Gottfried Wilhelm_Freihern von Leibnitz, eine | De l'Aristocratie Anglaise, de la Democratie Biographie, von Dr. G. E. GUHRAUER. (Bio graphy of Leibnitz). By Dr. GUHRAUER. Breslau.

Américaine, et de la libéralité des Institutions
Françaises. Par CHARLES FAREY. Second
Edition. Paris. 1843.

No one can doubt of the competence of Dr. Guhrauer to write a biography of Leibnitz. For many years has he been before the public, as an author whose energies have been devoted to the elucidation of the Leibnitzian philosophy; and he now comes forward to narrate the life of the great man whom he has selected as his idol. The biographies hitherto published have not been so complete as the importance of the sub-noble lord, whoever he may be, for indeed we ject deserves; and Dr. Guhrauer's book, in which the progress of Leibnitz, and every incident of his life has been carefully followed up, step by step, forms a valuable addition, not only to the history of philosophy, but to that of Europe at the end of the seventeenth, and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. It is illustrated by a very spirited lithograph portrait. As the bulkiness of the works of Leibnitz have hitherto stood in the way of their being more generally known, and as there are many who would wish to become acquainted with him as a philosopher, without loading their shelves with his historical and mathematical works, it may be mentioned, that a complete edition of his Opera Philosophica' alone, has recently been edited by Dr. Edmann.

Handbuch des poetischen Nationalliteratur der Deutschen, von Dr. HEINRICH KURZ. (Manual of the Poetical National Literature of the Germans). By Dr. H. KURZ. Zurich. Meyer and Zeller. 1842.

ALL collections of specimens from the masters of a foreign literature are useful in England, if they are made with ordinary judgment. By works of this kind is the student able to take a general glance at the various authors, and to decide on the particular path he will afterwards follow. Dr. Kurz's book is sufficiently large to allow of the glance being more than a superficial one. It is a thiek royal octavo, containing selections from the time of Haller to the present day, and concludes with a tolerably full history of German poetry; the dates of births and deaths being given in notes. Most of the pieces are necessarily short, but not exclusively so; as we have the whole of Göthe's Iphigenia,' and 'Hermann and Dorothea;' of Schiller's Wilhelm Tell;' and of Lessing's 'Nathan der Weise.' The reader who has gone through Dr. Kurz's Manual, will find very few in this country who will rival him in a knowledge of German poetry.

THE author tells us that this book has been much eulogized; that the first edition was soon exhausted; and that a noble British peer wrote a reply, controverting the author's claims for the superiority of French institutions over those of Great Britain; all which reasons combined, have led to the publication of the present edition. It is not our intention to come to the rescue of the learn for the first time, and only through M. Farey's book, of the controversy to which the author alludes. We have no objection, not the least, that M. Farey should succeed in persuading his countrymen of the excellence of their institutions; nay, we should heartily lend him our assistance; but it must be on the condition that he will not misrepresent the state of English society. M. Farey thinks that the Feudal system still weighs heavily upon England, and that the middle classes are without political influence. His proofs are drawn from certain ceremonials, such, for instance, as that attending the coronation, upon which his reasoning is as just, as if he drew his notions of British laws from the judges' horsehair wigs. He denies in fact, the whole spirit of modern improvement, because a resemblance still exists to what is past; the boy has not become a man, because the boy still speaks with a human tongue, and sees through human eyes. He, in fact, makes the mistake which most Frenchmen do, who think that no political good can be effected, except through violent revolution; and he expects the coming of the crisis, which is to put an end to Feudality in England. Will it be credited in England, that this author, who vaunts the popularity of his book in France, advances as a grave proof of the existence of the Feudal system in England, that the Queen's ministers, when called upon to attend at Windsor, feel honour in putting on servants' livery coats, with livery buttons? We translate literally from page 35.

