AUTHORS AND BOOKS

The Asiatic Society at Paris has just held its twenty-eighth yearly session. According to the report of its Secretary and Financial Committee, this society has suffered little from the disastrous times which have fallen on literature generally. In 1848, being uncertain as to the future, it stopped receiving subscriptions to works with a view to their publication, and arrested the printing of those which were already commenced, with the single exception of the Asiatic Journal, which the members determined not to alter in any case. The series of this journal is of great value, containing already fifty-five volumes, to which two new ones are added every year. For many years it has contained only original articles, though formerly it admitted translations from other European languages. Of course, in so voluminous a periodical work, the contents vary in character, but the whole is of the greatest importance to History, Belles Lettres, and Philology, and should not be wanting in any public library. The society has now resumed the suspended publications, beginning with the "Chronicles of Cashmir", by the Austrian Orientalist Captain Troyer, two volumes of which were issued some time since. Troyer is a remarkable man. As an Austrian artillery and staff officer he served in all the wars, from the breaking out of the French Revolution to the Peace of Paris. While in Italy, he passed some time at the head-quarters of Lord William Bentinck, as an Austrian Commissioner, and so gained his esteem and confidence that he was invited to go with Lord William to Madras as his military secretary. When Lord William resigned the government of Madras, Troyer remained for some time as Director of the East India Company's School for Artillery and Engineers, till finally he resigned and came to Paris. In 1829, Lord William went again to India as Governor-General, and persuaded Troyer to go with him. While in India at this time, among other offices Troyer filled that of Secretary of the Hindoo College. In 1834, when Bentinck again left India, Troyer once more resigned his functions, and has since been in Paris, devoting an active and honorable old age to constant labors upon Persian and Indian literature.

* * * * *

The FRENCH ACADEMY held its annual public session on the 8th of August, in the presence of a large audience, including almost all the literary celebrities of the metropolis, both masculine and feminine. The prizes of victory were given to Napoleon Hurney, who had saved the lives of fourteen persons, and to Marguerite Briand, for having supported and taken care for forty-five years of her mistress, who had fallen from wealth into the extremest poverty. M. de Salvandy, who bestowed these prizes, delivered the usual eulogy on virtue in general, winding up with praise of Louis Philippe and his reign, a thing more creditable perhaps to the fidelity and consistency of the speaker, who has never renounced his allegiance to the Orleans family, than proper to the occasion.

The literary prizes were distributed by M. Villemain. The grand prize of ten thousand francs for the best work on the history of France, was given to Augustin Thierry. Emile Angier received a prize of seven thousand francs for his comedy of "Gabrielle," and M. Antran one of three thousand for his "Daughter of Æsehylus." Three ladies got prizes worth two thousand francs each for works of a popular nature on moral subjects; M. A. Garnier got one of one thousand for his Morale Sociale; M. Martin the same for his Philosophie Spiritualiste de la Nature, and M. Kastus the same for his Psycologie d'Aristote. The crown for the best specimen of eloquence was awarded to M. Baudrillast for his Eulogy on Madame de Stael, in which the literary history and character of the subject were served up in the most florid style. The same writer once before won the same prize by a eulogy on Turgot. His productions are more elaborate and showy than substantial and permanent in their character.

It must be said that this Academy is rather a respectable and slow-moving institutution. The most illustrious names of France are not always included in the list of its members. Neither Beranger nor Lamenais belong to it. A writer in the Paris National says that after three hours at its meeting everybody he met in the street seemed to belong to the time of Louis XI.

* * * * *

EDWARD EVERETT has been many years engaged in the collection and arrangement of materials for a systematic Treatise on the Modern Law of Nations; more especially in reference to those questions which nave been discussed between the governments of the United States and Europe since the Peace of 1783. This will be Mr. Everett's "life poem." Hitherto he has written nothing very long except the "Defense of the Christian Religion," published when he was about twenty-one years of age. We have just received from Little & Brown their edition of the "Orations and Speeches" of Mr. Everett, in two very large and richly-printed volumes, which we shall hereafter notice more largely. These are to be followed, at the author's leisure, by his Political Reports and Speeches and Official Papers, in two large volumes, and his contributions to the North American Review, which, if all included, we think will make four others: so that his works, beside the new treatise above mentioned, will be completed in not less than eight volumes. We are gratified at the prospect of such a collection of these masterpieces of rhetoric, so full of learning and wisdom, and infused by so genial a spirit. We wish some publisher would give us in the same style all the writings of Alexander Everett.

