Round the benighted travellers; when the Harz
Seems all on fire, and whilst they are surrounded
With demon shouts, and fiendish sleights, and scared
Into a thousand dangers; when the pest
Descends in all its fury, and cuts off

The youngest and the fairest; or the sword
Devours the village youth; to whom, or what
Are these attributed, but to Reibezhahl ?
My very name is terror; and old age,
Speaking from past experience, deems it is
Synonymous with evil and with death!

But not on these rest I my claim to honour;
For meaner spirits might dispute with me
The glories which attend them. Let them pass.-
I boast a loftier title, scarce inferior

--

To that of our great Master,-the destroyer
Of souls as well as bodies! As the lord
Of every glowing mine within the Harz,
I use the power of gold upon mankind;
Dazzle their eyes with silver; and the dreams
Of wealth and rank I cause to rise before them;
Until, allured by all these spells, they yield
Their souls to me, and rush upon their ruin.
Nor less my skill is shown in tracing out
The latent springs of evil, and in causing
New powers to grow within them; till what seem'd
At first of such small import, bursts aloft,
By long indulgence strengthen'd, in a stream
Of deadly guilt, that overwhelms the soul!
In proof of this, my spells have brought to-night
Upon the Harz two maidens: one of them
I lured by curiosity, which, aided

By an enthusiastic spirit, she deems

Is ardent love, hath made her seek this meeting,
To learn her lover's fate.

Schatten.

Thou hast done well;

But what has brought her comrade?

Reibez.

There my arts
Have been employ'd in vain: not all her friend
Could speak in fondness, raillery, or truth,
Would e'er have drawn her from her simple life,
Had not the vain hope dawn'd within her breast,

That she might save her loved Michelle from death.
Schatten. Vain hope indeed! Knows not the pious fool,

That they who share the action share the guilt,

And shall partake of the same fate as those

Who sinn'd with the worst motives ?-Knows she this? Reibez. Unto the letter:-yet so firm her love,

So pure her heart from evil, that she ventures
With gladness, even upon death itself,
To win a soul with payment of her life!
But they are drawing near us.-Will my lord
Assume with me the guise of their two lovers?
Who fell upon the plains of Marienthal
When Turenne fled full swiftly from the field.
That action too was mine! I caused their death,
I waked Michelle's enthusiastic spirit

To urge her lover in such strains of valour,

That he, aspiring to immortal fame,

Died in the thickest fight; whilst his brave friend
Fell in the vain endeavour to preserve him!

Schatten. No more!-they come!-Now to your holts, and horsts, Ye spirits of the Brocken; where for ages

Your resting-place hath been.-Away,—Away!

At this command all the spirits disappeared, while Schattenmann and Reibezhahl assumed the likeness of Carl Brandenbelt and Steine Standardtmann, as Laurette and Michelle ascended the brow of the mountain.

"Well, Laurette," said her friend, "here we are, on the top of the Brocken mountain, at midnight, on the first of May! Well, really if I'd expected half so much terror as we've seen to-night, I would not have come for the world."

"Ah, Michelle! the curate always said, the ascent to virtue is hard, but we find the descent to vice is harder and if any thing that we have seen or heard to-night should prevent you from consulting with these terrible and wicked demons, I shall bless God for all our terrors, and receive them only as the marks of his love."

"Oh, my friend, my ever-amiable and kind Laurette!" replied the now-softened Michelle, "Oh that I had but followed your pious advice whilst we were in safety; but now all is too late, all is over.'

Laurette was about to answer, when two persons in the habits of German soldiers advanced; and each of them seizing upon one of the terrified damsels, exclaimed, eh? But that

66

So, girls, you thought to escape us,

won't do; we soldiers know too many tricks even for two women together."

"In the name of heaven, what art thou?" said Laurette to the one who had taken hold of her.

"Come, come, Laurette Engelhertze! no coquetry. What! not know your own lover, Steine Standardtmann? I assure you, I came all the way from Marienthal to see you."

