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"She confessed, in the first place, that she cherished a forbidden love with which she had long struggled in vain; and this love was so much the more sinful, as holy vows for ever fettered the object of her affection. Yet, in this hopeless delirium of her despair, she had many times cursed the bonds, however sacred, which held them thus asunder. She here faltered-paused-then, with a torrent of tears which almost stifled her utterance, added, 'Thou thyself Medardus, art the consecrated being whom I so unspeakably love!" Vol. I. p. 87.

Medardus conceives the most violent and unquenchable passion for this unknown, of whom he finds an altar piece, representing saint Rosalia, to be both in person and dress, so perfect a portrait, that he says,

"Here, therefore, like a victim of the most horrible insanity, I used to lie for hours together, prostrate upon the steps of the altar, uttering hideous groans and even howling in despair, so that the monks were terrified and fled from me in dismay." Vol. I. p. 90.

He now resolves to violate his monastic engagements, assume a lay dress and abscond from the convent; but, just as he is about to execute his project, the prior, who has observed his altered conduct, and attributes it to too much mental excitement, obviates the necessity of secret flight by sending him on a mission to Rome.

When we arrived at Medardus's theft of the relic of St. Anthony we had led our readers through the proem to the pantomime; for such exhibition the romance before us, in its structure, very much resembles.

As the wand of the magician or fairy metamorphoses the hero into Harlequin and sends him forth to gambol unrestrained, like the party-coloured personification of vanity; so the devil's elixir entirely divests Medardus of his former feelings and habitudes; and he is now converted into a compendium of all the worst passions of human nature, and roams abroad, an incarnate mischief, without any other rule of action, than the wild impulse of the moment.

We may here notice a portion of the legend regarding the devil's elixir: namely, that two individuals drinking of the same flask thenceforth become addicted to the same crimes, possess a wonderful reciprocity of thought and action; and yet, unconsciously, act for the destruction of each other.

Medardus quits the convent, taking with him the remainder of the wine; and, proceeding on his journey, mistakes his way; and, whilst wandering amongst the Thuringian mountains, meets with the following adventure. On the point of a rock which at

an immense height overhangs a foaming torrent, he perceives a young man in uniform apparently asleep.

“I ventured nearer, seizing him with one hand and endeavouring to pull him back, I shouted aloud Awake! For heaven's sake beware!' I said no more; for, at that moment, starting from his sleep, and, at the same moment, losing his equilibrium, he fell down into the cataract."

Medardus takes up the stranger's hat, sabre and porte-feuille and is about to withdraw when a young chasseur emerges from the wood, and thus addresses him.

Sapperment! my lord count, your masquerade is indeed admirable and complete; and if the lady baroness were not apprized beforehand I question if even she would recognize you in your disguise. But what have done with the uniform, my you lord ?"

In this, as in every future dilemma, Medardus merely gives utterance to words which are suggested by some supernatural influence, and which are always suited to the exigency. He soon learns that the youth has mistaken him for his master count Victorin, who, in the prosecution of an affair with the wife of the baron Von R., was about to proceed to that nobleman's castle in the disguise of a Capuchin monk. Thither Medardus proceeds and is received as the count by the baroness, and as Medardus by the baron. In the baron's daughter, Aurelia, he recognizes the unknown of the confessional.

"As soon as I had set eyes on this girl, it seemed as if a gleam of light from heaven flashed around me, and penetrated to my very heart, kindling up mysterious and long-lost emotions--the most ardent longings--the raptures of the most fervent love."

Aurelia however does not afford him the slightest symptom of recognition. The baroness is strikingly drawn. With this lady Medardus continues in intercourse, yet without relaxing in his efforts to obtain Aurelia. His character however is suspected by Hermogen, a mysterious and insane personage (son of the baron by a former wife) against whom Euphemia has conceived an implacable hatred. The adventures of Medardus in this castle are eventually wound up by the death of Euphemia, by means of poison which she had prepared for him, and of Hermogen, in a quarrel with our hero. In the confusion consequent, he escapes to a neighbouring forest; where, being provided by Victorin's chasseur with a horse and a portmanteau stocked with clothes and money, he changes his dress, throws his

monk's habit into a decayed tree, and, mounting his horse strikes into the high road. On his arrival at the first village he is suspected and interrogated, and escapes detention only by bribing the judge. Here, on attempting to quit the inn-yard, his horse refuses to pass the gate, which he finds to be occasioned by an old beggar (and reputed witch) sitting, coiled up like a ball, who croaks out,

"The bloody brother-the bloody brother has given me no groschen!-do you not see the dead man there lying before him?-the murderer cannot get over this for the dead man raises himself up: but I will crush him down, if the bloody brother will give me a groschen.'

Finding it impossible to proceed, he throws her some money, when the horse neighs aloud and immediately goes "curvetting and caprioling through the gate."

He shortly after reaches the town of Fankenburg, where he takes up his residence for some time, and where he receives great attention from a character, of whom he gives an exceedingly whimsical description. This character, who occasionally appears in the course of the subsequent pages, and who is alternately called Schönfeld, Fairfield, and Belcampo, is an eccentric and half-lunatic hair-dresser; the hyperbolical effusions into which his insanity leads him are of a highly fantastic description. After some few adventures in this town Medardus is prevailed upon to visit an exhibition of pictures, the property of an artist of celebrity who exposes them to public inspection during the fair. Here, to his astonishment, he finds portraits of the old pilgrim, the abbess of the Cistercians, and Aurelia, and is horrified by discovering in the artist the mysterious painter of the lime-tree, who again transfixes him with his spectral aspect, and without naming him as an actor in the scenes (but coolly asking if any one present has ever seen the devil) recounts to a numerous assembly the recent occurrences at the castle of the baron Von R.

