stands the learned Lelewel; but it is a pity that his works have not yet been translated into Polish. The conflict now became serious, and the professor was driven from the university. A peaceful teacher became a conspirator. The last revolution found him at the head of the insurgents; but, in the hour of victory, his spirit and his energies forsook him. He is living at present in Brussels, absorbed in his studies. His most recent biographer reckons up eighty works by him, all of which relate to the history of the Slavonian people; a few more, and it is these only that are known in western Europe, are devoted to other, and especially to numismatic, subjects. A new genius soon arose and electrified the whole Polish nation: this was Adam Mickiewicz. The appearance of this poet in ordinary times would certainly have excited a sensation, but it would only have been like a short angelvisit without any message from Heaven, like lightning without thunder. But he appeared in an eventful time, and thus justified Bacon's remark that great men are like great mountains, that catch the first rays of the rising sun. It is impossible here to show the extent of his influence and authority: we need but to enumerate his works, and to point out the golden vein that runs through them. Modern Polish literature, interesting and multifarious as it is, would lose its crown, its connecting link, if the name of Mickiewicz could be ex punged from it. He is the son of an advocate, and was born, about the year 1798, in Lithuania. He commenced his studies at Nowogrodeck, continued them at the gymnasium of Wilna, and honourably finished them at the university of that city. An early unpropitious attachment first awoke in him, as in many others, the spirit of poesy. So early as in 1812 he published a volume of translations from the German, and National Ballads, comprehending among others his " Grazyna These were soon followed by the "Ode to the Youth of Poland," which gained the prize at Wilna. The tendency of this ode excited suspicion, and drew persecution upon him. Mickiewicz was exiled. He went to Odessa, where many of his splendid Oriental poems were composed, but where he was not allowed to remain. The government ordered him to repair to Moscow, and there placed him under the surveillance of the police. Here he became acquainted with Prince Galitzin, who, surprized at the talents of the young Pole, took him to Petersburg, where he published his works, which found many admirers. To these he was indebted for the permission to leave Russia, and to travel in Europe, where, among others, he made himself personally acquainted with Göthe. We cannot follow the poet and improvisatore for such, too, is Mickiewicz-in his peregrinations, and shall therefore return to his works. We have already mentioned his Ballads and "Grazyna ;" these compose the first two volumes of his works. The third is called " Dziady," or the Festival of the Dead, from an ancient custom still subsisting in many parts of Lithuania, combining pagan superstition with christian ideas. The people assemble at midnight under the ruins of an old church, or of a house contiguous to a cemetery. A popular poet, or exorciser, steps into the middle of the circle, and summons the dead to rise and to partake of the viands prepared for the occasion. How the great Polish poet has treated this superstition may be more easily conceived than described. The fourth volume of his works contains his "Wallenrod." This is a Lithuanian, who has vowed the destruction of the enemies of his country. The Poles understood their bard, and, while they admired the beauty of his poetry, they perceived its latent object. Konrad Wallenrod became the watchword of the national insurrections. The motto: "Dovete adunque sapere come sono due generazioni da combattere - bisogna essere volpe e leone," ran like wild-fire through the whole country. Last came his " Farys." His sojourn in the Crimea, which, as Goszynski says, " he strewed with diamonds," gave rise to his" Crimean Sonnets," In 1832, he appeared again in Paris, not, however, as the revolutionary bard of Poland, but as the disciple of the Abbé Lamennais. The third canto of " Dziady," only the second and fourth of which were originally published, was his first poem after that metamorphosis. "Thadeus," his latest, is founded on a story in the annals of the feuds of the Polish nobility. The images and descriptions in this composition remind us of the best days of his genius; but the whole is a recollection of by-gone times, without any lesson for futurity, a tribute to the valour of the dead, without a word to the living. The lyrist is merged in the historian, the poet in the mystic. Mickiewicz has lately married; perhaps he had done better had he