1815.]

Foreign Intelligence-France.

cient engravers and their works, from the earliest period to the middle of the sixteenth century; comprising observations on some of the first books ornamented with wood-cuts, by WILLIAM YOUNG OITLEY, F. A. S. The work will be illustrated by numerous fac-similies of scarce and interesting specimens of the art, and will be farther enriched, by impressions taken from some of the ori ginal blocks engraved by Albert Durer. Fifty copies, with proof impressions of the plates, are printing, of the same size as the large paper copies of Dibdin's edition of Ames' and Herbert's Typographical Antiquities.

MR. JAMES WYLD has nearly ready for publication, a new Map of the World, exhibiting at one view the population, civilization, and religion of each country. To be printed on one large sheet of columbier.

A singular work on Occult Philosophy will be published in the course of a very few weeks; it will include the Lives of all the Ancient Alchemystical Philosophers, a Critical Catalogue of their Writings, and a Selection of the most celebrated Treatises on the Theory and Practice of the Hermetic Art.

FRANCE.

We resume the sketch of the present state of French literature commenced in our twelfth number:

In the Oriental languages, the scholars of France, cut off from the intercourse with India and China, have not been able to distinguish themselves equally with those of England; nevertheless, the Special School, established near the King's Library, has formed some hopeful pupils, and the professors have even produced some valuable works. M. de Sacy has published an edition of Abdollatif, more correct than the preceding ones, and enriched with learned notes. The indefatigable Langlès, besides being engaged upon the Monuments of Indostan, has published a new edition of Chardin's Travels, in 10 vols. with notes, and several valuable memoirs. He has also edited Savary's Arabic Grammar, and the Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor, in Arabic, with a French translation; he is at present employed upon an edition of the Travels of Two Mahometans, of which we have hitherto had no other translation than the Abbé Renaudot's. Quatremère, jun. has published some excellent Historical and Geographical Memoirs on Egypt, in 3 vols. and promises us works of still greater importance. Champollion, jun. professor at Grenoble, has be

145

stowed much attention on the Coptic language, and has just produced the first two volumes of a work On the State of Egypt under the Pharaohs, which is to form ten or twelve volumes. Those which have appeared are wholly occupied with the ancient geography of Egypt. M. de Guignes, jun. known by his Travels in China, has compiled a Chinese Dictionary, which was published a few mouths since in one thick folio volume. M. Montucci, another Chinese scholar, attacked M. de Guignes with considerable virulence in several of the public journals, asserting that he was not acquainted with the Chinese language, and de Guignes has in his turn charged his antagonist with ignorance; but we have no person here who is willing to be the umpire in this quarrel. The King's Library abounds in oriental MSS. from which a rich harvest might be collected, and it is certain that several of the pupils of the Special School are assiduously engaged in the examination of them.

The study of the literature of the middle ages, now so much in vogue in Eng land, attracts the attention of very few persons in France. The literature of that period is here considered as a dunghill in which there is but a very small quantity of gold to be found, and from which every thing of value has long since been selected. Accordingly, works of this kind have a very limited circulation, unless the ingenuity of the editors finds means to impart new interest to them, which however, is very rare. M. de la Rue, one of those most conversant in matters of this sort is said to be better known in England than in France. M. Meon published, some years since, a Recueil d'anciens Fabliaux, to which M. Roquefort, author of the Glossaire Roman, intends to add a considerable supplement. The latter won the prize offered a few years ago by the Institute for the best essay on the state of French poetry in the 12th and 13th century. His Dissertation, which forms a thick 8vo. volume, has just appeared: the author enters into interesting discussions on the poetry and music of our ancestors, and he has subjoined a letter from M. Depping on the romance of Tristan, in which the researches of Walter Scott on this subject are introduced to the French. M. Roquefort is preparing a new edition of the Vie Publique et Privée des Français du Moyen Age, to the three vols. of which he intends to add two entirely new ones. He also promises a Recueil des Poesies de Marie de France. I must not omit

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Foreign Intelligence-Germany.

to mention the Monumens inedits of the middle ages, publishing by M. Willemin, an intelligent engraver: sixteen livrai sons have appeared: the author has had the good sense to avail himself of the miniatures in the MSS. belonging to the king's library. In this collection are to be found also, delineations of the furniture and decorations of buildings in the ages which it embraces.

