in the severe and in the agreeable style; uniting both figures by an expressive and decent entwining of the arms, he has shewn what he can perform in both. The figure of Mars possesses so much nobleness and purity of form, that it may serve as a model of this class, which is the mean between the Apollo and the Hercules: the light and elegant limbs are finely proportioned, and yet muscular energy is so well expressed, that we readily acknowledge in them the motion and strength of the God of War. The accurate leaning on the left thigh, and the happily expressed motion and wavy contours of the hips, which add so much grace to personal majesty, are particularly worthy of notice. The extremities are in every respect adinitable; and the head, gently inclined towards the goddess, indicates, in the calm features of the face, the power of beauty even over gods. It would have been vulgar and mean to think of expressing martial ardour on the brow of the God of War, who is engaged in soft converse with Venus. The character of each figure is sufficiently developed in the form and admirable proportions. On whatever side the group is surveyed, the two figures display the happiest combinations and contrasts, so that those rigorous demands of art are also fully satisfied. If the beauty of the proportions, the nobleness of the expression, and the excellence of the composition, make this group one of the most distinguished works of the artist, and one of the grandest productions of modern art; it is likewise a model of the finest taste, from the wonderful perfection of the execution. We observe especially such novelty in the choice of their forms, that they afford a fresh proof that the artist has not exhausted the copious source of his ideas in the great number of his former works. The handling of the chisel has been so judiciously varied, that it might be said the marble had acquired different degrees of hardness and softness by the different treatment of its surface. The tenderness (morbidezza) of the fleshy parts is most beautifully contrasted with the polished steel of the helmet and shield, and with the lightness of the draperies, which are so gracefully thrown, that they conceal what the art has surrendered to the claims of decorum, and also the solidity of the material. Lastly, the hair is managed with a freedom of the chisel which we should be inclined to ascribe only to a youthful hand. The King of France has given 150,000 franks for the Zodiack of Denderah. The civil list is charged with one half of the price. A HEAVY LOSS. P, a picture-dealer, met S in the street one day, and the following conversation ensued:-S. You look deplorably sad, what is the matter with you? P. Oh, I am the unluckiest dog alive; I am almost ruined; I have lost fifty pounds this morning.-S. How, how man, I never knew you had so much to lose?-P. Oh, it is always my luck, always unfortunate-s heavy loss, a dead loss.-S. (sympathetic ally) But how happened it ?-P Why, last week 1 bought a volume of plates at a sale for forty shillings; and as they were in the way of Lord G's collection, I offered them to him. He appointed to call this morning-I went-his Lordship was enga ged, and I sat down in the anti-room. I had resolved to put a good five pounds profit on, and began looking over the prints, that I might see where to insist on their value. It struck me that they looked better than before, and I determined to ask ten pounds for them! Well, Sir, I waited and waited till almost tired; and I said to myself, By G-, I wont waste my time so long for nothing, for any Lord in Christendom, -I'll ask fifteen pounds!! Another half hour passed, and I got so mad, that I swore to myself I'd ask thirty, and I had made up my mind to this when I was called in. His Lordship was in a desperate good humour, and behaved so kindly, that when he inquired the price, I plumped it at once fifty pounds!!!-S. And so by your greed you lost your purchaser?-P. No, d-n it; he gave me a cheque for the mon ey in a moment without haggling-1 might just as easily have got a hundred-but I am always unlucky!!—A true tale. MANDRAKE. In the vicinity of Uschakan are found two remarkable roots. With one, called toron, is made a red colour, which is used in Russia, and the Russian name of which is morena; the other, loschtak or manraker (mandrake ) bears an exact resemblance to the human figure, and is used by us medici. nally. It grows pretty large. A dog is usually employed to extract it from the ground; for which purpose the earth is first dug from about it, and a dog being fastened to it by a string, is made to pull till the whole of the root is extracted. The reason of this is, according to the current report, that if a man were to pull up this root he would infallibly die, either on the spot or in a very short time; and it is also