Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

rope as the gold-panic of September last. Scores of conflicting accounts of it have gone the rounds of the continental newspapers, and several journals of high character have taken the pains to prepare detailed histories of it, in its causes and consequences as well as its daily progress. Perhaps the most careful of these accounts is that in the Journal des Economistes, for July; but the most popular sketch of gold-gambling in New York is that given by Europa, No. 25, for 1870. The readers of these articles are able to see clearly, what is so completely hidden from many of the very men who have these scenes before their eyes, that the fundamental weakness of our financial system is in the long suspension of specie payments; and that, so long as our currency is fluctuating in value, the national credit can never be

secure.

The most careful biography of Washington Irving yet written now appears, strange to say not in America, whose literature he almost founded, nor in England which he loved, nor in Spain which he celebrated and served, but in Germany-and in Germany, a country and a language which Irving knew and valued less than he certainly would have done, had he lived later. In two compact volumes (Washington Irving, Ein Lebens and Characterbild, von Adolf Laun; Berlin, R. Oppenheim), Herr Laun gives the results of an affectionate and intelligent study of his subject in all its aspects, and succeeds in presenting a remarkably interesting and correct picture of the great diplomatist, traveller, and master of English style.

The sculptor, Wendler, has just completed, for the old St. Mary's church in Dantzig, an altar, the work of two busy years, which has been exhibited and greatly approved in Berlin. It is said to compare favorably with the former well-known altar in this church built by Michael Schwartz three hundred years ago, to which it bears a general resemblance. It is nearly seventy feet high, carved in massive oak, supporting figures of Christ, the principal apostles and the evangelists, and richly gilt, yet

so as to make the fine color of the wood conspicuous.

The Paris Conservatory of Music has had a gift of 120,000 francs, the income to be used at fixed periods as a prize for the best complete opera, both words and music. Just at this time a letter from Richard Wagner is published, declaring that he will never write for the lyric stage again; apparently because "his Meistersinger" has been hissed so much and criticized so severely. But his "Walkyre" was then about to be presented in Munich, before the court of his royal patron and friend, for the first time, and his "Lohengrin was in rehearsal at the Italiens in Paris; perhaps their reception may encourage him to produce more of the "music of the future." If not, some of the American compliments to the Rienzi overture, as given here so often and so well last winter, must be sent out to him.

Europe is far behind the United States in the opportunities afforded to women for medical study and practice. In Edinburgh the Council of the University voted down Professor Mason's proposition to admit students on the same conditions without regard to sex, by 58 to 47. In Vienna a Russian Jewess, who applied for admission to clinical lectures, has been rejected, and it is declared that women are ex-officio unacceptable as students; and in Munich the minister of public instruction formally announces that matriculation at the University of Bavaria is conditioned upon the male sex of the applicant. London seems to be the only place where the question is much discussed, but there it is admitted that the women have the best of the argument, and that the claims of Drs. Elizabeth Blackwell and Miss Garrett had not been answered, that the medical profession is peculiarly a work for their sex. In Paris, however, their right to learn all they can, and to do all the good they can, is not disputed.

The state of religion in Germany is a subject much talked and written of, but really little understood; and two strangely different but equally interesting. works, which have just appeared con

66

cerning it, are full of novel and instructive matter. Religious Thought in Germany, by the Times' Correspondent at Berlin," (London, Tinsley Bros.), is a reprint of a remarkable series of letters in the London Times, picturing with much effect the general skepticism of the thinking people, and the materials for a superstitious reaction among the ignorant. "Religious Life in Germany during the War of Independence, in a series of historical and biographical sketches," by William Baur, minister in Hamburg (authorized translation, 2 vols., London, Strahan), contains earnest and carefully studied lives of some of the most remarkable characters of the beginning of the century. Heinrich von Stein, Fichte, Arndt, Heffens, Schleiermacher, Von Holberg, and others; so told as to depict the effects of practical faith, under the most opposite theoretical beliefs and the most varied circumstances. The reader of both books will conclude that the last half-century has made terrible havoc with religious tendencies and forms among the Germans.

