e bygones--and you are right in
this--that many, many friendly ones have looked upon the little book with
affection during the thirteen eventful years since it saw the world's
light. I shall never forget the hour when I first read it to Hoffmann.
He was beside himself with delight and eagerness, and hung upon my lips
till I got to the end. He could not wait, not he, to make the personal
acquaintance of the poet;--but though he hates all imitation, he could
not withstand the temptation to copy--though not very felicitously--the
idea of the lost shadow in the lost mirror picture of Crasinus Spekhn, in
his tale of the "Last Night of the Year." Yes, even among children has
our marvellous history found its way, for on a bright winter evening, as
I was going up the Borough-street with its narrator, a boy busied with
his sledge laughed at him, upon which he tucked the boy under his bear-
skin mantle--you know it well--and while he carried him he remained
perfectly quiet until he was set down on the footway--and then--having
made off to a distance, where he felt safe as if nothing had happened, he
shouted aloud to his captor--"Nay, stop, Peter Schlemihl!"

Methinks, the honourable scarecrow, clad now in trist and fashionable
attire, may be welcome to those who never saw him in his modest kurtka of
1814. These and those will be surprised in the botanizing,
circumnavigating--the once well-appointed Royal Prussian officer, in the
historiographer of the illustrious Peter Schlemihl, to discover a lyric
whose poetical heart is rightly fixed, whether he sing in Malayan or
Lithuanian.

Thanks, then, dear Fouque, heartfelt thanks, for the launching of the
first edition, and with our friends, receive my wishes for the prosperity
of the second.

EDWARD HITZIG.

_Berlin_, _January_, 1827.

* * * * *

With the second edition of Schlemihl, appeared Chamisso's Songs and
Ballads. His Travels round the World, have also been published. Among
his poetry are translations from various languages.

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.

More than twenty years ago I translated "Peter Schlemihl." I had the
advantage of the pen and genius of George Cruikshank, to make the work
popular, and two editions were rapidly sold.

At that time the real author was unknown. Everybody attributed it to
Lamotte Fouque, on whose literary shoulders, indeed, Adelbert von
Chamisso placed the burden of its responsibilities.

The appearance of the English