No seaman could ever have invented the word bore that word expressive, in those who use it habitually and naturally, of a low standard of vital force, and as such filling us with pity and melancholy; though the bored one is possibly supported by that sense of superiority which goes nowadays with caring for few things. For with us affectation takes the line of weariness and of flagging power. We gather from old writers that vivacity used to be the thing simulated. sense of decorum by giving dinner-parties on her death-bed. When we find Schiller pronouncing her, of all living creatures he ever met, the most vivacious, we understand it better. Death is an idea so alien to persons of this temperament that, though the reason assents to it as a fact, it cannot overshadow their minds. The victims of bile, indigestion, and all such lowering, depressing influences may live to old age in spite of them, but they must still be afflicted by fears and imaginations suggestive of decay She tripped and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand. and extinction, all their faults and sins beThe reigning toast would run into a drawing doubled and blackened in men's eyes by the mere misfortune of a sullen temperaing-room with an air of delighted expectation. And the obsolete terms for male dan- ment. Charles Lamb was peculiarly susdyism — “bloods,” “bucks,” and so forth ceptible of the charm of vitality and the repleads, in favor of the old comedies, for a pulsiveness of the morbid temper. world apart from morals, where vigour and life, in which the dramatis persona of these productions are so pre-eminent, shall stand instead of merit; in fact, be virtue for the time being. And he draws a picture of and shows to what excesses a dry and scansaturnine Hazlitt which makes bile a vice, "I took him," he ty vitality can reach. - all point to excess of vivacity as having been once the mode. He writes, "to see a very pretty girl, where there were two young girls; the head and sum of the girlery was two young girls; they neither laughed nor sneered nor giggled nor whispered, but they were young girls; and he sat and frowned blacker and black As few persons have taste enough to manage a truly exuberant life gracefully, it is apt to incur the charge of vulgarity with more or less justice. There is a triumphant vulgarity to be found in all ranks which no doubt owes its success to this quality; indeed no one, whether duchess or washerwoman, cockney or bagman, can be picturesquely, strikingly, dramatically vulgar without it. For a full sense of life saves from self-consciousness, timidity, and a host of inward restraints, and will and must have a field. This exuberance being an excess of health, it has nothing to do with the excitability which burns the candle of life at bother, indignant that there should be such ends, and which especially belongs to poets. De Quincey speaks of the self-consuming fire that burnt up the life of Wordsworth and his sister. They lived faster than other people; and he was taken for sixty before he was forty. The eager spirit had wrought within him— Those shocks and passions to prepare This is so little the case with the healthy vitality of which we speak, and which is conspicuous in all great men whose genius lies in action and in commerce with mankind, that the most remarkable instance of this vigour that the world has lately seen kept its owner sprightly and juvenile till far past the ordinary age of man. But this vivacity of life does not necessarily imply longevity, just as a man may exist to a hundred without it. It only enables a person to live while he lives, and to enjoy life while he has it. "With the exception of three mortal diseases," writes Sidney Smith, "I am quite well." Life in him would not flag or give in. Madame de Staël shocks our things as youth and beauty, till he tore me away before supper in perfect misery, and owned he could not bear young girls, they drove him mad." It is notable of Hazlitt, as the opposite of the airy temperament we have changed a single opinion. A fulness have dwelt upon, that he boasted never to of life, on the contrary, leads to variation, modification, and advance. Not to change with time and events means to stagnate, to brood, to feed upon oneself, and in fact disqualifies a man for active usefulness. An energetic vitality adapts man to the state of things in which he must live, and so of all things-even more than pure intellect itself-is the way to success. If we wonder, as we so often have to do, why the gifted man is left behind in the race, and the fellow he used to beat with ease is miles before him, we shall usually find that life has carried it over mere brains; and so it must, if we consider that it, of all things, has most hold over the present. Very few men, says Swift, live in the present; most people are providing to live another time. An energetic life is a constant sense of the now, and a faculty of making the most of it. POETRY: Ladies' Luggage; or Hard Lines by a Brute, 706. Death of Summer, 706. Literary Coincidence, 706. