Walesrode's Texts of the Times.

239

What is perhaps least to be pardoned in Dr. Heyd's work, is the evident solicitude to extenuate the offences of Ulric, whose conduct would, even in his own fierce times, have brought any private man to the gallows. The murder of Hans von Hutten was the more atrocious, as the widow and the widow's father remained at the duke's court, where the lady is supposed to have been quite as familiar with her husband's murderer, as Von Hutten had been suspected of being with the duchess. Dr. Heyd seeks to make Ulric's treatment of his wife less odious, by industriously displaying her faults; but though she may have been, and no doubt was, as spoilt and as irritable as her historian represents her, Ulric's conduct in beating her even in the honeymoon, and obliging her to run into debt for years together to get common necessaries for herself and children, could hardly fail to rankle in the heart of a proud and justly offended woman, till at last a sanguinary catastrophe drove her in terror to seek shelter with her brothers.

Ulric's residence at Mömpelgard is told at great length; but the insight so given into the domestic life of the German gentry of that day, compensates for the extension of the narrative. Here also, however,

the desire to place every act of Ulric's in the most favourable light, is far too evident. To suppose, for instance, that such a man could be actuated by conscientious motives to quit one faith for another, is neither more nor less than an absurdity. It was his interest to become a Protestant, and he became one; it was afterwards his interest to continue one, or he would not have been the man to shrink from a second apostacy. Würtemberg may owe her religious emancipation to Ulric, as England, in a great measure, owed hers to Henry; but the duke was, not the less, even a more reckless instrument than the king.

The above remarks were already written, when we learnt the death of the author. The work is incomplete, the second volume bringing us only to the restoration of Ulric, after the battle of Laufen. With all its defects, even in its fragmentary form, the book is a valuable acquisition to the historical literature of Germany, and it will be matter for just regret if the publishers should not succeed in meeting with a writer willing and able to bring the historical fragment to a close.

Glossen und Randzeichnungen zu Texten aus unserer Zeit. (Texts of the Times, with Notes and Illustrations.) Four Lectures delivered in Königsberg by Ludwig Walesrode. Fourth Edition. Königsberg. 1842.

SHORTLY after the accession of the present Prussian monarch to the throne, loud and at times angry voices demanded a constitution as a debt by virtue of a royal promise, and freedom of the press as a right. Neither of these demands have been as yet complied with; but as a concession to popular clamour, which threatened to become serious in the extremities of the Prussian monarchy, instructions were given to

the censors to act with lenity. Elsewhere, under Foreign Correspondence, this is referred to. The present work is one of its fruits, and a perfect curiosity in its kind. It is written in a strain of sarcastic irony; and the fact of four editions having appeared within as many months sufficiently attests its popularity. The German has truly become much more of a politician than of old, and bids fair, with unexpected speed, to realize the anticipations of our earnest correspondent from that country.

Ludwig Walesrode sketches a censor thus:

"A censor is in appearance like other mortals, but his office is something superhuman. He gives direction to genius and thenght; and holds in his hands the scales which belong, of right, to eternal justice alone. In the literary world he is appointed to execute the Pharaohic Law, that all masculine literary offspring be slain, or at the least Abelardized. The censorship of T ancient Rome consisted in a tribunal, which took strict cognizance of the morality of the citizens of the Republic; it ceased when, as Cicero informs us, it could effect nothing beyond making men blush. Our censorship, on the other hand, will not cease until the whole nation, to a man, blushes at its existence."

The celebration of anniversary festivals is also admirably satirized. Ludwig reproaches his laborious countrymen with not having *yet succeeded in discovering the day of the week and month on which the world was created. (In this charge he is however unhappy; as, according to divers and sundry calculations, it seems beyond a doubt, that the 15th of May, corresponding to the 28th of the Julian May, is the birthday of the world!*) Few of the salient absurdities of the day escape him, and with the help of his whimsical illustrations he has produced an amusing book.

