And o'er the plain there ranged free
Of beasts both wild and tame;
In merry gambols there they play'd
Full many a lusty game.

The meadows there so lovely seem'd,
The flowers bloom'd so fair,

Certes, the lord who rul'd that plain,
Could know nor woe nor care.

The traditional tales of the Hartz have continual reference to the same dissensions between rival nations of different stature. Its wilds and mountain-fastnesses, even the existing names of places, are every where associated with tales of wars, conducted against inferior tribes, of their conquest and lingering resistance, their predatory incursions on the possessions of their triumphant enemies, and in the end, their total expulsion or extermination. Concealment in rocks and woods became the only protection of the vanquished party, and poetic fancy, as well as popular superstition, added the assistance of the tarn or nebel-cap, to shield the little warrior at times from the superior physical force of his opponent. This expedient reduced the attacked party to the necessity of playing a serious game of blindman's-buff with his enemy, till, by some chance, he could displace the magical covering, and make caption of the convicted plunderer.

The following tale contains the current account of the final expulsion of the little marauders:

"Yonder holes in the rocks, on the south side of the Hartz, were formerly inhabited by the dwarfs; and are, on that account, called dwarf-holes. In general, they are so low and narrow, that full-grown men could only enter them by creeping on all-fours; but some have large roomy dwelling places within, capable of holding many persons. Between Walkenried and Neuhof, two large tribes of these dwarfs once dwelt. An inhabitant of those parts observed that his fruit and vegetables disappeared every night, but who was the thief he could by no means discover. At last he went to take counsel of a wise woman; and, by her advice, began late one evening to beat about in all directions in the air, over his pea-field, with a long pole. It was not long before several of the dwarfs stood before him in their proper figures; for he had knocked off the nebel-caps, which had till then made them invisible. The culprits fell trembling before him, and confessed themselves guilty of having been in the habit of robbing the fields, which they said hunger compelled them to resort to for subsistence.

"The story of the prisoners soon put the whole neighbourhood in commotion. The dwarfs at last, sent ambassadors to beg for the release of their brethren, promising in return, to quit the country for ever. This was soon settled; but the mode of taking their departure gave rise to much dispute. The farmers would not allow them to go off with all their plunder, and the dwarfs refused to be visible at their departure. At last it was agreed, that they should go over a little bridge, that led to Neuhof; that each of them, as he passed, should

throw into a large vessel, to be set for the purpose, a certain part of his property, as a toll for free passage, but that none of the farmers should be present. And so it was arranged; but some curious folks hid themselves under the bridge, that they might hear the dwarfs go For many hours they heard nothing but the trampling of the little men, and it seemed just as if a great flock of sheep passed over the bridge. Since that time, only here and there one of these little animals has been seen; but every now and then, one of them has made his appearance from the holes of the mountains, and played mischievous pranks, such as stealing into the neighbouring houses and leaving changelings in the place of the infant children whom he chooses to carry off."

The German antiquarians are convinced that these stories are founded on historic fact. It is certain, that many of the Gothic tribes were of very large stature and strong muscular power, while other nations, such as the Huns, for instance, are represented as remarkable for natural inferiority, though in reality the difference was in no case very great. Cæsar mentions the jeers of the Gauls at the inferior stature of the Romans, who must at any rate, have reached within a very few inches of their enemies' standard. But conquest everywhere created a disposition to insult and disparage the vanquished, and in this way we see more than one art employed to exalt the victor. In old drawings, the personages intended to be honoured, are exhibited as towering in size above the humiliated, and the captive Wittekin scarcely reaches above the knees of his conqueror Charlemagne. The nature of the combats, moreover, which are recorded between the rival races, proves strongly their natural origin: with all the pretended disparity of bodily power, the parties fight with apparently equal success, and with the same weapons, if we except the occasional use of the nebel-cap; whereas, if the whole had been a fiction of the imagination, each would have been endued with attributes and weapons suitable to his peculiar rank and character in the scale of beings.

