disturbed by the scientific criticism of Strauss. It is, however, an exceedingly unsatisfactory production, and hardly deserves to be called a work of art. The best thing that can be said of it is that it gave the originating impulse to Leopold Schefer's "Laienbrevier" and to the Laienevangelium" of Friedrich von Sallet. 66 Rückert too, like Shakespeare, had his Midsummer Night's Dream, or Vision in der Johannisnacht, in which he reveals to us, not a world of fantastic contrasts, kings, queens, fairies, and "rude mechanicals," Oberon, Titania, "gentle Puck," and "sweet bully Bottom," but the growth and education of humanity in races and nations, a philosophy of universal.history based upon the fundamental idea that the progress of civilization is an advance from homogeneity to heterogeneity in accordance with a well-established law of evolution. A reminiscence of this division and differentiation of mankind has been preserved in legend under the symbol of a building in the erection of which the intelligent and harmonious co-operation of the architects was broken up. The work on this splendid, heaven-aspiring edifice of human culture ceased, and, in the general confusion that ensued, each man took what suited his taste and purpose, and thus they were all "scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth": "Der Eine trug ein Winkelmass, Der Andre einen Hammer, Und was der Dritt' als Schatz besass, War irgend eine Klammer, Und irgend ein zerbrochner Schaft, So trugen sie die Pfänder With these tools and materials they have been building ever since, each in his own way, structures of religion, politics, society, industry, and literature, in India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other countries of ancient and modern times. The poet in his vision describes the peculiar features of these various types of civilization as stages of development or styles of architecture in the sublime temple of humanity. Vivid and almost dithyrambic in its impetuous fervor is the delineation of the Crusades and of their results as displayed in medieval art and poetry, Gothic cathedral and Minnesang, and in those miracles of form and color which sprang into being on wall and canvas, when "Michael, the most terrible of the cherubim, and Raphael, the brightest of the seraphim, entered as painters into the service of the Church.” Rückert's dramas, 66 König Arsak von Armenien," "Saul und David," "Herodes der Grosse," "Kaiser Heinrich IV.," and "Christoforo Colombo," have a close logical connection with the Midsummer Night's Dream, inasmuch as the themes chosen represent great epochs in the history of the human race; such as the institution of monarchy, the establishment of a hierarchy, the rise of Christianity, and the discovery of the New World. To these might be added the Aristophanic comedy "Napoleon," and the cycle of five dramas entitled "Die Sächsischen Kaiser," of which, however, only "Heinrich I." and a part of "Otto der Grosse " were finished. It is only in a modified sense that the term "drama" is applicable to these productions; they resemble rather a kind of literary oratorio, in which the musical element is predominant and serves to connect a series of historical pictures, with no attempts at psychological portraiture or the solution of dramatic intrigues. In this respect we might compare them with the earliest Greek tragedies, the "Persians" and "Prometheus" of Eschylus, in which there is neither well-developed plot nor fine individual characterization, but simply an epic delineation of scenes and events following each other in chronological succession and united by the dithyrambic lyrics of the chorus. The passions portrayed in the sonnets and erotics of Shakespeare indicate the sources of experience from which he drew his exhaustless knowledge of the world and of the soul. Goethe is never so genuinely dramatic as when he depicts feelings and circumstances akin to the errors and discords of his own youth. Rückert's nature was too spotless, his life was too free from inner conflicts and from those strong emotions which quicken the pulse and thrill in every sense, to develop in him the dramatic faculty. His inspirations were as pure as the breeze that moves the Eolian harp to melody. The sophistries of passion and the dialectics of extenuation, which underlie the great tragedies of human life, were wholly foreign to him. Consequently his plays are utterly destitute of the action which grows out of such antagonisms and of the motives by which they are excited and determined. It is safe to say that more monotonous and tedious productions have not appeared in German literature since Klopstock wrote his bardic hymns and biblical dialogues. Dr. Beyer's volume contains an interesting comparison of Rückert with Goethe, Heine, Platen, and Uhland, in which he endeavors to fix his place among the coryphæi of the German poets, and a chapter on his influence as pedagogue in the best and broadest sense of that much-abused word. In the Appendix we have also twenty-three pages of hitherto unpublished poems, chiefly Gelegenheitsgedichte, of no great intrinsic worth. Rückert's correspondence gives a charming picture of his simple, idyllic home life. These letters have a literary value as the only specimens of the poet's admirable prose. On the whole, Dr. Beyer's book is the fullest and, indeed, the only real NO. 225. VOL. CIX. -- 38 biography of Rückert that has yet appeared. The chief defect consists in the frequent references which are made to the author's "Friedrich Rückert's Leben und Dichtungen," published several years ago. It is exceedingly annoying to the reader to be constantly informed that this point is cleared up or that poem analyzed in some previous monograph which he does not possess. Every biography should be complete in itself, so far at least as essential points are concerned. Professor Fortlage's little volume aims to give a critical survey of Rückert's works in their logical and chronological connection, and accomplishes this purpose in an excellent manner and with truly philosophical comprehensiveness. The Gesammtausgabe, just issued by Sauerländer at Frankfort, has been arranged with studious care, and is the first edition printed from original manuscripts preserved and corrected by Rückert himself. All former editions have been printed from copies of them which did not even have the benefit of the poet's subsequent revision, and are therefore more or less defective. 5.- Pre-historic Nations; or, Inquiries concerning some of the great Peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity, and their probable Relation to a still older Civilization of the Ethiopians, or Cushites, of Arabia. By JOHN D. BALDWIN, A. M. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1869. 