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Authors and Books.

GUTZKOW's Ritter vom Geiste (Knights of the Spirit) is at last finished, the ninth volume having made its appearance. It has faults of detail, and there are deficiences in spots, but as a whole it is praised as eminently successful, and truly a new work. The idea in some respects recalls the Wilhelm Meister of Goethe, and the Nathan the Wise of Lessing, but the execution has more force and a larger and more imperious movement than either. The Knights of the Spirit are a body of men who are combined in an order to which they give that name, and this book is their history and that of the order. At the same time there is nothing mystical, supernatural, or merely fantastic about it, though its spirit is humanitary and even socialistic. The scene is in modern times, but though the names of the heroes are German, and the circumstances in which they are placed German, the author has succeeded in producing a truly cosmopolitan romance. The nine volumes are sold in Germany for about $8 00.

A NEW contribution to an obscure but most interesting part of European history is Deutschland in der Revolutions periode von 1522-26, (Germany, in the Revolutionary Period from 1522 to 26,) by JOSEPH EDMUND JöRG. The author has had access to a great mass of original and hitherto unused materials, especially diplomatic correspondence and other documents in the Bavarian archives. His view of the subject is very dif ferent from that taken by ZIMMERMANN, in his Peasants' War, or by any other writer. He mocks at the idea that this revolution grew out of the evils and oppressions suffered by the people, and finds its most powerful im pulse in the passion for innovation that sprung up along with the revival of classical . studies in the middle ages.

THE antique fashion of presenting poetic works to the public, is revived in Germany with great success. Professor GRIEPENKERL of Brunswick, whose tragedy of Robespierre made a great sensation a year or more since, HENRY TAYLOR, the author of Philip Van is now reading his new play of the GironArtevelde, is the subject of an article in the dists to large audiences in the principal cities. Grenzboten. The writer takes him, as the ac- He has already been heard at Brunswick, knowledged first living dramatic poet of Eng- Leipzig, Dresden, and Bremen, and proposes land, to be the best illustration of the nature to visit other places on the same errand. The and characteristics of the English drama. play, which is a tragedy of course, is much This drama is said to be more remarkable for admired, though it is not thought to be adaptsharply-outlined and detailed characters, thaned to the stage. The Girondists were not for the invention of exciting and consistent men of action, but orators and thinkers. The action. The characters in all their peculiari- final scene in the play is the famous banquet ties are first created, and situations are made before they were taken to execution. Charand arranged for them afterward. The evil lotte Corday is among the characters; the of this is, that the whole thus becomes frag- women are said not to be drawn as truly and mentary, and the particulars outweigh and powerfully as the men. obscure the general spirit and intention of the piece. Even Shakspeare, with his gigantic genius, was not free from this defect. His Merry Wives of Windsor, for instance, is rich in comic situations and figures, but they are arbitrarily put together, and every scene has the character of an episode; the action does not go forward in a true and consistent course. Now-a-days the evil is worse, because it is the fashion to substitute reflection for natural feeling. Taylor is like those portrait painters who paint the features so carefully as to destroy the general character of the face. His men and women are not alive and genuine. Still their language is grave and noble, their thoughts comprehensive, often striking, and their emotions, though artificial, are elaborated with great insight and knowledge of the world. Compared with the wretched creations of the French romanticists, they are worthy of all praise. The critic then proceeds to analyze Isaac Comnenus, Philip Van Atevelde, and Fair Edwin, setting forth with great fairness the excellencies and faults of each.

CARLYLE'S Life of Stirling is criticised in the Grenzboten, which calls Carlyle the strangest of all philosophers. This book is said, however, to be, on the whole, clearer and more intelligible than most of his former productions. Still, like most works of the new romantic school in England, of which Carlyle is the chief, it aims rather to give expression to the ideas and abilities of the author, than to do justice to its subject. But it is in Warren's Lily and the Bee, that the school appears in full bloom. This is said to consist mostly of exclamation points, and is written in a sort of lapidary style, that deals in rid-. dles, pathos without object, sentimentality with irony, world-pain, and allusions to all the kingdoms of heaven and earth, without any explanation as to what relation these allusions bear to each other, and with a Titanic pessimism as its predominating tone, which first rouses itself up to take all by storm, and finishes by being soothed into happy intoxication by the odors of a lily. This is better treatment than The Lily and the Bee gets at home.

