Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VII, December 1850, Vol. II

A frightful calamity has occurred at the place of pilgrimage called Herrgott, in Austria. At one of the public-houses the pilgrims (of whom there were 3000 assembled at Herrgott) were spending the night in eating and drinking. While baking the fish the oven took fire. Behind the inn were a number of stables and barns, in which hundreds of the pilgrims were reposing, and almost all perished in the flames. Scarcely half of the pilgrims were saved, and those who survived have for the most part been much injured.

From Poland there is a singular account of a forest on fire. Near Cracow, adjoining the line of railway, there is a large peat ground, part of which runs below an immense forest. Some sparks from a locomotive engine were blown in that direction, and fell on the peat. A few days after, the ground in the forest was found to be very warm, and some rumbling and crackling noises were heard. Several large trees fell as if cut down by an ax, and the leaves of others withered. As it was naturally considered that a subterranean fire must be burning under the forest, the officers charged with the inspection of it caused large trenches to be cut. This conjecture turned out to be well-founded, for the fire soon afterward burst forth, and still continued its ravages. The forest presented the appearance of a vast sea of flame, which was every day extending. The country round to the extent of six leagues was perfectly illuminated, and it has been found impossible to stop the progress of the fire.

The long expected Constitution for Galicia has at length appeared. That Crown land will have three districts, Cracow, Lemberg, and Stanislawow – each with a separate administration. In Cracow the specific Polish, and in Stanislawow the Ruthennian element is prevalent. Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, is the seat of the Provincial Government. In the Lemberg district the two branches of the same race (the Sclavonic) are mixed.

The Constitution for the Bukowina has also been published. This remote Crown land is divided into six districts or captaincies, which are under the immediate control of the Stadtholder of the province, who has still to be appointed. Count Goluchowski had been sworn in as Stadtholder of Galicia.

Letters from Ravenna, in the Genoa Gazette, give appalling accounts of the progress of brigandage in the Roman states. Two persons, considered as spies by the bandits, had been decapitated by them in the vicinity of the above-mentioned town, and their heads placed on poles at a cross-road. The diligence of Imola has lately been stopped and robbed of 1000 scudi (5500f.) belonging to the Pope. At Lugo, three individuals carried off 11,000f. from a bank, and passed triumphantly through the town with their booty, without any one daring to stop them.

An extensive conspiracy has recently been discovered at Teheran. The most influential members of the clergy were at the head of it, and its object was to overthrow the present Shah, to replace him by a descendant of Ali, and to drive all the Turks out of Persia. Numerous arrests have been made at Teheran, and in the principal towns. The greater number of those arrested belong to the body of Ulemas.

LETTERS, SCIENCE, ART, PUBLIC MEN, Etc

UNITED STATES

The past month has not been marked by any movements of importance in any of these departments. Our publishers have generally confined their issues to works especially intended for the holiday season. Most of our public men have been recruiting themselves from the fatigues of the late protracted session of Congress, or preparing, by taking part in the political canvass, for the session that is at hand. Mr. Clay was received at Lexington with abundant demonstrations of enthusiastic personal and political affection. He has remained at home during the vacation.

Mr. Webster has been spending some weeks at his farm in Marshfield, and at his native town, Franklin, N.H. During his stay at the latter place a number of his old friends and neighbors paid him a visit, and sat down to an old-fashioned dinner, at which friendly greetings were exchanged with their distinguished host. The occasion was one of rare enjoyment. Mr. Webster's health has been very sensibly benefited by this greatly needed interval of relaxation from public duties. In some remarks made at an informal meeting with some friends in Boston, Mr. W. said that for six months during the last session of Congress, he had not slept two hours any one night.

A public dinner was recently given at Boston to Amin Bey, the Turkish Envoy to the United States, by some of the merchants of Boston. Thomas B. Curtis presided, and a large number of distinguished guests were present. Amin Bey replied to a toast complimentary to the Sultan, by expressing his warm sense of the friendliness with which he had been received in this country, and his earnest desire for an extension of commerce and of mutual kind offices between his own government and that of the United States. Mr. Webster made a brief and eloquent response to a toast thanking him for his efforts in behalf of the Union. In the course of his remarks he said that "the slavery question New England could only interfere with as a meddler: she had no more to do with it than she had with the municipal government of a city in the Island of Cuba." Very eloquent speeches, breathing similar sentiments, were made by Edward Everett, Mr. Winthrop, and others and J.P. Brown Esq., the interpreter of Amin Bey, responded happily to a toast complimenting Hon. George P. Marsh the American Minister at Constantinople. Mr. Brown said that as a diplomatist and a scholar Mr. Marsh enjoyed, in an eminent degree, the respect and esteem of the enlightened young Sultan of Turkey, and all his Ministers.

