expedient; that he should abide by the sentence of the pope, who was to be the sole judge of the cause; that if it acquitted him he should retain his kingdom, or, if he were condemned, he should resign it cheerfully; that, whether he lost it or retained it, he should seek revenge on no one; that, until his cause was legally tried and

decided, he should wear no royal ornament or insignia, nor make any decree in the administration of public affairs; that, beyond the necessary service of himself and his court, he should assume nothing royal or by public right; that all those who had taken the oath of allegiance to him were released in the sight of God and man; that Robert, Bishop of Bamberga, Uldaric of Constance, and others, his counsellors, should be removed from him for ever; and that, if ultimately being acquitted, he should again be powerful in his kingdom, he should be obedient and subject to the Roman pontiff, and co-operate with him manfully and promptly for the good of the church; and, finally, that if he violated any one of the conditions, the absolution should be invalid, he should be immediately deposed, and a new monarch elected in his stead."

A quarrel followed this degradation : Henry with a tumultuary army ravaged the Papal territories, and approached Rome: Gregory never wanted ready weapons: he sent for Robert Guiscard- -a name distinguished in the Crusades: the Norman warrior chased away Henry-brought Rome to its senses, which had wavered between Pope and Emperor, and restored Gregory to his uncontrolled dominion over the souls and bodies of men. The Pope did not long survive this adventure he fell sick, and died on the 25th of May, 1085. We may conclude with the following character of the pontiff by the author:

"Gregory VII. was of small stature, but gigantic mind, lively imagination, intrepid courage, and of perseverance utterly incapable of yielding to any difficulties which he might encounter in his enterprises. Of an imperious disposition, quick, decisive, rash, resolute, and regardless of results, he set the first example of doing that which he desired others to do. He was especially learned in the divine sciences, in the rights, laws, and customs of the Roman Catholic

church. In short, his impetuous and inflexible humour did not allow his zeal to be accompanied by the moderation which his predecessors had displayed. If he had possessed this moderation, much blood would have been spared; for the quarrel between the Holy See and the empire divided Europe into two factions, whose bitterness and animosity knew no bounds, and led to that temporal dominion of the popes, which has cost as much blood as the conquests of republican Rome."

FAMILY CLASSICAL LIBRARY, No. XXXIII. Sophocles. Translated by T. Franklin, D.D. London: Valpy.

We have had many opportunities recently afforded us of directing the attention of our readers to the Greek dramatists, and especially to schylus, the father of tragic poetry. We have now before us the works of his rival and successor, a dramatist, who commenced his career by a triumph over his master, and closed it by a victory over Euripides, the only competitor that ever dared to measure strength with him. Sophocles bears the impress of the age in which he lived, not stamped indeed so deeply and strongly as on Eschylus, because, in the course of a generation, the political character of Greece had assumed a milder form and a

softer type. The exaggerations of the Persian

war,-its moving millions-its slaughtered myriads-streams drank dry by living armies -rivers bridged by the slain-seas gay in the morning with the streamers and sails of countless fleets, and darkened in the evening by their unsightly wrecks: these stupendous vicissitudes that surrounded Eschylus, as it were, with an atmosphere of moral sublimity, had, in the days of Sophocles, become a mere recollection-" a tale of the days gone by." Danger gave way to glory, excitement was changed for tranquillity, and deliberations in the public assemblies absorbed the interest lately accorded to struggles in the field. At such a period, the majesty of repose which peculiarly distinguishes the genius of Sophocles had more attractions, even for the excitable population of Athens, than the terrific grandeur that could scarcely be contemplated without pain. There are moods in the mind, both of nations and individuals, when the tranquil rivulet is more pleasing than the foaming cataract, and a serene landscape preferable to the sublimity of the storm. To this change in the national temperament, and not to his own superiority, must the victory of Sophocles over Eschylus be ascribed: in power, the disciple was inferior to his master; but he surpassed him in the art of pleasing, and the trial took place when pleasure was the sole object of the judges. Neither do we, sitting down in the quiet of our closet, feel disposed to reverse the sentence: if we admire Eschylus, we love Sophocles-the head may decide for the former, but the verdict of the heart is assured to the latter.

