"If we are not mistaken, it is now nearly ten years since Mr. Whitney first devoted himself to his great project, and he has pursued it with a force of purpose, an intelligent apprehension of all its bearings and consequences upon the world, a nobility of ambition, and a sustained, intellectual enthusiasm which belongs to the rarest and most admirable characters. We do not know in any country a man in whom great intellectual and practical elements are more happily combined. It is not with the warm partiality of private friendship that we thus speak of Mr. Whitney, for, like all men of ideas, and all of nature positive and deep enough to have a special mission in the world, he puts others into relation with the thoughts which engage him rather than with his own personality, and you become intimate with them, not with him. A native, as we believe, of Connecticut, brought up to business in this city, where he acquired a competence, having conceived the idea of a vaster and more inspiring enterprise than the political and industrial world had ever attempted, he quitted the pursuits of trade, and the certain wealth they promised him, to perfect and realize his conception. He studied the great routes of the world, and the causes of their adoption. In a residence in Europe and by voyages in the East he made himself acquainted with the facts relating to the trade and productive capacities of Asia. He thoroughly surveyed and mastered the whole subject before beginning its discussion. Then he proposed the scheme to his countrymen, and for many years has sought exclusively to commend it to their favor. He has travelled in every direction, addressing public bodies and meetings of citizens, writing newspaper articles and pamphlets, and sparing no occasion to bring the idea and the facts connected with it to the knowledge of all. Wherever he has gone he has left some sparks of his own genial enthusiasm. The plan has found advocates in every section; many state legislatures have formally endorsed it, and a large party in Congress have been in its favor. Dependent altogether on his own pecuniary resources, Mr. Whitney, without compensation or assistance, has labored with a constancy and fidelity which could only proceed from a great purpose. But after this period of arduous exertion he has failed to carry his plan through Congress, while a great part of the lands on which he must depend for its execution, have already passed from the control of the federal Legislature. Accordingly, though he would greatly prefer that his own country should reap the splendid harvest of honor and substantial power which the building of this world's highway would assure, he has no choice but to consider the means which may be offered him for making it through British America. To the world at large the consequences would be the same, though to the United States very different.

"The route through British America is, in some respects, even preferable to that through our own territory. By the former, the distance from Europe to Asia is some thousand miles shorter than by the latter. Passing close to the northern shore of Lake Superior, traversing the watershed which divides the streams flowing toward the Arctic Sea from those which have their exit southward, and crossing the Rocky Mountains at an elevation some three thousand, feet less than at the South Pass, the road could here be constructed with comparative cheapness, and would open up a region abounding in valuable timber and other natural products, and admirably suited to the growth of grain and to grazing. Having its Atlantic seaport at Halifax, and its Pacific Depot near Vancouver's Island, it would inevitably draw to it the commerce of Europe, Asia, and the United States. Thus British America, from a mere colonial dependency, would assume a controlling rank in the world. To her other nations would be tributary, and in vain would the United States attempt to be her rival; for we could never dispute with her the possession of the Asiatic commerce, or the power which that confers."

But the matter reaches beyond the suggestions of national interest, and has a wider scope than the mere sentiment of patriotism. We have hoped that this republic might make the easy effort necessary to grasp a prize so magnificent, but we shall hail with satisfaction the actual commencement of such a work, wherever and by whomsoever it is undertaken.



A JEW AND A CHRISTIAN.

A few days ago, a man of various genius and acquirement, with whose writings people of many countries have been delighted, entered an office, holding in his hand two black-bordered notes, inviting him to funerals.

So—other friends have gone! who now?

Two persons very unlike each other. Truly I have never known more striking contrasts. I was meditating of popular prejudices by which their lives were more or less affected, by which their reputations were certainly much affected: one was a Jew, and the other a Christian.

Proceed with your morality.

I was very poor when I came to this country. I sought occupation in the pursuits for which I was best fitted by my education: for a time with little success; and at length I was offered for the translation of two wretched French novels, the meager sum of fifty dollars. I sold some of my wife's trinkets to purchase paper and ink, and worked diligently, you can guess how many weeks, until they were in English as readable as the French of their author. The task accomplished, I went to my patron, expecting of course to have the pittance counted down in current notes or gold; but——the market for such literature was by this time over stocked; he had supplied it too liberally; and with some insulting excuse he refused the manuscripts.

You have an invitation to his funeral?

Yes—he was rich—always speculating in the sweat of brains—and we had business relations afterward.

The other history?

I chanced one day to meet a gentleman, with whom I had no personal acquaintance, though our names were known to each other, and conversing of a subject with which I was familiar he inquired if I would write something upon it for his journal. I replied that I would be very happy to do so, and as we shook hands, at parting, he left in my palm two twenty-dollar notes. He would gladly have avoided a word of explanation, but seeing my surprise he said, "It is merely a retainer, as the lawyers have it; consider it upon account of the articles you will write me." I wrote the articles; it was but an evening's work; and wrote frequently afterward for the same person, always receiving a liberal reward—always more than I asked—though my employer was himself by no means rich. You will think that in the first place he expected a profit for the money he gave me, but I knew better: he cared not a fig for the papers I was to prepare; he simply suspected that I was in need of money, and took that delicate way to relieve me, as, in his time, he relieved hundreds of men.

A noble characteristic of a man perhaps in all respects deserving of admiration: But what of the prejudice you were meditating?

It is this—that even in this land, where many an old world superstition has found life impossible—the community regard a Jew as an incarnation of all selfishness, meanness and dishonor. A hundred to one, being told that the hero of one of these two histories was an Israelite, would swear instantly that the name of him who swindled me was Moses. But it was not: that person will to-morrow have Christian burial, and the other—one of the most sincere and generous men of the age, was an officer of the synagogue. You know—we both know—that the Hebrew race are not only before the other races in all fine intelligence, but that in defiance of prejudices and disabilities which might turn any other people into hordes of robbers, they are of the most honorable portion of mankind.



POLICARPA LA SALVARIETTA,

THE HEROINE OF COLOMBIA.

There are not many subjects for poetry or romance in American history more suggestive than that furnished in the following incidents, translated from Restrepo's Historia de la Revolucion de la Colombia:

"After the standard of liberty had been raised in all the provinces, and the people had struck a successful blow for freedom, Morillo, with an overwhelming force, re-conquered the country for Spain. During six months this fiendish savage held undisputed sway over Colombia. The best men of the provinces were by him seized and shot, and each of his officers had the power of death over the inhabitants of the districts in which they were stationed. It was during this period that the barbarous execution of Policarpa La Salvarietta—a heroic girl of New Granada—roused the Patriots once more to arms, and produced in them a determination to expel their oppressors or die. This young lady was enthusiastically attached to the cause of liberty, and had, by her influence, rendered essential aid to the Patriots. The wealth of her father, and her own superior talents and education, early excited the hostility of the Spanish commander against her and her family. She had promised her hand in marriage to a young officer in the Patriot service, who had been compelled by Morillo to join the Spanish army as a private soldier. La Salvarietta, by means that were never disclosed, obtained, through him an exact account of the Spanish forces, and a plan of their fortifications. The Patriots were preparing to strike a decisive blow, and this intelligence was important to their success. She had induced Sabarain, her lover, and eight others, to desert. They were discovered, and apprehended. The letters of La Salvarietta, found on the person of her lover, betrayed her to the vengeance of the tyrant of her country. She was seized, brought to the Spanish camp, and tried by court martial. The highest rewards were promised her if she would disclose the names and plans of her associates. The inducements proving of no avail, torture was employed to wring from her the secret, in which so many of the best families of Colombia were interested, but even on the rack she persisted in making no disclosure. The accomplished young lady, hardly eighteen years of age, was condemned to be shot. She calmly and serenely heard her sentence, and prepared to meet her fate. She confessed to a Catholic priest, partook of the sacrament, and with a firm step walked to the open square, where a file of soldiers, in presence of Morillo and his officers, were drawn up, with loaded muskets. Turning to Morillo, she said, "I shall not die in vain, for my blood will raise up heroes from every hill and valley of my country." She had scarcely uttered the above, when Morillo himself gave the signal to the soldiers to fire, and in the next moment La Salvarietta was a mangled and bleeding corpse. The Spanish officers and soldiers were overwhelmed with astonishment at the firmness and patriotism of this lovely girl, but the effect upon her own countrymen was electrical. The Patriots lost no time in flying to arms, and their war cry, "La Salvarietta!" made every heart burn to inflict vengeance upon her murderers. In a very short time the army of Morillo was nearly cut to pieces, and the commander himself escaped death only by flight, and in disguise."

In Mexico a dramatic piece, which we have seen described as possessing considerable merit, has been founded upon this tragical history. In the Spanish American wars there have been numerous instances of remarkable heroism by women, which is the more noticeable for the little the sex has had to gain by the political independence of the Spanish race on this continent.



A REAL AMERICAN SAINT.