M. Alexandre Vattemare, who is known as the founder of the system of International Exchanges, has taken leave of the United States in a very warm and eloquent address, expressing his gratitude for the kindness of his reception, his brilliant anticipations of the great results which time will develop from the system to which he has devoted his life, and commending it to the favor and aid of the American people. The world has seen few instances of rarer or more disinterested devotion to high public objects than this amiable and enthusiastic gentleman has exhibited.

The statue of John C. Calhoun, made by Powers for the City of Charleston, and which was lost by shipwreck off Fire Island, has been recovered, and sent forward to its destination. The left arm was broken off at the elbow: with this exception it was uninjured.

At a recent meeting of the Academy of Design in New York, it was stated by the president, Mr. Durand, that the institution had incurred a considerable debt beyond its resources, and mentioned a proposition that the artists connected with it should paint pictures to be disposed of for the benefit of the Academy. In regard to the mode of disposing of them a raffle was suggested: but Mr. Cozzens, the President of the Art-Union, being present as an honorary member, at once offered to purchase them at such a price as might be fixed upon them by the Academy. The proposition was at once accepted, and has given great and general satisfaction as an indication of good feeling between two institutions which have been sometimes represented as hostile to each other.

Mr. Wm. D. Gallagher, who is very favorably known as a literary gentleman of ability, has received the appointment of confidential clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington.

Mr. William W. Story, son of the late Judge Story, has recently returned from Italy, where he has been perfecting himself in the art of sculpture, for which he abandoned the profession of law a few years since. He brought with him a number of very beautiful models made while at Rome. He has executed a bust of the distinguished jurist, his father, for the Inner Temple, London. He will return to Rome in the spring.

We understand that the painting and gilding of white china, imported from England and France, is engaging considerable attention in this country, and that there is one establishment in Boston where above a hundred persons are constantly employed.

Prof. Filopanti, an Italian scholar of some distinction, has been delivering a series of lectures in New York, on the Influence of Secret Societies on the Revolutions of Ancient and Modern Rome.

Hon. Daniel D. Barnard has sailed for Europe to enter upon his duties as American Minister at Berlin. Previous to his departure his fellow citizens of Albany addressed him a very complimentary letter, expressing their regret at the loss of his society, and their admiration of his character. Mr. B. is one of the most cultivated and scholarly of American statesmen.

It is stated, though we know not upon what authority, that Col. Bliss is preparing a History of the Campaigns of General Taylor. Such a work would be of great value and interest, historically and in a literary point of view.

G.P.R. James, Esq., is delivering his lectures on the History of Civilization in different northern cities. He intends to spend the winter at the South. He has placed one of his sons at Yale College, and the other in the Law School at New Haven.

Mr. Crawford, the American sculptor, is soon to commence modeling the statue of Washington, which our government has commissioned him to execute. From a granite basement, in the form of a star of six rays, rises a pedestal, upon which stands the equestrian statue, in bronze, sixteen feet in height. The six points of the star are to be surmounted with six colossal figures. The casting will be executed either at Paris or Munich.

Steps have been taken to erect a suitable monument to the memory of General Warren. A committee of which Mr. Everett was chairman have reported in favor of a statue to be placed in Faneuil Hall, Boston.

A bust of Ethan Allen has just been completed by a Vermont artist, Mr. Kinney. He had a great deal of difficulty in procuring an accurate likeness; the grandson of Allen, Colonel Hitchcock of the army, is said to bear a striking personal resemblance to the old hero.

The Bulletin of the American Art-Union contains information concerning American Artists which has personal interest: —

Durand has not yet removed from his residence on the Hudson. Kensett and Champney have been sketching among the White Hills of New Hampshire. Cropsey is at his country studio, at Greenwood Lake. Church and Gignoux have returned from the coast of Maine with their portfolios well stocked with sketches. Ranney continues to work upon his picture of Marion, with his Army, crossing the Pedee, which will soon be completed. Matteson, now residing at Sherburne, has nearly finished a picture representing A Trial Scene in the Backwoods, which, it is said, will advance his reputation. Jones, a sculptor who has a high reputation at the West, has removed to New York; he has already modeled busts of General Taylor, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Thomas Corwin, and other notabilities, and is now employed on a spirited head of General Scott, at the order of some friends in Detroit.

