ment. Some companies were seated on the green banks of the little streams which flowed into the lake. Some were walking in those islands which studded its bosom, or were busy in culling the flowers, whose fragrance perfumed the air around me. Others, seated beneath some spreading tree, or reclined on the mossy carpet at its root, seemed devoted to philosophic discussion; whilst a few solitaries were seen wandering in some of the more distant groves, or had retired to court the solemn intercourse of their own thoughts in the more secluded corners of the landscape.

We now entered the valley itself; and looking up, I saw, to my astonishment, in the air, a great number of beautiful little mortals, or rather immortals, with wings on their backs, of variegated colours and very rich plumage, and dressed in airy vestments of every different tint which can be conceived. Some were standing in groups, seemingly as easily in the air as ourselves on the ground. Others, fluttering about, were chasing each other in sport. Some, with baskets in their hands, and seated on the corner of a cloud, were poring with their little heads into the baskets (an occupation afterwards explained to me). Others were employed in dancing; but the figure was unlike any thing I had ever seen before, being half-flying, half-hopping; whilst their musician, a gay little gentleman, with his pipe and tabor, sat in the air; and, whilst his eyes sparkled with delight, and his feet quivered with anxiety to join them, kept clapping his wings in unison to his own music.

At this sight I could not conceal my astonishment. An exclamation of delight escaped me, and I turned to my Conductress. "These beings," said she, "whose appearance seems to give you so much pleasure, are the servants or domestics of this Paradise. We employ them in all our errands, and they are none other than the Eastern Peris,*

"Dans le Caherman Nama (Roman fameux de Perse) les Dives ayant pris en guerre quelques unes de ces Péris les enfermèrent dans des cages de fer, qu'ils suspendirent aux plus hauts arbres qu'ils purent trouver, où leurs compagnes les venoient de temps en temps visiter, avec des odeurs les plus precieuses. Ces odeurs, ou parfums étoient la nourriture ordinaire des Péris."

D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, sous le mot Péri.

or Spirits of Gennistan, so deservedly famous in Arabian romance. They are composed of so pure and etherial an essence, that if their little tunics were removed, you would be surprised at the transparency and beauty of their shape. This is in some measure occasioned by their living entirely on the odours of flowers, which they imbibe from those little baskets which you see in their hands."-"Those little gentlemen then, said I, "who surprised me by burying their heads in their baskets, are probably inhaling their fragrant dinner on the corner of the cloud yonder.—“You are quite right," she replied; and raising her wand in the direction where the Peris were assembled, one of them immediately perceived the signal, and came flying towards us, having slung his basket or flower-scrip on his shoulder; alighting, he bent one knee to the ground, and, placing his hand on his forehead, made the Eastern sign of obeisance, then springing lightly up, he waited in silence for our orders.

"Peri," said my Conductress, "what is going on amongst my literary friends, your masters, in the valley? I have brought a stranger with me, my particular friend, and I could wish to have something new and striking,-some great public sight, or rare and signal occurrence, which might be worthy of his notice."-" Dear mistress," replied the little Spirit, "you could not possibly have arrived at a more happy time. The gaieties of our valley have but just commenced; and this very night, Paulius Jovius gives a rout at his villa on the lake; and to-morrow there is to be a select hop at Hugo Grotius', in honour of his little daughter Cornelia. The very last cards which I distributed were to Torquato Tasso and Sir Thomas Urquhart; but it is most fortunate that, owing to Scipio and Lælius being absent on a tour, I have still two left." Saying this, the dear Peri pulled out, from below the folds of his tunic, two purple-coloured cards with golden letters on them,* and pre

The agency of these little spirits has been at length introduced into English poetry in Moore's very charming romance of Lalla Rookh, under the tale of Paradise and the Peri, in which all the warm imagery, and all the glowing colours of an Eastern imagination, are united to illustrate a nobler moral than is generally found in Oriental Poetry.

The richest books of the ancients were written upon purple-coloured parchment,

sented them to me and my Conductress. On the first I could read,

"Paulus Jovius at home

from 9 to 12."