12mo. pp. vii., 414. THIS Volume might quite as properly have been styled "The Prehistoric Nation." By some means or other, Mr. Baldwin has persuaded himself that there was a certain people in olden time to whom is to be credited nearly the whole of ancient civilization, and whose claims to honor have hitherto been strangely overlooked by all students of antiquity. This people he calls Cushites; and he assigns them as their country the conveniently situated peninsula of Arabia, whence their influence radiated in all directions, — through India and Farther India on the one side, and to the most distant borders of Africa and Europe on the other. How Mr. Baldwin has arrived at this persuasion does not appear. That any good and sufficient reasons for it are set forth in his book, no intelligent and cautious reader will be inclined to admit. Hardly a single one even of the minor points involved in the grand theory receives a satisfactory establishment. The author's methods of proof are more curiously subjective than those of any writer we have read in a long time. His arguments are mainly reducible to three. First, such and such things "must have" been so and so (for example, the Phoenicians must have possessed the mariner's compass, and must have circum navigated Africa; and ancient star-gazers must have had telescopes): if we do not quite see the necessity, so much the worse for us. Secondly, certain other things are generally acknowledged; or, all competent authorities agree to them: and the points thus assumed to be settled by common consent, and no longer calling for even a show of argumentation, are apt to be of the most obscure or questionable character, or of the widest bearing, involving the author's whole thesis; so that we cannot help fancying that the class of competent authorities is in each case a very limited one, consisting of Mr. Baldwin himself and some person whose views are accepted by him. Thirdly, those who put faith in the old systems of chronology, founded by Usher and others on the Hebrew Scriptures, are roundly denounced; and, on the other hand, those are not less accused of stupid incredulity and unreasoning scepticism who shall doubt, as insufficiently founded, the new Cushite theory: over and over again we are warned, in nearly equivalent phrase, that nothing is so liable to absurd exhibitions of credulity and unreason as morbid scepticism directed by invincible prejudice." 66 Many times, too, we are informed that "various important considerations" lead us to take a certain view, no hint being vouchsafed us of what these considerations are. Or that peculiar line of reasoning is employed which consists in first suggesting something as probable, then presently repeating it as true without reservation, and finally treating it as undeniable, and drawing from it momentous conclusions. That our description of Mr. Baldwin's method is no caricature, we appeal to every sober-minded reader of his work to attest. Of penetrating and unprejudiced research, of cautious induction, of critical estimate of authorities, we find here no trace. If historical science, if the study of antiquity, has made any noteworthy advance during the past halfcentury, this volume is to be set aside as valueless: for it exhibits a complete return to the old method of antecedent persuasion, and special pleading in its establishment and defence. Mr. Baldwin tells us that "scepticism is neither the middle nor the end of true philosophy; historical criticism should be able not only to destroy falsehood, but also to establish truth"; and he has evidently written under the urgent promptings of this conviction. We believe, however, that no duty or obligation whatever rests upon historical criticism, except simply to do what it can with the materials at its command, not striving either to build up or to pull down, but aiming only to distinguish what is true from what is false. If its activity is in so large measure destructive, it is because there have been so many incautious constructors whose work needs to be cleared away. We have no whit more of respect for Usher's chronology than Mr. Baldwin has; but if our choice is to lie only between the Hebrew traditions as interpreted by Usher, and the Hindu Puranas as interpreted by Wilford, we shall not long hesitate to prefer the former; and we deem the worst of the theories which Mr. Baldwin rejects and derides equally stable with the splendid edifice of Cushite civilization which he has reared upon so narrow and inadequate a foundation of facts. We cannot, upon the whole, commend this book either to those who are versed or to those who are unversed in the study of the past. For the former, it is too much a congeries of assumptions and assertions, without new facts or new groupings of facts; and the latter would be bewildered by it, not knowing how to distinguish what is good in it from what is bad. We should admire the author's fearlessness and independence of opinion, if he were less dogmatic and denunciatory. By JOHN 6. History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. FOSTER KIRK. With Portraits. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1868. Vol. III. 8vo. pp. viii., 555. MR. KIRK's third volume embraces a period of little more than two years, as it opens at the end of October, 1474, and closes on the 12th of January, 1477, the day on which the Duke of Burgundy was buried at Nancy. The scale on which this work is prepared, considered as biography, is not too large; considered as history, — and the biography of Charles of Burgundy necessarily belongs to history, it is far larger than it should be. Had Mr. Kirk retrenched his work throughout, he could have dispensed with a third volume; and such retrenchment might have been made without sacrificing anything really useful. He is fond of introducing explanations that are not needed, and of making suggestions which often are superfluous, and occasionally impertinent. We frankly admit that we have read with much pleasure most of the matter which we complain of as superfluous in its present place; but the fact that it is often instructive, and not unfrequently entertaining, does not render its appearance in the "History of Charles the Bold" any the less inartistic, while it swells the work unduly, and thus gives countenance to that practice of making big books which is one of the serious evils of the time. Mr. Kirk, too, might have omitted what we may call his exclamatory matter, with some gain of space, and with great improvement in point of taste. His third volume abounds in rhetoric which would be offensive in a sensational novel, and is unpardonable in a grave history. We have in profusion passages like the following: "Shade of Nicholas von Diesbach, listen, and |