forming creations peculiar to itself, it is equally objective, making its creations conformable to eternal principles, all of which centre in God. Thus images are shadowed forth dimly in the visible world; but they start up most perfectly in a rational soul that is highly gifted in its moments of inspiration.

This explanation of the poet's frenzy, shows how perfectly the author agrees with Vischer in respect to the process of artistic creations; and, at the same time, how he differs from him in respect to the origin or cause of the inspiration. It is what is held in common by the two, and, in part, by Ruskin also, that is most valuable. All these writers represent a new age in art, in which mechanical explanations are no longer satisfactory, an age to whose spirit lord Jeffrey was a total stranger. But Carriere and Vischer have written a complete system of aesthetics, in which, after a general view of the nature and work of the imagination and of the principles of taste, all the fine arts are represented in their order. What characterizes both writers, is the care they have taken to bring their views into harmony with the known opinions of the great artists of all ages. We thus have the common sentiment of the artists themselves, instead of the idiosyncracies and dogmatism of an individual. In criticism, these two German writers agree with the best things said by Ruskin, while they are mostly free from his singular aberrations. We have not space to enter upon the more practical part of the work before us, to which the second volume is wholly devoted. The subjects treated are the following: 1. architecture; 2. sculpture ; 3. painting; 4. music; 5. poetry-epic, lyric, and dramatic. It is not the author's object to give technical rules for the instruction of artists, but to discuss aesthetical principles, such as need to be understood by all who would enjoy works of art. He gives the philosophy of the subject, instead of arbitrary and oracular judgments. He is, for this reason, much more interesting and instructive than Ruskin, while he is also more comprehensive and systematic. The latter chooses special topics, according to his own tastes or fancy. He somewhat oddly associates painting and architecture, which are less connected than either of them is with sculpture. Architecture relates to inorganic matter and its laws, is massive, and expresses only the general spirit of a people or age. Painting is chiefly concerned with the feelings and passions of men in their relations to each other and to nature. Statuary lies between the two, representing, with more uniformity, what is general and permanent in human nature, apart from its external relations, and with little either of transient feeling, or of accidental accompaniment. Even within these limits, Ruskin attaches himself, passionately, to a particular school; and against all others, no matter how pure or high they may be, he carries on a war with tomahawk and scalping-knife. Carriere is free from these peculiarities. With the exception of his Platonic or mystical tendencies, and his occasional antagonism to the cold abstractions of deism and of the Hegelian pantheism, he is a writer of genial spirit, of a pure and delicate taste, of sound judgment, and of comprehensive catholic views. The

reader who has experienced alternate admiration and indignation, in the perusal of the books proceeding from Ruskin's powerful, bold, and dashing pen, will, in passing to the masterly and comparatively sober, and yet lively and fascinating works of Vischer and Carriere, have sensations like those who, after living through the tumult of an exciting revolution, find quiet and order, and gentle excitement under a settled government.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE PHILOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE MODERN LANGUAGES. By Dr. B. Schmitz. One Vol. 8vo. 1859. Supplement to the same, 1860.1

The title sufficiently indicates the peculiarly German character of this work. In the German universities, where students select their own courses of study and pursue them in their own way, it has long been customary for professors in the different departments to give a preparatory course of instruction, in which their own particular branch of science is defined, its nature unfolded, the order of its parts arranged, the method of pursuing it described, and all the aids for studying the whole subject specified. The publication of such lectures, or the preparation of books founded on them, furnishes no insignificant part of the literature of every important subject of academic instruction. The study of language has, of late, been carried so far that it is quite necessary that there should be such guides for the student. In classical philology there is an abundant supply of them; and in the encyclopedias of theological study, that portion which relates to sacred philology and interpretation is by no means inconsiderable. But the modern languages have generally been studied either in so incidental or so purely practical a way as to furnish but little material for a solid and learned book on the subject. The writers of books for learning these languages have not always been men either of great talents or erudition. They have, for the most part, been private teachers or literary adventurers. Of late years there has been a great and salutary change in this respect. The careful research which was once limited almost exclusively to the ancient languages was first extended to the Teutonic and Romanic languages of the Middle Ages, and is now beginning to be applied to all the modern languages and dialects which have grown out of them. Even the comparative study of the Indo-European family of languages has already borne some good fruits in producing a more rational treatment of the etymology of living languages.

The design of the author in preparing his "Encyclopedia" is to foster and increase this spirit of improvement, to point out the way for making further progress, and to specify all the books of merit that have appeared on the subject. His aim is both theoretical and practical. It is nothing less than to arrange and reduce to order the confused mass of materials

Encyclopädie des philologischen Studiums der neueren Sprachen, von Dr. Bernh. Schmitz, 1859. Erstes Suppliment, 1860.

already existing; to furnish a clear view of the subject in its whole extent and in its several parts; to examine and criticise the current methods of instruction and study, and to furnish a guide which shall meet all the wants of the teacher.

The author divides his work into four parts. 1. The study of language in general, embracing the nature and extent of the science of language with special reference to the study of the modern languages; the philosophy, classification, and history of languages, with an account of the works which treat of these topics; the origin and history of writing, printing, etc., and the books written on the subject; the Greek, Latin, Celtic, German, and Romanic languages; outline of the history of literature, giving the names of the principal writers, being very brief on the literature of Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages, but more extended on that of the last four centuries. These, of course, are preliminary topics, and, with one or two exceptions, are well chosen. 2. A literary introduction to the study of the modern languages, including preliminary observations, an account of grammars, lexicons, books of exercises, history of the languages, history of the literature, chrestomathies, and critical reviews and essays. 3. Method of studying the modern languages. 4. Method of teaching the modern lan

gnages.

