of the children of the Babylonians is a just recompense for their cruelties towards the Jews. He, who finds fault with the spirit of these verses, and denounces it as a relic of a barbarous age, has very inadequate or erroneous views both of the principles of the Divine government, and of the deeper necessities of his own moral nature. When outrageous cruelty or wickedness of any kind, meets with retribution, we feel that it is condign, just, deserved, and this feeling is consistent with the tenderest compassion. Milton's lines find a response in the breast of every right minded reader : Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; ARTICLE X. MISCELLANIES AND CORRESPONDENCE. MUNICH THE CITY AND UNIVERSITY. It is a matter of the deepest regret that in the establishment or enlargement of our cities, in the founding of our public buildings, colleges, etc., there have not been some controlling minds possessed of cultivated taste and enlarged views, that would have given a form and direction to architecture, uniting at the same time economy and convenience with the highest principles of art. In the first place, a suitable locality should be chosen, so that the general effect of an edifice would be most impressive. Then the material-stone if possible-should be selected, whose color, durability, massiveness, etc., would conform, as nearly as possible, to the object of an institution. Then that plan should be adopted, which would admit ultimately, if means are at first wanting, of those chaste and sublime ornaments, which are in fact, not mere ornaments, but become teachers of the young, the guides of taste, and ultimately useful in the highest degree, because their influence, though unseen, is ever active, ever insinuating, ever moulding the plastic souls of the youthful beholder, after their own ideal of beauty. But how sadly have all these things been neglected in our country. Our colleges, that profess to teach the principles of rhetoric and taste, must teach by negatives and contrast, must 1848.] Architectural Beauty of Munich. 379 point for illustrations to what these establishments are not, and to what they easily might have been. The student must be directed to nature, not to the works of man for his models. Man puts up piles of uncouth brick, standing in long, solemn rows, or huddled together in most unartistic confusion. No master genius was consulted; no enlightened plan was thought of, or at least carried out. The only aim was to put up a mass of bricks and mortar, or of pine boards and shingles, in the shortest possible time. Pure taste, high art, durability, real utility, were not brought into the account. The result is that these buildings become to all men of true cultivation distasteful objects; and it will be well if they are able to retain their affection for the institutions themselves, associated, as their outward forms are, with flagrant violations of taste and propriety. The city of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, shows what can be accomplished by one great genius, by one eminent architect, who was not controlled by building committees, or by a mean economy. The city lies on a level and very unpicturesque plain, watered by the Iser, a sluggish branch of the Danube, which Campbell has immortalized in his poem. It is a modern city, and has none of those antique associations which cluster around Augsburgh, Nuremberg, and many other towns. It had a very unpoetic origin. It was erected on some salt works, owned by the monks, Mönchen, whence its name. But it has had one very distinguished architect, Von Klenze, under whose auspices, a great number of churches, museums, and other public edifices have been built. No sooner was the plan of a new building decided on, than work was provided for the painter and sculptor, in furnishing decorations for the interior and exterior. The arts of painting in fresco, in encaustic and on glass, once believed to have been lost, have been revived and carried to great perfection. There have been at one time not less than from six to eight hundred artists resident in the city, either attracted from other countries, or born and educated on the spot. To king Louis, whose fortunes are now so fallen, and whose moral principles have been shown within two or three years to be so sadly deficient, a great debt of gratitude is due for his enlarged patronage of the arts. His taste, seconded in so enlightened a manner, by Von Klenze, Schwanthaler, Cornelius, Ohlmüller and others, has made Munich one of the most interesting cities in Europe. The king has created a taste which has spread over all parts of Germany. It should be recollected, too, that he has had at his command the resources of only a second-rate State, and that he has been sparing in availing himself of them, since the expense of the palace, the gallery of sculpture, and many of the most valuable specimens of art in that gallery and also in the gallery of paintings, were defrayed from his own private purse. The parish church of Maria Hilf, in the suburb Au, beyond the Iser, is one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical edifices of modern times. It was built by Ohlmüller, and is in the pointed Gothic style, with high lancet windows. There are nineteen large windows of modern painted glass, containing subjects from the Bible, designed by living painters, and executed under the direction of Hess in the China manufactory at Munich. The new palace, facing the Max Joseph's square, is an imitation of the ornaments of the Loggie of the Vatican at Rome, or of a more ancient model, the houses at Pompeii. The walls of the State apartments are painted with subjects from the great German epic, the Niebelungenlied. They are the productions of Professor Schnorr, and are considered to be very fine specimens of historical painting. The ceilings and walls of the king's apartments are decorated with encaustic paintings illustrating the Greek poets; those of her majesty contain subjects from the principal German poets. The paintings in the throne-room are surrounded by beautiful Arabesque or Romanesque borders, either original or copied from Pompeii. There is perhaps no palace in Europe (the English would except Windsor castle), which in splendor, comfort and good taste, can vie with that of the king of Bavaria. The The Pinacothek, or Picture gallery, has just been completed from the designs of Von Klenze. It is a beautiful edifice, and the most convenient receptacle for paintings in Europe. On the façade is a row of twentyfive statues of the greatest painters, modelled by Schwanthaler. number of paintings is limited to about 1500, consisting of a selection of the best works out of all the collections belonging to the king, including the galleries of Düsseldorf, Mannheimn, and many others, which amount to 7000 single works. They are arranged