The Countess HAHN-HAHN, who for several years has occupied in German literature a position corresponding to that of George Sand in France, with whose views of life and society she strongly sympathized, and whose "Faustina" and other works were republished here, has recently become a Roman Catholic, as our readers will have seen, and has just written the following letter to a Hamburg journal:
"To correct some misapprehension, I feel it to be my duty to declare that the new edition of my complete works announced by Alexander Duncker in Berlin is no new series, but an edition with a new title. A new series of those writings will never appear, as I no longer recognize as my own the spirit in which they were written.
DAVID COPPERFIELD has been translated into German, with the peculiarities of speech of the different classes of characters unattempted. Old Pegotty and Ham speak "pure Castilian." It is easy to see how the dramatic character of the book is thus lost. Indeed, Dickens is almost the only very famous English author who is not much translated. The Battle of Life, one of the least valuable and characteristic of his works, is well known upon the Continent, because it was so easy to translate. But what can a descendant of Dante, for instance, ever know of the drolleries of Sam Weller? Fancy a _spiritual_ Frenchman trying to catch the fun of Pickwick!
Mr. Judd's _Richard Edney_ induces a German critic to say of him, "This is a new English poet of the Carlyle and Emerson school, who, inspired by the example of Jean Paul, turn the English language topsy-turvy, and introduce a jargon that makes us satisfied with our own romantic barbarism."
Mrs. S. C. HALL'S _Sorrows of Women_ has been also translated into German, and is highly praised.
In Vienna, most of the recent publications have more or less relation to affairs. There is very little of pure literature. M. de Zsedényi, one of the most capable Hungarian political writers, has published a work entitled _Responsibility of the Cabinet and the State of Hungary_. The author of _The Genesis of the Revolution_, (supposed to be Count Hartig, who was a Minister without portfolio under Prince Metternich) has again appeared before the public with 146 closely printed pages of _Night Thoughts_, some of which had better never have seen the light of day. A Mr. Schwarz has published a work advocating "protection," and in it he spares neither England nor the Austrian Minister of Commerce. Free trade notions have indeed been attacked in a score of books by continental thinkers lately, and free trade opinions seem to have received, throughout Europe, a most decided check.