SKETCH OF THE TRADITIONS OF GERMANY.!

LET him who in youth has travelled through a poetic country say, when in the evening he has seated himself beside a ruined tower to listen to some old peasant telling him the legend of the castle of whose proud structure it was once a part, whether he has not beheld in imagination the battlements once more rising in frowning state, the banner once more floating above the donjon-keep, the steel corselet once more flashing in the court-yard. In the space of one or two centuries, how entire has been the transformation! The Gothic chapel, the marble balconies sunk in gradual dilapidation under the hand of time, or in sudden ruin under that of man,―the vast armoury converted into a work-shop, -the steam-boat hissing and whizzing where once was heard only the lute of the lady of the castle, or the harp of the minstrel. But tradition has not yet enrolled amid her records these innovations. With eyes fixed upon the past, she beholds only bye-gone days, and gathers up into the folds of her robe only the treasures of olden times. With one stroke of her wand, she can

sweep away all this modern machinery, and revive, by memory's magic, the wizard-spells of the old castle, and call up the genius of the poetic past.

And, if there be a country in which we can thus rove at pleasure through the historic legends, the pious illusions, of popular credulity, that country is Germany. There every plain has its genius, every mountain its mysterious cave, every lake its palace of crystal, -there, the fairy still lives, the sylph still waves its golden pinions,-there, at nightfall, the waters of the Elbe and the Rhine have still their sighs of love, the leaves rustle to the breath of mountain-spirits, and the castles from their craggy steeps recount their tales of war. Nevertheless, the pitiless hand of industrial improvement has been at work there, as elsewhere, amid those valleys peopled with such charming creations, and the Männlein (the Mannikin, the dwarf) has retreated in terror to its mountains. But turning, for a little while, from the railroad, the steam-engine, the factory, leaving Germany to its new system of excise, to its policemen and its merchants, let us invoke old Teutonia, and with one blast upon the wondrous horn of Tradition, -the Wunder-horn-resounding from the plains of Silesia to the romance-land of Saltzburgh, from the forests of Bohemia to the Thuringian woods--let us call up around us the slumbering crowd of fairies and of sprites.

Amongst the traditions general throughout all Germany there are some whose origin is Oriental, some closely linked with those of India and Greece. These emigra ting to the north, have been sung by Odin, and repeated in Scandinavia and in Suabia. Others have come from Provence, and but changed their costume in crossing the Rhine; others, again, have been brought by pilgrims from the Holy Land, by the soldiers of the crusades. There are many whose origin is uncertain; found equally in the northern and southern provinces of France, in Ireland, and in Denmark, there is nothing to mark precisely the country to which they belong; but the greater part had their birth upon the soil of Germany; and whatever may be their origin, it is a curious thing to study the character of those traditions, to seek under their Germanic garb for the religious symbol or the historic fact they embody. Still more curious would it be to compare them in their numerous coincidences with those of other nations, to trace out their parentage, their successive transformations, and their filiation. But this is a difficult, and often an impossible,

task; for traditions have passed too quickly from one country to another to allow of their route being thes Essay on English Poetry,-"The migrations of seine accurately marked out. As Campbell observes in lis are difficult enough to be traced, but tradition travis on still lighter wings, and scatters the seed of her wi flowers imperceptibly over the world, till they surpris us by springing up with similarity in regions the Lo remotely divided."

neither has any one age. They have been formed And as no single country has given birth to them, se cessively, and joined on like the several links of a 1: chain. Whenever the people were much excited by any event, or surprised at any phenomenon, they comp a legend, they invented a mythus. They supplie place of reasoning by poetry,-of science by imaginat The historic legends of the people rest upon a sure b upon undoubted facts: but the facts have been ad till they are wholly concealed, and all that is left lay hold upon is a name, or some characteristic tra manners. Their marvellous legends spring from t mystic worship of nature, that species of secret p theism, of which the middle ages have always ne nised the principle, without ever formally adopting as doctrine. The Northerns paid religious venera to the luminaries, to the elements. The Lithuan regarded the sun as the father of the earth, the meta his wife, and the stars as their children. The Ger were wont, as they retired to rest at night, to salute e stars, for to them they were the eyes of Heaven: they held festivals in honour of the summer and wi solstice. They did homage to the wind, and to the pest, to animate and inanimate nature. Metals La for them peculiar properties; the rock grew on mountains, and in the waters' depths; the plants o tained potent juices, and magic odours; the birds p dicted the future, and knew the secrets of men. In old tradition, a dove guides a traveller to a treasure in the Edda, two ravens relate each day to Odin wi passes upon earth;-even the frogs had learned in the marshes many a curious secret, and guarded in deep grottoes caskets of gold and diamonds.