In this last chapter is discussed, somewhat at large, the importance of the modern languages in a system of academic study. The subject is a complex one, and cannot be disposed of from a single point of view. The author justly remarks, that the place which they should occupy in schools is by no means a settled question. Not only will every new generation of teachers examine this point for themselves, but the constantly changing state of literature and science and of the relations of nations to each other renders a frequent review of the subject necessary. He gives his views in a series of propositions as follows:

1. A language is studied in order that the knowledge of it thus acquired may be retained and used.

2. As the Romans, in the best period of their literary culture, found it necessary to understand two languages (bilingues Romani), so, at the present day, must every well-educated man understand the three leading languages of the civilized world, the German, the French, and the English. If we consider modern Europe under the various points of view presented by its politics, science, art, industry, commerce, and social intercourse, we shall find that it has three spoken languages which outweigh in importance all the others, and which deserve to be called the three great powers among its living languages. Not only is the study of the French and the English on the increase in Germany, but in France and England more and more attention is given to the study of German. The literature of each of these three nations is fast becoming the common property of all. We admit the importance of the ancient languages for all higher culture, and adopt the words of Mager, that "the knowledge of our native tongue enables us to

understand what is national; the knowledge of other modern languages, what is European; and the knowledge of the ancient languages, together with the modern, what is cosmopolitan."

3. The ancient languages are learned for the same reason as the modern, namely, that they may be retained and used. We use a language when we have intercourse with the people that speaks through it. We have intercourse with the people of Greece and Rome when we read the Greek and Roman authors, just as we do with the people of France and England when we read French and English works. In books we have the best things which a nation has spoken or produced, those which most truly reveal its own spirit; and it is this with which we wish to hold converse. It has often been said that living languages, in distinction from the dead, are learned for purposes of social intercourse. But, even if enough knowledge of these languages were acquired in our schools to accomplish this end, how many, I would ask, of our scholars have much occasion in all their lives to speak either of them? But comparatively few hold much personal intercourse with the French or the English. It is surely not necessary to practise speaking a foreign language from childhood, merely because one may fall in with a foreigner in some of his railroad travels. The general purpose, then, for which cultivated persons study French or English can be no other than that they may be able to hold intercouse with the people who use it, through the medium of their literary productions. Whether the nation whose works I study passed away centuries ago, or still exists, is, if I hold no personal intercourse with it, of little importance to me. In literary society we need a knowledge of languages, it is true; but the Latin is quite as frequently referred to in literary circles as the French. In such instances, both are virtually dead languages.

4. The true maxim is not "the more languages the better, but the fewer the better." Just as truly as the study of language is fundamental in education, furnishing, as it does, the means of understanding all the forms and modes of human thought, so truly is it an error to suppose that such culture is in the ratio of the number of languages studied. The discipline and culture acquired by the study of language are rather in proportion to the thoroughness with which it is pursued. Laying out of the account the case of the scholar whose aim is to make the comparison of languages a special study, it is better for one to possess a thorough mastery of one language than to have a superficial knowledge of two, three, or more languages. Though it is true that no translation completely represents the original, it is no less true that a good translation gives a better understanding of it than the reading of it without a competent knowledge of its genius and the subtleties of its idiomatic forms. Men, moreover, have something else to do in the world besides learning languages. For most men, even of studious habits, it is better to limit themselves to one or two modern languages besides their own than to attempt the study of many, which can lead to nothing but superficiality. With persons of remarkable tastes it may be otherwise. There

has been much just complaint of the dissipating effect produced in the minds of the young by an undue multiplicity of studies. This objection applies in its full force to a mere smattering of many languages. Let whatever is studied be pursued to some purpose.

5. If instruction in foreign languages is to produce mental discipline, it must not be begun too early, nor carried on in such a manner as to pass too quickly from one language to another. Children are usually put to the grammatical study of these modern languages quite too early, and then hurried away from the elements of one language to those of another. How much better would it be, where it is not learned by use, to wait before learning it from books till they come to have some comprehension of things, till they understand their own thoughts and know how to express them in their own language! It is to no purpose to say that a child ten or twelve years old can be instructed in three languages. It can be made to repeat the words; but it cannot, by such treatment, be made to understand any language, not even its own. The author goes so far as to contend that it is a misfortune when a child grows up speaking two or three languages; he affirms that such a child has no mother tongue; no natural, healthful, intellectual life. It is at home in nothing. The natural development of the mind of a child from ideas awakened by the objects around him, and from thoughts and emotions within him, all cast in the clear and simple mould of his native language, is disturbed when it is turned out of this course and put under an artificial, hot-bed culture. While it is necessary that a child have time to grow into the knowledge of his mother tongue without interruption, it is also necessary that a second language, to be acquired by study, should be learned gradually; and that time be allowed for it to be firmly rooted in the mind. Four years is little time enough for this purpose, in the schools, if other studies are carried on at the same time. If the French cannot be commenced with safety before a child is ten years old, a second foreign language should not be introduced till he is fourteen.

6. The first instruction in a modern language should be vigorous and consecutive. Two lessons in a week looks well enough on paper. It makes a pleasing variety on a programme. But, by this method, a young pupil no sooner begins to feel an interest in the subject than he is hurried away to other studies, and returns to it after several days with a distracted mind, and with diminished interest. A daily lesson is not too much for any language, at the beginning. While the study possesses novelty, it should be briskly pursued, till its first difficulties are overcome. Afterwards, the frequency of lessons may, if necessary, be somewhat diminished. But it is quite impossible to excite any enthusiasm in the mind of a child, if several days intervene between the earliest lessons.

Whether we agree with the author or not, it must be admitted that he grapples with his subject vigorously, and utters his sentiments like a man that has both knowledge and experience. We must not forget to mention one drawback in the book for those who are not Germans; and that is, that,