That for you oft they quit their bright and great Metropolis above.

Here Nature does a house for me erect,
Nature! the wisest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise
That can the fair and living trees neglect,
Yet the dead timber prize.

Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying,
Nor be myself, too, mute.

A silver stream shall roll his waters near,
Gilt with the sunbeams here and there.
On whose enamell'd bank I'll walk,
And see how prettily they smile,
And hear how prettily they talk.

How should I love the pretty creatures,
While round my knees they fondly clung;
To see them look their mother's features,
To hear them lisp their mother's tongue.

And when with envy, Time, transported,
Shall think to rob us of our joys,
You'll in your girls again be courted,
And I'll go wooing in my boys.

GEORGE STEVENS

THE GOBLIN BARBER.

A GERMAN LEGEND.

[Johann August Musaus, born at Jena, 1735; died 28th October, 1787. Although his name is little known now except to scholars, he enjoyed considerable reputation during his lifetime as a genial satirist and industrious collector of his native folk-lore. He was educated for the church, but failing to obtain an appointment he began his literary career by a satire upon Samuel Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison. After seven years' work as a tutor, he obtained a professorship in the gymnasium of Weimar. He next produced a satire upon Lavater's physiognomical theories, entitled Phy siognomical Travels; then his Popular Traditionary Tales; followed by Friend Hein's Apparitions-a series of tales in which death is personified under the name of Friend Hein. He began another series, Ostrich Fea thers, but only lived to complete the first volume. His Remains, edited by Kotzebue, appeared in 1791. The following extract is from his tale of Dumb Love. The sudden death of his father leaves Franz Melcherson in possession of a large fortune, which he speedily dissipates, and finds himself, like other spendthrifts, without friends as well as money. He takes a poor lodging, But he and falls in love with a humble girl, Meta. cannot tell his love, and when he learns that Meta's mother wishes her to marry a well-to-do old burgher, Franz resolves to make an effort to win fortune for her sake. He travels to Antwerp in the hope of recovering several considerable sums which were due to him. He fails, and is journeying homeward, disconsolate and penniless as when he set forth. At an inn, shelter is refused to him, and he mutters some bitter curses upon the landlord's inhospitable nature. The landlord, determined to punish Franz, calls him back, and offers him a lodging in the old castle.]

The castle lay hard by the hamlet, on a steep rock, right opposite the inn, from which it was divided merely by the highway and a little gurgling brook. The situation being so agreeable, the edifice was still kept in repair, and well provided with all sorts of house-gear; for it served the owner as a hunting-lodge, where he frequently caroused all day; and so soon as the stars began to twinkle in the sky, retired with his whole retinue, to escape the mischief of the ghost, who rioted about in it the whole night over, but by day gave no disturbance. Unpleasant as the owner felt this spoiling of his mansion by a bugbear, the nocturnal sprite was not without advantages, for

for the sake of company, he would willingly have done, had he in the least expected that the watchman would make answer to him. In a populous city, in the middle of a numerous household, where there is a hubbub equal to that of a bee-hive, it may form a pleasant entertainment for the thinker to philosophize on solitude, to decorate her as the loveliest playmate of the human spirit, to view her under all her advantageous aspects, and long for her enjoyment as for hidden treasure. But in scenes where she is no exotic, in the isle of Juan Fernandez, where a solitary eremite, escaped from shipwreck, lives with her through long years; or in the dreary night-time, in a deep wood, or in an old uninhabited castle, where empty walls and vaults awaken horror, and nothing breathes of life but the moping owl in the ruinous turret; there, in good sooth, she is not the most agreeable companion for the timid anchorite that has to pass his time in her abode, especially if he is every moment looking for the entrance of a spectre to augment the party. In such a case it may easily chance that a window conversation with the watchman shall afford a richer entertainment for the spirit and the heart, than a reading of the most attractive eulogy on solitude. If Ritter Zimmerman had been in Franz's place, in the castle of Rummelsburg, on the Westphalian marches, he would doubtless in this position have struck out the fundamental topics of as interesting a treatise on Society, as, inspired to all appear ance by the irksomeness of some ceremonious assembly, he has poured out from the fulness of his heart in praise of Solitude.

Midnight is the hour at which the world of spirits acquires activity and life, when hebetated animal nature lies entombed in deep slumber. Franz inclined getting through this critical hour in sleep rather than awake; so he closed his window, went the rounds of his room once more, spying every nook and crevice, to see whether all was safe and earthly; snuffed the lights to make them burn clearer; and without undressing or delaying, threw himself upon his bed, with which his wearied person felt unusual satisfaction. Yet he could not get asleep so fast as he wished. A slight palpitation at the heart, which he ascribed to a tumult in the blood, arising from the sultriness of the day, kept him waking for a while; and he failed not to employ this respite in offering up such a pithy evening prayer as he had not prayed for many years. This produced the usual effect, that he softly fell asleep while saying it.

