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Faustus, A Dramatic Mystery The Bride of Corinth The First Walpurgis NIght
Faustus, A Dramatic Mystery The Bride of Corinth The First Walpurgis NIght
Faustus, A Dramatic Mystery The Bride of Corinth The First Walpurgis NIght
A on a otoae, papanta or kinga and cmqueat-
Aii'J' ambitfon. and ita drMma d\Yine,
That, Uke the meteor, vanllh Into nothing-
Poor mockerleo or lirea poor realitieo!
In what enchanted garden arowo the fiuit,
That dleo, ere our deolre for it be dead ?
Show me the tren, that otill rel&ln the chum,
That once apparelled them, ot .. malllaht,
A lr each new day breathed on them new belnR !
Red gold hall lhov, indnd, '"''gold iJ is
To I he only.
In Inlrio'a "Magice Disquisitiones," we find an anxious
diacuaaion, whetbn the gold which Satan gives to his votnril'S is
such, or 4 mere delusion. The answer ia, that the demon has
tbe power, but ia not in the habit, of giing good money to the
t E E 2
+20
and ltola or autllwitin are qlloted to lhow that
!Mgiciena, &Co have, iJt 8Rnenl, liYed Ht Vftd powrty.
A reason for this it quoted from Pa&ahn wMcb ........
he thought the temptation too strong a one to be entrusted to
the evil spirit: -Jkw non pn'flti#il nee wlt d<rMOnmt
Wltlu..Uare; quia ali<u .equeretur, quod Uli naagici, necroftiGn-
tici, ac ceteri diabolic41 .fidei nlmt ceterU Clf.rUti
.folLiibul diliorel et nc qi<CJ"' plum reJmre>llfAr,
ip.U ChriMi .foklibU6, qui nnimo dilandi illo.,
nee curarml Chri#iannm ipiGm .Jitkm; ..i magno
tlleMJuro abt&ndarml el a6 omni/>w." Delrio, who
finds some difficulty in believing that the demon can be properly
said to create gold, although he can produce liing insects-
which llltter power, be admita, looks like CI'M!ion -gives some
instances of his &kill in coining, a fact which, on the authority
of all the demonologies, and abundant records of courts of
justice, mast be considered ealablished. Of the exercise,
however, of either gif\ there is seldom any necessity. Armies
have been paid with magic money, which tumedout to be dry
leaves and cinden. Faustus him ... Jf was not more honest than
he ought to be, for the currency in which he and Agrippa are
said to have paid their truelling expenses is aaid to have been
no better. " Sic fen fa- Fa...,um et AgriJ>paM tlliJ,gW CIUil
iur facerem nummw nRCn'OI in divenoriil nu111erorc;
q1101 pi reciperml, JIOII J>OuetUOI din cornuum.fh"'a vel $CI"Ula
Aliui- repn-ieba.m."- Dna-Ma,gioe DiafwUilioRu, Lib.
II. p. lSI.
In tDittJl encha.Ued garden gnn111 tlte.fnUJ, clc.
Zeig rnir die Frucht dicfoulJ, eh' 1111411 lie bridll,
Und BtJUnte die lich tiiglich neu begriinen. GoJ:TBE.
" This pauage hu pauled !he commentators very much, and hi-
therto, u faru we know, all the attmaplat nplaaation il&n been
abortin, The meaning of the ia,- All you han to otm-
are Yain, perishable things, which can aBOrd me norealenjoymeu:
NOTES. 4-21
nor do I that of you; but give me a perp..tual change
-constantly aomething new ; that all I want you for. That
our explanation is correct, is quite plain from the uialogu"
that follows : -
I do not shrink from thy demand- with
And treasures such u these can I supply thee;
BuJ, my good frknd, the time comes too,
When 10mething dainty wiiJ invite w to anou.
Or, literally, ' there will alao (()me a time when you will wi5h
to enjoy aomething that is good, in anon, and, of course, no
longer desire only a ((lostant varied llww of inviting fruits,
unattended by actual enjoymert.. "- Z.u<naa- lUview of&-
cond Pa.rl of Fat11t, Dad>lin Unirlily Magasine.
I am not sure that I quite unden&and Mr. Zander's ex-
planation of this difficult paseage. My tranlliation aeema
to me to differ na well from thi" explanation as from any
of thoae before given. For a discussion on the passage, sa.
Mr. Hayward's note. The meaning I seek to give the words
i supported by the language of Mephistopheles's aoliloquy
before the student enl.t!n. A different interpretation ia sug-
gested in the following translation by a friend, whose oatne I
am not permitted to give.
Poor devil, what on earth bast thou to show ?
Say, hath thy thought a plume to aoer withal
To the clear height, where man's mind ia a ranger?
Thou hut a wine cup, but fi.,rce thirst survives-
A groaning board, but hunger's lean for eer;
Red gold, Sir, but the chemist's mocking silver
Flits not so fast away. A dams4!l, too,
Who, while her head is nestling in my bosom,
Hatb an eye out to lure some boon acquaintance:
Honor! -but it and shooting stan are racers.
Sir Demon! c:anat thou show me fruitage fair
And pure as that of paradise? But mark
E K S
NOTES.
Ita doom,-that sweet fruit's doom must be to die
By nature's blight. i' th' instant that the band,
The felon band, would pluck and sully it.
Show me-thou doubtless canst-trees that ban root
In power undying, and that know no day
Save the green days of spring tide.
In the French translaUon published under the name of
Gauan (Paris, 1828). the dilliculty is amusingly got rid of;
- " Fais-moi voir un fruit qui ne pouniue ptJI avant que tom-
bre, et des arbres qui tous lea joun se couvrent d'uoe verdure
Page 107.
1 the world' .ea '!fllorfll!l flltldneu,-
Iu thoulllftd i11 CO'Ifflid everlolti"lf,
RaWr rq;twdleuly.
In Henry More's BriLtf Dilcouru of Enllnaiasm, is a chapter
which be calls a promUctww Colkction of divers odd CcmceiU
out of lftJeral Tke01ophUl1 and Ch!Jf1WIJ. One of those conceits
is, " that the waters of this world are mad, which makes them
rave and run up and down 10 as they do in the clwmel
of the earth."
Page 108.
A lill!J farce, but, !f il gratifie' !JOU.
"This headstrong ambition impclloo Faustus to meet all the
demon's wishes, executed in contracts duly signed and sealed;
all which terriftc deeds, along with other writings, were dis-
covered in his house after his death.
" After each of the parties had become bound in their mutual
contract, Faustus, taking a sharp knife, opened a vein in his
left band, of which it baa been auerted, there was afterwards
read, branded oo it," Homo fuge"-Sbun him, ob IIIIUI, and
NOTES. 423
do that which is right."- Old Slory of Doctor FauuUJ.-Ros
colt's GeriiUin NoveiU/1, Vol. I. p. 28-t.
A copy of the deed is given, in \thich Fa'ustus is made to
give Mephistopheles the following style : -" The demon
bight Mephistopheles, late Charge u' AfFairft to the infernal
prince of the Orieflt, btit now rubjKt tG .U my demands."
Page 109.
Blood il mull be - blood peculiar tM'-1
" In bumano sanguine vis tdiqua natnralis indireciA inesse
potest. Apud Mich. 161elt. anno 1566, legitur in Livonia
fuisse locum ubi nimbis, tonitruis ac: tempestatibus dll!monia
truculenta grauabantur, nisi in lacum quondam innocuus
infantulorum cruor a ruaticis infunderetur: posteriua hoc aperte
S..tAnicum."- DJtLILIO.
" Nor doth the of and writing with blood
make such stories as these to be more suspected; for it is not
at all unreasonable that such ceremonies should paas between
a 1piril and a man, when the like palpable rites are used for
the more firmly tying of Man to God. For whatever is crass
and eJ.ternal leaves stronger impress upon the Pbansie, and
the remembrance of it strikes tbe mind with more efficacy.
So that uauredly the deril bath a greater hanck upon the 110ul
of a Wilch or Wisatod that hath been persuaded to complete
their contract with him in such a grosa, sensible way, and
keeps them more fast from revolting from him, l'han if dley
had only conttacted in worda."-H. Moa10's Worft-.Anlidole
"ofailut .AtMinn, P 102.
Page 111.
CaU lo your aid lOme builder up '!/ ,_.,_.
" Poet who hath been building up the rhyme."
CouJuDuE.
E E 4
NOT&i.
Page lli.
011, if I cflaiiMi to fiWI a man, 11>1\o tAu
Cotdd f'f!concile all contrarielia,
h IMUA I k11010 no ot/tcoo ,..._ tltat I
Covld callltimjultlg, lhGft " Sla HlcaOCOIII ...
" Noble auctors, men of glorious (&me,
Called our lltOne by uame :
For his composition ia, withouten doubt,
Like to this world in which we walk about ;
Of Heat, of Cold, of Moyat and of Drye,
or Hard, or Sof\, or Light and of Hea"'Ye;
or Rough, o( Smooth, and o( tbingee stable,
Meddled with thingea Seetinge and moeable ;
Of all kinds contrary brought to one accord,
Knit by the doctrine o( God our blessed Lord ;
Whereby o( met&b ia made transmutation,
Not only in colour, but tranaubstanti&tion."
Noa'1'0111'1 OrdiMll, p. 86.
Page 115.
Srunn (mUra)
" a'amuse a dkrire lea quatres qualita: Ia
juriaprudence, Ia la pbiloeophie, et Ia thoologie, de
manim a embrouiller .. - deJ l'ecolier pour toujoura.
lui fait mille argumens dinrs, que l'kolier
approun toua lea una apm lea auu-ea, mais dont Ia concluaion
puce qu'il s'&ttend au st!rieux, et que le Diable plai-
S&Dte toujours. L'ecolier, de bonne olont'- se p"'pare a l'ad-
miration, et le reaultat de tout ce qu' il entend n'est qu'un
unienel. conrient lui-meme que le
doute rient de l'erul!l', et que les dftllons ce soot ct1t111 ,.a flieftl
1
mais il exprime le doute avec un ton qui, atalant l'u--
NOTES. 4-25
ropnce du anc:Ure k !'incertitude de Ia raiaon, ne laiase de
conaistance qu'aux mauai penchanta. Aucune '-Toyance,
aucuoe opinion, ne fide dana Ia tete aprea avoir rntendu
et l'on s'eumine pour uvoir a'il y
a quelque c:boae de vrai dana ce monde, ou ai l'on ne peme que
pour se moquer de toua ceux qui croyenl peDMr. "-MADAHK
DK fn.a.jz..
P.ge 119.
Fur tlail I coumel my !JOU"'I.frieTad
.A eo11r1e of lop: to attend;
Tlaru will your mind, weJl.lraivd, and lritJia,
/11 6oot1, u..U. pompowly I
W'ula 101e1n" <md crippkd pace,
The beaten road of tlamq.ltt will trou.
" Logicians use to clap a proposition,
Aa justices do criminals, in prison,
And as, in learned authentic nonsense, writ
Tbe names of all their moods and figure. fit:
For a logician's one that baa been broke
To ride and pace his reeson by thr book,
And by their rules, and precepts, and exampl111,
To put his wita into a kind of trammels."
BuTua' JUmoim.
P.gel20.
Bepl uitA .. to diut ...
" Our meddling intellect
Mia-abapes the beauteous forma or things,
We murder to diuec:t."
Pagr 1!.!0.
Ola I covld yow cMMUt, in UJhOM 4olld
..,..,,...,
The /eMU /w -! " ENCHIU&DIO
NATUil.& ..
426 NOTES.
"Faithrully deYoted to Nature M Goethe "U. he loved to
speak of her works and ways with mysterious prefaces and
intimations.
Thus he once led me to his cabinet of natural history, and
said, while he pot into my hand a of granite which WIB
remarkable for its unusual transitions, " Here, take this old
stone as a memorial of me. Whenever I find an older law of
Nature than that which manifests itself in this product, I will
preseut you with a specimen of it, and take this back again.
Up to the present time I have discovered none such ; and I
doubt exceedingly whether any thing similar, not to say better,
in this kind of phenomena, will ever come under my notice.
Look attentively at these transitioas : such is the universal ten-
dency, the final result, of all ia nature. Here you see ia
something which makes aootheT substance, forces its way to it,
and, when united, gives birth to a third. Believe me, this is
a fragment or the earliest history of the human species. The
intennediate limbs you must find out for yourself. He who
cannot discover them, will not be the wiser he were
told them. Our scientific men ( Nat-.foriCI!er- investigators
of nature) are rather too fond of detaiil : they counc out to
us the whole consistency of the earth in aeparate lots, and
are so happy 118 to have a different name for every loa. That
is argil (lhonerde); that is quart (kielderde); that is this,
and this ia that. But what am I the better, if I am ever so
perfect in all these names? When I hear them, I always
thinlr. of the linea in Faust : -
Encheirelin nennt 's die Chemie
Bohrt sich selber Esel ur.d weist nie wie.
What am I the better for these lots? what for their names?
I want to know what it is that impels every several portion of
the universe to seek out some other portion, either to rule or
to obey it, and qualifies some for the one pert, and some for
the other, according to a law innate in them all, and oper-
NOTES, 427
ating like a voluntary choice. But this is precisely the point
upon whic:b the most perfect and univenal sileneo. prenils."
"Every thing in science," said he, at another time, with the
eame tum of thought, "is become too much divided into com.
panmenta. In our professors' chairs, the aeveral provinc:ea
(Fiickr) are violently and arbitrarily ae.ered, and allotted
out into half-yearly courses of lecturea, to fixed
plaua.
" The number of real discoveries is eapec:ially when
one views them consecutiely through a few c:enturiee. Moet
of what theee people are 10 busy tlbout, ia a mere repetition of
what bas been said by thie or that predec:easor.
Suc:b a thing u independent original knowledge is hardly
thought of. Young men are driven in Socks into lectUI'e-
rooms, and are crammed, for want of any real nutriment, with
CfUotationa and words. The inaigbt, wbirb is wanting to the
cacber, the Ieamer is to get for himaellu be may. No great
wisdom or acutenesa is nec:esaary to perceive that this is an en-
tirely mistaken path.
" II tbe profeasor is master of a complete scientific appa-
ratus, it is far from mending tbe matter, -it is all the worse.
Tbeo there is no end of the c:oofwion and darkness. Eery
dyer at his copper, eery apothecary at his retort, mUIIt come
to school to him. Tbe poor devib of practical operative men!
I can't e11press bow I pity them for falling into sucb banda!
Once on a time there wua worthy old dyer in Heilbronn, who
wu wiaer than they all ; but for &bat very reuon they laughed
bim to acorn. What would I gin &bat the old muter were
atill in this world- the world which be lr.:new, though it
knew not him- and could eee my Doctrine of Coloun. Tbal
man's copper wu bia teacher : he .hlft&> bow tbinga were brought
" If I were to write down the sum of all &bat is wortb know-
ing in the varioUB ac:iences with which I bae employed myaelf
throughout my life, tbe mauuacript would be 10 small, that you
mitJbt carry it home in your pocket in the cover of a leuer,
428 NOT.BS.
We cultinte either aa a means of gaining bread, or
for the purpose of formally diuecting it in the lecture-room ;
ao that the only choice lei\ to us poor Germans is between a
shallow, auperficial " popular philosophy," or an unintelligible
golimotllia1 of tranacendental phrases. The chapter of electri-
city is that which, in modem times, baa, according to my judg-
ment, been handled the best.