Mrs. Jameson, in her beautiful book lately published in London, Legends of the Monastic Orders, has the following account of the only American woman ever canonized:

"Santa Rosa di Lima was born at Lima, in Peru, in 1586. This flower of sanctity, whose fragrance has filled the whole Christian world, is the patroness of America, the St. Theresa of Transatlantic Spain. She was distinguished, in the first place, by her austerities. 'Her usual food was an herb bitter as wormwood. When compelled by her mother to wear a wreath of roses, she so adjusted it on her brow that it became a crown of thorns. Rejecting a host of suitors, she destroyed the lovely complexion to which she owed her name, by an application of pepper and quicklime. But she was also a noble example of filial devotion, and maintained her once wealthy parents, fallen on evil days, by the labor of her hands.' All day she toiled in a garden, and at night she worked with her needle. She took the habit of the third order of St. Dominic, and died in 1617. She was canonized by Clement X. According to the Peruvian legend, the Pope, when entreated to canonize her, absolutely refused, exclaiming, 'India y santa! asi como llueven rosas!' (India and saint! as much so as that it rains roses!') Whereupon, a miraculous shower of roses began to fall in the Vatican, and ceased not till the incredulous pontiff acknowledged himself convinced."

Among men saints have been more plentiful.



Authors and Books.

We have already briefly spoken of Dr. ANDREE'S work on America which is now publishing at Brunswick, Germany, by the house of Westermann, a branch of which is established in this city at the corner of Broadway and Duane-streets. The book in question is to consist of three volumes of some six hundred and fifty octavo pages each, devoted respectively to North, Central, and South America. It is published in numbers of some eighty pages each; of these numbers four are already issued, and we have read them with great satisfaction. The broad and philosophical spirit, the exhaustive learning, and the spirited and picturesque style of Dr. Andree are beyond praise; among all the books on America which we have met with this impresses us as unique, and if the remainder shall prove equal to what is already published, we hope that some American publisher may undertake a translation of the whole into English.

The work opens with an introduction of some forty odd pages, in which, first, the physical characteristics of the new world are set forth with great clearness and beauty: its mountains, rivers, lakes, climate, vegetable and animal kingdoms; the origin of the aboriginal inhabitants, their languages, races, manners, customs, and civilization; the settlements of Europeans, the Spaniards, the Spanish and Portuguese states, the Creoles, Mexico, Brazil, &c. Amalgamation of races, the negroes, Slavery, influence of the Latin races, the Teutonic race, the United States, their growth and destiny, are made the subjects of a continuous discussion, remarkable alike for an air at least of breadth and profundity, careful and comprehensive knowledge, and for concise and often eloquent expression. The introduction is followed by chapters on Iceland, Greenland, and the various expeditions to the polar regions of the north, treating those topics both historically and ethnographically, and with a clear presentation of every interesting and important fact. Next follows a general survey of the continent north of the fiftieth, degree of latitude, its rivers, lakes, forests, animals, men, and commerce, including an account of the various Indian tribes, and the trading companies dealing with them. The trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company, Lord Selkirk's colony on Red River, Labrador, Newfoundland, the British Possessions on the West coast, Russian America, are successively treated. Next the Indians in Canada and the United States are considered at length, in respect of their history, traditions, languages, monuments, customs, the influence of the whites upon them, and their probable destiny. In this connection we notice that Dr. Andree frequently cites Gallatin, Schoolcraft, Squier, and other American writers. The remainder of the first volume will treat of the United States, their political history and organization, their soil, climate, people, &c., not failing to give whatever information may be useful to the European settler looking for a new home, as well as to the savan looking for light upon ethnographic and social problems.

From this general outline the scope of the book may be inferred, but our readers will permit us to refer to one or two points which are dwelt upon in the introduction. Dr. Andree contends with the earnestness of a determined partisan for the originality of the vegetable and animal creations, as well as of the human race upon this continent, rejecting entirely the theory that either was transplanted from the eastern hemisphere. The unity of the human family, he maintains with a class of writers distinguishable chiefly for a sleepless activity in assailing the authority of the Christian religion, does not require the assumption of numerical identity of origin, but rather the contrary. "It is not necessary," he says, "to assume the arithmetical oneness of mankind, and the derivation of all from a single pair, thus arbitrarily confining and limiting the creative power of the Highest Being;" and this position he proceeds to advocate by a variety of arguments, at the same time controverting the opposite opinion, and especially the notion of the late Major Noah that the Indians of this continent were descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. In this impertinence is the only noteworthy fault we discover in the book. Discussions of such controverted points as this belong exclusively to the audience of scholars. A far more interesting and satisfactory part of the introduction is that devoted to the Spanish and Portuguese in America, and their influence on the native tribes, and vice versa. The contrast which these races and the states they have founded exhibit to the Germanic race in North America is brought out by Dr. Andree in a striking manner. All the South American republics except Chili are in a condition of comparative or actual disorder: no signs of expanding life and progress are visible among them; every where the conflict of races and castes is active or only partially suppressed; Brazil alone, by the monarchical form of its executive, (though its institutions are fundamentally democratic,) is spared from the anarchy which prevails among its neighbors, and there too, alone, the black, yellow, and red races are politically equal and in the way of complete amalgamation; but in all these states the European element, instead of growing more powerful and influential, tends constantly to greater weakness, and is likely to be completely absorbed and swallowed up; since the wars of independence the white race has diminished, not increased in number; and instead of conferring on the native races the civilization and refinement which was its native property, it is so far dominated by them as to relapse toward their ignorance and rudeness; and after three centuries all Spanish America, the West Indies included, contains not more than fifteen millions of inhabitants, about a fifth of whom are whites, that is to say as many as are found in the State of New-York alone. Or, reckoning for all America south of the United States, five millions of whites, this population still falls far short of that which within thirty years has taken possession of the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. Such is the difference between the Latin and the Saxon races. The latter has spread itself with astonishing rapidity, never mixing, to any extent, with negroes or Indians, nor allowing mixed races to get the upper hand, or even exercise any influence. The Anglo-Saxon civilizes the other races or devotes them to extinction. And yet South America is naturally better than North. It is richer and more productive, and endowed with a system of rivers compared with which that of the Mississippi seems trifling. Had it been settled by Anglo-Saxons and Germans instead of Creoles and mixed breeds, it would long since have worn another aspect; steamboats would have covered the rivers up to the very foot of the Cordilleras, and the vast plains would have been occupied by flourishing towns and cultivated fields.

The parallel which Dr. Andree draws between the history of the United States and Europe for the last fifty years is so strikingly put, that we make room for a single passage by way of specimen:

"A comparison of the history of Europe and of North America during the time since the first French revolution is in every respect to the advantage of the United States. The old world has been convulsed by wars, a military emperor has had the sway of Europe, and broken kingdoms into fragments; blood has flowed in torrents, and thousands of millions have been wasted for unproductive purposes and on royal vanity. Since the fall of the Great Soldier the nations have incessantly risen against their rulers, and more than a million of men now stand in arms to restrain the people and serve the passions of monarchs and their cabinets. Only sixty years ago the entire valley of the Mississippi was still a desert, a wide wilderness, with hardly here and there a settlement. Now we see this empire in subjection—conquered, not by soldiers, with waving banners and sounding trumpets, but by the toil of the farmer, the skill of the artisan, the enterprising spirit of the merchant. They have drained morasses, cleared up forests, opened roads, dug canals, built ships, and founded flourishing states. Within the period of two generations they have peopled that wilderness with ten millions of industrious inhabitants, and opened a new home to the arts of peace, to civil and religious liberty, to culture and progress. In these sixty years, not so much blood has been shed in wars against Indians in the Mississippi valley as in one of the hundreds of battles fought by the soldiers of European states, most of them for useless or even pernicious ends. No blessing has followed the wars and conquests in Europe, but in the Great West, conquered by labor and enterprise, all is progress and unexampled prosperity."

There are numerous other passages tempting us to translate them, but our space is already exhausted, and we forbear.

* * * * *

We have already taken occasion to commend the Tausend und ein Tag im Orient (Thousand and One Days in the East) by BODENSTEDT, the well-known author of the Wars of the Circassians. No writer gives so just an insight into the character of that portion of the great Oriental family which he visited—the Circassians and Georgians. The second part of his present book (lately published at Berlin) contains some interesting criticisms of a Tartar poet, whom Bodenstedt knew at Tiflis, upon European poetry. Our traveller, partly by way of practice in the Tartar language, and partly to inspire his eastern friend with greater respect for the bards of the Occident, used to translate English and German songs into Tartar. Mirza Shaffy, the name of the Tartar sage and poet, proved himself no contemptible critic of these foreign productions. Not once could he be induced to tolerate a poem whose only merit was the beauty and melody of its language in the original, nor to swallow the mere sentimentalism which plays so great a part in German poetry especially. This sentimentalism, says Bodenstedt, is as unknown as it is unintelligible to the Oriental poet. He aims always at a real and tangible object, and in gaining it puts heaven and earth in motion. No image is too remote, no thought too lofty for his purpose. The new moon is a golden shoe for the hoof of his heroes' steed. The stars are golden nails, with which the Lord has fastened the sky, lest it should fall with admiration and desire for his fair one. The cypresses and cedars grow only to recall the lithe and graceful form of Selma. The weeping willow droops her green hair to the water, grieving because she is not slender like Selma. The eyes of his beloved are suns which make all the faithful fire-worshippers. The sun itself is but a gleaming lyre, whose beams are golden strings, whence the dawn draws the loveliest accords to the praise of the earth's beauty and the power of love.

