of infancy, the hills of manhood, and the vale of age. Marriage would be joining company for the journey. NEW governors always popular, because the people have hope in them as they have in new physicians. November 10, 1804. I have this evening proposed to Longman to edite the works of Sir Philip Sidney, proposing to write a Life,' an Essay on the Arcadia, and another on his metres. The first Essay should be upon what may be called the middle period of Romance. Biondi in Italy. Gombauld in France. Why these things succeeded to pure chivalry. The literary character of Elizabeth's reign. In the second, a history of English metre. Specimens of hexameters in French, Spanish, and Italian, and corresponding specimens of my own to every practical metre which Sir Philip has used. WHAT can be made of Judaism in Portugal? Gabriel has brought up his son Henrique in the religion of his forefathers, but not his daughter Violante. The Confessor therefore, who is a good man, has no suspicion. D. Duarte, son of an inquisitor, is in love with Violante. The father is an avaricious hard hearted man, and has set his eye upon Gabriel's possessions, knowing him to be a New Christian. He is also superstitious. Bring in the belief in the books which discover hidden treasures, and make him postpone the seizure of Gabriel, while Gabriel by his knowledge goes at midnight to secure one. This scene, if laid in a nunnery garden, might connect another plot of some nun in This Life, nearly, if not quite, complete, is in the hands of the Rev. C. C. Southey. His father put it into my hands many years ago, knowing my love for Sir P. Sidney's character and works.-J. W. W. love with the English captain,—and thus the inquisitor might be made to assist in her escape by preparing ladders, &c. She may be Duarte's sister Traditions. Fountain in Epirus. "IN Epire is a fountain, intensely cold. Dip into it a torch and it will kindle it. Put in a kindled torch, and-wonderful—it will quench it." "ABOUT two leagues from Koom we saw a round hill to the left, called in Turkish Gedeen-gedmaze, which signifies that who ever goes up never returns, which the Persians say was the fate of a page sent up by Schaah Abbas with a lighted torch in his hand. However this be, it is certainly no easy matter to ascend this place, because the whole hill consists of sand, which is shifted from place to place by the wind, and must soon tire whoever attempts to climb it."-BELL. Traditions in Bretagne. "JON GAUTY TAN (John and his Fire) is a kind of dæmon, who in the night carries five lighted candles on his five fingers, and whirls them about with great rapidity. The repeated cry of the cuckoo indicates the year of marriage. They dip the shirts of children into certain wells; if the shirt sinks to the bottom, the child infallibly dies before the expiration of a year: if it swims, it is a sign that the child will live a long time, and the wet shirt is put on the poor creature to preserve it from every kind of evil. In one place a number of stories are told about a small black staff, which is changed into a black dog, an eagle, or a lion. In another, they believe that eagles, by the command of a genius, carry men up into the air. A sudden noise, three times repeated, foretells an impending misfortune. The nocturnal howling of a dog is a certain foretoken of death. In the roaring of the distant main by night, and in the whistling of the wind, they hear the voice of drowned persons demanding a grave. Subterraneous treasures are guarded by giants, ghosts, and fairies. Some of these hobgoblins are called Teuss: the Teuss Arpouliet appears in the shape of a dog, a cow, or some other domestic animal, and performs all menial services. The blood freezes at hearing the dreadful tales about the Car of Death, Cariquel Ancou, which is covered with a winding sheet, and drawn by skeletons. The rumbling of its wheels is heard when a person is on the point of dying. Under the castle of Morlaix there are a number of little manikins, not above a foot high, who from time to time dry a large quantity of gold in the sun. Whoever modestly approaches them receives as much as he can hold in one hand: but he who comes with a sack to fill it with gold, is ill treated and sent away empty handed."— CAMBRAY'S Voyage dans le Finisterre. M. Mag. March, 1801. [Moorish Lust.] A. D. 744. "IN Carpetaniæ finibus, multæ Virgines moniales Benedictina, ne violarentur à Mauris, à Deo consecutæ sunt ut à terrâ absorberentur; quædamque campanula statutis diei horis, quâ vocante veniebant ad preces, auditur."