THE recent infamous Concordat between Austria and the Holy See, which has obtained so much notice from the political press, will have a most pernicious effect on literature. The Archbishop of Milan, and other Austrian bishops, have notified all whom it may concern, that in virtue of the powers it confers on the prelacy, they require all booksellers and publishers to submit to them "books and writings of all kinds," which they may propose to publish, and not to sell any books that may be printed abroad without their permission. They warn them, that if they neglect to do this, they will not only run the risk of damning their immortal souls and the souls of others, but will incur severe punishment under the civil law-which punishment the pious prelates promise not to spare them and we most devoutly believe them. From Vienna we learn, that not only is Austrian literature to be subjected to the censorship of the bishops, but it is now liable to a political censorship almost as severe as that which exists in Russia. From books, new and old, which are authorized to be sold, whole passages are blotted out in Russian style; and the title of "My Prisons," given to the famous book of Silvio Pellico, has had to be dropped as seditious. It is even asserted that the government contemplates prohibiting the reading of the national poet Schiller.

Rev. Joseph A. Collier, Pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church of Geneva, New-York, has received the premium of $500 offered (by the late Rev. Thomas A. Merrill, D.D., of Middlebury, Vt.) to the author of the best treatise on "The Right Way, or the Gospel applied to the Intercourse of Individuals and Nations."

Professor Edward T. Channing, whose death took place at Cambridge a short time since, was, during nearly forty years, one of the chief ornaments of that University. A lawyer by profession, his elegant taste, his profound knowledge of English literature, his classic style as a writer and power as a speaker, pointed him out as the proper person for the Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory, which, for so many years, he so honorably filled. He was, during several years, the editor of the North American Review, and contributed to it many articles; but it was as a professor and teacher of young men that he exerted so decided an influence on American literature, and discharged the debt which every man owes to his profession. The mention of the names of American authors who received their early training under Mr. Channing would amply support this assertion. He was a brother of the Rev. Dr. Channing, and a native of Newport, R. I. His age was about sixty-five.

The third volume of Lamartine's "Memoirs of Celebrated Characters," just published by Bentley, of London, contains sketches of William Tell, Madame de Sévigné, Milton, Antar, and Bossuet. This wide range is suited to the author's peculiar genius, as well as to the object directly proposed in the work. Of William Tell,

little is really known; and what history has left untold, is supplied by tradition, and by the poetry of Schiller. In the sketch of Antar, the author gives the results of his own observations and travels. The account of the desert and its inhabitants is a beautiful sketch, full of truth and of poetry:

"The Arabs, those eternal navigators of the sea of sand, have contracted by similarity of manners, by contemplation of the same scenes, by inhabiting the same spaces, and by the constant movement of the same steps over similar sites, a personal character analogous to the character of the desert: religious as the infinity that surrounds them; free as the expanse open to their view; roving as the horse, the camel, or the herd of cattle, which carries or follows them; hospitable as the open tent to the traveler bewildered in those vast solitudes; intrepid, as becomes men whe owe their safety to the strength of their own arms, and who are ever compelled to be on the watch to defend their wives, their children, their springs of fresh water, and their pasture-lands from the sudden incursions of other tribes, fierce, unsettled, and wandering like themselves. They are habitually grave and silent as the waste that surrounds them, but sometimes loquacions and communicative as men who meet with men in s hurried, casual interview, and who hasten to exchange mutual inquiries and to impart reciprocal information. They are as contemplative and poetical as the nights, the days, the stars, the boundless horizons which are invariably before them. Finally, they are relaters of stories, long as the slowly-progressing, unemployed hours, which can only be filled up by marvelous recitations, while they sit under the shelter of the tent, or round the margin of the well or spring, to beguile the heavy march of time."

