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terms being ratified by the Duc d'Aumale, Governor of Algeria, the fallen chief proceeded to Toulon in a government steamer. The terms of his surrender are not acted upon by the Government, and he is kept in confinement, and treated with considerable rigor, for the purpose of compelling him to renounce his intended residence. It is said that he will be confined in Fort Lamalque, until an answer can be received from Mehemet Ali, as to whether he will consent to receive the Emir in Egypt, and give a guarantee to the French Government that he shall not leave that country.

The following description of Abd-el-Kader's person is given in the Toulonnais :-" Abd-elKader is of middling height. The expression of his countenance is mild, and rather mystical than warlike. His complexion has not that perfect purity which distinguishes the Arab aristocracy; his face is pitted with small marks, which look like the traces of small-pox; and in the middle of his forehead is a small tattoo mark. His beard is very black, but not thick. His costume is so simple, that it is, perhaps, not quite devoid of affectation."

In Switzerland, the dominant party are proceeding in a course of violence and injustice. Formal sentence of proscription and confiscation has been published against thirty-one of the principal citizens of Fribourg, all of them untried, and they are condemned jointly and severally to pay a fine of 1,200,000 Swiss francs, or about $350,000, besides the loss of civil rights, and the banishment of fifteen of them for six years. Convents are suppressed and their property confiscated. A contribution of 460,000 Swiss francs is imposed on the Bishop of the diocese and nine convents situated in the canton, not belonging to the Jesuits; and all church property is placed under the control of the State.

The Monastery of St. Bernard, which has been known for centuries to all Europe, by the piety, courage, and benevolence of its hardy inmates, has not escaped the ravages and plunder of the successful party in Switzerland-between which kingdom and the Sardinian dominions it is situated. Although its inmates belonged to a religious order against which no political accusation had been preferred; by a decree of the 2d December, it was deprived of its ecclesiastical patronage, and sentenced to pay a very heavy fine. In vain the monks declared that the exaction would be their ruin, and that it would put an end to the hospitality which their house had exercised for 850 years; the Diet was inexorable, and on the 18th of December, at 2 o'clock in the morning, certain federal commissaries and a body of armed soldiers entered the monastery, and taking an inventory of all the goods and chattels which it contained, established a military garrison within its ancient walls. Against this act of aggression the monks have entered a solemn protest.

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The Pope has dispatched a note to the Vorort, deploring the intelligence which has reached him of the expulsion of religious bodies, in contravention of solemn guarantees contained in the compact of 1845, and of various acts of sacrilege committed in churches. The Diet at its meeting, on the 14th January, resolved not to notice the Pope's protest, and denied the right of any foreign power to invoke the benefit of the federal pact; they also deny the charges of sacrilege, and declare that the Nuncio and upper clergy had been fomentors of troubles, and had encouraged the Sonderbund to resistance. The English minister has presented a friendly note to the President of the Diet, recommending a general amnesty, and the French Government have made a strong remonstrance against the proceedings now in

progress.

The Minister of Finance, at Madrid, has presented his budget to the Chambers. The receipts are said to amount to 1,283,631,000 reals, and the expenses are to be reduced to that amount. Espartero is in Madrid and appears to enjoy great popularity, both at Court and among the people. The Chambers have been engaged in a very violent discussion of a proposal to impeach Salamanca for peculation while in the ministry. He threatens retaliation against Mon and Pidal, his former colleagues, and declares he is prepared to prove that the former, during his ministry, made away with about half a million of dollars of the public money, which he invested in the French funds. The influenza is raging at Madrid; as many as 122 persons have died in one day.

The arrival of Austrian troops in Italy still continues. It is said their number in that country amounts to 75,000, the ordinary number being only 30,000; and the Government of Austria has given immense orders for arms and projectiles. In Rome 12,000 percussion muskets have been received from France; and the Grand Duke of Tuscany is about giving orders for arms in England, and is applying to the French Government for muskets. Lombardy is in a state of great excitement, and a general rising against the Austrians is not thought unlikely. Pavia has been the theatre of scenes of bloodshed. On the 8th January, the students of this University came to blows with the Austrian garrison, and many of the combatants on both sides were left dead on the ground Pavia is only four hours' drive from Milan, and is situated on the very frontier of the Sardinia: States. On the 9th, the struggle was renewed with great rancor on both sides. Ten persons were killed, and forty seriously wounded. The University was closed, and most of the student have crossed the frontier, and entered t dominions of Charles Albert of Sardinia.