-LUItprand, p. 56. ANOTHER Writer, Julianus in Adversariis, multiplies the wonder. "Frequentes in quibusdam Hispaniæ locis audiuntur subtus terram sonitus campanarum, ubi creduntur fuisse monasteria sacrarum Virginum, quæ ne venirent in salacium Maurorum manus, petierunt à terrâ sorberi, ut in jugis Car 1 See PELLOUTIER, Dictionnaire de la Langue Bretonne, in v. "Teüs." 2 Cf. Ibid. in vv. Carrighell, &c. Ancou. J. W. W. [Self-removal of the Executioner's Falchion.] "WHAT shall we say to this prodigious thing, which the executioners of justice upon malefactors, whom we cannot name without horror, find to be true too often ; namely, that when any such malefactor is to be delivered into their hands, the sword or faulchion, that they are wont to use in this business, removes itself, no man coming so much as near it as it is at large discoursed of by Lavaterus in his book de Spectris, and Natalis Taillepied, in his treatise de Locrine. "CRAFTI Mon for sothe he wes; Chronicle of England, v. 125. [Deadly Venom of the Salamander.] "VENENUM Salamandri tam grave, ut si arborem tetigit, poma omnia veneno teteremoriantur."-PLIN. 1. 29, c. 4.1 rimo inficit; et qui ex eis edant subito www [Mysterious Name of Rome.] "ROME had an elder and mysterious name, which it was death to pronounce."F. DE OCAMPO, 1. 20. 12. On what classical authority? [Cader Idris.] "ON the very summit of Cader Idris there is an excavation in the solid rock, re sembling a couch; and it is said that who ever should rest a night in that seat, will be found in the morning either dead, raving mad, or endued with supernatural genius.” -DAVIES. Celtic Researches. 1 These are not Pliny's exact words, but, I suspect, a note made up from them. The reference is correct. It is well known in India that the Musk Rat will infect a whole bin of Madeira.-J. W. W. [Insula Viventium.] When the GIRALDUS says, "there is an isle in a lake in North Munster called Insula Viventium, because no one can die in it. inhabitants are mortally sick, and would rather die than linger on in misery, they are put into a boat and wafted over to the larger isle, where, as soon as they land, they expire." "This is the same," says LEDWICH," as the Icelandic Udainsaker, or Land of the Immortals, of which Bartholine tells us, that it is situated in North Iceland, that the natives believe no one can die there, although labouring under a deadly sickness, until he is carried out of its precincts; and that therefore the inhabitants have deserted it, fearing all the terrors of death, without enjoying the prospect of release." Δῆμος Ονείρων. "ACCORDING to Pythagoras the Añpos 'Ovɛipwr, the People of Dreams, are souls which are collected in the milky way. This, says Thomas Taylor, admirably elucidates these lines in Odyss. xxiv. 11. [Manichæan. v. Beausobre. T. 1. 144.]` Πὰρ δῖσαν Ὠμεανᾶ τε ῥοὰς καὶ Λευκάδα πέτρην, Ἠδὲ παρ ̓ ἠελίοιο πύλας, καὶ δῆμον ὀνείρων Ηισαν· αἶψα δίκοντο κατ' ασφοδελὸν λειμώνα, Ενθά τε ναίεσι ψυχαί, εἴδωλα καμόντων. For it is evident from hence that the souls of the suitors passed through the galaxy, or the seats of the blessed, according to the most ancient theology; and I doubt not but Homer describes in these lines the complicated progression of an impure soul till it regains its original habitation in the stars, and again begins to gravitate to this terrene abode."― Restoration of the Platonic Theology. [Virtue of Pulverized Testicles.] “NEQUE est verum quod dicunt rustici, quod ubi per violentiam quis sectus est, non their mistresses by carrying bachelors' buttons (the flower of the Lychnis kind so called) in their pockets. They judged of their good or bad success by their growing or not growing there."-Note to Shakespeare. BOSWELL'S, vol. 8, p. 114. Savage Superstitions. [Earthquakes at Tongataboo.] "Ar Tongataboo they account for their frequent earthquakes, by supposing the island rests upon the shoulders of a very powerful deity called Mowee, who has supported it for such a length of time as exceeds their conceptions. This heavy burden endeavours, but in vain, to shake it off; often exhausts his patience, and then he which, however, never fails to excite a horrid outcry over the whole country, that lasts for some time after the shock is over, and we have sometimes seen them endeavour to quell his discontent and reduce him to good behaviour, by beating the ground with large sticks.-Tongaloer, the god of the sky, and Fenoulonga, of the rain, they suppose to be males. Besides these, they have a great many others of both sexes, over earth, sea, and sky, each acting in their proper sphere, and sometimes counteracting one another, according as interest or inclination leads them. They also acknowledge the existence of a great number of strange gods, calling them by the general name of Fyga, among whom they rank ours as the greatest; and when they think it will answer their purpose, they will readily acknowledge him as far wiser, and in every respect better than theirs, having taught us to make so much better ships, tools, cloth, &c. than they have ever been able to do. Besides these, they imagine every individual to be under the power and control of a spirit peculiar to himself, which they call Odooa, who interests himself in all their concerns, but is little regarded till angry, when they think he inflicts upon them all the deadly disorders to which they are sub |