In this world of wonders, where each object was the made instinct with life, and endowed with attributes power, it is not to be wondered at that mountains gigantic in their proportions, so wildly irregular in form, should strike upon the imagination of the mea the middle ages. The people had no very clear ide f what lay behind those curtains of verdure, those mense caverns of stone; and they made of them the abode of fabulous beings, the tombs of their heroes a kings. The Koterberg is filled with gold and siker The Ruttemberg, from time to time, was the scenic va great miracles;-amongst many others is the follo

Three miners went to work in it for a whole week, 1-carried with them-the men had faith it must be own

only their prayer book, some oil in their lamp, and bread in their wallet for one day. Every men before going to work, they, kneeling, commended th selves to Providence. One night, just as the oil was beginning to burn low in their lamp, a violent * * suddenly arose. The roof of the cavern in which they were at work is shaken, bursts open the rock, falls in with billows of sand, and the miners are enton But God, in reward of their piety, kept an empty immediately around them, and renewed each day r provision of oil, and their morsel of food. Thus the lived, for seven years, in continual labour to extrinie themselves from their prison, and in constant prave" Their prayers were heard. Once again did they beh the blue sky above their heads, and were given one more to revisit their dear native village.

The Wunderberg is the most wonderful of all these mountains. There are found cities like ours, eleisters and churches, ramparts and palaces constructed by the Männlein (the dwarfs). There Charlemagne reposs

X. Mormier.

crown on his head, his sceptre in his hand, and before him a marble table. His white beard falls upon his chest, and is growing continually. When long enough to go three times round the table, the tree of liberty will again flourish upon the hill, the old emperor will come forth from his cavern, and a new era, an endless period of happiness and prosperity, will dawn upon the earth. But, alas! we of this century cannot hope to live to see that happy time, for the beard of Charlemagne is as yet only of sufficient length to go once round the fated table.

In the Kiffhausen reposes Frederic Barbarossa, the other great German hero. Many a time has been seen his bald forehead lifted above the rocks, for he often quits his abode to breathe the fresh air. A shepherd who had led his flock to the mountain-top was once lighting his pipe, saying, as he did so, "Frederic, I smoke to thy health." On the instant, the hero appeared to him, and, to reward him for his remembrance of him, led him into a large hall where were a great number of knights. There he displayed to him rich armour, glittering swords, and gave him more gold than would atisfy a prince.

Upon the summit of these mountains, and in these rast caves, is the abode of the giants. Nothing can equal the monstrous size and strength of this race, hose creation, says the Edda, was prior to that of the irst man. An immense rock that no effort could shake, s to them but a troublesome pebble in their shoe. An sland flung into the midst of the ocean, is to them only handful of earth which they let fall from their lap. When the god Thor, the god of the thunder, was going hrough Scandinavia, he came one night upon a large tent, where he slept quietly with his companion the next day he perceived that his commodious lodging had been the thumb of a giant's glove. When the valiant Dietrich, of Berne, attacked Siegenot, that giant, to defend himself, tore up by the roots one of the mightiest trees of the forest, and the Heldenbuck (the Book of Heroes) says that since Adam never had existed 30 strong a man.