After about an hour, as he supposed, he

at all surprising when there is tumult in the blood. He was broad awake: he listened whether all was quiet, and heard nothing but the clock strike twelve; a piece of news which the watchman forthwith communicated to the hamlet in doleful recitative. Franz listened for a while, turned on the other side, and was again about to sleep, when he caught, as it were, the sound of a door grating in the distance, and immediately it shut with a stifled bang. "Alack! alack!" bawled Fright into his ear; this is the ghost in very deed!" "Tis nothing but the wind," said Courage manfully. But quickly it came nearer, nearer, like the sound of heavy footsteps. Clink here, clink there, as if a criminal were rattling his irons, or as if the porter were walking about the castle with his bunch of keys. Alas, here was no wind business! Courage held his peace; and quaking Fear drove all the blood to the heart, and made it thump like a smith's forehammer.

The thing was now beyond jesting. If Fear would still have let Courage get a word, the latter would have put the terror-struck watcher in mind of his subsidiary treaty with mine host, and incited him to claim the stipulated assistance loudly from the window; but for this there was a want of proper resolution. The quaking Franz had recourse to the bed-clothes, the last fortress of the timorous, and drew them close over his ears, as bird ostrich sticks his head in the grass when he can no longer escape the huntsman. Outside it came along, door up, door to, with hideous uproar; and at last it reached the bed-room. It jerked sharply at the lock, tried several keys till it found the right one: yet the bar still held the door, till a bounce like a thunderclap made bolt and rivet start, and threw it wide open. Now stalked in a long lean man, with a black beard, in ancient garb, and with a gloomy countenance, his eyebrows hanging down in deep earnestness from his brow. Over his right shoulder he had a scarlet cloak, and on his head he wore a peaked hat. With a heavy step he walked thrice in silence up and down the chamber; looked at the consecrated tapers, and snuffed them that they might burn brighter. Then he threw aside his cloak, girded on a scissor-pouch which he had under it, produced a set of shaving-tackle, and immediately began to whet a sharp razor on the broad strap which he wore at his girdle.

Franz perspired in mortal agony under his coverlet; recommended himself to the keeping of the Virgin; and anxiously speculated on the

object of this manoeuvre, not knowing whether it was meant for his throat or his beard. To his comfort, the goblin poured some water from a silver flask into a basin of silver, and with his skinny hand lathered the soap into a light foam; then set a chair, and beckoned with a solemn look to the quaking looker-on to come forth from his recess.

Against so pertinent a sign remonstrance was as bootless as it is against the rigorous commands of the Grand Turk when he transmits an exiled vizier to the angel of death, the Capichi Bashi with the silken cord, to take delivery of his head. The most rational procedure that can be adopted in this critical case is to comply with necessity, put a good face on a bad business, and with stoical composure let one's throat be noosed. Franz honoured the spectre's order; the coverlet began to move, he sprang sharply from his couch, and took the place pointed out to him on the seat. However strange this quick transition from the uttermost terror to the boldest resolution may appear, I doubt not but Moritz in his Psychological Journal could explain the matter till it seemed quite natural.

Immediately the goblin barber tied the towel about his shivering customer, seized the comb and scissors, and clipped off his hair and beard. Then he soaped him scientifically, first the beard, next the eyebrows, at last the temples and the hind-head; and shaved him from throat to nape, as smooth and bald as a death'shead. This operation finished, he washed his head, dried it clean, made his bow, and buttoned up his scissor-pouch, wrapped himself in his scarlet mantle, and made for departing. The consecrated tapers had burned with an exquisite brightness through the whole transaction; and Franz, by the light of them, perceived in the mirror that the shaver had changed him into a Chinese pagoda. In secret he heartily deplored the loss of his fair brown locks; yet now took fresh breath as he observed that with this sacrifice the account was settled, and the ghost had no more power over him.

So it was in fact; Redcloak went towards the door, silently as he had entered, without salutation or good-bye, and seemed entirely the contrast of his talkative guild-brethren. But scarcely was he gone three steps when he paused, looked round with a mournful expression at his well-served customer, and stroked the flat of his hand over his black bushy beard. He did the same a second time, and again just as he was in the act of stepping out at the door. A thought struck Franz that the spectre wanted something, and a rapid combination of ideas

suggested that perhaps he was expecting the very service he himself had just performed.

As the ghost, notwithstanding his rueful look, seemed more disposed for banter than for seriousness, and had played his guest a scurvy trick, not done him any real injury, the panic of the latter had now almost subsided. So he ventured the experiment, and beckoned to the ghost to take the seat from which he had himself just risen. The goblin instantly obeyed, threw off his coat, laid his barber tackle on the table, and placed himself in the chair, in the posture of a man that wishes to be shaved. Franz carefully observed the same procedure which the spectre had observed to him, clipped his beard with the scissors, cropped away his hair, lathered his whole scalp, and the ghost all the while sat steady as a wig block. The awkward journeyman came ill at handling the razor; he had never had another in his hand, and he shore the beard right against the hair, whereat the goblin made as strange grimaces as Erasmus's ape when imitating its master's shaving. Nor was the unpractised bungler himself well at ease, and he thought more than once of the sage aphorism, "What is not thy trade make not thy business;" yet he struggled through the task the best way he could, and scraped the ghost as bald as he himself was.

