and when Columbus told to the hour the sun's eclipse, can we wonder that the transatlantic Indians listened as to one endued with preternatural knowledge, or that the other might be thought superhuman? And when the King of Siam was assured that water could be congealed into ice on which the sounding skate could glide, can we wonder that he smiled in absolute disbelief of such a change, and called the tale a lie.

Thus, when the peasants of Cardigan, who were not versed in Pontine architecture, looked on the bridge which the monks of Yspitty C'en Vaen had thrown across the torrent of the Monach, they could not believe it a work of human, but of infernal hands, and called it the "Devil's Bridge."

On my ascent of the Vann mountain in Brecon, there often came a mass of limestone rolling down the precipice. "Ah, sure," said the old shepherd, who was watching his fold on the mountain-side, "the fairies are at their gambols, master, for they sometimes do play at bowls with these chalk stones." Such was his explanation; but, on my gaining another ridge of the Brecon Beacon, I startled a whole herd of these fairies, who scudded off as fast as their legs could carry them, having first changed themselves into a flock of sheep.

There was once a caravan journeying from Nubia to Cairo, which met the savans attending on the expedition of Napoleon into Egypt, among whom was Rigo the painter. Struck with the deep character of expression in the face of one of the Nubians, Rigo induced him, with gold, to sit for his portrait. The African sat calmly perusing its progress until the laying on of the colours, when, with a cry of terror, he rushed from the house, and to his awe-struck companions affirmed that his head and half his body had been cut off by an enchanter.

And this impression was not solitary, for an assemblage of the Nubians were equally terror-struck, and (somewhat like those monomaniacs who refuse to drink water which reflects their faces, believing that they are swallowing their friends), could never be dispossessed of the notion that the picture was formed of the loppings and toppings of the human frame.

We believe these influences the more, because we see that, even to some few men wiser than they, a leaning to superstition will warp a single fact into a wonder; and that mere sensitiveness of mind may work as great a fear.

Suetonius tells us that Caligula and Augustus were the most abject cowards in a thunder-storm ; and the Bishop of Langres, D'Escaro, fell in a fainting-fit whenever an eclipse took place, a weakness which at length proved his death.

There was an old house in Angoulême, the "Chateau du Diable," on the spot where the sable fiend was wont to repair to enjoy his moonlight walk. The house was never finished, for the devil, jealous of his usurpation, like Michael Scott's spirit, destroyed every night the walls which had been erected during the day. At length the men abandoned their work in despair. On the twenty-fifth night in May (1840) the ruined windows seemed on an instant in brilliant illumination, which struck the inhabitants of the little village of." Petit-Rochford" with wonder and dismay. Some dauntless heroes, however, sallied forth with weapons to storm the enchanted castle. In an upper room, lighted by eight blood-red wax candles, they discovered a man of a strange and melancholy aspect tracing cabalistic figures on the sanded floor. He was conveyed to the maire, and was proved to be a poor sawyer named Favreau, who, bound by a superstitious oath,

self administered, had thus created a sensation of terror throughout a whole community.

In the records of the Harleian Miscellany, the curious reader may discover one which might impress his mind with some terrific ideas of the natural history of the south of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is styled "The True and Wonderful." The portion of the MSS. to which I allude is the "Legend of the Serpent of St. Leonard's Forest." This terrific legend of my own native town was a favourite of my boyish days it has moulted some feather of its once awful interest, and is now but the shadow of a memory; and those who were once converts to its reality now laugh the legend to scorn.

ILLUSIONS OF ART.

"If in Naples

I should report this now, would they believe me?"— Tempest.

Ev. The science of chemistry has unfolded most of the secrets of material miracles, as Psychology those of the intellect and senses.

Not that I would attempt thus to explain your wonders of Palingenesy, Astrophel; I will rather favour you with another batch, for I was once fond of unkennelling these sly foxes.

It is solemnly attested by the noble secretary of a Duke of Guise, that, in company with many scientific men, he saw the face of a person in his blood, which had been given by a bishop, for experiment, to La Pierre, the chemist of Le Temple, near Paris.

There is an old book of one Dr. Garmann, “ De Miraculis Mortuorum," and thus he writes: "When human salt, extracted and depurated from the scull

of a man, was placed in a water-dish, there appeared next morning in the mass figures of men fixed to a cross ;" and "when human sculls, on which mosses had vegetated, were pounded, the family of the apothecary who pounded them were alarmed in the night by strange and terrific noises from the chamber."

The body of the Cid, Ruy Diaz, as we read in Heywood's "Hierarchie," sat in state at the altar of the Cathedral at Toledo for ten years. A Jew one day attempted, in derision, to pull him by the beard; but on the first touch the Cid started up, and, in high resentment, scared the Israelite away by the unsheathing of his mighty sword. And Master Planche has brought you legends from the church of Maria Taferl in Lower Austria, and other noted spots on the Danube.

When Bernini's bust of Charles I. was being conveyed in a barge on the Thames, from a strange bird there descended a drop of blood on the bust, which could never be effaced.

This is nothing but a fact in nature mystified, and (like the growth of the Christmas floweringthorn of Glastonbury from the walking-staff of Joseph of Arimathea) is too glaring to be misconstrued.

Other of these blood miracles are still more easy of solution. The blood spots from David Rizzio are shown to this day in Holyrood; and it was believed that after the Irish massacre, the blood of the victims then slain on Portnedown Bridge has indelibly stained its battlements. But these spots are nothing but the brown vegetative stains which geology has discovered on many fossils.

Now listen to Father Gregory of Tours: "A thief was committing sacrilege at the tomb of Saint Helius, when the saint caught him by the skirt,

and held him fast." Probably his garment hitched on a nail. Another old man, while removing a stone from the grave of a saint, was in a moment struck blind, dumb, and deaf. Probably the mephitic gases exhaling from the tomb were the source of all this mystery.

Then, as to the impositions of the priesthood: In Naples was the blood of Saint Januarius concealed in a vial, and on certain solemn days this so-called blood really became liquefied; but it was effected secretly by chemical means; and, I remember, the archbishop who confessed the secret to the French general Championet was exiled by the Vatican.

In the reign of Henry VIII., too (I quote from Hume), other bloody secrets of this sort were unfolded. "At Hales, in the county of Gloucester, there had been shown during several ages the blood of Christ brought from Jerusalem; and it is easy to imagine the veneration with which such a relic was regarded. A miraculous circumstance also attended this relic. The sacred blood was

not visible to any one in mortal sin, even when set before him; and, till he had performed good works sufficient for his absolution, it would not deign to discover itself to him. At the dissolution of the monastery the whole contrivance was detected. Two of the monks, who were let into the secret, had taken the blood of a duck, which they renewed every week; they put it in a vial, one side of which consisted of thin and transparent crystal, the other of thick and opaque. When any rich pilgrim arrived, they were sure to show him the dark side of the vial till masses and offerings had expiated his offences, and then, finding his money, or patience, or faith nearly exhausted, they made him happy by turning the vial."

But there is no end to relics in Italy. Even two