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

Frankfort, in 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 _Hägringar_, 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 _Hägringar_. 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,

Eutryanthe_, 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.

It 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.

A remarkable contribution to our knowledge of China, is M. BIOT’s recent

translation of the book called _Tscheu-li_. It seems that in the twelfth

century before Christ, the second dynasty that had ruled the country, that

of _Thang_, fell by its own vices, and the empire passed into the hands of

Wu-wang, the head of the princely family of _Tscheu-li_. Wu-wang was a

great soldier and statesman; he confided to his brother Tscheu-Kong, a man

evidently of extraordinary political genius, the moral and administrative

reformation of the empire. He first laid the foundation of a reform in

moral ideas by an addition to the Y-King or sacred book, which the Chinese

revere and incessantly study, but which still remains an unintelligible

mystery for Europeans. Of his administrative reforms a complete record is

preserved in the _Tscheu-li_, and nothing could be easier to understand.

When the Tscheus thus came into power, they found in existence a powerful

feudal aristocracy, from which they themselves proceeded, and which they

must tolerate. Accordingly, they recognized within the imperial dominions

sixty-three federal jurisdictions, which were hereditary, but whose rulers

were obliged to administer according to the laws and methods of the

empire. Having made this concession, they abolished all other hereditary

offices, and established instead, a vast system of centralization, such as

the world has never seen equalled elsewhere. The administration, according

to the _Tscheu-li_, is divided among six ministries, which were also

divided into sections, and the executive functions descend regularly and

systematically to the lowest official, and include the entire movement of

society. The emperor and the feudal princes are restrained by formalities

and usage, as well as by the expression of disapprobation; and the

officials of every grade by their hierarchical dependency, and by a system

of incessant oversight; and finally, the people by proscription, and the

education, industrial, as well as mental and moral, which the State

dispenses to them. The sole idea in which this astonishing system rests,

is that of the State, whose office is to care for all that can contribute

to the public good, and which regulates the action of every individual

with a view to this end. In his organization, Tscheu-Kong excelled every

thing that the most centralized governments of Europe have devised.

The Tscheu family remained in power for five centuries, and was finally

broken down by the feudal element they had preserved. But so deep was the

impress of Tscheu-Kong upon the nation, that after centuries of

revolutions and civil war, it returned to his institutions and principles,

and it is by them and in a great degree in their exact forms, that China

is now governed.

In form the _Tscheu-li_ is like an imperial almanac of our own times. It

is, however, much more complete, because Tscheu-Kong gives in it a mass of

detailed instructions, in order to make the officials aware of their

duties and the precise limits of their authority. Thus the work affords a

quite exact picture of the social condition of China at that time. There

is no other monument of antiquity with which it can be compared, except

the _Manus_, the Indian book of law. The difference is, that in China the

intellectual activity was altogether political, and the public

organization altogether imperial and political; while in India the mental

activity was metaphysical, and the public organization altogether

municipal.

The translation of the _Tscheu_ was not published till after M. Biot’s

decease; it was brought out by his father, with the assistance of M.

Stanislas Julien.

The library of the famous Cardinal Mezzofanti is about to be sold, and the

catalogue is already printed—in Italian, of course. It is one of the most

extensive and valuable collection of works in various languages ever made,

and it is to be hoped that it may not be disposed of at the sale, but pass

all together into some public library—that of some university would be

most appropriate. To indicate the contents of the catalogue, we give the

titles of the different parts: Books in Albanian or Epirotic, Arabic,

Armenian, American (Indian dialects of Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru,

United States), Bohemian, Chaldaic, Chinese (Cochin-Chinese, Trin-Chinese,

Japanese), Danish (Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Laplandic), Hebrew

(Antique, Rabbinic, Samaritan), Egyptian, or Coptic-Egyptian and Coptic,

Arabic, Etrusean, Phœnician, Flemish, French (Breton-French,

Lorraine-French, Provençal), Gothic and Visi-Gothic, and Greek and

Greek-Latin, Modern Greek, Georgian or Iberian, Cretian or Rhetian,

Illyrian, Indo-oriental (Angolese, Burmese or Avian, Hindostanee, Malabar,

Malayan, Sanscrit), English (Arctic, Breton or Celtic, Scotch-Celtic,

Scotch, Irish, Welch), Italian (Fineban dialect, Maltese, Milanese,

Sardinian, Sicilian), Kurdistanee or Kurdic, Latin, Maronite and Syriac

Maronite, Oceanic (Australian), Dutch, Persian, Polish, Portuguese

(various dialects), Slavonian (Carniolan, Serbian, Ruthenian,

Slavo-Wallachian), Syriac, Spanish (Catalan, Biscayan), Russian, Turkish,

Hungarian, Gipsey.

The French historian MICHELET, deprived of his professorship in the

College of France, is devoting himself more than ever to literature. His

last work, of which an authorized translation has just appeared in London,

is _The Martyrs of Russia_.

MICHEL NICOLAS, one of the ablest among the French theologico-ethical

writers, has published a translation of the _Considerations on the Nature

and Historical Developments of Christian Philosophy_, by Dr. RITTER, of

the University of Gottingen.

M. SCHONENBERGER, a music-publisher at Paris, has purchased from the heirs

of Paganini the copyright of his works, and is now publishing them, under

the editorial supervision of M. ACHILLE PAGANINI, the son of the great

violinist. The edition will comprise every thing that he left behind in

writing. Hector Berlioz speaks with enthusiasm in the _Journal des Debats_

of the two grand concertos which have just appeared, one of them

containing the marvellous rondo of the _campanella_. Berlioz speaks in

high praise of Paganini’s genius as a composer. A volume would be

required, he says, to indicate the new effects, the ingenious methods, the

grand and noble forms which he discovered, and even the orchestral

combinations, which before him were not suspected. In spite of the rapid

progress which, thanks to Paganini, the violin is making at the present

day in respect of mechanical execution, his compositions are yet beyond

the skill of most violinists, and in reading them it is hardly possible to

conceive how their author was able to execute them. Unfortunately he was

not able to transmit to his successors the vital spark which animated and

rendered _human_ those astonishing prodigies of mechanism.

M. PHILARETE CHASLES, one of the literary critics of the _Journal des

Debats_, has published, at Paris, a book called _Etudes sur la Litterateur

et les Mæurs des Anglo-Americanis_, which abounds in those curious

blunders that some French authors seem to be destined to when they write

upon topics connected with foreign countries. For instance, he makes the

pilgrims of Plymouth to have been the founders of Philadelphia, New-York,

and Boston. Buffalo he sets down opposite to Montreal, speaks of the

puritans of Pennsylvania as near neighbors of Nova Scotia, and extends

Arkansas to the Rocky Mountains. At New-York his regret is that a railroad

has destroyed the beauty of Hoboken, and at New Orleans he laments that

marriages between whites and Creoles are interdicted. Of Cooper, Irving,

Bryant, Audubon, and Longfellow, he speaks in terms of just praise, but

Willis is not mentioned. Bancroft and Hildreth are mentioned as

historians, Prescott is spoken of briefly in connection with his Ferdinand

and Isabella, while his other works are not alluded to. To Herman

Melville, M. Chasles devotes fifty pages, while Mr. Ticknor has not even

the honor of a mention. The author of this work is very far from doing

justice either to American literature or to himself.

Five of the nine intended volumes of LAFUENTE’S _General History of Spain_

from the remotest times to the present day, have appeared in Paris.

In Paris a new edition is announced of the best French versions of

FENIMORE COOPER’S works—six or eight illustrated volumes.

M. GUIZOT is about to publish a new volume at Paris, with the title of

_Shakspeare et son Temps_ (Shakspeare and his Times). It is to be composed

of his Life of Shakspeare, and the articles that he has written at various

times upon different plays. The only novelty in it is a notice on Hamlet

which was prepared expressly for this publication. He regards both Macbeth

and Othello as better dramas than Hamlet, but thinks the last contains

more brilliant examples of Shakspeare’s sublimest beauties and grossest

faults. "Nowhere," says Guizot, "has he unveiled with more originality,

depth and dramatic effect, the inmost state of a great soul: but nowhere

has he more abandoned himself to the caprices, terrible or burlesque, of

his imagination, and to that abundant intemperance of a mind pressed to

get out its ideas without choosing among them, and bent on rendering them

striking by a strong, ingenious, and unexpected mode of expression,

without any regard to their truth and natural form." The French critic

also thinks that on the stage the effect of Hamlet is irresistible.

A Capital work on Paris has just been published at Berlin, from the pen of

FRIEDRICH SZARVADY, a Hungarian, who has resided for several years in

Paris. The titles of the chapters are:—Paris in Paris; Strangers in Paris;

Parisian Women; Street Eloquence; the Temple of Jerusalem (the Bourse);

Salons and Conversation; Dancing, Song, and Flowers; the Ball at the Grand

Opera; Artist Life; the Press; the Feuilleton; History on a Public Square;

Lamartine, Cavaignac, Thiers; Louis Bonaparte. Szarvady observes sharply,

and writes with as much grace and _esprit_ as a Frenchman. Nothing can be

more taking than his pages. They deserve a translation from the German

into English.

VILLERGAS, the Spanish historian, who in one of his recent works drew a

parallel between Espartero and Narvaez which excited great attention at

Madrid and in other parts of Spain, has just been condemned by the court

which has charge of the offences of the press, to a fine of twenty

thousand reals, or twenty-five hundred dollars, for the sin against public

order and private character contained in that parallel.

An interesting and valuable series of articles reviewing historically the

systems of land tenure which have prevailed in different countries, is

appearing in the _Journal des Débats_ from the pen of M. HENRY TRIANON.

The systems of India and China have already been examined.

The termagant wife of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton has just published _The

School for Husbands_, a novel founded on the life and times of Moliere.

Probably her own husband is shot at in all the chapters.

The books on modern French history would already fill an Alexandrian

library, and every month produces new ones. M. LEONARD GALLOIS, a

well-known historical writer, announces a _History of the Revolution of

February, 1848_, in _five_ large octavos, with forty-one portraits. M.

BARANTE’s _History of the Convention_ will consist of six octavos, of

which three are published, and the last is accompanied by it biographical

sketch of each of the seven hundred and fifty members. The period embraced

in this work is from 1792 to 1795, inclusive. There is a new _History of

the City of Lyons_, in three octavos, by the city librarian.

