&c. &c. &c.

EDITED BY ROBERT BELL,

AUTHOR OF "LIVES OF THE POETS," "MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS," &c.

WITH INCIDENTAL NOTES, CRITICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE.

THE object of this publication is to collect and preserve the best specimens of the fugitive literature of Europe-those
exquisite snatches of fancy and imagination which so rarely find their way into the large collections of National Fiction,
and so often perish in the evanescent periodicals to which they are consigned. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that such
productions have a peculiar value as illustrations of the customs, manners, social characteristics, and poetical spirit of the
age; that they frequently discover more profound and condensed literary vitality, more dramatic power, and more delicate
beauty, than many of the elaborate works which supersede them in notoriety by the mere force of voluminous expansion;
and that the sources from whence they will be derived, including the range of all the living languages, are sufficiently exten-
sive to ensure continuous excellence in the choice of materials.

Every nook of literature, ancient and modern, will be explored for the means of conferring a permanent grace on the
pages of this Anthology-the haunted places of Moorish romance-the allegories of oriental fable, full of passionate beauty
and moral truth-the traditions of chivalry-the lays of the Minnesängers and Troubadours-the picturesque reliques of our
old English literature-the fresh springs of poetry that have of late years gushed forth in the North of Europe - the fictions
of Italy and Spain-the ballads and weird tales of Germany, teeming with intellectual superstitions-the fanciful metaphysics
of the Romantic School in France, now scattered through a multitude of ephemeral journals-in addition to such excerpta
as may be available from the works of contemporary genius at home. The field is so vast that its landmarks can only be
vaguely indicated; and the execution of the undertaking cannot, consequently, be fairly tested by the contents of a single
number, but must be estimated by the varieties of styles and subjects developed in its progress.

The plan of "The Story-Teller" will admit short articles of every kind-Sketches of Society and Scenery-Real Nar-
ratives of remarkable Actions and Events-and occasional Episodes from large and costly works. Original Tales will also
form a distinct feature, dependant always upon their intrinsic merit, and upon the space which, according to circumstances,
can be afforded to them.

The selected papers will be accompanied by notes, or introductions, when they happen to be of a nature to demand, or
justify editorial remarks. The object of such notes will be to illustrate, as briefly as possible, the peculiar claims of the
articles to which they refer, or the genius of their authors-sometimes taking the shape of criticism, and sometimes that of
biographical or historical annotation: but always with a view to heighten and refine, rather than to interrupt the pleasure of
the reader.

"The Story-Teller" will be published every Saturday, and will consist of 36 pages imperial extra, printed in double
columns with care and elegance, price 6d. Monthly Parts will be issued in a wrapper, with the Magazines, and an Index
will be supplied half-yearly for binding into Volumes. It is hoped, with these arrangements, the work may rest its claims to
public support upon the novelty and comprehensiveness of its matter, and the economy of its price-each Number being
equal in solid contents to an ordinary Octavo Volume.

Advertisements will be received till Wednesday of every week.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

To "K. H."-Yes. We cannot state the time with certainty, but can promise that it shall not exceed a month.
We are obliged by the passage from the Souvenirs d'un Voyageur, but regret that it is not exactly suited to the plan of THE STORY-TELLER.
It is left enclosed at the publishers. A former favour from the same quarter shall find an early place.
"The Golden Dwarf" has considerable merit, of a kind now rarely developed in popular fictions; and it is not without reluctance we are
compelled to decline it. We could not, under any circumstances, make room for it without subjecting it to a severe process of com-
pression; and it is too desultory to admit of much excision or contraction, without injury to the general design.

The arrangements of this periodical preclude the possibility of entertaining such elaborate productions as "The Chronicles of the Bastille."
We indicate so much to spare the author the trouble of transmitting his MS.

It would afford us much pleasure to hear from our Liverpool correspondent," J-S-," in the only way which can enable us to give a
satisfactory answer to his letter. It is needless to say that we have inexhaustible resources, such as he refers to, at our command:--
nevertheless, will he favour us with a short specimen?

We accept the suggestion of "C. Mc G." in the spirit in which it is offered. All such points have been already fully considered; and in
the course of our progress he will find that we are quite aware of the value of his hint.

"The Leaden Heart" is deficient in incident-at least for our purposes. The writer will not think that we slight his proposals, for which
we are obliged, if we add, that the reception of every contribution must depend on its own merits.