Antar is the great hero of the Homeric poems of the desert. He is at once warrior, orator, bard, lover, the subject and the author of the

romance that bears his name:

"This noble composition, often rising to an equality with Homer, Virgil, and Tasso, in many of its essential components, is recited to this day under the tents of the wandering tribes in the deserts of Damascus, Aleppo, and Bagdad, throughout the long night-watches of the camel-drivers, or during the halts of the cars

In the memoir of Bossuet, the author is within historical bounds, and of his life and his times a most admirable sketch is given; and the memoir of Madame de Sévigné is one of the best things that Lamartine has ever written. Though unable to understand "Paradise Lost," which, he says, "has become the monument of a library," Lamartine does justice to the noble epic of Milton's life, and speaks with veneration of his virtues and his patriotism.

Reaction.-In Germany, says the British Quar terly Review, the great fact observable just now in relation both to theology and philosophy is the fact of reaction. Professor Weisse, of Leipsic, in his Philosophical Dogmatics, shows little reverence for the sages of Tübingen; and A. F. Gfrörer, who was not long since a rationalist of the extreme school, now writes, in his Primitive History of the Race, as a believer in the historical truthfulness of the earlier chapters of Genesis: while Professor Gruppe, at Berlin, Dr. Jessen, and Karl Forslaye are working with no little effect toward the demolition of nearly everything that has been characteristic of German speculation since the rise of Kant, and in the way of a return from the transcendental to the

ont.

Baconian method. Hitherto we have taken up German modes of thought as the vulgar take up fashions, adopting them when they are dying It is not much to the credit of Oxford that she should be seen doing the grand in the castoff clothes of her neighbors. The time may perhaps come, even in Germany, when a man's labors will be appreciated according to the amount of sagacity he brings to them, and not according to the amount of rubbish he may have turned over in prosecuting them. The drudge may accumulate; the sifting and vivifying power is from another source.

Macaulay and the Critics.-The English critics are busy at present endeavoring to discover inaccuracies in Macaulay's History of England. Mr. Hepworth Dixon announces an "Answer to Macaulay's charges against Penn," and Mr. Macaulay is employed upon a rejoinder to his various critics. The Athenaeum says:

"Penn, Dryden, and Marlborough are the chief men whose reputations have been assailed by the historian; and his judgments on these personages stand in highest need of explanation and defense. Mr. Dixon, we understand, replies upon the entire case as against Penn, Mr. Macaulay's accusations standing in the latest editions as they stood in the first. We shall be glad to see what Mr. Macaulay can urge in defense of the Taunton charge-of his assertion that Marlborough's letter caused the failure at Brest-that Dryden changed his religion for money-that Jeffreys is buried in the Tower and Schomberg in Westminster-the two latter, blunders which the Times presses against him. Literary controversy is always pleasant; and when con

A very interesting biographical memoir of Sir John Franklin, by Sir John Richardson, has appeared in the new edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica." In the same work, under the article Polar Regions, a general review of the whole history of arctic exploration will be written by the Rev. Dr. Scoresby, than whom no writer could have been found in every way better qualified for such a work. Dr. Scoresby is going to visit Australia, to make observations and experiments on the variations of the compass in the southern hemisphere. Probably he will occupy part of his leisure during the voyage in preparing the account of his experience and the results of his reading about the Polar Regions, with the history of which his own name is so honorably associated.

Lord Brougham has complimented Baron Plana, President of the University of Turin, and Royal Astronomer, by dedicating to him, the first savant of Italy, the revised edition of his "Analytical View of Newton's Principia"-the great work of the great man of our race. Turin was also the birthplace of Legrange, the great cotemporary of La Place, and the author of the best treatise on the Lunar Theory, which was at once the test, the stumbling-block, and the triumph of the law of gravitation.

Geology of Ohio.-Professor David Christy, of the American Female College, at Glendale, Ohio, has in preparation a new work on the geology of Ohio. The plan of the work, we understand, is to give a careful description of the several geological formations, the character of the rocks, the range of metallic ores, beds of coal, fossils, &c. The work will embrace, also, a series of geological sections, or maps, from actual survey, representing the outcropping of the several formations, and the positions of the iron and coal veins.