The _Letters and unpublished Essays of Count_ JOSEPH DE MAISTRE have been

brought out at Paris, in two volumes octavo. The letters show the

celebrated author in a new and pleasing light; a tone of genial unreserve

prevails in many of them, which those who have become familiar with his

brilliant, dogmatic, and paradoxical intellect, in his more elaborate

writings, would hardly suppose him capable of. No writer, of this century

at least, has more powerfully set forth the doctrines of the Roman

Catholic Church than he.

The _Political Situation of Cuba_, a volume published in Paris, by Don

ANTONIO SACO, is commended in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Don Antonio was

one of the most distinguished intelligences and liberals of the precious

island: he argues against independence, or annexation to the American

Union: he suggests various arrangements by which Spain could safely

establish political freedom in Cuba, and he thinks administrative and

judicial reforms to counteract the worst ills of her present situation,

might be accomplished.

A New edition of SHARON TURNER’s _History of the Anglo-Saxons_ has just

appeared in London, with important additions and revision. The first

edition of Turner’s History was published in London more than fifty years

ago. At the time when the first volume appeared, the subject of

Anglo-Saxon antiquities had been nearly forgotten by the British public,

although the most venerated laws, customs, and institutions of the nation

originated before the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts lay

unexamined in archives, and the important information they contained had

never been made a part of general history. Mr. Turner undertook a careful

and patient investigation of all the documents belonging to the period

preserved in the kingdom, and the result of his labors was the work in

question, which at once gave rise to an almost universal passion for the

records and remains of the Anglo-Saxon people, and called forth general

applause from the best minds of England. A good edition of his History was

published several years ago by Carey and Hart of Philadelphia, but it is

now, we believe, out of print.

The Rev. JOHN HOWARD HINTON, author of a well-known History of the United

States, has published, in London, a volume under the title of _The Test of

Experience_, in which he has presented a masterly argument for the

voluntary principle in matters of religion. The "test of experience" is in

this, as in all other things, the best of tests, and the religious

institutions of the United States can well bear its application. One of

the most noticeable results of the non-interference of the State is

pointed out in the following passage:

"To travellers in the United States, no fact has been more

immediately or more powerfully striking than the total absence of

religious rivalry. Amidst such a multitude of sects, an inhabitant

of the old world naturally, and almost instinctively looks for one

that sets up exclusive pretensions and possesses an actual

predominance. But he finds nothing of the kind. Neither

presbyterianism, or prelacy, nor any other form of

ecclesiasticism, makes the slightest effort to lift its head above

its fellow. And with the resignation of exclusive pretensions, the

entire ecclesiastical strife has ceased, and the din of angry war

has been hushed; and here, at length, the voluntary principle is

able to exhibit itself in its true colors, as a lover of peace and

the author of concord. It is busied no longer with the arguing of

disputed claims, but throws its whole energy into free and

combined operations for the extension of Christianity. The general

religious energy embodies itself in a thousand forms; but while

there is before the church a vast field to which the activities of

all are scarcely equal, there is, also, ’a fair field and no

favor,’—a field in which all have the same advantages, and in

which each is sure to find rewards proportionate to its wisdom and

its zeal. This inestimable benefit of religious peace is clearly

due to the voluntary principle."

JUNIUS, since the publication of his Letters, never figured more

conspicuously than during the last month. The _Paris Revue des Deux

Mondes_ has a very long article on the great secret by M. Charles Remusat,

a member of the Institute, well known in historical criticism. He arrays

skilfully the facts and reasonings which British inquirers have adduced in

favor of Sir Philip Francis, and the other most probable author, Lord

George Sackville. He seems to incline to the latter, but does not decide.

He pronounces that, on the whole, Junius was not "a great publicist." His

powers and influence are investigated and explained by M. de Remusat with

acuteness and comprehensive survey. Lord Mahon, in his new volumes, says,

"From the proofs adduced by others, and on a clear conviction of my own, I

affirm that the author of Junius was no other than Sir Philip Francis." We

think not. The London _Athenæum_, last year, we thought, settled this

point. It is understood that the editor of the _Grenville Papers_, now on

the eve of publication, in London, is in favor of Lord Temple as a

claimant for the authorship of Junius. The January number of the

_Quarterly Review_ contains an article on the subject.

The _Natural History of the Human Species_, by Lieutenant-Colonel CHARLES

HAMILTON SMITH, is the title of a duodecimo volume from the press of Gould

& Lincoln of Boston. An American editor (Dr. Kneeland) has added an

introductory survey of recent literature on the subject. The whole

performance is feeble. The author and his editor endeavor to make out

something like the infidel theory of Professor AGASSIZ, which, a year or

two ago, attracted sufficient attention to induce an investigation and an

intelligent judgment, in several quarters, as to the real claims of that

person to the distinctions in science which his advertising managers claim

for him. We have not space now for any critical investigation of the work,

and therefore merely warn that portion of our readers who feel any

interest in ethnological studies, of its utter worthlessness.

An Englishman, Mr. FRANCIS BONYNGE, recently from the East Indies, has

come to this country at the instance of our minister in London, for the

purpose of bringing before us the subject of introducing some twenty of

the most valuable agricultural staples of the East, among which are the

tea, coffee, and indigo plants, into the United States. He gives his

reasons for believing that tea and indigo would become articles of export

from this country to an amount greater than the whole of our present

exports. He says that tea, for which we now pay from sixty-five to one

hundred cents per lb. may be produced for from two to five cents, free

from the noxious adulterations of the tea we import. He has published a

small volume under the title of _The Future Wealth of America_, in which

his opinions are fully explained and illustrated.

The first volume of a work on _Christian Iconography_, by M. DIDRON, of

Paris, opens to the curious reader a new source of intellectual enjoyment,

both in the department of ancient religious art, and in the archæology of

the early paintings of the Catholic Church. The rich, profuse, and quaint

plates of the original work are used in a translation ably made by E.J.

Millington, published in London by Bohn, and in New-York by Bangs.

SIR FRANCIS BOND HEAD, so well known in this country as one of the former

governors of Canada, and as an author of remarkable versatility and

cleverness, has published an agreeable but superficial book on Paris—the

Paris of January, 1852—under the quaint title of _A Bundle of French

Sticks_; and Mr. Putnam has reprinted it in his new library.

A remarkable book published in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1847, by J. D.

NOURSE, under the title of _Remarks on the Past, and its Legacies to

American Society_, has just been reprinted in London, with an introduction

by D. T. COULTON.

The following works, all of which have promising titles, will soon be

published by J. S. REDFIELD: _Men of the Times in 1852_, comprising

biographical sketches of all the celebrated men of the present day;

_Characters in the Gospels_, by Rev. E. H. Chapin; _Tales and Traditions

of Hungary_, by Theresa Pulzky; _The Comedy of Love_, and the _History of

the Eighteenth Century_, by Arsene Houssaye; Aytoun’s _Lays of the

Scottish Cavaliers_; _The Cavaliers of England_, and _The Knights of the

Olden Time, or the Chivalry of England, France and Spain_, by Henry W.

Herbert; _Lectures and Miscellanies_, by Henry James; and _Isa: a

Pilgrimage_, by Caroline Chesebro.

_The Westminster Review_ says of ALICE CAREY, whose _Clovernook_ we

noticed favorably in the last _International_, that "no American woman can

be compared to her for genius;" the Paris _Débats_ refers to her as a poet

of the rank of Mrs. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING in England; the literary

critic of _The Tribune_ (the learned and accomplished RIPLEY whose

judgment in such a matter is beyond appeal) prefers her _Clovernook_ to

Miss MITFORD’S _Our Village_, or Professor WILSON’S _Lights and Shadows of

Scottish Life_.

MR. DANIEL S. CURTISS has availed himself well of large opportunities for

personal observation, in his volume just published under the title of

_Western Portraiture, and Emigrant’s Guide_, a description of Wisconsin,

Illinois, and Iowa, with remarks on Minnesota and other territories. It is

the most judicious and valuable book of the kind we have seen.

HERR FREUND, the Philologist, is in London, engaged in constructing a

German-English and English-German dictionary upon his new system; and

Professor SMITH, the learned editor of the Dictionary of Greek and Roman

Antiquities, announces a dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, the

articles to be written by the principal contributors to his previous

works.

THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS of the present season in England have not been very

remarkable. Mr. DICKENS, in an extra number of his Household Words,

printed _What Christmas is to Everybody_; and we have from WILKIE COLLINS,

_A New Christmas Story_; by the author of "The Ogilvies," _Alice Learmont,

a Fairy Tale of Love_; by the author of "The Maiden Aunt," a pleasant

little book entitled _The Use of Sunshine_.

Under the title of _Excerpta de P. Ovidii Nastonis_, Blanchard & Lea of

Philadelphia have published a series of selections from a poet whose

works, for obvious reasons, are not read entire in the schools. The

extracts present some of the most beautiful parts of this graceful and

versatile poet.

THE FINE ARTS

The American Art Unions have not been successful in the last year, unless

an exception may be made in regard to that of New England, at Boston. The

American, at New-York, deferred indefinitely its annual distribution of

pictures, on account of the small number of its subscriptions; and the

Pennsylvanian, at Philadelphia, by a recent fire in that city has lost its

admirably-engraved plates of Huntington’s pictures from the _Pilgrim’s

Progress_, the last of which was just completed and placed in the hands of

the printer. It will make no distribution.

A Sicilian artist, residing at Naples, has amused himself, and probably

pleased his sovereign, by composing a life-sized group, representing

Religion supporting King Ferdinand, and guarded by an angel, who places

his foot on an evil spirit. On the other side of this group is a child

bearing the scales of justice. "How much," writes a correspondent of the

_Athenæum_, "the artist is to get for this plaster blasphemy, I know not;

but a more impudent caricature (at the present moment) it would be

difficult to imagine." Another artist has, however, beaten the Sicilian

sculptor quite out. A small bronze group represents Religion triumphing

over Impiety and Anarchy. Impiety is represented by a female figure, under

whose arm are two books inscribed Voltaire and Luther! Anarchy has taken

off her mask, and let fall two scrolls, on which are written _Communismo_

and _Constituto_.

PROFESSOR ZAHN, who has been engaged during a period of more than twenty

years in examining the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, has exhibited at

Berlin a collection of casts unique in their kind. These are 8,000 in

number; and comprise all the remarkable sculptures of the above places,

besides those found at Stabiæ, and those of the vast collection of the

Museo Borbonico and other museums of the Two Sicilies. The casts from the

Museo Borbonico are the first ever made,—the King of Naples having

accorded the privilege of taking these copies to M. Zahn alone, in royal

recompense for the Professor’s great work on Pompeii and Herculaneum.

