single combat, for tournaments and blazonry; institutions which were to operate with an influence not less important than extensive. And, in the same distant antiquity, we meet the source of that gallantry and devotion, which were to mount them to so wild a height. To the women, while he was yet in his woods, the German behaved with respect and observance. He was careful to deserve their approbation; and they kept alive in his mind the fire of liberty and the sense of honour. By example, as well as exhortation, they encouraged his elevation of sentiment and his valour. When the Teutones were defeated by Marius, their women sent a deputation to that commander, to require that their chastity might be exempted from violation, and that they might not be degraded to the condition of slaves. He refused their request; and, on ap proaching their encampment, he learned, that they had first stabbed their infants, and had then turned their daggers against themselves. To some German women taken in war, Caracalla having offered the alternative of being sold or put to the sword, they unanimously made choice of death. He ordered them, notwithstanding, to be led out to the market. The disgrace was insupportable; and, in this extremity, they knew how to preserve their liberty, and to die. It was amidst this fierceness and independency, that gallantry and the point of honour grew and prospered. It was the reproach of these women, which, on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, filled the coward with the bitterest sorrow, and stained him with the most indelible infamy. It was their praise which communicated to the brave the liveliest joy and the most lasting reputation.

These notions did not perish when the Germans had made conquests. The change of air and of situation did not enfeeble this spirit. The women were still the judges of personal merit; and to some distinguished female did the valorous knight ascribe the glory of his achievements. Her smile and approbation he con

sidered as the most precious recompense; and, to obtain them, he plunged into danger, and covered himself with dust and with blood.

Nor were arms and the attachment to women the only features of importance in the character of the German. Religion, which, in every age and in every nation, gives rise to so many customs, mingled itself in all his transactions. He adored an invisible Being, to whom he ascribed infinite knowledge, justice, and power. To profit by his knowledge, he applied to divination; to draw advantage from his justice, he made appeals to his judgment; and to acquire, in some degree, his power, he had recourse to incantation and magic. The elements and the visible parts of nature he conceived, at the same time, to be the residence of subordinate Divinities, who, though the instruments only of the agency of the supreme intelligence, had a great superiority over men, and were entitled to their attention and reverence. Every tree and every fountain had its genius; the air, the woods, the water, had their spirits. When he made a step, or looked around him, he felt an impulse of awe and of devotion. His anxiety, his amazement, his curiosity, his hope, and his terror, were every moment excited. The most ample scope was afforded by this theology for the marvellous. Every thing, common as well as singular, was imputed to supernatural agents. Elves, fairies, sprights, magicians, dwarfs, enchanters, and giants, arose. But, while the lesser divinities of these nations attracted notice, it was to the supreme intelligence that the most sincere and the most flattering worship was directed; and this god, amidst the general cares which employed him, found leisure to attend more particularly to war, and valued his votary in proportion to his courage. Thus religion and love came to inflame, and not to soften the ferocity of the German. His sword gained to him the affection of his mistress, and conciliated the favour of his deity. The last was even fond of obeying the call of the valiant; he appeared to them in battle, and fought by their side. Devotion, of con

sequence, was not less meritorious than love or than valour. Christianity did not abolish this usage; it descended to the middle ages; and to love God and the ladies was the first lesson of chivalry.

But, though arms, gallantry, and devotion, produced the institution of chivalry, and formed its manners, it is not to be fancied that they operated these effects in a moment; and that, immediately on the settlements of the barbarians, this fabric was erected. The con querors of Rome continued to feel and to practise in its provinces the instincts, the passions, and the usages to which they had been accustomed in their original feats. They were to be active and strenuous, without perceiving the lengths to which they would be carried. They were to build, without knowing it, a most magnificent structure. Out of the impulse of their passions, the institutions of chivalry were gradually to form themselves. The passion for arms, the spirit of gallantry and of devotion, which so many writers pronounce to be the genuine offspring of these wild affectations, were in fact their source; and it happened, by a natural consequence, that, for a time, the ceremonies and the usages produced by them, encouraged their importance, and added to their strength. The steps which marked their progress served to foster their spirit; and to the manners of ages, which we too often despise as rude and ignoble, not to political reflection or legislative wisdom, is that system to be ascribed, which was to act so long and so powerfully in society, and to produce infinite advantage and infinite calamity. H. J.

THE IDOL.

WHATEVER passes as a cloud between
The mental eye of faith, and things unseen,
Causing that brighter world to disappear,
Or seem less lovely, and its hope less dear;
This is our world, our idol, though it bear
Affection's impress or devotion's air!

THE STORM.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime,

Dark-heaving ;-boundless, endless, and sublime-
The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

Childe Harold, Canto IV. Stanza 183.

THERE is a degree of sublimity and grandeur in a storm at sea, whether viewed on old ocean's realm,' or from the 'sullen strand,' greater, perhaps, than any other spectacle afforded by the jarring and wild convulsion of Nature's warring elements. A furious hurricane on land, it is true, oftentimes levels the dwellings of men to the ground, and tears up majestic and venerable trees, that have perhaps braved the storms of ages long gone by, but still it is rarely accompanied with such awful and direful casualties as occur invariably after a storm on the iron-bound shores of Britain's 'seagirt isle,' and therefore does not present to the eye of the spectator a picture fraught with such a fearful and internal interest, as the view of a tempest upon the former element. I am induced to make these remarks, from my own feelings at such a period; not that I ever was a personal sufferer from the dark blue ocean' when lashed to madness by the blast's dread onset," but I have been such a frequent witness to the disastrous effects produced by the violent gales which prevail on the western shores of this island, and which annually cause such great destruction both of life and property, that what I have advanced will find accordance in every sensitive and humane mind.

Having thus far premised, I shall now proceed to narrate the following account of a violent gale and melancholy shipwreck which occurred upon the south western coast, and of which I was an eye witness. The month of November 18-, commenced with gloomy and windy weather, but still without sufficient

violence to constitute what is termed by mariners 'a stiff gale.' Towards the middle of the month, the weather, far from clearing up, became more and more boisterous, and several experienced seamen who belonged to the little fishing village in which I was then residing, predicted, from certain appearances in the eye of the wind,' a violent storm. I remember well that on the evening preceding the gale, or rather that on which it commenced, as I took my usual walk upon the sea-shore, my attention was arrested by the angry appearance of the heavens, and the sullen and mournful sound which passed over the surface of the waters, and there was a white foam which crested the tops of the billows-an infallible sign, as I have been informed, of approaching rough weather. The clouds were rapidly scudding over the face of the sky; the sun-set was of that watery and sickly hue which is common at that season of the year, and the numerous seafowl were skimming over the surface of the wild and yeasty waves with those foreboding screams which sound dismally upon the ear in the pauses of the rushing blast. Yet the scene was congenial at the time to my feelings and habits, and I felt with Byron thatThere is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar which succeeding events have not hitherto been able altogether to obliterate.

The land on this part of the coast is defended from the encroachments of the sea by perpendicular rocks of limestone, in such regular horizontal strata, as to resemble the mouldering walls of a ruined fortress. Against this impenetrable barrier, the ocean, when under the exciting influence of a brisk gale, beats with tremendous violence. The tide, which recedes from the rocks perhaps a hundred and fifty yards, affording the solitary passenger access to the beach at that period, had just begun to make, preceded by short and angry little breakers, which the shallowness of the