FOOTNOTES:[11]Continued from page 97.[12]It may be necessary to observe, that homœopathy professes to deal with our moral affections as well as our physical maladies, and has a globule for every sorrow.
[11]Continued from page 97.
[11]Continued from page 97.
[12]It may be necessary to observe, that homœopathy professes to deal with our moral affections as well as our physical maladies, and has a globule for every sorrow.
[12]It may be necessary to observe, that homœopathy professes to deal with our moral affections as well as our physical maladies, and has a globule for every sorrow.
When the late Mohammed Ali heard at length of the taking of Acre by his troops under Ibrahim, he exclaimed, "That place," adding an energetic but somewhat unsavory expression, "that place has cost me," not the lives of so many thousand men, but, "so many thousand cantars of gunpowder." These words illustrate pretty forcibly the narrow and selfish views of that celebrated but overrated man. We do not believe, indeed, that during the whole period of his sway in Egypt, the thought ever crossed his mind that he was bound to govern for any other purpose than his own personal aggrandisement, or that he was to regard in the slightest degree the feelings, the comfort, the property or the lives of his people.
The system which arose from this wretchedly egotistical state of mind was to a certain extent successful. Although great schemes of conquest, which even a more magnanimous species of selfishness might have carried out, were destined to end in comparative shame and disgrace, yet a somewhat brilliantde factosovereignty was erected and maintained to the termination of the old man's life; and he died regretting only that he had not been allowed to march to Constantinople. To the end of his days he was rolling in wealth, and possessed of arbitrary power in dominions of great extent, where he was not the less arbitrary because he was compelled to acknowledge a superior, and to send a tribute, instead of a fleet and an army, to the shores of the Bosphorus. The provinces which he called his own, lay sleeping in a death-like tranquillity; and because he could ride through the streets without a guard, his flatterers told him that he had secured the fear, respect and love of the people. For he had many flatterers, this ancient of days;—not merely his own minions, whose business it was, but European gentlemen, who affected to be awe-struck in his presence, and gathered and treasured up and repeated his wise sayings, his profound observations, and, save the mark! his wit; but they never could impress on any impartial hearer the belief in any of these things. His sayings and observations were sometimes very foolish, sometimes distinguished by respectable common-sense; and his wit consisted in prefacing a very silly or impertinent remark with a peculiar grunt. Whenever, therefore, his courtiers, being in a narrative mood, began to tell how on a certain occasion the pasha said, "Hunk!" &c., a crowd of admirers were ready to smile, and one or two disinterested lookers-on were compelled to smile likewise, though, perhaps, for a very different reason.
Nothing is easier than to surround a man who has sufficient talents to fight or wheedle himself into a position of authority with a halo of false reputation; but it is rather more difficult to impress a character on the civilization of a country, and, now-a-days, to found an enduring dynasty. We shall not here recapitulate the enormous blunders of Mohammed Ali, in political and economical questions, nor explain how these blunders arose from a selfish desire to make what is vulgarly called a "splash," nor waste an anathema on his crafty cruelty and abominable tyranny. We wish merely to remind the reader that his period of power having come to a close, little good had been done, except, perhaps, improving the method of transacting public business.
Well, there were plenty of people to succeed him. The pasha had a large family of children and grandchildren, to whom he had behaved sometimes with indulgence, but generally with unreasoning and perverse severity. There was scarcely a member of his family with whom he had not had many little quarrels, and who did not avoid his presence as they did the plague. Even the favorite Ibrahim could not bear to live in the same city as his presumed father; and the rest would have been little less startled by the last summons of all, than they were by an occasional order to appear in the presence of the angry and savage old man. One feeling, however, was pretty general amongst them,—they regarded the pasha as a wonderfully important personage, and themselves consequently, being his children, as little less wonderful and important. Their hopes were in the uncertainty of life; and very many of them, in their own minds, had arranged what they would do in case they came to be viceroy—how they would make the money spin, and what mighty devices they would put in practice, to emulate and surpass the splendors of "Effendina"—"Our Lord,"par excellence.
It must be confessed that Abbas Pasha alone had the good sense to take up a position of his own. Whether he was as crafty and politic as some pretend before his elevation to power, it is difficult to decide; but the plan, at that time generally ascribed to him, of forming what was called a Turkish or bigoted party—a party of discontented great folks, and fanatical Ulemas—a party which should appeal to the religious prejudices of the good Caireens, and oppose itself to the inroad of European adventurers and improvements,—this plan, if distinctly formed, was certainly a very sagacious one. Let us be frank: Europeans have done more harm than good in Egypt; that is to say, whenever they have appeared, except as mere commercial men, bringing the goods of their own countries, and anxious to take away the surplus of the luxuriant crops of the valley of the Nile. As political advisers, partly, perhaps, because men undertook to advise who were fit only for the counting-house, partly because their own interests were concerned, their intermeddling has been most pernicious. Even the benefits, for some such there are, which have been conferred by their wisdom, have been mingled with an immense amount of misery. There is one fact which has attained an almost mythological dignity, from its notoriety, and the admirable manner in which it symbolises European meddling in Egypt. An English merchant, who ought to have known the manners of the country, advised the construction of the Mahmoudiyeh Canal. It has been most useful to commerce; but twenty thousand people were starved or worked to death within six weeks, in order to complete it. Fifty illustrations of the same kind might be given; but we wish merely to have our meaning understood, when we say that, if Abbas Pasha or his party ever contemplated, as there is reason to suppose they did, the utter destruction of foreign influence, the total change of a system, under which French and English measures alternated like whig and tory administrations, we must candidly admit they had some very good grounds to go upon.
The creation of the party was a long and laborious work; very likely it was brought and kept together more by mutual discontents, ambitious hopes, and straightforward bigotry, than by any very Machiavellian policy. Probably Abbas Pasha really liked ram-fighting, and was a pigeon-fancier, and did not assume these tastes, as the elder Brutus played the fool, in order to accomplish his ends. But, however this may be, he certainly occupied a more respectable position than his uncle Ibrahim, whose whole ideas of the duties of government were getting money and playing at soldiers; and than any of the other members of this most obese and heavy-headed family. Even if it be true that he meditated a revolt against the broken-down conqueror of Syria, and was only withheld by fear of the European powers, this fact gives an impression of his energy, and by no means derogates from his character in this country. The Saids and the Ahmeds, the Ismains and the Mustaphas, would, each and all of them, strike a blow and rid the country of their beloved relations, if the little wordimpossibledid not stare them in the face. As it is, they are in perpetual feud with the head of the family, and there is no end to their bickerings, heart-burnings, jealousies, and hatreds. Abbas is haughty and overbearing to them; they as insolent as they may be to him. Be sure that, on all sides, direful causes of affront have been given; but probably Abbas has been provoked by unbecoming pretensions. What else could be expected from a set of ignorant, debauched adventurers, who have got a temporary footing in the country, and actually talk with the pride of an ancient respectable line of hereditary princes of their rights, and their expectations, and their rank, and so forth! Abbas, of course, has not the same natural influence over this unruly brotherhood as had the ruthless old man, and his more savage immediate successor; and probably, in attempting to exert his rightful authority, has been betrayed into undignified squabbles. It is certain that many members of his family have fled or retired to Constantinople; among others, Mohammed Ali Bey, and the notorious Hazlet Hanem. Some remarks have been made on this subject, to the effect that Abbas is frightening away his dutiful relations by his violent and unreasonable conduct; but if Egypt never loses two of its natives whom it can worse spare than these, it will be fortunate. Without further inquiry than into their character, one would be inclined to admire and respect the man who had quarrelled with them. Mohammed Ali is a debauched worthless lad; and Madame Nazlet cannot have justice done to her without details into which our pen is not at liberty to enter.