A book which all students of art should possess, is DR. KUGLER’S

_Geschichte der Kunst_ (History of Art), with the Illustrations

(_Bilderatlos_) which accompany it, and which are now being published at

Stuttgart. The ancient and modern schools of Art—Painting, Sculpture, and

Architecture—are here represented in outlines of their most celebrated and

characteristic works. Eleven numbers of these Illustrations have appeared,

and the whole work will be completed in the course of the coming year.

In our musical world there have been several noticable facts in the last

month. The opera company, perhaps from the utter incapacity of its

director, has been divided, and the best portion of it has been singing at

Niblo’s Theatre. Jenny Lind’s farewell series of concerts was prevented by

intelligence of the death of the great singer’s mother, in Sweden.

Catherine Hayes has been successful in several concerts at Tripler Hall,

and Mrs. Bostwick, whom the best critics of the city regard as superior to

any singer who has appeared among us, except Jenny Lind, has given a

second series of her subscription concerts, which were extremely well

attended.

A correspondent of the _Athenæum_, writing from Egypt, urges that a few

young artists should be sent out with orders to copy all the hieroglyphics

on the most important temples, as well as the numerous tablets and

fragments which are daily brought to light. "A work pursued with such

materials—all theories and arbitrary classification being excluded—would

ever remain as a lasting monument, and would reflect great credit on the

Government which should order its execution." Less than one-half of the

money required for the removal of the Obelisk would amply cover all

expenses.

A correspondent of _Kuhne’s Europa_ writes from Dresden that a number of

humorous drawings, sketched by the pencil of Schiller, and accompanied by

descriptions in his own hand, have been found in the possession of a

Swabian family, with whom the great poet became acquainted during his

residence at Loschwitz.

In Berlin, M. von Prinz, a pupil of Kiss, the sculptor, is erecting a

group which he calls _The Lion-killer_ in imitation of the _Amazon_. Kiss

himself is engaged on a set of groups from a fox-hunt, Rauch has almost

completed a bust of Humboldt, and statues of General Gneisenau and of

_Hope_.

A colossal statue of the Emperor Napoleon, thirty feet high, is to be

placed on the top of the Triumphal Arch, at the end of the Champs Elysées,

in Paris.

KAULBACH has undertaken to draw a set of sketches for an illustrated

edition of Shakspeare, which will shortly be published by Nicolai, At

Berlin.

MR. GREENOUGH, is now in New-York, awaiting the arrival of his splendid

group for the Capitol, from Italy. He will soon be engaged on his statue

of his friend the late Mr. Cooper, to be erected in this city.

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MONTH

The extraordinary abilities of Kossuth as orator, hid attractive personal

qualities, and grandeur of his propositions, continue to occupy the

generous regard of the people of the United States, but the impression

which obtained at one time that the national government would in any

manner or degree enter into his plans for confining a future contest for

the liberty of Hungary exclusively to the two parties most immediately

interested, appears to have been very generally given up. This country

will continue to encourage and aid oppressed peoples by showing how wisely

and efficiently its servants can attend to her own affairs. At the same

time it is not to be doubted that citizens in their private capacity may

and will do much for the illustrious exile who pleads among us for the

means of opposing the oppressors of his nation. Kossuth has been

entertained at public banquets since he left New-York by the authorities

of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Annapolis, and Harrisburg; he has

been received by the President of the United States, the two houses of

Congress, and the legislatures of Maryland and Pennsylvania; and on the

7th of January he dined with the representatives, senators, and other

persons connected with the government, at Washington, and Daniel Webster,

Lewis Cass, William H. Seward, and Stephen A. Douglass, made speeches on

the occasion expressive of their personal respect and sympathy, and their

anxiety as individuals to see Hungary independent. Mr. Cass indeed went so

far as entirely to endorse the doctrine of Kossuth respecting intervention

to insure non-intervention. Kossuth is now in the state of Ohio, and he

probably will remain in this country long enough—since the French

revolution has at least deferred any great and united movement of the

European democracy—to visit all the principal cities of the valley of the

Mississippi.

But little important business has yet been accomplished in Congress,

though numerous bills have been introduced, as is usual in the early weeks

of the session. On the morning of the 24th of December, a portion of the

capitol, occupied by the national library, was destroyed by fire, with

nearly sixty thousand printed volumes, and many MSS., maps, medals,

portraits, sculptures, and other works of art.

The legislature of several of the states are now in session. Those of

Ohio, Michigan, Mississippi, Wisconsin and California, met on the 5th of

January; those of New-York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, on the 7th; those

of Maryland and Massachusetts, on the 7th; that of Indiana, on the 8th;

those of Virginia and Illinois, on the 12th; that of New Jersey, on the

13th; that of Maine, on the 14th, and that of Louisiana, on the 19th. No

great national questions have been prominently before the state

legislatures, except that of our foreign relations, with special reference

to Hungary, upon which the assemblies in the several states appear to be

less conservative than Congress. The most important subject of local

administration, is that of the suppression of the sales of intoxicating

liquors. The law of Maine, enacted last year, will probably be sustained

in that state; in Massachusetts a petition with more than one hundred

thousand signatures, has been offered in the legislature for such a law,

and similar efforts are being made in New-York and other States.

In Mexico there is a continuance of the imbecility of the government and

the agitations of factions. Rumors, constantly varying, in regard to the

conduct and prospects of Caravajal, leave us in doubt whether any thing of

real importance will grow out of his attempts at revolution in the

northern provinces. The administration appears to have acted with

decision, but probably with impotence so far as the final result is

concerned, in regard to the Tehuantepee railroad contract.

South America presents the usual series of disturbances, with some facts

which indicate a prospect of repose; but all such prospects in the Spanish

states of this continent are apt to be deceptive. The birthday of Bolivar

was celebrated at Caracas on the 28th of October with great public

festivities. Treaties between Brazil and Uruguay were formed for alliance,

military aid, commerce and navigation, and the mutual surrender of

criminals, on the 12th of October. We learn from Buenos Ayres that,

through November, Rosas was making great preparations to meet Urquiza. He

had established a corps of observation in the direction of Entre Rios to

look out for an invasion. A considerable emigration was taking place from

Buenos Ayres to Montevideo, mostly of previous residents of the latter

city.

In Great Britain the most important recent event is the retirement of Lord

Palmerston from the cabinet, in which he held the place of Secretary of

State for Foreign Affairs. This occurred on the 22d of December. The

causes of Lord Palmerston’s retirement are a subject of much

unsatisfactory speculation, and the fact is generally regretted by the

friends of political liberty in Europe. His successor is Lord Granville, a

nobleman of manly and liberal character, heretofore connected with the

government. It is apprehended that the popular feeling may induce the

recall of Lord Palmerston to be the head of a new Ministry. Great Britain

has now no envoy resident in the United States, but it is not improbable

that Sir Henry Bulwer will return to this country for the final settlement

of affairs connected with Central America. It is understood officially

that the attack of a British man-of-war on the United States steamer

Prometheus, at Greytown, was entirely unauthorized.

The Admiralty have determined not to send another expedition in search of

Sir John Franklin, by way of Behring’s Straits. The Plover is to be

communicated with each year by a man-of-war—the Amphitrite is the next.

The proposed overland expedition of Lieut. Pym has been abandoned.

The English war at the Cape of Good Hope continues with little change,

though a few important successes by the English are reported. The war

appears to be condemned by a large and respectable portion of the journals

and the people at home. In its character and details it continues to

resemble our own contest with the Indians in Florida.

The month of December, 1851, witnessed, in FRANCE, the successful

accomplishment of a _coup d’état_ not less daring than any that marked the

earlier annals of that country. It is asserted that the personal security

of the President was menaced with imminent danger, when, on the evening of

the 1st of December, he came to the resolution to strike the first blow.

The measures he immediately took were, to issue an appeal to the people

denouncing the conduct of the Assembly, and declaring it dissolved; a

proclamation to the army, telling them that "to-day, at this solemn

moment, I wish the voice of the army to be heard;" and a decree "in the

name of the French people," of which the articles were—"1. The National

Assembly is dissolved; 2. Universal Suffrage is re-established—the law of

the 31st May is abrogated; 3. The French people is convoked in its

elective colleges from the 14th of December to the 21st of December

following; 4. The state of siege is decreed through the first military

division; 5. The Council of State is dissolved; 6. The Minister of the

Interior is charged with the execution of the present decree." The appeal

to the people contained these further propositions; "Persuaded that the

instability of power, that the preponderance of a single Assembly, are the

permanent causes of trouble and discord. I submit to your suffrages the

fundamental basis of a constitution which the Assemblies will develop

hereafter—1. A responsible chief named for ten years; 2. The Ministers

dependent on the executive alone; 3. A Council of State formed of the most

distinguished men, preparing the law, and maintaining the discussion

before the legislative corps; 4. A legislative corps, discussing and

voting the laws, named by universal suffrage, without the _scrutin de

liste_ which falsifies the election; 6. A second Assembly formed of all

the illustrious persons of the nation—a preponderating power, guardian of

the fundamental pact and of public liberty." At an early hour, on the 2d,

these manifestoes were found covering the walls of Paris, and at the same

time the principal thoroughfares were filled with troops of the line.

