papillon d'Opéra en cage, il l'entretenait magnifiquement, rien au-delà, comme un luxe et jamais comme un amour; pour une telle femme un fermier-général ne se fût pas dérangé de ses affaires, des réunions de sa compagnie ou de ses opérations quotidiennes. Tout était réglé d'avance: pour lui la beauté la plus ravissante était une distraction et jamais une préoccupation. Sur la scène, on le représentait quelquefois ridicule et jaloux; rien de moins exact: le financier ne se faisait pas de ces inquiétudes; il pouvait être trompé sans le savoir: mais, s'il le savait, assurément il ne faisait ni tapage, ni reproches; il reprenait sa canne pomme d'or, son chapeau galonné, et transportait ailleurs ses pénates enveloppés dans des billets de caisse ; et cette émigration était parfaitement accueillie partout où il y avait trumeaux dorés, canapés de Perse et chinoiseries sur des bahuts d'ébène ornés des mille caprices des divinités de la danse. Mons. Capefigue thinks it decent to hint that he is far from approving these manners, and desires to describe the customs of the times, even to its vices. Nevertheless, he proceeds to palliate them, after rather a queer fashion, by explaining that they did not parade themselves in the face of day, but that each Fermier-Général had his "petite maison" out of Paris, where he shrouded himself, and carried on his debaucheries without impediment or domestic reproach: La petite maison n'était-elle pas un dernier respect au toit domestique et un hommage à sa pureté? On n'abritait pas ainsi chez soi, au sein de sa famille, les scandales, les vilaines habitudes; on se cachait; le goût, la richesse embellissaient la petite maison et en faisaient presque un dessin de Watteau. After specifying some of these elegant but very questionable retreats, he informs us that— Le quartier préféré était la solitaire rue de Charonne, non loin de Montreuil, dans le vaste terrain qui depuis est devenu le cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Dien permet de ces contrastes! il place la pourriture des tombes à côté de la corruption de la chair, et le vers du sépulcre se glisse à travers la couronne de roses de la courtisane; l'apoplexie vous regarde de ses yeux fixes et flamboyants au fond du verre d'Aï qui pétille. We are glad to meet with something like a moral to conclude with-a moral which is shortly afterwards further illustrated by the fall of twenty-eight heads of Fermiers-Généraux, under the knife of the guillotine, on the 8th of May, 1794. Robespierre and the revolutionary tribunal made short work of the accusation and condemnation. A large sum of money being required to meet the assignats, the property of these victims was the most conveniently available for the purpose; and such was the impatience of Robespierre and his fellow cut-throats to seize upon the spoil, that they would not waste time in investigating the accounts and bringing in distinct proofs of misappropriation of the revenues, but satisfied themselves with making it a main ground of charge that the prisoners had poisoned large numbers of people by mixing water with the tobacco, of which they had a monopoly, to increase its weight. Whether the punishment were or were not greater than the offence was a question with which the revolu tionary tribunal never troubled itself; nor is it our province here to discuss it; but we cannot leave Mons. Capefigue and his strange bias on the subject without citing against him the judgment of Montesquieu, who, in his "Esprit des Lois," writes, The regie (i.e. the direct levying of taxes by the government) is the administration of a father of a family, who himself collects his income with economy and order. By the regie he saves to the State the enormous profits of the farmers, who impoverish it in an infinite number of ways. By the regie he spares his people the right of large fortunes unduly obtained, and the contemplation of which grieves them. By its means, the money passes through few hands, goes directly to the Prince, and consequently returns more quickly to the people at large. By its means, the Prince spares his people a multitude of bad laws, which are perpetually exacted from him by the importunate avarice of the farmers, who, to secure present advantages for themselves, do not scruple to entail any amount of future evil on the State. GERMAN LITERATURE. at the present moment. Having, within the last century, run through all the possible forms of subject and object, and issued in confounding the one with the other, mental science has, of necessity, come to a standstill, having done nothing except to show that there is nothing to do. Meanwhile the bulk of the cultivated world stand by and wonder in silence. How much has been written, they well know; but, when they inquire about the result, they learn that nothing is certain, unless it be that nothing is certain. Will