Lelewel (a name honored by all lovers of liberty,) has just published at Breslau a work on the geography of the middle ages, which is worthy of the warmest admiration. It consists of an atlas of fifty plates, engraved by the hand of the venerable author, containing one hundred and forty-five figures and maps, from eighty-eight different Arabic and Latin geographers of different epochs, with eleven explicative or comparative maps and two geographical essays. The whole work exhibits the most thorough acquaintance and conscientious use of the labors of previous explorers in the same direction. The cost of importing a copy into this country would be about eight dollars.
More new German Novels.—The Siege of Rheinfels, by Gustave von See, is a historical romance, founded on an episode from the wars of Louis XIV., against the German empire. While the Palatinate and the left bank of the Rhine were ravaged by the French armies, the fortress of Rheinfels held out obstinately against a siege which was prosecuted with fury by a much superior force. Amid the scenes of this siege, passes the love-story that forms the kernel of the novel, which is written with originality and talent. The historical part is equally attractive and vraisemblant. A collection of romances under the title of Germania, has appeared at Bremen. It is intended to serve as the beginning of an annual publication. The first number contains seven tales, some of them by well known romance writers. The first is Eine Leidenschaft (A Passion), by Louise von G., and is highly praised by the most reliable critics; it abounds in arch and graceful humor. Spiller von Hauenschildt is the least successful of the contributors in respect to the artistic treatment of his subject. His novel is socialistic. Adolph Hahr and Alfred Meissner are also among the contributors. On the whole the book is a good one.
Leopold Schefer has published lately in Berlin The Bishop's Wife, a Tale of the Papacy, in which the great Napoleon of the church, Hildebrand, figures as the hero. The Germans have never succeeded in the historical novel. With vast resources in materiel, they have always a vagueness, a want of definite interest, of picturesque arrangement, and of sustained and disciplined power. Schefer is a scholar, and his didactic purpose is plain enough, and well enough managed. The Teutonic character has always instinctively revolted against the practice of celibacy, a form of ascetism quite natural, and sometimes perhaps inevitable, as a reaction against the unbridled sensualism of the Africans and Asiatics, but quite out of place in climes so temperate and races so moderate, conscientious, and self-respecting as those of Northern Europe. It needed all the genius and determination of Hildebrand himself to enforce the celibacy of the German clergy, and certainly they have never ceased more or less covertly to revolt against it. It is well understood that, at the present time, there is a very general wish among the Catholics of Germany—more especially of South Germany, where they are not jealous of Protestant encroachments—to have marriage allowed to the parochial clergy; and the clergy themselves are foremost in this tendency, though it may not accord with their interest unreservedly to display it. It has, however, betrayed its existence in various ways, especially in anonymous literary productions, in prose and verse. So general is this feeling, and so profound the conviction that something must be done, that in 1848 it was very generally credited that the Pope was prepared to sanction a relaxation of the laws of the church in this respect. For this belief, however, there could have been no just foundation, since Pius IX. is the reputed author of the official reply, made while he was but a priest, to the Brazilian Archbishop Feijo, upon this very subject, in which it was alleged that such a relaxation of discipline would be an abandonment of the "integrity of the church." Yet without something of the kind, it is thought that a very extensive schism in catholic Germany will be inevitable.
Der Mensch im Spiegel der Natur (Man in the Mirror of Nature), is an excellent little work for popular use, by Mr. E. A. Rossmässler, published at Leipzic, in two neat volumes, with wood-cuts. It sets forth, in the most attractive form, the elementary facts of science, they being ingeniously interwoven into a narrative of the journeys, friendships, and adventures of the author. The work well deserves a translation into English.
A work of extreme interest to geologists is the Gaea Norwegica, edited by Professor Keilhau of the Christiana University, and published at that place. The first volume is just completed. No country of Europe is more important in respect of geological science than Norway, and the labors of Professor Keilhau and his associates are of the most thorough and solid kind. The volume contains 516 pages folio. Cost in America $4.50.
A German nobleman lately wrote to the French Academy, offering to give that body a yearly income of 10,000 francs to be spent in two prizes, one of 5,000 francs for the best essay in defence of Catholicism, and another of the same sum for the best essay in defence of Absolutism. The Academy declined the offer.
A System of Christian Ethics has lately been published at Regensburg, by Dr. Werner, Professor in the Catholic Theological Seminary of St. Polten. The writer holds that all virtue flows from the mystic fountain of regeneration, and is confirmed and supported solely by the sacraments of the church.
Wilhelm Meinhold, author of the Amber Witch, lately the pastor of a parish in Pomerania, is now in Berlin, preparing for admission into the Roman Catholic Church. It is not long since he forfeited his place in the Protestant Church by a street fight, for which, we believe, he was imprisoned.
The College of Rabbis, at Padua, offers 1000 florins ($400) as a prize for the best descriptive and critical work on the political and religious history of the Israelites from the first siege of Jerusalem to the time of the latest writers of the Talmud.
Mrs. Robinson's (Talvi's) History of the Colonization of America, originally published in the German language, has been translated by Mr. William Hazlitt, and printed in London.
Gedichte von Jeanne Marie (Poems by Jeanne Marie) is the title of one of the latest products of the German muse. The authoress is well known and well liked by those readers of German novels who take delight in the genius of authoresses, and think ladies can write as well as men. Jeanne Marie has seen much, felt much, and thought almost if not quite as much as she has seen and felt. Her poetic culture is however still defective, and her stories are better than her lyrics. The latter lack finish and correctness, and abound in mere conceits rather than in genuine poetic images. Where she attempts simply to narrate an event in the ballad style she is more successful.
A book of curious historical interest is now in course of publication in Germany, the first volume of which has already made its appearance. It is the Diary of General Patrick Gorton, who served in Russia during a large part of the seventeenth century, where he attained the highest military rank. He was in the habit of noting every thing that passed around him, or with which he was connected, whether of a political, military, or personal nature. His field of service extended throughout the entire empire, and embraced the most important events in the reign of Peter the Great. He participated in the suppression of the corps of Strelitzes, made two campaigns against the Turks, was active in Peter's reorganization of the army, &c., &c. The first volume comes down to 1678; the remainder will soon follow. As the whole was written without any design of being communicated to the world, it is especially valuable for its glimpses at the domestic habits of the country at that peculiar period.
George Sand's New Drama.—George Sand's Claudie has had a brilliant fortune at Paris, where it was first performed the second week in January. It is a drama of peasant life, in three acts, in prose. Jules Janin says of it: "The success of Claudie is a true, sincere, and energetic success. It has impassioned the calmest souls; it has calmed the most agitated. This poem is a veritable festival, full of the rustic delights of the country, of the most honorable passions of the human heart, of the noblest sentiments. Add to this, a charm altogether new, a charm both inspired and inspiring, in the style, which is reason and good sense in the most delicious costume. Neither effort nor study is there, but only that simplicity so much sought for in the most precious passages of Daphnis and Chloe translated to the Marivaux by Amyot himself. The piece was listened to with ravishment. There was universal praise among the audience, an inexpressible abundance of tears, of laughter, of gayety, of sighs, of words fitly spoken, of eloquent silence." Of the plot we take the following account
