Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.

Bruno Bauer, the Coryphæus of German Rationalism (unless Strauss may be thought to be a rival for that questionable eminence) whose last work is devoted to the somewhat useless task of proving, with a superabundance of logic and contemptuous irony, that the late Frankfort Parliament effected nothing, and knew nothing, has run through a singular career. He was born in 1809, and in his twentieth year commenced the study of theology at Berlin. Five years later he became private teacher in the University, at which time he belonged to Hegelian school of orthodoxy. The germ of his subsequent views, however, may be found in his "Kritik of the Old Testament Writings," in which he represents "the myths of Judaism in their successive transformations, as a development of the national sentiment of the Jews." He first fairly broke ground with orthodoxy in 1839, when he began to apply his principles of criticism to the New Testament narratives. He commenced with the Gospel of John, which he regarded as a work of the imagination, with but here and there a historical trace – a work merely "founded upon facts." He had, meanwhile, been transferred to the University of Bonn, where he proceeded with his three volumes of criticisms upon the other Evangelists, at the conclusion of which he found he had reached a point which he could hardly have anticipated at the outset. In the first volume he had begged that the judgment of his readers might be suspended, "for however bold and far-reaching the negations of this volume might appear, it would be manifest that the most searching criticism would most fully set forth the creative power of Jesus and of his principles;" and even in the second volume he seems to allow to the main facts set forth in the life of Jesus a historical verity; but at the conclusion of the work he makes it doubtful whether such a person as Jesus ever existed. Bauer now occupied the anomalous position of a theological teacher who represented the Gospels to be mere works of the imagination, possessing no higher historical value than Xenophon's Cyropædia, or Fénélon's Telemachus, characterized Matthew and Luke as stupid copyists of Mark, denounced theologians as hypocrites, and the science of theology as the dark stain upon modern history. It is no wonder that the Prussian Minister of Worship felt himself impelled to inquire of the Theological Faculty, what was the position of Bauer in relation to Christianity, and whether he should be allowed to exercise his functions. The Faculty were embarrassed: on the one hand, they feared that freedom of inquiry would be trenched upon were he silenced; and, on the other, that the cause of religion would be injured were he allowed to teach. Finally, a middle course was adopted, and he was allowed to teach in the philosophical faculty; and his former friend and admirer, Marheineke proposed that he should be appointed to a professorship, on the ground that he might thus "get his bread, and not be compelled by necessity to write." The next year (1842) the permission to teach in the University was withdrawn, and now commenced a warfare of journals, pamphlets, and books, in which Bauer's colossal irony and cold, trenchant logic shone conspicuous. He proved to his old Hegelian friends, that the true Atheist was their master himself, and strove to force from them the confession that they had either been deceived themselves, or had been willfully deceiving others. In 1843, Bauer closed his career as a writer upon theology by a work entitled "Christianity Revealed," in which he recapitulates all the views he had put forth. This was confiscated by the government of Zurich, where it was published, and his publisher, Fröbel, punished by imprisonment. He now turned his attention to criticism of social and civil affairs, through which we have not space to follow him. He opened a bookstore, in conjunction with his brother Edgar, a congenial, and still more violent spirit, who was subsequently sentenced to a four years' imprisonment, for some publication displeasing to government. Here the brothers published their own works, and became involved in a dispute with the Prussian censorship, and the elder was obliged to modify many passages in a book already printed, before he was allowed to publish it. He commenced an extensive history of the French Revolution, but we can not learn that he brought it further than to the close of the last century. He established a periodical which continued but a year, in which he entered into contest with the "masses, in that sense of the word which includes also the so-called educated classes – the masses, who will not take the trouble to find out the truth by its proofs" – a body including, apparently, in his opinion, every one except himself. The political convulsions of the last two years, have brought out the veteran Ishmaelite in two characteristic works. The first of these, The Revolution of the Burgesses in Germany, is devoted to a bitter and unsparing denunciation of every sect and party, as pusillanimous, and insignificant; and the second, recently published, is a cool and contemptuous dissection of the dead carcass of the late Frankfort Parliament.