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, 706. SHORT ARTICLES: Courtliness in Common Life, 735. Aqueous Vapour in the Stars, 735. Shakspeare in Time of Charles II., 735. NEW BOOKS. THE DECISIVE CONFLICTS OF THE LATE CIVIL WAR OR SLAVEHOLDERS' REBELLION. No. 1, The Maryland Campaign of Sept., 1862, South Mountain, and Antietam. By J. Watts De Peyster, Brev. Maj.-Gen. Ñ. G. S. N. Y. New York: Macdonald & Co. Preparing for publication at "The Living Age" Office: 1. THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS' FOLLY. 2. GRACES'S FORTUNE. 3. TENANTS OF MALORY. 4. BROWNLOWS. SIR DOUGLAS. 5. OLD PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on les" than a year; nor where we have to pay crmmission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series,in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second * The Complete work "6 20 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. LITERARY COINCIDENCE. IN M. Charles Baudelaire's "Fleurs du Mal,” ed. 1861, I find a poem called "Le Guignon," (No. xi. p. 30). I will quote the whole of it, and then offer a suggestion on the sources of M. Baudelaire's ideas : Pour soulever un poids si lourd, Loin des sépultures célèbres,} Mon cœur, comme un tambour voilé, "TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR." IF you think the error sufficiently important to notice in your pages, you will, perhaps insert the following correction. In a volume of "Verses and Translations," by C. S. Calvery, published by Bell & Daldy, 1862, at page 24, appear the following lines: Ere the moon the East has crimsoned, When the stars are trembling there, As they did in Watts's hymns, and Made him wonder what they were. Twinkle, twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are. was written by Ann and Jane Taylor of Ongar. There is a charm in its beautiful simplicity which will preserve it as a children's hymn when the "bears and lions" of Dr. Watts are buried and forgotten. JOHN W. FORD. FOLK LORE FOLK LORE is a modern word, telling in its very construction of the period of its formation. We feel as sure that it belongs to the stratum of the Teutonic Archaism as we do that Popular Superstition' is of the Latin Deposit. Even the former, in comparison with that of its lengthy synonym, is a proof of the different estimation it has attained. The monosyllables give dignity, the polysyllables cast a slur. Folk, as connected with the great conquering Volken, are ancient and honourable; but popular, and vulgar, albeit from the same root, have both deteriorated in significance in their transit through Latin. Lore infers something to be learnt and sought out; superstition is the excess of belief, and implies that it ought to be discarded and forgotten. In effect the beliefs and customs that fell under the stigma of superstition were driven to such remote corners under that opprobrious title, that now that they have become lore, and scholars and philologists perceive their value, contempt for them has become so current that their repositories among the peasantry are ashamed of them, and it requires no small amount of address to enable an educated person to extract an account of them, more especially since, strange and interesting as they may be to the antiquary, many are far more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Parson, doctor, and schoolmaster, must blame and condemn them in practice, even though the next generation will lose much that is racy and amusing. On the whole we believe that the old nurse's fable is more in vogue than it has 707 been at any other age of the world. Strongminded men seem as a rule to have always despised mere portents and auguries, and only to have accepted the fables that accounted for natural phenomena, because no other solution had been discovered. And the religion of truth always waged war against them. A true Israelite under the old dispensation was taught to be as free from all superstition as a Christian of the present day; and from Moses on to the later books of the Old Testament, there is a continual denunciation of the various magic practices that were caught from the heathens. The early Christian teachers in like manner forbade all varieties of divination, and modes of securing good luck, on the same principle, i.e., that the Second Commandment is infringed by trust in whatever is not of God; and in the interesting work at the head of our paper, Mr. Henderson has brought together many quotations showing the constant testimony of the Fathers and earlier ecclesiastics against such practices. He collects many such denunciations throughout the Middle Ages, and adds that apparently the Reformation, by diminishing popular reliance on Saints and Angels, absolutely caused the balance to swing back towards the old remnants of heathenism; so that instead of the fairies and elves, being, as merry Bishop Corbett says, all of the old profession,' they would rather have lifted their heads when relieved from the censure of the Church. This is possible, but it may also be that our greater evidence of popular credulity may be caused by the more prominent relief into which a lower grade of persons were raised by the greater fulness of history, and by their own increasing importance. 