In a word, the devil was not able to foretell any thing-he can predict nothing, for he knows nothing; and if any apparition comes to be seen or heard, who takes upon it to tell what should come to pass, you may depend upon it that apparition is not from the devil."-This, too, is our opinion.

Taking leave of his Satanic Majesty for the present, let us hear what De Foe has got to say about "the apparition of unembodied spirits." His speculations on this subject remind us of our learned and ingenious friend, Francis Maximus Macnab, a most sonorous name. He cannot agree with those who maintain that there must be inhabitants in all the planetary worlds, some of whom may occasionally visit earth in the capacity of spectres. "Saturn and Jupiter are uncomfortably cold, insufferably dark, would congeal the very soul (if that were possible), and so are not habitable. Mercury and Venus are insufferably hot, that the very water would always boil, and the fire burn up the vitals. In Mars, so very dry in its nature, no vegetables or sensitives could subsist that we have any notion of, for want of moisture, and the men that lived there must be dried up sufficiently for pulverizing on any suitable occasion."

If Saturn, therefore, be inhabited, De Foe remarks, that the people must either live without eyes, for what is the use of eyes when there is no light? or be so illuminated from their own internal heat and light, that they can see sufficiently from their own beams. In Jupiter, the good folks, (if any) must live in twilight, by the reflection of its own moons, and in continual frosts. In Mercury, the species must be all salamanders, and live in fire more intense than what would be sufficient to burn all their houses, and melt copper, lead, and iron, even in the mine. In Venus, the heat would boil the blood in the body, and a set of human bodies be found that would live always in a hot-bath. Now, it is plain that the spectres that have from time to time been seen upon our earth, have not at all answered the description of any of the natives above-and we must seek out for them another origin. De Foe, therefore, conceives,

that they dwell in the invisible world, and in the vast nowhere of un

bounded space." This, we think, is a plausible and satisfactory theory.

Several very good stories of the life and behaviour of these phantoms, from the land of Nowhere, are interspersed through the volume. We are told of a man who travelled four years through most of the northern countries of Europe, with a personage erroneously supposed to be the devil, but who was unquestionably an inhabitant of Nowhere. He guided him through desarts and over mountainsover frozen lakes, and little seas covered with snow-he diverted him with discourses of various subjects. He was acquainted wherever he came, and procured his fellow-traveller entertainment and good usage. He knew the affairs of every country, and the very people too-he spoke every language, German, Persic, Polish, Prussian, Russian, Hungarian, Tartarian, and Turkish. This is a description that would exactly suit Christopher North, Esq. the Editor of this Magazine; but what follows can hardly be affirmed of that eminent, literary, political, poetical, theological, and philosophical person. "Sometimes he would be seen at a distance a mile or more, to day on his right, tomorrow on his left hand-and keeping even pace with him, came into the same village or town where he lodged and took up at another time; but if he enquired for him in the morning, he was always gone, and the people knew nothing of him, except that they just saw such a man in the evening before, but that he did not stay." one occasion, this mysterious personage advised the traveller not to sail in a certain vessel from Gottenburgh, as he foresaw it would be wrecked, but the traveller, who at this time thought the spirit "only a strange, intelligent, foreseeing man," disregarded his advice, and was cast away at Straelsund, a sea-port of Pomeran." When walking on the quay there, a stranger accosted him, and invited him to join a party of gentlemen at an Inn. After some days spent in the most friendly manner, the stranger disappeared, leaving our traveller in possession of bills to a great amount. Not even the three gentlemen to whom he had introduced the traveller, knew any thing about him, and that he was a spirit seemed manifest. The fortunate tra

