Of course it is a good thing when a first-rate French, German, or Scandinavian novel is translated into English, and this is pretty sure to happen, when it does happen, through the agency of high-class publishers. But it is a very different thing when translations of foreign novels are thrown at our heads by the score, by writers or publishers whose chief object is to pander to certain questionable tastes. We fear that this evil is upon us, or not far off. But a word of pleasant, if qualified, welcome is due to _A Distinguished Man: a Humorous Romance_, by A. Von Winterfeld, translated by W. Laird-Clowes, (C. Kegan Paul & Co. 3 vols.). The chief thing to _qualify_ the welcome is the fact that the author is too fond of hinting at the skeleton in the cupboard of what people call "modern thought." But apart from this, the book is amusing, and often more than amusing. It belongs to a type which is very rare in English literature--a sort of child-like farce, that is exceedingly difficult to describe; but it must be a very saturnine reader that can help a good laugh at some of the wild adventures of the German schoolmaster and German doctor upon English ground. These two men are rivals in love, and have both sought the hand of a German butcher's daughter. In the fulfilment of a certain ordeal, or test, which he imposes, they have to travel by way of Ostend to London, and thence to Edinburgh; the one who is first at certain marked points in a given route, to be the winner of the fair prize. Make up your mind that you are going to read some nonsense, and you will enjoy the book. The accuracy of the German in guide-book matters, in spelling, and in just those matters in which a French author always fails, is very striking. But we fear he is a little off the line once or twice. Is there in London any teacher of mathematics who keeps a man-servant, and covers his floor with carpets of velvet pile? End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879, by Various