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zurücke wan Ihr Vahter dieses im Grabe hörte | judicious education he had received during his So würde er Sich um kehren."*

Frederick's royal contempt for the vulgar restraints of grammar and orthography has long been matter of notoriety, and calls for no remark on the present occasion. Prince Maurice was naturally incensed at the severe terms in which he was addressed, and lost no time in offering his resignation. Frederick's anger appears to have cooled in the interval, and he fairly begs the general to pardon him and be friends again. As the seven years' war proceeded, the king's confidence in Prince Maurice seems to have been on the increase, and several letters occur in the collection, where Frederick asks urgently for his general's advice as to the line of conduct that ought to be adopted in this or that emergency. In the field of Leuthen, immediately after the battle, the prince was raised to the rank of a field marshal, and in none of the subsequent letters do we find Frederick writing to him in any but the most cordial and confiding terms.

The most interesting letter perhaps in the whole collection is one written by Frederick from Brandeis immediately after the battle of Kolin. It is in the hour of reverse that the hero appears to greatest advantage. Notwithstanding the great misfortune of the 18th," he says, "I broke up from Prague at three o'clock, with drums playing, and as proud as ever, and here I have arrived without meeting an enemy. To repair our misfortune, we must put as good a face upon it as we can. Only write to me which of the unfortunate regiments are still in fighting condition. My heart is torn, yet I am not dejected, and I shall know how to efface this blot on the first occasion that presents itself. Adieu. Salute all the officers in my name."

The editor has not given many of the prince's letters, and the notices of his life are few and far between. The work upon the whole, therefore, may rather be looked upon as a new collection of Frederick's letters, than as a biography of the general whose name is placed on the title-page.

minority, it must be admitted that his conduct in after life was frequently calculated to awaken doubts as to the soundness of his own intellect. Those who had placed the child upon the throne, sought to strengthen him there by betrothing him to the Emperor's niece, the Princess Sabina of Bavaria; but this alliance became one of the chief causes of his misfortunes. With his own hand he slew Hans von Hutten, whom he suspected of too great familiarity with the duchess; and this act not only excited the resentment of the powerful family of the deceased, but involved him in an irreconcilable quarrel with the emperor and the other relatives of Sabina, who fled from her husband's court and became an active instrument in his ruin.

Ulric might have avoided the gathering storm by a prudent abstinence from fresh grounds of offence; but prudence was at no time a virtue of Ulric's. Some citizens of Reutlingen, an imperial city, had slain one of his officers. The duke seized upon the pretext, surprised the townspeople, declared the city his own by right of conquest, and annexed it, without more ado, to his own dominions. Such an outrage was not to be tolerated from one who had just narrowly escaped the ban of the empire. The Suabian confederation took up arms against him, and Ulric, unsupported by his own nobles, who were still incensed against him on account of the murder of Von Hutten, was driven out of his dominions in a few weeks, and the duchy of Wurtemberg was sold to the house of Austria.

Even before the commencement of his domestic misfortunes, Ulric had been involved in a war with his own subjects. It was in 1514 that the well-known insurrection of Poor Conrad broke out; and it was only by great concessions to the insurgents, that the disastrous troubles could at length be appeased.

Ulric continued an exile till 1534, residing mostly at the castle of Hohentwiel, or at Mompelgard, almost the only property that he had been able to retain. He sought to interest Francis I., of France, and Philip the Magnanimous, Landgrave of Hesse, in his cause; and the Ulrich, Herzog zu Würtemberg. (Ulric, Duke of growing power of Austria had in the mean time Wurtemberg. A Contribution to the History awakened so much jealousy among the German of Wurtemberg and the German Empire, princes, that a feeling began to manifest itself in during the Period of the Reformation). By favour of the banished Duke of Wurtemburg, Dr. LUDWIG HEYD. 2 vols. Tubingen. 1841. who, by his conversion to the reformed faith, had THE history of Duke Ulric is full of remarkable associated his own cause, in some measure, with vicissitudes. Himself an usurper at the age of eleven, he lived to be driven in his turn from the throne, at a maturer age; and, after having been re-established, partly by military aid, and partly by the zeal which his conversion to the protestant faith had awakened in his favour, it was only his death that saved him from the mortification of a second expulsion.

