"That such an unnatural mixture of irreconcilable rites should ever have been consented to by a creature so full of tenderness and of such unparalleled delicacy as Maria, is not the least wonder in our dismal story; but she was fastened to the same chain by which I was drawn on. It was thought by us that the horrible stratagem of joining the funeral and the wedding together would never be suspected by Mrs Purcel."

But Mrs Purcel had heard the intelligence.

She bursts on the ceremony, and astounds them by the outcry, "Brother and sister-brother and sister!"-"I heard no more," continues the ill-fated narrator;

66 the edi

fice reeled around me-and there is a hiatus in my remembrance-a chasm in my life." The melancholy tale concludes thus:

"Ten years have passed since that dreadful morning, and I have never opened my lips to inquire the issues of the event; but one day, about two years ago, in visiting the English cemetery at Lisbon, I saw on a marble slab, which the weather or accident had already partly defaced, the epitaph of Maria. The remainder of my own story is but a tissue of aimless and objectless wanderings and moody meditations, under the anguish of the inherited curse.-But all will soon be over :- a tedious hectic that has long been consuming me, reluctantly and slowly, hath at last, within these few days, so augmented its fires, that I am conscious, from a sentiment within, I cannot survive another month; I have, indeed, had my warning. Twice hath a sound like the voice of my sister, startled my unrefreshing sleep; when it rouses me for the third time, then I shall awake to die."

The objection readily occurs to this tale, that the events are improbable, and slightly tacked together: but in these respects authors demand, and must receive, some indulgence. It is not perhaps, possible, at the same time, to preserve consistency and probability, and attain the interest of novelty. The reader must make the same allowances for such deficiency, as are granted to the scenist, or decorator of the drama. We see the towers which are described as being so solid in their structure, tremble as they are advanced or withdrawn, and we know the massy and earth-fast rocks of the theatre are of no stronger material than painted

VOL. XX.

It is perhaps a greater objection, that the nature of the interest and of the catastrophe is changed in the course of the narration. We are at first led to expect that the author had subjected the interest of his hero to that gloomy and inexorable deity, or principle, in whom the ancients believed, under the name of Destiny, or Fate, and that, like Orestes or Hamlet, he was to be the destined avenger of his father's injuries, or of his mother's guilt. Such was the persuasion of the victim himself, as expressed in several passages, some of which we have quoted. But the course of the action, the point upon which our imagination had been fixed, at the expense of some art, is altogether departed from. No more mention is made of Mr Oakdale, and though a destined sufferer into most horrible fatal influence continues to impel the danger, yet it is of a kind different from that which the omens presaged, and which the hero himself, and the reader, on his account, was induced to expect. For example, he meets on his road to Harwich with the funeral of a man who had been murdered, much in the same circumstances as those which attended the death of his own father, and which, while they indicate a bloody catastrophe to the story, bear no reference to that which really attends it.

But although these objections may be started, they affect, in a slight degree, the real merits of the work, which consist in the beauty of its language, and the truth of the descriptions introduced. Yet even these are kept in subordination to the main interest of the piece, which arises from the melancholy picture of an amiable young man, who has received a superstitious bias, imposed by original temperament, as well as by the sorrowful events of his childhood.

In this point of view, it is of little which his mind dwells, concur with consequence whether the presages on the event; for the author is not refuting the correctness of such auguries, but illustrating the character of one who believed in them.

H

The tendency to such belief is, we believe, common to most men. There are circumstances, and animals, and places, and sounds, which we are naturally led to connect with melancholy ideas, and thus far to consider as being of evil augury. Funerals, churchyards, the howling of dogs, the sounds of the passing bell, are all of a gloomy character, and, calamitous, or at least unpleasing in themselves, must lead, we are apt to suppose, to consqeuences equally unpleasing. He would be a stout sceptic who would choose, like the hero of our tale, to tack his wedding to the conclusion of a funeral, or even to place the representation of a death's-head on a marriage-ring; and yet the marriage might be a happy one in either case, were there not the risk that the evil omen might work its own accomplishment by its effect on the minds of the parties.

But besides the omens which arise out of natural associations, there are superstitions of this kind which we have from tradition, and which affect those who believe in them merely because others believed before. We have all the nurse has taught of presages by sparkles from the fire, and signs from accidental circumstances, which, however they have obtained the character originally, have been at least generally received as matters of ominous presage; and it is wonderful in how many, and how distant countries, the common sense, or rather the common nonsense, of mankind, has attached the same ideas of mishap to circumstances which appear to have little relation to it; and not less extraordinary to discover some ancient Roman superstition existing in some obscure village, and surprising the antiquary as much as when he has the good luck to detect an antique piece of sculpture or inscription on the crumbling walls of a decayed Scottish church.