" Euclid's Elements still remain an unrinlled model of a
coune or scientific instruction. In their perfect simplicity,
and in the necessary ucending gradations of the problema,
they show us how all aciencea should be entered upon and
pursued.
" What enormous sums have been squandered by manufac-
turers in consequence of fabe notions of chemistry. Even
the technical arts are very far from being as adnnced u they
ought to be. This book-and-closet knowledge; this wise-
being and wise-malting out of quires or stufF copied from
hand to hand, is the sole cause why the number of rea.lly
useful ditiConriea is so small.
" If on this very day, which we date the 29th of February,
1809, the venerable old English Friar Bacon (who is by no
means to be confounded with bia namesake Chancellor Veru-
lam ), after the lapse of ao many centuries hi a scientific
labours, were to rise from the dead, walk into my study, and
courteoualy ask me to to make him acquainted with the dis-
coveries which have been made in arts and Kiencea since his
time, I should feel somewhat ashamed, and should not very
well know what to anawer the good old man. If it occurred
to me to show him a solar microscope, be would instantly
point to a passage in hit works, in which he not only antici-
pated this invention, but paved the way to it by positive and
practical auggestions. Should our con venation fall on the
invention of watches, be would, perhaps, very composedly say,
if I showed him mine, ' Aye, that' the thing; but it does
not come upon me unezptedly. In page 504. of my worlr.s
you will find the practicability of such machines aet forth;
NOTES.
where 1 have likewise treated at length of the 110lar microscope
and the camera obscura ! '
" At last, after a complete review of modem inventions, I
must, perhaps, expect the deep-thinking friar would take
leave of me in the following words: -' What you have
effected in the coune of 10 many centuries is truly not 10
very considerable. Bestir yourself better. I shall now lay
myself down to sleep again, and at the end of four hun-
dred years more, I will return and see whether you have
made greater progress in any branch of science.' With us
Gennana," continued Goethe, "all things go on very slowly.
Twenty years ago, when I gave out the first idea of the meta-
morphosis of plants, in their criticisms on this work, people
could find nothing to remark but the simple method of stating
a sciomtific aubjec:t, which might, perhaps, serve as a very use.
fu( model to young people. Of the value Of II fundamental
law, from the development of which (in caae it were substan-
tiated) every thing in the work followed, and which admitted
of the widest and most manifold application to the works of
nature, I never had the good fortune to bear a single word.
The reuon is, that they can't find it in Linneus,- whom
they transcribe and serve up again to their pupils.
" Every thing provt!l that men are made for Faith, and
not for Sight. The time will come when they will believe in.
me, and quote me as authority for this and that. I bad rather,
however, they would assert their right, and open their <>11m
eyes, eo that they might see what lies before them : as it ia, they
only mock at thoee who have better eyes than themselves, and
are extremely offended if one accuses them of purblinduess in
their professorial iews of things.
" Preas but ever onward," added Goethe, with fervid ani-
mation, " youthful German people, and weary not in your
progress on the way we ban entered upon ! Give yourselves
up to no mannerism- to no oDeSideness of any kind, under
what name soever it linda ita way among you. Know that
430 NOTES.
wbaeYer &eYers us from Nature is false. The path of Nature
is that which you must tread, if you would meet Bacon,
Homer, and Shabpeare. On all sides there is much to do.
See but with your own eyes, and hear with your own ean,
Lastly, let not the hostility of men trouble you. We, also
have fared no better. In the centre of Thuringia, 011 the
finn land, have we built our good ship ; now are the ftoods
come, and have borne it thence. Even now will many a one,
who knows the ftat country wherein we moYed, not belieYc
that the floods have really risen to the top of the
and yet of a truth are they there.
" Scorn not in your efForts the of like-minded
friends. On the other hand, I e:short you (also after my own
e:sample) to lose no moment with men to whom ye belong not,
and who belong not to you ; for such can profit little, while,
in the course of our lives, they may cause us many annoyances;
and their intercourse is, at best, but vain and useless.
" In the first volume of Herder' ' Ideas towards a Philoso-
phy of the History of Man,' are many notions which belong to
me, especially at the beginning. Thetle subjects were at that
time thoroughly discussed between us. What led to this wu,
that I was always more disposed to an e:samination of Nature
through the senses than Herder, who continually wanted to
hasten to the result, and grasped at the idea, while I had
hardly got through the obaenation : but it was just this re-
cipi'O('B)stimulus that made us mutually
Mas. AuftiM's Charackriltic&, Vol. I. p. SS, &c.
Page 122.
Be sure beforehand lo prepare,
HtJtJe MJd the syllabu wilh care, cf"c.
" As a general rule, all the students not only take notes of
the lectures, but mostly write them out in full. The professor
often spends a part of the time in regular dictation, which is
NOTES. 431
written down by all ; while between the paragraphs he gives
extempore illustrations, which are also seized and written down
by many. It is exceedingly rare to see a student in the lec-
ture-room without his writing materials in busy use. These
are very simple; consisting of a small portfolio, or mnt>Jie in
which he ClUTies his pens and paper, and a small turned ink-
stand of hom, with a cover that screws on, and ,. small sharp
spike on tbe bottom, by wbicb it is atuck fast upon the bench
or writing-table before him. They are exceedingly punctual ;
and the few minuta preYious to the entrance of the professor
are u1ually devoted to mending their pens and putting their
papen in order. This is accompanied by a general whistling
and buz of conversation. The moment the professor enters, all
i1 hushed : be begins immediately to read, and they to write,
sometimes without interruption, till tbe striking of the doclr..
In this way they burry from one lecture to another; and it
is not uncommon for them to attend &ve or six every day.
There are not wanting instances where a student has in this
manner been present at ten different counea; bu\ this il quite
rare. They very generally review at home the lectures thus
written down ; and read or consult tbe books referred to by
the professor. This is sometimes done in companies of 6ye or
six, who by their mutual remarks serve to imprint the subjects
more deeply on the minds of each other. They thus obtain, ge-
nerally speaking, a clear view, and recein a deep impretl&ion of
so much infonnation u the profeaaor baa cb01en to give them.
There are ot.hen, altbough their number i1 comparatively
small, wbo merely make the lectures-what they are, in fact-
a clue for the guidance of their atudies, and go into extensive
and profound investigation for themselves. These are the men
who love knowledge for ita own ~ & l r . e , u well u becauae it is
power; and while the multitude are ready to talr.e up with the
reports of others, they wish to trace for themael vee the stream
of know ledge to its source, and drink of ita pure waters at tbe
cryetal fountain."- RoU)I'ION's Biblit;al lleJ>olilory, No. I.
Tlltological EduraJjqn in Gertrulfl Andover, Jan. 1831.
NOTRli.
Page ISS.
I wWa 1M11e goblin o.f1Mjorul CtJughl MY"
On a crou road -or thai, from IM witch-<:IJm
On Bloclt!berg, lrolli"'f home, an old buclt-soat, fc.
" Right above the surrounding bills of the Hartz ia seen a
mountain whose towering peak commands a view of more
than fifteen miles. Tbia is called the Bracken ; except when
mention ia made of thole old enchantments and wizard rites,
w bich were ages ago, and are nen still oaid to be, celebrated
within its solitary domain; when it more properly takes the
name of tbe Blocksberg. Upon its cold and sterile summit,
inlaid with a thousand million glittering specimens of rock-
stone, the devil is in the habit of holding an annual asaembly
moat splendid of its kind, in the night of the last day of April,
namely, on the well-known Walpurgia night, consisting of
all the witches and sorcerers on earth. After the tolling of
the midnight hour, his guests flock in from all aides, c.-onveyed
by their usual equipage of homed beasts and birds, goata,
rams, owls, &c.-., bearing them through the air upon brooma,
pitchforks, nnd giants' bones; while the devil is kind enough,
on bis part, to bring many of bis guesta along with him.
The company being met, a grand bonfire opens the scene ;
the dance goes round; the whole air is lit with fire-branda,
and fire stirring and blowing ; shouting and dancing, with fire-
works of every kind, continue until the guests are well weary
of the show. But then first feeling bimaelfinspired, the devil
mounts bia devil-pulpit, and begins to blupbeme all the holy
uinta and angela; on the conclusion of wbicb be gives a
supper, consisting wholly of uusages, wbicb are aened on the
witch altars. The bag that is unlucky enough to arrive last,
is condemned, by immemorial custom, for neglect of duty, to
die a cruel and ignominioua death, serving at once aa a wvning
to late Yilliter.., and to lend animation to the acene.
" At the &nt blush of dawn, the whole of the gentle lister
NOTII:S,
and brotherhood dispene in all directions, in earch of other
windfalls, until a future meeting. The neighbouring dwellen
of the Brocken take care, on the approach of the dread Wal-
purgis night, to draw the sign of three crouea over the doon
of their houses and being firm in the penuaaion
that both they and their families can by no other means be
eecured fiom the ill dPSigns of the wicked spirits, who are
then on the watch to enchant them."- GonscHALit's Popular
TroditUm imd Tak of IM Gernuuu.- RoscoE' German No.
lndagatores illi quibus commissum Sagarum solemnes con-
nntut detegere, demolJem bird 6gura amictum memoria
mandarunL Et R. Moeee Ben-Maimon, I. s., More Nebo-
ebem, c. 47., teribit quod in more erat Zabiil seu Chaldais
Demoniis sub hirci forma se oetendentibu immolare. Qui-
dam de gente Zabiorum serviebant damonibus, et eredebanl,
quod apparebant bominilft.s in form& hircorum, et idcirco
ocabant DamonPS hedos. Et ista opinio fuit diffuu tem-
pore Moysis, sicut Scriptura dixit: non immolabant de catero
ietimu auaa haedis aut hirci. Et tales erant Dii tam Ro-
manorum quam Grec:orum quos quidam et a Gennanis cultos
esae ICribunL Fabulantur D. Julium CeMrem, pont.. ad
Coloniam Ubiorum trans Rhenum facto exercitum trnduxisae
totamque Gennanism debellasae, Victoria obtenta in perpetuam
rei egregie navate septem urbel in honorem septem
planetarum, eatruxisse. Primam ruisse in Saturni bonorem
erectam, et oeatam SaterllfA,.glt; alteram Hamhu,.gla, in Joris
Hammonii ; tertiam,- Ma,.lllmrgl, in Martis; quartam in Solis,
&lwedal
1
quintam in Veneris honorem, dietam Masdeburglt
1
sextam Mercurio, dicatam HerellnArglt; septimam Luna, Lune-
lnArglt.- ScaR1ua De Diu Ckrm<ani6, p. 491.
PJI
434
NOTES,
Page 1!'18.
l'ov /Diely come from RiJ1ptu:h, anr .01< ftol,
H- ben& 111 n.pper with old Haft.l lo-Jtigkl ,
' Rippach is a village near Leipzig ; and to ask for Hans from
Rippach- an entirely fictitious personage- was an old joke
amongst the studenta. The ready reply of Mephistopheles,
indicating no surprise, shows Siebel and Altmayer that he
is up to it."-HAvw.u.n'a Fmul, p. 265.
Page 152.
WITcH's KITcazx.
" On peut considher cette 11Cene a quelques regards, c:omme
Ia parodie des Sorcierea de Macbedl. Lea Sorci&res de Mac-
beth chantent des paroles mystl!rieuses, dont les sons extra-
ordinaires font deja l'eff..t d'un sortiJege. Les de
Goethe prononc:ent aussi des mots bizarres, dont les conson-
nanc:ea sont artistement multiplil!ea: ces mota escitent !'imagin-
ation a Ia gaietc par Ia singularitl! meme de leur structure, et
le dialogue de cett.e scene, qui ne eeroit que burlesque en prate,
prend un caractere plus relevc par le channe de Ia pol!sie. On
croit dkouvrir, en l!coutant le langage comique de ces chat-
singes, queUes oeroient les idl!ea dea animauz s'ila pouoient
let esprimer, quelle image grossiere et ridicule ila se feroient
de Ia nature et de l'bomme."- M.1.n, Dz SuiL.
In my translation of this scene in Blackwood, I had called
the Meer-btzen of Goethe, CaJ-apu. In the &eelfl.lhey are lit
times called cnll, at times ape1, by Goethe ; which, perhaps, led
me to forming the word, and must, at all events, be regarded
as some justification. Madame de Stael tells us that the
witches' attendants are " des animauz moiti.S lingft et moiti.S
chats;" and, as well as I recollect, I wu under the same mis-
take, into which, in all probability (for, at this distance of time,
NOTES. 4S5
I cannot apeak with any feeling of cer1aioty), ohe misled me.
The ia the common little long-tailed monkey.
Reztach, if an7 authority was necnury on the subject, told
Mr. Hayward 10 ; but none is, sa the name is giYen to
this description or monkey, in ver7 common books of na-
tural history. Adelung accounts for the word - occur-
ring in the name, u the7 were brought from abroad, from
over sea: the shape of the tail resembling that of the
domestic cat. furnished the other part of the name. My use
of the word CAT-APa is supported by Mr. Blaclde, who
writa thus: -" I originally intended to retain tbe Ger-
man name, See-cat;' but afterwards had no hHitation to
adopt the happ7 tran51ation given by the writer in Blackwood's
Maguine, vol. vii. There is aomething mystical in the idea
of an animal half cat and half ape, which agrees wonderfully
with the witch-like antic character ol this whole scene. BP-
sidea, the term Cat-ape' is far more npre&sin or tbe nature
of the animal than that in the original."- Buc1ua's Fatui,
p. 259.
Page 157.
What' 1 the pur-pose of IM silve !
" Kocr110panlua and were taken A-om cer1ain
sievH and hatchets, which were u.ed, I know not in what
mauner, for discovrring tbe autboi'J of thefb, or other obscure
and cootealed matteTa; the manner whereof may perchance
allude to the practice at thia day among thoae who, fastening
a pair of abean to a aieve, which is held between tbe ftngen
and the thumb, use to demand tbe names of those whom the7
aulp8Ct for stealing any thing : and if the sieve turned about
at the names proposed, they concluded prHently those were
the peraons."-Loan HaauaT of Caaaauav-Ditslogue *
ltoem o Ttdor and 11U Pvpil, p. 162.
" To jlfld owl 11 Tlti4- - Stick a pair of sheArt in the rim of
p p 2
4-S6 NOTES.
a sieYe, and let two persona aet the top of each of their fore-
fingers upon the upper part of the abears, holding it with the
sine up from the ground steadily, and ask Peter and Paul,
whether .tl., B., or C. bath stolen the thing lort; and at the
nomination of the guilty person the sieYe will turn round."
-Rzcmr.uo Scorr, p. 148.
Page 169
.tlnd where are y<Jtjr two ..-ru!
" Throughout the world this ominous bird forebodes either
death or diuppointment. In the East it is figured as the aoul
of the dead ! in the North it it the minUter of tidings from
the upper world to the deity of the infernal regions.t
" It was under such a guile that Satan showed himself to hit
proselytes. Three carbies came unto the well, drank of the
water, and cryit moat feufullie, ' where a woman sought
water; so that, after a third attempt, the corbies cam in such
manner, that she failed.'" f -D.uuLL- Darkr S..perlliliotu
of Scotland.