It is a sad thing, certainly, to view the breaking up of a large family; but it would be a sadder thing to witness vice unpunished, and harmony arising out of the reckless indulgence of unbridled passions. Abbas Pasha himself, if report speaks true, has little in his private life to plead for lenity in judging of his public character. His taste leads him to the most trifling amusements. Just as of old, when he was the supposed head of a kind of Conservative Turkish party, when he was Governor of Cairo, and silently nourishing his ambitious schemes, he spends time and money in the undignified, though not inelegant, and certainly innocent, occupation of a pigeon-fancier. Near the new palace which he is building (none of these Turkish princes seem to care about living where their fathers lived before them) rises a magnificent square tower, entirely devoted to the loyal winged favorites of his Highness the Viceroy,who is reported to be quite learned in this department of natural history. Another of his tastes, for which Englishmen will have more sympathy, is for horses; and the public will remember his bold challenge to the Jockey Club. In what way he passes the remainder of his leisure hours we do not inquire; but we give him, in common with his relatives, the advantage of an excuse that has before been urged in their favor—namely, that of an infamous education.
Abbas Pasha has not exactly carried out the views which were attributed to him before he reached his present elevation. He has not, for example, done all that his fanatical anti-Frank friends could expect in shaking off foreign influence. He began, it is true, by getting rid, in rather a hasty and shabby manner, of many Europeans, chiefly English, in his employ; and showed a disposition entirely to put a stop to that enormous blunder of the Barrage. His first, and very wise impulse, was either to destroy the works altogether, or, abandoning them, simply allow the river to work its own majestic will. But a clamor was raised on all sides! After throwing so many millions of dollars into the river, why should not a few millions more be thrown? I believe the French, who have a fondness for this undertaking because it was suggested by or through Napoleon—(the Osiris of his day is parent of all wonderful inventions)—I believe, I say, that France made it almost a national question; and so this work, which already impedes the navigation of one of the finest rivers in the world, and which, if successful, would only achieve an object that one quarter of the expense in the establishment of steam-engines at various points for raising water would effectually accomplish, is allowed to drag on slowly towards its conclusion. We must give Abbas credit for the courageous good sense which suggested to him that the first loss was the best; and yet we must not withhold from him some praise for yielding to the influence of friendly persuasion, and refraining from carrying out his own opinion, however well founded, when he was told that, by doing so, he would incur the risk of being accused of treason to his grandfather's fame. The old man had fondly believed that his Barrage would join the Pyramids that look down upon it in that restricted category of the "Wonders of the World," and might well be supposed to lie uneasily in his grave if all the piles which he had caused to be driven, all the mighty walls, and piers, and arches, which he had caused to be raised with a disregard of expense and human labor worthy of Cheops, were allowed to sink and lie forgotten in the slimy bed of the Nile.
This was the first point on which it appeared that Abbas Pasha was not disposed to act up fully to his presumed plan of destroying European influence altogether; but, on many occasions, he early showed a disposition to temporize between his prejudices and his interest. We cannot here enter into details of minor importance, but, coming down to a recent period, we may mention another instance of a similar nature. For many years before his death, Mohammed Ali had held out hopes that he would construct, or allow to be constructed, a railway from Cairo to Suez. This was preëminently an English project—not likely to be unuseful to the country at large, it is true, but calculated chiefly to promote the more expeditious and comfortable transit of passengers to and from India. The Pasha, however, deceived by an excess of cunning, really entertained no intention of performing his promise. With great want of sagacity, he confounded the proposed stations on the line of railway, which he might have held in his own hands if he chose, with the counters which he was told had formed the nuclei of the British power in India. He believed the English had some sinister designs upon his country, and were engaged in all sorts of schemes for introducing themselves into it. The same policy which made him refuse to deepen the entrance of the port of Alexandria, lest a British fleet might come in, made him unwilling to throw a railway across the Desert of Suez, even if he kept the whole management in his own hands. The recommendations, he saw, came all from one country: the objections, nearly all, from another. France was opposed to the railway because it had another darling Neapolitan project in hand—namely, the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez, which was much talked of once, but which now nobody mentions but to laugh at. The difficulties of execution, immense as they were found to be by the Austrian commission, were not the most decisive objections. The real ones were contained in an answer to the very appropriate question—Cui bono?However, the railway was shelved for a time. It has lately come again upon the tapis; and although it is now proposed to lay down a line in the first instance between Alexandria and Cairo, to compensate for the water communication which M. Moujel is spoiling by his Barrage, yet there is every probability of proper extensions and branches being made in due time.
If, indeed, the project be really a serious one. Many say, in spite of the official manner in which the announcement has been made, that it is only aruse, a piece of policy in order to propitiate English influence, and that as soon as certain manœuvres shall have been successful or otherwise, nothing more will be said about the railway. There is no answering for the diplomacy of Eastern courts; but this explanation seems a little too Machiavellian. I have no doubt the promise has been made, in part, because it is thought to be agreeable to the English; but I can hardly imagine Abbas Pasha is so foolish as not to know that if he coaxes Lord Palmerstonwith a sugar-plum, and when his lordship opens his mouth, puts a finger in instead, Lord Palmerston will bite pretty sharply.
Be these things as they may, it seems admitted on all hands that Abbas Pasha has now completely thrown overboard the party which he courted so assiduously as heir-apparent, and is seeking foreign, especially English, support. All this is fair enough provided he does not fall into the old error of sacrificing the natives entirely to strangers, as did his great predecessor, and provided he do not allow himself to be persuaded by flatterers—and he has flatterers; what man in power has not?—to engage in grand undertakings for the purpose of emulating the renown of the old Pharaohs. Egypt wants neither a resuscitation of old times, nor a hasty imitation of the new. She has to find out the form of its own civilization: and modern improvements, as they have been hitherto introduced, will only weigh her down into despair.
But it is said that Abbas Pasha has no views at all about the progress of the arts, and manufactures, and commerce; no thought of the amelioration of the country; but that in endeavoring to gain the good-will of Europe, he wants to serve some ambitious projects of his own. There may be something in this. Not that it is probable he intends to play the old game over again and throw off the yoke of Stamboul; but there is certainly a very arduous struggle now carrying on, both by open and underhand means, between Egypt and the Porte. There is an infinity of points of difference between the vassal and his lord; but the gist of the matter is, that the former wishes to preserve all the privileges, to be treated with the same indulgence, to be left with the same freedom of action, as his grandfather; he wishes to remain, in fact, a vassal little more than in name, free to indulge any arbitrary whims; whilst the latter is attempting, with some reason,—with great reason indeed, but perhaps in too precipitate a manner, and actuated by feelings that resemble private grudge,—to reduce Egypt to the same subjection as the rest of the Ottoman Empire.