Mirza Shaffy was a great lover of Moore and Byron, and some of their songs which were translated needed no explanation to render them intelligible to him. Wolfe's marvellous poem on the death of Sir John Moore made a deep impression on him, and was a special favorite. Goethe and Heine he liked greatly, especially Goethe's song of Mignon, "Knowst thou the Land," and Heine's Fisher's Song (which Schubert has set to such delicious and befitting music) which ends—

"My heart is like the ocean, Has storm, and ebb, and flow, And many a lovely pearlet Rests in its depths below."

Schiller he could not so well understand, and often the attempt adequately to translate this poet had to be given up in despair. However, Mirza Shaffy admitted that some of his poems had substance in them. Uhland and Geibel were not much to his mind. One day, Bodenstedt translated into Tartar a song by the latter, which we in our turn thus render into English:

The silent water lily Springs from the earth below, The leaves all greenly glitter, The cup is white as snow.

The moon her golden radiance Pours from the heavens down, Pours all her beams of glory This virgin flower to crown.

And, in the azure water, A swan of dazzling white Floats longing round the lily, That trances all his sight.

Ah low he sings, ah sadly, Fainting with sweetest pain; O lily, snow white lily, Hear'st thou the dying strain?

Mirza Shaffy cast the song aside, with the words, "A foolish swan!"

"Don't the song please you?" asked the translator.

"The conclusion is foolish," replied the Tartar; "what does the swan gain by fainting?—he only suffers himself, and does no good to the rose. I would have ended—

"Then in his beak he takes it, And bears it with him home."

* * * * *

Mr. Ross, the editor of Allgemeine Auswanderungszeitung (Universal Journal of Emigration), an excellent and useful German periodical, has just published in Germany the Auswanderer's Handbuch (Emigrant's Manual), devoted especially to the service of those who design emigrating to the United States. His manual is a valuable collection of whatever a new comer into this country should know. The constitution and political arrangements of the Union, its legislation, its means of intercourse, the peculiarities of soil and climate proper to different sections, the state of agriculture, and the chances of employment for persons of different classes, professions, and degrees of education, are all given. Mr. Ross was himself born in the United States, and understands what he writes about. At the same time his book gives a fair and thorough view of the difficulties with which the emigrant to this country must contend.

* * * * *

At Pesth, Hungary, is about to appear a biographical work on Hungarian statesmen and orators who were prominent before the revolutionary period. Paul Nagy, Eugen Beoethy, Franz Deak, Stephan Bezeredy, Bartholomaus Szemere, the two Wesselenyis, the two Dionys Pazmandys, Stephan Szechenyi, and Joseph Eoetvos (the last known in the United States by translations of his novels), are among the characters described.

* * * * *

A new book on the new world is the Europa ed America, by Dr. ANT. CACCIA, an Italian litterateur, who has apparently been in this country and describes it, as he professes to do, from nature. He says that he found the people of New-York occupied mainly in making money.

The German authoress FANNY LEWALD, has in press a book entitled England und Schottland (England and Scotland), made up from the notes of a journey through those countries. Its publication just at this moment is for the benefit of the crowds of Germans who are going to the World's Fair, and who may find in it all sorts of preparatory information. A specimen chapter published in one of our German papers reads pleasantly. Fanny Lewald is a phenomenon, of a class of women who know something about every thing. Nothing is too high or too low to become an object of consideration to these female Teufelsdroecks, petticoated professors of "the science of things in general." The intellectual cultivation among the middle and higher class of society in Prussia, the patronage bestowed by the court upon learning, the arts, and sciences; the encouragement to discuss freely every imaginable theme in politics or religion, with the single exception of the measures of the administration, all tended to create a taste for mental display in which it was necessary that women should participate, if they wished to retain their old position in the social world. In the salons of Berlin, therefore, women have been heard taking a prominent part in conversations in which the most abstruse questions in religion, politics, and general science were discussed. The philosophers, male and female, debarred by the spy system from any open investigation of passing political events, revenged themselves by treating these events as mere temporary phases of the great system of evolutions which forms the material of history, scarcely worthy of notice, and directed their attention to the great principles which underlie all great social and religious developments. A strange tone was thus given to conversation. Listening to the talkers at a Berlin conversazione, one might have fancied, judging from the nature of the subjects of conversation, that a number of gods and goddesses were debating on the construction of a world. Vulgar bricks and mortar they ignored, and were anxious only about primary and secondary geological formations. The actual state of any society was scarcely cared for, except in illustration of a principle, and the great forces which must unite to form the best possible society, were the only subjects of investigation. It may be taken as a great proof of the wonderful facility of adaptation of the female mind, that women joined in these conversations as readily as men, and frequently with far more brilliancy, in spite of the range of reading which it must require to obtain even a superficial knowledge of the subjects of discourse. Fanny Lewald is one of these prodigies. She has studied every thing from the Hegelian philosophy downwards. She is as great in revolutions as in ribbons, and is as amusing when talking sentiment over oysters and Rheinwein, in the Rathskiller at Bremen, as when meditating upon ancient art and philosophy in Wilhelm von Humboldt's castle of Tegel near Berlin.

* * * * *

We have read with great interest a series of articles which have appeared in the recent numbers of the Grenzboten upon GEORGE SAND. Though we have often failed to agree with the view of the writer, Mr. Julian Schmidt, one of the editors of that paper, we have rarely met with literary criticism of more ability, and a more just and catholic spirit. We translate the conclusion of the last article, in which Mr. Schmidt gives the result of his careful analysis of all the works of the author: "The novel, on account of its lax and variable form, and the caprice which it tolerates, is in my opinion not to be reckoned among those kinds of art, which, as classic, will endure to posterity. The authors who have been most read in modern times have already been checked in their popularity by the greater attraction of novelty offered by their successors. This is the case even with Walter Scott. Besides, in most of her writings, George Sand has dealt with problems whose justification later times will not understand; and thus it may happen that hereafter she will be regarded as of consequence in the history of literature alone. But in that sphere she will have a permanent importance. Future centuries will regard her as the most significant image of the morbid but intense striving which marks this generation. When it has long been agreed that the lauded works of Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, and others, are but the barren outgrowths of an untamed and unrestrained fancy, and a perverted reflection; when the same verdict has been pronounced on the poems of M. de Chateaubriand, whose value is now taken as a matter of belief and confidence, because there are few who have read them; then the true poetic element in the works of George Sand will, in spite of all its vagaries, still be recognized. And more than this, since the period of sentimentalism will be seen as more extensive, and as the works of Richardson, Rousseau (of course only those which belong in this category), and of Madame de Stael and others, will be included in it, then we say that the better productions of our authoress will carry off the prize from all the rest."

* * * * *

Two collections of songs, national and lyric, have made their appearance in Germany. The one is by GEORGE SCHERER, and is called Deutsche Volkshelier, the other, by WOLFGAND MENZEL, is entitled Die Gesange der Volker (The Songs of the Nations). The former is exclusively German; the latter contains songs from every civilized tongue under heaven, as well as from many of the uncivilized, in German versions, of course. Both are elegantly printed, and highly commended by the knowing in that line of literature.

* * * * *

HENRI MURGER has published a companion volume to his Scenes de la Boheme in the shape of some stories called Scenes de la Vie de Jeunesse.

* * * * *

A curious specimen of what may be done by a ready writer who is scrupulous only about getting his pay, is afforded by a book just published at Leipzic, called Zahme Geschichten aus wilder Zeit (Tame Stories of a Wild Time), by Frederick Ebeling. In these "tame stories" the heroes of the late revolutionary movements are held up now in one light, and now in another, with the most striking disregard of consistency. Jellachich, for instance, is lauded in one place as the most genial and charming of men, a scholar and gentleman, without equal, and almost in the next page he is called a ferocious butcher, who never wearies of slaughtering human beings. These discrepancies are accounted for by the fact that Mr. Ebeling wrote for both conservative and radical journals, and adapted his opinions to the wants of the market he was serving. He would have done well to reconcile his articles with each other before putting them into a book.

* * * * *

A valuable work on national law is entitled Du Droits et des Devoirs des Nations Neutres en Temps de Guerre Maritime, by M. L. B. Hautefeuille, a distinguished French jurist, lately published at Paris in four octavos. It is praised by no less an authority than the eminent advocate M. Chaix d'Est Ange, as the fruit of mature and conscientious study: he calls it the most complete and one of the best works on modern national law ever produced. The author in the historical part of his treatise, criticises the monopolizing spirit and policy of the English without mercy, and insists that the balance of power on the sea is of no less importance than that on land. He would have established a permanent alliance of armed neutrality, with France and the United States at its head, to maintain the maritime rights of weaker states in time of war, against the encroachments of British commerce and ambition.

* * * * *

A Vienna publishing establishment has offered GRILLPARZER, the German dramatist, $4,000 for his writings, but he refuses, not because he thinks the price too low, but because he will not take the trouble of preparing and publishing a collected edition of his dramas, the last of which was entitled Maximilian Robespierre, a five act tragedy. He has also a variety of unpublished manuscripts, which it is feared will never see the light.

* * * * *

Students and amateurs of music will find their account in taking the Rheinische Musikzeitung (Rhine Musical Gazette), published at Cologne, under the editorial care of Prof. Bisehof. Its criticism is impartial, intelligent, and free from the prejudices of the schools. German musical criticism has no better organ.

