456 Origin of an Arctic Colony. prepared for him in a deep sleep; and his wife, lifting the mail of plaited gold from his breast, saw the print of a roseleaf on the part which admitted a wound. She would have pierced it with his own poignard, but Florice would not permit a deed of treachery. She only took the cap and mantle he had offered, and placing them on her sister they passed unresisted through all the marble doors of his palace. But when they had reached the last, Florice remembered the infant she had left sleeping unseen in her enemy's chamber. Her sister would have prevented her return; but she replied, "I will not abandon the innocent and the helpless." Chrysos was still asleep, and she brought the babe safely away in its mantle. When they reached the coast, a boat was seen moored among the rocks, without oar or sail; but a gold bracelet and a few roses lay on the edge. Heedless of her sister's safety, and eager only to secure her own, Rhodalind leaped into this deceitful boat, which instantly disappeared. Florice looked in despair at the dark waters, when another boat, transparent as crystal, and steered by a White Dwarf of the most diminutive stature, touched the shore. His face shone in the moon-beams like the smallest leaf of a lily, and his cloak seemed as light and thin as if it had been woven of the May-fly's wings, Florice placed the sleeping babe's mantle on the helm, hoping that the touch of a creature so innocent would dissolve the work of an evil spirit, but the boat remained unchanged, and the helmsman spoke in a voice as soft as the music of a reed tuned by the south-wind. "Eater, Fiorice!-my boat is framed of air and light, and will convey no freight except innocence and beauty. The Green Serpent Midgard, whose folds encircle the world, has received your sister, and conveyed her to the burning mountain of this island, where the Black Dwarf will avenge her treachery to his brother. But the presence of this innocent babe will smooth our way through the waters."-Florice placed herself in The May-fly, or Marienwurmchen, makes figure in Northern romance. [VOL. 4 the boat, and sang the hymn to the Sea-King as her pilot steered. Yet her courage failed when they sunk into a fog so white and so vast as to confound both sight and hearing. "Is our home near?" she said; but the White Dwarf was no longer visible, and his voice even from the helm could not be heard. It seemed as if they had traversed a thousand miles before a blue bird came through the mist, and alighted on the helm. Then Florice perceived that a wall of ice, two hundred fathoms deep below the sea and half as many above it, hung over their course. “Our home is near," said the white pilot, as he turned his boat under an arch which shone like a rainbow through the vapour. Arch after arch rose before them, till that vapour gathered in folds which hung as if they had been fleeces of silver over a ball built of diamonds. The floor was of pearl carpeted with lilies,and the boat as it approached it changed into a chariot drawn by swans. Florice looked for the dwarfish pilot, but she saw her husband Blanchefleur in the beauty of his youth. He placed her on the throne of his polar kingdom, and shewed her his secret gardens among a thousand hills of ice, where all the elves of Faeryland holds their revels. Her first-bora daughter married the son of Thurida and Biorn, and their children dwelt in the green valley of an ice-berg. The Elf-King of the North has vowed that none but the sons of Engelland shall unveil his throne, since none but a woman of Engelland was found worthy to share it. Here ends all that tradition has preserved of the first founders of this Arctic colony, and their descent from our ancestors is evinced by the exact resem blance their legend bears to those which the most distinguished poet of our sister kingdom has lately ushered into the modern world. The heroic songs of Denmark, collected by the orders of Sophia when storm-stayed at Knutstrup, whither she had gone to see Tycho Brahe's observatory, abound in such wild tales of dwarfs, mermaids, VOL. 4.] The Hermit in London-Just come from College. 457 and Young Lochinvar, that our new friends near the North Pole cannot surprise us by the near affinity they claim. And though this romantic history of their origin may not appear in the "Book of Heroes," "the Nibelungen Lay," or any other illustration of Northern Antiquities, it may claim a place among the legends dedicated to St. Julian, the patron-saint of travellers. V. From the Literary Gazette. What sairs your Grammars ? Ye'd better ta'en up spades and shools, Or knappin-hammers. A set of dull conceited Hashes, Confuse their brains in College classes! They gang in sticks, and come out asses, Plain truth to speak. Burns. I UNDERSTOOD that my old friend Dr. Drudge's son had come to town; and I called the other day to visit him. I valued the father much he was an honest, industrious, and successful man; and I wished to show every civility in my power to his son. The Doctor had, by much labour and by long practice, amassed a large fortune, which he left to his only son, to whom he was so partial, that he spared no expense to educate him in the first style. General knowledge was what the Doctor was anxious to give his child, who, on his part, seconded his wishes, by a thirst for improvement. This, however, was accompanied by a volatility, and by an eccentricity wholly unexampled. It is often the case that the son of a learned man, or of a great public character, is a dunce; just as the common consequence in life is, that the successor of a miser is a prodigal; but in the present instance it is otherwise, for the Doctor's son is still more ambitious of shining as a man of science and of letters, than his father's most anxious wishes could desire. ATHENEUM VOL. 4. 