The following are some of the princip provisions of the motu propriu decree of to Pope relative to the organization of the Minis

try, and which appear to give general satisfac- | tion. The administration of the Holy See is, in future, to consist of nine departments, name, ly foreign affairs, interior, public instruction, grace and justice, finance, commerce, fine-arts, manufactures and agriculture, public works, war, and police. The chiefs of those departments are to compose the Council of Ministers. State affairs are not to be brought before that council until the Consulta (the deputies) shall have examined them and given its opinion. Ministers are to be responsible for the acts of their respective administration, and the subaltern officers are to be likewise accountable for the execution of the orders they may have received. The important affairs of the State are not to be submitted to the approbation of the sovereign until they shall have been discussed in the Council of Ministers. The latter are to appoint all public functionaries and officers, the consuls-general, the governors, and the councillors of the Government, the professors of the university and provincial colleges, the military commanders and officers, &c.; the Pope only reserves to himself the nomination of the cardinals, nuncios, &c. The Council of Ministers is to meet every week under the presidency of the Secretary of State. The latter is to be a cardinal, and his deputy a prelate; but the other Ministers may be indifferently clergymen or laymen. Twenty-four auditors are attached to the Council of Ministers.

Maria Louisa, Archduchess of Parma, widow of the Emperor Napoleon, died on the

17th of December last. By her decease the Duke of Lucca succeeds to the Duchy of Parma. Great discontent exists in his dominions, to keep down which, he has applied to the Austrian Government for troops.

In Sicily affairs are in a terrible state. The people at Palermo are in revolt against the government; the streets are barricaded, and there have been several collisions between the people and the troops, in which the latter lost upwards of 60 men. On the 14th January, 4,500 troops were dispatched from Naples to put down the insurrection. In the latter place there is also great excitement, and the Austrian government requested permission from the Pope, to march 30,000 troops through the dominions of the Church, to assist in keeping quiet the Neapolitan population, but a peremptory refusal was given by the Pope. Letters from Turin state that the King had ordered an intrenched camp to be formed on the heights of Valenza to accommodate 30,000 troops, to defend the country against any attack of the Austrians.

Christian VIII., King of Denmark, died on the 19th January. He was born 18th September, 1786, and succeeded to the throne December 3, 1839. He married Princess Charlotte Frederica, of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1803, and was divorced from her in 1812. He afterwards married Princess Caroline of Schleswig-Holstein. The Crown Prince, Frederick Charles Christian, was born October, 1808.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Poems. By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Second, Series. Cambridge: George Nichols. Boston: B. B. Mussey & Co. 1848.

The dedication of this volume, the sonnet on the succeeding page, and several of the pieces of rhyme, are in such bad taste, as to render it impossible to speak the truth of them without seeming discourteous. When an individual comes with his wife into a parlor, and launches forth into a history of their loves and sufferings, their hopes, trials, experiences, and the like, most people naturally prefer to sit apart and leave him to those whose duty it is to entertain such visitors. But the case is different when one comes thus before the public; for the public is an entertainer who is not obliged to endure bores, and at whose parties no one has right to appear in mourning, or in any affected mode of dress or speech, designed to

attract attention to himself. Each one there must bring what he actually has in him of amusement and instruction, or he will be discovered to be an unwelcome intruder; and it will be the duty of critics, who are the marshals of the saloons, to signify "molliter,” as the law maxim has it, that his absence, or better behavior, would be desirable.

There is no reason why Mr. Lowell should come with his affairs before the world in the character of a weeper and seeker. If he would avoid the affectation, and be a MAN, he might do infinitely better. All of us have our private griefs; every man and woman, like Winifred Jenkins, have their secrets to expose; but it is not generally thought noble or grateful to nurse them, make capital out of them, and write rhyme about them. A man, especially, is called upon to lay aside every weight, and resist the heartcracking shocks that flesh is heir to,

with a stubborn resolution. The great poets were those who, with all their sensitiveness, were able to bear the load of regrets with the strength and pride of youth; they did their work and left their tears to the biographers.

