The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-05 00:00:00

ASTOUNDING IF TRUE.

The Berlin Correspondent of a morning contemporary
says :—" If we are to believe a very circumstantial letter
from Munich, Britannia's maritime power has had a very
narrow escape from the total destruction which awaited
it had a third naval campaign been opened this year in
the Bay of Finland. From this letter we learn that a
certain Bavarian corporal, named Bauer, who, in 1849,
made some unsuccessful experiments with a diving vessel
in Kiel harbour, has since then brought hie labours to a
successful result ; the letter which he wrote was indited
17 feet below the surface of the sea, off Cronstadt, June
24, and iu the company of the writer, in his vessel,
were at the time a Russian naval officer, eight sailors,
and a smith. This experiment had been preceded by
eight others, for the purpose of testing the capacity of
the vessel, and it was to be succeeded in a few days by
a grander one in the presence of the Grand Duke Con-
stantine And a committee named for the purpose. On
the occasion here alluded to the crew of 11 persons re-
mained eight hours, without interruption, under water ;
and, in addition to the letter-writing feat, and the
drinking of divers bottles of Rhine wine to the healthy
of various European potentates, they performed during
that time all sorts of evolutions with the vessel, moving
backwards and forwards, rising and sinking, whether
vertically or at an angle, whether rapidly or slowly, eze.
In short, the only circumstance connected with the de-
scription that at all suggests an opening for scepticism
is, that the letter was written by the inventor himself ;
when we have another description, written by an im-
partial person, we shall know better what to think about
this matter.

RAILWAY ACCIDENT NEAR HUDDERSFIELD STATION.
--An accident occurred on Saturday morning at the
Hillhouse engine shed, Hudder,field. The 6.25 a.m.
pa.senger train bad just passed the engine shed when a
Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln engine started from
the shed •to run into the station to be attached to a
train for Sheffield. At the same moment a luggage
train (which had been turned into a siding till the
pasting of the 6.25 train) was driven towards the
shed to be shunted, and the consequence was that a
butfir of each engine came into collision. One of the
buff ri was hurled a distance of twenty yards, the
lug;age engine had its wheel tires knocked off and the
slue considerably injured. The Manchester, Sheffield,
and Lincolnshire engine had the whole of its side torn
away and its tender turned upside down. Several wag-
gons were also inverted, acd the traffic was stopped for
three hours. Thomas HiteLen, the fireman, and John
Turner, the driver of the Manchester, Sheffield, and
Liucolnshire engine, were removed to the infirmary,
the latter being much shaken and the former severely
cut. David Nichols, the pointsman, was also much
hurt by a piece of wood striking him while falling
from one of the luggage waggons. A signal was
hoisted for the luggage train to be delayed, but the
driver was prevented by the thickness of the atmo-
sphere from teeing it,--Mancheiter Guardian.

LEWES' GOETHE.

