abdicate, and were the crisis to recur, he would not act otherwise. He had abandoned power (of which he was accused of being so greedy) as soon as he understood that he could no longer hold it to the advantage of his country.

As for the charge of avarice, that was abundantly disproved by the publication of the manner in which he had employed the civil list, and by the fact that he was covered with debts. He had spent like a King without counting, and now that he had to pay he was obliged to borrow. And it is rather curious, said he, that the furniture employed in the festivals of the Republican President of the Assembly is my personal property, and that the horses and carriages of which so free use has been made, had been paid for from my own purse. This however, was a trifle not worth speaking of.

If he had suffered from falsehoods printed in the journals, print had however done him justice in giving to the world his private letters. These had set right his private character as well as his public policy. He only wished that those papers had all been published, and published more widely. They did more for the glorification of his policy than the speeches of his most eloquent ministers. They proved that his had never been a policy of peace at any price. He had besieged Antwerp without the consent of England; he had sent an army to Ancona, though Metternich had declared that a Frenchman in Italy would be war in Europe. His government had always acted boldly and firmly, and had been respected. Why, only a few weeks before February, the great powers of Europe had asked of France to settle with her alone, and without consulting England, some of the questions which might compromise the equilibrium of Europe. Such was the consideration in which France was then held.

As to the Spanish marriages, that was all done in the interest of France, and not, as had been charged, of his dynasty. If the latter were the thing he had aimed at, would he have refused the crown of Belgium, or of Greece, or of Portugal, for Nemours? Would he have refused the hand of Isabella for Aumale or Montpensier? No; he merely sought to render his country independent of England, and not her dupe. The entente cordiale in the hands of Lord Palmerston was becoming treacherous. He recollected the saying of Metternich, that the alliance of France and England was useful, like the alliance of man and horse. He determined to be the man, and by those marriages accomplished it. There was already a Cobourg in Belgium, one in England, and one in Portugal; could France allow another to be set up in Spain? So far the conversations of Louis Philippe relate to matters of his own history. From this he was led to speak briefly of Charles X., and things preceding the downfall of that prince. For this we must refer our readers to the pamphlet itself, which will doubtless be imported by some of our booksellers, if not soon translated into English and published entire. It cannot be read without interest. We give its substance above, without thinking it necessary to criticise any of the statements of the exiled prince.

M. Audin, a French historian, whose histories of Leo X., Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII., are known to those who have sought an acquaintance with the Catholic view of those personages and their times, died on the 21st February, in his carriage, near Avignon. He was returning to Paris from Rome, where he had been to finish a new work, and to recover his health, which intense devotion to study had undermined. His expectations were not realized, and he returned to his own country to expire before reaching his home. At Marseilles, where he landed, the physicians dissuaded him from attempting to go further, but he refused to be guided by their advice. The works of Audin have been much read in this country. They are singularly unscrupulous.

The Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna has just published an essay by the eminent Spanish scholar Ferdinand Wolf, which justly excites attention in the learned circles of Europe. It is on a collection of Spanish romances which exists in manuscript in the library of the University at Prague. Among these are many which are found in no other collection, and have hitherto remained unknown. Some of them, relating to the Cid, are very remarkable. They make a hundred romances discovered by Wolf, whose former collection (Rosa de Romances), published in 1846, and whose work on the romance-poetry of the Spaniards, are known to all students of that kind of literature.

A new weekly journal, under the title of Le Bien-Etre Universel (The Universal Well-Being), appeared at Paris on the 24th February. It advocates Girardin's idea of the abolition of taxes, and the support of the government by the assumption by the latter of the whole business of insurance. Among the contributors are Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, Francois Vidal, E. Quinet, Alphonse Esquiros, and Eugene Pelletan. It is published in quarto form, of the largest size permitted by the law, at $1.20 a year, and furnishes, in addition to its political and economical articles, a full summary of news, political, commercial, literary, and miscellaneous.