The printing and bookselling house of Brockhaus at Leipzig, is one of the most complete and extensive in the world. It was founded by Friedrich Aug. Brockhaus, the father of the present proprietors. He was born in 1772, and was educated for the mercantile profession. He established himself at first in his native town of Dortmund, from whence in 1802 he emigrated to Holland. Here he was altogether unsuccessful, gave up his business, and set up a bookstore in Amsterdam. This was in 1805, when the state of things in Holland was extremely unpropitious for every undertaking of a literary nature. The kingdom was united to the Republic of France, and the French officials, on some pretext or other, confiscated a great part of Brockhaus's stock. Advanced into middle life, and three times unfortunate in business, the stout struggler determined upon one more throw for fortune, and won. Having, while in Holland, obtained the copyright of Lobel's Conversations-Lexicon, he settled at Altona, and devoted himself to the preparation and publication of this work with a zeal and energy that commanded success. He soon felt that Leipzig was the only sphere commensurate with his talents, and removed to the intellectual centre of Germany in 1817. There he established several periodicals, which gained for him both reputation and profit. Among these were the Zeitgenossen, the Literarische Conversationsblatt, which is still published under the name of Blätter für Literarischen Unterhaltungen, and the Urania, for a long time the repository of the choicest gems of German poetry. He also undertook the publication of Ersch's Handbuch der Deutschen Literatur and Ebert's Bibliographischen Lexicon. His greatest enterprise, however, was the publication of the celebrated Conversations-Lexicon, of which he was himself the principal editor, and to which more than two hundred of the most eminent literary and scientific men of the time were contributors. He died in 1823, leaving his business to his two elder sons, by whom it has been greatly extended. The oldest of these, Friedrich, born in 1800, after having made himself practically acquainted with the art of printing, traveled abroad for the purpose of learning all improvements in the art, and upon the death of his father assumed the direction of the mechanical portion of the establishment. The second brother, Heinrich, born in 1804, took charge of the literary and commercial department. They carried on the publication of the great work of their father, of which the ninth edition, into which are incorporated two supplements, which they had previously published under the title of the Conversations-Lexicon of the Present, and the Conversations-Lexicon of the most recent Times and Literature, has just been issued. The establishment of Brockhaus at Leipzig is a fine quadrangular pile of buildings, with an open square in the centre, in which is carried on every operation connected with publication, from casting the type to issuing the completed work.

The Leipzig Book-Fair is the index by which the literary activity of Germany is measured. It is the custom in Germany for every German publisher to have his agent in Leipzig for the sale and distribution of his works. The Easter Fair is the principal one for the sale of new books. The catalogue for the present Michaelmas Fair contains the names of 5033 new works published in Germany since the Easter Fair, at which the number was 1200 or 1300 less. The present catalogue forms a volume of 384 pages, and contains more works than that of any fair since the revolution of 1848. The number of new books published in Germany averages 175 weekly, or 9100 a year. Taking the literary life of a student at 30 years, he must read nearly 300,000 volumes, in order to keep up with the current literature of Germany alone.

The Royal Foundry at Berlin, which has for a long time been occupied by artists for studios and workrooms, has during the late warlike demonstrations in Germany been devoted to its original purpose, the fabrication of the "ultima ratio regum." Among the works of art which are nearly completed is a colossal monument to Frederick the Great. The sculptor Rauch has been commissioned to execute a bas-relief for the pedestal, representing the well-known incident when the prince, a lad of some seven years, was playing at ball in the room where Frederick was writing. The king forbade the sport, and took away the ball. The prince asked that it might be given back to him, and getting no answer placed himself sturdily before the king, with the words: "The ball is mine, and I wish to know if your Majesty means to give it up peaceably?" Frederick restored the ball, saying, with a laugh, "This lad here would certainly not have suffered Silesia to be taken."

A biographical sketch of the life of Alexander von Humboldt, by Prof. Klincke, of Brunswick, which has just appeared, possesses peculiar interest to scholars from the minuteness with which Humboldt's course of study is detailed; and for the idea which it affords of the multifarious and vast attainments of this greatest of living scholars.

A publication, resembling in appearance and design "the Gallery of Illustrious Americans," has been commenced at Leipzig. The first number contains portraits from Daguerreotypes, with accompanying biographical notices, of the King of Prussia, Alexander von Humboldt, and the painter Cornelius.

