only expect to amuse it when it had no claims on its more serious attention. Even now we are afraid the noise of the radicals will drown our still voice; at least we shall find an excuse for "the world's neglect," in the uproar which civil broil engenders, and we shall still flatter our selves, that but for deep public distress, our writings would have been nailed on the mast of fame, a signal for ages to come. Full of the scene we had witnessed, we hastened home to inscribe it in our common-place book, and found on our arrival a vast collection of German reviews and literary journals heaped on our table, which interested us almost as much as the Monastery, and made us for a moment forget it. They were the first we had received this year, the ice having interrupted the communication. Our own journals come to us day after day, and so gradually and constantly, that we are scarcely sensible of the quantity of mental food we devour; but when we receive at one moment a six months allowance, we are astonished at our own gluttony. We ran over number after number, and pamphlet after pamphlet, as if we thought we could catch the information they contained merely by looking on the covers. We wished for a dozen pair of eyes and half a dozen minds, to see and comprehend the whole at once. We were afraid that our ingenious, speculative, and industrious brethren on the opposite side of the water, might, in the six months we have lost sight of them, have found a north polar passage in that region (the air) in which they are said to reign paramount, and have arrived at the el dorado of science and knowledge. Our fears were, however, without foundation, and our wishes also were vain. To ascertain the value of our treasure it was necessary to examine it more minutely. We first devoted ourselves to the wisdom and learning of the whole University of Göttingen, compressed into the small space of a ducdecimo. Good things, says the proverb, are made up in little parcels, and all this wisdom is not only crowded into a little form, but is sparingly issued to the world in half sheets and quarter Göttingsche gelehrte Anzeigen. Published under the superintendence of the Royal Society of Sciences at Gottingen. sheets. The Professors think a number of little blows are more agreeable than one large blow, and they assault the citadel of ignorance with their paper bullets twice a week. They are in league with the garrison, and rather desire to tickle them out of their strong hold, than to force them to evacuate. They are not likely to conquer the world by storm. We hastily ran over the whole, and saw little that we in our then frame of mind could employ. Short literary notices of new books, with the sum and substance of their information, they give rarely extracted-a sort of catalogue raisonné is a very useful but not a very amusing book. But here, mixed with the rest, is the Account of the Proceedings of the Society of Sciences itself, which celebrated, on the 13th of November 1819, the eighty-sixth anniversary of its foundation. The Society changed its president for the year, heard some papers read, and mourned over the members they had lost in the year. Among these we noticed Count Festetics, so well known for his endeavours to promote knowledge in Hungary, and the celebrated French volcanist, Faujas St Fond, who was in the habit of calling a destroying volcano, Un tres beau Phenomene. The society also appointed certain prizes for the ensuing year. Few of our readers, we believe, are likely to be candidates for these, and we therefore pass them by. Should any of our literary friends, however, be anxious to obtain the honours and the ducats which the Society have it in their power to give, they will find all the conditions which it is necessary to comply with mentioned in the 194th Number, published the 4th of December 1819, of the above mentioned journal. It may be of some interest to mention, that Professor and Hofrath Hauseman read a description to the Society of a meteoric stone, which does not seem to be one of the best authenticated instances ever met with of the fact of such stones falling from the clouds. It was, however, attended with some curious circumstances. On the night of the 12th of October, an inhabitant of Hartmannsdorf, a village a league south-west from Politz, in the territories of the Prince of Reuss, saw a brilliant light in the heavens, which he compared to an aurora-borealis. On the following day, at seven o'clock in the morning, weather cloudy and calm, a noise in the air was heard in this neighbourhood, which some people compared to the noise of a cannon. This was followed by something like the sounds of organs or ringing of bells, or distant singing, or like a storm raging in a pine forest-for it was compared to them all-and then a stroke was felt as if a body had fallen on the earth from a great height. After the explosion, the atmosphere remained quiet, and, though