other human being troubling himself about him. A larger map of varied and manifold enjoyments may certainly be found in England than it is possible to procure with us. What with us are called luxuries are here looked upon as necessaries, and are diffused over all classes."

A rich French duke, who fancied he had the cholera, had a physician called in the middle of the night. The doctor soon satisfied his patient that he was in perfect health. The expected amount of fee was inquired:"200 francs," said the doctor; "200 francs!" exclaimed the duke, "what would be your fee if I really had the cholera?" "I should readily have attended you without any fee. I am ever at the service of the sick; but when persons who' have no complaint break my rest, and call me out of bed, I expect a handsome indemnity."

A SLIGHT MISTAKE.-"You cannot

think, Susan," said a very young lady to her maid, on her return home from taking a lesson in the Mazurka, or New Polish Dance, as it was styled, and

which was introduced much about the same time as the New Police, "You cannot think what a dear, sweet, charming thing this New Polish Dance is!" -"I dare say it is, Miss," replied the Abigail, but conceiving her young mistress had made a mistake in the name, corrected her by saying, she supposed

she meant the New Police Dance.

1

MARCH OF INTELLECT AMONG OUR DOMESTICS.-A young woman, residing in a family as housemaid, having for two or three days running, requested permission to go out for an hour, just in the prime part of the day, was at last refused, being told that her going out constantly in this manner was extremely inconvenient; whereupon the damsel tossed up her head, and told her mistress, "that she must suit herself with another maid then, having made up her mind to live in no family, where she was not allowed an hour every day to take a walk, as regular exercise was far too necessary to the health to be dispensed with."

ANOTHER young woman, living as cook in a gentleman's family, at the West end of the town, and who always opened the door to the different tradespeople, gave them their orders, gossipped with them, and had no restrictions laid upon her with regard to now and then having friends to see her, asked

permission of her mistress, a few mornings since, to go out for the day, which was refused upon the plea of her having had so many holidays of late, as to be quite unreasonable. The maid immediately burst into a violent flood of tears, and passionately sobbed out, "that her mistress then must provide herself with another cook, for that she would not live in solitary confinement, to please any body."

MORE PLAIN THAN PLEASANT--A gentleman, one morning last Spring, walking up Pentonville Hill, noticed a good many persons collected round a man, whose wo-begone visage indicated him to be the owner of a most miserable sand-cart, which had apparently just broken down in the road. The man was standing with his arms folded, and though uttering no complaints, looked so heartily ashamed of being the master of such a poor crazy, povertystruck vehicle, that the by-standers ought in charity to have restrained their idle curiosity, and left the sand-digger to contemplate the wreck of his property alone. The gentleman was about to pass on, when a man crying mackarel with a basket poised on his head came along, and stepping off the pathway into the road, shoved himself through the people directly in front, and thrusting his hands into his pockets significantly eyed, first the tumble-down cart, then the man, then the spectators, with an expression which seemed to say, (speaking professionally) "Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" This fellow's intrusion put all the unfortunate sand-digger's patience to flight, for, darting a furious look at the new-comer, he exclaimed "Vell, and vot do you vaunt?”

"Nothing," replied the other, adding, "But I knows vot you vaunt.""Vell, vot?"-" Vy, a new cart!" The quaint aptitude of the reply, set the crowd into a roar of laughter, to the sore discomfiture of the sand-cart man, when the vender of fish, elbowing his way out of the crowd, as unceremoniously as he had edged himself in, resumed the cry, Mackarel," with as much gravity, as though he was no party to the fun which his drollery had excited.

LEGIBLE WRITING.-A literary gentleman lately addressed a letter to a friend. The scrawl was so truly beautiful that the return of post brought him the following answer :-"I have received a piece of paper apparently from you, though I am inclined to think

"I hope thou wilt-take care-when I am dead

"To see me buried."-" That I will," quoth Ned.

"We'll lay thee deep enough,Dick never fear, "Thou shalt no longer be a nuisance here: "And, as a fit memorial o'er thy grave, "Will place this epitaph, Here lies a knave.' This sting pierced deep; and keen and smarting pain,

Call'd Dick's departing spirit back again : Sarcasm so bitter wou'd not let him die, 'Till thus he made as bitter a reply: "And when thou shalt be laid by me, dear brother,

"

"Some friend, I trust, will write, 'Here lies

another.""

