For demons and magic usurp'd long the throne, True ballads of raw-head and eke bloody-bone, (a)

entertaining; and the language, in many instances, classically beautiful. These volumes were succeeded by tales of wonder, and hobgoblin poems of numerous descriptions, that have now lost their zest with the public; which must prove the case with every production tending to outstretch the modesty of nature, and consequently overstrain the literary palate: for as wholesome and plain nutriment is best calculated to gratify the appetite and assist corporeal digestion, so reason and science are the only feasts that can afford a lasting relish to the human mind. As the page of an author, already quoted, affords some Hudibrastic lines, that are applicable to subjects analogous to Mr. Lewis's favourite topics, I shall now quote the same, for the edification of my readers.

Have not my friends, the Germans, shown

They to philosophy are prone,

And hold with goblins converse free,

As if a sprite was you or me?

"Tis they have conjur'd up by hosts

Your grinning troops of sheeted ghosts;
And prov'd themselves such vast projectors
Upon the subject of pale spectres :

- With whom they'd pick their teeth, at ease,
While others at the sight wou'd freeze.

Whereat madam Reason became wond'rous sick,

And 'twas thought, mighty often, the bucket would kick:

Your German best of all can fright
And exercise a wicked sprite;

Straight sending him to join his kin
Spruce skeleton, in snug coffin.

"Twas Germans who first instituted
Tribunal Secret;* so reputed:

Where ev'ry brother swears to cut
His neighbour's throat, if he does but,

By word or sign, become suspected
As being one of the elected.

No matter whether father, mother,
Sister, wife, or child, or brother:

* Very little can be advanced, for a certainty, respecting this extraordinary association; which, we are told, kept potentates in awe: all we can ascertain, as matter of fact, is that the oaths of secrecy were of the most diabolical tendency; as the associate was thereby bound to spare no one allied to him, even by ties of closest consanguinity; but immolate, without contrition, any individual who should fall under the displeasure of the tribunal. It has been conjectured, from the impenetrable mystery attending the practices of this society, that the institution must be similar to that of the Rosicrucians.

But so hot prov'd the fever it could not last long, Wherefore spectres are now but an old woman's song.

Since all their mighty plans, they think,
May be betray'd by nod or wink.

Wherefore 'twere well each should be surly,
As in the Critic great Lord Burleigh;
That sapient wight, whose cogitations
And dumb harangues cou'd manage nations;
Whose mystic eloquence displays
Meaning to his grand master-Bays:

For Bays and this Tribunal's Lord
In sense mean one, tho' two in word.
Since either's secrets to unriddle,

Nor more or less are than b-m fiddle;
The fiddle standing for a hum,

Just meaning nothing more than b-m:

So, whether cut athwart the middle,

B- -m simple, or complex b―m fiddle,

Both added up no more will bring

Than NOUGHT; and that stands for no-thing.

Has not my Gallic tribe, though gay,
Been sage with its Illuminées?*

* This society, as well as the beforementiond association, had its origin in Germany; but was also particularly in vogue with the leaders of the French revolution. The tenets professed by its votaries, if not directly atheistical, had so much tendency thereto, that it was difficult to apply any other appellation to the faith of these pseudo philosophers.

This writer, abounding with faults, still possesses A pathos which often the reader impresses.

Those gentlemen, who, quite serene,
Bow'd necks to chopper Guillotine;
And made a boast of night-cap red,
Having nought else to cover head.

(a) Of witches, and the estimation in which they were held among the Danes and Anglo Saxons, there are some curious notes in Erin's Rauga Saga, and other Icelandic annals. The description of the witch Thorbiorga, and her interview with Earl Thorchill, is particularly curious. She is represented as the only survivor of nine sisters, all witches or fortune-tellers, and frequented public entertainments, when invited., Earl Thorchill, to ascertain when a sickness or famine would cease, which then raged, sent for, and made preparations for the reception of Thorbiorga. On her arrival in the evening, she was dressed in a gown of green cloth, buttoned from top to bottom; about her neck was a string of glass beads, and her head was covered with the skin of a black lamb, lined with that of a white cat; her shoes were of calf's skin with the hair on, tied with thongs, and fastened with brass buttons; and on her hands were a pair of gloves of white cat's skin, with the fur inward; about her waist she wore a Hunlandic girdle, at which hung a

With a phalanx of moderns, his practice has been Το compose, in despite, both thro' thick and thro'

thin.

Thus his pages ephemeræ prov'd of the hour:
The talisman broken, and vanish'd the pow'r,
That æra will come, which our children must see,
When the name of Monk Lewis forgotten shall be.

bag containing her magical instruments; and she supported herself on a staff, adorned with many knobs of brass. Such was the dress of the witch Thorbiorga; who, upon the following day, prognosticated to Thorchill that the famine would soon cease, and the sickness abate in proportion: which divinations, we are told, accordingly came to pass.

F