In the public room sat Prince Amberg, conversing with the lady in the familiar tone of old acquaintanceship. On the officer's entrance he sprang from his chair, buckled on his sabre in a twinkling, clapped his dragoon helmet upon his head, and stepped forward with all the rigid decorum of military discipline. "Captain, I report myself--Lieutenant Prince Amberg, appointed to your squadron!" Habitual readers of German novels will assuredly deem _Anna Hammer_ a great improvement on their usual ponderous style--a decided step in the right direction. Whatever its faults, it has a vivacity not common in German works of fiction. The above extracts, the beginning and end of the first chapter, although sketchy, and hurried, and reading as if written at a scamper, without much artistical finish, are very effective, and exhibit touches of acute observation and quiet humour. We like novels that at once plunge the reader into action and bustle, and crowd the stage with characters. Explanatory introductions and parenthetical explanations are alike odious. The author of _Anna Hammer_ avoids both, and carries out his plan and shows off his personages by dialogue and incident. We have already remarked on his propensity abruptly to discard characters, whose careful introduction led the reader to expect their reappearance. Thus we thought to have again met with the three smoking lieutenants, but it seems they served their turn in the single chapter in which they are held up as examples of the brutality and depravity of their class. They are left to their pipes and their ennui, to their dull German newspaper, and their duller country inn. Even Prince Amberg, the profligate favourite of the equally profligate heir to the crown, is brought forward but once more, under mysterious circumstances, whose explanation is left in great measure to the reader's imagination. Madame von Horberg plays a rather more important, but still a subordinate part in the story, whose chief interest turns upon the courage and self-devotion of Anna Hammer. We shall not trace the plot in detail, which would spoil the interest to those who may read the book. Before glancing at its general outline, we proceed to further extract, and for that purpose need not go beyond the second chapter, which is in itself a little drama of considerable interest. It is entitled-- THE EJECTMENT. It was early upon a bright morning. The farmer's servants had long betaken themselves, with plough, and harrow, and horses, to their labour in the fields. The women had swept and cleaned hall and kitchen, and were dispersed at their work--some in the garden, digging and planting, others in the wash-house, or in the rooms where provisions for the winter were stored. The cows in the great stable had already been milked, and received their fresh fodder. At an early hour the farmer had exchanged his jacket for a coat, taken hat and stick, and gone out: he had not yet returned.