night, a high festival with them, as is May-day night with the witches, who from all parts of the world meet on the Hartz mountains in Germany; according to GOETHE, this is part of their chorus on the occasion:

"The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,

Now to the Brocken the witches go;
The mighty multitude here may be seen,
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.

Sir Urean he sitteth aloft in the air;

Hey over stock! and hey over stone!

'Twixt witches and incubi what shall be done? Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!"

SHELLEY'S TRANSLATION.

By the way, one of the popular beliefs concerning Fairies, is that they originated in the East, and were brought over by the Crusaders, but it is well known that our Saxon ancestors, long before they left their German forests, believed in the existence of a diminutive race of beings, which were a middle species between men and spirits, to whom they attributed many wonderful performances, far exceeding human art "The Father of English Poetry" tells us that,—

"In the olde dayes of King Artour,

Of which thes Bretons spoken gret honour,
All was the land fulfilled of faerie;
The Elf-quene and hire joly compaynie
Danced full oft in many a grene mede,

This was the old opinion as I rede."-CHAucer.

And we may well believe that Fairies were supposed to exist in this country, long prior even to the time of the first Crusade. The old Welsh bards enter

tained a notion that King Arthur was not dead, but conveyed away by the Fairies into some pleasant place where he should remain for a time, and then return again to reign in as great authority as ever. But into what a serious dissertation we are getting, and we all the while wandering in the dream-land of imagination. See, the Elfin torch-bearer, "Jack o' Lanthorn," flits before us, to guide us to the place of midnight revelry:—

"The limits of the sphere of dream,

The bounds of true and false are past,
Lead us on thou wandering gleam,
Lead us onward far and fast,"

"Through the mossy sods and stones,
Stream and streamlet, hurry down,
A rushing throng! A sound of song
Beneath the vault of heaven is blown!
Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones
Of this bright day, sent down to say
That Paradise on earth is known,
Resound around, beneath, above,
All we hope, and all we love,
Finds a voice in this blithe strain,
Which wakens hill, and wood, and rill,
And vibrates far o'er field and vale,

And which Echo, like the tale
Of old times, repeats again."

SHELLEY, FROM GOETHE.

Now again the sounds have all ceased to awake the responses of Echo, and we, like the lady in "Comus," are left to doubt and uncertainty. Surely our senses have not deceived us; we have heard the chime of the harebells, and the tones of elfin minstrelsy? we have seen the glimmering torch of the fairy guide? O yes'

H

it were treason to poesy and imagination to doubt it, and to all the pure fresh feelings of our younger days. Let us then tarry and rest ourselves upon this bank awhile, for,

"Here so silent is the wood,

And so deep the solitude,

That we may

Expect, as we sit and listen,
To see the eye of a Fay
Through the rich foliage glisten;
Peering quietly through,

Like to an atomy bead of dew,

Whenever

The light leaves are stirred

By the foot of a bird,

Or the touch of the river,

Rapid and fresh,

Makes the light boughs quiver,
As they unmesh

The water-lily, whose crystal cup,
The winds waft by, and the stream buoys up;

For the river has wound

Its long arms round

This island spot of forest ground,
And, lulled by the streamlet's ripple,

Fanned by the gentle wind,

Here may a poet's mind

Fitly the solitude people,

For who that perceives the infantine leaves
Burst from the branches hoary,

(Himself in his youth) can question the truth

Of the legends of fairy story?”

BENJAMIN STREET.

Aye! who indeed? not we, albeit our youthful days have long since passed away, and have become "as a tale that is told."-Not I, nor thou, gentle reader,

notwithstanding that thy once glossy and raven locks are sprinkled here and there with grey, and that thy brow is furrowed and wrinkled, by the cares and anxieties of mature life. Are you not still, at times, a believer in the "bright mythology of vanished days?" Can you hold commune with Nature in her most secret haunts, without feeling a conviction that those haunts are peopled with bright and beautiful beings, and that the many fair forms and mellifluous sounds which delight thy senses, are but as faint types and images of the glories unrevealed? Oh, yes! you must not, cannot doubt, these "legends of fairy story :"

nor think, tho' men were none,

That Heav'n would want spectators, God want praise:
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth

Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep."-MILTON.

These are the words of one who sang of things almost surpassing comprehension, with a power and majesty that seemed like the effect of inspiration. These are the words of one who saw deeply into the mysteries of creation, and had spiritual revealings, such as are vouchsafed to few of the children of earth :

"If ere one vision touched thy infant thought,
Of all the nurse, and all the priest hath taught;"

Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen,

The silver token, and the circled green,

Or virgins visited by angel-powers,

With golden crowns, and wreaths of heavenly flowers;
Hear, and believe !"-POPE.

And give thanks and praises that thou hast yet enough of youthful feeling, and of unsophisticated nature left in thee, after thy many years of striving and struggling, of bitterness and of heart burning, to entertain so pure,

so holy, and so cheering a belief. We are dreamers, we own it, and we glory in the confession. We are enthusiasts-madmen, if you will, O, money-making world! Our madness is of a healthful, elevating kind. Our dreams tend heavenward; what says the poet?"Strange, that dreams present us fictions, When our waking moments teem

With such fanciful convictions,

As make life itself a dream."-CAMPBELL.

And are we not now in the very land of dreams, a region
populous with thick coming fancies? The leafy wood.
lands! whoever tarried long amid them, without being
visited by spiritual creatures, and having glimpses
through the opening vistas, into a realm of infinite
brightness, and of beauty indescribable; the more
especially at an hour like the present-an hour of
shadowy indistinctness, and gloomy grandeur, when
the moonbeams gleam fitfully through the wind-
stirred branches, aud sighs and whispers are heard
around, which seem like the voices of unseen beings.
"Near to this wood there lay a pleasant meade
Where Fairies often did their measures treade,
Which in the meadows made such circles greene,
As if with garlands it had crowned beene,
Or like the circle where the signes we tracke,
And learned shepheards call't the zodiacke ;
Within one of these rounds was to be seene
A hillock rise, where oft the Fairie queene
At twilight sat, and did command her Elves

To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves;
And further, if by maiden's oversight,

Within doors water were not brought at night,

Or if they spread no table, set no bread,
They should have nips from toe unto the head;