3 K About a year ago, the young man was deprived of his worthy father, and about a week ago he concluded his academic studies, having taken a Bachelor's degree and quitted College. Very different from those young men of rank and of fashion who leave Oxford and Cambridge, perfect only in horse-racing, in sporting, in drinking, and in gaming, Mr. Drudge read within the last four years, more books than almost any other man of his age existing. He has had a gleaning of almost every science, but with such rapidity, that it has produced a confusion of matter and of languages in his head, similar to what we read of the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. To this he adds great self-confidence and a fine flow of spirits, which render him a very strange character. His ambition is to be a Member of Parliament, an orator, an author, the discoverer of some new theory, and finally, to be quoted as one of the learned men of the age. His requisites and probable success I shall leave to the learned reader to foretel; and shall merely paint a scene betwixt himself and me, which will give a more accurate idea of what he is, than a volume of description, argument, and deductions therefrom. I called at his lodgings, and found him at home, seated in his robe de chambre, a Spanish grammar on one side of him, and the cranium of a dog on the other. Squares, compasses, and mathematical instruments, retorts and phials, books and papers, were all 458 Sketches of English Manners. around him; and a description of Persia was in his hand. Two foreigners were employed in the corners of the room; the one working in plaster of Paris; the other at a desk. He rose to receive me, with a cheerfaloess unlike the expression of a bookworm, and, making me a half prostration, with a smile, he cried, "Salam, Salam, most worthy Sir,friend of my Sire; Idelight in seeing you; you are welcome beyond my descriptive powers; si seda Signore Asseyez vous, s'il vous plait -sit down by the little boy who, gratefully, remembers being on your knee dans l'aurore de la vie. How do you? how is the nervous system? No hypochondrias? No dyspepsia? All well in the pulmonary regions? the viscera? the muscular economy? Aye, I'll swear to it. The vital system as entire as a youth's of twenty! and the intellectual one mature and sane mens sana in corpore sano. The mind is (I perceive) "Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull." "But tell me-Quid agis? What are your present pursuits?-Moral, or experimental Philosophy, Zoology, Mineralogy, Conchology, or Geology, Metaphysics, Philology, Anatomy, Ethics, Natural History, or the Belles Lettres? I have heard of you. I know that you are a savant, a man of virtu, one of the cognoscenti, of the dilletanti, a man of science, and a leader of bon gout." He overpowered me, but I put in a few words. "Well," said he abruptly," we have a fine status quo of affairs, political and general. Pretty work this election, great efforts at an oligarchyat a democracy or a mobocracy if you please. They would give us a republique non libre, as Montesquieu calls it. You see what our liberty comes to. It is that libertas which in vitium excidit et vim dignam lege rege. Aye, the Life Guards will settle that. But it is truly shocking: amputations and fractures, lacerations and dislocations are the effects of the poll; in consequence of those emulations and strifes, those contentions and passions which war in our members'-hem! It is every [VOL. 4 where the same. Vide the revolutions of France, of Holland, of the Colonies. Odi profanum vulgus. These demagogue Demosthenes poison the public mind, intoxicate weak brains with their frothy oratory; themselves being the worst of private characters; and then leave the polaccio to a sense of their own wretchedness. Thus it is that Belle parole e cateni fatti 6 Apropos, but for these elections the town would be a desert. At the Court end of the town it is a memento mori, a rus in urbe. The grass is actually growing in the streets; and the sight of a nobleman's carriage is a treat. (Then turning to the implements around him) You see, said he, my amusements and occupations, Chemistry, Anatomy, Geology (holding up a specimen of basalt,) and History. That multum in parvo little fellow is taking my bust (pointing to a deformed Italian.) The other is my Spanish master, who is writing my exercise. Su servidor; viva usted muchos annos' (to the language master, bowing him out.) This cranium was that of a dog, the most intellectual (if I dare use the phrase) that ever was. The animal was a Roman; and I am examining the cerebellum, (his Servant enters with a letter.) That fellow I keep because I made an experiment on him. He was as deaf as the Tarpeian rock, and I cured him by electricity, after trying magnetism, the metallic tractors, and the devil and all. Vous me permettrez mon ami-you will allow me to peruse this billet.-It is an invitation to the Institute, and a promise to take me to an experiment of the Voltaic pile. A fine thing, no doubt! know the principle, as one ought to know the principle of every thing, from the five per cents up to the solar and lunar systems. Talking of the Sun, the Prince carries it with a high hand, every measure goes through-the Indemnity Act, etcetera. By and by, these demigods of ministers will issue their orders-Such is our will.' It will be SEWY STERLISTO Bλ. What will become of old Magna Charta at last, I know not. It will be Carta TOL.4.] Story of an Apparition. Pecora, or Carte blanche, I believe Here I stopped him, for fear that he 459 ambition will be to get into parliament, and to make a thundering maiden speech: then with M.P. attached to all the other distinctions of a man of alphabetical as well as of learned letters, I may publish any thing, and I shall be known as an author. Lastly, I where I must discover some theory, propose retiring to my Tusculum, and publish it, by which means I shall be called by the name of my theory, and thus be rendered immortal. this accomplished, I shall retire to the All country, ducere solicita jocunda oblivia vitæ,' and there end the scene in the arms of the Muses." Here concluded the