REVOLUTIONS OF NATURE.- "If we look with wonder upon the great remains of human works, such as the columns of Palmyra, broken in the midst of the Desert, the temples of Pæstum, beautiful in the decay of twenty centuries, or the mutilated fragments of Greek sculpture in the Acropolis of Athens, or in our own Museum, as proofs of the genius of artists, and power and riches of nations now past away, with how much deeper feeling of admiration must we consider those grand monuments of nature, which mark the revolutions of the globe; con

tinents broken into islands; one land produced, another destroyed; the bottom of the ocean become a fertile soil; whole races of animals extinct; and the bones and exuviæ of one class covered with the remains of another, and upon the graves of past generations-the marble or rocky tomb, as it were, of a former animated world-new generations rising, and order and harmony established, and a system of life and beauty produced, as it were, out of chaos and death; proving the infinite power, wisdom and goodness of the Great Cause of all Being!'

Salmonia.

RELIGION.-I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer "a firm religious belief" to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness-creates new hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity: makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to Paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palins and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair!-lb.

EPIGRAM.
Life's pleasures are like glittering ice,
Spread o'er the surface of the tide;
Glide swiftly onward in a trice;
Nor on its faithless breast confide.

Saturday, May 19.

SAINT DUNSTAN.

St. Dunstan was born about the year 925, and appears to have been educated at Glastonbury in Somersetshire, where, besides acquiring a knowledge of the Latin language, he became skilled in music, painting, and sculpture, and the working and refining of metals. In early life he was introduced to the court of King Athelstan, by his uncle Athelm, Archbishop of Canterbury; but, either disgusted or disappointed, he retired to Glastonbury, and adopted a monastic life. His alleged conflicts with the devil was one of the most popular of the monkish legends. After a somewhat active and checquered life in the affairs of the kingdom, he was made Archbishop of Canterbury by Edgar, and died on the ninth of May, A. D. 988, in the sixty-ninth year of his age.

Saturday, May 26.

ST AUGUSTINE, OR ST. AUSTIN." St. Austin is celebrated as the first ecclesiastic who preached the Christian religion in this country. The history of the conversion of the Saxous must be known to all.

Monday, May 28.

VENERABLE BEDE.

Bede was a monk, in the Convent of Jarrow. The name of this very early historian must ever be pronounced by Euglishmen with veneration. His works are numerous, but the most celebrated is his Ecclesiastical History. Bede's writings were printed at Paris, in 1544 and 1554; at Basil, in 1567; and at Cologne, in 1613 and 1688. He died on the 26th of May, 1535, of a consumption, aggravated, it is supposed, by intense study and application; but as St. Augustine's festival happens on that day, his is kept on the 27th.

Illustrated Article.

OLD STORIES OF THE RHINE CASTLES.

FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN.

By Roger Calverley.

FOR THE OLIO.

In their baronial feuds, and single fields, What deeds of prowess unrecorded died? And love, that lent a blazon to their shields, With emblems well devised by amorous pride,

Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide;

But still their flame was fierceness, and drew

on

Keen contest and destruction near allied; And many a tower, for some fair mischief won,

Saw the discoloured Rhine beneath its ruin run.
And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,
Or holding dark communion with the cloud.
There was a day when they were young and
proud;

Banners on high and battles passed below:

But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, And those which waved are shredless dust ere now,

And the bleak battlements shall bear no future
blow!
LORD BYRON.
VOL. IX.

THERE is not, in all Germany, a district where there exist so many ruins of old castles and monasteries, as in that tract which extends from Mount Taunus to the Seven Mountains. For me, the allurements which the Rhenish Provinces exhibit, were always too congenial to my long cherished tastes to resist; from the time of my childhood, Germanic scenery and Germanic traditions never failed to arrest and absorb my interest.

I was the spoilt child of romance, and especially of Gothic romance, "For long enamoured of a barbarous age, A faithless truant to the classic page, Long have I loved to catch the simple chime Of minstrel barps, and spell the fabling rhyme; To view the festive rites, the knightly play That decked heroic Albion's elder day. To mark the mouldering halls of barons bold, And the rough castle cast in giant mould; With Gothic manners Gothic arts explore, And muse on the magnificence of yore.

