her through the intervention of Diliana, the daughter of Jebit Bork-the beautiful Diliana, whose name is borne by no second on earth,” and who "is unequalled in goodness, piety, humility, chastity, and courage." The damsel immediately appears, and becomes thenceforward the heroine of the story. Diliana is the granddaughter of Clara Von Dewitz, and a more lovely creation has rarely graced the pages of fiction. She is the redeeming virtue of the book-amid the coarse barbarisms, vulgarity, and superstition of the times-amid witchcraft and wickedness, she passes on, a second Una.

"So pure and innocent,

She was in life and every virtuous lore." In Diliana's interview with the Duke and the Magister, our author sets forth some of his peculiar tenets :

"At last Diliana exclaimed eagerly

"Ah! can it be possible to speak with the blessed angels, as the evil women speak with the devil? In truth, I would like to see an angel.'

"At this the Duke looked significantly at the Magister, who immediately advanced, and began to explain the opus magicum et theurgicum to the maiden, as follows

"You know, fair young virgin, that our Saviour saith of the innocent children: Their angels always see the face of my Father, which is in heaven.' (Matt. xviii.) Item, St. Paul, (Heb. i.): Are not the angels ministering spirits, sent forth for the service of those who are heirs of salvation"? This is no new doctrine, but one as old as the world. For you know further that Adam, Noah, the holy patriarchs, the prophets, &c., talked with angels, because their faith was great. Item, you know that, even in the New Testament, angels were stated to have appeared and talked with men; but later still, during the papal times even, the angels of God appeared to divers persons, as was well known, and of their own free will. For they did not always appear of free will; and therefore, from the beginning, conjurations were employed to compel them, and fragments of those have come down to us ex traditione, as we Magistri say, from the time of Shem, the son of Noah, who revealed them to his son Misraim; and so, from son to son, they have reached to our day, and are still powerful.'

of the field, and birds, and creeping things by the name which he gave unto them, that is, by the word. (Gen. ii.) This power, too, the word of Noah possessed, and by it he drew the beasts into the ark (Gen. vii.), for we do not read that he drave them, which would be necessary now, but they went into the ark after him, two and two, i. e. compelled by the power of his word.

"Next follows the astral vinculum, i. e. the

sympathy between us and the heavenly bodies or

stars wherein the angels dwell and rule. We must know their divers aspects, configurations, risings, settings, and the like, also the precise time, hour, and minute in which they exercise an influence over angel, man, and lower creatures, according as the ancients, and particularly the Chaldeans have taught us, for spirit can not influence spirit at every moment, but only at particular times and particular circumstances.

"Lastly comes the elementary vinculum, or the sympathy which binds all earthly creatures together-men, animals, plants, stones, vapors, and exhalations, &c., but above all this cementing sympathy is strongest in pure virgins, as you, muchpraised Diliana-'

"Hereupon she spake, surprised

"How can all this be? Is it not folly to suppose that the blessed angels could be compelled by influences from plants and stones?'

"It is no folly, dear maiden, but a great and profound truth, which I will demonstrate to you briefly. Every thing throughout the universe is affected by two opposing forces, attraction or sympathy, repulsion or antipathy. All things in heaven as well as upon earth act on each other by means of these two forces.

"And as all within, above, beneath, in the heaven and on the earth, are types insensibly repeated of one grand archetype, so we find that the sun himself is a magnet, and by his different poles repels or attracts the planets, and among them our earth; in winter he repels her, and she moves darkly and mournfully along; in spring, he be gins to draw her toward him, and she comes joyfully, amidst songs of the holy angels, out of night and darkness, like a bride in the arms of her be loved. And though no ear upon earth can mark this song, yet the sympathies of each creature are attracted and excited thereby, and man, beast, bird, fish, tree, flower, grass, stones, all exhale forth their subtlest, most spiritual, sweetest, life to blend with the holy singers.