Aided by Belcampo he quits Fankenburg in the night, and his carriage breaking down in the forest, he is thrown upon the hospitality of the ranger of the prince of Rosenthurm. Here he is haunted by his double, or the devil in his own likeness, who enters his chamber in the night and thus addresses him,

"Now then, thou shalt come along with me; we shall mount on the altar, on the roof of the house, beside the weathercock, which will sing us a merry bridal-song, because the owl to night holds his weddingfeasts--there shall we contend together, and whoever beats the other from the roof of the house is king and may drink blood!”

The unwelcome visitant then seizes the basket-bottle, swallows the remainder of the devil's elixir, and departs.

Medardus afterwards meets this person at breakfast, who appears to be a maniac monk found by the ranger in the forest, and whose history precisely corresponds with that of our hero.

From this place (after killing game, to the astonishment of the spectators, with his gun pointed in an opposite direction) he proceeds to the court of the prince of Rosenthurm, whose wife he finds to be sister to the abbess of the Cistercians. His adventures at this place occupy the greater portion of the remaining pages, and it would be impossible for us to follow them through their intricacies; but they are given with much spirit and sufficiently furnished with terror and mystery to satisfy the palate of the epicure in romance. The hero appears, on most occasions, to have his individuality actually split into two separately existing persons. For instance; when, under the assumed name of Leonard, he is thrown into prison, as the monk Medardus; being identified by Cyrillus, whose testimony is strengthened by describing the scar of the cross upon his neck, he is liberated by the arrival of Medardus, who exhibits a similar scar; to whom Cyrillus transfers his accusation, and who is condemned and led to the scaffold for the murder of Hermogen; while Aurelia, who has been for some time an inmate at the court, is, by the prince, promised in marriage to the soi-disant Leonard, to which name he has now added that of Krazinski. Just however as this marriage is about to be solemnized, the monk passes to execution, and thus addresses the bridegroom whom he perceives at the palace window,

"Brud-er-lein-Brud-er-lein!--Bride-groom!--Bride-groom!Come quickly-come quickly. Up-up to the roof of the house. There the owl holds his wedding-feast; the weathercock sings aloud! There shall we contend together, and whoever casts the other down is king and may drink blood!"

Aurelia endeavours to withdraw him from the window, thus addressing him,

"Leave that horrible spectacle; they are dragging Medardus, the murderer of my brother, to the scaffold. Leonard!-Leonard !"

His conduct and reply are wildly characteristic.

"All the demons of hell seemed awoke within me and manifested, in its utmost extent, that power which they are allowed to exereise over an obdurate and unrepentant sinner. With reckless cruelty I

repulsed Aurelia, who trembled as if shook by convulsions in every limb. Ha-ha-ha!' I almost shrieked aloud-' foolish insane girl! I myself, thy lover, thy chosen bridegroom, am the murderer of thy brother! Would'st thou, by thy complaints, bring down destruction from heaven on thy sworn husband? Ho-ho-ho! I am king—I am king-and I will drink blood!'

"I drew out the stiletto-I struck at Aurelia-blood streamed over my hand and arm, and she fell lifeless at my feet. I rushed down stairs -forced my way through the crowd to the carriage-seized the monk by the collar, and, with supernatural strength, tore him from the car. Then I was arrested by the executioner; but, with the stiletto in my hand, I defended myself so furiously that I broke loose and rushed into the thick of the mob, where, in a few moments, I found myself wounded by a stab in the side, but the people were struck with such terror that I made my way through them as far as the neighbouring wall of the park, which, by a frightful effort, I leapt over."

Urged by despair, he makes his way to the forest, where he is assailed by his hideous double, who has followed him and now leaps upon his shoulders, clasps his arms about his throat, and laughing scornfully, says in the most diabolical accent,

"Broth-er, broth-er! Ever am I with thee!-Leave thee, leave thee never!-Cannot run as thou canst! must carry-carry me!—Come straight from the gallows-They would have nailed me to the wheelHe-he-he!"

He here becomes insensible and his return to consciousness is in a lunatic hospital and in his capuchin garb. Hence, when restored to reason, he proceeds, as a pilgrim, to Rome, where, by means of a mysterious parchment book, in the hands of the prior of the Capuchin convent, he learns that the painter of the Lime-tree was his ancestor, who, in consequence of having partaken of the devil's elixir, had been doomed to experience

"" NO HAPPINESS IN LIFE NOR PEACE IN THE GRAVE SO LONG AS THE SINFUL RACE TO WHICH HE HAD GIVEN RISE SHOULD EXIST UPON

THE EARTH!" He also discovers that the princess Von Rosenthurm, the abbess of the Cistercian convent, both the first and second baroness Von R. and the count Victorin, belong to this family, and that the latter is his own brother, whom he subsequently finds to have been his double on most of the occasions before related. After some adventures in Rome he returns, a penitent monk, to his convent, but stopping, on his way, at that of the Cistercians, he finds it in a state of preparation for the investiture of a nun, who, to his utter amazement, proves to be Aurelia. She had survived the wound inflicted by his hand, and formed a resolution to take the veil under the conventual name