Englishwoman could write English so beautifully-she would want the charming imperfection; and I am afraid, in spite of the gallant compliments so often lavished on female letterwriting, that we Englishwomen are as inferior to men in epistolary composition, as we confessedly are in most other things. England has no Madame de Sevigne. Strong feeling has some times struck out flashes of womanly tenderness, or of a bold and noble spirit; such as the affecting note of Lady Russell to her husband, or the manly and indignant letter of Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery; but these are only flashes. We have no Madame de Sevigné. We have, to be sure, Lady M. W. Montagu, whose letters may vie with Pope and his whole galaxy for wit, and surpass them for ease; and her namesake, Mrs. Montague, almost as witty till she unluckily became wise; and Mrs. Carter, Miss Talbot, Mrs. Hamilton, and Miss Smith, all so remarkable for unaffectedness and sound good sense; and Mrs. Wolstonecraft with her dangerous eloquence; and Mrs. Grant of Laggan, with her vivid picturesqueness, and her fine feeling of the beautiful and the fine. These we have, and for these we are grateful: but we have no Madame de Sevigné. M. GERMAN POPULAR AND TRADITIONARY LITERATURE. NO. I. THERE exists, at present, a very large and increasing class of readers, for whom the scattered fragments of olden time, as preserved in popular and traditionary tales, possess a powerful attraction. The taste for this species of literature has particularly manifested itself of late; the stories which had gone out of fashion during the prevalence of the prudery and artificial taste of the last century, began, at its close, to re-assert every where their ancient empire over the mind. Our literati had fancied themselves, and persuaded the world to think itself, too wise for such amusements-they considered themselves as come to man's estate, and determined, on a sudden, to put away. childish things. The curious mementos of simple and primitive society, the precious glimmerings of historic light, which these invaluable relics have preserved, were rejected as beneath the dignity to which these philosophers aspired; and even children began to be fed with a stronger diet. A better taste, say the patrons of these blossoms of nature and fancy, is now springing up. Our scholars busy themselves in tracing out the genealogy and mythological connexions of Tom Thumb and Jack the Giant Killer; and surely if the grave and learned embark in these speculations, we are justified in expecting to be able to welcome the æra when our children shall be allowed once more to regale themselves with that mild food which will enliven their imaginations, and tempt them on through the thorny paths of education;-when the gay dreams of fairy innocence shall again hover around them, and scientific compendiums, lisping botanics, and leading-string mechanics, shall be postponed to the Delights of Valentine and Orson, the beautiful Magalona, or Fair Rosamond. We are, we confess, very much of the same way of thinking; and little as such pursuits may serve to square with the fastidious and artificial appetites of metropolitan taste, we cannot deny that we have an eager relish for the popular tales of antiquity, for the green spots which they present in the waste behind us, for those unassuming legends which speak the language of simplicity, and evince the first efforts of free and sportive imagination. No countries in Europe are so rich as the Teutonic tribes of Germany in characteristic records of the various stages of society and literature, from the first putting-forth of the bud of promise, to the full developement of the luxuriant flower. In England, the repeated changes in population and dynasties— the irruptions of conquering tribes, and the consequent adoption or amalgamation of foreign languages, traditions, and customs, have broken much of the continuity of its literature, and rendered its stores very incomplete, except in romance, which unfortunately was in all countries compounded of very similar materials, and is, therefore, little distinctive or characteristic of national peculiarities. Spain, with all the beauty and dignity of her ancient poetry and romance, can boast of little variety. Her population is combined of so many discordant materials; and we need not observe, that with the change of country, traditions quickly become vague and indistinct. The mountain and the river must have its god or its wizard; the rock itself must wear the impress of the devil's hoof or the giant's leap, if the legend is to be perpetuated; and the gossipping chronicler will make little impression on the gaping circle around him, unless he can localize and illustrate his story by natural landmarks. The oldest Spanish literature consists, therefore, merely of demi-historic romance, founded on tales of contemporary martial enterprize. Their love-notes are rather those of luxury and artificial society, than