6 However, there has been, and very rightly, a universal endeavour for at least two centuries, to argue away, laugh down and eradicate all such superstitions, until they have almost perished from the surface, and only remain niched in a few credulous and ignorant minds in remote places, now and then coming into full light, chiefly in some case of obtaining money on false pretences, or of savage revenge on some supposed witch. And when practical and mischievous faith in these superstitions has passed away, it has become the part of scholars to collect them and compare them as valuable and instructive remnants of ancient beliefs. Such researches in able hands have led to very important conclusions, and it is highly desirable that every indication of popular belief should at once be noticed down, just as a specimen in natural history in a 708 new place is recorded not so much for its al. Croker's Irish tales were a most valuown sake as for its connexion with its con-able contribution in themselves, and were geners. told so charmingly as to awaken the popuFolk Lore is a very vague term. It in- lar taste and curiosity. Mr. Keightley becludes all that traditional mass of tales, say- gan to collect and harmonize the old tales ings, beliefs, customs, observances, and and fairy legends of different countries; auguries that are, or recently were, afloat and though no collector has equalled the among the people, accepted and acted upon pair who deserve to be mythologically celeby the lower orders, and more or less even brated as the Giants Grimm, yet the dwarfs by the upper classes. In these there is a standing on their shoulders begin to see Some further than even the giants themselves, and certain amount of simple truth. are remnants of Church customs now dis- collectors and interpreters alike have mulused, and some are relics of old Teuton tiplied within the last few years. Among heathenism. Often, we believe that super- the interpreters we would mention Professstition is the vulgarising of Reverence. or Müller, Mr. Cox, Mr. S. B. Gould, and Awe, devoid of actual fear, is incompre- Mr. Kelly; among the collectors Mr. hensible to the rude and coarse, and when Dasent for Norway and Iceland, Mr. Campthe vulgar see certain things, places, or bell for the Highlands, Mr. Hunt for Cornpersons treated with distant respect, they wall, Mr. Hadland and Mr. Wilkinson for immediately conclude that some dire mate- Lancashire, Mr. Henderson for the counrial effect is apprehended from a contrary ties of Durham and Northumberland, as course. Thus the poor women keep their well as for the Border districts. Here he children quiet in church by appalling threats has been fortunate enough to become posof what the parson will do to them; and the sessed of a MS. collection made by a young legend of Queen Elizabeth's maid of honour man named Wilson, at the request of Sir who died of the prick of a needle on Sun- Walter Scott, but which had failed to reach day has no doubt done much to produce his hands. Add to these the Rev. J. C. Atthe Englishwoman's horror of touching that kinson's contributions to the Monthly Packet, implement; though the tales of the Evan- of the Folk Lore still fresh among the Dagelical Lutheran, Madame Nathusius, rep-nish sprung population of Cleveland resent the pattern German girl as regarding fancy work as part of her Sunday recrea tion. The real range of Folk Lore is worldwide; Kaffir, Negro, Maori, continually amaze us with the resemblance of their traditions to our own; but within this mighty circuit there are divisions; and those superstitions which belong to the Indo-European nations are the most easily compared, as well as the most interesting to ourselves; while again we shall find that the most accessible traditions, and those most easy to compare and classify, are those of the countries where the population consists of Teutons or Kelts, in various proportions, with civilization derived from Rome. work which we hope to see complete and too busy, too practical, too shy of being laughed at, too sophisticated to dwell much on any tradition that does not connect itself with immediate results. They are not narrators of stories, and care little for battlefields. It must be confessed, however, that reMuch has been done towards such collec- searches after English Folk Lore are apt to tions, ever since the brothers Grimm set the be disappointing. Our people in the trueexample in Germany. Mr. Edgar Taylor in-blooded Anglian and Saxon Counties, are troduced their Mährchen 'in England in an elegant selected translation, which, however, coming in the full swing of Edgeworthism, was, we fear, generally regarded as almost too unintellectual for a nursery book. Yet its notes give it a value even above that of the beautiful recent edition de luxe, containing all the Mährchen. Sir Walter Scott meanwhile was, from taste and instinct, collecting all that Border tradition could afford him, viewing it, however, chiefly as poetic materi Mr. Henderson, indeed, relates how a Sunday scholar at Durham preferred a lesson from the Book of Joshua to one from Samuel, because of the fighting in it, and then told his teacher that there had been a |