amanders, gnomes or nymphs. Very easy, apparently, are the methods; for, "without magical figures, without ceremonies, without barbarous terms, an absolute power is acquired over all these people of the elements." Thus the lofty dreams of the theurgist are now softened down to mere light and airy fancies, propounded half en badinage. It was no longer the spirit immortal in youth and beauty, that awed while she fascinated, that was sought; but fair and fragile creatures-tiny enough, too, to be like Mary Machree's fairy

"Swift caught up, And prisoned under a coffee-cup."

Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore-
Seas, that restlessly aspire,
Surging unto skies of fire,
Lakes, that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters-lone, and dead.

It is strange, indeed, that Spain, the country which, during the middle ages, stood so high in intellectual attainment, and in whose universities so many of the dreams of theurgic mysticism found believers and expounders long ere Agrippa or Paracelsus appeared, should in her mystics have so utterly ignored the lofty and poetical element; not ignored, indeed, either the dream or the miracle, but all that might redeem them from the prosaic and commonplace. But the case was, were summoned by the gentler agency of that while in the earlier period mysticism "filling a glass vessel with compressed was often synonymous with considerable air, with earth, or with water-close it freedom of thought in the sixteenth and up, and leave it exposed to the sun's rays seventeenth centuries, it was allowed to for a month." How different this from exist only as it subserved the ecclesiastical the fasting and prayer, the mystic rites scheme. "In the alarm and wrath awakand solemn litany that compelled the ened by the Reformation, Rome was sumighty planetary angel to descend, shak- premely concerned to enforce the doctrine ing the earth as he drew near, terrible to of blind obedience to ecclesiastical superibehold; and to whom the command was ors; and the Spanish mystics, St. Theresa given from within the guarded circle and John of the Cross, lived, labored, with faltering tongue. Still, we cannot and suffered to commend this dogma to but own to some degree of partiality the church, and to all mankind." for these spirits of the drawing-room; The early history of St. Theresa,-that for we think just such beings Ma-"fair sister of the seraphim," as Crashaw, dame d'Aulnoy-dealing, Frenchwomanlike, so prettily with "minor morals" fancied, when she wrote her Fairy Tales -those stories where the good fairies are such well-bred ladies, and the wicked such ugly, ill-dressed old crones-how different to the rude but solemn tale that held the wondering child spell-bound at the nurse's knee-but yet right pleasant. Greater still, however, is our debt to the Comte de Gabalis, when we remember that we owe to him all the gay and graceful machinery-so admirably suited to the mock-heroic of the toilette and the drawing-room-of Pope's inimitable Rape of the Lock.

The transition from these light fancies, and from the lofty dreams of theurgical mysticism, to the Spanish mystics, is great indeed. It is like quitting the glorious visions of Spenser for Edgar Poe's dreary "Dreamland," where stretch out

"Bottomless vales, and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;

in a rather fine hymn, calls her,―is not without interest. Her infant dreams of martyrdom, her childish journey with her little brother, when, all unknowing the distance, she determined to walk to Africa, show the impulsiveness of her nature, as her bitter struggles, when finally leaving her family, show her deep feeling. The earlier stages of her religious experience greatly resemble those of Madame Guyon, and, had she but met with those trials which brought the former into stern contact with the world, and yet more, those many persecutions, we have little doubt that Theresa's more energetic spirit might have effected much real good. But the Spanish mystic was, "tied and bound in the chain" of conventual rule. As Mr. Vaughan truly says, "she was surrounded from the first by those who saw clearly what Rome needed at that time;" and thus her visions and her writings were all made to subserve that one purpose. Strange, however, is it to remark the wretchedly unimaginative character of her visions. Little black devils mopping and

mowing, Jesuits with white banners, cu- | piness. The history of Madame Guyon is pid-like angels with flaming darts; surely well known; her early religious impressuch matter-of-fact visions as these might sions, her love of penance, her transient have been vouchsafed to the homeliest lay-indulgence in worldly pleasures, and then sister that ever peeled onions for the convent pottage. Some of Theresa's less known writings, we have been told, are singularly poetical and eloquent; and in doctrine she is said even to approximate to Madame Guyon. Truly, as Mrs. Jameson remarks," what was true, and earnest, and holy, was her own; what was morbid, miserable, mistaken, the result of the influences around her."

