TO SUBSCRIBERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. We received Miss Arabella Bridget Coppinger's note too late to comply with its request. We were not aware that she intended the letter accompanying her poetry as private, and the sheet which contains it was at press before her second communication reached us. We regret the accident, as Miss Coppinger seems to attach some importance to the concealment of her name. We hope, however, it will not deter her from sending us more of her contributions, which we shall willingly use upon the terms she has specified, and have actually purchased an ivory twenty inch rule for the purpose of settling our future accounts with her. Many of our promised favours are unavoidably postponed. Among these, "The Algerine," and papers by some of our favourite contributors, who were too late in their communications. The "Poetry and Flowers," are not suited to our work. We wish to write to the author of "Visions, &c.," perhaps we shall be favoured with an address. The drawing kindly lent us by Mr. Bennet with its accompanying sketch has been unavoidably delayed by the engraver; we hope to be ready for the next number. Our literary friends will observe, that the department which in ladies' periodicals is usually allotted to fashions, is in this work made so distinct by separate paging, that it is not only unnecessary to admit it to the volumes when bound, but it is made a complete work in itself, under the second title of "Costume of St. James's." We regret that the poems sent by a correspondent, whose efforts we wish we could encourage, are not such as we can use. There is no reason why others may not be more carefully written. Chevalier D., who pronounces himself "the most finished artist in destructive and ornamental fire-works in Europe," has arrived most inopportunely. The former branch of his art in this country being monopolized by a professor named Swing, and the latter being engrossed by the indefatigable Southby, one of whose displays at Vauxuall would burn up the chevalier's hopes in ten minutes. The chevalier's letter would be an advertisement. Miss Kitching's first letter never arrived. The second was too late for notice in the present month. "An Inquiry to the Hon. Miss S."-These lines have not been finished with sufficient care to entitle them to the distinction of appearing in our pages. "OUR AMBITION IS TO RAISE THE FEMALE MIND OF ENGLAND TO ITS TRUE LEVEL." Dedication to the Queen. JANUARY, 1832. THE FORSAKEN OF GOD. BY THE AUTH OR OF THE FIVE NIGHTS OF ST. ALBANS." "FOR Heaven's sake! Frederick, do not go," exclaimed the terrified Adolphine, holding her brother by the arm to detain him. "Why not?" replied Frederick. "If Hermann can do his part, I'll be sworn to go through mine." ""Tis unholy! 'tis hellish! 'tis an impious daring of the Almighty! And you shall not go," said Adolphine. "My blood curdles at my heart to think only of what you have said!" "Why, look you, Adolphine," answered Frederick, laughing, as he disengaged himself gently from the clinging arms of his sister; "what is it after all? Hermann says he can raise the dead; and I say, if he can, I am he that will hold a parley with the dead; a conference such as living man ne'er yet had." "Oh God!" exclaimed Adolphine, VOL. III. covering her eyes with her hands and shuddering as she spoke, "the bare imagination of it is horrible." "Shall I tell you a secret?" continued Frederick. "I believe Hermann less able to perform his part than I mine." "Still, it is sinful mockery-if it be only mockery," said Adolphine. The deep heavy bell of the cathedral struck eleven. Frederick starting up, threw his cloak round him, put on his hat, and prepared to quit the house. "I have not a moment to play with now," said he. "Hermann expects me before twelve, and it is a long walk to where he lives." "Do not, do not go!" exclaimed Adolphine, in a tone of earnest supplication, as she once more flung herself upon his bosom to detain him. "By my faith, but I must. If Her B mann has spoken truly, he has ere this gone through pains and torments to vex the graves which are to yield up their pale inhabitants for my pleasure, that I dare not trifle with. Besides, would he not ever after despise me as a coward, big of speech but faint of resolution, should I now sneak to bed, and leave to him the boast of having prepared a scene which I was too sick at heart to look upon? Tomorrow, with the dawn, I shall return; and then, Adolphine-" "And then, it will be time to tell her more, thou loitering babbler," exclaimed a voice, whose freezing breath fell upon the ear of Frederick like an icy current of keen winter air. He alone heard it. He started and shivered at the mysterious rebuke. The next moment he was on his way to Hermann's dwelling in the mountains, and Adolphine was on her knees, praying fervently for his safety. Hermann and Frederick were fellow-students in one of the German universities. It matters little what one; as little, when the compact we are describing was made; whether a century, or two centuries ago. It was made-for its history is extant. Hermann, who was older by some years than Frederick, was reputed to be deeply skilled in the lore of necromancy and magic, and to have acquired the fearful power of controlling the spirits of darkness, so as to make them work his will. Whether he really possessed this power, no one knew, though every one asserted it, and Hermann himself did not deny it. It chanced on one occasion, when he and Frederick were walking through a churchyard, the latter, who delighted in strange, wild fancies, observed, as he paused to survey the tombs around them, "If a man now could bid these graves yawn, and cast forth their dead, to be questioned of what they once were, and what they are, and they constrained to answer truly whatsoever might be demanded of them-God of Heaven! what marvellous secrets we should learn!" "As how?" inquired Hermann. "Oh! think ye not we should find innocence that had bled upon the scaffold, for unacted crimes? Murder, and sacrilege, and robbery, and sin of every kind, dying on beds of down, cozening to the last all but Heaven and a howling conscience? Should one not see hearts broken by secret griefs, that were never told to mortal ears? Fathers and mothers killed by their unna tural children?