66

And on the second, Hugo Grotius requests the honour, in the usual style, and dated, Villa Grotiana. Having acquitted herself in this polite manner, the Peri addressed herself to flight, but first pointing to a figure which we now saw approaching us, see there," said she, "yonder comes the Sieur de Montaigne, as talkative a gentleman as any in the valley. He will give you all the news; and, as his acquaintance is most extensive, you could not have a better Cicerone." Saying this, she made another obeisance, sprung up into the air, and joined her companions. Montaigne coming up soon after, immediately joined us, and did ample justice to the character the Peri had given him. He was a dark, illfavoured, strong made, little man; and I perceived he had been reading a book, which, on addressing us, he immediately closed. With that spirit of polite officiousness which is the characteristic of his nation, he told us he had observed the Peri giving us cards, of course to Paulus Jovius' rout, and that he would think himself fortunate in having the honour of accompanying us. "I was most agreeably interrupted," said he, "by your arrival, for I had just been reading, or rather fretting, for the last hour, and that's a great deal for me, over a work which has but lately arrived from your world (turning to me), a French work too, and by a gentle countrywoman, Madame de Stael; but from such extraordinary verbiage, such unmeaning theorizing, Heaven hereafter defend my poor head. She's a remarkable woman too, and has some great ideas and truly original thoughts about her, but such a volubility of words-such a successful obscurity-such terms of unknown and mysterious meaning, that to one who is an old author like myself, and uninitiated in this new school, all the sense there is seems strangled in the birth, and smothered in its efforts to get to light.

"That rascal of ours, Rousseau, was

the first who introduced this verbiagerie. He was, however, a great man, and I respect his genius. But this lady, sir,-Why, Rousseau is nothing to her.'

I was so perfectly thunderstruck at hearing this violent exordium of the old sieur's, and directed too against one of the most eloquent and popular authors of the present day, that I stood for some time in perfect silence.

He, however, like all Frenchmen, more attentive to the elucidation of his subject than to the dispositions of his audience, pursued the point in a still severer strain of invective. "Here, sir," said he, (holding out the small Treatise De L'Influence, des Passions) "here is a work, sir, professedly on the passions, but truly embracing almost every subject under heaven. This I have had the consummate patience to read from beginning to end without understanding a single syllable. Nay, had it been from end to beginning it had been quite the same thing to me. This work, in short, sir," said he, affecting great gravity, but smiling insidiously as he spoke, "this work will be read when Pascal, Fontenelle, and Voltaire,-when, in the words of Madame herself, our grands prosateurs are forgotten,*-but not till then. I have been very prolix and talkative,” said he, “but this was always a fault of mine. Long ago, in one of my Essays (the one on Books I think),† I professed my utter detestation of all long winded introductions, all prefaces, divisions, etymologies, and exordiums. What then must I think of this lady, who is all preface and exordium throughout.

"But criticism is useless hereshe is too old, sir, far too old an offender to mend. Were she young, there might be some hopes of her, but she is past her grand climacteric. She has got pretty far down in that dark avenue which she tells us terminates in the agony of age:-her style and obscurity, her philosophic mysteriousness, has grown with her growth. Os

* "These poems, said Porson (speaking of some ephemeral productions of his own day), will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but not till then."

+ Book II. C. 10. Vol. II.

In Delphine, Madame de Stael uses this singular term.

sibus inhæret, It is quite irreclaimable."

"You certainly are much too severe, sir," I ventured to observe, although the old gentleman had worked himself up into a state of irritation, which made it somewhat of a dangerous service to thwart him, especially as I was a mere mortal and he an enraged ghost. "This lady has perhaps many of the faults you mention, but you judge from her earliest and most imperfect performance. Read Corinne, sir; read De la Litterature; read, said I, gaining courage, her work on Germany. It is in these you will recognise her genius, it is in these you will discover her real eulogium. I allow certainly, that in these also there are great faults. Her obscurity,―her highsounding phrases, her often unmeaning expletives, and all the imposing apparatus of verbiagerie, are not unsparingly employed; but these faults are redeemed by so many brilliant passages, by such enchanting descriptions, by such touching and eloquent appeals, and, pardon me most respectable sieur, by so high a strain,-by so pure a tone of moral feeling, that few, very few, will rise from their perusal without admiration for her uncommon and original mind."

"Well, well," said Montaigne, you are evidently yourself infected by this new style of philosophising, and will probably be one day or other intruding upon your unfortunate world some treatise or dissertation, containing as much brilliant nonsense, and enchanting appeals, as your wrongheaded Instructress. But hear me for a moment. I am, as you see, an old and experienced ghost. You are evidently a middle-aged and inexperienced mortal. Take my word for't, this style of writing won't last. It is not of the re perennius kind. It won't, like some other unfading productions of your age, strike its roots into one century, and flourish brighter and fairer through the next. It is too much like Charlatanerie; before one can be eloquent he must be understood.* Mystery and verbiage must cease before conviction or instruction

Although Montaigne is evidently too severe, and very strongly prejudiced by his notions imbibed from the old French writers, the literati of the ancien regime, yet there is perhaps some truth in his criticisms on VOL. I.