In the second volume of Shakspeare as Protestant, Politician, Psychologist and Poet, by DR. ED. VENSE-spoken of as being "even more uninteresting than the first," we find the two following extraordinary ideas. Firstly, that Shakspeare followed a theory of physical temperaments in his charactersthat Hamlet was a representative of the melancholy or nervous, Othello of the choleric, Romeo of the sanguine, and Falstaff of the phlegmatic. Secondly, that in Falstaff, Shakspeare parodied-himself! Or to give his own words, "We may suppose that Shakspeare's physical constitution inclined to corpulence, and inspired in him the disposition to the life of a bon vivant. His intimacy with the Earl of Southampton may have favored this disposition, since they led for a long time a dissipated tavern-life, and were ri vals in love matters!" The work is principally made up of extracts from Shakspeare's plays, to every which extract we find appended "How admirable,"-" Excellent," and similar aids to those who are not familiar with the English bard.

WE Commend to the attention of philologists Das Gothische Runenalphabet, (or The Gothic Runic Alphabet,) recently published by HERTZ of Berlin. "Before Wulfila, the Goths had an alphabet of twenty-five letters, formed according to the same principles, and bearing nearly the same names as the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons and Northmen, and probably arranged in the same order of succession. Wulfila adopted the Grecian alphabet, which through his modification was received by the Goths to the old twenty-five letters." This is the theory propounded in the work, which is not wanting, as we learn, in instructive information. In connection with this we may notice a book which has been deemed worthy of a modern English republication in elegant style, the often referred to Scriptural Poems of CEDMON, in Anglo-Saxon, an edition of which, by R. W. BoUTERWEK, with an Anglo-Saxon Glossary, has recently been published by Bædehier of Elberfeldt.

THE Preussische Zeitung states that M. HANKE, a learned Bohemian, is publishing, in Prague, a fac-simile of the Gospels on which the Kings of France have always been sworn at their coronation at Rheims. The manuscript volume is in the Slavonian language, and has been preserved at Rheims ever since the twelfth century, but it has only been lately discovered in what language it was written.

THE eleventh volume of the Monumenta Germania Historica inde ab anno Christi 500 usque ad annum 1500 auspiciis societ, aperiendis fontibus serum German medii ævi edid, G. H. PERTZ, has just made its appearance. This work is regarded as a stupendous effort of erudition and historical acumen, even in Germany.

VOL. V.-NO. II.-18

DR. HAGBERG, a professor at the University of Upsal, has just published at Stockholm a version of the complete works of Shakspeare, the first ever made in the Swedish language. It is in twelve thick octavo volumes. The Shaksperian Society of London having received a presentation copy of this translation, has returned a vote of thanks to Dr. Hagberg, accompanied by forty volumes of the Society's publications, all relating to the great dramatist and the state of dramatic art in his time.

DUNLOP'S History of Fiction has been translated into German by Professor Liebrecht of Liege, and enlarged so as to be much more complete than the original. The version bears the title of Geschichte der Prosadichtung oder, Geschichte der Romane, Novellen und Mährchen (History of Prose Poetry, or History of Romances, Novels and Traditional Tales). It gives a complete account of the most prominent fictions from the Greek romances down to the present day, and is quite as valuable for those who like to take their novels condensed, as for those who make a historical study of literature.

HOLTEI, the German poet, has published a four-volume novel, called Die Vagabunden (The Vagabonds). It is a curious and successful book. It treats of the various classes that get their living by amusing others, not merely of theatrical and musical artists, but of cir cus-riders, ventriloquists, jugglers, rope-dancers, puppet-showmen, &c. Indeed, actors and musicians are only introduced casually, while the lower classes, if we may so call them, of wandering artists, make up the book; and they make it up not in the form of caricature or exaggerations, but as genuine living cha racters, with the faults and virtues that really belong to men of their respective professions The story is a good one, and is varied with all sorts of strange adventures.

