GEORGE W. CHILDS, PUBLISHER, No. 600 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA.

GEO. N. DAVIS, 119 Rua Direita, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Agent for South America.

A. ROMAN, San Francisco, California, Agent for the Pacific Coast.

T. W. WILSON, 14 Calle de Mercaderes, Habana, Agent for the West Indies.

Suherriztions or Advertisements for the "American Literary Gazette" will be received by the above Agents, and they will forward

to the Editor any Books or Publications intended for notice.

OUR ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCE,

ОСТ. 1. 1869.

LONDON, September 1, 1869.

language necessarily waned, receded, and at last became merged into the domestic element of the Anglo-Saxon, retaining only such of its native liveliness, and adaptability to metrical rhyme and cadence, as enriched the earliest utterances of our English poetry; in the muse, at once grave and sportive, at once courtly and popular, which inspired the lips of Chaucer."

MERRY England! I confess I am one of those people who think this country well deserves her old title. The French are more boisterous in their gayety but I confess I prefer the quiet merriment of the English, especially as it has an earnestness, sincerity, and depth, the superficial nation across the channel do not possess. I wish you could see The meeting of the British Association has been England and the English in this vacation of the interesting. Sublime is perhaps an improper term year! Everybody is in the country, for no English- to apply to a popular speech on astronomy, yet the man feels at home except in the country. I do not address Professor Stokes delivered on taking the believe you can find anywhere in the world a more chair filled the mind with thoughts almost painlovable country than England. You are familiar fully high. It was a review of the recent progress with Washington Irving's delightful pictures of made in astronomy. Where every sentence of an English rural scenes. To my eye the country is address is interesting, it is hard to select several still more lovable at present than it was in those paragraphs as more interesting than their neighnow distant days, for forty years assiduous wooing bors, therefore quote the following, not as being has brought Nature still nearer Man. How the more interesting, but as presenting the method English love Nature with its manifestations: horses, and discoveries of later scientific research: "We dogs, rivers, ocean, trees, flowers, birds, cattle, are accustomed to apply to the stars the epithet poultry. There is no country in the world so ani- 'fixed.' When instead of days, the observations mated by birds as England. They start from every extend over months or years, it is found that the hedge, they chirrup in every tree, they rise from fixity is not quite absolute. How shall we deterevery field. We are all in the fields now. The mine whether any particular star is approaching to Geological Society is exploring the Channel Islands. or receding from our sun? It is clear that astronomy The Archæological Society has just ended its pil-alone is powerless to aid us here, since such a mogrimages in the neighborhood of St. Albans. The tion would be unaccompanied by change of angular British Medical Association has given all our phy-position. Here the science of optics comes to our sicians and surgeons an excuse for breathing fresh aid in a remarkable manner. The pitch of a muair at Leeds. The British Association has drawn sical note depends, as we know, on the number of all our scientific men to Exeter. The proceedings vibrations which reach the ear in a given time, at all of these meetings are valuable and interesting, such as a second. Suppose now that a body, such but I am at great loss to know how to deal with as a bell, which is vibrating a given number of them, or whether to deal with them at all in these times per second, is at the same time moving from pages. I was strongly tempted to quote from Lord the observer, the air being calm. Since the succesLytton's (Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer's) speech at sive pulses of sound travel all with the same veloSt. Albans the remarks he made about the duty of city, but diverge from different centres-namely, the archeologist "to guard from oblivion the myths, the successive points in the bell's path at which the the traditions, the legends of former days, and crit- bell was when those pulses were first excited-it is ical and severe though his genius and its obliga-evident that the sound-waves will be somewhat tions must be, still it was to his care that we owed more spread out on the side from which the bell is the preservation of many a pure and sacred well- moving, and more crowded together on the side spring of poetry and romance, well-springs from towards which it is moving, than if the bell had which Spenser and Milton, Dryden, Gray, Words-been at rest. Consequently, the number of vibraworth and Scott had drawn each his own special stream of inspiration. .. The difference between one race and another appears to be according to the mental organization by which any given race could receive ideas from a more civilized race by which it was subdued, or with which it was brought into contact. If it could not receive and incorporate such ideas, it withered and faded away, just as the Red Indian withered and faded away beside the superior civilization of the American settlers. But England never seemed, from the earliest historical records, to have been inhabited by any race which did not accept ideas of improved civilization from its visitors or conquerors. The main reason why the language of the Anglo-Saxon had survived the Norman invasion, and finally supplanted the language of the Conqueror, does not appear to me to be very clearly stated by our historians. I believe the reason to be really this: the language that men spoke in after life was formed in the nursery; it was learnt from the lips of the mother. The adventurers of Scandinavian origin who established themselves in Normandy did not select their wives in Scandanavia, but in France, and thus their children learnt in the nursery the French language. In like manner when they conquered England those who were still unmarried had the good taste to seek their wives among the Saxons, and thus the language of the mothers naturally became that of the children, and being also the language of the servants employed in the household, the French

