molesting and unmolested, the strangevisaged monsters move about on all sides. Man alone is foolish enough and base enough to make a mockery of his fellow-creatures."

"And yet," said the old woman, "wherein does all the mighty difference between one man and another consist? I never yet saw a nose an ell long. It is but an inch, or at the most two, which makes the whole difference between beauty and deformity in this feature. And as for a humpback, if it were not so confoundedly inconvenient in bed, I know not that I should not prefer it to a straight one, in which none of the beautiful bends and flourishes of nature are to be seen."

"You're right there," replied the drunken dwarf, nodding to his drunken companion; "I know not what nature means by throwing off so many straight people from her potter's wheel. Surely it is a great waste of labour, for they are not in general worth their clay. But, mother, we who have been more highly favoured, must not be too vain of our superior charms. We must remember that we did not make ourselves."

"Well, then," answered the old woman, "let us change the subject. Come, tell me what trade you are now driving, and where you live."

"To tell the truth," replied Berecynth, " I have been leading a sort of vagabond life-at one time here-at another there. But now I am determined to settle down; for, hearing that I had a near relation alive, I resolved to search her out; you are she, and with you I shall henceforth live. In my early youth I was an apothecary's apprentice in Calabria; but my master drove me from his shop, because it was alleged that I compounded love-potions. Ah, happy days! I still look back upon them with delight. I then became a tailor, but was found to cabbage too much cloth; and next a pastry-cook, but had soon to give that up the outcry against me being, that my mutton-pies were made of the flesh of dogs and cats. I then became a monk, but no monastery would admit me. Having passed doctor, I narrowly escaped being burned for witchcraft. I devoted myself to study -wrote poetry and so forth but my effusions fell into discredit, the people having taken it into their heads that

they glanced sarcastically at Christianity. After many years I fell in with the illustrious Pietro d'Abano, and became his famulus. I afterwards was a hermit, and many other things besides; but the best of it is, that, in whatsoever situation I was thrown, there I was sure to accumulate money, so that I am under no fear of spending my old age in poverty and need. And now, my good aunt, tell us your history."

"My history," answered she, "is not unlike your own. Innocence is every where alike persecuted. I have stood in the pillory-I have been banished my native land-I have been within an ace of being burned alive. It was alleged that I practised sorcery, stole children, bewitched the people, and brewed poison."

"And was there not a spice of truth in all these allegations?" asked Berecynth with a chuckle. "I can answer formyself at least and I believe it runs in the family-that I do not stand quite clear of such practices. Believe me, my fair friend, he or she who has once dabbled in witchcraft, retains a liquorish liking for the same as long as life lasts. Sorcery in this resembles dramdrinking; once fairly wet your tooth with either, and tongue, throat, palate, liver, lights, and the whole alimentary canal, are filled, day and night, with clamorous cravings for the stimulating enjoyment."

"You know mankind well," said the hag, laughing. No doubt, innocent people like us are permitted to practise a little murder, witchcraft, stealing, and poisoning. There is no great harm in all that; but what are we to think of the ingratitude of our own children? There is my daughter, or at least she whom I have brought up as such-have I not pinched myself in all manner of ways to put decent clothes on her back, and to get her handsomely married? Did I not throw her in the way of Ildefons and Andrea, and other men, any one of whom would have made her a husband ten times better than she deserved? but the ungrateful monkey would have nothing to say to them, on the ground, forsooth, that they were robbers and murderers; and now she has fled from her own home to a nunnery, and I cannot get her back. That is the way in which parents are treated now. a-days."

"But wherefore should she have run away from me, ungrateful baggage that she is? If we were to part, why could we not part friends? Confound her, though! I might have made a good market of her, and would have done so, had she not obstinately held out in the strength of her love for that silly young gallant who came to our cottage in the forest."

"Hold there!" cried Berecynth, hiccuping, and reeling, and half asleep. "If you begin to talk of love, I have done with you-ha, ha, ha! Love!

- it was that stupid word that demolished my great master Pietro. He might have been a professor to this hour, and fed his young goslings with philosophy, but he tumbled over love, and broke his neck; and so, farewell to him and farewell to you also, dear aunt. To-morrow night I shall return to you about the same hour; and then we meet never to part more."

"Farewell!" responded Pancratia. "Since you entered I have felt myself quite a different being. What a joyous time we shall have of it!"

"That we shall," stammered Berecynth, who, staggering forth into the street, went in the direction of his own dwelling.

Mean-while Antonio apprised Podesta and his wife of his absolute conviction that he had seen the old wo. man, and should yet succeed in restoring their lost daughter to their arms. The mother placed implicit confidence in what he said, but the father still continued sceptical. Before sunset, he went, in company with his friend Alphonso, to visit the wise Castalio.

