470 



LITERATURE, CONTINENTAL, IN 1876. 



To turn to encyclopaedias : the " Allgerneine 

 Deutsche Biographie," edited by Liliencron 

 and Wegele, and the " Deutsche Plutarch," 

 which Gottschall edits, and which possesses 

 several hundreds of distinguished contribu- 

 tors, continue to appear. Wurzbach's " Biogra- 

 phisches Lexicon des Oesterreichischen Kai- 

 serstaats " has this year reached the letter S, 

 and the thirty-second volume. It is a truly 

 gigantic undertaking for one man. 



To the history of literature belong the pro- 

 found commentary on " Faust " how many 

 commentaries are there ? which that able 

 writer on fflsthetics, Vischer, has produced a 

 work not very intelligible to any but the ini- 

 tiated. As masterpieces of elegant and learned 

 oratory should be mentioned the academical 

 speeches and addresses which the historian of 

 Greece, Ernst Curtius, has collected under the 

 title of " Alterthum und Gegenwart." 



At last, but not least, comes philosophy. In 

 the ten years after Hegel's death sadly fallen, 

 philosophy has lately taken a new start. But 

 in this department, too, the race of great origi- 

 nal thinkers is gone, and we are busy cele- 

 brating their centenaries : in 1862 Fichte's, in 

 1870 Hegel's, in 1875 Schelling's, and in this 

 year Herbart's the founder of a school of 

 philosophical realism in Germany, which of 

 all the German schools is most akin to the 

 English in psychology to Locke, in morals 

 to Clarke. During the predominance of the 

 Schelling-Hegel philosophy, Herbart long stood 

 alone ; but since the fall of the Hegelian school, 

 and the growing study of the empirical sci- 

 ences, the Konigsberg professor has enjoyed 

 an ever-increasing number of adherents. The 

 most important philosophical productions of 

 the year come from the Herbartians: Volk- 

 mann's " Psychologie," a work as exact as it 

 is learned ; and the second edition of Lazarus's 

 " Leben der Seele," one of the most able and 

 thorough treatises on psychological questions 

 that exist. Lazarus also, in company with 

 Steinthal, ranks among the main promoters of 

 a new science that owes its origin to Herbart 

 the " Volkerpsychologie," which, like Comte's 

 "Sociologie," recognizes the natural laws in 

 the spiritual life of the " Volksseele." The 

 last word, of course, is taken in a somewhat 

 different sense from that in which Ed. Reich 

 employs it in his bizarre " Studien fiber die 

 Volksseele." Lazarus attributes to the " peo- 

 ple," as a collective whole, a soul only in a 

 " figurative," Reich, on the contrary, in a " lit- 

 eral" sense. Besides, the former takes the 

 word " soul " in a spiritual, the latter, on the 

 contrary, in a material sense, and recommends 

 for the improvement of the u souls " of the 

 people the " Crossing of the Races." In his 

 judgment of the different " Volksseelen " the 

 writer is very impartial in regard to his own 

 countrymen, the Germans, or rather he is very 

 partial against them. He puts them, so far as 

 national character goes, , below the French 

 and the German- Austrians who, however, be- 



longed to Germany till within the last ten 

 years even below the " noble Czechs and 

 Hungarians." For " crossing " with the Ger- 

 man, he recommends the " chivalrous Polish 

 race." 



Upon the whole, philosophy shows a decided 

 leaning toward empiricism. The starting of a 

 new journal for Empirische Philosophic, and 

 E. Duhring's newest " Philosophic der Wirk- 

 lichkeit," are proofs of this. But, while the 

 philosophers descend from metaphysics to ex- 

 perience, certain followers of the natural sci- 

 ences seem inclined to set out on metaphysical 

 quests. 



HOLLAND. In my review of last year I men- 

 tioned a work that was then on the eve of 

 publication Schimmel's " Sinjeur Semeyns," 

 an historical novel, in three volumes. The 

 great expectations formed by critics and read- 

 ers have not been disappointed ; the book lias 

 proved a splendid success. Schimmel's genius 

 has made the glorious times of William III., 

 De Ruyter, and Tromp live again, the days 

 when Louis XIV. had penetrated into this 

 country as far as Utrecht, and the banner of 

 the Bourbons was flying from the cathedral, 

 where mass was once more said. As in his 

 other novels " Mary Hollis," for instance, 

 which has been honored by an English trans- 

 lation we must admire the author's deep 

 knowledge of the times, his historical charac- 

 ters, and psychology. 



M. Vosmaer, the chief art-critic, of whose 

 French work on Rembrandt a second and en- 

 larged edition is going through the press, has 

 issued anew collection of his essays and shorter 

 poems under the title of " Birds of Different 

 Feathers," the first " flights " of which appeared 

 some time ago. Especially the humor of M. 

 Vosmaer's earlier essays, slightly tinged with 

 melancholy as they are, reminds us of Haw- 

 thorne. A conspicuous feature in our novelis- 

 tic literature of the year was the completion 

 of P. van Limburg Brouwer's collected works 

 of fiction. This author, who died long since, 

 was professor at Leyden, and one of our best 

 classical scholars. 



Some volumes of lyrical poems have ap- 

 peared in the course of 1876. which contain 

 fair promise for the future. Those of Ilolda, 

 a pseudonym, and De Rop, prove tlmt the po- 

 etic vein that runs through the works of the 

 old and modern painters still contains ore of 

 the purest quality. 



An event which may prove propitious to the 

 stage is the leasing of the Amsterdam and 

 Hague Theatre to a company of gentlemen, 

 who intend to influence the actors and the re- 

 pertory. The literary fertility of this small 

 country makes it impossible even to give the 

 titles of the most important publications re- 

 lating to the stage and its history, theology, 

 and philosophy, history, Oriental and classical 

 languages and literature, geography and trav- 

 els, local history and topography, and art. 



HUNGARY. In philology, the learned acad- 