according to schools in seven splendid halls and twenty-three adjoining small cabinets. The large pictures of each division, or school, are placed in the central halls, and are lighted from above. The apartments, devoted to the German school, include the élite of the Boisserée gallery, commenced at Cologne, in 1804, by two brothers of that name, and for which the king paid 375,000 florins. The longest hall of the gallery and one cabinet are exclusively occupied by ninety-five works of Rubens. The Fall of the Damned or the Fallen Angels, Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounced to be one of the greatest efforts of genius that the art has produced. The Glyptothek, gallery of sculpture, is a classical edifice of the Ionic order. A separate apartment is devoted to the works of each distinct department of art, and the decorations of every apartment are adapted to its contents. The hall of modern sculpture contains Canova's Venus and Paris, Thorwaldsen's Adonis and Schadow's Girl fastening her Sandal. The moral impression of many of the productions, especially of those in the gallery of paintings, is beneficial in the highest degree. Some of 1848.] Public Library of Munich. 381 the most touching and awful scenes of time and of eternity, are so portrayed as to impress the conscience, and haunt the memory, and linger in the imagination for days and weeks. In Rubens, what a prodigious fertility of invention, what daring confidence of genius in selecting his subjects, what coloring and what truth to nature! How perfectly lifelike some of his portraits! One's respect and love for the German masters, too, are constantly augmenting-for Albert Dürer, old Lewis Cranach, so associated with the reformers, and for the brilliant coloring of Wohlgemuth. The famous telescope establishment of Frauenhofer, is in Müller Street, outside of the gates. The business is carried on in a large house of four stories. It contains no external sign of the work that is performed within. Frauenhofer himself died June 7, 1826, probably in consequence of his unremitted labors. His grave is near that of his friend and partner, Von Reichenbach. On his tomb is the epitaph, approximavit sidera. The firm is maintained with undiminished reputation by Utschneider. Forty men are now employed in the establishment. The directors exhibited much complacency in showing the magnificent telescope belonging to Harvard College, which was completed near the close of 1847, and which cost about 42,000 florins. The smallest telescope which is made here is worth about ten dollars. Lithography was invented in Munich by Aloys Sennefelder about the year 1800, and the art still maintains great perfection here. In 1826, Sennefelder invented a new process for taking impressions on colored sheets, so as to imitate oil painting. This art he called mosaic painting. He died Feb. 26, 1834. The most imposing street in Munich is the Ludwig's strasse, built under the auspices of king Louis, terminated at one end by a lofty triumphal arch. On both sides of the street, near the arch, is the university of Munich. At a little distance on the same street is the building which contains the public library and the archives. It was begun in 1832 and finished in 1843. It is a noble structure, of ample dimensions, and surpasses any other building in the world, which is devoted to this purpose. The entrance is from Ludwig's strasse, by some stately steps, on the parapet of which are four statues, in a sitting posture, eight feet highAristotle, Thucydides, Hippocrates and Homer, indicating the design of the building. The printed books are arranged into twelve main classes, viz. Encyclopedias with 11 subdivisions; Philology with 18; History with 40; Mathematics with 8; Physics with 13; Anthropology with 4; Philosophy with 3; Aesthetics with 15; Politics with 6; Medicine with 8; Jurisprudence with 16; Theology with 38; total, 180 subdivisions. To show the nature of the subdivision, we may select the class of history which includes universal geography, maps, collected journals of travels, single books of travels, chronology, genealogy, heraldry, antiquities, archaeology, ancient coins, recent coins, universal history, annals, political ephemerides, ancient history, intercalary history, history of Europe; various countries of Europe under a number of heads, extra European history, history and geography of other portions of the world, Jews, biographical collections, single biographies, miscellaneous history. There are besides these, twelve special collections, embracing such objects as dissertations, incunabula (books printed before 1501), books printed on parchment, Chinese books, editions of the Dance of Death, etc. In each department the books are arranged according to the three principal forms, folio, quarto and octavo. Alphabetical catalogues and catalogues by subjects are in the process of preparation. Two or three thousand printed volumes are added to the library yearly, 16,000 florins being annually devoted to that object by the government. One copy of every book published in the kingdom is required to be sent to the library. The Mss., exceeding 22,000, are arranged according to languages. The number in the German exceeds 4000, French between 500 and 600, Italian between 400 and 500, 242 picture Mss., 587 musical, 700 catalogues, etc. Among the more valuable or curious objects in the library are the following: An Arabic Koran in golden letters, which belonged to a confessor of Louis XIV.; a Koran remarkable for its extreme diminutiveness; a breviary of Alaric the Visigoth; A Ms., half uncial, without any separation of the words, of the 6th or 7th century; parts of the four Gospels, half uncial, of the ante-Jerome translation; the orations of Demosthenes on cotton paper from Chios; a collection of traditions of a church of Ravenna on papyrus of the 9th century; a translation of the Gospels into Latin of the 5th century; New Testament, written in gold and silver letters on purple vellum of the 9th century; Albert Dürer's Prayer Book, with very interesting sketches by him and Cranach, etc. The library contains about 10,000 books printed before 1500, including 50 block books, some of them printed at Harlem. One of the oldest specimens of printing, 1454, contains an appeal to arms against the Turks. There are also the first Latin Bibles printed at Mayence between 1450 and 1455, by Gutemberg and Faust, and the oldest works, having a date, which were printed at Augsburgh, Nuremberg and Munich. The number of printed works, without regard to the volumes, amounts to 400,000. We are happy to add that the utmost courtesy is shown to strangers, who visit this library, the second in the world in its size, and altogether the first in regard to its arrangement, and in the splendor and commodiousness of the edifice which contains it Philip Von Lichten |