* * * * *

The German poet SIMROCK has just published a new version of the two Eddas, with the mythical narratives of the Skalda, which is spoken of as a valuable contribution to literature.

* * * * *

The Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries held its annual session on the 15th February at the palace of Christianbourg, the King of Denmark presiding. Mr. RAFN read the report of the transactions of the Society during the year, and laid before the meeting a new number of the Annals of the archaeology and history of the North, and the completed volume of the Archaeological Journal, published by the Society. He also announced that the second volume of his own work on Russian Antiquities was in preparation, and that about half of it was already printed. To give an idea of this work, he read from it a biographical notice on Biorucon, of Arngeirr, an Icelander by birth, distinguished alike as a warrior and a poet, and by his exploits in Russia where he served Vladimir the Great. After this, other members of the Society gave interesting accounts of the results of their various labors during the year. The King presented a paper on excavations made under his personal direction in the ruins of the castles of Saborg and Adserbo, in the North of Seland. These castles date from the middle ages; the memoir was accompanied by drawings.

* * * * *

The Historisches Tashcenbuch (Historical Pocket-Book), edited by the learned Prussian Raumer is a publication eminently worthy of notice. The number for the year 1851 opens with biographical sketches of three women, Ines de Castro and Maria and Lenora Telley, who played important parts in Spanish and Portuguese history in the XIVth Century. They are followed by a concise history of the German marine by Bartholdy, twelve letters by John Voigt on the manners and social life of the princes at the German Diets, a picture from the XVIth Century, the sequel of a memoir by Guhrauer on Elizabeth, Abbess of Herford, a friend of William Penn, and a correspondent of Malebranche, Leibnitz and Descartes, &c., &c. &c.

* * * * *

An interesting account of a most eventful period and country is the Bilder aus Oestreich, just published at Leipzic, by a German traveller. The traveller is understood to be one of the editors of the Grenzboten, and the period he describes comprises the revolutionary years 1848-9. His account of Vienna in the memorable October days of 1848, is graphic, and even thrilling.

* * * * *

COTTA, of Stuttgart, has just published a new collection of poems by FRANZ DINGELSTEDT, under the title of "Night and Morning." The themes are drawn from the revolution, its hopes and its disappointments.

* * * * *

FREDERIC LOUIS JAHN, the celebrated German professor, who invented the modern system of gymnastics, is writing his personal memoirs. He is about seventy years of age, and his long life has been full of significant incidents.

To those who seek a good acquaintance with the current belles-lettres literature of Germany, we can cordially recommend the Deutsches Museum, published semi-monthly at Leipsic, under the editorial care of Professor Robert Prutz and Wilhelm Wolffson, and sold in this city by Westermann, 290 Broadway. Each number contains eighty-five close pages, filled by some of the leading writers of German science, art and politics. In the number now before us, are articles by Gutzkow, Boech, the philologist, Berthold Auerbach, Emanuel Geibel and Julius Mosen. The entire range of politics, philosophy, antiquities, art, poetry, romances and literary criticism is included in the scope of the Museum, except that it is designed not for the learned world, but for the mass of the people, and accordingly aims at general not technical instruction. Among the art notices, we observe a brief criticism on the Gallery of Illustrious Americans, in which the lithography of the pictures is praised as well as the faces themselves. The critic is delighted with the energy, originality and freshness of character expressed in their features.

* * * * *

A valuable contribution to current political history is the Verfassungskampf in Kurhessen (Constitutional Struggle in Electoral Hesse), by Dr. H. Graefe, which has just made its appearance in Germany. The conflict of the people and parliament and public officers, against the selfish, arbitrary and foolish Elector, is the turning point of recent German politics, and the defeat of the former after their patience and firmness, acting always within the limits of the constitution, had gained a decided victory, and compelled the faithless prince to fly the country,—a defeat accomplished only by the intervention of Austrian and Prussian troops, was the final downfall of every form of political liberty in Germany. Dr. Graefe has wisely abstained from treating the events of this crisis as a philosophical historian; they are too fresh, and his own share in them was too decided to allow him to undertake that successfully. He accordingly does little more than simply report the transactions in a compendious way, with all the documents necessary to a full understanding of the subject. Whoever wishes for a thorough apprehension of the German tragi-comedy, may derive aid from his work.

* * * * *

The resources of philology have just been enriched by the publication at Tubingen of a dictionary of six of the dialects of Eastern Africa, namely, the Kisuaheli, Kinika, Kikamba, Kipokomo, Kihian, and Kigalla. This is accompanied by a translation of Mark's Gospel into the Kikamba dialect, and a short grammar of the Kisuaheli. The author of these works is the Protestant minister Krap, who has been for fifteen years in Ethiopia, and has collected and presented to the University at Tubingen a considerable number of most valuable Ethiopian manuscripts.

* * * * *

A notable and interesting book is BEHSE'S Geschichte des preussischen Hofes und Adels (History of the Prussian Court and Nobility) of which the two first volumes have just been published at Hamburg by Hoffman & Campe. The whole work will contain from thirty to forty small volumes, and will treat all the states of Germany, only some half dozen volumes being devoted to Prussia. The two now published bring the history down to the reign of Frederic William II. They abound in most curious historic details. For instance, the acquisition of the title of King of Prussia by the Elector of Brandenburgh, Frederic III., is narrated at length. It seems that this prince, who was deformed in body, but as politic as he was ambitious in spirit, after many fruitless efforts obtained from the Emperor at Vienna the grant of the royal dignity, by a bribe of two hundred thousand thalers, paid to the Jesuit Father Wolff, as a compensation for the influence of the Society, whose members were flattered that the most powerful of the Protestant princes of Germany should solicit their assistance. The whole cost of the grant was six millions of thalers, an enormous sum for these times. The Papal Court refused to recognize the new king, and did not until Frederic the Great.

* * * * *

We believe a general Biographical Dictionary of Illustrious Women, now in course of publication in Berlin, is to be reproduced here, with suitable additions. We need, while discussions of the sphere and capacities of women are so common among us, a work of real learning and authority, in which the part which the sex has borne and is capable of bearing in the business of civilizing, shall be carefully and honestly exhibited. There are fifteen or twenty volumes of short biographies of women now in print in this country, with prospects of others—all worthless except this extensive German work, which is considerably advanced, and for its literary merit as well as for the interest of its materials, will command an unusual degree of attention.

* * * * *

Countess Ida Hahn Hahn is writing a work to be called My Way from Darkness to Light, from Error to Truth. She has became a Catholic, and this book is intended to tell why. A cheap edition of her works is publishing at Berlin. We presume they are no longer in her control, but belong to her publishers, as she could scarcely consent to reprint some of them.

* * * * *

A new work bearing as its title the single word Italia, is about to be published at Frankfort on the Main. It is a complete artistic, historic and poetic manual for travellers in that lovely peninsula.

* * * * *

The Cologne Musical Society lately offered a prize for the best symphony. Eighty-three have been offered, of which one only seems to be a pure plagiarism.

* * * * *

A book just published in Germany under the title of Berlin und die Berliner contains some exceedingly interesting details concerning the great naturalist ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, from which the International translates the following: "When, in the years 1834-5, we young students thronged into lecture room No. VIII., at eight o'clock on winter mornings, to hear Boeckh on Greek literature and antiquities, we used to see in the crowd of students in the dark corridor a small, white-haired, old, and happy-looking man, dressed in a long brown coat. This man was the studiosus philologiae, Alexander von Humboldt, who came, as he said, to go through again what he had neglected in his youth. When we met him in the lecture-room we respectfully made way for him; for though we had no respect for any body, especially professors, Humboldt was an exception, for he knew 'a hellish deal.' To his own honor, the German student still respects this quality. During the lecture Humboldt sat on the fourth or fifth bench near the window, where he drew a piece of paper from a portfolio in his pocket, and took notes. In going home he liked to accompany Boeckh, so as in conversation to build some logical bridge or other from the old world to the new, after his ingenious fashion. There was then in the class a man who has since distinguished himself in political literature, but whom we had nicknamed 'Mosherosh,' that is Calves'-head, on account of his stupid appearance. As Mosherosh generally came in late, it was the fashion to receive him with a magnificent round of stamping. One day, Humboldt came too late, and just at the usual time of Mosherosh, and without looking up we gave the regular round, while Humboldt, blushing and embarrassed, made his way to his place. In a moment the mistake was seen, and a good-natured laugh succeeded. Humboldt also attended the evening lectures of Ritter on universal geography, and let the weather be as bad as it might, the gray-haired man never failed. If for a rarity he chanced not to come, we said among ourselves in students' jargon, 'Alexander cuts the college to-day, because he's gone to King's to tea.' Once, on occasion of discussing an important problem of physical geography, Ritter quoted him, and every body looked up at him. Humboldt bowed to us, with his usual good nature, which put the youngsters into the happiest humor. We felt ourselves elevated by the presence of this great thinker and most laborious student. We seemed to be joined with him in the pursuit of great scientific ends."

