riority of German tales in the very important particular of morality. We are aware that this opinion may be considered as somewhat hazarded, and we admit that it is only to be admitted in a qualified and comparative view; but a brief explanation will at once make the matter clear, and include such incidental criticisms as the subject may seem to require.

The Tales of the East are, as might be expected in the regions of Harams and Zenanas, deplorably tainted with impurity and intrigue. The Arabian Nights, though, in their European dress, they appear to have undergone a partial expurgation, are by no means sufficiently innoxious to justify indiscriminate perusal. There exists among us by far too much of a matter-of-course feeling with respect to general reading; and there are not a few books unhesitatingly put into the hands of the young, which those of more advanced age can scarcely read with impunity. The manners, the costume, and the modes of thinking prevalent in the East, are, indeed, vividly portrayed in the . Thousand and One' stories of Scheherazade; and there can be no question of the advantage to be derived, in this view, from an acquaintance with these spirited inventions ; but, in the case of youth at least, we should prefer conveying the instruction in a different form. The Babar-Danush is disgusting from its grossness, and furnishes strong condemnatory evidence against that state of society in which it is not merely permitted but popular. These two collections may be fairly taken as characteristic of the eastern school of fiction; and unhappily, their relaxed morality has extended itself to the story-tellers of the West. The Italian novelists were the con amore continuators of Arabian and Persian ribaldry. Spirited, inventive, and clothing their licentious details in the attractive drapery of a beautiful and harmonious writing, they bequeathed to after-times the pestilential legacy of alluring vice and seductive obscenity. The same debasing character is but too conspicuous in the fictitious literature of the other nations of Southern Europe, and it seems to have infected all the department of imaginative composition. Our fine old English drama, with its perfect nature and its matchless style, is a school of lust; and that which would, but for this, be a most wholesome and invigorating exercise of the intellect, becomes a nauseous and contaminating contact. The writers exhausted themselves in the chase of double entendres, impure allusions, and broad obscenities. The reek of a lewd imagination obscured the brightness of their genius, and works of unrivalled ability are rendered unsafe and injurious by the obtrusion of this wayward and degrading spirit of uncleanness. Without meaning to convey the idea that there

are no slips in this respect, to be detected in the old Teutonic fictions, it may be safely affirmed that they are not merely of more rare occurrence, but of a far more venial kind. There is no hot scent of a debauched imagination, no revelry in unchaste phrase, no elaborate exhibition of immodest circumstadce;

there

may

be occasional indications of coarse manners, but we are not annoyed either by a running fire of indecent allusion, or by the systematic operations of a prurient imagination,

The modern school of German novelists is, in this respect, of a mixed character. One, at least, of the number has distinguished himself by productions of glaring immorality. The Wilhelm Meister of Goethe is disfigured by much grossness and vulgarity, while in a notorious drama, Stella, he has offered inexpiable insult to the decorums of society and the laws of the marriage compact. In a general way, however, we should say, from our limited knowledge of these branches of German literature, that instances of this kind are but few, and that the far larger proportion of Teutonic tale-writers are too honestly and indefatigably in search of the extravagant and horrific, to have either leisure or inclination for indulgence in the sensual and impure. Judging from the specimens before us, the diablerie Tudesque is in no danger of extinction. Demons of all genera and species, ghosts of all forms and dimensions, brownies and fairies of all colours and tempers, wizards and weird-sisters, both white and black, caverns, caldrons, spells, storms, mists, shadows of all densities, flashes, explosions, with the accustomed harlequinade of necromancy, keep the mind in a state of unceasing bewilderment. Independently, however, of the absurdity of the thing, the bustle is, in general, well kept up, and there is, sometimes, a display of considerable talent in the management of unmanageable materials. La Motte Fouqué seems to be the master-genius in this way among the wonder-workers of Germany, and he really gets up his pantomimes in a very creditable way. We are unhappy enough never to have seen Mother Goose,' but we should imagine that the Baron's achievements beat that celebrated triumph of · Tomfoolery' quite hollow. The Magic Ring is a piquant olio of knighthood and enchantment, entangled and disentangled with much dexterity, and containing passages of considerable interest. The knot of the intrigue lies in the identity of half-a-dozen chieftains, all alike valiant and amorous, who figure as Hygies of Greece—the Italian Uguccione—the renowned Sir Huguenin of Normandy-the stern Sir Hugur of the North—and who all turn out to be one and the same individual like Cerberus, three gentlemen at

⚫ once-Sir Hugh von Trautwangen. Uncommon tact is displayed in first of all making pie-to borrow a printer's phrase of his materials, and then distributing' them with perfect regularity. The Baron is an admirable story-teller: he reminds us at times of Count Anthony Hamilton, between whose whimsical extravaganza, les quatre Facardins, and the Magic Ring, there is some resemblance. Fouqué has not, indeed, the inimitable charm, the gracefully sportive humour, the keen-edged sarcasm of the brilliant Irishman, but he narrates with much vivacity, describes with good effect; and without decided originality, has so much of its semblance as to pass well for an original writer. His great peculiarities are, first, the clever way in which he constructs and develops his plot, and next, the very striking and uncommon character of his descriptions. He seems to have taken the magic lantern as his optical medium, and the rainbow as his theory of colour. There are in his grouping, his light and shade, and his tints. a richness and mistiness, a want of definite outline, a mingled brilliancy and uncertainty, that have an effect of undefinable attraction. A singular melange, half-fairy-tale. half-phantasmagoria, translated in the popular Romances under the title of the Tale,' is, we imagine, by Fouqué, and may afford a fair illustration of his eye for colour. His Undine contains some beautiful passages, and his Sintram is made up of a series of pictures that seem copied from Durer, Spranger, Goltzius, and Cranach. But he deserves a higher praise than any that is derived from accidental circumstances, since his wildest excursions seem, almost invariably, to have some moral end in view. The Magic Ring' seems intended to illustrate the superiority, both intellectual and religious, of Christianity over Paganism; and its heroine, Bertha von Lichtenried, whether considered as a personification or a leading character, is a lovely and attractive portraiture. From this romance we shall borrow, as a general specimen, the following conjuration