of native simplicity; and the ornamental features of their poetry bear the manifest characters of Arabian polish. France has still less variety and interest in her ancient literature. She has, indeed, always appeared to despise it. Little, scarcely any, trace remains of the original Franks. The genuine Norman tribes are as little known by any record which they have left behind them ; and the gay stories of the Trouveurs, and the lays of their more frivolous and metaphysic brethren, the Troubadours, constitute all that possesses any kind of interest till we reach the æra of genuine romance. But the Teutonic nations have been much more fortunate in preserving their infant treasures, as well as the brighter ornaments of their youthful æra of fancy and imagination. Their oldest relics are those which belong to Pagan mythology, and record the glories of Argard and Valhalla—and from them we have a gradual introduction and progress of the milder spirit of Christianity, till at length the new religion is firmly seated in the Gothic temples, to the entire exclusion of the ancient objects of adoration. Then come the Legendary Romances, or Chronicles of the exploits of the Franks, the Longobards, the Burgundians, and the Hunsthe venerable traditions embodied in the Heldenburt and the Niebelingen Lied, which are echoed in the Scandinavian Sagas, and had probably been current, or at least orally familiar, for centuries before the actual date to which we can with certainty refer any of the works now extant. For ourselves, we have no hesitation in believing that we see in them the subjects, at least many of the songs, commemorated by Tacitus, and the "barbara et antiquissima Carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur," which Eginhart mentions Charlemagne to have carefully collected and recorded. Unfortunately the bigotry of his son and successor, Lewis, was powerfully exercised in the destruction of these precious relics, and what is left owes not its preservation to the patronage of kings and emperors. The people, moreover, retained their love for their native tongue; they sung of woods and wilds, of heroes, and war, and conquest, so that, Yet fragments of the lofty strain The church was more politic than Lewis, and endeavoured to turn the taste for song to pious uses, by enlisting it in the service of the Christian faith. With this design Öttfried founded the new school of Rhyming Legends and Contes Devots. Among the most venerable remains of ancient Teutonic literature, we should rank the abundant stores of popular legends and traditions, which often preserve most curious illustrations of heathen mythology, and still more frequently exhibit it in a most incongruous combination with the Christian faith. Under this last head we may also notice the beautiful collection of Nursery Literature (chiefly consisting of Fairy Tales) which has lately been edited with so much care by Messrs. Grimm. These, too, have attracted great attention: though we have long left our nurseries, we retain our best relish for these tales, and hardly know whether to admire most their interest as works of fiction, or their literary value as bearing on ancient mythos and superstition. The Germans are by no means deficient in the genuine class of Chivalric Romances, which has nearly the same general features in every country. Those, however, which are of purely Teutonic origin, are not the least interesting; and the style in which they are written, and the character of their incidents and machinery, will often perplex the theories of the various controversialists on the rival systems concerning the sources of romantic fiction and embellishment. The Troubadour age of German poetry, the reign of the "Frau Minne" [Lady Love] is usually associated with the last period, although in fact its predecessor. Every feature which is admired as characteristically beautiful in the Southern Minstrels, is to be recognized in the productions of their northern imitations, during the 12th, 13th, and part of the 14th centuries. The exercise of poetic talent was now in some measure diverted from the exploits of savage heroes and warriors to the cultivation of the domestic affections. Such subjects had interest every where; the poet accordingly became the favourite of all ranks, And tuned to please a peasant's ear, The harp a king had deign'd to hear. This may truly be styled the splendid age of Teutonic poetry, blending the narrative interest of the Trouveurs with the more abstract and devotional gallantry of the Spanish and French Troubadours. If the Red Rose of Provence has been cherished and unceasingly cultivated, equal care might and ought to be bestowed on the White Rose of Germany; and we shall with pleasure embrace an opportunity of introducing the Minne-Lieders (of whose productions we have amused ourselves in translating a large store) to take their station by the side of the worthies from the south, whose productions we noticed in a late