man may, in a natural manner and without any much discrepancy in point of age, it is impossible contact of the earthly with the spiritual, but merely that that freedom of intercourse should take place through an inward emotion which affects his mind, which tends to the mental elevation and happiness his imagination, his blood itself, believe that he of both parties, or that that pure stream of thought perceives something external to himself. That and sentiment should flow between them which it may be so, and sometimes is so, I cannot deny, peculiarly constitutes all that is blissful in the internor that with certain men in certain circumstances course betwixt the two sexes. Equality of mind it has been otherwise. You say that you have is indispensably necessary in the married state; latterly adopted the opinion which is laid down and the man can only expect to find happiness in by Jung-Stilling in his Theory of the Doctrine of this condition when the wife, as far as the powers Spirits, (I have not read the work,) that those of her nature will permit, and yet with the full who have gone before us, being possessed of clearer independence of womanhood, yields to his opinions powers of mental vision, encompassing us with and recognizes his will as her own. But I have love, and often wishing to protect us, seek to departed from the subject of your narrative. make themselves known to us for the purposes of It was a very peculiar, but, in the innocence of warning; and that in order to effect a deeper im- a progressing mind not yet unfolded to itself, a very pression upon us, they avail themselves of some natural and praiseworthy state of heart, which led significant and important event; whence it arises you most ardently to desire to possess a friend, to that they are able to place themselves en rapport the exclusion of every other wish. In this we with us; and this depends upon the degree in recognize clearly the difference between love and which the spiritual condition is free from the influ- friendship: both equally consist of that life of the ences of the external senses. In this free condition soul, under the influence of which two persons into which no one can bring himself at will, you meeting each other, and appearing individually to perhaps believe yourself to have been; in that frame give up their existence the one to the other, yet of mind when, setting aside all ordinary consider- receive it back again in a brighter and purer form. ations, you wrote down the conclusions at which A man must possess some external object to which you had arrived. These remarks of yours have he can attach himself, upon which he may work been deeply thought over and felt. Undoubtedly with all the collected powers of his existence. there is a quiet, mysterious presence, not compre- But although this inclination is common to all, yet hended by earthly senses, which surrounds us it is the privilege of the sensitive and highly cultiwithout our being aware of it; and why should vated soul alone, to feel the desire, the aspiration not this veil be raised for a moment and give a after true friendship and true love. Minds less transient view of what in this life leaves no percept- delicately constituted, or blunted by the world, form ible trace? You were here in a moment warned but transitory and changing attachments; they how you should write down a thought till now never attain to the tranquillity which results from known only to yourself; to make one stroke of the a perfect exchange of sympathy. Viewed in referpen which should involve your life in many unhap-ence to each other, love and friendship, under every py embarrassments: you were warned by the voice form and circumstance, differ in this respect, that which was soon to be no more, and, as you remark in order to lead you more certainly to reflect upon it, the precise moment was significantly marked; for your mother died a week afterwards at that very moment. Manifestly it was not of this world. It was one of those signs which are sometimes, though seldom, made to us from a region separated from us during this life by an impassable gulf. I thank you very much that you have not omitted mention of this. The following contains some deep and just reflections on friendship, love, and marriage, well expressed; the coloring of the style appropriate to the nature of the theme. the former is always colored with sensuality: but this does not militate against its excellence, for even a sensual inclination may comprehend within itself the greatest purity. Love originates in the very soul, and changes the nature of all things subjected to its unspotted brightness. In young girls who have never once recognized the emotion of love, much less arrived at the consciousness of its existence in themselves, it is nevertheless this emotion which lies veiled under the guise of friendship; these two feelings are not yet clearly and definitely separated; but as womanhood approaches every emotion passes insensibly into that of love. Even friendship, as it exists between two persons of the same sex, is at this period of life more energetic, more passionate, more yielding and sacrificYou must be about four years younger than ing; and although at a more advanced age friendmyself; but I now remember that I am not accu-ship may lead us to perform the same actions, yet at rately acquainted with the year of your birth. Send me this information once