* * * * *

The rewards of Authors, we suspect, are greatest in France. In Germany, England and the United States they are about the same. Cooper, Irving and Prescott, in this country, have each received for copyrights more than one hundred thousand dollars. In England, Dickens has probably received more than any other living author—and in France Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Scribe, Thiers, and many others, have obtained large fortunes by writing. In Germany Dieffenbach received for his book on Operative Surgery some $3,500; and Perthes of Hamburg, paid to Neander on a single work, more than $20,000, exclusive of the interest his heirs still have in it. Poets like Uhland, Freiligrath, Geibel, have also received as much as $6,000 or $12,000 on the sales of a single volume. Long ago in Boston, Robert Treat Paine received $1,500 for a song. Of our living poets, Longfellow has been most liberally paid.

* * * * *

George Stephens, the learned translator of the Frithiof's Saga of BISHOP TEGNER, in a letter to The International states that he is now printing at Copenhagen three Anglo-Saxon poems of the eleventh century, namely: The Old Testament Story, On the Sixth Day's Work, and The New Testament Story, by Aelfric, Archbishop of York, now just translated into the metre and alliteration of the original. The three poems will make a quarto volume of about thirty sheets, and copies may be ordered (price three dollars), through the Hon. H. W. Ellsworth, late United States Charge d'Affaires in Sweden, at New-York, or Dr. S. H. Smith, of Cincinnati. Of the ability and fidelity with which the work will be executed, the readers of the Frithiof's Saga need no other assurance.

* * * * *

"Etherization," after all, is not a modern discovery, and Wells, Jackson, and Morton, are alike undeserving of the praise they have received on account of it. The Paris Siecle states that a manuscript, written by Papin, known, for his experiments connected with the motive power of steam, has been discovered near Marburg in Electoral Hesse; that the work bears the name of Traite des Operations sans Douleur, and that in it are examined the different means that might be employed to deaden, or altogether nullify, sensibility when surgical operations are being performed on the human body, Papin composed this work in 1681, but his contemporaries treated it with ridicule, and he abandoned the medical profession.

* * * * *

A new five-act play, tragic of course, has just appeared at Berlin, founded on the history of Philip Augustus of France. It is by a lady of the aristocratic circles of the Prussian capital, who now makes her debut in literature. It is praised as excellent by those who are not in the habit of being satisfied with the writings of ladies. A collection of poems from the same pen is shortly to appear.

* * * * *

M. Bianchi's Turkish and French Dictionary, in two large octavos, has reached a second edition at Paris. It is all that could be desired for the use of diplomatic and consular agents, traders, navigators, and other travellers in the Levant, but not designed for critics in the language or its literature.

* * * * *

The students of geography and foreign modes of life, owe a debt to the French General DAUMAS, for his three works on north-western Africa. The first entitled, Le Sahara Algerien, is an exact and thorough and scientific account of the desert in Algiers, given, however, with a flow of manly, soldatesque imagination, which imparts life and charm to the narrative, and even adorned with frequent quotations from the Arab poets, who have sung the various localities he describes. The second of these works is called Le Grand Desert: in form it is a series of romances, the author having chosen that as the best manner of conveying to the reader a distinct impression. The hero is a dweller in the interior, a member of the tribe of Chambas, who came to Algiers, as he says, because he had predestined him to make that journey. The general interrogates him, and the Arab recounts his adventures. As he had thrice traversed the desert to the negro country beyond, and had seen beside all the usual events in the life of that savage region, the author violates no probability in putting into his mouth the most strange and characteristic stories. The whole are told with a fictitious reproduction of the teser and somewhat monotonous, yet figurative style, proper to all savages. La Grande Kabylie recounts the personal experiences of the author in that yet unconquered country of the Arabs, whither he went with Marshal Bugeaud in his last expedition. Kabylia he describes as a picturesque and productive region. There are deep, sheltered valleys, where along the shores of winding streams, nature has planted hedges of perpetual flowers, while the mountains on each side stand yellow with the ripe and ripening grain. The people are braver and more energetic, their habitations more substantial, and their fields more valuable than those in other parts of Algeria. Gen. Daumas would have France subjugate this country and add it to her African dominions.

* * * * *

M. de Conches, who is well known for his illustrations of early French literature, is an enthusiastic admirer of La Fontaine: and he has spent a vast sum in having printed one copy only, and for himself alone, of an edition of his works, illustrated by the first artists of the day, accompanied by notes and prefaces of the most eminent writers, and forming a very miracle of expensive and recherche typography and binding. Dibdin had never so good a subject for his Bibliomania.

* * * * *

Jules Sandeau, one of the most spirituel and elegant of French romance writers, announced a new novel, Catherine, to appear on the 15th of April.

* * * * *

Another book on the Fall of Louis Philippe has been published at Paris by M. Francois de Groiseillez. It is in the Orleanist interest, and is praised by the Journal des Debats.

* * * * *

The most profligate woman of whom we have any account in Roman history was the empress Massalina, and nothing is more natural than that she should be selected for a heroin by a Frenchman. In a new five act play of which the Parisian journals give us elaborate criticisms, she is represented as a very virtuous wife, by the ingenious contrivance of giving a certain courtezan such a striking personal resemblance to her that it was impossible to distinguish between the two, and making the courtezan commit all the atrocities of the real Massalina. The play is not without literary merit. It is called Valeria—the heroine's other name being considered too strong to figure on a play-bill. Rachel plays the two characters of Massalina and the courtezan—of course with the most perfect success.

* * * * *

A new Review has been established in Paris under the title of La Politique Nouvelle. It comes out as the rival of the Revue des Deux Mondes, and as the champion of the new republican regime (as opposed to the conservative tendencies of the older established Review), offers battle with a promising array of names of future contributors. The department of English criticism is confided to M. Leon de Wailly, author of Stella and Vanessa and the translator of Burns; whose name promises a knowledge and intelligent appreciation of English literature. The first two numbers contain contributions from the brilliant and caustic pen of Eugene Pelletan, and a serial from Madame Charles Reybaud, author of the Cadet de Calubrieres, Helene, &c.

* * * * *

Victor Hugo, since the appearance of the last volume of Le Rhine, four or five years ago, has not printed a new book. The proprietor of his copyrights, who had brought out two splendid editions of his complete works, one in twenty-five volumes, and another, illustrated by the best artists of France, in twelve, made a contract with him by which he has been prevented from any original publications. The term is now nearly expired, and it is announced that he will at once issue three volumes of poetry, and twelve of romances. He is now engaged in finishing a novel entitled Misery, which is spoken of by those who have seen portions of it as a magnificent work.

* * * * *

M. de St. Beuve, since October, 1849, the literary critic of Le Constitutionnel, a writer who has pushed himself up in the world far ahead of his merits, has published at Paris a volume, Causeries du Lundi (Monday Gossipings), which is no great things. These gossipings are taken from the columns of that journal, where they are regularly published on Mondays, and where we have occasionally had the benefit of seeing them. If they were not written by a member of the French Academy, and an eminent litterateur, we should say they were rather stupid, as far as ideas go, and not very elegant in respect of style.

* * * * *

We had recently the Cooks of Paris, in a handsome volume, with portraits; The Journals and Editors of Paris, in another volume, and now one Paul Lacroix, sometimes called bibliophile Jacob, has announced a History, Political, Civil, Religious, Military, Legislative, Judicial, Moral, Literary, and Anecdotic, of the Shoe and the Bootmakers of France. He treats of the ancient corporations, their discipline, regulations, and of the fraternities, with their obligations and devices, sketching the whole history of La Chaussure. Shoemakers have been well represented among the famous men of all nations, and the craft may be proud of Hans Sachs, Jacob Boehme, Gifford, Bloomfield, Drew, Holcraft, Lackington, Sherman, William Carey, George Fox, and a hundred others, besides the heroes of Monsieur Lacroix.

* * * * *

Bibliophile Jacob LACROIX, we see by the Paris papers, has also discovered a comedie-ballet by Moliere, written in 1654, and never included in any edition of his works. It is entitled Le Ballet des incompatibies, and appears to have been written by order of the Prince de Conti, and acted before him by Moliere himself and other persons of the Prince's circle. That it remained so long unknown is explained by the circumstance of a few copies only having been printed for the favored spectators. The plot is described as ingenious, and the verses not unworthy of the author. It is known that when the Prince de Conti presided over the states of Languedoc in 1654, he invited thither Moliere and his company. He professed so much admiration for the actor that he offered him the confidential situation of secretary, which was declined; but it seems natural enough that he should have shown his gratitude by composing one of those entertainments which cost him so little trouble. This Prince de Conti was at one time so passionately fond of theatricals that he made it his occupation to seek out subjects for new plays, but at a later period he wrote a treatise in which theatres were severely condemned on religious grounds, and Moliere himself was personally and violently attacked.

* * * * *

Among the new biographical works announced in Paris, is one on the Life, Virtues and Labors of the late Right Rev. Dr. FLAGET, Roman Catholic Bishop of Bardstown and Louisville, Kentucky. The author is a clergyman, who accompanied the late Bishop in one of his last missions to Europe. Bishop Flaget died at the age of eighty-seven.

* * * * *

M. Xavier Marmier, whose visit to the United States we noticed some months ago, has published his Letters on Canada, the United States, Cuba, and Rio La Plata, in two volumes—constituting one of the most agreeable works ever published in Paris upon this country. We shall soon, we believe, have occasion to review a translation of the Letters, by a New-Yorker.