The President had taken precautions that the National Guard should not be

called out. The Generals Changarnier, Cavaignac, Bedeau, Lamoricière,

Leflo, Colonel Charras, MM. Bazé, Thiers. Brun, the Commissary of Police

of the Assembly, and others of the leading heads of parties, were arrested

before they had risen for the day. Many members of the Assembly gathered

at the house of M. Daru, one of their Vice-Presidents and, having him at

their head, proceeded to their ordinary place of meeting, but found access

effectually barred by the Chasseurs de Vincennes, a corpse recently

returned from Algeria. These men forcibly withstood the entrance of the

members, some of whom were slightly wounded. Returning with M. Daru, they

were invited by General Lauriston to the Marie of the 10th arrondissement,

where they formed a sitting, presided over by two of their

Vice-Presidents, M. Vitel and M. Benuist d’Azy (M. Daru having meanwhile

been arrested), and proceeded to frame a decree to the following effect:

"Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is deprived of his functions as President of the

Republic, and the citizens are commanded to refuse him obedience; the

executive power passes in full right to the National Assembly; the judges

of the High Court of Justice are required to meet immediately, on pain of

dismissal, to proceed to judgment against the President and his

accomplices. It is enjoined on all functionaries and depositaries of

authority that they obey the requisition made in the name of the Assembly,

under penalty of forfeiture and the punishment prescribed for high

treason." While this decree was being signed, another was unanimously

passed, naming General Oudinot commander of the forces, and M. Tamisier

chief of the staff. These decrees had scarcely been signed by all present,

when a company of soldiers entered, and required them to disperse. The

Assembly refused to do so, when, after some parley, two commissaries de

police were brought, the presidents were arrested, and the whole body of

members present, 230 in number, were marched across the city to the

barracks of the Quai d’Orsay. The next day they were distributed to the

prisons of Mount Valerien, Mazas, and Vincennes; and the generals

Cavaignac, Lamoricière, Bedeau, and Changarnier, were sent to Ham. During

the day the population viewed the soldiers in the streets merely as a

spectacle, and no violent excitement occurred. At ten o’clock on Wednesday

morning some members of the Mountain appeared in the Rue d’Antoine, and

raised the cry _Aux armes!_ The party they collected immediately began to

erect a barricade at the corner of the Rue St. Marguerite. Troops were

quickly at the spot, when the barricade was carried, and the

representative Baudin was killed. Some other barricades were raised in the

afternoon, but as quickly destroyed. General Magnan, the

Commander-in-chief of the army of Paris, seeing the day was passed in

insignificant skirmishes, now determined to withdraw his small posts, to

allow the discontented to gather to a head. On the morning of the 4th it

was reported that the insurrection had its focus in the Quartiers St.

Antoine, St. Denis, and St. Martin, and that several barricades were in

progress. The General deferred his attack until two o’clock, when the

various brigades of troops acted in concert. The barricades were attacked

in the first instance by artillery, and then carried at the point of the

bayonet. There were none which offered very serious resistance, and the

whole contest was over about five o’clock. In the evening, however, fresh

barricades were raised in the Rues Montmartre and Montorgueil, and others

in the Rues Pagevin and des Fosses Montmartre, which were successfully

attacked in the night by the officers in command of those quarters. On the

5th the last remains of street-fighting were effectually quelled. The loss

to the military in these operations was twenty-five men killed, of whom

one was Lieut-Col. Loubeau, of the line, and 184 wounded, of whom

seventeen were officers. The number of insurgents killed is unknown, but

they are estimated it from two to three thousand, including,

unfortunately, many indifferent persons, who were accidentally passing

along the boulevards when the soldiery suddenly opened their sweeping

fire. The insurgents taken with arms in their hands were carried to the

Champ de Mars, and there shot by judgment of court martial. Most of the

political prisoners arrested were discharged after a few days, some of the

more formidable only being longer detained.

By a decree of the President dated the 2d December, the French people were

convoked in their respective districts for the 14th of the month to accept

or reject the following _plébiscite_: "The French people wills the

maintenance of the authority of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, and delegates to

him the powers necessary to frame a Constitution on the bases proposed in

his proclamation of the 2d December." On that day the voting consequently

commenced by universal suffrage; and the President has been re-elected for

ten years by a majority greatly exceeding that of his contest with

Cavaignac. In Paris, of 394,049 registered voters 197,091 have voted in

the affirmative; 95,511, in the negative; and 96,819 abstained from

voting. The majority for Louis Napoleon being 191,500. In the provinces he

has had a majority of eight to one. The inauguration of the usurper took

place in the church of Notre Dame on the 3d of January, and the new order

of things has been recognized by all the courts of Europe.

On the 25th of November a French squadron appeared before Salee, to claim

satisfaction for an act of piracy committed by the inhabitants of that

town. The Caid asked for six days to take the orders of the Emperor of

Morocco; and the Caid of Rabat sent a similar evasive reply. The next day

the French bombarded the place for seven hours, the fire being returned by

both forts of Rabat and Salee. The Admiral, however, confined his

chastisement to the latter, which he thoroughly performed, and fired the

town in several places. The French fleet arrived at Tangier on the morning

of the 29th, when the Consul-General for Morocco and several officers of

the squadron landed, and had an interview with the Bashaw of the province,

which ended in a satisfactory arrangement, to the great relief of the

people of Tangier, who were in consternation at the prospect of sharing

the fate of their neighbors.

From Austria we learn the partial amelioration in private business of the

financial difficulties. The Emperor published, on the 1st of January,

decrees, that whereas the provisions of the constitution were cancelled by

the imperial edict of August 20, 1851, the last principles of political

right conceded by the constitution are now disavowed. There now exists no

political right in the empire. The Austrian government continues to watch

with the keenest anxiety the proceedings of the exiled Italians and

Hungarians, and by very stringent arrangements in regard to the press, and

the interdiction of most foreign journals, keeps the "dangerous classes"

in ignorance of the sympathy with which they are regarded from abroad.

The Queen of Spain, by a spontaneous act of her royal clemency, granted a

pardon to all such prisoners, made in the last expedition against the Isle

of Cuba, as are citizens of the United States, whether they be already in

Spain, undergoing the punishments they have incurred, or whether they be

still in Cuba. The queen on the 20th of December gave birth to a princess,

who is heir to the throne.

From China there are reports that the Emperor has been compelled to resign

in favor of the revolutionary general, whose triumphant march through many

revolted provinces has, from time to time, been noticed in the last half

year. The statement, however, does not appear to be credited by some of

the best informed London journals.

The Queen of Madagascar is bent on exterminating Christianity in her

dominions, and has long mercilessly persecuted those who prefer the "new

religion." In the last outburst of this protracted persecution, four

persons were burnt alive; fourteen precipitated from a high rock and

crushed to death; a hundred and seventeen persons condemned to work in

chains as long as they live; twenty persons cruelly flogged with rods,

besides 1,748 other persons mulcted in heavy penalties, reduced into

slavery, and compelled to buy themselves back, or deprived of their wives

and families. Persons of rank have been degraded, and sent as forced

laborers to carry stone for twelve months together to build houses; and,

in an endless variety of other ways have the maddened passions of one

wicked woman been permitted now for years past to plunge a great country

in ruin.

There has been a serious Mussulman riot at Bombay, occasioned by the

Parsee editor of an illustrated newspaper, in each number of which is

given a life and portrait of some remarkable historical character, having

published—in the series (next to one of Benjamin Franklin)—a life and

portrait of Mahomet. Both are said to have been unexceptionable according

to European ideas, but the whole Mussulman population (145,000 in number)

considered their faith insulted and outraged by the publication, holding

it sacrilege and idolatry to imagine and print any likeness whatever of so

sacred a personage.

The Wahabees, who inhabit the interior and highland portion of Arabia,

have pillaged the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, destroying the mosques,

sacking the cities, and carrying off numbers of women and children into

the desert. It is supposed to be in revenge for the punishment inflicted

on them thirty years ago, when they had conquered the same cities.

The Turkish government has introduced the culture of cotton in the

vicinity of Damascus, with seed procured from the United States. It is

successful.

SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES AND PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES.

In London, among the scientific questions of a practical kind much

discussed, is that of a patent process for contracting the fibres of

calico, and of obtaining on calico thus prepared colors of much

brilliancy. It is regarded by chemists as likely to lead to valuable

results. In the British Association, it was described as the discovery

that a solution of cold but caustic soda acts peculiarly on cotton fibre,

immediately causing it to contract; and although the soda can be readily

washed out, yet the fibre has undergone a change. Thus, taking a coarse

cotton fabric, and acting upon it by the proper solution of caustic soda,

this could be made much finer in appearance; and if the finest calico made

in England—known as one hundred and eighty picks to the web—be thus acted

on, it immediately appears as fine as two hundred and sixty picks.

Stockings of open weaving assume a much finer texture by the condensation

process; but the effect of the alteration is most strikingly shown by

colors: the tint of pink cotton velvet becomes deepened to an intense

degree; and printed calicoes, especially with colors hitherto applied with

little satisfaction—such as lilac—come out with strength and brilliancy,

besides producing fabrics finer than could be possibly woven by hand. The

strength, too, is increased by this process; for a string of calico which

breaks with a weight of thirteen ounces when not soaked, will bear twenty

ounces when half condensed by the caustic soda.

At a recent meeting of the Paris _Academy of Sciences_, M. YVART read an

important practical Memoir on the production of Wool, in the Merino race.

He teaches that the only means of obtaining fine wool—taking into account

the weight of the sheep’s body,—is the employment of races of small size.

When the skin is very delicate, it secretes less of wool than when it is

otherwise;—the fineness of the wool is proportioned to that of the skin.

Those countries in which the winter is long or cold, or where the sheep

remains in the fold the greater part of the year, and does not lie on

ploughed lands, are especially suited to the production of the finest and

most elastic wools, those chiefly sought after for manufacture of cloth.

Experiments on the application of electro-magnetism as a motive power,

have been made with some striking results in Paris, as well as in this

country. M. Dumont, in a paper on the subject submitted to the _Female

Academy_, states, "that if in the production of great power the

electro-magnetic force is inferior to that of steam, it becomes equal to

it, and perhaps superior in the production of small power, which may be

subdivided, varied, and introduced into employments or trades requiring

but little capital, and where the absolute value of the mechanical power

is less essential than the facility of producing instantaneously and at

pleasure the power itself. In this point of view electro-magnetic power

comes to complete, not to supersede, that of steam."

In the papers of the celebrated Lalande, recently presented to the Paris

_Academy of Sciences_, by M. Arago, there is a note to the effect that so

far back as the 25th of October, 1800, he and Burckhardt were of opinion,

from calculations, that there must be a planet beyond Uranus, and they

occupied themselves for some time in trying to discover its precise

position. This is a very curious fact for astronomers.

RECENT DEATHS.

JOEL R. POINSETT, LL.D., long distinguished in society and in affairs,

died at his residence in Statesburg, South Carolina, on the 12th of

December. The first American ancestor of Mr. Poinsett came to this country

from Soubisi, near Rochelle, in France, soon after the revocation of the

edict of Nantz. His father was a physician, and served in the Revolution

under Count Pulaski. He himself was born at Charleston on the second of

March, 1779, and, after having passed some time at the school of the Rev.

