LITERATURE, CONTINENTAL, IN 1876. 



The Roman tragedies of Wilbrant, especially 

 Mrro," luive found a successor in the tra- 

 gedy tit' the same nairn- l>y Martin (Jri-if. The 

 iiutlitir of " Mirza Schaffy," an his tragedy 

 " K airier Paul" was for intelligiMo reasons 

 refined by the Court Theatre, lia- tried his 

 luck with a harmless drama, " Alexander in 

 Corinth," an imitation of an old English origi- 

 nal. The fashionable rage for the North is 

 so prevalent in Germany that the German 

 dramatists are driven off the tield by Bjornson 

 and Ibsen. 



Of novels properly so called, "Die Ideale 

 unserer Zeit," by Sacher - Masoch ; " Ein 

 Kampf urn Rom," by Felix Dahn ; " Aspasia," 

 by R. Hamerling; and " Sturmflut," by F. 

 Spielhagen, are the most notable. G. Frey- 

 tag's u Ahnen," which in former years has 

 regularly added annually a branch to the par- 

 ent stem, has halted this year ; another 

 volume, " Marcus Koenig," is announced. 

 Sacher-Masoch made himself a reputation all 

 over Germany by his "Don Juan von Kolo- 

 mea; " but also, unfortunately, he wrote the 

 " Venus im Pelz," and his new novel has more 

 of the latter than the former about it. 



The novels of Dahn, the learned Germanist, 

 and Hamerling, the philosophical epic poet, 

 belong to the class of tales in which, as in 

 Eber's " Aegyptische Konigstochter," archaeo- 

 logical erudition, or, as in Wieland's " Aristip- 

 pus," Greek metaphysics plays almost as great 

 a rtile as the imagination. Dahn's book is an 

 historically correct picture of the struggles be- 

 tween Byzantium and the Ostrogoths for the 

 dominion of Italy, which are grouped round 

 an imaginary hero, " the last of the Romans," 

 Cethegus. Veterans, like Gutzkow, Auerbach, 

 Storm, appear again upon the scene. The col- 

 lected works of the first named are in course 

 of publication : a new tale, " Die Serapions- 

 bruder," is advertised. After many "national- 

 liberal" aberrations, Auerbach returns to his 

 own field a field he had better have never 

 quitted in his new " Schwarzwalder Dorfge- 

 achichten," which would be still prettier if he 

 had not written the old ones. That minute 

 painter of the human heart, Theodor Storm, 

 has added a new and lovely leaf to his laurels, 

 in the tale " Aquis Submersus." Another 

 great success is the " Bozena " of the Baroness 

 Marie Ebner-Eschen, known through her "Er- 

 zahlungen," published last year by Cotta. The 

 " Novellen aus Oesterreich " of Ferdinand von 

 8aar have, with one exception, appeared be- 

 fore ; but they are real gems. 



Unquestionably the greatest success among 

 books of travel is Payer's account of the Aus- 

 trian Arctic Expedition. No less than 50,000 

 copies are said to have been gold. Wilhelm 

 Lang's ' Transalpinische Studien,'' though full 

 of information, and Heinrich Noes's "Gas- 

 teiner Novellen," excellent in their way, must 

 content themselves with a more modest suc- 

 eess. 



Two exiles of the year of revolution have 



written a narrative of their experiences in 

 foreign parts. C. Hillebrand, who sought an 

 asylum in England, declares that England in 

 Americanizing. Fr. Knapp, who went to the 

 States, warns his emigration-loving country- 

 men that America is not Germanizing. 



Among the historical publications of the 

 year, not including the publications of numer- 

 ous academies and historical associations which 

 have only a value as " sources," the " Byzan- 

 tinische Geschichte" of the late GfrOrer de- 

 serves an honorable place. It has been edited 

 by his friend J. B. Weiss. Max Duncker has 

 issued " Denkwurdigkeiten " of the time of 

 Frederick the Great and Frederick William 

 III., from the last of which it appears that 

 the French, between 1806 and 1813, extorted 

 from the diminished kingdom of Prussia, which 

 counted little over 2,000 square miles (German), 

 two milliards of francs in money and money's- 

 worth. Wilhelm Oncken has thrown new 

 light upon the relations between Prussia and 

 Austria in the Wars of Liberation, 1813-15 

 light chiefly derived from the hitherto unused 

 state archives of Vienna, and much more fa- 

 vorable than former accounts to the Austrian 

 court. Upon the recent history of the two 

 great German powers two valuable works have 

 seen the light : in the one, Ferdinand Fischer 

 describes, more in the spirit of a publicist than 

 an historian, the state of Prussia at the close of 

 the first half of this century. The writer is an 

 ardent patriot, but he is fully alive to the mis- 

 government of the clerical conservative Re- 

 action. The Austrian Freiherr von Helfert 

 took a prominent part in most of the events 

 which he details in the fourth volume of this 

 history of the recent fortunes of the Austrian 

 monarchy, and he has had excellent materials to 

 work upon : but he is a great deal too lengthy. 



Biography, the history of literature, and 

 that of art, have received rich accessions. A 

 new volume has come out of the valuable 

 " Denkwurdigkeiten " of the former Prussian 

 minister, Theodor von Schon, the friend and 

 fellow-laborer of Freiherr von Stein in the 

 restoration of Prussia after the Peace of Tilsit. 

 The paper-basket of Varnhagen appears to be 

 inexhaustible ; but it is to be hoped that the 

 nineteenth volume of his " Ausgewahlte Schrif- 

 ten" will be really and truly the last. The 

 son of Friedrich von Hurter, once the Presi- 

 dent of the Protestant canton of Schaffhausen, 

 afterward a " vert " and Imperial Historiog- 

 rapher at Vienna, has begun issuing out his 

 father's biography, which promises to give 

 much interesting information on the efforts of 

 the Ultramontane party in Switzerland and 

 Austria. The homely autobiography of the 

 Tyrolese painter, Karl Blaas, has been edited 

 by A. Wolf, to whom biographical literature is 

 already indebted for valuable contributions; 

 among others for the discovery of a charming- 

 ly naive autobiography of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury that of Lukas Geizkofler, of the Augs- 

 burg family of that name. 