-the young and beautiful withered by love's perjuries? poison and steel shortening the years that lay between heirs and their inheritance? And all these undiscovered villanies smuggled out of the world, with certificates of old age-consumption-apoplexy-from grave physicians who are feed to give names to what they cannot cure?" 66 Hermann mused in silence. Here," continued Frederick,planting his foot upon a new-made grave-" here lies one who but yesterday was laid in the earth, perhaps. Imagine I could say to him or her, arise-that I could call back speech and memory to the dull clod-that I could hold in my hand, as a book, the heart that has ceased to throb. Should I not read there something which the world had never read, during all the long years it dwelt in it?" ""Tis an odd fancy, Frederick," exclaimed Hermann; "a very odd fancy. Since when has such a notion possessed you?" "Since my mother died," replied Frederick, emphatically. "And she died-" "Oh, ask the doctor, and he'll tell you 'twas of atrophy, and prove it by his art. But my father died before her, Hermann; and had he lived till now, she, too, were living. I laughed amid my tears to hear them talk; and then it was I first thought how the dead would answer for themselves." "Let us go," said Hermann; and they quitted the churchyard. Many times afterwards the two friends discoursed upon this theme, which Hermann could not banish from his thoughts; and one evening, when they were passing through this same churchyard, he thus addressed Frederick : our "Do you remember," said he, conversation here, some months ago?" "I do; and our frequent ones since.' "I can perform the thing you wish." "Would you were able!" answered Frederick. but I mean to use no persuasion-no argument with you. Simply, and in plain words, I repeat, I can lay these graves open, and command the dust and ashes they contain to take forms of life! even the very shapes they bore when living.” "Thou canst do this?" "This, and more. They shall reveal to you those marvellous secrets you spoke of." "Hermann!" exclaimed Frederick, looking at his friend with an eye that flashed horrible delight, while his bloodforsaken cheek betrayed the workings of his mind. "Hermann! swear that you will do this; swear, by some oath terrible as the thing itself, and I will pawn my soul to the eternal enemy of man for the pledge of my part in it." "There needs nor oath nor plight to bind the willing and the bold. I am the first; are you the second?" "Here is my hand. When shall it be?" replied Frederick. "We will settle that as we walk along," answered Hermann. They did settle it; and the night was now come in which Frederick was to be convinced (for he doubted to the last) whether Hermann could really perform this fearful feat of sorcery. He arrived at his house later than the time appointed, in consequence of the delay occasioned by Adolphine's entreaties to forego the meeting altogether; and Hermann was looking out for him. He returned to his room, followed by Frederick. "I had worked for nothing," said he, angrily, "had I not gone beyond the need of this night's labour, to break the spell of a fond girl. Are these matters that women should know? Adolphine is on her knees still, and her prayers have a holiness in them that thwarts and disturbs my purpose. But I can perform-I can perform!' he muttered to himself as he rolled something in the palms of his hands that emitted sparks of a crimson hue, with a loud crackling. "I can-ha! bravely! bravely!" and he increased the rolling motion of his hands; "her eyes close her head droops-'tis a sound sleep, it will last till the lark sings." As he uttered these words, his hands unclosed; the palms were of a deep bloodred colour, but there was no visible appearance of any substance that had been rubbed between them. Frederick remembere the freezing voice that had rebuked him, and no longer doubted of Hermann's power. If he could thus hold communion with the living, why might not the dead be subject to his art? The room was lighted by a single taper, which burned thick and duskily. On a table in the middle of it lay several open books, traced with strange characters, and encircled with the skeletons of birds, reptiles, and animals. The appearance of Hermann himself was so strangely altered that Frederick could scarcely recognise him. His face was pallid even to ghastliness, and had a wild, haggard expression; his arms were naked to the elbow; his long black hair knotted; and his tall gaunt figure enveloped in a robe made from the skin of a leopard. The girdle by which it was fastened looked like twisted snakes, for there was a constant heaving and writhing of it about his body. Frederick noted these things while Hermann was speaking. When he ceased, he said, with an air of gaiety, "I like your dress vastly, Hermann; 'tis excellent masquerade; but am not I, too, to be equipped for this great occasion?" "There hangs thy robe," replied Hermann, pointing with his finger. Frederick started. Was it Hermann that had spoken? or was it a voice creaked from the bony lungs of death himself? He turned round in the direction of the pointed finger. Again he started, recoiling several paces. An arm, an arm merely, joined to no body, was extended behind him, holding a winding-sheet. The flesh was upon it, but livid and in corruption; and there it hung, suspended in mid air, balanced and supported he knew not how, offering him a shroud that had the soil of the grave upon it! "There needs nor oath nor plight to bind the willing and the bold," said Hermann, in the same unearthly tone. "I am the first: art thou the second?" 