imitated. Petrarch; but the rags from the garment of his fame would suffice to array a host of the petty kings and princes of poesy. He has in him more of Byron than of Göthe; but he unites in a high degree the qualities of both, and combines the warm fancy of the East with the deep thought of the West. "Ce n'est plus l'Europe, ce n'est pas encore l'Asie," said a traveller concerning Poland; and this remark applies with some modification to Mickiewicz. Severin Goszcynski trod in the footsteps of Mickiewicz. In his youth he visited the cottages of the peasants, to listen to their tales and legends, which he made the subjects of poems. His works are so thoroughly national that they would lose their beauty if they were to be transplanted into a foreign soil. Goszcynski was one of the few young men who, by a daring attack on the palace of the grand-duke, gave the signal for the revolution. His poem, "The Castle of Kaniow," in three cantos, best shows his merits and his defects. Anton Malczewski belongs to those who are doomed by a life of suffering to atone for the possession of the divine spark in their bosoms. His career embraced three epochs-the first is the military, in which he distinguished himself as an expert engineer; the second that of an adventurous traveller; and the third a period of misery and distress, in consequence of an unhappy passion. A premature death terminated his sorrows. He gave to the literature of his country a short but glowing poem, the subject of which is founded on matter of fact, and has been successfully dramatized by Korzeniowski. A year after the completion of this poem, Malczewski died unrespected and unmourned. But now the Poles esteem and admire this monument of his genius more than any other contemporary performance. New editions of his " Maria” are continually appearing. Into whose hands his unpublished poems have fllen we know not. The compositions of Zaleski Bohdan are more elegant and more chaste than Goszcynski's, and they possess a singular charm. Few of them are known; but these few have ensured him a place among the most distinguished poets of Poland. RUSSIA. The fifth regular report, made since the year 1833, by the minister of public instruction, has been recently published. It contains an account of the state of instruction, in that empire, for 1837. It is divided into eight districts of instruction, and two separate districts. The former are: Petersburg, Moscow, Dorpat, Charkow, Kasan, White Russia, Kiew, and Odessa, each of which has a university at the head of the public instruction, excepting the last and White Russia, where the Catholic university of Wilna has been suppressed. The two separate circles are, that beyond the Caucasus, and Siberia. In all the ten circles there were, in 1837, six universities, three lyceums, 70 gymnasiums, 427 circular schools, 839 parish and district schools, 461 private schools, making a total of 1807, besides the institution in Petersburg for the education of future teachers. The number of pupils amounted, in the six universities, to 2307, and the other seminaries presented, with them, a grand total of 95,566. The gymnasiums, of which Petersburg alone has four, numbered 16,506 pupils. Of the libraries for public instruction, the four in Petersburg contained. 570,000 volumes, the six universities 260,000, that of the chief pedagogic institution 7000, and those of the three lyceums 18,000 volumes. There were, besides, in the governments, 31 libraries, with 100,000 volumes. The duration of study at the universities is, for the medical faculty, five years, and for the other faculties four; and the time for attending the gymnasiums is fixed at seven years. The proportion of the individuals receiving instruction to the whole population, is as 1 to 45. In the Caucasian provincial gymnasium at Stauropol, Tatar and Armenian are taught; as are also Chinese, Mongol, Turco-Tatar, and Arabic, at the university of Kasan; at the gymnasium of Astracan, Tatar and Persian; at those of Taganrog and Sympheropol, Greek; and at the gymnasium at Tiflis, Persian. Four gymnasiums have been ordered for Siberia, but only two of them have yet been established. The following literary travellers were sent out:-from Moscow, M. Bodjansky, to study the Sclavonian language abroad; from Charkow, Professor Krinizky, to explore the Crimea; from Kasan, Professor Aristow, Adjunct Tinin, and Professor Jelatschitsch, to study anatomy and chemistry, and to purchase surgical instruments abroad; from Dorpat, Professor Parrot, Candidate Neschel, and a student, to the North Cape, to make observations on the magnetic power, and on the vibrations of the pendulum; Professor Schmaltz, to the Crimea, on a mission relating to agriculture; and Fedorow, the astronomer, to