The Revue Brittanique has some interesting facts as to the English book trade. It says: "The great booksellers, like Longman & Murray, must be encouraged by the result of the speculations ventured on by the booksellers of Paris." Is it not wonderful that articles from reviews, which one would suppose would lose their interest in the course of time, and which have been circulated in the Edinburgh or Quarterly to the extent of ten thousand or twelve thousand copies, should be sold in reprints at a high price, and live through two, three, or even six editions? The articles of Macaulay are going through the sixth edition, although the book costs a pound sterling. Of Macaulay's History of England Longman has sold between 20,000 and 30,000 copies, and Thirlwall's and Grote's Histories of Greece, though they have not the same immediate, exciting interest, sell well, notwithstanding they are so long. Mure's and Talfourd's Histories of Greek literature are put forth in new editions. The reviews, instead of injuring the sale of solid works, increase it. Occasional books, like travels, biographies, &c., naturally have their public interest, but most of them are sold at half price within three months of their appearance. At London there are circulating libraries which lend out books, not only in the city itself, but all over England: the railroads have extended their business very greatly. In order to satisfy as many customers as possible, they buy some works by hundreds. For instance, such a circulating library has two hundred copies of Macaulay's History, a hundred of Layard's Nineveh, a hundred of Cumming's hunting adventures, and so on. When the first excitement about a book is over, these extra copies are put into handsome binding and disposed of for half price. The system of cheap publishing has not yet much affected the circulating libraries in England, while in this country it has destroyed them. Books can be bought here now for the former cost of reading them.

A book worthy of all commendation is the Histoire des Protestants de France, from the Reformation to the present time, by M. G. de Felice, published at Paris. The author treats his subject with all that peculiar talent which renders French historians always interesting and instructive. He is clear, forcible, judicious, and profound, without pedantry or sectarian zeal. The action of his story is dramatic, the delineation of his characters as glowing as it is just, and his sympathies so true and generous, and at the same time so tolerant, that the reader follows him attentively from the beginning to the end. The Huguenots were worthy of such a historian, for though persecuted for their opinions, they never ceased to love their country, or to wish to live at peace with their enemies and serve her. Rarely has a body of men produced nobler characters. This book fills a vacuum in French history.

Modern Greek Literature is by no means so wild and imperfect as might be expected from a nation in such a chaotic and uncultivated condition. The people of Greece are hardly more civilized than the Servians, the Dalmatians, or any other of the half-savage tribes that inhabit the south-eastern corner of Europe, but the influence exercised by the antique glory of the land still remains to develop among them a degree of artistic power and beauty unknown to their neighbors. And little as Greece has gained generally from the introduction of German royalty and German office-holders, it has no doubt profited by the greater attention thus excited toward the works of the mighty poets who stand alone and unharmed after all else that their times produced has fallen into ruin. Thus, since the incoming of the Bavarians there has been growing up a disposition in favor of the early literature, and against the newer and less elegant forms of the modern language. The purification of the latter, and its restoration to something like the old classical perfection, the abandonment of rhyme, which is the universal form of the proper new Greek verse, and even the employment of the ancient mythological expressions, are the characteristic aims of some of the most gifted of living Hellene writers. In this way there are two distinct classes of cotemporaneous literature to be found in the Peninsula; the one consists of these somewhat reactionary and romantic lovers of the past, the other of the fresh, native products of the people, independent as far as possible of antiquity, and altogether unaffected by learned studies. The latter is mainly lyric in its character, and has often a wild beauty, which is none the less attractive because it is purely natural. These songs deal more with nature than those of the Sclavonic tribes, with which Mrs. Robinson has made us so well acquainted. The brooks, the hills, the sky, the birds, appear in them, and for human interest, some adventurous Klepht, some fighting and dying robber, is brought upon the scene.

