23 JUNE 1888, Page 27

Hymns and Thoughts on Religion. By Novalis. With a Biographical

'Sketch. Translated and edited by W. Hastie, B.D. (T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh.)—The Life is interesting, for it gives us a vivid idea of a man who might have been, but for an early death (he was not quite twenty-nine when he died), a power in the world of thought. Of the other contents of the volume, the "Thoughts on Religion" are more satisfactory than the "Hymns," which have lost much in translation.