projects of my ambitious friend, young Drudge. The reader may consider the picture as charged; but I assure him it is faithful. Through a long life, many objects must have passed before my eyes, and I have, amongst the number, met with more than one of this cast. We have fanatics of all kinds, religious, political, poetical, physical, and metaphysical. have fanatics in love, in painting, and in all the fine arts. Every body must have seen "Il fanatico per la musica ;" and, not a bad play might be written on "Il fanatico per la scienza," such the worthy friend described of We THE HERMIT IN LONDON. Mr. Editor, From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Observing that you have frequently introduced into your Miscellany popular fables collected from va rious quarters, I send you the following, which I solemnly protest is no invention of mine, but a ghost-story of natural growth, which I heard in conversation. If you can find room for it, it will probably afford more amusement than the Welsh superstitions you published some time ago, which were rather heavy. I am yours, &c. A. B. BOUT the fall of the leaf,in the year fitted to keep in countenance the most sombre events. The following circumstances were well known in the family, and are said to have been related by one of its members to a lady much celebrated in the literary world, but now deceased. friend, Colonel D. found there many Upon arriving at the house of his A 1737, Colonel D. went to visit his guests, who had already got possession friend Mr. N. at his country seat in the north of England. As this country seat was the scene of a very singular adventure, it may be proper to mention its antiquity and solemnity, which were The of almost all the apartments. chiliness of an October evening, and the somewhat mournful aspect of nature, at that season, collected them, at an early hour, round the blazing hearth, 460 Story of an Apparition. [VOL. 4 where they thought no better amuse- thing is certain, that the room looked ment could be found than the ancient and well approved one of story-telling, for which all mankind seem to have a relish. I do not mean the practice of circulating abominable slanders against one's friends, but the harmless, drowsy, and good-natured recreation of retailing wonderful narratives, in which, if any ill is spoken, it is generally against such as are well able to bear it, namely, the enemy of mankind, and persons who, having committed atrocious crimes, are supposed, after death, to haunt the same spots to which their deeds have attached dismal recollections. While these tales went round, the evening darkened apace, and the windows ceased any longer to contrast the small glimmerings of external twilight with the bright blaze of the hearth. The rustling of withered leaves, casually stirred by the wind, is always a melancholy sound, and, on this occasion, lent its aid to the superstitious impressions which were gaining force by each successive recital of prodigies, One member of the family began to relate a certain tradition, but he was suddenly stopped by their host, who exhibited signs of displeasure, and whispered something to him, at the same time turning his eyes upon Colonel D. The story was accordingly broken off, and the company went to supper with their hair standing on end; but so transitory are human impressions, that in a few minutes they had all recovered their gayety, except the Colonel, who was unable to comprehend why any tradition should be concealed from him in particular. When they separated to go to sleep, he was led by Mr. N. (as the reader will probably anticipate), to a chamber at a great distance from the other bed-rooms, and which bore evident marks of having been newly opened after remaining long unoccupied. In order to dissipate the confined air of the place, a large wooden fire had been lighted, and the gloomy bed-curtains were tucked stiffly up in festoons. I have not heard whether there was tapestry in the room or not; but one as dreary as any tapestry could have made it, even if it had been worked on purpose by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe herself. Romance writers generally decorate their imaginary walls with all the wisdom of Solomon; but, as I am unable to vouch for the truth of every particular mentioned in this story, I mean to relate the circumstances faithfully as they were told me, without calling in so wise a man to lend his countenance to them. Mr. N. made apologies to Colonel D. for putting him into an apartment which was somewhat uncomfortable, and which was now opened only be cause all the rest were already filled. With these excuses, and other suitable compliments, he bade his guest good night, and went away with a good deal of seriousness in his countenance, leaving the door a-jar behind him. Colonel D, observing that the apartment was large and cold, and that but a small part of the floor was covered with carpet, endeavoured to shut the door, but found he could only close it half way. Some obstacle in the hinges, or the weight of the door pressing upon Neverthe floor, opposed his efforts. theless, being seized with some absurdfancies, he took the candle, and looked out. When he saw nothing, except the long passage and the vacant apartments beyond, he went to bed, leaving the remains of the fire still flickering upon the broad hearth, and gleaming now and then upon the door as it stood half open. After the Colonel had lain for a long while, ruminating half asleep, and when the ashes were now nearly extinguished, he saw the figure of a woman glide in. No noise accompanied her steps. She advanced to the fire-place, and stood between him and the light, with her back towards him, so that he could not see her features. Upon observing her dress, he found that it exactly cor. responded in appearance with the ancient silk robes represented in the pictures of English ladies of rank, painted three centuries ago. This circumstance filled him with a degree of terror which |