is close behind. Blunderbuss looks daggers at the Man-mountain queller, and his train of Brobdignagians bite their thumbs scornfully. Upon the brows of Hop-o'-my-Thumb's twelve brothers and sisters glitter the twelve golden crowns, which the twelve young ogres wore as night-caps. Wit hath conquered ferocity-innocence hath outsped the seven-league boots. Room for Majesty-King Cole passeth with his pot in his hand, his pipe in his mouth, dancing to the strain of "his fiddlers three." Ha! a rush of wings -"Peter Wilkins and the flying Indians." Peter, take care of thy wife, or verily she will soar from thee even as a bird-she is a human bird-and leave thee lone and bewildered as thy German namesake, surnamed Schlemel, who walked in the fair sunshine, and cast no shadow! Behold-a mortal in the company of supernaturals! Amid the ringing of fairyland bridles, comes the chatter of a parrot-amid the glitter of fairyland gold, comes a vision of a goat's-hair umbrella, and a rusty axe! Robinson Crusoe, the immortal mortal-object of many a boy's sleeping dreams, and waking sympathies--why shouldst thou not also take thy place in our fool's paradise? Come, with honest Friday, who puzzled thee upon matters theological, Robinson, and bring to our minds again that fearful piece of satire, when, with gun-point levelled against the naked, dancing, unconscious savages,-Oh, Defoe, how bitter was thy wit!-thou mutteredst, "Now, Friday, fire in the name of God!"

How easy is it to summon these visions of half-forgotten boyhood lore around us-to fill the shadowy -to fill the shadowy chamber with a shadowy people! And with all the glittering glancing throng, how curiously are associated in our minds the sources from whence we first drew the ideas of their beauty and variety! Yes, the wellthumbed, dog's-eared, twopenny story book of old days-with its flaring red, blue, or yellow wrapper, and its outrageous woodcuts-was the "conjuration and the mighty magic" that charmed all these spirits from the vasty deep. Now, they are half forgotten. The mind's eye can only see them dimly as through a glass. So be it. We would not again read our nursery Fairy Tales. We are turned sceptical-we fear we should experience some slight difficulty on the score of belief-we have lost the faith that never thought of question-we can enjoy a fairy tale as it should be enjoyed-no more. Yet it is permitted to call them back to recollection, and to summon along with them some faint shadow of that mood of childish mind with which we originally denounced our books"-that mood which knew not incredulity which eagerly received and treasured up any marvel, and then looked gapingly abroad for more! Interesting, too, is it in these musings, and easy as interesting, to trace the physical peculiarities and the characteristic habits of thought reflected in the fabulous literature of each separate people.

story

In the East, indisputably, were the fountains from which welled forth the first streams of supernatural fiction. They have flown through every civilized clime, the waters receiving their tint and tone from the lands they rolled over; but if we would trace the various rivers to their source, we should arrive at one common well-head-and this is reasonable. The East is a land of fertility of matter and of mind. The teeming earth pours forth its treasures in the very wantonness of wealth. Luxuriance there becomes almost rankness. Nature, too, when she is

very prodigal, is eccentric. With stupendous growth is oftentimes united fantastic shape-the richness that cherishes the one forms the other. And can we not trace an analogy between the physical products of the East and its supernatural legends? In both every thing is on a grand scale. The banyan tree covers acres of ground; the Oriental genie rears his head to the very clouds; the deserts, the palaces, the cities of their stories are all vast, for so are the natural features of the land. And then the eastern fertility of imagination-the "Arabian Nights" is the most wonderful work of fancy ever put together. How endless are its combinations! how unflagging its marvels! On, on, proceeds the web of story-telling-each wonder unravelled, more wonderful than its predecessor. There would be no "writing out" the author of the Arabian Nights. But, had they only one author? Could the overflowings of one imagination furnish forth such a tide of fiction? Or were these marvellous tales collected by slow degrees from different lipschaunted, perhaps, to enliven the long night in the caravanserai, or to cheer the hot halt in the desert?

