ng state of literature
in France by their amendments to the copyright law, extending the
provisions of copyright to a period of thirty years after an author's
death.

[Sidenote: Death of Lermontov]

[Sidenote: Lermontov's work]

Michel Jurgevitch Lermontov, the Russian poet, died on July 27, as the
result of a duel in the Caucasus. His romance, "A Hero of Our Time," was
the immediate cause of the duel. This poet was the Russian spokesman of the
so-called Weltschmerz (world-sorrow) which had come into vogue with the
"Sorrows of Werther." Following in the wake of Chateaubriand and Byron,
Lermontov wrote epic poems in a pessimistic, cynical strain, without
attaining quite the bitterness of spirit of a Byron or Heine, nor the
melancholy lyric beauty of a Lenau or Leopardi. Pre-eminent, on the other
hand, are his poetical descriptions of the scenery and wild national traits
of the Caucasus, which furnished the background for almost all of his
poems. Noteworthy among his epics are "The Circassian Boy," "Ismail Bey,"
"Valerik," "Hadshy-Abrak," and "The Demon." Under Czar Nicholas,
Lermontov's works were forbidden in Russia. After having been banished to
the Caucasus, for demanding revenge for Pushkin's death, the poet published
his last brilliant epic, "Song of Czar Ivan Vasilyevitch," under a
pseudonym.

[Sidenote: German letters]

[Sidenote: Prussian General Estates]

In Germany, too, letters and arts were flourishing. In Vienna, Nikolaus
Lenau (Baron Strehlenau) and his friend, Anastasius Gruen (Count
Auersperg), were the leaders of a literary movement which found its
counterpart in the so-called "Young German" movement of the north, where
Ferdinand Freiligrath, Laube, Gutzkow, and Emanuel Geibel came under the
ban of the German Bundesrath. The great political event of the year was the
meeting of the first General Estates, convoked at Berlin. The new king's
hostile attitude toward their popular demands for constitutional rights and
larger liberties soon destroyed the hopes of liberal Germans for a change
of spirit in the government of Prussia. A more material advance in
civilization was assured by the opening of the first railway from Berlin to
Magdeburg.

[Sidenote: Cornelius]

Peter von Cornelius, one of the leaders of the religious Catholic movement
in art which had followed the classicism of the first decade of the
century, was commissioned by the King to decorate the cemetery at Berlin.
These decorations aft