By all who are interested in the study of early German Poetry and
Literature, the name of Von der Hagen must be gratefully remembered for
the many curious and valuable works which he has published, sometimes
under his sole editorship, at others, in conjunction with Busching,
Primisser, &c. But far exceeding in interest any which he has before
given to the press, especially to English readers, is one which we
received some time since from Messrs. Williams and Norgate, but have
only recently had an opportunity of examining. It is in three thick and
closely printed octavos, and is entitled _Gesammtabentheuer: Hundert
altdeutsche Erzählungen, Ritter-und Pfaffen-Mären, Stadt-und
Dorfgeschichten, Schwänke, Wundersagen und Legenden, meist zum erstenmal
gedruckt_, &c. This collection embraces, as the title accurately enough
describes, a hundred early German Stories of every possible kind,
Stories of Knights and Friars, of Cities and Villages, Merry Jests,
Tales of Wonder, and Legends; and resembles in many respects the popular
collections of French Fabliaux edited by Barbazan, Le Grand d'Aussy, &c.
These are for the most part now printed for the first time; and besides
the illustrations they afford of that love of humour, a characteristic
of the German mind the existence of which it has been too much the
fashion to deny, and to which we owe _Owlglas_ and the _Schildburger_,
these "hundred merry Tales" are of no small importance for the light
they throw upon the history of Fiction--a subject which, in spite of the
labour bestowed upon it by Dunlop, Walter Scott, Palgrave, and
Keightley, is yet very far from being fully developed.
The new part of _The Traveller's Library_ contains Mr. Macaulay's
brilliant essays on Ranke's _History of the Popes_, and Gladstone _On
Church and State_.
Messrs. Longman having become the sole proprietors of that valuable
series of works _The Cabinet Cyclopædia_, have announced a re-issue of
them at the reduced price of three shillings and sixpence per volume,
instead of six shillings, at which they were originally published.
CATALOGUES RECEIVED.--John Miller's (43. Chandos Street) Catalogue No.
29. of Books Old and New; Sotheran, Son and Draper's (Tower Street,
Eastcheap) Book Reporter No. 3. Miscellaneous Catalogue of Old and New
Books; W. S. Lincoln's (Cheltenham House, Westminster Road)
Seventy-third Catalogue of Cheap Second-hand Books; B. Quaritch's (16.
Castle Street, Leicester Square) Catalogue No. 34. of Oriental
Literature, &c.