the long series of trials which followed her unhappy marriage. "Her best course, under these domestic injuries," as Mr. Vaughan truly remarks," would have been self-assertion, and war to the very utmost." But we doubt if there was energy enough in the poor young girl's mental character to have enabled her to fight that battle of justice against intolerable wrong; and to the crushing influence of those years of uncomplaining slavery, we think we can trace the exaggerated and morbid submissiveness that injures most of her hymns. In the midst of her wretchedness Madame Guyon turned to the study of Thomas à Kempis, and then to mysticism. She raised on this "a superstructure, in which there was some hay and stubble, but the corner-stone had first been rightly laid, never to be removed from its place." Her subsequent experiences and labors, until episcopal persecution, so unwittingly, drove her, in 1686, to Paris, are graphically related, and an estimate of the character of her mysticism given, followed by a highly-finished picture of St. Cyr and its patrons, among whom Madame Guyon was to find some of her warmest friends, and the countenance of Madame Maintenon herself.

Little John of the Cross, selected by Theresa as her coadjutor in the Carmelite reform, is one of the most remarkable of mystics; not for vision, or miracle, but for the most intense monomania-we really can use no other term-for suffering. His distinctive name was acquired by his love of crosses, for it was his prayer that not a day of his life might pass in which he did not suffer something. Indeed, "he is too much enamored of miseries to await the will of Providence; his ambition will command events, and make them torments." And his utmost ambition must, we think, have been satisfied both by the torments he inflicted on himself, and the many persecutions he endured, even to his death, from his brethren. He is the author of two celebrated mystical treatises, one, apparently most correctly entitled the Obscure Night, the other, the Ascent of A singular meeting must that have been Mount Carmel, in both of which " the art between the unacknowledged wife of of sinking in religion,-the divinity of div- Louis Quatorze,--the woman whose steady ing, could go no deeper." Poor John of purpose and daring ambition had marked the Cross! let us not pass without yield- out for so many years, and had so unfaltering him a tribute of pity, "because, be-ingly pursued the path which at length lieving in mystical death, he did his best to die it; and displayed, in suffering and in action, a self-sacrificing heroism which could only spring from conviction."

We now turn from the gloomy Spanish cloister to France in the seventeenth century-France of "Le Grand Monarque," of Pascal and the Port-Royalists, of Brinvilliers and the poisoners, of the savans who made that age illustrious, of the précieuses whom Molière has so graphically ri liculed; and here, in the most unlikely of countries, at the most unlikely period of her history, more strangely still, that form of mysticism appeared which placed its highest attainment in utter passivity, and sought to teach the most pleasureloving nation in Europe a religion which ignored even the desire for a future hap-|

placed her so desolately high above her fellows, and the meek recluse, whose constant aim was utter self-negation. We can well imagine the pleasure Madame Maintenon would find in the freshness and fascination of her protégé's conversation, "a charm which recalled the warmer feelings of youth;" and which might well also recal to the widow of Scarron those pleasant humbler days, when, in the brilliancy of her own conversation, her guests forgot the meanness of the entertainment she placed before them. But other views than those of mere conversational enjoyment were, we think, present to her mind, when she invited Madame Guyon not only to her table, but even to the schoolrooms of St. Cyr. It was now her wearisome task to entertain one, who, as she so

