ther the syllogism itself was a universal, a particular, a plain, a complex, a conjunctive or a compound syllogism, it is far beyond my learning to determine; but this I can say with confidence, that never was prediction so fallacious, or argument so unsound; for, as to gold-alack, alack, I have never possessed any;-as to genius-it is true, at school I was called a genius by way of derision; and finally, as to rising in the world-I have gradually sunk, even from that humble rank in which my parents had reared me, until I am hourly exclaiming in despair,

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen; Fallen from my low estate.

But that the dream, although falsely interpreted, had a relation to myself, will clearly appear from the sequel of my history. From the earliest age at which I could form or express a consistent and continuous desire, the earnest and eager wish of my heart was to enjoy an ascent in a balloon. This idea was present to me night and day. When my schoolmaster used to say that my head was an empty ball, directly did I think of a balloon. When the ushers declared my scull to be full of nothing but wind, immediately did I picture to myself a balloon inflated with gas: did they vociferate that I was always in the clouds, I palpitated at the idea of an ascent into the ærial regions. Never did my parents trace this strong organic desire to bear any analogy to the glorious ascent of the bubble, which appeared in the dream. Unfortunately for me, in the elation of my classical knowledge, I had read to my parents my school-lesson from Ovid-the "Mors Phaetontis," and when, at the age of eighteen, I earnestly solicited them to let me accompany an aeronaut in his ascent from St. James's Park, my poor old mother, with tears in her eyes, would say, "my child, who was that there man you read of in your French history, who would be obstinate and drive his father's coach, and was upset and dashed to pieces!" "That, my dear mother, was Phaeton." "Well, my son, you will be exactly like Phaeton, if you go driving about the clouds in a balloon; can't you sit quiet by the fire-side as we do?"" But, my dear mother, Phaeton drove in a chariot

with fiery horses, and-"" 'Pshaw," said my mother, interrupting me," don't and me, I beg of you; what is a balloon, I should like to know, but a chariot in the clouds; the only difference is, that the one has horses, and the other hasn't." There was no replying to an argument so illogically put; and I remained in a state of hopeless anxiety, until "heaven soon granted what my sire denied." The Emperor of the French entered Moscow, and which gave me the means of gratifying my desire. How Buonaparte's entering Moscow could influence my ascent in a balloon, when I was residing in a village in Wales, may be no very easy matter to conceive; but such is evidently the fact, and can be proved, secundum artem, e. g. Napoleon enters Moscow, which destroys his army; which enables the allies to over-run France; which leads to a peace; which peace enables the English, and myself amongst them, to visit Paris; and the presence of which English induces a French aeronaut to propose an ascent for their amusement; and which proposal enables me, being present, to offer myself as his companion de voyage; and which offer, in consideration of a few dozen napoleons, the said aerostatic philosopher is induced to accept :-and thus have I made out most clearly, that my going up in a balloon was the natural result of Napoleon le grand entering Moscow at the head of his army: and fortunate would it have been for mankind, if all weighty matters, and knotty points in law, physic, politics and divinity had been established by as good and consistent a chain of reasoning. The wily Frenchman calculated that, as an Englishman, I must have plenty of money; and seeing my great anxiety upon the subject, he wrought me to such a pitch of eagerness, by artfully interposing difficulties and delays, that at length I was totally in his power; and he exacted from me an enormous sum, for allowing me to be seated in his car during the intended invasion of the kingdom of the birds. Now, thought I, my mother's dream is realized. The bubble will ascend,---gold is the motive of the aeronaut,---and I shall be a rising character. D. E. W,

(To be continued.)

Levinus Lemnius, in his Treatise of Complexions, relates that a young nobleman of the court of Charles V. being condemned to die, during the night succeeding the passing of his sentence, was changed from the bloom of youth to the extremest haggardness of old age; so that his most intimate relatives knew not the handsome courtier in the decrepid, wasted, and hoary-headed figure which stood before them. Such were the effects of fear anticipating dissolution: but we are told by that veritable historian, Eckstormius, of one who, having been lost in some of the haunted caverns of the Harz Forest, was so tormented by the spirits and demons of that place, as to come out from thence grey and aged, although but a few days before he had entered in the prime of manhood: such were the effects of looking upon sights and creatures, above the powers of human nature. I can readily conceive the truth of these histories, although they may appear to many to be composed of that kind of romantic incident, which common minds imagine to border upon falsehood; for the sights which I had witnessed had so altered me, that even my most intimate friends could scarcely have discovered the young and handsome Raymond Mortlake, in the wan emaciated figure which I now presented. The characters of an impetuous and somewhat supercilious youth, which my face bore when I first left Zetland, were the only traits of feature that remained to me; for the dreadful visions, which I looked upon, had fixed that glance of wildness and impetuosity; and the spirits, with whom I had so fortuitously associated, had imparted somewhat of their own malignantly-smiling looks

