very interesting. Jacob and William Grimm, Beneke, and other eminent scholars, are among the contributors. We direct the attention of German scholars to the valuable periodical now concluded, which was published by Messrs. Haupt and Hoffmann von Fallersleben, under the modest title of Alt-Deutsche Blätter (German Leaves).

Mr. George Wigand, of Leipzig, has just issued a prospectus for publishing (in German) Mr. Robert Schomburgk's Travels in Guiana and on the Orinoco, from his reports and communications to the London Geographical Society, (during the years 1835-1839,) with a map and six coloured views. Alexander von Humboldt will add a preface, and his Essay on some important points respecting the Geography of Guiana.

We are glad to learn that the King of the French has conferred the Cross of the Legion of Honour on Jacob Grimm. This great scholar has published, in an Epistle to Lachmann, a kind of supplement to his classical work Reinhart Fuchs, which contains fragments of an old German poem on the subject, together with one in modern Greek. Both will prove welcome additions to the numerous admirers of sly Renard.

As Mr. Borrow's very interesting work on the Gypsies of Spain will doubtless direct public attention to that singular people, it may not be amiss to observe that Mr. Graffunder, a gentleman in the service of the Prussian government, and inspector of the schools in the district of Erfurt, published a small volume in quarto on the subject a few years ago, entitled Ueber die Sprache der Zigeuner, eine grammatische Skizze (On the Language of the Gypsies, a grammatical Sketch). This gentleman was commissioned by the government to inform the Gypsies in this neighbourhood, that notwithstanding they had hitherto rejected all attempts to civilize them, one last offer would be made, to induce them to abandon their vagabond mode of life. Not content with merely executing his commission, he humanely endeavoured to convert the children, and in the course of his efforts, found himself induced to study their language. He has given the result of his observations with equal modesty and humanity in the little work above mentioned, which confirms (if confirmation were necessary) Mr. Borrow's assertion, that the language was of Oriental origin and identical with that of the Spanish Gypsies. We should be very glad to see some remarks on the grammatical structure of the language from the pen of one who possesses such great advantages in this respect as Mr. Borrow.

It is said that the King of Prussia has commissioned Herr von Bülow to propose to the Diet at Frankfort, that scientific works and all volumes containing a certain number of sheets shall be published without being subject to the censorship. We hope that the report is true, as the restraints of this institution operate very injuriously. Will it be believed that it is only recently that visiting cards have been freed from the inspection of the censor?

Captain Moltke, one of the Prussian officers who entered the service of the Sultan, has published an interesting volume on the state of the Turkish empire. He and his companions in arms, von Fincke, Mühlbach, Fischer, und Laue, had excellent opportunities of observing the state of the Turkish army before the battle of Nisib. The observations on the capabilities of Asia-Minor deserve general attention, as every thing indicates that this unsettled country must shortly undergo a considerable change.

Niemeyer's Book of Religion for the higher Classes of Society has been forbidden in Prussia. As the work had already gone through seventeen Editions, the prohibition had excited great sensation.

The Editors of the Hallische Jahrbücher (a paper published in Leipzig, but edited by Dr. Arnold Runge, professor in the Prussian University at Halle, and Dr. Echtermayer) have received an order from the government to have the

work printed under the Prussian censorship, as several articles respecting Prussia, published in this journal, had given offence at Berlin. It is reported that Dr. Runge, rather than comply with this order, will sell his property in Prussia and settle in Saxony, whither his co-editor has likewise removed. The work will most probably be forbidden in Prussia. The Hallische Jahrbücher, although little known in England, must, with all its faults, be considered as one of the most valuable German periodicals. The prevailing tone is that of the new or extreme sect of the younger followers of Hegel. Freedom of discussion in matters of religion and politics is warmly advocated, and although there are many opinions expressed in it, which we strongly disapprove, such as the excessive admiration of Strauss, yet we must do justice to the talent and ability with which it is conducted. We believe the editors to be in earnest, which is no small praise when we contrast them with the lackadaisical managers of many of the German periodicals. The journal would gain, were the tone less exclusively restricted to their own peculiar philosophical school; but such as it is, no one can be considered a competent judge of the currents at present at work in the literary sphere of Germany, who does not make himself acquainted with their doctrines.

Cornelius (to whom the artists of Dresden gave a public dinner on his passage through that city) has been received with great honour at Berlin, and elected an ordinary member of the Berlin scientific Art-Union. At a recent meeting of this society, on the 15th of May, Professor Schöll read a report of his travels in Greece, in which he gave an account of the devastation which the Parthenon had suffered at different periods. He likewise made honourable mention of the statues and other works of art which had been discovered in the vicinity of the temple during the excavations, executed by order of the present government of Greece, since the year 1835. Professor Schöll has brought home drawings of them taken on the spot, and as he is about to publish the journal of his lamented fellow-traveller, Ottfried Müller, we hope he will likewise communicate the result of his own observations.

