The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
an entire discourse, which by those who should understand it, would be deemed of a singularly compact body, as compared with the average of such performances.
Professor Torrey, of the University of Vermont, is one of the few contemporary scholars, whose names are likely to survive with those of the great teachers of past ages. He has translated Schilling's Discourse on Fine Arts, and other shorter compositions from the German; but his chief labor in this way is, a most laborious and admirably executed version of Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, published in Boston, and now being republished in London, by Bonn, with Notes, &c., by the Rev. A. T. W. Morison, of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Neander has sometimes been called, but with scarcely sufficient reason, the Niebuhr of ecclesiastical history. The only point in which he resembles the historian of Rome, is in that vast range of complete erudition which makes the Past in its minutest details as familiar as the Present, which is never content with derivative information, but traces back every tributary of the great stream of History to its remotest accessible source. In this respect the two eminent historians were alike, but with this point of resemblance the similarity ends. Neander is entirely free from that necessity under which Niebuhr labored, of regarding every recorded aggregate of facts as a mass of error which the modern philosophy of history was either to decompose into a myth, or reconstruct into a new form more consistent with preconceived theory.
The Works of John C. Calhoun will soon, through the wise munificence of the state of South Carolina, be accessible by the students of political philosophy and history in a complete and suitable edition, with such memoirs as are necessary for their illustration, and for the satisfaction of the natural curiosity respecting their illustrious author. The first volume will comprise Mr. Calhoun's elaborate Disquisition on Government, and a Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, in which are displayed in a systematic manner the author's opinions upon the whole subject of the philosophy of government. These treatises were begun many years ago, and though they had not received the ultimate revision which was intended, they are very complete, and by the careful and judicious editing of Mr. Crallé, his intimate friend and confidential secretary, will perhaps appear as perfect in all their parts as if re-written by Mr. Calhoun himself. These are now nearly stereotyped; and to correct some misapprehensions which seem to prevail in South Carolina, we state that only the stereotype plates are made in New-York, there being no foundries for stereotyping in Charleston, where the book will be printed and published. For this purpose the Legislature has appropriated $10,000, which will meet the expenses for fifteen thousand copies of the first volume, all but five hundred of which, printed on large paper, for public libraries, will be sold for the benefit of Mr. Calhoun's family. Another volume will contain Mr. Calhoun's official papers, and another his Letters upon Public Affairs. This, we think, will be the most interesting of the series. Mr. Calhoun wrote always with sincerity and frankness, and his communications to his friends contain, much more than his speeches and state papers, the exhibitions of his feeling, his regrets, fears, expectations, and ambitions. His speeches will probably make three volumes; the collection formerly printed by the Harpers did not embrace half of them; many of them have never been printed at all, but (particularly some of his most elaborate performances previous to 1817) exist in carefully prepared manuscript reports. All these speeches will be revised and illustrated by Mr. Crallé: and the series will be completed with the memoirs of the great senator, for which that gentleman has the most ample and interesting materials.
Archbishop Whateley's very ingenious Historical Doubts Respecting Napoleon Bonaparte, is the cleverest book of the kind yet written, not excepting the high church pamphlet treating of the Archbishop's own existence in the same way. But the idea was not original with Whateley: Mr. William Biglow of Boston wrote half a century ago, The Age of Freedom, being an Investigation of Good and Bad Government, in Imitation of Mr. Paine's Age of Reason, and intended, by a similar style of argument respecting the Discovery of America, &c., to expose that infidel's sophistries. We perceive that the Life of Jesus, by Dr. Strauss, has been met by another such performance in England, under the title of Historical Certainties respecting the Early History of America, developed in a Critical Examination of the Book of the Chronicles of the Land of Ecnarf; By the Rev. Aristarchus Newlight, Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Giessen, Corresponding Member of the Theophilanthropic and Pantisocratical Societies of Leipsig, late Professor of all Religions in several distinguished Academies at Home and Abroad, &c. The author very satisfactorily disposes of the events between the first French Revolution and the Battle of Waterloo, by putting them through the "mythic" circle invented by Dr. Strauss. The joke is carried out with remarkable ingenuity, and with the most whimsical resources of learning. The good doctor finds, a la Strauss, a nucleus, for here and there a great tradition, but remorselessly wipes out as altogether incredible many of the most striking and familiar facts in modern history.
Of Mr. Schoolcraft's great work, which we have heretofore announced, the first part has just appeared from the press of Lippencott, Grambo & Co., in the most splendid quarto volume that has yet been printed in America. We shall take an early opportunity to do justice to this truly national performance and to its author.
Dr. Robert Knox—whose book of infidel rigmarole, The Races of Men, was lately reprinted by an American house which was never before and we trust will never again be guilty of such an indiscretion,—we understand is coming to New-York to lecture upon Ethnology. He has the "gift" of talking, and is said to have been popular as a demonstrator in anatomy; but we think it will be best for him to remain a while longer in England; the sham science of which his last book is a specimen is no longer, we believe, profitable in this country. The last Princeton Review says of The Races of Men:
"This book is fairly beneath argument or criticism. It is a curious medley of vanity, ignorance, malice, and fanaticism. At first it provoked our indignation, by the boldness and effrontery of its pretensions; but their very extravagance soon began to render them comical. It claims to originate views which are to overturn 'long received doctrines, national prejudices, stereotyped delusions,' &c., while any tolerable scholar in this department is perfectly familiar with them all in the works of Virey, Courtet, Bory de St. Vincent, Edwards, La Marck, Quetelet, &c. It has not the slightest claim to originality, except for the ridiculous ingenuity, with which it carries out the more cautious follies of these infidel philosophers, into the most glaring absurdities; and sets their ingenious physiological speculations, in broad contradiction to the most authentic and unquestioned truths of history. We certainly should not have noticed this thing at all, but for two reasons. In the first place, this subject is now rendered so interesting by the important bearings of modern ethnological researches, that some of our readers might be cheated by the mere title, and by newspaper puffs, out of the market price for the book; and in the second place, we wish to express our surprise and lift up our remonstrance against such issues from a quarter so respectable as that which has given this reprint to the American public. Whatever may be the social or scientific standing of any influential publishing house, we must say, that in our judgment they merit a deliberate rebuke from the true science of the country, for reprinting so crude and wretched a performance, to say nothing of the low malignity which it vents against the Christian sentiment and enterprise of an age like the present,—and even against men, who stand in the front ranks of science, because they happen to believe that the scriptures are entitled to some respect, as authentic records; or that other races of men are capable of being Christianized, beside the Teutonic. Cuvier was an ignorant and stubborn dogmatist, whose era is now past for ever. Buckland was an ingenious priest and Jesuit; and even Newton's brain was turned by chronology."
Mr. Boker's tragedy of Colaynos, has just been produced at the Walnut-st. Theatre in Philadelphia, and extremely well received. It had indeed a successful run. The Betrothal, which in our last we omitted to notice, is, we understand, to be brought out under the auspices of Charles Kean, in London. Mr. B. has yet another comedy quite finished, which will soon be performed in New-York.
A letter purporting to be by General Washington, and bearing date Cambridge, June 24, 1776, was read before the New-Jersey Historical Society a few weeks ago; the thanks of the Society were voted to Mr. Chetwood for it; and the Literary World characterizes it as "interesting," "admirable," &c. The Literary World does not, we believe, pretend to be an authority in such matters, but that