Siberia, to determine the points between 500 and 60° north latitude. At many of the gymnasiums meteorological observations are regularly made. The Petersburg Academy of Sciences has ascertained the average height of the Black Sea above the level of the Caspian, to be 94, 9 Paris feet; M. von Bär, one of its members, has completed travels, furnishing rich results, to Lapland and Nova Zembla; M. Szögreen is prosecuting, on the spot, inquiries concerning the languages of the Caucasian tribes, and especially that of the Ossetes, who are akin to the Germanic race; M. Trinius has collected, in Europe, 3000 grasses; and M. Nordmann, who has visited the east coast of the Black Sea, is now in Paris, where the fruit of his researches is to be published, at the expense of M. von Demidoff. In the present year are to commence the operations at the recently erected observatory, which, by its magnitude, its admirable arrangements, and the new instruments collected there, is indisputably the first in the world. The Russian Academy is now continuing the publication of the public documents and treaties extracted from the domestic and foreign archives, commenced at the expense of Count Rumjanzow, and suspended for some time, at the fourth volume, after his death; and it has also resolved upon a Russian translation of the Byzantine and West-European historians, in so far as they relate to Russia. The inquiries and experiments of Professor Jacobi, of Dorpat, for the application of the electro-magnetic power to the propulsion of vessels in water, are successfully continuing at the imperial expense, as are, likewise, the labours of ten literary and scientific societies in the empire. Of foreign books, 400,000 volumes were imported in 1837; and there were published, in Russia, 740 original works, 126 translations, and 48 periodical works. The ministry of public instruction published 114,000 copies of schoolbooks, ordered the printing of 65,000, and bought 21,000 for distribution. It should be remarked, in conclusion, that in these statements are not comprehended the grand-duchy of Finland, or the kingdom of Poland, which are under distinct administrations. The influence exercised by the public press in this country is almost incredible. Public opinion is wholly governed by its decisions, and people, especially in the provinces, are accustomed to regard them as oracles. A book, or a play, condemned by the journals, can scarcely lift up its head again. Mighty as is the influence of the periodical press in Paris and London, it is not to be compared to that which it possesses in Petersburg; and neither in England nor France can a just idea be formed of the power of the Russian papers. A principal reason of this may be the circumstance that, in Russia, there is not an author of any note, who does not contribute to the journals, and affix his name to his articles. The power of the press in general is, therefore, concentrated, in some measure, in the periodical press, and it cannot be surprising that, through the peculiar form of these publications, and the character of their editors, it should attain an importance which, in other countries, is divided into two parts. Another cause is the usually very high price of Russian books. As it is only in the capitals, and in the larger provincial towns, that there are circulating libraries, readers are accustomed, before they buy a book, to consult all the journals, and upon their authority alone they decide to purchase or not. Hence arises a sort of dominion of confidence with which the journals are invested, and which, as well from a sense of the honour paid to them, as for the sake of their reputation, they try to deserve. The "Northern Bee" is the journal whose criticisms have most authority; the "Library for General Reading," (Lese Bibliothek), the one that is most feared for the severity of its remarks, and its frequently ironical tone. This latter journal is, at the same time, the representative in Russia of English ideas, as “The Son of the Country" is rather of German ideas. It is no slight evidence of the inventive spirit of the age, that almost at the same time, three apparently equally important discoveries, in the department of the fine arts, should be made in Paris, Petersburg, and Berlin. While Daguerre, in Paris, found out how to produce the most accurate copies of objects in a chemical way, by means of the action of light; while Jacobi, in Petersburg, transformed, by a galvanic process, engravings on copper into works in relief, without destroying the former; an invention, by means of which it is possible to multiply, in a mechanical way, oil-paintings, with all their brilliancy of colours, and that with a fidelity hitherto unattainable, is approaching to perfection at Berlin. The inventor, Jacob Leipmann, has been led by his studies of colouring, and the mixing of colours, to the idea on which he has been already engaged ten years, till he has recently been enabled to accomplish the difficult object which he proposed to himself. NEW FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS IN APRIL AND MAY, 1839. GERMAN. Bd. 1. Alt, Predigten über die Sonn-und; Festtags-episteln bei dem Hauptgottesdienste in der Kirche zu St. Petri in Hamburg, gehalten im Jahre 1839. Svo. Hamburg. 