lorn situation, plunges into the deep, where she is hospitably received by the undinas, whose palace and empire are magnificently described.

L'Amant Salamandre is the story of an interest ed governess, who resolves to bring her pupil, a young lady of beauty and fortune, into a situation which will compel her to form an unequal alliance with the son of her governess. With this view she leads her to despise the human species, and to sigh for beings of a superior order, as alone worthy of her virtues and accomplishments. Her thoughts are thus turned towards an intercourse e with ele mentary beings, and her ruin is finally accomplished by the introduction of the young man, invested with the imposing attributes of a salamander.

Les Lutins de Chateau de Kernosy is the work of Madame Murat, so well known by her fairy tales. The enchantments here, also, are fictitious, and performed by pretended magicians in order to accomplisli their purpose. Two lovers, in order to facilitate their introduction into a castle inhabited by their mistresses, contrive to pass for elementary spirits, deceive the vigilance of a severe and an tiquated duenna, and get rid of their rivals, who are two awkward and credulous rustics.

Herodotus, the father of history, tells us of men

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who at particular seasons changed themselves into wolves. Solinus also mentions a people of Istria who possessed the same enviable privilege, The notion, doubtless, had its foundation in the imposition of pretended sorcerers, who laid claim to a power of effecting this transformation, and perhaps, to aid the deception, disguised themselves in wolves' skins. The belief, however, in this faculty, left a name behind it in every country of Europe. He who enjoyed it was called Garwalf by the Normans, and Bisclaveret by the Bretons, which is the name of one of the Armorican lays of Marie. It contains the story of a baron, whose wife perceiving that her husband was invariably absent during three days of the week, interrogated him so closely on the cause of his periodical disappearance, that she at length reduced him to the mortifying acknowledgment that during one half of the week he prowled as a bisclaveret, and she also extracted from him a secret, which enabled her to confirm his metamorphosis. From a passage in the Origines Gauloises by La Tour d'Auvergne, it would appear that a belief in this species of transformation continued long in Britany. Dans l'opinion des Bretons, ces memes hommes se revetent, pendant la nuit, de peaux de

-Loups, et en prennent quelquefois la forme, pour -sé trover a des assembleés ou le demon est sup-posé presider. Ce que l'on dit ici des deguisements et des courses nocturnes de ces pretendus hommes loups, dont l' espece n'est pas encore entierement eteinte dans l' ancienne Armorique, nous rapelle ce que l'histoire rapporte des Lycantrophes d' Irlande. In Ireland, indeed, this superstition probably subsisted longer than in any other country. "In some parts of France," says Sir William Temple in his Miscellanea, “the common people once believed certainly there were Lougaroos, or men turned into wolves; and I remember several Irish of the same mind."

Under this name of Loups-Garoux, those persons who enjoyed this agreeable faculty have been introduced into several French tales, and other works of fiction, during the period on which we are now employed. These productions have been very happily ridiculed in L'Histoire des Imaginations de M. Oufle, by the Abbé Bardelon. This work is partly written on the model of Don Quixote, and contains the story of a credulous and indolent man, who, having read nothing but marvellous tales, believes, at length, in the existence of sorcerers, demons, and loups-garoux. He first imagines that

he is persecuted by a spirit, then alternately fancies himself a magician and loup-garou, and devotes his time to the discovery of a mode of penetrating into the thoughts of men, and attracting the affections of women.

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CHAPTER XIV.

Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the English Novel.-Serious.-Comic.-Romantic. Conclusion

IT will have been remarked, that the account of the modern French tales and novels has been much less minute than the analysis of those fictitious his. tories by which they were preceded. To this com pression of the subject, I have been led partly by: the variety, and partly by the notoriety of the more recent productions. In the early periods of literature, works of fiction were rare, and thus it was comparatively easy to enumerate and analyze them. But during last century, the number of fic. titious writings, both in France and England, was so great, that as full an account of them as of those of former times, would occupy many volumes. Such analysis is likewise the less necessary or