German public with the products of his muse, which, however, like all premature flowers, soon withered. The first volume of the miscellaneous collection of his juvenile compositions, contains seven articles, chiefly consisting of translations and imitations. The first of these, Zaide, or the dethronment of Muhamed I. which fills the greater part of the volume, is borrowed from the French, and abounding in gallicisms. No. 2 contains, The fair unknown, a dramatised tale, which is extremely well told, and written in a more correct and chaste stile. No. 3. and 4 are hist orical anecdotes. No. 5 contains a melancholy instance of the dreadful effects of jealousy. No 6, a dramatical farce. An eastern tale concludes this volume. The two plates with which this volume is ornamented are delineated by Mechau, and engraved by Geyser. The second volume contains Ildegerte of Norway, a most interesting novel founded upon historical facts. 2. The Hermit of Formentara, a musical drama. The plot of this piece is highly interesting and well executed. The airs are natural and easy; and the music, by WOLFF, is in the best stile of that classical composer. 3. Nicolaus Ortenberg; a fragment of the Sufferings of the family of Ortenberg, sufficiently known in this country by an English translation, published by Geisweiller. 4. Account of a theatrical institution at Reval; where, in 1784, a society of amateurs united to act plays for the benefit of the poor. 5. The private theatre before parliament; an after piece. 6. Fragments of the Journal of a Russian officer. 7. Anec dotes. Senklaide, &c.-Senklaide, an act commencing with the siege of Magdeburg (in the thirty years war), and terminating with the battle of Breitenfeld. Lemgo, Meyer, 1788. pp. 302. 8vo. This epic poem is divided into twelve cantos. The author displays in it an uncommon fertility in bold pictures and fine turns of expression; but frequently neglects the most essential rules of poetical composition. The following passage, in which Raphael, the hero's guardian angel, manifests his ideas of the war in which Tilly acted a principal part, may serve as a specimen of the author's merits: "Darauf, was du nach diesen beyden noch Statt Statt Wahrheitsliebe Hass, Statt Eyfer. Wuth, Friederich der Schutz der Freyheit, &c. &c.-Frederic, the Protector of Liberty, an Hymnus for the celebration of the 17th of Aug. 1788. By G. N. FISCHER. Berlin. Professor Fischer's muse is honourably known in Germany by the simple, dignified and manly stile of his poems. But none of his poems is more sublime and abounding in bold imagery than the hymn before us. Fullness and energy, truth and a charming colouring of ideas, dignity of diction, in short whatever can render a poem of this kind excellent, is here united. For the gratification of such of our readers as know the German language, we select the following beautiful passage: "Im Denken ruht die Kraft des Volks, Hüllt Sich in Schleier, Flattert zwecklos umher. Das Volk, geehrt und gefürchtet sonst, Sinkt. Und seine Nachbarn, umher, Von seiner Weiszheit erleuchtet, Steigen empor. Aber jauchze, Borussia, Ueber die Vergleichung der alten, besonders griechischen mit der teutschen neuen Litteratur, &c.---Of the comparison of the ancient, but more especially the Greek, with the German German modern literature. By G. E. GRODDEK. Berlin, Kunze, 1788. pp. 71. 8vo. This treatise of an eminent humanist, who had already made himself honourably known in the republic of letters by an essay De Hymnorum Homericorum reliquis, was occasioned by the prize question of the German literary society at Manheim: Have the Germans come up with or excelled the Romans and Greeks in some kinds of poesy and eloquence?" The author did not contend for the prize, as he was more desirous of enquiring into than of solving this question. But can this question actually be solved in a satisfactory manner? Do we possess the means of drawing such an exact comparison between the pocsy and eloquence of the ancients and moderns? And if we do possess them, to which points have we principally to direct our attention? Indeed, the solution of the question are we equal to the ancients? or have we even excelled them? is attended with great difficulties. But let us suppose these difficulties did not exist, and that the so"lution of this question were as easy as it is difficult; what purpose could such an exact comparison between ourselves and the ancients answer. Should it, perhaps, prompt us to relinquish the study of the works of the ancient classics; or elate with the pleasing consciousness of having attained the same degree of eminence with the most witty nation on earth, to rest upon our laurels? Or do we, perhaps, intend thereby to ascertain in what points we are still deficient? But this leads us to new queries. Is it proved beyond the power of contradiction that the works of the ancient classics are for the poet and orator patterns as unexceptionable as the plastic works of Polycetes were for artists? Are not beauty and perfection very relative? Or can it be maintained that they are to be found complete and entirely pure in any nation or work of art? It is only by comparing a copy with its original that we are enabled exactly to determine what it wants to be perfectly like its prototype. But are then our works nothing else but such copies of those of the ancients, and can the ancients without exception be originals for us? The author Intended to point out the importance of some of these difficulties, as far as they must influence the solution of the above mentioned prize question. The perfection of the works of the ancients, says he, is not one. It differs according to the different epochas in which the poetic art flourished among them.