to my already sarcastic countenance. As for all the rest, the luxuriant raven locks, the ruddy cheek, the fair brigh eye, and the light step of youth,—they were gone:-as irrevocably gone, as if I had for ages been the prisoner of the grave! My hair had either fallen off or turned to a "sable silver;" my cheek, sunken and extended, had changed to a pale and fadeless brown; my eyes, although perchance more piercing than before, had retired deep into their sockets, and shone only with a wan sepulchral brightness; and my light springing step was altered into a slow and silent pace, while my arms were crossed, and my dejected looks were fixed upon the ground. Oh! in very truth, the description, which a modern poet has given of a wandering and unhappy Palmer, was as perfectly my resemblance, as if at this period of my life I had furnished the picture.

"His eye look'd haggard wild; Poor wretch! the mother that him bare, If she had been in presence there In his wan face, and sun-burned hair, She had not known her child. Danger, long travel, want and woe Soon change the form that best we knowFor deadly fear can time outgo,

And blanch at once the hair;

Nor does old age a wrinkle trace
More deeply than despair."

Under these unhappy circumstances, a milder sky and a more cheerful scene than those which either my own country of Zetland, or the bleak atmosphere of the Brocken mountain could furnish, became every day more and more essential; and the climate of Italy, while it seemed to promise the reviviscency

of my decayed frame, seemed also to hold out to me the gratification of a fourth of my romantic wishes, the desire to descend into the crater of a burning mountain, and to behold that crater pouring forth its dreadful contents to the upper air. It seemed, as the Scottish covenanters of the seventeenth century used frequently to declare of their own internal feelings "to be borne in upon my soul" that I should not pass away from time to eternity, until I had seen all that my wayward imagination led me to desire; and I thorefore yielded without hesitation to that advice, which pointed to Italy as my next residence, conscious that in following it, I at once consulted my own desires and fulfilled my future destiny. Hitherto the rapidity, with which the gratification of one wish had succeeded to another, had left me but little time free from that violent excitement of mind which I have described in my last paper, or for noting down the very extraordinary scenes which I had witnessed; but now, years elapsed before I enjoyed the completion of my next adventure. It is true, that during this period I met with many lesser circum. stances of great interest, but one of the chief objects of my remaining life was long delayed and protracted. The distant and laborious journey over land from Hanover to Torre del Greco, in the Gulph of Naples, I endured rather than delighted in; and it was with great satisfaction that I found myself in a handsome casino belonging to the Conte di Lermia in that town, to whom I had been furnished with letters of introduction, from my friends both in France and Germany. A romantic man is never an undefined character; for if he be of a reserved temper of mind, he will carry it to a great extreme; and if he be of an enthusiastic disposition, he will endeavour to impart a portion of his warmth of feeling to all with whom he may associate. It is entirely according to the power of the passing circumstances, what spirit - he shall asume he is the chancellor of metaphysical faction, the truest barometer of the impressions of the soul. All this, which I have drawn from the most perfect and repeated experience, was often manifested to me, whilst I remained under the hospitable roof of Lorenzo di Lermia. If perchance, in the seasons of night and solitude, the

calm serenity of an Italian sky, somewhat shrouded from its day glories, brought me again into that musing melancholy which had formerly continually remained about me, the engagements of the following day, literary, picturesque, or elegant as they might chance to be, and above all, the delightful and refined society I enjoyed at the Casino di Lermia, soon banished my calm sorrow, and I became as enthusiastic in joy. During the many years which I spent with the Conte, he grew perfectly well acquainted with the history of my former life, and the extravagant wishes which I had formed. It then seemed as it were, that he ardently desired to retain me with him, until I should have witnessed the wonders of Mount Vesuvius, at the foot of which his casino was situate. "What," he would say, when I attempted to express my thanks for his hospitality, and persuade him to permit my departure; "what, shall you who have seen the most astonishing sights in three elements, and in three different nations, depart from a fourth unsatisfied? No, Signor Raymond; no, Caro Mio, it may not be. You are far from being a common character, and your curiosity is far from being a common curosity. Italy will yet add another wonder to your catalogue, and believe me it would be a foul stain upon the House of Lermia, not to be proud of entertaining so interesting a stranger."

