As in Germany societies had been established "for the practice of German" at Leipsic and Hamburg, so in various Swiss cities associations were formed with the avowed purpose of discouraging the imitation of French models. Thus, at Zürich several literary young men, among them Hagenbuch and Lavater, met at the house of the poet Bodmer. The example was followed in other cities. Though these clubs and their periodical organs soon fell into an unwarrantable admiration of all that was English, the result was a gradual development of the national taste. Since then the literary efforts of the Swiss have been characterized by an ardent love of country. A direct popular influence may be felt in their best productions; hence the nature of their many beauties, as well as of their faults. To the same influence also we owe that phalanx of reformers and philanthropists, Hirzel, Iselin, Lavater, and Pestalozzi. A great portion of the work under consideration is devoted to the lives and labors of these benefactors of their people. The book is, therefore, not a literary history in the strict sense of the term. It gives a comprehensive view of the culture of German Switzerland during the eighteenth century. To Bodmer alone one hundred and seventy-five pages are devoted. In this essay, as well as in that on the historian Müller, a vast amount of information is presented, and many facts collated by the author are now given, we believe, for the first time. _Literaturbilder.--Darstellungen deutscher Literatur aus den Werken der vorzüglichsten Literarhistoriker_, etc. Herausgegeben von J.W. SCHAEFER. Leipzig: Friedrich Brandstetter. 8vo. pp. 409. There is no lack of German literary histories. While English letters have not yet found an historian, there are scores of works upon every branch of German literature. Of these, many possess rare merits, and are characterized by a depth, a comprehensiveness of criticism not to be found in the similar productions of any other nation. Whoever has once been guided by the master-minds of Germany will bear witness that the guidance cannot be replaced by that of any other class of writers. Nowhere can such universality, such freedom from national prejudice, be found,--and this united to a love of truth, earnestness of labor, and perseverance of research that may be looked for in vain elsewhere.