PRACTICAL ENDEAVOUR; which as married to Reason, to spiritual Vision and Belief, first makes up man's being here below. Unhappily the ancient couple, we find, are but in a decayed condition: he better emblems are they of Reason and En leavour in this our "transifonary age!" Th. Man presents himself in the garb of a peasant, the Woman has grown old, garrulous, querulous; both live nevertheless in their ancient cottage,' better or worse, the roof-tree of which still holds together over them. And then those mischievous Will-o'wisps, who pay the old lady such court, and eat all the old gold (all that was wise and beautful and desirable) off her walls; and show the old stones, quite ugly and bare, as they had hot been for ages! Besides, they have killed poor Mops, the plaything, and joy and fondling of the house; as has not that same Elegant Calture, or French Philosophy done, wheresoever it has arrived? Mark, notwithstanding, how the Man with the Lamp puts it all right again, reconciles every thing, and makes the tnest business out of what seemed the worst. "With regard to the Four Kings, and the Temple which lies fashioned under ground, please to consider all this as the Future lying prepared and certain under the Present: you observe, not only inspired Reason (or the Man with the Lamp) but scientific Thought (or the Snake) can discern it lying there: nevertheas much work must be done, innumerable difficulties fronted and conquered, before it can se out of the depths, (of the Future,) and realze itself as the actual worshipping-place of man, and the most frequented Temple in the whole Earth.'

"As for the fair Lily and her ambulatory necessitous Prince, these are objects that I shall admit myself incapable of naming; yet Dowise admit myself incapable of attaching meaning to. Consider them as the two disointed Halves of this singular Dualistic Being fours; a Being, I must say, the most utterly Dualistic; fashioned, from the very heart of It out of Positive and Negative, (what we hapFily call Light and Darkness, necessity and Freewill, Good and Evil, and the like;) everywhere out of two mortally opposed things, which yet must be united in vital love, if there to be any Life-a being, I repeat, Dualistic beyond expressing; which will split in two, strike it in any direction, on any of its six sides; and does of itself split in two, (into Contradiction,) every hour of the day,-were not Life perpetually there, perpetually knitting it gether again! But as to that cutting up, and parcelling, and labelling of the indivisible Human Soul into what are called "Faculties," a thing I have from of old eschewed, and even hated. A thing which you must somemes do, (or you cannot speak;) yet which is ever done without Error hovering near you; most part, without her pouncing on you, quite blindfolding you.

and

diction with itself: what good were it to know farther in what direction the rift (as our Poet here pleased to represent it) had taken effect? Fancy, however, that these two HALVES of Man's Soul and Being are separated, in pain and enchanted obstruction, from one another. The better, fairer Half sits in the Supernatural country, deadening and killing; alas, not permitted to come across into the Natural visible country, and there make all blessed and alive! The rugged stronger Half, in such separation, is quite lamed and paralytic; wretched, forlorn, in a state of death-life, must he wander to and fro over the River of Time; all that is dear and essential to him, imprisoned there; which if he look at he grows still weaker, which if he touch, he dies. Poor Prince! And let the judicious reader, who had read the Era he lives in, or even spelt the alphabet thereof, say whether, with the paralytic-lamed Activity of man (hampered and hamstrung in a transi tionary age' of Skepticism, Methodism; atheistic Sarcasm, hysteric Orgasm; brazen-faced Delusion, Puffery, Hypocrisy, Stupidity, and the whole Bill and nothing but the Bill,) it is not even so? Must not poor man's Activity (like this poor Prince) wander from Natural to Supernatural, and back again, disconsolate enough; unable to do any thing, except merely wring its hands, and, whimpering and blubbering, lamentably inquire: What shall I do?

"But Courage! Courage! The Temple is built, (though under-ground;) the Bridge shall arch itself, the divided Two shall clasp each other as flames do, rushing into one; and all that ends well shall be well! Mark only how, in this imitable Poem, worthy an Olympic crown, or prize of the Literary Society, it is represented as proceeding!"

So far D. T.; a commentator who at least does not want confidence in himself; whom we shall only caution not to be too confident; to remember always that, as he once says, Phantasmagory is not Allegory;" that much exists, under our very noses, which has no "name," and can get none; that the "River of Time" and so forth may be one thing, or more than one, or none; that, in short, there is risk of the too valiant D. T.'s bamboozling himself in this matter; being led from puddle to pool; and so left standing at last, like a foolish mystified nose-of-wax, wondering where the devil he is.