The small poets, some of them, favor us with their autobiographies before they have done anything. It is an easily besetting affectation, now when we know so much of literary life in past days, to fancy ourselves poets, and scholars, and thinkers, and then to sit down under that agreeable delusion, and address our countrymen. A great deal of labor is saved by it, and though we must always, one would suppose, have a secret misgiving that we were not Shakspeares and Miltons, yet we can, with very little merit, gather around us circles and cliques of admirers, who will make us extremely comfortable.

We wonder that Mr. Lowell, who is so full of bravery, and has such hatred of "shams," does not consider that it would be far more manly in him to do something before asking so much sympathy of the candid reader. He can write, if he will try, we are willing to believe, much better than he has. He has an ear and an eye, but when it comes to thinking he falls at once into the slough of profundity; and as for imagination, he seems either so slothful, or so cautious, that all he ever shows of himself is a peculiar state of affectedness which must be altogether foreign to the life of any soul of common perception and experience. Let him be as strong and brace as he can be, and talk about it less; he will gain far more in the end. Whatever of real strength he brings to his work will be sure to manifest itself. The "Present" seems to him "poor and bare;" so it does to us; but both we and he, and all of us, must labor and accomplish, whatsoever we do accomplish, for ourselves or our country, in this very Present, in spite of its poverty and bareness.

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interests and circumstances of the writer himself. At least I have found, that when the subject is taken immediately from the author's personal sensations and experiences, the excellence of a particular poem is but an equivocal mark, and often a fallacious pledge of genuine poetic power."

These opinions he then illustrates and enforces, but with any to whom they are not intuitively apparent it is wasting speech to attempt to make them clearer.

Poetry is a life; but it is, at the same time, an art. The naked record of experiences, emotions or perceptions does not alone constitute poetry. The poet must go out of himself and into his art; he must assume a character, which must be the reflection of his own, and must then work at his subject in the same way that a sculptor, painter, or musician works at his. Some of Burns's most passionate songs were composed for money, and while his own personal thoughts were all of other matters: how completely he assumes the artist; affectation rises to imaginative power; the unreal becomes more real than the real, and bears up the poet himself, so that he takes on a higher existence. This is pure poetic power, and such an ever-cumulative existence is the true life of the poetic soul.

A young poet has much study before him to purge his head of shadows, and his heart of vanities, as well as much labor in the nechanical departments of poetry, before he can deserve half the praise which he will receive from his friends, and from those who are willing to overlook radical defects, and see only occasional beauties in his verses.

Chambers's Miscellany of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln.

Those

Coleridge, around whom probably the Pre- This exceedingly interesting republication sent seemed as poor and bare as around any has reached its thirteenth number, which nearman living, found time to analyze the poetic ly completes the first half of the entire work. genius in such a masterly way, that what he Most of our readers are probably so well achas written on the subject is a repository to quainted with its merit that we need occupy which we may recur again and again for in- space here only to mention the gratifying cirstruction in the first principles of the poetic cumstance of its great popularity. art. Imagery," says he, "(even taken from whom the chances of life have placed in a po nature, much more when transplanted from sition where it is their duty to act as conservabooks, as travels, voyages and works of natural tors of literature, feel a keener joy in such history,) affecting incidents; just thoughts; things than other people; it is to them not a interesting personal or domestic feelings; and little refreshing, after wandering through a with these the art of their combination, or inter- cheap bookstore, and reading the titles adver texture in the form of a poem; may all, by in- tised in the daily papers, and the regularly man.. cessant effort, be acquired as a trade, by a manufactured puffs, to find that so excellent a work of talents and much reading, who has mistaken an intense desire of poetic reputation for a natural poetic genius; the love of the arbitrary end for the possession of the peculiar means. A second promise of genius is the choice of subjects very remote from the private

as Chambers's, for young readers, actually sell It shows that there is yet a good supply of old fashioned boys and girls in the country, and that the French novels, though they have over run the land, have not yet gotten the field en tirely to themselves.