number. Thus is exhibited a complete cyclus of ancient indigenous literature, singularly various and characteristic of the progress of a people through all its stages of civilization, and marking most of the impressions which the events and institutions of the middle ages successively imparted. To all this succeeded (with the accession of the house of Hapsburgh) a long period of indolence or perverted industry, which may, however, have had its use in preserving many of the remains of higher antiquity, to which a more modern and popular literature would probably have become a dangerous rival. We must, however, hasten to recur to the subject with which we opened these remarks, and in which we intended principally to bear our testimony in favour of the popular legends or "volks sagen," of which the store is (thanks to the industry of our German friends) now so abundant. None rank higher in our estimation than those which have been handed down from the remotest antiquity among the inhabitants of the mountainous wilds of the Hartz Forest. We need hardly observe how peculiarly these picturesque regions are adapted to the growth of those airy fabrics of the fancy. Such spots have always been the fairy-land of the imagination. Where Nature assumes her wildest and sublimest features, there also has the genius of man ever expanded its boldest conceptions. Even his superstitions bear an elevated character, and the phantoms of his brain are of noble port, "Like ghaist of Fian brim That stride frae craig to cleugh, hung round These tales have been collected and illustrated by more than one careful hand, but more particularly by Otman; and we shall make no apology for presenting to the notice of our readers one of these wildflowers, which Geoffrey Crayon has with merciless hand taken from its native soil, and transplanted without acknowledgment into the more cultivated parterre of his sketch-book, under the title of "Rip van Winkle." THE GOATHERD. Peter Claus, a goatherd of Sittenburg, who tended his flock on the Kyffhaus mountain, used to drive it every evening to a wild spot, surrounded by a ruined wall, where he numbered his charge and left it to rest for the night. For some days he had observed that one of his prettiest kids vanished soon after she arrived at this place, and appeared last of all the herd in the morning. He watched her more closely, and saw that she escaped through a cleft in the wall. He followed her into a cavern, and found her busily engaged in picking up and eating the oat-kernels which fell in continual showers from the roof. He looked upwards, the corn rattled about his head, but with all his curiosity the darkness prevented his discovering any thing more. He listened, and at length heard the neighing and stamping of a high-bred horse, from whose manger he now guessed that the oats fell. The goatherd stood fixed in astonishment. Whence could this horse have found its way through the almost trackless mountains that surrounded him? Presently appeared a dwarf who made signs to him to follow. Peter entered the cave, and passed first into a court surrounded by high walls, and thence to a valley embosomed in lofty ridges of rock, and overshadowed by thick foliage, through which only a scanty twilight made its way. Here on the cool plat of turf were twelve knights of grave deportment, who interchanged not a single word, but busied themselves in playing at nine pins. Peter was ordered by signs to employ himself in fetching the bowl. At first his heart quaked, and his knees trembled as he stole a sidelong glance at the long beards and slashed doublets of the venerable knights. By degrees he became bolder, he snatched hasty glances around him, and at length became hardy enough to drink from a can that stood near him, whence arose the fragrant perfume of generous wine. New life seemed to inspire his frame, and as often as fatigue appeared inclined to return, he drew fresh vigour from the ever-flowing can. Sleep at last overcame him. At his awakening he found himself once more on the wild spot, surrounded by the ruined wall, where his flock was wont to rest. He rubbed his eyes, but neither dog nor goat could he discover, and over him hung shrubs and trees which he had never remarked till this day. He shook his head, and pursued his way over hills and dales where his goats were used to wander during the day, but no where was there any trace of them. Below him lay Sittendorf, and at last he rushed with hasty steps down the hill to inquire after his flock. The people who met him on the way to the village seemed to be all strangers; they were differently clad, and did not speak as his old neighbours did. They stared at him too when he asked after his goats, and stroked their chins. At last he involuntarily did the same, and found to his astonishment that his beard was at least a good foot long. He now began to think himself and all the world around him bewitched; and yet he was sure that the mountain he was de |