"Martha," "S. T." " Viola F." shall hear from us by post.

"The Centaur," "The Valley of the Pale Faces," "Heriot's Legacy," "The Haunted House," and the translations from Jean Paul Richter,
Jules Janin, Uhland, and Metastasio, are inadmissible for the reasons severally assigned in notes enclosed with the contributions.
"V." "Hope," "Ernest's Ghost," and "Christine," are under consideration.

Our Correspondents must perceive, from the number that have already accumulated upon our hands, the impossibility of answering them
by private letters, except in very special cases.

"T. J." the same subject has been treated before upon a greater scale. We are not the less obliged, however, by the suggestion.
Our Correspondent at Doughton-le-Spring must accept our regret that previous arrangements will prevent us from availing ourselves of
his proposal.

"An Intended Constant." The difficulty lies not in the size and shape of the sheet, and not in the method of folding. But it will be
obviated at once by cutting the sheet in the three divisions marked in the fold. The pages may then be readily adjusted; this, how-
ever, will in future be done previous to publication.

"S." There are three English translations of the "Frithiof's Saga" of Bishop Tegner.

"Julia R-," " Merlin," "V," and "Red-Cap," are under consideration.

"U. V." We are overstocked with materials of that description.

Answers have been sent by post to other Correspondents-"N. B., Dunoon, Argyleshire," "H. B., Hatchland's Park, Guildford," "Burton
Crescent," "Regent's Park."

We are sorry to return to the author the poem on the Steam Ship, which lies for him with the publishers. The subject, although admirably
treated, is yet too painfully remembered to allow us to give it a place in our pages.

"The Appointment"-" Poor Boxes ""The Bored Hand"-"Lines on a Hawk""The Knight of the Red Plume"-" Gentle Thoughts"
-"Patient Grizzle at Calais"-"The Two Lovers"-"The Marksman"-"Three Weeks in the Pyrenees"-"The Poet's Grave"
"Basket Making "-" Rouen Cathedral by Moonlight"-returned with explanations.

Will the gentleman who gives us a "hint" about "old poetry," have the goodness to explain what kind of poetry he means? We confess
we are at a loss also to understand what he means by Dasippus."

4

The Gesta Romanorum-we are flattered by the suggestion, and can only say-perhaps.

With considerable curtailment, "An English Home Scene" might be made available. The title is not sufficiently descriptive.
Translations from Nodier, Jules Janin, Grimm, and Herschem [who is he?] are not suited to our pages. We have returned them.
"T. T." Certainly.-"F." Let us see it before the publication of our next number.-" O. Y." It is derived from the old French custom.
In fact, the word itself is French, and the only difference between the ancient and modern orthography, is in the substitution of
s for z.

"The Gnome" is better calculated for the climate of the Annuals than for that of the STORY-TELLER. It is full of imagination, but we
want subject also in our columns. It is erroneously described as a dramatic fragment. We hope we may hear again from the author.
It would afford us much gratification to insert the letter of "One who knows Mrs. Sigourney;" but it would answer no other purpose than
that of prolonging a painful and useless controversy.

To the two offers of Fabliaux-from Nightingale and Rose-we have only to say, that we are, as we ought to be, greatly obliged, but
except for illustrative or critical uses, we cannot avail ourselves at present of their stores.

"Latin Stories"-we have a treasury of them already.

"S-t." None of the German Popular Stories of the class alluded to would be fit for us. We know they are very curious notwithstanding,
and that Tieck, Novalis, and others, have availed themselves largely of their quaint stuff. Perhaps our Correspondent is not aware
that Dr. Simrock, of Bonn, the translator of the Niebelungen Lied, has brought out a collected edition of these old book-stand
curiosities.

THE STORY-TELLER;

OR,

TABLE-BOOK OF POPULAR LITERATURE.

for your erudition, your high-bred suavity, and Mr. Buller, I always held you in reverence that facility of intellectual power which enables you to descend with as much grace and case to an epigram as you can soar into a pindaric. But that toast, sir-that toast, I say-no matter! You have developed a sentiment worthy of you-worthy of the laurels I fancy I can see through the haze that clouds my eyes-I know not why or wherefore-budding at this moment round your temples. The very name, gentlemen, is an incantation. Who WERE the Story-Tellers? When the world was struggling into tribes, and settlements, and forms of government-when the growing populations of the

else are the grand impassioned legends they have bequeathed to us but poetical histories, such as one could sit and listen to by the hour together, as the Eastern princes do when they call their grand viziers about them, with music and bells and dances, to lull their Sybarite senses by the help of sweet sounds and visions and dreamy narratives?