bitterly laments in her letters, had outlived | guishing glances at their admirers, while every capacity of being entertained, and they affected to be weary of the world, for whom she ceaselessly sought some new and who coquetted while they talked signiamusement. Now Louis had just taken ficantly of holy indifference or pure love." up the championship of the Church. With But the fashion, like every other fashion poets and dramatists, with artists and with of French origin, was not destined to last savans, even with orthodox theologians, long. The quarrel of Bossuet and Fénélhe was thoroughly weary; but who could on, of which a very full account is given, tell the effect a mystic-a female mystic, involved Madame Guyon again in trouble. whose tender eloquence had won over the She was consigned to Vincennes. Bosmost illustrious coterie in Paris-might suet published his malignant Account of have? And how admirably fitted was Quietism, and "in the saloons of Marly, Madame Guyon for this purpose; how and in its beautiful gardens, groups of easily might her gentler nature be guided lords and ladies, such as Watteau would by the strong will of her patroness, sway- have loved to paint, were gathered on the ing it through the agencies of courtly pre- grass, beside the fountains, beneath the lates and directors. What a new engine trees, to hear it read," and to join in ridiof power! And then, why should not cule and abuse of the idol to whom they Catholic France even give a new name to had just before so eagerly bowed. Mathe Romish Kalendar? Might it not be dame Guyon's mission, from henceforward, vouchsafed to that monarch, so illustrious, to the great and the noble, was ended. so dutiful to holy church, the crowning "The kingdom of heaven had come nigh," glory of a saint, who, like Theresa, might very nigh, even to Versailles; but the found a new order-an order perchance of message was rejected, and the Bourbons St. Cyr-to whom a new litany should be were left to fill up the measure of their addressed, and whose statue should smile iniquities. with milder beauty upon her sister mystic, within the very walls of St. Peter's? It could scarcely, we think, be the mere charms of her conversation, still less the attraction of those doctrines which, ere long, she so fiercely condemned, that bound a woman, shrewd and far reaching as Madame Maintenon, to the guileless preacher of Quietism.

The eager delight with which Madame Guyon's doctrines were listened to, after they had received court approbation, is very amusing, but natural enough. The précieuses who had almost fainted with ecstasy over Abbé Cotin's verses on Mademoiselle d'Orleans' lap-dog Titi, and his more celebrated stanzas embalmed by Molière, were first startled, but soon delighted with the really graceful poetry and elegant prose of the fair saint; while the whole circle of court ladies and gentlemen, more wearied with their ceaseless round of dissipation than the wood-cutters of the royal forest with their hard labor, welcomed a form even of religion that proffered them the boon-so vainly sought in that age of never-ending excitement repose. Marvellous was the influence of Madame Guyon's teaching. "In Paris, mystical terminology became the fashionable language; it was caught up and glibly uttered by wits and roués; it melted from the lips of beauties who shot lan- |

Mysticism, as we have before remarked, never, during the middle ages, took up its abode in England. Nor even at the revival of letters, nor amid the excitement of the Reformation, did any English mystic appear. Theurgical mysticism, indeed, seems to have been pursued in the cloister; and the "Green Lion" of Paracelsus, and his "Forest of Diana," are frequently to be met with in the curious alchemical treatises of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so reverently preserved by Ashmole. But, save the occasional tinge of Platonism, borrowed from Italy, which we discern in our poets of Elizabeth's era, mysticism, while turning the heads of all Germany, was utterly unrecognized among us. Strangely indeed, it was, in the time. of the Commonwealth, "when there was fuller religious freedom by far, and throughout the whole middle class a more earnest religious life than at any period of our history,-when along the ranks of triumphant Puritanism the electric light of enthusiasm played every here and there upon the steel which won them victory, and was beheld with no ominous misgiving, but hailed rather as Pentecostal effluence,"

that then the most unimaginative form of mysticism-Quakerism-should have appeared.