Timothy Dwight (afterward President of Yale College), at Greenfield,

Connecticut, he was sent, at the close of the Revolution, to England, to

complete his studies, and for the advantages of foreign travel. Returning

in 1800, when he was twenty-one years of age, he commenced the study of

law in the office of Mr. Desaussure, afterwards Chancellor of South

Carolina, Before his admission to the bar, he again embarked for Europe,

extending his travels to Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, and the northern

countries of the continent. At St. Petersburg he became acquainted with

the Emperor Alexander, soon after his accession, and was received by him

with marked partiality, and often questioned respecting the peculiar

institutions of this country. On one occasion, after he had been

expatiating at large on the advantages of America, the Czar exclaimed,

"Were I not an emperor, I would be a republican." Declining the offer of a

place in the service of the Emperor, he commenced a tour into the East,

travelling through Persia and Armenia, and, returning to Europe, resided

for some time in its principal capitals. On the breaking out of

difficulties between the United States and Great Britain, in 1808, he

returned to his own country, and applied to Mr. Madison for a commission

in the army. Owing to some objections by the Secretary of War, he did not

obtain the commission, but was sent by the President to South America, to

ascertain the result of the revolutions which had recently occurred in

that quarter. While in Chili, he heard of the declaration of war between

England and America. Embarking in the frigate Essex, to return to this

country, with a view to enter the army, he was made a prisoner on the

surrender of that vessel to the British by Commodore Porter. The British

Commander refused to allow his return home with the rest of the prisoners,

regarding him as a dangerous enemy of England, and he therefore determined

to cross the continent to the Atlantic. He passed the Andes in the month

of April, when they were covered with snow, and, after great difficulties,

reached Buenos Ayres. He succeeded, in a Portuguese vessel, in reaching

Madeira, where, on his arrival, he learned that a treaty of peace had been

concluded. Soon after he reached South Carolina, he was elected to the

Legislature of that State, in which he devoted himself chiefly to the

establishment of a system of internal improvements. In 1821 he was elected

to Congress, from the Charleston District, and was twice re-elected to

that body. In 1822, he was sent to Mexico, by President Monroe, to obtain

information with regard to the government under Iturbide. He performed

this mission with signal success. Foreseeing the speedy downfall of the

imperial administration, he gave his advice against all connection with

it, on the part of this country. He had scarcely returned home, when

Iturbide abdicated the throne. Soon after the election of Mr. Adams, which

he had strongly opposed, Mr. Poinsett was again appointed Minister to

Mexico, whore he remained until the summer of 1829. His important services

in this period are amply detailed in a memoir of his political life, in

the first volume of the _Democratic Review_, and were warmly approved in

the first annual message of President Jackson. On returning to the United

States, he devoted himself to the pursuits of private life, in South

Carolina. When the States Rights controversy broke out, he again engaged

in political affairs, and became a prominent advocate of the principles of

the Union party, as opposed to Nullification. In 1836, he was nominated by

his friends as a candidate for the State Senate, and was elected with but

little opposition. On the formation of Mr. Van Buren’s cabinet, Mr.

Poinsett accepted the office of Secretary of War. On the election of Gen.

Harrison he retired to his home in South Carolina, where he devoted

himself to those literary pursuits which formed the pleasure of his life;

and thence he issued, only two years ago, those stirring appeals against

secession, which were among the most powerful influences for the

preservation of the endangered peace of the Union at that period. Mr.

Poinsett received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Columbia College in

this city, and he was a member of many learned societies in this country,

and in Europe. Besides his _Notes on Mexico_, written soon after his last

return from that country, he published several addresses, was a large

contributor to the _Southern Quarterly Review_ and other periodicals, and

furnished some important papers to the Paris Geographical Society, and

other learned associations abroad and at home.

MOSES STUART, D.D., of the Theological Seminary at Andover, died at his

residence in that town on the 4th of January, in the seventy-second year

of his age. He was born in Wilton, Conn., March 16, 1780; was graduated at

Yale College in 1799; and was a tutor in that institution from 1802 to

1804. After having studied the profession of the law, he turned his

attention to theology, and in 1806 was ordained pastor of the Central

Congregational church in New Haven. He was called to the Professorship of

Sacred Literature in Andover Theological Seminary in 1810, and continued

for nearly forty years to discharge its important duties. Professor Stuart

was a man of great natural abilities, honorable principles, and a strong

will; for a long period he occupied the first place among cultivators of

sacred learning in this country; and though younger men, with larger

opportunities, have recently attained to greater eminence, no one in the

same field has ever exercised a more important and advantageous influence.

His first considerable work was a _Hebrew Grammar_, published in 1823. It

scarcely deserves comparison with the more celebrated performance of

Gesenius, of which Professor Stuart himself gave to the public a

translation, more than twenty years after the publication of his own work;

but for some time after its original appearance it was the best Hebrew

Grammar in the English language. In 1825 he was associated with Professor

Robinson in the production of a _Greek Grammar of the New Testament_; in

1827 he published his _Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews_; in 1829

his _Hebrew Chrestomathy_, and in 1830 his _Course of Hebrew Study_. His

Commentary on the Hebrews, was received as an accession to the body of

permanent theological literature. It was spoken of in England as "the most

valuable philological aid" that had been published "for the critical study

of that important, and in many respects difficult book;" and the late Dr.

Pye Smith, one of the first biblical, theological, and classical scholars

in Great Britain, stated, that he felt it to be his duty to describe it as

"the most important present to the cause of sound biblical interpretation

that had ever been made in the English language." In Germany also it

secured for Professor Stuart the highest consideration; and it continues

in all countries to be regarded as one of the noblest examples of

philological theology and exegetical criticism. In 1832 Professor Stuart

published another great work of a similar character: his _Commentary on

the Epistle to the Romans_. It was distinguished for a profoundness of

research, for an intensity and minuteness of philological labor, and a

singleness of purpose to arrive at the meaning of the apostle, without

regard to any preconceived or partisan opinions, which obtained for it a

regard as an authority equal to that awarded to its predecessor. In 1845

he published a _Commentary on the Apocalypse_; a profoundly learned and

critical work, in which the interpretation of this difficult book varies

much from that which has been most generally received. In the same year he

also gave to the church a _Critical History and Defence of the Old

Testament Canon_. His devotion to biblical criticism continued to the

close of his life, and we believe, his last use of the pen was in the

correction of the concluding sheets of a volume of Commentaries.

In his later years Professor Stuart entered into political controversies,

and was particularly distinguished for his defence of the policy of Mr.

Webster, in a pamphlet entitled _Conscience and the Constitution_. He also

ventured very injudiciously into the field of classical criticism, in an

edition of _Cicero_, which was sharply reviewed by Professor Kingsley of

Yale College; and he lost reputation in his more legitimate sphere by a

controversy with Professor Conant, of Madison University, growing out of

his translation of the _Hebrew Grammar of Gesenius_. It is not to be

denied that in measuring his strength against that of these accomplished

scholars, he was signally unfortunate.

In his personal character he was simple, sincere, enthusiastic, brave, and

religious. He was well entitled to the great respect in which he was held

by the church. He had been ordained for high services, and he had

accomplished them. Every duty of which he was capable was finished, and he

could have added nothing to his good reputation if his years had been

prolonged.

WILLIAM GRIMSHAW, born in Ireland in 1781, but nearly all his life a

resident of this country, where he was for many years well known as a

writer, died near Philadelphia on the 8th of January. Besides editing and

rewriting a considerable portion of Baine’s _History of the Wars growing

out of the French Revolution_, he was the author of Histories of Great

Britain, France, and several other countries, which for a long time were

very generally used as text-books in schools, and he also wrote _The

American Chesterfield_, _The Ladies’ Lexicon_, and numerous smaller

volumes, which were creditable to his abilities. His reading was

extensive, and his knowledge of events during his lifetime, particularly

in British affairs, was minute and accurate. His mind lost none of its

vigor with the approach of age, and in his fine countenance, and imposing

figure, there were no appearances of decay. His love of reading continued

to the last, and within a year he frequently employed his pen on such

subjects as he took an especial interest in.

NICHOLAS GRAN DE DIEU SOULT, Marshal General of France, Duke of Dalmatia,

&c., died on the 26th of December, at his chateau of Soult Berg, near the

place where he was born. We have given in another part of this magazine an

estimate of his character. The Paris _Pays_ furnishes us a brief abstract

of his history. He was born at St. Amand (Tarn), March 29, 1769. His

father, who was a notary, seeing that he had no taste for his own

profession, allowed him to enter the army. The future Marshal of France

entered the Royal Regiment of Infantry in 1785, where he was soon remarked

by his aptitude for the functions of instructor. He was made

non-commissioned officer in 1790, and then passed rapidly through the

intermediate grades, until he reached that of Adjutant-General of the

Staff, when General Lefebvre attached him to his own service with the

grade of Chief of Brigade. In that quality he went through the campaigns

of 1794 and 1795 with the army of the Moselle, and owed to his talents, as

well as to his republican principles, a rapid promotion. Successively

raised to the rank of General of Brigade, and then to that of General of

Division, he took part in all the campaigns of Germany until 1799, when he

followed Massena into Switzerland, and thence to Genoa, where he was

wounded and taken prisoner. Set at liberty after the battle of Marengo,

and raised to the command of Piedmont, he returned to France at the peace

of Amiens, and was named one of the four Colonels of the Guard of the

Consuls. When the Empire was proclaimed, in 1804, he was nominated Marshal

of France, and during the campaign which terminated in Austerlitz, held

the command of the fourth corps of the grand army. After the conquest of

Prussia and the battle of Eylau, Marshal Soult solicited and obtained the

command of the second corps of the army of Spain, with which he overran

Galicia and the Austrians, and passed into Portugal, where he fought the

memorable battle of Oporto. Forced to abandon that city, when delivered up

by treason to the English, he effected into Galicia a bold and perilous

retreat, which did the greatest honor to his energy and presence of mind.

Being named Commander-in-Chief of the army of Spain, he marched to the

succor of Madrid, menaced by the Anglo-Spanish army, and his movement was

crowned with full success. He continued in this command until March, 1813,

when he was appointed in Saxony to the command-in-chief of the Imperial

Guard. The disasters of Vittoria decided Napoleon to again confer on

Marshal Soult the command of the French troops in Spain. The point then

was to defend the menaced frontier of France. Forced to fall back on

Toulouse, he there terminated by a brilliant engagement, due to most able

strategic arrangements, the fatal campaign of 1814. On the announcement of

the event at Paris he signed a suspension of arms, and adhered to the

reëstablishment of Louis XVIII., who presented him with the Cross of St.

