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592 seology, as the best for the production of superstitious impressions in works of pure invention, we have already, perhaps, said more than enough for our purpose. The little publication which stands at the head of our present article, and which, whether it be originally of French or of German extraction we are unable to decide, was that which gave rise to our argument. The English which follows it is a translation of the best parts of its contents, to which is added, a single additional story of the same nature, for which we are indebted to the translator.

These tales, which we shall not injure by attempting to analyze, are conceived and executed precisely in that style which we have just been recommending, and have long recognised, as alone suitable at the present day to the purpose for which they are intended. In the first, which is entitled, “The Family Portraits,” we are called back, it is true, to the ages of almost forgotten antiquity, to the Saxon Otho, and the founder of the abbey of St Gal; but the occurrences of these dark and uninteresting periods are connected, in a manner equally intricate and fearful, with the incidents of modern life, and the little peculiarities of modern manners and habits. The scene is alternately the parlour of a village pastor and the chateau of a German gentleman, the dramatis personæ perfectly appropriate, and the main agent in the catastrophe nothing more or less than a portrait in an old family picture gallery. Lewis’s inimitable tale of the “Bleeding Nun” owes much of its power to thrill and harrow up the imagination to a similar combination of the manners of easy and familiar life, with the legendary terrors of exploded superstition.

The portrait, painted by the hand of a spectre, and the phantom, whose occasional appearance on earth is mysteriously connected with that terrible portrait, and whose kiss is the signal of death to every successive member of the family to which it belongs, are manifest improvements on such traditions as those of the White Lady of the house of Brandenburg, the Fairy Melusine, whose appearance used constantly to prognosticate the recurrence of mortality in some noble family of Poitou; and the White Bird which, as Prince records in his Worthies of Devon, was in the habit of performing the same office for the worshipful lineage of Oxenham.

Analogous to this last story is that related by one Vincentius, that,

The authority of a Doge of Venice is surely sufficient to shake the most resolute sceptic. What, therefore, can be alleged to the disparagement of what is related by Cardanas, from the mouth of the Doge, Jacobus Donatus? viz. That the said Doge,

“Horatio,” no doubt, will call this “hallucination.” But what will he say to the wealthy Stephanus Hubne-