The best of the Romaic literature is no doubt the dramatic. This is natural, for the Greeks are still a representative and dramatic people. Until comparatively lately the poets confined themselves, if not to modern subjects, at least to the modern genius of their language. Their dramas were written in rhyme, and with a total disregard of the antique principles of rhythm. Quantity was supplanted by following the accents, and the exterior of the piece was more that of a French play than like the drama of any other nation. The specimen of this style most accessible to American students is the Aspasia of Rizos, published in Boston some twenty years ago, a tragedy, by the way, well worth reading. But latterly, the antique tendency prevailing, plays are written in the old measures, and with all the old machinery. This is in fact a revolutionary proceeding, but we hope may not be without its use, for Greece is not now rich enough to make useless experiments. One of these plays has been translated into German, and thus made accessible to those of the readers of that language whose studies have not reached into the musical Romaic. It is called The Wedding of Kutrulis, an Aristophanic Comedy, by Alexandros Rhisos Rhangawis. The form used by the great Athenian satirist is perfectly reproduced, and an original and hearty wit is not wanting. The Aristophanic dress is justified by the poet in some lines which we thus render into the rudeness of English:

The subject and story of this comedy are drawn from the actual life of the people. Spyros, a tavern-keeper in Athens, has promised his daughter Anthusia to Kutrulis, a rich tailor. The young lady's notions are however above tailors; her husband must wear epaulettes and orders. If Kutrulis wants her hand, he must become minister. He despairs at first, but as others have become ministers, there is a chance for him. Accordingly, the needful intrigues and solicitations are set on foot. The strophe of the chorus by the sovereign public is too characteristic and too Attic for us not to try to render it, though perhaps only the few who have dipped in the well of the antique drama can appreciate it:

To succeed in his ambition, Kutrulis must choose a party with which to identify himself. Accordingly the Russian, the British and the French parties, the three into which Greek public men are divided, are introduced, and each urges the reasons why he should become its partisan. This gives the poet an admirable opportunity for the use of satire, which he improves excellently. Kutrulis pledges himself to each of these candidates for his support, but mean while his friends have spread the report that he has actually been appointed minister. Now the swarm of office-seekers and speculators of all sorts come to solicit his favor and exhibit their own corruption. This part of the drama is treated with keen effect. While the report of his appointment is believed by himself and others, Kutrulis marries the scheming Anthusia, who presently wakes from her illusion to find that she is only a tailor's wife after all. She declares that by way of revenge she will compel her husband to give her a new dress every week, and the piece ends to the amusement of everybody.

M. Planche, the oldest Professor and the most learned Grecian at Paris, has just issued the first number of a Dictionnaire du Style poétique dans la Langue Grecque. This dictionary is in fact a concordance of Greek, Latin, and French poetry. It offers a complete and curious illustration of the origin and growth of figurative words and phrases, and of their transfer from one language to another. The word anchor, for instance, was one of the earliest among the Greeks, a marine people, to take on a metaphorical sense. We see this even in Pindar, who speaks of his heroes as casting anchor on the summit of happiness. M. Planche follows this typical use of the word in Virgil, in Ovid, and in Racine, the last of whom says in the Pleaders:

To the curious student of words and their internal senses this Dictionary is evidently a book worth having.

M. Elias Regnault has undertaken to continue the Dix Ans of Louis Blanc, in the shape of L'Histoire de Huit Ans 1840—48. Few works had ever so powerful an influence as Blanc's "Ten Years." The events of the eight years of which Regnault proposes a history were in no inconsiderable degree fruits of this work.

Mr. Hallam, on the 13th of February, sent a letter to the Society of Antiquaries, in London, announcing in consequence of his recent bereavement, he wished at the next anniversary to relinquish the office of Vice-President, which he had filled for the last thirty years; having been a member of the Society for more than half a century, and having during that period contributed many papers to its transactions. A resolution was proposed by Mr. Payne Collier, seconded by Mr. Bruce, expressive of respect for Mr. Hallam, sincere sympathy with his afflictions, and sorrow at his retirement. In a subsequent letter, Mr. Hallam stated that he should continue to be a member of the Society.

General Sir William Napier has published a new edition of his History of the War in the Peninsula—the best military history in the English language—and in his new preface he states that he is indebted to Lady Napier, his wife, not only for the arrangement and translation of an enormous pile of official correspondence, written in three languages, but for that which is far more extraordinary, the elucidation of the secret ciphers of Jerome Bonaparte and others.

In a recent number of The International we printed a poem by Charles Mackay, entitled Why this Longing? without observing that it was a plagiarism from a much finer poem by Harriet Winslow List, of Portland, which may be found in The Female Poets of America, page 354.

