PREFACE.
Among the many remarkable circumstances connected with that extraordinary literature which has of late grown up in Germany with such sudden and powerful developement, not the least striking is the vast quantity of fugitive matter which is every day evolved from the effervescent intellect of the nation. We have been informed by a learned and intelligent native of that country, that this fact is to be attributed to a certain vivacity of taste, which, in the joy and pride of emancipation from long bondage, distinguishes its reading population to a degree elsewhere unknown. ‘My Public’ in Germany is a book-devouring animal, and does not ruminate. Hence it has happened—if our information is correct—that with all the extraordinary talents to which that country has of late given birth, there is scarcely a single work in its literature which has been able to establish itself as a ‘standard book,’ in our