CHARLES MACKAY has lately published in London, a work upon which he had long been engaged, under the title of "Progress of the Intellect." We suspect, from the reviewals of it which appear in the journals, that it is of the German free thinking class of philosophical histories. It embraces dissertations on Intellectual Religion, Ancient Cosmogony, the Metaphysical Idea of God, the Moral Notion of God, the Theory of Mediation, Hebrew Theory of Retribution and Immortality, the Messianic Theory prevailing in the days of Jesus, Christian Forms and Reforms, and Speculative Christianity. And these dissertations are written with an eloquence and power unexampled in a work of so much learning.

* * * * *

M. AND MAD. DE LAMARTINE having returned from the East, are at present Staying at the Villa du Prado, a branch of the Hotel des Empereurs, a pleasant house on the banks of the Huveaune, in the midst of the most beautiful landscape. It was in a country box, upon the Avenue du Prado, that Lamartine wrote, in 1847, his "Histoire des Girondins." Lamartine is pleased with his Smyrna estate; he was received there by his vassals en grand seigneur, but he found that he would be obliged to expend a good deal of money before the estate would be profitable.

* * * * *

THEODORE PARKER'S "Massachusetts Quarterly Review," is dead, and—God be Praised that New England refused to support it any longer. Mr. Parker says in the farewell to his readers, that the work "has never become what its projector designed that it should be;" and expresses a hope that "some new journal will presently be started, in a more popular form, which will promote the great ideas of our times, by giving them an expression in literature, and so help them to a permanent organization in the life of mankind."

* * * * *

CAPT. SIR EDWARD BELCHER, R.N., known in the literary and scientific world by his extensive voyages of survey and discovery, is now on a visit to New York, whence he will shortly proceed to Texas. Sir Edward Belcher is a gentleman of remarkable energy of character, and of eminent abilities.

* * * * *

A LETTER from M. Guizot, assigning the motives of his refusal to appear as a candidate of the Institute for a seat in the Superior Council of Public Instruction, is published by the Espérance of Nancy. The Principles avowed by M. Guizot lead directly to a separation of Church and State.

* * * * *

JOHN G. SAXE will soon publish a new poem which he delivered recently at the commencement of Middlebury College, with the applause which crowns all his efforts in this way.

* * * * *

A RE-ISSUE of the Complete Works of Eliza Cook will be shortly commenced in her Journal, and continued weekly until completed.

* * * * *

THE INSTITUTE OF GOETHE has just been founded by the government of Saxe Weimar. It consists simply of a prize of twenty thousand francs offered to the competition of the literary and artistic world. The first year it will be given to the best among the poems, romances, and dramatic works submitted; the second year to the best picture; the third year to the best piece of statuary; the fourth year to the best piece of music, whether sacred or profane, opera or oratorio. This circle having been completed, the prize will next be given as at the first year; and so on in regular succession. The successful competitor is to remain proprietor of his work, as are all the others. The prize will he allotted by two committees, one at Weimar the other at Berlin. The establishment of the fund was celebrated at Weimar on the 23d of August.

* * * * *

GIFFORD, some five-and-twenty years ago, declared that all the fools of the country had taken to write plays; and it would appear that all the dull Englishmen of our day have taken to write pamphlets on the slave-trade. The London Times is very severe upon a book just issued by Mr. W. Gore Ouseley, who was several years British Charge d'Affaires at Rio, as such conducted a voluminous correspondence on the subject with the government of Brazil, and might have been expected to have there learned something on the slave-trade worth telling. According to his reviewer he appears, however, to be one of that class of persons described by Sterne, who, traveling from Dan to Beersheba, found all to be barren; and no amount of observation can in any human being supply defective reasoning faculties. So, says the Times, he has little or nothing to say about the Brazilian slave-trade that has not been better said a thousand times before; and when he does venture on a special statement of his own, it topples down the whole superstructure of his argument.

A work of rather more interest is "Seven Years' Service on the Slave Coast of Africa", by Sir Henry Huntley, who, when a lieutenant in the navy in 1831, was ordered to the scene of his observations. Shortly after his arrival, he was appointed to the independent command of a small vessel, in which he visited stations, looked out for slavers, chased them when he saw them, and captured them when he could. A few years subsequently he was nominated Governor of the settlements on the Gambia. His two volumes contain his adventures during the whole or nearly the whole of his seven years' service upon the station; the last closing abruptly in the middle of preparations for a congress of black kings. The public is already familiar with many of the topics, from the occasional narratives of voyages and adventures along the coast. Visits to the commandants of the so-called castles; a description of the European and native mode of life at the settlements; accounts of the slave-stations, the slave-dealers, the slaves, and the slave-trade, together with sketches of more legitimate commerce, and occasional trips to the islands lying off the coast, for change of air and fresh supplies, are frequent features. Sir Henry Huntley's duties sometimes brought him in contact with native chiefs, and continually with slavers, in the search, the capture, and the pursuit. During the latter part of his career, the office of Governor gave great variety and largeness to his subjects; consisting of public business, palavers with native potentates, and matters connected with home policy. In point of literary character this work very nearly resembles the author's "Peregrine Scramble." Indeed, the "Seven Years' Service" is a sort of continuation of that book, without the form of fiction.

