and to loose the bann, you must call on St. John. It is equally effective, to cry out upon seeing a thief making off, "On our Lord God his grave, three lilies wave; the first is God's high word, the second is his blood; the third is his will, so thief stand thou still." If the goods are gone, it is likely that you will wish them back again. This then is what you have to do. You must go in a morning before the sun is up to a juniper bush, bend it towards the east with the left hand, and say, "Juniper bush, I bend thee and oppress thee, till the thief brings the stolen goods back." You must then take a stone and lay it on the bush, and on it the skull of a sinner † † † (here you cross yourself thrice). As soon as the thief has brought the goods, you must give especial heed to lay the stone back in the place where you picked it up. Of the sinner's skull, the form says nothing further. As, however, juniper bushes may not be so plentiful as thieves in some places, there is another remedy for you. You have only then to go to a pear-tree, taking three nails out of a coffin, or three horse-shoe nails quite new, and smeared with the fat of a malefactor. Hold the nails towards the east, and say, "O thief, I thee by the first nail constrain, which I strike into thy forehead and brain; by the second through liver and lungs; by the third through thy foot; thy wrongs, with the pains of Judas, Pilot, and hell, shall follow where thou goest, and well, torment thee in foot, and liver, and brain, till the goods thou hast stolen, thou restore again."

These valuable recipes are worth knowing to the Associations for the Prosecution of Felons. They must save them much in advertising, and rewards for discovery, and by-the-by, offer infinite advantages over prosecutions in our courts, where you get heavy lawyers' fees, but seldom your goods again. Here you have the goods and save your costs. But the comforts of this Catholic faith are infinite, and if the English once become aware of a tithe of them, O'Connell will certainly yet live to see high mass in Westminster Abbey. In this one little book you have remedies for all mortal evils. If you want always to win at play, you have only to bind on the arm with which you throw, the heart of a bat with red silk. There are forms for you against all-shooting, cutting and maiming, housebreaking, robbery, murder; against all evils that can happen to your cattle. You can bless your gun, by "Christ's

five wounds good, and his rose-coloured blood," so that it shall always kill, and you can bind off anybody from killing your game. You may so cut a stick, saying the proper formula at the time, that it will thrash your enemy let him be where he will, and as far off as he will. You can compel a Judge to judge your cause aright; no trifling matter. You can stop the most inveterate bleeding by writing the names of the four rivers of Paradise-Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Phrat; and laying them in the first book of Moses, second chapter, and verses 11, 12, 13, and 14. To bless weapons and make them invincible you must call on the three kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazer; the archangel St. Uriel; the Twelve Patriarchs; the whole host of heaven, and the saints who are numberless; concluding this extensive, but invaluable invocation, which probably was the secret of all Buonaparte's wonderful success, with these words-Sapa. R. tam. Tetragammaten Angeli. Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judeorum.

Such are the contents of the books which at this day are bought, read, and believed, by the Catholic peasantry of Germany. Who shall, after this, fear the education of the people, for all these people are taught in the national schools? Kerner, who has gone amongst the people as their doctor, and is particularly interested in these things, says that nothing has surprised him so much as the firm faith still of the German peasantry in everything belonging to witchcraft, appearances of the devil, and belief in hidden treasures. Even in villages newly settled, this last point of belief is singularly as strong as in the oldest ones.

Besides these books, are plenty of "Dream-books," "Books of Fate," "Fortune-telling Books, by pricking with a Pin;" "Egyptian Secrets for Man and Beast;" "Love-letter Writers for both Sexes," etc. They have scores of cheap little books, such as "The Invaluable Lock in the African Cave Xaxa;" the "History of Dr. Faustus;" "Dead Laughter," a German Joe Miller; "Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew;" "The Three Miller's Daughters," a dreadful Blue-Beard story; "The Atrocities of the Turks against the Greeks;" "The Wars of Buonaparte," equally popular; "Schinderhannes the Robber," etc. etc.

