E. Phillips Oppenheim - "The Box with Broken Seals"

Charles Bennett - "The Frog Who Would A Wooing Go"

G. E. Wyatt - "Archie's Mistake"

Stella M. Francis - "Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The International Monthly Magazine Volume V to No II

V >> Various >> The International Monthly Magazine Volume V to No II








Those desirous of acquiring languages by wholesale, may try a recent work
by Captain J. NEPOMUK SZOeLLOeZY, with which the scholar can learn,
according to the Ollendorffian system, French, German, English, Italian,
Russian, Spanish, Hungarian, Wallachian and Turkish. Phrases and
vocabularies of all the languages are appended.





A second edition of ADOLF STAHR'S _Preussische Revolution_, has appeared
in Germany, revised by the author and dedicated to Macaulay. No recent
book in Germany has been more successful than this.





MAX SCHLESINGER'S _Wanderings through London_ are announced at Berlin; the
first volume is already published. One of the chapters treats of
"Linkoln's-In-Fields."





We learn from the last number of the _Journal Asiatique_, that M. WOePCKE,
a mathematician who devotes himself to Arabic studies, has discovered in
some Arabic manuscripts two works purporting to be by Euclid, which have
not been preserved in the Greek original, nor are any where referred to as
his by ancient mathematical writers. One is a treatise on the lever, and
the other on the division of planimetric figures. The authenticity of the
two is thought to be perfectly established by collateral evidence.





The Hungarian author. Baron Eoetvoes, has just published a work called
_Ueber den Einfluss der Neuen Ideen auf den Staat_ (On the influence of
new ideas upon the State). He argues that the students of social and
political science should confine themselves strictly to the method
received in the natural sciences, and employed there with such success;
first establish what are the genuine experimental phenomena, and then by
induction settle the law which produces and governs them.





We expect a treat from MORITZ WAGNER'S _Reise nach Persien und dem Lande
der Kurden_ (Journey to Persia and Kurdistan) the first volume of which is
advertised in our last files of German papers. Wagner is one of the best
of travellers, and we shall look for the book itself with some impatience.
The second volume is announced as to appear in three weeks after the
first.





The second part of the third volume of HUMBOLDT'S _Kosmos_, has just
appeared at Stuttgart. It treats of the heavenly nebulae, suns, planets,
comets, aurora borealis, zodiacal light, meteors, and meteoric stones.
This completes the uranological part of the description of the physical
universe. Humboldt has already begun his fourth volume, and expects to
finish it before June next.





KOSSUTH is speculated on by a German bookseller, who advertises a work
giving a complete account of his sayings and doings since the capitulation
at Vilagos, including his flight to Turkey and his residence there, the
negotiations for his release, his journey from Kutahia to England, and his
tarry there up to sailing for America, with a portrait.





THE REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER'S _Life in the Sandwich Islands_ (noticed by us
lately in the _International_), is reprinted in London, by Bentley, and
translated in German for a publisher at Berlin.





SILVIO PELLICO, so famous for his works, his imprisonments and sufferings,
is passing the winter in Paris.





The complete works of CLEMENS BRENTANO, have been brought out at
Frankfort, in seven volumes.





Two books of travels in Scandinavia have just appeared in Germany. One is
the _Bilder aus dem Norden_ (Pictures of the North), by Professor OSCAR
SCHMIDT of Jena; and the other _Haegringar_, or a Journey through Sweden,
Lapland, Norway, and Denmark, in 1850, by a young author. Professor
Schmidt amply repays the reader, which is more than can always be said of
the author of _Haegringar_. Both works are, however, especially worthy the
attention of those who wish to study the natural history and ethnography
of the countries in question.





MADAME VON WEBER, widow of the composer, who has for some years resided at
Vienna, has applied to the Emperor of Austria for permission to dispose of
the three original MSS. scores of her husband's operas, _Der Freischuetz,
Eutryanthe_, and _Oberon_. These were in the Royal Library at Vienna; and
she purposes offering them to the three sovereigns of Saxony, Prussia, and
England,--in which respective countries they were originally produced. The
Emperor has caused the MSS. to be delivered to her.





PROFESSOR NUYTZ, whose work on canon law was recently condemned by the
Holy See, has resumed his lectures at Turin. The lecture-room was crowded,
and the learned professor was received with loud applause. He adverted to
the hostility of the clergy, and to the Papal censures of his work, which
censures he declared to be in direct opposition to the rights of the civil
power. He expressed his thanks to the ministry for having refused to
deprive him of his chair.





