A venerable captain was the only other officer, and as he was a very good specimen of his country, we soon were on the best of terms with the silent and smoking philosopher, who rarely interfered with us, and never objected to take whatever duty Karl was too much occupied to perform. In fact, it was quite a holiday; and, of course, our first business was to reconnoitre the position of Rosenthal Castle, preparatory to taking any steps to effect a lodgement. Recollect my similitude of the county jail-a similitude applicable in more ways than one, as I will venture to say there are few malefactors have longed more ardently for their release than did the imprisoned Emily. At last we determined between us that I should effect an entrance; and, accordingly, at the close of an April day, I found myself benighted in the neighbourhood of the castle, and thundered at the doorintending to crave admission and shelter for the night. Long, long did I sit at the portal gate, knocking with all my might. At last, a voice, trembling with agitation, cried from the inside" In the name of St Hubert and St James, what want you here?" "Food and shelter. I have lost my way in the forest; and my horse is tired.'

"He trotted too fast over the drawbridge. We adjure you in the name all the saints to retire.'

"Why? what are you afraid of? Tell your master, whoever he is, that I am an Englishman, who craves his hospitality only for the night.'

"An Englishman?' said the voice; and then, after a little whispering, the key was turned, and the creaking old gate revolved upon its hinges, and presented to my astonished eyes three individuals; one of them bearing a little tin box, and dressed in full canonicals, the other two close behind him, and looking over his shoulders, as if expecting to see some wonderful appearance. The little tin box contained one of the thigh-boues and three ribs of St Hubert, and was borne by the worthy father confessor of the

other two gentlemen, who were no less distinguished personages than the barons of Erbach and Rosenthal. The box and surplice were rapidly hustled out of sight-a retainer was summoned to take my horse, and with some little appearance of knightly hospitality, I was ubered into a large room, where some bottles and glasses, on a huge table before the fire, showed that the ghostly father did not altogether interdict the creature comforts from his faithful flock.

"You will pardon me, stranger,' said the old Baron, for having kept you waiting outside the gate so long; for-'tis a wild country this-some of the peasantry, they say, are disaffected, -and-so you see'

"I beg you'll make no apologies,' I said; I am too grateful that you have let me in at last, to find any fault with the delay. My poor black, also.'

"Is your horse black, sir?' enquired the younger baron; Father Joannes was just saying so.'

"And, in short, it very soon came out that the three wise men of Rosenthal had been startled from their winecups by the fear of a visit from the Wild Huntsman. Now, though I have described them as somewhat simple, I must say, that from all I heard on that occasion, their belief in the occasional apparition of the figure I have described to you, was perfectly sincere ; and, what is more, supported by many clearer and more convincing proofs than one-half of the things that their religion calls upon them to credit. And such were the tales they told, and so authenticated, that on going to my couch that night, I was half inclined to fancy that they were perfectly justified in what had at first struck me as an instance of childish credulity. Before many days had passed, I was in a condition to speak from my own experience, but here we are at Liphork, where the coach stops for lunch; and, if you wish to have a very bad lunch, and to pay for it very highly, I advise you to avail yourself of this opportunity. The beer, however, is good.

"Emily von Rosenthal was certainly a beautiful girl; and, as I was not to be her husband, I confess the wild ro

mance I saw in her disposition added to her attraction. With her, and, indeed, with the old people also, I man