again. I always consider it a matter of importance to know accurately the age of those I like, especially when they are female friends. I entertain peculiar opinions upon this subject, and prefer women of more advanced years to the more youthful; even external charms, in my opinion, continue to exist much longer than is generally allowed to be the case; and those mental qualities which particularly delight us are decidedly heightened by years. I never desired at any period of my life to hold a near position either to a girl or woman much younger than myself; least of all could I have married under such circumstances. I am convinced that such marriages are not usually productive of happiness; they generally lead the man to treat his wife as a child: and whenever there exists an early stage of life it manifests itself differently; the tone of the emotion is more glowing, the soul is more thoroughly penetrated, and it shines through it with a clearer and warmer light. This was certainly your case at that time, dear Charlotte, in reference to your friend. I desire very much that you should continue your narrative. I perceive no difficulties standing in the way of the completion of the first part; but after a time, serious events, and to some extent sad and heavy trials, have to be narrated. Here, dear Charlotte, I leave it wholly for your own emotions to decide whether you can proceed further with the subject. It must depend completely upon yourself whether you can bear to awaken memories which, although they belong to a time long since gone by, may nevertheless still give you pain. Take care of yourself; believe, indeed, that this is necessary for my mental tranquillity. I am often much afraid that you exert yourself too much in your occupations ; I would fain have it otherwise. Now farewell, dear Charlotte, and believe me yours unchangeably and devotedly, H. The subject of marriage, especially of marriages of convenience or sacrifice, is well continued here. It happens now much less frequently than formerly that young persons are compelled to marry those who are by no means the objects of their choice. This leads me to think that the world is much better, more gentle, and more just. We then for the first time learn to elevate ourselves above external circumstances and conditions, when we come to know how to secure internal happiness; and although it sometimes happens that, to obtain this end, false and deceptive courses are pursued, yet on the whole much is gained by this justice and mildness, by this recognition of the freedom of the person to decide, whose future life is involved in the decision. never Under compulsory circumstances, nothing can be worse than the adoption of a resolution similar to that formed by your friend, namely, to enter upon a new engagement without renouncing a previously formed connexion. When this is the case, although the purest sacrifice may be made and the greatest morality observed, yet it is an unnatural state of heart; it is a union which can receive that spiritual blessing without which nothing thrives. You think that the second marriage did not secure to her the expected amount of happiness; and this can scarcely ever fail to be the case. The first charm of an early love, formed in accordance with one's desires, which does not hastily pass away, but unites with every emotion, giving happiness to all, is blunted by deferred hope; it forms for itself a picture in the distance, which after a time ceases to correspond with truth. Union with a man under circumstances wanting in all that belongs to the married state necessarily implants a thorn in the heart, which continues to exist even when the grave has received him, and when he no longer has it in his power to excite disquieting emotions. Thus that internal tranquillity fails without which no happiness can exist. These extracts will sufficiently indicate the tone and style of the work; but they can convey no idea of its variety of topics, which embrace whatever comes uppermost," and possess considerable biographical interest, often mingled with sensible reflections on life. Of the two publications before us, the best, of course, is Catherine Couper's, in the two volumes published by Mr. Chapman; as it is a translation of the whole of the letters, illustrations, and explanations, as left by the lady for publication. The selection edited by the Reverend Dr. Stebbing or rather the portion, for it stops at the year 1825-is a much cheaper and more unpretending affair; but it may give a sufficient idea of the nature of this curiosity of literature. From Blackwood's Magazine. DISENCHANTMENT. BY DELTA. I. ALTHOUGH from Adam stained with crime, Divine with mortal blending, And that which is, with that which seems,- II. Ask of the clouds, why Eden's dyes Now breathe not in their voices? III. Silent are now the sylvan tents; No more show demons gazing Now herds unharmed are grazing.