There would be no end or these notel, if I quoted the
authorities for the ranns as the attendants of the Gothic
demon. In this, as in almoet all the auperstitiona that,
after the introduction of Christianity, maintained a kind of
life,- half struggle, half compromise, -we find the relics of
paganism : and where a superstition it widely diffused, it
is not improbable that it may point, as Mr. Faber imagines,
to some early traditiona of the day when mankind was one
family. The raven ia every where- in the mythology of
regions the farthest remoyed from each other- prominently
brought forward. Mr. Southey, who bas, in" Thl' Old Woman
of Berkeley," and the quotations from the Nuremberg Chronicle
-------- -----
s.rtb6lcSmy, Voyage aux lodes Or., t. i. p. 411.
t Rudbeckius. Mallet, N. Antiquitin.
t Trial of Christiane Leisk. 1649.
NOTES.
printed with that poem, told us of the C<n"niculG quam 11r0 d4-
liciU ptUCebat, gives us, in his account of the enchantress in
" Kehama," the following picture : -
Sani, the dreadful God, who rides abroad
Upon the king of ravens, to destroy
The offending sons of men, when hia four bands
Were weary with their toil, would let her do
His work of vengeance upon guilty Ianda;
And Lorrinite, at hia commandment, knew
When the ripe earthquake abould be and where
To point its course, And with baneful air
The pregnant aeeda of death be bade her strew,
All deadly plagues and pestilence to brew.
I tranliCribe Mr. Southey' note on thia passage. If Mr.
Moor be right in his conjecture, it would give Mephistopheles,
aa the destroyer, a strong claim of right to the raven as his at-
" Sani, being among the astrologers of India, as well aa
with their sapient brethren of Europe, a planet of malignant
aspects, the ill-omened raven may be deemed a fit Nhon for
such a dreaded being. But this is not, I think, a sufficient
reason for the oonspicuous introduction of the raven into the
mythological machinery of the Hindu system, so accurate, so
connected, and so complete in all ita parts ; although the in-
vestigations that it hath hitherto undergone have not fully de-
.eloped or reached such points of perfection. Now, let me
ask the reason why, both in England and India, the raven is
so rare a bird ? lt breeds every year, lilte the crow, and is
much longer lived ; and, while the latter bird abounds every
where, to a degree bordering on nuisance, a pair of ravens (for
they are seldom seen singly or in trios) are scarcely found
duplicate in any place. Perhaps, take England or India
over, two pair of ravens will not be found, on an average, in
the extent of five hundred or a thousand acres. I know not,
for I write where I have no acc\!ta to books, if our naturalist&
., 3
438 NOTES.
ban 10ught the theory of this; or whether it may baYe fint
occurred to me, which it did while contemplating the cha-
racter and attributes of Sani, that the rann destroys its
young; and if this notion be well founded,- and on no other
can I account for the rareness of the annual-breeding, long-
lived raven,-we lhall at once see the propriety of symbolising
jt with Saturn, or Kronos, or Time, devouring or destroying
his own offspring."- Moo a's Hindv Panlheon, p. S 11.,
quoted in SouTun's Eeltama
1
" Vol. I. p. 1148.
Mr. Faber, in his Account of the Greek Genealogy of Escu-
lapius, al\er baYing mentioned Apollo's changing the colour of
the raven from white to black. aays,-" With regard to the
fable of the raven, it appean to be an allusion to that which
was sent by Noah out of the Ark. It did not anawer the
end of its miaaion, and was, therefore, esteemed by the heathens
as an ill-omened, though sacred bird; while the dove, on the
contrary, was always reckoned highly propitious. The raYeD,
boweYer, was believed to be peculiarly sacred to Apollo; and,
accordingly, we learn from Mynilus, that two ranns were
kept in the temple of that god, on Mount Lepetymnua. The
raven, in abort, gave his name to the prieeta of Mitbru, the
Persian .Apollo, wbo were denominated, from that bird, Co-
race&, or Hierocorar:u."-FAu& on t4e M f P I ~ t/' t4e Ca6iri.
VoL I. pp. 101, 1011.
Page 163.
The NOrlhern Pllanlom ., banU/Ied.
" In our childhood, our mothen' maids baYe 10 terrified ua
with an ugly devil bayjng born. on bia bead, fire in bia mouth,
and a tail in hia breech, eyes like a lyn11, fanga like a dog,
claws like a bear, a skin like a niger, and a Yoice roaring like
a lion, whereby we start and are afraid when we hear any one
cry ' bough ; ' and they ban 10 frayed us with bul-beggara.
NOTES. 4-39
apirits, witebH, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satin, pans, fauns,
silens, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs,
gianta, imps, calcan, conjurers, nymphs, changelings, incubas,
Robin Goodfellow, the apoom, the man-in-the-oak, the hell-
wain, the 6re-dralr.e, the puclr.Ie, Tom Thumb, hob-goblin,
Tom-tumble, Boneless, and such other bugs, that we are afraid
of own ahadows."- R&QINALD Scarr.
" One of the et1rliest maps eYer published, which appeared
at Rome, in the aiueenth century, intimates a belief in the
connection of the heathen natioos of the north of Europe with
the demona of the apiritual world. In Eathonia, Lithuania,
Courland, and such districts, the chut, for want, it may be oup-
posed, of an accurate account of tbe countJy, nhibits rud11
cuta of the fur-clad natives, paying homage at the ahrines of
demons, who malr.e themaelves Yi.sibly preaent to them ; while
at other places they are displayed u doing battle with the Teu-
tonic knights, or other military association formed for the con-
nnion or e:rpul1ion of the heatbena in th018 pRJU. Amid the
pagans, armed with scimitars, and in caftans, the fiends
are painted u assisting them, in all the modern
horron of the cloven foot, or, u the Germane term it, hone's
foot, bat-winga, aaucer-eyee, locke like serpena, and tail like a
dragon. These attributes, it may be cursorily noticed, them-
selvn intimate the connection of modem demonologies with
the mythology of the ancients. The doYen foot is the attri-
Lute of Pan, to whose talenta for ina pi ring terror we owe
the word panic. The snaky tresses are borrowed from the shield
of Minena; and the dragon train alone seem to be connected
with scriptural history."- S.a W. 8c01"f, Demonolof!.!l and
IYilcltcroft, p. 7 9.
The ceremonies of witehc:rat\ are a mimicry of the ritual and
forms of the church. " In their helliab rendenouzes," say
Cotton Mather, " they hue had their diabolical ucramenta,
imitating the baptism and supper of our Lord." And in some
" Observations on the Trials of the New-England Witehea,"
quoted in Turner on Providence, I find the following : - " An
F F 4-
NOTES.
impious and impudent imitation of divine mysteriee is apishl:y
affected by the devil, whereof the confellliont of theae
and the afBictiont of the tufferen bave informed ua. For the
witchea affirm, that they form themselves into aaaembliee mucb
at\er the manner of congregational cbun:hel, and that they ba..e
a baptism, and a supper, and 'llfkn' among them, abominably
representing those of our Lord: and, indeed, be.idee thete ucnr.-
mental imitations, their atriking down the bewitched penont
with a fierce look, and their making them again rise with a
touch of their hand; their tranaportation through the air; their
tnvelling in 11pirit while their body it in a trance; their causing
of cattle to run mad and perish ; their entering their names in a
book ; their coming together at the sound of a trumpet ; their
appearing sometimes clothed with light or fire, and their
clothing themaelvee and inttrumenta with invisibilily, are but
so many blasphemous imitationa of certain things recorded
about our Saviour, the prophets, or the taint., in the kingdom
of God." I believe tbat the older aenices for the comecra-
tion of deerons and aub-deacont, and inferior orders of the
priesthood, are the particular ceremoniea to whicb the witch-
ery in these ICenet may be supposed to bave some resemblance.
and in the recollection of whicb the meaning of Faustua'atneer
will be found.
Page 175
.And to yotlr will the IIJ.ft waz mould.
DvrcA tdkrle!J brimborivm
Pvppchen ge/metel. -
" Le mot de brimboriona, dont noua usons quand noua disont
que quelqu'un dit ses brimboriona, vient du Latin de bre-
viarium."- P .t.IQUin de 14 France, p. 1098.
" BauruLJnTP, BannaLO'rlaa. Tons cea mota viennnt
de l'ltalien 6ambo et bimbo, qui signifient tantOt uo petit en-
fant, et tantbt une petite pouptSe."- La Ducau.
" BaiMIIO&IO)I'. De brnlianum, dout on s fait brebiarium,
NOTES.
441
qn'on a pronond ensuite brimborion."- M&lf.&o&, who cites
Pasquier.
" BauuoJUoNS; preghiere aeuaa attentione. Item, ciarpe,
ciarpame, barricah.n1, bagaUlle; cat-A-dire, petites nippea, bahi-
oles, bagatelll!l. Aussi sait.-on bien d'ailleun que brimboriom a
ces deux difnrentet aignifications, tantOt celle de
mannonnees ou recitees sana intelligence ni attention ; et
tantOt celle de babioles ou joueu d'enfans. Au premier aena je
veux croire que ce mot Yient effectivement de bmliti.Wm, 6ant
IIIIIH naturel aux nonoains, aux moines ignorans, et aux pau-
vrea pretres, qui n'entendoient pas le breriaire qu'ils recitoient,
d'avoir appelle brimborium, au lieu de breYiarium, le. breriaire,
et meme lea pril!rea qu'ils en recitoient; et de IS, 118Da doute, les
brimboriomdes Padres CtHestin au livre2. cbap. 7. de Rabelais.
Mais dana )'autre signification de brimborions, je auis tr$.per-
suade que ce mot Yient de I'Italien 6arnbo, bimho, et 6am6alare 1
comme bimlldo1te1 and bimhelottier: au lieu de quoi on a dit
brimbelolte1 and brimlwloltier. On lit IJriborion dana le dic-
tionnaire et Anglois de Clu011 Hollyband (Londres,
I 599) ; et ce mot y est interpret.! en Anglois par mumhliRB
'11101'd1 1 cest-&-dire, paroles de marmottement. Brebtnion se
trouve dana Du Bouchet, livre 'fl7, Le Dictionoaire
ltalien d' Ant. Oudin.
In Rahelais, book 2. chap. 7., among the booka which
Pantagmel finds in the library of St. Victor, there ia " Les
Brimborions des Padres Qllestios ;" another ia, " Lea Brimbe-
lettes des VoyageW'II." Motteux trantlates the latter, " IAe car-
ri<rp-ltoru belli 91' trowllerJ."
Page 175.
AI lllilneu man9 a ll.ory told
Qf lnle love in Italian IO"B
" The love of the Spaniards and the Italians pleaseth me; by
how much more reapectiye and fearful it ia, the more nicely
cloee and cloaely nice it is. I "ot not who, in ancient time,
442 NOTES.
wished his t.broat were as long aa a crane's neck, t.bat ao be might
the longer and more leisurely taste what be swallowed. That
wish were more to purpose t.ban this suddaioe and riolent
pleasure; namely, in such uatuftl u mine, who com faulty in
suddainmea. To stay her fleeting, and delay her wit.b pre-
ambles, wit.b them allaervet.b for favoure-all is to be CODatrued
to bee a recompense : a winke, a caste of the eye, a bowing, a
word, or a signe, a becke is as good as a dew guard. Hee that
could dine with the smoke of roast meat, might he not dine at
a cbeape rate? Would be not soon be rich? It is a passion
that comqjinth with small store of aolid euence, gnst quanti tie
of doting vanitie and febricitant raring : it mu1t, therefore, be
requited and served with the like. Let us teach ladies, to know
how to prevaile, highly to esteeme themselves, to amuae, to cir-
cumvent, and cozen us. We make our last charge the first.
We show ounelves right Frenchmen, eYer rub, ever headlong.
Wire-drawing their favours, and enstalliog them by retaile,
each one, even to old age, findea aome listes end, ac-
cording to his worth and merit. He who bath no joyisance
but in enjoying ; who shoots not but to hit the marke; who
loves not bunting, but for the prey : it belongt not to him to
intermeddle with our scboole. The more ateps and degrees
there are, the more delightful honour there Ia on the top. We
should be pleased to be brought unto it aa unto stately p.Iaces,
by divers seYeral passages, long and pleasant galleries,
and well-contrived turnings. This dispeneation would, in the
end, redound to our benefit, for these snatches and away mu
the grace of it. Take away hope and desire, we grow faint in
our courses, we come but lagging after. After they baYe
yielded themtelvea to t.be mercie of our faith and constancie,
they have hazarded aomething. They are rare and difficult
virtues: so soon as they are ours, we are no longer theirs."
-MoKT.llOMJ:'a Eua;ya, Book III. chap. 5. FLOJUo's Tron.r-
lnticm.
NO TEll.
Page 189.
Mere trinl<et.fluns I
-My loil ;, nolhing, nor tM value
Of wluJI I give I
4-43
Laurentius Ananias gives a curious reason for the unwill-
ingness of evilapirita to part with money. I transcribe from
Delrio : -" Matos Genioe esse deditos anritiee et thesauros
ac pec:uniaa hujuamodi asaervare Antichristo filio perditionie
ut ei Rd. sumptum eufliciant: idque dll!monem ariolo cuidam
reepondiase, quamvis autem datmooi ut mendac:i minime crc-
dendum : res !amen a vero parum abhornt.
Page 223.
" Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe I
Thou soul that art the Eternity of Thought,
And giYesl to forms and images a breath,
And everlasting motion ! Not in vain,
By day or atar-light, thus from my first dawn
or childhood didat thou intertwine for me
The pauioos that build up our human soul ;
Not with the mean and Yulgar worlr.a or mau,-
But with high objecta, with enduring tbioga,
Witb life and nature; purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear,-uotil we recognise
A grandeur in the beatioga of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
With stinted lr.indoesa. In November daya,
When rolling down the Yalleys made
NOTJ:I,
A lonely scene more loae10me ; among wooda
At noon, and in the calm of' summer nights,
When by the margin of the tl'embling lake,
Beneath the gloomy billa, I homeward went
In solitude, suc:h inten:oune wu mine :
'Twas mine among the fields both day and night,
And by the w&ten all the summer long.
And in the frosty seuon," &c:.
Woawwo&Tu.
Page 228.
Oh lhat l11oere
A lillie bird 1-
Mr. Hayward hu given from Herder the 110ng alluded to:
"Wenn ic:h ein Voglein wiir
Und auc:b zwee Fliiglein batt
Flag ic:b zu dir ;
Weile aber nic:bt kann eeyn
Bleib ic:h all bier.
" Bin ic:h gleic:b weit Yon dir,
Bin icb doc:b im achlaf bei dir,
Und red mit dir:
Wen icb erwacben thu,
Bin ic:h allein.
" E1 nrgeht keine atund in der Nacht
Da mein bene nic:ht erwacht,
Und an dic:h gedenkt,
Da .. du mir Yil!l tausendmal
Dein hcrze geshenkL"
MOTES.
44-5
Beautiful, very beautiful, u these linn are, they are far leta
ao than Mr. Coleridge' : -
" If I bad but two little wings,
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I'd By, my dear!
But thougbta like these are idle tbiaga,
And I stay here.
" But in my sleep to you I By :
I'm always with you in my sleep;
The world ia all one's own.
But thea one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone.
" Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids :
So I love to wake ere break or day ;
For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids
And atill dreams on."
Page 5199.
Thil i1 Anlipal/&y.