To the simpler sort of readers we shall also extend an advice; or be it rather, proffer a petition. It is to fancy themselves, for the time being, delivered altogether from D. T.'s company; and to read this Mährchen, as if it were there only for its owi. sake, and those tag-rag Notes of his were so much blank paper. Let the simpler sort of readers say now how they like it! If unhappily on look ing back, some spasm of "the malady of thought," begin afflicting them, let such Notes be then inquired of, but not till then, and then also with distrust. Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve; hast thou not two eyes of thy own?

"Let not us, therefore, in looking at Lily and her Prince be tempted to that practice: why should we try to name them at all? Enough do feel that man's whole Being is riven The Commentator himself cannot, it is to be onder every way (in this transitionary age,') hoped, imagine that he has exhausted the mat Bad yawning in hostile, irreconcilable contra-ter. To decipher and represent the genesis of

We

his extraordinary Production, and what was | voices awoke him; he heard that it was travel the Author's state of mind in producing it; to lers wishing to be carried over. see, with dim, common eyes, what the great Goethe, with inspired poetic eyes, then saw; and paint to oneself the thick-coming shapes and many-coloured splendours of his "Prospero's Grotto," at that hour: this were what we could call complete criticism and commentary; what D. T. is far from having done, and ought to fall on his face, and confess that he can never do.

We shall conclude with remarking two things. First, that D. T. does not appear to have set eye on any of those German Commentaries on this Tale of Tales; or even to have heard, credently, that such exist: an omission, in a professed Translator, which he himself may answer for. Secondly, that with all his boundless preluding, he has forgot to insert the Author's own prelude; the passage, namely, by which this Mährchen is especially ushered in, and the key-note of it struck by the Composer himself, and the tone of the whole prescribed! This latter altogether glaring omission we now charitably supply; and then let D. T., and his illustrious Original, and the Readers of this Magazine take it among them. Turn to the latter part of the Deutschen Ausgewanderten (page 208, Volume XV. of the last Edition of Goethe's Werke;) it is written there as we render it:

"The Imagination,' said Karl, is a fine faculty; yet I like not when she works on what has actually happened: the airy forms she creates are welcome as things of their own kind; but uniting with Truth she produces oftenest nothing but monsters; and seems to me, in such cases, to fly into direct variance with Reason and Common sense. She ought, you might say, to hang upon no object, to force no object on us; she must, if she is to produce Works of Art, play like a sort of music upon us; move us within ourselves, and this in such a way that we forget there is any thing without us producing the

movement.

Stepping out, he saw two large Will-o'-wisps, hovering to and fro on his boat, which lay moored; they said, they were in violent haste, and should have been already on the other side. The old Ferryman made no loitering pushed off, and steered with his usual skill obliquely through the stream: while the two strangers whiffled and hissed together, in an unknown very rapid tongue, and every now and then broke out in loud laughter, hopping about, at one time on the gunwale and the seats, at another on the bottom of the boat.

"The boat is heeling!" cried the old man "if you don't be quiet, it will overset; be seated, gentlemen of the wisp!"

At this advice they burst into a fit of langhter, mocked the old man, and were more un quiet than ever. He bore their mischief with patience, and soon reached the farther shore.

"Here is for your labour!" cried the travellers, and as they shook themselves, a heap of glit tering gold-pieces jingled down into the wet boat. "For Heaven's sake, what are you about?" cried the old man; “you will ruin me for ever! Had a single piece of gold got into the water, the stream which cannot suffer gold, would have risen in horrid waves, and swallowed both my skiff and me; and who knows how it might have fared with you in that case: here, take back your gold."

"We can take nothing back, which we have once shaken from us," said the Lights.

"Then you give me the trouble," said the oll man, stooping down, and gathering the pieces into his cap, "of raking them together, and carrying them ashore, and burying them."

The Lights had leaped from the boat, but the old man cried: "Stay; where is my fare?"

