promises to become a permanent branch of our polite literature. Distinguished by the same graphic and literary beauties which recommend its English prototype, the present work is not only well calculated for general circulation in those extensive regions of which the Castilian is now the mother-tongue, but must also prove acceptable to all persons who wish to cultivate an acquaintance with that rich and harmonious language, for which object it would be difficult to find a more agreeable and interesting manual. In the preface, the editor, Don Pablo de Mendibil, speaks of his own labours with great modesty; but he and his associates have produced a very clever work. Besides the translations from the English Forget Me Not, which are ably executed, it contains several original pieces of great merit, in verse and in prose. These are probably supplied by a few of the unfortunate Spanish exiles in this country; and it is no slight addition to the pleasure which this charming little book affords, to reflect that the well-directed enterprise of the publisher may contribute to the relief of those honourable men, whose sufferings, on grounds of humanity, entitle them to general sympathy and respect.

NECROLOGY.

PESTALOZZI.

PESTALOZZI was born at Zurich, 1745. He lost his father, a physician, very early, and was educated by pious relatives. The intention of entering the church was given up after an unsuccessful attempt at preaching, and he applied to the law. A disease, brought on by incessant and immoderate study, induced him to turn farmer. He bought a little estate, where a frequent intercourse with the common people laid open to his eyes the distressing state of the lower classes. Pestalozzi was not the man who could see misery without a correspondent feeling of compassion; he could not pass a wretched cottage without stretching out a friendly hand to the poor inmates, nor see a shivering orphan without taking it to his fireside. He began to feel a contempt for the splendour of cold-hearted opulence, and indifference to all the knowledge which can be acquired from books; he proposed to himself to study only the volumes of life, and the happiness of wiping off a tear from an orphan's cheek seemed of more value to him than all the glory of authorship. There were at that time in the canton of Berne, where Pestalozzi lived, plenty of beggarly children, who were taken care of by nobody; the haughty and greedy patricians of Berne thought little better of the people than do the eastern despots; the education of the poor was entirely neglected. Pestalozzi took a number of them into his house, and became their father and their schoolmaster. But the expenses of this undertaking soon made him poor, for he was more benevolent than prudent, and the kind disposition of his heart made him an easy prey to every designing villain. The loss of property did not depress his spirits, nor did the sneering of worldly men at his folly damp his ardour for improving the state of the lower orders. He wrote (1781) Lienhardt and Gertrud, an original novel, in which he embodied his own experience, presenting us a true, animated, vigorous picture of the people, with whose life, habits, manners, and propensities he had become acquainted. This novel, in its genre, is perhaps unrivalled in Europe for the humorous descriptions of country life. In 1798, when the French entered Switzerland, Pestalozzi declared himself a partisan of the Revolution, not from any partiality to the

French,

French, but because he had found that no reform, however necessary, could be expected from the old aristocracies. After the massacre

But he

of Unterwalden, which has been so affectingly described by Montgomery in his Wanderer, Pestalozzi went to Stanz, and formed an establishment, where he received all the poor straggling orphans; he became again the teacher, father, and servant of about eighty children. did not receive the support which he had a right to expect. His democratical principles rendered him very obnoxious to the patrician party, which could, however, not prevent his being sent as deputy to the first consul at Paris in 1802, and the pamphlet which he wrote after his return on the objects to which the legislation of Helvetia ought to attend, could not conciliate the numerous friends of abuses. Pestalozzi then had, for a short time, an establishment at Burgdorf and Münchenbuchsee, in the vicinity of M. Fellenberg, till at last he was invited to come to Yverdun. There with the assistance of distinguished collaborators, he tried his new methods of education and instruction. The fundamental principle of his system, that the development of the intellectual powers should be the chief object of education, not the acquirement of positive knowledge, is true, although Pestalozzi was not altogether successful in its application. Pestalozzi's mind was of an intuitive cast, unfit for the details of an establishment, which soon proved to him ruinous and unmanageable. His method, however, effected a gradual and important improvement of the country schools in Switzerland, and other parts of Europe; and in 1818 he, still impressed with the necessity of educating the poor, set apart 20007. from the produce of a new edition of his works for the endowment of a school for the poor. His indefatigable endeavours to execute this one great idea, the generous disinterestedness with which he devoted his life and property to this object-a life fraught with trouble and bitterness, which might have been spent in ease and comparative opulence, will always endear him to the recollection of mankind. He could win the heart of a child in one minute by that good-humoured affectionate simplicity which lay in his countenance. Scholarship was not his pride. He was a complete ardidaros, but you could not converse long with him without perceiving that you spoke to a man of genius. Flashes of wit, following in quick succession like lightning in the summer season; thoughts which astounded by their depth and originality; a volcanic excitability of mind, a perfect absence of all selfish cares; and, lastly, a cynical appearance, left a lasting impression of this extraordinary man with all those who knew him. A short time before his death his establishment was completely broken up, and Pestalozzi returned once more to the humble mansion, where fifty years before he had commenced as a farmer, brooding over the gloomy reflection, that he had spent half a century in the service of humanity, and earned but the thanks of a few among the millions. Simple as Pestalozzi was in his creed, yet he was full of religious sentiment, which at times was bursting forth in a stream of devotion in the midst of his children; and thus we know that he died with all the resignation of a philosopher, and with all the piety of a Christian, the 17th February, 1827.