The discussion is a serious one, and much may be said on both sides; but it must be accorded at once in favor of the Porte, that the Viceroy of Egypt is not to be considered as an independent sovereign merely paying tribute to a superior power, but as an officer of the Empire. Certainly, he holds a distinguished position; and his case is an exceptional one; but very imprudent would be any who should advise him to take the same ground as Mohammed Ali, even after his defeat and expulsion from Syria, was allowed to assume. He has been levying troops, and is said even to have victualled his fleet to give more weight to his negotiations; but it is not probable he will draw the sword when, by giving way a little, he may establish a character for moderation, and be left undisturbed in a position sufficiently splendid to satisfy a very respectable ambition.
On the other hand, it is hoped that no undue heat, no petty jealousy, no minor considerations of self-love—excited and encouraged by the numerous runagates from Egypt, as Artin Bey and his fellows—will finally govern the councils of Constantinople. Many missions have passed from this country to the Porte with the object of warding off the blows that are being aimed at the authority of Abbas Pasha. Probably they ask too much, as is always done in such cases; but, if reports speak true, they have been answered with an asperity which seems calculated rather to provoke a quarrel than to lead to a satisfactory settlement. The great question now is about the Tanzamat promulgated by the Porte, which may be briefly described as a well-intended attempt to introduce some kind of order into the administration of the empire, to substitute certain rules in place of arbitrary will, and generally to control the actions of what are called the great men in their relations with those who, we suppose, may be described as the little men. Such a scheme, even if imperfect in its details and difficult to be applied, must command our sympathies. The provinces of the Turkish empire—and Egypt is at least as great in degree as the remainder—have been too long the sport of caprice; and if it be the secret object of Abbas Pasha utterly to prevent the introduction of this new system—to refuse it even a fair trial—he will most certainly, whatever may be the effect of obstinate passive resistance, receive no countenance or support from England.
It is said, however, that he merely desires—and such is the purport of his remonstrances—that certain modifications, adapted to the peculiar situation of Egypt, shall be made. The Porte is the best judge as to how far these modifications are compatible with the spirit of its decree; and as the communications that have taken place have been chiefly verbal, we will not take upon ourselves to say whether they are even suggested by any peculiar necessity. The negotiations are in progress; and all we can say is, that unless Abbas Pasha be considered too dangerous a subject, and his removal be desired, it will be better to make up by amenity of procedure for the inexorable requirements of principle.
There was one great grievance in Mohammed Ali's time, namely, the existence of theferdeh, or tax of one-twelfth upon income of all kinds, down to that of the poorest fellah. This was a great outrage on legality. It was opposed to all the constitutions of the Turkish empire; and it was understood that, after the Syrian affair, it should be voluntarily done away with by the Pasha. But an easy source of revenue is not easily given up; and, in spite of all remonstrances, the tax wasmaintained. There was no burden to which the people objected more than this. They paid,—but they murmured somewhat loudly; and even in the coffee-houses many were sometimes bold enough to say the ferdeh was illegal. On one occasion, when Ibrahim Pasha was in Cairo, not long before his father's death, there was the semblance of a riot on the subject; but the stick and the halter were brought into play, and the conviction produced that, legal or not legal, the tax must be paid. Abbas Pasha himself for some time allowed this copious fountain to gush into his treasury; but it now suited the policy of the Porte to return vigorously to the charge in favor of legality; and towards the end of last year the ferdeh was finally abolished to the infinite delight of the whole population. The long-wished-for event was celebrated by illuminations in Alexandria and Cairo; and the general joy might have risen to something like enthusiasm had not a fresh, though temporary, cause of discontent accompanied the boon.
This was the conscription, which nearly drove Egypt into a revolt last winter. In old times, when soldiers were wanted, men were pounced upon suddenly wherever they could be found, and marched off, leaving great grief behind; but before any dangerous excitement could be got up. This was justly considered a barbarous and inartificial method; and when, for what purposes remains a mystery, a certain levy of men was required, it was determined to proceed with regularity, and to make each district furnish its quota according to the number of inhabitants. The idea, at first sight, seems both fair and wise; and if the people could have been got to acquiesce in the necessity of their supplying soldiers in any proportion at all, would have worked very well. But as nobody in Egypt wants to shoulder a musket, as everybody has the utmost hatred and abhorrence of military service, arising partly from constitutional want of energy, but chiefly from the knowledge that the soldier is ill-paid[13]and ill-fed, and rarely, if ever, returns—we never met but one old discharged campaigner in the country—it is not surprising if the public announcement of the intentions of Government produced the greatest possible perturbation. The first impulse of the whole adult population, except those who could boast of some very undoubted claim of exemption, was to fly to the mountains; and every defile, every cavern, every catacomb, every quarry in the Libyan and Arabian chains, were soon tenanted by people running away from enlistment. Wherever we went in our excursions, we became accustomed to see lines of human beings perched like crows on the summit of seemingly inaccessible cliffs, on the look-out for the enemy in the shape of the Sheikh-el-Beled; for the task of catching and forwarding the prescribed number of "strong active young men" devolved on the civil authority, aided sometimes by that estimable rural police, the Arnaout irregular cavalry. On many occasions we surprised these poor people in their retreats; and once, when they mistook us for recruiters, were assailed with slings diverted from their original purpose, namely, that of frightening the sparrows away from the crops. Accounts reached us at several places that blood had been shed; and the affair in various ways rendered our journey somewhat melancholy. Now we came upon a large town, as Geneh, seemingly deserted by its whole population, with closed shops and silent streets; then we met a party of recruits, chained neck and neck, going to their destination; and anon we saw a crowd of women, driven to despair by the loss of son, or husband, or brother, tossing up their arms, tearing their garments, and invoking curses on their oppressors. Public opinion in all despotic countries finds utterance through the weaker sex; they dare to say what would perhaps bring condign punishment on the men; they nearly made a revolt once in Cairo under Mohammed Ali, and on the present occasion they expressed their mind pretty freely. Some of the more noisy brought a good beating on themselves from some irascible Sheikh; but in general their anathemas were received with a kind of sheepish deprecating good-humor. It was difficult to ascertain how many recruits were at last got together, but, as near as I could gather, the number ordered was one in about every 180 souls.
The sight of so much unhappiness naturally excited great indignation and disgust; but not so much perhaps on reflection as the permanent misery and ill-treatment of a great proportion of the population. Abbas Pasha has taken the old system as he found it, and, with the exception of the abolition of the ferdeh, has done nothing to alleviate the condition of the fellah. It is especially on the lands of the great men, the pashas and the beys, that these poor serfs are worst off. Their profession is that of agricultural laborers, but it must not be supposed that they have freedom to carry their services to what master they will. They belong to the land as much as do the palm-trees; and the nature of their occupation, their hours of labor, and their pay, are regulated by their lord and master in a perfectly arbitrary way. At Randa, opposite Sheikh Abadeh, we found a sugar estate occupying 1,300 men, and endeavored to ascertain in as exact a manner as possible how they were treated. We found that, in the first place, they were, of course, forced to work, both on the land and in the factory, at a nominal pay of twenty-five paras, or three-halfpence a head, and that some of them were in active employment nearly eighteen hours a day. Now itispossible for a man toexist on such wages in that part of Egypt, even with a family; and as bare existence is considered in most countries an adequate reward for unintelligent labor, there seemed not so much reason to complain. But then came the question, how was the payment made? The answer in substance was, the men are paid twenty-five paras a day, but they never get the money; they receive what is called its value in the refuse molasses; but this only when it can be of little service to them, when the owner of the estate has glutted the market, and they can only sell at a loss of forty or fifty per cent. They would be only too happy to receive fifteen paras in hard cash; as it is, some of them necessarily eke out their living by stealing, and others by the produce of little plots of land, which they cultivate at night when they should be reposing after the fatigues of the day. The women and children assist them, when the latter are not pressed into what is called the service of the state; that is, compelled to dig canals, and perform other light work for which they receive neither pay nor food. Their parents bring them food, or some charitable person flings them a morsel of coarse bread, otherwise they would perish.
