the French shape, which concealed its long beak and large pouch admirably.

Their meals are regularly taken about the same time as in England, and are certainly more suitable to a climate where there is very little night, than to our's in which the fashionable season has hardly any day. There is, as I have told you, no conversation at their parties; but a number of bats are employed, who fly from house to house with the news of the day written on their broad leather wings, which answer the purpose of our morning and evening papers perfectly well. I took some pains to discover whether they have any poets or novellists, but could only find one fragment or sketch of a romance, which is preserved with extraordinary care, as a relic left by the first founders of this colony. 1 judge from its style, language, and other circumstances, that it cannot be of great antiquity; and when you have read my extract, which I annex as well as I could decypher and comprehend such a perplexed MS. you will certainly concur in my opinion, that this colony must have been transplanted from Europe much more recently than the Norwegians in 1406, or the great Briorn who emigrated before (as Swedish historians say) the three stars shone in the West.

PLAN of the ROMANCE, or HISTORICAL

NOVEL.

Chapter 1. The Battle of Shrewsbury. Lord Craggycliff commands King Henry's hussars, and is slain by the wind of a bullet.

Chapter 2. King Henry IV. dines with Lady C. in Grosvenor square, on his return from Shropshire. Ward and Frescati arrange the supper and orange-trees. Lady C. dismisses the heroine, Starchissa, her orphan protegée, because she asked Lord John of Lancaster for an ice

cream.

Chapter 3. The heroine writes a sonnet to a tea-kettle in the ruins of Twenty-ghosts' Abbey, and sees a Knight with fair hair and large eyes carrying mouse-traps. They fall in love of course. Chapter 4 Owen Glendower, the cele

brated magician, assures Starchissa that the mouse-trap knight is Hotspur's son and heir in disguise. Chapter 5. Sir Eglamour de Mousetraps informs his beloved, that Lord Craggycliff's last codicil provides

an annuity for his wife's protegée, and advises her to claim it. Chapter 6. Starchissa, in her way to Doctors' Commons, sees Prince John of Lancaster driving the Mail-Coach, and to conceal herself takes a place inside. Chapter 7. Lord C.'s ghost appears in the shape of a Proctor, and announces that the annuity is left to Lady Craggycliff's orphan lapdog of the same name.

Chapter 8. Sir Eglamour de Mousetraps declares himself married to the Queen of Noland; and Starchissa having written an ode with a gold pencil, in a damp grotto, expires.

you

I think will consider me justified in supposing these fair-haired inhabitants of an ice-valley, ab origine English: especially as they have not yet lost their fondness for emigrating. At a certain period of the year, this singular atmosphere gives every object a blue tint; an operation which our natural philosophers have explained very satisfactorily as a necessary consequence of certain vapours, and nitrous particles. When this period arrives, the colony having no means of changing their abode on land, amuse themselves with a short voyage or change of scene on the back of a kraken which visits this coast; and are much gratified by their abode on it, though the floating island which its back affords is covered only with sand and sea-weeds. But this monstrous fish is not without its due portion of sagacious instinct; and by means of his large suckers, draws in so great a quantity of the supplies they bring with them, that the poor travellers are compelled to return home half famished. In addition to this wandering propensity, I trace some traits of English character in their disproportioned number of lawyers and physicians. They have also a common class of thieves who resemble our's, because they are openly educated for that avocation, and pursue it without disguise. But their prisonregulations are new, and deserve your notice as a civilian. Instead of imprisoning rogues, they only shut up honest men, that (as they profess) they may know where to find them, and prevent them from becoming thieves. This wonderfully lessens the number of pri

soners, and the trouble of the police, since prevention, saith our law, is easier than cure.

All these indications of sagacity and discretion induced Professor Cacanous, my literary companion, to consider from what imperfect conformation of organs these people's want of speech could proceed. And as both science and humanity impelled bim to ascertain and remedy it if possible, he procured the aid of our surgeon's mate; and having enticed one of the natives into a secure part of the long avenue which leads to their tenements, he began to examine his pericranium according to the rules of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim. From the outline of the os frontis, he concluded the organ of communication was not sufficiently developed; and being a practical proficient in the science, he seized the poor native, and prepared to make an incision into his skull, intending to rectify and enlarge the cell of the brain. He was on the point of the experiment, when his patient made a violent effort to escape, and begged for mercy in very articulate English. Our surprise was great, but pleasant; and he assured us, that, according to their national institutes, they were only dumb at home. He offered to teach us their peculiar idiom; confessing, how ever, that they studied all languages more than their own. We should have embraced his kindness eagerly; but the captain of our ship notified that our leave of absence was expired, and interrupted this newly-opened intercourse by demanding our immediate return on board. Still, as our passage through Baffin's Bay is very doubtful, we shall probably sail back by the same course, and renew our acquaintance with this hospitable colony, whose origin and traditions may afford us some amusement.

