Miscellany [pp. 597-599]

~ISCELLANY
D,illinger, the leading German opponent
of the infallibility dogma, and Bishop Ketteler,
of Mayence, its ablest defender in Germany,
were both members of the German National
Assembly in 1848, and Ketteler on one occasion
rebuked DOllinger there for what he called his
blind ultramontrane zeal. And now Ketteler
has induced the pope to excommunicate Dollinger for his liberalism.
Prince Christian, of Augustenberg, Queen
Victoria's son-in-law, who, previous to his
marriage, was so poor that he could not afford,
as he acknowledged himself in a letter to a
friend, to keep a box at the Berlin OperaHouse, has now saved so much money that he
has been able to pay all the mortgages on the
estates of his family in Schleswig-Holstein.
General Fleury, the intimate friend of Napoleon III., and at the time of the overthrow
of the second empire minister to Russia, has
recently made several attempts to commit suicide, and his wife has to watch him day and
night in order to prevent him from renewing
them.
The Princess Pauline de Metternich played
the other day in Vienna, at an amateur performiance of Offenbach's " Grand-Duchesse," in
which only members of the highest Austrian
aristocracy participated, the role of the grandduchesse to the great satisfaction of the distinguished audience.
It has now been definitively settled that the
coronlation of William I., as Emperor of Germany, will take place next September at St.
Bartholomew's Cathedral in Frankfort-on-the
Main. All the sovereigns of Europe will be
invited to be present at the imposing ceremonies.
The Queen of Denmark is a very accomplished needlewoman, and she has told many
persons that she was proud of making her own
dresses. In her youth she was quite poor, and
never dreamed that she would one day sit on
a royal throne.
The private advisers of the pope have recently urged him to extricate the papal exchequer from its present troubles, to offer for
sale Castle Gandolfo and two or three other
counitry-seats, whildh, they say, would bring
very large prices at present.
The King of Bavaria told Paul Heyse, the
German author, recently, that he intended to
make the Royal Theatre, at Munich, superior to
any dramatic and operatic stage in the world,
and that he would spend half a million florins
of his private fortune for that purpose.
The restoration of the Germanic Empire
willbe celebrated on the 1st of July next at the
Kyffhauser Mountain, amid imposing cerernonies, at w hich all the Germrman princes and
delegations from the Legislatures of all German States will be present.
The autograph market in Germany is at
present very dull, and the dealers in Leipsic,
where upward of a hundred and fifty thousand
thalers' worth of autographs are sold annually,
have been obliged to reduce their prices fifty
per cent.
The petty princes of Reuss, in Germany,
are doing a profitable business by selling patents of nobility to ambitious burghers. One
hundred thalers are sufficient to make any
man a baron by the grace of the potentates of
Reuss.
Bishop Dupanloup, it is said in France, is
so mortified at a private letter which he has
recently received from the pope, that he intends to resign his position and retire to the
large farm which he owns in Tourainle.
Bishop Ketteler, of Mayence, who, it is
said, will soon receive a cardinal's hat from
the pope, and who is now the leader of the Ultramontanles in Germany, was formerly an officer in the Prussian light cavalry.
Hoff, the Berlin malt-extract man, has become in fifteen years a millionnaire by extensive
advertising. He asserts that he has paid to daily
and weekly journals in that space of time the
enormous sum of three million thalers.
A box filled with old letters and documents
among them many curious and unpublished
papers written by Richelieu and Mazarin, has
been discovered in a vault near Mongeville, in
France.
The Queen of Prussia has given one thousand thalers to the society started in Berlin
for the purpose of devising original German
fashions.
Kommissaroff, the peasant who saved the
life of Czar Alexander II., in the year 1866, is
now an inmate of a lunatic asylum.
Verdi, the composer, is nearly deaf, and
writes his operas in a room where there is no
musical instrument whatever.
Queen Victoria is building a very beautiful
villa near Coburg, in Duke Ernest's duchy.
Richard Wagner has accepted an invitation
from the kh6dive to visit Egypt.
Professor Gervinus.