Mr. Hayward, in illustration of this passage, quotes aome
linea of e:rceediag beauty, from Coleridse's " Zapolya: - "
" And yet Sarolta, simple, ine:rperienced,
Could see him as be wu, and often warned me.
Whence learn'd she this! -oh, abe was innocent,;
And to be innocent is Nature's wisdom!
The ftedge-doYe knows the prow len or the air,
Feared aoon u seen, and Butten back to shelter ;
And the young steed recoils upon his baunt"hea,
The adder's bi flnt beard.
MOTKI.
0 ! sul'ft' than Suspicion's hundred e y e ~
Ia that fine senae, which to the pure in heart
By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness
Renals the approach of eYil."
EYen in Coleridge few passages can be found of more
beauty and more truth. h it the feeling of "dallying with
wrong, that d0e1 us harm," which tempts me to add another
instance of the efFects of AtttipatAy ~
" How comes it that eome judges are not clear,
When malelacton at the bar appear ?
or this they are made conscious, when there' brought
EYidence against one bee it for a thing of nought,
His crime be aggravates, and in hia fury,
If they no1 guilly bring, sends back the jury ;
Stretches each quiddit of the law to find
Him clpable, only to please his mind.
Again, if for some capital ofFence
Another's brought; though law has no pretence,
Nor conscience colour, how to make his paace,
Yet shall he atrive the ofFender to release;
Cite statutes in his faYour; what appeares
Most grot111 seek to extenuate, and with tearea,
If eo the jury's verdict 'gainst him run,
Pronounce the sentence as against his son,
Neither by him, perhaps, before-time seene.
Whence is the cause then of this LoYe or spleene? "
HllTWoon' 1 lrlef'Grcllitt of 6/uald AJ&Bell, Book IV.
NOTES. 447
Page 248.
Zwi!IOila. - A LrrrLil SHIU!IIl.
I transcribe a few lines of the fine old hymn on which Mar-
garet's is founded-" TM p/4inl of tlte Blesud. Vir& in Mary."
Stabat maler dolorosa
Ju1ta crucem lacrymosa
Dum pendebat filius.
Cujus animam gementem
Contristatam et dolentem
PertTanllivit gladius.
0 quam tristis et aiBicta
Fuit ilia benedicta
Mater Unigeniti!
Qu1111 merebat, et dolebat,
Et tremebat, cum videbat
Nati pcanaa inclyti.
Quia est homo qui non fleret,
Christi matrem si videret
In tanto supplicio ?
Quis passel non contristari
Piam matrem contemplari
Dolentem cum filio ?
Pro peccatis sum gentis
Vidit Jesum in tormentis
Et flagellis subditun1 ;
Vidit mum dulcem natum
Morientem, desolatum
Dum emisit spiritum.
Crashaw's "SA!fCrA MAau DoLOaux-a pathetical De-
scant upon tbe devout, plain Song of Sldal Motn'dolor-,"
-"8
NOTES.
which I ban met with in turning o't'er the leues
of CludrMn'l Pan., to look for aomething elae-bal to my
eer nry much of the desolate and wailing tone of Goethe's
plaint:-
" In shade of death's sad tree
Stood doleful sbe-
Ab, she! now, by no other
Name to be known, alas, but Sorrow's mother!
" Before her eyes
Hera and the whole world's joya
Hanging all tom she sees; and in hia woes
And pains, her panga and thra.,
Each wound of his, from every part,
Are, more at home, in her own heart.
" What kind of matter then
Ia that cold man
Who can look on and aee,
Nor keep auch noble sorrow's company ? " &c.
Page 250.
V ALK!I'rll<lt (M.t.DG&'a
" L'hietoire de Marguerite aerre douloureusement le coeur.
Son 4!tat ...ulgaire, eon esprit tout ce qui Ia eoumet au
malbeur, aane qu'elle puiese y riaieter, inspire plus de
piti4! pour elle. Goethe, dana eee romans et dans eee pieces,
n'a presque jamais donn4! des qualit4!8 supl!rieurea aux femmee,
mais il peint ll merveille le caracu\re de qui leur rend
Ia protection si nkeuaire." -M.t.D.t.K& D11 STAiL.
" Le d4!ahonneur aemble avoir plus de. priae sur lee pereonnea
d'un rang eleve, et peut-et.re est-il plus
NOTES,
doutable dana Ia clane du peuple. Tout eAt ai tranche, si
poaitif, si irreparable panni leA hommea qui n'ont pour rien
des parolea nuanct!es. Goethto saisit admirablement cea moeun,
tout i Ia fois si prt\a et si loin de nous : il poasede au auprime
l'art d'etre pufaiwment nature! dans mille nature
diffi!rentea.
" Valentin, aoldat, frere de Marguerite, arrive dP Ia guerre
pour Ia revoir, et quand il appromd sa honte, Ia aoufFrance qu'il
.Sprouve Pt dont il rougit, se trabit par un langage lpre et
toucbant tout i Ia f'oia. L'homme dur en apparence, et aen-
u"ble au fond de l'ame, cause une .!motion inattendue et poi-
guante. Goethe a peint avec une admirable Yeritl! le courage
qu'un aoldat peut employer contre Ia douleur morale, contre
cet ennemi nouYeau 1u'il sent en lui-meme, et que BH armea
ne aauroient combattre
" Marguerite arriYe, demande qui eat Ia tout aanglant sur Ia
terre. Le peuple repond: Lejill de 14 ,.n.e. Et aon f'rere
en mourant lui adreaae deB reprocheA plus terriblea et plus d&.
chirants que jamaia Ia langue polic.SO n'en pourroit uprimer.
La dignitl! de Ia ne sauroit permettre d'enf'oncer si a. ant
I traita de Ia nature dans le coeur."- MADA1lll DE Sui!r...
P.ge 252.
And will u from tile dm-lr earlll prirtg!
'The supposition that bidden treasures are guarded by flameA,
&c. is common through all the north of' Europe. and ia, I
believe, of' Runic origin. I transcribe the following story
from the Allrologer rfthe Nlfll!teenth :-" There ia one
known to our society who doth ayer, that, when he was at
Rome, in 1699, be was told by a penon of' good intelligence
bow that there died there an unfortunate gentleman, in the
OO.pital of' St. John of Lateran, of fright, and how he told in
G G
NOTBS.
confe.ion thai, baring been engaged in a duel, he slew a mao
and bad to fly; and, the fear of justice enry where punning
him, be ab.conded himself in 'fery melancholy aad lonesome
places ; and one night, as be WP endeavouring to rest
in the porch of the chul't'h of St. John Lateran, he was suddenly
terri6ed by the apparition of a akeleton, wbo commanded him
to follow. Recovering himself, be followed into a certain
ground belonging to the bospit81 ; md the earth opening, there
were disconred to him six euthen pots full of money, which
were encompused shout with llames of 6re. Then said the
spectre,-' Friend, all this money that you see I will gi..e you
if you but t8ke poae!ISion ofit: fear not the fl11111es, they em not
burt you ; fear them not, I say- what ye do, do immedi8tely,
or otherwise I give these treasures to the spirits of the earth,
who ue already w8iting to receive them."- D&. Ln.
P.ge 258.
SM wolb afronli"'J lite dayligld.
Come in the public path, and oee how all
Shall fty thee, as a child goes shrieking back
From something long and black
Which mocks .tong the will I.
See if the kind will st8y
To be.r whllt thou would'st say ;
See if thine 11rtns can win
One soul to think of sin ;
See if the tribe of wooen
Will now become punuen ;
And if where they make way
Tbou'lt carry now the day;
Or whether thou wilt spread not such foul night,
That thou thyself shalt feel the shudder and the fright.
A NJ>a&A Dlt iJuso' Ode to a Dead Body;
from lite llalitm, hy Lw:JoH HuNT.
NOTES. 4H
I regret that I bad not seen this poem of appalling power
before I bad translated this passage.
Page 260.
Cadledral, 4"c.
" QueUe scl}ne! Cette qui, dans l'uile de Ia
consolation, trouve le d6sespoir; c:ette foule priaot
Dieu avec confiaoce, taodis qu'une malbeureuee femme, dana
le temple meme du Seigneur, recootre l'esprit de l'enfer.
Lea paroles sliveres de l'hymne sainte soot ioterpret&s par
l'influible du mauvais Que! desordre dans
le CII!Ur! que de mau:t eot&IRs sur uoe foible et pauvre tete!
et que! talent que celui qui sait aioai representer
ces momens oil la vie s'allume eo oous comme un feu sombre,
et jette sur nos jours puugers Ia terrible lueur de Nteroiu
des peioea ! " - Mn.t.lla DJ: Sui1..
Page 261.
Duu Ia&, Dn:s ILLA.
Y oz primtJ canlal 1<1/a.
Dies ir..,, dies ilia
Solvet NeClum in faYilla,
Teste David cum Sibyll&.
Qualuor 1101 limul.
Quaotus tremor est futurus,
Quando jude:t est veoturua,
Cuncta atricte diacusaurus.
G G 2
NOTES,
Poz prima lOla.
Tuba mirum apargena eonum
Per regionum
Coge& throaum.
QNiuor- .,...,.
Mou stupebit et natura,
Cum resurget creatura,
Judicanti reapouaura.
y-primA 10/G.
Liber ecrip&u.l prol'eretur
In quo totum coutiuetur,
Unde muDdua judicetur.
Q....n- UOQitft"'"'"
Judex ergo cum ledeblt,
Quidquid latet adparebit '
Nil inultum I"'!!DDIDebit.
Yo. prinwl IOlG.
Quid aum mi_. tunc dicturua?
Quem patronum ropturue ?
Cum vis justus ait MCUrua.
Qllalwor f101 riffi..Z.
Rex uemende majestati
Qui alnndos .. Ja gratis,
Saln me, fon pietatio.
Yoz primuola.
Recordare, Jnu pie,
Quod sum <'auaa tue ;
Ne me perdu ilia die.
MOTJ:S,
Quatuor 1101 lim"l.
Querens me tediati laau1 ;
Redemiati crucem pueu1:
Tantus labor DOD sit CUIUI.
JT oz prima IOlo.
J uate Judex ultionis,
Donum fac remitaionis,
Ante diem rationia.
Qvllltlor _, limul.
lngemiaco tanquam reus,
Culpa rubet vultua meua :
Supplicanti parce Deus.
JT oz pr;- caniGI .ala.
Qui Mariam abaolviati
Et latronem exaudiati,
Mibi quoque apem dedisti.
QUGlt.or voc.1 limtiL
Precea mee non aunt digne ;
Sed tu bonus fac benigne
Ne perenni cremer igne.
JToz prima 101&
Inter OYet locum preata,
Et ab bCltdia me sequestra,
&atuen in parte dexua.
Q.anwr - .,...,,
Confutatia maledictia,
Flammia acribua addicti.
Voca me cum
0 0 s
NOTES.
v .. ,m- /IOio.
Oro aupplell et acdinia,
Cor contritum quui cini;
Gere curam mei IiDia.
Quahlor liMul.
Lacbrymoea diea ilia
Qua reaurget ell fa'Yilla.
V tt prima IOIG.
Judicandus homo reus:
H uic ergo parce Deus.
Quat1Wr' - ""'"'
Pie Jesu Domine
Dona eis requiem. Amen.
Rihi.Die Romanvm XIV.
Page 26S.
Yowr .flalltd,frinuL-
Nad!Hrin I Euer FliUcJim. - Go:nn&.
ln Madame de Stae1'a 'Yenion of thia IICeDe, and in moft
than one of the English translationa, the effect of theae worda
ia oought to be ginn, while the particular e11preaion ia
a'Yoided. 1 transcribe, on account of ita impressin beauty, a
sentenCe from the " Quarterly Re'Yiew " on this subject. " The
translator probably thought the contrast of the awful LuiD
rhorue, the whispers of a demon, and the poor Margaret asking
the girl that kneels nezt to her for her phial, too violent, too
But the poet knew what he was doing : the effect ef
his thrw bare common worda ie terrible. It ia among the
NOTES. 455
lightm triumphs or geniul to blend, without producing the
effect of incongruity, tbe dream and the reality; and tbie eimple
girl' agoniea, wbetber or love, aorrow, or despair, would have
been comparathely powerleu, bsd abe not been taught to utter
them in the vivid poetry of such proae as this."-
Bnie111, vol. XXXIV. P 147.
The word jltu/tt!l ia, I fear, more of\en uted in tbe aenae of
the French word " corbeille" than in that which tbe formation
of the word would suggest. Pope and Parnell, however, uae
it in such a aenae as would juatify mine. I have, however,
Iince tbe page in which it occurs was printed, found it uaed in
the preciae aenae of a amall Bask. In the edition of 1566 of
Sir David Lindesay' Boolt tif tAe Monarclly, the word ia 10
uaed- the later edition give " crowal," i. e. See
Eu.u'e vol. II. p. 27. It is curious tlaat the dif
ference of readings ia not mentioned in Cbalmen'a Edition of
Sir David Lyndesay's W orb.
Page 265.
l'U caU a wil&-.JW Jrrll-o'-Ui' W'IIJI lo U,41 w.
"Will-o'-th'-Wiep before them went,
Sent forth a twinkling light,
And soon abe saw the fairy banda
All riding in ber light."
Ta.: Yoowo TAJILAHII.-.Mi..,rchy
of lhe Scotlilh Border.
In the Scribleritsd we have W'ill-o'-th'-Wisp playing the part
of guide:-
Lo! all propitioua to hit raptured eight,
An ignit fatuua with light,
From the dank earth nhaled, began to move,
Hia coune directing, &c. Book V.
G G 4o
4-56 NOTES.
Page 272.
Wile! dan Oft llle Brocrt.
" Its origin may be traced to the history of
Equally inapired with religioua and heroic views, he first
open..O the theatre of war in Germany, when he wu oppo&ed
by the Saxons with all the rage of barbarian fl'ft'dom united
to idolatroUI hatred of the new religion aought to be
duced. Resolved both upon their conquest and con.-eraion,
Charlemagne wu involved in a fierce war, which was prolonged
during three and thirty years. At length, indignant at their
long resistance, he put all indiscriminately to the 11rord who
refused the rite of baptism ; but the moment he engaged in
other wan, the Saxons as often resumed their sacrifices to idols
in their woods. When driven from these, they aought the
atill wilder retreats and fortrnsea of the Harts mountains-in
particular, the Brockeu, Ill that tim" .. Imoo;t unapproachable.
At the period of their festal ritea and aacrifices, Charlemagne
atationed guards at the puws of the mountains ; though the
Saxons oucceeded in celebrating them by adopting the follow-
in gcontrivance. They arrayed themoelves like goblinl, with
the skins and horns of beasts, with fire-furko in their bancU, and
those rude instruments which they used as protection against
wild beuts, and, during their a&<'rificial rites, as they danced
round thtt altar. Thus anned, they put the whole of the
terrified guards to Bight, and proceeded to invite the people to
their festival. Hence its celebration on the first of May, on
the wildest region of the Hartl, with the snow yet lying on the
Brocken, naturally enough gave rise among the Chriotians to
the belief of witches riding, that night, upon their broomsticks,
to add to the inf.,rnal mirth and mystery of theoe heathen ritea.