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veller set out to Dantzick, with his three new friends; and on the third day, after they had passed the Oder, in that wild and desart country, they observed a man, mean in apparel, but appearing something more than merely what poverty represents," travelling the same way as they did, but always keeping at about the distance of half a mile from them on their left hand." This continued for three days, during which, they made several attempts to get nearer to him, which were all alike unsuccessful, till arriving at a village, the unaccountable Parallel entered a small house. The traveller and his friends went into the hut, and told the woman of the house what they had seen. "What?" says she, "have you seen the Owke Mouraski? That Owke Mouraski never calls at any house in the town, but some or other in the family dies that year." This woman then informed the traveller, that he was no devil, but a good man, who knew more than all the men in the world ;" and from her conversation, it seemed that he was thought to be a messenger of God who sometimes foretold death, and sometimes predicted recovery from disease. No sooner had they left the hamlet, than there was the same object moving along as before, who continued to accompany them all day, till they came to a wide river. They crossed the bridge, and kept their eyes on the creature, who seemed to make a momentary pause on the edge of the river, and then to appear going up the rising grounds on the other side, "without their being capable of giving the least account how he passed the water." As soon as they entered the town, their guide told them to look towards the door of an Inn, a little beyond their own, and "there they saw him plain eating a piece of bread, and having a pot or jug of Polish beer standing by him. One of the gentlemen walked up in his boots to the place, seeing him sitting all the while he was going, till coming very near, and happening to turn his eyes but one moment from him, when he looked again, the man was gone." When the innkeeper was told that he was the Owke Mouraski, he was greatly agitated, and seemed glad that he had moved off, even though he had not paid his bill. Next day, the travellers saw him enter into

another house, as before; but its inmates, when spoken to, blessed the mysterious phantom, and said that he was a bringer of good tidings. He accompanied the travellers to Dantzick, and then disappeared. There, too, the party broke up ; and our traveller, having picked up a new acquaintance, determined to go to Petersburgh, by the way of Konisberg. This fresh acquaintance" told him so many stories of different kinds, that he looked as if he knew all the world, and all the people in it, and all things that had happened in it, or would happen in it for ever to come, and something longer." At Konisberg they separatedand our traveller, desirous of continuing his journey, inquired in the city if there were any gentlemen travelling towards Riga. An ancient man, habited like a Russ, or rather like a Greek priest, with a long venerable beard, a purple robe such as the Russians wear, a high stiff-crowned fur-cap, and a close vest about his body, girded with a silk sash, declared himself for Riga. He offered our traveller a horse-and they set out as equestrians. But to make a long story short, for four years ramble, this most fortunate of all travellers, no sooner said farewell to one good friend, than another slipt into his shoes; till at last being in Turkey, "his latest companion discovered to him, that he was an inhabitant of an invisible region, that he had been in his company in all his journies, in all the different figures that he had met with, that he embarked with him in Ireland, landed with him in Norway, left him at Gottenburg, found him at Straelsand, dogged him upon the way to Dantzick, sailed with him to Konisberg, lent him a horse to go to Riga, and so on," &c.

In the same chapter we meet with another story, far from being unamusing, of which here is the outline: A certain rich man having occasion to go to Aix-la-Chapelle, left some domestics to guard his house. They being afraid of robbers, got some grenades, in case of being attacked-and one night, as they had feared, the robbers in good truth came. The servants, meanwhile, entrenched themselves in an upper story, and barricadoed the staircases. On the robbers breaking into a fine well furnished parlour, where the family usually sat, behold, in a great easy chair, a grave ancient man,

with a long full-bottomed black wig, a rich brocade gown, and a lawyer's laced band, who, looking as if in great surprise, made signs to them for mercy, but said not a word; one of the rogues exclaiming, "Ha! who's there?" while another proposed cutting his throat. The old gentleman, with great signs of terror, beckoned to a door, which they opened, and rushing through a lobby, they entered a grand saloon, and beheld the same old gentle man, in the same dress, and the same chair, sitting at the upper end of the room, making the same gestures and silent entreaties as before. Enraged at this, and believing that he had slipt in by another door, they threatened instantly to knock out his brains, unless he shewed them where the treasure was stowed away-on which, he pointed to a door leading into another apartment. The robbers, on pouring into it, and looking at the farther end of the room, beheld the ancient man again, in the same dress and posture as before. It had so happened, however, that a few of the robbers had staid behind in the other room-and while those who had advanced, cried out, "here is the old rogue before us again;" the party answered from the parlour, "how the devil can that be, he is here still in his chair, and all his rubbish." It is no wonder that they were a good deal disconcerted with this self-multiplying patriarch, and one of the robbers, aiming a blow at him with his fuzee, it burst into a thousand pieces, broke his own head, and knocked him head-overheels, while it appeared that there was no old gentleman at all in the chair. Others of the gang went to attack the other old gentleman in the parlour, but he too was gone, and terror and confusion fell upon the banditti. They then ran into the third room, when they saw the figure sitting in his armchair, but " instead of his pitiful looks and seeming to beg his life as he did before, he was changed into the most horrible monster that ever was seen, and in his hands were two large fiery daggers, not flaming, but red-hot-in a word, the devil or something else," &c. Meanwhile, the servants up stairs, not knowing what was going on below, threw three hand-grenades down a chimney that had three funnels, each communicating with one of the three rooms in which were the robbers and