The grottoes of the hills are occupied by the dwarfs, who have also their cycle of traditions. An old German poem says, that God first created the dwarfs to cultivate the ground; then, the giants to destroy monsters; and, afterwards, the heroes to protect the poor dwarfs from the giants. In the symbolism of the North, the giants represent brute-force, mere matter; and the dwarfs the intellectual faculties, the mental powers. Notwithstanding their diminutive size, they are endowed with great strength. They erect splendid abodes, and in winter they forge metals, and fabricate sharp arrows and brilliant armour. No sword so good as that made by them; no helmet resists, as theirs does, the edge of the Sword, the weight of the battle-axe. Whilst they are thus employed, their women spin the finest wool, the most delicate flax. The dwarfs are handsome and graceful, but so small that they can go through a keyhole. They marry, and bring up their children as Christians, those of the Wunderberg sometimes go to the church at Saltzburgh. They are fond of dancing and music. Often in the fine summer evenings, they set off to dance in the meadows, and next day may be seen in the grass the wide circles they have marked.' They love, also, to walk over the hills, to draw near to men, and to converse with them. They pity all that suffer, and reward generously any interest evinced in them, or any service rendered to them. Often have they protected the weak, maintained the cause of the oppressed, and woe to him who is guilty of an injustice, if they be called to avenge it. Should any one lose his way near their abode, they come to meet him, and bring him home to the shelter of their rocky roof.

One night, a student of Gottingen was surprised by a storm on the hill of Plissas. The rain had soaked

(1) The same tradition exists in Normandy.

his dress, and the darkness was so great that he could not retrace his way. Suddenly there came up to him a männlein, a little man, quite grey,-who, taking his hand, led him through a cleft of the rock into a subterranean apartment, luxuriously fitted up, and brilliantly lighted There was the wife of the männlein, dressed in a robe of silk, richer far than was ever worn by wife of burgomaster; and there were his brothers, and his daughter, with her fair hair falling over her shoulders, and her exquisitely soft blue eye. The student thought her charming, and seeing her surrounded by such riches, would gladly have asked her in marriage, but that he was afraid to lose her on his way home to Gottingen, so infinitely small was she. They sat down to table, conversed on the topics of the day, the wars of Italy, and the death of the emperor; then each one knelt down, and the mistress of the house prayed; and, when the prayer was ended, the young girl took a silver torch, and led the student to the room prepared for him. The next day he left them reluctantly, for the short time he had passed with the family of the dwarf sufficed to make him attached to them. The männlein gave him several precious stones, and the young girl smilingly handed him a cluster of nuts. On his arrival at Gottingen the nuts were so many fine pieces of good gold. From that day the student made many an effort to find the rocky door by which he had entered, but was never able to discover it.

Sometimes, too, the dwarfs ask hospitality from men, either because they find themselves too far from home, or because they wish to celebrate some solemn festival in more than ordinary state. One of them came one day to ask of a count, their neighbour, permission to dance in his castle. The count gave permission, and that very night a whole host of dwarfs descended from the hill, and spread themselves over the gardens, through the tufted hedges, and into every apartment of the castle. Some light the fires in the stoves, and prepare the supper; others, bearing garlands of flowers and silken tissues, hasten to decorate the hall. In a moment, the lustres are arranged-the golden torches blazing on the walls, and reflected in the mirrors. The dancers take the hand of their partners, the musicians tune their instruments, and the ball commences. What delight was there!-the whirl, like that of a set of birds taking their flight from the valley-like that of the leaves, the harvest which the wind has been reaping from the forest. The count himself joins in the merry round: they allot to him the tallest of all the dancers, but she whirls so rapidly that he cannot follow her. After the ball, all the tables were covered with embroidered cloths, with gold and silver plate. The dwarfs led the owner of the mansion to the place of honour, and helped him to meats of exquisite flavour, and to wines kept for centuries in marble butts in the mountains. Then all disappeared as if by magic, and the next day two delegates from the kingdom of the dwarfs came to thank the count for the hospitality he had extended to them, and presented him with a sword and a ring, telling him that these two articles would bring him good fortune for ever.

Near akin to the family of the dwarfs are the race of Elves; but the latter are of a more refined and poetic nature. They are the brothers of the bright Djinns and of the Peri, brothers to Ariel and to Irilby. Their face is of the hue of the lily, and their vesture is woven of the moon-beams. They inhabit not the dark bowels of the mountains; they float about in the air, and balance themselves like the gilded butterfly on the slender stalk of a plant; a leaf serves them for pavilion, and they can live for a whole day on a little honey extracted from the cup of a flower, or on a dew-drop. The wives of the elves are of beauteous form and lovely face; they dance and sing all night upon the hills, and their voice is so soft, their singing so harmonious, that every passer-by pauses to listen. But none must approach them, none must mingle in their dance, for their look

The elves

congeals the heart, and their kiss is death. wear little glass slippers. He who could seize upon one of these slippers would be a rich man, for its owner would redeem it at any price.

