The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852 Part 29

we cannot but think this also indicative of an odd taste; "If you would change the color of children's eyes, you shall do it thus; with the ashes of the small nut-sh.e.l.ls, with oil you must anoint the forepart of their head; _it will make the whites of children's eyes black_; DO IT OFTEN!"

Concerning wine, it is worth knowing, that to cure a man of drunkenness, you should put eels into his wine. Delightful dreams will visit the couch of him who has eaten moderately, for supper, of a horse's tongue, and taken balm for salad. This is "A means to make a man sleep sweetly,"

which we recommend to the attention of all restless people, who have proper faith in their forefathers. As we have pa.s.sed over a good many pages, and come to the "secrets of a.s.ses," we may put down, _a propos_ to nothing, that "If an a.s.s have a stone bound to his tail he cannot bray."

The following may be tried in a few months by ladies in the country, who rise early on a fine spring morning; they may thus earn the delight of exhibiting to their friends one of the prettiest balloon ascents that any body can conceive: "In May, fill an egg-sh.e.l.l with May-dew, and set it in the hot sun at noon-day, and the sun will draw it up."

The secrets of gardening, known to our forefathers, annihilate all claim in Sir Joseph Paxton to the commonest consideration. They taught how to get the blue roses by manuring with indigo, or green roses by digging verdigris about the roots. They taught the whole art of perfuming fruit, by steeping the seeds of the future tree in oil of spike, or rose-water and musk. If, say our ancestors, you would have peaches, plums, or cherries without any stone, you have only, when the tree is a twig, to pick out all the pith before you set it. To get your filbert-trees to bear you fruit all kernel, you have only to crack a nut, and sow the kernel only, covered with a little wool. And very much more marvellous, in the annals of gardening, is the receipt for getting peach-trees that bear fruit covered with inscriptions: "When you have eaten the peach, steep the stone two or three days in water, and open it gently, and _take the kernal out of it(!)_ and write something within the sh.e.l.l with an iron graver, what you please, yet not too deep, then wrap it in paper and set it; whatever you write in the sh.e.l.l you shall find written in the fruit." Such shrewd things mingled with the more ordinary knowledge of our ancestors upon affairs of gardening.

It will be seen that for many of these "facts" there was a "reason"

close at hand. Our forefathers were wise enough to know that every thing required properly accounting for. Thus, for example, in "the secrets of metals:" "Some report that a candle lighted of man's fat, and brought to the place where the treasures are hid, will discover them with the noise; and when it is near them it will go out. If this be true, it ariseth from sympathy; for fat is made of blood, and blood is the seat of the soul and spirits, and both these are held by the desire of silver and gold, so long as a man lives; and therefore they trouble the blood; so here is sympathy."

If a man would prevent hail from coming down, he is to walk about his garden, with a crocodile--stuffed, of course--and hang it up in the middle. Pieces of the skin of a hippopotamus, wherever they are buried, keep off storms. A thunder-storm also can be put to rout by firing cannons at it; "for by the force of the sound moving the air, the exhalations are driven upward." (In the same way, the plague was said to yield before a cannonade.) "Some who observe hail coming on, bring a huge looking-gla.s.s, and observe the largeness of the cloud, and by that remedy,--whether objected against, or despised by it, or it is displeased with it; or whether, being doubled, it gives way to the other" (in some way or other one must find out a reason), "they suddenly turn it off and remove it." An owl stuck up in the fields, with its wings spread, served also as a scare-crow to the tempests. As lightning conductor on a roof, it was thought wise to put an egg-sh.e.l.l, out of which a chicken had been hatched on Ascension-day. Thunderbolt stones were said to sweat during a storm, which was not thought a more wonderful "fact" than the perspirations streaming out of gla.s.s windows "in winter when the stove is hot." Our ancestors were far too wise to be surprised at any thing.