The third volume of Humboldt's Cosmos has been announced by Cotta, of Stuttgart and Tübingen. It will appear almost simultaneously in a translation both in England and America. The same publisher has issued a charming volume of tales by Gottfried and Johanna Kinkel. It is rare that a true poet, like Kinkel, is blessed with a wife equal to him in poetic gifts; and the two, perhaps, have never before united in the production of a work which leaves the impression that in the authors one and the same soul is pitched upon the masculine and the feminine key. The volume contains a series of tales and sketches in which happy invention is combined with great powers of construction; deep feeling with broad and genial humor, developed now in the masculine and now in the feminine aspects. Running like an undertone through the feelings of gladness excited by these tales, is a melancholy remembrance of the gloomy fate which in these ominous times has befallen two beings who but a short time ago were contending in such pleasant rivalry in the exercise of the imaginative power.

To the voluminous correspondence of Goethe already published, another series has been added, in the letters between him and Reinhard, a German diplomatist in the French service, possessed of many high and excellent qualities. These letters add another to the many illustrations of the rare completeness and universal accomplishments of Goethe.

The Austrian military commander at Buda Pesth, in Hungary, has forbidden the transmission of all pecuniary or other contributions to be sent to the London Exhibition; and threatens the execution of martial law against all who infringe the decree.

A tunnel under the Neva, at St. Petersburg, similar to that under the Thames, has been projected by the Emperor Nicholas, who has directed plans for the work to be prepared by M. Falconnet, a distinguished French engineer. The bridges of boats which connect the portions of the city lying on the two banks of the Neva, are all withdrawn in anticipation of the freezing over of the stream, after which the only practicable communication is by the ice. Before the ice has become firm, and while it is breaking up, the communication is difficult and hazardous. If the tunnel be practicable, it will therefore be a work of the highest utility.

The Russian government has prohibited the publication of translations of the modern French novels, in consequence of which the attention of the caterers for public taste, has been turned to the less exciting comestibles of the English novels. We see announced three separate translations into Russian, of Thackeray's Vanity Fair; Jane Eyre, The Caxtons, Maryatt's Valérie, Dombey and Son, are also translated.

Spindler, whose "Jew" has been pronounced the best historical romance of Germany, has published a humorous novel, under the title of "Putsch and Company," which is highly praised.

The Neapolitan government has prohibited the circulation of Humboldt's Cosmos, Shakspeare, Goldsmith, Heeren's Historical Treatises, Ovid, Lucian, Lucretius, Sophocles, Suetonius, Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, E. Girardin, G. Sand, Lamartine, Valéry's L'Italie, Goethe, Schiller, Thiers, A. Dumas, Molière, all the German philosophers, and Henry Stephens's Greek Dictionary. We happened not long since to have occasion to examine the Prohibitory Index of Gregory XVI., issued in 1819; the names of the books prohibited in which reminded one of lists taken from the muster-rolls of Michael and Satan, only there were more from the former. Among the forbidden books were Grotius on the Law of War and Peace, Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Milton's Areopagitica, and Paradise Lost, unless corrected. The Paradise Lost or Lycidas, after having undergone the requisite inquisitorial corrections, would be a rare curiosity of literature. If Italy does not degenerate into barbarism, it will not be for the want of the most strenuous endeavors of her rulers.

One of the most beautiful alabaster vases in the Vatican, possessing a historical interest, as being the one in which were deposited the ashes of the sons of Germanicus, or as some say, those of Augustus himself, has been recently destroyed by an accident. It stood upon a pedestal near a window which was burst open by a violent wind. The heavy curtains of the window were blown against the vase, dashing it to the floor, and shattering it into so many fragments that restoration is pronounced impossible.

Oersted, the celebrated chemist, the discoverer of Electro-magnetism, has just completed the fiftieth year of his professorship in the Royal University of Copenhagen. On this anniversary the King of Denmark presented him with the grand cross of the order of Dannebrog. The University presented him with a new insignia of his Doctor's degree, including a gold ring, bearing the head of Minerva in cameo. And the citizens made him a present of the use for life of a beautiful villa in the outskirts of Copenhagen, which was still more acceptable and valuable from having been the former residence of the poet Oehlenschlager. Oersted is nearly in his eightieth year; but his recently-published work, "The Spirit in Nature," evinces that he retains the full possession of his mental powers.

