Sophie La Roche, who had in her youth revolutionized the mind of the great poet Christoph Martin Wieland, was one of the most remarkable women of her time. Wieland, in his youth, conceived a passionate love for Sophie, whom he introduced into the treasure house of poetry, but his enthusiastic love for her did not terminate in marriage. She remained, however, during all her life his intimate friend, though Goethe's overwhelming genius made Wieland's star pale in her later estimate. As the wife of Maximilian La Roche, councillor of the Elector of Mainz, she turned to French literature, especially to Voltaire and Rousseau, and made her home "the place of spiritual pilgrimage on the Rhine for German authors. Young Goethe was received there, and according to his disposition, against which he was quite helpless revered the mother for the sake of her two beautiful daughters, who were just approaching womanhood. When her husband lost favor with the prince, Sophie supported her family by her writings as "the teacher of Germany's daughters." Her novels, written in the spirit of Richardson, are valuable records of the many-colored court life and of the activities of the social personages of her time. A modern author, Ludmilla Assing, has described the life of this extraordinary woman, who is to be remembered not only for her own merit, but as the grandmother of Clemens and Bettina Brentano; because of whom Sophie La Roche may be called the grandmother of German "Romanticism." It is impossible to give even the most cursory account of the remarkable German women of this later period, for at every step we meet with such an _embarras de richesse_ of extraordinary women, of whom voluminous biographical accounts have been written, that we can only select typical characters. Besides Caroline Neuberin, the pioneer and founder of a respectable German stage, only one important woman played a role in the life of the grand Lessing. A great love awoke in his heart for Eva Konig, "the only woman with whom he would venture to live." To realize his desire, he accepted a poorly paid position as librarian at Wolfenbiittel. He was forty years old when the betrothal took place, but six years later his circumstances for the first time permitted him to marry. His happiness lasted but a short time. On Christmas eve, in 1777, a son was born to him, who died at birth; and two weeks later, to his inconsolable grief, he lost his beloved wife. His literary references to this great sorrow belong to the most pathetic passages in literature, just as his correspondence with Eva Konig, edited by Alfred Schone, furnishes the most charming portrait of a great man.