has pulled off the bleached horse hair wig of factitious gravity, and shown us the natural moist and waving hair of a human-hearted poet. * * * * * A _History of German Literature_, from W. WACKERNAGEL, is coming out in parts at Basle. Since Gervinus there has been no broad treatment of the subject. But Gervinus gives us rather a history of the cultivation than of the literature of Germany. Vilmar is much too partial and partisan, and Hillebrand treats only the period from Lessing to the present time. Wackernagel surveys the whole ground from the beginning. The first part of his work is occupied with the elder literature of Germany, but he has handled it so dexterously that it interests the general reader, even while he develops the laws by which the old high German proceeded from the Gothic, and the middle high German from that. He divides the literary history into three parts. 1. The old high German era, Frank, Carlovingian, of the German Latinity of the bards. 2. The middle high German, beginning with the Crusades, and treating all the chivalric, social, and international relations which they inspired. 3. The new German style. The treatise is original and profound, and lacks only a little more elaboration of the biographical notices. * * * * * A somewhat curious proof of the influence which America at present exerts, even in language, may be found in the title of a dictionary (English and German), recently published at Brunswick. The title alluded to, is as follows: _A new and complete dictionary of the English and German languages, compiled with especial regard to the American idiom for general use; containing a concise grammar, &c., &c._: by WILLIAM ODELL ELWELL. * * * * * CARL HEIDELOFF, whose exquisite work on the architectural ornaments of the Middle Ages, should entitle him to the gratitude of every student of mediaeval art, will publish, before the end of this month, by Geigar of Nuremberz, a folio, illustrated with the finest steel engravings, entitled _Architectonic Sketches, and complete buildings, in the Byzantine and Old German styles_. * * * * *