It is said, by most critics, that the great aim of Sophocles was to excite pity; and it is certain that this is the chord of the heart which he most effectually touches; but we doubt his having written a line with that prepense object. If any general design can be traced in his works, we hold it to be an anxiety to exalt human nature-to give us ennobling views of others and ourselves-to teach us that moral loveliness dwells in every heart, though circumstances may blight its growth, or wither its roots. Even Clytemnestra ceases to be the Lady Macbeth of antiquity in his hands; a mother's sorrow mingles in the joy she feels, when told that her son, the sworn avenger of her guilt, has died prematurely; a parent's tenderness softens the threats with which she replies to the stinging reproaches of Electra. The fearful tragedy that consummated the guilt and misery of the Pelopid family, has been dramatized by the three illustrious Athenians: we are not inclined to institute a comparison between them, after it has been so ably done by Schlegel; but we recommend those who desire to learn the differences of genius, to institute an analysis for themselves-to contrast the gloomy horrors of retributive justice in Eschylus, and the degrading influence of vice in Euripides, with the display of the heart's best affections in Sophocles, where deepest hate springs from deepest love, and retains to the last the softening characteristics of its origin.

Edipus learns his involuntary crime; the sufferings of the Thebans by plague, pestilence, and famine, raise in the mind the suspicions of great and unexpiated guilt; the response of the oracle declares that divine vengeance demands atonement for the murder of Laius; Edipus pours imprecations on the head of the homicide, and learns from Tiresias that he has invoked curses on himself. The honest indignation of Œdipushis suspicion that Creon has suborned the prophet-the awful denunciations of Tiresias -at once compel us to dwell on this the first stage of the awful revelation, while, at the same time, we gain a distinct view of the dire consummation. The anger of Edipus leads to the interference of Jocasta, anxious to shield her brother from her husband's wrath; incidentally she states a circumstance that leads Edipus to suspect that he had murdered his predecessor, and inquiry confirms his belief. The arrival of a shepherd from Corinth awakens a hope that the still greater guilt of parricide might be avoided; but while he is showing that Polybus was not the father of Edipus, his story, too well understood, informs the queen that her son stood before her in the person of her husband. Her entreaties that he should forbear inquiry, but stimulate him to fresh investigations-the horrid secret gradually unfolds itself-he drinks the cup of overwhelming misery drop by drop

And the spell now works around him,
And the clankless chains have bound him;
O'er his heart and brain together,
Hath the word been pass'd-to wither.

The only parallel we know to this instance of an author trusting so much in his own power, as to reveal the catastrophe in the very outset, is Scott's Bride of Lammermuir: the verses of TristremWhen the last lord of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride, &c.

are as definite as the prophecy of Tiresias— every sentence points directly to their accomplishment; but though the conclusion never disappears from our view for a moment, the interest of the intervening incidents never flags.

We should gladly enter into a more detailed examination of the continuation of the Theban monarch's history-the Edipus at Colonus-the rich descriptions of the romantic scenery about Athens-the glowing pictures of the charms of external naturerelieve the wretchedness occasioned by the contemplation of an exiled monarch, poor, helpless, and blind. But the charm of the piece is Antigone,-the most beautiful personification of filial and feminine affection that ever emanated from a poet's soul. Her faithful attendance on her hapless father, to alleviate whose wretchedness she has devoted the morning of her life-her affectionate pleading for her erring brother-and her anxious desire to save Thebes from the evils. threatened by fraternal war-invest her with a moral loveliness which identifies her with every feeling that is noble in our nature. In the concluding tragedy of the Theban The Edipus Tyrannus stands alone in the trilogy,-a tragedy which, by some incom history of the drama: it is the only tragedy prehensible mistake, is placed apart from in ancient or modern literature that reveals those with which it forms a tragic trilogy, the catastrophe in the very opening of the Antigone appears as a sister, risking life to play, and yet not only preserves the inter-pay the rites of sepulture to the body of the est to the end, but heightens in its intensity unfortunate Polynices. A strength and force as we advance. The effect is produced by of determination now is revealed, that could the slow, but certain gradations by which scarcely be expected in a creature of such

tenderness, did we not know that a wound to the tender affections momentarily inspires an energy that rises above all dangers, and defies all consequences: it is the manifestation of strength in weakness, courage in timidity, and heroic daring in the very softness of effeminacy.

But we must quit a theme, on which we have perhaps expatiated too freely, and turn to the translation before us. It is executed with great spirit and fidelity--the language, like that of the original, is simple and elegant, not disfigured by meretricious ornament or ambitious affectation. It is, indeed, a version worthy of a place in the Family Classical Library, and higher praise it could scarcely receive; for that series has been hitherto conducted with so much spirit, taste, and judgment, that we are afraid of wearying our readers by so often repeating our commendations and our hearty wishes for its continued success.