At the French Exposition there was exhibited a watch which created much interest and ad

miration. It tells the name and day of the month; the equation of time; is a repeater, striking the minute as well as the hour; is a thermometer of tolerable accuracy, and winds itself up by the action of its own movement. The price of this most ingenious piece of workmanship is 30,000 francs, (over $5000.)

Granulated Cork Mattresses.-A new application of cork has lately been made in this city, with a good prospect of its serving a very useful purpose. The bark of the cork-tree is subjected by machinery to a process which cuts it up into little grains, and in this state it is formed into mattresses, which are very soft and easy, as well as light, and which, if used on shipboard, would form a very convenient life preserver. Every pound of cork in one of these

mattresses, it is estimated, will support about fourteen pounds above water. All that a passenger would have to do in case of a wreck would be to take his bed with him. The mattress made in this way is called Johnson and Vale's Life Preserver, and samples of it may be seen in the Bowery, at Vale's Nautical Academy. It is much cheaper than horse hair, and the air passes so freely though it that it has received the good word of some medical men who have examined it, as a more wholesome material than the compacter substances often used. They are now beginning to use these mattresses in the hospitals. The cork prepared in the way we have mentioned, is be worn by persons subject to the rheumatism, sometimes used for the lining of garments, to cork being a non-conductor.

A bar of iron valued at $5, worked into horseshoes, is worth $10 50; needles, $355; penknife blades, $3,285; shirt buttons, $29,480; balance of iron have been made into wire upward of springs of watches, $250,000. Thirty-one pounds one hundred and eleven miles in length, and so fine was the fabric that a part of it was converted, in lieu of horse hair, into a barrister's wig.

America has produced some of the most eminent of painters whose names are recorded on the scroll of fame. Stuart was a native of Boston, and studied his art under Sir Benjamin

West. Copley was also a native of Boston; he was a pupil of Smibert, and in 1770 became a member of the Royal Academy. His principal historical works, on which his fame reposes, are the "Death of Lord Chatham," the "Siege of Gibraltar," the "Death of Major Pearson," "Charles I. in the House of Commons," and the "Surrender of De Winter to Duncan." Sir Benjamin West was born in Springfield, Penn. For his celebrated painting of "Christ Healing the Sick," the British Institution paid him three thousand guineas. In 1791, he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy.

The Burmese Ruby.-A correspondent of the Calcutta Citizen, speaking of the reception of the English Embassy by the Burmese King, says:

"The only thing remarkable at the interview was an inanimate object, and that was a ruby in the center of the pagoda crown of his majesty. It was as large, if not farger, than a hen's egg, and far more valuable than the great Koh-i-noor; it was beautifully cut, and almost as round as a marble. It was torn off the ear of the Karen Queen by Alompra. It was a pendant, being suspended by a wire casing through her right ear. It is of the purest water, and more than two thousand years old, if the traditions concerning it are believed. It came originally from Assam, and belonged to the great Garrow King Moung Sa, who ruled the whole of Chin India. This ruby will, I prophesy, in ten years, be worn by our queen."

The barometer used at the Smithsonian Institution is manufactured expressly under its direction, and is of the greatest accuracy attainable. It has a glass cistern, with an adjustable bottom inclosed in a brass cylinder. The barometer tube is also inclosed in a brass cylinder, which carries the vernier. The whole is suspended freely from a ring at the top, so as to adjust itself to the vertical position. The bulb of the attached thermometer is inclosed in a brass envelope communicating with the interior of the brass tube, so as to be in the same condition with the mercury, and to indicate truly its temperature. Each instrument made according to this pattern is numbered and accurately compared with a standard.