BULLER.

The diviners and soothsayers, the practisers of magic and the professors of signs, the sorceries of Egypt, the Cabbala of the Hebrews, the Platonism of Ficinus, the whole arcana of the mystical philosophies of the middle ages, yield up their secrets to the "open sessame" of the Story-Teller.

HUMPHREY.

earth were. yet as fresh as its verdure, before | breathe the outer air of the halo that encircles ideas had acquired adequate expression in lan- them. And these were all story-tellers; for what guage, or language types to fix and systematize its use-they were the chroniclers of scattered and scattering races. On the hill-tops and in the valleys, on the wild waters, in the primal woods, the Story-Tellers were the watchers and the recorders of the mighty human progress. To them, life itself was poetry; birds, streams, trees, mountains, clouds, stars, flowers, every thing was new and full of beauty and glory, and their hearts were filled with thanksgivings, and they poured them out in melodious lays-that are now the traditions of antiquity! All this oral poetry originated in the East. The Arabians carried it into Spain carly in the Christian era; the crusades helped to diffuse it through the western world; and that captivating style, efflorescent with images, and full to exuberance of oriental pomp, became rapidly naturalized in colder climates, until the whole of Europe was touched by the spirit of romance. Bretagne, the Arnorica of the ancients, covered with druidical remains, and to this hour tenanted by the superstitions of successive centuries, was amongst the first to catch the inspiration, and will be one of the last to relinquish it. She has still her fairy circles, her elf palaces, her spectres, and a hundred other articles of belief, as well as current usages, drawn from the faith and habits of the Saracens and the Celts. Spain, Germany, France, and the Low Countries, and even Holland, with all her utilities, her dikes and bulbs, grew as fond of legendary lore as the Asiatics themselves. Holland gathered up much of her historic wonders from her early maritime expeditions, her adventurous sailors bringing back to her shores miraculous tales of the strange lands they had visited. The Story-Teller! It is a word of power-it is freighted with the treasures of the Earth's Tongues, not to speak of our own, the richest of all in ballad literature.

MARVELL.

But some would have it that the word is trite. Bah! When I hear that, I close my eyes, and processions of figures habited in various costumes, some in hose and doublets, some in slashed silks and feathers, some in full suits of armour, seem to pass before me. I fancy I see Raoul de Beauvais, Thomas of Erceldoune, Henry of Veldek, Robert Wace, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrestiens de Troyes, Occleve, Bojardo, Hampole, Godfrey of Strasbourg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gower, Chaucer, Lydgate, Fabyan, Monstrelet, Froissart, and a score or two more, whom half the world have never approached more closely than just to

And the Early Books that teem upon us from former ages! If it were worth while to dazzle the eyes of the multitude, what a pile we could show them on our shelves—a golden pile, brighter than the diamond-mines of a place which I think is called Samarkand, or Sugarcandy, I am not certain which, for my memory grows turbulent and rebellious. There, look into that recess—there, in that dusky corner, you will find the Cid, the Chronicles of the Cid, the Scala Chronica, and all the other Chronicles; the two sets of the Gesta Romanorum, that analyzed by Warton, and that brought to light, or indexed into print by Douce, both copied in an exquisite round hand by a monk of La Trappe; the Roman de Rou, an attested fac-simile; the famous Helden Buch, or Book of Heroes, one of the gorgeous epic romances of the Swabian period, the Augustan age of German literature; the Nibelungen Lied, or Lay of the Nibelungen; the Ethiopics, just as it was snatched by a soldier from the smoking ruins of the tower of Buda,-only mine is the first Paris edition; the famous Lais de Marie, that have puzzled all the critics and conjurers of Europe; the Roman de Gaides, en vers, a French romance of great antiquity; the Welsh Mabinogion; all of the fine old English romances, illustrative of the Round Table, Sir Ywain, Sir Tristram, Joseph of Arimathea and the Sangréal; and sundry other majestic volumes all bound in green morocco, spangled over with magnificent devices. These are all records of that romantic genius which once possessed every cranny of the earth, filling its pores with joy ;that genius which we are destined to relume. My hands are clenched involuntarily-my veins leap-the spirit of prophecy is upon me.