* * * * *

Guizot and Thiers—the most eminent living statesmen of France, as well as her greatest living historians—were for a long time connected with the Paris journals, and each made his first appearance as a writer in criticisms on the Fine Arts. For several years the former published series of articles on the exhibitions of the Louvre, which were remarkable both for artistic knowledge and literary verve. The latter also published in 1810 a pamphlet on the exhibition in the Louvre, which excited great sensation—more, however, from its having a political tendency than for its critical importance.

* * * * *

MR. MIGNET, whose condensed History of the French Revolution is best known to American readers in the cheap reprint of Bohn's Library, and which in Paris has passed through numberless editions—will soon have completed his History of Mary Stuart, which is destined, probably, to supersede every other in the French language. Mignet is perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Moral Sciences, and was for many years head of the department of Archives in the Foreign Office. As a man of letters and a sedulous inquirer, no French author enjoys higher reputation.

* * * * *

Lamartine has just published in Paris The History of the Restoration, from 1814 to 1830, in eight volumes. The work has been composed hastily, and probably by several hands, for money. The poet has also published The Stone Cutter of Saint-Pont, to which we have before referred—a new book of sentimental memoirs: they pall after two administrations.

* * * * *

The Histoire des Races Maudites et les Classes Reprouves, by Francisque Michel and Edouard Fournier, publishing at Paris, with illustrations, has advanced to the twentieth number. The whole is to contain a hundred numbers, forming three volumes.

* * * * *

M. Michelet, the well-known professor of history in the College de France, has incurred a vote of censure from his associates on account of his lectures to the students, which, we infer from notices of them, are quite too republican and socialistic to be approved by the directors of affairs.

* * * * *

A new work, by M. Theophile Lavallee, entitled L'Histoire de Paris et ses Monumens from ancient times to 1850, has just been published at Paris, with illustrations by M. Champin. It is warmly commended by the Debats.

* * * * *

MULLIE, of the University of France, has published in two large octavos, a Biographical Dictionary of the Military Celebrities of France, from 1789 to 1850.

* * * * *

A second edition of the new Life of the great Chancellor D'Auguesseau, by M. BOUILLE, has been published in Paris. The book continues to be praised.

* * * * *

A Romance and Tales, said to have been written by NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, when he was a youth, are announced for publication in the Paris Siecle. Though the Siecle is a very respectable journal, and it engages that these compositions are perfectly authentic, and shall be accompanied by proofs of their genuineness, we do not believe a word of the pretence of their authorship. It is a fact, however, not unworthy of note, in a psychological point of view, that the earliest development of Napoleon's ambition and powers, before a fit field of action had been opened to them, was in a literary form. At the age of fifteen, when at the royal school at Paris, he voluntarily prepared a memoir upon the luxury and expense attending education at that place, in which he urged the propriety of the students adopting hardy habits and a simple fare, and themselves to such toils and exposure as they would encounter in war. In 1787, at the age of eighteen, at Valence, he gained, anonymously, a prize proposed to the Academy of Lyons by the Abbe Raynal, on the question, "What are the principles and institutions best adapted to advance mankind in happiness?" In this essay he defined happiness as consisting in the "perfect enjoyment of life according to the laws of our physical and moral organization:" and the forcible views, well adapted to the temper of the times, and the vivid style of writing, attracted much attention. When he was emperor, he was one day conversing with Talleyrand about this essay, and the latter, a few days after, took occasion to present it to him, having procured it from the archives of the academy at Lyons. The emperor took it, and after reading a few pages, threw it into the fire, saying, "One can never observe every thing." Talleyrand had not taken the precaution to transcribe it; but it has been said that Louis Bonaparte had had it copied, and that it is now in print. About the same time he began a history of Corsica, which he dedicated to the Abbe Raynal, by whom he had been noticed and caressed. He corresponded with Paoli in relation to it, and was in treaty with M. Joly, a bookseller of Dole, for its publication. Raynal, who read the manuscript, advised its completion; but some change of purpose prevented its being finished, and it is now lost. During his residence at Auxonne, in 1790, Napoleon wrote and printed a letter to Buttafoco, the Corsican deputy for the nobles in the National Assembly. It is a brilliant and powerful piece of argument and invective, strongly on the revolutionary side. It produced a marked impression, and was adopted and reprinted by the patriotic society at Ajaccio. While at Marseilles, in 1793, Napoleon wrote and published a political dialogue, called "The Supper of Beaucaire"—a judicious, sensible, and able essay, intended to allay the agitation then existing in that city. A copy of it was brought to him in later days, but seeing no advantage in reviving, under the circumstances of a different time, a production written for a temporary and local excitement, he ordered its suppression.

* * * * *

The Life of Calvin, by Paul Henry, has been translated from the German by the Rev. Dr. Henry Stebbing, of London, and we have the first of the two octavos of which it consists, from the press of Robert Carter & Brothers. So much inexcusable ignorance, so much perverse misrepresentation, so much insolent lying, may be found scattered through modern literature, respecting the great Genevan, that Dr. Henry deserves well the thanks of the christian world for exhibiting the chief facts of his history, so plainly that every partisan knave who would repeat the old slanders, shall be silent hereafter for very shame. John Calvin was unquestionably subject to the infirmities of our human nature; so was John Milton; but the inherent and indefectable greatness of these two men was such, that they dwell apart like stars, in glory scarcely approachable by mortal virtue or intelligence. John Calvin and John Milton were in an extraordinary degree the authors of modern institutions of liberty, and it would be difficult to decide which has most merit of this praise. The late Albert Gallatin was wont to say that when we celebrated our condition on the fourth of July, we should first drink to the memory of John Calvin, and then to the immediate authors of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Gallatin did not hold to all the dogmas of Calvin, but he could not speak of the creatures—like Dyer, for example—who employ their pennyworth of wit to prejudice the vulgar against him, without some signs of scorn. We can never forget his merciless characterization of a malicious feeble-mind, who in a book entitled A Monograph of Moral Sense, declared that Calvin never had enough humanity in his nature to select even one verse by the Evangelists for pulpit illustration,—though the Reformer really preached some folio volumes of commentaries upon the Gospels, preached from them as much as he did from any other portion of the Bible. This person—his name was Smith—was not more reckless of truth than it has been the fashion for anti-Calvinists to be, when writing of that great man and his doctrines, which they seem to have thought could be put down by petty libels.

Calvin is now being born into a new life, as it were; the critics and printers of each particular language are as busy with him as the English have been with Shakspeare. His amazing wit, and genius, and learning, are found as attractive and powerful now as they were three hundred years ago. And this life of him by Henry, embodying whatever of contemporary records is most needful for the illustration of his writings, will be likely to have a large sale with every class of historical students, as they discover that the popular and partisan notions of him are untrue. Certainly no one should attempt to form an opinion of Calvin without thoroughly acquainting himself with Henry.

* * * * *

In Paris, M. MILLER, librarian to the Assembly, has made an important discovery among some old Greek MSS. of a lost work by Origen. The Journal des Debats describes the original work as being in ten books; the first of which is already known to the world under the title of Philosophumena. The last seven books have just been printed at the university press in Oxford, under the editorial direction of M. Miller, who went to England for that purpose. They make an octavo volume of about three hundred and fifty pages. The Debats says the work is "a refutation of heresies, in which the author endeavors to prove that the heresiarchs have all taken their doctrines from the ancient philosophers:"—a very curious task for Origen to perform, since he was himself chiefly remarkable for the mixture of Zeno, Plato, and Aristotle, which he compounded with his Christianity. But apart from its controversial interest, the recovered manuscript will throw new light on the opinions and practices of the Neo-Platonists, and on the manners and customs of ancient times. Discoveries like this point out the necessity for a larger and more combined action of learned societies in the search for ancient manuscripts. Origen's Stromata might even yet be completed: and it is not to be supposed that all the existing fragments of his Hexapla were collected by Montfaucon.

* * * * *

From Constantinople we learn that very important discoveries of ancient Greek MSS. have been made, in a cave, near the foot of Mount Athos, bringing to light a vast quantity of celebrated works quoted by various ancient writers, and hitherto deemed entirely lost. They furnish, according to the accounts in the journals, an extensive list of proper names calculated to throw great light upon many obscure periods of history. Among these volumes, it is said, some are calculated to give a complete interpretation of hieroglyphic writing—the discoverer having already successfully applied them to the interpretation of the inscriptions engraved on the obelisk of the Hippodrome at Constantinople. This may be quite true, but such statements are to be received with some suspicion.

* * * * *

A literal prose translation of Homer, by Mr. T. A. Buckley, has just appeared in London. No prose version will cause any just notion of the spirit of Homer. Of the half dozen metrical translations published recently, we think that of our countryman Munford the best. Henry W. Herbert has given us parts of the Iliad in admirable style. No one, however, has yet equalled old Chapman—certainly not Pope nor Cowper. The most successful translation into a modern language is unquestionably the German one by Voss. Mure and Grote have written the ablest dissertations in English upon the Homeric controversy, but they are not poets, and could not if they would translate the great bard.