some people thought they had ascertained the direction of the stroke, no one went immediately to the spot. Some days afterwards, however, an honest peasant found in this direction a meteoric stone, weighing 7 pounds and 1 ounce. It was about 5 inches long, and somewhat less thick, and was taken possession of by the government for the Prince of Reuss. It was deposited, after some specimens had been taken away for examination, in the Gymnasium at Gera, under a glass case, as a "sacred, irremovable treasure," which was not to be touched. We, how ever, mention the circumstance in order that the next of our curious travellers who visits Germany may be sure not to forget Gera and the stone. We have a great anxiety to know the exact measure and size of the glass case which covers it-the sort of table on which it lies-the age and look of the keeper-the present "form and body" of the stone-in short, we desire earnestly to be informed of all those minute, interesting circumstances relative to it, which modern travellers are so careful to give us of far less celebrated things. For a more perfect description of the celestial object, which we do not doubt will be interesting to chemists and mineralogists, we must refer to Professor Hauseman's paper, which is contained in the 205th Number, published December 25, 1819, of the above Journal. Professor and Hofrath Tychsen's paper on the medals and monies of the Mahommedan era will be interesting to oriental scholars; and Professor Stromeyer's analysis of some Greenland minerals will not pass unnoticed by chemists. But, as we happen to be neither one nor the other, they are not "grist for our mill ;"and we can only recommend them to the notice of the editors of the Quar new terly Journal of Science. Here follows something more to our purpose. It is a notice," that some of the works of our Professor and Hofrath Heeren are translated into both French and Dutch, and that some of these translations, having gone through two editions, is a proof how highly these works of our Professor and Hofrath are honoured, even out of Germany." This is, of course, a call on all true Germans to regard this learned man as the great honour of his country. We are sure our readers must laugh with us at the vanity which dictated this notice, when we tell them the initials at the bottom leave no doubt it was written by our Professor and Hofrath himself. Such is the undisguised manner in which the Germans "fish for fame." It is, however, a specimen of an honest homeliness, an open sincerity of heart, which we be lieve to be peculiar to them, and which is rather to be praised than censured. The remainder of the Journal, including five months, contained nothing which we can present to our readers. From the philosophic duodecimo we turned to an octavo scarcely less philosophic, which is sent into the world at Heidelberg, at the rate of 100 pages monthly. Like the lesser work, the greater part of its contents are medicine, jurisprudence, and the natural sciences. Notices of German literary works were few, and those few not of much importance. Messrs Fouque and Laun, with the wife of the former gentleman, have given birth to another volume of those tales of ghosts, spirits, and horrors, of which they are such rapid manufac turers. If we did not happen to know that the makers of such tales, like boys who make figures with phosphorus on a wall, are the only persons on whom their own tales have no effect, except contributing to their more comfortable subsistence, there is no class of persons we should pity so much as the writers of ghostly romances. We really do think, in spite of the Heidelberg Review, that it is high time all such tales were gi ven up for ever. When a belief in spirits was general, there was some reason for authors writing books in which they were the principal agents. "An untranslatable title. praised. The work is poetical, but as no single specimen, and nothing but the titles of the little separate tales of which the two volumes consist is given, we dare not venture to give an opinion concerning it. Expecting amusement from it hereafter, we are willing to hope the book answers to the favourable notice taken of it. But, now that it is nearly conquered by philosophy, every man of sense should be ashamed of endeavouring to uphold or revive it. It is one of the errors of the past generation; it is full of trembling and fear; and we ought all of us to wish it not merely banished, but forgotten. A belief in supernatural agency, in the common affairs of life, was formerly the foundation of much, and still is of some delusion. A night to a sailor on the watch, is to him like day, but to a superstitious being who has rarely been after dark in a place less light than a public street, night is fraught with terror. No man of sense, and we must class authors as men of sense, should in any way encourage a mischievous belief in ghosts and apparitions. If we tolerate