Castalio received them with much cordiality, and said to Antonio_"Here, my friend, take this paper; you will find marked upon it the particular street and house in which that wicked old woman is to be found. When you have discovered her, I think you will no longer doubt the accuracy of my science."

" I am already convinced of its certainty," replied Antonio. " You are certainly the wisest of mortals; and, through your means, I expect to be made the happiest. I shall straightway proceed to the old woman's house, and, if Crescentia be not dead or carried off, I shall at once restore her to her parents."

Full of these expectations, he laid his hand on the handle of the door, and was about to leave the house, when a knocking was heard from without, accompanied by a violent coughing and a scraping of feet. "Who is there?" cried CastalioAntonio opened the door, and in walked Berecynth.

"Your most obedient," said he, making a variety of grimaces as he paid his respects to Castalio.

"Who are you?" cried the latter, turning pale and recoiling a few paces before the presence of the dwarf.

"He is a miscreant of the worst description," answered Antonio“ a sorcerer, whom we must deliver up to the Inquisition. This is the accursed Berecynth himself, whose story you are already acquainted with."

"So you think, youngster!” said the dwarf, with an expression of the profoundest contempt. "But my business is not with you, child. Do you not know me?" roared he aloud to Castalio, " or have you no need of my services at present?"

"How should I," said Castalio, with faltering voice, "when I never saw you in my life before? Begone, I must decline your services; my poor house is too small to accommodate any more than myself."

Berecynth paced up and down the floor. "You do not know me, then?" said he. "It may be so-people change, and a man is not always in his prime. Yet, I think, that any one who has once seen me, would not easily forget me. And you, my young gentlemen, (turning to the youths,) do you not know who this precious wisdom-hunter is?"

"To be sure we do," answered Antonio, " he is our friend, the excellent Castalio."

The little man shouted with laughter till walls and roof rang; "Castalio! Castalio!" cried he, like one possessed, " and why not Aganippe or Hippocrene? Where are your eyes, my good sirs? What can have bewitched these pumpkins of heads of yours? Take another look at him, and tell me whether the man before you be not the renowned Pietro d'Abano, the great artist of Padua ?"

Castalio had sunk down into a chair, trembling violently, while the muscles of his countenance worked so frightfully, that not a feature could be rightly distinguished; but, after the young men had viewed him attentively for some time, they traced with horror, in the distorted lineaments of his face, the expression of the old sorcerer of Abano.

The magician started from his seat, and, rising into giant stature, exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, "Yes, I am that Pietro! and you, caitiff, you have crossed me in the schemes by which I intended to have crushed these youths into the dust-tremble, worm, before the vengeance of your master!"

Berecynth again laughed a loud laugh of mockery : "The vengeance of my master!" echoed he" Fool without an equal, to apply such language unto me! Knowest thou not, thou wretched juggler, that one glance of my eyes-one grasp of my hand, can blast you for ever? - Thou earthborn tamperer with the things of hell-were not all thy power and success derived from me?"

A phantom of horror filled the hall

in which they stood. Its eyes streamed with fire, and its arms were stretched forth like eagles' wings. Pietro prostrated himself, shrieking for mercy at its feet. "It was my might," said the demon, "which upheld thy hellish machinations; it was I that gave success to the jugglery with which thou didst dazzle the eyes of men. But all the while thou madest me thy scoff, and didst trample me under foot. Now my time has come, and thou must be my servant. Thou must go down with me into my kingdom, to be my slave throughout eternity. Begone, ye strangers!" continued he, addressing the young men. "He and I have accounts to settle, and ye may not be present at the reckoning." A violent peal of thunder shook the house to its foundation, as Antonio and Alphonso rushed out of it in terror. They got into the streets they knew not how, and fled to a neighbouring church, while the storm broke over their heads with ever increasing fury. They looked back to the house from which they had fled, and saw that it was enveloped in flames. Two dark shadows were seen wavering and wrestling among the blazing rafters; and howlings of despair, blended with the loud laughter of scorn, drifted towards them between the pauses of the loud-raging tempest.

"Ah! my young Florentine," said she, "have you again come to pay a visit to your old friend of the forest?" "Where is your daughter?" asked Antonio, trembling with anxiety.

"If you are determined to have her," said the old woman, "I won't keep her back from you. But either you or the Podesta family must pay for her right handsomely, for she is their child, having been kidnapped by me in her infancy, under the temptation of a large bribe which I received from the family of Marconi."

"How can you prove that she is their child?" asked Antonio.

" In a hundred ways," answered the old woman. " I have still by me the dress she wore when I carried her off. She has a mole upon her right shoulder, which her mother cannot fail to remember; and besides, I still have in my possession the letters themselves of the Marconi family, urging me to the deed. All these shall be laid before you; but I must have gold in a good round sum-mind you that."