they, then, turn away their hearts from mystagogues? O no! A German can no more live without speculation than Sandy can do without his wee bit o' parritch. Therefore other Cassandras will be forthcoming to sing the fate of the universe in unintelligible metaphysics. EVERY nation, like every individual, has its own peculiar office in the taskwork of the world. Of old the Hebrews were set to work out the religious sentiments; the Greeks to develope the resources of sensuous beauty; and the Romans to carry to their utmost outward authority and martial dominion. We English are, it is said, a practical people; good sense is our characteristic. We are not much given to the ideal; but anything of that kind that we evolve or appropriate we are swift to convert into the real. On the contrary, the Germans are the world's speculators, fleeing from the real the moment the ideal seems to be passing into the real. German philosophers live, move, and have their being in the air-woven clouds of their own fancies, and love a theory with as pure and intense an affection as that with which Charles Lamb loved roast pig. With this strong pro- Meanwhile a process is proceeding whence pension toward the theoretical, these speculators, much good may come. The process is one of from Kant to Hegel, have been constantly away amalgamation. Like railways-only to better in the upper regions of transcendentalism, stalk- effect-races, nations, clans, families, everying absolute ideas as ordinary beings stalk stags thing is at this hour undergoing amalgamation. and deer. Small has been their success. The Even Turkey is being inoculated with European booty would not suffice to supply even Falstaff blood. No wonder, then, there is an interwith the solids of a supper. The chief advantage marriage between Germanism and Anglicanism. of the chase has been to show men where game For our part, we pray Heaven to smile upon the is not to be found, though we cannot consider nuptials. Our real would certainly be much of small value the discipline of mind which such advantaged were it to take into its essence a exercises give. Speculation is a mental palastra little of the ideal; and as certainly German superior, in some respects, to any other. The speculation would be none the worse if charged activity of mind it demands and encourages; with an infusion of English good sense and the discursiveness it calls forth; the wide, yet practicality. The interchange is actually profirm, grasp of ideas it gives; the verbal dis- ceeding. As German thought is imported into criminations it requires; and the precision of England, so is English thought imported into utterance, as well as conception, to which it Germany. For years the English language and leads, are qualities of the highest order, and of literature has been a favourite, and now is themselves well repay years of most careful and almost a fashionable study in the latter country. diligent labour. Yet the world cannot live on The catalogues are constantly bringing under abstractions; human life cannot be sustained our notice German translations of the best new on theories, of which the chief thing that can be works of our English press. Macaulay, Dickens, said is, that the second ever slays and inters the Thackeray, and Tennyson are known on the first in long and apparently endless succession. Rhine and the Danube almost as well as they Man's wants and cravings call out for solid are known in their native land. In theology, nutriment. Truth only can satisfy a nature however, small is the debt which Germany owes which, like man's, is made for truth. But for to England. They borrowed Lardner from us, the love of truth there would be no speculation; and turned his labours to a good account. They and so, if speculation issues in mere forms and also borrowed and profited by Bingham; but shadows, speculation itself will die for want of little else of consequence have they imported impulse. The philosophy which ends in negation from these shores. The public mind, however, must perish from inanition. This is some. has come into that sort of media via conditionwhat the condition of philosophy in Germany the half-way house between the old notional forms and the new misty abstractions-as to immediate was the acceptance it found, that, feel pleasure and find satisfaction in the with the second volume, the number of copies spiritualism of the American Channing. * A was doubled. With the fifth edition (ten translation of the greater part of Channing's volumes, 1818-1826), the work had reached writings has been happily executed, and con- something like its full form and ideal perducted through the press, by two competent fection. Before the last volumes were out of editors, who describe the extraordinary in- the press, the 12,000 copies, of which the fluence that writer has attained as resulting edition consisted, were