The Golden Calf: a comedy, in three acts.

|

but the spectator of it, prefer it to what is called pleasure, in which all is not pleasure. It is difficult to think that this head, though of the highest ideal beauty, is the head of Minerva, although the attributes and attitude of the lower part of the statue certainly suggest that idea. The Greeks rarely, in their representations of the characters of their gods, (unless we call the poetic enthusiasm of Apollo a mortal passion,) expressed the disturbance of human feeling; and here is deep and impassioned grief animating a divine countenance. It is, indeed, divine. Wisdom (which Minerva may be supposed to emblem,) is pleading earnestly with Power, and invested with the expression of that grief, because it must ever plead so vainly. The drapery of the statue, the gentle beauty of the feet, and the grace of the attitude, are what may be seen in many other statues belonging to that astonishing era which produced it: such a countenance is seen in few. This statue happens to be placed on a By pedestal, the subject of whose reliefs are in a spirit wholly the reverse. It was probably an altar to Bacchus-possibly a funeral urn. Under the festoons of fruits and flowers that grace the pedestal, the corners of which are ornamented with the sculls of goats, are sculptured some figures of Mænads under the inspiration of the god. + Nothing can be conceived more wild and terrible than their gestures, touching, as they do, the verge of distortion, into which their fine limbs and lovely forms are thrown. There is nothing, however, that exceeds the possibility of nature, though it borders on its utmost line.

Douglas Jerrold. London: Richardson. WE are glad to see that this clever little piece, with which critics and the public were equally well pleased on its representation, is now published.

ORIGINAL PAPERS

ON GENOA.

From Alfieri.

O thou, who sit'st in stateliest majesty,
Glassing thyself beside Liguria's sea,
And, towering from thy curved shores to the sky,
Scorn'st at thy back the mountains mantling
thee,

Proud in those moles and palaces, Italy
Though great and fair, boasts not to rival; why
Are not thy citizens such as thine should be,
In mind, soul, spirit, somewhat worthier thee?
They with their fasts and griping penances-
Their hoarded gold, heaped up, and heaping,

might

Better at once be buried-'twould cost thee less; That wealth which rots, their bane and their

Critical Notices of the SCULPTRE IN THE FLORENCE GALLERY. BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. [Continued from page 602.] The Minerva.

THE head is of the highest beauty. It has a close helmet, from which the hair, delicately parted on the forehead, half escapes. The attitude gives entire effect to the perfect form of the neck, and to that full and beautiful moulding of the lower part of the face and mouth, which is in living beings the seat of the expression of a simplicity and integrity of nature. Her face, upraised to heaven, is animated with a profound, sweet, and impassioned melancholy, with an earnest, and fervid, and disinterested pleading against some vast and inevitable wrong. It is the joy and poetry of sorrow making grief beautiful, and giving it that nameless feeling which, from the imperfection of language, we call pain, but which is not all pain, though a feeling which makes not only its possessor,

The tremendous spirit of superstition, aided by drunkenness, producing something beyond insanity, seems to have caught them in its whirlwinds, and to bear them over the earth, as the rapid volutions of a tempest heave the ever-changing trunk of a waterspout, or as the torrent of a mountain river whirls the autumnal leaves resistlessly along in its full eddies. The hair, loose and floating, seems caught in the tempest of their own tumultuous motion; their heads are thrown back, leaning with a strange delirium upon their necks, and looking up to heaven, whilst they totter and stumble even in the energy of their tempestuous dance.

One represents Agave with the head of Pentheus in one hand, and in the other a great knife; a second has a spear with its pine cone, which was the Thyrsus; another dances with mad voluptuousness; the fourth is beating a kind of tambourine.

This was indeed a monstrous superstition, even in Greece, where it was alone capable of combining ideal beauty and poetical and abstract enthusiasm with the wild errors from which it sprung. In Rome it had a more familiar, wicked, and dry appearance; it was not suited to the severe and exact apprehensions of the Romans, and their strict morals were violated by it, and sustained a deep injury, little analogous to its effects upon the Greeks, who turned all things-superstition, prejudice, murder, madness—to beauty.