Most of the supernatural beings of Oriental fiction have been reproduced in the fairy literature of other lands. Its genies, however, stand alone in their vastness-peculiar to the bold fancy of the Persian fiction-weaver. In the magi of eastern tale, however, are to be found the prototypes of the enchanters of other lands. The ogre of ours is nothing else than the ghoul of Oriental story; while it is equally clear that from the peri of India sprung the fairy of Europe. And, in this particular, we cannot but think that we have improved upon the original. Beautiful was the peri-pure in mind, high in aspiration, rich in affection. Yet is there something still more delicate in Oberon and Titania. They are what Campbell called humming-birds

"Atoms of the rainbow fluttering round."

How glorious was their moonlight revelry beneath the broad-leaved oaks! How deftly they tripped it, and yet hurt no blade of the dewy grass, which grew the greener from their touch! Mortal eye might not view them, except the eye of genius, which once beheld and recorded the vision of a "Midsummer Night's Dream." But although Titania was bewitched by the love-plant, ere dawn the spell was broken, and the delicate pageant faded with the starlight! The fairies of the more northern countries of Europe were less exquisitely delicate beings than their compeers of the sunny south. They were capricious-spiteful; they envied men their condition, and often wrought them evil; their state was splendid, yet it was deceptive; and when the court rode forth with "bit and bridle ringing," no mortal whose dazzled eyes beheld the scene could guess that its glory was delusion-that the green-robed throng were anxious and unhappy, spite their pretended gaiety, for every seventh year a tribute was to be paid to hell-that their shining palaces were grim caves-their prancing steeds, ragweed switches their broad pieces, clipped leaves. The fairies of the Ariel and Titania mould dwelt "under the blossom that hangs from the bough," and warbled low melodies to the nightingale; but the king of the northern fairy-the Danish ballad informs us—

"-Wonned within the hill,

And like wind in the porch of a ruin'd church His voice was ghastly shrill."

-The northern elves were woodland in their predilections; they loved the forest and the deer, but though they protected wild, they persecuted tame animals, and no farmer's cow was safe from their flint-hearted arrows, unless shielded by the magic influence of a branch of the rowan tree. Thus we see in the more peevish, deceitful, and gross northern fairy, the influence of the less sunny climes, and the sterner and more gloomy cast of thought of the Teutonic nations. Let us go farther north still, and amid the rocks and snows, and stormy firths of Norway and Lapland, we shall find that the fairy entirely disappears, or degenerates into a mis-shapen and malignant elf, haunting sepulchral caverns, or the dreary galleries of deserted mines. The imaginations of the bards of Scandinavia were as vigorous as they were gloomy; they sang

"Round the shores where loud Lofoden

Whirls to death the roaring whale;
In the halls where Runic Odin,

Howls his war-song to the gale;"

and they attuned their lays and legends to the stern scenery which surrounded them. Continually engaged in war or the chase, they well knew the value of iron, and it is a characteristic attribute of their supernatural creations, that the elves were all cunning workmen in metals that they laboured by the lurid glare of unearthly fires in forging swords and battle-axes, before whose dints weapons and armour framed by human hands cracked and splintered like glass.

The domestic tendencies of our own land bred up a peculiar species of household goblin, occasionally useful, but more frequently troublesome. He was a sort of supernatural servant of all work, and had no objection to dirty work; such were the brownies of Scotland. We are not aware whether their English brethren rejoiced in any distinctive generic appellation, but Milton has drawn their portraiture, and—

"Tells how the drudgin goblin sweat,
To earn the cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thrashed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lays him down, the lubber fiend,
And stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And crop full out of doors he flings,

Ere the first cock his matin rings."

In Scotland, as well as England, brownies appear to have been a milk-loving race—and, in consequence, the occasional committers of petty larceny in the dairy. In spite, however, of his domestic labours, the absence of the brownie was generally considered better than his company. It is recorded that a farmer near the Borders, being sorely annoyed by the freaks of his supernatural inmate, who was continually turning the house out of the windows, determined to dodge the brownie by "flitting," Anglicè, removing to another dwelling. Accordingly the honest man packed up bag and baggage and set off. A neighbour accosted him on the way. "I am leaving the old place," quoth the brownie-haunted; "nobody could live with such an evil spirit as we have been plagued with there.”“Oh, yes, John, we're flitting, you see, we're flitting,' chimed in a well-known voice from the interior of a churn, which was packed on the top of the luggagecart; and brownie popped out his head and nodded complacently to the new comer. Imagine the farmer's face!

