once she is surrounded by fairies, in the well-known ballet
costume, who carry her off into a Dutch paradise, where she also becomes
a fairy, and undergoes a remarkable improvement in her wits. But this
does not bring any change in her passion for Hans, and she prefers to be
unhappy with him to floating for ever through the aerial joys of
fairydom without him. Accordingly, she renounces the privilege conferred
on her by the ring, and is rewarded for so much virtue by passing
through a new transformation, after which she appears as a most lovely
peasantess, and marries Hans to the universal satisfaction.

* * * * *

GERMAN NOVELS.--The bookstores of Germany now swarm with new novels,
some of which we have already noticed. _Modern Titans: Little People in
a Great Epoch_, from the press of Bookhaus, seems to be written with the
express purpose of introducing all the notabilities of Berlin, Breslau
and Vienna, and is not successful. The name of the author is not given.
_Der Tannhausen_ treats of suicide, republicanism, the identity of God
and the universe, faith, skepticism, Christ, marriage, the emancipation
of woman, and whatsoever new-fangled and startling ideas and phrases the
author has met with in the activity of this busy age. This book is also
charged with outrageous personalities. _George Volker_, a Romance of the
year 1848, by Otto Mueller, 3 vols., is of course, a revolutionary story.
The hero is so unfortunate as to be in love with two women at a time,
the one a country, and the other a peasant girl. He engages in the
Badian insurrection, is about to be arrested, and thereupon gets out of
all his difficulties by shooting himself. _Der Sohn des Volkes_, by
Leoni Schucking, takes its subject and plot from the French Revolution
and its influence on Germany. It is written with talent, and is
altogether in the interest of the aristocracy. _Der Bettler von James's
Park_ (the Beggar of James's Park), by Alexander Jung, is not
revolutionary but tragic and sentimental. At the same time, it is
didactic, and sets forth sundry ideas with reference to love, God, and
liberty. But the story deserves more than a line in these columns, were
it only as a literary curiosity. The hero is haunted by the notion that
a great misfortune will fall upon his family, whenever a travelling
dealer shall offer an _ecce homo_ for sale to any one of its members.
Unluckily, such a picture is offered to himself, and