Edwin White is diligently pursuing his studies in Paris. Hall, we believe, has also gone to Paris from Düsseldorf. Page has arrived in Florence, which place he intends to make his residence for several months. He has formed a warm intimacy with Powers, whose portrait he is painting. Whitridge and McConkey have lately sent home several pictures which indicate improvement, although they are somewhat tinged with the mannerism of the Düsseldorf school, where these artists have been studying so long. They propose to leave Germany very soon, and after visiting Italy and France, to return home in the spring. Leutze is at work on his great picture of Washington Crossing the Delaware. The size of this painting is the same with that of those in the Rotunda of the Capitol, twelve feet by eighteen feet. It will probably be completed in the spring, when the artist intends to accompany it to this country, from which he has been absent now about ten years. Upjohn, the architect was, by the last accounts, in Venice. Glass has returned to his residence at Kensington, near London, from the neighborhood of Haddon Hall, where he has been assiduously engaged in sketching. He is at work upon a group of paintings, illustrative of scenes in the wars of the Stuarts. He is an artist of decided merit and increasing reputation.

GREAT BRITAIN

In England very few books of special value or interest have been published or announced. The most important book of the month is the first part of a very able and laborious compilation on Commercial Law by Mr. Leone Levi. The object of the entire undertaking, is to survey the principles and administration of all the various commercial laws of foreign countries, with a view to a direct comparison with the mercantile law of Great Britain. Mr. Levi appears to have been engaged for years, with this object, in correspondence with the merchants of upward of fifty countries remarkable more or less for distinct and separate commercial usages; and to have obtained in every instance the information he sought. His ultimate object, is the establishment of a national and international code of commerce among all civilized countries, rejecting what is inconvenient or unjust in all, and retaining and codifying what is best in each.

A life of Wordsworth, by the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, is announced as in press. Its appearance will be awaited with interest.

M. Mazzini has just republished his letters, orations, and other tracts on Italy, with an eloquent and earnest appeal to the English people, in a small volume entitled Royalty and Republicanism in Italy. M. Mazzini repels in this book the charge so often brought against him of having distracted and divided the forces of his native country, at the time when they ought to have been concentrated on the paramount duty of driving out the Austrians.

A curious incident connected with American History is mentioned in the closing volume of Southey's Life, which has just been published in London. While Jared Sparks was examining the state papers in the public offices of the British Government, so much matter was ferreted out that the government "wished to tell its own story," and Southey adds, that his "pulse was felt," but he declined writing it on the ground that others could perform the task as well, and he had other engagements on hand.

Southey, in 1829, declined a proposal from Fraser to write a popular history of English literature in four volumes. It is to be regretted that he did not write such a work.

In a letter to a friend, speaking of the Foreign Review, Southey says that of its contributors, he "only knows that an Edinburgh person, by name Carlyle, has written the most striking papers on German literature." This style of reference to one who is now one of the most eminent English writers, strikes a reader as curious. In the same letter he speaks of Heraud, as "a man of extraordinary powers, and not less extraordinary industry and ardor."

In 1835, Sir Robert Peel wrote to Southey, informing him that he had advised the king to "adorn the distinction of the baronetage with a name the most eminent in literature, and which had claims to respect and honor which literature alone could never confer" – that of Southey himself. He accompanied this with a private letter, begging to know if there was any way in which the possession of power would enable him to be of service to Mr. Southey. The latter replied, in a letter marked by the utmost propriety, declining the baronetcy, as he had not the means of supporting it, and asking for an increase of his pension, which was then £200. Sir Robert soon after added to this a new pension of £300, on a public principle, "the recognition of literary and scientific eminence as a public claim." He conferred, at the same time, a similar pension on Professor Airey, of Cambridge, Mrs. Somerville, Sharon Turner, and James Montgomery.

The Athenæum says that an experiment, set on foot by the liberality of a few humane persons in the vicinity of London, has proved conclusively that the number of idiots exceeds that of lunatics, and that very much may be done, not only to promote their physical comfort, but to bring the small germs of intellect which exist even in the most imbecile minds, into intelligent and useful activity. Encouraged by this success, they have appealed to the public for aid in establishing an institution for the relief of that unfortunate class. They propose to erect a building suitable for three hundred patients.

The proprietors of the Marine Telegraph between England and France propose, instead of laying a wire like the one which the storm broke recently, to have new wires inclosed in ropes of four or five inches in diameter – the first layer being made of gutta percha, and the outer one of iron wire, all chemically prepared to resist the action of water and the attacks of marine animalculæ. In each cable there will be four lines of communication, and two cables will be laid down at a distance of three miles apart, to provide for any accident that may happen to one of them. The whole, it is said, will be ready in May next, and a grand inauguration is proposed, Prince Albert being at one end of the wire and Louis Napoleon at the other.