(To be continued.)

ON WITCHCRAFT.

V.

S the belief in Witchcraft is one of the most ancient of human superstitions, so it is one with which mankind seem to have been most reluctant to part; and it was not until they had been divested of nearly all other like infatuations, that they ceased to credit the possibility of an intercourse being maintained by buman beings with the evil spirits of another world.

Even at the present day, many enlightened persons will not deny the existence of Witchcraft at remote periods, although in Europe the practice of it is at present universally discredited. Most of these found their belief upon passages of the Scriptures, and upon narrations which have come down to us with as much of the semblance of truth as any other historical relations.

All that there is in the shape of testimony on the subject is conflicting; for on the one hand, in all countries and in all ages, the existence of Witches has been acknowledged, apparently well attested relations of their powers have been handed down to us, and in most civilized countries punishments have been provided for the crime by the legal authorities. On the other hand, the whole force of our experience, is, it must be confessed, strongly against the belief; for, although many attempts have been made of late years to confirm the truth of such circumstances, they have, without any exception, been ultimately proved to be the effects of imposition and fraud; and the only generally insisted on proof in the Scriptures, (1 allude to the Witch of Endor,) has been thought by many to have been an effect beyond the power, and even to the astonishment of the Witch herself, and rather regarded as a divine interposition than as the result of her incanta tions.

It seems to me that upon the whole, the proofs of the existence of Witches are defective, because, although tales of their powers are numerous, yet there does not seem in any of the instances related, a sufficient cause for the Almighty Ruler of the World, whose decrees are perfectly just, and therefore, perfectly wise, to suffer the existence of such crimes as this practice would introduce into the world, and the placing such enormous and almost unlimited power in the bands of persons, who (as these Witches without exception were,) were unable from their ignorance, poverty, or infirmity, to use it to proper ends.

"I do not love to credit tales of magic

Heaven's music which is order seems unstrung,

And this brave world,

(The mystery of God,) unbeautified, Disordered, marred, where such strange things are acted."

And that amongst them was "an old minister who had been many years a painful preacher."

His most usual victims were persons who from their age, poverty, or deformity, were already unjustly the objects of popular prejudice, and whose misfortunes, instead of protecting them, provoked the blood thirsty spirit of this Witchfinder, while the burthen of their misery rendered them unable to contend with his detestable artifices.

Exclusive of the gift, or natural talent, which this man affected to possess, he pretended to discover Witches by marks or spots on their bodies, which be said were the seals of the diabolical compact entered into by them for the sale of their souls to the powers of darkness. The effect of this seal was to render the part insensible, the test therefore, was by thrusting a needle or some sharp instrument into it; if no blood followed, or no pain was felt by the unhappy subject of this experiment, it was decisive evidence of her being a Witch. It frequently happened that this test was not offered until by previous torture the poor wretch had been rendered insensible to the slight degree of pain caused by it, and the operators were too sanguinary aud too much interested to delay the execution of their horrid barbarities. Some old persons too were convicted, in consequence of having warts, which sometimes growing large and pendulous, were decided by the witchfinding critics to be teats for the suckling young imps.

Another method of discovering Witchcraft was by placing the accused person on a stool or table in the centre of a room crosslegged, or in some other uneasy posture, in which he or she was continued by being bound with cords, and thus watched and kept without meat and drink for 24 hours, this being the period during which the imp mast come and suck. It cannot be wondered that weak and ignorant persons, under the infirmities of age, and suffering such tortures, should be agitated to phrensy and induced to confess any thing how ever false or ridiculous, for the purpose

of putting a period to their misery, death itself being preferable to such torments. But the dernier ressort, the darling expedient of this Witchfinder, was by tying together the toes and thumbs of the persons suspected, a cord being then fastened about the waist and held on the bank by two men. If upon this experiment they swam, it was a satisfactory proof of guilt. This ingenious method is said to have been invented by James the Ist, who gave as a reason for it, that "as such persons had renounced their baptism by water, so the water refused to receive them."

