FRIEDRICH THEODOR VON VISCHER (1807-1889), a celebrated writer on Æsthetics of the Hegelian school. He was born at Ludwigsburg, studied theology, and accepted a position as vicar at Harrheim. He went to Tübingen in 1833, and became first an extraordinary and then ordinary professor of æsthetics and German literature. On account of the too great liberality of his inaugural address he was at once suspended for two years. In 1848 he entered the Frankfort Parliament, where he occupied a position as an extreme radical. In 1855 he was called to the Polytechnical Institute at Zürich, and later filled a similar position at Stuttgart. Besides his greatest work, entitled _Æsthetics, or the Science of the Beautiful_, he wrote _The Sublime and the Comic_, and a third part to Goethe’s _Faust_, a parody of Goethe’s second part, as well as a great deal of prose and verse in a satirical and aphoristic vein, and many critical works on æsthetics. FRITZ REUTER (1810-1874), born at Stavenhagen, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, studied law at Rostock, went to Jena in 1832 and joined the Burschenschaft, which was then in very ill favour with the strongly Conservative government as promulgating Liberal tendencies. He was imprisoned, and after being in custody a year was sentenced to death. This sentence was modified by the king to lifelong imprisonment. He was taken to Fort Dömitz, and remained there until 1840, when he was released in consequence of the Prussian amnesty. He took charge of his father’s estate at Stavenhagen, later going to Treptow as a tutor in a private family; later he devoted himself exclusively to literature at Neubrandenburg and then at Eisenach, where he died. His novels, comedies, and poems were all written in the Low-German dialect. Some of the best known are _Seed-Time and Harvest_, _Olle Kamellen_, _Ut mine Festungstid_ (Aus meiner Festungszeit), _Die Reis’na Constantinopel_. ERNST KOSSAK (1814-1880), born at Marienwerder, and died at Berlin. Wrote _Aus dem Wanderbuch eines litterarischen Handwerksburschen_, _Historietten_, _Berliner Silhouetten_, etc. GOTTFRIED KELLER (1815-1887), born at Zürich, took up landscape-painting, and went to Vienna to continue his art studies. Returning to his native town in 1842, he gave up painting and devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits. Receiving some pecuniary aid from the Zurich Senate, he went to Heidelberg in 1848, and to Berlin in 1850, to study philosophy and dramaturgy. He then returned to Zürich. Among his novels, _Der grüne Heinrich_ and _Die Leute von Seldwyla_ are best known. FRIEDRICH WILHELM VON HACKLÄNDER (1816-1877), novelist and comedy-writer, born at Burtscheid, near Aachen. Entered the mercantile profession, left it for the army, which he soon found distasteful. Discovering a talent for story-telling, he wrote many novels and sketches about military life, and some more ambitious works of fiction, as _Europäisches Sklavenleben_.