George Sand, as elsewhere noted, has written her "Confessions," in the
style of Rousseau, and a Paris bookseller has contracted to give her
a fortune for them. The three greatest--intellectually greatest--women
of modern times have lived in France and it is remarkable that they
have been three of the most shamelessly profligate in all history. The
worst of these, probably--Madame de Staël--left us no records of her
long-continued, disgusting, and almost incredible licentiousness, so
remarkable that Chateaubriand deemed her the most abandoned person in
France at a period when modesty was publicly derided in the Assembly
as a mere "system of refined voluptuousness." Few who have lately
resided in Paris are ignorant of the gross sensualism of the
astonishing Rachel, whose genius, though displayed in no permanent
forms, is not less than that of the Shakspeare of her sex, the
forever-to-be-famous Madame Dudevant, whose immoralities of conduct
have perhaps been overdrawn, while those of De Staël and Rachel have
rarely been spoken of save where they challenged direct observation.
We perceive that Rachel is to be in New York next autumn, with a
company of French actors.
* * * * *
Mr. G.P.R. James arrived in New York on the Fourth, and "landed amid
discharges of artillery, the huzzas of assembled thousands, and such
an imposing military display as is rarely seen in this country except
on occasions of great moment and universal interest." He is certainly
entitled to all the ceremonious honors he will receive during his
summer in America, for no man living, probably, has contributed
more to the quiet and rational pleasure of the people here than this
prolific but always intelligent and gentlemanly author. We have it
from the best authority that Mr. James does not intend in any way
whatever to meddle with the copyright question, and that he will
not write a book about us on his return to England. He visits the
United States for a season's agreeable relaxation, with his family,
comprising his wife and daughter and three sons. The London _Morning
Chronicle_, in a review of one of his recent compositions, has
the following piece of criticism, in contemplation of the present
interruption of Mr. James's labors:--
"A season without two or three novels from Mr. James would
be a marked year in the world of letters. There is not a
power-loom in all Manchester which works with more untiring,
unswerving regularity. Does Mr. James ever stop to think,
to eat, to drink, to sleep? Is he ever sick? Has he ever a
headache? Is he ever out of sorts, even as other men are, when
they turn away from the inkstand as from a bottle of physic?
We do not believe it. We sometimes doubt whether Mr. James be
a man at all. Is he mortal? Has he flesh and blood, or is he
some indefinite unheard-of machine, some anomaly of nature,
some freak of creation, whose mission is to make novels--and
who accordingly spins, spins away, and never leaves off for
a moment--never! We know how M. Dumas manages to rear his
wonderful literary offspring. With all Mr. James's fertility,
however, the Frenchman has a thousand times Mr. James's
invention. The romances of the latter are simply a series
of ever-changing, yet never novel variations upon the one
original theme furnished by Sir Walter Scott. Dumas, with his
eighty volumes a year, yet manages to be ever fresh, ever
new. Nobody knows, till he reads it, what a novel of the
Frenchman's will be. Everybody, even before he cuts open
page one, can tell you the certain features, the stereotyped
characters, which flourish in eternal youth in the
never-ending productions of James. It is only calling them
by other names, and dressing them in different
costumes--altering, in the description of a castle, the dais
from the one end of the great hall to the other, or some such
important revolution--and _presto_, Mr. James can whip the
personages and the places who flourished in one country and
in one century right slap into another generation and another
land. The thing is done in a moment, and you have a new novel
before you--just as new, at all events, as is any in his list
of a hundred."
* * * * *
Botta's "Nineveh" has at last reached completion at Paris. It consists
of five folio volumes of the largest size; only 400 copies have been
printed; 300 of them are to be distributed by the Government, and 100
for booksellers, to be sold. The price is 1800 francs a copy, or about
$600, the total expense of the edition being 296,000 fr. or not far
from $55,000. The publication of the work on so expensive a scale,
unaccompanied by an edition cheap enough for ordinary readers, is a
great blunder; at least the reputation of the author suffers from
it. The book does not reach those for whom it is written, while of
Layard's work at least 10,000 copies have been sold, exclusive of the
sale in America.