We shall not here weary our readers, by entering into the historical questions arising out of these records of the revolutions of nationsthat part of the subject is chiefly interesting to the local investigator, and, so far as it is connected with the ancient inhabitants of the Hartz, has been ingeniously handled by Otmar, in whose hands we leave it to be decided, whether the Celts, the Huns, the Suevi, the Sclavi, or Vendi, (to which latter people his opinion, strengthened by several etymological coincidences, inclines) are the warriors whose fair proportions are thus curtailed and libelled by their spoilers.

Any view, after all, is, in the opinion of some of the far-sighted too confined, which does not carry the eye of the inquirer to a far more remote period; for undoubtedly the traditions may mount much higher, and savour of the themes of those songs which record the battles (at the first irruptions of the followers of Odin into Europe) with those giant tribes, whose lineal descent Angrim Jonas, thinks he has successfully traced to the Canaanites flying from the conquering arm of Joshua.

The hero of the following tale (which gives the popular account of the formation of an immense mark or cavity in a rock, called the "Ross-trappe" or "Horse's footstep,") is worthy of being enrolled among Odin's Berserker:

"More than a thousand years ago, all the country about the Hartz was inhabited by giants, who were heathens and sorcerers. They knew no joy but in murder and rapine. If all other weapons failed them, they would tear up oaks of sixty years' growth and fight with them. Whoever came in their way fell beneath their clubs, and all the women whom they could seize were carried off to wait upon their pleasure day and night.

"One of these giants, called Bohdo, who was immensely huge and powerful, spread terror through all the land. Before him trembled all the giants, both among the Bohemians and Franks. But Emma, the daughter of the King of the Riesen-gebirge [the Giant-mountains], would not yield to the suit which he urged. Neither strength nor cunning availed, for she was in league with a powerful spirit. One day, Bohdo beheld his beloved hunting at a distance on the mountains; he saddled his courser, which sprang over the plains at the rate of a mile in a minute, and swore by all the spirits of hell, to reach her this time or perish. He rushed on swift as the hawk flies, and had nearly overtaken her before she perceived that her enemy pursued her; when at the distance of two miles, she knew her enemy by the gate of a plundered town which he bore as a shield. Then spurred she swiftly her horse, and it flew from hill to hill, from rock to rock, over marshes, and through woods, till the trees of the forest cracked like stubble under its feet. Thus passed she over Thuringia and came to the mountains of the Hartz. Öften did she hear, some miles behind her, the snorting of Bohdo's steed, and goaded on her own courser to new exertions.

"At length it came panting to the brink of the precipice, which is now called, the Devil's Dancing-place, from the triumph there of the spirits of hell. Emma looked down in horror, and her horse trembled, for the rock stood like a tower more than a thousand feet over the abyss below. From beneath, was faintly heard the rushing of the stream in the valley, which here curled itself into a frightful whirlpool. Above it, on the opposite side, rose another shelf of rock, which seemed scarcely wide enough to receive the fore-foot of her steed. Awhile she stood amazed and doubtful. Behind rushed the enemy more hateful to her than death; before lay the abyss, which seemed yawning to her destruction. Again she heard the snorting of her pursuer's horse, and in the terror of her heart, she cried to the spirits of her fathers for help, and reckless plunged her ell-long spurs into her courser's flank.

"And it sprang! sprang over the abyss of a thousand feet, reached happily the rocky shelf, and drove its hoof four feet deep into the hard stone, till the sparks of fire flew like lightning around. There is the footstep still! Time has not bated ought of its depth, and no rain shall wear away the track.-Emma was saved! but her royal crown of gold fell, during the leap, from her head into the abyss below. Bohdo saw

only his Emma, and thought not of the precipice; he sprang after her with his war-horse, and plunged into the whirpool which still bears his There, changed into a black hound, he watches the Princess's crown, that no one may draw it from the gulph.

name.

"A diver was once induced, by large promises, to make the attempt --he plunged in, found the crown, and drew it up till the assembled crowd beheld the golden points.-Twice the burden escaped from his hands, and the people cried to him to renew the attack. He did so, and a stream of blood tinged the pool, but the diver came up no more, "The wanderer passes through that vale with chilly horror, for clouds and darkness hang around it, and the stillness of death broods over the abyss-no bird wings its way over, and in the dead of night the hollow bellowing of the heathen dog is often heard in the distance."

