nence to say any thing about their lives in a
sketch like this. Those eminent promoters of German literature in this
country, Mr. T. Carlyle and Sir E. B. Lytton, have done all they could
to make the English public familiar with the life of Schiller, and a
tolerably full notice of his literary progress will be found in No. LX.
of the _Foreign Quarterly Review_. Those who can read German are
recommended to the elaborate life of Schiller by Dr. Hoffmeister, which
is a perfect treasury of information and criticism. The materials for
a biography of Goethe lie scattered through a vast quantity or
correspondence, reminiscences, conversations, and characteristics; but
a biography, such as the greatness of the subject requires, is still a
desideratum in German literature.

The _New Paris_, by Goethe, which appears in this collection, is from
that delightful autobiography, to which the poet has given the name of
_Dichtung und Wahrheit_. The circumstances under which it is told are
sufficiently explained by the short introduction prefixed to it.
Schiller's _Criminal from Lost Honour_ was written during what is
called the "second period" of his life, when after the completion of
_Don Carlos_ he had quitted dramatic writing for a time, and devoted
himself to the study of philosophy and history. The facts of the story
he had learned from his friend Abel at an early period. Hoffmeister's
remarks on this story may be found interesting.

"This misguided man, Wolf," says Hoffmeister, "appears as a mournful
sacrifice to the law, which, from this example, should learn mercy.
The severity of law has, from a merely conventional offence, elicited a
grievous crime, and him, who sinned from thoughtlessness, and was
delivered to the care of justice, she has cast off as though he were
absolutely worthless. The progress in crime, which is gradually forced
upon the man by civil institutions, and his return to virtue, when vice
has completed her lesson, are developed and painted to our eyes with
extraordinary art. Every action is deduced from thoughts and motives;
and these, again, are deduced from states of mind, which necessarily
result from the reciprocal action which the soul of the man, and the
circumstances by which he was surrounded, had upon each other.
Everywhere do we find natural connexion; not a link in the chain is
wanting. This psychological novel, like a tragedy, awakens in the
reader not only pity, but terror. He feels th