* * * * *
Arago announces that he will at last begin the printing of his long
prepared but not yet published works. His health is deeply shattered.
When the Provincial Government ceased to exist he was so weak that he
could scarcely walk, but since then repose has considerably recruited
his strength, but he does well to undertake the long postponed
publication of his studies. The first issued will be on Measuring
the Intensity of Light, which he is now reading to the Academy;
subsequently he will bring out the Astronomy, so long waited for.
It is true that some years since a book was printed with this title,
composed from notes of some of his lectures; this work has passed
through many editions and has been translated into other languages,
though he has often protested against it as an entirely erroneous and
perverted presentation of his ideas.
* * * * *
The Rev. H.W. Bellows has resigned the editorship of _The Christian
Enquirer_, which he has conducted with distinguished ability, we
believe from its commencement.
* * * * *
Miss Cooper, a daughter of the great novellist, has been announced in
London as the author of "Rural Hours," a volume to be published in two
or three weeks by Bentley, and by our Aldus, Mr. Putnam. We have read
and in this number of the _International_ give some extracts from
the advance sheets of "Rural Hours," and we think the work will be
regarded as one of the most pleasing and elegant contributions which
woman has in a long time made to English literature. It is in the form
of a year's diary in the country, and it illustrates on almost every
page a large and wise cultivation, and the finest capacities for the
observation of nature. We shall hereafter enter more fully into the
discussion of its merits, but meanwhile advise the reader to obtain
the book as soon as possible, in confidence that it will prove one of
the most delightful souvenirs of the summer.
* * * * *
Prof. Agassiz of Harvard College appears in the last number of
the _Christian Examiner_--an able periodical, which no degree or
affectation of "liberality" should have tempted to the admission of
such a paper--in an elaborate argument against the Unity of the Human
Race. It is ridiculous to attempt a disguise of this matter: the
proposition of Prof. Agassiz is an attack upon the Christian religion,
and he is guilty of scandalous dishonesty in endeavoring to evade
its being so considered. He has undoubtedly a right to pursue any
investigation to which he may be led by a love of science, and,
guarding himself about with humility and candor, he has a right to
accept the results which may be offered in the premises by a careful
induction. But the right to assail the commonly received opinions of
mankind, especially the right to assail a people's religion, has other
and very rigid conditions, which will not, we are persuaded, justify
this new outbreak of the restless spirit of Infidelity. Certainly, it
would have become Prof. Agassiz, before venturing upon the course he
has adopted, to dissociate himself from a University to which so many
of the youth of the country have been sent without any thought on the
part of their parents that they were to be exposed there to influences
which they would dread above all others. There is no right to offer,
except to _men_, capable of its thorough apprehension, any new or
questionable or unsettled doctrine. Prof. Agassiz should have been in
a condition to receive in his own person the consequences of a failure
to establish his theory. We have no fears as to the result of the
controversy upon which he has entered. No man worthy to be called a
Christian scholar, deprecates the subjection of the Bible to any tests
that are possible. It has withstood in the last two centuries quite
too much of sham science to be in any way affected by the logic of
Prof. Agassiz. Still, the appearance of such a paper in the _Christian
Examiner_--the chief organ of American Unitarianism--is significant of
a state of feeling and opinion to be regretted, and it should summon
to the conflict the men whose predecessors made every similar wave
of Infidelity bring support and strength to the bases of the rock of
Christianity.
* * * * *
Letters from Dr. Layard have been received in London, to the 10th of
April, dated from Arban, on the River Khabour. The last account from
this quarter mentioned his purpose of penetrating into the desert,
which he has explored for three weeks, meeting with numerous traces
of ancient population, though not so many antiquities as he expected.
His present site, however, is richer in archæological remains, and is
important, as they are undoubtedly Assyrian, and prove the extent of
that empire. Two winged bulls and other fragments are described as
very remarkable, the meadows as rich in herbage, and the banks of the
Khabour as literally gemmed with flowers; and Mr. Layard was desirous
to examine this river to its mouth; but the Arabs were hostile to the
plan, though it was trusted that arrangements would be made with the
parties, wherever they interposed between Mr. Layard and his wishes.