EORG GOTTFRIED GERVINUS, whose
death has been lately recorded, was one
of the most eminent writers of the age, and
one of Germany's stanchest patriots in times
when to be a patriot was to be more or less an
outlaw. He was born in Darmstadt, in 1805,
and was apprenticed at an early age, first to a
bookseller, next to a banker. But already, in
1824, having broken with his commercial career, he enrolled himself among the students
of the Giessen University, which he soon left
to sit at the feet of Schlosser in Heidelberg,
where, in 1830, he became "Docent" in his
turn, having produced his first work, " The
History of the Anglo-Saxons." Three years
later his " Historical Writings" procured him,
on Dahlmann's recommendation, the professorship of History and Literature at GOttingen.
He then commenced his great work, " The
History of the Poetical National Literature of
Germany," five volumes (1835-'42), the title
of which was changed in its fourth edition
into'" History of German Poetry." Next followed his " Outlines of Historiography,"'" On
Goethe's Correspondence," a canto of "Gudrun," a fragment like his " History of the Art
of Drinking," in which he intended to show
how the cultivation of the vine had always gone
hand in hand with the culture of the people.
In 1837 Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, came to the throne of Hanover, and Gervinus, together with six other Gbttingen professors, signed the famous protest against the
coup d'etat with which the former had inaugurated his rule-a protest of which, by-theway, that unfortunate Professor Ewald, now
the loyal "particularist," has never since ceased
to "sing and to say." Gervinus was not only
the author of the protest, but also its propaga
tor, and, while the other professors were simply
dismissed, he was compelled, by a special rescript, to quit Hanover within three days. He
returned to Heidelberg, where, with few intermissions, he has ever since occupied the chair
of German Literature. But abstract studies
did not suffice him. Ever anxious to awaken
the torpid national sense of subdivided and
prinice-ridden Germany, he busied himself
with newspaper work as well, while the mov ement of the Deutsch-Katholiken gave rise to
several separate pamphlets from his pen. His
" Heidelberg Address to the Schleswig-Holsteiners" (1846) stirred up one of the most
powerful agitations throughout Germany, the
consequences of which have indeed been more
mniomentous than its author was probably aware
of. In 1847 he founded, together with Mathy,
Mittermaier, and Hiiusser, the Deutsche Zeitung
the representative organ of German Constitutionalism, which, chiefly in 1848, exercised an
enormous influence upon public opinion. Elected to the National Assembly of Frankfort, he
soon wearied of its fruitless labors, and eventually, after the miserable fiasco of that body,
turned entirely from politics to his former
studies. In 1849 hlie produced his work on
Shakespeare, and from 1855 to 1866 his nagnqnu
opus, " The History of the Nineteenth Century
since the Vienna Treaties." The introduction
to this work, published separately in 1854,
brought down upon him another prosecution
"for agitation and high-treason," in which,
however, the government was not successful.
He was first partially condemned, and next entirely acquitted. Apart, however, from all
these labors, he cultivated the art of music,
and was one of the most zealous apostles of
Handel in Germany. The Handel statue in
Halle, the Handel Society, and the complete
Handel edition, are mainly owing to his indefatigable zeal.'His place in the world of
culture will not easily be filled.
Schuyler Colfax on the Northern Pa cific Railway.
Midway across the continent, at the head
of twelve hundred miles of lake navigation, a
thousand miles from Buffalo, the western terminus of the Erie Canal, and as near to it by
water as Chicago, a hundred miles w est of the
longitude of St. Louis or Galena, is the young
city of Duluth, the initial poinit of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The great work, so magnificently endowed by the government, is already being pushed rapidly westward, under
its energetic controllers; and before the snow
'flies next fall it will be completed to the western line of Minnesota, where it crosses the Red
River of the North, which runs northw ad to
Lake Winnipeg, and one-eighth of its distance
to the Pacific Ocean will have been accomnplished. Commencing, too, this season, on its
western line, the work will be prosecuted from
both directions; and long before the nation
celebrates its centennial anniversary of independence the lakes will be united by iron bands
with that Mediterranean of our NorthwestPuget's Sound.
Of the auspicious influence of this enterprise, which but a few years ago would have
been considered so daring, the most sanguine
of its friends have scarcely yet a full realization. Even taking Chicago as the startingpoint, it will be (via St. Paul, where an arm of
this railroad is reached) two hundred miles less
distance to Puget's Sound than to San Francisco. Besides this, vessels from the Golden
Gate to China sail on what is called the grand
circle, instead of in a straight line; and any
one testing this by a string on a globe will be
surprised at the result, if he have not previously studied the effect of the rotundity of the
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