" In fact, the srly Christians uniformly viewed idolatry u
the worship of demons, and firmly believed that the devil him-
oelf, in spite of Charlemagne's Chriatian guarda, found hia way
through the air to give IHt to the party UMDJbled, in honour
NOTES. -t-57
or him upon the top or the Brocken. Such supentition re-
ceied rorce (rom the appeannce or the terrific and fantastic
figtll'ft haunting the mountaina pnmous to the festal day,
and which, seen by the soldien, were with a Yariety
or diabolical ornaments and additions. The lint or May u
supposed to hue been sel..cted as a welcome or the approach-
ing year, and the rites, always diabolic patronage,
celebrated in honour or the goddess Oatera ; while the cu.-
tom, atill prevalent in many parts or Germany, or adorning
the houan and churchea on that day, is, doubtleea, some rem-
nant or the heathen featival."- lloscos' German Nowluu.
Vol. II. p. 94. and 95.
&e the Fit-ll W'alJNrp Nll(ht, in this volume.
" Majores nostri de publicis rebus consultaturi sub dio con-
enire solebant, tum quia tanta multitudo nullo edificio com-
mode capi poterat, tum ut ab omnibus magicis artibua atque
incantationibus tuti esaent et immunea. Ilia verna& tem-
poris politica observatio in pessimam abiit auperstitionem; cum
enim reliquum toompus rari in publicum procederent regea Me-
roeice stirpis, neminem non cupido incedebat principia sui
Yidendi. Concurrebatur undique a mulierculis imprimis et
lni plebe que otio et emali tempore induta diea nocteaque eam-
que pre ceteris, que adventum regis Kalend. Maj. precedebat,
saltationibus, conviviis, et poculis, sub dio et in silris
bat. Post ea tempora quamlibet mutata regum vita ratione, et
comitiia publica lege in Martium mensem tranalatis, herebat
tarnen in animis plebis priatina consuetudo, et cum alii quoque
modo audita pro compertia haberent, alii nra in contrarium
nrterent, non modo conouetudo Kalendis Maji commesaandi,
saltandi, et arbores ante edea plantandi, ad posteros tranarniua,
sed (abule etiam conficta de connntu, conriviis, et chorei.
sagarum et demonum in Suevie monte Heu!Jwg dicto, et in
celebri monte Bructerorum, ea nocte que Kal. Maj. antecedit.
Ausit forte superstitionem rumor, qui de Walpurgia aacre
irginis in molJUterio Heydenheimenai sepulta cista sepul.
chrali argenta increbuerat, ex qua cum die prima Maji oleum
458 NOTES.
omnibus morbis medelam afFerens diceretur destillare, frequem
conftuebat credula plebs. Haec eo faciliua aimplicium mentea
occupabant, quod jam ab antiquiuimis temporibua demonum
ope per aera ferri et agitari persuaaum erat."-Knsu:a, A ~
quiUJU1 Septmli'Wnak,.
" Of the dreadful triplica&ed great godd-, the pretended
witcb of the dark ages wu a mere 1enile copyist ; though
the imitation wu conducted on the strictly mythologiall prin-
ciple, that the miniater of a deity ahould ape his evuy actioo.
Tbe broornatick nhiclea of these awful penonages were a
10mewbat ludicrous travestie of the majestic fieud-horw of
Ceridwen. Tiae sieves "'hicb sened them for boata in their
aquatic expeditions were a tnmiCript of the myatic llla-uatta,
or the circular ark of the world ; and the egg-lhella, which
they were wont to uae for a similar purpoee, baYe been bor-
rowed from the floating nuicular egg, out of which the great
father and his triple offSpring were produced."- Fuaa,
Origin'!{ P48"" ldofiJtry, Vol. III. p. 947.
Page 272.
I have borrowed this phrase from an English aoun:e.
The record of the e:r.amination of Alice Duke, aJial Manning
(witch of Slyle'1 Knot), of Wincantown, in the county of So-
merset, before Robert Hunt, Esq. She confessed, that, "wben
lhe lived with Anne Bishop, eleven or tweiYe yean before,
Anne Bishop persuaded her to go into the churchyard in the
night-time, and, being come thither, to go backward round
the church; which they did three times. In their lint round
they met a man in black clothes, who went round the aecond
time with them ; and then they met a thing in the shape of a
rreat black toad, which leapt up against the e:umiD&Dt'a
apron. In their third round they met somewhat in the shape
of a rat, which Yanished away. After this, the euminant
NOTES.
459
and 4"ne Billlop went home ; but Wore Anne Bishop went,
the man in black lllid something to her, eoruy, which the in-
fonnsat could not hear.
" A few days after the devil appeared to her in the abape of a
man, promising that she should want nothing, and that if she
cursed any thing, she should have her purpoM, in case she would
giYe her BOO Ito him, suffer him to suck her blood, keep his
creta, and do such mischiefu he would let her about. All whicb,
upon his second appearing to her, she yielded to; and the
deoril having pricked the fourth finger of her right hand, he-
tween the middle and the upper joint (where the mark is yet
to he seen), gaYe ber a pen, which with she made. a noaa or
mark, with her blood, on paper or parchment, that the devil
ofFered her for the confirmation of the agreement, whicb wu
done in the of Anne Bishop ; and u soon a the
euminaat had signed it, the deYil gaYe her lizpmce, and weat
away with the paper or parchment.
" Further, she confesleth, that she had been at
meetings at Lie Common, and other places, in the night; and
that her forehead being fint anointed with a feather, dipped in
oil, she hath been suddenly carried to the place of their meet-
ing. That, about five or si:l weeks ago, she met in the said
common, in the night, where were present Anne Bishop, &c.,
a mea in black clothes, with a little band, whom abe sup-
posed to have been the devil.. At the meeting there wu a pic-
ture in which the man in black took in his arms; and,
having anointed its forehead with a little greenish oil, and
using a few words, baptized it by the name of Elizabeth,
or Bess Hill, for the daughter of Richard Hill. Then the
devil, this euminant, Anne Bishop, and Elizabeth Style, stuck
thorns in its neck, beads, hands, wrists, fingers, and other parta
of the picture, uying, Curse on thee ! I'll spite thee!' Thia
done, all ute down, a white cloth being spread on the ground,
and did drink wine, and eat cakes and meat. After all waa
ended, the man in black vanished, leaving an ugly smell at
4-60 NOTES.
parting. Tbe reet were, on a lUdden, connyed to their
homes.."
Tbe con(eaion goe. on to relate her being at tlll'feral odler
such meetings.
" She aaith, that, after their meetings, they all make a ery
low obeisance to the deru, who appears in black clothea, aud a
little band. He bida them wl!lcome at their coming, and
brings wine or beer, cakes, meat, or the like. He sits at the
higher end, and, usually, they are to say, ' Merry meet, merry
part ! ' and that be(ore they are carried to their meetings, their
roreheads are anointed with greenish oil, that they han from
the spirit, which smells raw. Tiley (or the most part are car-
ried in the air. As they pua, they ay, ' 7loul, lout a 10111.
,llrot<g/ulvl tmd abot.t. Paaaing back, they ay, ' 1Uotlwa
tormeftlvm,' and anocher word, which she doth not remem..
ber.
" She conreaaetb that her Wniliar doth commonly auclt her
right breut, about le'feD at night, in the ahape or a liule cat,
ora dunnish colour; and when aheaucked, she il in a kind ora
trance. She aaith, that, when the devil doth any thing (or her,
she calls (or him by the name or Robin, upon which be ap-
pears ; and when in the shape or a man, she can bear him
apealr.; but then his voice is very low. He promiled. her, when
she made her contract with him, that she should want nothing :
but ever since she hath wanted all things."- TuJLJBa.,. Pro-
fliderlce, chap. S.
" The evidences," says Shadwell, referring to the narrati'fe&
by which be supported his deacriptions or witchcraft.; .. the
eridencea I hae repn.nted are natural, ria. alight and rrioro-
lotu, such u old women were wont to be hanged upou."-
SBADWUL'a L ~ WilcAu.
" In the Goeticke and necromantick magiclte, it ia oblen-ed
by D. Tbom, Gulielmus Parisiensia, Scotu., GeraoD, Abu-
lensi., Victoria, &c. &c., that it ia the roundation or a aec:re&
or npreue compact with the devil, by the ron:e or which mi-
serable men paom and oblige their soulea to him. He inter-
NOTES.
461
changeably submita himself to them as their vuule: he is
preeeut as 1100oe as called ; being uked, he answers ; being
commanded, he obeys- not bound upon any necessity, but
that he may thereby intricate and endear unto him the soules
of his clients, to destroy them more suddenly and unexpect-
edly: for the magician hadl only a confidence that he hath
empire over the devil ; who again counterf'eiteth to be his
servant and vassal.
" Eutichianus, Patriarch of Constantinople, recorded thia
historie: -"In the time of the Emperor Justinianus (saith he),
there lied in Adana, a city of Cilicia, one Theophilus, wbo
was by office the steward of the church: he was so beloed
and gratioua in the eyes of all men, u that he was held to be
worthy of an epiacopal dignity, which, notwithstanding, he
most constantly refused; and afterward, being unmeritedly
accused by such u emulated his honest life and &incere car-
riage, he was put by his place of stewardship ; which dron
him into that desperation and impotence of mind, that, by the
counsel of a Jewish magician, he renounced his Saiour by
an indenture written under his own hand, deliering himself
wholly into the empire of Sathan, who was many times i&ible
to him. But now, mieerable man, what shall he do? He
groweth repentant of the act, and troubled in spirit, when he
thinks how much he hath incensed his Maker and Redeemer,
by deliering himself up a oluntary ai&Ye and captie to the
great achenarie, the devil. The story saith, in this anxiety
and perturbation of minde, he thought it best to fty for uc
cour to the bleeeed Virgin Mary, and to that purpose retired
him.ell to a temple consecrated unto her, in which he tendered
many supplications and prayers, joined with fasting and tears,
making great show of effectual repentance. Forty days to-
gether he frequented the church without intermise.ion or c e ~
lation of weeping and praying, presenting his blasphemous
writing upon the altar; which miraculously, u they .. y, was
taken thence, and he receied again into God's fayour.
"The manner of this homage (and others) done to tha
NOTES.
de'l'il is u followeth : - First, the 1118gician or witch is brought
before the tribunal of Sathan, either by a familiar spirit, or
el.e by a mage, or bag, of the same proceaion : be sib crowned
in a majestic throne, round ingirt with ot.ber dei.la, who
aueod on him u his lords, barons, and richly babited.
The palace aeemeth wholly to be built of marble, t.be walls
bung with gold and IUTU8- alllbowiog the
pomp of regalitie and state. Sat.bao bim.elf, from bU royal
-t, cub his eyes round about, as if rudy to incline his
benign cares to any bumble suitor wbateYer.
" Then steps forth a devil of a venerable upect, and saith,
' Oh, most potent lord and master, great patron oC t.be spa-
cious universe, in whOle hands are all the riches and treuures
or the earth, and all the goods and gif\s or the worlde! t.bia maD
I before thy imperial throne, to follow thy standard,
and to fight under the patronage of thy great name and
power; who is ready to acknowledge thee to be God and
creator of all things, and none but tt-. It shall be in thy
clemeocie, 0 most sovereign Lord! to vouchsaCe this mao (or
woman) the grace of thy benign aspect, and receiYe him (or
her) into thy patronage and favour.'
" To which be, with a grave countenauce and loud oruioo,
thus aosweret.b :-' I cannot but commend him, thy friend, who
10 ronditionally bath committed himself to our safeguard and
trust; whom, as our client and favourite, we accept, and pro-
mise to supply him with all felicitie and pleasure, both in t.bia
life and the future.'
" This done, the wretch is commanded to r&o
nounce his faith and baptisme, the Eucharist, and all adler
holy things, and confeM Lucifer hia only lord and goyeroor ;
which is done with many execrable ceremonies, not fit here
to be remembered. Then is this writing delinred (aa wu
before spoken of Theophilus ), written with t.be blood oC the
left thumbe. Then doth the de'l'ile mark him, either in t.be
brow, neck, or shoulder, with the stamp or character or t.be
foot or an bare, a black dog, or toad, or some such figure,
NOTES. 46S
by which be brands him (u the custom was of old to mark
their slaves and captives whom they bought in the market
for money), to become his perpetual slave and vaaal.
" And this Nigerius, Sprangerus, Bodinus, &c., say, The
wicked spirit doth, as desirous to imitate God in all things,
who, in the Old Tl!&tament, marked his chOM!n people with
the seal of circumcision, to distinguish them from the Gen-
tiles, and, in the New Testament, with the sign of the cross,
which, as Hieronimus and Nuianzen say, succeeded that of
circumcision; and, as the devil is always adverse to his Creator,
ao be will be worhipped with contrarie rites and ceremonies.
Therefore, when magicians and witches present themselves
unto him, they worship him with their faces from and their
backs towards him, and sometimes standing upon their heade
with their heele1 upward."-HAvwooo's Hierarchie of Blellll!d
.Ange/1, Book VII. p. 47S.
The witchcraft of the middle ages is, after all, little more
than a re-animation of the dead bones and dust of heathen
superstition. In what do the feasts of Canidia or Circe differ
from the pretensions of the Gothic witch ? The poverty of the
witch's den is the difference. Circe, the daughter of the Sun,
differs on I y in wealth and the splendour of wealth from the
Lapland hag: the herbs gathered by moonlight- the pin-
ning-the song- the forms of worship-nay, the very deities-
are the same; and, assuredly, the critics who have accused
Shakspeare of improperly introducing Hecate as presiding
over the rites of hia witches, have never looked into either the
descriptions in the clusical poets of their Medeas and Canidiu,
or into what is more calculated to decide the question, the ac-
tual trials of witches. In the lady Sibelia of the Gothic in-
cantations, Cybele is, beyond a doubt, ir.tended. Mine"a and
Diana are alao mentioned as at their ceremonies. It requires
but to read Virgil's description of Circe, in some such rhymes
u Abraham Fleming, every now and then, supplies to Regi-
nald Scott, to reduce the aorceres.s of the poet to the witch of
the ballad-monger.
NOTES.
Diea inacce.os ubi Solla filla lucoe
Assiduo reaonat cantu, tectitque auperbis
Urit odoratum noctuma in lumina cedrum.
In Circe' magic we have the tranaf'ormations of men into
wolvea aud lions, which are so familiar in Gothic romance :
10 perfect in the resemblance, that it wu impoaaible it abould
not have been before noticed ; and I believe the easy theory hal
been adopted, that the credulity of man' nature ia all that can
be learned from auch retlt'mblances, which are to be regarded
rather u coincidences than tradition& ; . that the aame weeds
may be expected from the human mind whenever that rich aoil
is lef\ neglected : and, no doubt, in this way ia the disposition
to believe to be accounted for. Yet, when I find, in Ovid, that
Titania ia one of the names of Circe, ia not this aomething to
prove that the superstition wu deried ? The mind wu, no
doubt, in a state to receie the inoculated disease ; but it seema
impossible to read such passages aa the following, and not to
think the dog which bit our ancestors into thia madness was
notofthehreed of Scylla:-" Af\er they have delicately ban
quetted with the devil a'lld tile lady of tile foiriu, and haft
eaten up a fat ox, and emptied a but of Malmeaey, and a binn
of bread, at aome nobleman's houae, in the dead of the night,
nothing of all this is miued in the morning; for the lady
&ylla, .M'Ifteni<J, or Diana strike with a golden rod the esael
and the bin a, and they are fully replenished again."- Rz-
GIICALD ScOT'I', Book III. chap. 2.
