WOLFENBÜTTEL, a small town in the duchy of Brunswick, is situated on both banks of the Oker, 7 miles to the south of Brunswick. It contains various minor tribunals, some schools, and a small garrison; and it carries on a few unimportant manufactures (machinery, copper goods, linen, cork, preserves, &c.). Wolfenbüttel, in fact, may be accepted as tolerably representative of the average dull German provincial town, clinging more or less faithfully to the traditions of the period when it was the residence of the ducal family. It owes its chief interest to its connexion with Lessing, who was ducal librarian there from 1770 till his death in 1781. The old library building, designed in 1723 in imitation of the Pantheon at Rome, contains a marble statue of the poet. The library, including 300,000 printed books and 7000 MSS., has, however, been transferred to a large new Renaissance edifice, opened in October 1887. It is especially rich in copies of the Bible and in books of the early Reformation period. Opposite the old library is the palace, occupied since 1835 by a theatre, a law court, and a seminary. The ducal burial-vault is in the church of St Mary. There are two other Evangelical churches and a Roman Catholic church in Wolfenbüttel, and perhaps the only other noteworthy building is the large prison. The ancient fortifications have been converted into promenades, once a favourite resort of Lessing. In 1885 the population of Wolfenbüttel, including the suburbs of Auguststadt and Juliusstadt, was 13,455. The “Wolfenbüttel Fragments” are alluded to under Lessing, vol. xiv. p. 481; see also Reimarus....