The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851

Germany is still in a fog. The Dresden Conference has not yet been able to bring order out of the chaos. The reconstitution of the Central German Power was partly agreed on, each Government taking the Presidency by turns. Austria, however, claimed the Presidency without alternation. Prussia thereupon refused to sanction the installation of a Central Power until all the German Governments have stated their views concerning the revision of the Constitution of the Diet. A return to the old form of the Diet is recommended in many quarters, as the sole means of restoring harmony; but the prospect of a settlement which shall be generally acceptable, is as far off as ever. The Prussian Assembly was, at the last accounts, engaged in discussing a new law for the censorship of the Press.

Switzerland is menaced with a war on the part of the German Powers, for the purpose of recovering for Prussia the Canton of Neufchatel. It is stated that the Confederation will shortly march an army to the Swiss frontier: they have been restrained, up to the present time, by the fear of exposing themselves to revolution at home. England it is rumored will strongly oppose such a movement. The Federal Council of Switzerland has issued a decree, prohibiting French refugees from residing in the cantons on the French frontiers. The number of political refugees in the country amounts to about 500, large numbers having been sent to England and the United States, at the expense of the Federal Government.

Italy is in a state of great alarm, in relation to Mazzini and his revolutionary designs. It is stated that he has raised a loan of more than two millions of francs, and is maturing his plan for an outbreak which shall sweep the whole Italian peninsula. Garibaldi (who is at present on Staten Island, near New-York) is reported to be on the coast with a large naval force. These rumors are made the pretext of an increase of the Austrian force in Italy. The forces of Piedmont are being put upon a war footing, in order to be ready for any emergency. It was stated, in Turin, on the 24th of February, that the German Powers have demanded of the Piedmontese government, the suppression of the liberty of the press, and reconciliation of the Court of Rome.

The bands of robbers which infest the mountains, in the Papal States, have been dislodged from some of their strongholds, by the united Austrian and Roman forces. A party of thirty of these brigands took possession of the town of Forlini-Popoli, and plundered the inhabitants, who were at the time congregated in the theatre of the place. In the island of Corsica, a robber named Mazoni has, for 18 months past, held possession of a fortified town called Ile-Rousse, with a population of 1,000 inhabitants. He communicates with the agents of the Government, his dispatches being drawn up in regular style, and signed "Mazoni, Bandit." Archbishop Hughes is still preaching in Rome, and it is said that he either has been or shortly will be made Cardinal.

The Government of Naples has completed its work of persecution. From twenty to thirty men, some of noble rank, some formerly Ministers of State, have been condemned to the prison or the galley. Of 140 Deputies, eighty-five are in various ways victims: twenty-four have been shut up in prison, unheard of for two years; and sixty-one are refugees.

The thirteenth Storthing (National Congress) of Norway, was opened on the 11th of February by King Oscar in person. Among other things, he recommended the construction of a railroad from the City of Christiana to Lake Miösen.

From Turkey we learn that Gen. Dembinski has reached Constantinople. All the refugees have left Shumla, and 240 persons, chiefly Poles, had sailed from Constantinople on their way to America. Kossuth, with 300 Hungarians, still remains at Kutahya, where a very strict guard is maintained over all his movements. He is not allowed to communicate with his friends. A sale of Gen. Bem's effects was held at Aleppo on the 23d of January, and enormous prices were paid for trifles of all kinds, as relics. The troubles at Bagdad and Aleppo have been subdued. A difficulty arose between the Porte and Abbas Pacha, Viceroy of Egypt, in relation to a retrenchment of the expenditures of the latter. At one time a war was anticipated, but our latest dates announce that the difference has been adjusted.

BRITISH AMERICA

Mr. Howe, the Commissioner dispatched to England from Nova Scotia, writes from London that his mission on behalf of the Portland and Halifax Railroad will prove successful. A serious disturbance has taken place on the Great Western Railroad, near Hamilton, Canada West, 900 laborers having made a strike for higher wages. As they menaced the peace of the neighborhood, the inhabitants called on the executive for the aid of the troops to assist the civil authorities.