Some of the incantations aeem to refer to the Siby Is, or one
of them. I do not feel it, on this account, neceuary in any way
to Y&TJ the aboe statement. "The Sibylhe," says Faber,
"aeem to have been priestesses of Cybele; from whom, accord-
ing to the usual custom of the pagans, they borrowed their
ame, as the Meliue did from Melitta. This appean to me
a much more natural derivation of the word than that of Dr.
Hyde, from Siboletb, an ear of corn. See his treatiae de
Rei. Vet. Persar."- Fun"" th Cabiri, Vol. II. p. 2Sl.
NOTES. 465
Page 279.
BaiJio.
The clusical reader may feel surprised at meeting B.& oliO
here. She is transferred from the mysteries of Ceres, to
preside at the witch dances of the Bl'()('ken. Ovid cal1 her
Mn.&lfi&.A; and her story may be found in the Fasti. I have
looked through some of the old demonologieo, thinking it
bable Goethe had some such authority for introducing her,
but did not meet her name. Reginald &ott, howenr, te1ls
us, from Cardanus, that " those dancings, &c. had their be-
ginning from certain heretics called Dulcini, who devised
those feasts of Brocken called orgi<z, whereunto these kind of
people openly assembled, and, beginning with riot, ended with
this folly; which feast being prohibited, they, neerthelea.
haunted them secretly."- R. ScOTT, Book II. chap. 9.
The word Bobo, &c. are probably deried from this
source; though Menage and Du Chat give a different ac-
count of it.
" Bo110. Terme dont se senent lea petits enfans pour signi-
fier leur mal. Les Toscans disent bull, et lea Siciliens bubun,
et lea Milanoia boha, en Ia meme aignification. Le Barbaro,
aur Pline, Line XXVI. chapitre 4. Papul,. duorumgenerum
mtll Cello, lihro 5. Sm1i111 ul f[Uod aasium, id ell, ferum, dici-
tur. Ruhenle ulroqve ptn' minima p!Utuliu Cllf'JK1"d : nomin<Jtu,...
que id boa Ptimo d fimo bibulo ; c1fiw lilu mazime toUufllur.
Ut hinc irajafllel puerijorlaue mala omnia buu vocare doceo,._
tur. Voyea M. Ferrari, dans aes OriBWltcrlienMio au mot
B114-"- M&N.&oa, Diet. Etym. ira110ee.
" Bolio, ou, suivant l':mcienne orthographe; ne se
dit que d'un petit mal, que )'enfant oublie lonque, par carease,
on lui dit et r@pete qu'il est beau. Ainsi, en disant boho, il tf1.
moigne que c'est le cas de lui dire li on veut qu'il
s'appaise.
" Lea Arella Amorum, page 252. de l'lldition de 1546. Et
HH
466
NOTES.
W.ifoiMJille heav heav etale IJVDtld il le woyoil di-
Ceue de parler semble ftre nnue des ares
et des nourrices, qui, pour appai1er leun enfans, ou leun nour-
risaons, qui se plaignoient de quelque petit mal, lea ftattoient en
leur diunt qu'ils beatu, fort beatu. De lA les enfans qui
s'&ient fait mal, ayant voulu le donner a entendre, en in-
ritant leun ou nourrices a leur dire qu'ila
Cette expression est Yenue, dans)a suite, a signifier )e maJ meme
des enfans. - La DucH.Ar.
" Then be (the devil) tacheth them to make ointments ol
the bowels and memben of children, whereby they ride in
the air, and accomplish all their desires: as, if there be any
children unbaptized or not guarded with the sign of the
cross or oriaons; then the witches may and do catch them
from their motben' sides in the night, or out of their cradle,
or otherwise kill them with their ceremonies; and, after burial,
steal them out of their graes, and aeethe lhem in a caldroa
until their ftesh be made potable, of the richest whereof they
make ointments whereby they ride in the air; but tbe thinner
portion they put in the flagons, whereof whoever drinketb,
observing certain ceremonies, immediately becometh a master,
or, rather, a miatress, in that practice and faculty."- R.
Scon, Book III. chap. 1.
" These are no jests, for they be written by tbem that were
and are judges of the lies and deatba of those persons. -
Ibid. Book IV. chap. 4.
Delrio aays, that " the divining rod, and tbe sticks on which
the witches used to ride, were imitations of the rod of
or that of Aaron - bolh were anointed with infants' fat."
:MOT'KS. 467
Page 285.
Ao,.w.'sjirU wife, LILITH.
LJLITB waa said by the Rabbins to have been created of
the earth before Eve. She quarrelled with Adam; succeeded
In learning from him the holiest name - the TetT&gT&mmaton ;
pronounced it, and fled from Adam. The angels Senri, &n-
smoi. and &m-geloph were sent af\er her : they find her at
-, in the same place where the Egyptian were afterwards de-
atroyed : they require hrr to return. from whom I
take thia account, relates a eonveroation between her and the
angels, in which abe describes it u the great object of her life,
to destroy male children on the eighth day from their birth,
and femalft on the twentieth. She, by an oath, bind benelf
to spare sueh children u should wear amulets marked with
the oamea of the angels.
or LiliJh a thousand ridiculous and ineonaiatent stories are
told. The invention ia traced to an attempt to reconcile some
auppoec!d difference between the n&mlti.e of the ereation of
Eve, given in the second chapter of Genesis, and that given in
the lint.
Page288.
I'M onlyjigwrn A. opprooe1
Art! uJ!ere 1M let in cWcle -
In Dabell's DGJ'Irer Superllilioru of Scolla.nd, t10me account
ia given of the witcb-conYenationa and daoc:ea there, with
t10me Yft'J curioua e1:tnlcts from criminal triala. " The
mage paid to Satan, either in contempt a( the divinity, or u
a genuine rite, imitative of diYine wonhip, was accompanied
by the mystical motion ' widdenhynnes.'
" Dancing together, with instruments and music, were among
the meagre concomitants of the SeotUah cooYeotiona ; but the
H H 2
468 NOTBS.
nature of the dance ia not funher el[plained than that Gelie
Duncan playit on ane trump, and Johnne Fiene miaellit,
led the ring. Such mystical dances were circular, " porTO
circulares eue omnes choros." t Farther, that the parties
might not recognise each other's facea, they were arranged ao
that their backs formt!d the inner circumference; and tbey
moved from right to left, that is, widderahyna,-" retrogando
contra morem, naturam et ordinem chorearum quibua no.
utimur." t-D.unLL, p. 569.
" In Ireland tbe circular dance was named rinA:e
puill,' i. e. claorea templi. These religious ceremonies con-
cluded with a dance to tbe right hand; but when unpropitious,
the priest blew a hom for a curse, and tben the dance was to
the lei\. During a pestilence which visited the town of
Kilkenny, tbe bound by withs on a bier, were car-
ried to St. Maula's churchynrd, whither women and maidena
repaired to dance after its ces..ation. But, having taken the
same witha instead of napkins and handkerchiefs, to keep
tbem together in their round U,' infection was communicated,
and the whole inhabitants were a wept away."- Ibid. p. 572.
" A chapter by Olaus Magnus, on Nocturnal Dsncing of
Elves,' is embellished by figures of demons back to back, in
circular arrangement, one leading a proselyte by the hand,
and Satan, as indicated by his horns, tail, and cloven feet,
officiating as piper; while there is another performer on the
guitar." ,_Ibid. p. 572.
" Nocturnal dancing in a circular figure, at Satane con-
vention, indicated the contempt of sanctified ceremonials."-
Ibid. I' 5 74.
Trial of John Mowbray, and others, June 1591.
t Remigius Demonolatreia, lib. i. c. 17. p. 119.
t Grillandus de Sortilegi.
i Vallancey,Vindication, Coli. Hib. Vol. IV. pp. 475-.78.
" Ledwich, Kilkenny, Coil. Hib. Vol. II. p. 451.
, Olaus Magnus, Jib. iii. c. 11. p. 112,
NOTES. 469
The PaOC'l'OPBNTAIIIIrr of this acene wu
FunniCJt NicoLAJ. Nicolai conducted aeYeral periodical
works in which the woru of Herder, Goethe, Kant, and other
in8uential writers, were of\en aeverely dealt with. Goethe, in
his Memoirs, giYea an account of the publication of Werther,
of the publication by which Nicolai won such immortnlity u
a place in the Walpurgis Night may be suppoaed to confer.
" Werther excited a powerful sensation: the reuon was
manifest; it appeared precisely at the right moment. The
smallest spark is sufficient to blow up a mine that is ready
laid: Werther was this spark. Every youthful mind wu
disordered by e1.travagant fancies and imaginary suffering;
and Werther afforded a faithful representation of the general
distemper. It is vain to expect that the public should judge
reasonably and coolly of a work of imagination. The great
mass of readers fonned the same opinion of this romance as
my friends had done: they considered it only with reference
to the subject ; and they were misled by the old prejudice,
that an author should a! ways have a didactic object in view.
They seemed to forget that a writer may describe incident&
and sentiments, which he neither approves nor condemns; and
that in so doing he merely presents to hia readers a subject
on which they may exerci11e their own reSection and judgment.
" I concerned myself very little about what wu saicl of my
work. I had fulfilled my task, and I left my judges to pro-
nounce what decision they pleased upon it. 1\ly friends, how-
ever, carefully collected all the articles that had been written
on Werther; and, u they had begun to concein a more cor-
rect idea of the object of the work, they amused themaelvea
not a little at the expense of the critics. Nicolai was tbe tint
antagonist who entered the lista, and his production, entitled
the Jo!J o/ Wmher, wu the subject of many good jokes.
Nicolai, though actuated by good intentions, and JIO"sesaed of
considerable information, set out with a determination to de-
preciate enry thing that went beyond the range of bia own
ideu, which be .emed to regard u the boundaries of the
H H 8
NOTES.
human intellect. He accordingly opened an attack upon me;
and his pamphlet tiOOD fell into my hancb. I wu much
pleased with a clwming vignette, by Chodowiecki, an ania
for whom I entertained a high esteem. As to the work iaelf,
it wu woven of those rough materials which are rarely di-
vested of any of their coarseness, by a mind coafined within
the circle of domestic life. Nicolai seemed not to perceive
that Werther' di-.e wu put all remedy, and tlW a deadly
cauker had blighted the flower of his youth. He wu utilfied
with my narratift down to p. 214. ; but, when the unhappy
Yictim of unconquerable pusion prepares for dnth, the moral
physician adroitly substitute& for the deadly weapon a pistol
loaded with the blood of a chicken. By the elfect of tbis in-
cident, 110 revolting, it is at least productiYe of no ill
quences. Charlotte Werther, and the drama cl01e1
to the satisfaction of all parties.
" This ia all I recollect of Nicolai' production : I haft not
read it since the period of its publication; but I took out the
vignette, to preeerve it in my collection of favourite engrarings.
Wishing to take my reYenge u quietly u poaible, I compoaed
a little satire, entitled NIColai til JYmher' Tomb, which I did
not publish."- Go11nn:'s Memoirs -EnglUh Traruiatioo&.
The following eztracts, from a memoir of Nicolai's, so re-
markably illustrate thil paaage. that I find it neceeury to
print them at length, haYing in Yain tried to abridge them : -
" The words spirit and body, in considering man, indicate
mere relatiYe notions. It is inconsistent with eYery known law
of nature, to suppose that theMe terms of relation, adopted by ua
solely for the purpose of inYestigating the nature of man, do
themselna possess any separate and independent eJ:istence.
Tboee who are inclined to see and heu spirits, are not aatia-
fied with this IWDmary 110lution : they appeal to uperienre,
against which no muim d priori can hold. Thia only ia re-
quired, that the el[perience he true and well atteated. We
cannot, therefore, sufficiently collect and authenticate auch
proof's u show how eaaily we are misled, and with what de-
NOTES.
4-71
lusiYe facility the im.gination can e1hibit, not only to deranged
persona, but also to thoee who are in the perf'ect IUe or their
11enaee, such foi'Dll as are scarcely to be distinguished from real
objec:ta.
" I myself have ellperienced an instance of this. It had been
usual for me to l011e blood by venesection twice a year. Thia
wu done once on the 9th of July, 1790, but, towards the cloee
of the year, omitted. In 1788 I had been suddenly seized
with giddiness, which the physicians attributed to an ob-
struction in the small mueclea of the ahdtJmen, proceeding from
too intense study and sedentary lire. In the first stage of the
malady the application orleechea had been particularly effective ;
and thia remedy I had f'rom that time applied whenever I felt
congestion in the head. It was on the ht or March, 1790,
that the leeches had been Jut applied ; the bleeding, therefore,
and the clearing or the minute blood-vessels, by leeches, had,
in 1790, been less frequent than usual. I wu from September
also engaged in business which required the seYereat ellertion.
" In the first two months of the year 1 790, I was much
affected in my mind by several diatressing incidents ; and on
the 24th of February a circumstance occurred which irritated
me extremely. At ten o'clock in the forenoon, my wife and
another person came to console me. I was in a violent per-
turbation of mind, owing to a series of incidents which bad
altogether wounded my moral feelings, and from which I laW
no possibility of relief; when, suddenly, I beheld, at the dis-
tance of ten paces from me, a figure -the figure of a deceued
penon. The figure remained some seven or eight minutes, and
at length I became more calm ; and, as I was extremely ell-
hauated, I soon afterwards fell into a troubled kind of alumber,
which lasted for half an hour. In the afternoon, a little after
four o'clock, the figure which I bad seen in the morning again
appeared. I was alone; a circumstance which could not be
ve:ry agreeable ; I went, therefore, to the apartment of my wife,
to whom I related iL But thither the figure pursued me.
Sometimes it was prcaent, sometimes it Yaniahed ; but it was
HH4
472 NOTES.
always tbe same staoding figuft. A little after m o'clock,
aeeral stalltiog figures aloo appeared ; but tbey bad oo con-
nection with tbe standing figure. I can a.igo no ot.ber rasoa
for tbia apparition than that, though much more
in my mind, I bad not been able 10 soon entirely to forget
the cause of such deep and diatreesing vexation, and had
fiected on tbe consequences of it, in order, if possible, to avoid
them: and this happened three houn after dinner, at the time
when the digestion fint begins.
" At length I became composed with respect to
able incident which had given rise to the tint apparition; but,
though I had such excellent medicinea, and found myeelf per-
fectly well, the apparitions rather incl'eiiM!d in number, and
were tranaformed in the most e:rtraordinary manner.
" The figure of the deceued peroon never appeared to me
after the first dn-adful day ; but seYeral other figures showed
themselves very distinctly. The acquaintances with whom I
daily convened, never appeared to me as phantoma, it was
always such as were at a distance. I endeavoured, at my own
pleasure, to call forth phantoms of several acq uaintancea, but
could never succeed. The phantoms appeared, in every cue,
involuoterily, u if they had been presented e:rtemally, like the
phenomena in nature ; though they certainly had their origin
internally; and at the same time I wualwaysable todiatinguiab
with the greatest precision phantasms from phenomena : indeed,
I never once erred in thia.
" The. figures appeared at all times equally distinct and
clear-whether I was alone or in company, day or night, in
my own or another's house. Yet, when I wuatanother peroon'a
house they were less frequent, and when I walked the public
street they very seldom appeared; when I shut my eyes, some-
times the figures diseppeared, oometimea they remaint!d even
ar'ter I bad closed them. If they vanished in tbe former cue,
on opening my eyes again nearly the same figures
which I bad seen before.