With these and similar words, did my amiable friend detain me with him from month to month and from year to year; but though in that time I made many a visit to Vesuvius, yet my mind was always impressed with the belief that a more remarkable one was yet to come. For some time previous to the terrific and devastating eruption of Vesuvius in 1791, the mountain was continually expected to burst into flame; for it acts as its own record, by the different courses of lava which appear upon its sides, for it foretells its own seasons of inflammation, by a thousand circumstances, which they who are accustomed to watch its motions know well how to interpret. It was early in June 1794, that I determined to make another tour up Vesuvius; as for some time previous, all these signs which usually precede a tremendous explosion, had been particularly evident.

The waters had decreased in the Wells of Torre del Greco; the sun and moon had appeared of an unusually red colour; the earth had uttered thundering sounds, and emitted slight volumes of smoke; and the mountain itself, al though it had been peculiarly calm and clear for some time before, had yet occasionally sent up small tree-shaped clouds of smoke, and was now enrapt in thick vapour for some distance beneath its crater. It was upon the evening before I ascended Vesuvius, that I was seated enjoying the beautiful moonlight in the veranda of the Casino di Lermia, surrounded by the Conte and Contessa, with several other persons of distinction and literature, when the conversation turned upon the comparative power of various feelings or pas sions on the mind of man. Some declared the passions of friendship, love, or gratitude, to be the strongest; others asserted that ambition was more powerful; and a third class supposed, that each of these was inferior to the influence of wealth., For my own part, though I have experienced all these excepting the last, (which I praise Heaven is totally unknown to me), I consider that none of them is equal to the sway of superstition. "It is," said I, when speaking in defence and illustration of my own argument, "it is a feeling which is so perfectly natural to man, that it would be found in him whether he were brought up in the wildest solitude, or in savage life, or in the most refined society. The philosopher thinks he destroys it by reason; but it is not so, he only deadens it, and a thousand minute, but decisive circumstances would prove its existence in his breast. We have it, although we may not be continually aware of it, yet almost every incident of life calls it into action; and, if we were minutely to analyse our feelings upon any given subject, we should certainly find some tincture of it: some catching at slight matters, which we imagine make for our wishes, or are likely to overthrow them: some searching for omens of success, or tokens of failure. Nor is all this a curse to mankind, since it causes them to be attentive to every occurrence, by which means truth is often developed; and to remember actions long since passed, by which coincidences are often brought forward to illustrate the most material points, that might otherwise have been

forgotten for ever. In ardent and enthusiastic minds, although the feeling of superstition act violently upon such flexile materials, it will produce many an amiable action, many a chivalric exploit, and give to the mind many a grand imaginative scene, or draw from it many a wild yet original idea; it will excite such an one to hazard all the dangers of all the elements where it commands him to proceed, and to turn away from all that love could suggest, beauty display, riches bestow, or ambition offer, where it directs him to refrain. The language of superstition too is one of her principal spells; it is never weak nor inelegant, but it is always lofty, imperious, mystic, and sublime. It is that, as well as her actions, which gives her such power over mankind, since they listen to her as to a most potent deity, whose voice is thunder, and whose word is fate. You may indeed be assured, that however unwilling we may be to acknowledge it to others, or however desirous we may be to conceal it from ourselves, that superstition is ever in our thoughts: I doubt if Italy could furnish a more polished and enlightened society than that which I am now addressing; but eyen here, if circumstances called this feeling into action, depend upon it that superstition would be found in the hearts of us all.”

As I concluded this speech, much of which was excited rather by experience of myself than of the world in general, we heard the strings of a guitar struck under the veranda, and presently there advanced towards us a man of an aged appearance, in a common peasant's dress. His hair, which was still flowing and curled, was of a silvery whiteness; and his face, which had doubtless been peculiarly handsome in his youth, had not yet lost all its pretensions to beauty. "Servitore, Gentilnomini," said the old man in a clear and musical voice, "will it please you to listen to Old Ricciardetto il Rimare, the Improvistore of Torre del Greco ? What subject shall I take for my verses, noble Conte?"

"Nay, I care not," said di Lermia, and then half smiling, he said, "Signor Raymond, there cannot be a more original one than yourself; and besides, it will try old Ricciardetto's improvisatorial skill, for he can scarcely have heard of such a romantic being before;