CARL PHILIPP CONZ.

Carl Philipp Conz, who died on the 28th of last July, in his 65th year, at Tubingen, was professor of classical literature in that university, and obtained considerable reputation, both as a poet and a translator. In the former character, he displayed much depth of reflection and great energy, united to considerable sensibility; while his little anacreontic pieces, which are distinguished for liveliness attempered by philosophy, may be ranked among the best compositions of the kind in the German language. His translation of Æschylus, notwithstanding some defects, is a work of un

doubted

doubted merit. Conz also wrote a number of essays on literary and historical subjects, which are scattered in various publications, but which deserve to be given to the public in a collected form.

CARLO DE ROSMINI.

Carlo de' Rosmini, whose death occurred on the 9th of last June, was one of the ablest biographical writers of whom his country could boast in the present day. His lives of Ovid, Guarino di Verona, Vittorino da Feltri, Philelphus, Trivulzio, &c., have been deservedly recognized as models in this branch of composition. His latest and most extensive work is his Istoria di Milano, in four vols. quarto. This, however, comes down only to the year 1535; the remaining portion, which extends to 1740, the period of the death of the Emperor Charles VI. not being yet printed, although prepared for the press by the author. Since 1803, Rosmini resided in Milan, where he employed himself in studying, as materials for the above work, the numerous original and hitherto unexplored documents preserved in various libraries and archives.

VULPIUS.

Vulpius, author of the once celebrated romance, Rinaldo Rinaldini, and librarian and keeper of the cabinet of medals at Weimar, died in that city, four days after the completion of his sixty-second year. The vogue which he enjoyed as a novel-writer was as transitory as it was brilliant, for his Rinaldini, and the host of imitations to which it gave rise, have long been forgotten; or, if the former be remembered, it is only in consequence of the reputation it once enjoyed. Among his later productions, is his Curiositaten (Historical Curiosities), which appeared from 1811 to 1825, in ten volumes. He also edited the Journal der Vorzeit; and during the latter years of his life was employed upon a Dictionary of Northern Mythology, which has not, we believe, yet been given to the public.

AVANZINI.

Among the eminent individuals whom Italy has lately lost, Prof. Giuseppe Avanzini, who died at Padua, on the 18th of June, deserves to be recorded. His discoveries in hydrostatics, and his application in the physical and mathematical sciences, will perpetuate his name, as they have long since obtained for him the admiration of those able to appreciate his labours. In 1797, he was appointed Professor of Geometry and Algebra at the University of Padua; and in 1806, that of Physics and Mathematics. After Cossali's death, in 1815, he received the additional honour of being chosen to the vacant chair of the professorship of the the Differential Calculus.

EICHHORN.

J.G. Eichhorn was born, 1752, in the principality of Hohenzollern-Oehringen. He acquired his first celebrity as professor, at Jena, by his history of the commerce of East India before Mohamed, in 1775, whence he removed, 1788, to Gottingen. Being an excellent oriental scholar, he began, about the same time as Michaelis, to subject the bible to a more minute scrutiny. The critical study of the original text led him in his introduction into the New Testament, to start a new and ingenious hypothesis on the origin of the Gospels. There existed, Eichhorn asserts, an original document in the Aramaic language, from which the three first Gospels have been drawn: it contained but a short narrative of the principal transactions of Jesus Christ, from his baptism to his death, not in a chronological order, but composed from communications made by the Apostles. This groundwork formed the materials from which those Apostles, who had an intention to write, formed a more complete history.

The

The hypothesis has been introduced into this country by the learned divine, the Bishop of Peterborough. It has never been abandoned by the author, nor ever been thoroughly refuted. The two last volumes of this Introduction appeared only a short time before Eichhorn's death. The hypothesis itself, although, indeed, more specious and dazzling than natural and satisfactory, has had this beneficial result, that it set the theologians, not only of Germany, but also of other countries, at work, and most important and useful researches have been made in consequence of it. On the other hand, this elaborate criticism has, unfortunately, occasioned in this country the condemnation of German divinity altogether.

Eichhorn, however, distinguished himself not only as an orientalist and divine, but also as an historian and bibliographer. He has published a History of Literature, from its Beginning to the Latest Times,' in 11 vols.; a General History of Culture and Literature of Modern Europe,' in 2 vols.; a History of Eloquence, in the Modern Languages,' in 3 vols.; a 'History of the Three Last Centuries,' in 6 vols.; besides a General Library of Biblical Literature,' in 10 vols.; and a Repertorium of Biblical and Oriental Literature,' in 18 vols.; an Introduction to the Old Testament,' in 5 vols.; and the Introduction to the New Testament,' of which we have spoken, also in 5 vols. He translated also the Hebrew Prophets, in 3 vols. From this list, which is far from being complete, our readers may form an idea of the indefatigable labours of the German divine. He was also the editor of the Goettingen Anzeigen.

