the connexion between the German Peter Klaus and Emperor Barbarossa, with
the oriental Seven Sleepers and the American Rip Von Winkle. We may add,
that there is a similar Welsh superstition respecting the enchanted
slumber of King Arthur, and his expected reappearance upon earth before
the last day, to take part in the holy wars of the times. The Poles and
Turks, if we mistake not, have among them a corresponding legend; and
whilst Sir W. Scott has given us that of the purchase of horses by Thomas
the Rhymour, and the magic slumbers of the gigantic men-at-arms appointed
to ride them, in the subterranean mews, H. has rescued very happily from
oblivion a coincident English superstition. The legendary lore of
mountainous and mining countries, is, with little variation, the same; and
whether America, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, Wales, or our own peculiar
mining districts in England be the locale of such, still may be
discovered, under different names indeed, and circumstances, the demons of
the mines, the guardians of hidden treasures, the freakish dwarfs and
fays, who delight in unexpectedly enriching the poor and virtuous, whilst
they delude most miserably all idle and worthless treasure-seekers, &c.
Nay, what, we may inquire, are the oriental genii of kings, and lamps,
&c., but modifications of one and the same superstition? And what are the
said Ginns--who erect splendid palaces in the course of a few brief hours,
and transport them at pleasure from place to place--but the Evil Ones of
more modern times and northern countries, who build, according to popular
tradition, bridges, and mills, &c.?--who cleave mountains, excavate
ditches, and fly away with monasteries and hermitages, in an incredibly
short space of time?

However, we have finished; for less than a folio could not do that justice
to our subject in its various bearings which it requires;--nor, indeed,
would less than an intimate acquaintance with all the tongues and
traditions of all nations that are, or ever have been, upon the face of