Day-fatalism, which has been so much illustrated by the learned and credulous Aubrey, or that recurring coincidence which makes men connect their good and evil fortunes with particular days, months, and years, is another of the baits by which Superstition angles for her vassals. These fatalities, which seem to baffle calculation, resemble, in fact, what is commonly called a run of luck, or an extraordinary succession of good or evil, beyond hope or expectation. Such irregulari

ties in the current of events are necessary to prevent human beings from lifting the veil of futurity. If the ordinary chances of fortune were not occasionally deranged, or set aside by those unexpected caprices of her power, Demoivre and his pupils might approach nearly to the rank of prophets.

In a third species of presage, our own mind, as we have hinted, becomes our oracle, and either from the dreams of the night, or the recollections of the day, we feel impressed with the belief that good or evil is about to befall us. We are far from absolutely scorning this species of divination, since we are convinced that in sleep, or even in profound abstraction, the mind may arrive at conclusions which are just in themselves, without our being able to perceive the process of thought which produced them. The singular stories told about dreams corresponding to the future event, are usually instances and illustrations of our meaning. A gentleman, for instance, is sued for a ruinous debt, with the accumulation of interest since his father's time. He is persuaded the claim had been long settled, but he cannot, after the utmost search, recover the document which should establish the payment. He was about to set out for the capital, in order to place himself at the mercy of his creditor, when, on the eve of his journey, he dreams a dream. His father, he thought, came to him and asked the cause of his melancholy, and of the preparations which he was making for his journey; and as the appearance of the dead excites no surprise in a dream, the visionary told the phantom the cause of his distress, and mentioned his conviction that this ruinous debt had been al

ready settled. "You are right, my

son, was the answer of the vision, "the money was paid by me in my lifetime. Go to such a person, formerly a practitioner of the law, now retired from business, and remind him that the papers are in his hands. If he has forgotten the circumstance of his having been employed by me on that occasion, for he was not my ordinary agent, say to him, that he may remember it by the token that there was some trouble about procuring change for a double Portugal piece when I settled my account with him.” The vision was correct in all points.

which we Cimmerians descend into the bowels of the earth, and follow nature into those recesses which none but the progeny of an Eve would ever have dreamed of exploring. But, though prepared to find in these subterranean abodes some of the most gorgeous spectacles the eye can witness, as well as the utmost horrors imagination can paint, it certainly was not in quest of romantic adventure that I penetrated their fathomless abysses.

Such, however, in countries where the mines are employed as places of punishment, are by no means uncommon; and I never shall forget the impression produced on my mind by the celebrated history of Count Alberti's confinement in the horrible quicksilver mines of Idria, as narrated to me on the spot by a grey-headed miner, in whose childhood it had occurred. Though the rank and favour of that accomplished young nobleman, and the dismal transition from the splendours of a court, and the smiles of an empress, to condemnation for life to subterranean drudgery of the most pestiferous nature, lend to his history a deeper and more terrific interest than can attach to the comparatively obscure adventures of the pair of youthful lovers, the denouement of whose little romance it was my good fortune to witness in the Hungarian mines of Schemnitz, I must trust to your indulgence, and the singularity of the scene of these nuptials, to atone for the deficiency.

Besides that superior order of nobles, or magnates, who, from wealth and extent of possessions, are more than nominal princes, there exists in Hungary a class of almost equally noble blood, but dilapidated fortunes, who, disdaining all professions save that of arms, have no means of increasing their substance but by alliances with the free merchants, who are beginning rapidly to acquire riches and consideration in the larger cities. Such marriages, among the cadets especially of the poorer nobles, are not unfrequent; and while they are tolerated by the privileged race, who occasionally condescend to them, they are eagerly courted by that, till lately, oppressed and contemned class, who cheerfully make large sacrifices to accomplish them.

There was in S a beautiful girl,

the only daughter of a Polish merchant, (half suspected to have in his veins some of the blood of Israel,) who, in addition to her father's wellfilled coffers, possessed personal attractions enough to draw around her a host of younger brothers, whose pedigrees outweighed their purses. Among these the heart of Ida Stephanoff soon declared in favour of Casimir Yaninsky, one of the first and most ardent of her suitors, and just such a gay, gallant sprig of nobility as was likely to make a deep impression on the daughter of a grave and penurious trader.

