This work, which was the earliest of Dante's writings, as well as the most autobiographic in form and intention, gives the story of his early love-its beginning, its irregular course, its hopes and doubts, its exaltations and despairs, its sudden interruption and transformation by death. . . . In dealing with the intimate revelations of a character so great and so peculiar as that of Dante, a respectful deference is required for the very words in which they are contained. Dante has a right to demand this homage of his translator.

CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF ITALY IN 1860.

The Middle Ages still possess Italy. In the country towns, even in enlightened Sardinia, one feels himself a contemporary of Boccaccio, and might read many of the stories of the Decameron as stories of the present day. The life of the common people has much the same aspect now as it had centuries ago. Italy has undergone many vicissitudes, but few changes.

The success of the experiment of constitutional government in Sardinia is at this moment the chief hope of Italy. A liberal and wise spirit of reform is uniting the interests of all classes, and a steady, gradual progress, proving the ability of the Italians to govern themselves, without the excesses of enthusiasm, or the evils of extravagant and undisciplined hopes. While Milan and Venice are hemmed round by Austrian bayonets, and Florence is discontented under the stupid despotism of an insane bigot-while Rome stagnates under the superstition of priests, and Naples under the brutality of a Bourbon, Turin and Genoa are flourishing and independent.-Study and Travels in Italy.

NOVALIS (the pseudonym of FRIEDRICH VON HARDENBERG), a German lyric poet and philosopher, born at Wiederstedt, Mansfield, May 2, 1772; died at Wissenfels, March 25, 1801. His father was director of the salt-works in Saxony, and the son was trained for a similar career. He studied at the universities of Jena, Leipsic, and Wittenberg, and the mining-school at Freiberg. He manifested decided capacities for natural sciences and mathematics, united to a profoundly mystical turn of mind. His writings, with the exception of a few short pieces, notably, Hymns to the Night, were a kind of rhythmical prose, and altogether fragmentary. They were published, edited by his friends Tieck and Friedrich von Schlegel, in 1802.

"Glorified as the priest of platonic love," says the Nouvelle Biographie Générale, "Novalis shines as a brilliant star in the romantic pleiades of Schlegel. His works obtained the same species of success as the Meditations of Lamartine; he was the poet of dreamers and of tender hearts. He is little read to-day, and his influence has materially decreased. This philosophy, however reclothed with bewitching colors, affirming itself the more that it does not seek to prove itself, will always hold a place, which must be well taken into account, in the history of the intellectual life of Germany."

DEVELOPMENTS OF THE PHILOSOPHIC SPIRIT.

The rude, discursive Thinker is the Scholastic. The true Scholastic is a mystical Sabbatist. Out of logical atoms he builds his universe; he annihilates all living Nature to put conjuror-tricks of Thought in its room. His aim is an infinite Automaton. Opposite is the rude, intuitive Poet. This is the mystical Macrologist. He hates rules and fixed form; a wild, violent life reigns instead of it in Nature; all is animate; no law; wilfulness and wonder everywhere. He is merely dynamic. Thus does the Philosophic Spirit arise at first in altogether separate masses.

In the second stage of culture these masses begin to come in contact, multifariously enough; and as in the union of infinite Extremes the Finite, the Limited, arises, so here also arise "Eclectic Philosophers" without number; the time of misunderstandings begins. The most limited is in this stage the most important, the purest philosopher of the second stage. This class occupies itself wholly with the actual, present world.

The philosophers of the first class look down with contempt on those of the second; say they are a little of everything, and so nothing; hold their views as results of weakness, as Inconsequentism. On the contrary, the second class, in their turn, pity the first; lay the blame on their visionary enthusiasm, which they say is absurd, even to insanity.

If, on the one hand, the Scholastics and Alchemists seem to be utterly at variance, and the Eclectics, on the other hand, quite at one, yet, strictly examined, it is altogether the reverse. The former in essentials are indirectly of one opinion; namely, as regards the nondependence and infinite character of Meditation, they both set out from the Absolute; whilst the eclectic and limited sort are essentially at variance. The former infinite but uniform, the latter bounded but multiform. The former have genius, the latter talent; those have ideas, these have knacks; those are heads without hands, these are hands without heads.

The third stage is for the Artist, who can be at once Implement and Genius. He finds that primitive sepa

ration in the absolute Philosophical Activities is a deeplying separation in his own nature; which separation indicates, by its existence as such, the possibility of being adjusted, of being joined. He finds that, heterogeneous as these activities are, there is yet a faculty in him of passing from the one to the other; of changing his polarity at will. He discovers in them, therefore, necessary members of his speech. He observes that both must be united in some common Principle. He infers that Eclecticism is nothing but the imperfect defective employment of this Principle.-Translation of CARLYLE.

ON RELIGION.

Religion contains infinite sadness. If we are to love God He must stand in need of help. The Christian religion is especially remarkable, as it lays claim to the good-will in man, to his essential Temper, and values this independently of all culture and manifestation. It stands in opposition to Science and to Art, and properly to Enjoyment. Its origin is with the common people. It inspires the great majority of the Limited in this earth. It is the root of all Democracy, the highest Fact in the Rights of Man. Its unpoetical exterior, its resemblance to a modern Family-picture, seems only to be lent to it. Martyrs and spiritual heroes! Christ was the greatest martyr of our species; through Him has martyrdom become infinite, significant and holy.Translation of CARLYLE.

ON BIBLES.

The Bible begins nobly with Paradise, the symbol of youth; it concludes with the Eternal Kingdom, the Holy City. Its two divisions also are genuine grandhistorical divisions; for in every grand-historical compartment the grand-history must be, as it were symbolically, made young again. The beginning of the New Testament is the second higher Fall-(the Atonement of the Fall)-and the commencement of a new period. The history of every individual should be a Bible. Christ is the new Adam. A Bible is the highest problem of Authorship.-Translation of Carlyle.

NYE, EDGAR WILSON ("Bill Nye," pseud.), an American humorist, born at Shirley, Me., August 25, 1850; died at Asheville, N. C., February 22, 1896. At an early age he removed with his parents to Wisconsin and thence to Wyoming Territory, where he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1876. He practised his profession one year, reported for newspapers, and in 1878 began to write regularly a humorous letter for the Sunday papers of the West. He was for a time a reporter for the Denver Tribune, and later founded the Laramie (Wyoming) Boomerang. He became post-master at Laramie, superintendent of schools, justice of the peace, and United States Commissioner. His articles were widely copied, but his paper was not a financial success. In 1884 he came to New York and organized the Nye Trust, through which a weekly letter appeared simultaneously in the journals of the principal cities of the Union. Mr. Nye gave lectures throughout the country, and published Bill Nye and the Boomerang (1881); The Forty Liars (1883); Baled Hay (1884); Bill Nye's Blossom Rock (1885); Remarks (1886); Bill Nye's History of the United States (1894).

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Bill Nye," says the Critic, "was more than a mere 'funny man.' His humor was genuine and

clean, and he was, when it pleased him, a master