* * * * *

R. P. GILLIES, a contemporary of the great authors of the last age, has published in three volumes Memoirs of a Literary Veteran. More than half a century spent in the society of the lions of literature, could hardly fail to furnish a store of amusing anecdotes, and a sprinkling of interesting information. Mr. Gillies has also this advantage over many collectors of similar reminiscences, that he was not only an author among authors, but that his social position in early life gave him access to the best circles. Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, the Ettrick Shepherd, Rogers, Galt, Maginn, Haydon, and many more names of interest, figure frequently in his pages. Upon the whole, however, his work is tedious, and quite too much occupied with matters that can be entertaining only to his most intimate associates. Gillies was one of the early contributors to "Blackwood," and figured as "Kemperhausen" in the Noctes Ambrosianae. He was also the originator and first editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review, and was one of the first to make German literature familiar in England.

* * * * *

It appears that only the Harpers' edition of Lord HOLLAND'S Reminiscences is complete. The London copies are full of asterisks, marking the places of cancelled passages. The cancellings, it was suggested, were occasioned by the interposition of Lord John Russel. A correspondent of The Times, however, (understood to be Mr. Panizzi of the British Museum,) came out with a denial, saying "his lordship never saw a word of the Reminiscences till after they were published, and that no responsibility whatever could attach to him. I speak thus," he adds, "of my own knowledge, and beg to inclose my name as a voucher for the truth of this statement." The Athenaeum thinks that if Mr. Panizzi had said "printed" instead of "published," his voucher would have been less rashly ventured, as "Lord John did see the work before it was actually published, but not before it had been actually printed; and here, if we be not misinformed, arises a somewhat amusing contretemps, which is likely to render the cancels ineffectual. Lord John, in fact, had not the opportunity of interfering until the work had been so far published to the world that an 'uncancelled' copy, with all the passages since sought to be suppressed, had been dispatched to America beyond recall. The next American mail will, doubtless, supply us with the whole of the suppressed passages."

* * * * *

The meeting of the British Association, at Ipswich, is to commence on Wednesday, July the 2d, and extend over seven or eight days. The secretaries have received the names of several hundred intending visitors, among whom are Lucien Buonaparte, Sir R. Murchison, Sir H. de la Beche, Sir W. Jardine, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir David Brewster; Professors Daubeny, Silliman (of America), Owen, Ansted, and the celebrated naturalist, M. Lorrillier, a relative of the late Baron Cuvier.

* * * * *

Of the new book on Man's Nature and Development, by Miss Martineau and Mr. Atkinson, the Westminster Review for April says:

"Strange and wonderful is the power of self-delusion! Here we have two clever well-informed people, persuading themselves that they experience extraordinary raptures mingled with the most exquisite philosophic calm, from believing that unconscious matter is the cause of conscious thought, that the truest human affection is nothing worthier than the love of a spoonful of nitric acid for a copper half-penny, and that annihilation is the most satisfactory end of human life. From such views both the intellect and the heart of man will recoil with well-founded disgust—his logical powers will perceive the absurdity of the argument, and his taste and affections will lead him to exclaim with Wordsworth:—

——'Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn: So might I standing on this pleasant lea Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus, rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.'

"The new lights promised by our authors turn out to be chiefly composed of very old-fashioned rays of darkness, and, after a careful perusal, many will come to the conclusion that the way to be a modern philosopher, is to quote the ancients, praise Bacon, and talk 'bosh.'"

* * * * *

New editions of the works of Fielding and Smollett, profusely illustrated by Cruikshank and Kenny Meadows, will soon be published by Stringer & Townsend. These great classics will never cease to be read with the keenest relish by all the English race. The London publishers of the present edition of Fielding observe in their advertisement:

"It is altogether unnecessary to enlarge upon the genius of Henry Fielding. There is no man in the brilliant history of English literature, with the single exception of Shakspeare, to whose genius has been paid the homage of a more general attestation. Calumny and misrepresentation—the offspring of envy and malice—these, in his day, he had to endure or to deride, and these, with their authors, have long sunk into oblivion. The greatest of his contemporaries knew and acknowledged his transcendent merit, and since his death, there has not been one man of genius whose opinion of Fielding is recorded, that has not spoken of him with veneration and delight. Dr. Johnson, spite of a personal enmity, could not but concede his extraordinary powers. Lady Mary Wortley Montague reluctantly confessed that 'cousin Fielding' was the greatest original genius of the age; the fastidious Gray was charmed with him; and the more fastidious Gibbon has left his opinion on record, that the illustrious house of Hapsburg, from which Fielding was descended—its name erased, its towers crumbled,—will be forgotten, when the romance of Tom Jones shall flourish in eternal youth. If Coleridge classed him, as one of the true immortals, with Shakspeare, Goethe could not, nor was willing to contest, that he was so; if Byron could cheer his heart and refresh his mind with his pages, so can, and so does, Wordsworth. In a word, the matchless drawing of his characters, which are not likenesses from life, but copies from Nature—the one being a shallow art, the other a profoundly creative power—his exquisite wit, his abounding humor, his natural and manly pathos—in these no writer of narrative fiction has ever approached him.

"While, therefore, nothing can be less likely than that the fame of Fielding should ever be suffered to die, or that, as long as literature exists it can ever diminish, nothing can be more proper than to attempt to extend his popularity—a consummation inevitably to be effected by producing his works at a price accessible, and in a form attractive, to all classes. The late Rowland Hill once observed, that it was not fitting that the arch-enemy of mankind should have all the best tunes to himself. In a like spirit it may be remarked, that it ought not to be permitted to inferior writers to monopolize all the appliances and means of popularity that art can bestow. Accordingly, the proprietors have secured the hearty and zealous co-operation of Kenny Meadows. It would be invidious, and from the purpose, to institute a comparison between this gentleman and his contemporaries; but it may be asserted that no living artist has shown an equal versatility of genius, which points him out as the man best fitted to trace the many-colored life of Fielding. From the illustration, almost page by page, of Shakspeare, where is the man but would have shrunk? but that work of our artist has secured not merely an English, not only a European reputation, but a world-wide celebrity. The proprietors are assured, that from the hand of Kenny Meadows such an edition of Fielding will proceed as we have not yet seen, and shall not hereafter see."

* * * * *

Of Mr. JOHN BIGELOW'S work on Jamaica, (published a few weeks ago by Putnam,) the London Examiner of April 5th, remarks:

"It contains the most searching analysis of the present state of Jamaica, and, moreover, the most sagacious prognostications of the future prospects of the island that have ever been published. Mr. Bigelow is an accomplished, acute, and liberal American. As such, an eye-witness and a participator of the greatest and most successful colonial experiment which the world has ever seen, he is, necessarily, a better and more impartial judge of the subject he treats of than any Englishman of equal capacity and acquirement. Mr. Bigelow makes short and easy work of planters, attornies, book-keepers, sophistries, and Stanleys. In doing so, his language is invariably that of a man of education and a gentleman. He might have crushed them with a sledge-hammer, but he effects his purpose as effectually with a pass or two of a sharp and polished broad-sword."

* * * * *

The publication of a translation in the Bohemian language of Lamartine's History of the Girondins, has been recently prohibited at Prague by the Austrian authorities.

* * * * *

MACREADY, in retiring from the stage, had more honors showered upon him than ever before sweetened the leave-taking of any hero of the buskin: among them, this dedication of George Sand's latest publication, Le Chateau des Desertes, which is now appearing in La Revue des Deux Mondes:

"To W. C. MACREADY:—This little work, attempting to set forth certain ideas on Dramatic Art, I place under the protection of a great name, and of an honorable friendship.

GEORGE SAND."



* * * * *

The first volume of The Stones of Venice, by Mr. RUSKIN, has been republished by Mr. Wiley, and we trust it will have a very large sale in this country, which was never in greater need of instructions upon any subject than it is now upon that of architecture. In all our cities there is remarkable activity in building; the surplus wealth of the American people is largely applied for the increase of the magnificence of town and country residences—for the most part so ignorantly applied, that the Genius of Architecture might almost be frightened from our shores by the spectacles reared here to vex and astonish the next ages. To bring about a reform, to lead the way for rationalism, in the noblest of the practical arts, Mr. Ruskin has approved himself worthy by his previous works. The Stones of Venice will increase the fame won by his "Modern Painters." The Literary Gazette says:

"It is a book for which the time is ripe, and it cannot fail to produce the most beneficial results, directly and indirectly, on our national architecture. The low condition into which that has fallen has been long felt. Mr. Ruskin has undertaken to lead us back to the first principles of the art, and, in doing so, to enable every reader who will bestow the necessary attention to his exposition, to discover for himself the causes of this decline, and to master the principles, by attention to which, the significance and dignity of the art may be restored. The subject is one of the widest interest; but it has been so hedged about with technical difficulties as to debar from its study all who had not more leisure, more perseverance, and more money, than fall to the lot of the majority of even cultivated minds. At once popular and profound, this book will be gratefully hailed by a circle of readers even larger than Mr. Ruskin has found for his previous works. He has so written as to catch the ear of all kinds of persons: 'Every man,' he says truly, 'has at some time of his life personal interest in architecture. He has influence on the design of some public building; or he has to buy, or build, or alter his own house. It signifies less, whether the knowledge of other arts be general or not; men may live without buying pictures or statues; but in architecture all must in some way commit themselves; they must do mischief, and waste their money, if they do not know how to turn it to account. Churches, and shops, and warehouses, and cottages, and small row, and place, and terrace houses, must be built and lived in, however joyless and inconvenient. And it is assuredly intended that all of us should have knowledge, and act upon our knowledge, in matters in which we are daily concerned, and not be left to the caprice of architects, or mercy of contractors."