A large anti-slavery meeting was held at Toronto, on the 28th of February. Its avowed object is to furnish sympathy and aid to the American fugitives. A large class of persons, however, including the Government officials, are opposed to the movement. The Free School system is becoming popular in Canada, and is already partially adopted in the District of Toronto.

MEXICO

We have news from the Mexican capital to the 15th of February. The country was remarkably quiet, the revolts in Chiapas and Guanajuato having been completely quelled. Congress has done nothing of importance. Señor Lacunza has declined the post of Minister to England, which has been given to Señor Payno, who has resigned the office of Minister of Justice. Munguia, the refractory Bishop of Michoacan, has given in his submission to the Government. President Arista is engaged in arranging an active plan of operations with his Cabinet, and favorable predictions are made in regard to the effects of his administration.

On the 16th of February, the City of Chihuahua was thrown into great alarm by the rumor that thirty American adventurers, leagued with a large body of Indians, armed with two field-pieces, were encamped at a short distance. The troops were ordered out, but could not find such a force, though the existence of a company of robbers among the mountains, headed by an American, was well ascertained. Great depredations are committed in the City of Mexico. On the 3d of February, eight armed men appeared on the public promenade, and plundered a large number of persons. The affairs of Yucatan are in a desperate condition. The treasury is exhausted, and the army called out against the Indians is without money or means to carry on the war.

CENTRAL AMERICA

A war between the Central Government of Guatemala on one side, and the allied States of Honduras and San Salvador, has broken out. This rupture was occasioned by the British blockade of the Pacific ports of the latter States, which they attribute to the instigation of Guatemala. A joint army of 6000 men was raised for the protection of the frontier. The inhabitants of the mountain provinces of Guatemala, who are nearly all in favor of the Federal Union of the Central American States, sympathized with this movement, and large bodies of deserters from Carrera's forces joined the allied army. A plot of Carrera to excite a revolt in San Salvador was completely defeated. At the last accounts, the two armies had met near Chiquimula. One statement announces the total defeat of the allied forces by Carrera, while another says the former obtained possession of Chiquimula; and that the only victory gained by Carrera was over a company of deserters from his own ranks, near the village of San Geronimo.

In the State of Nicaragua, the chain of communication from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is nearly completed. The engineers have nearly finished the survey of a road from Rio Lagæ, on the western shore of the Lake, to the port of San Juan del Sur on the Pacific, a distance of twelve miles. Small boats are now building to run on the San Juan River, and it is expected that the transit from sea to sea will be made in twenty-four hours, and the journey from New-York to San Francisco in twenty-four days.

THE WEST INDIES

On the 3d of March, Havana was in the midst of the Carnival, and given up to gayety of all kinds. The Captain General, Concha, has made himself exceedingly popular by his liberal measures, and it was rumored that he intended visiting Spain for the purpose of procuring further reforms in the government of the Island. Miss Fredrika Bremer was on a visit to Matanzas. The cholera has broken out at Cardenas, and there have been many fatal cases among the crews in the harbor and the negroes on shore.

This scourge is still prevailing in many parts of Jamaica, having made its appearance in some districts a second time with increased malignity.

In Hayti, the threatened war on the Dominicans has not been undertaken. The United States Government is interfering actively in the alleged imprisonment, without cause, of Captain Mayo, of the American brig Leander. The evidence in the case has been transmitted to the Emperor.

The inhabitants of Georgetown, Grand Caymanas, are digging up the beach around a certain inlet of the island, in search of a treasure supposed to have been buried by the pirate Gibbs. Several flat stones, marked with cabalistic letters, have been discovered, but no gold.

SOUTH AMERICA

The workmen on the Panama Railroad are now engaged in laying the rails from Navy Bay to Gatun, a distance of three and a half miles. The first locomotive was landed on the 22d of February. A new steamer has been placed on the Chagres River, to run between Chagres and Gorgona, and another is building at Navy Bay for the same purpose, to form a daily line. The attention of Americans on the Isthmus is at present attracted towards the auriferous region of New Grenada, in the provinces of Choco and Antioquia, lying between the Pacific and the Magdalena River. About three hundred and fifty persons, principally Frenchmen, are engaged in working the Buenaventura mines, which yield from two to three ounces per day to each man. A severe shock of an earthquake was felt at Carthagena on the 7th of February.