The Germans have a noble Ghosteology. Amid the smoke of their tobacco pipes have they seen strange visions. The Hartz and the Brocken are the places on earth "where spirits most do congregate." Along the Rhine, indeed, there is a tolerable sprinkling of the unearthly, but the Rhine ghosts are mostly commonplace. The spirits of ancient barons clothed in ancient armour, and going clashing about in ancient castles, may be respectable ghosts, but they have no pretensions to belong to the airy aristocracy. And as for the Lurley maid luring the boatmen over the cataract by her singing, we think of the syrens of yore and refuse the claim to originality of the modern water sprite. 'Tis in the recesses of the pine forests that the genuine German ghostly people dwell. There stalks the Brocken spirit-crowned with a chaplet of oak leaves, and bearing a broken branch in its shadowy grasp. There sweeps the wild huntsman, the flying Dutchman of the land, with horn and whoop and hollo, careering over the trees a whirlwind of men, and dogs, and horses. And there is it-in deep dark glens, amid the waving of sombre pines, that the charcoalburner, keeping his midnight watch, seeth a bonfire kindled, and dark shadows passing and repassing before it. With trembling limbs and bristling hair he maketh his way towards it. The blaze pales as he approaches-then vanishes. Taking heart of grace he rushes to the spot-and lo!-the greensward whereon the fire leaped, and blazed, and crackled, is crisp and unscathed; and the boughs, round which the fierce flames twined, and roared, and wreathed, are green, and fresh, and wet with the dews of midnight!

Witches are the productions of later times than fairies, and we suspect that many of the tales of our beloved twopenny books are of more recent manufacture than is generally believed, from the circumstance of witches and fairies being very frequently confounded therein. Now here is a grievous wrong to the "land of faerie." Witches are all very well in their way, and we have all due respect for them; but we cannot consent to have our little, moonlight-dancing, green-robed elves made up into old women, like Mother Hubbard, with a crutch, a sugar-loaf cap, and high-heeled shoes. No; let the fairy lurk in butter-cups, drink dew from acorns, and dance in rings beneath the oaks-the witches may bestride their broomsticks, every one with her black cat on her shoulders, and fly off, like so many aerial machines, to keep their devil's Sabbath; but let not the revels of the one tribe interfere with those of the other. We are for no cross breeds--no mules. Fairies are fairies, and witches witches, to the end of the chapter; and, by the way, English witches had a curious national peculiarity. The continental sisterhood rode on goats or broomsticks; but we were always a nautically-inclined people, and accordingly our witches sailed in sieves!

In fairy tales, be they from the East, West, North, or South, it is pleasing to trace the superiority awarded to ingenuity over brute force. Every body will remember the fisherman and the genie. Never was any one more completely done than was the rebellious servant of King Solomon. One cannot help chuckling at the simplicity of the genie in repacking himself in the copper vessel. However, he profited by experience, like other fools; and on making his second exit from the vase, very naïvely kicks it into the sea. A less brilliant device than the fisherman's, however, has

been successful. In a Persian tale, a ghoul informs a merchant that unless he can prove himself to be as strong as his host (the scene is the ghoul's cave) he will have the pleasure of dining-not with him-but on him. The ghoul lifts a stone and squeezes it, until it distils forth a fluid. The merchant takes an egg for a stone and squeezes it to as good purpose as the pebble has been squeezed before. The ghoul then flings a second stone into the air, so high that nobody sees it come down again; the merchant lets loose a bird, and the ghoul is cheated a second time. Verily, these gentry were easily deceived. One lawyer would have been more than a match for all the ghouls that ever feasted on churchyard rottenness. Our own giants, too, were as silly as they were big. The extensive gentleman who ripped up his stomach instead of an outside bag of hasty pudding, really deserves no com

miseration. To such stupidity we can only say, "sarved you right." He was a Welsh giant, if we remember, and really did no credit to the leek.

It would be easy to adduce many instances of the usually generous and manly spirit which runs through our nursery literature, but we forbear. Poetic justice is always strictly awarded. The morale is universally good. By these tales a child's best sympathies are stirred-its imagination is set to work, and we will answer for it that in his future life the man will often think with gratitude and affection of those wildly imaginative beings, indissolubly mingled up with his childhood's reminiscences of half forgotten, yet happy days, when he knew no care or toil, and when a laugh was as easily raised by the grotesque oddity of Tom Thumb, as a tear was drawn by the sad fate of the Babes in the Wood.

