Johann August Musäus, one of the most popular tale writers of Germany, was born at Jena, in 1735. His father was a justice there, and was soon afterwards removed to Eisenach, by an official appointment. Young Musäus was educated by a relation named Weissenborn, who held the situation of “General Superintendent” at Eisenach, and with whom he lived from the age of nine to that of nineteen. He studied theology for four years at Jena, and it is thought he might have succeeded as a pastor had not the peasants of Eisenach refused to accept him, because he had been convicted of the grievous crime of--dancing. In consequence of this check to his theological career, he turned his thoughts to literature, and made his first essay by a parody on Richardson’s celebrated novel, called _Grandison the Second_, which first appeared in 1760. In 1763 he was made Pagenhofmeister (governor of the pages) at the court of Weimar, and some years afterwards professor at the Gymnasium of that place. A considerable period elapsed before he again appeared as an author, when he satirised Lavater in a novel called the _Physiognomical Travels_. This had an immense success, encouraged by which, he proceeded to collect materials for his _Popular Tales of the Germans_. This collection he made in a singular manner. Sometimes he would gather round him a crowd of old women with their spinning-wheels and listen to their gossip, sometimes he would hear the stories of children from the street. On one occasion, his wife, returning from a visit, was surprised, as she opened the room-door, by a cloud of tobacco smoke, through which she at last discovered her husband sitting with an old soldier, who was telling him all sorts of tales. On the stories collected by him thus strangely, and afterwards narrated with great humour, though with occasional vulgarity, the fame of Musäus chiefly depends. They were written under the assumed name of Runkel, and were designed, according to the author’s own statement, to put an end to the taste for sentimentality. He began a new series of tales called _Ostrich Feathers_, of which he only completed one volume. On the 28th of October, 1787, he died of a polypus in the heart, and a handsome monument was erected to him by an unknown hand. His _Popular Tales_ were, at the request of his widow, re-edited after his death by the celebrated Wieland, and this is the edition now current. The story of _Libussa_, which is taken from the _Popular Tales_ is founded on the Latin history of Bohemia, by Dubravius, and the work of Æneas Sylvius, _De Boliemorum gestis et origine_. The fables which are uttered by the personages will be found in Dubravius.