Such is pretty nearly the state of things in the private possessions of all the descendants of Mohammed Ali. In fairness, however, we must remind the reader that Abbas Pasha is only answerable for acquiescing in customs handed down. He has not established any new pernicious regulation that we have heard of; and even if he remain perfectly quiescent and leave things to go their own gait, King Log is better than King Stork. The mischievous activity of Mohammed Ali is not to be regretted; and if, by the influence of Constantinople prudently exercised, some little check is gradually put upon the caprices and violence of the proprietors who call themselves princes—and it is for the interest of Abbas Pasha that this should be the case—Egypt, though not possessed of all the happiness she wants, might not be very discontented, and would have no reason to look back with regret on the time of the old pasha. According to all accounts, some classes of the agricultural laborers are gradually enriching themselves in spite of the burdens which they bear; and, although wealth is timid to show itself, a great amelioration in the state of the country may soon be perceptible.
FOOTNOTES:[13]Soldiers will often stop a European in a by-place and beg. They get about twenty paras (a penny farthing) a day.
[13]Soldiers will often stop a European in a by-place and beg. They get about twenty paras (a penny farthing) a day.
[13]Soldiers will often stop a European in a by-place and beg. They get about twenty paras (a penny farthing) a day.
There is a quaintness in the notion of a Jewish colony surrounded by Chinese; the fixed among the fixed. The fact that such a colony exists, or has existed when found, ought to be especially remarked, for to ethnologists and others it may prove a valuable opportunity for speculation. Jews in China, what will they be like? Will the Jew stand out from the surrounding uniformity of Chinese life, like the one tree of the desert (for which, see Panorama of Overland Mail, and hear lecture upon same); or will he become non-entity, like among like, adding nothing to the first idea—silence in a calm? In the Jewish synagogue in Kai-foung-fou, concerning which we have presently to speak, there are Chinese inscriptions. The first placed there in 1444, by a literary Jew, is intended to prove the close analogy between Jewish and Chinese points of doctrine. "The author," it says, "of the law of Yse-lo-ye (Israel) is Ha-vou-lo-han (Abraham). His law was translated by tradition to Nichè (Moses). He received his book on Mt. Sinai. His book has fifty-four sections. The doctrine which is therein contained is much like that of the Kings," (which are sacred volumes of the Chinese). The author of the inscription repeats many passages to prove that in their worship to heaven, their ceremonies, their behavior to the old and young, their patriarchal character, their prayers, and their mode of honoring dead ancestors, the Jews resemble the Chinese.
The author of a second inscription, a grand mandarin in his own time, speaks to the same purpose. "From the time of Han," says this gentleman, whose name is Too-tang, "from the time of Han, the Jews fixed themselves in China; and in the twentieth year of the cycle 65, (which is, by interpretation, 1163,) they offered to the Emperor Hiao-tsong a tribute of cloth from India. He received them well, and permitted them to live in Kai-foung-fou. They formed then sixty-six families. They built a synagogue where they placed their Kings, or Divine Scriptures." This mandarin concludes with an eulogium of Jewish virtue, after the approved manner of epitaphs.
The Jews emphatically cultivated agriculture, commerce, were faithful in the armies, upright as magistrates, and rigid in observance of their ceremonies. One only wants to wind up with the scrap, "Affliction sore, long time they bore;" but affliction on the part of the Chinese, at any rate, they certainly did not bear; they were more than tolerated, they were understood; ceremony-men to ceremony-men were ceremoniously polite to one another. The Jews and Chinese even intermarried; on their first introduction by way of Persia to the Chinese Empire, they had settled here and there in sundry Chinese cities; but by the marriage with Chinese disciples of Confucius or Mahomet, the Jewish colonies were melted down into the pure Chinese metal; and when this history begins, nothing is known of any synagogue in China, save the synagogue at Kai-foung-fou, which is a city in the heart of the Flowery Land, the capital of the central province of Honan; and for an account of which we are indebted to Father Ricci, one of the Jesuit Missionaries.
Father Ricci died in the year 1610, at Pekin, which was his station. Father Ricci, at Pekin, first heard of the Jewish synagogue at Kai-foung-fou, and the information startled him exceedingly. The young Jew who enlightened Father Ricci on the subject told him that there were then at Kai-foung-fou barely a dozen Jewish families, and that for five or six hundred years they had preserved in their synagogue a very ancient copy of the Pentateuch. The father produced a Hebrew Bible, and the young man recognized the characters, although he could not read them, for he knew no language but Chinese. Four years after this, Father Ricci (whose business at Pekin would not permit him to go gadding) had an opportunity of sending off to Kai-foung-fou a Chinese Jesuit, with a letter written in Chinese, to the chief of the synagogue. He explained to the rabbi his own reverence for the books of the Old Testament, and informed him of its fulfilled predictions, and the advent of a Messiah. The rabbi shook his head at that, saying, "that so it could not be, because they had yet to expect the Messiah for ten thousand years." The good natured rabbi nevertheless did homage to Father Ricci's great abilities. He was an old man, and saw none about him fit to guide his people; he therefore besought the learned Jesuit to come to Kai-foung-fou, and undertake the guidance of the synagogue, under one only condition, a true Chinese-Jewish one, that he would pledge himself to abstinence from all forbidden meats. However, that was very much as if Dr. Jones of Bettws-y-Coed should offer his practice to Sir B. Brodie of London. Father Ricci had a larger work in hand, and so he stopped at Pekin.
In 1613, Father Aleni (such an uncommonly wise man, that the Chinese called him the Confucius of Europe) was directed to proceed to Kai-foung-fou and make investigation. Father Aleni, being well up in his Hebrew, was a promising man to send on such an errand, but he found the rabbi dead, and the Jews, though they let him see the synagogue, would not produce their books. The particulars of nothing having been done on this occasion are to be found related by Father Trigaut, in choice Latin, and choicer Italian, (de Expedit. Sinicâ, lib. 1., cap. 2, p. 118,) and by Father Samedo (Relatione della China, part 1., cap. 30, p. 193.)
A residence was established by the Jesuits in Kai-foung-fou.Now, thought those who thought at all upon such matters, we shall have something done. If we can only compare our Old Testament texts with an ancient exemplar, that will be no small gain. A certain father Gozani went zealously into the whole subject, entered the synagogue, copied the inscriptions, and transmitted them to Rome.