"If you take no gold, you may work for no thing," cried the Will-o'-wisps." You must know that I am only to be paid with fruits of the earth.”—“Fruits of the earth? we despise them and have never tasted them."-" And yet, I cannot let you go, till you have promised that "Proceed no farther,' said the old man, you will deliver me three Cabbages, three Arus with your conditionings! To enjoy a pro-chokes, and three large Onions." duct of Imagination this also is a condition, that we enjoy it unconditionally; for Imagination herself cannot condition and bargain; she must wait what shall be given her. She forms no plans, prescribes for herself no path; but is borue and guided by her own pinions; and hovering hither and thither, marks out the strangest courses; which in their direction are ever altering. Let me but, on my evening waik, call up again to life within me, some wondrous figures I was wont to play with in earlier years. This night I promise you a Tale, which shall remind you of Nothing and of All."" And now for it! O. Y.

THE TALE.

In his little Hut, by the great River, which a heavy rain had swoln to overflowing, lay the ancient Ferryman, asleep, wearied by the toil of the day. In the middle of the night, loud

•In the middle of the night truly! In the middle of the Dark Ages, when what with Mohamedan Conques.s,

The Lights were making off with jests; bot they felt themselves, in some inexplicable manner, fastened to the ground: it was the une pleasantest feeling they had ever had. They engaged to pay him his demand as soon as possible: he let them go, and pushed away. He was gone a good distance, when they called to him: "Old Man! Holla, old man! the mat point is forgotten!" He was off, however, and did not hear them. He had fallen quietly dows that side of the River, where, in a rocky sp which the water never reached, he meant to bury the pernicious gold. Here, between two high crags, he found a monstrous chasm; short

tage.

the metal into it, and steered back to his cotNow, in this chasm, lay the fair green Snake, who was roused from her sleep by the gold coming chinking down. No sooner did she fix her eye on the glittering coins, than she ate them all up, with the greatest relish, on the spot; and carefully picked out such pieces as were scattered in the chinks of the rock.

Scarcely had she swallowed them, when, with extreme delight, she began to feel the metal melting in her inwards, and spreading all over her body; and soon, to her,lively joy, she observed that she was grown transparent and luminous. Long ago she had been told that this was possible; but now being doubtful whether such a light could last, her curiosity and the desire to be secure against the future, drove her from her cell, that she might see who it was that had shaken in this precious metal. She found no one. The more delightful was it to admire her own appearance, and her graceful brightness, as she crawled along through roots and bushes, and spread out her light among the grass. Every leaf seemed of emerald, every flower was dyed with new glory. It was in vain that she crossed the solitary thickets; but her hopes rose high, when, on reaching the open country, she perceived from afar a brilliancy resembling her own. "Shall I find my like at last, then?" cried she, and hastened to the spot. The toil of crawling through bog and reeds gave her little thought;, for though she liked best to live in dry grassy spots of the mountains, among the clefts of rocks, and for most part fed on spicy herbs, and slaked her thirst with mild dew and fresh spring water, yet for the sake of this dear gold, and in the hope of this glorious light, she would have undertaken any thing you could propose to her.

At last, with much fatigue, she reached a wet rushy spot in the swamp, where our two Willo'-wisps were frisking to and fro. She shoved herself along to them; saluted them, was happy to meet such pleasant gentlemen related to her family. The Lights glided towards her, skipped up over her, and laughed in their fashion. Lady Cousin," said they, "you are of the horizontal line, yet what of that? It is true we are related only by the look; for observe you," here both the Flames, compressing their whole breadth, made themselves as high and peaked as possible, "how prettily this taper length beseems us gentlemen of the vertical line! Take it not amiss of us, good Lady; what family can boast of such a thing? Since there ever was a Jack-o'-lanthorn in the world, no one of them has either sat or lain." The Snake felt exceedingly uncomfortable in the company of these relations; for let her nold her head as high as possible, she found that she must bend it to the earth again, would sh stir from the spot;t and if in the dark

THOUGHT. Understanding, roused from her long ter by the first produce of modern Belles Lettres; which she eagerly devours.-D. T.

Tror enough: Thought cannot fly and dance, as Your wildfire of Belles Lettres may; she proceeds in the tole-diastole, up-and-down method; and must ever "lend her head to the earth again," (in the way of Banian Experiment,) or she will not stir from the spot.

AT.

thicket sne had been extremely satisfied with her appearance, her splendour in the presence of these cousins seemed to lesson every moment, nay she was afraid that at last it would go out entirely.