"the

All who admire a terse and yet expressive style, must necessarily be delighted with this brief but pithy address of mine to Jacob, who officiates as waiter at that delectable retreat for gentlemen about town, Cat and Pepper-box" in Covent Garden. I have stated the exact number of the tumbler I called for, and for a reason which I don't apprehend will be considered in the language of the parliamentary committees either "frivolous or vexatious." Many of the highly privileged few who have listened to the marvellous relation that I am about to state, have had the bad taste to insinuate, that at the period to which it refers, I must have been under the influence of the juice of the grape; or, probably, of some even still more potent beverage, in plain language, for I scorn to compromise with my detractors, that I must have been drunk! I indignantly spurn the base suggestion, and call the past-my exemplary character for abstemiousness; the present-my well known habits of temperance and frugality, (of which, by the way, can get the certificate of Father O'Leary, the parish priest,-if my own testimony on that point needs corroboration,) and the future-the admiring pos

I

terity to which these ingenuous records will descend, affording me, as my particular friend, the Editor of the ILLUMINATED MAGAZINE, assures me they must do, a snug inheritance of immortal fame!— Yes! I call the past, the present, the future, as witnesses to character! I ask them-I proudly ask them-does not every action of my life contradict the possibility of my being, at the time referred to, under vinous or spirituous excitement? On second thoughts, I will not call them-such testimony is unnecessary— figures, at least a figure will refute the ungenerous, the foundationless insinuation,-the sixteenth is a golden number; it is the number that acquits me. My temperance walks out of court "without a stain on her character," as the magistrate at Bow Street feelingly and beautifully observed on discharging Ikey Solomons from insufficiency of evidence. To be drunk, assumes, à priori, the fact of having drunk; and, à fortiori, the circumstance of having drunk too much : -if that is not logic, I don't know what is. Admitting these premises, how could I be drunk, when I had only taken sixteen-mark, but sixteen tumblers of whiskey toddy!!!

The circumstance may not appear quite so logical, and yet to myself it assumes an air of more than mathematical certainty,-that had the number I called for been less in the numerical scale, I really might have hesitated before I had decided whether I was intoxicated or not. Indeed, if I had given as the number of glasses I had taken, five, six, seven, or eight, I should, beyond all doubt, have conceded that I might have been the worse for what I had imbibed,―nay, farther, that I must have been drunk, and no mistake about it. This apparent inconsistency only proves how fallacious are all known means of judging of

others; and yet, on such evidence as this, how few of us would scruple, in pronouncing the guilt of their fellow creatures? Many short-sighted individuals who hear me acknowledge that after I have taken eight tumblers, and have become drunk, would jump to the immediate, and yet, notwithstanding, erroneous conclusion, that I must be doubly drunk after taking sixteen! Poor, infatuated, mistaken, see-no-furtherthan-your-nose Daniels! who thus erect yourselves as censors over the morals of your fellow men, behold "how plain a tale" will prove that your arguments have not literally nor metaphorically a leg to stand upon!

My way of life" is simply this:-up to the twentieth glass I can count with an exactitude worthy of the calculating boy, or a chancellor of the exchequer, when the budget shows an improvement on the preceding quarter. After that number, by some remarkable idiosyncracy-I am reluctant to say obfuscation of intellect I can get no farther in the counting line, although my capacity for swallowing remains uninjured. After passing that Rubicon, my faculty for numeration seems suspended-my organ of number is numbed. Generally, the first indication is shown by oblivion of the preceding correct number, and I then invariably begin to count backwards! For instance, when my tumblers have arrived at their majority, my twenty-first becomes my eighteenth-my twentysecond, my seventeenth, and thus I go on running down the scale, until I reach the eighth, seventh, sixth, or, on rare occasions, the fifth glass. Whenever I do return to either of those units, I am perfectly warranted in coming to the conclusion that I am really, truly, and unmistakingly-drunk!