that of the protestant party. France was induced to afford a pecuniary support; while Philip the Magnanimous assembled an army, and advancing suddenly into Wurtemburg, gained a victory at Laufen, on the Neckar, and restored

the banished duke to his dominions, after an exile of fourteen years.

At Caden, in Bohemia, a treaty was shortly Ulric was the son of a madman, and whether afterwards concluded, through the mediation of insanity was hereditary in his family, or whe- Frederick of Saxony. By this treaty the restother his subsequent conduct resulted from the in-ration of Ulric was confirmed, but his dominions were to be held as an Austrian fief. This rela"What has become of Prussian honour? A tion to Austria, to use a familiar expression, kept general of infantry, with fourteen battalions and the duke in hot water for the rest of his life. twenty escadrons, runs away before 2,500 men! If He succeeded, nevertheless, in introducing the As a your father could hear this, it would make him protestant religion into his dominions. turn in his grave." (member of the Smalcaldian league, he furnished

a contingent to the allies in 1546; and on the disastrous turn which the war took. Wurtemberg was the first country against which the resentment of the emperor was directed. A process was instituted against the rebellious vassal, who, this time by a judicial decree, was on the eve of being again expelled from his dukedom, when death stepped in to avert the disgrace.

The history of Ulric can of course be looked upon only as a fragment of provincial history; but as an illustration of the state of society in Germany during the 15th and 16th centuries, a better period could scarcely have been chosen. The author has displayed much industry and research; has diligently pored into all the manuscripts and archives of the time; and not without success: for he has thrown much light upon political events; though his style is often rude, and unimportant circumstances are sometimes dwelt upon with a prolixity that must be wearisonie to any but a Wurtemberger. For instance, the festivities on the occasion of Ulric's marriage with Sabina, are detailed with painful minuteness. The insurrection of Poor Conrad is well told, and the conflict of parties, the constitution of the several bodies in the state, and the motives of the chief actors, are placed in a clear and attractive manner before the reader. In this part of the work no one will blame the author for the minute details into which he has

entered.

What is perhaps least to be pardoned in Dr. Heyd's work, is the evident solicitude to extenuate the offences of Ulric, whose conduct would, even in his own fierce times, have brought any private man to the gallows. The murder of Hans von Hutten was the more atrocious, as the widow and the widow's father remained at the duke's court, where the lady is supposed to have been quite as familiar with her husband's murderer, as Von Hutten had been suspected of being with the duchess. Dr. Heyd seeks to make Ulric's treatment of his wife less odious, by industriously displaying her faults; but though she may have been, and no doubt was, as spoilt and as irritable as her historian represents her, Ulric's conduct in beating her even in the honeymoon, and obliging her to run into debt for years together to get common necessaries for herself and children, could hardly fail to rankle in the heart of a proud and justly offended woman, till at last a sanguinary catastrophe drove her in terror to seek shelter with her brothers.

Ulric's residence at Mömpelgard is told at great length; but the insight so given into the domestic life of the German gentry of that day, compensates for the extension of the narrative. Here also, however, the desire to place every act of Ulric's in the most favourable light, is far too evident. To suppose, for instance, that such a man could be actuated by conscientious motives to quit one faith for another, is neither more nor less than an absurdity. It was his interest to become a Protestant, and he became one; it was afterwards his interest to continue one, or he would not have been the man to shrink from a second apostasy. Wurtemberg may owe her religious emancipation to Ulric, as England, in a great measure, owed hers to Henry; but

the duke was, not the less, even a more reckless instrument than the king.