SNUFF-TAKING.

"When they talked of their Raphaels, Corregios, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff."

I often take a pinch myself-and though I never yet have carried a box, I know enough of the human nose and its tendency after long indulgence, to exact as a matter of right what was originally granted as a favour, to make great allowances for those who do; I can, therefore, fully sympathise in the feelings of a numerous and respectable portion of the community, who complain with some indignation, of the uncharitable attack upon their private habits in a late Number of the New Monthly.* Certain epithets, altogether unworthy a civilized Journal, are there levelled at a very antient and harmless custom; and though backed by the authority of an English peer, bear unequivocal marks of that radical spirit, which, as far as a hatred of tobacco is concerned, cannot be too vehemently reprobated. But let not the writer flatter himself, that Rappee and High Toast are so easily put down. He may denounce our noses as "dust-holes" if he willbut what precious dust!-what an aider of thought-what a solamen curarum-what a helpmate of existence, Biù dowyn as Plato said of the olive!-what a soother of irritability, as Sir Joshua found it. Let this anti-nasal declaimer just step into Messrs. Fribourg and Pontets, and he'll soon see, in the formidable array of robust and well-battalioned jars, what an unequal contest he has undertaken to wage against one of the most popular usages of his country-jars containing every modification of sternulatory materials, collected from every quarter of the globe, and sanctioned, many of them, in emblazoned characters, by the highest names in Europe, from Hardham's No. 37, for rough sneezers, down to the delicate and costly Maccabau, whose essence is so subtle and per

Article on Noses.

vading, that, like Desdemona's charms, it makes the "senses ache" with exuberance of delight. There is Martinique, pungent, aromatic, and best after dinner; Masulapatam, its name and odour transporting the fancy to the gorgeous East; French Bureau, every grain of which gives a man a feel of business; The King of Prussia's, compounded from Frederick's receipt, expressly for heroes and statesmen ; Fine Spanish, with which Bonaparte gained all his victories; Mr. Vansittart's, usually called for by writers and readers of plans for paying off the National Debt; Violet and a-la-Rose, for noviciates and dandies-and, above all, the inimitable Lundy Foot, that master-spirit in sneezing matters, whose single genius has done more for the human nose than the combined discoveries of every preceding tobacconist or amateur, and whose name, though he now is "laid in dust," flourishes, and will flourish, as long as the world shall keep in view that cardinal maxim, to establish which his life was devoted-that snuff in its perfection should be taken dry. Nor let it be supposed, that these and the many others I might enumerate, operate solely as physical excitants; no, the imagination comes in for its full share of the enjoyment. When we take a pinch for instance, of Napoleon's favourite, (fine Spanish above-mentioned,) how soul-stirring to feel that we are doing precisely what the hero himself did after the battle of Marengo. Again, what a fund of delicious association is thrown in, without any extra charge, in a fresh canister of Wellington's, or Lord Petersham's-what a conscious community of tastes!-what a grateful levelling of distinctions, without disturbing the public peace, or Mr. Birnie! How cheering to our selflove to reflect that, however exalted above us these great men may be in other respects, their nostrils fare no better than our own. Let the libeller of noses think of this, and pause before he renews his unseemly vituperation. Let him further consider, that his invectives directly tend to bring into contempt some very venerable ceremonies, adopted after mature deliberation, for civic and state occasions, where, while the other senses are disregarded, we see the pleasures of the nose selected as most worthy of public favour and princely countenance. Who, for example, ever heard of the freedom of a city being presented in a splendid fiddle-case? or a foreign ambassador, on the eve of departure, requested to accept, as an especial mark of Royal approbation, a valuable soup-ladle, or a beautifully wrought cork-screw?-No such thing; the bare idea excites derision; but for ages past, both in England and other European states, the snuff-box has been the favoured vehicle of privilege and honour; and it requires little argument to shew, that a preference so long established and acquiesced in, must have solid reasons on its side, that cannot now be shaken by all the sophistries of ridicule or abuse. I once asked an ingenious friend, "how the organ of smelling had contrived to come in for all this honour ?"