The Mabinogion. Parts I., II., III., & IV. London. 1839-1842, THESE are four ancient Welsh tales, translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest, who has added many valuable notes to her translation; and for the able manner in which she has acquitted herself of the task, she is entitled to the thanks not only of the literary antiquarian, but of the philosophical historian. The tales are interesting in them selves, and of their antiquity and genuineness we believe there is little doubt; but their chief value in the eye of a judicious reader, must be the insight they afford into the manners of the wild and lawless times in which the scene is laid. In this respect we may particularly direct attention to the fourth part, which contains the history of "Kilhwch and Olwen," a tale probably of greater antiquity than any to be found in the range of English literature, and one which presents us with a lively picture of the boisterous doings of our Celtic ancestors.

* Compare Chronique d'Abou-Djafar Mohamed Tabari. Paris. 1836. G. Seyffarth, Astronomia Ægyptica. Leipzig.

Mouravieff's Church of Russia.

241

A History of the Church of Russia. By A. N. MOURAVIEFF, Chamberlain to his Imperial Majesty, and Under Procurator to the Most.. Holy Governing Synod, St. Petersburg, 1838. Translated by the Rev. R. W. BLACKMORE, Chaplain in Cronstadt to the Russia Company, and B. A. of Merton College, Oxford. Oxford. 1842. THE Russian Church will probably be called on to act a more important part than it has yet acted in the history of mankind, and English readers should feel indebted to Mr. Blackmore for translating this book. Rome is not inattentive to the encroachments of the Russian church, but those encroachments are likewise directed against the Protestantism of the Baltic provinces, and though protestant prelates may not feeli themselves authorized to thunder forth their allocutions against the autocrat apostle of Eastern orthodoxy, it behoves them to watch what is going on in Russia with a careful

eye.

Sixteen hundred thousand Russian subjects have, within the last few years, been induced to sever their connexion with Rome, and adopt the national faith. Such wholesale conversions have not indeed taken place in those provinces where the protestant faith prevails; but there also Russian congregations have been established, and are gradually increasing under the protection of the government.

Respecting the present condition and prospects of the Russian Church, the work before us affords not much information. The affairs of our own times belong rather to the department of politics than to that of history, and Mr. Mouravieff shows just as little inclination as his translator, to venture into a field in which frank discussion would inevitably be surrounded by a multitude of perils. The history of Mr. Mouravieff goes down only to the year 1721, and passes over, consequently, all the occurrences of the last century. He gives also but little information respecting the negotiations, by means of which several successive popes endeavoured to draw the whole Russian nation into the Roman fold, negotiations which on more than one occasion seemed to promise success... The work in these circumstances is necessarily an imperfect one; but with all its imperfections we welcome its appearance with pleasure, as affording information on a subject that will be altogether new to a vast majority of its readers.

TABLES OF FOREIGN LITERATURE.

THE Table we now give affords a Chronological Survey of the whole of a Literature, relative to which scarcely any thing is yet known, and even that only partially and fragmentarily. The present Table will serve to make manifest that there are other names besides those of Lomonosov and Sumarokov, Karamzin and Pushkin, which claim notice in biographical works. If indeed only those authors who continue to be read were to be recorded in literary history and biography, no very large volume would be required for the purpose. A century makes dreadful havoc everywhere with literary reputations and celebrities, and in the case of Russia it could not well be otherwise, for the language itself has undergone a very considerable change. The writers even of the "age of Catherine" can now be considered as little more than pioneers, or as having rough-hewn and shaped out the matériel of a literature. Not only have they become more or less antiquated in style, but old-fashioned in matter as well as manner, owing to a system of imitation, more artificial than artistical. Nevertheless, they are too essential to the literary history of Russia to be omitted in our table of it.

As far as this country is concerned, The Foreign Quarterly has done perhaps more than any other publication, in communicating intelligence relative to Russian Literature and Art; the Table has been therefore made to serve in some measure as an Index to the articles of that kind which have appeared, reference being made in it to those where fuller information will be found. Much scattered information is thus brought into a single point of view. We will only add, that with respect to the orthography of the names, that of the original language has been adhered to as far as the difference of its alphabet and characters from those of our own permit, without attempting to accommodate them to pronunciation or our own usual mode of spelling. Some discrepancy will in consequence be found between the same names as they appear here, and as they were rendered in an article upon Russian Literature at the very commencement of our Review (vol. i. p. 595, &c.), where they were more or less disguised by the French mode of orthography.