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Whoever wishes to read one of the most curious pages of history, will find it in his book, which is written in that vivacious, lucid, and elegant style, for which he is justly distinguished."

-Vingt Années aux Philippines (Twenty years in the Philippines), is a little volume containing the choicest adventures of M. DE LA GIRONIERE, who founded a colony at Jala-Jala in the island of Luzon. Lovers of travels, and of strange, out-of-the way tribes and countries, will find here something to their taste.

-MIGNET, the historian, is publishing in the Journal des Savants a series of articles on that exhaustless subject Charles V son abdication, sa retraite, son sejour et sa mort au Monastère de Just.

-Readers of French novels will, perhaps, think they do not waste their time if they undertake the Contes Romanesques of M. PAUL DELTUF. The best thing in the little volume is Une Vendette Parisienne (a Parisian Vengeance).

-ARSENE HOUSSAYE is an elegant, but a shallow and frivolous writer. He has just published a new volume of sketches entitled Sous la Regence et sous la Terreur (Under the Regency and under the Terror). They are worthless except to those who find nothing better to amuse themselves with.

-L'Histoire Religieuse des Peuples Slaves (The Religious History of the Slavonic peoples), by V. KRASINSKI, long in preparation, has at last appeared with a preface by MERLE D'AUBIGNE.

-A history of the discovery and conquest of Peru by the Spaniards, has been published at Paris, with five maps. The author is M. P. CHAIX, who proposes to bring out the entire history of Spanish and Portuguese discovery in South America during the sixteenth century. This is the first part of his work.

GERMANY.-An important contribution to Roman history is Prof. JACOB BURKHARDT'S Zeit Constantins des Grossen (Time of Constantine the Great), just published at Basle, Switzerland. It is a profound, learned, and instructive work, full, not only of erudition, but of the results of philosophic thought and comprehensive observation of men and nations.

-Das Hohelied Salomonis (The Song of Solomon), by Dr. E. W. HENGSTENBERG, is a new exegesis of that portion of the Bible upon allegorical principles, in opposition to the more literal and critical treatment it has been wont to receive from the scholars of Germany. That the work is done with spirit and entire independence of other writers, the name of the author sufficiently guarantees.

-The discourses of Rev. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, since he became a Catholic and the priest of St. Philip Neri, have been translated into German by Mr. DÖLLINGER, and published at Regensburg.

-Dr. JOSEPH SCHWARZ, a German Jew, long resident in Jerusalem, published, some years since, in Hebrew. at Jerusalem, a book on the Holy Land in its Former and Present Geographical Peculiarities, which has now been translated into German, and thus made more generally accessible. It is eminently worthy the attention of all who are interested in the geography of ancient or modern Palestine. An English translation has been published in Philadelphia.

-Der Teufel in Bade (The Devil at the Bath), is a new romance about to be published by KARL SPINDLER, with its scene laid appropriately at Baden and Homburg.

-A careful and impartial narrative of the life of Louis Napoleon may be found in TIEDEFREUD'S Napoleon III., just pub

lished at Berlin. It contains also all the public documents which have any particular relation to His Imperial Majesty.

-The Prussian Government have just issued a list of the books which no circulating library in the kingdom is allowed to keep. Among them are THERESA PULSZKY'S Hungarian Tales, HEINE'S Romancero, Robert Blum's Life and Influence, and several works upon Modern History and Politics.

-The Romanticists must ever hold a high place in the German literature of the present century. The names of TIECK, FOUQUE, SCHLEGEL, NOVALIS, ARNIM, HOFFMANN, and KINKEL, may lose something of the brilliancy which their first admirers attributed to them, but their genius must always command the respect of those whose respect is most valuable. To the young American especially, we recommend the cultivation of these Teutonic writers; and a judicious selection from their works just published at Hanover, will afford a convenient means for making their acquaintance. It is called Phantasus, and gives the best productions of the school,-including in it indeed some whom we should not have classed there, --with excellent and impartial critical and introductory notes.

NORWAY.-An interesting collection of the old popular songs and ballads of Norway, long since commenced by Pastor LAUDSTAD, of that country, has recently been given to the public in part. one volume having been published. Most of the poems in this volume come from the province of Oberthelemach, the home of

Norwegian popular song, where Mr. LAUDSTAD has resided for some thirty years. They are given in the original dialect, with notes explanatory of their meaning, and of their connection with Swedish, Danish and Faroish ballads, as well as with the ancient Scandinavian literature in general. They are accompanied, in most cases at least, by the music to which they are sung.

MUSIC.

THE last month has been quite rich in musical interest, at least in New-York. Paul Julien has taken his musical farewell; Gottschalk has continued his success; Mad. Sontag's success was undiminished, at Niblo's; the complimentary concert to Mr. Fry, Mr. Eisfeld's Quartette Soirée, the third concert for the season of the Philharmonic Society, have all taken place.

Paul Julien's farewell drew the world to Metropolitan Hall, and satisfied it. The boy himself never played more exquisitely. There is an ease of style, a sweetness of tone, an atmosphere of rare musical feeling over all his performances, which leave nothing to ask. His violin has a natural pathos, which is the more striking since it is held by a boy, and the entire want of apparent effort in the most rapid and remarkable execution, makes it all seem as natural as breathing. It may, perhaps, be difficult to separate strict enjoyment of his playing from the warm feeling inspired by so young and so winning a person, but we do not remember ever to have been more contented with the chief of instruments. It would be like Vieuxtemps, except that Vieuxtemps was too passionless and coldly elegant. In finish it is like him; but the fact that a boy has already achieved a dexterity which seems to be only the result of long and elaborate practice in the man, shows the fineness of natural organization, and the heroism of earnest devotion. Julien pleases us more than Vieuxtemps. The effect of his playing is not so artificial. Vieuxtemps's was the perfection of industry and talent. But talent and industry cause no magnetic thrill. Paul Julien pleases us more than Ole Bull, whom we much prefer to all other violinists we have ever heard. Ole Bull is amorphous, erratic, vague in his composition and play. He delights and disappoints. He is the weird magician, who cannot quite command the spirits he evokes, and they pass in a shimmering splendor, rather than shine with fixed light. He is full of power and pathos; he is at once grotesque and gorgeous. To hear him is to hear Ossianic bards

Paul

singing in the mist songs in an unknown tongue. But in our little Julien's playing there is the same human sympathy and sweetness, the same early and healthful ripeness as in Mozart. The Mozartlikeness of Julien has been rather amply "exploited" by the critics, but we mean it now, not in an external nor accidental sense, but something more. There is nothing of the prodigy about Paul Julien; there is nothing in him which is remarkable, merely because he is young. His power, his performance, that exquisite tone, that facility of execution, would be as noticeable in a man as in a boy. He is not a prodigy, because he is a genius; and because he has genius, there is little more to be said about his concerts than to express various degrees of delight. The moment a man is perceived to have genius, that moment criticism is apt to be quiet (or ought to be quiet), because genius only can show its own path. The man is, in virtue of his genius, the pioneer of new ways. Criticism is made up from ways already known.

We are getting on dangerous ground again, as last month, in discussing Alboni. Genius has had its own way long enough, the wise men begin to think, and the doctrine encourages young men who are very lazy and sentimental, to become more so. and call it genius. The wise men ought to remember that because the porter was put into the king's bed, he did not therefore become a king-nor did the circumstance destroy faith in monarchy. Mad. Sontag sang two or three times at Julien's concert. Her singing and her toilette were equally soignée. It was gracefully and charmingly done, when she was led forward by the young beneficiary, and by assisting at his farewell, showed her recognition of the artist and his services to her. Badiali, too, was in unusually good voice, and we were all the gainers, for he sang with a commendable and effective heartiness. Paul Julien does not leave the country quite yet, but makes a farewell

tour.

The Philharmonic Society's third concert for the season, took place at Niblo's Saloon, on Saturday evening, March 5th. Beethoven's C Minor symphony was performed, and Gade's overture, The Highlands. The symphony was never more finely done. The andante was unanimously encored, and the triumphal march of the finale, inspired the audience as no other music can, at least as no other music can inspire that audience. For, after the brief reign of fashion at these concerts, when they were held at the Apollo Rooms, an audience has succeeded, of those who truly enjoy and ap

preciate the best German music. The audience is perhaps two-thirds German; the orchestra, with a few exceptions, foreign. The music usually selected from the highest range. Why, therefore, O why, was Mr. Bochsa's Dialogo Brillante for flute and clarinet suffered to appear on the bill, and why were we all obliged to suffer the hearing? The poor, amiable, imperfect instruments, strained and quivered in friendly rivalry, shrieking, whistling, and rumbling, while the audience had but the single feeling of hope that they would come safely out of it, and a sigh of relief when the last note expired; "like a star," said a foggy-brained German poet near by, misapplying Shelley's line,

"Dim-pinnacled in the intense inane." The German poet was partly true. It was truly dim, intense and inane. Gade's overture was less pleasing to us than the Ossian, played at the first concert this season. There were fine things in the Highlands, but they were obscure. There was a want of clear, sweet themes. This business of reverie in music, seems to be rather overdone. Painters and sculptors are not allowed to have reveries in marble and colors; and composers who love their fame and influence, will beware of putting fog into form, and calling it substance. Artists of all kinds address the public. They write for the man who runs to read. If they presuppose upon the part of their audience any especial sympathy with themselves or their moods, they will discover their mistake by being left upon the shelf. Mr. Joseph Burke played a concert of De Beriot's for the violin. It was a clear, polished, exact, and effective performance, and drew out the most unequivocal approbation of the audience. There is a delicious freshness and sparkle in Burke's violin. Why could we not hear it at Eisfeld's Soirées? Mr. Root's Quartette party sang very simply and pleasantly, a hunting song of Mendelssohn's, a serenade of Mr. William Mason's, the young American pianist, of whose success in London we spoke last month. The first is one of the purest and most characteristic of the composer's "Songs with Words," which are, however, not so fine as his "Songs without Words." The last is a sweet strain of summer moonlight, delicately conceived, and admirably sung. It was a very agreeable variety in the programme. The audience was a crowd-scarcely a spot for standing could be found. The orchestra was never in better tune or temper.

Mr. Eisfeld's Quartette Soirée at the Apollo, on the 19th February, assembled the usual circle of music-lovers

those who admire upon principle and enjoy by rule (among whom we rank ourselves). But even they were a little balked by that composition of Onslow's, for "The Brothers Müller," who clearly lived upon difficulties, as Mithridates upon poisons, and to whom, doubtless, they were also nutriment. But not so to us. We all applauded the energy and sincerity of Mr. Eisfeld and his friends, and the intricacy and elaboration of the composition, and partly, we are sure, in posthumous pity for the unfortunate "Brothers Müller," for whom the thing was originally gotten up, and who, by implication, are supposed to have played it perpetually. Of what "The Brothers Müller" were guilty does not appear; of what "G. Onslow" was guilty, only too plainly appeared. Mr. Root's party sang here also, in the same pleasant way as afterward, at the Philharmonic. There was a quartette by Lachner for piano and stringed instruments, which was not very interesting, but ably performed. Mr. Wollenhaupt, the pianist, did his work very conscientiously, bringing his head to bear upon the performance in a very remarkable manner. But the final quartette of Haydn's redeemed every thing. We could have heard Onslow's affair twice, for the pleasure of the exquisite G minor of the sunny composer. It came gliding in at the end of the concert, full of consolation and joy. The "buds and bird-voices" of Spring were in it; it was the harbinger of midsummer. The concerts of the Philharmonic, and these rare evenings of Eisfeld, we owe to the resident German musicians. Certainly, if we give them a country, they scatter broad and deep in it the pearl-seed of art. They give as well as take. We shall doubtless owe to them the direction of our musical genius.

The heavens were unkind to Mr. Fry, for the evening of his complimentary concert was one of the most inclement of the winter. However, there were many valiant friends of his in Metropolitan Hall, and when he was called forward, he spoke with fervor and force to the point, that there was still a good time coming for American art, and even the lyrical drama should here be established. The benefit should have been a bumper, and would have been, but for the storm. His friends, however, every where, will be sure to pledge him with bumpers of hope in their hearts.

But neither storms nor diversity of attraction affect the brilliant throng that awaits every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, the rising of Niblo's curtain upon Sontag. Her series of operas have been an unvarying success. She is so charming and finished in all, that the

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last is always the favorite. Marie was perfect until Amina came; Rosina was irresistible until Norina sang: Lucia was love itself, but Linda was lovelier. Sontag has a fair field, and plenty of favor. Never was an audience more kindly disposed. Never were tears more profusely bespoken. Never were delights and raptures more rigorously predetermined. Cambrics, and the curtain for the second act rise together; and agony for the woes of Linda blends with admiration of her delicious toilette. With one eye we cry for the unhappy peasant girl, ill-suited in a palace, and with the other smile upon that superb brocade, that powdered wig, that ravishing ensemble. It is the very luxury of pathos. We all go moist-eyed into embroidered handkerchiefs, while she goes mad in flowered silk and diamonds. She comes out of it as dexterously as she went in, and singing a brilliant rondo, goes off happy. We come out of it with eyes not very red, and hearts only gently wrung, and go off home. It is the pleasantest business in the world three times a week. We have never had an opera so uniformly thronged, and so successful. Our enthusiasm is elegant rather than boisterous. On the whole, we are rather too well-bred to be very demonstrative; only once or twice during these twenty odd nights have we all thundered irresistible applause—which is a thing not to be mistaken when it really comes. write, Linda is the great success. We confess our individual uncertainty as to what merits the most praise in this performance; whether the music of the opera, the singing, the acting, or the dressing is the most approved. The music seems to us about as poor as any tolerated music could be. There are two melodies in the three acts, and for the rest, that blind groping after melody, that imitation of melodic form, which is so frequent in Donizetti's sixty-nine operas, is very distressing and exasperating. The singing is as fine as it always is; but fine singing squandered upon poor music, is like the wandering of a pianist's hands over the key-board. It is skilful, but a very little suffices. When one remembers how sparklingly Sontag sings Rossini, it is lost time to endure Donizetti. The acting is Sontag's acting-very proper and careful, with no abstraction, no apparent consciousness of an audience, no sly strokes for applause, with just the appropriate look and gesture, so far as it is possible to determine: in fine, just as near the thing you want as the Venus de Medici to a woman. It is our old feeling constantly confirmed. The dressing is irreproachable. As a study of characteristic costume, it is worth while

As we

to assist at these soirées. Such color, such elegance, such tournure, such genuineness are rare, indeed, upon the boards. They only prove, what you feel every moment, that you are watching a ladya lady to whom we all owe the most delightful evenings. The Maria di Rohan was equally successful with the rest. It is an opera full of melo-dramatic action. and not remarkably full of good music. It afforded Badiali a fine chance, and Madame Sontag did all justice to her role. which was the more interesting as being the first time she had ever played it.

Madame Alboni, with Salvi and others. known to the opera public, commences at Niblo's, under Maretzek's management, about the first of April.

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Gottschalk gave only two concerts in all. The more we heard him the firmer was our faith that we have heard no pianist so fine. He is ranked only with the best; and if you consider that he has more than De Meyer's command of the instrument, which becomes an orchestra under his hands, and a strain of genius in addition, it is easy to infer his position. He is very young and delicate. When he has played some tremendous fantasia, under which the whole house seems to have rocked and reeled, he shivers and is as cold as marble, and then perhaps circles off in airy flights through dreamy dances and tropical refrains; or playing, as if in a whisper, some mournful song, his fingers weep along the keys, and the music dies in showery sound. These are rather fine flights, and some Rusticus in urbe" will be "paraphrasing" our sentences in Dwight's Journal. Yet, with deference to the rustics, and to the very accomplished critic of the Tribune, it seems as if some latitude must be allowed to words in describing the impression of music. The written criticisms of Liszt and Berlioz. and other musicians, upon music, are very fanciful, but much more significant than any others. The words dilate and describe in their mouths as they would not elsewhere. "Rusticus" is right about the extravagances, only the extravagance is the abuse of the necessary use. The sentences must be a little insane that would characteristically describe Weber, or Berlioz himself, or the young Gottschalk. He has such wild exuberance, such capricious facility, such prodigious power and rapidity; he tumbles the whole piano into such chaos to evoke his little world of melody, which, when it comes, is so simple and round, that you could laugh like a child at a rainbow bubble. His force is so fervent and truly tropical-spending itself in gusts and paroxysms, and floating off and dissolving in delicate play—that it

seems to us quite impossible to deny him an undoubted rank as a characteristic pianist and a man of genius. He has gone to the south, but will return in May, to make a tour of the northern States.

Boston keeps up the game; Alboni was as successful there as here; and we are delighted to know of the success of Mr. Otto Dresel's series of chamber concerts, in which he has been assisted by Jaell, dear to the "belles of Boston." Mr. Scharfenberg assisted at Mr. Dresel's last concert, and fully shared all the honors, as he always does at home. We fancy there is a larger national audience for chamber music in Boston than in NewYork. The Mendelssohn Club, of which those who know speak so highly, and these frequent piano concerts, indicate a favor upon which no man could count here. The valiant little band who stand by Mr. Eisfeld, even though he try their courage with Onslow's quartette for the unhappy" Brothers Müller," is the only evidence in New-York of genuine taste for quartette music. They have symphonies and oratorios too, in Boston; and occasionally we read of some native star rising in great glory, but somewhat doubtfully shining, and finally dwindling off toward Italy and forgetfulness.

In foreign musical bulletins we observe that Mercadante's fifty-second opera, Statira, has failed at Naples; and if at Naples, where the composer is royal director of the music, then, certainly, every where else. But another of his operas, called Violetta, has succeeded. Verdi, his rival, is writing music to a libretto of La Dame aux Camelias for the Fenice, at Venice, and has brought out Il Trovatore in Rome with great success. His Luisa Miller has done well at last, in Paris, with our old friend Bosio as heroine. Lindpaintner is coming to London to direct the new Philharmonic Concerts. He is a second-rate German composer, and succeeds to the baton of Hector Berlioz. Auber is appointed, as we have already intimated he would be. Kapell-meister to the new Emperor. He is successor to Paer, who held the post under the uncle. We quote, "M. Auber's inaugural production as head of the French Imperial Chapel-the Cantata we mean, for the Emperor's wedding-seems to have been oddly made up. Not having time to write a new work, he put together a miscellany partly from 'Lestocq,' which is a story of a conspiracy-partly from La Corbeille d'Oranges,' which is a tale of a basketwoman raised to high preferment-partly from Marco Spada,' which shows the tragic end of an intriguing brigand, who, on being shot down, perishes with a lie in his

mouth." M'lle Wagner will not try London again. She finds that Chancery disagrees with her. But Mille Klauss, the beautiful pianiste, is announced to come from Russia; and Madame Pleyel has already arrived and "opened the piano." We remark no new names of eminence in any department, except perhaps, that of Duprez, the retired tenor, who is composing an opera for his daughter. Our old friend, Belletti, has been singing Don Giovanni successfully in Paris to Cruvelli's Donna Anna.

FINE ARTS.

The public-spirited directors of the late American Art-Union, have not been wholly discouraged, in their laudable efforts to diffuse a more general taste for art among their countrymen, by the relentless hand of the Law in crushing the admirable institution which they had managed so prosperously. They have recently opened at their galleries, an exhibition of paintings which possess as much historic as artistic value. It is most appropriately called the Washington Exhibition, as it contains no less than five portraits of the Father of his Country, and a good many of his revolutionary companions. Among these pictures are the original portraits by Stuart and Pine, and Leutze's historical paintings of Washington crossing the Delaware, and Washington on Dorchester Heights. To these are added Powers' marble bust. There are several portraits by Copley and Stuart, and originals by Reynolds, Maclise, Leslie and Mulready. The best productions of some of our best artists are also in the collection. It is quite the finest exhibition of pictures that has been opened in NewYork, and the inauguration evening, intended at first to have been on the birthday of Washington, was one of the pleasantest reunions of artists and amateurs that has been afforded to the friends of art in the city.

We simply do our distant readers a kindness by informing them of the fine as well as famous paintings that may be seen in this collection; for it is a rare occurrence, even here, for so choice a collection of works of art to be offered to public inspection. The Copleys and Stuarts are among the finest works of those masters in American art; there is an opportunity afforded, too, of comparing the styles of English and American painters, which does not often occur. The picture by Reynolds is a portrait of a boy reading, and is one of the finest examples of his color. Near it is Stuart's half-length of General Gates, a portrait as remarkable for its vigorous handling as for its rich

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