" For the most part law human figures of both ee11es: they
NOTES,
ommonly paMed to and fro, as if they had no connection with
each other, like people at a fair, where all is bustle: sometimes
they appt!&J"ed to hue business with one another. Once or
twice I saw amongst them persona on horseback, and dogs and
birds : these figures all appeared to me in their natural size
as distinctly as if they had exiKted in real life, with the aeveral
tinta on the uncovered parta of the body, and with all the dif-
ferent kinds and colours of clothes; but I think, howner, that
the colours were somewhat paler than they were in nature.
" None of the figures had any clistioguihing characteristic ;
they were neither terrible, ludicrous, nor repubive; most of
them w"re ordinary in their appearance : some were even
agreeable.
" Though at this time I enjoyed rather a good state of
health, both in body and mind, and had become at last so
familiar with these phantasms that they afforded we frequent
subjects for amusement and mirth, yet, as the disorder increased,
I had recourse to aenral medicines, and, at last, to the appli-
cation of leeches.
" This was performed on the 20th of April, at eleven o'clock
in the forenoon. I was alone with the surgeon ; but the room
swarmed with human forma of every description, which crowded
fast one on another. This coutioued till half-put four, the
time when digestion commences. I then observed that the
figures began to move more slowly; the colours became gra-
dually paler; every aeyen minutes they lost more and wore of
their intensity, without any alteration in the distinct figure of
the apparitions. At about half-put &ix o'clock, all the figures
were entirely white, and moYed very little; yet the forma ap-
peared perfectly distinct. By degrees they became visibly less
plain, without decreasing in number, as had formerly been the
case. The figures did not move off, neither did they vanish,
which had also usually happened on other occasions. In this
instance they dissolved immediately into the air: of some even
whole pieces remained for a length of time ; which also, by
degrees, were lost to the eye. At about toight o'clock there did
NOTES.
not remain a Yestige of any of them ; and I hne nner since
e:rperienced any appearance of the ,;arne kind. Twice or thrice
since that time I hue felt a properuity, it I may be allowed eo
to e:rprea myself, or a serualion, as if I saw IIOIDetbing wbicb
in a moment again was gone. I was nen surprieed wlu1st
writing the preeent account, baYing, in order to render it more
accurate, perused the papers of 1791, and recalled to my memory
all the circumstances of the time : 10 liule are we 110111etimes,
even in the grea&elt compoeure of mind, masters of our ima-
gination. The phantasms learing me on the appliration of
leeches, shews clearly that some anomaly in the cira&lation of
the blood waa connected with their appearance. Had I not
been able to distinguillh phantasms from phenomena, I muat
have been insane; had I been frantic or auperstitious, I llhould
hue been terrified at my own phantasms, and, probably, might
hue been seiaed with some alarming disorder ; had I been
auached to the manellous, I llhould haYe sought to magnify
my own importance, by a'llel'ting that I had seen apirita: and
who could have disputed the facts with me?"- A.f1ridud.Jro-
a Memoir by Nicot..u to lite BoynlSociiJiy of Berlin, liSth of
February, 1799,and pvh/Uhed in o/ Natvrol
Pltilo6oplay, Vol. VI.
Nicolai regards his being able to distinguish between phau-
tums and phenomena as sufficient to oYerturn FicBTK's system
of Idealism. I add a sentence from this part of the memoir, aa
it seems to have supplied the ery words giYen by Goethe to the
proctophantaamiat.
" The greatest modem idealists, who depend so much on the
confusion in which they hne involYed themselyes by the lOp-
posed depth of their speculations, will certainly nenr pretend
that both percept:iona were of the same nature; aince, if so,
I could not hue inYestigated their difference. But by what
means could this be done? I observed that real persons fol-
lowed in a determinate order, by e:rteroal la1V1 that do not
depend upon me, in an order that I myself must continually
follow, as was evident from my sure sense of consciousness. I
NOTES,
4-75
could also lay bold of the real objecu, u well u of my-
self. Neither . of thtR, howner, wu the cue with the phan-
tasms. I had always found it 10 in the constant observation
of myself, of lthe apparitions without me, and in my own
consciousness.
"The phantasms, u well u tbe phenomena, no doubt lay in
my mind; but I am neceuarily compelled to ascribe to the
latter the ll&l!le reality 1 aacribe to myself, m. IOrnething that
does not lie in my mind alone; eomething that aleo nilts
without m' mind; eomething independeDt of my conacioua-
ness, which determines the nature of my idn; something
which we formerly used to call the t11if18 iJif, before the cri-
tical philosophy 10 unjustly reprobated thia unexceptionable
term. On tbe contrary, I could not unibe this aame reality
to the illusion; I could fonn no other conclution than that
they originated in my internal consciousness alone- in a
consciousness whicb wu aleo dieordered, u I might justly con-
dude from the obeenation I made on m y ~ e l f . I repeat, that
both the phenomena and the pbantume niated in my mind :
if I had not been able to diatinguiah them, I muat han been
ln11ne. By what means could I diatinguiah, if I did not at-
tribute reality to the former? and that they poaseued reality, I
inferred from observation, to which I still am inclined to give
confi.dence, until Mr. Ficbte can more clearly conrince me that
it Is in no cue to be depended on."
Page 2119.
Why, rifler thU. tloe TIIGBL ghoU
May grin again til her old J>Drch.
Till Mr. Hayward's friend, Dr. Hitsig, e:rplained this pu-
uge, I was inclined to thinlt that Tegel waa, perhapt, some
proYincial spelling of T'&gel ; and t.hough by no means u-
4-76
NOTES.
tisfied with my guea, thought it not impossible that tM Proc-
tophantumist's complaint might be of the impudence of the
ghosto in nnturing within the rape$ which separated the eeta
of dancen in thia ball-room.
" Tl!oEt.," says Mr. Hayward, " is a small place about
eight or ten miles from Berlin. In the year 1799, tbe in-
habitants of Berlin, who pride thems<>hes very highly on their
enlightenment, were fairly taken in by a story of a gboat Mid
to haunt the dwelling of a Mr. Schult1 at Tegel. No Jesa
than two commiasions of distinguished persons set forth to in-
Yestigate the chanu:ter of the apparition. Tbe lint betook
tbemaelYes to the house on the 1Stb of September, 1797;
waited from eleven at night till one in tbe morning ; heard a
noiae, and saw nothing. The second was more fortunate;
for one of the memben ruahed with such precipitation to-
wards the place from wbt'flce tbe noise proceeded, that tbe
gboat wu under the necessity of decamping in a burry, lnv-
ing the instruments with which he made the noiae (ery
clumsy inartifidal contrinnces ), as q>Oiia opimn, to the con-
q u ~ r s . Thus began and ended the Tegel ghoat's Cll'ftr.
This statement is taken from a pamphlet publiebed in 1798."
Page 291.
From /uor mouth, while U.e UHU ringing,
I aaw a liUk red mowe 11>ringing.
" This is an image of bad and disgusting puaions, detected
in one whom we love, and in the YPry midst and heart of our
passion. The passage wbich follows may be interpreted to
shadow forth either the consequences of seduction, or the mi-
serable regTet with which a man of the world calls to mind
his first love, and his belief in goodness."-Luou HuJ<T.
The pamphlet to which Mr. Hayward bas referred in ex-
planation of the Tegel ghost story, baa as its motto, " Putu-
riunt montes, nucetur ridiculus mus," and J am inclined to
NOTES. 477
fancy that this capririouo usociation auggt>Bted the red and
white mice of the next line. I add, without, however, nluing
it much, a pauage from Henry More, and refer my readers
to an amusing story given by Mr. Hayward, from the Devtcle
&gen:-
.. Wherefore, there being nothing in the nature of the thing
that should make us incredulous, these sorceresses so confi-
dently pronouncing that they are out of their bodies at auch
timl!ll, and see and do auch and such things, - one another,
bring mesuges, dUcover aecrets, and such like,-it is more easy
and natural to conclude they be really out rf their bodiu thaa
i11 them. Which we should be more readily induced to believe
if we could give credit to that narrative. Wierus tells of a iol-
dier, out of whose mouth, whilst he was ult!ep, a thing in the
abape of a weasel came, which, muddling along in the grass, and
at Jut coming to a brook side, very busily attempting to get
over, but not being able, aome one of the otanders by, that aaw
it, made a bridge for it of his sword ; which it passed over by,
and, coming back, made use of the same passage, and then en-
tered into the soldier' mouth again, many looking on. When
be aw:sked, be told bow be dreamed he bad gone oYer an iron
bridge, and other particulars answerable to what the spectators
had Bt!en beforehand. Wierus acknowledges to the truth of
the relation, but will by all means haYe it to be the devil, not
the aoul of the man : which he doth in a tender regard to the
witches ; that, from such a trick as this, they might not be made
10 obnoxious to ouopicion that their ecstasies are not mere
and tkltuitnu of the devil, but are accompanied d"ts."
-H. Mou, AftlidDte a&ai7111 41heinn, chap. xi. aect. 7.
---------" Stories sayen
Well known 'mongst counny folk our spirits By,
From 'twixt our lips, and thither back again ;
Sometimes like doves, sometimes like to a bee,
And IOIDetimes in tbeir bodies' ohape they be :
But all this while tbeir carcase lies uleep,
4-78 NOTES.
Drown'd in dull rest, son of mortality :
At wt, these shapes returned, alily creep
Into their mouth ; then the dead clouds away they wipe."
H. Mon's ~ f!f 1M SatJ
.
I am not sure whether this rubbish of red and white mice is
worth any more particular inquiry, or that I quite undentand
it. Mice and cab were among the favourite shapes in whicl
the imps and familian of the witcll made their appearance. [
transcribe from Turner Oil Pro-oidertu, where the reader will
6nd his authorites cited, a few eentence. of his Dan'&tin of
one or two trials of witcllcraf\ : -
" Joyce Bounu confeued that about thirteen yean before, she
had two imps, which came iDto ber bed in the liken- af mice,
and sucked on her body, and that abe afterwan:l:i employed them
to go aad kill ten or twelve lambs, belonging to one Richard
Welsh, of St. Osyth'a, which wu done accordingly; and thea
to the house of one Thomu Clinch, where they killed a calf,
a sbeep. and a lamb : that she carried the four i m ~ above
mentioned to kill Robert Turner' eenant; and that her imp,
called Bus, made him berlr. like a dog. ac- Hallybads
forced him to sing several time. in the extremity or his pain ;
Susanna Cocks compelled him to crow like a cock ; and the
imp of Jlaf'1llll'tt lAndilla caused him to groan in an extraor-
dinary manner. Upon this confeuion, and evidence, lhe
condemned and executed at Chelmsford, May II. 1645.
" Suun Cocks, upon examioatioo, confeued that Margery
&okea, her mother, lying upon her dsth-bed, and abe coming
to see her, her mother privately de.ired her to ealeltain two
imps, which, she said, would do her good; and that the same
night her mother died, the two imps came to her accordingly,
and sucked on her body ; one of them being like a mouse,
which she called Swan, and the other yellow, about the big-
ness of a cat, which she cslled Be.ie; and that she employed
Bea.ie, with three imps more, belonging to the witches above
mentioned, to kill ten or tweln sheep of John Spall's, apinat
NOTES. 479
whom she had much malice ; because, being with child, Rlld de-
siring aome curds of his wife, she denied either to give or sell
her any. She al80 L'Onfeued that what was said about Robert
Turner's servant was true; and further, tilat she and Margaret
Landish sent three imps to one Thomas Mannocha, of St.
Osyth, which killed six or seven of his hogs in revenge for tis
refusing to relieYe her. She and Margaret Landiah were
condemned and executed at Chelmsford, May, 12. 1645, with
several others. Yea, 50 great a number of these vassals of
Satan were discovered about this time, that there were thirty
tried at once before Judge Coniera, at Chelmsford, July 25.
1645, whereof fourteen were hanged. A hundred more were
detained in eeveral prisons in Suffolk and Essex."- Tu
on Prwidenee, chap. 115.
Page 296.
Here COflle' Pudt- !101'U alway.find me
Circling in l11e merry dance.
"In Denmark, the Pucks han wonderful cunning in music;
and tbere is a certain jig, or dance, called tbe Elf.king's dance,
well known among the country crowdera, which yet no one
dares to play. Ita notes produce the same effect as Oberon's
born: old and young are compelled to foot it to the same
tune; nay, tbe Yery stools and tables begin to caper; nor can
tbe musician undo the charm unless he is able to play tl1e
dance backwards without misplacing a 1ingle note; or unless
one of the involuntary dancers can contriYe to come behind
him, and cut tbe strings of tbe fiddle, by reaching o.er hi1
shoulder."- Quarterly ReWJ, Vol. XXII. P S58.
4-80 MOTES.
Irueet ltL'G1'ftU, in
Our mwiciam qf tile niglll.
"The grushopper, gnat, and tly, #
Se"e for our minstrelsie,"' &c. &c.
P.nCT's /Uliqves, Vol. III. p.
In Robert Herrick's poems we have " Oberon's feaat," en-
livened with the same muaic: -
A little mushroom table spread ;
Aner short prayen they set on bread,
A moon-parcbed gnin of plln'St wheat,
Witb some small glittering grit, to eat
His choicest bits with; then in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But all this while his eye is se"ed,
We must not think his ear was
But that there was in place, to stir
His spleen, the chirping grasshopper,
The merry cricket, puling tly,
The piping gnat for minatrelay.
&oe, alao, Drayton's Mtun' El!Jiium, Eighth NymphaL
Thne remarkably pleuing poems are fortunately in Chalmen'
collections. J refer to this particular poem, not for the pur-
pose of illustrating this atanr.a, but for its general resemblance
to the interlude.
The exceeding beauty of the following poem, and the pl.-
sure which I have reCt'ived from it, after the jarring and crash
ofthe Walpurgis minstrelsy, must be my neuse for the quot-
ation:-
NOTES.
To the GrallhUJ'IIn' and Cricket.
" Green !itt!., vaulter in the sunny gnus,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the laay noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning bra&s ;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent minutes as they p888;
Oh, sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,
One ao the fields, the other ao the hearth,
481
Both have your sunshine ; both, though small, are strong
At your clear heart ; and both were sent on earth
To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song-
In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth."
Lz1oa Hu!IT.
Page 298.
The " Gous or Gazzcz" and Oazao11.
I have marked some of the words with inverted COIIllllllll,
because Goethe is supposed in the stanza ao refer ao Schiller's
poem " Tbe Gods of Greece;" and it is not absolutely impos-
sible that some compliment was intended in mentioning the
name of the poem. The poem hu been very pleasingly trans-
lated in Curry's DJJHin Uni!Jt!nity Magardne. There is no-
thing in it whatever that seema to me in the slightest degree
ao bear on this p.-ge; and I incline to think it an accident
altogether unconnected with Schiller's poem, that these words
occur in Goethe. Schiller's lines are little more than an ampli-
fication of Wordsworth's noble sonnet:-
" The world is too much witb uo ; late and aoon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we aee in Nature that is ours;
I l
MOTES,
We have given our bearu away, a -.lid boon!
This Sea that bare. ber bolom to the moon ;
The Winds, that will be bowling at all hours,
And are upgathered now like sleeping Bowen ; -
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune:
It moves us not.- Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing in this pleuant lea,
Have glimpees, that would malr.e me less forlorn ;
Have sight of Proteus coming from the - ;
And bear old Triton blow his wreathed hom,"
Page soo.