A valuable contribution to Italian history is _Die Carafa von Maddaloni,
Neapel unter Spanische Herrschaft_ (Naples under Spanish Domination), just
published in Germany, by ALFRED VON REUMONT, a member of the Prussian
Legation at Florence, who, more than almost any other man, has made a
study of the history of that part of Italy, and who in this work has had
access to a great mass of new documents. He writes as a monarchist, but
his facts may be relied on. The work is in two volumes.





Every body remembers the noise made in New-York some fifteen years since
by the revelations of MARIA MONK. We notice a translation of her famous
disclosures advertised, with all sorts of trumpet blowing, in our German
papers.





An edition of the complete works of KEPLER is preparing in Germany, under
the supervision of Prof. FRISCH, of Stuttgart. The manuscripts of the
great astronomer, preserved at St. Petersburg, have been examined for the
purpose, with rich results. It is also proposed to erect a monument to
Kepler at Stuttgart.





Sixteen German books were prohibited in Russia in August last; among them
were FONTAINE'S _Poems_, GOeRRE'S _Christian Mysticism_, KUTZ'S _Manual of
Sacred History_, SCHMIDT'S _Death of Lord Byron_, KINKEL'S _Truth without
Poetry_, and STRAUSS'S _Life Questions_. Of eleven other works, a few
pages from each were prohibited; among these was the German version of
Lieutenant LYNCH'S _United States Expedition to the Jordan and the Dead
Sea_. These works are allowed to enter Russia after having the
objectionable pages cut out.





The science of landscape gardening is enriched by a new work of value just
published at Leipzig, by RUDOLPH LIEBECK, the director of the public
garden in that city. It is called _Die bildenden Garten Kunst in seinen
Modernen Formen_ (The Modern Constructive Art of Gardening). It has twenty
colored plates.





COTTA, of Stuttgart, is preparing to publish a splendid illustrated
edition of Goethe's _Faust_. The designs are to be by an artist well known
in Germany, Engelbert Seibertz. The work is to be published in numbers.





The historical remains and letters of George Spalatin have been published
at Weimar. They are a valuable addition to the history of the Reformation.





It is remarkable that the only oriental nation whose literature has much
resemblance to ours, and has a direct practical value for us, is the
Chinese. For instance, the works of this people upon agriculture abound in
practical information, which may be made immediately useful in Europe and
America. We noticed, some time since, the treatise on the raising and care
of silk worms, translated and published at Paris, by M. STANISLAS JULIEN,
which was so warmly welcomed in France as a timely addition to what was
there known upon the subject. It seems that this work was but a small
portion of an extensive Cyclopedia of Agriculture in use in China, where
the science of tilling the soil has in many respects been developed to an
astonishing degree of perfection. This cyclopedia, M. Hervey, a French
scholar, whose knowledge of the Eastern languages is accompanied by an
equally profound love of farming, has undertaken to translate entire. This
is a difficult and tedious enterprise, especially on account of the mass
of botanical and technical expressions which occur in the work, and of
which the dictionaries furnish no explanation. Meanwhile M. Hervey has
published some of the results of his studies in a work called
_Investigations on Agriculture and Gardening among the Chinese_. He
mentions several varieties of fruits, vegetables, and trees, which might
advantageously be introduced into France and Algiers; he also analyzes the
Cyclopedia, and shows what are the difficulties in translating it.





A remarkable contribution to our knowledge of China, is M. BIOT's recent
translation of the book called _Tscheu-li_. It seems that in the twelfth
century before Christ, the second dynasty that had ruled the country, that
of _Thang_, fell by its own vices, and the empire passed into the hands of
Wu-wang, the head of the princely family of _Tscheu-li_. Wu-wang was a
great soldier and statesman; he confided to his brother Tscheu-Kong, a man
evidently of extraordinary political genius, the moral and administrative
reformation of the empire. He first laid the foundation of a reform in
moral ideas by an addition to the Y-King or sacred book, which the Chinese
revere and incessantly study, but which still remains an unintelligible
mystery for Europeans. Of his administrative reforms a complete record is
preserved in the _Tscheu-li_, and nothing could be easier to understand.