the Triple old man. One of the handgrenades exploded in the chimney of the room in which the greatest number were assembled, and they, not doubting it was the work of the old sedentary, scampered in terror into the other rooms, and were just in time to encounter another similar explosion in each, which killed and wounded a great number of them. Very luckily, the three explosions set fire to the chimney, and the neighbours, alarmed to the spot, met the surviving robbers attempting to escape, and made them all prisoners. Who this old gentleman, or these three old gentlemen were, Daniel De Foe does not inform us-that he or they were the devil or devils no one will imagine-but whether it were a supernatural copartnery, or in one divisible firm, this much will be allowed, that the whole affair exhibits a singularly fortunate concurrence of natural and preternatural agency, and that the spirit must have counted upon the three hand-grenades and the three funnels. At the same time, the story has an air of truth about it that will not suffer us to disbelieve it.

One other story from this volume and we have done. A gentleman hav. ing married a second wife, had no rest night or day till he would consent to disinherit his son by his first marriage, who had for some years been unheard of, and who, his stepmother asserted, must have died. It happened one evening that they had a violent quarrel upon this subject, "when, on a sudden, a hand appeared at the casement endeavouring to open it, but as all the iron casements used in former times opened outward, and were fastened in the inside, the hand seemed to try to open the casement, but could not." Some dispute having occurred as to whom this hand belonged, the wife exclaimed "why, if 'twas the devil, 'twas the ghost of your son,it may be come to tell you that he has gone to the devil," &c. The husband, incensed at this coarse attack, cried aloud, "Alexander, Alexander," and at these words, the casement opened again of itself, and his son Alexander looked in with a full face, and staring directly upon the mother with an angry countenance, cried here, and then vanished in a moment. Of course, fits followed with the lady; but in about a year or so, she plucked up courage, and threatened to bring her

husband to trial for dealings with the devil, unless he consented to disinherit his absent son. The affair was at last referred to arbitration, and "the two arbitrators were invited to dinner on the occasion." The writings were about to be engrossed, when, on a sudden, they heard a rushing noise in the parlour where they sat, at which the arbitrators were sorely afraid, but the infatuated wife insisted that her husband should sign the deed though forty devils should appear. That moment the casement flew open, "and the shadow of a body was seen standing in the garden without, and the head reaching up to the casement, the face looking into the room with a stern and an angry countenance. Hold, said the spectre, as if speaking to the woman, and immediately clasped the casement to again, and vanished."The wife screamed as before- the husband plucked up courage-the arbitrators refused to proceed-and in about half a year, the long lost son came home from the Indies and we hope continued fierce upon his step-dame for the rest of her life.

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We suspect that we have already exceeded the limits allowed us by the Editor. If not, Mr Christopher will allow our article to proceed.

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There is a curious enough chapter Apparitions in Dreams, and how far they are or are not real Apparitions." The question is debated, whether a person who complies with the devil's temptation in a dream be as guilty of the fact as if he had been awake?-and though De Foe "leaves it only as a head of reflection," he certainly seems to lean to the affirmative. He supposes a poor man tempted by the devil in a dream to strip a little child of a valuable necklace and other ornaments; on waking, he looks back on it with a double regret, first, that he is disappointed of his prize, and, secondly, that the devil had humbugged him into guilt. It seems that a person who had so dreamed narrated his dream to De Foe with the bitterest remorse. "I robbed it," says he, "in my imagination, and deserve as much to be hanged for it, as if I had committed the horrid fact at noon-day. Aye," said he, "with a kind of horror, I ought to be hanged for it, and to be