Secrets of alchemy, magic, and astrology are, of course, very profound; we pa.s.s over these and many more; among secrets of cookery we pause, shuddering. Whipping young pigs to death, to make them tender eating, used to be quite bad enough; and some of our own hidden devices in the meat trade are, even now, equally revolting; but here we meet with a device of the wise ancestors, which may, perhaps, stand at the head of all culinary horrors. Remembering that these cooks were also apt at roasting men, we will inflict this ill.u.s.tration on our readers: "_To roast a Goose alive._ Let it be a duck or goose, or some such lively creature; but a goose is best of all for this purpose; leaving his neck, pull off all the feathers from his body, then make a fire round about him, not too wide, for that will not roast him; within the place set here and there small pots full of water, with salt and honey mixed therewith, and let there be dishes set full of roasted apples, and cut in pieces in the dish, and let the goose be basted with b.u.t.ter all over, and larded to make him better meat, and he may roast the better; put fire to it; do not make too much haste, when he begins to roast, walking about, and striving to fly away; the fire stops him in, and he will fall to drink water to quench his thirst; this will cool his heart, and the other parts of his body, and, by this medicament, he looseneth his belly and grows empty. And when he roasteth and consumes inwardly, always wet his head and heart with a wet sponge; but when you see him run madding and stumble, his heart wants moisture, take him away, set him before your guests, and he will cry as you cut off any part from him, and will be almost eaten up before he be dead; it is very pleasant to behold."

Degenerate moderns would most certainly be unable to enjoy such hospitality, and would be cured as thoroughly of any appet.i.te as if their host had employed another of the secrets of our ancestors. "That guests may not eat at table, do this: You must have a needle that dead people are often sewed up in their winding-sheet; and at beginning of supper secretly stick this under the table; this will hinder the guests from eating, that they will rather be weary to sit, than desirous to eat; take it away when you have laughed at them awhile."

Take it away, we must say now to the old book. As we have said, our specimens, drawn from an immense ma.s.s of the same kind, do not represent the sole character of the volume. It states, also, a very large number of facts, confirmed and explained in the present day, being a fair transcript of the average standard of opinion among learned doctors upon a great number of things. Have we not made a little progress since those good old times, and would it be a pleasant thing to get them back again?

To come home to every man's breakfast-table, we may ask the public to decide between the coffee now made, and the coffee of the good old times. In a somewhat expensive book, addressed only to wealthy readers, Drs. Read and Weckir disclose this secret of good coffee, for the ladies and gentlemen of 1660:--"Take the berry, put it in a tin pudding-pan, and when bread hath been in the oven about half-an-hour, put in your coffee; there let it stand till you draw your bread; then beat it and sift it; mix it thus: first boyl your water about half-an-hour; to every quart of water put in a spoonful of the pouder of coffee; then let it boyl one-third away; clear it off from the setlings; and the next day put fresh water; and so add every day fresh water, so long as any setlings remain. _Often Tryed._"

Authors and Books.

