The Laplander beholds the far-off Sun
Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows,
While yet the stern and solitary Night
Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn
With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam,
Guiding his course or by Niemi lake
Or Balda-Zhiok,* or the mossy stone
Of Solfar-kapper,+ while the snowy blast
Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge,
Making the poor babe at its mother's back!

* Balda Zhiok; i. e. mons altitudinis, the highest mountain in Lapland.

+ Salfar Kapper; capitium Solfar, hic locus omnium quotquot veterum Lapponum superstitio sacrificiis religiosoque cultui dedicavit, celebratissimus erat, in parte sinus australis situs semimilliaris spatio a mari distans. Ipse locus, quem curiositatis gratia aliquando me invisisse memini, duabus prealtis lapidibus, sibi invicem oppositis, quorum alter musco circumdatus erat, constabat.-LEEMIUS De Lapponibus.

The Lapland women carry their infants at their back in a piece of excavated wood, which serves them for a cradle. Opposite to the infant's mouth there is a hole for it to breath through. Mirandum prorsus est et vix credibile nisi cui vidisset contigit. Lappones hyeme iter facientes per vastos montes, perque horrida et invia tesqua, eo presertim tempore quo omnia perpetuis nivibus obtecta sunt et nives ventis agitantur et in gyros aguntur, viam ad destinata loca absque errore invenire posse, lactantem autem infantem si quem habeat, ipsa mater in dorso bajulat, in excavato ligno (Gieed❜k ipsi vocant) quod pro cunis utuntur: in hoc infans pannis et pellibus convolutus colligatus jacet.-LEEMIUS De Lapponibus.

Scream in its scanty cradle: he the while
Wins gentle solace as with upward eye
He marks the streamy banners of the North,
Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join
Who there in floating robes of rosy light
Dance sportively. For Fancy is the Power
That first unsensualizes the dark mind,
Giving it new delights; and bids it swell
With wild activity; and peopling air,
By obscure fears of Beings invisible,
Emancipates it from the grosser thrall
Of the present impulse, teaching Self-controul,
Till Superstition with unconscious hand
Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain,
Nor yet without permitted power impressed,
I deemed those legends terrible, with which
The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng:
Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan
O'er slaughtered infants, or that Giant Bird
VUOKHO, of whose rushing wings the noise
Is Tempest, when the unutterable* shape
Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once
That shriek, which never Murderer heard, and lived.
Or if the Greenland Wizard in strange trance
Pierces the untravelled realms of Ocean's bed

* Jaibme Aibmo.

(Where live the innocent as far from cares
As from the storms and overwhelming waves
Dark tumbling on the surface of the deep),
Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave
By mis-shaped prodigies beleaguered, such
As Earth ne'er bred, nor Air, nor the upper Sea.

There dwells the Fury Form, whose unheard name With eager eye, pale cheek, suspended breath, And lips half-opening with the dread of sound, Unsleeping SILENCE guards, worn out with fear Lest haply escaping on some treacherous blast The fateful word let slip the Elements And frenzy Nature. Yet the wizard her,

Armed with Torngarsuck's power, the Spirit of Good, Forces to unchain the foodful progeny

Of the Oceans stream,-Wild phantasies! yet wise, On the victorious goodness of high God

The other

They call the Good Spirit Torngarsuck. great but malignant spirit is a nameless Female; she dwells under the sea in a great house, where she can detain in captivity all the animals of the ocean by her magic power. When a dearth befalls the Greenlanders, an Angekok or magician must undertake a journey thither. He passes through the kingdom of souls, over an horrible abyss into the Palace of this phantom, and by his enchantments causes the captive creatures to ascend directly to the surface of the ocean.

See CRANTZ' Hist. of Greenland, vol. i. 206.

Teaching Reliance, and Medicinal Hope,
Till from Bethabra northward, heavenly Truth
With gradual steps winning her difficult way,
Transfer their rude Faith perfected and pure.

If there be Beings of higher class than Man,
I deem no nobler province they possess,
Than by disposal of apt circumstance

To rear up Kingdoms: and the deeds they prompt,
Distinguishing from mortal agency,

They chuse their human ministers from such states
As still the Epic song half fears to name,
Repelled from all the Minstrelsies that strike
The Palace-Roof and sooth the Monarch's pride.

And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if words Witnessed by answering deeds may claim our Faith) Held commune with that warrior-maid of France Who scourged the Invader. From her infant days, With Wisdom, Mother of retired Thoughts,

Her soul had dwelt; and she was quick to mark
The good and evil thing, in human lore
Undisciplined. For lowly was her Birth,
And Heaven had doomed her early years to Toil
That pure from Tyranny's least deed, herself
Unfeared by Fellow-natures, she might wait

On the poor Labouring man with kindly looks,
And minister refreshment to the tired

Way-wanderer, when along the rough-hewn Bench
The sweltry man had stretched him, and aloft
Vacantly watched the rudely pictured board
Which on the Mulberry-bough with welcome creak
Swung to the pleasant breeze. Here, too, the Maid
Learnt more than Schools could teach: Man's shifting
mind,

His Vices and his Sorrows! And full oft

At Tales of cruel Wrong and strange Distress
Had wept and shivered. To the tottering Eld
Still as a Daughter would she run: she placed
His cold Limbs at the sunny Door, and loved
To hear him story, in his garrulous sort,
Of his eventful years, all come and gone.

So twenty seasons past. The Virgin's Form, Active and tall, nor Sloth nor Luxury

Had shrunk or paled. Her front sublime and broad, Her flexile eye-brows wildly haired and low,

And her full eye, now bright, now unillumed,

Spake more than Woman's Thought; and all her face
Was moulded to such Features as declared
That Pity there had oft and strongly worked,
And sometimes Indignation. Bold her mien,