dangers into which their fathers fell, should circumstances ever bring round such another crisis in the destiny of the beautiful but till now unfortunate Peninsula.

We have not yet made any remark on Mr. Botta's style, but in this respect we think he has made a successful attempt at reviving the lofty step and classical garb of the great Tuscan historians in the sixteenth century, of whom Guicciardini seems to have been his principal model. To those whose taste has been early accustomed to the exotic phraseology and affected simplicity, from which even the best writers of the last century are not totally free, the sententious turn of Botta's periods may appear bordering on pedantry; to us, who consider the Italian language as susceptible of the greatest variety of tone and measure even in prose, it is satisfactory to see historical narrative rescued from the familiar tone of the apologue, or of letter-writing. We cannot speak so favourably as to his choice of words, which has always proved a stumbling-block to writers born in the countries of dialects, who, in purity and freedom, seldom can equal the natives of Tuscany, or even of Rome. We have observed some trivial expressions, especially when the author indulges in a humorous or satirical vein, and certain vulgarisms, little suited to the dignity of the subject. His fondness for long speeches, in which he makes his principal characters express their sentiments, is but little suited to the "reading public" of the present day. But, on the other hand, he excels in the description of stirring events-of the bustle of the field, the alarms of a siege, the din and tumult of popular commotions, the soul-harrowing calamities of the devoted inhabitants, -the victims of famine, pestilence, or the sword; in these he stands unrivalled. We might point out numberless passages of this kind; for example, his account of the dreadful events at Naples in 1799, that of the siege of Genoa, in Book xix.-of the catastrophe of Preveza, the passage of St. Bernard by the French, and of the wars of Calabria and Sicily, in Books xxiv. and xxvi.

MISCELLANEOUS LITERARY NOTICES.

No. I.

AUSTRIA.

THE celebrated orientalist M. von Hammer has recently published the first volume of his History of the Turkish Empire, which is to form six volumes 8vo. with Maps. This work is the fruit of thirty years research in nearly two hundred Turkish, Arabic, and Persian works, independently of those examined on this subject in almost every important library in Europe, amongst which M. von Hammer cites particularly the collections of Oxford and Cambridge.

For a long time vain attempts were made to abolish the Bohemian language at Prague. As the Bohemians constitute the majority in their native country, the national language has triumphed, and the government has become convinced that it is lost labour to attempt abolishing the idiom of a whole kingdom. A theatre has recently been opened for the performance of national pieces.

In general, every village in Hungary has its schoolmaster, (vide Magda, Statistique et Geographie de la Hongrie,) and it is very rare to meet with a Catholic or Protestant peasant unable to read. After this we may be able to estimate the accuracy of a statement recently emitted by a high authority— the Edinburgh Review-that almost all the inhabitants of Hungary, Transylvania, and Croatia, can neither read nor write. Vide Revue Encycl. Mars,

1827.

A new edition of Eckhel's Doctrina Nummorum Veterum has lately appeared at Vienna, in 8 vols., together with the hitherto inedited Addenda.

The Lives of the principal Latin Poets of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries, with a metrical Translation of their best Poems, accompanied with the original Texts, and the necessary historical and mythological Notes, will speedily appear at Vienna, in 3 vols.

Beethoven, the celebrated composer, died at Vienna, on the 26th March.

Lithographic Impressions of Select Drawings, by celebrated Masters of all the Schools, from the collection of the Archduke Charles, will speedily appear. This collection contains 14,000 original designs. The work will be published in livraisons, the number of which is not yet fixed. The early Numbers will contain the Schools of Italy and Germany, and the latter the Schools of France and the Netherlands. A Part will be published monthly. Each plate will be 26 inches long by 18 broad.

BAVARIA.

THE education of the clergy has been at all times an object of solicitude with the German princes. It is more particularly during the last half century, however, that their chief attention has been directed to it, in order that the clergy might keep pace with the improvement of the people. The reforms effected in Austria under Maria Theresa and Joseph II. and even under the present Emperor, are well known. It is chiefly in other parts of the south of Germany that ecclesiastical instruction has been organized on a large scale, and adapted to the moral and intellectual wants of the nineteenth century. It is in the Grand Duchy of Baden, in Wirtemberg, and Bavaria where such a state of things has been established, and where its good effects are felt. The clergy in these countries, having become truly adapted to the wants of the nation, exert a salutary influence on all classes of society. The Catholic is the religion of the state, but all others are free; and all citizens, whatever their creed, are equally admissible to the same public functions and employments, and possess the same civil and political rights. The Articles of the Concordat concluded with the Pope are subordinate, in their application, to the fundamental law of the state, and particularly to the Edict on religious matters annexed to this law. On all these, and many other points, the excellent Manual of Ecclesiastical Law of M. Brendel, Public Professor of Ecclesiastical Law at the University of Wurzburgh, may be consulted. It is one of the most important works that has appeared in Germany in our days, and combats in a manner equally victorious, the doctrines of the Ultras, and the false opinions attempted to be circulated in Europe.

The publication of the Kayserchronik, or Chronicle of the Emperors, is to take place immediately. It is an historical poem of the twelfth century, containing 17,500 verses, and will be edited by Dr. Massmann, in 2 vols. 8vo. The first volume will contain the Text, with various Readings and Notes; the second will consist of a Dictionary, Historical Notes, Fac-Similes, &c. The editor also intends publishing, in parts, a Series of Documents on the Language and Literature of Germany during the Early and Middle Ages, collected during a voyage of two years devoted to visiting the libraries of Wolfenbüttel, Heidelberg, Munich, Strasburgh, &c.