the appearance of supernatural beings in the works of some of our greatest authors, we do it for the sake of the beauties they are united with. They, however, are blemishes, and we do not admire nor love them for themselves. Ancient writers may be justified for using them. They believed in them, but modern writers, who are less credulous than the vulgar, want every excuse. Such we conceive Messrs de la Motte, Fouque and Laun to be, and we are at a loss to imagine how their "tales, sayings, and poetry * of the world of spirits" can find admiring reviewers. We have less to say against another work they mention, the title of which is peculiarly descriptive of the general tendency of German authors. By them, namely all emotions, particularly if allied to enthusiasm, are regarded as mysterious. They designate them with a species of cant somewhat resembling the quaint phrases of the early Quakers and Methodists. that we are naturally led to suppose German poets labour under a similar sort of enthusiasm. The inward man of our sectaries is the inward life of the Germans, and the movements which the latter describe correspond precisely with the "workings of the Spirit." The work here reviewed is called "Pictures taken from the inward Life." The author chooses to remain anonymous, though not only this, but a prior work have been much Aus der Geisterwelt. Sagen und Dichtungen. Two specimens are given, in the Heidelberg reviews, of October, and November, of the old poetry of Germany. We are glad to find the Germans recurring to the manly, though rude ages of chivalry. They will not adopt the ferocity of that period, and its vigour, sincerity, and even harshness, may make them ashamed of their present feminine, and over refinement. The clearness and graphic nature of the writings of former ages will aid ridicule and reason in banishing the mysterious enthusiasm which is at present the greatest reproach under which the German character labours. The first of these works is Kopp's Sketches and Writings of a former period. It contains a great mixture. A small poem of the 14th century, the name of which is the Mirror for Knights, + is the greatest curiosity. The manuscript was found in the library at Cassel. Some of the other papers relate to the old Saxon code, and some to inscriptions and remarkable manuscripts. The other example is the narrative of a Christian mission and conversion, done out of Latin into German verse, by a certain Rudolf von Montfort. The history relates to the 3d century, but it is not mentioned when the author lived. This is a tidbit of antique biography, reserved, as the reviewer says, for a future occasion. The name of the work is BarSo laam and Josaphat. Rudolf was at least an industrious and prolific poet. Two other productions of his contain together 64,000 verses, and one of them appears to be a "chronicle of the world." We notice also a translation into German of the Orlando Furioso, which is by no means executed to the reviewer's satisfaction. Of course, it is not the work of those admirable translators the Vosses, but of a gentleman who bears the name of Streckfuss. Poems, by Wilhelm Hey, shine in the pages of the review, like Geschichten, + Bilder aus dem innern Leben. VOL. VI. * Bilderund Schriften der Vorzeit. YY a somewhat naughty child under the correction of a fond mother. The form, and the features, and the general character, are praised, that the youth may be encouraged, but faults of rythmus and grammatical errors are the only specimens of the work selected. We cannot look on it with a mother's fondness, and can only imagine there must be a great scarcity of good poetry, when this is allowed to take up four pages of the review. Travels by a Mr Meyer, through part of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, chiefly mineralogical, is the only book of this description we see noticed. In general, the Germans are deficient in such works. Humboldt, and Von Buch, and Hammer, are enlightened, learned, and truly instructive travellers, but in general the Germans are indebted for that geographical information they know so well how to compile, to the travellers of other countries. Some celebrated Germans by birth, such as Hornemann, Burckhardt, and others, were in truth the travellers of another nation. There is a review of three minor poets worth further notice. The first of these, Mr Ernst Frederick Georg Otto von Malsburg, makes in his preface a direct claim on the friendship of his readers. "The friends who know me, and who are attached to me, will not love me the less for publishing these poems; and those persons who do not know me, may, perhaps, learn from them to love me." Another specimen of the homely honest way the Germans have of speaking out their feelings. We are taught to mistrust the reviewers when we find them praising such verses as the following: We give a literal translation. Most true there is a holy feeling, Which the