The T ife and Works of Goethe ; With Sketches of
his Age and Contemporaries. By G. H. Lewes.
2 vols. David Nutt.
It is curious that, while the most appreciative
of all the commentators on Shakspere was (A. W.
Schlegel) a German—incomparably the most gifted
and intelligent of all the biographers of Goethe is
(G. H. Lewes) an Englishman. These two re-
markable volumes, commemorative of the greatest
literary genius of the Teutonic race—volumes
only given to the world at last after two years of
assiduous preparation—constitute henceforth, par
excellence, we do conscientiously believe, THE
" Life of Goethe," and, as such, assume at once a
high and unassailable position among • our great
classic masterpieces. Cordially—now that his
labour of love is at length accomplished—now
that we have the fruition of it in our hands thus
substantially and satisfactorily—cordially do we
offer to Mr. Lewes our unaffected and most ear-
lnest congratulations. Thus far, at least, he has
fulfilled his ambition. Again and more triumph-
antly than hitherto he has passed another of the
golden goals towards which his steps have been
reverently and ardently directed. In this last
and worthiest of his various literary productions
he has acquitted himself, we must protest at once,
hardly less to our surprise than to our admiration.
His brilliant imaginative sketch of the Young
Author, " Ranthorpe," his charming historiette
of " Rose, Blanche, and Violet," his fiery
and daring apostrophe to the shade of "Robe-
spierre," his luminous and comprehensive " Bio-
graphical History of Philosophy" shall we
acknowledge it ?—had hardly prepared us for
the mellowed and perfected excellence of this
really masterly memorial of Goethe and his Contem-
poraries. A biography not unworthy, in its way, of
taking rank among the more admirable examples
produceable through any age, or in any tongue, in
that, to us, we had nearly said, the most fascinat-
ing of all the numerous departments of literature.
The work—it is interesting to remark at once—is
thus gracefully inscribed to Thomas Carlyle, the
translator of " Wilhelm Meister," and as such the
one " who first taught England to appreciate
Goethe"—" As a memorial," writes Mr. Lewes,
" Of gratitude for Intellectual Guidance, and of
esteem for rare and noble qualities." Conspicu-
ous among the various honours conferred upon the
author of " Sartor Resartus "—we take this dedi-
cation to be about the one the most eminently well
calculated to afford him a genuine and lasting
sense of gratification. The motto selected by
Mr. Lewes for his title-page--resembling some-
what the motto we ourselves should have chosen
for the title-page of a crowning biography of the
Great Napoleon (namely, the opinion uttered in
regard to that extraordinary man by the Right
Hon. Charles James Fox, to wit : "'believe him to
be one of the best, as I am sure he is the
greatest of mankind")—is sententiously as
follows :—" Goethe's heart, which few knew,
was as great as his intellect, which all know."
AOTOC ft7rEV Jung Stilling ! And truthfully—
judging from these dispassionate records, the
data of which, as the title-page again intimates,
have been industriously collected by our author,
from sources both " published and unpublished."
The former, namely, the published sources of in-
formation in regard to the life of Goethe, may of
course be readily enough enumerated. Foremost
among them the brief biographical notices by
Doring and by Schutz—succeeded, as those mini-
ature mementoes were ultimately, by the ampler
narratives of Viehoff and of Schafer—Viehoff 's
Goethe's Leben extending to four, and Schafer's
to two volumes :-Itolumes as substantial in ap-
pearance, but by no means as meritorious in
character, as these two tomes from the hand of
G. H. Lewes. Besides the " Lives" of Goethe,
penned by Daring, and Schutz, and Viehoff, and
Schafer, there were—affording materials and
hints to our author—Herr Falk's "Reminiscences
of Goethe," and Mrs. Austin's " Goethe and his
Contemporaries," and Mr. Oxenfori's translation
of " Enckerinann's Conversations," and Goethe's
own Letters, letters addressed now to the
Countess You Stolberg, now to Kestner, now to
Charlotte—not forgetting various other Epistles,
Memoirs, and Recollections, or (what Mr.
Lewes quite comprehensibly designates " as much
of a stumbling-block as of a stepping-stone"), the
renowned Wahrheit and Dichtung, Goethe's own
famous fragment of Autobiography ! All these
published sources of information in regard to his
subject Mr. Lewes has wisely brought under con-
tribution, has fairly sifted and ransacked. But
with these he has scrutinised no less searchingly
various unpublished sources of intelligence—.
sources imparting to his volumes very agreeably
an air of undoubted novelty and originality.
Speaking of this in his Preface he observes—
" Besides the mass of printed testimony, I have
endeavoured to get at the truth by consulting
those who lived under the same roof with him,
those who lived in friendly intercourse with him,
and those who have made his life and works a
special study." A Life, remember, extending
over the ample " span" comprised between
1749 and 1832—a life consequently embrac-
ing eighty-two years altogether Johann
Wolfgang Goethe having been born in 1749,
about, noonday on the 28th of August, and hav-
ing expired at length full of years and honours,
iu 1832, at about the same hour of the day on
the 22d of March. Works including among
their number—his maiden phantasy " Gots von
Berlichingen," his morbid tale of love and suicide
" Werther," " Clavigo," " Egmont," " Stella,"
"Die Fischerin," "Triumph der Empfiudsam-
keit," " Iphigenia," "Ilmenau," Tasso," his
" Theory of Colour," his " Treatise on the Meta-
morphoses of Plants ;" above all, his wonderful
" Wilhelm Meister," his astonishing " Faust,"
and his exquisite " Herman and Dorothea."
What a genius ! What fecundity What
depth ! What imagination ! Remember-
ing these works, do we not surround
our ideal of Goethe with the graceful and angelic
forms of Charlotte, and Dorothea, and Mignon,
and Marguerite ? Do we not marvel over the me-
mory of this giant intellect under the glamour of
the Walpurgis Night, to the eltridch strain of the
"Ed King," to the wierd glimmer of the sar-
donic and evil eye of that mocking phantom
yonder in the dark background, the wily and
diabolic Mephistopheles Such is the memorable
" Life," such are the marvellous " Works," re-
counted and analysed by Mr. G. H. Lewes' pen
of sagacity and fascination. A masterpiece not
unworthy of its theme—this noble biography will
henceforth be regarded, we rest assured, hardly
less in Germany than in England, as the classic
authority commemorative of all most worthy of
commemoration in regard to Goethe and his
contemporaries.

THE LARGEST STEAMER IN THE

WORLD.

The American steamer Vanderbilt, the largest
steamer in the world, has had a trial trip at New
York. Her paddle-wheels made 16 revolutions a
minute, and it was considered that 18 revolutions
could be got out of her. Twelve of her revolutions
were equivalent to 14 knots au hour, and with 13
miles an hour only she could cross the Atlantic in
ten days. Her length is 335 feet, breadth of beam
46 feet, depth of hold 32-i feet. She is 5,000 tons
burden. She will draw 20 feet when loaded. She
will carry 1,000 tons of freight, 1,500 tons of coal,
and 800 tons of water. Her crew consists of 150
persons. Amongst them for the engine depart-
ment will be 4 engineers, 13 coal heavers, 24 fire-
men, and 3 water tenders. Her stewards depart-
ments will consist of 1 steward, 8 cooks, 24 waiters,
and 3 porters. She has five decks and 16 water-
tight compartments. Her engines consist of two
overhead beam engines with a power of 5,000
horses. The boilers are tubular, each 30 feet long,
and weighing GO tons- The cylinders are 90 inches
i❑ diameter and 12 feet stroke. The wheels are 41
feet in diameter, and the boiler surface is 20,000
superficial feet. She has 32 furnaces, and she will
consume 100 tons of coals in 24 hours. Her floor°
are fastened through her keel with copper bolts ;
the bolts weigh 50 tons. She is iron strapPe,d
throughout with 350 diagonal straps, weighing in
the aggregate 96 tons. She has been built by day
work and not by contract, and her coat will be
nearly 1,000,000 dollars.