ARTHOR SCHOPENHAUER, of Berlin, has recently published _Parerga und Paralipomena, or little Philosophical Writings_, in which, according to a Leipsic reviewer, "the author a.s.serts that _his_ philosophy is not merely the _only_ advance in that department since the days of Kant, but that _his_ system bears the same relation to all earlier philosophy, that the New Testament bears to the Old. In addition to this, he attempts to solve the problem, how can it be possible that he has ever been as unknown to the literary and scientific world as the Man in the Moon, while the absurdest and most ridiculous theories, such, for example, as those of Fichte, Sch.e.l.ling, and Hegel, have been so generally accepted. But as he, in spite of the most earnest endeavors, can find no internal ground for this unaccountable blindness of the public, he seeks it in another direction. These impudent sophists, it seems, have had no other ground than simply _that of making money_! With the hocus-pocus of common charlatans they have carried their wares to market, and as _candidates_ and teachers of philosophy generally spring up from the same effort, there resulted an alliance of charlatans whose object it was on the one side to raise themselves to heaven, and on the other to suppress all true thinking, so that the public might be prevented, by a just consideration of their own worthlessness." "Such accusations as those," continues our reviewer, "awaken an unfavorable impression, which is not in the least diminished by continued boasting and grandiloquence, and a clumsy roughness of style, which not unfrequently falls into downright burlesque. The work itself is an odd mixture of actual recollections and arbitrary fancies, of explanations and superst.i.tions, which force us to regret that many really admirable thoughts which occasionally surprise the reader in an a.s.sembly of trivialities and paradoxes, must inevitably be lost. Those philosophers certainly provoke sharp criticism when we separate their truly scientific contents from their visions and dispositions, and it would perhaps be more in accordance with the spirit of the age to return more earnestly to _Kant_ than most of the more recent philosophers are accustomed to do. Still nothing is in the least gained for the negative aim of criticism, when the critic makes it such an easy matter to cast away, without further consideration, all of the latest advances in philosophy, because he believes that he has detected errors in their pretended fundamental thoughts, without first ascertaining whether these fundamental thoughts are really the leading principle of the system, and when he on his own side falls into suppositions which have certainly received long since a satisfactory refutation from the later philosophy; as, for example, in the Kantean opposition of things in themselves, and their appearances. The _positive_, with which Herr Schopenhauer believes that he has enriched science, the derivation of united spiritual functions from the will, and the correction of the course of the world, by the idea that the true aim of life is to scorn it, might with greater propriety be cla.s.sed in the sphere of 'visions and dispositions,' which he so fiercely attacks, than in that of science. The discussions which fill these two volumes, and are spread out over every imaginable subject, even to ghosts, the possibility of whose existence is admitted, have naturally a very varied character, and can only, by a continued polemic, and a fragmentary system of examination harmonizing therewith, be brought into unity."

The second part of WACHs.m.u.tH'S _Allgemeine Culturgeschichte_ (History of Civilization, for so we venture to translate the word Cultur), which indicates more strictly all referring to those social influences which refine, form, and educate society, has recently appeared. The volume referred to contains _The Middle Ages_, and is highly spoken of for the skilful manner in which the author has treated the influence exerted by the Byzantine and Mohammedan races. Another historical work of importance is the fourth and concluding volume containing the tenth and twelfth books of HAMMER PURGSTALL'S _Life of Cardinal Khlesl_, compiled from contemporary doc.u.ments. In it we have the last diplomatic acts of the Cardinal, of the intrigues of the Grand Dukes Ferdinand and Maximilian relative to him, and of his consequent arrest and abduction.

The eleventh book details his imprisonment in Innspruck and in the Abbey St. Georgenberg, the negotiations with the Pope relative to him, and his delivery to the latter on the 24th October, 1622. In the twelfth we have the details of his residence in Rome, of the part he took in inst.i.tuting the Propaganda, his return home after an absence of ten years, his subsequent clerical exertions, and his testament. The conclusion gives a parallel drawn between Khlesl, Wolsey, and Ximenes--a description of his personal appearance and an explanation of the exertions of power brought to bear against him, with the final judgment that those truly to blame were the grand dukes and not Khlesl, and that the Cardinal, if not entirely devoid of blame, was still a great character, and one of the most ill.u.s.trious statesmen of Austria. Another new historical work is the _Laben des Herzogs von Sachsen-Gotha und Altenburg, Freiderich II.

Ein Bei trazzur Geschichte Gotha's beim Wechsel d. 17, und 18, Jahrh.

Herausgegeben nach dessen Tode von Dr._ AD. MORITZ SCHULZE, _Director d.

Burgerschule zu Gotha_ (or Life of the Duke of Saxe Gotha and Altenburg, Frederic the II.) A contribution to the history of Gotha during the changes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Published after the death of the author by Dr. Ad. Moritz Schulze, director of the Citizen School of Gotha, this work appears to be well and warmly, though impartially written.

