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and its exports of many of these articles in a manufactured state. In 1874 the arrivals were 3407 vessels, with a register of 1)90,101 tons, 650 belonging to Bremen, 418 to Britain, and 1 317 to Holland. Much of the shipping trade of the city is conducted at Bremerhaven and Vege- sack, because vessels drawing more than 7 feet cannot get up to the town. Among the societies of the city are a nautical association, the German Life-Boat Institution, and

the cnamber of commerce.

As early as 788 Bremen, tnen a mere fishing village, was made the seat of a bishopric by Charlemagne ; and in 858 it was raised to an archbishopric by Ansgarius, archbishop of Hamburg, who had been driven from that city by the Normans about 847. The importance of Bremen soon increased ; and its citizens took an active share in the more remarkable movements of the time, such as the Crusades, the establishment of the Teutonic Order, and the founding of Riga. In 1283 they joined the Uanseatic League, and in 1289 formed 9. treaty with Gisalbert, their archbishop, by which he agreed to confine himself to the spiritual affairs of his diocese, leaving secular concerns to the civic authorities. In the course of the 14th century, there was much intestine conilict in the city, and in the 15th it had to defend its commerce against the pertinacious hos tility of the Frisian pirates ; but from both perils it issued with increased vigour. About 1522 the archbishop and most of the inhabitants declared for Protestantism, in defence of which they took a foremost part, and had on various occasions to suffer severely. The city was twice besieged by the imperial forces in 1547. At the peace of Westphalia (1648) the archiepiscopal diocese was secularized and raised to a grand duchy, which was ceded to Sweden. In a war between Denmark and Sweden in 1712 it was conquered by the former, and in 1715 it was purchased from that power by Hanover along with the duchy of Verden. The transfer was confirmed by the diet of 1732, and the district now forms part of the Hano verian province of Stade. The city of Bremen had meanwhile had its civic rights more or less thoroughly recognized during these vicissitudes. In 1806 it was taken by the French, and from 1810 to 1813 it was the capital of the department of the Mouths of the Weser. Restored to independence by the congress of Vienna in 1815, it subsequently became a member of the German confederation, and in 1867 joined the new confederation of the North German States, with which it was merged in the new German empire. It has now one vote in the federal council, and sends a representative to the imperial diet. The freedom of its port is secured, and in compensation it pays an avcrsum of 250,000 thalers to the customs union.

The territory of Bremen has an area of 63,400 English acres, about 5000 acres being occupied by the towns of Bremen, Bremerhaven, and Vegesack, and about 1200 by the bed of the Weser. Of the remaining area about two-fifths are arable land and two-fifths mea- dowland, the extent of woodland being very slight. The soil is for the most part sandy, though here and there marshes or bogs occur. Of the population, which in 1873 was 130,871, 88,146 were inhabi tants of Bremen the city, 12,129 of Bremerhaven, and 3843 of Vege sack, and 26,753 of the rural districts. AVith the exception of about 2800 Roman Catholics and 271 Jews, the inhabitants are Lutherans or Calvinists of various denominations. According to the constitu tion of 1849, modified by various enactments in 1854, the senate, which is the executive power, is composed of eighteen members, elected by the " burghership" on presentation by the senate. Of these, ten at least must be lawyers, and five merchants ; and two of the number are nominated by their colleagues as burgomasters, who pre side in succession, and hold office for four years, one retiring every two years. The burghership consists of 1 50 (formerly 300) representa tives chosen from the citizens for six years. Sixteen are elected by those of the inhabitants of the city who have attended a univer sity, 48 by the merchants, 24 by the manufacturers and artisans, and 30 by the other citizens ; of the remaining representatives 6 are furnished by Bremerhaven, 6 by Vegesack, and 20 by the country population The revenue in 1873 amounted to 545,531, and the ex penditure was 1,094,222, so that the deficit was 548, 691. The total debt at the end of the year was 3,676,733 The territory and city are still outside the limits of the customs union. In the whole state there were in 1870 forty-five, public and thirteen private schools, with a total attendance of 12,794.

BREMER, Fredrika, the most celebrated Swedish novelist, was born near Abo, in Finland, on the 17th August 1801. Her father, a descendant of an old German family, was a wealthy iron master and merchant. He left Finland when Fredrika was three years old, and after a year's residence in Stockholm, purchased an estate at Arsta, about 20 miles from the capital. There, with occasional visits to Stockholm and to a neighbouring estate, which belonged for a time to her father, Fredrika passed her time till 1820. The education to which she and her sisters were subjected was unusually strict; their parents, especially their father, were harsh and took little or no pains to understand the temperaments of the children. The constant repression, the sense of being misunderstood, and the apparent aimlessness of such an existence told with greatest force upon Fredrika, who was of a quick and eager disposition, fond of praise and conscious of powers which it seemed to her must lie for ever unused. She felt as if her life were being wasted; there was nothing on which she could expend her energy; no career was open to a woman. Her health began to give way; and in 1821 the whole family set out for the south of France. They travelled slowly by way of Germany and Switzerland, and returned by Paris and the Netherlands. It was shortly after this time that Miss Bremer became acquainted with Schiller's poetical works, which made a very deep impression on her. Her home life, however, was still unsatisfying, and in her passionate longing for some work to which she could devote herself, and through which she might do some good in the world, she for a time resolved to join one of the Stockholm hospitals as a nurse. This plan was given up on the entreaty of her sister. Meanwhile, she had found relief for her pent-up feelings in writing, or rather in continuing to write, for she had been an authoress of a sort from the age of eight. In 1828 she determined to attempt publication, and succeeded in finding a publisher. The first volume of her Sketches of Every Day Life (1828) at once attracted attention, and the second volume (1831), containing one of her best tales, The H— Family, gave decisive evidence that a real novelist had been found in Sweden. The Swedish Academy awarded her their smaller gold medal, and the fortunate authoress became famous. From this time Miss Bremer had found her vocation. Her father had died in 1830, and her life was thereafter regulated in accordance with her own wishes and tastes. She lived for some years in Norway with a friend, after whose death she resolved to gratify a long-repressed desire for travel. In the autumn of 1849 she set out for America, and after spending nearly two years there returned through England. The admirable translations of her works by Mary Howitt, which had been received with even greater eagerness in America and England than in Sweden, secured for her a warm and kindly reception. Her impressions of America, Homes in the New World, were published in 1853, and were at once translated into English. After her return Miss Bremer devoted herself to her great scheme for the advancement or, one may say, emancipation of women. On this subject she had thought deeply, and her own experience was of value to her in shaping her ideas of what the education and function of woman should be. “She wished,” says her sister, “that women should, like men and together with them, be allowed to study at the elementary schools and academies, in order to gain an opportunity of obtaining suitable employments and situations in the service of the state. . . . She said she was firmly convinced that women could acquire all kinds of knowledge just as well as men, that they ought to stand on the same level, and that they ought to prepare themselves in the public schools and universities to become lecturers, professors, judges, physicians, and functionaries in the service of the state” (Life, &c., pp. 81-2). Some of these views were expounded in her later novels, Hertha and Father and Daughter, which naturally were not so successful as her other works. Miss Bremer not only wrote of her plans, but endeavoured, so far as she could, to induce women to devote themselves to some kind of work. She organized a society of ladies in Stockholm for the purpose of visiting the prisons, and during the cholera raised a society the object of which