Bibliography likewise is an uncultivated field for the French. The only work of this kind which has met with any success is, the Bibliothèque d'un Homme de Gout, by M. Barbier, which is not yet complete. The same author published, some time since, a learned dissertation on the celebrated performance On the Initation of Jesus Christ, the author of which has been the subject of so many conjectures and disputes. I need not mention the bibliographical works of Peugnot, Debure, and Renouard, as they are perhaps better known in England than in France. At the government printing-office the continuation of the catalogue of the great library had long been in progress; but a year before his fall Buonaparte ordered all the works in hand to be sold, and they were disposed of as waste-paper to the grocers. Fortunately this proscription did not embrace the Notices et Extraits de Manuscrits, which are continued, though slowly; up to the present time 9 volumes of this work, in 4to. have appeared. A work which hangs rather on hand, is the new translation of Strabo made by the direction of the government, and upon which Messrs. Gosselin, Coray, and Dutheil are engaged. As the translators are well paid during the whole time they are at work, it is supposed that they will not be in any great hurry to finish. It is fortunate that the government has undertaken the expense of this translation, as well as of that of Archimedes and Ptolemy; for the public gives no encourage ment to such enterprizes. M. Gail, who is printing a handsome edition of Thucydides and Xenophon, with translations, commentaries, maps and plans, finds it very difficult to reimburse bimself, and will probably be a considerable loser. Our philologists therefore are content with publishing editions of the classics for the use of schools. M. Walckenaer intends to print an extensive work on the Geography of Gaul, in which he will no doubt be assisted by the government. He has also published the Latin Geography of Dicuil, who lived in the 10th century; but the public was lately pre

[March 1,

sented with a better edition, together with a commentary by the young Greek scholar Letrône, author of an excellent dissertation on Syracuse. Professor Bredow of Breslaw was here some years ago to make researches respecting the minor Greek geographers, a new edition of whose works he intended to bring out; but unfortunately he is lately dead. No part of the work is printed, though he may possibly have left the whole ready for the press.

The Count de la Bontaye has announced that he has discovered the means of dying unalterable colours, the composition of which is perfect: viz. blue upon wool and silk; green, yellow, violet, and nine other colours; to wit, a yellow upon wool, as strong and more brilliant than the former: two greens, one of which will resist the action of fire itself; two fine blacks, one without copperas, which can neither burn nor harden silk any more than wool: and another, which resists sulphuric acid, potash in a state of ebullition, as well as the action of the sun and air; an unalterable puce colour, a crimson on silk, much cheaper and more durable than cochineal; and, lastly, a pure pink, completely unalterable through all the shades of flesh colour. Add to these twelve new colours, says he, which may be obtained pure in all their shades, a very beautiful white, never liable to turn yellow, which I have succeeded in giving to wool as well as silk, and which spreads much more than their natural white. If we only add to this, the fastest colour of the ancient dye, or the fine red yielded by Alkermes, to fill the palette, and the problem will be solved. Of these twelve unchangeable colours, eight have been subjected to the action of the sun under glass, during the four latter months of last summer, (1813) without undergoing the least alteration. Fire has no effect upon the ninth colour, and the three last are the fruits of my industry through the preceding winter.

Louvei, author of the notorious French novel, Faublas, and one of the members of the National Convention, died lately, as a bookseller in the Palais Royal at Paris.

GERMANY.

Germany has for some years possessed a very important work on the corn trade, which may be said almost to exhaust the object. It is by Baron Shuckman, now minister of state in Prussia.

Prof. Lampadius, of Freyberg, has recommended the following composition, as an effectual preservative of iron

1815.]

