Since the commencement of the present century Germany has been prolific of authors, but the limits of this sketch prohibit us from much more than the mere mention of their names. Baron de la Mote Fouque is known as the author of Undine, one of the most purely poet ical creations of fiction, Sintrant and Thiodolf, the Icelander. Borne attained celebrity as a satirist, critic, and political writer. Uhland stands at the head of the modern generation of poets. His bal lads, romances, and his epic of Ludwig der tinier, are among the best German poems of the day. After him rank itlickert, also renowned as an Oriental scholar; Banff, a lyric poet, and author of the romance of Lichtenstein; Gustav Schwab, Justinus Kerner, author of the Seeress of Precorst ; Arndt, author of the German Fatherland, the national lyric; Anastasius Grimm (Count Atiersperg,) author of the /Yuji ran Kahlenberg ; Nicholas Lenau, author of .Saronarola; Ferdinand Freiligrat.h, a vigorous politi cal poet ; Heinrich Heine, author of many popular songs mud ballads; Cha misso, who also wrote the romance of Peter Schlemild; Gutzkow, distinguished as a dramatist ; Hahn, also a dramatist, and author of Der Sohn der ; and, as lyric poets, Herwegh, Geibel, and Beck. Among the distinguished prose writers are Schlosser, author of a Uni versal History ; Neander, author of a History of the Church, and a Life of Christ ; Prince Piickler-Muskau and the Countess Ilahn-Halm, critics and tour ists; Zsehokke, (.1 Swiss.) distinguished as it novelist-, Anil Feuerbach ; Schelling, as a philosopher ; Strauss, author of a Life of Christ and head of the German "Rationalists:" Muller, as a historian, and Kruunnacher, a writer of fables and parables. As historians, Rotteek, iNie buhr, and Itanke, are among the most distinguished of the present century. One of the most popular living prose writers is Adalbert Stifter, whose Stu dien are unsurpassed for exquisite purity and picturesqueness of style.
Scandinavian this bead we have grouped the literature of the three nations of Scandinavian origin. —Sweden. Norway, and Denmark. The old Scandinavian Edilas, or hymns of gods and heroes, may be traced back to the seventh or t *ghtli century. The earlier Edda, which was collected and arranged by Samund in the year 1100, consists of legends of the gods, most of which were probably written in the eighth century. The latter Edda, collected by Snorre Sturleson in the first half of the thirteenth century, contains fragments of the songs of the Skalds who flourished in the ninth and tenth centuries, espe cially in the latter, when their genius reached its culmination in Norway and Iceland. Among the most renowned works of the Skalds were the .Eirikstna/, the apotheosis of King Eric, who died in 952, and the Hakonurotal, describing the fall of Jarl ]taco. A celebrated Skald was EgillSkalagrimsson, who wrote three epic poems, and two drapas, or elegiac poems. The power of the Skalds declined through the eleventh and twelfth centu ries, and after the fourteenth, when the Christian element first began to appear in Icelandic poetry, wholly disappeared. Many sagas were written in prose, and the lIeimskringla of Snorre Sturleson, who died in Iceland in 1238, contains the chronicles of Scandinavian history from its mythic period to the year 1177.
Previous to the establishment of the University of Upsala, in 1476, the only literature of Sweden was a few rhymed historic legends. The two centuries suc ceeding this period have left no great names, and few distinguished ones. Grammaticus made a collection of le gends in the fifteenth century ; Glans A1agitti wrote a history of the North in Latin ; Messenitts, who died in 1637, wrote comedies and a historical work en titled Scintilla illustrata :tad Oxen stierna, the celebrated minister, was also a theologist and patron of literature ; Olof Rudbeek. a distinguis.ited scholar, published in 1675 his Allantieu, wherein, from the study of the old Saga's, lie en deavored to show that Sweden was the Atlantis of the ancients. George Stjern hjelm, who died in 1672, was the author of a poem called Hercules, whence he is named the father of Swedish poetry. Swedenborg, the most striking character in Northern literature, was born in 1688. After several years of travel in England and on the continent, he established him self in Sweden, where he devoted his at tention to science, and produced a number of works on natural philosophy, miner alogy, zoology, and other kindred sub jects. The close of his life was entirely occupied with his religious studies, and the production of his Arcona Cagestia, which contains his revelations of the fu tnre life, and his theory of the spiritual universe. These writings gave rise to a new religious sect, the numbers of which, in the States, are supposed to number about 6000. He professed to be visited by the holy Spirit, and his works are considered by his disciples as equally inspirbd with those of the Apostles. Ile died in London in 1772. Dalin and Mad ame Nordentlycht, were the first noted poets of the last century. They were succeeded by a multitude of lyric and didactic poets; but Swedish poetry did not attain a high character before the commencement of the present century. Among the authors most worthy of unto are !Miner, Benin:in, and Thorild. A grand history of Sweden, by Professors G eijc r, Fryxell, and St ru mbohn, is nearly completed. The present century pro duced Atterboin and Dahlgren, poets of considerable celebrity, nod Tegner, the first of Swedish poets, whose Pr ith iof 's Saga has bben translated into English, French, and German. Longfellow has translated his Children of the Lord's Supper. In the glow of his imagination, his fine artistic feeling and his wonderful command of rhythm, Tcgner ranks among the firs'. of modern poets. lie died in 1950. and Runeberg are at the head e the living poets of Sweden. As writers of fiction, Count Sparr6, author of I co/f Find/inA,r, Fredrika Bremer, whore fame as a painter of Swedish life, has extended over bot hemispheres, and Madame Flygare-Carlen, author of the Rose of Thistle island, have at tained an honorable place. The most celebrated works of bliss Bremer arc The Neighbors, The Home, and Strife and Peace.