The Jews told Father Gozani that in a temple at Pekin was a large volume, wherein were inscribed the sacred books of foreigners resident in China. That volume was sought afterwards by Europeans at Pekin, but not found. Certainly such a volume does exist among the Chinese records. The Jews, however, told Father Gozani not only about what existed in Pekin, but all about themselves at Kai-foung-fou. The Father wrote a letter, dated 1704, containing what he learned in this manner. It appears that by that application of "soft sawder" which is or ought to be well understood by men of the world and Jesuits, the Father gratified the Jews, so that they paid him voluntary visits. He returned their visits by a call upon them at their synagogue, where, he says—"I had a long conversation with them; and they showed me their inscriptions; some of which are in Chinese, and others in their own tongue. I saw also theirKims, or religious books, and they suffered me to enter even the most secret place of their synagogue, to which they can have no access themselves. That place is reserved for theirChian-Kiao; that is to say, chief of the synagogue, who never approaches it but with the most profound respect.
"There were thirteen tabernacles placed upon tables, each of which was surrounded by small curtains. The sacredKimof Moses (the Pentateuch) was shut up in each of these tabernacles, twelve of which represented the Twelve Tribes of Israel; and the thirteenth, Moses. The books were written on long pieces of parchment, and folded up on rollers. I obtained leave from the chief of the synagogue to draw the curtains of one of these tabernacles, and to unroll one of the books, which appeared to me to be written in a hand exceedingly neat and distinct. One of these books had been luckily saved from the great inundation of the riverHoang-ho, which overflowed the city of Kai-foung-fou, the capital of the province. As the letters of the book have been wetted, and on that account are almost effaced, the Jews have been at great pains to get a dozen copies made, which they carefully preserve in the twelve tabernacles above mentioned.
"There are to be seen also in two other places of the synagogue, coffers, in which are shut up with great care several other little books, containing different divisions of the Pentateuch of Moses, which they callTa-Kim, and other parts of their law. They use these books when they pray; they showed me some of them, which appeared to be written in Hebrew. They were partly new and partly old, and half torn. They, however, bestow as much attention on guarding them as if they were gold or silver.
"In the middle of the synagogue stands a magnificent chair, raised very high, and ornamented with a beautiful embroidered cushion. This is the chair of Moses, in which every Saturday, and days of great solemnity, they place their Pentateuch, and read some portions of it. There also may be seen aVan-sui-pai, or painting, on which is inscribed the Emperor's name; but they have neither statues nor images. This synagogue fronts the west, and when they address their prayers to the Supreme Being, they turn towards that quarter, and adore him under the name ofTien,Cham-Tien,Cham-ti, andKao-van-voe-tche; that is to say,Creator of all things; and lastly, ofVan-voe-tchu-tcai, Governor of the Universe. They told me that they had taken these names from the Chinese books, and that they used them to express the Supreme Being and First Cause.
"In going out from the synagogue, I observed a hall, which I had the curiosity to enter, but I found nothing remarkable in it, except a great number of censers. They told me that in this hall they honored theirChim-gins, or the great men of their law. The largest of these censers, which is intended for the Patriarch Abraham, stands in the middle of the hall, after which come those of Isaac, and Jacob, and his twelve branches, or the Twelve Tribes of Israel; next are those of Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Esdras, and several other illustrious persons, both male and female.
"After quitting this apartment, they conducted us to the Hall of Strangers, in order to give us an entertainment. As the titles of the books of the Old Testament were printed in Hebrew at the end of my Bible, I showed them toCham-Kiao, or chief of the synagogue; he immediately read them, though they were badly printed, and he told me that they were the names of theirChin-Kim, or Pentateuch. I then took my Bible, and theCham-Kiaotook hisBeresith(thus they name the Book of Genesis); we compared the descendants of Adam, until Noah, with the age of each, and we found the most perfect conformity between both. We afterwards ran over the names and chronology in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which compose the Pentateuch, or five Books of Moses. The chief of the synagogue told me that they named these five booksBeresith,Veelesemoth,Vaiiora,Vaiedabber, andHaddebarim, and that they divided them into fifty-three volumes;viz., Genesis into twelve, Exodus into eleven, and the three following books into ten volumes each, which they callKuen. Some of these they opened, and presented to me to read; but it was to no purpose, as I was unacquainted with the Hebrew language.
"Having interrogated them respecting the titles of the other books of the Bible, the chief of the synagogue replied, that they were in possession of some of them, but that they wanted a great many, and of others they had no knowledge. Some of his assistants added, that they had lost several books in the inundation of the Hoang-ho, of which I have spoken."
Father Gozani has spoken of the inundation, but we have not, and so we will do so now. Previously, however, we may call attention to the distinct adoption of the Chinese "Hall of Ancestors" among these Jews, and of a place for showing hospitality to strangers as an appendage to their place of worship. It is in this way that, without violating their own opinions, they became assimilated more completely to their neighbors. Father Gozani also notes that their accounts of sacred history were grossly disfigured with Talmudical legends, or other stories of that class—a fact not to be lost sight of by the speculator. The Jews, in the time of Father Gozani, composed seven families—Phao, Kin, Che, Kao, The-Man, Li, Ngai—including in all about one thousand souls. They intermarried with each other, and had their own fashion of hair-cutting. These seven families of Kai-foung-fou were the remains of seventy who had of old established themselves in that capital. Now for the inundation. That event took place in the year 1642, and it occurred as follows:—Li-cong-tse, a rebel, with a big army, besieged the city. The inhabitants, after defending themselves for six months, still refused to succumb, because they expected rescue from the Emperor. The Emperor did come, a vastly clever fellow, who determined to destroy the enemy by a great master-stroke. "I'll drown every man-jack!" he said, and broke the dikes that confined the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, a league distant from the city. Out poured the stream and drowned the besiegers, and besieged the city in its turn, knocked down its walls, and destroyed thirty thousand of its inmates. The Emperor, a cockney sportsman on the largest scale, shot at the pigeon and killed the crow. It was in this inundation that the number of the Jews was thinned; diluted by the waters of the river, their Pentateuch was damaged and some other portions of their scripture altogether lost.
Before passing down from Father Gozani, we must extract his rough picture of the Jewish synagogue, as it existed in his day. He says of the Jews—
"They have no other synagogue but this, in the capital of the province of Ho-Nan. I perceived in it no altar, nor any other furniture, but the chair of Moses, with a censer, a long table, and large chandeliers, in which were placed candles made of tallow. This synagogue has some resemblance to our European churches; it is divided into three aisles; that in the middle is occupied by the table of incense, the chair of Moses, the painting, and the tabernacles already mentioned, in which are preserved the thirteen copies of the Pentateuch. These tabernacles are constructed in the form of an arch, and the middle aisle is like the choir of the synagogue; the two others are set apart as places of prayer, and for the adoration of the Supreme Being. Within the building there is a passage which runs quite round.
"As there formerly were, and still are,among them Bachelors andKien-sens, which is a degree different from that of a Bachelor, I took the liberty of asking them if they rendered homage to Confucius; they replied that they honored him in the same manner as the rest of the literati, and that they assisted them in solemn ceremonies, which are performed in halls dedicated to their great men. They added, that in spring and autumn they practised certain rites in honor of their ancestors, according to the manner of Chinese, in the hall next to their synagogue; that they did not present them the flesh of hogs, but of other animals; that in other ceremonies they were contented with offering them porcelain dishes filled with dainties and sweetmeats, which they accompanied with perfumes and profound reverences or prostrations. I asked them, likewise, if in their houses or Hall of Ancestors, they had tablets in honor of their departed relations; they replied that they used neither tablets, images, nor any thing else, but only a few censers. We must, however, except their mandarins, for whom alone they place in the Hall of Ancestors a tablet inscribed with their name and rank."