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But these tracts are not for boys and girls only, nor need any reader pass them by because they are intended for " the masses. We plead guilty to having wasted the better part of an evening very agreeably with the "Life of Henri Quatre," the "Anecdotes of Serpents," "Anecdotes of Cats," and the "Sister of Rembrandt:" the Scotch are capital story-tellers, but poor metaphysicians.

The work has an immense circulation abroad, the average weekly impressions being, according to the statement of the Messrs. Chambers on the cover, 115,000-an almost incredibly large number. Some sheets have reached 200,000; and of one, the "Life of Louis Philippe," they have printed 280,470 copies.

It is to be hoped the republication will have equal success, for so far as we have examined it, it seems most admirably calculated, both in design and execution, to foster the love of knowledge and encourage a taste for healthy reading, and thus secondarily for sound thinking.

The Philosophy of Life, and Philosophy_of Language, in a Course of Lectures. By FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. Translated from the German, by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M. A. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1848.

The demand for exceedingly fine wire to be used in making temporary magnets for telegraphic purposes, has in all probability been the inducing cause of the present republication. At all events, here is a quantity of the article; sufficient, if it could be translated into the material form, to furnish all the batteries now in operation in the country, or that will ever be needed when we have private and public lines between every city and village, and men ride on railroads through forests of posts and under skies of cobweb. The only difficulty would be, that the material itself is drawn so very fine, that it would be, perhaps, impossible to produce any thread sufficiently attenuated to wind it, and so effect the necessary insulation.

We can read the book, it is true; it exhibits a vast deal of reading and copiousness of illustration; but the thread is often almost covered up in tedious explanations, and when clearly defined, is nothing worth tracing out. We rise from the perusal of a chapter with the feeling one experiences in escaping from the long-winded conversation of a 'dull, learned

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ed to seeing everything brought into miniature, that common sights appear too large and rough; besides, in order to skim out the fine particles in such a great dish of German soup, it would be necessary to make a sieve with very minute interstices-a painful operation, and not very profitable, since it would take a very protracted skimming to fish off wholesome particles enough to make a comfortable dinner for stomachs accustomed to the full diet of our English literature and philosophy.

Yet we would not be understood as wishing, from intolerance, or a prejudice against German philosophizing, to depreciate these Lectures. There is a great deal in them that is true and good, and indeed one might be sure that anything from the pen of so thorough an understander and admirer of Shakspeare as Von Schlegel, would be marked by a substratum of common sense and right feeling, however crude and visionary it might appear on the surface. There is nothing, it may be safely said, without the trouble of reading them, in these Lectures prejudicial to the state or to the Christian faith.

A witty friend of ours has adopted a humorous mode of classifying individuals in society, which may be equally expressive applied to books. He does it partly by signs and gestures. Thus of such a one he 66 says, He is a pleasant man, but "-here he imitates with his thumb and forefinger the action of a very minute gimlet; of another he observes, that "his conversation did not particularly interest him " -at the same time moving his hands as though he were turning a carpenter's bit; and so on, through the several varieties of augers, from those of active motion, with which the workman makes at each turn a complete revolution, to the enormous species which they use for perforating pump logs, and which require several violent efforts to carry round.

Now Von Schlegel is a learned man, and, as we believe, a good one; he writes with a great show of wisdom; yet for all this, we cannot read his speculations without being reminded of our friend's whimsical comparison. He is "a pleasant man, but "--we seem to see the little industrious gimlet eating in with incessant rapidity. In brief, Von Schlegel, though a man to be respected for his learning and his character, is slightly a perforator; he drills a small hole through the two parietals and draws his fine wire quite through the brain-in at one side and out at the other.

