Читать книгу International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 7, August 12, 1850 - Various - Страница 2

Parke Godwin has just given to the public, through Mr. Putnam, a new edition of the translation made by himself and some literary friends, of Goethe's "Autobiography, or Truth and Poetry from My Life." In his new preface Mr. Godwin exposes one of the most scandalous pieces of literary imposition that we have ever read of. This translation, with a few verbal alterations which mar its beauty and lessen its fidelity, has been reprinted in "Bohn's Standard Library," in London, as an original English version, in the making of which "the American was of occasional use," &c. Mr. Godwin is one of our best German scholars, and his discourse last winter on the character and genius of Goethe, illustrated his thorough appreciation of the Shakspeare of the Continent, and that affectionate sympathy which is so necessary to the task of turning an author from one language into another. There are very few books in modern literature more attractive or more instructive to educated men than this Autobiography of Goethe, for which we are indebted to him.

John Randolph is the best subject for a biography, that our political experience has yet furnished. Who that remembers the long and slender man of iron, with his scarcely human scorn of nearly all things beyond his "old Dominion," and his withering wit, never restrained by any pity, and his passion for destroying all fabrics of policy or reputation of which he was not himself the architect, but will read with anticipations of keen interest the announcement of a life of the eccentric yet great Virginian! Such a work, by the Hon. Hugh A. Garland, is in the press of the Appletons. We know little of Mr. Garland's capacities in this way, but if his book prove not the most attractive in the historical literature of the year, the fault will not be in its subject.

The Scottish Booksellers have instituted a society for professional objects under the title of the "Edinburgh Booksellers' Union." In addition to business purposes, they propose to collect and preserve books and pamphlets written by or relating to booksellers, printers, engravers, or members of collateral professions,—rare editions of other works—and generally articles connected with parties belonging to the above professions, whether literary, professional, or personal.

D'Israeli abandons himself now-a-days entirely to politics. "The forehead high, and gleaming eye, and lip awry, of Benjamin D'Israeli," sung once by Fraser are no longer seen before the title-pages of "Wondrous Tales," but only before the Speaker. It is much referred to, that in the recent parliamentary commemoration of Sir Robert Peel, the Hebrew commoner kept silence; his long war of bitter sarcasm and reproach on the defunct statesman was too freshly remembered. Peel rarely exerted himself to more advantage than in his replies, to D'Israeli, all noticeable for subdued disdain, conscious patriotism, and argumentative completeness. For injustice experienced through life, the meritorious dead are in a measure revenged by the feelings of their accusers or detractors, when the latter retain the sensibility which the grave usually excites, and especially amid such a chorus of applause from all parties, and a whole people, as we have now in England for Sir Robert Peel—the only man in the Empire, except Wellington, who had a strictly personal authority.

Dr. Dickson, recently of the Medical Department of the New York University, and whose ill-health induced the resignation of the chair he held there, has returned to Charleston, and we observe that his professional and other friends in that city greeted him with a public dinner, on the 9th ult. Dr. Dickson we believe is one of the most classically elegant writers upon medical science in the United States. He ranks with Chapman and Oliver Wendell Holmes in the grace of his periods as well as in the thoroughness of his learning and the exactness and acuteness of his logic. Like Holmes, too, he is a poet, and, generally, a very accomplished litterateur. We regret the loss that New York sustains in his removal, but congratulate Charleston upon the recovery of one of the best known and most loved attractions of her society.

Mr. John R. Bartlett's boundary commission will soon be upon the field of its activity. We were pleased to see that Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts, a few days ago presented in the Senate petitions from Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, and others, and from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, at Boston, to the effect that it would be of great public utility to attach to the boundary commission to run the line between the United States and Mexico, a small corps of persons well qualified to make researches in the various departments of science.

William C. Richards, the very clever and accomplished editor of the Southern Literary Gazette was the author of "Two Country Sonnets," contributed to a recent number of The International, which we inadvertently credited to his brother, T. Addison Richards the well-known and much esteemed landscape painter.