In Venezuela, the new President, Monagas, has been inaugurated; the country is quiet and prosperous.

The Presidential Election in Peru has terminated in favor of Echinique. Congress was to meet on the 20th of March.

One or two partial insurrections have occurred in Bolivia, and a decree has been issued for the banishment of all Buenos Ayreans, who were not married to Bolivian females. It is believed that the difficulty between Brazil and the Argentine Republic will be settled without war.

ASIA

Late news from Canton announce the death of Commissioner Lin, who seized the English opium in 1839. Murders and piracy are on the increase in the Indian seas, notwithstanding the alleged severity of the Chinese authorities.

The British surveying ship Herald has arrived at Singapore, from the Arctic regions, bringing a rumor of news in relation to Sir John Franklin. Near the extreme station of the Russian Fur Company, the officers of the Herald learned from the natives that a party of white men had been encamped three or four hundred miles inland, that the Russians had made an attempt to supply them with provisions and necessaries, but had been prevented by the natives. No communication could be opened with the spot where they were said to be, as a hostile tribe intervened. The Esquimaux confirmed this rumor, with the addition that the whites had been murdered in a quarrel with the natives.

MISCELLANEOUS

M. Xavier Raymond, a practised and accredited author, has begun a series of essays in the Paris Journal des Debats, on the British and American Steam Navigation Companies: historical details, statistics, modes of forming, organization—comparison. He agrees with our Secretary of the Navy, that it is better for government to subsidize companies, and partly or mainly rely upon them for war-steamers, than to build and maintain a steam-fleet for itself, at greater cost, and with no superiority of adaptation for belligerent service. He admits that this plan would not find grace with the European Ministers of Marine; but, for them, circumstances are different. The report of the Secretary has been received here as able and satisfactory. M. Raymond observes that, notwithstanding the amount of subsidies granted in England and America, to various Companies of Steam Navigation, he knows but one among those which operate on a line of more than five hundred leagues that is in a prosperous condition. This may be a mistake.

The Paris Moniteur contains a very curious and interesting biography, by an able hand, Dr. Parise, of Dr. Joseph Ignatius Guillotin, the inventor of the famous instrument of decapitation called after him. His character was benevolent, and his design humane. This is now realized. He proposed his machine (not altogether original, but improved laboriously) in 1789: a report was ordered on it, by the Legislative Assembly in 1792; and on the 21st August of that year, it was first used for a political execution. It gave occasion for numberless effusions of verse at his expense. No one experienced more horror at the abuse of it, than he uniformly testified. Seventy-six physicians and surgeons perished under its slider. He rescued as many intended victims as he possibly could. He was finally arrested himself, for execution; by some chance he escaped, and then withdrew, in despair, from the political theatre.

We noticed lately the death of the Italian Professor Sarti, whose anatomical museum was exhibited last year in Broadway. The library of the deceased professor was being sold at Rome, when the police came in and stopped the sale. Among his books were twenty-one volumes of manuscript correspondence between the governments of Rome and Venice, from the time of Pope Paul Caraffa downwards. Monsignor Molsa, a great friend of the late professor, knowing of these volumes, which were in cipher, with their interpretations, hastened to tell Cardinal Antonelli, who dispatched orders just in time to save the secrets of the state from further exposure. Sarti died in Liverpool.