The formal proclamati n of the dogma of papal infallibility was delayed

until it had ceased to exite watchful attention from the press and the public, the Franco-Prussian war having engrossed all thoughts. But it may yet prove to have been a more important event in universal history than the nomination of a Hohenzollern to Isabella's throne, or Benedetti's insult to King William. It seems likely to be followed at once by the repeal of the Austrian concordat, and the withdrawal of Napoleon's troops from Rome; that is, by the virtual abandonment, by the strongest Catholic governments in Europe, of the papacy. Already it has given occasion to a flood of pamphlets and newspaper discussions, upon doctrinal and historical questions connected with it, none of which, however, upon either side, have any permanent value, either literary or ecclesiastical. The dogma itself, in its official form, merely makes the Pope the supreme doctrinal oracle and judge in his Church, when he pronounces formally, and in the name of the Church, upon

points of doctrine and practice; not implying that he must needs be a wise or good man in himself. It thus adds little to the logical difficulties of the Roman Catholic position for its controversialists, while vastly increasing the dignity and glory with which "the vicegerent of God upon earth" will be regarded by the priest ridden masses of unquestioning believers.

A recent number (96) of the series of Lectures on Natural Science, issued by Messrs. Virchow and Holtzendorff, of which we have before spoken as the most valuable presentation of the outlines of science for popular reading ever published in any language, contains a discussion of the skulls of men and of apes (über Menschen und Affenschädel), by Dr. Rudolf Virchow; perhaps the highest authority in general anatomy in the world. He controverts the too rapid conclusions of Karl Vogt and Hæckel, who have thought it easy to point out the exact nature and manner of the ransition, by natural selection, from the ape-brain to that of man; and, while not disputing the general theory of the descent of man from lower forms of being,

he shows that the differences between monkeys and men are too wide, and our ignorance of any intermediate forms too complete, to enable any plausible zoōlogical pedigree to be worked out for us.

A very curious work is in preparation by Mr. Mitford, the Secretary of the British Legation in Japan; a collection of the best original novels of the Japanese language, with illustrations by native artists. The appetite for stories of civilized life seems to be nearly sated among habitual novel-readers, but here is something really new.

The French and English are rejoicing over discoveries of extensive beds of good mineral coal in Algeria and Bengal. At Laghmat, in the French possessions in Africa, a bed has been opened which promises to supply all Algiers and southern France with fuel; while at Midnapur, within seventy miles of Calcutta, some well-diggers have struck a bed of excellent coal, from which it is hoped that the British

steamers in the trade to India and to Australia can be supplied. But neither formation has been sufficiently explored to make its extent or value certain.

The famous prison of the Conciergerie in Paris is undergoing reconstruction. The court in which the massacres of September took place, and the larger court, are already destroyed, and all the cells in which prisoners awaited the summons to the guillotine are to be removed, except the one in which the Queen Marie Antoinette spent her last days; this will be preserved just as she left it, as a memorial of her. Foreign journals revive curious and touching descriptions of the scenes of the Revolution within its walls; the most complete of which is the narrative of Count Benguot, who had the rare good fortune to escape the guillotine, and to be released after a long imprisonment in 1794, and who was afterwards a minister both of Napoleon and of Louis XVIII.

The journals of the two hemispheres are filled with memorials of Charles Dickens, perhaps the most successful author the human race has yet produced. He has reached more readers in his lifetime, and made a deeper and better impression upon them, than any other writer of any age; and his fame, which grew steadily until his death, is left by him in its full splendor. Critics waste their time in attempting to define his place and rank in literature, while the reading world is sorrowing over his grave. He may have little in common with the few great creators and guides of thought, who, one in many ages, lay of thought, who, one in many ages, lay

the corner-stones of human culture-the

Homers, Platos, Shakespeares and his active influence, unlike theirs in its rapid growth, may be unlike theirs, too, in its short duration; but the work he has done for this generation will cause it to give better brains and hearts to its children, and to their remotest descendants, until he finds his place among the highest of the

"Many men, whose names on earth are dark, But whose transmitted effluence cannot die, So long as flame outlives its parent spark."