O maiden, maiden, this is no folly! Truly might we say that each thing feels, for each thing loves and hates. The animate as the inanimate, the earthly as the heavenly, the visible as the invisible. For what is love but attraction, or sympathy toward some object, whereby we desire to blend with it? And what is hate but repulsion or antipathy, whereby we are forced to fly or recoil

"But what is the signification of this widespread law of love and hate which rules the universe as far as we know? Nothing else than the dark signature of faith impressed upon every creature. For what the thing loves, that is its God; and what the thing hates, that is its devil. So when

the upright and perfect soul ascends to God, the

source of all attraction, God descends to it in sympathy, and blends with it, as Christ says, Whoso loves me, and keeps my word, my Father will love him, and we will come and take up our abode with him.' But if the perverted soul descends to the source of all repulsion, which is the devil, God will turn away from him, and he will hate God and love the devil, as our blessed Saviour says (Matt. vi.), No man can serve two masters, he will hate one and love the other; ye can not serve God and the devil.' Such will be the law of the universe until the desire of all creatures is fulfilled, until the living word again descends from heaven, and says,Let there be light!' and the new light will fall upon the soul. Then will the old serpent be cast out of the new heaven and the new earth. Hate and repulsion will exist no longer, but as

The invocation of the angel, is a mixture of the ridiculous and the poetical. The Duke, the Magister, and Diliana, are in the knight's hall. Old Jobit Bork, peeping through the gimlet-hole he has made in the door. The Magister repeats the conjuration three times:

"And, behold, at the last word, a white cloud appeared at the north, that at every moment became brighter and brighter, until a red pillar of light, about an arm's thickness, shot forth from the centre of it, and the most exquisite fragrance with soft tones of music were diffused over the whole north end of the hall; then the cloud seemed to rain down radiant flowers of hues and beauty such as earth had never seen, after which a tremendous sound, as if a clap of thunder, shook not only the castle to its foundation, but seemed to shake heaven and earth itself, and the cloud, parting in twain, disclosed the sun-angel in the centre.

"Yet the knight outside never heard this sound, nor did old Kruger, the Duke's boot-cleaner, who sat in the very next room reading the Bible; he

and the kid, will lie down together, and the child may play fearlessly upon the den of the adder.' Hallelujah! Then will creation be free! then will it pass from the bondage of corruption into the lordly freedom of the children of God (Rom.

viii.), and

Sun,

moon, stars,
earth, angels, men,
beasts, plants, stones,
the living as the dead,
the great as the small,
the visible as the invisible,
I will find at last

the source of all attraction
which they have ever ardently desired-
round which they will ever circle

day on day, night on night, century on century, millennium on millennium, lost in the infinite and eternal abyss of all loveGOD!"*

"Almost with the last words of this sketch, the second part of Kosmos, by Alexander von Humboldt, came to my hand. Evidently the great author (who so well deserves immortality for his contribution to science) views the world also as a whole; and wherever in ancient or modern times, even a glimpse of this doctrine can be found, he quotes it and brings it to light. But yet, in a most incomprehensible manner, he has passed over those very systems in which, above all others, this idea finds ample room; namely, the New-Platonism of the ancients (the Theurgic Philosophy), and the later Cabalistic, Alchymical, Mystic Philosophy (White Magic), from which system the deductions of Magister Joel are borrowed: but above all, we must name Plotinus, as the father of the

the corridor, and sent his wife out to see, and this seems to me a very strange thing, but the knight, through his gimlet-hole, saw plainly, that a chair, which they had forgotten to take out of the way of the angel at the north side, was utterly consumed by his presence, and when he had passed, lay there

a heap of ashes.

"And the angel in truth appeared in the form of a beautiful boy of twelve years old, and from head to foot shone with a dazzling light. A blue mantle, sown with silver stars was flung around him, but so glittering to the eye that it seemed a portion of the milky way he had torn from heaven, as he passed along, and wrapped round his angelic form? On his feet, rosy as the first clouds of morning, were bound gold sandals, and on his yellow hair a crown; and thus surrounded by radiant flowers, odors, and the soft tones of heavenly music, he swept down in grace and glorious beauty to earth."

business; the mature gamester prides himself upon having done his duty to his family; the self-destroyer sustains his ruined body with the thought that he has never tempted others, and thus all of us find something to lean upon till the body fails to come up to the requirements of the lowest law of life, and death comes to bear us away."