A descriptive catalogue of the books and pamphlets educed by the reinstitution of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in England, would be a very entertaining work. It is astonishing how active the English become in pamphleteering when any such engrossing subject comes before the people or the parliament. The Duke of Sussex carefully preserved every thing in this shape that was printed during the discussion of Catholic Emancipation, and after his death we purchased his collection, which amounted to about seventy thick volumes, and includes autograph certificates of presentation from "Peter Plimley," and perhaps a hundred other combatants. The present discussions will be not less voluminous, and it promises to be vastly more entertaining. The matter of the holy chair of St. Peter, with the Mohammedan inscription, upon which the verd antique Lady Morgan has published two or three letters as witty and pungent as ever came from the pen of an Irishwoman, will afford pleasant material for the last chapter of her ladyship's memoirs. Warren, the author of Ten Thousand a Year, Dr. Twiss, the biographer of Eldon, Dr. George Croly, the poet, Walter Savage Landor, and Sheridan Knowles, the dramatist, are among the more famous of the disputants on the Protestant side. The author of "Virginius" professes to review Archbishop Wiseman's lectures on Transubstantiation, and the Literary Gazette says he thoroughly demolishes that dogma, which, however, "no one supposes that any Romanist of education and common sense believes. It is understood on all hands that whatever defence or explanation is offered, is only for the sake of affording plausible apology to the vulgar for a dogma which the infallibility of the church requires to be unchangeably retained. The reply of the philosophical churchman, populus vult decipi et decipiatur, is that which many a priest would give if privately pressed on the subject." The Literary Gazette makes a very common but very absurd mistake, for which no Roman Catholic would thank him. The church does maintain the doctrine, and the most "philosophical" churchman would be dealt with in a very summary manner if he should publicly deny it. The Literary Gazette adds that Knowles "displays complete mastery of the principles and familiarity with the details of the controversy," which we can scarcely believe upon the Gazette's testimony until it evinces for itself a little more knowledge of the matter.

The only one of these works that has been reprinted in this country is Landor's, which we receive from Ticknor, Reed & Fields, of Boston.

R. H. Horne, the dramatist, and author of Orion,—upon which his best reputation is likely to rest—has just published in London The Dreamer and the Worker, in two volumes.

Mr. Roebuck, the radical member of Parliament, is continuing his History of the Whigs.

It is not be denied that Miss Martineau is one of the cleverest women of our time; deafness and ugliness have induced her to cultivate to the utmost degree her intellectual faculties, and several of her books are illustrations of a mind even masculine in its power and activity; but the constitutional feebleness, waywardness, and wilfulness of woman is nevertheless not unfrequently evinced by her, and as she grows older the infirmities of her nature are more and more conspicuous; vexed with neglect, without the kindly influences of home or friendship, without the consolations or hopes of religion, she seems now ambitious of attention only, and willing to sacrifice every thing womanly or respectable to attract to herself the eyes of the world—the last thing, in her case, one would think desirable. In the book she has just published—Letters on Man's Nature and Development, by Harriet Martineau and H. G. Atkinson—she avows the most positive and shameless atheism: Christians have had little regard for Pagan deities—she will have as little for theirs! The sun rose yesterday; the fishes still swim in the sea; all the world goes on as before; but she cares not a fig for any deities, Christian or pagan—and don't believe a word of the immortality of the soul! In this new book, of which she is the chief author, the interlocutors place implicit credence in all the phenomena of mesmerism, and they cannot believe there is any thing in man's being or existence or conscience beyond what the senses reach, beyond what the scalpel discloses in the brain. They trace acts and motions and even inclinations to the brain, and deny that there is or can be any thing in contact which can influence it. Cerebrum et præterea nihil is their motto. The book is the apotheosis of that lump of marrow and fibre. And yet this brain, which is so jealously guarded from any spiritual or immaterial influence, is declared to be completely under the direction of any man or woman who may pass a hand, with faith, backwards and forwards over the skull. The extremities of the body—the fingers—send forth and radiate certain electric, or galvanic, or invisible influences, and thus one has full power over another's organization and volition! But as to any influence beyond the sensible world, that Miss Martineau stoutly denies. The following passage is not an uninteresting specimen of this foolish production:

"I observed that under the influence of mesmerism some patients would spontaneously place their hand, or rather the ends of their fingers, on that part of the brain in action; and these were persons wholly ignorant of phrenology. In some cases the hand would pass very rapidly from part to part, as the organs became excited. If the habit of action was encouraged, they would follow every combination with precision: and if one hand would not do they would use both to cover distant parts in action at the same time. I was delighted with their effects; but did not consider them very extraordinary, because I had been accustomed to observe the same phenomena, in a lesser degree, in the ordinary or normal condition. I know some, who on any excitement of their love of approbation, will rub their hand over the organ immediately. Others, I have observed, when irritated, pass the hand over destructiveness. I have observed others hold their hand over the region of the attachments, as they gazed on the object of their affections. I have watched the poet inspired to write with the fingers pressing on the region of ideality, and those listening to music leaning upon the elbow, with the fingers pressing on the organ of music; and I catch myself performing those actions continually, as if I were a puppet moved by strings. You will observe, besides, how the head follows the excited organ. The proud man throws his head back; the fine man carries his head erect; vanity draws the head on one side, with the hat on the opposite side; the intellect presses the head forward; the affections throw it back on the shoulders; and so with the rest."

The Right Honorable Sir John Cam Hobhouse is created a peer with the title of Baron Broughton de Gyfford, in the county of Wilts. His fame in literature has long been lost, in England, in his reputation as a politician; but in this country we know him only as rather a clever man of letters. His most noticeable works that we remember, are, A Journey through Albania, in 1809, Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, The State of Literature in Italy, and two volumes entitled Letters from Paris during the last Reign of Napoleon. His lordship must be in the vicinity of seventy-five years of age.

Of "Junius" there is still another book—though many good libraries contain not so many volumes as have been written upon the subject—and the journals have almost every month some new contributions to the mystery, increasing the accumulation by which the face of the author is hidden. The last work is entitled "Fac-simile Autograph Letters of Junius, Lord Chesterfield and Mrs. C. Dayrolles, showing that the wife of Mr. Solomon Dayrolles was the amanuensis employed in copying the letters of Junius for the printer; with a Postscript to the first Essay on Junius and his Works: by William Cramp, author of 'The Philosophy of Language.'"

The Passions of the Human Soul, by Charles Fourier, translated from the French by the Rev. John Reynell Morell, with critical annotations, a biography of Fourier, and a general introduction, by Hugh Doherty, has been published by Baliere of London (and of Fulton-street, New-York), in two octavos. This is one of Fourier's greatest works, and the attention given to his principles of society in this country will secure for it many readers here.

Thomas Colley Grattan, the author of Highways and By-ways, Jacqueline of Holland, &c., and a few years ago, British Consul at Boston, is coming to this country to give lectures. He will not be very successful.

The Poems Of Alaric A. Watts, lately published in London, in a very sumptuous edition,—though some of the plates have an oldish look—are much commended in nearly all the reviews, and civilly treated even by Fraser, who once described Watts as a fellow "of some talent in writing verses on children dying of colic, and a skill in putting together fiddle-faddle fooleries, which look pretty in print; in other respects of an unwashed appearance; no particular principles, with well-bitten nails, and a great genius for back-biting." Watts some twenty years since had a controversy with Robert Montgomery who wrote Satan, in such a manner as very much to please his hero (a difficult task in biography), and one of the subjects of protracted and sharp discussion concerned the names of the disputants. Watts maintained that the author of "Hell," "Woman," "Satan," &c., was the son of a clown at Bath, named Gomery; and in return Montgomery, who, allowing that as Watts was the lawfully begotten son of a respectable nightman of the name of Joseph Watts, he had a fair title to the patronymic, denied that he had any claim to the gothic appellation of Alaric. "The man's name," said Montgomery, "is Andrew." This was a great while ago, and the quarrels of the time are happily forgotten. Watts is now fifty-seven years old, and age has sobered him, and given him increase of taste, both as to scandal and to writing verses. There are some extremely pretty things in this book (which may be found at Putnam's).

