It has long been a mooted point among the philosophers of the beautiful in Germany whether the art of gardening was a legitimate branch of aesthetic culture. Bouterweck denied that the artificial perversions of an old-fashioned French garden had the slightest relation to art, but admitted that the _Landschafts-gartenkunst_, or art of landscape gardening, might very properly be ranked with painting and sculpture. Thiersch passes the subject by in silent contempt, while Tittman, whose work on beauty and art is fast becoming a universal hand-book of aesthetics, declares, on the other hand, that it is, even more than architecture, closely allied to the study of the beautiful, since its object is far less directly connected with human wants, and more nearly related to the attractive and fascinating. Herr Rudolph Siebeck would appear, however, to have put the question for a time at rest, by a work at present publishing by Voigt, in Leipsic, entitled _Die Vildende Gartenkunst, in ihren modernen Formen_, which, as he very correctly asserts, "embraces in one comprehensive theory all those laws of the art of gardening which aesthetics present, by the application of natural and artificial methods, in order to plan and execute walks and grounds, according to the dictates of a refined taste." In pursuance of this great aim, Herr Siebeck, (who was, by the way, formerly the imperial Russian court-gardener at Lazienka, and is at present council-gardener at Leipsic,) after completing his education as a practical gardener, scientifically studied the higher principles of his art at the universities of Munich and Leipsic, both of which, but particularly the former, have long been celebrated for the facilities which they afford for this study. After which, under the kind patronage of Baron Hugel, he journeyed to "every country" the natives of which had so far advanced in the art of gardening as to deserve the honor of a visit. The results of this study and labor are given in the above-titled volume, which embraces all things, if not exactly from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, at least from the largest royal park to the smallest garden in a city. The work is illustrated with twenty colored garden plans, arranged according to the following categories: 1. Kitchen Gardens. 2. Pleasure Gardens. 3. Pleasure and Kitchen Gardens. 4. Public Gardens. 5. A Botanical Garden. * * * * * The first volume of a new _Life of Goethe_, by J. W. SCHAFER, has been published, of which we find flattering accounts. Also the _Life and Times of Joachim Jurgins_, with Goethe's fragments upon his works by G. C. Guhsaner. He was the contemporary of Galileo, Kepler, Cartesius, &c. * * * * * FRANZ LISZT, the famous pianist, has written a pleasant pamphlet in favor of the project of a Goethean Institute of Art in Weimar, where he is chapel master. * * * * *