hand, it is not therefore tainted with the coarseness, with the
silliness, with the credulity of superstition. Such a faith reposes
upon the universal signs diffused through nature, and blends with the
mysterious of natural grandeurs wherever found--with the mysterious of
the starry heavens, with the mysterious of music, and with that
infinite form of the mysterious for man's dimmest misgivings--

'Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns.'

But, from this earliest note in the ascending scale of superstitious
faith, let us pass to a more alarming key. This first, which we have
styled (in equity as well as for distinction) the _Ovidian_, is
too aerial, too allegoric, almost to be susceptible of much terror. It
is the mere _fancy_, in a mood half-playful, half-tender, which
submits to the belief. It is the feeling, the sentiment, which creates
the faith; not the faith which creates the feeling. And thus far we see
that modern feeling and Christian feeling has been to the full as
operative as any that is peculiar to paganism; judging by the Romish
_Legenda_, very much more so. The Ovidian illustrations, under a
false superstition, are entitled to give the designation, as being the
first, the earliest, but not at all as the richest. Besides that,
Ovid's illustrations emanated often from himself individually, not from
the popular mind of his country; ours of the same classification
uniformly repose on large popular traditions from the whole of
Christian antiquity. These again are agencies of the supernatural which
can never have a private or personal application; they belong to all
mankind and to all generations. But the next in order are more solemn;
they become terrific by becoming personal. These comprehend all that
vast body of the marvellous which is expressed by the word _Ominous_.
On this head, as dividing itself into the ancient and modern, we will