IN poetry we observe the attractive titleof The Eolian Harp of the World's Poetry, a collection of poems of all countries and ages, "dedicated to German ladies and maidens," by FERD. SCHMIDT. Also by the same collector, a Household Treasury of the most beautiful Ballads, Romances, and Poetic Legends of all Times and Nations; by BRUNO LINDNER, Four Tales, and from the Countess AGNES SCHWERIN, & new edition of What I heard from the Bird. Were we confident that the Countess were intimately familiar with English poetry, we should feel half inclined to accuse her of having taken this title from

“High diddle ding, I heard a bird sing." G. PUSLITZ has "thrown forth," as Bacchus threw the wreath of Ariadne, a “garland of Stories," entitled What the Forest Tells. Whether, like the wreath alluded to, it will reach the stars, we must leave our readers or his to decide.

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IN Science, we observe the publication of NIEHL's Burgerliche Gesellschaft (Civil Soa piece of eccentric nonsense such as ema- ciety) is greatly praised by critics, as the most nates at the present day only from a weak valuable work lately published in Germany, brother in Germany, or occasionally from a or indeed in Europe, upon the State of Sowould-be original in New England. The ciety and the causes operating to change it. work to which we refer is the Natur und Especially good are its pictures of the differGeist (or Nature and Spirit) of DR. JOHANN ent classes in Germany, such as the nobility, RICHERS. In the second volume he attempts the peasantry, the industrious middle class, to utterly overwhelm, confound, and destroy and the proletaries. These pictures are said Newton's Theory of Attraction, by such an to have the minuteness and fidelity of daargument as the following." "Let any man guerreotypes. The chapter on the "proletajump from a height, in descending he feels ries of intellectual labor," gives any thing but no attraction to the Earth. How hasty and a flattering account of the literary classes on absurd therefore is it to attribute the move-the continent. Those classes are held up as ment in question to such an attraction! in a great measure perverted, empty, and dangerous. Niehl divides Society in Germany A NEW collection of German Domestic Le-into four great classes, namely: the peasangends (Haus Mährchen) has been published try, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie or midat Leipzig, by J. W. WOLF, distinguished dle class, and the proletariat, or mere laborGerman philologist. His Legends closely re-ers for wages. The last he regards as the semble those collected by Grimm, and, like decaying and corrupting class, a sort of scum them, are curious and instructive. He ob-in hot effervesence. This is, however, one tained them, one from a Gipsey, others from of the classes that produce social movement; peasants in the mountain districts, and others from some companies of Hessian soldiers. He remarks that many such ancient legends are yet floating about among the German people, and that they ought to be collected before they are lost.

the other is the middle class; the conservative or stationary classes are the peasantry and aristocracy. The learned professions he reckons among the middle class. He makes no distinction between the proletaries who live by the soil, and those who live by working in connection with manufactures and mechanical trades.

ZEND AVESTA, or On the things of Heaven and the World beyond the Grave, is the title of a new book in three volumes just publish- ANOTHER Contribution to Goethean literaed at Leipzig, in German, of course, by Gus-ture is the Correspondence between the great TAV THEODOR FECHNOR. The author attempts Poet and his intimate friend Knebel, which to prove the possibility, if not the certainty, has just appeared in Germany in two volof a future life of the individual after death.umes. The letters extend from 1774 to 1832, His demonstrations are drawn from the anal- and contain the free expression of Goethe's ogies of the natural world. He exhibits a opinions on a great variety of important subwide acquaintance with nature and with lite-jects, as well as many interesting particulars rature, but is not thought to have made any in his personal history, hitherto unknown. positive additions to psychological science.