Professor Zahn, whose valuable collection, formed at Pompeii, is well known to all travellers in the south of Italy, has just published the first part of a splendid work on Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiæ. The subjects represented were discovered in 1839 and 1840, and have never been published; they are of the size of the originals, and mostly coloured in lithographic oilcoloured impressions.

We believe that Dr. Julius, well-known by his work on America, has been commissioned by the King of Prussia to visit this country, in company with an architect, in order to report on the style adopted in building prisons in England.

NASSAU. The condition of the little duchy of Nassau, as compared with what it was in 1816, is most gratifying. In the department of public instruction, there were in 1816, 710 masters; there are now 853. The salaries of the former amounted to 136,002 florins; they amount now to 221,026 florins. The country has been divided into districts, so that all the inhabitants can go to the courts of justice and to the public apothecaries, and return on the same day. The sum insured in the National Fire Insurance Office amounted only to 28 million florins; it now exceeds 78 millions, whilst the rate of insurance has been reduced to nearly one third. The police-taxes on bread, meat, beer, and spirits have been abolished. The parents of illegitimate children were formerly subject to very severe punishments, which frequently produced infanticide. The new system, by which the father is bound to support his offspring, works well, only one child in seventeen being now illegitimate, a very favourable proportion, when compared with many other German states. Land has risen in value, and a great number of new roads have been built. By an

edict, dated June 5th, 1816, a general and uniform municipal and rural law superseded the anomalous state which had previously prevailed. The debts of the different corporations, resulting from the war, amounted to more than eight million florins, they are now reduced to two millions, so that of 822 corporations and communities, 462 are quite free from debt: 38 churches, 44 clergymen's houses, 259 public offices, 101 school-rooms, 331 public fountains, and 273 burying-grounds have been erected and arranged in this short period. In 1817 the population was 299,468; in 1839 it had increased to 391,361, or nearly one third, whilst the number of poor who received assistance had diminished from 10,083 to 6488, i. e. from 33 per cent. of the whole population to 1 per cent.

By a recent census the population of the Duchy of Saxe Weimar amounts to 248,498 inhabitants, including Weimar, 11,485 inhabitants; Eisenach, 9340; and Jena, 6004.

A small pamphlet, entitled Das Ende kommt, has been rapidly taken off the publishers' hands, (Beck and Fränkel, of Stuttgart). This pamphlet states, that after the most careful calculation the prelate, Bengel, has discovered that the year 1843 is the period appointed in the Scriptures for the destruction of the world by fire.

A Quarterly journal for ladies, entitled Frauenspiegel, has been commenced under the auspices of Reichenbach, the eminent Leipzig bookseller; among the fair contributors the names of Leonhardt Lyser, L. Reinhardt, A. Franz, v. Nindorf, Annette Elizabeth v. D, A. Schoppe, Elise v. L———, and H. Hülle, appear.

Professors Hermann and Lobeck have been invested with the order of St. Stanislaus by the Emperor of Russia, in approbation of their great literary attainments.

The new number of the Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift (German Quarterly Review) contains several interesting articles: among others, The North and Eastern Boundaries of France, considered in a Military View; and The South Western Frontiers of Germany; The Print Trade and Fine Arts in Germany; and A Project for a General and Uniform Post for the whole of Germany.

Dr. Emanuel Tafel, the chief librarian at the Tubingen royal library, so well known to the theological and learned world by his strenuous advocacy of the Swedenborgian doctrines, has just published the second part of E. Swedenborgii Adversaria in libros Veteris Testamenti Historicos, and has commenced a Magazin für die wahre Christliche Religion und ihre einzige Erkenntnissquelle die heilige Schrift, to be continued monthly, in which he will be assisted by many eminent divines. The twelfth volume of his Arcana cœlestica quæ in scriptura sacra seu verbo Domini sunt detecta opus E. Swedenborg, is already in the press, and the thirteenth, which is the concluding volume, is promised in the course of the year.

A respectable German journal gives the following not very flattering description of Hamburg: "The children of the affluent receive some children's books as presents at Christmas; the lover gratifies his mistress with an Annual, on account of the pictures and binding; young people buy occasionally a couple of volumes of the Cheap Miniature Library; the pious purchase a few tracts, Witschel's Morning and Evening Sucrifice, or the Hours of Devotion; those who wish to secure themselves in conversation, perhaps a Conversationslexicon, but that is all; and it is very rare to find a library in a rich family. The men content themselves with reading the German, French, English, and American journals at the Börsen-Halle and in the principal coffee-houses; the ladies read the periodicals and the contents of the circulating library, and the more fade these are, the better." We trust this report is somewhat exaggerated.