But chief enraptured have I loved to roam, A lingering votary, the vaulted dome, Where the tall shafts that mount in massy pride,

Their mingling branches shoot from side to side: Where elfin sculptors, with fantastic clew, 244

O'er the long roof their wild embroidery drew; Where superstition, with capricious hand,

In many a maze the wreathed window plann'd,

With hues romantic tinged the gorgeous pane,
To fill with holy light the wond'rous fane,
To aid the builder's model, richly rude,
By no Vitruvian symmetry subdued,
To suit the genius of the mystic pile;
Whilst, as around the far retiring aisle,

And fretted shrines, with hoary trophies hung,
Her dark illumination wide she flung,
With new solemnity the nooks profound,
The caves of death, and the dim arches
frowned."*

The early part of my life was, indeed, the most unreal that can be imagined; the very utopia of chivalry. I lived in ancient castles, saw spectres in tapestried galleries, heard supernatural clashes in the armoury, signalised my banner in the tilt-yard, made love in the arbours and terraces, and discovered treasures in the vaults. I have told my beads with the dying anchorite in his woody hermitage, and listened, shuddering, to his awful confession. The solemn crimes of cloisters, the more unmasked iniquities of baronial halls, the boasted bloodshed of banditti's caves, have all, and each, been "household words" with me.

I would not advise any other young gentleman to embark in this painted shallop so eagerly as I did, for, credit me, it is apt to steer far wide of the "flood that leads on to fortune,"-well if it does not become stranded on the shallows! But neither Italian bandits, nor Spanish inquisitors, nor (shame to my patriotism!) even old English barons, had such charms for me as the stories of The Father Land!

The Germans were the nursing fathers and nursing mothers of my marvellous mania; and they were as indulgent as such gossips generally are. They refused me nothing! Their barons

were

so grandly tyrannical; their knights so romantically amorous; their ladies such magnanimous victims; their robbers such vampires for bloodshed; their sorcerers sold themselves so sublimely to the devil; and their culprits were so sentimental on the very scaffold, brawny ruffians that stripped themselves for the wheel as gaily as for their bridal bed, and ended a life of unmentionable wickedness, with a prayer for their country, an embrace for their wives, and a kiss for their little ones!

In the district I have mentioned, there was a vast number of illustrious families, who, in other days, flourished there in their most high and palmy

*T. Warton.

state, but which are now extinct, and there are more than one of whom not even the name remains.

But it is the glorious garland of romances, (which, woven by the red fingers of tradition around their dismantled castles, graces, like an amaranthine crown, every shrubby rampart and ivied tower,) that maintains to the present day the antique memory of these Rhenish landgraves. It is the traditionary lore, replete with marvels which the inhabitants of those regions are always reciting, that imparts, to a tour on the Rhine, poetic tints, as fascinating as they are brilliant. And no wonder, since they are identified, all of them, with the monuments of an epoch, which, with the waves of their own glorious river, hath rolled majestically away; and the imagination lends itself the more willingly to legends whose marvellous attributes are closely connected with history, that you indulge belief, lest incredulity should entrench upon truth.

R. C. 1832.

SO

THE MINE OF SAINT MARGARET. A STORY OF FALKENSTEIN.

All was this land fulfilled of Faerie; The Elf Queene, with hire joly compagnie, Danced ful oft in many a grene mede; This was the old opinion, as I rede. But now, can no man see none elves mo; I speke of many hundred yeres ago; For now the grete charitee and prayeres Of limitoures and other,holy freres, That searchen every land and every streme As thikke as motes in the sonne beme, Blessing halles, chambres, kichenes, and

boures,

Citees, and burghes, castles high, and toures, Thorpes, and barnes, sheepcotes, and dairies, This maketh that ther ben no Faeries.

Chaucer. Wife of Bath's Tale.