When the Tscheus thus came into power, they found in existence a powerful
feudal aristocracy, from which they themselves proceeded, and which they
must tolerate. Accordingly, they recognized within the imperial dominions
sixty-three federal jurisdictions, which were hereditary, but whose rulers
were obliged to administer according to the laws and methods of the
empire. Having made this concession, they abolished all other hereditary
offices, and established instead, a vast system of centralization, such as
the world has never seen equalled elsewhere. The administration, according
to the _Tscheu-li_, is divided among six ministries, which were also
divided into sections, and the executive functions descend regularly and
systematically to the lowest official, and include the entire movement of
society. The emperor and the feudal princes are restrained by formalities
and usage, as well as by the expression of disapprobation; and the
officials of every grade by their hierarchical dependency, and by a system
of incessant oversight; and finally, the people by proscription, and the
education, industrial, as well as mental and moral, which the State
dispenses to them. The sole idea in which this astonishing system rests,
is that of the State, whose office is to care for all that can contribute
to the public good, and which regulates the action of every individual
with a view to this end. In his organization, Tscheu-Kong excelled every
thing that the most centralized governments of Europe have devised.

The Tscheu family remained in power for five centuries, and was finally
broken down by the feudal element they had preserved. But so deep was the
impress of Tscheu-Kong upon the nation, that after centuries of
revolutions and civil war, it returned to his institutions and principles,
and it is by them and in a great degree in their exact forms, that China
is now governed.

In form the _Tscheu-li_ is like an imperial almanac of our own times. It
is, however, much more complete, because Tscheu-Kong gives in it a mass of
detailed instructions, in order to make the officials aware of their
duties and the precise limits of their authority. Thus the work affords a
quite exact picture of the social condition of China at that time. There
is no other monument of antiquity with which it can be compared, except
the _Manus_, the Indian book of law. The difference is, that in China the
intellectual activity was altogether political, and the public
organization altogether imperial and political; while in India the mental
activity was metaphysical, and the public organization altogether
municipal.

The translation of the _Tscheu_ was not published till after M. Biot's
decease; it was brought out by his father, with the assistance of M.
Stanislas Julien.





The library of the famous Cardinal Mezzofanti is about to be sold, and the
catalogue is already printed--in Italian, of course. It is one of the most
extensive and valuable collection of works in various languages ever made,
and it is to be hoped that it may not be disposed of at the sale, but pass
all together into some public library--that of some university would be
most appropriate. To indicate the contents of the catalogue, we give the
titles of the different parts: Books in Albanian or Epirotic, Arabic,
Armenian, American (Indian dialects of Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru,
United States), Bohemian, Chaldaic, Chinese (Cochin-Chinese, Trin-Chinese,
Japanese), Danish (Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Laplandic), Hebrew
(Antique, Rabbinic, Samaritan), Egyptian, or Coptic-Egyptian and Coptic,
Arabic, Etrusean, Phoenician, Flemish, French (Breton-French,
Lorraine-French, Provencal), Gothic and Visi-Gothic, and Greek and
Greek-Latin, Modern Greek, Georgian or Iberian, Cretian or Rhetian,
Illyrian, Indo-oriental (Angolese, Burmese or Avian, Hindostanee, Malabar,
Malayan, Sanscrit), English (Arctic, Breton or Celtic, Scotch-Celtic,
Scotch, Irish, Welch), Italian (Fineban dialect, Maltese, Milanese,
Sardinian, Sicilian), Kurdistanee or Kurdic, Latin, Maronite and Syriac
Maronite, Oceanic (Australian), Dutch, Persian, Polish, Portuguese
(various dialects), Slavonian (Carniolan, Serbian, Ruthenian,
Slavo-Wallachian), Syriac, Spanish (Catalan, Biscayan), Russian, Turkish,
Hungarian, Gipsey.





The French historian MICHELET, deprived of his professorship in the
College of France, is devoting himself more than ever to literature. His
last work, of which an authorized translation has just appeared in London,
is _The Martyrs of Russia_.





MICHEL NICOLAS, one of the ablest among the French theologico-ethical
writers, has published a translation of the _Considerations on the Nature
and Historical Developments of Christian Philosophy_, by Dr. RITTER, of
the University of Gottingen.





M. SCHONENBERGER, a music-publisher at Paris, has purchased from the heirs
of Paganini the copyright of his works, and is now publishing them, under
the editorial supervision of M. ACHILLE PAGANINI, the son of the great
violinist. The edition will comprise every thing that he left behind in
writing. Hector Berlioz speaks with enthusiasm in the _Journal des Debats_
of the two grand concertos which have just appeared, one of them
containing the marvellous rondo of the _campanella_. Berlioz speaks in
high praise of Paganini's genius as a composer. A volume would be
required, he says, to indicate the new effects, the ingenious methods, the
grand and noble forms which he discovered, and even the orchestral
combinations, which before him were not suspected. In spite of the rapid
progress which, thanks to Paganini, the violin is making at the present
day in respect of mechanical execution, his compositions are yet beyond
the skill of most violinists, and in reading them it is hardly possible to
conceive how their author was able to execute them. Unfortunately he was
not able to transmit to his successors the vital spark which animated and
rendered _human_ those astonishing prodigies of mechanism.