In this embarrassment she hastily asked: if the gentlemen could not inform her, whence the glittering gold came, that had fallen a short while ago into the cleft of the rock; her own opinion was, that it had been a golden shower, and had trickled down direct from the sky. The Will-o'-wisps laughed, and shook themselves, and a multitude of gold-pieces came clinking down about them. The snake pushed nimbly forward to eat the coin. "Much good may it do you, Mistress," said the dapper gentlemen: "we can help you to a little more." They shook themselves again several times with great quickness, so that the Snake could scarcely gulp the precious victuals fast enough. Her splendour visibly began increasing; she was really shining beautifully, while the Lights had in the mean time grown rather lean and short of stature, without however in the smallest losing their good-humour.

"I am obliged to you for ever," said the Snake, having got her wind again after the repast; "ask of me what you will; all that I can I will do."

"Very good!" cried the Lights. "Then tell us where the fair Lily dwells? Lead us to the fair Lily's palace and garden; and do not lose a moment, we are dying of impatience to fall down at her feet."

"This service," said the Snake with a deep sigh, "I cannot now do for you. The fair Lily dwells, alas, on the other side of the water.""Other side of the water? And we have come across it, this stormy night! How cruel is the River to divide us! Would it not be possible to call the old man back?"

"It would be useless," said the Snake; "for if you found him ready on the bank, he would not take you in; he can carry any one to this side, none to yonder."

"Here is a pretty kettle of fish!" cried the Lights: "are there no other means of getting through the water?"-"There are other means, but not at this moment. I myself could take you over, gentlemen, but not till noon."—"That is an hour we do not like to travel in."-" Then you may go across in the evening, on the great Giant's shadow."-"How is that?"-"The great Giant lives not far from this; with his body he has no power; his hands cannot lift a straw, his shoulders could not bear a fagot of twigs; but with his shadow he has power over much, nay all. Atsunrise and sunset therefore he is strongest; so at evening you merely put yourself upon the back of his shadow, the Giant walks softly to the bank, and the shadow carries you across the water. But if you please, about the hour of noon, to be in waiting at that corner of the wood, where the bushes overhang the bank, I myself will take you over and present you to the fair Lily: or on the other hand, if you dislike the noontide, you have just to go at night fall to that bend of the rocks, and pay a visit to

*Is not SUPERSTITION Strongest when the sun is low 1 with body, powerless; with shadow, omnipotent 1-

the Giant; he will certainly receive you like | about to speak, when a vein which ran dimly. a gentleman."

With a slight bow, the flames went off; and the Snake at bottom was not discontented to get rid of them; partly that she might enjoy the brightness of her own light, partly satisfy a curiosity with which, for a long time, she had been agitated in a singular way.

In the chasm, where she often crawled hither and thither, she had made a strange discovery. For although in creeping up and down this abyss, she had never had a ray of light, she could well enough discriminate the objects in it, by her sense of touch. Generally she met with nothing but irregular productions of nature; at one time she would wind between the teeth of large crystals, at another she would feel the barbs and hairs of native silver, and now and then carry out with her to the light some straggling jewels. But to her no small wonder, in a rock which was closed on every side, she had come on certain objects which betrayed the shaping hand of man: smooth | walls on which she could not climb, sharp regular corners, well-formed pillars; and what seemed strangest of all, human figures which she had entwined more than once, and which appeared to her to be of brass, or of the finest polished marble. All these experiences she now wished to combine by the sense of sight, thereby to confirm what as yet she only guessed. She believed she could illuminate the whole of that subterranean vault by her own light; and hoped to get acquainted with these curious things at once. She hastened back; and soon found, by the usual way, the cleft by which she used to penetrate the Sanctuary.

On reaching the place, she gazed around with eager curiosity; and though her shining could not enlighten every object in the rotunda, yet those nearest her were plain enough. With astonishment and reverence she looked up into a glancing niche, where the image of an august King stood formed of pure Gold. In size the figure was beyond the stature of man, but by its shape it seemed the likeness of a little rather than a tall person. His handsome body was encircled with an unadorned mantle; and a garland of oak bound his hair together. No sooner had the Snake beheld this reverend figure, than the King began to speak, and asked: "Whence comest thou?"-"From the chasms where the gold dwells," said the Snake. "What is grander than gold?" inquired the King. "Light," replied the Snake. What is more refreshing than light?" said he.-| Speech," answered she.

