ND TALE. NORWEGIAN AND JLAPLAND TALE..' f. 1.!. EBAYARD TAYLOR'S VISIT TO THE AUTHOR OF "AFRAJA." Bayard Taylor, writing from Berlin to the New York Tribune, gives the following account of his visit to the author of "''AF RAJA": "I was fortunate in having a letter to Theodore MiUgge, the author of'Afraja,' and Eric Randal.' When I called at his residence, according to a previous appointment, a pretty little girl, of seven or eight years old, opened the door.' Is Ilerr Dr. Miigge at home?' I asked. She went to an adjacent door, and cried out:'Father, are you at home?''Ja wohl,' answered a sturdy voice; and presently a tall, broad-shouldered, and rather handsome man of over forty years, made his appearance. IIe wore a thick, brown beard, spectacles, was a little bald about the temples, and spoke with a decided North-German accent. His manner at first was marked with more reserve than is common among Germans; but I had the pleasure of meeting him more than once, and found that the outer shell covered a kernel of good humor and good feeling. "Like many other authors, Migge has received hardly as much honor in his own country as he deserves, His fAfraja.' one of the most remarkahle romance of this ene. ration, is just beginning to be read and valued. He was entirely unacquainted with the fact that it had been translated in America, where five or six editions were sold in a very few months. I could give him no better evidence of its success than the experience of a friend of mine, who was carried thirteen miles past his home, on a New Haven railroad train, while absorbed in its pages. He informed me that the idea of the story was suggested to him during his residence at Troms'ie, on the Norwegian coast, where, among some musty official records, he found the minutes of the last trial and execution of a Lapp for witchcraft, about a century ago. This Lapp, who was a sort of chieftain in his clan, had been applied to by some Danish traders to furnish them with good wind during their voyage. He sold them breezes from the right quarter, but the vessel was wrecked, and all hands drowned. When asked; during his trial. whether he had not furnished a bad instead of a good wind, he answered, haughtily:' Yes, I sold them the bad wind, because I hated them, as I hate you, and all the brood of thieves who have robbed me and my people of our land' I referred to the character of Niels Helgestad. and spoke of his strong resemblance, in many respects, to one of our Yankee traders of the harder and coarser kind. Mtigge assured me that I would find many of the same type still existing, when I should visit the Loffoden Isles. He spent a summer among the scenes described in'Afraja,' and his descriptions are so remarkably faithful, that Alexander Ziegler used the book as his best guide in going over the same ground this year." OR LIFE AND LOVE IN NORWAY From the German of Theodore MiUgge BY EDWARD JOY MORRIS PHILIADELPHIA,4 Published by HENRY T. COATES & CO. PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. THE following romance is the production of one of the most distinguished writers of fiction in Germany. It was published in the spring of the present year, and was received with the most cordial approbation by the critical press, as well as by the reading public. Robert Prutz,,a high authority in belle lettre criticism, at the conclusion of an extended review of German literature in the Morgenblatt, says: "This popular writer has again displayed his genius in a graphic and interesting narration of entirely new and attractive scenes. His romance introduces us to a region with which he is thoroughly acquainted from personal observation, but which is a rare and almost untrodden field of fiction-the remote neighborhood of the North Pole, and those.icy, desert steppes, where the Lap. lander pursues his wandering life of privation and suffering. His life-like descriptions of the manners and customs of this curious -people, and the Norwegian settlers on the coasts, are drawn with such power as to awaken the keenest interest in his brilliant story, and to keep the attention of the reader intensely excited from the first to the last page. The characters (iii) Viii PREFACE. are portrayed with a rare skill and fidelity to nature, and the whole composition cannot fail to augment the reputation of the auith6r, and to place him in the front rank of German historical novelists." The reader will discover, in' his perusal of this beautifill work of genius, that this praise is fully merited; and he will not fail to remark the high moral tone and pure senti ment which pervades the whole comniposition —-the more'striking from' its contrast with the depraved taste and corrupting influence of so many of the works of fiction of the present day. J-It is jlamentable to witness the growing depravity of this department of literature, and the-unholy zeal with which great talents are prostituted to the inculcation of false view'8s of life and duty, and the. diffusion of immoral principles. The success of, Afraja,. however, in Germany, has demonstrated that the public mind has not lost its partiality for those who seek to refine and elevate the imagination, and to base their hopes of success on an appeal to the higher