put at once to the Germanising mania condemned above. I shall further take the opportunity of denouncing here the disorder which for some years has been introduced into German orthography in an unprecedented manner. Scribblers of every species have heard something of conciseness of expression, but do not know that this consists in the careful omission of everything superfluous (to which, it is true, the whole of their writings belong), but imagine they can arrive at it by clipping the words as swindlers clip coin; and every syllable which appears to them superfluous, because they do not feel its value, they cut off without more ado. For example, our ancestors, with true tact, said “_Beweis_” and “_Verweis_;” but, on the other hand, “_Nachweisung_.” The fine distinction analogous to that between “_Versuch_” and “_Versuchung_,” “_Betracht_” and “_Betrachtung_,” is not perceptible to dull ears and thick skulls; therefore they have invented the word “_Nachweis_,” which has come at once into general use, for this only requires that an idea should be thoroughly awkward and a blunder very gross. Accordingly a similar amputation has already been proposed in innumerable words; for example, instead of “_Untersuchung_” is written “_Untersuch_;” nay, even instead of “_allmälig_,” “_mälig_;” instead of “_beinahe_,” “_nahe_;” instead of “_beständig_,” “_ständig_.” If a Frenchman took upon himself to write “_près_” instead of “_presque_,” or if an Englishman wrote “_most_” instead of “_almost_,” they would be laughed at by every one as fools; but in Germany whoever does this sort of thing passes for a man of originality. Chemists already write “_löslich_” and “_unlöslich_” instead of “_unauflöslich_,” and if the grammarians do not rap them over the knuckles they will rob the language of a valuable word. Knots, shoe-strings, and also conglomerates of which the cement is softened, and all analogous things are “_löslich_” (can be loosed); but what is “_auflöslich_” (soluble), on the other hand, is whatever vanishes in a liquid, like salt in water. “_Auflösen_” (to dissolve) is the _terminus ad hoc_, which says this and nothing else, marking out a definite conception; but our acute improvers of the language wish to empty it into the general rinsing-pan “_lösen_” (to loosen); they would therefore in consistency be obliged to make “_lösen_” also take the place everywhere of “_ablösen_” (to relieve, used of guards), “_auslösen_” (to release), “_einlösen_” (to redeem), &c., and in these, as in the former case, deprive the language of definiteness of expression. But to make the language poorer by a word means to make the thought of the nation poorer by a conception. Yet this is the tendency of the united efforts of almost all our writers of books for the last ten or twenty years. For what I have shown here by _one_ example can be supported by a hundred others, and the meanest stinting of syllables prevails like a disease. The miserable wretches actually count