She seems all soft and mild enjoyment, and the curved lines of her fine limbs flow into each other with a never-ending sinuosity of sweetness. Her face expresses a breathless, yet passive and innocent voluptuousness, free from affectation. Her lips, without the sublimity of lofty and impetuous passion, the grandeur of enthusiastic imagination of the Apollo of the Capitol, or the union of both, like the Apollo Belvidere, have the tenderness of arch, yet pure and affectionate desire, and the mode in which the ends of the mouth are drawn in, yet lifted or half-opened, with the smile that for ever circles round them, and the tremulous curve into which they are wrought by inextinguishable desire, and the tongue lying against the lower lip, as in the listlessness of passive joy, express love, still love.

Her eyes seem heavy and swimming with pleasure, and her small forehead fades on both sides into that sweet swelling and thin declension of the bone over the eye, in the mode which expresses simple and tender feelings.

The neck is full, and panting as with the aspiration of delight, and flows with gentle curves into her perfect form.

Her form is indeed perfect. She is halfsitting and half-rising from a shell, and the fullness of her limbs, and their complete roundness and perfection, do not diminish the vital energy with which they seem to be animated. The position of the arms, which are lovely beyond imagination, is natural, unaffected, and easy. This, perhaps, is the finest personification of Venus, the deity of superficial desire, in all antique statuary. Her pointed and pear-like person, ever virgin, and her attitude modesty itself.

A Bas-Relief. Probably the sides of a
Sarcophagus.

The lady is lying on a couch, supported by a young woman, and looking extremely exhausted; her dishevelled hair is floating about her shoulder, and she is half-covered with drapery that falls on the couch.

Her tunic is exactly like a chemise, only the sleeves are longer, coming half way down the upper part of the arm. An old wrinkled woman, with a cloak over her head, and an enormously sagacious look, has a most professional appearance, and is taking hold of her arm gently with one hand, and with the other is supporting it. I think she is feeling her pulse. At the side of the couch sits a woman as in grief, holding her head in her hands. At the bottom of the bed is another matron tearing her hair, and in the act of screaming out most violently, which she seems, however, by the rest of her gestures, to do with the utmost deliberation, as having come to the resolution, that it was a correct thing to do so. Behind her is a gossip of the most ludicrous ugliness, crying, I suppose, or praying, for her arms are crossed upon her neck. There is also a fifth setting up a wail. To the left of the couch a nurse is sitting on the ground dandling the child in her arms, and wholly occupied in so doing. The infant is swaddled. Behind her is a female who

appears to be in the act of rushing in with dishevelled hair and violent gesture, and in one hand brandishing a whip or a thunderbolt. This is probably some emblematic person, the messenger of death, or a fury, whose personification would be a key to the whole

What they are all wailing at, I know not; whether the lady is dying, or the father has directed the child to be exposed: but if the mother be not dead, such a tumult would kill a woman in the straw in these days.

The other compartment, in the second scene of the drama, tells the story of the presentation of the child to its father. An old man has it in his arms, and with professional and mysterious officiousness is holding it out to the father. The father, a middle-aged and very respectable-looking man, perhaps not long married, is looking with the admiration of a bachelor on his first child, and perhaps thinking, that he was once such a strange little creature himself. His hands are clasped, and he is gathering up between his arms the folds of his cloak, an emblem of his gathering up all his faculties to understand the tale the gossip is bringing.

An old man is standing beside him, probably his father, with some curiosity, and much tenderness in his looks. Around are collected a host of his relations, of whom the youngest, a handsome girl, seems the least concerned. It is altogether an admirable piece, quite in the spirit of the comedies of Terence.t

Michael Angelo's Bacchus.

The countenance of this figure is a most revolting mistake of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. It looks drunken, brutal, narrowminded, and has an expression of desolateness the most revolting. The lower part of the figure is stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are united to the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly inharmonious. It is altogether without unity, as was the idea of the deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic. On the other hand, considered only as a piece of workmanship, it has many merits. The arms are executed in a style of the most perfect and manly beauty, The body is conceived with great energy, and the manner in which the lines mingle into each other, of the highest boldness and truth. It wants unity as a work of art--as a representation of Bacchus it wants everything. A Juno.

A statue of great merit. The countenance expresses a stern and unquestioned severity of dominion, with a certain sadness. The lips are beautiful-susceptible of expressing

scorn

-but not without sweetness. With fine

THE INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE AND ART IN INDIA.