"Those who would feel surprised to see free England in the 19th century, thus adhere to feudal customs, will be still more surprised when they learn, that the Queen's ministers, called to Windsor at the Queen's accouchement, put on the uniform (in good French, the livery), of Windsor palace, and that gentlemen, possessors of a million of revenue, felt honoured at being allowed to carry upon their royal blood; as in France, valets have upon their coat-buttons the initial letters of a prince of the buttons the first letters of their master's name."

And a little further down, page 36, he asks, if after such instances “England has a right to be boasting of her habeas corpus." It may be confessed, however, that the habeas corpus is not dear at a button, n'en déplaise à Monsieur Farey.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.

FRANCE.

'When he was eight years old,' Rousseau's Paris, 18th March. precept, la seule habitude à contracter serait THERE is a review here, little known, and not de n'en point avoir,' took possession of his mind, highly appreciated, called Le Biographe Uni- and became a law to him. At eleven years versel,' containing biographies of the men of the old' he had, 'as yet,' advanced in life without day, which are now and then republished when any determined object. But it was then that a likely to interest. Some weeks since, when it sentence spoken before him, to the purport that was believed Guizot might retire, and before extraordinary children commonly disappointed Messieurs Passy and Dufaure had signified their when they grew to men, induced him to eschew intention to hold aloof from any new-formed his mode of study, irregular heretofore. With ministry, one of these pamphlets appeared and sagacity rare at his age,' he decided, that under disappeared with a rapidity unintelligible to a military monarchy he should best find his level those who had not the key to the enigma. The in a military career! Educated at the Lycée biography was that of Salvandy, whose silence Napoleon (College Henry IV.) he one day, in his on the important debate was, it seems, personenthusiasm and admiration of the emperor's ally requested by royalty. It was said to be by style, invented and read aloud a bulletin de la his own hand, his style being recognized in it, grande armée. Become an officer, he was at and the signature being that of his private secre-Mayence pointed out to the emperor himself, tary. The same whispers aver that Count Molé who fixed upon him such a look, as it seems sent for Salvandy, and said, it might possibly was worth recording. At twenty years of age, fall to his lot to form a ministry; and that, not- commencing to write as a politician, he hesitated withstanding every conviction of his capacity between all the conflicting parties, feeling in and usefulness, it would be impossible to name him for a coadjutor, did the biography remain in circulation. The pamphlet was therefore bought up, and is now not to be had. But one of the rare copies already sold, having fallen into our hands, we make a few comments on it, that our readers may learn how M. Salvandy has been unfairly appreciated hitherto, and may contradict, by the genealogy given, on such excellent authority, those idle stories, which gave him a somewhat too clerical origin.

"In the unfortunate times, wherein the kings of England counted among their fiefs the fairest French provinces, an Irish family, named O Salvandy, itself exiled from a lately conquered country, and no doubt captive beneath the Black Prince's banners, found itself transplanted into Guyenne."

himself something of each. He had at this time a precocious sagacity, a knowledge of men and things, usually the fruit of observation and experience. In 1815, under the influence of his indignation, he wrote 'La Coalition et la France.' This was more than a good book: it was a good action-an event.' This book was seized. He took it quietly. Louis XVIII. had desired him to withdraw his opposition to its seizure. Then there was his letter to Wellington. The Duc de Richelieu interfered when he was about to publish his letter to the Duke of Wellington, after the attempt made on the duke's life by the assassin to whom Napoleon left a legacy, in the small gratitude of a great man. The letter desired the duke to live, that the rising generation might, in the plains of Zama, avenge the insult received at Thrasimene.' There were This is the first sentence which adds another two more pamphlets, which ensured the unand rather foreign-looking comrade to the list of hoped for passing of the loi de recrutement. royal O's, which are Ireland's patrimony. "The Louis XVIII. at last proved himself master' best manner of praising such men," goes on the on his own territory, by naming the poet Salbiographer, "is to recount their lives;" and this vandy of his Conseil d'Etat!! And this is the is accordingly done by him through 210 pages of account, by Salvandy, of Salvandy's career. closely printed octavo. We have not the least Novels, pamphlets Madame Salvandy, receive idea of attacking any portion of M. Salvandy's the same unqualified praise. As to Salvandy life; but rather wish to excuse Molé, by point- himself, he is applauded in all senses; politiing out why he decided that a minister, holding cally, morally; as having 'instinct and reasonin his hand such a story of himself, by himself, ing powers' to a supreme degree; as having would lay the ministry open to that terrible bat-love of order and liberty, progress, stability, motery of ridicule so potent in France, that is, per-deration; verily, we cannot give the whole list haps, the only battery she fears! of his perfections. Their name is Legion. As