Mr. WETZSTEIN, Prussian Consul at DaTHOSE who are conversant with the curi-mascus, has returned to Europe, bringing a osities of the Middle Ages, and have read the valuable collection of Arabic, Turkish and entertaining history of "Ye Nigromancer Persian manuscripts, which he expects to sell Virgilius," in which the Mantuan bard lives to the Royal Library at Berlin. Of especial no longer in the magic of song, but that of value is a history of Persia during the fifliteral sorcery, will peruse with pleasure the teenth and sixteenth centuries, which casts Virgil's Fortleben im Mittelalter, or The light on several portions of Persian history Life of Virgil continued in the Middle Ages, that have hitherto been obscure. by G. RAPPERT. Of all the wild romantic legends which the romantic time brought forth, none surpass in singularity and interest this singular narration.

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

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

DR. MAYO'S Berber has been translated into the German by Mr. L. DUBOIS, and published at Leipzig.

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

GERMAN Historical Literature has lately We learn from the last number of the been enriched by numerous valuable works. Journal Asiatique, that M. WOPCKE, a matheAmong these we notice WENCK's Fränkische matician who devotes himself to Arabic Reich (Frankish Empire), which treats that studies, has discovered in some Arabic manusubject, from A. D. 843 to 861, with instruc- scripts two works purporting to be by Euclid, tive thoroughness and philosophical insight; which have not been preserved in the Greek two essays by FICKER, the one on Reinhald original, nor are any where referred to as von Dassel, the Chancellor of Ferdinand I., his by ancient mathematical writers. One is and the other on the attempt of Henry VI. a treatise on the lever, and the other on the to render the German empire hereditary; division of planimetric figures. The authenARNTHEN'S History of Carinthia; RINK's ticity of the two is thought to be perfectly Tirol; PALAZKY's History of Bohemia; M1-established by collateral evidence. NUTOLI'S History of the Elector Frederic I.; RIEDEL'S Ten years of the History of the An- THE Hungarian author, Baron Eötvös, has cestors of the Royal House of Prussia; the just published a work called Ueber den EinHistory of Schleswig Holstein, by GEORGE fluss der Neuen Ideen auf den Staat (On the WAITZ; RUCKERT's Annals of German His-influence of new ideas upon the State). He tory; G. PHILIP's Outlines of the History of the German Empire and German Law; GENGLER'S History of German Law; the Coins of the German Emperors and Kings in the Middle Ages, a large work by CAPPE; the Celts and Ancient Helvetians, by J. B. BROZI; and the Campaigns of the Bavarians from 1643 to 1645, by J. HEILMANN; MAYR's Mann von Rinn (Man of Rinn) deserves special mention. The man of Rinn is Joseph Speckbacher, the hero of the war of 1809 in the Tyrol. His deeds, and those of his countrymen, are here narrated in a style as attractive as the facts are authentic.

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

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

A SECOND edition of ADOLF STAHR's Preussische Revolution, has appeared in Germany, revised by the author and dedicated to Macaulay. No recent book in Germany has been more successful than this.

argues that the students of social and political science should confine themselves strictly to the method received in the natural sciences, and employed there with such success ; first establish what are the genuine experimental phenomena, and then by induction settle the law which produces and governs them.

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

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

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

THE REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER'S Life in the Sandwich Islands (noticed by us lately in the International), is reprinted in London, by Bentley, and translated in German for a publisher at Berlin.

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

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

MAX SCHLESINGER's Wanderings through London are announced at Berlin; the first volume is already published. One of the chapters treats of "Linkoln's-In-Fields." seven volumes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIXTEEN German books were prohibited in Russia in August last; among them were FONTAINE's Poems, GÖRRE's Christian Mysticism, KUTZ's Manual of Sacred History, SCHMIDT'S Death of Lord Byron, KINKEL'S Truth without Poetry, and STRAUSS's Life Questions. Of eleven other works, a few pages from each were prohibited; among these was the German version of Lieutenant LYNCH'S United States Expedition to the Jordan and the Dead Sea. These works are allowed to enter Russia after having the objectionable pages cut out.

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

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

THE historical remains and letters of GEORGE SPALATIN have been published at Weimar. They are a valuable addition to the history of the Reformation.

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

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