The Stowe MSS., including the unpublished diaries and correspondence of George Grenville, have been bought by Mr. Murray. The diary reveals, it is said, the secret movements of Lord Bute's administration, the private histories of Wilkes and Lord Chatham, and the features of the early madness of George III.; while the correspondence exhibits Wilkes in a new light, and reveals (what the Stowe papers were expected to reveal) something of moment about Junius. The whole will form about four volumes, and will appear among the next winter's novelties.

The copyrights, steel plates, wood-cuts, stereotype plates, &c. of Walter Scott's works, and of his life, by Lockhart, were to be sold in London, by auction, on the 26th March. This property belonged to the late Mr. Cadell of Edinburgh. The copyright of "Waverly" has five years more to run, and that of the works generally does not terminate for twenty years. This is the largest copyright property ever sold.

Mr. Layard's fund having been exhausted, a subscription was lately set on foot for him in London, and its success we hope will enable him to prosecute his investigations with renewed vigor. He has, we hear, entirely recovered from his late indisposition, and needs but a supply of money to recommence his operations with renewed vigor.

Henry Alford, a very pleasing poet, a profound scholar, and most excellent man, is at the present time vicar of Wymeswold, in Leicestershire, England. He was born in London in 1810, and in 1832 graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was afterwards Fellow. In 1835 he was married to his cousin, to whom are written some of his most charming effusions. At Easter in 1844 they lost one of their four children, and the bereavement seems to have induced the composition of many pieces full of tenderness and of remarkable beauty, which appear in the collection of his poems. In 1841 he was elected one of the lecturers in the University of Cambridge, and he is now, we believe, Examiner in Moral and Intellectual Philosophy and Logic in the University of London. He has published, besides his poetical works, which appeared in two volumes, some years since, several volumes of sermons, a work entitled Chapters on the Poets of Ancient Greece, written for the Nottingham mechanics; a volume of University Lectures; a work intended as a regular course of exercises in classical composition; and the Greek Testament, with a critically revised text, digest of various readings, &c., in which he has displayed sound learning and judgment. He is also editor of a very complete collection of the "Works of Donne", published some years ago at Oxford. The great labor of his life, however, centres in his edition of the Greek Testament, the first volume of which only, containing the four Gospels, has appeared. He is now working hard, eight or ten hours a day, in his theological researches, which promise a liberal harvest. We understand that he has in contemplation a poem of considerable length, the composition of which is to be the pleasant solace of his declining years. Mr. Alford's minor poems have within a few years been very popular in America, and won for their author the warm friendship and sympathy of many who will probably never know him personally. His pure domestic feeling, and hearty appreciation of whatever is most genial and hopeful in human nature, entitle him to the distinction he enjoys of being one of the truest "poets of the heart."

In a sketch of the artist Andrew Wilson, who died in Edinburgh two years ago, the Art Journal gives the following postscript of a letter from Sir David Wilkie to Wilson:

Madrid, Dec. 24th, 1827.

My Dear Sir,—Having been employed by our mutual friend, Mr. Wilkie, to copy the above, I cannot let the opportunity pass unimproved of speaking a word in my own name, and to call to your mind the pleasant hours we occasionally passed together many years since. Let me express, my dear sir, my great pleasure in thus renewing, after so long an interval, our acquaintance. You, of course, if you can recollect any thing of me, can only remember me as a raw, inexperienced youngster, while you were already a man, valuable for information, acquirements, and weight of character. With great regard, my dear sir, believe me, truly yours,

Washington Irving.

Mr. Alison, the historian, at a recent meeting of the Glasgow section of the Architectural Institute of Scotland, delivered an address in which he reviewed the state and progress of architecture, and its general influence on the mind and on the progress of civilization, from the period when it first became identified with Art to the present time.

The diet of Denmark has just voted to three poets of that nation a yearly pension of 1,000 thalers each. Two of them were H. Herz and Puludan Müller; the name of the third we do not know.

