hum of voices. After a short time the sounds became deeper, and this was the first circumstance which gave me the suspicion, that, although insensible to any thing like motion, I was actually travelling through the heavens to some unknown region. Of the truth of this I became soon satisfactorily convinced. For, keeping my eyes fixed intently on the cloud before me, I could discern its whole body begin to assume slowly a mild and rosy hue (not unlike that lovely colour which, after sunset, you may have seen in a clear December evening): the murmur of the voices I had before heard became more audible, and at last, looking stedfastly before me, I could distinguish several dim and indistinct figures, sometimes moving, sometimes at rest, in the cloudy medium.

"We shall soon reach the end of our journey," said my beautiful Conductress. You already discern in the distance some of the inhabitants of the Paradise of Philosophic and Literary Spirits. When I say Paradise, I here use the word not so much in the sense of your own language, as in that of its original Greek derivative, gadis, an enclosed situation; for you will soon perceive that there are many comparatively inferior spirits here, whom you would hardly expect to meet with in what you might have erroneously supposed, from its being so much more beautiful than your own earth, a literary heaven."

As she spoke we had arrived on a kind of eminence: the cloud with which we had been surrounded be came gradually thinner; and, as its waving folds, tinged with a rosy hue, floated slowly in the breeze, it disclosed from beneath it, at intervals, that beautiful picture which now stretched itself in varied extension below me. I saw an extensive valley, surrounded on all sides by a range of green mountains, which appeared at a great distance. Their height was considerable, their outline bold and striking. In the little vallies, which formed themselves between these mountains, I could discern the sparkling of numberless rivulets, which, flowing down their parent hills like so many veins of diamond, watered and cooled the valley, and gave an uncommon verdure to the scenery through which they flowed. The ground was varied;

and the sides of many of the lower hills were richly fringed with woods, which extended themselves into the valley, not in those unmeaning clumps affixed by the niggard rules of art, but in those grand and liberal masses which mark the unsparing hand of Nature. Towards the upper end of the valley, and partly hid by the winding form it had assumed, and the woods which in some places broidered its banks, was a pure and transparent lake. It was studded and beautified exceedingly by many little islands; and as its surface was as pellucid as a mirror, it is impossible for me to describe that lovely and softened scene which shone reflected beneath the quiet of its wave.

These islands were partly wooded; and, embosomed in their groves, I could discern the spires and colonnades which seemed to me the dwellings of this world above.*

Throughout the valley I perceived many groups of figures, which, as they wandered along the borders of the lake, or winded through the alleys and passes in the wood, seemed engaged in conversation or in search of amuse

Paradise of Literary spirits (the outline of * After writing this description of the

which is borrowed from Bernier's beautiful account of the Valley of Kashmere), I met with the following fine picture of the Celtic paradise.

"The isle spread large before him like a pleasing dream of the soul, where distance fades not on the sight-where nearness fatigues not the eye. It had its gently sloping hills of green, nor did they wholly want their clouds. But the clouds were

bright and transparent, and each involved

No

in its bosom the source of a stream: a beauteous stream, which, wandering down the steep, was like the joint notes of the halftouched harp to the distant ear. The vallies were open and free to the ocean. Trees loaded with leaves, which scarcely waved to the light breeze, were scattered on the green winds walked not on the mountain. declivities and rising grounds. The rude storm took its course through the sky. All was calm and bright. The pure sun of autumn shone from the sky on the fields. He hastened not to the west for repose; nor was he seen to rise in the east. He sits in his noonday height, and looks obliquely on the noble isle. In each valley is its slow moving stream. The pure waters swell over the banks, and yet abstain from the fields. The showers disturb them not; nor are they lessened by the heat of the sun. On the rising hills are the halls of the departed, the high-roofed dwellings of the heroes of old.

ment.

Some companies were seated on the green banks of the little streams which flowed into the lake. Some were walking in those islands which studded its bosom, or were busy in culling the flowers, whose fragrance perfumed the air around me. Others, seated beneath some spreading tree, or reclined on the mossy carpet at its root, seemed devoted to philosophic discussion; whilst a few solitaries were seen wandering in some of the more distant groves, or had retired to court the solemn intercourse of their own thoughts in the more secluded corners of the landscape.

We now entered the valley itself; and looking up, I saw, to my astonishment, in the air, a great number of beautiful little mortals, or rather immortals, with wings on their backs, of variegated colours and very rich plumage, and dressed in airy vestments of every different tint which can be conceived. Some were standing in groups, seemingly as easily in the air as ourselves on the ground. Others, fluttering about, were chasing each other in sport. Some, with baskets in their hands, and seated on the corner of a cloud, were poring with their little heads into the baskets (an Occupation afterwards explained to me). Others were employed in dan cing; but the figure was unlike any thing I had ever seen before, being half-flying, half-hopping; whilst their musician, a gay little gentleman, with his pipe and tabour, sat in the air; and, whilst his eyes sparkled with delight, and his feet quivered with anxiety to join them, kept clapping his wings in unison to his own music.