Father Gozani adds, that "these Jews, in their inscriptions, call their law the Law of Israel,Yselals-Kiao, which they name alsoKon-Kiao, Ancient Law;Tien-Kiao, Law of God, andTien-Kin-Kiao, to signify that they abstain from blood, and cut the nerves and veins of the animals they kill, in order that the blood may flow more easily from them."
This custom gives to the Jews in China, at the present day, the name of Cut-Nerves. To the present day our story now descends; for, after the time of Father Gozani, blank follows in the way of action. Father Etienne, who meditated a work upon the Sacred Scriptures in reply to theCritici Sacri, was eager to push on investigations. From the letters of Father Gozani, and from those which Father Domingo and Gambil wrote upon it, material was obtained for the memoir published under the direction of M. L. Aimé Martin, in which he remarks that the detail would be regarded with the more curiosity, as it had been often demanded, and as Father du Halde had contented himself with merely promising it in his great work, "Description de la Chine." So we have fairly got out of the past into the present, where our story thus runs on.
In the year 1815, the Chinese Jews endeavored unsuccessfully to communicate with Europe by means of a Hebrew letter addressed to London, which seems not to have been delivered. Last year the Jewish Society of London determined, however, to communicate with them. Miss Cooks, an energetic and devoted Jewess, placed her purse in the hands of the Society; nothing impeded fresh research; the English bishop at Hong Kong co-operated, Dr. Medhurst was consulted, and two Chinese Christians were at length appointed to proceed to Kai-foung-fou. The elder of these two was a bachelor; the younger was a student from the Missionaries' College at Batavia; but the junior was named to head the enterprise, because he had previously displayed zeal and ability, and also because he could write English fluently, and would journalize in that language. His journals, therefore, could be laid before Miss Cooks, uninjured by translation.
Our heroes—for so we will call the two adventurers—set out from Shanghae, on the 15th of last November, by boat to Toing-kiang-tou. In a car, drawn by mules, they were then jolted along, following the track of the Hoang-ho, rising at three o'clock on winter mornings, to save time—a proceeding which involves almost supererogatory self-denial. Population near the Yellow River they found rare and unhealthy. Localities which figure in the geographical charts of the empire as principal places, or as towns of the second class, are but huge piles of rubbish, surrounded by crumbling walls. Here and there a gate, with its inscription half-effaced, informs the traveller that he is entering a mighty town.
Perseverance, and a mule car, brought the travellers to Kai-foung-fou. They found there many Mahometans, openly exercising right of conscience, and flying their religion on a flag displayed over their gate. These Mahometans are, for the most part, hotel-keepers, and with one of them our heroes lodged. Of him they began asking about Cut-Nerves. Mine host of the Crescent said there were still some Jews in Kai-foung-fou, and offered himself as a cicerone to their synagogue. Thither they went. They found its outer wall in ruins; briers and dirt filled the grand entrance; "the pillars of the building, the inscribed marbles, the stone balustrade, before the peristyle of the temple, the ornamental sculpture—all were cracked, broken, and overturned." Under the wings of the synagogue, the chapels built in honor of the patriarchs—nestled together, cold and naked, sleeping on the bare stones, those objects of our European interest, "the Jews in China." Poor and miserable as they are, they had begun to sell the stones of their temple for bread, and a portion of land within their sacred inclosure had been already sold to an adjacent temple of the Buddhists.
Still, there were the cylinders inclosing the sacred rolls of the Old Testament, which, luckily, had not proved eatable. In number, these rolls were about a dozen, each thirty feet long by three feet wide. They are of white sheep-skin, inscribed with very small Hebrew characters.
For fifty years these poor Jews have been without the guidance of a rabbi, and there is not one left who can read a word of Hebrew. In a dozen years, probably, the last trace of the Jews in China will expire. The travellers gave money to the mournful congregationin the synagogue, and received leave to copy the inscriptions, about which the Jesuits had previously informed us. Moreover, they obtained, and have brought home, eight Hebrew manuscripts; six contain portions of the Old Testament, namely, of Exodus, chapters 1-6, and 38-40; of Leviticus, chapters 19, 20; of Numbers, chapters 13, 14, 15; of Deuteronomy, chapters 11-16, and chapter 32; with portions of the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and Prophets. The other two manuscripts are of the Jewish Liturgy. The leaves of these manuscripts "are of a species of card-board, on which the words, as it were, are engraved with a point; the binding is in silk, and bears evident marks of being of foreign origin. Two Israelitish merchants, to whom these books were shown at Shanghae, spoke of having seen similar ones at Aken, and the presence here and there upon the margins of Persian words, interspersed with Hebrew annotations, seemed to indicate that the books came originally from some western country of Asia, perhaps Persia, or some of the high provinces of India, where Persic has from time immemorial been the language used among people of education. Although the annotations mentioned are numerous, and apparently referring to different epochs, no trace of any Chinese character is to be discovered, nor any of those marks or signs which immediately betray Chinese origin. No date exists by which the age can be determined."
We hope the statement is correct which tells us that these manuscripts are to be deposited in the British Museum. Fac-similes are at the same time promised, printed in Hebrew, accompanied with a plan of the synagogue, made on the spot by the Chinese travellers, and the journal of our junior hero, written in English and Chinese. The journal in English would not be a very ponderous affair, the entire expedition having occupied only two months—the residence at Kai-foung-fou, five days. We may usefully remember how the good Chinese, rising so fearfully betimes, did justice to the generosity and zeal of their patroness. Are there not men of might at work upon investigations for the public, who, at their ordinary rate, might have come to abandon this business in forty years, after eliminating fifty pounds of blue-book?
Ludwig Fuerbach, the last great philosopher of Young Germany, whose doctrines have been complacently declared as "more utterly irreconcilable with pietism or orthodox Christianity than those of any of his predecessors," has at length published his course of lectures "On the Existence of Religion," delivered at Heidelberg, from the month of December 1848 to March 1849. With regard to the apparent apathy with which he has regarded the great political events of these latter days, and the reproach that he has taken no active part therein—in which he forms a somewhat unfavorable contrast with Fichte and other great thinkers of the last generation—he remarks: "It will not appear strange that these lectures have not before been published; for what could, at the present day, be more seasonable than a remembrance of the year 1848? And by this souvenir I would also remark, that these lectures have been my only public intimations of activity during the so-called time of the Revolution. My own share in all the political and unpolitical deeds and movements of those times, was merely that of a critical beholder and listener, for the very simple reason that I could take no part in aimless, and consequently headless (silly) undertakings, having foreseen, or at least felt, from the very beginning of the whole movement, that such would be its result. A well-known Frenchman lately put me the question, Why I took no active part in the revolution of 1848? I replied, Mr. Taillandier,[14]if another revolution should break forth, and I take an active part therein, then may you, to the terror of your God-believing soul, be certain that this would be an overpowering revolution, bringing with it the judgment-day of monarchy and hierarchy. This revolution I should, alas! never survive. But I now also take an active part in a great revolution, but one whose true effects and results will be first developed in the course of centuries. For you know, Mr. Taillandier, according to my theory—which recognizes no Gods, and, consequently, no miracles in the sphere of politics—according to my theory, of which you know and understand nothing, though you assume to pass judgment on me instead of studying me, iftimeandspaceare the fundamental conditions of all being and existence, of all thought and action, of all prosperity and success. Not that believers in God were wanting to the parliament, as some one humorously asserted in the Bavarian State council-chamber—the majority, at least, were believers, and the good Lord always sides with the majority—but because it had no comprehension of place or time, on which account it came to such a disgraceful and resultless end."
