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LITERATURE, CONTINENTAL, IN 1875. 



Byzantine Empire and the question of icono- 

 clasm. M. Legrand gives besides numerous 

 specimens of the popular songs composed in 

 honor of Digenis Akritas, and readers who 

 are curious about ballad literature cannot do 

 better than turn to M. Auguste Dozen's " Re- 

 cueil de Poesies Bulgares;" they will find 

 there, as well as in the mediaeval Greek epic, 

 a fund of useful information. 



M. Lemerre's artistic publications are still 

 continued with undiminished energy ; the sec- 

 ond and third volumes of Montaigne's Essays 

 and the third volume of Agrippa d'Aubigne's 

 complete works being the latest installments. 



The biography and bibliography of classical 

 French authors have been exhaustively treated 

 by numerous savants: to say nothing of the 

 prefaces and introductions to the various parts 

 of Messrs. .Hachette's " Grands Ecrivains," we 

 may just mention the persevering researches 

 of M. Paul Lacroix. The " Bibliotheque Mo- 

 lieresque," we find, is to be followed closely 

 by a " Bibliographie La Fontainienne ;" Cor- 

 neille and Racine will, in course of time, be 

 similarly illustrated. 



The archeology and literature of the me- 

 diaeval Church never met with historians more 

 competent to discharge their task than the 

 joint authors of the "Nouveaux Melanges 

 d'Archeologie," the third volume of which 

 has recently left the press. Ecclesiastical dec- 

 oration is the subject of this elegant quarto 

 a real album, where architects, sculptors, and 

 wood-carvers, can find models of the choicest 

 and most varied description. The drawings 

 are engraved from sketches taken by the late 

 Father Martin ; the surviving colldborateur, 

 Father Cahier, is responsible for the letter- 

 press, where the only defect we can notice is 

 a want of method, which will render a copious 

 index doubly necessary when the last volume 

 of the series is sent to the printers. In a 

 totally different order of topics, let us men- 

 tion M. Paul Pierret's beautiful " Dictionnaire 

 d'Archeologie Egyptienne," containing every 

 important detail bearing upon the mythology, 

 geography, history, and ethnography, of the 

 ancient Egyptians. The volume comes from 

 the French Imprimerie Nationale ; it gives all 

 the symbols and hieroglyphics, and is particu- 

 larly rich in bibliographical details. 



The sphere of literary criticism does not offer 

 any production of very distinguished merit. 



Fiction, both in prose and poetry, is still, as 

 it was last year, the weakest part of the litera- 

 ry harvest. 



In the domains of poetry there is almost an 

 absolute dearth; and when we have named 

 M. Coppee's " Le Cahier Rouge," Madame 

 Blanchecotte's " Militantes," and M. Derou- 

 lede's " Nouveaux Chants," our list of new 

 works is exhausted ; for M. Andr6 Lemoigne's 

 "Poesies," collected in one volume, and M. de 

 Banville's " Occidentals," have long been 

 known to the reading public. We miss the 

 powerful voice of M. Victor Hugo, and we 



hope that we shall soon be able to welcome 

 some fresh outpouring of that genius which 

 charms us all by a vigor and an originality 

 as great now as they ever were. 



GEEMANY. A German poet, Anastasius 

 Grim, in some beautiful verses, has predicted 

 that the "Last Poet" will quit the earth in 

 company with the "Last Man." That this 

 last Man and Poet will be a German he has 

 not said ; but the number of new poets that 

 make their appearance every year and this 

 year has been no exception to the rule sug- 

 gests the consoling reflection that the existence 

 of the human race is likely to be prolonged for 

 some time to come. Not satisfied with re- 

 peated impressions of the standard poets and 

 more or less ponderous " collected editions" 

 of the singers of the day, poetry has this year 

 vied with politics, and founded periodical or- 

 gans of her own, which are dedicated to belles- 

 lettres only. The simultaneous establishment 

 of the fortnightly Deutsche Dichterhalle and 

 the monthly Neue Monatshefte fur DichtJcunst 

 und Kritik, edited, the former by Ernst Eck- 

 stein and the latter by Oscar Blumenthal, 

 furnishes a striking proof that the politico- 

 military paroxysm to which, since the founda- 

 tion of the new German Empire, everybody 

 has been a prey, is abating, and that the pref- 

 erence formerly felt by the Germans for a 

 tranquil poetic life is again gaining ground. 

 In both these magazines are to be found the 

 most brilliant names among our poets; but 

 their verses are not so brilliant. 



The dramatic seed has this year shot up 

 wonderfully. A writer hitherto unknown to 

 fame, Ewald Booker, has published a classical 

 trilogy, " Periander," and plays have appeared 

 by Julius Grosse (" Tiberius "), Mosenthal 

 (" Parisina "), Hans Herrig (" Friedrich Bar- 

 barossa"), Otto Roquette ("Der Feind im 

 Hause"), F. Keim (" Sulamith "), Hermann 

 Kette, and others. Heinrich Kruse, the au- 

 thor of the " Grafin," a play distinguished by 

 hard yet energetic characterization, has, in his 

 " Brutus," ventured on an unequal contest 

 with Shakespeare. Paul Heyse has published 

 a new novel, " Im Paradies," the setting of 

 which is a contrast to the gloomy tone of his 

 last, " Die Kinder der Welt." He has found 

 a rival in Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, who, 

 hitherto known only as a dramatist, has brought 

 out a volume of " Erzahlungen," distinguished 

 for miniature-like portraiture and high moral- 

 ity. The dream-like fascination of the lone- 

 liness of northern forest and northern seas 

 pervades Theodor Storm's new tales, "Im 

 Waldwinkel " and " Psyche," to a degree un- 

 approached by any other writer except Heyse. 

 Let no one expect a sentimental Alpine idyl 

 in Gottfried Keller's " Neue Leute von Seld- 

 wyla," for these "Tendenz" descriptions of 

 the Swiss peasant-world are marked by a hard 

 politico-social realism. On the other hand, 

 another dweller in Switzerland, Johannes 

 Scherr, has included in his new " Novellen " an 



