Why is it that no language but the
German can possibly construct a _Maehrchen_, so that Englishmen and
Americans grow dull, and Frenchmen insufferable, whenever they attempt
that delicious mingling of the ideal and the real?

Then we have two of the most popular novelettes of Paul Heyse, "Die
Einsamen" and "Anfang und Ende,"--two first-class aesthetic essays by
Hermann Grimm, on the Venus of Milo and on Raphael and Michel
Angelo,--and two comedies by Gustav zu Putlitz. There is also Von
Eichendorff's best novel, which in Berlin went through four editions in
a year, "Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts," or "Memoirs of a
Good-for-Nothing,"--and, finally, Tieck's well-known story of "The
Elves," and his "Tragedy of Little Red Riding-Hood."

Among these various attractions every reader of German books will
certainly find something to enjoy; and these editions should be
extensively used by teachers, as the separate volumes can be easily
obtained by mail, and the average cost of each is but about half a
dollar. We hope yet to see editions equally good of the complete works
of the standard German authors, printed in this country and for American
readers. Under present circumstances, they can be more cheaply produced
than imported.

_Reynard the Fox._ A Burlesque Poem, from the Low-German
Original of the Fifteenth Century. Boston: De Vries, Ibarra, &
Co.

The mocking legends of the Wolf and the Fox were wielded without mercy
by many mediaeval satirists, against the human animals of those species,
then prevailing in courts and cloisters. But the jokes took their most
permanent form in the fable of "Reyneke de Vos," first published in the
year 1498. Written in Low-German by Nicholas Bauman, under the pseudonym
of Hinrek van Alkmer, the satire did a similar work to that done by
Rabelais, and Boccaccio, and Piers Plowman. It has since been translated
into many languages, and as Goethe at last thought it worth putting into
German hexameters, one may still find it worth reading in English
Hudibrastic rhymes. The present attractive edition is a reprint of the
paraphrase of Von Soltau, published at Hamburg in 1826,--though, for
some reason, this fact is not stated in the present issue. New or old,
the version is executed with much spirit, and is, to say the least,
easier reading than Goethe's hexameters.

_The Cradle of Rebellions: A History of the Secret Societies of
France._ By LUCIEN DE LA HODDE. New