passages are very remarkable and the
minor characters, notably Roquairol, the Mephistophelean Lovelace, are
more interesting than the hero or the heroine. The unfinished _Wild
Oats_ of 1804, follows a somewhat similar design. The story of Walt
and Vult, twin brothers, Love and Knowledge, offers a study in contrasts
between the dreamy and the practical, with much self-revelation of the
antinomy in the author's own nature. There is something here to recall
his early satires, much more to suggest Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_.

While _Wild Oats_ was in the making, Richter with his young wife and
presently their first daughter, Emma, was making a sort of triumphal
progress among the court towns of Germany. He received about this time
from Prince Dalberg a pension, afterward continued by the King of
Bavaria. In 1804 the family settled in Bayreuth, which was to remain
Richter's not always happy home till his death in 1825.

The move to Bayreuth was marked by the appearance of _Introduction to
Esthetics_, a book that, even in remaining a fragment, shows the
parting of the ways. Under its frolicsome exuberance there is keen
analysis, a fine nobility of temper, and abundant subtle observation.
The philosophy was Herder's, and a glowing eulogy of him closes the
study. Its most original and perhaps most valuable section contains a
shrewd discrimination of the varieties of humor, and ends with a
brilliant praise of wit, as though in a recapitulating review of
Richter's own most distinctive contribution to German literature.

The first fruit to ripen at the Bayreuth home was _Levana_, finished
in October, 1806, just as Napoleon was crushing the power of Prussia
at Jena. Though disconnected and unsystematic _Levana_ has been for
three generations a true yeast of pedagogical ideas, especially in
regard to the education of women and their social position in Germany.
Against the ignorance of the then existing conditions Jean Paul raised
eloquent and indignant protest. "Your teachers, your companions, even
your parents," he exclaims, "trample and crush the little flowers you
shelter and cherish. * * * Your hands are used more than your heads.
They let you play, but only with your fans. Nothing is pardoned you,
least of all a heart." What _Levana_ says of the use and abuse of
philology and about the study of history as a preparation for
political action is no less significant. Goethe, who had been reticent
of praise in regard to the novels