Here was some

Although the sole patrimony of Casimir was his sword, there were circumstances which inclined old Stephanoff to concur in his daughter's preference of the youth over others similarly situated. There was still a small estate in the family, and the elder brother of Casimir, though married, was childless. thing of a reversionary prospect; and as Casimir was unquestionably the most rising young man among Ida's suitors, she and her father, during some happy months, saw him with the same favourable eye. His consent was formally given, and a time not very far distant fixed for the marriage, when a nobleman, who had been for many years absent from his estate in the neighbourhood of S unexpectedly returned, and, having accidentally seen Ida at a village festival, made to her father such dazzling overtures as entirely overset the old Jew's fidelity to his previous engagements, and even his regard for the feelings of his daughter. What these were, on being informed of the proposal, may be better imagined than described. Graf Metzin was an elderly man, of peculiarly forbidding appearance and austere manners; and having already contrived to get rid of two wives, he had brought with him a sort of Blue-Beard reputation, by no means calculated to win the affections of even a disengaged maiden. But then he was not only rich, but enjoyed considerable credit at court; and had returned to Hungary with a degree of delegated influence, if not positive authority, which rendered his alliance infinitely desirable to a man in trade.

Stephanoff, though standing sufficiently in awe of the fiery Yaninsky

and his family, not abruptly to withdraw his promise, began to long earnestly for the means of breaking it; and this Graf Metzin proposed to furnish by possessing himself as if by force of the person of Ida, and apparently reducing her father to consent to a union which it was out of his power to prevent. The plot was not difficult of execution. Ida and her old nur-e (her mother had been long dead) were surprised in a rural excursion by a body of the Count's servants, and lodged in his old castle, where, by every demonstration of respectful affection which his harsh nature permitted, he strove to reconcile the high-spirited girl to her state of durance. What she felt did not transpire beyond the enchanted walls; but Casimir moved heaven and earth to procure her release, and was only restrained by sincere affection for the child, from wreaking his vengeance on her despicable parent.

Dreading the resentment which he was conscious of deserving, Stephanoff feigned to be inconsolable for the loss of his daughter, and solicited permission to reclaim her by force; but the local authorities, overawed by Graf Metzin, and indeed apprised privately that he acted in concert with her father, to break off an idle match between two unadvised young people, declined interfering, and it became evident that the farce would soon end, like so many others, in the marriage of the chief actors.

This Casimir was determined to avert, and legal means being beyond his reach, he was not deaf to the demon, who, in their absence, threw in his way some of a very opposite character. Urged almost to madness by a pathetic billet which Ida had found means to convey to him, he availed himself of an accidental rencontre with a band of freebooters, (some of whom are still to be found lurking in all the mountainous parts of Hungary,) to engraft on their previously formed plan of plundering his rival's castle, the rescue of his betrothed, during the confusion of the attack. The morality and loyalty of this measure may easily be called in question; but there is yet in these countries a sufficient smack of barbarism to make retaliation be considered perfectly justifiable; and a young man just robbed of his mistress may per

haps be excused for not respecting his rival's money-bags. To his person there could be no injury meditated, as the time fixed was that of his ne

cessary absence with part of his household, in attendance on a provincial assembly The hazard of the enterprise was considerable, as Graf Metzin had a tolerably numerous establishment; however, their attachment was not deemed such as to prompt a very vigorous resistance, and the young temporary bandit, and his more practised associates, marched gaily to the assault.

There had, however, been treachery somewhere; for in passing through a thick wood on the skirts of the Count's property, they were intercepted by a troop of soldiers, (who had long been aware of the existence of the brigands, and on the look-out for them,) and with the exception of one or two, were surrounded and made prisoners.

Yaninsky, in thus joining, at the instigation of passion and despair, a band of robbers, had so far remembered his own and his family's honour, as to exact from his comrades, in case of any disaster, the most implicit vow of secrecy as to his real name and condition; he therefore suffered himself to pass as one of the band, but his youth, and the testimony of even his hardened companions to his comparative innocence, marked him for the milder punishment of the mines, while the captain and one or two more, (who, to say truth, little deserved Casimir's self-reproaches for perhaps accelerating their fate,) expiated their former crimes on the scaffold.

As for Yaninsky, though he at first congratulated himself on being conducted for trial to a distant part of the province, where he was not likely to be recognized; yet the consequent impossibility of conveying to Ida any tidings of his fate, formed the chief aggravation of his situation; and having reason to fear she must have received his hasty information of her meditated rescue, the thought of her anxiety added bitterness to his own.

The mines, however, to which he was condemned for two years, were within three or four days' journey of S, and among their frequent vi sitants, hope whispered one might ere long be found to communicate tidings of his personal safety, and unabated constancy.