The FRENCH ACADEMY held its annual public session on the 8th of August, in the presence of a large audience, including almost all the literary celebrities of the metropolis, both masculine and feminine. The prizes of victory were given to Napoleon Hurney, who had saved the lives of fourteen persons, and to Marguerite Briand, for having supported and taken care for forty-five years of her mistress, who had fallen from wealth into the extremest poverty. M. de Salvandy, who bestowed these prizes, delivered the usual eulogy on virtue in general, winding up with praise of Louis Philippe and his reign, a thing more creditable perhaps to the fidelity and consistency of the speaker, who has never renounced his allegiance to the Orleans family, than proper to the occasion.
The literary prizes were distributed by M. Villemain. The grand prize of ten thousand francs for the best work on the history of France, was given to Augustin Thierry. Emile Angier received a prize of seven thousand francs for his comedy of "Gabrielle," and M. Antran one of three thousand for his "Daughter of Æsehylus." Three ladies got prizes worth two thousand francs each for works of a popular nature on moral subjects; M. A. Garnier got one of one thousand for his Morale Sociale; M. Martin the same for his Philosophie Spiritualiste de la Nature, and M. Kastus the same for his Psycologie d'Aristote. The crown for the best specimen of eloquence was awarded to M. Baudrillast for his Eulogy on Madame de Stael, in which the literary history and character of the subject were served up in the most florid style. The same writer once before won the same prize by a eulogy on Turgot. His productions are more elaborate and showy than substantial and permanent in their character.
It must be said that this Academy is rather a respectable and slow-moving institutution. The most illustrious names of France are not always included in the list of its members. Neither Beranger nor Lamenais belong to it. A writer in the Paris National says that after three hours at its meeting everybody he met in the street seemed to belong to the time of Louis XI.
EDWARD EVERETT has been many years engaged in the collection and arrangement of materials for a systematic Treatise on the Modern Law of Nations; more especially in reference to those questions which nave been discussed between the governments of the United States and Europe since the Peace of 1783. This will be Mr. Everett's "life poem." Hitherto he has written nothing very long except the "Defense of the Christian Religion," published when he was about twenty-one years of age. We have just received from Little & Brown their edition of the "Orations and Speeches" of Mr. Everett, in two very large and richly-printed volumes, which we shall hereafter notice more largely. These are to be followed, at the author's leisure, by his Political Reports and Speeches and Official Papers, in two large volumes, and his contributions to the North American Review, which, if all included, we think will make four others: so that his works, beside the new treatise above mentioned, will be completed in not less than eight volumes. We are gratified at the prospect of such a collection of these masterpieces of rhetoric, so full of learning and wisdom, and infused by so genial a spirit. We wish some publisher would give us in the same style all the writings of Alexander Everett.
CHARLES MACKAY has lately published in London, a work upon which he had long been engaged, under the title of "Progress of the Intellect." We suspect, from the reviewals of it which appear in the journals, that it is of the German free thinking class of philosophical histories. It embraces dissertations on Intellectual Religion, Ancient Cosmogony, the Metaphysical Idea of God, the Moral Notion of God, the Theory of Mediation, Hebrew Theory of Retribution and Immortality, the Messianic Theory prevailing in the days of Jesus, Christian Forms and Reforms, and Speculative Christianity. And these dissertations are written with an eloquence and power unexampled in a work of so much learning.
M. AND MAD. DE LAMARTINE having returned from the East, are at present Staying at the Villa du Prado, a branch of the Hotel des Empereurs, a pleasant house on the banks of the Huveaune, in the midst of the most beautiful landscape. It was in a country box, upon the Avenue du Prado, that Lamartine wrote, in 1847, his "Histoire des Girondins." Lamartine is pleased with his Smyrna estate; he was received there by his vassals en grand seigneur, but he found that he would be obliged to expend a good deal of money before the estate would be profitable.
THEODORE PARKER'S "Massachusetts Quarterly Review," is dead, and—God be Praised that New England refused to support it any longer. Mr. Parker says in the farewell to his readers, that the work "has never become what its projector designed that it should be;" and expresses a hope that "some new journal will presently be started, in a more popular form, which will promote the great ideas of our times, by giving them an expression in literature, and so help them to a permanent organization in the life of mankind."
CAPT. SIR EDWARD BELCHER, R.N., known in the literary and scientific world by his extensive voyages of survey and discovery, is now on a visit to New York, whence he will shortly proceed to Texas. Sir Edward Belcher is a gentleman of remarkable energy of character, and of eminent abilities.
A LETTER from M. Guizot, assigning the motives of his refusal to appear as a candidate of the Institute for a seat in the Superior Council of Public Instruction, is published by the Espérance of Nancy. The Principles avowed by M. Guizot lead directly to a separation of Church and State.
JOHN G. SAXE will soon publish a new poem which he delivered recently at the commencement of Middlebury College, with the applause which crowns all his efforts in this way.
A RE-ISSUE of the Complete Works of Eliza Cook will be shortly commenced in her Journal, and continued weekly until completed.
THE INSTITUTE OF GOETHE has just been founded by the government of Saxe Weimar. It consists simply of a prize of twenty thousand francs offered to the competition of the literary and artistic world. The first year it will be given to the best among the poems, romances, and dramatic works submitted; the second year to the best picture; the third year to the best piece of statuary; the fourth year to the best piece of music, whether sacred or profane, opera or oratorio. This circle having been completed, the prize will next be given as at the first year; and so on in regular succession. The successful competitor is to remain proprietor of his work, as are all the others. The prize will he allotted by two committees, one at Weimar the other at Berlin. The establishment of the fund was celebrated at Weimar on the 23d of August.
GIFFORD, some five-and-twenty years ago, declared that all the fools of the country had taken to write plays; and it would appear that all the dull Englishmen of our day have taken to write pamphlets on the slave-trade. The London Times is very severe upon a book just issued by Mr. W. Gore Ouseley, who was several years British Charge d'Affaires at Rio, as such conducted a voluminous correspondence on the subject with the government of Brazil, and might have been expected to have there learned something on the slave-trade worth telling. According to his reviewer he appears, however, to be one of that class of persons described by Sterne, who, traveling from Dan to Beersheba,