A Handy Manual of German Literature. By M. F. Reid.
(Black- wood and Sons.) —This book is intended, we presume, for a cram-book, and it is quite uninteresting enough to be ranked as one. In point of accuracy, however, it cannot be recommended to persons who desire to pass an examination in German literature. In its quotations of the titles of works, there are continual mistakes, or misprints ; we have "Des ewige Jude," for "der Icc.," Sintrim, for Sintram ; Reineke Fuchs, for Reinecke Fuchs ; Herwe gh is called once Herweg, and twice Herwigh, and never appears under his right name at all ; Freiligrath isFreilgarth. Then our author appears also to be occasionally ignorant as well as careless. Die Abderiten of Wieland is not a novel, as he tells us it is ; the Second Part of Faust (which our author calls a feeble composi- tion,) was finished when Goethe was eighty-two, and not composed then, as he would have us believe ; Simrock died in BM—Mr. Reid leaves us to imagine he is still alive. Besides all these faults, the book loses all chance it might have had of being useful, by lacking the first necessity of a book of reference,—namely, an index.
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