begin. In writing those works, which are occupied on subjects of reasoning and philosophy, you must be conducted through passages, which ought to be plain and perspicuous, to conclusions which are at once forcible and satisfactory. Then indeed, when in the course of these reasonings, the author, conducted naturally by the greatness of his subject, rises without effort from the more sober regions of demonstrative truth, into illustrations which acquire an impressive eloquence from the dignity of the truths to which they relate, then indeed we can follow him with pleasure-we can peruse him with enthusiasm. It is the gem of eloquence glittering in the setting of truth; but when an author, who sets out in obscurity, begins blustering with unmeaning eloquence in his exordium, or, before he has well stated his object, bursts out into some exclamation of mysterious triumph, or unintelligible rapture; this, sir, (with all due respect for your authoress) is what I must, judging by my antiquated notions of criticism, call the very height of absurdity and self-conceit, But come, come; we have had quite enough of Madame de Stael; I see I have not convinced you, so we had better change the subject, and, fortunately, here comes, in good time, a most intimate and amusing friend of mine, Sir Thomas Urquhart. Perhaps you have met with his renowned works; if so, I must tell you, he is just as odd as they are. Amongst us here, indeed, he passes for one of our most entertaining and extraordinary spirits. All his strange theories and uncommon phraseology he has conscientiously imported with him from the other world. 'Sir Thomas,' continued he, as the learned knight of Cromarty began solemnly to advance, let me introduce you to a gentleman who has just arrived from the other world. He is, I assure you, none of those self-sufficient spirits, whom, under the significant terms of archæomanetick coxcombs and pristinary lobcocks, you censure in that never-to-be-forgotten treatise, your Introduction to Universal Language.'

unnecessary parade and premeditated eloquence in writing.

Ridentem dicere verum
Quid vetat.

* See Sir Thomas Urquhart's Tracts.

30

Sir Thomas's countenance greatly relaxed at this well-timed compliment of old Montaigne's. He stepped two paces back, arranged his limbs, and drew up his body into something like the first position; after gently stroking its ruffle, he placed his right hand on his heart, and moving the left in a graceful semi-circle towards his head, he slowly took off his hat and feather, and inclined his stiff trunk into a profound reverence. Raising himself then with equal gravity, he advanced in solemn silence and kissed me on both cheeks. Upon the conclusion of this ceremonial, Montaigne, turning to me, exclaimed, "Of all things in the world, I would wish to have some account of the state of manners and society amongst you now-a-days. No doubt you have had great changes since our good old days. The wheel of society and manners is ever revolving, and, like the fiery wheel of some skilful Pyrotechnic, each new revolution presents us with some figure, more strange and more wonderful than its predecessor. Man has altered his doublet, and woman her fardingale, many a time for the worse, since I kept court* with my sovereign at Rouen. Yet I made but a shabby courtier after all-though I loved those chivalrous days of our ancient monarchy. "Truly, sieur," replied Sir Thomas, “ your observations on those antiquated times, as they are now called by those shallow and fidimplicitary coxcombs, who fill our too credulous ears with their quisquiliary deblaterations, appear to me

"Montaigne nous apprend, qu'il n'etoit pas ennemi de l'agitation des cours, et qu'il y avoit passé une partie de sa vie. En effet il se trouva a Rouen, pendant que le Roi Charles IX. y etoit."-Vie de Montaigne.

I have attempted here an imitation of the extraordinary style of Sir Thomas Urquhart, a man of genius, as none who have perused his inimitable translation of part of Rabelais will be disposed to deny, or his extraordinary account of the murder of the admirable Crichton, in his tracts (under the one named the Jewel), but in other respects of the most ridiculous pretensions, and these conveyed in the most quaint and unintelligible phraseology, as every one who has turned over his Introduction to a Uni

versal Language will most readily allow. Most of the singular words in this speech of Sir Thomas are either sanctioned by his own authority, or coined according to those rules he seems to have adopted.

both orderly digested and aptly conceived. We have lived, sir, in those great eras,-those commendable measurements of the regent of this diurnal microcosme,—those exalted periodi, by which the sagacity of the sapient philosophunculi of this rotundal habitation, hath measured the unceasing rotations of the cælicolary spheroids,-in those times, seignior, when the old were respected, and in all estimation-the young sweet and judicious-the married women decorous rather than decorated, grave as well as gravida-the virgins pure and pitiful-the youth becomingly silent, and more given to listen to the legislative or literatorie discussions of their elders, than to any cunning tricks or vulpicularie conundrums, to the jeers, gibes, mopes, quips, jests, or jerks of their simiatick companions. Gallantry, sir, (said he, turning to me) or the exalted science of demulceating the amiable reservedness, and overcoming the attractive pudicity, of the gentler sex, by the display of rare and excellent endowments, was a discipline worthy of the accomplished chevaliers of these most memorable eras.”