Louis, and called him to the command of the 13th military division, and

then to the Ministry of War (Dec. 3, 1814). On March 8th, learning the

landing from Elba, he published the order of the day which is so well

known, and in which Napoleon is treated more than severely. On March 11th

he resigned his portfolio as Minister of War, and declared for the

Emperor, who, passing over the famous proclamation, raised him to the

dignity of Peer of France and Major General of the Army. After Waterloo,

where he fought most energetically, the Marshal took refuge at Malzieu

(Lozere) with General Brun de Villeret, his former aid-de-camp. Being set

down on the list of the proscribed, he withdrew to Dusseldorf on the banks

of the Rhine, until 1819, when a Royal ordinance allowed him to return to

France. He then went to live with his family at St. Amand, his native

place, and on his reiterated representations his marshal’s baton, which

had been withdrawn from him, was restored. Charles X. treated Marshal

Soult with favor, creating him knight of his orders, and afterward making

him Peer of France. After the revolution of July, 1830, the declaration of

the Chamber of Deputies of August 9th excluded him from that rank, but he

was restored to it four days later by a special nomination of Louis

Philippe, who soon after appointed him Minister of War. We shall not

follow Marshal Soult through the acts of his administrative career. He

always showed himself devoted to the constitutive principles of the

Government of July. He was twice named President of the Council of King

Louis Philippe, who elevated him to the dignity of Marshal General, of

which Turenne had been the last possessor. Since the revolution of

February, Marshal Soult has lived on his estate, in the midst of his

family, and almost forgotten in our present political agitations.

KARL FRIEDERICH RUNGENHAGEN, late Royal Director of Music at Berlin, was

born in that city on September 27, 1778. His father was a merchant. In

1801 he became member of the Singing Academy, and studied under Zetter. In

1814 he wrote the songs for a melo-drama, which was not successful. In

1815 he became director of the Singing Academy, with Zetter; most of his

religious music was composed after this time. In 1825 he was appointed to

the post of Royal Music Director, and in 1833, after Zetter’s death, he

became sole conductor of the Singing Academy. His influence has been

considerable upon the culture of music in Germany. Carl Maria Von Weber

was his friend, and Lortzing was one of his pupils. He died at Berlin on

the 22d of last December.

The journals of Moscow announce the death of the Armenian Archbishop,

MICHAEL SALLANTIAN, the most distinguished writer of Armenia at the

present day. He was born at Constantinople in 1782, and educated at the

Armenian monastery at Venice. He died at the age of sixty-nine at Moscow,

where he had been professor of theology and literature for sixteen years

before his elevation to the Archbishopric.

DR. GRAEFE, one of the most eminent veterans of European philology, died

suddenly at St Petersburg on November 30th. He was born at Chemnitz, in

Saxony, in July, 1780, but went to Russia in 1810, to assume the

professorship of Greek at the Academy of St. Petersburg.

The Russian General, Kiel, has died in Paris. He was employed by the

Emperor Nicholas in directing works of art in the Russian empire.

HERR MEINHOLD, author of the _Amber Witch_, died in Germany in December.

J. W. M. TURNER, the greatest of English artists, and the hero of Mr.

Ruskin’s brilliant book entitled _The Modern Painters_, died in London on

the 20th of December, at the age of 77. He had always a reluctance to have

his portrait taken, but the engraving accompanying this article—from a

sketch made without his knowledge—is said, by the _Illustrated London

News_ to be remarkably like him. It is understood that by his will he has

left a million dollars (£200,000) for the purpose of founding an

institution for the relief of of decayed artists, and has given it also

the chief part of his pictures, to adorn the building which is to be

occupied by it. The _Times_ says, "although it would be out of place to

revive the discussions occasioned by the peculiarities of Mr. Turner’s

style in his later years, he has left behind him sufficient proofs of the

variety and fertility of his genius to establish an undoubted claim to a

prominent rank among the painters of England. His life had been extended

to the verge of human existence; for although he was fond of throwing a

mystery over his precise age, we believe that he was born in Maiden-lane,

Covent-garden, in the year 1775, and was, consequently, in his 76th or

77th year. Of humble origin (he was the son of a barber), he enjoyed the

advantages of an accurate rather than a liberal education. His first

studies, some of which are still in existence, were in architectural

design; and few of those who have been astonished or enchanted by the

profusion and caprice of form and color in his mature pictures, would have

guessed the minute and scientific precision with which he had cultivated

the arts of linear drawing and perspective. His early manhood was spent

partly on the coast, where he imbibed his inexhaustible attachment for

marine scenery and his acquaintance with the wild and varied aspect of the

ocean. Somewhat later he repaired to Oxford, where he contributed for

several years the drawing to the _University Almanac_. But his genius was

rapidly breaking through all obstacles, and even the repugnance of public

opinion; for before he had completed his 30th year he was on the high road

to fame. As early as 1790 he exhibited his first work, a water-colored

drawing of the entrance to Lambeth, at the exhibition of the Academy, and

in 1793 his first oil painting. In November, 1799, he was elected an

associate, and in February, 1802, he attained the rank of a Royal

Academician. We shall not here attempt to trace the vast series of his

paintings from his earlier productions, such as the "Wreck," in Lord

Yarborough’s collection, the "Italian Landscape," in the same gallery, the

_pendant_ to Lord Ellesmere’s "Vanderwelde," or Mr. Munro’s "Venus and

Adonis," in the Titianesque manner, to the more obscure, original, and, as

some think, unapproachable productions of his later years, such as the

"Rome," the "Venice," the "Golden Bough," the "Téméraire," and the

"Tusculum." But while these great works proceeded rapidly from his

palette, his powers of design were no less actively engaged in the

exquisite water-colored drawings that have formed the basis of the modern

school of "illustration." The "Liber studiorum" had been commenced in

1807, in imitation of Claude’s "Liber veritatis," and was etched, if we

are not mistaken, by Turner’s own hand. The title-page was engraved and

altered half-a-dozen times, from his singular and even nervous attention

to the most trifling details. But this volume was only the precursor of an

immense series of drawings and sketches, embracing the topography of this

country in the "River Scenery" and the "Southern Coast"—the scenery of the

Alps, of Italy, and great part of Europe—and the ideal creations of our

greatest poets, from Milton to Scott and Rogers, all imbued with the

brilliancy of a genius which seemed to address itself more peculiarly to

the world at large when it adopted the popular form of engraving. These

drawings are now widely diffused in England, and form the basis of several

important collections, such as those of Petworth, of Mr. Windus, Mr.

Fawkes, and Mr. Munro. So great is the value of them that 120 guineas have

not unfrequently been paid for a small sketch in water-colors; and a

sketch-book, containing chalk-drawings of one of Turner’s river tours on

the continent, has lately fetched the enormous sum of 600 guineas. The

prices of his more finished oil paintings have ranged in the last few

years from 700 to 1,200 or 1,400 guineas. All his works may now be said to

have acquired triple or quadruple the value originally paid for them. Mr.

Turner undoubtedly realized a very large fortune, and great curiosity will

be felt to ascertain the posthumous use he has made of it. His personal

habits were peculiar, and even penurious, but in all that related to his

art he was generous to munificence; and we are not without hope that his

last intentions were for the benefit of the nation, and the preservation

of his own fame. He was never married, he was not known to have any

relations, and his wants were limited to the strictest simplicity. The

only ornaments of his house in Queen Anne-street were the pictures by his

own hand, which he had constantly refused to part with at any price, among

which the "Rise and Fall of Carthage" and the "Crossing the Brook," rank

among the choicest specimens of his finest manner.

"Mr. Turner seldom took much part in society, and only displayed in the

closest intimacy the shrewdness of his observation and the playfulness of

his wit. Every where he kept back much of what was in him, and while the

keenest intelligence, mingled with a strong tinge of satire, animated his

brisk countenance, it seemed to amuse him to be but half understood. His

nearest social ties were those formed in the Royal Academy, of which he

was by far the oldest member, and to whose interests he was most warmly

attached. He filled at one time the chair of Professor of Perspective, but

without conspicuous success, and that science has since been taught in the

Academy by means better suited to promote it than a course of lectures. In

the composition and execution of his works, Mr. Turner was jealously

sensitive of all interference or supervision. He loved to deal in the

secrets and mysteries of his art, and many of his peculiar effects are

produced by means which it would not be easy to discover or to imitate.

"We hope that the Society of Arts or the British Gallery will take an

early opportunity of commemorating the genius of this great artist, and of

reminding the public of the prodigious range of his pencil, by forming a

general exhibition of his principal works, if, indeed, they are not

permanently gathered in a nobler repository. Such an exhibition will serve

far better than any observations of ours to demonstrate that it is not by

those deviations from established rules which arrest the most superficial

criticism that Mr. Turner’s fame or merit are to be estimated. For nearly

sixty years Mr. Turner contributed largely to the arts of this country. He

lived long enough to see his greatest productions rise to uncontested

supremacy, however imperfectly they were understood when they first

appeared in the earlier years of this century; and, though in his later

works and in advanced age, force and precision of execution have not

accompanied his vivacity of conception, public opinion has gradually and

steadily advanced to a more just appreciation of his power. He is the

Shelley of English painting—the poet and the painter both alike veiling

their own creations in the dazzling splendor of the imagery with which

they are surrounded, mastering every mode of expression, combining

scientific labor with an air of negligent profusion, and producing in the

end works in which color and language are but the vestments of poetry. Of

such minds it may be said in the words of Alastor:

"Nature’s most secret steps

He, like her shadow, has pursued, where’er

The red volcano overcanopies

Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice

With burning smoke; or where the starry domes

Of diamond and of gold expand above

Numberless and immeasurable halls,

Frequent with crystal column and clear shrines

Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.

Nor had that scene of ampler majesty

Than gems or gold—the varying roof of heaven

And the green earth—lost in his heart its claims

To love and wonder...."