said, that when it is drawn out, the moan of a human voice is always heard. CHARACTER OF THE KARPIANS (ARAES.) They are such consummate thieves and rogues, that, according to an ancient tradition still current among them, they once tricked the devil himself. The story is as follows:-The devil had acquired a right to their fields, on which they agreed with him. that when their crops were ripe, they should retain the upper part and the devil should have the lower: they sowed all their lands with wheat, and the devil of course had nothing but the straw for his share. Next year the old gentleman, fully determined not to be again so bamboozled, stipelated that the upper part should belong to him and the lower to the Karpians: but then they sowed all their grounds with beet, turnips, and other esculent roots, and so the devil got nothing but the green tops for his portion. Meteoric Iron.-Dr. William Zimmerman, Professor of Chemistry, in the University of Giessen, has discovered that all the aqueous atmospherical precipitates and deposits, (dew, snow, rain, and hail,) during that period, contained meteoric iron, which was usually combined, in the same manner as in meteoric stones, with nickel. Almost all the rains contained common salt, and a new organic substance composed of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, which the discoverer has called Pyrine. In the same manner the rain water was found, on several occasions, indubitably to contain various kinds of earths. The rains in February and March particularly abounded in these ingredients, which are found also in the meteoric stones. From contemporary observations made on various eminences, Diensberg, the Castle of Gleiberg, a tower of the barracks at Giessen, &c. various other results were obtained, several of which are in favour of the opinion, that the stony meteoric masses are of telluric and not of cosmic origin. Croup.-Dr. Reddelin, of Wismar, has communicated to the Royal Society of Gottingen, through Professor Blumenbach, the following successful treatment of Croup, after the usual remedies had been tried without effect:-The patient was a female, aged 19, who, on the third day after being seized with the croup, was unable to swallow, had begun to rattle in the throat, and seemed approaching rapidly her dissolution. Dr. Reddelin insinuated, by means of a quill, a mixture of Spanish snuff and marocco into her nostrils; and after repeating this mixture a second time, it excited sneezing and vomiting: this occasioned the discharge of two long membranous cylinders from the trachea (windpipe,) upon which the rattling immediately ceased, and the patient was rescued from instantaneous suffocation. One of the tubes, when slit open, measured nineFrench lines in breadth; they were quite white, and bore a strong extension without injury to their fibrous tex ture. On Liquid Manure.-In the Bath Agricultural Papers, vol. i. page 172, is related an interesting experiment on the subject of liquid manure, which is certainly too much neglected in this country. A Norfolk gentleman, who rather by compulsion used some putrid water in his garden, found it so beneficial that he tried some experiments with it compared with clean water, in a meadow; the result determined him to increase his supply of putrid water, which he did by enlarging the reservoir, and conducting into it hollow drains from his stables, ox-stalls, kitchen, &c.; besides which he ordered vegetable refuse from the garden to be thrown into it, and emptied the privy into it once a year. From all these resources he obtained a large quantity, which was used with a water-cart, having a trough behind as for watering roads; and this mode of manuring was found greatly preferable to the common one for hay and pasture land; here was but little cost besides the carting; little labour in filling, (a pump being used,) no spreading or beating, nor any incumbrance upon the soil. Twenty carts of this water on an acre, beginning in May, were found of signal service to the hay crop; and equally beneficial to the aftermath in a dry season. Weaver's Reeds.-A gentleman of Manchester has taken out a patent for a very ingenious machine for making weavers' reeds, of either steel or brass. It puts in and finishes no less than 160 dents per minute, and the workmanship is greatly superior to any thing of the kind done by hand, particularly in fine reeds, for every part is mathematically true; added to which there is a considerable reduction of price. The patentee is now erecting a large manufactory. His invention is highly approved of, especially by the silk-weavers. Spinning and Weaving.