This, certainly, will appear to most readers to be, despite its bitterness, a lame and weakapology for neutrality, though we imagine that but little good could result from the intensest activity, when directed by such principles. Taillandier has also, in his own unassuming way, done, for so young a man, a full share of work "in the great revolution, whose true effects and results will be first developed in the course of centuries."
August Kopisch, well known as the collector and translator ofAgrumi—a choice selection of Italian Popular Songs—has recently published by Ernest and Korn of Berlin, aDescription and Explanation of the Monument to Frederic the Second. A far more elegant work on the same subject, with no less than twenty excellent views of the monument, taken from as many points, appears from Decker, to which we may add another by Kohlheim, illustrated with a selection of ancient and modern poems relative to the memory of "Old Fritz."
We observe from a prospectus recently sent forth by the publisher, J. G. Muller, in Gotha, that theJanus, a well known and ably edited quarterly, devoted to medical literature, history, biographies, and statistics, the publication of which was suspended in 1848, on account of the political difficulties which then agitated Germany, is again to make its appearance, under the editorial charge of Doctors Bretschneider, Henschel, Hensinger, and Thierfelder, who will be aided in their efforts by many learned correspondents and contributors in different countries. Like most revived publications, it will be published in a style superior to its original, and to judge from the type and paper of the prospectus, which is given as a specimen of that with which the work is to be issued, its appearance will be truly exquisite.
Franz Kuglerthe great historian and critic of Art, has made his appearance in a smallbrochureof thirty pages, entitled,Three Articles upon Theatrical Affairs,—which, however, appears to have met with but little admiration, if we may judge from the hard knock which a reviewer gives it with the word—"Unpractical as the suggestions are, which we find allied to these observations, they would still give us no occasion for remark, had not Herr Kugler made them a pretence for political discussion." Apropos of Kugler we may observe that a very excellent work entitledDenkmaler der Kunst(Souvenirs of Art), consisting of very neatly engraved and very extensive illustrations of Art in all ages and nations, intended specially as a companion work to the Berlin professor'sHistory, has just been published for the first time in a compact form by Ebner and Seubert of Stuttgart. Among its authors or contributors we see the names of Dr. Ernst Guhl, Jos. Caspar, and Professor Voit of Munich.
The conclusion of the lateJohann Von Muller'sHistory of the Swiss Confederationhas just appeared from the hands of MM.VullieminandMonnard. The work was commenced in 1786; when Von Muller died it was brought down to the year 1489; and it has since been continued by four other authors in succession. Robert Glutz-Blozheim took up the narrative where Von Muller stopped, and continued it to 1516; after his death, John Jacob Hottinger described the progress of the reformation in the German cantons; but on coming to the part which the French cantons took in this great movement, it was decided to employ a native of that part of the Confederation, and the work was accordingly given to Louis Vulliemin, who completed the history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was followed by E. Monnard, Professor in the University of Bonn, who carried it as far as the second peace of Paris, in 1815. Both he and M. Vulliemin had already translated into French the volumes of their German predecessors. Their own volumes are now being translated into German, and the entire performance will soon be printed in both languages.
An interesting contribution to the religious and metaphysical history of Germany in the last generation will be found in theAutobiographyofBretschneider, now being published in parts, by his son-in-law Horst. It is described as a faithful as well as interesting narrative of the life of its deceased author and subject, who must fill a prominent place in the history of that great theological development of which his country has recently been the scene. He was a rationalist, but without aiming at the rejection or annihilation of the Christian supernaturalism. The sense of dependence on God, which was the foundation of Schleiermacher's theory, he regarded as stupid mysticism, and the general tendency of the more recent philosophy as obscure, abstruse, scholastic, and useless. He was a vigorous and unsparing controversialist, and the greater part of his writings are of that character.
Dr. Wurth, the dramatist and theatrical director, has published a play "with choruses, dances,and melodramas(?) entitledThe Gipsey Queen of Hungary in the year 1849."
Those of our Philadelphia friends, who are conversant with foreign literature, will do well to patronise HerrChristern, who has recently opened an establishment of French, German, and Italian works at No. 232 Chesnut-st. Mr. Christern has been for several years the superintendant of the extensive bookstore of Kaisar, the eminent bibliographist in Berlin. We are happy thus to recommend Herr Christern as a scholar, well acquainted with something more than the mere titles of his wares.
Among "divers diversities," we note that the passion for Slavonic literature, which has received such an impetus during the last two years, has inducedHerr Siegfried Kapperto write, after ancient Servian legends and heroic lyrics, a poem entitledLazar der Serbencar. A new edition ofClemens Brentano'sHistory of the brave Kasperl and fair Annerl, has also been published at Berlin by the "United Bookselling Establishment," with an illustration.Glassbrenner, the humorist, (who is, however, we believe, not identical with his Rabelæsian pen-brotherBrennglaser,) publishes by Simion of Berlin a third edition of his poems, while the more recent numbers ofDie Grenzboten, theMonatscriftand theEuropaare rich in a variety of articles surpassing in general interest any thing of the kind which we have for a long time witnessed in German periodical literature. It is to be wished that our own literati and miscellaneous intellectual purveyors would make a far more extended use of these German monthlies than they have hitherto done. Except theInternational, theTribuneis almost the only periodical in the country that makes any considerable use of the German literary journals.
Imresi,die Ungarischen Flüchtlinge in d. Türkei, (Imresi, or the Hungarian Refugees in Turkey), being a collection of data relative to the history of the emigration of 1849, from the journal of an exile, returned from Turkey, translated from the Hungarian, with additions byVasfi, has just appeared at Leipzig. "Thedataalluded to in this article," remarks a German review, "principally concern the personal history of the Hungarian exiles in Turkey. In point of time it reaches to their departure from Widdin to Shumla. Many articles are added drawn from newspapers and private sources, relative to their adventures, to the fortune of those who have emigrated to America, and to the influence of England in these matters. A certain chapter on Turkish manners and customs, containing nothing which has not been already better described by other writers, might as well have been omitted."
Thorwaldsen'sJugend(or The Youth of Thorwaldsen) is the title of a work composed from the correspondence, manuscripts and notes of the illustrious artist, written originally in Danish by Hans Wachenhufen, and translated by J. M. Thiele, (if we mistake not, the eminent theologian). "The style and execution is somewhat stiff and dry, which may, however, be partly the fault of the translator, who appears to have deemed it his duty to condense as much as possible; and has in consequence apparently detracted in a degree from the easy, confidential tone with which it is inspired. Nor is the translation entirely free from errors and provincial expressions."
