Pictures of German Life in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,
Second Series. By Gustav Freytag. Translated by Mrs. Malcolm. Two vols. (Chapman and Hall.)—Gustav Freytag, who is principally known in this country as the author of the popular German novel, "Debit and Credit," has undertaken in the volumes before us to give us a series of pictures of German life and character during the last 150 years. In a former series of the same work he has already performed the same office for the period of the Reformation and the Thirty Years War. Herr Freytag incorporates into his pages a number of very interesting original narratives of various dates ; but, with these excep- tions, the information which he gives us, valuable as it frequently is, is hardly conveyed in so attractive a form as might have been expected from so lively a writer. The second volume is mainly devoted to a
sketch of the career of Prussia, from the accession of Frederick the Great to the present time. We may hope that some future edition of his work will contain a chapter illustrative of the existing condition of constitu- tional freedom in that country. It would be neither the least interestink nor the least extraordinary in the book.
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