such as Fr. Th. Vischer, Berthold Auerbach and Theodor Storm, had contributed in no small degree. His seventieth birthday was celebrated with affectionate interest. But the writer, who lived with his eccentric old sister in deadening domestic loneliness, and whom evenings with good friends in an inn could not compensate for the total lack of comforts, had early turned old and ailing; although any great question always found him armed and at his post. He died 15th July, 1890. None of Gottfried Keller's works seems better suited to secure him admirers among foreign readers than the charming collection of the "Seven Legends." True, it offers peculiar difficulties to the translator, since it afforded Keller an opportunity, such as he met with nowhere else, of indulging the (for him) convenient fondness for very individual modes of expression. At the same time, these little, highly finished works of art imposed a check on his unbounded passion for fabulizing, and are not so likely to bewilder the foreign reader by sheer overabundance of invention as, say, "Seldwyla People," or even the inexhaustible "Green Henry." Yet even they shew his wealth, and that to an astonishing degree. In his preface to this little masterpiece of his fiction, Gottfried Keller very justifiably draws attention to "the traces of an older and more profane art of fiction" which are to be found in the old Legends. No doubt their primary purpose was edification; but at the same time psychological interest in the famous saints had to be gratified, and mere human curiosity was eager to hear tales of wonder. Very special interest was devoted to "conversion," that inward process which transforms a dweller in the "world" into a citizen of the heavenly city. The history of the conversion of the apostle St. Paul had already indicated its course, along which, still earlier, among Christ's own parables, that of the Prodigal Son runs. After long-continued contempt of the "priestly lie-gends," Herder brought this religious fiction once more to the light of day; but delight in this popular form of story-telling was his immediate motive for presenting a few of them in a modern shape. The Lutheran preacher Kosegarten, however, when he followed with whole volumes of retold legends, was largely influenced by interest in their matter. Romanticism went into ecstasies over their childish tone and their believing spirit, as it had done over folk-songs and chap-books. Kosegarten's book fell into Keller's hands in 1854, when he was seeking subjects for his collection of stories "The Epigram"; but he allowed his scheme of modern legends to drop for the time being. It was not until 1871, when a publisher asked him for manuscript, that he returned to his happy thought and speedily put it into execution. The little volume appeared in 1872, and had a great success, both with the general public and with the foremost German critics of the day, such as Ferdinand Kuernberger and Wilhelm Scherer.