The "passion-plays" or "mysteries," which were such favorites during the middle ages, have their sole remaining representative in the village of Ammergau, in Upper Bavaria, where they are celebrated, every ten years, with great pomp and solemnity. In the year 1633, a fearful pestilence fell upon that district, and the inhabitants made a solemn vow, that if it were removed, they would every ten years set forth a solemn representation of the "Passion and death of the Saviour." The pestilence ceased, and from that time the vow has been most religiously observed among that secluded and enthusiastic people. The representation consists of a series of tableaux representing the principal incidents in the closing scenes of the life of the Saviour, which are given in a sort of amphitheatre, of which the stage is roofed over, the audience being exposed to those sudden storms common in all mountainous regions. The representation lasts some eight hours, and is witnessed by many thousands of spectators. The German and French papers contain long accounts of that which took place a few months since; and speak in high terms of the artistic character, and solemn and devotional effect of the whole performance.

A life of Ugo Foscolo, an Italian refugee in England, has appeared at Florence. He is held up as a model and example to his countrymen. Foscolo was undoubtedly a man of no inconsiderable genius and of great acquirements; but to form an idea of his moral characteristics, we must imagine a man with Hobbes's theory of the identity of right with might and desire, without Hobbes's blameless life; with Byron's laxity of moral sentiment and conduct, without Byron's generosity; with Sheridan's reckless carelessness in respect to pecuniary affairs, without Sheridan's cheerful and kindly disposition; with Coleridge's want of mastery over his intellectual nature, without Coleridge's high purposes and keen sense of duty; with Johnson's rude and intolerable humor, without Johnson's royal humanity. Too proud, while in England, to repeat his lectures on Italian literature, because he thought his audience came only to gaze at him, he was not too proud to receive pecuniary aid from those to whom he was already deeply indebted; or to squander in luxury and debauchery the little fortune of his own illegitimate daughter, left her by her maternal relations: a daughter whom he abandoned until this fortune was bequeathed her. If Italy has only such saviours to look to, she will gain little by throwing off her present masters.

The Vicomte D'Arlincourt publishes, under the title of "L'Italie Rougé," a history of the revolutions in Rome, Naples, Palermo, Florence, Parma, Modena, Tuscany, Piedmont, and Lombardy, from the election of Pius IX., in June, 1846, to his return to Rome in April, 1850. The author visited Italy to gather materials, and his work, which is drawn from authentic sources, brings to light many new facts, and striking traits in the characters of the principal actors in the affairs of Italy.

A statue in honor of the celebrated astronomer Olbers has been erected in a public square at Bremen. He was by profession a physician, and enjoyed a very extensive practice. His fame as an astronomer rests upon his discovery of some of the asteroids; the suggestion and confirmation of the theory that they are fragments of a shattered planet; and especially upon his method of calculating the orbits of comets, from the few observations of which they are susceptible. In 1830 was celebrated the "jubilee" of his having reached the fiftieth year of his doctorate, upon which occasion he was honored by all those tokens of respect which the Germans are so fond of lavishing on such occasions. He died March 2, 1840, at the age of 82.

Scandinavian Literature is mainly known to the world, in general through the medium of German translators and critics. The names of Oehlenschlager and Andersen are sufficient evidence that it is not unworthy of cultivation. We find in the Grenzboten a notice of a new Danish Romance which though reminding one strongly of Fouque's Undine, has in its treatment something of the grim mirth, and gigantic humor of the old Vikings. The tale is entitled the Mermaid, and is founded upon the fancy of Paracelsus, that the mermaids though created without a soul may acquire one by a union with a human being. This idea is developed with more drollery than delicacy in the tale in question. The mermaids instead of, as in the orthodox conception, terminating in a fish's tail, waddle about upon flat, clumsy feet, covered with scales. When a person is drowned, he is laid upon a table, in a condition bearing all the marks of death, except that he retains a perfect consciousness. If, however, a mermaid becomes enamored of him, he comes to life as a merman, and swims about in company with dolphins and such like sea-monsters; and if he desires to ascend to upper air, he can do so, by taking the body of some other drowned person. The hero of the romance is introduced as lying drowned upon the table, in company with two other corpses, that of a faithless woman and her betrothed. The jealousy of the dead man, and his doubts whether the other two corpses do not excite similar feelings, are set forth with broad humor. He however gains the affection of the queen of the sea, and so becomes a merman, while the other two bodies are left lying on the table, until two other mermen assume them for the purpose of paying a visit to terra-firma. The hero at last wishes to revisit upper air, and the body which he assumes happens to be that of a famous bon-vivant, by which he is brought into a number of embarrassing situations; he becomes betrothed to one who loves not his new but his old self, and thus is enamored of his one "him" while she despises his other. He meets the two persons who had been lying with him upon the table; yet it is not they, but the two mermen, who have taken possession of their bodies. This continual interpenetration of different souls and bodies, by which the personages are always forgetting their identity, has a very comic effect, which, however, is marred by the grave and sentimental tone which is given to the whole narrative. At last the hero, who is a sad scoundrel, succeeds in enticing his sea-queen ashore, where he exhibits her for money, as a sea-monster.