After this detail of the detestable barbarities committed by this miscreant Hopkins, it is with gratification we learn that his great skill in witch finding led to the belief that it was through diabolical assistance that he was enabled to do so. "That he cast out Devils through Beelzebub." In conséquence, his favourite swimming experiment was tried upon himself, and he was upon the event condemned and executed for a Wizard!

The different modes in which this subject has been treated by the poets, of the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James Ist, will shew the difference of public opinion entertained on it, and how much more force the belief had gained in Ford's days than it possessed with Middleton and Shakspeare. These, although they agree in familiarly introducing them, have used them for quite different purposes, and the similarity thought by some to subsist between will not cast the imputation of plagiarism on either when it is recollected, that the mere general feature (in which alone the resemblance can be traced) were drawn by both from the same sources.

The Witches of Shakspeare seem to be perfectly poetical beings above humanity, and having no affections in common with created beings. They seem to be less agents of evil beings, than the very spirits of evil; they ap pear unsought for to generate impure thoughts in the breast of Macbeth, and do not actually interfere to assist his desiges, but by tempting his ambition they

"raise such artificial sprights, As by the strength of their illusion, Shall draw him on to his confusion."

Middleton's Witches are many degrees beneath Shakspeare's in point of sublimity; they are agents of wickedness,

delighting in the misery they inflict on mankind, and lending their assistance to any one who seeks them for this purpose.

Tis for the love of mischief they do this, And that they're sworn to the first oath

they take."

Again: they are more in common life than the Weird Sisters, their feelings seem more of earth. Hecate has a son, and the other Witches have names -they delight to soar

"In moon-light nights o'er steeple tops, Mountains and pine trees, that like pricks or stops

Seem to our height: high towers and roofs of princes,

Like wrinkles in the earth; whole provinces

Appear to our sight, then even like
A russet mole upon some lady's cheek,
When hundred leagues in air we feast

And sing,

Dance, kiss, and coll, use every thing." Ford's Mother Sawyer is the mere common Witch of a country town, beaten and despised for her age and infirmities; the revilings and scorn of her oppressors drive her to Sorcery; she is in short the very Witch of James 1st. "And why on me, why should the envious world

Throw all their scandalous malice upon

made so,

Forespeaks their cattle, doth bewitch
their corn.
Themselves, their servants, and their
babes at nurse;

This they enforce upon me, and in part
Make me to credit it."

It is, however, happy for us that whether the fact be that such practices have or have not existed, it is of no consequence either to our faith as Christians, or to our happiness as men; and as we look back into the prejudices of our ancestors, and tracing their superstitions, blush for, while we condemn them, we may congratulate ourselves that we live in times when such things are neither practised nor credited.

RECOLLECTIONS

OF A

METROPOLITAN CURATE.

Introductory Chapter.

"To use many circumstances ere you come to the matter is wearisome, and to use none at all is but blunt."

BACON'S ESSAYS.

I learned, and vatt is more, of

T was an observation of a very

very good man, with whom I had the satisfaction of forming an intimacy when I first entered upon my metropolitan ministry, that he thought it a duty incumbent upon every indivi dual who had received a liberal education, not to leave the world without adding something to its stock of knowledge."-As my estimable friend said this in reference to himself, I was con vinced he was so far correct in his posi tion.

But it does not fail to the lot of

every educated man to be possessed of so much power to fulfil such a duty, as this excellent scholar, if he had not been

one of the most humble as well as the most intelligent of mea, might have boasted of in an eminent degree. Be had passed his life in classical pursuits, and was a profound Hebrew scholarHe was also engaged in a new transla. tion of the book of Genesis when he made the above remark to me, as he took down from one of his book shelves the unfinished MSS., which, had he lived to complete it, it was the opinion of many literary men, would have been a very valuable acquisition to biblical literature, as it would have been en tirely free from those visionary distortious and dreaming innovations with which some recent commentators and translators have deformed and perverted the sacred text.

However this may be (for I shall find a better opportunity, in the course of these recollections, to dwell upon this subject). I remember that my friend's observation struck me very forcibly at the time it was made; and most sincerely do I regret, that he who uttered it did not live to exemplify it, as I am sure he would have done, greatly to the edification of the Christian world:

"But while he strove to gain a glorious

pame,

Death check'd the effort, and refus'd the fame."