Lessing.

"In his best drama, 'Nathan the Wise,"" says Schlegel, "a remarkable tale of Boccacio is wrought up with a number of inventions which are wonderful, yet not improbable, when we consider the circumstances of the times; the fictitious persons are grouped round a celebrated historical character, the great Saladin, who is drawn with historic truth; the Crusades in the background, the scene at Jerusalem, all this gives to the work a romantic character; while the thought, foreign to the age in question, which the poet has interspersed for the sake of his philosophical views, form a contrast somewhat hazardous, but yet exceedingly attractive."

Whole works in German, Berlin, 3 vols. 8vo, $3 50.

Wieland.

A German writer, who rivals Voltaire in universality of talent and literary fertility. He himself declared his Letters and Commentaries on Horace those of his works on which he placed the greatest value, and from which his head, heart, taste, conceptions, and character could be best known.-Enc.

Am.

Sheridan.

As a speaker he ranks among the most finished and varied of the rhetorical school, and his speech against Warren Hastings has been deemed one of the most striking of English eloquence upon record.-Enc. Am.

2 vols. 8vo, $3 50, London.

Thomas.

An ingenious French writer. His "Eloges" of distinguished men are in general characterized by vigorous eloquence, boldness of thought, and a warm zeal for the interests of humanity, virtue, and knowledge; but they are not always free from exaggeration of style and expression, and too great an effort after effect.-Enc. Am.

Tooke.

A celebrated English philologist. In his "Diversions of Purley" appeared his knowledge of language and logical acuteness, which raised him to a high rank as a philologist. -Enc. Am.

1 vol. 8vo, $3 75, London.

Burke.

His oratory was pre-eminently that of a full mind, which

makes excursions to a vast variety of subjects, connected by the slightest and most evanescent associations, and that in a diction as rich and varied as the matter.-Enc. Am. 4 vols. 8vo, $10 00, London.

La Harpe.

His reputation rests on his "Lycée," which is an invaluable work to the student of French literature, of which it gives a complete history from its commencement to the author's own time. The criticisms on the different writers are not founded on principles acknowledged by the English, but perhaps the value of the book is on that account greater, as it exhibits the object of the French authors, and the standard according to which they are to be judged when compared with each other.-Penny Cyc.

Hazlitt.

His chief title to fame is derived from essays on subjects of taste and literature, which are deservedly popular. His principal merits as a writer are force and ingenuity of illustration, strength, terseness, and vivacity. We hardly know, in the whole circle of English literature, a finer specimen of accumulative eloquence than the account of the intellectual life of Coleridge in the "Spirit of the Age."-Penny Cyc. 12mo, $1 62, London.

Patrick Henry.

He was a natural orator of the highest order, combining imagination, acuteness, dexterity, and ingenuity with the most forcible action, and extraordinary powers of face and utterance. His style of speaking was altogether more successful than that of his contemporaries.—Enc. Am.

Maury.

His "Principles of Eloquence" is decidedly the best work which has as yet appeared on the subject, and is, as it were, an excellent emblem of the oratory on which it chiefly dwells; admirable in its arrangement, full of good sense in much of its detail, with a felicitous and judicious application of the principles of Cicero and Quintilian to his subject, but at times flashy in style.-Quart. Rev.

1 vol. 12mo, with an Introduction by A. Potter, D.D., 50 cents, New-York.

Madame de Genlis.

Her works are distinguished by their pleasing style an

noble sentiments. Most of them belong to the class of historical novels.- Enc. Am.

Her Memoirs, 2 vols. 8vo, $3 50, New-York.

Goethe.

He has presented German literature with some novels which will always rank among the best. The clearness and simplicity of his prose style make it the best model for the imitation of his countrymen. His best productions are "The Sorrows of Werther" and "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship."

His works, 1 vol. 8vo, $5 50, London.

La Fontaine.

A German novelist. His novels are entertaining, but not distinguished by merit of a high order.-Enc. Am.

Fisher Ames.

As a speaker and as a writer he had the power to enlighten and persuade, to move, to please, to charm, to astonish. He united those decorations that belong to fine talents to that penetration and judgment that designate an acute and solid mind. It was easy and delightful for him to illustrate by a picture, but painful and laborious to prove by a diagram. 8vo, $3 50, Boston.