I have said sufficient, I trust, to produce conviction on the mind of the candid reader, that the tumbler I referred to was only my sixteenth. I am also particular to impress the fact both as to the quality and the quantity. I admit that the pewter gill which holds what is "technically at the bar" termed "a go," contained the average complement; and that I mixed the materials with all that hereditary skill and long experience for which I am so proverbially distinguished. It may be asked-for I have always noticed a most inexplicable desire in the human mind, when under the influence of some supernatural revelation, to attempt to account for it by natural means yet more incredible and improbable than an unearthly interposition itself it may be asked, I repeat, whether I might not have been labouring under some unaccustomed elevation, or some strong excitement on this remarkable evening, presuming the trifle I had drunk had not, as it could not have, taken any effect on me? My answer is, decidedly, no. I happened on that particular night to be suffering under one of my low nervous tremors, and for which, by the advice of my medical attendant, I am obliged to avail myself of some gentle stimulant; and in obedience to such recommendation I usually select Irish whiskey of the genuine small-still manufactory. Besides, the evening had been a dull one; our worthy host, who had hitherto done something towards keeping us alive, about twelve o'clock issued forth a most terrific yawn, apologizing for it with "Beg pardon, gentlemen-but you know you kept me up until halfpast five this morning!"-(Bad taste decidedly of Tapster's, for if he were kept up, were not we kept up with him?) The yawn had its usual contagious effect,

and circulated with infinite more briskness than the last preceding joke. We all yawned; some actually drained their tumblers and went to sleep; others mechanically went through the same ceremony, without taking any thing by the motion, having previously drained off their contents; while the professional gentlemen, with their eyes hermetically sealed by the gluey fingers of Morpheus, warbled forth “ Happy Land!" with a snoring accompaniment in most harmonious unison with their somniferous lullaby. The gas burnt dimly-the snores increased both in number and volume-the waiters nodded as they leant by the door even the smoke from the cigars seemed too sleepy to dispel its own clouds, and hung in heavy wreaths around the sleepers' heads. Could I be excited, I then ask, under such overpowering influences?

My sixteenth tumbler was mixed; gently stirring it, I sipped it by way of approval. That sip was sufficient. The steam ascended to and penetrated my nostrils with a grateful and enlivening incense; the aroma of the delicious nectar mounted my brain, which seemed warmed or rather sunned by a gentle flame! I felt my pulse beat with a quicker movement, my blood tingled and danced with a more lively measure, and my senses were on a very short notice "lapped in Elysium." Certainly the cup that Circe presented to her votaries ought to have been, if it was not, of mountain dew. The witch of the Drachenfels (which, I believe, is a particularly high mountain somewhere near the Rhine) had in all probability a small contraband still, from which the glass was filled that she offered to the pleasure-seeking Faust; and Comus must have been in Ireland, for he never could have had the audacity to endeavour to intoxicate a young lady of genteel connexions with anything less seducing than genuine potheen with the true turf-flavour. Scarcely had I sipped the smoking beverage, before I felt regenerated. If at that moment I had been asked if I happened to know one Cornelius O'Callaghan (a name to which I had previously for two and forty years promptly responded), I should have stared in blank surprise; indeed I felt my old original existence walk clean out of its earthly tabernacle, and a new, bright, dazzling, and joyous one, take its place. "Visions of the sweet south" swam before my eyes. I seemed to breathe once more the pure air of my own beloved Italy (how the deuce it became mine I never could make out),-I saw the clear, cloudless skies above me,-I felt their divinest influence stealing over me, penetrating and subduing me; then came the voluptuous melodies of my native clime, or rather of my new native clime,-I heard the peasants of the Campagna trolling their evening song,-ecstatic sounds fell on my ears, and I could hardly refrain from giving them utterance; who was I? what was I? why what madness not to know myself-my identity immediately occurred, I WAS RUBINI!

Directly the consciousness of my actual being returned to me; the scene appeared to change; the dingy, dark room, of thirty feet long by twenty broad, expanded itself into a magnificent theatre; the gloomy boxes into the crimson and gilded logés of the Italian Opera House; the sickly gas and its smoky burners, into the brilliant and burnished chandeliers; and the taglionied and mackintoshed occupiers, into the elegant and fascinating habitués that grace that most delight

ful and aristocratic atmosphere. I believed myself on the stage,-I heard Costa play the symphony, and all eyes seemed to be fixed in expectant delight on me. advanced, seizing the wondering Jacob by the hand, who at that moment appeared in white muslin, and dishevelled hair, like the impassioned Grisi, and proceeded to what I imagined were the foot lights, and commenced rivi tu.

me.