·

The life of a scholar of this kind, who remains almost forty years in one spot, cannot be very rich in remarkable incidents, and we possess, therefore, no other materials for a biography. We can only add, that he enjoyed the highest reputation all over Germany, and that he was on terms of the most intimate friendship with all his colleagues at Gottingen. From the gradual decline of his strength, he felt the approach of death with the most imperturbable tranquillity, and he remarked, in the last hour, to his friend, the anatomist Langenbeck, and the celebrated professor Blumenbach, as a point of physiological curiosity, how he felt by degrees the vital spirit withdrawing from the different parts of the body, and, only a quarter of an hour before he breathed his last, he yet distinctly stated that life was becoming extinct in the spina dorsi. He died the 25th of June last. His son, also Professor at Gottingen, has distinguished himself by an excellent work on the History of the German Law.'

6

HAMARSKOLD.

On the 15th October, 1827, died at Stockholm, Lorenz Hamarsköld, a distinguished scholar and philosopher, to whom Sweden is indebted for the preservation of two of its most eminent poets, Stiernhjelm, the patriarch of Swedish poetry, whose works he published; and Stagnelius, whose manuscripts he collected and edited. He lived to publish the fourth volume of his excellent History of Philosophy, which appeared only a short time before his death, and he has left behind him a volume of logic, ready for the press.

HÁSCHE.

Johann Christian Hasche, author of the Umstandliche Beschreibung Dresdens, and the Diplomatische Geschichte Dresdens, 6 vols. 1816-22, died on the 25th July, in his 84th year.

STATE

328

STATE OF MEDICINE IN GERMANY.

IN commencing a Quarterly Report on the Progress of the Medical Sciences in Germany, the subject will be better understood if prefaced by a short retrospect on the state of medicine in that country.

After the death of the great Haller, who, in conjunction with Boerhaave, may be said to have swayed the sceptre of medicine in his lifetime, the Vienna School of Medicine stood at the head of the profession in Germany. Van Swieten, the able commentator and favourite pupil of Boerhaave, first established its reputation, which was upheld by De Haen and by Stoll, the chief supporter of the Humoral Pathology, one of the most expert physicians of any age, and latterly by Peter Frank, the able author of the Epitome de Curandis Hominum Morbis, a work which, even in its unfinished state, has been deservedly recommended as the best existing compendium of medicine in any language. The fame of these great men was upheld by the lustre shed on them by being physicians of the Emperor of Germany, as well as by the superintendence of the large Vienna hospitals, and of the medical service in the Austrian monarchy, and by the numerous pupils who flocked to their lectures, and their clinical courses; and who afterwards spread their principles throughout the whole civilized world.

Such was the state of medicine in Germany, when a new system, invented in the metropolis of Scotland, by a man unnoticed in his own country, began to spread through the German lecture-rooms, and attracted the attention of Peter Frank, and was afterwards eagerly pursued and cultivated by his son, Dr. Joseph Frank, (still living on his villa near Como,) and by his followers, Weikard, Roeschlaub, and others. We speak of the Brunonian theory, invented by Dr. John Brown, and founded on the principie, that the causes of all the existing diseases may be reduced to two; viz. the sthenic cause, produced by an excess of strength; and the asthenic, the most prolific of all, by a state of debility. The natural consequence of the temporary triumph of this theory, which was upheld by all the younger medical men of Germany, and by many of their seniors, was an injudicious and destructive employment of all kind of corroborating medicines, such as moschus, opium, bark, and ammonia, combined with wine and other stimulants in unheard of quantities; and produced a havoc and waste of life, which could not have been overlooked in times of war, bloodshed, and political and religious feuds.

It was impossible that the just-mentioned state of feverish exaltation of this period could last very long in the physical or in the moral world. The discoveries in metaphysics, natural philosophy, natural history, comparative anatomy, and chemistry, shed a full light on this deplorable state of medical infatuation on the one hand, and on the other the moral apathy and exhaustion which followed the war against Napoleon developed a quite opposite state of the genius epidemicus, or of the reigning diseases, which may be traced back to the violent epidemic of typhus-fever left behind the steps of the retiring French forces from the flames of Moscow to the gates of Paris. The reigning diseases in Germany, in the other parts of the European continent, and even in the British empire, began to assume a more inflammatory type, tempered only, for a short time, by the epidemic of fever of the years 1817 and 1818, produced by the rainy season, and the bad harvest of 1817; and by the scarcity of that year, and of the next following. The necessity of a less exciting and a more depletory treatment was felt in Germany as everywhere; and though it was not pushed to the excess of the school of Broussais in France, the true counterpart of the Brunonian system, nor to the extent of the Italian system of counter-irrita