Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/515

Rh are worlds beyond him? He is but the expression of his time—a vague yearning for perfection—an embodied dissatisfaction with his age. He has not, nor will he have ever, reached the dramatic, poetic, and symphonic unity which Handel attained in the "Messiah" a hundred years ago.

His efforts, we think, will be, and have been, of the highest use, and it will be long before music again has such a master of poetry, drama, and song, for a votary; still we sympathize heartily with the accomplished musical critic of the Tribune, who speaks of the new school thus:

"The day has gone by when Liszt and Wagner could be decried as mad fanatics. The new music is gaining ground; it is played and sung in every city of the civilized world; we must listen to it whether we like it or not; and the wisest of us have determined to like it if possible, or at least to pretend to like it if we can do no more. And yet it is rather saddening to think that the symphony of the future is to be like this Dante symphony (Liszt)—poetic, imaginative, forcible, and thoughtful as it is, but so terribly hard....

"It is saddening to be told that there shall never be another Haydn; that the world shall never be gladdened with the bright fancies and graceful sentiment of a new Mozart; that even the idealities of Schumann are fashions of the irrevocable past; that we shall wrestle with melodies as if they were Greek roots, and suffer all the pangs of purgatory before we can work out a tune."

What the new music is, we have learned from Thomas long ago, and we fear that subtile master has made us like it all too well for his and our true progress in art: what its theories and ideals are, we learn authentically for the first time in English speech from this book, and we welcome it, if only that it puts the dogma into a definite, and therefore refutable, form.

Berlin Jahrbuch, which corresponds to the English Nautical Almanac and to the American Ephemeris in part, is published yearly in Berlin, under the charge of the Director of the Berlin Observatory. It differs from the English, and American, and French Ephemerides, in that it is a purely astronomical year-book, the nautical data being given by a separate publication—the Nautisches Jahrbuch which—is at present under the direction of Bremiker, who, as well as Foerster, was one of Encke's pupils, while Encke was the conductor of the Berlin Jahrbuch.

The present volume differs little from the preceding ones, but it is fully up to the requirements of the science. It gives: 1. Ephemeris of the Sun and Moon, 100 pages; 2. Geocentric places of the major planets, 57 pages; 3. Heliocentric places of the major planets, 12 pages; 4. Appearances of Jupiter's satellites and Saturn's ring, 8 pages; 5. Mean and apparent places of certain fixed stars, etc., 55 pages; 6. Eclipses, etc., of the year, 24 pages; 7. Auxiliary tables, etc., 6 pages; 8. Ephemeris of the minor planets (asteroids), and list of their approximate geocentric places, 111 pages.

It will be seen that astronomers are well provided for in data from this Ephemeris, which, on the whole, is more compendious than any other. It has not, for example, the hourly ephemeris of the Moon which is given in both the English and American Ephemerides, but in general it is more convenient than either of these. Its specialty, so to say, is in its ephemerides of the asteroids. Of these, 142 were known at the time of the publication of this volume, and complete ephemerides of 136 are given. It may not be amiss to give a few details with regard to these small planets, as in general little is known of them: 123 of these asteroids have been observed in three different years, and, of these 123, 112 have their orbits so well settled that their places will be sufficiently exact for some time. One of the 123 (Frigga) has been observed during three oppositions, and, although its orbit should be well determined, it has not been again found. Silvia and Clymene were for some years lost, but they have now been successfully sought for and observed. Maia, Bike, and Camilla, of the first 123, have been observed only during one year, and are for the present lost. Liberatrix is also lost, and not enough time has elapsed since the discovery of the remaining 13 planets to be certain of their orbits.