"Phantasien are evidently thrown off under a noble prompting of patriotism, besides being well suited to the taste of the million. It was the design of Möser to enlighten thereby the minds of his countrymen upon political questions, a service, it must be confessed, of the last importance at that era of political degradation. But, after all, Möser's most sterling production,—the work in which he manifested a peculiar strength and felicity as a popular historian and didactic writer, will ever be accounted to be his "Osnabrücksche Geschichte." In this performance we recognize numerous lucid glances into the texture and progress, as well of German, as of general history. This Justus Möser, a tried patriot in all points, richly deserves the splendid monument which has lately been erected to his memory in Osnabrück, by his grateful and admiring fellow-citizens.

KARSTEN NIEBUHR (1733-1815)

Was born at Ludingworth im Land Hadeln, on the 17th of March 1733, and died the 30th of April 1815.

NIEBUHR was attached, in 1761, to an expedition to Arabia, projected by King Frederick V, for the purpose of making discoveries in that country. All his companions died within a year after they set out, yet he continued to go on fearlessly, and came home again in 1767. His "Beschreibung von Arabien,” was the produce of his travels; a work of considerable value, by reason of its general correctness, and filled with striking descriptions and details (taking into account the natural disadvantages under which he laboured), combined with clear and comprehensive state

ments.

BIOGRAPHER.

HELFRICH PETER STURZ (1736-1779)

Was born on the 16th of February 1736, in the town of Darmstadt. He studied the law at Göttingen, and was the private secretary of the minister Bernsdorf. Sturz died at Bremen, on the 12th of November 1779.

Our author may rank among the best and most elegant German prose writers referable to this division of time. His style is unaffected, inartificial, and stirring. “Die Erinnerungen aus dem Leben des Grafen von Bernsdorff," is his most successful performance. Actuated by a deeplyseated regard for this great diplomatist, Sturz has portrayed him in fine colours; his diction is exalted and grand, and the enthusiasm supplied from an inexhaustible fountain, relieves, while it impresses, the reader; he is certainly excellent and original, both in conception and treatment, and is worthy of all imitation.

With regard to Sturz's essays in poetry," Die Königswahl" shows that he was not without some talent for this description of metrical epigrammatic writing. His "Briefe aus England und Frankreich," notwithstanding that their local interest may be no more, are such lively pictures of manners and customs, that they may still be read with great entertainment and advantage.

GRAMMARIANS.

JOHANN CHRISTOPH ADELUNG. (1732-1806.) This illustrious character was born on the 8th of August 1732, near Anklam, in Pomerania. In 1787 he was appointed head-librarian in the city of Dresden, where he died, on the 10th of September 1806.

ADELUNG was the first grammarian of his age. Provided with a sufficient store of philosophical and historical knowledge, he succeeded in erecting the first complete

system of the German language, and published a dictionary, which gave evidence of a zeal and an industry quite unsurpassed, and, perhaps, unsurpassable. Adelung's "Wörterbuch," is, in fact, the largest work of the kind that our country can show. It is, in its design, etymological, grammatical, and critical; while the prosody of every word is marked. In his “Mithridates, oder die allgemeine Sprachenkunde," Adelung has developed the whole of his research in linguism, giving us the Lord's Prayer in about five hundred different languages and dialects. In his work, "Ueber den deutschen Styl," Adelung has also the merit of having arranged the first theory of style, considered as a whole.

HEINRICH JOACHIM CAMPE (1746-1818)

Was born in 1746, at Deensen, in Brunswick. He succeeded to the office of military chaplain in the city of Potsdam. Campe died at the advanced age of seventy-two, on the 22d of October 1818.

CAMPE has risen to distinction as a philosopher, being eminent, at the same time, as a scholastic and dialectical writer. Viewed as a philosopher, Campe united to depth of thought considerable perspicuity and popularity of style, and a facility and beauty of expression. As a writer for the young, however, Campe is much more known and liked. In that section of literature, our author possesses, in a very surprising degree, the faculty of descending in his style until he reaches the level of the understanding of young people; his narratives are charmingly told, and amuse while they instruct. Here Campe's manner is always natural, attractive, and elegant. The following works from his pen have become quite standard children's books: viz. "Die Entdeckung von America," "Kleine Kinderbibliothek," "Reisebeschreibungen," "Theophron," and, last but not least, the imperishable "Robinson."

74

DIDACTIC PROSE.

PHILOSOPHERS.*

In the foregoing pages we remarked, that philosophical studies were going more and more to decay, and seemed on the point of becoming altogether extinct, when IMMANUEL KANT arose in the north-eastern part of Germany. Kant was, we know, professor of philosophy at Königsberg, and entering into the matter quite in the spirit of the Greek savants, founded his school and completed his system, long before he wrote anything. HIPPEL and HAMAN were of his school.

Hippel was in the regular practice of attending Kant's lectures, and being, moreover, personally acquainted with the philosopher himself, made the public first conversant with Kant's principles, in his curious and humorous novel, "Lebensläufe," and his treatise, "Ueber die Ehe" (yet without alluding to Kant in the least). In these works we not only find tones of reasoning, and the proven results of the new school judiciously intercalated and intermingled with their author's own views, but also the substance and paraphrase of whole passages, and sometimes even verbatim quotations, which we afterwards recognize in Kant's "Kritik der reinen Vernunft." But when Kant himself proposed the work just alluded to (wherein, as is well known, he attempts to examine and determine the confines of human thinking) to the world of learned speculatists, an impulse altogether novel was imparted to the enterprising mind, and after a brief period of conflict with the insignificant critical journals then extant, it was Kant's

* J. H. Fichte, Beiträge zur Charakteristik der neuen Philosophie, oder krit. Geschichte derselben, von Des Cartes und Locke bis auf Hegel, 1841.

meed to bring to nought all those insipid scribes, simply by successfully exposing their real incapacity of argument.

But the originality of Kant's ideas and of his philosophic system, once admitted, scientific men from all parts entreated him to facilitate the acquirement of his theory. With this object in view, Kant penned his "Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik und Logik, etc.

Simultaneously with various controversies, whose whole virulence turned upon Kant and his fraternity, K. L. REINHOLD (1758-1823), the son-in-law of Wieland, being at that time Professor of Philosophy at Jena, made an energetic defence of the doctrines of the new school, in his "Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie." To this undertaking Reinhold seems to have been more particularly invited by the vapid critiques set forth by the " Berliner Nicolai,” who still flattered himself that he had the power of guiding the educated classes, as well as the speculative and scientific phases of the general mind. On the other hand, the operations of Reinhold were crowned with signal success, and his lecture-room could boast of a large concourse of students for the philosophy of Kant penetrated intimately into the German spirit.

The old and venerated chieftains of the German philosophy, professors at the different universities, such, for example, as: E. PLATNER (1744-1813) at Leipzic; CHRISTIAN GARVE (1772-1798) at Breslau; TIEDEMANN at Marburg; and T. G. H. FEDER (1740-1821) at Göttingen, all distinguished men in their way, lost, from the date of Kant's appearance, all their long-standing repute, and exercised no more authority in the domains of philosophy.

F. H. Jacobi poured out at that time his philosophy into his popular novels, which can only be understood if we know the precise character of his age. Although entirely gone by as far as their contents are concerned, yet are they not valueless, because they will ever serve as proofs of what occupied the minds of the better educated, and what they considered the most necessary and important. Two