The power of great economic

achievements to change the face of the world, is illustrated by the alarm into which many Frenchmen have fallen, at the prospect that a railway will soon be built from Germany through Switzerland into Italy, by way of the St. Gothard pass. The North German Federal Assembly has authorized the Government to give a large sum for this project; and it is said that Italy and Switzerland are eager to carry it out, in the hope of diverting to this route the travel and the most valuable part of the traffic between India and the East, on one hand, and England and all northern Europe on the other. A glance at the map will show how it is conceivable that, in this way, Venice or Genoa or Naples might one day become the capital of the Mediterranean commerce, in place of Marseilles.

A very doubtful discovery is that reported by Heinrich Schliemann, from the village of Eiplak, or New Ilium. He has been excavating in the plain of Troy, and has discovered, several feet under ground, the foundations of a large building, which, he asserts, is doubtless Priam's palace, in which Hector sacrificed to Zeus; and the thick walls of the citadel of Priam, 66 the crown of Troas," in which, as the second Iliad reports, the goddess Iris appeared to Hector.

Dr. F. W. Ebeling has written an unsatisfactory biography of Count Von Beust, in two considerable volumes (Leipsic, Wöller), treating almost excludiplomatically withholding what every sively of his Saxon life and services, and body wants most to know-the true history of the Austrian Government during his administration. It is, of course, written under Von Beust's own supervision, in this case giving the author peculiar facilities for concealment and

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Wilhelm Pierson" (Leipzig, Duncker & Humboldt), gives the results of long observation and study of the people, before they were invaded by European culture, and thus forms a curious and sometimes startling picture of their customs, manufactures, fashions, modes of labor and thought. It is sometimes imagined, by ill-informed people, that Russia and the United States are to share the world's great future between them; but a little wholesome truth about the Muscovites will satisfy Americans that, socially, politically, and morally, it is well to keep at the other end of Christendom from them.

Dr. David Strauss, author of the "Life of Jesus," has finished a work on Voltaire, intended to be a critical estimate of his position in literature and his services to modern thought, which is looked for in Germany with deep interest by all classes. There is much in which the writer resembles his subject, though Strauss is almost as superior to Voltaire in sincerity, truthfulness, critical depth, and logical exactness, as he is inferior in wit, fire, and versatility.

The geographer Kiepert has spent the Spring months in Palestine, making researches and measurements which promise important corrections in the maps of that country. He has made some interesting discoveries, chiefly new identifications of places named in sacred history, and reports the country free from disturbance, and the weather favorable to his work.

A new department is organizing in the French Ministry-that of "Letters, Sciences, and the Fine Arts." The control of the Imperial Institute, the Imperial Library, and the other Government libraries, and the general interests of literature, science, and art, are to be under its protection, and it will have power to grant subsidies for scientific and geographical explorations, and for the publication of contributions to history. The Imperial Library of Paris, the noblest in the world, has hitherto been under the nominal care of the Department of Instruction, and has been so wretchedly neglected, that it is des

titute of many of the most common and useful books in the English and German languages, while most of its resources are wholly unused, for want of the necessary means of access to them-such as catalogues, attendants, &c. It is hoped that all this will now be reformed as fast as possible.

Professor Mategazza, the Italian chemist, has made an elaborate series of researches into the origin and effects of ozone in the atmosphere. He confirms the belief that its presence is destructive of malaria, and protects against infectious disease. He finds that odorous flowers throw off ozone in amounts proportioned to the strength of their odors; and recommends that such flowers be placed in houses where there is any reason to fear the existence of malaria.