sold, so that a reprint of from this, namely, "that he inspires us with 10,000 copies was forthwith issued. Within a reverence for our own nature; teaches that we year, another reprint of 10,000 copies was were created for, and may attain to, the highest called for and put forth. Of the sixth edition, destiny; that every human being has the germ the impression was 15,000: 27,000 copies were of this within him, and it requires only his own sold of the seventh edition; of the eighth, active will to bring it to maturity. This divine 31,000; and of the ninth, 30,000. Independgerm that lies in every human soul is the great ent of these large issues, the publishers have and constant theme of Channing's eloquence. put forth their matter in supplements; so that, Whether repressed and choked by narrow creeds, no sooner was an edition completed, than they or trampled down by a brutal despotism, or began to publish such additional matter as was chilled by want and poverty, or crushed by the required by the changes and the progress occaslavery to which an unhappy race has been un- sioned by the lapse of time and the march of righteously condemned, this always finds in events, in the busiest and most variable period Channing a warm and untiring advocate. It is of all history. Having for years used this adthis which has procured, and will procure, him mirable summary of all knowledge, we can well enthusiastic admirers wherever there are hearts understand the grounds and reasons of the sensible to human happiness and progress." patronage it has received from the public. For exactness, thoroughness, compass, and compression, this Cyclopædia is not only unrivalled, but unapproached. All that the best scholarship of the most scholar-like of nations can make a summary of universal knowledge, that has it made the Leipzig "Conversations-Lexikon." Competitors for the public favour have appeared-of some the pretensions were not inconsiderable-but they have dwindled or disappeared, while the house of Brockhaus have enjoyed the, perhaps, unique satisfaction of finding their property and their usefulness exempt from the common law of decay, and, with increasing years, only growing at once more vigorous, more acceptable, and more productive. The copyright of such a work is a fortune in itself. The possession of such a work by a literary man, capable of profiting by its treasures, is as good as a library: nay, it is better than most English libraries. Our own experience is our voucher. Not only have we rarely failed to find in its capacious and overflowing pages the information we desired, but not seldom have we unexpectedly found there the information we had sought for in other cyclopædias, and even in large collections of volumes. It is equally true that the intelligence it conveys exists in a shape of a far more useful nature than that in which dictionaries usually offer their information. Not only is the knowledge minute and exact, but it is colourless; we mean, that it is free from rhetoric, free from exaggeration, free from pre-possession, aversion, prejudice,-from all likings and dislikes. The authors have practically discovered the perfec Among the more important of the recent announcements of the German publishers, we must reckon the announcement of the tenth edition of the celebrated 'Conversations-Lexikon." Scarcely had the writer placed on his shelves the last volume of the ninth edition before he received proposals for publishing the tenth. From the six volumes of the first edition, completed in 1810, to the sixteen volumes of the ninth edition, completed in 1855, the work has gone on increasing alike in bulk, in value, and in favour with the public. To calculate its diffusion is impossible, because, were we aware of the number of copies issued from the German press, we are unable to make a report of the translations in which it has appeared in the New World no less than the Old; and still less to speak in any exact terms of the extent to which, by infiltration, its materials have passed into other compends, summaries, and dictionaries, largely affecting the great bulk of the definite and tangible literature of the world. But some notion of the spread and influence of the "ConversationsLexikon " may be formed if we report a few facts. Of the third edition, in ten volumes, and published in the interval between 18141819, the first volume appeared in an impression of only 1,500 copies; but such and so Dr. W. Channing's Werke. Von F. A. Schultze und A. Lydow. Berlin, Herman Schultze; London, Nutt, 1850-5. Allgemeine Deutsche Real-Encyklopädia Conversations-Lexikon, zehnte Auflage. Leipzig, Brochaus; London, Nutt. tion of the cyclopædic style. They write not to please, but to inform; they write not in order to be read, and, therefore, they write so as to be read; aiming to convey the greatest amount of information in the fewest