ITALY.

The celebrated Allgemeine Zeitung is no longer to be seen in the Papal States, in consequence of the increased rate of postage which has been levied on this publication by the government, in revenge for the violent political articles and criticisms which have recently appeared, reflecting on the administration.

A Grammar of Music, entitled Teoriche elementari di Musica, has been published at Naples, it is from the pen of Alessandro Mampieri; and another interesting musical publication, Memorie de Compositori di Musica del Regno di Napoli, racolte dal Marchese di Villarosa.

SPAIN.

A new geographical, historical, and statistical Dictionary of Spain and the Spanish colonies, is in the course of publication by a learned Society in Barcelona.

RUSSIA.

The principal Universities in Russia at the close of the last year contained 2,300 Students, and the Libraries connected with the Universities contained 282,290 Volumes, viz.

400 Students, the University Library, 36,682 Vols.

28,000

St. Petersburg 400

From the recent official returns showing the state of religious opinions

throughout the Russian dominions, the following facts appear;

The Catholics amount to 202,608 persons, and possess

61 Convents, containing 1894 Monks.

51 Nunneries,

1231 Churches and

1176 Chapels.

660 Nuns.

to which are attached 1307 Priests.

40 Convents, containing 133 Monks and 31 Nuns.

The Emperor has presented the Academy with several interesting MSS. relating to Russian History from the year 1074; of these, there are nearly four hundred documents copied by Turgeneff from original MSS. in the Vatican at Rome; one document gives the particulars of Jeremiah's Journey from Constantinople to Moscow, and several relate to the wars which occurred in Russia between 1568 and 1650.

The government, laws and statutes from 1356 to 1700 are in the course of publication, and will comprise five large volumes.

SWEDEN.

H. B. Lewin, Esq., of Stockholm, has lately published, in the Swedish capital, a complete English translation of those celebrated numbers of Professor Geijer's "Litteratur-Blad" which treat of The Poor and the Poor-Laws. Some copies will doubtless make their way to England, and cannot fail to excite the attention of our countrymen to the sentiments of so great a philosopher as Geijer on a subject so momentous to all Europe.

Count Björnstjerna's answer to Mr. Laing (an answer in which little is replied to), has lately appeared in a Swedish dress.

A spirited Swedish bookseller has commenced republishing here a series of the "Danish Classics." They will cost only one-fourth of the Danish price, and will rather advance than disserve the interests of the Danish booksellers, as they will be bought by a class who would never have purchased the absurdly expensive original copies, and will excite a taste for Danish literature which cannot but lead to extensive purchasers of other works.

The celebrated Crusenstolpe, who has already written and published three volumes since his imprisonment, has now brought out two more still more captivating than the preceding, and which have already reached to a second edition. They are called Morianen, eller Holstein-Gottorpska Huset i Sverige (The Moor, or the Holstein-Gottorp Dynasty in Sweden). The third and concluding volume is expected shortly. The whole work is a kind of almost-all-true historical romance, full of secret history, and sketching, with delightful truth and colouring, Swedish men and manners and the courts and governments of Adolphus Fredrik and his successors. With a few omissions, we should think a translation could not but be acceptable to the British public. Crusenstolpe is undoubtedly the first prose pen of Sweden !

The Diet, which has been, on the whole, rather liberal and rather stormy, is still sitting, and will probably not break up till the end of June. Professors Geijer and Thomander, together with Dr. Bergfalck the great civilian, have commonly spoken and voted with the opposition in the House of Priests to which they belong. Professor Geijer, though no clergyman, is deputy for the University of Upsala.

Miss Bremer, the distinguished novelist, (authoress of "Home," &c.) has lately published a charming little sketch of manners in the North and of Norway in particular, under the title of Strid och Frid, eller Teckningar i Norrige (Strife and Peace, or Sketches in Norway).

The last new Swedish novel is, Kyrkó invigningen i Hammarby, by Doctorinnan Flygare.

Herr Hjerta, the enterprising Stockholm publisher, has lately stereotyped an excellent new English and Swedish Pocket Dictionary. It is very neat, very cheap, and is the first book stereotyped in Sweden.

Among the remarkable productions of the Swedish press, we must mention the Ordbok öfver Svenska Spräket (Dictionary of the Swedish Language), two numbers of which have already appeared. We cannot decide as to the extraordinary merits it may possess, as the contents of these two numbers have