At this sight I could not conceal my astonishment. An exclamation of delight escaped me, and I turned to my Conductress. "These beings," said she, "whose appearance seems to give you so much pleasure, are the servants or domestics of this Paradise. We employ them in all our errands, and they are none other than the Eastern Peris,*

Dans le Caherman Nama (Roman fameux de Perse) les Dives ayant pris en guerre quelques unes de ces Péris les enfermèrent dans des cages de fer, qu'ils suspendirent aux plus hauts arbres qu'ils purent trouver, où leurs compagnes les venoient de temps en temps visiter, avec des odeurs les plus precieuses. Ces odeurs, ou parfums étoient la nourriture ordinaire des Péris."

D' Herbêlot, Bibliothèque Orientale, sous le mot Péri.

or Spirits of Gennistan, so deservedly famous in Arabian romance. They are composed of so pure and ethereal an essence, that if their little tunics were removed, you would be surprised at the transparency and beauty of their shape. This is in some measure occasioned by their living entirely on the odours of flowers, which they imbibe from those little baskets which you see in their hands." "Those little gentlemen then," said I, "who surprised me by burying their heads in their baskets, are probably inhaling their fragrant dinner on the corner of the cloud yonder."-"You are quite right," she replied; and raising her wand in the direction where the Peris were assembled, one of them immediately perceived the signal, and came flying towards us, having slung his basket or flower-scrip on his shoulder; alighting, he bent one knee to the ground, and, placing his hand on his forehead, made the Eastern sign of obeisance,then springing lightly up, he waited in silence for our orders.

“Peri,” said my Conductress, “what is going on amongst my literary friends, your masters, in the valley? I have brought a stranger with me, my particular friend, and I could wish to have something new and striking, -some great public sight, or rare and signal occurrence, which might be worthy of his notice. -"Dear mistress,” replied the little Spirit, " you could not possibly have arrived at a more happy time. The gayeties of our valley have but just commenced; and this very night, Paulius Jovius gives a rout at his villa on the lake; and to-morrow there is to be a select hop at Hugo Grotius', in honour of his little daughter Cornelia. The very last cards which I distributed were to Torquato Tasso and Sir Thomas Urquhart; but it is most fortunate that, owing to Scipio and Lælius being absent on a tour, I have still two left." Saying this, the dear Peri pulled out, from below the folds of his tunic, two purple-coloured cards with golden letters on them,* and pre

The agency of these little spirits has been at length introduced into English poetry in Moore's very charming romance of Lalla Rookh, under the tale of Paradise and the Peri, in which all the warm imagery, and all the glowing colours of an Eastern imagination, are united to illustrate a nobler moral than is generally found in Oriental Poetry.

The richest books of the ancients were written upon purple-coloured parchment,

sented them to me and my Conductress. On the first I could read,

"Faulus Jovius at home

from 9 to 12."

And on the second, Hugo Grotius requests the honour, in the usual style, and dated, Villa Grotiana. Having acquitted herself in this polite manner, the Peri addressed herself to flight, but first pointing to a figure which we now saw approaching us, see there," said she, yonder comes the Sieur de Montaigne, as talkative a gentleman. as any in the valley. He will give you all the news; and, as his acquaintance is most extensive, you could not have a better Cicerone." Saying this, she made another obeisance, sprung up into the air, and joined her companions. Montaigne, coming up soon after, immediately joined us, and did ample justice to the character the Peri had given him. He was a dark, illfavoured, strong made, little man; and I perceived he had been reading a book, which, on addressing us, he im mediately closed. With that spirit of polite officiousness which is the characteristic of his nation, he told us he had observed the Peri giving us cards, of course to Paulus Jovius' rout, and that he would think himself for tunate in having the honour of accompanying us. "I was most agreeably interrupted," said he, "by your arrival, for I had just been reading, or rather fretting, for the last hour, and that's a great deal for me, over a work which has but lately arrived from your world (turning to me), a French work too, and by a gentle countrywoman, Madame de Stael; but from such extraordinary verbiage, such unmeaning theorizing, Heaven hereafter defend my poor head. She's a remarkable woman too, and has some great ideas and truly original thoughts about her, but such a volubility of words-such a successful obscurity-such terms of unknown and mysterious meaning, that to one who is an old author like myself, and uninitiated in this new school, all the sense there is seems strangled in the birth, and smothered in its efforts to get to light.