[Illustration: THE LATE J. W. M. TURNER]

THE LATE J. W. M. TURNER

BASIL MONTAGU, an eminent philosophical and legal writer, was the

illegitimate son of the well-known statesman, John fourth Earl of

Sandwich, many years First Lord of the Admiralty, by the unfortunate Miss

Margaret Reay, who was assassinated, in 1779, by her affianced lover, the

Rev. Mr. Hackman. The tragic affair, which excited immense interest at the

time, and which gave rise to various romantic stories, is to be found in

most series of judicial investigations, and especially in a collection of

celebrated trials recently published. It appears that Margaret Reay was

the daughter of a stay-maker in Covent-garden, and served her

apprenticeship to a mantuamaker. Having attracted the attention of Lord

Sandwich, he treated her from that period until her assassination, with

the greatest tenderness and affection. He introduced to her a young ensign

of the 68th Regiment, then in command of a recruiting party at Huntingdon,

in the neighborhood of the mansion of the Montagues. Mr. Hackman from the

first moment was desperately in love with her, and his passion increased

with the daily opportunities afforded by invitations he received to Lord

Sandwich’s table. With the object of continuing his attentions, and the

hope of ultimately engaging her affections, he quitted the army, and,

taking orders, obtained the living of Wiverton, in Norfolk. That Miss Reay

had given him some encouragement, is proved by the tenor of their

correspondence; but prudential motives induced her afterwards to refuse

the offer of his hand, and to intimate a necessity for discontinuing his

visits. Stung by this unexpected termination of his long-cherished

expectations, Hackman’s mind became unsettled; on the 7th of April, 1779,

he was occupied all the morning in reading Blair’s _Sermons_; but in the

evening, as he was walking towards the Admiralty, he saw Miss Reay pass in

her coach, accompanied by Signora Galli. He followed, and discovered that

she alighted at Covent-garden Theatre, where she went to witness _Love in

a Village_. He returned to his lodgings, armed himself with a brace of

pistols, went back to the theatre, and when the performance was over, as

Miss Reay was stepping into her coach, he took a pistol in each hand, one

of which he discharged at her, and killed her on the spot, and the other

at himself, but it did not take effect. He then beat his head with the

butt of the pistol, to destroy himself, but was, after a struggle, secured

and carried before Sir John Fielding, who committed him to Bridewell, and

he was shortly after tried at the Old Bailey, before the celebrated

Justice Blackstone, found guilty, and hanged at Tyburn on the 19th of the

month.

Basil Montagu was born in 1770, and received his education at the Charter

House. He was called to the English bar by the Society of Gray’s Inn, the

19th of May, 1798, and soon obtained considerable practice as a

conveyancer. It was, however, by his legal authorship and reporting that

he became particularly distinguished in the profession. His various works

and reports on the subject, principally of the Law of Bankruptcy, were of

high estimation and lasting utility. In 1801, he produced his _Summary of

the Law of Set Off_, with an Appendix of Cases, argued and determined in

the Courts of Law and Equity, in one volume, octavo; in 1804-5, in four

volumes, _A Digest of the Bankrupt Laws_, with a Collection of the

Statutes and of the Cases, which reached three editions, and brought him

into immediate notice and considerable practice; and, some time afterward,

he printed a pamphlet on Bankrupts’ Certificates. His fame in this branch

of forensic learning procured him the appointment of a Commissioner of

Bankruptcy. Mr. Montagu wrote also on philosophical subjects. Among his

productions of this tendency were _Thoughts of Divines and Philosophers;

Selections from Taylor, Hooker, Bishop Hall, and Bacon_. He edited an

edition of Lord Bacon’s works, in seventeen volumes. Another bent which

his mind took, placed him by the side of Romilly and Mackintosh in the

cause of Humanity. He had in his nature an abhorrence of depriving any

living thing of life, and with regard to his own diet he totally abstained

from animal food. This led him to bestow his active attention towards

putting a stop to capital punishment. In 1809 he published _Opinions of

Different Authors on the Punishment of Death_. The work was so well

received, that he added a a second and third volume to it. In 1811, when

the important question occupied Parliament, he edited _The Debates on a

Bill for Abolishing the Punishment of Death for Stealing in a Dwelling

House_. In 1815 he reprinted a tract originally published in 1801, called

_Hanging not Punishment enough for Murderers_. Mr. Basil Montagu, who had

some years ago been made a Queen’s counsel, died at Boulogne on the 27th

of November, in the eighty-second year of his age.

REAR-ADMIRAL HENRY GAGE MORRIS, entered the navy at the early age of

twelve, and served as midshipman throughout the French and American wars.

He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, April 2, 1793. He was engaged

at the capture of the French frigate _Sybille_, in 1783, and at the attack

on Martinique, in 1793. He was promoted to post rank August 12, 1812, and

was made rear-admiral in 1847. He died at Beverley, 24th ult. aged

eighty-two. Admiral Morris was younger brother of the late Captain Amherst

Morris, being second son of Colonel Roger Morris, a member of the

Governor’s Council at New-York, by Mary, daughter of Frederick Phillipse,

of this city. This family of Morris is one of great antiquity, deriving

its descent from Elystan Glodrydd, a famed chieftain of Wales in the

eleventh century.

MR. SAPIO the once celebrated tenor singer, was born in London, in 1792.

In his early life he was page to Queen Caroline, consort of George IV. He

made his first appearance on the metropolitan stage at Drury Lane, the 1st

December, 1824, as the _Seraskier_, in the "Siege of Belgrade," and he

soon attained and long preserved a high vocal reputation. He died in

obscurity, in London, about the end of November.

One of the most distinguished chiefs of the war of Greek independence,

General JATRAKO, is just dead at Athens. He was one of the primates of

Marna; his family, as his name indicates, have for many generations back

been famous for their hereditary medical talents, and the tradition exists

among them that a branch of their family formerly passed from Sparta to

Italy, translated their name into Medici, and gave rise to the celebrated

family of that name.

PRIESSNITZ, the celebrated founder of hydropathy, died at Graefenberg on

the 26th of November, at the age of fifty-two. In the morning of that day

Priessnitz was up and stirring at an early hour, but complained of the

cold, and had wood brought in to make a large fire. His friends had for

some time believed him to be suffering from dropsy of the chest, and at

their earnest entreaty he consented to take a little medicine, exclaiming

all the while, "It’s of no use!" He would see no physician, but remained

to the last true to his profession. About four o’clock in the afternoon of

the 26th he asked to be carried to bed, and upon being laid down he

expired! In early life he received serious injury in the chest from an

accident, and he used to say himself that his constitution was bad; that

nothing but his own mode of life and his own "cure" would have sustained

him. It is not known what attempts will be made to carry on the

establishment at Graefenberg, which was in full activity at the moment of

his death. The most probable conjecture is, that his eldest daughter and

her husband (a Hungarian of property) will carry it on, with the aid of

some physician who has studied Priessnitz’s method. This may succeed to a

certain extent, for the place and neighborhood are admirably adapted for

taking the water-cure, and the _prestige_ of Priessnitz’s name, as well as

the tradition of his practice, will long survive him: but the attraction

which brought patients, not only from the neighboring cities, but from the

remotest parts of the world, is gone. It is not exactly known what amount

of property Priessnitz left, but it is supposed to be nearly £100,000.

When it is considered how small, compared to that given to other

physicians, was the remuneration he received from his patients, and that

thirty years ago, Priessnitz was a poor peasant, this fortune gives some

measure of his immense success.

GEORGE DUNBAR, the distinguished Professor of Greek Literature in the

University of Edinburgh, died on the 6th of December, at his residence in

that city. The natural decay attending even an otherwise green old age has

been for some years aggravated by a virulent internal malady, which at the

commencement of the present season compelled him to relinquish his

academic duties. He was born at the village of Caldingham, in

Berwickshire, in 1774. In early life he labored as a gardener, but an

accidental lameness, which lasted throughout his subsequent life,

incapacitated him from active bodily employment. His attention was then

devoted to literature. He soon became a scholar, and in truth a ripe and

good one. Going to Edinburgh, he readily obtained, on proof of his

acquirements, a tutorship in the family of Lord Provost Fettes. Having

been shortly after selected as assistant to Professor Dalziel, he was

appointed, on that professor’s death, to the Greek chair in the Edinburgh

University, in 1805. The duties of this responsible position he discharged

most zealously and ably. The published works of Professor Dunbar are well

known. The _Collectanea Minora_, the _Collectanea Majora_, and the _Greek

Grammar_, have all had great reputation. His chief production—massive in

every sense—the main object of his life of learned toil, was his Greek

Lexicon, which was given to the world with his name in 1840.

MR. HENRY LUTTRELL, one of the ornaments of a society of what may be

termed conversational wits, died on the 19th of December, at the advanced

age of eighty-six. He was the friend and companion, _hand impari passu_,

of Jeckyll, Mackintosh, Jeffrey, Alvanley, Sydney Smith, and others of

that brilliant school, and of which the Misses Berry, Rogers, Moore, and

but a few others, are still left. A correspondent of the _Times_ says: "He

charmed especially by the playfulness and elegance of his wit, the

appropriateness and felicity of illustration, the shrewdness of his

remarks, and the epigrammatic point of his conversation. Liveliness of

fancy was tempered in him with good breeding and great kindness of

disposition; and one of the wittiest men of his day, he could amuse and

delight by the keenness of playful yet pungent sallies, without wounding

the feelings of any one by the indulgence of bitterness and ill-nature."

English journals notice with expressions of regret the death in

Philadelphia of R. C. TAYLOR, on the 26th of October, aged sixty-two. Mr.

Taylor emigrated in the year 1830, being previously well known as a Fellow

both of the Antiquarian and of the Geological Societies. He had published

a work of great care and research while resident in his native county,

Norfolk, _Index Monasticus for East Anglia_; and had made some useful

explorations into the fossil remains on the coast of Norfolk. In America

he wrote for various philosophical societies, and published, in 1848, his

work on the Statistics of Coal, by which alone he was much known to the

public of this country.

The Royal University of Berlin has lost by death since Christmas, MM.

Lachmann, Stuhr, Jacobi, Erman, and Dr. CHARLES THEODORE FRANZ, who died

at Breslaw early in January, at the untimely age of forty-five. For eleven

years Dr. Franz occupied the chair of Classical Philology in the

University of Berlin. He is the author of a variety of works: in the first

rank of which stand his Criticisms on the Greek Tragic Poets, and his

several collections of Greek and Latin inscriptions before unpublished.

The London Morning Chronicle remarks that the continent never before lost

so many great scholars in one year as in 1851.

WILLIAM JACOB, F.R.S., a profound writer on science and agriculture, was

born in 1762. His work, _An Inquiry into the Precious Metals_, has been

held in high estimation. His other principal productions were

_Considerations on the Price of Corn_; _Tracts on Corn-Laws_; and a _View

of Agriculture in Germany_. Mr. Jacob, who was formerly Comptroller of

Corn Returns in the Board of Trade, died on the 17th of December, at his

residence in London, aged eighty-eight.