damned for it too." Another gentleman, who lived apart from his wife, on reasonable suspicion of her infidelity, dreamt that a former mistress came to him with a smiling countenance, and telling him that his wife was dead, offered herself to his embraces, and was not repulsed. "When he found it was all a dream, he was exceedingly afflicted, and looked upon himself as really guilty as if he had been awake, and I cannot say but he had some reason." De Foe adds, that he could give an instance of another person whom the devil haunted in like manner, " and that sometimes he was prevailed on to consent, but always happily prevented by waking in time-but the person is too much known to allow the farther description of it without his consent." Surely De Foe is here rather too stern a moralist. Only a few nights ago, we dreamt that we drunk up all the water in the reservoir on the Castle Hill, from the pure love of mischief-though, Goodness knows, that in our waking hours, we delight to think of the many thousand teakettles boiling away of an evening in this city; and that, for our own taste, a very small quantity of water doth in in general suffice.

Such of our readers as have been amused with our account of this curious volume are referred to it for a great deal of very odd matter, which we have no room to abridge. We re commend to their especial attention a chapter on the many strange inconveniences and ill consequences which would attend us in this world, if the souls of men and women, unembodied and departed, were at liberty to visit the earth, from which they had been dismissed, and to concern themselves about human affairs, either such as had been their own, or belonged to other people. He proves that such a system would never do in practice-and that the belief of it is quite untenable by a person of sound understanding. A person of sound understanding will not hold such a creed-but is satisfied with believing in spirits from the "vast land of nowhere," and in the peregrinations of the evil one, whose whole life on earth is one continued masquerade.

We do not remember any period, not excepting even the darkest or the brightest ones of the late war, in which the prospects and condition of our country were represented in more opposite points of view by the zealots of political partizanship than in the present. It appears to us, that the greater part of the adherents of Government, on the one hand, and by far the greater part of its ancient enemies on the other, take and express at this moment such views of the situation of this great empire, as could not fail to excite a mixture of wonder and derision, since we must say so, in the breast of any unconcerned and impartial foreigner, who might have enjoyed any tolerable opportunity of making himself acquainted with the real character of this nation-above all, of any one who had surveyed with a diligent eye the manifestations of national feeling evoked and maintained among us with so much beautiful zeal and perseverance during those years of dread and peril from which England and Europe have so recently escaped. And yet, different as are the opinions circulated, and different or rather diametrically opposite as are the wishes entertained, there is no doubt both the great parties are agreed so far (more than they have used to agree on any subject whatever), in thinking that something must be done, and that speedily, to rid us from this nuisance of mere plebeian insolence and profligacy, which has been gaining strength for the last two or three years-and which would appear to have now arrived at such a measure of audacity, as to render silence and forbearance on the part of Government no longer possible, even were these things desirable in themselves. Whatever one may suspect of the hidden purposes and motives of some of those whose voices have been lifted up against the political and religious blasphemies of the lower order of demagogues-it is at all events comfortable to see, that those miscreants are left without any visible or avowed protection from any whose protection could be entitled to the smallest respect. At the same

time, however, we ought to guard ourselves against giving too implicit confidence to the fair professions of those whose previous history has entailed suspicion on them as a birthrightwho were the enemies, not the friends, of their country during all her former times of danger-and who can therefore have no just reason to complain although that country preserves some jealousy of them now and hereafter, both in days of evil and in days of good.

As to the danger, the existence of which is acknowledged on all hands, but the immediate extent of which is studiously magnified by people who would fain turn it and every thing else to their own advantage-we think those who have really studied the history and the character of this country will have no difficulty in seeing, that it is in our own hands to make it either small or great, by the manner in which we choose to meet and combat it. The danger is great, if England be false to her ancient character;-it is small-it is nothing-if she remain true to herself. The danger consists in the existence of a spirit which is essentially at variance with every part of the old spirit of our country-and which, therefore, must be put down, not by any fanciful devices of novelty-but by a summoning up and strengthening of that very spirit against which its war has been proclaimed. And our chief complaint against the more important enemies of administration at this crisis is, their neglecting the opportunity now afforded them of shewing, for once, something like a truly English superiority to selfish views-and coming forward with heart and hand to assist those who are actually at the head of affairs, in repressing, by the only means which their conscience must tell them can be effectual ones, a spirit and a danger which, even by their own confession, do not threaten parties or party-principles, but the land itself, and all the old principles avowed and cherished in common by all the old parties in the land.

Here, in Scotland, notwithstanding