"That rascal of ours, Rousseau, was

with letters in liquid gold. These gorgeous species of manuscripts are alluded to both by Propertius and Ovid. The covers of their manuscripts also were often enriched with precious stones.

the first who introduced this verbiagerie. He was, however a great man, and I respect his genius. But this lady, sir,-Why, Rousseau is nothing to her."

I was so perfectly thunderstruck at hearing this violent exordium of the old sieur's, and directed too against one of the most eloquent and popular authors of the present day, that I stood for some time in perfect silence.

He, however, like all Frenchmen, more attentive to the elucidation of his subject than to the dispositions of his audience, pursued the point in a still severer strain of invective. "Here, sir," said he, (holding out the small Treatise De L'Influence, des Passions) "here is a work, sir, professedly on the passions, but truly embracing almost every subject under heaven. This I have had the consummate patience to read from beginning to end without understanding a single syllable. Nay, had it been from end to beginning it had been quite the same thing to me. This work, in short, sir," said he, affecting great gravity, but smiling insidiously as he spoke," this work will be read when Pascal, Fontenelle, and Voltaire,-when, in the words of Madame herself, our grands prosateurs are forgotten,*-but not till then. I have been very prolix and talkative," said he, " but this was always a fault of mine. Long ago, in one of my Essays (the one on Books I think),† I professed my utter detestation of all long winded introductions, all prefaces, divisions, etymologies, and exordiums. What then must I think of this lady, who is all preface and exordium throughout.

"But criticism is useless hereshe is too old, sir, far too old an offender to mend. Were she young, there might be some hopes of her, but she is past her grand climacteric. She has got pretty far down in that dark avenue which she tells us terminates in the agony of age :-her style and obscurity, her philosophic mysteriousness, has grown with her growth. Os

"These poems, said Porson (speaking of some ephemeral productions of his own day), will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but not till then.”

+ Book II. C. 10. Vol. II.

In Delphine, Madame de Stael uses this singular term.

sibus inhæret, It is quite irreclaimable."

"You certainly are much too severe, sir," I ventured to observe, although the old gentleman had worked himself up into a state of irritation, which made it somewhat of a dangerous service to thwart him, especially as I was a mere mortal and he an enraged ghost. "This lady has perhaps many of the faults you mention, but you judge from her earliest and most imperfect performance. Read Corinne, sir; read De la Litterature; read, said I, gaining courage, her work on Germany. It is in these you will recognize her genius, it is in these you will discover her real eulogium. I allow, certainly, that in these also there are great faults. Her obscurity, her highsounding phrases,-her often unmeaning expletives, and all the imposing apparatus of verbiagerie, are not unsparingly employed; but these faults are redeemed by so many brilliant passages,-by such enchanting descriptions, by such touching and eloquent appeals,—and, pardon me most respectable sieur, by so high a strain,-by so pure a tone of moral feeling, that few, very few, will rise from their perusal without admiration for her uncommon and original mind."

r¢

"Well, well,” said Montaigne, you are evidently yourself infected by this new style of philosophising, and will probably be one day or other intruding upon your unfortunate world some treatise or dissertation, containing as much brilliant nonsense, and enchanting appeals, as your wrongheaded Instructress. But hear me for a moment. I am, as you see, an old and experienced ghost. You are evidently a middle-aged and inexperienced mortal. Take my word for't, this style of writing won't last. It is not of the re perennius kind. It won't, like some other unfading productions of your age, strike its roots into one century, and flourish brighter and fairer through the next. It is too much like Charlatanerie; before one can be eloquent he must be understood.* Mystery and verbiage must cease before conviction or instruction

* Although Montaigne is evidently too severe, and very strongly prejudiced by his notions imbibed from the old French writers, the literati of the ancient regime, yet there is perhaps some truth in his criticisms on VOL I.

begin. In writing those works, which are occupied on subjects of reasoning and philosophy, you must be conducted through passages, which ought to be plain and perspicuous, to conclusions which are at once forcible and satisfactory. Then indeed, when in the course of these reasonings, the author, conducted naturally by the greatness of his subject, rises without effort from the more sober regions of demonstrative truth, into illustrations which acquire an impressive eloquence from the dignity of the truths to which they relate, then indeed we can follow him with pleasure-we can peruse him with enthusiasm. It is the gem of eloquence glittering in the setting of truth; but when an author, who sets out in obscurity, begins blustering with unmeaning eloquence in his exordium, or, before he has well stated his object, bursts out into some exclamation of mysterious triumph, or unintelligible rapture; this, sir," (with all due respect for your authoress) is what I must, judging by my antiquated notions of criticism, call the very height of absurdity and self-conceit. But come, come; we have had quite enough of Madame de Stael; I see I have not convinced you, so we had better change the subject, and, fortunately, here comes, in good time, a most intimate and amusing friend of mine, Sir Thomas Urquhart. Perhaps you have met with his renowned works; if so, I must tell you, he is just as odd as they are. Amongst us here, indeed, he passes for one of our most entertaining and extraordinary spirits. All his strange theories and uncommon phraseology he has conscientiously imported with him from the other world. Sir Thomas,' continued he, as the learned knight of Cromarty began solemnly to advance, let me introduce you to a gentleman who has just arrived from the other world. He is, I assure you, none of those self-sufficient spirits, whom, under the significant terms of archæomanetick coxcombs and pristinary lobcocks, you censure in that never-to-be-forgotten treatise, your Introduction to Universal Language.'