possible words, they yet write with wonderful perspicuity, and prove, after a little initiation into their manner, no less interesting than instructive, at least to those who read rather for profit than pleasure. The cheapness of the work is almost as remarkable as its excellence. Among the works of the last quarter we make mention, first, of Gruppe's "View of the Present and the Future of German Philosophy," a hasty production; yet, as being by a practised hand, not without value, and tending to confirm and illustrate the nothingness in which, as we have intimated, German speculation ends. In his review of the present condition of German philosophy, Gruppe begins with Schelling, and, having criticized his form of pantheism and other forms, puts forward Bacon's "Induction as the only true and solid method, from which he thinks Locke, in a measure, departed. As a necessary preliminary to a philosophy of the future, he calls for a reform of scientific logic; and, in the course of his strictures, requires that mental science must, if it is to work to any positive and permanent result, have reality for its basis, and proceed not from the abstract to the concrete, nor from the universal to the particular; but, taking experience, and especially human con sciousness, as its companion and instructor, be content to advance from the individual to the species, and from the concrete to the universal. In a word, our author holds that the business of philosophy is not to create systems, but to study and learn to know the actual system of thought, and of the relation of thought to human consciousness, and the universe already created and continually sustained by God. We account it a healthy token that the writings and the philosophical system of Des cartes are beginning to attract attention in both France and Germany. While in the former country the moral and philosophical works of the philosopher have just been put forth in a neat edition, with a valuable dissertation on their author's life and writings; we have received from the latter a critical judgment on the characteristics, and the value of the Carte sian doctrine, which will repay a careful perusal. Undertaking to set forth the philo*Gegenwart und Zunkunft der Philosophie in Deutschland. Von O. F. Gruppe. 1855. One vol., thin 8vo. Berlin, Reimer; London, Nutt. + Euvres Morales et Philosophiques de Descartes, etc. Par M. A. Prevost. 1855. One vol., thin 8vo. Paris, Didot Frères; London, Nutt. Das Speculative System des Réné Descartes. Von Prof. J. N. Loewe. Wien, Braumüller; London, Nutt. sopher's merits and defects, Professor Lyons. exhibits as his merits the announcement of human consciousness as the only sure source of speculative thinking, the recognition of that consciousness as the way to the knowledge of God and the universe, and the distinguishing between nature and spirit as two essentially different substances, the union of which is found in man. The defects of his system our critic places in the simple exhibition of consiousness as a fact, a native or inborn faculty, apart from any attempt to trace out the genesis or formation of the faculty, and to submit its contents to a scientific (speculative) scrutiny; it being a sort of received axiom with your transcendentalists, that if man has any right to his own consciousness, he certainly has no right to recoguise its disclosures, and turn them to use, until he has established his title thereto before the tribunal of speculative thought; which is pretty much the same as to say that our young friends must not think of enjoying a large slice of their "twelfth-cake" until they can explain the astronomical and social facts connected with the yet lingering observance, and further, have duly expounded the art and mystery by which so many good things are harmoniously and palatably compounded into so small and so attractive an object. The learned critic also objects that Descartes, in making God's relation to the universe one continued act of creation, destroys man's individuality and freedom, and falls into pure dualism in the broad contrast he places between nature and spirit. Students of botany may find a useful guide in "Meyer's History of the Science," which, going beyond systems of scientific arrangement, treats of vegetable substances in their uses, whether for medical purposes or the general purposes of commerce. A learned and valuable contribution to the history of zoology, physiology, and ancient philisophy, is made in Dr. Meyer's volume on "Aristotle's Knowledge of the Animal World." The anatomy and physiology of plants is a subject satisfactorily handled in a beautifully-executed work by Dr. Unger, in a capacious octavo volume, illustrated with more than a hundred woodcuts. The rapid accumulation of facts in chemical science rerecommends Dr. Limpricht's "Outline of Organic Chemistry "§ to those students of the *Geschichte der Botanik. Von E. H. F. Meyer. 