With such wild, dismal, and dreadful stories, do the German Bauers amuse their long winter evenings. But besides these they

have a class of a much higher character. Stories which have come down from the good old times of simplest faith and chivalrous adventure, and which, while they are as romantic as possible, are full of a fine poetry, and of exalted sentiments. Such are "The History of Griseldis and the Mark-Graf Walther;" the Patient Grizel of Bocaccio and Chaucer; "The Holy Genoveva;" "The Emperor Octavianus;" "Fortunatus with his Cap;" "The Horned Siegfried;" "Tristan and Isalde;" "The Beautiful Melusina,” a sea wonder, and the daughter of King Helmas; "The Fair Magelona;" "The Four Heymon's Children;""Roland's Three Pages;" "Schneeweisschen," etc. etc. So beautiful are these old stories, that Tieck, Immermann, and others, have re-written many of them, but the people still prefer their old versions. Not only they, but children of all ranks, read them with the utmost enthusiasm, and you may see the faces of grave and learned professors kindled with great animation as they recal the rapture with which they used to read of the Four Heymon's Children riding forth on the good horse Beyard; of the trials of Genoveva, or Griseldis; how Octavianus avenged himself on the traitor who brought so much trouble on his empress and his children; or how Peter with the silver keys, after all his wanderings and adventures, won his beautiful and good Magelona, and lived long with her, as the noble Graf of Provence.*

When the simple people have wept and wondered enough over

Stilling, in his Life, describes the effect which these books had upon his imagination, and it is easy to see in the plentiful feeding of the minds of the German children with all this mass of Romances, Sagas, and Märchen, the origin of the dreaming, idealizing, and compared with the English, less matter-of-fact character of the German. Stilling was allowed to read pleasant histories, easily comprehended by a child, as The Emperor Octavianus with his Wife and Sons,'‹The Beautiful Melusina,' and the like. Hence came it that his whole soul began to entertain itself with idealities; his imagination was excited; the heroes of old with their overcharged virtues became his models, and crimes inspired him with abhorrence. In the orchard, and a strip of wood adjoining, where he daily played in fine weather, he created utterly ideal scenes. There was an Egyptian wilderness; a bush was exalted into a cave, where he represented St. Anthony, and prayed enthusiastically. In one part of this imaginary region was the Well of Melusina; there was Turkey, where the Sultan and his daughter, the lovely Marcibilla lived; there the castle of Montalban, in which dwelt Reinhold, etc. To these places he made daily pilgrimages; no creature can imagine the pleasure he enjoyed. His spirit flowed over; he stammered forth rhymes and had poetical fits. This life continued till his tenth year." pp. 66-7.

these, they read others over which to laugh. "Tyll Eulenspiegel," or as in our old translation, "Howler-glass," the mischievous wag who puts the whole country into confusion by taking every one literally at their word; "Renard the Fox;" "The Seven Swabians," a good-humoured quiz on Swabian simplicity; "The Schildburgers," the story which we have naturalized as "The Wise Men of Gotham." A new and much handsomer edition of these is now publishing, more, however, for the general reader than for the Bauers.

These, with "Tales of Giants," "Henry the Lion," "Hirlanda," "Helena," "Joachim and Anna," "Duke Ernest," and others as romantic; with their Legends, Sagas, and Märchen innumerable, are the people's literature of Germany. They certainly form a striking contrast to what is circulated amongst the people in England, and we doubt whether the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge would not awfully shake its head at them. They belong, however, to the history and genius of the people, who find enough of the dry and common-place in their daily labour, and certainly spread a simple, high, and unworldly feeling amongst them, if they do nothing more. To all those who have augured the most astonishing revolutions from the general education of a people, they present a subject of curious cogitation.

CHAPTER XXI.

RELIGION.

Ach! Lieb und Treu ist hin, die Gottesfurcht erkaltet,
Der Glaub ist abgethan, Beständigkeit veraltet.

JOHANNES RISt, 1667.

Ah! love and truth are gone, the fear of God waxed cold,
Faith is worn fairly out, and stedfastness grown old.

THERE is nothing in Germany which surprises an Englishman more, or is less satisfactory to him, than the state of religion. One is not prepared to find the sober, domestic, imaginative, and philosophical Germans like the light, and by their philosophers unchristianized, French, comparatively little regardless of the decorum of keeping the Sabbath. But the first things which strike us are the open shops, the mechanics at work, and the crowded theatres, public-houses, and dancing-rooms. Shops, though not generally kept open, are so in most towns; in some more, in some less; in some to a very great extent. This is neither religious nor philosophical, for a Sunday, as a day of rest and relaxation, is one of the most wise and salutary of institutions, independent of religion, which can possibly be adopted, and of which every labouring creature ought to have the benefit. But, besides in shops, a great deal of work goes on. Painters and joiners you find very soberly at work in the houses. A great number of tradesmen seem to choose this day especially for sending out all sorts of things for your approbation, particularly parcels of books; and in company, ladies are as busy with their knitting as ever. Theatres on those days give their best pieces, and dancing-saloons and public-houses are crowded to excess.