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GRIMM'S GERMAN POPULAR STORIES.*

THIS little book is well timed for with the wood-fires and long evenings of merry Christmas-tide, what helps on old drowsy Time so kindly with those whose imaginations are just flowering, and whose hopes and joys are in the bud, as the marvel-Tale, which an old servant narrates just before bed-time, or over a social cup of tea around the huge and well-logged kitchen fire? When were young-and despite our grey hairs and tottering feet, we feel young still over a fairy-tale,-we used to sit, per favour, of a winter evening sometimes, and take a story and a sweet dish of brown sugared tea in the kitchen. Those evenings are in our memory as vivid as ever and we can, in one particular dead fire light, still call them up with all their dark glory and mystery, to make us tremble like children in our old age. There was the square large cell of a fire-place, and there the long dull grate-with the dull de pressing coals-and there the low rush-bottomed chairs-the round deal table, and the single sickly candle, smothering its own light with unAnd there-there, molested wick. in that very spot-is our old nurse, with the same gossip voice, telling the story of Bloody Jack, with an earnestness utterly terrific. We see the whole like a Teniers of the mind. -We hear the thin countrified voice of the nurse sounding still-and Bloody Jack is awful yet.

This book, we say, is well timed. It is a collection of traditional stories, translated and purified from the original German, and yet not robbed of the rich improbability which makes them golden. They are simple in their manner of recital-potent in mystery and innocent extravagance. It is the vice of parents now-a-days to load their children's minds with useful books-books of travels, geography, botany, and history only, and to torture young thought with a weight beyond its strength. Why should little children have grown-up minds? Why should the dawning imagination be clouded and destroyed

in its first trembling light? Is the imagination a thing given to be destroyed?-Oh no!-Let the man and the woman have the dry book-the hard useful leaves-for their food; but give to childhood the tender green and flowers for its yeanling imagination. Casuists in go-carts are not for our affections. We love to see the earnest child on a low stool, lost in the wonders of Goody Two Shoes ;-not straining the thin fibre of its little intellect over villanous abridgments. The tiny springs of an infantine mind are not strong enough to sustain the weight of reasonable books ;-but piled up with airy tales, and driven by the fairies, they pass on and strengthen for better things.

Many of these stories are well known to old children-and some are new even to us!-We shall give one, -a pretty one,-to show how pleasantly the work is translated-and how much may be done with light materials, when the fancy goes kind ly and cheerfully to work. The following is sweetly told, and as sweetly conceived. What delightful food for a child's imagination!

JORINDA AND JORINDEL. There was once an old castle that stood in the middle of a large thick wood, and in the castle lived an old fairy. All the day long she flew about in the form of an owl, or crept about the country like a cat; but at night she always became an old woman again. When any youth came within a hundred paces of her castle, he became quite fixed, and could not move a step till she came and set him free: but when any pretty maiden came within that distance, she was changed into a bird; and the fairy put her into a cage and hung her up in a chamber in the castle. There were seven hundred of these cages hanging in the castle, and all with beautiful birds in them.

Now there was once a maiden whose

name was Jorinda: she was prettier than all the pretty girls that ever were seen; and a shepherd, whose name was Jorindel, was married. One day they went to walk in very fond of her, and they were soon to be the wood, that they might be alone; and Jorindel said, "We must take care that we don't go too near to the castle." It was a beautiful evening; the last rays of the setting sun shone bright through the long

* German Popular Stories, translated from Kinder und Haus Märchen, C. Baldwyn, 1823.

The song ceased suddenly. Jorindel turned to see the reason, and beheld his Jorinda changed into a nightingale ; so that her song ended with a mournful jug, jug, An owl with fiery eyes flew three times round them, and three times screamed, Tu whu! Tu whu! Tu whu! Jorindel could not move: he stood fixed as a stone, and could neither weep, nor speak, nor stir hand or foot. And now the sun went quite down; the gloomy night came; the owl flew into a bush; and a moment after the old fairy came forth pale and meagre, with staring eyes, and a nose and chin that almost met one another.

She mumbled something to herself, seized the nightingale, and went away with it in her hand. Poor Jorindel saw the nightingale was gone, but what could he do? He could not speak, he could not move from the spot where he stood. At last the fairy came back, and sung with a hoarse voice,

Till the prisoner's fast,
And her doom is cast,

There stay! Oh, stay!
When the charm is around her,
And the spell has bound her,

Hie away! away!" On a sudden Jorindel found himself free. Then, he fell on his knees before the fairy, and prayed her to give him back his dear Jorinda: but she said he should never see her again, and went her way.

He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain. "Alas!" he said, "what

He could not return to his own home, so he went to a strange village, and employed himself in keeping sheep. Many a time did he walk round and round as near

THE MISCELLANY.