-"In the year 1745, Mary Powlis, of East Dereham, in Norfolk, spun a pound of wool into a thread of 84,400 yards in length, wanting only 80 yards of 48 English miles; a circumstance which was considered so great a curiosity at the time, as to obtain for itself a situation upon the records of the Royal Society. Since that period, Miss Ives, of Norwich, spun a pound of wool (combed) into a thread of 168,000 yards; which wonderful success in the art of spinning wool, induced her to try her exquisite talent upon cotton, when, out of a pound of that material, she produced a thread that measured the astonishing length of 203,000 yards, equal to 115 1-4 English miles and 160 yards. The last-mentioned thread, woven into cloth, would (allowing 200 inches of it in warp and weft to a square inch of the manufac tured article,) give the fair artisan 28 3-4 yards, nearly, of yard-wide cloth, out of her pound of cotton!-25 1-4 lbs. of cotton, spun in that manner, would reach round the Equator." taining Fair Helen of Kirkonnel, and RosJin Castle. By Roland M'Chronicle. 2 vls. The Curfew; or the Grave of the last Saxon By the Rev. William Lisle Bowles, Author of the "Missionary," &c. Tales of the Manor, by Mrs. HOFLAND, fully support the character already acquired by this lady, for real powers of fancy, simplicity, and truth. There is a pleasing and undeviating moral principle that actuates every thing she writes, extremely applicable to all the varieties, and the several professions of life. Out of the simplest materials, and characters of ordinary and every-day occurrence, very interesting and pathetic narratives are introduced. From her earliest stories, the touching description of the "Son of a Genius," up to the "Tales of the Priory," and the more complete and voluminous work before us, the same qualities of natural pathos, and correct taste and feel SONG.* ing, are every where visible. In the Di vided Lovers," and the "Partial Mother,” the peculiar beauties, as well as the defects, of her style of writing, are perhaps best shewn. The latter consist in too great a degree of minuteness and study of detail, by which she sometimes attempts to render common place incidents and characters of more interest and importance than her subject will well admit. In some of her stories, she appears to approach nearer the genius of Mrs. Inchbald, and one or two of the earliest of Mrs. Opie's works, than any liv. ing novelist we know. We think there is less sentiment, and more good sense and cleverness, than in some of the works of these latter ladies, without, however, displaying the powers of a Mrs. Brunton, or Hannah More, or the knowledge of character possessed by Mrs. Opie or Miss Edgeworth. Original Portry. Why ask me the cause of my sorrow, To speak it would torture my heart; Which tell thee how much I am thine The looks which long dwell on each charm, Still following wherever thou art; And the zeal to protect thee from harm! Then wherefore be glad to depart ? Should he be repaid with deriding, Who only in life can now see The dwelling, where thou art abiding, The door that admits him to thee? But wilt thou no pity bestow? Yes-tears in those speaking eyes start! Thou own'st thou art sorry I go; Then now I can bear to depart. AMELIA OPIE. SONG. 1. And are those hours for ever gone, Set to an Irish air by Westley Doyle, Esq. SPIRIT OF THE ENGLISH MAGAZINES. BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 15, 1822. (English Magazines, July.) TRADITIONAL TALES OF THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH PEASANTRY. BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. THESE volumes can hardly as yet be said to have issued from the press, though we thus early report them to the public. On their author we need offer no remarks, as we had so recently an opportunity of mentioning him with just applause in our review of Sir Marmaduke Maxwell. His talents have since received a higher meed from the pen of the author of Waverley, with whom we cordially agree that Allan Cunningham is a credit to Caledonia ;" and that is no mean praise, when we look on the brightness of her literary galaxy. 66 The tales are sixteen in number, and founded on historical events, such as the Rebellion, &c. on popular superstitions, and on national feelings and manners. We select one of the Preternatural cast, which possesses the further excellence of also developing very pathetically the Natural: it is called The Mother's Dream, and like all the others, neatly and characteristically prefaced. "Were the mother's dream a traditionary fiction, and its predictions unfulfilled, gladness would be diffused round many hearts, and the tears wiped away from many matron's cheeks. It was related to me by a Dumfrieshire lady; her voice was slow and gentle, 57 ATHENEUM VOL. 11. and possessed that devotional Scottish melody of expression which gives so much antique richness and grace to speech. "When woman is young,' said she, with a sigh,but not of regret,' she loves to walk in the crowded