aged to make myself such a favourite, that I was invited to prolong my visit, -which, you will perceive, was the very thing I wished ;—and, besides the duty of being useful to my friend, there is no denying that such an insight into the secret recesses of an old baronial family was very agreeable to myself. The brace of barons and their worthy confessor were indeed well deserving of a study, for three such originals are not often to be encountered. The lover was as queer a specimen of the tender passion as one can well imagine; seeming to consider the whole art and mystery of love-making to consist in adopting the opinion of his enslaver, though she altered it as often as Hamlet in the play. Polonius was a type of him. The two other worthies seemed to make it quite as much a point to retain their own opinions, however absurd; and, between them all, what with philandering with the young lady, and drinking with the old men, my time passed very agree ably. A meeting at last was effected, through my means, between the lovers -daggers and flashes of lightning, what vows they swore! Commend me to a German for thundering protestations, what tears they wept for Karl was not above the lachrymatory weaknesses of his countrymen,-and all the time I could not imagine what possible obstacle there could be to his marrying her on the spot; but, alas! alas! the meeting had been perceived by some prying eyes,-cold looks were cast on me; the young lady ordered into close confinement within the castle walls-visited three times a-day by the confessor-and once at least by the Baron von Erbach-and affairs in all respects wore as gloomy an aspect as could well be desired. She prayed and besought me not to leave her, so the cold looks of the trio were thrown away upon me,-their hints disregarded-and their viands and wines consumed as unconcernedly as ever. Who or what the stranger might be who had been seen in company with the fair Emily and the English stranger, nobody had discovered. We, of course, with the licence allowable in love and war, flatly denied the whole accusation, and we were not without some remote hopes that better days would shine on us when the present tyranny should be overpast. But now comes the main incident of my story. One

VOL. XLV. NO. CCLXXXII.

evening-it was on the 13th of April

when we were all gathered together as usual round the wood fire in the hall, low growls of thunder were heard at a distance among the hills— long shrill gusts of wind sounded every now and then along the deserted corridors-and, by fitful plashes, a pattering of rain sounded dismally against the window.

"Here is a wild night,' said Father Joannes, stirring up one of the immense logs upon the fire-' may the saints have pity upon travellers.'

"And send them a cup of comfort like this,' added the old baron, filling up his glass.

"Ah! very true,' said the younger baron, and followed his senior's example.

None but the wicked would go abroad in such weather,' observed the reverend gentleman, who never was altogether pleased unless he received a little contradiction to his remarks; and therefore I withdraw my request that the saints would have pity on them.'

"Very true,' said the Baron von Erbach, I did not think of that.'

"But are the wicked peculiarly fond of bad weather for their journeys?' I enquired.

"They are the cause of it, my good friend,' explained the confessor; nature is so disgusted at the sight of them that she falls into convulsionsthe elements themselves are affected— the wind howls for fear the rain falls in sorrow, as is fully explained in a learned book by a brother of our order on the causes of storms and earthquakes.' So you perceive that Colonel Reid and the ingenious American are not the first who have studied those matters. But to go on with the conversation in the great hall at Rosenthal :-When about an hour had been spent in listening to various sage opinions upon a multitude of subjects, the storm every now and then getting the better of our eloquence, and sounding indeed very appalling in that dilapidated old mansion, we were startled from our seats in the very middle of a tremendous gust, by repeated knocks at the principal gate, and the sound of many voices demanding admission. When we recovered a little from our surprise at such an unusual event, we went in a body across the main quadrangle to the

2 L

gate, and on opening it, seven or eight of the villagers-men, women, and children, all huddled together in the extremity of terror, rushed into the yard imploring us to save them. Before we had time to enquire into the cause of their alarm, we were joined by the beautiful Emily herself, carefully wrapped up in her cloak, who clung to my arm, and looked on without saying a word. The confessor hurried off as fast as possible for the little tin box which he had displayed so piously on my first appearance; and the two barons, making out from the confused report of the villagers that they had seen the Wild Huntsman in full trot, skirting the wood, and coming directly towards the hamlet, fell into such an agony of fear that they could do nothing but cross them selves with amazing activity, and repeat the creed and the commandments as fast as they were able. Father Joannes appeared at last with his talisman of bones, and rattled them with the most exemplary devotion. A fresh batch of terrified peasants now rushed distractedly into the courtyard; and while the rain continued to pour, and the now almost dark evening was fitfully illumined by vivid streaks of lightning, there certainly did come into that quadrangle a form enveloped in a long white mantle, mounted on a splendid black charger. It was a stately animal, and trotted proudly up to the very spot where I was standing with Emily clinging to my arm. There could be no mistake; I saw it with my own eyes. The figure stooped solemnly down when he reached the spot; and the next minute I missed my fair companion from my side; and amid repeated flashes of