Senefelder, the inventor of Lithography, has discovered a new mode of printing from paintings, which has all the qualities of those executed in oil. He has termed it Mosaic Printing, and it is remarkable for its beauty, lightness, and durability.

DENMARK.

PROFESSOR MOLBECH, First Secretary to the Royal Library of Copenhagen, intends publishing by subscription the oldest Danish Translation of the principal parts of the Historical Books of the Old Testament, from a MS. of the fifteenth century, in the Library of Tholl.

On the 28th of January last, being the anniversary of the birth of the King, a Society was formed at Copenhagen for the purpose of encouraging the composition and publication of literary and historical works of merit in the Danish

language, and for rewarding writers in these branches who deserve well of an enlightened public.

Professor Rask, of Copenhagen, has lately returned from his travels in the East, after several years absence, devoted, on the spot, to the study of the languages of the various nations from the Caucasus to Hindostan. He has presented a Memoir to the Scandinavian Literary Society of Copenhagen, in which he relates the results of his researches on the antiquity and authenticity of the language of the Zend, and of the Sacred Books written in that language. He proves that these books rest only on old and obscure traditions; that they are not even written in a dialect of the Sanscrit, but in a language which may prove a key to the Assyrian, and which holds a middle place between the Sanscrit and the Scandinavian.

FRANCE.

THE annual Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Paris, was held on April 30th, being the sixth since the institution of the Society. As usual, it was occupied with reports relative to oriental literature. The works printed by order of the Society, during the past year, are the four following:- I. The Text of the Sanscrit drama of Sacontala, by M. Chezy.-II. The Poem of Nersès, on the taking of the city of Edessa in Armenia, revised by M. St. Martin.III. A Georgian Vocabulary, by M. Klaproth. IV. The fourth and last Part of the Chinese Text of Meng-Tseu, by M. Stanislaus Jullien. M. AbelRemusat, the reporter, afterwards noticed the various works on oriental literature, published during the same period in other parts of the world. M. Champollion. jun. then gave a sketch of the chief historical results of the Phonetic System, M. de Sacy read a memoir on some Arabic papyri, and on the writings of Hedjas, and M. Jullien read a novel, entitled the Two Orphans, translated from the Chinese.

A new Journal, in the Arabic language, has been announced at Paris, under the editorship of M. Garcin de Tassy and M. Babinet; intended as a medium for diffusing the lights and civilization of Europe over the less-favoured regions of the East.

According to an Ordonnance of the King, the Persian editions of Tabari, Ferdousi, &c. together with the principal Indian and Chinese Chronicles, are about to be published at the expense of the government. The editors of these works are to be taken from among the members of the Société Asiatique.

A curious work, in the form of dialogue, is announced to appear at Paris, on the Manners of the Turks. The author, M. Paleologus, was born at Constantinople, of a Greek family, and having passed his youth in Turkey, has conceived the idea of depicting, in a series of dialogues, a view of the present state of Turkish manners. A specimen has been printed in Le Globe, from which we anticipate much pleasure and instruction on the appearance of the complete work.

The important science of Statistics is receiving every day fresh accessions. Buchon's Atlas des deux Ameriques; Bailleul's Bibliomappe, which contains the

fundamental principles of Geography, Statistics, Chronology, and History; the Marquis de Chabrol's Tables Statistiques du Departement de la Seine; and the Situation Progressive des forces de la France, by the Baron Charles Dupin, hold the first rank among the works suitable to the present period, when so much anxiety is evinced to have a perfect knowledge of the nations forming the great human family. These nations, so long divided and embittered against each other, begin at last to perceive, that their true interests are common to them all; and that, in politics as in morals, the good or evil effected recoils upon the authors. That nation which in its foreign policy and in its commercial relations, employs its power and influence for the happiness of other nations, adopts the system most adapted to render its own condition happy and flourishing.

The third volume of the Recueil des Memoires de la Société de Geographie is in the Press. It entirely consists of the important work of M. Brugnière, on the Chains of the European Mountains, to which the Prize of the Society was awarded in 1826.

The Society of Christian Morality held its annual Meeting at Paris, in April last. Great in its objects, although feeble in its resources, this Society has already deserved well of humanity. It was this Society that first awakened in France a sympathy for the oppressed Greeks: it was it that has diffused and deepened a detestation of the Slave Trade, and contributed to the improved legislative enactments on that subject; and every year its resources are increasing and its usefulness extending. The Duc de Broglie presided, and opened the meeting in a speech remarkable for its power and simplicity.

M. de Ferussac, Editor of the Bulletin des Sciences, has just finished a work presenting the complete Statistics of all the Journals of the civilized world, from the Invention of Printing to 1826; including also the learned and literary Societies of all parts of the globe.

The study of the old Medical writers, for some past, has been much on the increase. Besides a collection of the Greek writers, begun in Leipzig in 1821, and which has already reached its sixteenth volume, a society in Paris has undertaken a similar enterprize, but embracing a wider range, as it not only includes the Greek and Latin writers, but also the Arabic, those classed under the denomination Latino-barbari, and a selection of the principal modern works which have been written in Latin; the whole to form a collection of one hundred volumes.

M. Mignet, the celebrated author of the History of the French Revolution, is preparing a History of Henry IV. and his Times.

We have read, with much pleasure, a series of articles in a periodical work, Le Catholique, on ancient Arabic poetry, containing an interesting analysis of the Poems of Amrialkaïs, Tarafa, and Zohair.

The scientific world has lately sustained an immense loss in M. de la Place, so long considered as at the head of modern science. The labours of this illustrious geometer, during his long and brilliant career, will no doubt soon meet with an historian. Did our limits permit, we should be happy to give copious extracts from the discourses pronounced at his funeral, characterising