The book of the month in New-York has been Lavengro (published by Putnam and by the Harpers in large editions.) Its success was a consequence of the fame won by the author in his "Bible in Spain," &c., and of clever trickery in advertising. Generally, we believe, it has disappointed. We agree very nearly about it with the London Leader, that—

"It is worth reading, but not worth re-reading. A certain freshness of scene, with real vigor of style, makes you canter pleasantly enough through the volumes; but when the journey is over you find yourself arrived Nowhere. It is not truth, it is not fiction; neither biography nor romance; not even romantic biography; but three volumes of sketches without a purpose, of narratives without an aim. Mr. Borrow has hit the English taste by his union of the clerical and scholarly with what we may call manly blackguardism. His sympathies are all with the blackguards. Not with the ragged nondescripts of the streets, but the poetic vagabonds of the fields—the Rommany Chals—the Gipsies, who are as great in "horse-taming" as Hector of old, and great in the art of "self-defence" as any Greek before the walls of Troy—not to mention other peculiarities in respect of property and its conveyance which they share with the Greeks—the Gipsies in short who are vagabonds in the true wandering sense of the term."

James T. Fields has in press a new edition of his Poems, embracing the pieces which he has written since the edition of 1849. Mr. Fields has a just sense of poetical art; his compositions are happily conceived, and uniformly executed with the most careful elaboration. A few days ago we saw a letter from Miss Mitford, addressed to a friend in this country, in which he is referred to as one of the "living classics of our tongue." We perceive that he is to be the next anniversary poet of the Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard.

W. G. Simms has published at Charleston a fine poem entitled The City of the Silent, written for the occasion of the consecration of a cemetery near that city. It flows in natural harmony, and in thought as well as in manner has an appropriate dignity. We wonder that there has appeared no complete collection of the poems of Mr. Simms, which fill at least a dozen volumes, nearly all of which are now out of print. Some of his pieces have remarkable merit.

"Nile Notes by a Howadji," is not a book of travel, but the book of a traveller. The traveller is obviously a very charming and veracious one, but after all, the landscape and the persons, scenes, and manners he describes are so idealized by him as to have lost much of their natural identity, and put on the somewhat artificial look of museum specimens. However, the Notes are not, therefore, to us the less, but all the more, readable, because we have abundance of mere books of travel, and scarcely any traveller worth remarking. Mr. Kinglake, the author of Eothen, to be sure, was a host in himself. And Mr. Thackeray, in his Journey from Cheapside to Cairo, proved himself a fit companion of that gentleman. But a certain sneering humor, a certain mephistophelian irony, in these persons, prevent one from feeling entirely at ease with them, or believing, in fact, in their complete sincerity. It is not so with the author of Nile Notes, than whom a June breeze is not more bland, and moonlight not less gairish or oppressive. This conviction, indeed, strikes us in a very peculiar manner as we read, that no more genial nature ever penetrated that dismal and incredible East, to avouch the eternal freshness of man against the decay of nature and the mutability of institutions. An actually weird effect is produced by the sight of this plump and rosy Christian pervading the graves of dead empires, and thinking democracy amidst the listening ghosts of the Pharaohs. Did these solemn empires, did these absolute and strutting monarchs mistake their grandeur, and exist after all only that this modern democrat might laugh and live a life devoid of care? Such is the lesson of the book. It is sweeter to know the freshness and kindly nature that penned it; it is sweeter to feel the graceful and humane fancies that baptize every page of it, than to remember whole lineages of buried empires, or recognize whole pyramids of absolute and dissolved Pharaohs. The book is a mine of beautiful descriptions, and of sentences which tickle your inmost midriff with delight. (Harpers.)

We have been surprised lately at several long discussions in the New-York Historical Society of the question whether copies, extracts, or abstracts of the MSS. and other historical documents in the Society's collections might be published without the Society's special permission. We do not know who introduced the prohibitory proposition, but it is in the last degree ridiculous; there cannot be said in its support one syllable of reason; that it has been entertained so long is discreditable to the Society. The prime object of the Society is the collection and preservation of the materials of history; the more numerous the multiplication of copies, the more certain the probabilities of their preservation. A private collector may for obvious reasons hoard his treasures, and wish for the destruction of all copies of them; but the considerations which govern him are the last that should influence a historical society under similar circumstances.