MAJOR POUSSIN, so well-known for his long residence in this country as an officer of engineers, and, more recently, as Minister of the French republic,—which, intelligent men have no need to be assured, he represented with uniform wisdom and manliness,—is now engaged at Paris upon a new edition of his important book, The Power and Prospects of the United States. We perceive that he has lately published in the Republican journal Le Credit, a translation of the American instructions to Mr. Mann, respecting Hungary. In his preface to this document, Major Poussin pays the warmest compliments to the feelings, measures and policy of our administration, with which he contrasts, at the same time, those of the French Government. He hopes a great deal for the Democratic cause in Europe from the moral influences of the United States.

DR. JOHN W. FRANCIS, one of the most excellent men, as well as one of the best physicians of New York, has received from Trinity College, Hartford, the degree of Doctor of Laws. We praise the authorities of Trinity for this judicious bestowal of its honors. Francis's career of professional usefulness and variously successful intellectual activity, are deserving such academical recognition. His genial love of learning, large intelligence, ready appreciation of individual merit, and that genuine love of country which has led him to the carefullest and most comprehensive study of our general and particular annals, and to the frequentest displays of the sources of its enduring grandeur, constitute in him a character eminently entitled to our affectionate admiration.

THE POEMS OF GRAY, in an edition of singular typographical and pictorial beauty, are to be issued as one of the autumn gift-books by Henry C. Baird, of Philadelphia. They are to be edited by the tasteful and judicious critic, Professor Henry Reed, of the University of Pennsylvania, to whom we were indebted for the best edition of Wordsworth that appeared during the life of that poet. We have looked over Professor Reed's life of Gray, and have seen proofs of the admirable engravings with which the work will be embellished. It will be dedicated to our American Moxon, JAMES T. FIELDS, as a souvenir. we presume, of a visit to the grave of the bard, which the two young booksellers made together during a recent tour in Europe. Mr. Baird and Mr. Fields are of the small company of publishers, who, if it please them, can write their own books. They have both given pleasant evidence of abilities in this way.

BURNS.—It appears from the Scotch papers that the house in Burns-street, Dumfries, in which the bard of "Tam o'Shanter" and his wife "bonnie Jean," lived and died, is about to come into the market by way of public auction.

"EUROPE, PAST AND PRESENT:" A comprehensive manual of European Geography and History, derived from official and authentic sources, and comprising not only an accurate geographical and statistical description, but also a faithful and interesting history of all European States; to which is appended a copious and carefully arranged index, by Francis H. Ungewitter, LL.D.,—is a volume of some six hundred pages, just published by Mr. Putnam. It has been prepared with much well-directed labor, and will be found a valuable and comprehensive manual of reference upon all questions relating to the history, geographical position, and general statistics of the several States of Europe.

M. LIBRI, of whose conviction at Paris (par contumace, that is, in default of appearance), of stealing books from public libraries, we have given some account in The International, is warmly and it appears to us successfully defended in the Athenæum, in which it is alleged that there was not a particle of legal evidence against him. M. Libri is, and was at the time of the appearance of the accusation against him, a political exile in England.

MAJOR RAWLINSON, F.R.S., has published a "Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Babylon and Assyria," including readings of the inscriptions on the Nimroud Obelisk, discovered by Mr. Layard, and a brief notice of the ancient kings of Nineveh and Babylon. It was read before the Royal Asiatic Society.

REV. DR. WISEMAN, author of the admirable work on the Connection between Science and Religion, is to proceed to Rome toward the close of the present month to receive the hat of a cardinal. It is many years since any English Roman Catholic, resident in England, attained this honor.

THE OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY has published several interesting volumes, of which the most important are those of Judge Burnett. An address, by William D. Gallagher, its President, on the History and Resources of the West and Northwest, has just been issued: and it has nearly ready for publication a volume of Mr. Hildreth.

