The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 3, October, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 3, October, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
Books are no longer written in Latin. For literature and learning that good
old language has finally given way, in almost every country, during the
present century. In the United States there have been produced some fifty
volumes in Latin since the Revolution, nearly all of which are by
foreigners. The Life of Washington, by Francis Glass, a western
schoolmaster, is the most considerable contribution to Latin literature by
a native American. In Europe only a few pedantic churchmen continue to
write to dead nations, and it is perhaps well enough that they should do
so, since scarce any of them have fit thoughts for the living age, or for
tongues that have been used by free and thinking men. We find an exception
to the prevailing law in _De Caroli Timothei Zumptii Vita et Studiis
Narratio August. Wilh. Zumptii_. Every body is familiar with the name of
Zumpt as that of one of the most learned Latinists of the last half
century, and it is appropriate that his life should be written in a
language to the study and illustration of which it was almost entirely
devoted. The Lives of Hemsterhuys by Ruhnken, of Ruhnken by Wyttenbach, and
of Wyttenbach by Mahne, have long been the delight of scholars, and have
furnished some of the best specimens of modern Latinity. Zumpt will not
take rank among philologers with these great lights of the eighteenth
century, but he rendered services to learning which will deserve a
memorial, and in moral qualities he was not inferior to any of them. He
became in succession a teacher in other Gymnasia in Berlin, and ultimately
Professor of History in the Military College, and of Latin Eloquence in the
University. He published the first edition of his celebrated _Grammar_ in
1818, and it soon became known throughout the civilized world. Of his other
publications the most considerate is his edition of the _Verrine Orations
of Cicero_; his _Dissertations on the Population of the Ancient World, De
Legibus Judiciisque Repetundarum_, and several others, show that he was
well versed in antiquities, but grammar, criticism, and style were his
proper field. Wolf pronounced himself and Zumpt the only men in Berlin who
could write Latin. His incessant labors undermined his constitution, and
brought on a premature decay; and for some time before his death he had
become entirely blind. He died at Carlsbad in 1849.
* * * * *
A third edition of THIBAUT'S well-known work, _Uber Reinheit der Tonkunst_,
with a preface by the Minister R. Bahr, and a portrait of Palestrina, has
just made its appearance, from the establishment of the well-known
publisher Mohr, of Heidelberg.
* * * * *
A new course of _Proces Celebres_ is to be published by Brockhaus, of
Leipsic. Number one contains the _Proces du Comte et de la Comtesse
Bocarme_.
* * * * *
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