Scarce had Germany recovered from the enthusiasm which this work, (the Philosophy of Life) excited; when its illustrious author delivered, in the year 1828, the following course of Lectures on the "_Philosophy of History_," which are now presented to the reader in an English garb. Defective as may be the medium through which the English reader becomes acquainted with this work, he will be enabled to form on it a more impartial, as well as more enlightened, judgment than any the translator could pronounce; and he will, therefore, only venture to observe that it has been considered in every respect worthy of its author's high reputation. Towards the close of the year 1828, Schlegel repaired to Dresden; and that city, where the torch of his early enthusiasm had been first kindled, was now to witness its final extinction. He delivered in this city, before a numerous and distinguished auditory, nine lectures on the "Philosophy of Language," (Philosophie der Sprache), wherein he developed and expanded those philosophical views already laid down in his "Philosophy of Life." This work is even more metaphysical than the one last named--with untiring wing, the author here sustains his flight through the sublimest regions of philosophy. This production displays at times a gigantic vastness of conception which almost appals--we might almost say, that this mighty intelligence had in his ardent aspirations after Immortality, burst his earthly fetters--or that Divine Providence, judging a degenerate world unworthy of hearing such sublime accents, had called him to continue his hymn in eternity. On Sunday, the 11th of January, 1829, he was, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, preparing a lecture, which he was to deliver on the following Wednesday. He had in his former lectures spoken of Time and Eternity--he had called Time a distraction of Eternity--he had adverted to those ecstacies of great Saints, which he called transitions to Eternity. He was now in this lecture discoursing of the different degrees of knowledge attainable by man--of the perception--the notion--and the idea. He began a sentence with these remarkable words:--"Das ganz vollendete und vollkommne verstehen selbst aber"--"But the consummate and the perfect knowledge"--when the hand of sickness arrested his pen. That consummate and perfect knowledge he himself was now destined to attain in another and a better world; for, at one o'clock on the same night, he breathed out his pure and harmonious soul to heaven.