to his talents as a novelist, if he has not all the power which belonged to Walter Scott, his Alonzo has a serenity and calm which may suggest comparison to some broad road, smooth and symmetrical, without ruts or jolting.' As for the book called 'Twenty Months; or, the Revolution of 1830,' it so struck the illustrious Göthe, that, on his bed of death, and when his sight had failed, it was read to him by his daughter; and when at last his mind was no longer capable of following its ideas, he bade her approach it to his lips, that, kissing it, he might bid human thought adieu: soon after he expired.

inserted by one in a law magazine edited by the other, savour in no small degree of the worst kind of arbitrary power. How pitiable is it that the king should be unable to foresee, in the present state of Germany, the spirit which all this has a tendency to make formidable!

The friends of monarchy and order throughout Germany had sincerely hoped that the occasion of the recent marriage of the Crown Prince of Hanover would have been embraced for putting an end to the sufferings of the state prisoners locked up in dungeons since the unfortunate affair of 1833. This hope has been cruelly disappointed. With the exception of Dr. Eggeling, who seems indebted for his liberation to other causes than to royal clemency, and Dr. Plath,

But we have said enough. Salvandy has had his merits, and not few; but we find it difficult not to meet fatuity such as this, with a little in-none of the many persons at present confined for nocent laughter.

GERMANY.

Leipsic, March, 1843.

THE presence and the counsels of Alexander von Humboldt have been sadly wanted of late by the Prussian king. It is to the absence of this distinguished man in Paris during the last three months, that the extraordinary change wrought in the feelings of the people towards their sovereign, and the general gloom which has fallen on the hopes of the most distinguished men of letters in Prussia, are, in my opinion, mainly ascribable.

political offences have been set at liberty. Even Eggeling has been placed under the odious surveillance of the police for the rest of his life, and Plath must at once leave, and never again re-enter the kingdom. The University of Göttingen is rapidly sinking under the present régime. As Dahlmann, the last of the seven exiled professors has been lately provided for by an appointment to a professorship at Bonn, the society formed throughout Germany to assist these political martyrs with pecuniary aid in their immediate wants, has announced its approaching dissolution, as being no longer necessary; and its intention of handing over the undisposed-of residue of its funds to Dr. Jordan, a literary martyr no less deserving of support.