2 vols. 8vo. 1854-5. Königsberg, Borntrüger; London, Nutt. + Aristotele's Thierkunde. vol. 8vo. Von J. B. Meyer, Doctor Philos. 1855. Berlin, Reimer; London, Nutt. Anatomie u. P. der Pflanzen. 1855. Pest, Hartleben; London, Nutt. § Grundriss der Organischen Chemie. Von Dr. H. Limpricht. 1855. Braunschweig, Schwetschke u. Sohn; London, Nutt. science who wish to contemplate the subject in its totality, as well as in the relations of its several parts. We have no taste, and, we fear, little patience, for metaphysical poetry, and therefore mention, without recommending, "Beck's Theophany," in which the reader may, if such be his will, find a treatise, in rhyme, on "God and the World; Sin, Promise, and Fulfilment; the World and the Church; Conflict and Triumph." The writer begins with the existence of God before the creation of the world, and closes with the setting-up of the heavenly Jerusalem, after the conquest of Antichrist and the general judgment. Dr. Cumming, and other dealers in man-made predictions, might find in the work jewels far superior to their own. In philology, we have a treatise from the learned Franz Bopp, t in which he traces the lineage of the Albanian tongue to the great Indo-European family. We may also advert to We may also advert to an essay by the distinguished Egyptologist, Lepsius, in which an attempt is made to sketch the outlines of a universal alphabet. The want of such, long felt by the learned, has of late presented itself in an urgent form, in consequence of the wide diffusion of Christianity by the missionary enterprise, since thereby we are constantly brought into contact with unwritten languages, the acquirement of which, no less than their philological analysis, would be greatly facilitated by some recognised alphabetical system of notation. Many previous attempts have failed; but few persons could enter on the subject with advantages equal to those possessed by Professor Lepsius. § 66 In The students of sacred geography will congratulate themselves that the portion of Ritter's great work, "Die Erdkunde," which comprises, in the fullest sense of the term, "The Lands of the Bible," is just completed, by the publication of the Seventeenth Part or Volume, treating of the water-system of the Orontes, and so completing the treatment of Syria.* its own department, this work resembles the Conversations-Lexikon,"-the same exactness, the same thoroughness, the same minute, comprehensive, and exhaustive treatment, only that Ritter's work is as full of details as the other is confined to sketches; and, while the "Lexikon" is the product of a hundred hands, only one has been engaged in the “ Erdkunde.' Let not any one be misled by the term “geography." As commonly understood among us, that term represents a sorry heap of dry and unfertilizing facts; but geography, in the hands of Carl Ritter, means a very deep, comprehensive, and living unity, for it is the totality of knowable things respecting the several portions of the world here handled, or to be handled, in succession, extending from the latest moment back to the earliest, and ascending from the geological crust of the earth to the meteorological phenomena of the air; taking in midway the social and civil interests and relations that have unfolded themselves on the soil, in connexion with its variations of surface and its diverse productions. This vast subject is handled with a masterly hand, as by one who is in full possession of his materials, and in a style which is a model of conciseness and perspicuity. These words are but a small and insufficient acknowledgment of the pleasure and profit we have derived from this cyclopædic work. profitably peruse "Résumé Analytic d'un Projet de Langue Universelle. Par Ochando. Traduit par A.M. Touzé. 1855. London, Nutt." * Die Erdkunde. Von Carl Ritter, xvii. Theile. 1855. Berlin, Reimer; London, Nutt. Die Hellenen im Skythenlande (The Greeks in Scythia). By Dr. KARL NEUMANN. 1 vol. 8vo. 1855. Berlin Reimer. London: Nutt. THE Crimea, to ordinary men, is a land of barbarism, recently raised somewhat by the hand of a half-civilized government. The distance at which the Crimea lies from England, the terrible stories of the last winter, when our fellow-countrymen perished by thousands on its bleak and stormy shores, have combined, with general ignorance relative to the geography and history of the Black Sea regions, to make Englishmen regard the country with the shrinking aversion which attaches to insalubrious, inhospitable, and desert climes. The feeling is to be regretted, because it may seriously hinder the flowing toward the Black Sea of the civilizing influences and commercial interests which this war has set in motion. The feeling is also exaggerated: witness the well-executed volume the title of which we have just transcribed. |