The Poet Rogers's Collection of Pictures.—Mr. Rogers had only seventy-five pictures in his collection, but they were all considered chef d'œuvres. He has left three, of very small size, to the National Gallery. Two of these, although fine in execution, are mere Catholic subjects, with

out much sentiment. One is a man's head

crowned with thorns, having a doleful expression. It is by Guido. Another, called Noli me Tangere, (Touch me not,) consisting of two small figures, is by Titian, and exceedingly fine in execution. For this small picture, Rogers paid no less than one thousand guineas! The third is the portrait of Gaston de St. Foix, attributed to Raphael. He is represented as having a suit of armor buckled on, and, except as the portrait of a warrior, has little or no merit.

A correspondent of a New-York paper says: "Great disappointment is felt, that the worst-natured man, with the best-natured muse, did not leave to the nation a picture of far greater interest than those. I allude to Sir Joshua Reynolds's exquisite gem of Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, sitting on a toadstool, holding up a bunch of flowers, and embodying Shakspeare's conception of the merry little rogue in the finest manner. The expression of infantile mirth in the eyes is beyond all praise, and no artist that ever lived could convey

that joyous expression equal to Reynolds. It was the gem of all Boydell's very large Shakspeare gallery, and less anxiety was exhibited when Puck was put up. while the pictures of that gallery were selling, a breathWhen it was finally knocked down, a shout of applause burst forth when the name of Samuel Rogers was announced as the purchaser.

The Jackson Monument Association of NewOrleans inaugurated Mills's equestrian statue of the old hero, in Jackson-square, in NewOrleans, on the 11th ult. There was an immense military and civic procession, and the spectacle was grand and imposing.

A Boston mechanic has got up an apparatus for generating gas from a new material, consisting simply of zinc and hydrochloric acid, effected without the application of external heat. This yields a gas of great purity and brilliancy; as contrasted with coal gas, the same quantity yields twice the illuminating power. The whole apparatus is contained in a cylinder three feet in height and sixteen inches in diameter; and a machine capable of generating sufficient gas for eight lights, will require looking to and feeding only once a month, or less.

Brown's equestrian statue of Washington, the model of which was finished some months since, is nearly completed. It is contemplated, we understand, to inaugurate it at its place in Union Park some time during this month-perhaps the 30th, the day on which Washington took the oath as President of the United States in this city.

The veteran Humboldt has written to the Astronomical Society of Paris, "On Certain Appearances connected with the Zodiacal Light”— drawing attention to new facts connected with that interesting phenomenon; from which it appears that this remarkable light is not confined to the west, as was supposed, but has been seen by himself and others in the east at the same time. The latest observer, Rev. G. Jones, chaplain of the United States frigate Mississippi, during her recent cruise in the China and Japan Seas, reports that he saw the "extraordinary spectacle of the zodiacal light, simultaneously at both east and west horizons, for several nights in succession." The conclusion drawn from the sum of his observations will be a startling one to many it is, that the earth is surrounded by a nebulous ring lying within the orbit of the moon. So if, as is stated, the ring be complaying the part of a smaller Saturn among our plete and continuous, we have for ages been

brother and sister planets.

An instrument for cutting wire has been invented by Mr. William Groves, of Holyoke, Mass. The nippers are made round-in other words, they are complete disks of steel, with holes of different sizes through their surfaces, for the reception of the wire to be cut. In its operation, the handles are opened until a certain sized aperture in one of the disks comes in line with its equivalent opening in the other disk; the wire is then passed through, and clipped by compressing the handles. The ordinary nippers are apt to bend the wire in cutting; they also leave a rough burr on the ends of the pieces. But with this new improvement, wire may be very rapidly and smoothly cut, without any bending.