streets, and near the dwellings of men-when she becomes wiser, has seen the vanities, and drunk of the miseries and woes of life, she chooses her walk in more lonely places, and seeking converse with her own spirit, shuns the joy and the mirth of the world. When sorrow, which misses few, had found me out, and made me a mateless bird, I once walked out to the margin of that beautiful sheet of water, the Ladye's Lowe. It was the heart of summer; the hills in which the lake lay embosomed were bright and green; sheep were scattered upon their summits; while the grassy sward, descending to the quiet pure water, gave it so much of its own vernal hue, that the eye could not always distinguish where the land and lake met. Its long green water flags, and broad lilies, which lay so flat and so white along the surface, were unmoved, save by the course of a pair of wild swans, which for many years had grazed on the grassy margin, or found food in the bottom of the lake. This pastoral quietness pertained more to modern than to ancient times. When the summer heat was high, and the waters of the lake low, the remains of a broken but narrow causeway, composed of square stones, indented in a frame-work of massy oak, might still be traced, starting from a little bay on the northern side, and diving directly towards the centre of the lake. Tradition, in pursuing the history of the causeway, supplied the lake with an island, the island with a tower, and the tower with narratives of perils, and bloodshed, and chivalry, and love. These fireside traditions, varying according to the fancy of the peasantry, all concluded in a story too wild for ordinary belief. A battle is invariably described by some grey-headed narrator, fought on the southern side of the lake, and sufficiently perilous and bloody. A lady's voice is heard, and a lady's form is seen, among the armed men, in the middle of the fight. She is described as borne off towards the causeway by the lord of the tower, while the margin of the water is strewed with dead or dying men. She sees her father, her brother, fall in her defence; her lover, to whom she had been betrothed, and from whom she had been torn, die by her side; and the deep and lasting curse which she denounced against her ravisher, and the tower, and the lake which gave him shelter, is not forgotten, but it is too awful to mingle with the stories of a grave and a devout people. That night, it is said a voice was heard as of a spirit running round and round the lake, and pronouncing a curse against it; the waters became agitated, and a shriek was heard at midnight. In the morning the castle of the Ladye's Lowe was sunk, and the waters of the lake slept seven fathoms deep over the every remarkable place, say that once a year the castle arises at midnight from the lake, with lights, not like the lights of this world, streaming from loophole and turret, while on the summit, like a banner spread, stands a lady clad in white, holding her hands to heaven, and shrieking. This vision is said to precede by a night or two, the annual destruction of some person by the waters of the lake. The influence of this superstition has made the Ladye's Lowe a solitary and a desolate place, has preserved its fish, which are both delicious and numerous, from the fisher's net and hook, and its wild swans from the gun of the fowler. The peasantry seldom seek the solitude of its beautiful banks, and avoid bathing in its waters; and when the winter gives its bosom to the curler or the skater, old men look grave and say, The Ladye's Lowe will have its yearly victim; and its yearly victim, tradition tells us it has had ever since the sinking of the tower. 'I had reached the margin of the lake, and sat looking on its wide pure expanse of water. Here and there the remains of an old tree, or a stunted hawthorn, broke and beautified the winding line of its border; while cattle, coming to drink and gaze at their shadows, took away from the awe and solitude of the place. As my eye pursued the sinuous outline of the lake, it was arrested by the appearance of a form, which seemed that of a human being, stretched motionless on the margin. I rose, and on going nearer, I saw it was a man; the face cast upon the earth, and the hands spread. I thought death had been there; and while I was waving my hand for a shepherd, who sat on the hill-side to approach and assist me, I heard a groan, and a low and melancholy cry; and presently be started up, and seating himself on an old tree-root, rested a cheek on the palm of either hand, and gazed intently on the lake. He was a young man; and the remains of health and beauty were still about him; but his locks, once curling and long, which maidens loved to look at, were now matted, and wild, and withered; his cheeks were hollow and pale, and his eyes, once the |