"Those who live in cities are peculiarly dependent for enjoyment upon the beauty of its architectural features. Shut out from mountain, river, lake, forest, cliff, and hedgerow, they must either find in streets and squares food for pleasant contemplation, or be drawn into indifference by meaningless, ill-proportioned, or unsightly forms. 'We are forced,' says Mr. Ruskin, 'for the sake of accumulating our power and knowledge, to live in cities; but such advantage as we have in association with each other, is in great part counterbalanced by our loss of fellowship with nature. We cannot all have our gardens now, nor our pleasant fields to meditate in at eventide. Then the function of our architecture is, as far as may be, to replace these; to tell us about nature; to possess us with memories of her quietness; to be solemn and full of tenderness like her, and rich in portraitures of her; full of delicate imagery of the flowers we can no more gather, and of the living creatures now far away from us in their own solitude. If ever you felt or found this in a London street; if ever it furnished you with one serious thought, or any ray of true and gentle pleasure; if there is in your heart a true delight in its green railings, and dark casements, and wasteful finery of shops, and feeble coxcombry of club-houses, it is well; promote the building of more like them. But if they never taught you any thing, and never made you happier as you passed beneath them, do not think they have any mysterious goodness of occult sublimity. Have done with the wretched affectation, the futile barbarism, of pretending to enjoy; for, as surely as you know that the meadow grass, meshed with fairy rings, is better than the wood pavement cut into hexagons; and as surely as you know the fresh winds and sunshine of the upland are better than the choke-damp of the vault, or the gaslight of the ball-room, you may know that the good architecture which has life, and truth, and joy in it, is better than the bad architecture, which has death, dishonesty, and vexation of heart in it from the beginning to the end of time.

"To show what this good architecture is, how it is produced, and to what end, is the object of the present volume. It is, consequently, purely elementary, and introductory merely to the illustration, to be furnished in the next volume from the architectural riches of Venice, of the principles, to the development of which it is devoted. Beginning from the beginning, Mr. Ruskin carries his reader through the whole details of construction with an admirable clearness of exposition, and by a process which leaves him at the close in a position to apply the principles which he has learned by the way, and to form an intelligent and independent judgment upon any form of architectural structure. The argument of the book hangs too closely together to be indicated by extracts, or by an analysis within the limits to which we are confined."

We perceive that the work of which the first volume is here noticed, is to be followed immediately by Examples of the Architecture of Venice, selected and drawn to measurement from the edifices, by Mr. Ruskin: to be completed in twelve parts, of folio imperial size, price one guinea each. These will not be reproduced in this country, and as the author probably has little advantage from the American editions of his works, we trust that for his benefit as well as for the interests of art, the Examples will be largely imported.

* * * * *

The new play written by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, as his contribution towards the fund raising for the new Literary Institute, is in the hands of the literary and artistic amateurs by whom it is to be enacted, and rehearsals are in progress. The first performance will take place probably in June.

* * * * *

It was a custom when the world was younger than it is now, for disappointed lovers, and outlaws, and portionless youths too proud to labor and afraid to steal, to go into the wars; nobility, that would not suffer them to become journeymen mechanics, led them to hire out as journeymen butchers. But at length the field of military adventure is almost every where closed. There is no region, ever so remote, where a spirited and adventurous youth could hope ever to learn the art martial. A few skirmishes on the Parana and the Plata, on the Fish River, or the Keiskamma, form all the fighting that is going on upon the globe; and that fighting offers no premium to the adventurer. There is no native prince of great wealth and numerous followers, no mogul, or sultan, or sikh, with whom the turbulent European might make a good bargain for his courage. The last field for such enterprise was the country of the Mahrattas, where French and English mercenaries—with a sprinkling of Americans—created a colony which enabled the ignorant, bigoted and jealous savages to keep in check the best European armies. A Frenchman named Person was a pioneer in the business. He was succeeded by the Savoyard, De Boigne, whose statue now adorns the principal square of Chamberry. James Skinner, whose Memoirs have just been published in London by the novelist and traveler Mr. Bailie Fraser, began a similar career under De Boigne. Some idea may be formed of the Mahratta army, when the Peishwa at times brought 100,000 horse into the field. A trusted officer, as Skinner afterwards became, might thus command a division of twenty, thirty, or forty thousand men, equal in fact to the largest European armies in the last century. When men played with such tools as these, it may be easily imagined how they themselves rose and fell; how empires crumbled, or were reared anew. When Wellesley and Loke overthrew the Mahrattas, Skinner entered the British service, and it appears from the book before us that he died in 1836 a knight of the Bath.

* * * * *

"Hitherto," says M. de Sainte Beuve, "the real learning of women has been found to be pretty much the property of their lovers;" and he ridicules the notion that even Mrs. Somerville has any scholarship that would win the least distinction for a man. It may be so. We see, however, that a Miss FANNY CORBAUX has lately communicated to the Syro-Egyptian Society in London a very long and ambitious paper On the Raphaim and their connexion with Egyptian History, in which she quotes Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, &c., with astonishing liberality.

* * * * *

Carlyle's translation of the Apprenticeship and Travels of Wilhelm Meister, has been issued in a very handsome edition, by Ticknor, Reed & Fields, of Boston.

* * * * *

Mr. Macaulay has been passing the Winter and Spring in Italy.

* * * * *

The Late Mr. John Glanville Taylor, an Englishman, left in MS. a work upon The United States and Cuba, which has just been published by Bentley, and is announced for republication by Mr. Hart of Philadelphia. Mr. Taylor was born in 1810, and when about twenty-one years of age he left Liverpool for the United States, on a mining speculation. After travelling a few months in this country, he was induced to go to Cuba to examine a gold vein of which he thought something might be made. The place in Cuba which was to be the scene of his operations, was the neighborhood of Gibara, on the north-eastern side of the island, which he reached by sailing from New-York to St. Jago de Cuba, and travelling across the island forty-five leagues. The gold vein turned out a wretched failure; and, after having been put to some disagreeable shifts to maintain himself, Mr. Taylor resolved to settle as a planter in Holguin—the district to which Gibara forms the port of entry. Returning to the United States, he made the necessary arrangements; and in the summer of 1843, was established on his hacienda, in partnership with an American who had been long resident in that part of the island. In this and the following year, however, the east of Cuba was visited by an unprecedented drought; causing famine which, though it destroyed many lives and ruined thousands of proprietors, attracted no more attention, he says, in England, than was implied by "a paragraph of three lines in an English newspaper." The west of Cuba was at the same time devastated by a tremendous hurricane, accompanied by floods; and, all his Cuban prospects being thus blasted, the author was glad to return to New-York in September, 1845, whence, after a short stay, he returned to England. He did not long, however, remain in his native country, but left it for Ceylon, where he died suddenly in January, of the present year. His United States and Cuba: Eight Years of Change and Travel, was left in MS., and within a few weeks has been printed. It is a work of much less value than Mr. Kimball's Cuba and the Cubans, published in New-York last year. Of that very careful and judicious performance Mr. Taylor appears to have made considerable use in the preparation of his own, and his agreement with Mr. Kimball may be inferred from the fact that, though pointedly protesting that he does not advocate the annexation of Cuba to the United States, he holds that "worse things might happen,"—and indeed hints that sooner or later the event is inevitable. Of Cuba and the Cubans, we take this opportunity to state that a new and very much improved edition will soon be issued by Mr. Putnam.

* * * * *

Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley has in the press of Bentley her Travels in the United States. She passed about two years, we believe, in this country. She has written several books, in verse and prose, but we never heard that any body had read one of them.

* * * * *

The Nile Notes, by Mr. CURTIS, have been republished in London by Bentley, and the book is as much approved by English as by American critics. The Daily News says:

"The author is evidently a man of great talent."

Leigh Hunt, in his Journal, that—

"It is brilliant book, full of thought and feeling."

The Athenaeum, that—

"The author of Nile Notes, we may now add, is richly poetical, humorous, eloquent, and glowing as the sun, whose southern radiance seems to burn upon his page. An affluence of fancy which never fails, a choice of language which chastens splendor of expression by the use of simple idioms, a love for the forms of art whether old or new, and a passionate enjoyment of external nature such as belongs to the more poetic order of minds—are the chief characteristics of this writer."

The Literary Gazette—

"The genial and kindly spirit of this book, the humor and vivacity of personal descriptions, redeemed by an exquisite choice of expression from the least taint of the common or the coarse; the occasional melody and music of the diction, cadenced, as it were, by the very grace and tenderness of the thought it clothes, or the images of beauty it evokes; the broad, easy touches, revealing as at a glance the majestic and tranquil features of the Eastern landscape, and the ultimate feeling of all its accessories of form and hue; the varied resources of learning, tradition, poetry, romance, with which it is not encumbered but enriched, as a banquet table with festal crowns and sparkling wines—all these, and many other characteristics, to which our space forbids us to do justice, render these 'Nile Notes' quite distinct from all former books of Eastern travel, and worthy 'to occupy the intellect of the thoughtful and the imagination of the lively.' Never did a wanderer resign his whole being with more entire devotion to the silence and the mystery that brood, like the shadow of the ages, over that dead, dumb land. A veritable lotus-eater is our American Howadji!'"