"You have the form and dress of Standardtmann, certainly; but if you be he, you will remember our signal, and repeat with me—

As the first part of this verse is a powerful and infallible touchstone of all hidden malice of demons, and a preservative from all their vengeance, the two fiends immediately burst forth in their own dreadful forms: the Brocken was filled with all the fearful rout that had so lately vanished, and the thousand echoes of the mountain resounded with all that variety of terrific noises with which they had been so much alarmed beneath. Michelle on the discovery ran tremblingly up to Laurette, and hiding her face in her friend's bosom, while she embraced her, cried- "Oh, Laurette! if we must die, let it be together." When the two Harz spirits had taken their own shapes, and all the others had suddenly appeared, Schattenmann addressed the two females with,

Cease with this idle trembling,-Cease, and hear
What gifts I have to offer:-Few have dared
Like you to tread this mountain, on the night
When spirits are abroad: but those who show
Such valour, and such firmness, well may ask
The utmost of our power. Wealth, honour, fame,

Or what ye will, ye cannot ask too much.

Lau. Yes, I will not ask more than your power can grant,
Your utmost power! The calm content of virtue,

The wealth of a good conscience! The bright honour

VOL. II.

E

Attendant on a Christian! and the fame
Which hangs upon his name in after years,
Bright and immortal as the heaven he sought.

Mich. Ay! these are our best wishes! I have err'd
Too long, too widely from the path of virtue;
But that was in prosperity. Now I see
Death and despair around me, I can rise
Superior to myself, and shake off all

The mass of guilt I carried: Not to save

E'en our hearts' lovers, would we ask from you

The word that might preserve them from the sword.

Reibez. Thou never shalt behold them more!-they lie

On Marienthal's battle-field! -Thy Carl

Fell through the laudable and gentle wish

Thou didst express to him in mad-brain'd rhyme,

That he should gather glory; while his friend

Lost his heart's blood in the vain hope to save him!

'Twas thine own action all!-Oh, 'twas a kind

And most considerate mistress that devised it.

Mich. Oh, wretched wanton creature!-but all tears
Or sorrows, save for sin, are now in vain!
And the continual flood of grief for years
Of endless ages, would not wash away
The guilt of these short hours:-and,―I feel
That life is ebbing fast;-Laurette, be near me,
Thou art my guardian angel :-couldst thou fly
Upward with me, 'twould seem some virtue for me
To have been call'd thy friend;-thy friend indeed;
I have not been minè own: 'tis night before me;
Oh for a brighter waking when 'tis-

-over!

(Dics.)

Lau. Now, fiends, I thank yeye have cut from earth
The only ties that held me!-Oh, Michelle!
How fatal to the soul is that quick spirit,
Which like a whirlwind bears all else away
In its career of madness!-Virtue Faith,
Religion, pluck'd up by the roots, are cast
In dreadful havoc round!-'Tis done!-I feel
My breath fast failing;—and the springs of life
Are flowing slowly :-and my eyes are darkening,
But all is bright before me!—all is glorious !

(Dies.)

To the above tragical end of Michelle Flüchterfelt, and Laurette Engelhertze, the Lienalle Register adds only, that the storm of that night was suddenly hushed; that the bodies were found undecayed, a short time after, by a wolf-hunter on the Harz; and that they were buried together in the churchyard of Altenau,

THERE are four lines, written by the celebrated doctor Donne, about the year 1612, which suggest something of the French manners and peculiarities in 1815:

"Men of France, changeable Camelions,
Spittals of diseases, shops of fashions,
Lives' fuellers, and the rightest company
Of players which upon the world's stage be."

He exclaims to his mistress, whom he is addressing,—

-"Oh, stay here, for, for thee

England is only a worthy gallery!"

The hearty warmth of this advice, originating in a regard for female purity, would not, we hope, be more inconsistent if given now than it was then.

Butler, the author of Hudibras, wrote some years later; he detects and describes with acute discernment and sound understanding the national character of France, as it has been exemplified in more modern

* This article is by the late Mr. Scott, author of two excellent works on France, and the first editor of the London Magazine.