The above remarks were already written, when we learnt the death of the author. The work is incomplete, the second volume bringing us only to the restoration of Ulric, after the hattle of Laufen. With all its defects, even in its fragmentary form, the book is a valuable acquisition to the historical literature of Germany, and it will be matter for just regret if the publishers should not succeed in meeting with a writer willing and able to bring the historical fragment to a close.

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Glossen und Randzeichnungen zu Texten aus unserer Zeit. (Texts of the Times, with Notes and Illustrations.) Four Lectures delivered in Königsberg by Ludwig Walesrode. Fourth Edition. Konigsberg. 1842. SHORTLY after the accession of the present Prussian monarch to the throne, loud and at times angry voices demanded a constitution as a debt by virtue of a royal promise, and freedom of the press as a right. Neither of these demands has been as yet complied with; but as a concession to popular clamour, which threatened to become serious in the extremities of the Prussian monarchy, instructions were given to the censors to act with lenity. Elsewhere under Foreign Correspondence, this is referred to. The present work is one of its fruits, and a perfect curiosity in its kind. It is written in a strain of sarcastic irony; and the fact of four editions having appeared within as many months sufficiently attests its popularity. The German has truly become much more of a politician than of old, and bids fair, with unexpected speed, to realize the anticipations of our earnest correspondent from that country.

Ludwig Walesrode sketches a censor thus:

but his office is something superhuman. He gives "A censor is in appearauce like other mortals, directions to genius and thought; and holds in his hands the scales which belong, of right, to eternal justice alone. In the literary world he is appointed to execute the Pharaohic Law, that all masculine literary offspring be slain, or at the least Abelardized. The censorship of ancient Rome consisted in a tribunal, which took strict cognizance of the morality of the citizens of the Republic; it ceased when, as Cicero informs us, it could effect nothing beyond making men blush. Our censorship, on the other hand, will not cease until the whole nation, to a man, blushes at its existence."

In

The celebration of anniversary festivals is also admirably satirized. Ludwig reproaches his laborious countrymen with not having as yet succeeded in discovering the day of the week and month on which the world was created. this charge he is however unhappy: as, according to divers and sundry calculations, it seems beyond a doubt, that the 15th of May, corresponding to the 28th of the Julian May, is the birthday of the world!*) Few of the salient absurd

Compare Chronique d'Abou-Djafar Mohamed Tabari. Paris. 1836. G. Seyffarth, Astronomia Egyptica. Leipzig.

ities of the day escape him, and with the helped in the history of mankind, and English readof his whimsical illustrations he has produced an ers should feel indebted to Mr. Blackmore for amusing book.

translating this book. Rome is not inattentive to the encroachments of the Russian Church, but those encroachments are likewise directed against the Protestantism of the Baltic provinces,

The Mabinogion. Parts I., II., III., & IV. Lon- and though protestant prelates may not feel don.

1839-1842.

themselves authorized to thunder forth their allocutions against the autocrat apostle of Eastern orthodoxy, it behoves them to watch what is going on in Russia with a careful eye.

THESE are four ancient Welsh tales, translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest, who has added many valuable notes to her translation; Sixteen hundred thousand Russian subjects and for the able manner in which she has ac- have, within the last few years, been induced to quitted herself of the task, she is entitled to the sever their connection with Rome, and adopt the thanks not only of the literary antiquarian, but national faith. Such wholesale conversions have of the philosophical historian. The tales are in- not indeed taken place in those provinces where teresting in themselves, and of their antiquity the protestant faith prevails; but there also Rusand genuineness we believe there is little doubt; sian congregations have been established, and but the chief value in the eye of a judicious read-are gradually increasing under the protection of er, must be the insight they afford into the the government.

manners of the wild and lawless times in which Respecting the present condition and prospects the scene is laid. In this respect we may par- of the Russian Church, the work before us afticularly direct attention to the fourth part, which contains the history of "Kilhwch and Olwen," a tale probably of greater antiquity than any to be found in the range of English literature, and one which presents us with a lively picture of the boisterous doings of our Celtic

ancestors.