"Madam," replied the gentleman, "all that I can say is, that I myself saw the incident I have related. What happened in that mysterious journey I have no means of finding out. It is sufficient to say, that the two barons were exceedingly grateful to my friend Karl von Hontheim, who was fortunate enough to deliver the heiress of Rosenthal from the clutches of the Wild Huntsman-the younger of those noblemen being farther induced to forfeit all claim to the lady's hand from being afflicted with a severe rheumatic affection in the knee, which he attributed to kneeling for upwards of two hours on the wet court-yard, for it was a very long time before any of the party recovered courage enough to rise from their prostration. I can add nothing more, except that my friend Karl and his bride are still alive; and that last year, when I was there, they showed me a magnificent black horse, now very much failed from age, but still healthy, and by the aid of boiled oats likely to live some time. But this, I see, is Peterfield, where I unfortunately leave you—a good day, gentlemen, and a pleasant journey to Portsmouth.

THE ancient sentence of Simonides, "that a picture is a silent poem, and a poem, a speaking picture," though it contains a seminary of truths, has been accessory to much delusion. Antitheses and epigrams are seldom true to the letter. Like metaphors and similes, they must not be made responsible for their consequences. They are signal rockets, which do their appointed office if they blaze and expire. It was only the lying spirits that could be hermetically sealed up in phials of crystal. Thus, in the present instance, it is true that painting, whereever it rises above mere mechanism, when it selects and combines according to a principle of grandeur or of beauty or makes unmoving, insensate lines and colours, expressive of motion, action, passion, thought, or when in the representation of the simplest inanimate objects, it conveys to the soul of the beholder, the feeling, the unction of the artist's own, is essentially poetic. As far as the combinations of form and colour are concerned, painting, without words, does all that words could do, and a great deal more. But the poetry of language is not necessarily pictorial nor picturesque. Many of the finest passages suggest no distinct images to the inward eye, and scarce supply a hint to the painter. The man who affirmed that the sole use of poetry was to furnish subjects for pictures, spoke as wisely and professionally as Brindsley did, when he declared that God Almighty made rivers to supply canals with water. Yet a race of poets have existed, re-appearing from time to time in the decay or syncope of natural genius, who seem to have taken the pathetic bard of Cos at his word, and have neglected the peculiar functions of their own high art, to strain with elaborate idleness after the unattainable perfections of another. These word-painters have, by an old Italian writer, been quaintly called amatorial poets-seemingly under the false and calumnious impression that love regards the outside only-that fancy" is begotten in the eyes." Few of these cockneys aspire to historythe florists are innumerable-many attempt portrait, but they excel chiefly

in draperies. Some are architects, ge-
nerally in the Gothic or Arabesque
styles-many were upholsterers, house,
furniture, and heraldry painters; but
in modern times, by far the most re-
spectable have devoted themselves to
landscape. It may be remarked, how-
ever, that their performances, in what-
ever line they may be, seldom attempt
to emulate any but the lower and spu-
rious branches of the silent art; their
works are not "speaking pictures,"
but prating pieces of needlework,
lisping intaglios; their sculpture is
coloured wax-work, and their archi-
tecture a confectionary pagoda. But
thus must it ever be, when men desert
the thing they should be, to enact the
thing which they are not.
The poet
embroiderers, assuming that poetry is
addressed to the inward, as painting
to the bodily eye, labour to make
every line convey an image-the
colour of an eye, or the turn of a
neck, or

"Delicate shadow of an auburn curl,
Upon the vermeil cheek."

Or, if the eye is ever to be relieved from duty, the nose is called in to supply its place-and we have

"The fragrant breath of sylphs, unseen that lie

In the low, lurking violet's pale blue eye, The rose's sigh, what time she harks the tale

Of her true love, the darkling nightingale, That hath within his little breast a choir Of spirits musical."