tions per second which reach the ear of an observer situated in the former of these directions will be somewhat smaller, and the number which reach an observer situated in the opposite direction somewhat greater, than if the bell had been at rest. Hence, to the former the pitch will be somewhat lower, and to the latter somewhat higher, than the natural pitch of the bell. And the same thing will happen if the observer be in motion instead of the bell, or if both be in motion; in fact, the effect depends only on the relative motion of the observer and the bell in the direction of a line joining the two-in other words, on the velocity of recession or approach of the observer and the bell. The present state of optical science is such as to furnish us with evidence (of a force which is perfectly overwhelming), that light consists of a tremor or vibratory movement propagated in an elastic medium filling the planetary and stellar spaces, a medium which thus fulfils for light an office similar to that of air for sound. In this theory, to difference of periodic time corresponds difference of refrangibility. Suppose that we were in possession of a source of light capable, like the bell in the analogous case of sound, of exciting in the æther, supposed at rest, vibrations of a definite period, corresponding, therefore, to light of a definite refrangibility? Then, just as in the case of sound, if the source of light and the observer were receding from or approaching to each other with a velocity which was not insensibly small compared with the velocity of light, an ap

OCT. 1, 1869.

OUR CONTINENTAL CORRESPONDENCE.
PARIS, August 29, 1869.

preciable lowering or elevation of refrangibility would be produced, which would be capable of detection by means of a spectroscope of high dispensive I HAVE not regularly reported the phases of the power. The velocity of light is so enormous, about controversy respecting the authenticity of the al185,000 miles per second, that it can readily be leged autographs of Pascal and Newton, which has imagined that any motion which we can experi- begotten a good deal of bad blood in the Academy mentally produce in a source of light, is at rest in of Sciences. The controversy was uninteresting. comparison. But the earth in its orbit round the I informed you it was at once shown to be materisun moves at the rate of about 18 miles per second; ally impossible that Pascal or Newton wrote the and in the motions of stars approaching, to or re-letters attributed to them. This evidence destroyed ceding from our sun, we might expect to meet with all interest in the discussion, except to people who velocities comparable with this. The orbital ve- had their private animosities to gratify. The hislocity of the earth is, it is true, only about one-ten- tory of these forgeries, as far as is known, is as thousandth part of the velocity of light. Still, the follows: M. Chasles, the mathematician (who effect of such a velocity on the refrangibility of should not be confounded with M. Philarete light, which admits of being easily calculated, Chasles, Professor of the College of France), was proves not to be so insensibly small as to elude all induced to give $5000 gold for these forgeries, he chance of detection, provided only the observations being persuaded they were authentic autographs. are conducted with extreme delicacy. But how Earnest efforts have been made to get from him shall we find in such distant objects as the stars the name of the person from whom he bought them, an analogue of the bell which we have assumed in and whose character seemed to him a sufficient the illustration drawn from sound? What evidence guarantee of their origin. M. Chasles's own charcan we ever obtain, even if an examination of their acter shields him from all imputation of wrong light should present us with rays of definite refran- doing. His worst enemies think him merely the gibility, of the existence in those remote bodies of dupe of some unprincipled intriguer. M. Chasles ponderable matter, vibrating in known periods not refuses to disclose the name of the vendor, and identical with those corresponding to the refrangi- it would seem that he is bound by plighted word bilities of the definite rays we observe? The answer not to disclose it. There is a general impression to this question will involve a reference to the that M. Libri is the vendor and the forger. splendid researches of Professor Kirchhoff. We Whether this impression is made from the known owe to him the inference from an extension of Pre-intimacy which subsists between M. Chasles and vost's theory of exchanges, that a glowing medium M. Libri, and the opinion current here that M. which emits bright light of any particular refrangibility, necessarily (at that temperature at least) acts as an absorbing medium, extinguishing light of the same refrangibility. This inference led Kirchhoff to make a careful comparison of the places of the dark lines of the solar spectrum, with those of bright lines produced by the incandescent gas or vapor of known elements; and the coincidences were in many cases so remarkable, as to establish almost to a certainty the existence of several of the known elements in the solar atmosphere, producing by their absorbing action, the dark lines coinciding with the bright lines observed. Among other elements may be mentioned in particular hydrogen, the spectrum of which, when traversed by an electric discharge, shows a bright line or band exactly coinciding with the dark line C, and another with the line F. Now Mr. Huggins found that several of the stars show in their spectra dark lines coineiding in position with C and F, both present or both absent. Kirchhoff's theory suggests that the common cause is the existence of hydrogen in the atmosphere of the sun and certain stars, and its exercise of an absorbing action on the light emitted from beneath. Now Mr. Huggins found that the F line, the one selected for observation in the spectrum of Sirius, did not exactly coincide with the corresponding bright line of a hydrogen spark, which latter agrees in position with the solar F, but was a little less refrangible, while preserving the same general appearance. What conclusion, then, are we to draw from the result? Assuming that the small difference of responsibility between the solar F and that of Sirius is due to proper motion, Mr. Huggins concludes from his measures of the minute difference of position, that at the time of observation Sirius was receding from the earth at the rate of 41.4 miles per second. A part of this was due to the motion of the earth; on deducting the orbital velocity of the earth, there remained 29.4 miles per second as the velocity with which Sirius and our sun are mutually receding from each other."