* IV. No more, as horror stirs the trees, To Lapland flats careering;† * A clearer day has dispelled the marvels, which showed themselves in heaven above and in earth beneath, when twilight and superstition went hand in hand. Horace's Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, as well as Milton's Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimeras dire, have all been found wanting, when reduced to the admeasurements of science; and the "sounds that syllable men's names, on sands, and shores, and desert wilJames Hogg most poetically terms dernesses," are quenched in silence, or only exist in what That undefined and mingled hum, Voice of the desert, never dumb. The inductive philosophy was "the bare bodkin" which gave many a pleasant vision "its quietus." "Homo, naturæ minister," saith Lord Bacon, "et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturæ ordine se vel mente observaverit; nec amplius scit nec potest."Nov. Organum, Aph. I. The fabulous dragon has long acted a conspicuous part in the poetry both of the north and south. We find him in the legends of Regnar Lodbrog and Kempion, and in the episode of Brandimarte in the second book of the Orlando Inamorato. He is also to be recognized as the huge snake of the Edda; and figures with ourselves in the stories of the Chevalier St. George and the DragonDragon of Loriton-in the Laidley Worm of Spindleton of Moor of Moorhall and the Dragon of Wantley-in the Heugh-in the Flying Serpent of Lockburne-the Snake of Wormieston, &c. &c. Bartholinus and Saxo-Grammaticus volunteer us some curious information regarding a species of these monsters, whose particular office was to keep watch over hidden treasure. The winged Gryphon is of "old descent," and has held a place in unnatural history from Herodotus (Thalia, 116, and Melpomene, 13, 27) to Milton (Paradise Lost, book v.)— As when a Gryphon, through the wilderness, + Of the many mysterious chapters of the human mind, surely one of the most obscure and puzzling is that of witchcraft. For some reason, not sufficiently explained, Lapland was set down as a favorite seat of the orgies of the "Midnight Hags." When, in the ballad of "The Witch of Fife," the auld gudeman, in the exercise of his conjugal authority questions his errant spouse regarding As on through storms the Sea-kings sweep, No more the Kraken huge, asleep, Rising and disappearing. V. No more, reclined by Cona's streams, Futurity fore-showing: No more, released from churchyard trance, To vanish ere cock-crowing.* VI. Alas! that Fancy's fount should cease! Nay, Homer, even thy mighty line- VII. As silence listens to the lark, And orient beams disperse the dark, her nocturnal absences without leave, she is made ecstatically to answer, Whan we came to the Lapland lone For all the genii of the North The Warlocke man and the weird womyng, And the phantom hunteris all were there, And the mermaidis of the deep. And they washit us all with the witch-water, Quhill our beauty bloomit like the Lapland rose, Queen's Wake, Night 1st. "Like, but oh how different," are these unearthly goings on to the details in the Walpurgis Night of Faust (Act v., Scene I.) The "phantom-hunters" of the north were not the "Wilde Jäger" of Burger, or "The Erl-king" of Goethe. It is related by Hearne, that the tribes of the Chippewas Indians suppose the northern lights to be occasioned by the frisking of herds of deer in the fields above, caused by the halloo and chase of their departed friends. It is very probable, that the apparitional visit of "Alonzo the Brave" to the bridal of "the Fair Imogene," was suggested to M. G. Lewis, by the story in the old chronicles of the skeleton masquer taking his place among the wedding revellers, at Jedburgh Castle, on the night when Alexander III., in 1286, espoused as his second queen, Joleta, daughter of the Count le Dreux. These were the palmy days of portents; and the prophecy uttered by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the storm which was to roar From Ross' hills to Solway sea, was supposed to have had its fulfilment in the death of the lamented monarch, which occurred, only a few months after the appearance of the skeleton masquer, by a fall from his horse, over a precipice, while hunting between Burntisland and Kinghorn, at a place still called "the King's Wood-end." Wordsworth appears to have had the subject in his eye, in two of the stanzas of his lyric, entitled Presentiments, -the last of which runs as follows: Ye daunt the proud array of war, Pervade the lonely ocean far As sail hath been unfurled, For dancers in the festive hall What ghostly partners hath your call Fetched from the shadowy world. -Poetical Works, 1845, p. 176. The same incident has been made the subject of some very spirited verses, in a little volume-Ballads and Lays from Scottish History-published in 1844; and which, I fear, has not attracted the attention to which its intrinsic merits assuredly entitle it. Their gold the fields adorning : But, when we think of where are they Whose bosoms like our own were gay, While April gladdened life's young day, Joy takes the garb of mourning. VIII. Warm gushing through the heart come back Until we feel how, one by one, The past returns in all we see, Remind of pleasures cherished; X. A balmy eve! the round white moon What magic! when a lover, To him, who now, gray-haired and lone, XI. See how from port the vessel glides All loath that calms should bind him; XII. To sanguine youth's enraptured eye, Like harp some seraph sweepeth; Her reign when midnight keepeth. XIII. Silence o'erhangs the Delphic cave; XIV. Little we dream-when life is new, The heart is disenchanted. 2. The Bubble Girl: a Histo POETRY.-Beggar of the Po PROSPECTUS.