After thus enlarging the limits of his theory of vitality, the subtle Dutchman proceeds to apply it to several conditions of life, and as the vital changes are observed more clearly among individuals brought in contact with large numbers of others, he takes his examples from regal, military, civil, and other prominent departments. Among others, he considers, in one chapter, the artist life, including all vocations in which men address the world, through the sense of beauty. We translate the few paragraphs applicable to our purpose:

"We have seen how, in the civil departments, though there may be unjust magistrates, and those who, through error, give erroneous decisions, yet the silent influences of life, which go to keep up the great vital equilibrium, gradually shake off the false, and retain only that which is true-that which was discovered to be true by the strong perceptions of vigorous and truth-loving spirits. So it is in the Fine Arts, and in the pursuits of literature and science. All that is mortal falls off and dies; but the truly vital lives forever. And this happens as well in indvidual instances, and during short periods, as universally during the lapse of centuries. There are no regular periods to its operation; if the soul of the universe has its throbs, they are too slow for our poor faculties of discernment. Sometimes the vigor of one man shall be so overwhelming that he will awe the hearts of nations through his life; and it will be not till long after he has gone off the stage that his true strength can be estimated-and then it may be seen that though he made a great noise in his time, and brought much to pass, yet there was little of him beyond the name that will return to the general stream of life. He did much, but he saw, heard, or felt no more,-less, perhaps, while here,—than many others, who would have left a stronger residuum, had their career been as public as his. Such instances have been cited in the chapter on military heroes.

"Sometimes the vital aura diffuses itself more quickly, and the world feels it like an electric touch. Poets and musicians have ere now wakened the common life to a new sense of gladness and beauty, by a single song. And so, in their several ways, have

painters, and sculptors, and story-tellers. In deed, it is in all these arts that the true vigor, brought to bear, soonest recombines and returns to repose in the general breast of humanity. Hence, in all of them, how rarely does any one achieve great distinction! How hard, also, it is to sustain, for any length of time, a position once gained! For, to do it, one must labor, so soon does the virtue go out from him, against his very self, in order to preserve the relation that was between him and other men at the outset. Yet there are those who are able to accomplish this; who can go on from day to day, and year to year, glow of spirit, their fire of emotion, and imparting their power of vision, kindling their fancy's ardor, in the hearts of the world at large.

"That which they would have done at first they still sometimes desire to do, though their success in what was incidental might have taught them to expend their energies upon direction, while they will continue to hamthat. They may see the sparks flying in one They may deem it less desirable to impart mer in another; such may be their weakness. than to carry out a cherished plan; or they may be so constituted, so incongruously put together, that the crystal is only perfect on one side. How seldom do men see themselves as others see them! How often they go on, priding themselves on doing what they do ill, or not at all, and neglecting that which they do well-like a good violinist in one of our village bands, who should persist in playing the trombone, though it gave his hearers the headache to hear him, and himself the consumption to blow it!

"It is a wonder often to see artists and writers who have been successful, who cannot but feel that the peculiar vitality of their spirits has been taken up by its numerous affinities into the general bosom of life-who may see their works translated, or copied and spread among all civilized nations, and imitated by thousands, forming a new school of excellence in their department, whatever it may be-who may thus perceive the reflection, as it were, of their own image upon the world's mirror-it is a wonder that they do not feel a secret LAW impelling them to be true to their organization. But, then, habit makes us all powerless. We daily unlearn ourselves too late to avail us anything. Law, the law of life, overhangs us; it surrounds and environs us; but we can never stop. Once fairly in the current, we are dashed onward; we may founder these frail barks any moment we please, but we cannot control them; with our best efforts we can only keep keep them in the channel, and have others to follow, if they will,-whither, oh whither ?"

"Whither, indeed," some readers will be