Leipsic is in itself a little republic; and as The dismissal of Professor Hoffman of Fallers- the centre of the German book trade, and the leben from his professorship in Breslau, and great literary mart whither the products of without the usual pension, in consequence of his German mind are always sure to find their way, political poems, belongs to a class of acts which it may be called, in one sense at least, a republic form their own commentary. In the same cate- of letters. The mildness of the Saxon censorgory we may include the exclusion from the ship, and the facilities of publishing, have inducPrussian states of the Leipsic Universal Ga- ed many popular writers to take up their resizette,' which had often rendered Prussia good dence here. The Literaten Verein,' also, preservice, when warring with its own Catholic senting a formidable array of distinguished names, population. But the odium does not attach so forms a species of rallying point for patriotic exmuch to the act as to the mode of its enforce- ertions. The musical fame of Leipsic is about ment. It may be even reasonably doubted wheth- to be still further elevated by the erection of a er the conduct of Prussia in interdicting the tran- Conservatory of Music, under the direction of sit of the journal, and thus cutting it off from Mendelsohn Bartholdy, assisted by several highthe other states where it was desired, has not ly distinguished professors. The publishing acshed rather an unfavourable light on the indiffer- tivity is as flourishing as ever. I have only to ence of Prussia to the interests of the League, point to the edition of English popular writers, when its own interests seem affected. The sup- in course of publication by the eminent printer, pression of the Rhenish Gazette,' which is to Tauchnitz, of this city, to establish any man's cease from the 31st of March, also tends to swell faith in miracles. Each volume, comprising the the general amount of popular dissatisfaction. contents of three ordinary English volumes, neatThe re-imposition of the censorship on carica-ly and correctly printed on admirable paper, and tures, after its extinction so recently and pom- embellished with a good steel engraving, is pubpously announced, is in many ways characteris-lished at the almost incredibly low price of one tic. The singular discrepancy between the roy- shilling and sixpence! The collection will emal order of the 24th of December, 1841, alleviat- brace most of the standard English Authors. ing the evils of the censorship, and the law pro- The works of Byron, Moore, Dickens, Bulwer, mulgated on the 13th of February last, imposing and Marryat, have already appeared. The exfresh restrictions, and handing over the Press to traordinary popularity of English writers in Gera perpetuity of arbitrary government, is very far many necessary to the success of such an enterfrom a realisation of the hopes awakened by the prise, is flattering to both countries. As a matmonarch's popular harangues! Such acts, also, ter of curious literary history I may mention the as the recent cabinet order, forbidding the future fact, that of this edition of Mr. Dickens' works promotion of two officers holding judicial situa-four thousand copies have been already sold. tions, in consequence of an article opposed to the Amongst other more important literary underspirit of the projected Divorce Bill having been takings, a forthcoming new edition of the Ger

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man and English Dictionary, compiled by the tion of the British consulship in this city. Shortindefatigable Dr. Flügel, the United States Con- ly after the accession of the present ministry to sul at Leipsic, should be mentioned. I believe power, the gentleman who filled the office of the new edition will contain many thousand consul was recalled, and the office itself abolish words and phrases not included in the last. A ed. England is now the only kingdom unrepre. new and much improved edition of Brockhaus' sented here. It may perhaps be reasonably askConversations-Lexicon,' being the ninth issue of ed, whether an efficient and intelligent agent that important work, is also in course of publication; and a journal on the same plan as the illustrated papers of London is about to appear under the title of Illustrirte Nachrichten.' Before concluding, I may allude to the aboli

MISCELLANEOUS LITERARY NOTICES.

completed three bas-reliefs for the pedestal of the statue of Frederick VI. The subjects are :1. The foundation of representative bodies in Denmark. 2. The extinction of serfdom, and the abolition of the slave-trade. 3. The protection of art. The group of the Three Graces, which by an unfortunate accident was thrown down on being landed from the frigate Thetis, and shattered into more than 200 fragments, is now fully restored. The bas-relief of Faith, Hope, and Love, which was injured on the same occasion, is likewise repaired.

A valuable collection of bronze figures representing Indian deities, the property of the late Major-general Anker, of Christiania, has been purchased by the King of Denmark for a large sum of money. The Norwegian journals express great regret that this rare and valuable collection is lost to Norway. Major-general Anker collected the antiquities whilst he was Governor of Tranquebar, one of the Danish possessions in India.