- Taste experienced various changes. The poet, who had no other instructor but nature, widely differs in his com positions positions from an enlightened man, and the poems of this are again different from the poetical compositions of a man of profound erudition. Which of different species of excellence is to be received as a standard? But we are also too much in want of a sufficient number of data, to be able to determine the exact value of Greek literature. The works of some of the most eminent authors have been totally lost; and we possess only an historical knowledge of a great part of the progress the Greeks had made in eloquence and poetry. But in what consists the principal difference between ancient and modern poesy, that renders it so difficult for us to draw a just comparison? This appears most clearly, if we compare the different circumstances of the times in which they were respectively cultivated. Among the Greeks poesy was introduced and cultivated during the infancy and youth of the nation. Homer is unique and inimitable, because he wrote in that period and under those circumstances. These circumstances, however, continued in some measure long after his time. The language of Homer as well as some part of the contents of his poems remained with the epic poets; poems continued a long time the vehicle of useful knowledge. They were the first means of juvenile instruction. The Greeks grew up under the influence of ideas and pictures of ancient times, imprinted upon their imagination by their instructors; which long preserved among them a decided partiality for an art that served to solemnize all their public festivities. How widely different was the fate of poetry in Germany! There is very little reason to suppose that the poems of the ancient German bards possessed any excellence for which their loss deserves to be regretted. The songs of the Minnesingers (love songsters) are also lost for us, because their language is now no longer understood; and even in that period which gave existence to them, they had more influence upon. the higher classes than the great mass of the people. The Meistersinger (Troubadours,) finally, totally disgraced the poetic art. But even now, after poets of the first rank have expunged the stain of disgrace with which the poetic art was marked in Germany, how different is, nevertheless, the interest which the people take in it, from the enthusiastic applause with which the Greek poets were encouraged by their cotemporaries? The national spirit which inspired the Greeks, and led them to the knowledge of the history of their country, is totally unknown to the Germans. Our mind is more domesticated among foreign nations, than in our own country, whilst the natives of Greece formed their mind among their own countrymen, and composed their poetical works works of home-grown materials. Ancient and modern poesy, secondly, widely differ from each other by their respective tendency. The former was chiefly intended for the refinement and mental illumination of raw and ignorant people, whilst the promotion of pleasure and amusement is the principal scope of the latter. From this dsfference naturally resulted a difference of subjects; as, on the other hand, a striking difference of character sprang from either. Dignified and affecting simplicity is the most prominent feature of ancient, whilst grandeur and art are the characteristics of modern poesy. This renders it obvious, that the superiority of the ancients over the moderns is not founded upon a greater intensive power of mind, but upon circumstances which they could not alter; that the Germans at least, may boast of having, under less favourable circumstances, raised themselves to a considerable degree of excellence, and that it would be highly unjust, were we to determine the value of their poetry by means of an improper parallel with that of the Greeks. The author now draws a parallel between the different kinds of poetry for which we are indebted to the ancients, for instance, the Esopian fable, the drama and the idyl of the ancients and moderns, and points out the great difference which the distance of time could not but produce. He then makes some reflections on the roman poesy, which comes nearer to ours. The Romans also learned of the Greeks; and poetry likewise first took root among them when they had already attained to a considerable degree of mental illumination. But it proved an ephemeral plant, that soon withered in the unpropitious soil to which it was transferred. Pleasure, not instruction was the leading object of the Romans. But they were more favourably situated than the Germans, as they were nearer their prototypes, and their constitution, religion and cultivation had been greatly improved from Greek sources.---The author seems to have considered his subject in the most proper point of view, and we readily agree with him, that we may learn a great deal by closely applying to the works of the ancients, though they cannot, in every respect be considered as proper models for imitation. Gedichte von Selmar.---Selmar's Poems, vol. I. 1788. pp. 410. vol. II. 1789. pp. 474. Leipzig, Gräf. The German language gradually begins to approach the honorable period, when foreigners deem it worth their while to |