2s. Althaus, Grundzüge zur gänzlichen Umgestaltung der bisherigen Geologie 8vo. 2s. 6d. Amerika, seine Entdeckung und seine Zeit. Nach Originalmemoiren und Berichten herausg. von H. Ternaux-Compans. Deutsch von L. v. Alvensleben. 2ter. Bd. 8vo. 5s. 6d. Ammon von, Die gemischten Ehen, namentlich der Katholiken und Protestanten, nach den Ansichten des Christenthums, der Geschichte, des Rechtes und der Sittlichkeit, &c. 2te Aufl. 8vo. 4s. 6d. Anekdoten von Friedrich dem Grossen. Aus authentischen Quellen gesammelt von D. F. Meyer. Mit Bildern. Ites und 2tes Heft. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Ansichten, Malerische, der merkwürdigsten und schönsten Cathedralen, Kirchen und Monumente der gothischen Baukunst, am Main, Rhein, und an der Lahn. Nach der Natur aufgenommen und gezeichnet von A. Lange. 1ste-4te Lief. fol. £2.83. Arends, Schilderung des Mississippithales. Nebst Abriss meiner Reise dahin. 8vo. 10s. 6d. Aretin, v., Bayern's auswärtige Verhältnisse seit dem Anfang des 16ten Jahrhunderts. I. Band. 8vo. 20s. Atlas, Neuer, der ganzen Erde nach den neuesten Bestimmungen für Zeitungsleser, Kauf-und Geschäfts-leute jeder Art. 17te Aufl. In 26 Charten, von Dr. Streit und H. Leutemann. Fol. Leipz. 17s. 6d. Baudenkmale der römischen Periode und des Mittelalters in Trier und seiner Umgebung. Herausg. von dem Architekten C. W. Schmidt. 2te Lief. 10. Stahlstichen. Fol. Mit Bemerkungen begleitet von Dr. J. G. Müller. 16s. Baumann, Fussreise durch Italien und Sizilien. 2 Bde. 18mo. 10s. 6d. Baumgärtner, Dr. K. H. Kranken-Physiognomik. Nebst einem Atlas von 72 nach d. Natur gemalten Krankenbildern. 4to. £17 5s. Beobachtungen, meteorologische, angestellt auf Veranstaltung der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich. 1837 and 1838. 4to. 48. Berghaus, Almanach für das Jahr 1839. Den Freunden d. Erdkunde gewidmet. Mit 2 Stahlst. u. 5 Karten. 18mo. 88. Bergmann, Beiträge zur Einleitung in die Praxis der Civilprocesse vor Deutschen Gerichten: 2te. Ausg. 8vo. 8s. Berzelius, Lehrbuch d. Chemie. Uebersetzt von Wöhler. 3te Aufl. 8r Bd. 6s Heft. 8vo. Dresden. 2s. 6d. dasselbe, 9s Bd. 1-4s Heft. 8vo. 8s. Bibliothek, dramatische, mit Beiträgen von A. Cosmar, F. Genée und Spiess. 1r Bd. 18mo. 3s. 6d. Biedenfeld, F. Frhr. von, Geschichte aller geistlichen und weltlichen, erloschenen und blühenden Orden. 2ten Bds. Supplementheft; Ursprung, Aufleben, Grösse, Herrschaft, Verfall und jetzige Zustände sämmtlicher Mönchs und Klosterfrauen, Orden im Orient und Occident. 8vo. Weimar. 2s. 6d. Bilder - Conversations-Lexicon, Oesterreichisches nat-historisches. 57te-64te. Leiferg. 4to. Wien. 218. Birch-Pfeiffer, Rubens in Madrid. Original-Schauspiel. 12mo. 48. Brandis, Nosologie und Therapie der Cachexien. 2r Bd. 8vo. 9s. 6d. Czoernig C. Italienische Skizzen. 2 Bdchen. 18mo. Mailand. 6s. 6d. Danz, Dr. J. T. L. Universal-Wörterbuch der theolog. und religionsgeschichtlichen Literatur. 5te Liefg. 4to. 2s. 6d. Deutschland und Russland. 8vo. Mannheim. 5s. 6d. Deutschland, das malerische und romantische, 5te Sektion: Die Donau, von Duller. 11te-14te Leifg. 8vo. 6s. Deutschland, das malerische und romantische 2te Sektion: durch Franken, von v. Heeringen. 1te Leifg. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Wanderungen Diesterweg, Dr. F. A. W. Geometrische Combinations-lehre. 2te Ausg. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Diesterweg, Dr. F. A. W. Ueber Erziehung im Allgemeinen und SchulErziehung, in besonderen. 5te Ausg. 8vo. 2s. Doederlein, L. Lateinische Synonyme und Etymologien. Beilage: Die latein. Wortbildung. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Düntzer, Dr. H. die Deklination der indogermanischen Sprachen nach Bedeutung und Form entwickelt. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Ellendorf, J. Historisch-kirchenrechtliche Blätter für Deutschland. Iten Bandes lte Heft. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Encyclopädie der deutschen Nationalliteratur. Herausg. von Dr. O. L. B. Wolff. 5r Bd. 1te and 2te Leifg. 4to. 2s. Encyclopädie der prakt. Medicin. Herausg. von Dr. Fränkel. Ite Leifg. X. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Encyclopädie der gesammten Staatsarzneikunde. Herausg. von Prof. Dr. Most. Ss. Heft. 8vo. 3s. 6d. |