As Sir Thomas had finished this last period, and seemed to be clearing his throat, and arranging his attitude for a more detailed exposition upon the gallantry of the sixteenth century, we were interrupted by the approach of one of the little spirits who had announced themselves, on my first arrival, to be the domestics of the Literary Paradise. “That Peri, who approaches us," said Montaigne, "has on the Jovian livery, and comes to tell us that the evening is now far enough advanced for us to be setting out to Paulus' rout. I hear the old gentleman has spared no pains; his gardens are to be illuminated, his fountains in full play; we are to assemble in the library to have a promenade by moonlight, and to sup in the summer-house of the Elogia."

It immediately struck me, that amid all this splendour my appearance would be more than commonly shabby. I cast a mournful look at my threadbare habiliments (for I had on that decayed suit which I have appropriated solely for home consumption), I then partially and slily raised the oldest of my slippers, and directed a petitioning look to my Conductross, as much as to say, You, kindest lady, who have had

the power to bring me here, may perhaps have the goodness to order some of your aerial tailors to furnish me with a suit worthy of the illustrious society to which I am about to be introduced. She immediately gave me a smile, which was at once humorous and delightful; it played upon her lip, dimpled in her cheek, and rising in its course, gave a purer lustre and more renovated beauty to her eyes. "Peri," said she, "conduct this stranger to the chamber I ordered you to prepare for him. You and your brethren must attend to his toilet, and accompany him to the Villa Joviana. I shall meet you there in an hour; but I must rest now for some minutes. My extraordinary toilet, and the humours of Paulus' rout, will form the subject of another chapter.

ACCOUNT OF A THUNDER STORM IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF LEADHILLS, LANARKSHIRE;

By MR JAMES BRAID, Surgeon at Leadhills.

(Read before the Wernerian Society, 7th June 1817.)

ON Saturday, 15th February 1817, we had very high wind in this neighbourhood. Its direction was southerly, though by no means steady to one point:-it also varied very much as to force.

At mid-day I had occasion to visit a family six miles down the country, which gave me an opportunity of making the following observations:

The wind, as has already been stated, was very unsteady, both as to direction and force. It was so violent as several times nearly to force me from my horse, though I was upon my guard, being afraid it might do so. At one time it was so violent as to force my horse, though very stout, several yards off the high-way.

There were many dark-coloured clouds floating in the atmosphere in all directions. I observed several of these clouds rush suddenly towards others and unite, and I think with the same velocity, though some of them contrary to the direction of the wind. The air felt excessively cold. Almost immediately after the union of these clouds, there was a very loud clap of thunder, followed by a shower of hail,

and the air became somewhat warmer. The wind, however, still continued to blow with unabated violence. About five o'clock, P. M. the wind became less violent, and, in a few hours more, was entirely divested of its tempestuous force. I myself heard no more thunder that night, but some in this village assured me that they heard it repeatedly during the night. About Crawford, eight miles east from Leadhills, it was distinctly heard the greater part of the night. I saw several very vivid flashes of lightning from that quarter about ten o'clock, P. M.

On Sunday, when visiting the same family in the country, the master of the house told me that he was very much alarmed as he was going home on Saturday evening, between six and seven o'clock, "from," as he expressed himself, "his horse's ears being the same as two burning candles, and the edges of his hat being all in a flame." I wished much I had seen an appearance of the kind, and it was not long till I had an opportunity of doing so. Tuesday 18th, in the evening, there were such flashes of lightning from the west, repeated every two or three minutes, sometimes at shorter intervals, as appeared to illumine the whole heavens; but I heard no thunder that evening.

On Thursday 20th, I was gratified for a few minutes with the luminous appearance described above. It was about nine o'clock, P. M. I had no sooner got on horseback than I observed the tips of both the horse's ears to be quite luminous: the edges of my hat had the same appearance. I was soon deprived of these luminaries by a shower of moist snow which immediately began to fall. The horse's ears soon became wet and lost their luminous appearance; but the edges of my hat, being longer of getting wet, continued to give the luminous appearance somewhat longer.

I could observe an immense number of minute sparks darting towards the horse's ears and the margin of my hat, which produced a very beautiful appearance, and I was sorry to be so soon deprived of it.

The atmosphere in this neighbourhood appeared to be very highly electrified for eight or ten days about this time. Thunder was heard occasionally from 15th to 23d, during which time the weather was very unsteady;