The Fine Arts

The present king of Prussia, great and glaring as are his faults as a politician, deserves the credit of doing a great deal for the advancement of art and the decoration of his capital and residence, Berlin. He is building there a new metropolitan church which is expected to be a splendid edifice, and will be such as far as the most lavish expenditure of money can make it. He has just completed a New Museum to contain the large and excellent collections of Egyptian antiquities (including those brought home by Prof. Lepsius), of the antiquities of the middle ages, of Slavonic and Germanic relics, of plaster casts from the antique, the collection known as the "Copper-Plate Cabinet," &c., &c., all of which have heretofore been most inconveniently arranged for inspection in the Old Museum and in various royal palaces, or else packed away somewhere out of sight. This edifice was designed by the architect Stüler; its foundations were laid in 1843, and its interior has just been completed with a luxury, variety, and extent of ornament, in the mosaic work of the floors, and the decorations of the walls and ceiling, which are not equalled by any other public building. Among the artists employed in these decorations are the sculptors Wredow, Gramzow, Stürmer, Schievelbein, and Berges; here, too, is to be seen Kaulbach's great series of frescoes, of which the Babel is already finished, and the Destruction of Jerusalem nearly so. The landscape painters Græb, Pape, Biermann, Schirmer, Max Schmidt, contribute a great number of frescoes of Egyptian and oriental subjects. A critic in the Grenzboten who eulogizes the beauties both of design and execution in the separate parts of the edifice, still says, and we think not without reason, that it does not form a united and organic whole. He says, too, that in it the old works are rather used as decorations for the architecture than the latter as a setting for them; "I cannot avoid the impression that here the old monuments of art are not the end, but the means to the execution of the great edifice of modern times in which it is sought to embody the entire encyclopædistic, historical experience in art belonging to the present epoch."

Another edifice which this prince intends as a monument of his reign, is the new Campo Santo, or burial-place for members of the royal family, which he is erecting at Berlin. This building, which will surround a court where are the tombs, is to be ornamented with frescoes by the eminent painter Cornelius. This artist has just completed the third great cartoon for these frescoes. Its subject is the Resurrection. Its place is on the right of the "Heavenly Jerusalem" and opposite to the "Four sides of the Apocalypse," which is on the left of the "Downfall of Babylon." Thus on one side of the hall is represented the destruction of Evil, on the other the triumph of the Good. The Resurrection, which has been changed somewhat from the original design, is described as follows: On a rock is seen an angel in a position of repose, with the book of life and death unopened on his lap, his right hand grasping the sword of justice. His face is thoughtful and sublimely earnest. On the left are figures full of terror and despair, on the right all is heavenly joy and satisfaction. In the centre is a re-united family animated by the delight of meeting again. At the side of this family are two girls and above them three youths, noble and beautiful persons. The faces of the maidens are turned upward, illuminated by the eternal light of heaven. On the same side of the family are three persons advanced in age, one woman and two men, waiting in pious hope and submission for the decision of the judge; on the other side, a little higher, three figures seek and find that salvation is theirs; a youth whose foot reaches back among the condemned is drawn mildly forth by an angel, and beside him is a tender maiden with her young brother in her arms, whom she holds lovingly, as she follows the celestial messenger. The group on which Justice sorrowfully fulfils its office, occupies about a quarter of the canvas; it consists of two youthful and two more aged figures. On a height a woman wrings her hands in the anguish of remorse, while another gazes in despair upon the ground. A youth lies backward leaning on his right hand, shading his eyes with his left as if not to see the approach of destruction. The older pair, a man and woman, have thrown themselves to the earth; the woman hides her face in her hands, the man, leaning on his elbows, tears his hair with his hands; his face expresses the consciousness of a sin which can find no forgiveness. The artist has aimed throughout to convey the idea that salvation and damnation are not inflicted or conferred upon the persons, but are the result of the inward state of each soul and conscience. The angel with the book of life and death can announce no sentence which has not already been pronounced by the very being to which it refers. The execution of the whole is spoken of as sublime and grandiose.

The well-known German painter, Hiltensperger, has received the commission to design and partly to execute for the new imperial palace at St. Petersburg (an edifice destined to serve as a museum of antique art) a series of paintings, representing the history of art among the Greeks and Romans. A part of the designs are already completed, and receive the warm praise of those to whom they have been exhibited. In order to avoid the monotony which seems inherent in the subject, he represents the peculiarities of each artist introduced by a symbolic picture; for instance, the inventor of battle pictures is designated by a picture of that sort; the discoverer of an effect of light, by a boy blowing a fire, &c. Historical epochs and their transitions are denoted by allegorical figures, like day and night.

