has, in so many respects, from its original purity and simplicity. Nevertheless, if those blemishes were removed on either side, and the harmless prejudices which are concomitant to all religions were borne with indulgence, I am conscious of being in one and the same road with Mendelsohn, namely, in that which leads to the God of truth and justice, by whom Lavater has conjured him; and neither of us will have a plausible motive for renouncing the religion in which we have respectively been born and educated, &c. &c. &c.

APPENDIX.

THOMAS ABBT was born, 1738, at Ulm, in Suabia. In 1756, he went to the university of Halle, the principal chair of which was then filled by the celebrated Baumgarten. Here he applied himself chiefly to philosophy and mathematics, relinquishing divinity, for which he had been originally educated. In 1760, he was appointed professor extraordinary of philosophy at the university of Frankfort on the Oder, and there, in the very centre of the theatre of war, wrote the treatise on "Dying for one's Country." The year following he spent at Berlin, where he formed a connection with the two Eulers, Mendelsohn, and Nicolai, and accepted of the situation of professor of mathematics at the university of Rintelen in Westphalia. But he soon took an aversion to academical life, and began to study law, with the intention of qualifying himself for some civil office. In 1763, he travelled through the whole south of Germany, Switzerland, and part of France, but returned again to Rintelen, where he published, soon after, his work "On Merit," to which he owes most of his celebrity. It abounds with sublime thoughts, novel and striking observations, and most excellent practical philosophy. This procured its

author a high and lucrative situation with one of the inferior German sovereigns, the prince of Schaumburg Lippe, who treated him with great personal friendship; a distinction, however, which he did not enjoy long, as he died at the early age of twentyeight. The worthy prince caused his friend to be splendidly interred in his own chapel, and himself wrote a pathetic inscription on his monument. Abbt's works are full of profound thought, fancy, and spirit; and no doubt he would have become one of the first German authors had he lived to a more advanced age. As it is, he deserves to be ranked with those who contributed most to the refinement of the German language, which had been, till then, so much neglected. His style is particularly succinct and agreeable. Nicolai published Abbt's works, after his death, in six volumes.

CHRISTOPHER FREDERIC NICOLAI was born at Berlin in 1733. In 1749, he was apprenticed to a bookseller at Frankfort on the Oder. By dint of perseverance and self-denial he contrived to find leisure for self-tuition in the Latin, Greek, and English languages. He read their best authors, at the same time studying mathematics, history, and philosophy; but most of all, literary biography. In 1752, he returned to Berlin, and took an active part in the business of his father, who was likewise a bookseller. The German literati were, at that time, divided into two parties, headed by Gottsched, and by Bodmer. Nicolai soon discovered the prejudices

of either party, and delivered his opinions thereon in the "Letters on the Present State of the Liberal Sciences," published in 1755. Lessing was amongst his friends, and made him acquainted with Moses Mendelsohn. This triumvirate then followed implicitly their zeal for science without any deference whatever to the authority of opinion. Of the three, Lessing was most lively and bold, Mendelsohn more considerate and sure, while Nicolai equalled both, at least, in love of truth and in courage. Most of the best thinkers of Germany united themselves with them in the sequel. In 1757, Nicolai retired from business, and devoted himself entirely to the sciences, living on a small income during the dear period of the seven years' war. Through Winkelman's works he became initiated in the fine arts, and Marpurg instructed him in musical composition. His elder brother, the head of the book establishment, dying in 1758, C. F. Nicolai was obliged to resume the management of the concern again. United with Mendelsohn, he had published the "Library of the Liberal Arts and Sciences," (four vols. Leipsig, 1757 to 1760.) At the fifth volume they transferred the publication to their friend Weisse at Leipsig. With this "Library" the better system of critique was introduced in Germany. The three friends, supported by Abbt, Sulzer, and others, now published the "Letters on the newest Contemporary Literature," (24 vols. Berlin, 1761 to 1766.) In 1765, Nicolai carried his project of the "Universal German Library" into execution. In this periodical, (107 vols. and 21

vols. supplement, Berlin, 1765-1792,) the German republic of letters asserted for the first time its rights of free suffrage. It made every new system subject to its most rigid scrutiny, and operated most powerfully, for more than forty years, on the progress of scientific cultivation in all parts of Germany. At the 107th volume, Nicolai ceased to be the publisher. It was then continued at Kiel in Holstein, under the title of "New Universal German Literature, &c." At the 56th volume of the new series, Nicolai once more resumed the editorship, and his preface to that volume is a very remarkable piece of composition. The work was closed in 1805. The pointed and austere tone which this periodical assumed involved him in many quarrels. Of those who wrote against him we will name Garve, Herder, Wieland, Fichte, and Lavater; the latter called him an endless wrangler. None of those disputes became so vehement as that with Stark, first chaplain of the landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, when Nicolai, Biester, and other writers of the Berlin Magazine, threw out hints of Nicolai's latent dissemination of popery, and of the existence of disguised jesuits. From 1770 he directed his study to the financial and commercial relations of the Prussian state. His "Characteristic Anecdotes of Frederic II. and his Court," (Berlin, 1792,) possess considerable historical merit. The minister of state, count Von Herzberg, granted him the use of the royal archives to revise his " Topographic and Historical Description of Berlin and Potsdam," published Berlin, 1786, 3 vols. third edition. To his novels