A very interesting account is given of George Fox, his wanderings and his tes

"There is great depth and beauty in that idea of Dante's according to which he represents himself as conscious of ascending from heaven to

heaven in Paradise, not by perception of a transit through space, but by seeing his Beatrice grow more and more lovely:

tifyings; so strongly contrasting with the | Method of finding the Longitude, and lofty poetical dreams of More, Cudworth, The Apocalypse Revealed. Some of his Henry Vaughan, and that company of views, however, are very fine, as this :— Platonic mystics, who, spectators of the world only through the loopholes of retreat in their quiet studies, dwelt upon lofty visions of the " supreme, Beautiful, and Good," and have left a legacy of noble thoughts which the present age, so eager, so hurrying, so immersed in "the things that are seen," may well be thankful for. We wish that Mr. Vaughan's plan had allowed him more space for the contemplation of this most interesting class of mystical philosophers, and-notwithstand ing much occasional quaintness and prosing -true poets. To the gloom, and the pain, and the self-annihilation of other mystics, they are wholly strangers. No clouds, no threatening darkness dim their eyes as they ascend the hill of vision; the prospect expands as they go on their way rejoicing, until

"the enlightened spirit sees The shady city of palm trees;"

and beyond, the sparkling towers of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Mysticism, during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, exercised little influence. That of Madame Guyon, may, however, be traced in Antoinette Bourignon and her followers, and on the poetry of Cowper. The early Methodists, too, seem to have had some leaning towards it; but not until the middle of this century did the latest form of mysticism arise, that of Swedenborg. Very different to former mystics, especially in calm imperturbability, is the Swede-" the Olympian Jove of mystics, always serene."

"Io non m'accorsi del salire in ella;
Ma d'essery' entro mi fece assai fede
La donna mia ch' io vidi far più bella.'

the theosophy of Swedenborg, the constancy of What is imagination with Dante, acquires, in law. According to him, the more I have of goodness in me, the more shall I discern of the loveliness belonging to the form of a good angel. If I am evil, the hideous forms of evil natures will not be repulsive to me; and if I were placed in heaven, the glory would afflict me with pain."

With Swedenborg the history of mysti cism ends. "His theosophy was original; mysticism has produced nothing really new in that direction since his day, and the Northern seer still walks alone within his circle." The work concludes with an extended view of the mystical tendencies of the present day, and of those "old ideas, in a new dress" which have so zealously been adopted by the assailants of revelation, especially that ancient philosophy which, revived by modern Spiritualism "borrows from Christianity (as did Porphyry) a higher moral tone than it could otherwise have reached, and then pretends to look down upon the ethics of the Scriptures;" and whose advocates, even after throwing off their biblical fetters, and boasting their onward progress, are compelled to acknowledge "the haunting past with them still; and after making their escape from antiquated Paul and John, to find themselves in company with antiquated ProIn closing our reclus and Plotinus!"

"Other mystics seem to know times of wavering, when enthusiasm burns low. To Swedenborg, sunrise and sunset are not more constant than the divine mission he claims. Other mystics are overpowered by manifestations from the un-view of these volumes, it would be most seen world. Horror seizes them, or a dizzy joy, or unjust to the author to omit all notice of the vision leaves them faint and trembling. They the remarkably full and complete body of have their alternations; their lights and shadows notes which he has appended. Those of are in keeping; they will topple headlong from our readers acquainted with literary pursome sunny pinnacle into an abysmal misery. suits in the present day, will know how But Swedenborg is in the spirit for near twoscore years, and, in his easy chair, or at his window, seldom a writer troubles himself with or in his walks, holds converse as a matter of notes at all,-but how far more seldom course with angels and departed great ones, with will he trouble himself with "chapter and patriarchs and devils." verse." In this work, however, the references are so ample, that while the general reader may take it up as a most pleasant history, the student may place it

Quite in keeping is this with the author who published in the same year A New

on his shelf as a text-book on the subject. tion toward, not only the history of opinMr. Vaughan deserves the hearty thanks ion, but, more important still, the history of all inquirers for this valuable contribu- | of religion.

From Titan.

DROLLERIES FOR THE DOG-DAYS.