International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1. Various
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the task of preparing these memoirs to Lord Mahon and Mr. Cardwell. Their duty will, however, be comparatively light, though delicate, from the admirable and orderly state in which he left his papers.
MR. JOHN P. BROWN, author of "The Turkish Nights Entertainments," recently published by Putnam, is now on a visit to this country as the Secretary of the Commissioner of the Sublime Porte, Captain Ammin Bey.
EUGENE SUE'S new romance "The Mysteries of the People," has been prohibited in Prussia.
M. BURNET DE PESLE has just published the first part of his Examen Critique de la Succession des Dynasties Egyptiennes, a work to which competent critics assign a high value. He follows the method of Champollion, rejecting hypotheses and admitting only the testimony of the historians and monuments. At the same time he treats his subject with independence and originality, though he advances nothing for the sake of novelty. The second part of the work will be devoted to the discussion of the ancient inscriptions, dynasty by dynasty, and reign by reign.
WASHINGTON IRVING is claimed by the English as by both birth and spirit a British author. In the question of copyright lately before the Vice Chancellor, the case rested in part upon a plea that Mr. Irving's father was from the Orkneys and his mother from Falmouth, so that, though he was born in New York, he was not an alien. Still, our "Diedrich Knickerbocker" was Colonel Irving once, and served in this capacity against the king, and it will not he safe for him to establish the position assumed by his publisher.
M. ARAGO, having completed his love-labor in honor of Condorcet, is again abstracting from scientific pursuits a portion of his time, to prepare a memoir upon the acts and doings of the Provisional Government of 1848 of which he was a member. It is said to be a curious work which will enlighten much that is yet dark in the history of that period, throwing additional obloquy upon some members, and relieving others of a portion of that which they have hitherto borne. M. Chemiega is also engaged upon his own account in similar historical labors.
DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, on the 9th of September, delivered a poem, described by a correspondent of the Commercial Advertiser as one of his finest compositions, before a large audience, assembled to dedicate a rural cemetery at Pittsfield, Mass.
M. DUGANNE, some of whose songs and dramatic pieces have the ring of true metal, has just completed a satire entitled "Parnassus in Pillory," and with the motto, "Lend me your ears." We have seen some advance sheets of it, which are full of wit and spirit.
SOUTH CAROLINA has always been prolific of epics. Those of Mr. Simmons, Dr. Marks of Barhamville, and some others, have been tried, and-the court of criticism has now before it from the same quarter "America Discovered, in Twelve Books."
JOHN NEAL has given notice of his intention to write a history of American Literature "in two large octavo volumes," and he invites authors who are not afraid to show their books, to send them to him at Portland without delay.
"GERMANIA, ITS COURTS, CAMPS AND PEOPLE," is the title of a brace of volumes by "the Baroness Blaize de Bury." And who, pray, is the Baroness Blaize de Bury? A writer in The Leader answers after this wise:
"Why, sir, she is somewhat of a myth, making her avatars in literature with all the caprice and variety of Vishnou or Brougham; her maiden name of Rose Stewart has not, that we can discover, been stained with printer's ink, but we trace her as 'Arthur Dudley' in the Revue des Deux Mondes writing upon Bulwer and Dickens, we next find her as 'Maurice Flassan' in Les Français Aeints par eux-mémes. Rumor further whispereth that she had a finger in 'Albert Lunel,' one of the eccentricities of an eccentric law-lord, which was hurriedly suppressed, one knows not why; in the Edinburgh Review she wrote a paper on Molière, and for Charles Knight's Weekly Volume a pleasant little book about Racine, on the title-page of which she is styled 'Madame Blaize Bury;' since that time you observe she has blossomed into a Baroness de Bury! Let us add that she is the wife of Henri Blaze, known as agreeable critic and the translator of Faust, that she is said to be a great favorite with the author of 'Albert Lunel,' and that she has the two novels 'Mildred Vernon' and 'Leonie Vermont' placed to her account: how many other shapes she may have assumed we know not; are these not enough? Whether, after all, a flesh-and-blood Madame de Bury exists is more than We can decide. Une supposition! what if, after all, she should turn out to be Lord Brougham himself? The restless energy of that Scottish Phenomenon renders everything possible. He does not agree with Pliny's witty friend, that it is better to be idle than to do nothing—satius est otiosum esse quam nihil agere."
REV. CHARLES ELLIOT, D.D. of Cincinnati, has published, through the Methodist printing house of that city, an important work on Slavery, in two duodecimo volumes. Dr. Ellliot has declined the acceptance of the Biblical Professorship in McKendree College, on the ground that he is busily engaged in preparing works for the press, including a thorough investigation of the Biblical argument in defense of slavery.
A NEW edition of a Lexicon of the Dakota language (of an Indian tribe near Lake Superior,) has just been completed by the missionaries. It contains upward of fifteen thousand words. Near thirteen years or more of labor have been expended upon it.
JUDGE SYDNEY BREESE, late U.S. Senator, at the commencement of Knox College, delivered a discourse before the Literary Societies on the Early History of Illinois. It is said to be part of a volume he is preparing, and had reference to the first ninety years of Illinois history.
MR. LAYARD, in excavating beneath the great pyramid at Nimroud, had penetrated a mass of masonry, within which he had discovered the tomb and statue of Sardanapalus, with full annals of that monarch's reign engraved on the walls.
MR. H. H. WILSON, F.R.S., has published in London, a collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns, constituting the First Ashtaka, or Book, of the Rig-Veda, the oldest Authority for the religious and social institutions of the Hindus. The translation of the Rig-Veda-Sonhita is valuable for the scholar who wishes to study the most ancient belief, opinions, and modes of the Hindus, so far as they can be gathered from hymns addressed to the deities. At the same time, their mystery or obscurity, increased by remoteness of years, is perhaps so considerable, that it will require peculiar learning to profit by the materials this most ancient and important of the Vedas contains.
DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, author of "Mornings at Matlock," has been appointed, through the influence of Lord Brougham, to the office of official assignee to the Court of Bankruptcy, in Manchester.
The Fine Arts.
THE FINE ARTS IN AMERICA are not in a state of remarkable perfection, if we may credit a writer in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung. This critic is evidently honest and impartial, but not perfectly well informed. He supposes that the majority of the artists as well as of the scholars in the country are emigrants from Europe; and affirms that artists of great talent, who have been esteemed and encouraged in Europe, have been reduced to misery in America, and compelled to resort to common labor for their living. Latterly, however, fashion has brought pictures into market; and we may now hear, in more refined circles, here and there a misapplied artistic term, which shows that art is somewhat thought of. It is characteristic that an American will often bargain for pictures by the square foot. The New York Art Union has done a good deal of good in the culture of taste for art, and from the Philadelphia Art Union much may also be expected. The daguerreotypes taken here may be compared with the best of Voightländer of Vienna and Williams of Liverpool. The talbotypes of this country are better than all others. Lithographing is done mostly by French and Germans; wood-cutting and steel-engraving by Englishmen and Americans. The products of the latter two resemble perfectly those of the same arts in England. Dramatic and musical art are in a feeble condition. The theaters in the great cities have been visited by the writer, and nothing admirable found in them. They are all private enterprises, and no great things are to be expected in that line without the aid of a government. The theaters are built and furnished