THE ancient Egyptians wrote a language of signs and symbols, which Europeans have not yet mastered; the early Christian Missionaries taught savage nations the mysteries of the atonement by the same means; and something like this primitive mode of instruction still prevails in the Indian Peninsula, and in the tributary isles. There the native tribes, by means of painting and sculpture, and dramatic representations, not only maintain a correspondence between cities and nations, but keep up an uniformity of character, and preserve an air of politeness in their intercourse, which their knowledge of these arts inspire. They are, in truth, an indolent people, and are content to go the shortest way to acquire the little learning they desire. They would dislike to study painting and sculpture in academies, but they would lie and gaze by the hour on a noble statue or an historic painting, and imbibe a far loftier notion of the power of the people who produced them, than they could do any other way: they would smile were they desired to puzzle out the meaning of Shakspeare through the medium of their broken English, but they would go in crowds to see Macbeth represented. They dislike all mental labour, and much of the bodily too, and as art springs from nature, and speaks all languages with the same clearness and fluency, they are content to take her for their schoolmistress.

We have been led into these remarks, by reading the evidence lately given by Sir Alexander Johnston, before a Committee of the House of Commons, for inquiring into the affairs of the India Company, and the condition of the people of the East. Sir Alexander has considered the subject ripely; to his own observations he has added the testimony of many intelligent officers, who have served or are serving in that country; and we look upon his remarks as of great importance to those who desire to extend in India, European knowledge and taste, and maintain among the numerous nations an

An Apollo, with serpents twining round a wreath of laurel on which the quiver is suspended. It probably was, when complete, magnificently beautiful. The restorer of the head and arms, following the indication of the muscles of the right side, has lifted the arm, as in triumph, at the success of an arrow, imagining to imitate the Lycian Apollo in that, so finely described by Apollonius Rho

+ This bas-relief is not antique. It is of the Cinqui

Cento.-Ed.

and show our Academy that the East opens her gates to receive their works, though the country is reluctant to purchase them at home. To all those who join in these sentiments, and they are founded on knowledge, the more complete introduction of painting

and sculpture, and the drama, into the East, appears a matter of vast importance-they are looked upon as ready instruments for improving the understanding, raising the moral character, and securing to Britain the admiration and attachment of the natives of

India.

With this in his mind, it is proposed by Sir Alexander, that our Indian Government be empowered to lay out a certain sum annually, to encourage historical painters, sculptors, and dramatic writers, in the pro

duction of such works as may suit the cha

racter and feelings of the people of the East, and at the same time place before them distinct and attractive images of our power, our prowess, of our sciences, our commerce, and our freedom. The subjects on which artists and authors would employ their talents, might be chosen for them by persons conversant with the character and condition of the people, and an annual report made by our Indian authorities, upon the moral or political effects which such works produce on the natives. Such is, in brief, the proposal of Sir Alexander: it is, in truth, but an extension of the principle upon which he has himself privately acted; he has sent out sculpture, and dramatic poetry—written on purpose by Joanna Baillie; and as the results have been favourable, he feels that the nation might with propriety do something in the same way for the benefit of both countries. Our government might be worse employed than in looking to this.

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.

WHILE Our antiquarians have been turning up every barrow and molehill in search of novel facts (and what could England be expected to yield, whose history can be traced in a continued stream from Julius Cæsar to the present time?), similar excavations have been carried on in North America, that cannot fail to be interesting from the lights they are likely to throw on subjects of consider able obscurity. In the barrows there opened have been found, together with human skeletons, earthen vessels, and utensils composed of alloyed metal, indicating the past existence of an art at present unknown to the nations of that continent. This fact, connected with others produced by Robertson, and confirmed by Bullock in his Museum of Mexican Antiquities,' is sufficient to prove that America, though called the New World, is quite as old as our portion of it; nor is it at all improbable that we are the youngsters of the race of Adam; for, with the exception of the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Vases lately discovered in Italy twenty feet below the present surface of the soil, we have nothing in Europe to show, as proofs of antiquity, equal to the fact recorded by Mr. Ferrall; + who states, that at the Bull Shoals, east branch of White River, in Missouri, several feet below the surface of the river, reliquiae were found, which indicated that the spot had formerly been the seat of metallurgical operations, where the alloy appeared to be lead united

with silver; arrow heads also cut out of flint, and fragments of earthenware that had undergone the operation of fire were found there; and though we have no data to tell us at what time these operations were carried on, the period must have been very remote, as the present banks have been since entirely formed by alluvial deposits.