FRANCIS BLANDFORD.

Libri is capable of committing any fraud, or from some indications found in the forged papers themselves, I am unable to say. M. Chasles refuses to deny he got them from M. Libri, or rather refuses to answer any questions whatsoever about them. M. Libri is an Italian, who was at one time Professor at the College de France, and a member of the Institute, and is the author of several able mathematical works, among others of a "History of Mathematics." In 1848, shortly before the Revolution occurred, he was suspected of abusing the freedom of the public libraries granted him, (what Frenchman could dare suspect a Professor of the College de France and a member of the Institute whose patron was M. Guizot?) to purloin valuable manuscripts and books. The Revolution occurred. His protectors were in exile. An investigation was ordered. He heard of it and fled from France. A search warrant was issued. In his lodgings a good deal of property belonging to the public libraries was found. He was tried, though absent, and sentenced to penal servitude. I must add, in justice, that a good many persons of authority believe M. Libri to be innocent of these accusations, which they consider to have been trumped up to gratify rancor, which found the Revolution a convenient occasion to obtain satisfaction. This opinion is held by M. Prosper Merimée, M. Lacroix (Bibliophile Jacob), and I believe, by M. Guizot. I believe the majority of the Academy of Sciences think the question of the authenticity of the alleged autographs of Newton and Pascal definitively settled, and that they are ejected as forgeries.

The annual public meeting of the five academies which together form the Institute of France was held on the 14th. The day is inauspicious. Paris is filled with provincials and foreigners who have come to see the festival of the 15th. Workmen are busy in all of our public squares preparing the decorations of the festival. The wall of the Institute itself is invaded by gas-fitters laying pipes for the illumination. Everybody is thinking of the splendors of the festival. Moreover, there is a

OCT. 1, 1869.

