decent sentence-monger may, line after line, and paragraph after paragraph; he is freakish, and will confound a methodical wit lamentably. One decided advantage, however, by way of an introduction to the English Richter, has been gained by the appearance of the present biography. We have learnt to know the man; and the man in this case is as good, perhaps better, than his works. No well-conditioned person, we are convinced, will lay down the biography of Richter without an earnest desire to know something more of such a man. He will be convinced also that the novels of such a writer will not be made up of mere playful arabesques to amuse, of mere pepper and spices to stimulate; he will have felt the breath of a moral regeneration in these pages, and that a novel of Jean Paul is in fact a sermon; an evangelic address, where the gospel is preached, as wit is vented in the old drama, oftentimes by a clown. Next to a mind of extensive culture, and a heart of wide sympathies, a moral preparation of this kind is the grand key to the writings of FREDERICK RICHTER. A TALE OF THE MASORCHA CLUB. AT BUENOS AYRES. CHAPTER I. Tom Thorne was a bachelor, who lived in one of the best houses, had the best horses, and gave the best dinners and suppers, of any merchant in Buenos Ayres. The head of the “_house_,” or firm, he was his own master; and this privilege he used to the utmost. Wherever a ball was to be held in that dancing city, there be sure you find Tom; and few dinner parties, pic-nics, or country excursions, were complete without him. Little mattered it to him, whether he were invited or not--he knew every body, and everybody knew him; and his jovial good humour, his hearty laugh and frank address, won him the good graces of any party upon which the whim of the moment induced him to intrude. Tom was a restless, rattling blade, and delighted in excitement of every kind. He could no more have sat still on a chair for half an hour than he could have passed over an entire day without drinking champagne, where it was to be had, or brandy and water where it was not. Courteous and gallant to the ladies, he was noisy and jovial with the men; and although he was well known to boast of his liberty as a bachelor, yet this probably only made him more of a favourite with the fair. There could be no harm in flirting and coquetting with one who openly defied their attractions. The shy and timid could be pert and playful with Tom Thorne the bachelor, without any feelings of indelicacy; while those who were less reserved, considered it fair play to entangle him in the nets of their raillery--probably not without a distant hope that the gay flutterer might yet singe his wings in making his circuit round the flame of their attractions.