Observe how coolly the driving screw is attached in his preface:

So much for a general criticism. If we go "These fifteen Lectures on the Philosophy of nuch further, it is at the risk of being prosy Life are intended to give, as far as possible, a also, for it is not possible to go into this wire- full and clear exposition of the most interesting pinning operation and come out prepared to topics that can engage human attention. In manufacture solid cast-iron ideas. After look- the opening, they treat of the soul, first of all, ng steadily for an hour through the wrong end as forming the centre of consciousness; and f a spy-glass, one's eyes become so accustom-secondly, of its co-operation with mind or spirit

in science, that is, the acquisition of a right knowledge of man and nature, and of their several relations to the Deity. These matters occupy five Lectures of the whole series. The next three treat of the laws of Divine wisdom and providence, as discernible in outward nature, in the world of thought, and in the history of mankind. The last seven contain an attempt to trace the development of man's mind or spirit, both within himself and in science and public life. Tracing its gradual expansion, as unfolded either by the legitimate pursuit of a restoration to original excellence, or by the struggle with the opposing spirit of the times, they follow the human race through its progressive gradations, up to the closing term of perfection."

Now, were it not necessary that some one should read a little further, and endeavor to offer a word or two of opinions and reasons therefor, we should for our own part cry, "Heigho, here's Philosophy!" and close the work here. The last sentence of the above would be as much as we should care to read, of such, for several days. But let us look into the opening chapter:

"But when philosophy would pretend to regard this long succession of ages and all its fruits, as suddenly erased from the records of existence, and for the sake of change would start afresh, so perilous an experiment can scarcely lead to any good result, but in all probability, and to judge from past experience, will only give rise to numberless and interminable disputes."

So it might be supposed.

"Such an open space in thought-cleared from all the traces of an earlier existence (a smoothly polished marble tablet, as it were, the tabula rasa of a recent ephemeral philosophy)would only serve as an arena for the useless though daring ventures of unprofitable speculation, and could never form a safe basis for solid thought, or for any permanent manifestation of intellectual life."

At this rate the reader must see that a cranium of ordinary thinness and density will soon be eaten through and through. It is very fatiguing to sit by the margin of a lazy stream and watch the chips and sticks that float along its surface.

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But whoever undertakes the volume will perceive before the end of the chapter, if the preface did not convince him, that he has a task before him. After defining the nature of man to be threefold, consisting of spirit, soul, and body, the author concludes:- "The spirit of man, like the soul, divides and falls asunder; or, rather, is split and divided into two powers, or halves the mind, namely, into understanding and will, the soul into reason and fancy. These are the four extreme points, or, if the

expression be preferred, the four quarters of the inner world of consciousness."

From this it is pretty apparent to what degree of tenuity the wire is to be drawn, and how minutely the trephining operation is to be applied.

In the next chapter, beginning with the soul, he considers" the loving soul as the centre of moral life, and of marriage;" in this there are many sensible observations, and those who like to have the stream run slowly and can amuse themselves with the chips, will find in it, as doubtless in the whole book, very agreeable pastime.

German metaphysics are pleasant enough reading if one will only allow his mind to recoil and recover its natural elasticity; indeed if one can study hem in this way, simply as a mental exercise, and keep the distinctions out of his head when he wishes to use it for profit or enjoy its power in contemplative revery, they will be to him refreshing exercise. But alas! how many lose themselves in those labyrinths of distinctions; how many travel in them till they part with the delightful sense of novelty. and came to fancy themselves in the direct highway to great truths, while they are only making such progress as those who should new hobby-horses upon old familiar

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grounds.

Scenes at Washington; a Story of the Las Generation. By A CITIZEN OF BALTIMORE. Harper and Brothers.

The first and most conspicuous part of th title of this volume is common, and does n.: sufficiently indicate its character. Few persons, after looking at the back of the book would open it expecting to find a queer con.pound of Calvinistic faith, Democratic politics and what was intended to be views of fashic able society at Washington, under the Jeffers nian administration. The story is told w clearness, and the author is not affected in h style, though the characters all are in the manners. They are a funny set of people unlike any ever were seen or heard of in ti actual world.

Still, the tale displays much more than co mon ability. It is legitimately written. W out exhibiting any great depth or warmth, it very clear and logical, and is well sustain Its politics are shallow and erroneous; so 1 may possibly be the views it encourages matters which come less directly under: notice; it has likewise frequent provincial in style. But, in general, it is a very good ligious novel-one of the best of its kind.

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