There is another race, kindred with this, but less wandering than the elves, more social than the dwarfs, --I mean the race of domestic sprites, who seek for themselves a lodging in the peasant's cot, sleep in the barn, and warm themselves at the family hearth. The Germans call this sprite Kobold: he is the Brownie of Scotland, the Servant of Switzerland, the Trolle of Denmark, the Goblin of Normandy. The kobold is busy and active; he takes care of the horses, cleans the stable, guides the plough, and works at the harvest. If he be given no cause of offence, the masters of the house may take their ease, and the servants sleep in peace, for with the first light of day all the work is done. To secure his services for ever, it is only necessary to put every day a little milk in one corner of the house, and to sweep and keep clean and neat the room he occupies. In proportion as the kobold is zealous and devoted while he is pleased, so is he capricious and vindictive when offended. A young girl had a kobold in her service, and it was a blessing to see how he anticipated all her wishes, how he exempted her from every troublesome task. One day she threw, in joke, some dirt into the cup of milk he was about to drink, and from that moment the kobold forsook her. She is now

obliged to get up early, and to go to bed late, to toil incessantly, and yet, all the while, not to see her work advancing. Every day the implacable Kobold puts some fresh obstacle in her way; every day he compels her to endure some new misfortune. She takes up, with the greatest caution, a precious vase, and breaks it ;-she warms water, and burns her fingers ;-she prepares dinner, and puts a double quantity of salt into one dish, and none in the other. When we find fault with our cooks for breaking culinary laws, we are quite wrong, the whole fault may lie with the kobolds.

it

The good Holla is the queen of domestic servants; is she who encourages the young girls to work, and aids them in their efforts; it is she who comes at night to fill their distaffs with flax, to turn their spindles;-in short, she is the patroness of the German women, retired and modest, Industrious, frugal, and contented.

The

Some parts of Germany admitted another sprite, also called a familiar spirit-spiritus familiaris. He was put into a phial, and there was no more trouble about him. Every wish was carried out by a silent act of volition on his part. But he came from hell, and it was necessary to take good care and keep him in strict durance to the very moment of death, for otherwise he would carry you straight with him into darkness. A most difficult thing it was to get rid of him; the evil spirit had his mission to perform, and that was to take some one to the devil. Throw him into the water, he floats; pound him under a stone, he revives at once; put him into the fire, he comes out more brisk than ever. only method of preventing his return is to put him into another house, or to sell him. A horse-dealer, reduced to poverty by a series of misfortunes, bought one day a little box from a stranger, who handed it to him as a talisman of good fortune, recommending him to keep it secret, and never to open it. From the moment this box came into his possession, the whole aspect of his fortunes changed. He found a treasure; he resumed his business; he undertook some bold and rash speculations, not one failed. But his wife, a pious woman, began to suspect that some kind of sorcery was at the bottom of such wondrous luck. She opened the mysterious box one day, and beheld a great black fly make his escape through the window; a passer-by picked it up. From that hour the fortunes of the horse-dealer rapidly declined, and he became poorer and more

wretched than ever.

(To be continued.)

SOME ACCOUNT OF DR. RADCLIFFE,'

DR. JOHN RADCLIFFE, the celebrated physician, whose name is perpetuated by his splendid benefactions to the University of Oxford, was born in Yorkshire, in the year 1650. Though, we are informed, his father was than on the cultivation of letters, yet his son early more intent on the improvement of his paternal acres, showed so much ability, that he resolved on giving him the advantage of a liberal education.