In theology, we observe the publication, by ALBERT WESSEL VON HENGEL, of _Commentarius Perpetuus in Prioris Pauli ad Corinthios Epistolae Caput Quintum Decimum c.u.m Epistola ad Winerum, Theol. Lips. Haag._ (Boedeker in Rotterdam). In this book we perceive that the important fifteenth chapter of the Letter to the Corinthians is philologically treated with true Dutch thoroughness and remarkable erudition, but that the results to which he comes are often untenable, and that a satisfactory decision as to the proposed dogmatic questions, such as advanced theological science requires, is not given. The peculiar views of the author as to the aim or object of the chapter have also had an effect on the explanation of many pa.s.sages. It is a.s.serted, for instance, _a la_ Bush, that Paul does not speak of the resurrection of the body, but that he means by this resurrection the return of all men into life, or immortality; and regarding this, has in view only those who admit Christ, and their future happiness; and that even verse forty-nine contains only a comparison of the _moral_ condition of Christians in this and a better life. Yet notwithstanding this he finds himself compelled to admit, by the fifty-second verse, that the same bodies which we have here on earth, again return to life. By the [Greek: parousia] of Christ (v. 23) he understands _earthly life_, and by [Greek: oi tou Christou en te parousia autou], those Christians who already believed on him while yet on earth, and by the [Greek: telos], not the end of the world with its universal resurrection and judgment, but the resurrection of the later Christians. The oft-repeated [Greek: speiretai] (v. 43) he translates by it is begotten or generated, and understands it as referring to an entry into earthly life, and that the [Greek: choikos] of the forty-seventh verse refers to the earthly _disposition_ or _inclination_, and the [Greek: ex ournou] and [Greek: epouranios] to that of the heavenly.

Among recent books of travel we have _A Journey to Persia and the country of the Koords_, and the preceding sketch, _Souvenirs of the Danube and Bosphorus_, by MORITZ WAGNER. The Journey to Persia contains much curious information and observation of a country but little known to the outer world, while in the Souvenirs we have bitter complaints and merciless revelations relative to the Metternich policy in the East, and the conduct and character of the Austrian diplomatic representative by the Porte. Many curious facts are also given relative to the present condition of Turkey, the personal appearance of the Sultan and divers Constantinopolitan dignitaries and foreign amba.s.sadors. The commendatory characteristic of this work appears to consist in the fact, that the author, unlike the great majority of those who are elevated to constant familiarity with men of high standing and influence, is remarkably independent and unselfish in his views, and invariably speaks bold plain truth, even of individuals in whose power it actually lies to do him very decided injury. No person desirous of being _au courant_ as to the great political world of the present day, should be ignorant of this work.

A work has recently been published at Ratisbon, ent.i.tled. _Die Katholischon Missionen, Geschildert aus der Neuzeit, Miteinem Anhange, Zwei Missionen in dem Jahr 1716 und 1718_ (Catholic Missions, Sketched from recent times, with a supplement; Two Missions in the years 1716 and 1718). Of this performance a German review remarks, that it was once believed that the power of the Jesuits was for ever broken, but lo! they again lift their heads in power. "Missions are one of the means by which they act upon the people--a number of Jesuits repair to a certain place, and day after day its inhabitants are preached to, taught, confessions heard, and ma.s.s read festally." The book is a eulogium of Catholicism, and especially of the Jesuits, as its truest representatives, with occasional pa.s.ses at democracy, the unbelievers, the administration, and bureaucracy. It praises Catholicism as the only means whereby the revolution can be restrained; it tells of devotions to the heart of the Virgin Mary and her medals, and of the plenary remission which the missions bring. It exalts the obedience of the Jesuits to their superiors, and praises the principle that they, without any will of their own, should be _perinde ac cadaver_--like a corpse. According to this book, the consequences of these missions are incalculable, and the love bestowed upon them by the Jesuits truly affecting. It well-nigh appears the same as if one were reading Chateaubriand's praises of the _Patres_. Only that history, for the past three hundred years, has given a somewhat strong contrast to this ideal. The best parts of the book are sketches of life in the _Bagnos_ of Toulon and Brest.