JOHN

in

OHN KEPLER was born at Weil the duchy of Wirtemberg, 21st December, 1571. His parents, Henry Kepler and Catherine Guldenmann, were of noble descent, although their circumstances were far from affluent. The father, at the time of his marriage, was a petty officer in the service of the Duke of Wirtemberg, and joined the army in the Netherlands a few years after the birth of his eldest son, John. Upon his return to Germany he learned that an acquaintance for whom he had incautiously become VOL. VIII-27

security had absconded, and had left him the unexpected charge of liquidating the bond. This circumstance obliged him to dispose of his house and nearly the whole of his possessions, and to become a tavernkeeper at Elmendingen. Young Kepler had been sent, in the year 1577, to a school at Elmendingen, and he continued there until the occurrence of the event to which we have just alluded, and which was the cause of a temporary interruption in his education, as it appears that he was taken home and employed in menial services

until his twelfth year, when he returned to school. In 1586 he was admitted into the monastic school of Maulbronn, where the cost of his education was defrayed by the Duke of Wirtemberg. The regulations of this school required that, after remaining a year in the superior classes, the students should offer themselves for examination at the college of Tübingen for the degree of Bachelor. On obtaining this degree they returned with the title of veterans; and having completed the prescribed course of study, they were admitted as resident students at Tübingen, whence they proceeded in about a year to the degree of Master. During his under-graduateship Kepler's studies were much interrupted by periodical returns of the disorders which had so nearly proved fatal to him during childhood, as also by the dissensions between his parents, in consequence of which his father left his home, and soon after died abroad. Notwithstanding the many disadvantages he must have labored under from the above circumstances, and from the confused state in which they had left his domestic affairs, Kepler took the degree of Master in August, 1591, attaining the second place in the annual examination.

While thus engaged at Tübingen, the astronomical lectureship of Grätz, the chief town in Styria, became vacant by the death of George Stadt, and the situation was offered to Kepler, who was forced to accept it by the authority of his tutors, although we have his own assurance that at that period he had given no particular attention to astronomy. In 1596 he published his "Mysterium Cosmographicum," wherein he details the many ingenious hypotheses which he had successively formed, examined, and rejected, concerning the number, distance, and periodic times of the planets; and finally proposes a theory which he imagines will account in a satisfactory manner for the order of the heavenly bodies, which theory rests upon the fancied analogy between the relative dimensions of the orbits of those bodies, and the diameters of circles inscribed and circumscribed about the five regular solids. In 1597 Kepler married Barbara Muller von Muhleckh, a lady who, although two years younger than himself, was already a widow for the second time. This alliance soon involved him in difficulties, which, together with the

troubled state of the province of Styria, arising out of the two great religious parties into which the empire was then divided, induced him to withdraw from Grätz into Hungary, whence he transmitted to a friend at Tübingen several short treatises-" On the Magnet," " On the Cause of the Obliquity of the Ecliptic," and "On the Divine Wisdom as shown in the Creation." In 1600 Kepler, having learned that Tycho Brahé was at Benach in Bohemia, and that his observations had led him to a more accurate determination of the eccentricities of the planets' orbits, determined on paying him a visit, and was welcomed in the kindest manner by Tycho, by whom he was introduced the following year to the emperor, and honored with the title of imperial mathematician, on condition of assisting Tycho in his calculations. The object of these calculations was the formation of new astronomical tables generally, which were to be called the Rudolphine Tables, in honor of Rudolph, the then Emperor of Bohemia, who had promised, not merely to defray the expense of their construction, but likewise to provide Kepler with a liberal salary; neither of which his circumstances ever permitted him to fulfill. The pecuniary difficulties, however, in which he found himself almost incessantly involved in consequence of the non-payment of his salary, greatly retarded the progress of his labors, and obliged him to seek a livelihood by casting nativities.

In 1609 appeared his "New Astronomy," containing his great and extraordinary book "On the Motion of Mars," a work which holds the intermediate place, and is the connecting link between the discoveries of Copernicus and those of Newton. The introduction is occupied in refuting the then commonly-received theory of gravity, and in declaring what were his own opinions upon the same subject. In the course of this discussion he states distinctly, that since the attractive virtue of the moon extends as far as the earth, as is evident from its enticing up the waters of the earth, with greater reason it follows that the attractive virtue of the earth extends as far as the moon, and much further; and he likewise asserts that if two bodies of like nature be placed in any part of the world near each other, but beyond the influence of any other body, they would approach each