From the grammar-school, at Wakefield, where he made great progress, he was sent, at the early age of fifteen, to University college, Oxford; there he took his degree of B.A., in due time, and was made sen scholar of his college; but, as no fellowship bear vacant, he removed to Lincoln college, of which he previously been invited to become fellow. Having de cided on the profession of medicine, he now gave him self up to the study of physic, and attended the differe courses of anatomy, chemistry, and botany, delivere in the University. He took his degree of Master à Arts, in 1672, as it is said, with uncommon applace It was his boast, that he did not prepare himself for practice of the art of healing, by what he considered an useless application to the musty volumes of ances medical science, but by a careful examination of the most valuable treatises that made their appearance a his own times. His books, while he was a studer: medicine, though well chosen, were so few in number that, being visited by Dr. Bathurst, the Master Trinity college, and asked by him where was library, Radcliffe replied by pointing to a few phia. a skeleton, and a herbal, in one corner of his room. He became Bachelor of Medicine in 1675, and in mediately began the exercise of his profession in t city of Oxford itself. At his first entrance upon the stage of action, he fell foul of the apothecaries, s experienced no small opposition from some of the eminent of that calling, who decried his method practice as being contrary to the one adopted by D Lydal, at that time the most celebrated practitioner n the University. The method of Lydal was slow; tha of Radcliffe, expeditious, prompt, and decisive; and good sense, and superiority of talent, soon became si conspicuous, that his opponents, the apothecaries, soon obliged to make interest with him,-" to have Es prescriptions on their files."

His success, as may readily be believed, was not 1. ceived without feelings of envy, and his rivals tained that his cures were all guess-work, and affecte. sarcastically to regret, that his friends, instead of breet ing him up to physic, had not made a scholar of h On the other hand, Radcliffe was not wanting in to own defence, nor sparing of abuse towards his antag nists, whom he bespattered with all sorts of opprobrio diet drinks, with which they drenched their patients. names, and derided, because of the slops, caudles, and

by any empirical boldness, that, at this early period of It was neither, however, by his abuse of others, his medical career, he seems to have completely gate the confidence of the public, but by his judicious method Sydenham had introduced into the art of medicine of treating the small-pox,-a method, indeed, whit about ten years before Radcliffe established himself in Oxford. It consisted in the employment of the cooling treatment-a practice which seems to have been part! suggested by reasoning upon the nature of the disease, and which was amply sanctioned by experience. Ir

(1) Abridged and altered from "Lives of British Physicians."

his original treatise on the small-pox, Sydenham dwells much upon the salutary influence of cold on those worst and most aggravated forms of that disease, which were sometimes brought on by the pernicious use of the heating and stimulating treatment then in vogue. This new method, however, was mistrusted by the faculty generally, who preferred following the ancient course. Radcliffe was free from the prejudices of his brethren; and one of the first fruits he reaped from his early determination to leave the trammels of authority, and willingly admit the light of recent discovery, was the most remarkable success of his practice in this very disease, in which he strictly followed the precepts laid down by Sydenham.

The small-pox was raging in the city and neighbourhood of Oxford, with great fatality; and, instead of stoving up his patients, as was done by other practitioners, Radcliffe employed the new method-exposed the sick to the free access of air, gave them cooling emulsions, and employed other approved antiphlogistic remedies, and thus rescued more than one hundred from the jaws of death.

His success in the case of Lady Spencer, who appeared to be sinking under a complication of disorders, further spread his fame, and brought him into fashion among that lady's numerous connexions. So that, before he had practised two years, there were few families of credit, within reach of Oxford, who had not occasion to appreciate his professional skill.

Having received some affront, he quitted Lincoln college, and resigned his fellowship, but continued to reside in Oxford till his thirty-fourth year, when he removed to London, and settled in Bow-street, Covent Garden; there he had not been established more than a year, before he rose to the head of his profession, and received in daily fees the sum of 20 guineas. To this rapid success the pleasantry of his discourse, and his ready wit, are said greatly to have contributed; many even feigned themselves ill, for the pleasure of having a few minutes' conversation with the facetious doctor. In 1686, he was appointed physician to the Princess Anne of Denmark; but his characteristic prudence prevented his ever being carried away by the éclat of royal patronage. During the triumphant progress of the Revolution, he was urged to accompany his distinguished patient to Nottingham, whither she went with the Bishop of London, there to remain till the storm should blow over; but, though sympathizing with the movement, he would not compromise himself to a cause involved in such risk, but made his numerous patients an excuse for remaining in London. And, even when William was fairly established on the throne, he declined the appointment of king's physician, with a salary higher than had yet been given to the office. The king, from gratitude, and admiration for the skill he had shown in the treatment of two of his foreign attendants, Mr. Bentinck (afterwards Earl of Portland) and Mr. Zulestein (Earl of Rochford), had presented him with 500 guineas at the time of offering his further patronage. The caution and worldly wisdom of Radcliffe were here again exhibited; for though he accepted the present, he begged to decline the appointment, considering that the settlement of the crown was then only in its infancy, and that accidents might occur to disturb its security. Nor did he lose by his refusal for the weak condition of the king's health, who had, from his childhood, suffered from frequent attacks of asthma, required his constant professional assistance; so that it was said, that, one year with another, for the first eleven years of the reign of King William, Radcliffe received more than 600 guineas for his attendance upon his majesty, exclusive of what he received from the great officers of the Court.