During this conversation she had squinted to a side, and in the nearest niche perceived another glorious image. It was a Silver King in a sitting posture; his shape was long and rather languid; he was covered with a decorated robe; crown, girdle, and sceptre were adorned with precious stones: the cheerfulness of pride was in his countenance; he seemed

coloured over the marble wall, on a sudden became bright, and diffused a cheerful light throughout the whole Temple. By this bril liancy the Snake perceived a third King, made of Brass, and sitting mighty in shape, leaning on his club, adorned with a laurel garland, and more like a rock than a man. She was looking for the fourth, which was standing at the greatest distance from her; but the wall opened, while the glittering vein started and split, as lightning does, and disappeared.

A Man of middle stature, entering through the cleft, attracted the attention of the Snake He was dressed like a peasant, and carried in his hand a little Lamp, on whose still flame you liked to look, and which in a strange manner, without casting any shadow, enlightened the whole dome.*

Why comest thou, since we have light?" said the golden King." You know that I may not enlighten what is dark."-" Will 'my Kingdom end?" said the silver King." Late or never," said the old Man.

With a stronger voice the brazen King began to ask: When shall I arise?"" 'Soon," replied the Man.-" With whom shall I combine?" said the King." With thy elder brothers," said the Man.-"What will the youngest do?" inquired the King.—“ He will sit down," replied the Man.

"I am not tired," cried the fourth King, with a rough faltering voice.‡

While this speech was going on, the Snake had glided softly round the temple, viewing every thing; she was now looking at the fourth King close by him. He stood leaning on a pillar; his considerable form was heavy rather than beautiful. But what metal it was made of could not be determined. Closely inspected, it seemed a mixture of the three metals which its brothers had been formed of. But in the founding, these materials did not seem to have combined together fully; gold and silver veins rau irregularly through a brazen mass, and gave the figure an unpleasant aspect.

The

Meanwhile the gold King was asking of the Man, "How many secrets knowest thou !"— "Three," replied the Man.-"Which is the most important?" said the silver King. open one," replied the other.§-Wilt thou open it to us also?" said the brass King"When I know the fourth,” replied the Man."What care I?" grumbled the composite King, in an under tone.

"I know the fourth," said the Soake; approached the old Man, and hissed somewhat in his ear. "The time is at hand!" cried the old Man, with a strong voice. The temple re

*Poetic Light, celestial Renson :-D. T.

Let the reader, in one word, attend well to these four

Kings: much annotation from D. T is here necessari swept out -O. Y.

What is wholly dark Understanding preceden Reason: modern Science is come: modern Poesy is still but coming,-in Goethe, (and whom rise 1-D T

Consider these Kings as Eras of the World's History a co, not as Eras, but as Principles which Jointly or seve rally rule Eras. Alas, poor we, in this chauth sud soldered transitionary age," are so unfortunate as 14 live under the Fourth King.-D. T.

• Primitive employments, and attainments, of Thought, in this dark den whither it is sent to dwell. For many long ages, it discerns "nothing but irregular productions of Nature;" having indeed to pick material Reader, bast thou any glimpse of the " open wertet?" bed and board out of Nature and her irregular produc- I fear, not.-D. T.-Writer, art thou a quime! I fear tions.-E T

yes.-O. Y.

66

tehoed, the metal statues soun led; and that | the old Man; "they may chance to be of use instant the old Man sank away to the west to us again." ward, and the Snake to the eastward; and both of them passed through the clefts of the rock, with the greatest speed.

All the passages, through which the old Man travelled, filled themselves immediately behind him with gold; for his Lamp had the strange property of changing stone into gold, wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, and of annihilating all metals. But to display this power, it must shine alone. If another light were beside it, the Lamp only east from it a pure clear brightness, and all living things were refreshed by it.*

The old Man entered his cottage, which was built on the slope of the hill. He found his Wife in extreme distress. She was sitting at the fire weeping, and refusing to be consoled. "How unhappy am I!" cried she: "Did I not entreat thee not to go away to-night?"-"What is the matter, then?" inquired the husband, quite composed.

