ess of his own superiority and dignity, combined with a
genuine appreciation of others, the expression of friendship,
cordiality, playfulness and pleasantry, which characterize the letters
to his Swiss friends, make this collection extremely interesting and
lovable as well as exceedingly instructive, although Winckelmann's
letters cannot on the whole be termed instructive.

The first letters to Count Buenau, in the valuable Dassdorf collection,
reveal an oppressed, self-absorbed spirit, which hardly ventures to
look up to such an exalted patron. That remarkable letter in which
Winckelmann announces his change of religion is a real galimatias, an
unfortunate and confused document.

The first half of our own collection serves to make this period
comprehensible, yea, immediately intelligible. They were written partly
at Noethenitz, partly at Dresden, and are directed to an intimate and
trusted friend and comrade. The writer stands revealed in all his
distress, with his pressing, irresistible desires, but on the road to a
new and distant happiness, earnestly sought.

The other half of our letters are written from Italy. They preserve
their direct, unrestrained character; but above them hovers the
joyfulness of the southern sky, and they are inspired with an exuberant
delight in the goal which he has attained. Besides this, they give,
compared with other contemporary letters that are already known, a more
complete view of his position.

The pleasure of appreciating and passing judgment upon the importance of
this collection, which is perhaps greater from the psychological than
from the literary point of view, we leave to receptive hearts and
judicious minds. We shall add only a few words about the man to whom
they were written, in accordance with our available information.

Hieronymus Dieterich Berendis was born at Seehausen in the Altmark in
the year 1720, studied law in the University of Halle, and was for some
years after his student days auditor of the Royal Prussian Regiment of
Hussars, usually called the Black Hussars from their uniform, but at the
time named after their Commander von Ruesch. After leaving that rude
life, he continued his studies in Berlin. During a sojourn at Seehausen
he made the acquaintance of Winckelmann, whose intimate friend he
became, and through whose recommendation he was afterward engaged as
tutor of the youngest Count Buenau. He conducted his pupil to Brunswick
where the latter studied