M. PHILARETE CHASLES, one of the literary critics of the _Journal des
Debats_, has published, at Paris, a book called _Etudes sur la Litterateur
et les Maeurs des Anglo-Americanis_, which abounds in those curious
blunders that some French authors seem to be destined to when they write
upon topics connected with foreign countries. For instance, he makes the
pilgrims of Plymouth to have been the founders of Philadelphia, New-York,
and Boston. Buffalo he sets down opposite to Montreal, speaks of the
puritans of Pennsylvania as near neighbors of Nova Scotia, and extends
Arkansas to the Rocky Mountains. At New-York his regret is that a railroad
has destroyed the beauty of Hoboken, and at New Orleans he laments that
marriages between whites and Creoles are interdicted. Of Cooper, Irving,
Bryant, Audubon, and Longfellow, he speaks in terms of just praise, but
Willis is not mentioned. Bancroft and Hildreth are mentioned as
historians, Prescott is spoken of briefly in connection with his Ferdinand
and Isabella, while his other works are not alluded to. To Herman
Melville, M. Chasles devotes fifty pages, while Mr. Ticknor has not even
the honor of a mention. The author of this work is very far from doing
justice either to American literature or to himself.





Five of the nine intended volumes of LAFUENTE'S _General History of Spain_
from the remotest times to the present day, have appeared in Paris.





In Paris a new edition is announced of the best French versions of
FENIMORE COOPER'S works--six or eight illustrated volumes.





M. GUIZOT is about to publish a new volume at Paris, with the title of
_Shakspeare et son Temps_ (Shakspeare and his Times). It is to be composed
of his Life of Shakspeare, and the articles that he has written at various
times upon different plays. The only novelty in it is a notice on Hamlet
which was prepared expressly for this publication. He regards both Macbeth
and Othello as better dramas than Hamlet, but thinks the last contains
more brilliant examples of Shakspeare's sublimest beauties and grossest
faults. "Nowhere," says Guizot, "has he unveiled with more originality,
depth and dramatic effect, the inmost state of a great soul: but nowhere
has he more abandoned himself to the caprices, terrible or burlesque, of
his imagination, and to that abundant intemperance of a mind pressed to
get out its ideas without choosing among them, and bent on rendering them
striking by a strong, ingenious, and unexpected mode of expression,
without any regard to their truth and natural form." The French critic
also thinks that on the stage the effect of Hamlet is irresistible.





A Capital work on Paris has just been published at Berlin, from the pen of
FRIEDRICH SZARVADY, a Hungarian, who has resided for several years in
Paris. The titles of the chapters are:--Paris in Paris; Strangers in Paris;
Parisian Women; Street Eloquence; the Temple of Jerusalem (the Bourse);
Salons and Conversation; Dancing, Song, and Flowers; the Ball at the Grand
Opera; Artist Life; the Press; the Feuilleton; History on a Public Square;
Lamartine, Cavaignac, Thiers; Louis Bonaparte. Szarvady observes sharply,
and writes with as much grace and _esprit_ as a Frenchman. Nothing can be
more taking than his pages. They deserve a translation from the German
into English.





VILLERGAS, the Spanish historian, who in one of his recent works drew a
parallel between Espartero and Narvaez which excited great attention at
Madrid and in other parts of Spain, has just been condemned by the court
which has charge of the offences of the press, to a fine of twenty
thousand reals, or twenty-five hundred dollars, for the sin against public
order and private character contained in that parallel.





An interesting and valuable series of articles reviewing historically the
systems of land tenure which have prevailed in different countries, is
appearing in the _Journal des Debats_ from the pen of M. HENRY TRIANON.
The systems of India and China have already been examined.





The termagant wife of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton has just published _The
School for Husbands_, a novel founded on the life and times of Moliere.
Probably her own husband is shot at in all the chapters.





The books on modern French history would already fill an Alexandrian
library, and every month produces new ones. M. LEONARD GALLOIS, a
well-known historical writer, announces a _History of the Revolution of
February, 1848_, in _five_ large octavos, with forty-one portraits. M.
BARANTE's _History of the Convention_ will consist of six octavos, of
which three are published, and the last is accompanied by it biographical
sketch of each of the seven hundred and fifty members. The period embraced
in this work is from 1792 to 1795, inclusive. There is a new _History of
the City of Lyons_, in three octavos, by the city librarian.