OBITUARIES

Among the recent deaths we notice the following: Gustav Schwab, a German poet of some note, belonging to the school of Uhland, aged fifty-eight. On the morning of the day of his death, he was entertaining a party of friends, by reading to them a translation he had just completed from the poems of Lamartine. – Count Brandenburgh, the Prussian Minister. He was an illegitimate son of the grandfather of the present King of Prussia, born in 1792. He was educated for the army, and passed through various stages of promotion, until 1848, when he was appointed general in command of the 8th corps d'armée. The same year, when the cause of his master seemed irretrievably lost in the revolutionary storm, he took the helm of government, and under his guidance the storm was weathered. His death was probably occasioned by chagrin at the result of the Warsaw Conference, where Austria gained a complete triumph over Prussia. – M. Alexandre, a famous French chess-player, and author of two volumes upon that game, at an advanced age. – M. Sauve, for more than half a century chief editor of the Moniteur. He assumed the charge of the French official paper in 1795, and left it only when compelled by the infirmities of age, after the Revolution of February. During this long period he acted as sponsor to all the governments which arose one after the other, with a dexterity and pliability which Talleyrand might have envied. – General Bonnemain, ex-peer and Marshal of France, who had served through all the campaigns of the Empire and the Republic. – Sir Lumley St. George Skeffington, author of a number of dramatic works of considerable merit. – Mr. Raphall, one of the two Catholic members of Parliament who voted against the Jewish claims. He was a man of great wealth, and is said to have given within the last few years £100,000 for the building purposes of the Church. He was of Armenian descent, a singular instance of a person of Oriental extraction rising to eminence in the Occident. – M. Charles Motteley, one of the most enthusiastic and successful book-collectors of France. His collection was especially rich in Elzevir editions, and in rare and beautiful books. A very large sum was offered for it by the British Museum, but he refused to suffer it to leave France, and gave it to the French nation. The collection is to be kept separate, and to bear an inscription commemorative of the donor. – Lord Nugent, Member of the House of Commons for Aylesbury. He had occupied a number of political stations of importance, and was throughout his life a firm advocate of liberal principles. The Greek Revolution of 1823, found in him a warm supporter; and he did much to ameliorate the condition of the refugees whom the issue of the war in Hungary threw upon the shores of England. Lord Nugent was an author of no mean reputation; his "Memorials of Hampden" is an exceedingly well-written, and in the main accurate and impartial biography of the Great Commoner, and elicited one of the most brilliant of Macauley's early reviews. He was also the author of a book of Eastern travels, entitled "Lands Sacred and Classical," and a number of political pamphlets on the liberal side. – Karl Aug. Espe, one of the most laborious of the hard-working scholars of Germany. He was the editor of Brockhaus's Conversations-Lexicon of the Present, and of the eighth and ninth editions of the Conversations-Lexicon, as well as of works of decided merit in various departments of science. – Martin d'Auche, the last survivor of the French National Assembly of 1789. Though one of the most insignificant of men, the part he acted in the "Oath of the Tennis-court," one of the most famous scenes of the early part of French Revolution, has given him a place in history. The government, alarmed at the boldness of the deputies of the Third Estate in declaring themselves the National Assembly, independent of the other Orders, and proposing to effect radical and sweeping reforms in the state, excluded them from their chamber. The deputies assembled in an empty Tennis-court, in great excitement, where an oath was solemnly proposed that they would not separate, but would meet, at all hazards, until they had formed the Constitution. The oath was taken unanimously, with but one exception, that of poor Martin d'Auche, then deputy from Castelnaudry. There was at first some danger to his person, in the excitement of the moment; but it was hinted that he was not altogether in his right mind, and he escaped, being even suffered to inscribe some sort of a protest on the records. In David's picture of the scene he is represented with folded arms, amid the groups who are taking the oath by raising the right hand. This oath of the Tennis-court, the first actual collision between Royalty and the National Assembly, may be looked upon as the starting-point of the Revolution.