Antonio told down all the money he had with him, and added a diamond ring and golden chain to the heap. The old woman greedily scraped the gold towards her, and laughed as she said, "Do not be surprised that I am so easily satisfied; the truth is, the girl has fled from me, because she did not like the lovers I wished to provide her with. She has taken refuge in a cloister near Trajan's pillar, and the abbess refuses to deliver her up to me. But just mention your name at the door, and the gipsy will leap into your arms; for she can dream and think of nothing but you, so much has her silly heart been bewitched since that night on which you met her in my cottage in the forest. Indeed, I am glad to be quit of her. I have got a better sort of person to keep me company in my declining years. Farewell, young man; go to your Crescentia, and may you be happy with her."

Antonio carried with him all the letters, the child's clothes, and the other proofs of her identity. As he was leaving the house he met Berecynth at the door. A storm passing over at the time, showed who it was that was abroad; but the young man

never perceived it, so light of heart was he as he winged his way to the parents of Crescentia.

The happy parents were soon convinced that the twin-sister of Crescentia was still alive; and on the following morning her father took her from the cloister. The maiden's joy was unspeakable in being restored to her parents, and in again finding the youth to whom she had given up her whole heart from the moment she first saw him in the forest.

Shortly after this she and Antonio were married, and went to reside with Podesta and his wife in the neighbourhood of Naples. In the happiness and repose of love, Antonio forgot the afflictions of his youth; and in their children and grandchildren the parents were recompensed for the loss of their beautiful and deeply-beloved Crescentia.*

No composition, not even a sonnet, seems to us to concentrate within so small a bound so much delight and so much difficulty as a good song. We cannot say of it what was said, by a sweet poet, of the ribbon that encircled his mistress's waist

A narrow compass, and yet there Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair." Minor poetry, however pleasing or perfect, must never be exalted to the same level with the sublimer efforts of the muse_ with those massive monuments of poetic genius, in which wisdom and beauty are united with majesty and power-in which the susceptibilities and destinies of the human soul are better developed than even in the loftiest attainments of pure science, and in which ordinary minds find a source at once of docile veneration and of pious pride. Yet as the epos, or the drama, abstractly, are superior • to the sonnet or the song, in the same, or rather in a still greater proportion, does a good poem of the slenderest style transcend a bad epic or tragedy. There is far less difference between the Iliad and the Flowers of the Forest, than between the Flowers of the Forest and the Antediluvians. The popular lyric, however, is not a slender, though it is not a long-sustained, exertion of poetry. Within its limited extent it affords scope for very high talent, and exercises in its perfection a very powerful sway. The best feelings of our nature may and must be here addressed; the fairest, the vividest images must be evoked; the ideas must be developed in the most rapid and direct manner; the language must be eminently precise, polished, and appropriate. Every thought must go straight to the hearer's heart-every word must speak magically to the ear and the fancy. The choice of a subject for a song, is as difficult as the task of doing justice to that subject. Its essence and object imply that the theme shall be popular but not commonplace; simpleand single in its conception, but stirring and striking in its progress, and in its close complete and satisfying, and producing, for the most part, a sober

and subdued surprise. Any thing flat or feeble-any thing subtle or strained is out of the question. Homer may sometimes nod, and may almost in his slumbers approach within a measurable distance of M'Henry's snore; but Sappho and Alcæus must always be wide awake. The epic, the didactic, the Pindaric poet, may be sometimes turbid as the torrent, or dark as the sea; but the song-writer must be clear and transparent as the living fountain or the pebbled stream. His work must have the purity, the ease, the modesty, of nature; and it must have another of nature's attributes, which perfect art can alone approach, that of wearing the freshness of novelty on the hundredth repetition. "Enough," perhaps our reader may say, after the prince in Rasselas; "you have convinced me that no man can write a song." But such a conclusion would be rash and erroneous. Innumerable lyric jewels are to be found in the treasuries of poetic genius. In all times, and in all tongues, songs have been written and sung, realizing enough of their proper attributes to delight the hearts and live in the memories of the multitude, while they were capable of pleasing the most fastidious and baffling the most critical. How many a palace, how many a cottage, how many solitary glens and crowded alleys have resounded, and at this hour resound, with vocal verse, in which the spirit of poetry is breathed around with more or less of power and loveliness, exhilarating the happy, cheering the sad, softening the sullen, and reclaiming the depraved! The themes which befit the lyric muse are not many, but they are exhaustless; they may be disfigured in their form, or perverted from their purpose, but they are in their nature noble and good. Love is the essence of them all-love in all its forms and phases; whether the love of lovers, or of friends, or of kindred, or of patriots, for the dear objects which engage their hearts-love, whether exulting in the happiness of hope, and presence, and enjoyment, or enduring the trials of absence, disappoint