One sees, in the environs of Frankfort, two very high mountains, that far surpass all the others, in the two chairs which extend from Wetteran to Wiesbaden, and from the Rheingan to Oberlahnstein. These are the Feldberg and the Altkonig. It was on the summit of the Altkonig, that the infamous Queen Brunhault (immortalised in the Thierry and Theodoret of our Beaumont and Fletcher) caused a splendid pavillion to be constructed, for the purpose of feasting her eyes on the prospect of her vast empire, as it caught the first rays of the rising sun. Not far from Mount Altkonig, and behind the little town of Kronenberg, that nestles in a thicket of old chesnuts at its foot, the traveller beholds, on the apex of a steep rock, the solitary ramparts of Falkenstein

Castle. Melancholy reigns around these ruins, that re-echo only the lusciously plaintive notes of the throstle, which has established its abode in the rich cool trees that rustle greenly over its haggard walls in the soft gales of sunset. In ancient times, this chateau was almost inaccessible; and there was merely a craggy footpath that led to the principal gate. It was inhabited, in those days, by a Knight of a very saturnine temperament, and whose manners were little short of brutal. He had an only daughter, who was excessively beautiful, and whose every tone and look breathed the amiability that characterised her disposition. Men compared her father to the rock of the wilderness, and her to the vesper star that illumines it with trembling light. All those who saw the lovely Irmengard, left her presence with hearts full of love and hope; this was the case with the young knight, Kuno de Sayn, who happened to be visiting the castle of Falkenstein on some public business. The soft eyes of Irmengard, and her sweet accents, had quickly vanquished the heart of the young chevalier, and when he left the castle, he said to himself, "It shall go hard with thee Kuno, but thou shalt win this star of the wilderness!"

It was with this design that our friend, some days afterwards, arrived on a second visit at the Castle of Falkenstein. The old chatelain received him coolly enough. They were standing in the broad recess of an enormous oriel, which, projecting far from the castle walls, was extended still more boldly out by a balcony, carved in the most fantastic woodwork, supported by two great faulcons of stone, holding between them the huge family shield. From hence they surveyed the superb tableau, which stretched below them in the four picturesque vallies of Fischbach, Lorsbach, Fokenhawsen, and Bremthat.

"I know of no castle, which, by any possibility, could be so finely situated as yours,' "said Kuno; "but it is a thousand pities that the road leading to it should be so difficult!"

"Has any one hitherto compelled you to take that road, sir knight?" asked the Chatelain drily.

"Only my heart," replied Kuno; "your daughter charms me, and I come to demand her in marriage!"

The old man began to smile, and with him that was always a sign of evil

augury.

"Young man!" said he, after a few moments silence, "I will give you my daughter, but upon one condition !"

"I accept it beforehand!" eagerly exclaimed our lover.

""Tis mighty well!" said the Lord of Falkenstein, with another grim smile, "you will then merely have the goodness to cause a commodious road to be paved over these crags, by which my friends may come to see me on horseback; but," he added, (his withered features puckering with spite,) "remember, it is an indispensable part of the bargain, that this road be completed in a single night,-do you understand? -a single night!"

Poor Kuno was thunderstruck. The old baron laughed outright with satisfied malice; and they parted, without either seeming particularly delighted with the other. But the Chevalier de Sayn was a lover, and, looking upon matters with a lover's eyes, it did not appear to him hopeless that he should succeed in an enterprise so chimerical. He repaired, without loss of time, to one of his mines, and having summoned the master miner, and laid before him the matter in question,

"Ah!" said the miner, shaking his head, "well do I know that confounded castle: why, my lord, you might employ three thousand miners, and they would not be able to finish the work in six nights, much less in one!"

Sir Kuno sate himself down at the entrance of the mine, and abandoned himself to a most woeful reverie, in which he remained absorbed, till the grey mists of evening began to silver over the glowing landscape. At length, raising his eyes, which had, till then, been rivetted to the earth, he saw before him a little old man with white hair, who thus addressed him:

"Knight of Sayn! I have heard all the conversation you have had with the master of the mines. The man is honest enough; but I know the trick better than he!"

"Who art thou?"

"Why, the creatures of thy species call us subterranean demons, and mountain sprites; but what's in a name? The fact is, we are a little more active and clever than you mere mortals; and it would be but a trifle to us to make in an hour a road which should conduct to the castle of Falkenstein."

"Ah! if thou could'st do that!"

"I am not only able, but willing to do it," said the little man, interrupting him, "but mind, it is upon one condition!"