The pilgrim seemed highly edified, but Judy was incredulous. The story, she said, was true enough; but it happened when her mother was a child. Kit only smiled in reply; and, seeing a tent or two raised on the side of the road, twirled his staff in his fingers and bounced over the stile. The pilgrim also withdrew, and I repaired to view the well. There were but few votaries, and I was surprised at the fact, for the place was calculated to beget devotion in an infidel.

THE BALLADS OF GERMANY.

The ballad has nowhere been so completely naturalized as in Germany. The German ballads are not mere imitations of the rude songs and traditions of antiquity. They combine, in a wonderful degree, the polish and refinement peculiar to an advanced state of civilization, with the simplicity and nature of the older fragments of popular tradition. Almost all the great poets of Germany have occasionally descended from the severer labours of more elaborate composition, to the delassement of ballad writing; and the consequence is, that Germany is, at this moment, richer in this species of literature, than all the rest of Europe-Spain excepted-put together.

Goethe, who has attained excellence in almost every department of literature, has displayed the same pre-eminence in the light and gay strains of the ballad, as in the magnificent creations of "Faust," &c. Some of his ballads are distinguished by a solemn supernatural effect; others, by an exquisite archness and naivette, and all of them by a captivating simplicity of language, which, while it increases very much the effect of the original, presents a very formidable difficulty to the translator. The following is versified from Goethe, neatly as literally as the differences of language will permit.

THE FISHER.

The water roll'd-the water swell'd,
A fisher sat beside;

Calmly his patient watch he held

Beside the freshening tide :

And while his patient watch he keeps,
The parted waters rose,

And from the oozy ocean-deeps,
A water-maiden rose.

She spake to him, she sang to him—
Why lur'st thou so my brood,

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With cunning art and cruel heart,

From out their native flood?

Ah! couldst thou know, how here below
Our peaceful lives glide o'er,
Thoud'st leave thine earth and plunge beneath
To seek our happier shore.

"Bathes not the golden sun his face,—
The moon, too in the sea;

And rise they not from their resting place
More beautiful to see?

And lures thee not the clear deep heaven
Within the waters blue,—

And thy form so fair, so mirror'd there
In that eternal dew?"-

The water roll'd-the water swell'd,
It reach'd his naked feet;
He felt as at his love's approach
His bounding bosom beat;
She spake to him, she sang to him,
His short suspense is o'er ;-
Half drew she him, half dropp'd he in,
And sank to rise no more.

THE GROTTO DEL CANI.

This is a little cavern near Pozzuoli, four leagues from Naples; the air contained in it is of a mephitical or noxious quality; it is in truth carbonic acid gas, whence also it is called Bocca Venenosa, the Poisonous mouth.

Dr. Mead, describing this curious phenomenon, says "Two miles from Naples, just by the Lago de Agnano, is a celebrated mofeta, commonly called La Grotto del Cani, which is destructive of all animal life that comes within the