At

Before I proceed farther, it is but candid of me to observe, that numerous and varied as my accomplishments are universally admitted to be,-and to enumerate them would, I fear, involve me in a charge of egotism,-singing is not one of them. Although passionately devoted to the arts, and the Muses' most faithful admirer, singing, by some extraordinary oversight in my early education, was overlooked. sparring, I may say that few who are not professional members of the ring can take the shine out of On the river, I will pull with any crack waterman between Oxford and Gravesend;-at cricket, I can stop a ball with any "eleven," whether gentlemen or players, between Lord's Ground and Lough Swilly. I know, besides, the points of a horse; and am, as times go, a neat hand at curing the distemper, and won't yield as a farrier to any man. I won the prize at the last Red-House match of pigeon-shooting; and swam for a wager with the picked men of a man of war's crew. As for minor accomplishments, such as oyster-eating, punch-mixing, the mathematics, trigonometry, and rat-killing, I say nothing;-mention them and O'Callaghan, and satisfy yourself! But singing I do confess I never took to naturally;-I have heard it indeed said, that all attempts of mine, always reminded the hearers, in the high notes of a saw under the process of sharpening; and in the lower ones, of an overcharged blunderbuss. Painful and humili

ating as this confession of my deficiency must naturally be to a delicate mind, devoted to every thing that is beautiful, yet I feel in making it I shall not suffer in the generous reader's appreciation of my candour; nor when I add, that all previous attempts of mine to "warble my native wood notes wild," had ever ended in a most palpable break-down.

But on this memorable evening, what a change came over me! It has often been a matter of conjecture, whether opera-singers and actors really feel, themselves, the same exquisite sense of enjoyment which they are capable of communicating to their hearers. I can answer, unhesitatingly, in the affirmative; nothing could exceed the entrancing rapture, which I experienced from hearing the two first lines of that my most delightful aria issuing from my own lips. My enjoyment was, however, somewhat marred, by the unpleasant voice of an individual, in what appeared to me to be one of the pit-stalls, (they ought to be more particular whom they admit in such places,) which exclaimed "Sit down, O'Callaghan, and don't be making such a blessed fool of yourself!"

I, however, passed over the interruption with dignified contempt, and proceeded with my melody, which I have already intimated was Italian (but how I could have been acquainted with that language is and ever will be an undeveloped mystery; for never more than two words, and those the identical vivi tu, had I ever during my real matter-of-fact existence acquired,) in its commencement, but which ended, by some extraordinary association of ideas, with

"And sure, ne'er a pitcher was found whole in Coleraine."

I had scarcely returned to the side scenes, where I waited, naturally expecting to be recalled to the front again by an encore, when I heard a storm arise,"Turn him out!"-" Kick him out of the room!"

Pump upon him until he is sober!" and other similar inexplicable phrases. I immediately felt myself to be the object of another Tamburini row. I resolved, however, not to be overpowered by clamour. From the opposite wing I beheld the manager in a perfect fever of apprehension, making the most expressive grimaces, and violent pantomime, for me to be quiet. Little did he know that an Italian scene had warmed the blood that was then beginning to simmer within me! I determined to address the audience, and facing them (so as to turn my back to the omnibus box,) I boldly advanced to the orchestra, and bowing reverently, and placing my hand on my heart, began my appeal, in very good English, although, I admit, with a slight Irish accent, but which the forbearance due to a foreigner must have pardoned.

"An alien, and a sojourner in your land, I throw myself on the indulgence of a British public, to which such an appeal was never made in vain!" (Cries of "Off, off," here interrupted me.) "To that public, which within these very walls I have so frequently thrown into extacies of delight"-(here a most unseemly roar of laughter rather checked my eloquent flow). "I will not, however, be put down by an interested minority, or by the cowardly combination of a petty faction." (Here I pointed to the omnibus box, from which I could see distinctly six heads belonging to as many middle-aged dandies, sibillating between their artificial teeth.) "I scorn ye-I despise ye all!" At this instant I heard, distinctly, as if from Grisi