66 "Ay!" responded Frederick; "thou hast my word, Hermann; but―" ""Tis past questioning now," interrupted Hermann. "The dead are waiting for us, and we must go. Quick, quick; clothe thyself." Frederick rallied from his trepidation, and advancing with a resolute step, plucked the winding-sheet from the spectre hand. At the same moment there was heard a low wailing sound, which continued till he had folded round his creeping flesh the sepulchral garment. The horrible half-decayed arm remained. Hermann drew from his bosom a charmed glove, woven of the down that lines the screech-owl's wings, and the fur of the blind mole. He gave it to Frederick. "That must with us," said he, pointing to the arm; "but at the touch of living flesh it would dissolve to a putrid jelly. Put on this; grasp it boldly; and all is done till we stand in the churchyard." Frederick did as he was commanded without uttering a word. He put on the charmed glove; he grasped the arm. It had substance; it was heavy; and so chilling cold that it benumbed his own, as if it were solid ice. His teeth chattered; his body shook; the shroud struck a freezing shudder through his veins; and this seemed to heighten it. He looked at Hermann. He would have spoken, but his lips were rigid; as unapt for motion as the marble lips of a statue. "From this moment until sunrise," said Hermann, you have no power to exchange thoughts but with the dead. You hunger for their secrets; but know you not that the grave is a curtain dropped between two worlds? He who uplifts it, cannot be of both, save at the price you have yet to pay. Come!" Frederick heard this terrible denunciation with an appalled spirit. He determined to renounce his design. He strove to fling the arm from him. It clung to his hand, as if it had been riveted there with clasps of iron. He endeavoured to tear off the shroud. It seemed to have grown to him; and that it would have been as easy to wrench away his limbs. Hermann laughed aloud as he repeated Frederick's own words, "Swear that you will do this-swear by some oath terrible as the thing itself, and I will pawn my soul to the eternal enemy of man for the pledge of my part in it!'-Saidst thou not so? And dost thou quail already? Summon all that's man in thee for what remains. Come; they who wait for us will grow impatient at our sloth." Hermann led the way; Frederick followed with a staggering step. The night was preternaturally dark; appeared as if they were walking under a thick canopy of black mist, which veiled the heavens from their sight. The path that Hermann took was through the tangled alleys of the forest; a nearer, but more difficult road to the churchyard. He talked, sung, laughed, and acted, the whole way, the part of a man whose spirits were elated by the prospect of a festal meeting. He jeered Frederick ironically upon what he called "his dogged silence:" the forest rang with his laughter at every stumble he made; and he bade him note how nimbly he threaded the narrow paths, though he had nor more nor better eyes than himself. Frederick listened to him with feelings which it were impossible to describe. It was not Hermann he was following-he was sure it was not Hermann-it was some fiend, in Hermann's shape, for Herman was grave, austere, melancholy— never given to gamesome moods, and least of all could Hermann, his friend, his brother almost, exult so like a fiend in the agony of mind he was enduring. They stand beside a grave. Hermann sprinkles upon it a powder, which falls in sparkles of light from his fingers. The earth begins to heave; and presently, as a volcano casts up its ashes, the grave empties itself. Slowly and slowly, like the rippling waves of a becalmed ocean, it rises to the surface, divides, and falls in crumbling heaps on either side. Then there ascends the venerable figure of an aged man, clothed in robes of purple and scarlet, the ensigns of senatorial dignity. At the same moment the spectre arm, by wondrous motion of its own, rears itself aloft, and becomes a dimly-gleaming torch, each livid finger sending forth a pale-red dusky flame, which flings a horrid glare upon the cadaverous features of the phantom. "I cannot hold him longer than while thy quickened pulse shall beat a hundred," said Hermann, in a whisper; “in that space thou must master what secrets thou wouldst learn." "I know thee!" exclaimed Frederick, with a faltering voice; "thou wert the traitor, Wulfstein, who conspired against thy prince's life! I saw the headsman execute justice on thee, thou, to the last, calling Heaven to witness thy innocence: but all men knew thee guilty." "One man knew I was not," said the phantom; and a grim smile grew upon his corpse-like face." "And he -," rejoined Frederick. "Shall I name him?" |