* * * * *

M. JULES LECHEVALIER, known in this country chiefly as one of the foreign Correspondents of The Tribune, but in Europe as an able writer on the Social Sciences, has recently delivered in Paris and Berlin, and in London, (where he is residing as a political exile,) a series of lectures, which will soon be given to the world in a volume, upon the subject of his favorite studies. M. Lechevalier's system, which he denominates "New Political Economy," is based upon the principle of association, in opposition to that of competition and laissez-faire, which constitute the groundwork of the school of the present political economists. In the course of his series he pointed out the gradual tendency of the competitive principle to produce extremes of riches and poverty, and ultimately revolutions, and maintained, that by the adoption of the associative principle alone, society can be preserved from confusion and destruction. He contends that the new political economy, or Socialism, is essentially Conservative, while the present system of unlimited competition, or buying cheap and selling dear, is destructive, M. Lechevalier pretends to base his system on the moral principles of Christ, and maintains that Christianity cannot be practically carried out in any other way. His lectures abound in examples of the working of the two opposing systems.

* * * * *

The Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, Boston, are going forward in the work of re-publishing the old standard works of the New-England theology. They have issued a fine edition of Bellamy and have procured an edition of Edwards the younger. They are now about commencing the stereotyping of Catlin's Compendium, and the whole works of Dr. Hopkins. We wish they would go back a century further, and give us the best works of Mather and his contemporaries.

* * * * *

There is a political novel by OTTO MULLER, of Manheim, announced, under the title Georg Volker: ein Vreiheits Roman, which is said to give a faithful picture of the Baden revolution, and to open with the rise of the peasantry in the Ottenwald.

* * * * *

THE DUC DE LA ROUCHEFOUCAULD's celebrated "Moral Reflections, Sentences, and Maxims," have just appeared in a new and very much improved translation, and with notes, pointing out similarities of sentiments in ancient and modern authors, and sometimes proving that Rochefoucauld's good things have been made use of without sufficient acknowledgment, by moderns. There is also an introduction, which dissertates well on the purpose and quality of the reflections. Such books were once very popular; but in this country they have not been much read. We have indeed had numerous editions of "Lacon," and Dr. Bettner's "Acton" has found a thousand purchasers; but the Rev. Dr. Hooker's "Maxims," which, in our opinion, are as good as anything of their kind in the English language, we believe have not attracted attention, and Mr. Simms's "Egeria" has been printed only in the columns of a newspaper.

* * * * *

A new theory has just been propounded at Paris in a book called "Armanase," (a Sanscrit word, meaning the "Reign of Capacity"). The author asserts the present forms of administrative government are injurious instead of useful to society, and ought to be replaced by institutions of a new and different order. His principle is, that the sovereignty of the individual ought to be instituted for that of governments, and that great associations of mutual assurance may be advantageously substituted for the existing system of management by office-holders. The author shows also that the progress of the natural and mechanical sciences will deliver man from the pressure of the more painful sorts of labor; and that wealth, freed from the barriers which now hinder its circulation, would be distributed freely throughout society. Intellectual property would be seriously guaranteed, and would enrich the men of genius, whose inventions and discoveries are now profitable, not to the authors, but to the capitalists who take advantage of them. By this means an important element of revolutions will be removed. The author proposes, that in order to prevent all suffering, a civil list shall be set apart for the people, who will be the king. This civil list is to be composed of a tax of one per cent., levied on all who have property in favor of those who have nothing. But, says he, let no one imagine that all would be dissolution and ruin in this system, without law or government. Crimes and offenses will be tried by juries, that is to say, by a living code. Property will no longer be seizable for debt, and the courts will become useless. Everybody shall have the absolute right to buy land by paying its possessor ten per cent, on its value: this is to give a chance for carrying on all sorts of grand public enterprises without trouble from the proprietors of little pieces of land. It may perhaps be doubted, whether the "Reign of Capacity" has exhibited any astonishing endowments in that respect.

* * * * *

THACKERAY, in Pendennis, has given offense, it appears, to some of the gensd'armes of the Press, by his satirical sketches of the literary profession. Those whose withers are unwrung will admit the truth of many pages and laugh at the caricature in the rest. In the last number of the North British Review is a clever article upon the subject, written with good temper and good sense. Hitherto publishers have been ridiculed and declaimed against as "tyrants" and "tradesmen,"—made to bear the onus of "poetical" improvidence, and to sustain the weight of a crime which no author can pardon—the rejection of manuscripts. The authors have painted the portraits of publishers; but an ancient fable suggests that if the lion had painted a certain picture, it would not have been a lion we should see biting the dust.

* * * * *