The _Letters and unpublished Essays of Count_ JOSEPH DE MAISTRE have been
brought out at Paris, in two volumes octavo. The letters show the
celebrated author in a new and pleasing light; a tone of genial unreserve
prevails in many of them, which those who have become familiar with his
brilliant, dogmatic, and paradoxical intellect, in his more elaborate
writings, would hardly suppose him capable of. No writer, of this century
at least, has more powerfully set forth the doctrines of the Roman
Catholic Church than he.





The _Political Situation of Cuba_, a volume published in Paris, by Don
ANTONIO SACO, is commended in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Don Antonio was
one of the most distinguished intelligences and liberals of the precious
island: he argues against independence, or annexation to the American
Union: he suggests various arrangements by which Spain could safely
establish political freedom in Cuba, and he thinks administrative and
judicial reforms to counteract the worst ills of her present situation,
might be accomplished.





A New edition of SHARON TURNER's _History of the Anglo-Saxons_ has just
appeared in London, with important additions and revision. The first
edition of Turner's History was published in London more than fifty years
ago. At the time when the first volume appeared, the subject of
Anglo-Saxon antiquities had been nearly forgotten by the British public,
although the most venerated laws, customs, and institutions of the nation
originated before the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts lay
unexamined in archives, and the important information they contained had
never been made a part of general history. Mr. Turner undertook a careful
and patient investigation of all the documents belonging to the period
preserved in the kingdom, and the result of his labors was the work in
question, which at once gave rise to an almost universal passion for the
records and remains of the Anglo-Saxon people, and called forth general
applause from the best minds of England. A good edition of his History was
published several years ago by Carey and Hart of Philadelphia, but it is
now, we believe, out of print.





The Rev. JOHN HOWARD HINTON, author of a well-known History of the United
States, has published, in London, a volume under the title of _The Test of
Experience_, in which he has presented a masterly argument for the
voluntary principle in matters of religion. The "test of experience" is in
this, as in all other things, the best of tests, and the religious
institutions of the United States can well bear its application. One of
the most noticeable results of the non-interference of the State is
pointed out in the following passage:


"To travellers in the United States, no fact has been more
immediately or more powerfully striking than the total absence of
religious rivalry. Amidst such a multitude of sects, an inhabitant
of the old world naturally, and almost instinctively looks for one
that sets up exclusive pretensions and possesses an actual
predominance. But he finds nothing of the kind. Neither
presbyterianism, or prelacy, nor any other form of
ecclesiasticism, makes the slightest effort to lift its head above
its fellow. And with the resignation of exclusive pretensions, the
entire ecclesiastical strife has ceased, and the din of angry war
has been hushed; and here, at length, the voluntary principle is
able to exhibit itself in its true colors, as a lover of peace and
the author of concord. It is busied no longer with the arguing of
disputed claims, but throws its whole energy into free and
combined operations for the extension of Christianity. The general
religious energy embodies itself in a thousand forms; but while
there is before the church a vast field to which the activities of
all are scarcely equal, there is, also, 'a fair field and no
favor,'--a field in which all have the same advantages, and in
which each is sure to find rewards proportionate to its wisdom and
its zeal. This inestimable benefit of religious peace is clearly
due to the voluntary principle."





JUNIUS, since the publication of his Letters, never figured more
conspicuously than during the last month. The _Paris Revue des Deux
Mondes_ has a very long article on the great secret by M. Charles Remusat,
a member of the Institute, well known in historical criticism. He arrays
skilfully the facts and reasonings which British inquirers have adduced in
favor of Sir Philip Francis, and the other most probable author, Lord
George Sackville. He seems to incline to the latter, but does not decide.
He pronounces that, on the whole, Junius was not "a great publicist." His
powers and influence are investigated and explained by M. de Remusat with
acuteness and comprehensive survey. Lord Mahon, in his new volumes, says,
"From the proofs adduced by others, and on a clear conviction of my own, I
affirm that the author of Junius was no other than Sir Philip Francis." We
think not. The London _Athenaeum_, last year, we thought, settled this
point. It is understood that the editor of the _Grenville Papers_, now on
the eve of publication, in London, is in favor of Lord Temple as a
claimant for the authorship of Junius. The January number of the
_Quarterly Review_ contains an article on the subject.

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