At Berlin, the Scientific Society (_Winenschaftlicher Vereins_) have been giving a course of lectures to a large and aristocratic audience, invited by members of the society. Their success has brought out the Evangelical Society, in another course of a more theological and religious nature. In the first-named society, Professor Brandes lately lectured upon the Mormons; but it seems that the majority of the elegant gentlemen and ladies, did not fully appreciate his efforts for their instruction, for want of the necessary elementary knowledge. "When the doctor rose and announced his subject, the question was at once whispered in all parts of the hall," "Who are the Mormons?" The ladies in the most brilliant costume were generally the most eager in this inquiry. But unfortunately they got no satisfaction; the common reply of the gentleman appealed to being, "I am sorry to say I have forgotten."

Some, more learned than others, however, a.s.sured their lovely companions that the Mormons were an Indian tribe of America, closely connected with, if not directly descended from, the Hurons, so frequently mentioned in Cooper's novels. Another amusing misunderstanding recently occurred in the same course. The lectures are not generally announced before-hand, but one day the newspapers got hold of the subject, and informed all the world that Professor Diterici would read a lecture upon _Pera and the desert festivals_. A great crowd of ladies was the consequence, all agog to hear about the picturesque costumes and strange ways of Pera, the national festivals of the Bedouins, and, perhaps, to have a glimpse at the mysteries of the seraglio. How great was the disappointment of the fashionable auditory when the learned doctor rose and began his discourse upon _Petra, the Fastness of the Desert_. That evening the ladies went home in very ill humor.

A work which political students and legislators may read, with advantage, is the _Wesen und Verfa.s.sung der Laadgemeinde_ (Nature and Const.i.tution of the Country Towns, and of the tenure of Real Estate in Lower Saxony and Westphalia, with special regard to the Kingdom of Hanover.) It is by Mr. STUVE, recently the Prime Minister of Hanover, and is interesting, especially as exhibiting the extent to which the principle of local self-government obtains in Germany, and the probabilities and methods of its extension. For its historical view of the organization of the _commune_ or township in Germany, it is very valuable.

The second part of the _System of Ethics_, by IMANUEL HERMANN (not Johann Gottlieb) FICHTE, has recently appeared. The antic.i.p.ations awakened by the first historico-critical part of the work do not appear to be satisfactorily realized by this second dogmatic division.

Among the most entertaining "books of autobiography must always be reckoned _The Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth_, daughter of Frederic William I., and sister of Frederic the Great of Prussia. They are among the chief sources of the history of the German states during the last century, and they afford the most striking, if not the most pleasing, view we have of aristocratic German manners for the same period. In the London _Literary Gazette_ it is stated that--

"The revelations of the Princess, especially concerning the King of Prussia and his court, if true, are at least not flattering to the Prussian dynasty; and strenuous attempts have for years past been making to represent the 'Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth' as a spurious work, concocted by the enemies of Prussia, for the express purpose of humiliating the descendants of Frederic William I. It so happened, that at the first publication of the book, in 1810, a rival edition was almost immediately given to the world in another part of Germany. The publishers of either book pretended to be in exclusive possession of the original MS. of the unfortunate Princess. These conflicting claims furnished the partisans of the court of Berlin with a very plausible pretext for doubting the genuineness of either.

But of late, Dr. Pertz, of Berlin, when engaged in collecting still further proofs of the 'literary imposition'

practised by the editors of the two MS., happened to stumble on the original autograph copy of the Princess among the books and papers of the Protonotarius Blanet, at Celle, in Hanover. Herr Blanet had the MS. from Dr. E. Spangenberg, of Celle, who died in 1833, and who bought it from Colonel Osten, who, in his turn, had received the MS. from Dr.

Superville, physician to the Princess, to whom it had been presented by that lady. From a paper read by Dr. Pertz, to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, (Berlin: Keimer.

London: Williams and Norgate,) it appears that, of the two existing editions, the one published at Brunswick, in 1810, is a copy, though not a faithful or complete one, of the original MS. This copy in particular wants several sheets.