Pitt.

His eloquence, if not more elevated or profound, was, upon the whole, more correct than that of any other orator of his time. Although neither illuminated by the flashes of genius which characterized his father's (Lord Chatham) oratory, nor by the imagination which distinguished the eloquence of Burke, it was more uniformly just than that of either, while the indignant severity and keenness of his sarcasm were unequalled.

Godwin.

Celebrated as the author of "Caleb Williams." There is not a moment's pause in the action or sentiments; the breath is suspended, the faculties are wound up to the highest pitch, as we read. Page after page is greedily devoured. There is no laying down the book till we come to the end, and even then the words still ring in our ears, nor do the mental apparitions ever pass away from the eye of memory. -Edinb. Rev.

Schiller and Goethe, their Correspondence from 1794 to 1805. With many trivial circumstances are intermingled acute and profound observations on literature and life, free and eloquent speculation on philosophical opinions, many lights as to the origin and progress of their respective literary enterprises, their habits of study and composition, their hopes and fears as to the great and stormy events, the moral and political revolutions which were passing around them, their views on some points harmonizing, in others standing opposed to each other in strong contrast, both in their substance and in the manner in which they are advocated and illustrated.— Edinb. Rev.

6 vols. 8vo.

Pinkney.

A highly-distinguished American lawyer. Whoever has listened to him upon a dry and complicated question of mere technical law, where there seemed to be nothing on which the mind delighted to fasten, must recollect what a charm he diffused over the most intricate discussions by the clearness and purity of his language, and the calm flow of his graceful elocution.

Pinkney, Life and Writings of, 8vo, $2 00, New-York.

Fielding.

His chief merits as a novelist are wit, humour, correct delineation of character, and knowledge of the human heart. He is too fond of the manners and scenery of vulgar life, and too prone to excuse gross deviations from propriety and good conduct under the vague qualification of "goodness of heart." -Enc. Am.

3 vols. 8vo, $5 00, London.

Jean Paul F. Richter.

We defy the most careless or prejudiced reader to peruse his works without an impression of something splendid, wonderful, and daring; but they require to be studied as well as read if the reader, especially the foreign reader, wishes to comprehend rightly either their truth or their want of it.Edinb. Rev.

W. E. Channing.

The late Dr. Channing has left some of the noblest prose of our language. Whenever he leaves controversial theolo

gy, and deals with the great principles of morality and humanity, he is alike forcible, generous, beautiful, and true. Canning.

His eloquence was persuasive and impassioned; his reasoning clear and logical; his manner graceful; his expres sion winning, and his whole appearance prepossessing. Speeches of G. Canning, with a Memoir by R. Thierry, London, 1828.

Dr. Mason.

He possessed uncommon power as a preacher and controversialist. It was impossible to listen to his preaching without feeling a great variety of emotions. His funeral discourse on General Alexander Hamilton is a specimen of his ability in that department of composition.-Enc. Am.

Madame de Staël.

In her works, whether we consider them as fragments or as systems, we do not hesitate to say that there are more original and profound observations, more new images, greater sagacity, combined with higher imagination, and more of the true philosophy of the passions, the politics, and the literature of her contemporaries, than in any other author we can remember.-Edinburgh Rev.

Sir Walter Scott.

His narrative is kept constantly full of life, variety, and colour; and it is so interspersed with glowing descriptions, lively allusions, and flying traits of sagacity and pathos, as not only to keep our attention continually awake, but to afford a pleasing exercise to most of our other faculties. The great charm of his works is derived from the kindness of heart, the capacity of generous emotions, and the lights of native taste, which he ascribes so lavishly, and, at the same time, with such an air of truth and familiarity, even to the humblest of his favourites.-Edinburgh Rev.

Coleridge.

All his prose writings have incidental merits sufficiently many and great to rescue them from oblivion, merits discernible either in scattered criticisms on our older writers both of poetry and prose, or in illustrations drawn from stores of knowledge which a very wide reading had amassed, or in passages of great acuteness and sound practical wisdom, whenever the author lowers his flight to subjects to which such qualities can be applied with any hope of profit. His