- This work is conduct Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, ably received by the public for twenty: twice as large, and appears so often, spirit and freshness to it by many th excluded by a month's delay, but while th scope and gathering a greater and more a. are able so to increase the solid and sub our literary, historical, and political har Batisfy the wants of the American reader. The elaborate and stately Essays of th Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blac criticisms on Poetry, his keen political C highly wrought Tales, and vivid description mountain Scenery; and the contributions to History, and Cominon Life, by the sagaciou the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athe busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the st comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respect tian Observer; these are intermixed with the and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, the best articles of the Dublin University, New Fraser's, Tait's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sport azines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. V consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and from Punch; and, when we think it good enoug use of the thunder of The Times. We shall incre variety by importations from the continent of Euro rom the new growth of the British colonies. The steamship has brought Europe, Asia and A into our neighborhood; and will greatiy multiply ou nections, as Merchants, Traveliers, and Politicians, all parts of the world; so that much more than ev TERMS.-The LIVING AGE Is published every S day, by E. LITTELL & Co., corner of Tremont and Br field sts., Boston; Price 121 cents a number, or six dol. a year in advance. Remittances for any period will thankfully received and promptly attended to. insure regularity in mailing the work, orders should addressed to the office of publication, as above. Clubs, paying a year in advance, will be supplied a follows: s, as a young acquaintance from col-spirit was believed not only to be helped on its fortunately their wedding tour took way by angels, but watched and liable to be interin reach of that terrible scourge, the cepted by the hounds of darkness, (cwn Annwn,) and before the honey-moon was over the d. The lady survived to marry a second to whom the space between earth and heaven was allotted as a hunting-ground. Happy were the parents whose children had died in infancy, for the angelic spirits of their lost innocents might be expected to light them with torches on their way, beset by perils, to the kingdom of Heaven. On the first Sunday after a funeral we find it stated that the whole family of the deceased used to kneel down on the grave to say the Lord's prayer.t We scarcely venture to affirm whether so late as the period of which we are speaking the institution or caste of "sin-eaters" remained. If our readers do not happen to be acquainted with Brande's Popular Antiquities, they will probably ask the meaning of the term. It may surprise them to learn that in the west of England in the sixteenth century, and in Wales probably at a later date, a class of persons existed, who, in consideration of a certain dole of food or money, made themselves responsible for the sins of the nd or poetical influences. Many dead, and undertook to console the survivors, by nings of death; and in the dio- guaranteeing them at least security against being in particular, a power of "second haunted by the spirits of the departed. We cand down to a very recent period. not assent to those who find the original of so in Cornwall, gave matrimonial strange a custom in the Mosaic law, but should rather look for a parallel amid the wilder superstitions of India; nor, with deference to Aubrey, who affirms the fact, do we believe the system at any time since the Reformation to have prevailed generally in Wales. The theory, which lay at the bottom of the practice, had doubtless vanished from men's minds long before the customary dole (Diodlas) ceased to be given at funerals. But it is not easy to ascribe a precise date to those changes of sentiment, which are not only gradual but uneven in their operation. If this is anywhere true, it emphatically holds good of a country where mountain and river tend to isolate particular districts. Our account of Wales a century ago would not bear to be uniformly applied in any single year. each portion of the country in its turn had probably a period at which the impression we wish to convey would be true. We necessarily strike a rough average. or husband, as either drank first ayer : ne, art thou weeping?" on Mary's breast; I am but sleeping, The Cross of wailing, -sured, a genuine tradi- Yet It may be said generally that among the stories of the fireside were unfailing legends, not turning so much as might be expected upon Arthur or Glendower, but oftener upon the agencies of the invisible world, and most of all, upon some instance of Divine retribution. Vengeance, such as overtook Ahab for diverting the inheritance of Naboth, was not only devoutly believed by the mountain farmer, but illustrated by modern instances, of which his hearers never doubted the truth. Here hereditary insanity, and here a property swept away, attested the immediate waiting of judgment upon wrong. The curious book, called Drych y Prif Oesoedd, or "Mirror of Old Ages," its account. Good which mixes true histories with prodigies from -sistance; when the Geoffrey and Giraldus, was published in 1740, * Ibid., p. 56. † Ibid., p. 50. then no unmeaning ry piety neglected, as petition for the soul p. 48-9. |