ior force. Amid the scenes of this siege, passes the
love-story that forms the kernel of the novel, which is written with
originality and talent. The historical part is equally attractive and
_vraisemblant_. A collection of romances under the title of _Germania_,
has appeared at Bremen. It is intended to serve as the beginning of an
annual publication. The first number contains seven tales, some of them
by well known romance writers. The first is _Eine Leidenschaft_ (A
Passion), by Louise von G., and is highly praised by the most reliable
critics; it abounds in arch and graceful humor. Spiller von Hauenschildt
is the least successful of the contributors in respect to the artistic
treatment of his subject. His novel is socialistic. Adolph Hahr and
Alfred Meissner are also among the contributors. On the whole the book
is a good one.

Leopold Schefer has published lately in Berlin _The Bishop's Wife, a
Tale of the Papacy_, in which the great Napoleon of the church,
Hildebrand, figures as the hero. The Germans have never succeeded in the
historical novel. With vast resources in materiel, they have always a
vagueness, a want of definite interest, of picturesque arrangement, and
of sustained and disciplined power. Schefer is a scholar, and his
didactic purpose is plain enough, and well enough managed. The Teutonic
character has always instinctively revolted against the practice of
celibacy, a form of ascetism quite natural, and sometimes perhaps
inevitable, as a reaction against the unbridled sensualism of the
Africans and Asiatics, but quite out of place in climes so temperate and
races so moderate, conscientious, and self-respecting as those of
Northern Europe. It needed all the genius and determination of
Hildebrand himself to enforce the celibacy of the German clergy, and
certainly they have never ceased more or less covertly to revolt against
it. It is well understood that, at the present time, there is a very
general wish among the Catholics of Germany--more especially of South
Germany, where they are not jealous of Protestant encroachments--to have
marriage allowed to the parochial clergy; and the clergy themselves are
foremost in this tendency, though it may not accord with their interest
unreservedly to display it. It has, however, betrayed its existence in
various ways, especially in anonymous literary productions, in prose and
verse. So general is this feeling, and so profound the conviction that
something must be