X mien.
" A war of all the few good beads in the nation, with all the
many bad ones, began in Schiller's Muwra-AltruJMch.for 179:3.
The Xmim, a series of pbito.opbic epigrams, jointly by Schilln-
and Goethe, descended then unexpectedly, like a 6ood of fire,
on the German literary world ; quickening all that wu noble
into new life, but visiting the ancient empire of dulness with
utonisbment and unknown pangs."- C.u.LYLE-quoted by
HAYWABD.
Several of this elaas of poems have been translated with
great slr.ill by Mr. Mangin. The Ploilo1<1J>hn-s is too long to
transcribe; but had I room for it, it would be a good illus-
tration of this scene in Faustus.- See Cua&Y's Dublin Ulli-
vernty M a g a ~ n e , Vol. V. p. 51.
The Xmim were so called in imitation of :Martial, who gave
the name of Xenia to the thirteenth book of hi EpigramL
Tbe Xenia were, in the first meaning of the word, presents to
strangers or guests. Pliny, in a very pleasing letter, after
giing an account of a council held by Trajan, adds." Wr were
every day invited to Clll&Bf's table; which, for so ~ a prince,
waa spread with much plaiD.DeiB and simplidty. There we
HOT&S. +88
were entertained either with interludes, or puaed the night in
the most pleasing connnation. When we took our lean of
the emperor, he sent each of us presents (Xenia): 10 studioue
is he upon all occasions to indulge the benevolence of hia
bean." In another letter, Pliny congratulates himaelf on re.
fusing to receiYe any thing for his professional senic:es as an ad-
vocate, either as fee or as compliment. "In causis agendis non
modo pactione, dono, munere, verum etiam ~ . semper absti-
nui." In Apuleius, we find the word niDla used in the IllUDe
way : " Mittit mihi Byrrhna #fliolo, porcum opimum, ec quin-
que gallinulu,et vinicadum in etate pretiosi. "-Mnom.lib. 2.
Martial e1plains his use of the word in the third epigram of the
thirteenth book, pretty much in the way our bookmalten an-
nounce their Easter " Gif\a" and Christmas "Presents." The
painten bad been beforehand with him in this application of
the word:-
" Omnis in hoc gracili Xeniorum turba libello
Constabit nummis quatuor emta tibi.
Quatuor eat nimium: poterit constare duobus,
Et faciet lucrum bibliopola Tryphon.
Hec licet hospitibus pro munere disticba mittas,
Si tibi tam rarus, quam mihi, nummus erit."
Page 900.
" ' The Genius of the Age' and the ' Musaget' were the
names of literary journals edited by Hennings ; who was at
difFerent times in controversy with the Schlegels, Schiller,
and Goethe. Hennings is also attacked in tbe Xenien. One
of Goethe's minor poems is entitled, ' Di# MUIGII*""-
H.-.Ywoon's FaUll.
I I 2
484 NOTES.
Page 300.
Corrw, foi/Dw me, tfc.
In the original there is an affected imitation of tbe barba-
rous veni&C3tion of the old school of Gennan poetry - I am
not sure whether I was right in wishing to preserve this a>&li-
grace. The attempt must be my apology for the broken
rhymes of the second and fourth venes.
Page goo,
7'11"' him, oh, thou i.yinile Spirit, hma the rqJliJe a,g<lin iHJo
hu dog' lhape, in which it W<U often. /ail p/etJIUn to camper
befon rrw by n.ight, to roU befon the feet of the unt4inking pauer-
6y, < ~ n . d 111 he feU to jfJiteft on AU 1/wulden.
" An her little devils should be hungry, come sneaking be-
hind me like a cowardly catchpole and clap his talons in my
haunches." - Witch of Edmonton.
Page 311.
'Mon& almon.d blouom.r to slp in the coo/.
The story, some aoatches of which are given in Margaret's
song, will be found in the English aelection from Gaunt's
K'mtkr-und Hnm-M'dhrclten, published und.,r the nam" of
" Gennan Popular Stories," and in Mr. Thoms's Lays 11nd
Legendl of Germany, p. 243.
The story itself is a popular one, not only in Gennany, but
also in France and Italy, and the Editor of Warton' His-
tory of English Poetry traces it to the most remote antiquity.
" The most intel'e!lting tale (says he) in Grimm's whole
NOTES 48.')
collection, whether we speak with reference to its contents, or
the admirable style of the narrative, the Mac handel Boom is
but a popular view of the same mytbos upon which the Pla-
tonists have expended so m u ~ h commentary- the history of
the Cretan Bacchus, or Zagreus. This again," he adds in
a note, "is only another version of the Egyptian mythos
relative to Osiris." Mr. Grimm wishes to consider the 1\'la.-
chandel Boom, the juniper tree, and not the Mandel or al-
mond tree. It will be remembered that the latter was believed
hy the ancients to possess very important properties. The
fruit of one species, the Amygdala, impregnated the daughter
of the rier Sanganus with the Phrygian Atys-(Pausanias,
vii. 17.); and soother, the Persea, was the sacred plant of
lais so conspicuous in the Egyptian monuments."- Hwory
'!f Eng/WI Poetry, Vol. I. p. 88.
1 have been thus particular in exhibiting my authorities for
the mention of the almond blos5om, as the English selections
follow Grimm in preferring the'juniper. In Mr. Keightley's
tales and popular fictions, the story of Dancing Wiuer, the
.mging Apple, and the beautiful Gf'etm Bif'fl, is so told as to have
a strong resemblance to this legend.
I transcribe a few sentences from THoHs'o translation of
the story: to my ear and mind scarcely any thing can be more
beautiful.
" It is now a long while ago, full two thousaod yean, that
there lied a rich man, who had a fair pious wife, and they
had for each other great love, but yet they had no children,
and the wife prayed therefore day and night.
" Now before their house there stood a court, wherein stood
a juniper tree, under which stood the wife once in the winter
time, peeling herself an apple. And as she peeled the apple,
she cut herself in the finger, and the blood fell upon the
snow. AIB!I!' said the woman, aod she sighed right out,
and saw the blood before her, aod was indeed troubled in
her mind. ' Alas! that I bad but a child, as red as blood, and
I I :$ .
4-86 NOTES
.
M white u llDOW !' And u &he aid this she became right
glad in her mind, and felt u though it should come to
.,....
" Then went she into the house, and a month passed away,
and the anow disappeared, and in two months all was green ;
in three months there came flowers upon the earth ; in four
months, all the trees in the forest thickened, and the green
twigs were all growing in one among another. Theil the
tonga of the little birds reaounded through the forest, and
the bloaaoms fell down from the branches.
" And when the lif\h month was gone, she stood under the
juniper tree, which wu sweet to smell, and her heart leaped
for joy, and she fell down upon her lr.nees, for abe could not
help iL And when the &i:w:th month wu gone, there stood
the fruit thick and strong, and all wu quite still. And
at the aennth month she creeped to the juniper Uft, and
ate 10 greedily of it, that :lhe became ack and torrowful. .
And when the eighth month was gone, abe called to her
husband, and wept, and said, ' If I die, bury me under the
junip.r tree.' Then she felt quite comforted, and rejoiced
herself. And when the ninth month wu gone, she bare
a child that wu u white u snow and u red u blood, and
" The ret! that's on my true lovl!'s f ~ .
Is like blood-drops on the snaw ;
The white that is on her breast bare,
Like the down of the white sea-maw."
The Gffy GOihawlr-BartkrMirumby.
I prefer the reading of Mr. Motherwell'a copy:-
" The thing of my love's face that' a white,
Is that of dove or maw;
The thing of my love's face that's red,
Is like blood shed on snaw."
NOTES. 4-87
w h ~ n she beheld it she waa so glad thereof that she died
for joy.
" Then her husband buried her under the juniper tree, and
wept o v ~ r her very sore for a long, long time; and when he
had wept a great deal, and was well tired with weeping, be
arose up, and, after a time, he took unto himself another wife.
Then the mother (stepmother) took the little boy, and hacked
him to pieeet, put them into the saucepan, and made broth
of them ; but little Margery stood by, weeping and weeping,
and her tean all fell into the saucepan, so that then it lacked
no salt.
" Then came the father home, and sate himself down to the
table, and said, Where, then, is my son?' Then the mother
brought in a great dish of black broth, and little Margery
kept weeping, and could not retain herself. Then said the
father again, ' Where, then, is my son? -' 0,' said the
mother, ' he is gone into the country to your great uncle at
Mutteu, he will remain there awhile.'-' Wherefore did he
that? and neYer once bid me good by ! '-' Oh ! he would go,
and begged he might stay there si:r weeks; for he likes so
much to be there.'-' Ah,' said the man, ' I feel right sor-
rowful, for that is not as it should be ; besides he should have
bidden me good by.'
" With this he began to eat, and said, ' Margery, why do
you cry? Brother will soon come home again.'- Ob wife!'
said he, then, I relish this right well- give me some more ;'
and the more be ate the more he would have, and said, Give
me more, you shall have none of it ; for it is as though it
was all mine ! ' And he ate and ate, and the bones he threw
all under the table, and he ate up all the rest.
" But little Margery went to her chamber, and took out of
her drawers her best silken handkerchief, and gathered up all
the bones from under the table, and wrapped them in the
silken handkerchief, and carried them out of doors, and wept
oYer them tean of blood. Then she laid them under the
488 NOTES.
juniper tree in the green gm.s; and when abe had so laid
tbem there, then sbe was all st once right cheerful, and wept
no more. Then began tbe juniper.tree to move itself, and
the branches kept w a ~ i n g to and fro one with another, just
as if any one was clapping their hands for joy ; and in the
midst of this there arose a cloud out of tbe tree, and right iu the
midst of the cloud there burned as it were a fire, and out of the
fire there flew forth a beautiful bird which sang so sweetly,
and flew high in the air. And wheu the bird was flown
away, there was the juniper tree still as it bad before been,
and the silken handkerchief and the little bones were gone.
And Margaret felt so light and so happy, just as if her little
brother was stiU alive. Then went she again right merry into
the house, and ate. But the bird flew away, and seated her-
self on the bouse of a goldsmith, and began to sing: -
My mother she me slew,
My father ate me too;
But my Hiller Margery
Gathered all my bones she could,
And beneath the juuiper tree,
Laid them in a silken shroud:
Keewit! keewit ! bie! hie !
What a dainty fine bird am I?' "
For the rest of the story, which, however, is scarcely con-
ceived in the same spirit of romance as the part I hBYe quoted,
aucb readers as are an:rious to learn the punishment of the
stepmother and the reward of Margery, are referred to the
German Popular Tale1, or to Thoms's Lay and Legendl 9/
Germany.
NOTES. 489
Page S25.
Tu11: BalDI: or CoarMTH.
" The other day, in skimming over Goethe's poems, 1 read
again that beautiful and singular liule piece, ' The God and
the Baiadere,' and in the same manner that Winkelmann de-
scribes him.aelf on beholding the Behedere Apollo, to have
unconsciously fallen into an attitude, imitative of the majesty
of the statue, I read and admired, till I aimost fancied my-
self imbued with Goethe's spirit, and began daringly to trans-
late. I have the more pleasure in a e n d i n ~ you my pcrfonn-
ance, however feeble, because the poem is one of the most
characteristic, as well as the most beautiful of ita author. It
is truly Goethian in ita faults and ita merits. It has all that
daring originality- all that melting olf of the real into the
visionary - all that arrogance of conscious power, with which
Goethe delights to extract beauty and pathos from the most
capriciously selected sources. A secondary genius would
never have dared to touch a subject 110 encompasaed with ob-
jections and difficulties. But Goethe delights to hurry us
along with him, on the verge of all that we habitually shrink
from, while the magic of his genius strews the slippery path
with Bowers, and invests ita dangers with a bright halo of
poetical radiance. Cowper, Wordsworth, and Crabbe have
j>"rpctually delighted to ennoble mean subjects, or to render
trivial ones poetical ; but Goethe is detennined to do more.
He never appears so triumpha'Dt, or so happy, as when be
shocks, by the daring e:r.travagance of his conceptions, and
wins us to admire and take interest in them, by the charm of
his style, and the grace, and even purity of his sentiments.
His " Bride of Corinth" is an extraordinary instance of this
application- I bad almost said, misapplication- of genius.
The story is told by 1\ladame de StaiH, in her work on Ger-
many. It ia a poem which, with a few heightening tints, R
490
NOTES.
little more breadth, and coanenea in the colouring, would
infallibly reYolt enry feeling of taate, religion, and morals.
But Goethe, with his sure and unerring hand, so delicately
touched and tricked off' the subject, that it acquires an ir-
re5istible grace and beauty in his bands. An awful and unde-
fined horror breathes throughout it. In the slow measured
rhythm of the nne, and the pathetic simplicity of the diction,
there is a solemnity and a stirring spell, which chain the feel-
ings, like a deep mysterioue lltl'ain of music. The abort cou-
plet iu each stanu. has a sort of oracular laconiam : -
' Wie der &lm so toeiu
.tiber Kall wie Eil,
1 IJ dalliehchen, dtu du dir moiJJI/t.' "
.An .Autvmn on the RlaiJte, p. 21S.
" A strange tale is that which Pblegon, the freedman of
Hadrianus, reporteth of which be protests himself to have been
eye-witness. Philemium (saith he) the daughter of Pbilostratus
and Charitas, felt deeply enamoured of a younge man, called
Machates, who at that time ghested in her father's houte; which
her parents took so ill that they e1cluded Machates from their
family. At which she so much grie'fed that soon after she died
and was buried. Some si1 months after the young man return-
ing thither and entertained into his wonted lodging, Pbilemium
hill belo'fed came into the chamber; spake with him; aupped
with him; and, after much amorous discourse, she recei'fed
of him as a gift a ring of iron and a cup gilt, and sb' in
interchange gave him a ring of gold and a handkerchief; which
done, they went to bed together. The nurse being very dili-
gent to see that her new gbest wanted nothing, came up with a
candle, and saw them hoth in bed together. She, over-joyed,
runneth in haste to bring the parents news that their daughter
was alive. They amazed rise from bed, and find them both
fast sleeping, when in great rapture of joy they called and
and pulled them to awake. At which she, rising upon ber
NOTES. 491
pillow, with a severe looke cast upon them, abe said, ' Oh, you
most cruel and obdurate parents! and are you so envious of
your daughter's pleasure, that you will not suffer her for
the apace of but three days to enjoy the company of her
own dear Machatea? But this curiosity shall btl little your
love; for you aball again renew your former sorrow : which
having spoke she changed countenance, sunk down into
the bed and died ; at which wght the father and mother were
both entnloced. The rumour of thia came into the city; the
magiatra1ea cauaed the gran to be opened, but found not the
body there, only the iron ring, and the cup given her by Ma-
cbates; for the 111111e cone was then in the chamber and bed,
which, hy the counsel of one Hellas, a soothsayer, was cast
into the fhlds, and the young man finding himself to be de-
luded by a spectre, to aYoid the ignominie. bee with his own
banda slew himaelfe."- Hnwoon's Hierarchie o/ D l ~ u e d
An(ltU, Book VII. p. 479.
~ )
THB END.
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Printed by A. SI'Ol'ftiiWOOD&,
Nnr.Stnee-8quare.