powers of darkness dare not touch; They dare, 'tis true, but vain, their toils They sink in the abyss, and there despair. The following, however, they think are not excellent, though they regret they should disfigure the pages of the illustrious Mr Malsburg. The poet says, when night comes, Then like two fountains And further, Oh, my tears, flow on, flow on, This is quite equal to the tears that were shed for one of our own good queens, which were said by some court boatmen who conveyed her dead body poet to have been so abundant, that the by water, might have" rowed her through her people's eyes." Again, The cheeks glow, and always paler streams. The flame cannot dry the flood, The more I try to extinguish it with my tears? * We are hard-hearted translators, we believe; for we cannot love the noble Frederick von Malsburg for his verses. Though we, in our merry moods, should have no objection to see some few more specimens of his bathos. If we did not love him, we should at least laugh. The second author is a poet of quite a different stamp. "A brave boy of nature," as the reviewer calls him, a bookbinder's apprentice,―a sort of apparition which has not appeared in Germany since the days of the celebrated cobler Hans Sachs, who made extempore verses to the music of his lap-stone, and represented God preaching and moralizing with all the attributes of a Nurnburg pastor. The specimen which is given of the productions of the bookbinder, speaks much better for him, than the tears, for the noble Frederick. We are afraid, however, Jacob Schnerr will not rise to be the Burns or the Blocinfield of Germany. A description of the course of life in the ballad style is both simple and neat. His work is published at Nurnberg, the former seat of poetry, when, like other trades, it had its guild, its masters, and its apprentices. We hope Jacob may help to re-establish a poetical corporation, and may rise himself to be a master. † *Heidelberg Review, for October 1819. Gedichte von Ernst Frederick Georg Otto von Malsburg. Ibid. Gedichte von Jacob Schnerr. Miss Theresa von Artner, the third of the prolific race, is spoken of in rather too contemptuous a manner by the reviewers, when she is called a minor poet. A person who writes hexameters on the meanest subject, and at will, is surely a poet of firstrate importance. The following is a specimen of "The Slaughter Feast," a poem written on killing a fat hog, and written to convince a friend who had laughed at her scribbling propensity that she could write on such a subject. The sacrifice our fair readers not to despair. Industry in their calling, whether they are painters or poets, may enable them to attain as great an elevation as the accomplished Theresa. When we got thus far in our reading and remarks, we were surprised to find that we had stuff enough for an article; and, in the full confidence that our readers will be pleased with our efforts, we resolved, under the title prefixed to this paper, to give them such information, monthly, as we may obtain from German periodical works, relative to German litera a fat ture. Grunts, bound in the gateway; swine, heavy as lead, Oh! A stately animal! Nearly as large and as weighty As that boar which was sent as a scourge on Calydon's fields, And which the heroes of Greece united to destroy. So unite yourselves to-day, hand-sure butchers, More certain of victory,—though already glowing, the small Deep eyes roll about. The harvest is, however, so vast, that only a very few of the scattered ears can be gathered into our store. Our selection will be as varied. as possible. It will necessarily be a patched work: but we shall use all the skill we possess in the joining. And we have no doubt that a few of the diamonds, and pearls, and false stones of Germany, mixed and turned in our kaleidoscope, may bring forward many varied and beautiful pat terns. THE BYSTANDER. No. II. THE Contemplation of the various changes which, during the lapse of five thousand years, have been wrought on this our temporary abode, affords, to a reflecting mind, an inexhaustible store of useful and interesting meditation. It is pleasing to trace from age to age, the gradual developement of the faculties of man; to observe, that while one generation hath passed away, and another succeeded, cach has added its mite to the general stock of knowledge; which has thus attained to that accumulated mass, of which we now reap the benefit. In contemplating the many revolutions that have taken place on this theatre of man's exploits, we are gratified by observing, that these have rarely been effected by fortuitous circumstances, or unforeseen accidents; but that the great Disposer of events has generally made use of the mind of man, that ethereal spark which assimilates to his own divine nature, as the instrument for working these changes. It is gratifying thus to behold the supremacy of this unseen part of our nature; to perceive the |