JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER, commonly called Jean Paul, was born in 1763 at Wunsiedel, in the Baireuth district. His writings abound in pleasing recollections of his youthful days, though these were spent in poverty. After passing through the gymnasium at Hof, and pursuing a course of studies at Leipsic, he made some attempts in satire, but without success. He was for some time employed as private tutor in several families, and after the publication of an incomplete romance entitled _The Invisible Lodge_, gained a reputation as a humorist. His later works include _Hesperus_, _The Life of Quintus Fixlein_, _Titan_, _Siebenkäs_, _Wild Oats_, and several other discursive romances. He was induced by his friendship for Herder to revisit Weimar in 1798, remaining there until 1800, when he went to Berlin. A few years afterwards he received a pension, which enabled him to live in modest and comfortable circumstances at Baireuth, where he died in 1825. AUGUST FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON KOTZEBUE (1761-1819) was born at Weimar, where his father held a high position at court. He studied at Jena, and subsequently held several political offices in Russia, as well as Germany. His first writings did much to rob him of public respect. In 1798 he went to Vienna to take charge of the court theatre. Soon after, when on his way to St. Petersburg, he was sent to Siberia. He continued to write during his exile, was recalled, and came to live at Jena, which place he left, however, because of his perpetual animosity for Goethe. He was intensely unpatriotic, and indulged himself repeatedly in his writings in pouring out invectives upon German Liberal politicians on the one hand, and upon the Romantic school and the reform of the drama attempted by Schiller on the other. His motives in literature, as in politics, were purely mercenary. So venomous was he in his attacks upon the ideals of the German “Burschenschaften” that he aroused the fanaticism of a young student, Ludwig Sand, who, moreover, suspecting him of acting as a Russian spy, assassinated him at Mannheim. JOHANN HEINRICH DANIEL ZSCHOKKE (1771-1848), born in Magdeburg, and educated at the gymnasium connected with the monastery at that place. In 1788 he left his native town, and joining a company of actors, he roamed about as a playwright. He then studied philosophy, theology, history, and art at Frankfort-on-Oder, and became a tutor there. He filled several responsible political positions in Switzerland, until he retired in 1841 to his country-house near Aarau, where he died. He wrote a number of dramas, _Aballino, the Great Bandit_, _The Iron Mask_, etc., as well es countless romances, novels, and books of travel.