In his letter, he says he thinks Major Rawlinson wrong in some of his
topography, and that the chronological deductions cannot as yet be
considered settled.
* * * * *
Mr. Rogers, the poet, was lately knocked down by a cab, as he was
returning from a dinner party, and so seriously injured as very much
to alarm his friends. He was not restored sufficiently to see visitors
at the last dates. Rogers, Montgomery, Moore, Hunt, Wilson, Savage
Landor, and De Quincey, are "listening to the praises of posterity."
Not any of them can last much longer.
* * * * *
Harro Harring, the Swedish republican novelist, had scarcely reached
his own country after several years exile in America, before he was
again imprisoned for some quixotic attack upon institutions which he
has neither the ability nor the character, even if let alone by the
government, to change.
* * * * *
Mr. W.E. Foster has published in London a new edition of Clarkson's
Life of Penn, in the preface to which he has entered very fully into
the points raised by Macaulay in his History in regard to the Quakers,
vindicating them, and very ably sustaining the fame of their hero.
* * * * *
Rev. Dr. Judson, the missionary, is again reported in very feeble
health, and in a decline. He is nearly sixty years of age.
* * * * *
The Poems of Frances A. and Metta V. Fuller, of Ohio, are in press,
and to be published in a beautiful volume in the autumn.
* * * * *
Mr. Prescott, the historian, is passing the summer in England.
* * * * *
LITERATURE IN PARIS.--A correspondent of the London _Literary
Gazette_, under date of June 12, says:
"I notice reprints, by Didot, of several of the standard works
of Chateaubriand; a condensation, by General O'Connor, of his
"Monopoly;" a Treatise, by the Bishop of Langres, on the grave
question of Church and State; a very interesting and curious
work on the forests of Gaul, ancient France, England, Italy,
&c.; a volume of the Unpublished Letters of Mary Adelaide
of Savoy, Duchess of Bourgogne--which throws great light on
many of the principal historical events and personages of
her time; a charming series of Sketches from Constantinople,
entitled "Nuits du Ramazan," by Gerard de Nerval, a popular
_feuilletoniste_; a big volume of the works of St. Just, the
terrible Conventionist; a continuation of the Illustrated
Edition of Defauconpret's Translation of the complete works
of Walter Scott; an admirable fac-simile collection of
Contemporary Portraits of Eminent Individuals of the Sixteenth
Century; a reprint of Boileau's Satires; an Alphabetical
and Analytical Table of all the Authors, Sacred and Profane,
discovered or published in the forty-three volumes of the
celebrated Cardinal Mai; a 'Month in Africa,' by Pierre
Napoleon Buonaparte, &c. There have also been more than the
usual average of works in the Greek, Latin, Hebrew. Italian
and Portuguese."
* * * * *
DR. GUTZLAFF, the famous missionary, is now in Germany, and he had
recently an interview with the Presidents of the Corporation of
Merchants of Stettin, to give them some information as to the sort of
goods best adapted for exportation to China. He held out very little
encouragement of a profitable trade with that country at present, as
he said he could not name a single article of German manufacture he
thought likely to secure any great demand. He commended the English
government for establishing a "Chinese Exhibition," in order to
instruct the merchants of the real nature and quality of Chinese
productions. (He must have meant the exhibition of the late Mr. Dunn,
of Philadelphia, so long open in London, and erroneously supposed
that it was a government institution.) He also described the Chinese
language itself, on account of its extreme difficulty, as the chief
obstacle in the way of the civilization of the people. He did not
believe the most learned Chinese perfectly knew his alphabet, as
after twenty years' study he could not say he was master of it, a
fact highly discouraging to the German _savans_.
* * * * *
A new Historical Society was formed at Hartford, Conn., a few weeks
ago, under the title of the Historical Society of the Protestant
Episcopal Church of the United States. A constitution was formed, and
Bishop Brownwell elected President. The objects are to collect and
preserve such materials, as may serve to illustrate the history of
the Episcopal church, and the collection and preservation of all
memorials, printed, manuscript, or traditional, which throw light on
the progress of the American branch of that church, in any period, and
of all materials relating to the social and religious history of the
times during which that church has existed.
* * * * *