:

These may serve as specimens of his prudence, and the following story, which may be best related in the words of his biographer, Pettis, affords a good example

of his humour :

"It will not be much out of the way to insert a diverting passage between Sir Godfrey Kneller, the king's chief face painter, and the doctor, since it happened near this time; and, though not altogether so advantageous to the doctor's memory as the generality of his sarcastic replies, yet will be of use to bring in a very happy turn of wit from him that speaks the rejoinder to it. The doctor's dwelling-house, as has been said before, was in Bow-street, Covent Garden, whereunto belonged a very convenient garden, that was contiguous to another at the back of it, appertaining to Sir Godfrey, which was extremely curious and inviting, from the many exotic plants, and the variety of flowers and greens which it abounded with. Now, as one wall divided both inclosures, and the doctor had some reason, from his intimacy with the knight, to think he would not give a denial to any reasonable request, so he took the freedom, when he was one day in company with the latter, after extolling his fine parterre and choice collection of herbs, flowers, &c., to desire the liberty of having a door made, for a free intercourse with both gardens, but in such a manner, as should not be inconvenient to either family. Sir Godfrey, who was and is a gentleman of extraordinary courtesy and humanity, very readily gave his consent; but the doctor's servants, instead of being strict observers of the terms of agreement, made such a havoc amongst his hortulanary curiosities, that Sir Godfrey was out of all patience, and found himself obliged, in a very becoming manner, to advertise their master of it, with his desires to him, to admonish them for the forbearance of such insolencies. Yet, notwithstanding this complaint, the grievance continued unredressed, so that the person aggrieved found himself under a necessity of letting him, that ought to make things easy, know, by one of his servants, that he should be obliged to brick up the door, in case of his complaints proving ineffectual. To this, the doctor, who is very often in a choleric temper, and, from the success of his practice, imagined every one under an obligation of bearing with him, returned answer, that Sir Godfrey might even do what he thought fit, in relation to the door, so that he did but refrain from painting it; alluding to his employment, than whom none was a more exquisite master of. Thereupon, the footman, after some hesitation in the delivery of his message, and several commands from his master to give it him, word for word, told him as above. 'Did my very good friend, Doctor Radcliffe, say so?' cried Sir Godfrey; 'go you back to him, and, after presenting my service to him, tell him that I can take anything from him but his physic!' A reply more biting than true, though allowable from what he had received from the aggressor; so, if the one was at the height of excellence in his unequalled skill in physic, the other had attained to as consummate an experience in the art and mystery of limning."

At the close of the year 1689, when he had gained additional credit and fame, by a cure he had performed upon the Duke of Beaufort, he was called in to a consultation with the king's physicians, Doctors Bidloo and Lawrence, and was so successful as to suggest means which speedily so far restored him to health, that he was enabled to join the army in Ireland, and gain the victory of the Boyne.

In 1691, the young Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, son of the Prince and Princess of Denmark, (afterwards queen Anne,) was taken ill of fainting fits, a complaint which had been fatal to several of their children, and his life was despaired of by the physicians. Rad cliffe being sent for, first begged that the queen and princess, who should both be present, would rely solely upon him, and allow the use of no other prescriptions but his; and then, by the employment of a few outward and inward applications, restored the little patient to such a state of health, that he never had anything like a delirium from that time till the day of his death.

Queen Mary, who constantly visited the child, was so