"Scarcely wert thou gone," said she, sobbing, "when there came two noisy Travellers to the door: unthinkingly I let them in; they seemed to be a couple of genteel, very honourable people; they were dressed in flames, you Would have taken them for Will-o'-wisps. But no sooner were they in the house, than they began, like impudent varlets, to compliment met and grew so forward that I feel ashamed to think of it."

"No doubt," said the husband with a smile, "the gentlemen were jesting: considering thy age, they might have held by general politeness." "Age! what age?" cried the Wife: "wilt thou always be talking of my age? How old am I then-General politeness! But I know what I know. Look round there what a face the walls have; look at the old stones, which I have not seen these hundred years; every film of gold have they licked away, thou couldst not think how fast; and still they kept assuring me that it tasted far beyond common gold. Once they had swept the walls, the fellows seemed to be in high spirits, and truly in that little While they had grown much broader and brighter. They now began to be impertinent again, they patted me, and called me their queen, they shook themselves, and a shower of gold pieces sprang from them! See how they are shining there under the bench! But ah! what misery! Poor Mops ate a coin or two; and look, he is lying in the chimney, dead. Poor Pug! O well-a-day! I did not see it till they were gone; else I had never promised to pay the Ferryman the debt they owe him."-"What d they owe him?" said the Man.-"Three Cabbages, replied the Wife," three Artichokes and three Onions: I engaged to go when it was day, and take them to the River."

"Thou mayest do them that civility," said

In Illuminated Ages, the Age of Miracles is said to tease; but it is only we that cease to see it, for we are refreshed by it."-D. T.

Whether they will be of use to us I know not; but they promised and vowed that they would."

Meantime the fire on the hearth had burnt low; the old Man covered up the embers with a heap of ashes, and put the glittering gold pieces aside; so that his little Lamp now gleamed alone, in the fairest brightness. The walls again coated themselves with gold, and Mops changed into the prettiest onyx that could be imagined. The alternation of the brown and black in this precious stone made it the most curious piece of workmanship.

"Take thy basket," said the Man, "and put the onyx into it; then take the three Cabbages, the three Artichokes, and the three Onions; place them round little Mops, and carry them to the River. At noon the Snake will take thee over; visit the fair Lily, give her the onyx, she will make it alive by her touch, as by her touch she kills whatever is alive already. She will have a true companion in the little dog. Tell her not to mourn; her deliverance is near; the greatest misfortune she may look upon as the greatest happiness; for the time is at hand."

The old Woman filled her basket, and set out as soon as it was day. The rising sun shone clear from the other side of the River, which was glittering in the distance: the old Woman walked with slow steps, for the basket pressed upon her head, and it was not the onyx that so burdened her. Whatever lifeless thing she might be carrying, she did not feel the weight of it; on the other hand, in those cases the basket rose aloft, and hovered along above her head. But to carry any fresh herbage, or any little living animal, she found exceedingly laborious. She had travelled on for some time, in a sullen humour, when she halted suddenly in fright, for she had almost trod upon the Giant's shadow, which was stretching towards her across the plain. And now, lifting up her eyes, she saw the monster of a Giant himself, who had been bathing in the River, and was just come out,f and she knew not how she should avoid him. The moment he perceived her, he began saluting her in sport, and the hands of his shadow soon caught hold of the basket; with dexterous ease they picked away from it a Cabbage, an Artichoke, and an Onion, and brought them o the Giant's mouth, who then went his way up the River, and let the Woman go in peace.

She considered whether it would not be bet ter to return, and supply from her garden the pieces she had lost; and amid these doubt:., she still kept walking on, so that in a little while she was at the bank of the River. She sat long waiting for the Ferryman, whom she perceived at last, steering over with a very

* Why so? Is it because with "lifeless things" (with inanimate machinery) all goes like clock-work, which it is, and the basket hovers aloft;" while with living things, (were it but the culture of forest-trecs)

Poor old Practical Endeavour! Listen to many an Eesclopédie-Diderot, humanized Philosophe, didactic poor Endeavour has more difficulty 1-D. T.-Or, is it inger, march-of-intellect men, and other impudent chiefly because a Tale must be a Tale 1-0. Y. Periete" that would never put their own finger to the ↑ Very proper in the huge Loggerhead Superstition, te compliments" they uttered.-bathe himself in the element of TIME, and get refreshment thereby.-D. T.

work;) and hear what "

D.T.