nation being inferior to its institutions." This was written in 1855; we abstain from hazarding a conjecture as to whether she would think better or worse of us now. * * * * * We have two good novels, one very foreign and the other very domestic. The first is by Auerbach,[3] whose high purpose and truly ideal treatment of the narrative all who have read "On the Heights" will remember with pleasure. He preserves the same style essentially in this story, although it is of an entirely different character. A painter visiting a country village in company with a young scholar and philosopher who is an assistant librarian and is called the collaborator, paints as a Madonna the beautiful daughter of the keeper of the village inn. He falls in love with her, attracted no less by her unconcealed love for him than by her beauty. He takes her to town with him, a town where there is a little German court, very refined _esthetik_, and very high-dried old manners. The poor girl drives him almost mad with her awkwardness, her ignorance of polished life, and her independence. It does not help the matter that in the latter respect she wins the favor of others, even of the Prince himself. After a while he avoids her, takes to wine-drinking, and comes home drunk. She sees her position, and from what he is suffering, and she goes back to her parents, leaving behind her an unreproachful, fond, and most touching letter of farewell. Poor girl! sad as it was for her, what else could she do? It was the best course under the circumstances; for although her heart broke over it, she at least kept her love for him, and that by remaining she might have lost. After a while she dies, and he after a long time betrothes himself to another woman, who loves him, and to whose love he responds with such a feeling as beauty and sweetness and devotion might raise in the breast of a man whose heart is really in the grave of his dead wife. He dies before a second marriage from injuries received in a dispute with his brother-in-law. It will be seen that this simple story of humble life presented temptations to treatment in the most literal and realistic way. But in Auerbach's hands it is ideal. Its likeness in certain respects to the story of "A Princess of Thule" will strike all the readers of William Black's most charming novel. But the treatment is as unlike as the incidents and the localities. Auerbach's little novel is essentially German in thought, in feeling, in purpose, in treatment. We have never read a more thoroughly German book. This character is given to it, and its ideality is very much enhanced by the character of the collaborator, who is constantly looking upon every incident of life from a lofty philosophic point of view; serious generally, sometimes humorous, often serio-comic. "Wilhelm Meister" itself is not a more thoroughly characteristic production of the German mind. But it is