A project is on foot to reclaim from the sea, at Norfolk, 32,000 acres of land, said to be of great agricultural value. The estimated expense of doing it is £640,000.

Mr. Halliwell has addressed a letter to the Times, complaining of an unauthorized republication in London of an edition of Shakspeare, with introductions and notes by himself, published with considerable success in New York.

Miss Martineau has been exciting a good deal of mirth in England by a published account of having succeeded in mesmerizing a sick cow.

Dr. Maitland is urging the formation of a society to bring out new editions of the most celebrated and least accessible works on Church History. His plan is received with favor by the literary and religious journals.

The foundations of several old walls, supposed to have formed a Roman burial mound, have recently been discovered in Hertfordshire, and means have been adopted to give the locality a thorough exploration. Several human skeletons were found in the vicinity.

New statues of Newton, Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon, are to be set up on the four new pedestals in the British Museum; models of them have been made by Sir Richard Westmacott. An elaborate piece of sculpture has also been prepared for the tympanum of the pediment, representing the progress of man from a savage condition up to the highest state of intellectual advancement.

Mr. Godwin has addressed a letter to the Lord Mayor elect of London, on the subject of improving the character of the annual city "show" on the 9th of November, and urging that some little invention and taste might be exercised upon it, in lieu of repeating year after year the same dull and effete routine. He thinks that so ancient a custom ought not to be abandoned, and proposes to raise it out of the monotonous and prosaic routine into which it has fallen, by the introduction, among other changes, of emblems and works of art, accordant with its ancient character, and worthy of the present time.

The effect of the great Industrial Exhibition upon the health of London is engaging considerable attention. It is estimated that not less than a million of people will pour into the city at that time, and it is contended by medical men of eminence that, unless wise and vigorous measures be adopted, so vast and sudden an influx will create a pestilence. The remedy proposed is to secure in some way the daily distribution of the arrivals over a large area in London, and a series of cheap trains which would carry off a portion of the pressure daily, spreading the gathered millions over thirty or forty miles of movable encampment.

Sundry relics, ropes, canvas, bones, &c., were recently brought to England by the Prince Albert, which were found at Cape Riley, in the Arctic Seas, and were supposed to afford traces of Sir John Franklin. They were submitted by the Admiralty to Captain Parry, Sir John Richardson, and others for examination, and the conclusion arrived at is, that they were left at Cape Riley by Sir John Franklin's expedition about the year 1845. It is supposed that being stopped by ice, Sir John remained there for a short time making observations, &c. The reports are elaborate, and evince careful and minute investigation. The conclusion at which they arrive is very generally credited, so that the first part of Sir John's adventures in the Arctic Seas is supposed to be at length known.

The building for the Great Exhibition in London has been commenced, and the work upon it goes forward with great rapidity. It is said that the exhibition will probably have the effect to create several local museums of great interest and importance. The advantages of such institutions, especially to inventors, would be very great.

Delaroche's great picture of "Napoleon crossing the Alps," has reached London, where it is on exhibition. It is described as being wonderfully exact in copying nature, but as lacking elevation of purpose and the expression of sentiment. An officer in a French costume, mounted on a mule, is conducted by a rough peasant through a dangerous pass, whose traces are scarcely discernible through the deep-lying snow – and his aid-de-camp is just visible in a ravine of the towering Alps. These facts, the Athenæum says, are rendered with a fidelity that has not omitted the plait of a drapery, the shaggy texture of the four-footed animal, nor a detail of the harness on his back. The drifting and the imbedded snow, the pendent icicle which a solitary sun-ray in a transient moment has made – all are given with the utmost truth. But the lofty and daring genius that led the humble Lieutenant of Ajaccio to be the ruler and arbiter of the destinies of the largest part of Europe, will be sought in vain in the countenance painted by M. Delaroche.

A curious discovery has been made in a collection of ancient marbles at Marbury Hall, in Cheshire, formed at Rome in the middle of the last century. A fragment of the frieze of the Parthenon has been found, and is unmistakably identified by its exactly fitting the parent stone in the British Museum.

The people of Sheffield are subscribing and soliciting subscriptions in other cities for a monument to the memory of the poet Ebenezer Elliott. It is not intended that the monument should be vast or expensive, but that a neat cenotaph or column, at a cost of twelve or fifteen hundred pounds, should be erected and placed in a position suitable to do honor to the genius whose memory it is to perpetuate.