THE IMPERIAL LIBRARY AT VIENNA has been enriched by a very old Greek manuscript on the Advent of Christ, composed by a bishop of the second century, named Clement. This manuscript was discovered a short time since by M. Waldeck, the philologist, at Constantinople.

MR. KEIGHTLEY's "History of Greece" has been translated into modern Greek and published at Athens.

GUIZOT's book on Democracy, has been prohibited in Austria, through General Haynau's influence.

WORDSWORTH'S POSTHUMOUS POEM, "The Prelude," is in the press of the Appletons, by whose courtesy we are enabled to present the readers of The International with the fourth canto of it, before its publication in England. The poem is a sort of autobiography in blank verse, marked by all the characteristics of the poet—his original vein of thought; his majestic, but sometimes diffuse, style of speculation; his large sympathies with humanity, from its proudest to its humblest forms. It will be read with great avidity by his admirers—and there are few at this day who do not belong to that class—as affording them a deeper insight into the mind of Wordsworth than any of his other works. It is divided into several books, named from the different situations or stages of the author's life, or the subjects which at any period particularly engaged his attention. We believe it will be more generally read than any poem of equal length that has issued from the press in this age.

Miss COOPER's "RURAL HOURS"1 is everywhere commended as one of the most charming pictures that have ever appeared of country life. The books of the Howitts, delineating the same class of subjects in England and Germany, are not to be compared to Miss Cooper's for delicate painting or grace and correctness of diction. The Evening Post observes:

"This is one of the most delightful books we have lately taken up. It is a journal of daily observations made by an intelligent and highly educated lady, residing in a most beautiful part of the country, commencing with the spring of 1848, and closing with the end of the winter of 1849. They almost wholly concern the occupations and objects of country life, and it is almost enough to make one in love with such a life to read its history so charmingly narrated. Every day has its little record in this volume,—the record of some rural employment, some note on the climate, some observation in natural history, or occasionally some trait of rural manners. The arrival and departure of the birds of passage is chronicled, the different stages of vegetation are noted, atmospheric changes and phenomena are described, and the various living inhabitants of the field and forest are made to furnish matter of entertainment for the reader. All this is done with great variety and exactness of knowledge, and without any parade of science. Descriptions of rural holidays and rural amusements are thrown in occasionally, to give a living interest to a picture which would otherwise become monotonous from its uniform quiet. The work is written in easy and flexible English, with occasional felicities of expression. It is ascribed, as we believe we have informed our readers, to a daughter of J. Fenimore Cooper. Our country is full of most interesting materials for a work of this sort; but we confess we hardly expected, at the present time, to see them collected and arranged by so skillful a hand."

THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH's "Sketches of Modern Philosophy," remarks the Tribune, "consist of a course of popular lectures on the subject, delivered in the Royal Institution of London in the years 1804-5-6. As a contribution to the science of which they profess to treat, their claims to respect are very moderate. Indeed, no one would ridicule any pretensions of that kind with more zeal than the author himself. The manuscripts were left in an imperfect state, Sydney Smith probably supposing that no call would ever be made for their publication. They were written merely for popular effect, to be spoken before a miscellaneous audience, in which any abstract topics of moral philosophy would be the last to awaken an interest. The title of the book is accordingly a misnomer. It would lead no one to suspect the rich and diversified character of its contents. They present no ambitious attempts at metaphysical disquisition. They are free from dry technicalities of ethical speculation. They have no specimens of logical hair-splitting, no pedantic array of barren definitions, no subtle distinctions proceeding from an ingenious fancy, and without any foundation in nature. On the contrary, we find in this volume a series of lively, off-hand, dashing comments on men and manners, often running into broad humor, and always marked with the pungent common sense that never forsook the facetious divine. His remarks on the conduct of the understanding, on literary habits, on the use and value of books, and other themes of a similar character, are for the most part instructive and practical as well as piquant, and on the whole, the admirers of Sydney Smith will have no reason to regret the publication of the volume."

[From the London Times.]