An old picture has been discovered in the city of Hanover which seems to be proved a genuine Leonardo Da Vinci. It is known that Leonardo, as well as Zenale and the French artist Bourgogne, was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, on occasion of the birth of his twin sons, to paint a picture glorifying the mother (Beatrice D'Este) and the event. Zenale and Bourgogne resorted to the Christian narrative, and represented the Duchess as the Virgin, and her two sons as the Saviour and John the Baptist; Leonardo, on the other hand, took his frame-work from the Greek mythology, and painted Leda and the Dioscures. The picture was greatly admired at the time, though that the figure of the Duchess of Milan should be represented nude was thought rather bad even then. The picture soon disappeared, and Vasari says that in his time it was no longer in existence, or else was probably at Fontainebleau. Other writers say it is in other places, but plainly none of them know any thing about it. The present picture was bought about five years since at an auction by a gentleman of Hanover. The conception and treatment agree perfectly with the original descriptions of Leonardo's work, while the coloring, drawing, and expression are pronounced altogether his.

The Art-Union At Vienna opened its galleries to the public of that pleasure-loving city during December last, and more than two thousand persons visited them daily. The best pictures were by the Düsseldorf artists Tidemann and Achenbach. The Religious Service of the Haugians, by the first, is said by one critic to overwhelm the spectator by its spirit of earnest piety, before it allows him to admire the incomparable art of its execution. The members of the sect are represented as assembled in a simple room, which is lighted from above. The light is modified by the dust which is caused by the crowd. Simple grandeur, adds the writer, makes this picture one of the most remarkable productions of modern art. It was sold for 2400 florins, or about 1000 dollars. Achenbach's landscape Venner Lake in Sweden, was also greatly admired; its price was 1800 florins. Hübner's Emigrants and Hasenclever's Pastor's Family were also favorites. Among the Vienna artists Führichs carried off the palm in this exhibition. He is a historical painter.

The Gazette of Cremona states, that a very splendid picture by Raffaelle has been brought to light in that city by a learned connoisseur, who, of course, would part with the priceless gem for a fixed sum! The composition portrays the Virgin worshipping the Infant Saviour, with St. Joseph in the back-ground. The Art Journal altogether discredits the story we translated from the German for the last International respecting a picture by Michael Angelo, said to have been discovered in London.

Letters from Rome speak in high terms of an alto relievo monument just modelled there by the German sculptor Steinhauser for a family in Philadelphia. The monument was designed to commemorate two sisters and a brother, and to be erected in a chapel built specially for the purpose. The artist has represented the three persons as gently sleeping, in a partially sitting posture, at the foot of a cross. The elder sister leans against the cross, and clasps the younger sister with one arm and the brother with the other. This sister is made the personation of Love, the younger of Faith, with one hand on an open book, and the boy of Hope, bearing a pomegranate flower in his hand. Above them floats the angel of the resurrection. The figures are of the size of life, and are said happily to combine the classical antique in form with Christian sentiment in expression. The whole is to be executed in marble, and surrounded with a frame-work of Gothic architecture. The work was awarded to Steinhauser as the result of a public competition, in which Crawford was one of the participants.

Adolf Schrödter, one of the first painters of the Düsseldorf School, has just produced a series of nine colored sketches by way of illustrations to a poem of A. von Marens entitled "The Court of Wine." He represents King Wine as leading a triumphal march enthroned on a wine-press, wreathed with vine leaves and drawn with grape vines by jolly vintagers of every age and sex. Behind follow as chamberlains a band of coopers, a jester dancing on a cask, and a troop of gay youths full of all "quips and cranks and youthful wiles." Then come, represented by most happily conceived figures, the German rivers on whose shores are the world-famous vineyards whose names make epicures smack their lips; then the German impersonations of Saus and Braus, or Joviality and Good Living; after them a troop of cooks, and next a queer company of dancers. We see a poet crowned with vine leaves, a tipsy-happy Capuchin monk and a jester laughing at him. The series closes with a love-scene, broken in upon by a watchman armed with a big spit hung with herrings, beer-cans, sausages, and other furniture of a German restaurant. The whole are treated with that affluence of national humor for which Schrödter is unequalled.