A History of the Church of Russia. By A. N. MOURAVIEFF, Chamberlain to his Imperial Majesty, and Under Procurator to the Most Holy Governing Synod, St. Petersburg, 1838. Translated by the Rev. R. W. BLACKMORE, Chaplain in Cronstadt to the Russia Company, and B. A. of Merton College, Oxford. Oxford.

1842.

THE Russian Church will probably be called on to act a more important part than it has yet act

fords not much information. The affairs of our own times belong rather to the department of politics than to that of history, and Mr. Mouravieff shows just as little inclination as his translator, to venture into a field in which frank discussion would inevitably be surrounded by a multitude of perils. The history of Mr. Mouravieff goes down only to the year 1721, and passes over, consequently, all the occurrences of the last century. He gives also but little information respecting the negotiations, by means of which several successive popes endeavoured to draw the whole Russian nation into the Roman fold, negotiations which on more than one occasion seemed to promise success. The work in these circumstances is necessarily an imperfect one; but with all its imperfections we welcome its appearance with pleasure, as affording information on a subject that will be altogether new to a vast majority of its readers.

TABLES OF FOREIGN LITERATURE.

THE Table we now give affords a Chronological Survey of the whole of a Literature, relative to which scarcely anything is yet known, and even that only partially and fragmentarily. The present Table will serve to make manifest that there are other names besides those of Lomonosov and Sumarokov, Karamzin and Pushkin, which clain notice in biographical works. If indeed only those authors who continue to be read were to be recorded in literary history and biography, no very large volume would be required for the purpose. A century makes dreadful havoc everywhere with literary reputations and celebrities, and in the case of Russia it could not well be otherwise, for the language itself has undergone a very considerable change. The writers even of the "age of Catherine" can now be considered as little more than pioneers, or as having rough-hewn and shaped out the matériel of a literature. Not only have they become more or less antiquated in style, but old-fashioned in matter as well as manner, owing to a system of imitation, more artificial than artistical. Nevertheless, they are too essential to the literary history of Russia to be omitted in our table of it.

As far as this country is concerned, The Foreign Quarterly has done perhaps more than any other publication, in communicating intelligence relative to Russian Literature and Art; the Table has been therefore made to serve in some measure as an Index to the articles of that kind which have appeared, reference being made in it to those where fuller information will be found. Much scattered information is thus brought into a single point of view. We will only add, that with respect to the orthography of the names, that of the original language has been adhered to as far as the difference of its alphabet and characters from those of our own permit, without attempting to accommodate them to pronunciation or our own usual mode of spelling. Some discrepancy will in consequence be found between the same names as they appear here, and as they were rendered in an article upon Russian Literature at the very commencement of our Review (vol. i.,) where they were more or less disguised by the French mode of orthography.

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Metropolitan of Novgorod, a distinguished preacher.

Translated Horace's Satires, Holberg's "Universal History," &c. &c.

A Poet of unfortunate celebrity.

Some Lyric and Dramatic pieces.

Architect; built the Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg.

Secretary to the Academy of Sciences. A great many Translations.

Historical Painter.

The rival of Lomonosov, a voluminous writer in every department of Poetry and Literature, but most celebrated as a dramatist.

Musical Composer.

Two Comic Poems, Tragedies, Fables, &c. A humorous but coarse writer.

Engraver.

Philosophy, &c.

Celebrated Fabulist, called the Russian La Fontaine.

The first writer of Comic Operas in the language: Tales, &c.

Architect.

"History of Russia," and various historical memoirs.

Translated Ovid's "Metamorphoses," &c. &c.

Dramatic Writer: his Comedies rank next to those of Von Visin.

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Begins his Literary career, with the Moscow Journal.

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