A still more curious circumstance, mentioned by Mr. Ferrall also, is, that a few years since a number of pigmy graves were dis covered near Merrimac River, in St. Louis

County. The coffins were of stone, and the length of the bodies could not have exceeded three feet and a half to four feet; and, as the graves were many, and the skeletons in some nearly entire, it was easy to perceive they could not have been those of children.

rica. Athenæum, No, 250. + See Rambles through the United States of Ame

is evidently, like the Latin gula, derived from the sound made by a person eating, and similar to the English gobble; nor is vin very different from wi' him, that is with him.

Thus, too, in the Delaware word, machtitschwanne, one may detect mach like the English much, and wanne, the old English wain, corrupted from the German wagen, the origin of wagon, while titsch, like the Latin Tethys, is probably sea-water; and thus machtitschwanne is in reality much seawater way.

DISCOVERY NEAR TIVOLI PANEGYRIC ON DODWELL-THE ABBATE ZANNONI

VESUVIUS.

Rome 22nd August. SOME attention has been excited among the antiquaries of this place by the discovery of thirty bodies, covered over with large tiles, on the banks of the Aviene, near the grotto of Neptune at Tivoli. Several medals and fragments of inscriptions were found scattered on the spot, but, in general, they have not proved of much value. On one of them may be traced the letters

MILITI....C. AUG.; and on another the word LEZBIA. The whole of these remains have

been carefully removed to the Townhall of the

district.

The last meeting of the Academy of Archæology took place on the 2nd instant; and the most attractive part of the proceedings was a detailed illustration, drawn up and read by Visconti, the secretary, of an antique Grecian marble found in the island of Syros, and presented to the Academy by the Austrian traveller, Colonel Prokesch, who is at present on a mission to the court of Rome. It is the more valuable from containing two words which have hitherto escaped detection; these are, Archoine (Archontess), and Demothoineo (a festive banquet given to the populace). The learned Secretary then pronounced an eloquent eulogium on our lamented countryman, Dodwell, who was a corresponding member of the Academy. After dwelling on the indefatigable industry which distinguished his whole life, Visconti held up his single-hearted devotion to the advancement of antiquarian science and investigations, as entitled both to the gratitude and admiration of every scholar. He next traced Dodwell's pilgrimages through Italy and Greece, and referred to the noble collections he had formed, the excavations he had set on foot, and the works he had published;amongst the latter, none, Visconti observed, promised to be of more extensive utility, than his projected publication on the ancient structures of Greece and Italy, for which he had not only prepared a considerable portion of the text, but left behind him as many as one hundred and fifty-three designs and plates. The orator then instanced the extent of his labours and attain

ments in the science of Lithology; as an evidence of which he stated, that Dodwell had collected

two hundred specimens of lavas, thrown up by the spent volcanoes in the vicinity of Rome, and far surpassing those either of Etna or Vesuvius in beauty; besides having, at a very considerable expense both of toil and money, brought together two thousand five hundred specimens of English, French, Swiss, and Italian marbles; many of which he had himself discovered. This address was rapturously applauded at its conclusion by one of the most numerous and respectable audiences which have ever attended the sittings of the Academy. The loss of Zannoni, who died at Florence on the 12th instant, where he has long and ably

filled the appointments of Secretary of the Della Cruscan Academy and Director of the department of Antiquities to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, is

greatly deplored. Independently of his erudite works in Greek, Etruscan, and Latin literature,

his illustrations of the Royal Gallery of Florence' would alone have sufficed to endear his memory to every cultivated mind.

Our friends in Naples, ever since Vesuvius has grown less wrathful, have been flocking to the spot in such multitudes, that it is become more like a Mecca or Loretto than a hideous

volcano, and our host, Il Guida del real Vesuvio, as he styles himself, not to be behindhand with his own well-doing, has, to the contentment of his followers, undertaken to appease their hunger with savouries on the very edge of

the crater.

OUR WEEKLY GOSSIP ON LITERATURE
AND ART.