MR. PAUL BARRAS, died in Paris from wounds received in the contests

between the people and the military, on the second day of the usurpation

of Louis Napoleon. M. Barras resided in New-York about twenty years, and

was engaged here as a teacher of his native language, and as a

correspondent of one of the Parisian journals. He was an amiable man, of

considerable talents, and enthusiastic in his attachment to Republicanism.

He wrote several articles on American subjects in the _Revue de Paris_.

LADIES’ FASHIONS FOR FEBRUARY.

[Illustration]

In matters of fashion there have been very few changes since our last

publication. We are in the midst of the gay season, but its modes, until

disturbed by the approach of spring, were fixed before the holidays, and

for the most part have already been reported. The Paris journals, we may

remark, however, dwell much on the unusual ascendency of black, in furs,

velvets, cloths, and other heavy stuffs, for walking and carriage dresses,

and on the greater demand than in recent winters for every species of

embroidery.

In the first of the above figures, representing a promenade costume, we

have a high dress of rich silk; the skirt has plaided tucks woven in the

material; it is long, and very full. Manteau of velvet, very richly

embroidered; a broad black lace is set on round the shoulders in the style

of a cape, and the cloak is embroidered above it. Capote of white silk, of

a very elegant form, with deep bavolet or curtain; a droop of small

feathers on the left side.

The second figure, or visiting costume, of heavy silk, with four flounces,

and corresponding waistcoat. The waistcoat now takes the first place in a

lady’s toilette, and may be considered a triumph of luxury and elegance,

reviving every description of embroidery, and forcing the jewellers to be

constantly bringing out some novelty in buttons, &c. It is made very

simple or very richly ornamented: for instance, those of the most simple

description are made either of black velvet, embroidered with braid, and

fastened with black jet buttons, or of cachemire; and a pretty style, of

straw color, embroidered in the same colored silk, and closed with fancy

silk bell buttons, whilst a few may be seen in white, quilted and

embroidered with oak leaves and rose-buds. The rich style of waistcoat

being covered with embroideries, and being closed up the front with

buttons of brilliants. As a general rule, the waistcoat is made high up

the throat, round which is a fall of lace, or opens _en cœur_, having a

_fichu à plastron_ of embroidery, worn under. The waistcoat has also two

pockets.

FOOTNOTES

1 The large outer porch of Cowley’s house had chambers above it and

beneath the window in front a tablet was affixed, upon which was

inscribed the epitaph "upon the living author" which Cowley had

written for himself, whilst living in retirement here, commencing

"Hic, O Viator, sub lare parvulo,

Couleius hic est conditus hic jacet."

It is represented in its original condition in the two views we have

engraved.

2 Some additional rooms have been added to the house by the same

occupant, who has, however, religiously preserved all the old rooms,

which still exhibit the "fittings" that existed in Cowley’s time.

The bed-chambers are wainscotted with oaken panels. The staircase is

a very solid structure, with ornamental balusters, leading toward

the small study in which the poet wrote,—a little back room, about

five feet wide, looking upon the garden. It may be distinguished in

our back view of the house, by a figure placed at the window. Cowley

ended his life in this house at the early age of forty-nine.

3 Brayley, in his History of Surrey, states that Cowley accompanied by

his friend Dean Spratt, having been to see a "friend," did not set

out for his walk home until it was too late, and had drunk so deep,

that they both lay out in the fields all night; this gave Cowley the

fever that carried him off. Brayley’s authority for this slander

(which is not borne out by the poet’s previous course of life), is

"Spence’s Anecdotes."

4 Life and Letters of Joseph Story, Associate Justice of the Supreme

Court of the United States, and Dane professor of law at Harvard

University. Edited by his son, William W. Story. Two vols. Boston:

Little & Brown, 1851.

5 As an example of the gravity and formality with which proceedings in

matters of this nature were conducted, even as late as the end of

the sixteenth century, take the subjoined palinode or recantation of

a Flemish ecclesiastic, who had been guilty of the offence of

doubting the evection, or bodily transport through the air, of

witches and wizards. The original may be found in Delrio, at the end

of the Appendix, in his 5th book:—

"I Cornelius Loseus Gallidius, born in the town of Gouda, in

Holland, now, by the command of the renowned and illustrious Lord

Nuncio Apostolic, the Lord Octavius Bishop of Tricaruis, arrested

and detained in the Imperial Monastery of St. Maximin, near Treves,

on account of certain tracts ’On True and False Witchcraft,’ rashly

and presumptuously by me written, published, and sent to be printed

at Cologne, without the perusal or permission of the superiors of

this place: whereas I am informed for certain that in the aforesaid

books, and also in certain of letters on the same subject, sent

clandestinely to the clergy and senate of Treves, and others, for

the purpose of impeding the course of justice against witches and

magicians, there are contained many articles which are not only

erroneous and scandalous, but also suspected of heresy, and savoring

of sedition: I therefore hereby revoke, condemn, reject, and

repudiate, as if they had never been said or asserted by me, the

said articles, as seditious and temerarious, contrary to the common

judgment of learned theologians, to the decision and bulls of the

supreme Pontiffs, and to the practice, and statutes, and laws of the

magistrates and judges, as well as of this Archdiocese of Treves, as

of the other provinces and principalities, in the order in which the

same are hereunto annexed.

"1. _Imprimis._ I revoke, condemn, reject, and hold as disproved,

what both in words and writing I have often and to many persons

pertinaciously asserted; and what I would have had taken as the head

and chief ornament of my disputations, to wit, that what is written

touching the corporeal evection or translation from place to place

of witches and magicians, is to be held as a vain superstition and

figment, as well because that opinion savors of heretical pravity,

as because it partakes of sedition, and so also savors of the crimes

of _lese majesté_. 2. In the second place, I revoke what I have

pertinaciously, but without solid reasons, alleged against the

magistracy, in letters secretly sent to several, that is to say,

that the course of procedure against witches is erroneous and

fantastical: asserting, moreover, that those witches were compelled

by the severity of torture to confess acts that they had never done;

that innocent blood was shed by a cruel judicature; and that by a

new alchemy gold and silver were extracted from human blood. 3.

Thereby, and by the like assertions, partly diffused by private oral

communications among the vulgar, partly by various letters addressed

to both branches of the magistracy, imputing to superiors and judges

the exercise of tyranny towards the subjects. 4 And consequently,

inasmuch as the most reverend and illustrious Archbishop and Prince

Elector of Treves not only permits witches and magicians to be

subjected to deserved punishment in his diocese, but has also

ordained laws regulating the mode and cost of the procedure against

witches, thereby with inconsiderate temerity tacitly insinuating the

charge of tyranny against the said Elector of Treves. 5. _Item._ I

revoke and condemn these following conclusions, to wit, that there

are no such beings as sorcerers, who renounce God and worship the

Devil, who bring on tempests, and do the work of Satan and such

like, but that all these things are dreams. 6. Moreover that magic

is not to be called sorcery, nor its practisers to be deemed

sorcerers, and that that that place of Exod. xxii, (’Ye shall not

suffer sorcerers to live’) is to be understood of those who slay

with material poison, naturally administered. 7. That no contract

exists or can exist between man and the demon. 8. That demons do not

assume bodies. 9. That the life of Hilary, written by St. Jerome, is

not authentic. 10. That the demon cannot carnally know mankind. 11.

That neither demons nor witches can excite tempests, rain, hail,

&c., and that what is alleged in that behalf is mere dreams. 12.

That spirits and forms can be seen by mankind separate from matter.

13. That it is rash to assert that whatever demons can do magicians

can also by the help of demons. 14. That the assertion that the

superior demon can expel the inferior is erroneous and derogatory to

Christ.—Luke xi. 15. That the Popes in the bulls do not allege that

magicians and sorcerers perpetrate such acts as above mentioned.

"All these and the like, my assertions, with my many calumnies,

falsehoods, and sycophancies, petulantly, indecorously, and

mendaciously expressed against the magistracy, as well secular as

ecclesiastical, wherewith my writings on witchcraft abound, I hereby

expressly and deliberately condemn, recant, and reject, earnestly

beseeching pardon of God and my superiors, and faithfully promising

that henceforth I will not, either by word of mouth or by writing,

by myself or others, in any place where I shall happen to be, teach,

promulgate, or assert the same or any of them. If I shall do to the

contrary, I subject myself thenceforth and henceforth to the pains

of the law against relapsed heretics, recusants, seditious

misdemeanants, and convicts of _lese majesté_, to the pains of

libellous sycophants publicly convicted, and also to those enacted

against perjurers. I submit myself also to arbitrary correction at

the pleasure of the Archbishop of Treves, and of the other

magistrates under whom I shall happen to live, and who may be

certified of my relapse or violated undertaking, that they may

punish me according to my deserts, in name, fame, goods, and body.

In testimony of all which I have, with my proper hand, subscribed

this my recantation of the aforesaid articles, in presence of the

notary and witnesses."

"(Signed,) Cornelius Loseus Gallidius."

"Attestation.—These presents were done in the Imperial Monastery of

Saint Maximin Without, near Treves, in the abbatial chamber, there

being then present the Venerable and Excellent Lord Peter Binsfeldt,

Bishop of Azof, Vicar-General of the Most Reverend Lord Archbishop

of Treves, our Most Gracious Lord in matters spiritual; Reiner,

Abbot of the said monastery; Bartholomew Bodegem, Reader of either

Law in the Ecclesiastical Court of Treves; George Helffenster,

Doctor of Sacred Theology, Dean of the Collegiate Church of St.

Simon, in the city of Treves; and John Golmann, Doctor of Laws,

Canon of the said Church, and Seal-Bearer of the Court of Treves,

&c.; in the year of our Lord 1592, Treves style, on Monday, the 15th

day of the month of March, in presence of me, the Notary

underwritten, and of Nicholas Dolent, and Daniel Major, the

Amanuensis and Secretary respectively of the Reverend Lord Abbot,

trustworthy witnesses specially called and required hereto.

"Subscribed, Adam Tecton, Notary.

"Compared with the original and found to agree, by me, the

under-written Secretary of the town of Antwerp.

S. Kieffel."

6 Lockhart’s Spanish Ballads.

7 Continued from page 109.

8 We are indebted to Dr. Francis for a revised copy, with additions,

of his very interesting address here printed, which was delivered at

the Printers’ Banquet in New-York on the 16th of January.