P

We present our readers with a second number of our Miscellany. We are glad that they (i. e. that many of them) approve the plan. It is some thing like an imperium in imperio, perhaps, at first sight; only its policy does not jar with the general interests of our wider kingdom of learning. On the contrary, it will enable us to give a variety to our Magazine, by relieving the long essays and more profound disquisitions, by brief, rare, sparkling! facts and fancies. We shall thus do a service to ourselves, and afford our more indolent wits an opportunity of sending to us their short compositions (sudden thoughts, or single conceits), which are too diminutive for regular essays, and yet are too good to be lost. Our wish is to offer to our friends (in the apothecary's phrase) an agreeable mixture-where the salt of wit, the acid of satire, the volatile of the imagination, the graceful, the sweet, the liquid flow of melodious rhyme (the true aurum potabile) may meet without neutralizing each other. This seems all very ambitious, at first sight; but we nevertheless hope to accomplish our end.

Our first paper this month is a letter from Professor Hill, who has kindly enabled us to give the Public the name and a few particulars of the author of a very clever poem called the Connubia Florum. This poem was pro bably the origin of Darwin's celebrated Botanic Garden, and, par consequence, of the Loves of the Triangles, and of Miss Porden's mineral amours.

To the Editor of the London Magazine.

Sir The intent of this address to you being to do justice to departed merit; to give to the public the true name of the writer of an ingenious Latin poem, the Connubia Florum, which has hitherto appeared under the disguised signature of Demetrius de la Croir; and to verify a fact, before the evidence of it, which now solely of all that live on earth rests with me, shall become extinct; this motive I hope may gain it a place among your valuable collections. When I was formerly Professor of Botany in the University of Dublin, I had prepared matter for a re-publication of this poem; but desisted when I found my lucubrations superseded by the edition published by Sir Richard Clayton in the year 1791.

I was led to this intention by its intrinsic merit (which I think might probably have attracted the notice of Dr. Darwin, and suggested the design of his Botanic Garden), by its relation to the science which I then taught, and because it was the work of an Irishman. This latter is a circumstance of which the public have never been informed; for who could

discover DERMUID M'ENCROE in the Helleno-Gallic disguise of Demetrius de la Croix? My knowledge on this point is not received from rumour, but from the personal testimony of Dr. Lionel Jenkins, a learned and judicious physician, who resided for many years in this city, and died about 35 years ago, at a very advanced period of life. With him, a man of the purest integrity, I was well acquainted. He and M'Encroe studied physic together at Paris; and Dr. Jenkins has shown me several letters of his subscribed with his name D. M'Encroe; and containing philosophical and botanical inquiries, and critical remarks on some topics of polite literature. The life of a man engaged in philosophical pursuits cannot be marked by many conspicuous events: but, from the irrefragable testimony of Dr. Jenkins, and of many passages in those letters, it appears, above all doubt, that Dr. M'Encroe was a native of the South of Ireland; that he acquired his school education in the county of Clare or Kerry, where the Latin is almost a vernacular language; and

THE FETE-DIEU.

By six o'clock all Paris was awake,

By seven her population all in motion,
Messieurs and Dames all hurrying for the sake-
Some few, perhaps, it may be of devotion;
But all the rest, to reach that grand pinacle
Of earthly bliss to Frenchmen—a spectacle.

2.

And really 'tis a pretty sight to see
Parisian belles tripping on holiday;
Be they of gentle blood, or low degree,
It matters not, for all alike display
Each on her head so pretty a chapeau-
You're half in love before you peep below.

3.

Perhaps you'd better not; but that's all taste;
Some think but lightly of a face; more stress
Is laid by others on a taper waist;

And some lay most upon the air or dress;
Hands, arms, or feet, claim others' approbation;
But as for me, I like a combination.

But this is a digression: eight o'clock

Proclaim'd aloud from every tower and steeple, That Notre Dame, St. Sulpice, and St. Roch, Were sending forth their priests among the people, Loaded with blessings, ready to bestow them On all to whom the morning air might blow them.

5.

First, floating banners, moving onward, told
The holy cavalcade was now in motion;
Then scores of virgins, rather plain and old
To be themselves the objects of devotion,
A pretty substitute in rose-leaves found,
Which they, from holy vessels, scatter'd round.

Then cavaliers, dress'd out in all their orders,

Looking less humble than perhaps they might; And priests, with crimson robes and golden borders, Their precious charge supported, left and right; And in the rear, which would the most engross you, Devoutly walk'd the Duchesses * and Monsieur.

Berri and Angoulême.

7.

Alas! alas! there came a sad mishap;

Who could have guess'd, the sky so clear at seven ?A flash of lightning, and a thunder clap,

Raised all the eyes of devotees to heaven;

"But two or three drops of rain might well excuse Their quick transition to their robes and shoes.

The rain in torrents pour'd, the flowing street
By Dames and Messieurs was deserted quite;
Thus to neglect a spiritual treat

For straw and silks was surely far from right;
The most devout expected no miracle;
But all were vexed at losing the spectacle.

9.

The frankincense and blessings were bestowed
Upon some groups of ragamuffin boys,—
Who by their grinning undevoutly show'd
How wickedly the human mind enjoys
Such ills, as sometimes even have permission
To visit princes on a holy mission.

THE CHOICE OF A GRAVE.

ON DEDICATIONS.