THE publishing world is silent, and confounded by the success of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, which has swallowed up the gains of booksellers, and the hopes of authors: this steam-engine style of manufacturing books cannot, however, last long; genius must sooner or later resume the ascendancy, and destroy, like Aaron's rod, all such false enchantments. Some of our booksellers aided largely in calling into existence this mushroom literature: books were by these persons considered as newspapers, for the service only of the day of their birth, and were puffed into circulation by critical breezes and trade winds; next day brought a new book and a hundred new puffs, and the romance or novel of the day before, was sent to oblivion. The bookseller who published the book, was reckoned everything, and the author nothing, and, by his patronage,

We

Every desperate blockade dared to write. We had hoped that such publishers were beginning to be sensible of the ruin thus brought on literature, and of its reaction on themselves; but there is a dulness, on which even experience throws away its wisdom. have had a sad specimen lately of this catchpenny trickery, in the publication of 'Zohrab the Hostage.' This work was professedly reviewed in the Bookseller's Gazette of the eighth of this month, at a time when we have reason to believe, the printing was not finished-it was made the leading article, and ten columns were given, to satisfy the world of the importance of the work. In this professed review, there was, of course, a fine flourish about the "admired author," the "delightful author," and his "entertaining narrative; "and this serviceable paragraph has ever since been circulating all over the country-it has been impossible to take up a newspaper, without stumbling on it; we are of opinion, that not less than one hundred pounds has been expended in giving it curNow the orders from the country, for this "interesting narrative of this delightful author," must arrive in London by the 25th or 26th, to ensure the receipt of the work by the booksellers' monthly parcels. Will not this then be admitted as a system most ruinous to our literature, when we add, that Zohrab the Hostage' has not yet been seen, except by this trade critic, and that it is not even now published!

rency.

We hear that Professor Wilson has been much pleased with his cruise in the Vernon, wonders of the deep: we hope he will take and that he proposes to write a song on the London in his way home, and let us hear a stave of it. Wordsworth, too, has been sitting for his portrait to Pickersgill: the likeness is said to be great, and though not

"beautiful exceedingly," it will be welcome to all lovers of art and genius. The painter has declared it to be the finest of all his works, not even excepting Owen of Lanark and the Countess Guiccioli.

This is all we have heard in the way of home novelties; but in the leisure which our publishing quiet has left us, we have been running hastily over the continental periodicals, to inform ourselves of what might be expected from the foreign press-Germany is, of course, the most prolific. We observe that a German translation of the Chansons of Béranger has recently been published at Stuttgart. The grave and serious character of the German people has hitherto taught them to consider poetry as allied to the deepest passions and affections-thence may arise their comparative disrelish for the lighter and more sparkling effusions of the muse. Their language, also, is little adapted to exhibit the grace, the delicate pleasantry and gaiety of the French bard.-A new work is also an

nounced as in the press, by Messrs. Tzschopple and Stenzel, containing a collection of original documents, illustrative of the origin of the Slavonic cities, and the introduction and spread of the German colonies--a question often considered, and of great impor tance in history.

Two important works on Theology have just made their appearance in Holland—a new edition, in 2 vols. 4to., of Wetsten's New Testament, with considerable additions by Lotze; and an Encyclopædia of Theology, written for future divines, as the author, Dr. Clarisse, quaintly expresses it. We cannot but think that a translation of this work into English would be highly useful, as opening sources of knowledge to English theological students, which are at present wholly unknown by the great majority of scholars in this country. But it will perhaps more interest the general reader to be informed, that A. M. Passaraut, historical painter at Frankfort, who recently visited England for the purpose of exploring the collections of the great masters, and of ascertaining the progress of native art, now announces a work on these subjects, in which will be found, he says, much interesting matter relative to the personal history of many living artists, with whose friendship he was honoured during his stay: the whole interspersed with remarks on the public and private life of the English.

Approaching towards Italy, we read, that in Piedmont an association has been formed among the printers, for the purpose of re-publishing voluminous and expensive works. 'The Sermons of Segneri,' in 12 volumes, is the first announced to appear. As to Italy itself, it is well observed by a foreign writer, that its literary traffic with the rest of Europe seems to be impeded by the Alps and Apennines. It is certain that the new productions of the Italian press are longer in becoming known to the literati of foreign countries, than the works published in any other of the European communities: even in Italy itself the knowledge travels slowly; and the new works of Florence are among the latest novelties at Bologna, a year and a works which have lately appeared, we believe day after publication. The most important to be 'The Ritratta ed Elogi di Liguri illustri,' (Genoa); a continuation of the work begun by Gervasoni; and Pezzana's 'Continuazione delle Memorie degli Scrittori e Let