• Meanwhile the disguised man continued to ring and rattle against the iron bars, till at length there was a strange noise of heaving and struggling within the vault, as if the dead were starting into life. This was indeed Sir Folko de Montfaucon, who now raised himself from amid the bloody clothes in which he had been wrapt, and said in a strange hoarse voice, “ Good Heavens, how cold and dark is this bed !” Then, after a pause of recollection, he began again. “Or if I am really among the dead, how comes it that I yet feel such burning and feverish pain? And wherefore am I not relieved from this earthly prison, and floating through the wide realms of the blue sky?” « Sir knight,” said the disguised man without, “ you are indecd alive, only you are not yet recovered from your fever and your wounds. Only be of good courage, and beware of falling into dreams. I shall be with you anon, and will make you sound and well." Thereafter, as the strange man continued to beat upon the iron bars, the Chevalier de Montfaucon felt his senses more and more bewildered, and saw the strangest phantoms floating around him. He felt indeed as one who struggles with sleep and frightful visions, and could have fallen once more into death-like slumbers, had not the mysterious stranger ever and anon repeated in a loud voice the same words,—“ Beware of dreams, knight of Montfaucon ! beware of dreams!”

• At last the iron wickets no longer resisted ; slowly and solemnly they rolled asunder, and the disguised man step into the house of death. “My wounds are become cold,” said the chevalier, shivering with fever, “and yet are very painful.” “ Ere long you shall be better," said the stranger, who thereupon drawing forth a light that he had in a dark lantern under his cloak, began to examine the wounds, and poured into them a healing balsam from a vial that he had brought with him. Moreover he gently touched and rubbed them with a glittering gem in the fashion of a ring, and while the knight of Montfaucon felt his pains appeased as by the resistless spells of enchantment, and new strength poured through every limb, he recognized the ring to be the long-contested property of Gabri. elle, and in bis kind physician beheld the merchant Theobaldo.""

• Peter Schlemihl is, as we understand it, specifically 'a moral tale,' intended to exemplify the sacrifice of reputation to the desire of obtaining wealth, and the consequent temptation to regain character by plunging deeper in crime. Peter, while dancing attendance on a rich parvenu, a Mr. Jones, is surprised by a singular series of prodigies, effected by a personage as mysterious as the wonders themselves. A large party was rambling in Mr. Jones's gardens.

• We reached the rose-grove. The lovely Fanny, the queen, as it seemed, of the day, was capricious enough to wish to gather for her. self a blooming branch ; a thorn pricked her, and a stream, as bright as if from damask roses, flowed over her delicate hand. This acci.. dent put the whole company in motion. English court-plaister was

instantly inquired after. A silent, meagre, pale, tall, elderly man, who stood next to me, and whom I had not before observed, instantly put his hand into the close-fitting breast-pocket of his old-fashioned grey taffetan coat, took out a small pocket book, opened it, and with a lowly bow, gave the lady what she had wished for; she took it without any attention to the giver, and without a word of thanks.'

This useful gentleman seems to be present for the mere purpose of supplying all the requirements of Mr. Jones and his intimates. As occasion offers, he produces from the same depot, a telescope, a Turkey carpet, a sumptuous tent, and three saddle-horses ! Of course, Schlemihl's curiosity is awakened, but he can find nobody who seems to have observed any thing extraordinary in this ready waiting of fortune's gifts on fortune's favourites. At length, appalled by the presence of this strange being, he leaves the company, but after an interval perceives that he is followed by the grey-coated unknown, who, with much humility and hesitation, proposes to purchase Peter's

beautiful, beautiful shadow !'. The bargain is struck, and the apparently useless appendage is carefully folded up, and committed to the side-pocket, while the shadowless Schlemih! walks off with Fortunatus's inexhaustible purse in his hand. He soon, however, finds that he has made a bad bargain in bartering his indispensable attendant for gold. He becomes bankrupt in fame, in love, in all but miserable pelf, and the demon takes advantage of his wretcheduess to ply him with persuasions to repurchase his shadow by the forfeiture of his soul. Peter, however, resists, though his temptations are singularly well imagined : the last scene of this kind is very striking

• Visions of old time floated in my soul. I enquired hastily: “ Did Mr. Jones give you his signature?" He smiled: “ With so good a friend it was not necessary.”—“Where is he—where? By heavens I will know !" He put his hand slowly into his pocket, and drew out by the hair the pale and ghastly form of Thomas Jones. Its blue and deadly lips trembled with the dreadful words : “ Justo judicio Dei judicatus sum ; justo judicio Dei condemnatus sum." I was horror-struck-I dashed the clinking purse hastily into the abyss, and uttered these last words : “ I conjure thee, in the name of God, monster, begone, and never again appear before these eyes."

He ruse up with a gloomy frown, and vanished instantaneously behind the dark masses of rock which surrounded that wild and savage place. I sat there shadowless and pennyless, but a heavy weight had been removed from my bosom, and I was calm.'

He still finds his want of a shadow so inconvenient that he determines to seek employment in a mine, and wholly to