Excerpt from Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. 1 of 7: Collected and Republished; First Time, 1839; Final, 1869 Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country, is his saying, imported by Ma dame de Stael, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of - the air!' Of this last element, indeed, his own genius might easily seem to have been a denizen; so fantastic, many coloured, far-grasping, everyway perplexed and extraordinary is his mode of writing. To translate him properly is next to impossible; nay, a dictionary Of his works has actually been in part published for the use of German readers These things have restricted his sphere Of action, and may long restrict it, to his own country: but there, in return, he is a favourite of the first class studied through all his intricacies with trustful ad miration, and a love which tolerates much. During the last forty years, he has been continually before the public, in various capacities, and growing generally in esteem with all ranks of critics till, at length, his gainsayers have either been silenced or convinced; and Jean Paul, at first reckoned half-mad, has long ago vindicated his singularities to nearly universal satis faction, and now combines popularity with real depth of endow ment, in perhaps a greater degree than any other writer; being second in the latter point to scarcely more than one of his con temporaries, and in the former second to none. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.