will you say when you learn that we have advanced no further than this? We arrived here on the 9th of November, and here we have passed the first day of the new year. But who can foretell the extent of the rich harvest we may reap on this earliest scene of the history of mankind? It is incredible how little this spot has been explored, though more visited than any other part of Egypt. But it is my task to gather the fruit, and I have no wish to dispute the claim to it with my learned predecessors. The best maps of this site, hitherto produced, represent two tombs, besides the Pyramids, having particular inscriptions and figures. Now we have drawn a minute topographical plan of the whole monumental plain, and on this plan there are marked, independently of the Pyramids, 45 tombs, whose occupants I have ascertained by the inscriptions. There are altogether 82 tombs which, on account of their inscriptions or other peculiarities, demand particular attention. With the exception of about 12 which belong to a On the 10th of February, the Royal Archæo- later period, all these tombs were erected conlogical Society of Copenhagen held its annual temporaneously with, or soon after the building public sitting, on which occasion His Royal of the great Pyramid, and consequently their Highness the Prince Royal, Honorary President dates throw an invaluable light on the study of of the society, was present. The most interest-human civilisation in the most remote period of ing part of the business of the sitting consisted antiquity. Their structure, respecting which I of the presentation and explanation of certain could speak only from supposition, in my work monuments recently discovered in America, which tend to confirm the opinion that that part of the world was known to Europeans long before the time of Columbus. These monuments are:-1. A flat stone, bearing an inscription in 24 Runic characters, lately discovered in the valley of the Ohio. 2. A pair of massive silver tongs or pincers, found in the province of Bahia (Brazil), by M. Kroyer, a Danish naturalist. This instrument precisely resembles, in form, those of a similar kind frequently found in tumulary hills in Scandinavian countries. 3. Some arrows with rock crystal points, and saws made of sharks' teeth, and fragments of pebbles, discovered in California, and resembling those used by the ancient Greenlanders. 4. Three very ancient Peruvian vases; the form and ornaments similar to those of the Etruscan vases.-It was stated at the sitting of the Copenhagen Society, that the Brazilian government has taken measures for continuing diggings and searches in a part of Brazil where certain ruins recently discovered seem to indicate that a Scandinavian colony anciently existed. This tract of country is situated in the southern part of the province of Bahia, on the left bank of the Braço-do-Cincora, and to the south of the Sierra-do-Cincora.

EGYPT.

Dr. Lepsius is actively pursuing his interesting labours at the Pyramids. Of the progress of his researches, as far as they have hitherto advanced, he has given a circumstantial report in several let ters, recently published officially by the Prussian government. We regret that our limits do not permit us to give a complete translation of these letters, which contain a fund of curious information highly interesting to the antiquarian and the artist. The following is an extract from one of the latest. It is dated from Gizeh, at the foot of the Pyramid of Cheops, Jan. 2d. "What

on Egyptian architecture, is now developed before my eyes; all the architectural parts are perfectly made out; and to my great satisfaction the suppositions I hazarded are fully confirmed. The sculptures in relief are surprisingly numerous, and represent whole figures, some the size of life, and others of various dimensions. Their style of execution is bold and decided, but evidently not restrained by the laws of proportion, which, at a later period, were implicitly observed. The paintings are on back-grounds of the finest chalk. They are numerous and beautiful beyond conception-as fresh and perfect as if finished only yesterday. The pictures and sculptures on the walls of the tombs represent, for the most part, scenes in the lives of the deceased persons, whose wealth in cattle, fish, boats, servants, &c., is ostentatiously displayed before the eyes of the spectator. All this gives an insight into the details of private life among the ancient Egyptians. The scenes thus represented are explained by the inscriptions, which sometimes name the numerous members of the family of the deceased, together with all his titles and offices. By the help of these inscriptions I think I could, without much difficulty, make a court calendar of the reign of King Cheops. The most splendid mausoleums are those of the princes, who were either relations of the king, or persons holding high appointments in the royal service. These structures are situated in the proximity of the pyra mids. In some instances I have traced the graves of father, son, grandson, and even great grandson,-all that now remain of the distinguished families which 5000 years ago formed the nobility of the land. The post of Superintendent of the King's Buildings' must have been in those days of colossal architecture an appointment of vast importance, and it was frequently given to princes of the blood royal. One of the most magnificent tombs I have discovered here,