Hitherto the scene between the spectre and the traveller had been played pantomimically; the action now became dramatic. " "Stranger," said the ghost, "accept my thanks for the service thou hast done me. By thee I am delivered from the long imprisonment which has chained me for three hundred years within these walls, to which my departed soul was doomed, till a mortal hand should consent to retaliate on me what I practised on others in my lifetime.

"Know that of old a reckless scorner dwelt within this tower, who took his sport on priests as well as laics. Count Hardman, such his name, was no philanthropist, acknowledged no superior and no law, but practised vain caprice and waggery, regarding not the sacredness of hospitable rights: the wanderer who came beneath his roof, the needy man who asked a charitable alms of him, he never sent away unvisited by wicked joke. I was his castle barber, still a willing instrument, and did whatever pleased him. Many a pious pilgrim, journeying past us, I allured with friendly speeches to the hall; prepared the bath for him, and when he thought to take good comfort, shaved him smooth and bald, and packed him out of doors. Then would Count Hardman, looking from the window, see with pleasure

how the foxes' whelps of children gathered from the hamlet to assail the outcast, and to cry, as once their fellows to Elijah: Baldhead! Baldhead!' In this the scoffer took his pleasure, laughing with a devilish joy till he would hold his pot-paunch, and his eyes ran down with

water.

"Once came a saintly man from foreign lands; he carried, like a penitent, a heavy cross upon his shoulder, and had stamped five nailmarks on his hands and feet and side; upon his head there was a ring of hair like to the crown of thorns. He called upon us here, requesting water for his feet and a small crust of bread. Immediately I took him to the bath to serve him in my common way; respected not the sacred ring, but shore it clean from off him. Then the pious pilgrim spoke a heavy malison upon me: 'Know, accursed man, that when thou diest, heaven, and hell, and purgatory's iron gate are shut against thy soul. As goblin it shall rage within these walls, till unrequired, unbid, a traveller come and exercise retaliation on thee.'

"That hour I sickened, and the marrow in my bones dried up; I faded like a shadow. My spirit left the wasted carcass, and was exiled to this castle, as the saint had doomed it. In vain I struggled for deliverance from the torturing bonds that fettered me to earth; for thou must know that when the soul forsakes her clay she panteth for her place of rest, and this sick longing spins her years to aeons, while in foreign elements she languishes for home. Now self-tormenting, I pursued the mournful occupation I had followed in my lifetime. Alas! my uproar soon made desolate this house. But seldom came a pilgrim here to lodge. And though I treated all like thee, no one would understand me, and perform, as thou, the service which has freed my soul from bondage. Henceforth shall no hobgoblin wander in this castle; I return to my long-wishedfor rest. And now, young stranger, once again my thanks that thou hast loosed me! Were I keeper of deep-hidden treasures, they were thine; but wealth in life was not my lot, nor in this castle lies there any cash entombed. Yet mark my counsel. Tarry here till beard and locks again shall cover chin and scalp; then turn thee homewards to thy native town; and on the Weser-bridge of Bremen, at the time when day and night in autumn are alike, wait for a friend who there will meet thee, who will tell thee what to do, that it be well with thee on earth. If from the golden horn of plenty blessing and abundance flow to thee, then think of me; and ever as the day thou

With these words the ghost, having by his copiousness of talk satisfactorily attested his former existence as court-barber in the castle of Rummelsburg, vanished into air, and left his deliverer full of wonder at the strange adventure. He stood for a long while motionless, in doubt whether the whole matter had actually happened, or an unquiet dream had deluded his senses; but his bald head convinced him that here had been a real occurrence. He returned to bed, and slept, after the fright he had undergone, till the hour of noon. The treacherous landlord had been watching since morning, when the traveller with the scalp was to come forth, that he might receive him with jibing speeches under pretext of astonishment at his nocturnal adventure. But as the stranger loitered too long, and mid-day was approaching, the affair became serious; and mine host began to dread that the goblin might have treated his guest a little harshly, have beaten him to a jelly perhaps, or so frightened him that he had died of terror; and to carry his wanton revenge to such a length as this had not been his intention. He therefore rung his people together, hastened out with man and maid to the tower, and reached the door of the apartment where he had observed the light on the previous evening. He found an unknown key in the lock; but the door was barred within, for after the disappearance of the goblin, Franz had again secured it. He knocked with a perturbed violence, till the Seven Sleepers themselves would have awoke at the din. Franz started up, and thought in his first confusion that the ghost was again standing at the door to favour him with another call. But hearing mine host's voice, who required nothing more but that his guest would give some sign of life, he gathered himself up and opened the

room.

With seeming horror at the sight of him, mine host, striking his hands together, exclaimed," By heaven and all the saints! Redcloak" (by this name the ghost was known among them) "has been here, and has shaved you bald as a block! Now, it is clear as day that the old story is no fable. But tell me, how looked the goblin; what did he say to you? what did he do?"

Franz, who had now seen through the questioner, made answer: "The goblin looked like a man in a red cloak; what he did is not hidden from you, and what he said I well remember: