The writer in the Grenzboten goes on to say that "so vast a surface as these writings cover, requires a surprising facility of mind and an indefatigable perseverance. When you see the man engaged in his missionary toils you understand the whole at once. He arrives in a city and hastens to the church which is prepared for his reception. After preaching for an hour with the greatest energy he takes up his collection and is gone. He speaks with such rapidity that it is hardly possible to follow him. Such rapidity is not favorable to excellence in the work. Of all his writings, only one work is known to me, that published in Munich, in 1847, under the title of 'Gutzlaffs History of the Chinese Empire from the earnest times to the Peace of Nankin'. In our imperfect acquaintance with Chinese history this compendium is not without value, but it displays no critical power, and is a mere external compilation and poorly written. From it we learn as good as nothing of the peculiar customs and state of mental culture of the country. The whole resembles a Christian History of the World written in the eighteenth century, Beginning with Adam and Eve, and leaving the Greeks and Romans out altogether because they were without a divine revelation."
Mr. Gutzlaff's family were recently for several months in the United States, and the proceedings of the great missionarysecond in eminence only to our own Judsonhave always been regarded with much interest by the American churches.
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.