want of unity in this annual meeting. Each paper of our newspapers, in the course of which he anread is on a widely different subject from its pre- nouces he will publish in November a work on decessor and successor. Add the dog days' heat education, and says: A very new literature is of a public meeting held in a narrow rotunda. The beginning in France, a literature which will break hall where the Institute holds its public meetings images, a literature all flame, genius, and animawas, I believe, the chapel of the College des Quatre tion." . . . It is said M. Octave Feuillet's income Nations, and Mazarin, who built it, was buried from his works is $12,000 gold annually. He has, there. His funeral monument and tombstone are besides a sumptuous suite of rooms, in Fontainebleau in the Louvre (Museum of Modern French Sculp- Palace, fuel, etc. free, and a good salary as librature). M. Claude Bernard was president of the rian of the palace. M. Jules Simon is correctday. M. Charles Blanc read an "Essay on the ing the proof-sheets of a Breton novel, "La Peine de Esthetics of Lines," in which he protested against Mort ;" it will be preceded by a preface which will English landscape gardening, which has so properly be something of an autobiography.... The French dethroned the French gardening all over the world. government will hereafter send every year on board He said: "When one wishes to make the plan of the man-of-war which carries the pupils of the an English garden, one has but to make his gardener Naval School [it sends a man-of-war with the gradrunk and to follow his reelings." M. Baudril-duating pupils of the Naval School on a long voylart read a paper on the "Luxury of Raiment in age to perfect their studies by practice.] Some naFrance during the Middle Ages," which was quite tural philosophers, naturalists or astronomers prointeresting. M. Camille Doucet read a short vided with the necessary books and instruments. poem describing a recent voyage he made in the The Academy of Sciences will give them the necessouth of France. M. Huillard Breholles was to sary instructions upon the researches to be made. have read an "Essay on the Political State of Italy The Academy has appointed Messrs. de Tessan, during the Middle Ages," but the evening had Faye, Becquerel, Brongniart, Boussingault, and begun to advance too rapidly for this paper to be Milne Edwards to prepare these instructions. These read. scientific men will study the marine fauna at great I take this curious paragraph from a weekly depths, the conditions in which endemic diseases are newspaper: "It is said the Empress has requested developed; the temperature of the sea at its surface M. Alex. Dumas, Sr., to accompany her to the East and at different depths, in mid-ocean—near land—in as the historiographer of her travels. Dumas has the centre-side and edges of currents; the nature been the king of this style of writing, and were he of zodiacal light, etc. .. The "Staatsanzeiger" to take up his Toledo pen, he would still be king. (official gazette) of Stuttgard has published these But I cannot easily conceive Dumas, Sr., in the Em- interesting statistics of education in Würtemberg. press's retinue; besides, those who have suggested" This little kingdom of 1,778,000 souls possesses Dumas for this place, have not reflected upon a grave inconvenience likely to result from it. In Egypt and everywhere else (Madrid and some cities of Italy excepted), people feel the same enthusiasm and admiration for Dumas, Paris felt thirty years ago. In other words, were Dumas to travel with a crowned head, he himself would be the most conspicuous crowned head. One must have seen this state of feeling towards him, as we have seen it, to believe it. The triumphal arches, the huzzas, the flowers, the stares would all be for him. Once, on the deck of a steamboat on the Danube, a high-born lady went up to him, knelt at his feet, and kissed the hand which wrote 'Les Mousquetaires,' as Marguerite, in the cloister of her palace, kissed the closed lips of sleeping Alain Chartier, the gentle poet. It would be necessary to have everywhere two cushions for the city's keys, one for the Sovereign, and one for the writer; and the Sovereign must have a lofty heart and a very noble soul not to feel jealous."

I must record the death of M. Theodore Anne, a literary man who wrote books and plays and contributed to newspapers, but who never emerged out of obscurity. He was originally an officer in a cavalry regiment, from which he went into the Garde Royale, and where he remained until the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty. While in military service he wrote, with M. d'Artois, some vaudevilles which were successful. When the Revolution of 1830 occurred, he resigned his military commission and appealed to literature to give him daily bread. He wrote many plays-vaudevilles, comedies, dramas-many novels, and several graver works. Nothing he wrote survives, except in the bibliographical manuals. He is said to have been over fond of the bottle, and to have drowned a portion of his talents in wine. He lived to a good old age, nevertheless, and I am told was in easy circumstances of fortune all his life, though an ink bottle was his only patrimony.

M. Michelet has written a political letter to one

In

one university at Tubingen which has 97 professors and 800 students, one agricultural college, several agricultural schools, several vine and wine-making schools, a polytechnic school, a building school (Bouge werken schule), one art school, etc. 1868 there were 91 colleges (gelehrtenschulen) 83 technical schools (realschulen), in 9 towns there are special schools which prepare children 6 years old and upwards for these colleges and technical schools, and 404 free schools-in all the foregoing schools and colleges there were in 1868 no less than 11,102 children, namely, 0.62 per cent. of the whole population of Wurtemberg. There were, moreover, 2431 primary schools with 3953 masters, 1492 trade schools (where girls are taught sewing, etc.) with 1828 school mistresses. The total number of children in these two last sorts of schools is 57,046. ... Prof. Boehm, one of the most eminent medical men of Berlin, died a few days since under fearful circumstances; while dissecting before a class of students he pricked a finger. He thought it a mere abrasion of the skin, and failed to cauterize it. Two days afterwards his hand began to swell, and became enormous. The poison pervaded his whole system and killed him. He retained his consciousness nearly to the last, and saw his end approach with undisturbed firmness. Marshal Pelissier's Memoirs are in press. Among the literary men decorated with or promoted in the Legion of Honor on the 15th August, I may mention Messrs. Henri Meilhac, Ed. Gondinet (M. Halevy's associate in furnishing M. Offenbach with "Vooks"), Gustave Lemoine (author of songs, vaudevilles, and a Paris correspondent of "L'Independance Belge"), Edmond Gondinet (author of many comedies, and of the funny farce, "Gavaut, Minard et Cie," which was so successful at the Palais Royal Theatre, last winter), Etienne Enault (author of very dull nov. els), Prof. Michel Breal (a linguist), T. Ravaisson, (a well-known author and one of the librarians of Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal), Alfred des Essarts (an author and one of the librarians of Bibliothèque

OCT. 1. 1869.