The doctrine, first put forth last winter by Professor Coryville Thompson, that the formation of chalk-rock, and the deposit in it of organic fossils, have gone on continuously from the early part of the tertiary epoch until now, in the North Atlantic Ocean, has been heartily embraced by many of the leading geologists and naturalists of Europe. "We may be said to be still living in the cretaceous epoch," says Dr. Thompson; and Dr. Carpenter approves the statement, and declares that "the idea is one which must exert so important an influence on the future course of geological inquiry, that its introduction will be one of the landmarks in the history of the science." Certainly it seems utterly to overthrow, if admitted, all conclusions whatever as to chronology, founded on the nature and succession of rocks, and to leave the geologists nothing on which to build up a record of the past except the progressive changes of organic life.

It is now twenty-seven years since Hermann Burmeister first published his "History of Creation," and in successive editions he has improved it by his own careful studies, as well as by the results of other investigators, until it may be regarded as the best, as it certainly is, to untechnical readers,

the most intelligible, general account of what is known of animated nature. Professor Burmeister is free from the prejudices of all schools, from the narrowness of some specialists, and from hasty devotion to unestablished theories; but he fairly states the evidence in favor of the views to which the scientific world now leans, without disguising their difficulties or their unsolved problems. The changes which the earth has undergone in condition and temperature, with their causes, the origin of life, the succession of organisms, and the relations of species to one another, are among the subjects which he discusses, with such sobriety and fulness of knowledge, that some of the leading European critics rank his recent eighth edition with Humboldt's "Cosmos" in importance. A French translation of this work, by M. E. Maupas, has just appeared (Paris, F. Savy), and will bring it within reach of many to whom the German original is inaccessible. Now that a host of English works on various branches of the same subject are claiming attention, many of them misleading or worthless, it is to be hoped that this standard and authoritative treatise will be translated.

We cannot call any thing of Mr. Richard A. Proctor's either worthless or misleading, without qualification; but his new work, "Other Worlds than Ours; the Plurality of Worlds Studied under the Light of Recent Scientific Researches" (London, Longmans, Green & Co.), is certainly disappointing. Mr. Proctor thinks that recent discoveries in astronomy have gone very far to prove that some of the other planets are inhabited by living beings, if not by intelligent observers of the skies, and he devotes a volume of more than three hundred pages to setting them forth in this point of view. His presentation of them, though excessively diffuse, is often interesting, but he makes out no case. It is of Mars that he thinks his point best proved, and he enthusiastically discusses "Mars, the miniature of our earth;" but the established facts on which he relies are simply that

this planet has a varied surface, which may be made up of land and water; that it has an atmosphere, of unknown density and composition, which contains something like watery vapor, and throws down, in winter, heavy masses of something like snow; and that its cold winters and changes of climate, though far more severe than ours, may possibly be so tempered by atmospheric influences as not at once to destroy all such life as we know. When we consider how very slight a change in the composition of the atmosphere, as, for example, either an increase or a deficiency in the amount of carbonic acid, would destroy vegetable and animal life; or how, in the absence of the moon-and Mars has none - the ocean would become stagnant, or how quickly every living thing would perish, even on the earth, were it removed as far from the sun as Mars is, or any of a score of other nice balances between destructive powers, which are essential to the habitability of the earth, Mr. Proctor's scientific arguments appear of little value. It is really the theological argument from final causes alone on which the book rests-assuming that the worlds were created for a purpose, and, unable to conceive of any worthy purpose but as the scene of life, the author concludes that this must be their raison d'étre. This reasoning recurs on every page; but, good or bad, it has nothing to do with science.

[ocr errors]

One of the most entertaining books of the year is "A Series of Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, his Family and Friends, from 1745 to 1820," edited by his grandson, the Right Honorable the Earl of Malmesbury, G. C. B. (2 vols., London, Bentley). The first Earl was the son of Mr. James Harris, the author of the once famous "Hermes," or Principles of Universal Grammar, and therefore the grandnephew of the great Lord Shaftesbury, of the "Characteristics." Oxford boy, of Fox's set; entered the diplomatic service at Madrid in 1767, and, from that time until his death, in 1820, was intimately acquainted with

He was an

« IndietroContinua »