him; he becomes excessively fat, and gains a belly of most aldermanic proportions. Here a lord takes him up as an object at once of study and philanthropy, but not with sufficient interest in him to provide for his support. Alms he gets none; next, he is turned out of the guild, and, at last, is taken to a hospital, where he loses his flesh, and regains his reason. Finally, after passing through a variety of other strange experiences, he dies in tranquillity, wept by the same lord, and by the lady he had himself supposed to be dead; but who, instead of this, had become a nun in France. _Schnock_, a picture of life in the Netherlands, is by Frederich Hebbel, a man of some distinction, as a dramatic writer, as we have noticed elsewhere. The general idea of this book is borrowed from Jean Paul's _Journey of the Chaplain Schmelzle_. The hero is a man of weak and timid character, married to a woman of unsparing energy and resolution. The style and execution of the work are clumsy, exaggerated and abominable. _Handel und Wandel_ (Doings and Viewings), by Hacklaender, is worthy of all praise, as a faithful and vivid picture of German rural and domestic life. The characters are all human, the action simple and direct, and the tone healthy and agreeable. Hacklaender is an exception to the mass of modern German novelists, of whom, taking them together, as may be judged from the brief remarks above, no great good can be said. _Ein Dunkles Loss_ (A Dark Destiny), by L. Bechstein, is a socialist book, which, in the form of a novel, discusses questions relating to art, not without genuine insight and original power of thought. * * * * * THE COUNTESS HAHN-HAHN, the bravest and decidedly the cleverest of the women who have written books of Oriental travel, and whose "latitudinarian" novels constitute a remarkable portion of the recent romantic literature of Germany, we perceive has entered a convent. The _Ladies' Companion_ exclaims hereof:-- "When will the wild and the restless learn self-distrust from the histories of kindred spirits? And, observing how the pendulum must vibrate (as in Madame Hahn-Hahn's case) from utter disdain of social laws, to the most superstitious form of association under authority--how, almost always, to defiance must succeed a desire for reconciliation. When will they become chary of pouring out their laments, their attacks, their complaints, seeing that similar protestations are almost certainly followed by after repentance and recantation!" The Countess Hahn-Hahn unfortunately has but one eye, and she is otherwise astonishingly ugly. So we may account for a very large proportion of the eccentricities of the sex. Had she been in this country she would have presided at the late Woman's Rights Convention. * * * * *