Foreign Intelligence-Italy-Prussia.

against rust one ounce of jet (Kohlblende) rubbed down to the finest powder, to which are then to be added, four ounces of vitriol of lead, and one ounce of vitriol of zinc; afterwards mix the whole in a pound of linseed oil varnish and, stirring it up carefully, keep it over a slow fire till it has attained a boiling heat.

Our readers are acquainted with the aquatic experiments of M. Melville at Paris. Mr. Matthew Michl, in a paper inserted in the Vaterländische Blätter, claims for Austria the honour of an invention for travelling under water, but on a more extensive scale than that of the French artist, whose method he declares to be in contradiction to theory, He proposes on the other hand, a very simple vessel, constructed on a plan perfectly according with theory, which is distinguished by its cheapness and its lightness from all other contrivances of the kind. He fills it with compressed air, and thus obviates the inconveniencies to which all preceding diving vessels have been exposed. The projected invasions of the French gave occasion to his idea. He has not the least doubt of the possibility of the existence of submarine voyagers in compressed air. He announces two vessels, one for military expeditions, being so simply and lightly constructed, and procured without difficulty in such numbers, that whole corps may be thus conveyed under the surface of the water into an enemy's port; the other for scientific expeditions, by which we shall be enabled to explore depths which cannot be examined by any other means. The inventor offers to exccute his plan, which would not be attended with any considerable expense.

The celebrated Saxon university of Wittenberg seems to have suffered more than any other literary institution of the continent from late events. Most of its professors reside together in the village of Schmiedeberg, where they are encouraged by hopes from Dresden and by such succours as circumstances permit. The faculty of jurisprudence is most active at Schmiedeberg, and several of the students are assiduously preparing there for the approaching examination. The professors of Wittenberg were deeply affected by the donation of 3001. from the university of Cambridge, procured for them by the interference of Dr. Her bert Marsh, professor of divinity in that university, and well known in the literary world as a political and theological writer. The present rector of the university, Dr.

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Nitsche, has conscientiously superintended the distribution, and letters of thanks have been transmitted to Cambridge.

The Royal Botanical Garden at Landshut in Bavaria now cultivates 5000 plants, being 2000 more than that of Munich. Last year it sent 7000 packets of seeds to other botanical gardens, at home and abroad, and received from other gardens 2056, besides many pre

sents.

The Austrian captain, Viehbeck, who has been engaged many years in the survey of Salzburg, Upper Austria, Tyrol, and Vorarlberg, has had opportunities of making a series of more than 100 drawings of subjects in those countries, which are not merely picturesque for their beauty and sublimity, but also remarkable in regard to their natural history. Out of this collection he has selected twelve of the most interesting views to be engraved, and intends to publish them carefully coloured. One of these is to appear every two months, and the subscription price for the whole will be 48 ducats.

ITALY.

On the 2d of January, the Duchessdowager of Saxe Gotha, with her chamberlain Baron Zach, the celebrated German astronomer, embarked at Genoa for Naples, together with the expert artist M. Reichenbach of Munich. The latter takes with him 50 chests of astronomical instruments, for the beautiful observatory which the King of Naples has erected on the hill called Capo di Monte.

Lucien Buonaparte's epic poem, Charlemagne, has been reprinted at Rome, at the press of the Propaganda; and Father Maurizio, a minorite of Brescia, is engaged in translating it into Italian verse.

PRUSSIA.

The celebrated Pallas, who spent the prime of his life in a remote part of the Russian empire, composed during the life-time of the Empress Catherine, both under her particular patronage as well as with her liberal support, the first part of a splendid botanical work, intituled Flora Russica Tomus I. A moderate number only of this publication were struck off, and the greater part of the impressions were distributed as presents. This great naturalist having died some few years since at Berlin, left behind him an extensive "Herbarium Vivum," which he had collected with considerable industry, with a view of continuing his work. Some beautiful and finelycoloured engravings having been made

Foreign Intelligence-Russia.

Foreign Intelligence-Hungary-Poland.

NEW PUBLICATIONS IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY, WITH CRITICAL REMARKS.