Among the most exquisite works recently published in Germany we observe a second greatly augmented and improved edition ofAlte und neue Kinderlieder Fabeln, Sprüche und Rathseln, or, Old and New Songs, Fables, Sayings, and Riddles for Children, with illustrations by W. von Kaulbach, C. v. Aeideck, G. Konig, A. Kreling, E. Neureuther, the humorous and popular Graf. v. Poeci, L. Richter, C. H. Schmolze, M. v. Schwind, Stauber, &c. We have been thus particular in mentioning these names, that those who have not as yet seen the work may form some idea of the excellence of its illustrations. The only objection indeed which we have to find is, that the text (despite its title) is too far subordinate to the illustrations. A work of this description should at least have compriseda majorityof those songs heard in every Germany nursery, and which are given with suchnaïvetruthfulness inDes Knaben Wonderhorn. In several instances these old songs were evidently the sources whence the spirit of the illustration was derived, which illustration is here applied to a limited scrap of the original; as for instance, in the exquisitely spirited and droll picture ofdas bucklig's Mannlein, or the hump-backed dwarf, bySchwind, which is far more applicable to the droll, demi, diabolical popular ballad of that name, than to the old scrap of verse which it over-illustrates. But as an album of admirable designs the work is unrivalled. The engraving of the mother and child illustrating the ballad ofSchlof Kindleinis truly beautiful, conceived in a spirit of naïve fantasie, peculiarly applicable to the odd yet childlike song.Das Glocklein im Hersen, in which Christ is represented as opening the gate of Heaven to a child, by W. Kaulbach, in its pious, gentle beauty, almost transcends praise. Our notice already exceeds limit, yet we cannot leave this gem-book without specially and further commending The Toy-dealer of Nuremberg, a masterpiece of domestic life, by L. Richter, andEs staig eim Herr zu Rosse, or A Rider mounting his Horse, by Schwind, which forcibly recall the romantic etchings of Albert Durer.
A convention of Sclavic scholars, under the auspices of the Servian literary society ofMatica Ilirska, in Agram, will probably soon be held, to consider the possibility of combining the different Sclavic dialects into one language. This will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, on account of the degree of cultivation which the languages of the Sclavic stock have attained.
A translation ofJohn Milton'sAreopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England, in 1644, has recently been executed by Dr.Richard Röpell, Professor of History at the University of Breslau, and published by Veit and Co. of Berlin.
"In every revolution, good or bad, there are blind fanatics and selfish intriguers ready to take part, and loafers and vagabonds (Bummler und Gamins) willing to raise their voices." This is the remark of a German medical critic on a recent hydropathically insane composition, entitledThe Sin-register of the Medical Art of Healing. In this work theservum pecusof allopathic physicians are richly abused, partly with biblical quotations and partly with original anathemas. Another on the same subject and in the same curious style, is entitled,Gustav Schwab, the noble bard of Suabia, byGottlob Wasserman(or Praise-God Water-man). In this work the anti-Sangrado author proves to his own satisfaction, that thenoble bardcame to his death in consequence of having been imprudently bled, on one occasion, some six months previous to his death.
At the end of June an eighth edition ofOscar von Reduitz'sAmaranth, was announced, and it has already been succeeded by a ninth. Many of the poems in this collection are in Uhland's romantic vein, and abound in the artistic spirit. To this we may add aMahrchenin verse, (or Child's Tale,) a beautiful fantasie of birds, brooks, leaves, and sunshine, reminding us at times ofThe Story without an End, at others of Sara Coleridge'sPhantasmion. But as it is one of those gilded fascinations which invariably charm on a first perusal, we leave to some more accurate reader the task of judging more critically as to its literary merit.
A translation of Shakspeare's Plays into the Swedish language byHagberg, Professor of Greek in the University of Lund, is now in course of publication. Of this twelve volumes have appeared; and although the first edition consisted of no less than two thousand copies, the whole have been sold off, and a second edition is in preparation.
The lectures ofNeander,On Church History, etc., are soon to appear, in fifteen volumes, edited by ProfessorJulius Muller, of Halle. The Interpretation of the Gospel of St. John, will form the first part of the work.
German books and pamphlets on the Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition, are already in the market, or have indeed been extant for some time.Der Krystall Palast im Hyde Park, is among the last in this line.
M.Poussin, recently the minister of France to this country, has in preparation a volume for popular circulation on the comparative merits of the French and American constitutions.
The Prussian ministerVon Radowitzhas published a second series of hisDialogues on Church and State, of which the first series appeared in 1846.
Baron Dudevant, husband ofGeorge Sand, the French papers lately declared had died in an obscure apartment in Paris; but it appears, on the contrary, that he is still living, in true baronial style, at his chateau on the Garonne. A correspondent of theTribunesays, "he never reads his wife's romances, and that his decease was believed in Paris, for several literary gentlemen of eminence are said to have laid their hands and fortunes at the feet of the large-hearted woman" who was supposed to be a widow.
Auguste Comtehas just published the first volume of a new work, hisSysteme de Politique Positive. In his great work,Philosophie Positive, he was forced by his method to proceed objectively—from the world up to man; he now proceeds subjectively—from man to the world. This system of Positive Polity he calls a Treatise of Sociology, instituting the Religion of Humanity.
Emile de Girardinannounces a new pamphlet, the title of which sets one thinking,La Révolution Légale par la Présidence d'un Ouvrier. (The Revolution Legal through the Presidency of a Workman.)
Lamartinehas published the first volume ofThe History of the Restoration of the Monarchy in France. It is intended as a sequel to his History of the Girondins, and this initial volume comprises the closing days of the Empire, the last great struggle of Napoleon with the combined armies in 1814, and the abdication at Fontainbleau. The tone throughout is derived from the partizan feelings of the present time. Its characteristic is an elaborate and determined depreciation of the emperor. The author's apparent ambition is to be striking, and he sometimes is successful: to be just or wise is scarcely in his nature. For ourselves, we are so well acquainted with the life of Napoleon—with the workings of that most powerful practical intelligence that God has yet suffered to exist among mankind—that we are not in any way affected by these efforts of a hungry rhetorician to disparage him. In his new book, as in hisGirondins, M. Lamartine has not chosen to give us any authorities. What he says as to facts may be true, but we have only his word for it; and long ago, before M. Lamartine became a great man in affairs, we learned from hisPilgrimage to the Holy Land, that his word is of very little value. We confess an admiration for parts of hisElvireand for some of his minor poems, but it is the youthful poet we admire, not the author of the sickly sentimentalism in his recent romantic memoirs, far less the historian, who to get himself out of difficulties induced by early extravagancies can play marketable tricks with the most awful shade that moves in the twilight of men's memories about the world.
Michelet, driven from his chair in the University, is publishing in theEvénementhis new work,Légendes de la Démocratie. The preface is remarkable for its naïveté. "This book," he says, "is the trueLégendes d'Or(golden legend)—free from all alloy, and in it will be found nothing but the truth.—Nay more, every one who reads it will become a wiser and a better man." A happy author, to have such faith in his book!
M. Guizot'sHistory of the Representative Form of Government, is prepared from a course of lectures delivered by the author in the reign of Louis the Eighteenth. The preface contains frequent allusions to the politics of the day, and the eminent author refers in it to his attempts to reconcile authority with liberty. M. Guizot's style is clear, but destitute of warmth or ornament, and his works have reputation chiefly for their judicial carefulness and honesty—qualities not so common in France as to be reasonably neglected there.