At all events, the question as to the genuineness of the 'Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth' is now completely set at rest; for although Dr. Pertz demonstrates at some length that many important phrases and parts of phrases are wanting in the Brunswick edition, he has not ventured to affirm that any phrases or statements have been added by the editor."

A recent book of travels published at Munich is not utterly devoid of interest, though it appears to be far inferior to what we should have expected from the subject. We refer to the _Errimerungen an Italien, Sicilian and Grieohenland aus den Jahren, 1826-1844_ (Recollections of Greece, Italy, and Sicily, in the Years 1826-1844), by HEINRICH FARMBACHER. In company with the king of Bavaria, and as his secretary, Herr Farmbacher travelled twice to Sicily, once to Greece, and frequently through Italy. The descriptions of scenes and events appear in no instance to rise above mediocrity, nor do we find any of that artistic spirit and observation which might have been antic.i.p.ated from an intelligent attendant of the great royal connoisseur. His anecdotes relative to the monarch himself are rare, trivial, and worthless, for it does not seem to have occurred to the royal secretary that in such a work his master to the general reader is a far more attractive individual than himself. As regards style, the book gives from time to time curious glimpses of that court lackey language so habitual to the upper cla.s.s _flunkies_ of Herr Farmbacher's description, and which it is impossible for him to entirely suppress even in writing.

The distinguished and lamented orientalist KLAPROTH has left behind him a large map of Central Asia, in four sheets, engraved at Paris by Berthe, the geographer. This map is the product of ten years'

researches, and exhibits the topography of those vast regions, with the cities it contains, many of which have hitherto been unknown, and the names of the tribes inhabiting it. The map is based not only upon the explorations of travellers, but on the Chinese maps made by order of the Emperor Kiang-Long, and by missionaries in China and Tartary. It extends on the north to the frontiers of Siberia, including the great lake Balaton; on the south to Hindostan; on the west to the sea of Aral and Persia; and on the east to China.

HAFIS is the t.i.tle prefixed to a new collection of poems, by G. F.

DAUMER, just published at Nuremberg. Daumer is one of the most original writers in the whole scope of the present German literature. His _Evangelium_ is especially worthy of a far greater degree of attention than it has received. It is a volume of brief poems, discussing the gravest questions with as much warmth and freshness of imagination as elevation and beauty of style. In this country Daumer is known but to the few whose acquaintance with German literature extends beyond the cla.s.sic writers whose names are familiar to all the world. A Catholic critic in Germany says of him, that the epitaph once proposed for the gravestone of Voltaire will suit equally well that of Daumer. It is as follows:

"In poesi magnus, In historia parvus, In philosophia minimus, In religione nullus."

GUTZKOW'S _Ritter vom Geiste_ has just appeared in a second edition in Germany--no trifling success for a romance in nine stout volumes; another German _litterateur_ has also dramatized a part of it. Gutzkow is, beyond dispute, one of the foremost among the living writers of Germany. His collected works, published some years since, in twelve volumes, have lately been increased by a thirteenth, containing several fugitive stories, and one or two plays that he has brought out at various times.

We heard little of Scandinavian literature until the translations of Tegner, Frederica Bremer, Oelenschlager, and Hans Christian Andersen, called our attention to the rich treasures of intellectual activity produced under that cold northern sky. Of course constant additions are being made to this literature. Among its recent productions is a comedy by ANDERSEN, based on a fairy story, called _Hyldemoer_, which has lately been performed upon the Danish stage with not very brilliant success. It is admitted to be inferior to his stories, as have been his former attempts at dramatic composition. C. MOLBACH announces, at Copenhagen, a Danish translation of DANTE'S _Divina Commedia_; the same author has just published a volume of original poems under the t.i.tle of _Twilight_. A very industriously-prepared and useful work is J. H.

EOSLEN'S _General Literary Dictionary_, from the year 1814 to 1840, of which the thirteenth part has just appeared. In Norway, F. M. BUGGE announces a translation of the _Iliad_ into Norwegian hexameters, to be published by subscription. A Norwegian dictionary, by IWAR AASEN is highly commended.