"

Sir Thomas's countenance greatly relaxed at this well-timed compliment of old Montaigne's. He stepped two paces back, arranged his limbs, and drew up his body into something like the first position; after gently stroking its ruffle, he placed his right hand on his heart, and moving the left in a graceful semi-circle towards his head, he slowly took off his hat and feather, and inclined his stiff trunk into a profound reverence. Raising himself then with equal gravity, he advanced in solemn silence, and kissed me on both cheeks. Upon the conclusion of this ceremonial, Montaigne, turning to me, exclaimed, "Of all things in the world, I would wish to have some account of the state of manners and society amongst you now-a-days. No doubt you have had great changes since our good old days. The wheel of society and manners is ever revolving, and, like the fiery wheel of some skilful Pyrotechnic, each new revolution presents us with some figure, more strange and more wonderful than its predecessor. Man has altered his doublet, and woman her fardingale, many a time for the worse, since I kept court* with my sovereign at Rouen. Yet I made but a shabby courtier after all-though I loved those chivalrous days of our ancient monarchy. Truly, sieur," replied Sir Thomas, "your observations on those antiquated times, as they are now called by those shallow and fidimplicitary coxcombs, who fill our too credulous ears with their quisquiliary deblaterations, appear to me

*

"Montaigne nous apprend, qu'il n'etoit pas ennemi de l'agitation des cours et qu'il y avoit passé une partie de sa vie. En effet il se trouva a Rouen, pendant que le Roi Charles IX. y etoit.". Vie de Montaigne.

I have attempted here an imitation of the extraordinary style of Sir Thomas Urquhart, a man of genius, as none who have perused his inimitable translation of part of Rabelais will be disposed to deny, or his extraordinary account of the murder of the admirable Crichton, in his tracts (under the one named the Jewel), but in other respects of the most ridiculous pretensions, and these conveyed in the most quaint and unintelligible phraseology, as every one who

has turned over his Introduction to a Uni

versal Language will most readily allow. Most of the singular words in this speech of Sir Thomas are either sanctioned by his own authority, or coined according to those rules he seems to have adopted.

both orderly digested and aptly conceived. We have lived, sir, in those great eras,-those commendable measurements of the regent of this diurnal microcosme, those exalted periodi, by which the sagacity of the sapient philosophunculi of this rotundal habitation, hath measured the unceasing rotations of the calicolary spheroids,-in those times, seignior, when the old were respected, and in all estimation-the young sweet_and judicious-the married women decorous rather than decorated, grave as well as gravidæ―the virgins pure and pitiful-the youth becomingly silent, and more given to listen to the legis lative or literatorie discussions of their elders, than to any cunning tricks or vulpicularie conundrums, to the jeers, gibes, mops, quips, jests, or jerks of their simiatick companions. Gallantry, sir, (said he, turning to me) or the exalted science of demulceating the amiable reservedness, and overcoming the attractive pudicity, of the gentler sex, by the display of rare and excellent endowments, was a discipline worthy of the accomplished chevaliers of these most memorable eras.'

As Sir Thomas had finished this last period, and seemed to he clearing his throat, and arranging his attitude for a more detailed exposition upon the gallantry of the sixteenth century, we were interrupted by the approach of one of the little spirits who had announced themselves, on my first arrival, to be the domestics of the Literary Paradise. "That Peri, who approaches us," said Montaigne, "has on the Jovian livery, and comes to tell us that the evening is now far enough advanced for us to be setting out to Paulus' rout. I hear the old gentleman has spared no pains; his gardens are to be illuminated, his fountains in full play; have a promenade by moonlight, and we are to assemble in the library to to sup in the summer-house of the Elogia."

It immediately struck me, that amid all this splendour my appearance would be more than commonly shabby. I cast a mournful look at my threadbare habiliments (for I had on that decayed suit which I have appropriated solely for home consumption), I then partially and slyly raised the oldest of my slippers, and directed a petitioning look to my Conductress, as much as to say, You, kindest lady, who have had