Thus, the pretty creatures go it too and fro between the curiosity shop and the perfumery, with a musical snuff-box in their hands, in imitation of a lyre, and think themselves descriptive poets.

But, to be serious, it never can be the scope, the province, the final cause, and summum bonum of poetry, to do that indifferently which her mute sister does so much better, and more quietly. Judging from the soundest principles of philosophic criticism, exemplified in the works of the greatest and truest poetry, we maintain, that the highest poetry has no analogy whatever with painting-that imagery is not poetic in proportion as

it flashes vividly on the fancy, but as it lays hold of the higher affections, or becomes the exponent of action or thought.

It may be objected, that we have alluded to an obscure and frivolous swarm of poetasters, whose imbecilities could form no just exception to any theory or definition. But, in fact, if to paint with words, to make language picturesque, were the poet's characteristic occupation, the triflers we speak of must be the greatest and best of poets.

But in the strictness of speech, words cannot paint, neither singly nor in combination. They appeal to the imagination solely through the memory; or if they have any direct influence on the fancy or the feelings, it is, and can be, only by their sound, and the tone and time of their utterance. Not singly; for surely the word horse is not a picture of a horse; and though it recall the form of that animal to any one who had seen him, it would afford not a hint of his lineaments to one who had not. Not in combination; because the combination of words necessarily implies what painting as necessarily excludes a progression or succession of time. description, therefore, however accurate, can be literally graphic, for an accurate description is successive enumeration of the co-existent parts of a given whole. The parts, therefore, appear before the imagination disjointedly; and, instead of the full, coinstaneous intuition, in which painting vies with nature, you have a tedious toil of memory to re-articulate the severed members, some or other of which are almost sure to be lost by

the way.

No

Is it not possible, then, for the poet to flash a perfect image on the mind? Undoubtedly, and more; he can present the totality of many contemporaneous images, but not by the minute pencilling of the pictorialists,-not by mimicking the mastery of the limner, but by a magic all his own,-a power mighty as that by which the true artist makes a single moment to express a whole action-a single glance to constitute a character and symbolize a life. It is probable, indeed, that of fifty hearers every one will connect a different set of images with the same words; but if the words be instinct with true poesy, they will evoke in

each a vivid, delightful, and harmonious intuition, in unison with the purpose, passion, moral of the strain.

How is this to be effected? In various ways. Sometimes by a single word-a single epithet-often by a metaphor-a well-selected circumstance

occasionally by the very sound and movement of the measure. Sometimes a recounting of particulars, each seemingly insignificant, or mutually impli ed, but all, as it were, belonging to the same set, affect the imagination in a surprising manner. Crabbe is a great master in this kind, and so is Scherherazade. It is not that in reading them we go on casting up the items, and constructing a cirele out of the segments. Any arc of the rainbow gives as full an idea of the rainbow as the whole; but the detail of splendour in one, of squalidness in the other, has the effect of refraction. The topaz enhances the glitter of the diamond. The one broken chair makes the three-legged table doubly desolate.

But our meaning would be much elucidated by examples. Let us, then, examine how the mighty masters of the lyre have managed the matter. And first of the ancients.

Of the Greek writers, from Homer to Theocritus, it may be observed in general, that their descriptions of natural scenery are for the most part vague, and rather impart the feeling of the scene than its visible aspect. If ever the distinctive marks of a locality are specified, it is to please the sense of beauty, as to authenticate the narrative. Places are often merely designated by their staple production —as corn, wine, olives, cattle, or pigeons. Some commentators insist strongly on the graphic power of these epithets. When, say they, Phthia is characterised as cloddy,(pwaag)-or of a deep clay soil, do not all the stirring associations of vernal labour rush upon the soul? We see the long furrow, the slow team with stubborn necks depressed-the whistling ploughboy with the flashing goad-and the strong rustic with his sinewy arms incumbent on the shaft -the earth blackens as he urges on his profitable course-the ploughshares glitter on the distant slopeswhile the sower, girt with apron white, scatters the hopeful seed row follows harsh,