till now that he believed himself completely master of the great secret. His first attempt to carry it into execution was to be in the leg he was about to make for Mynheer Von Wodenblock.

It was on the evening of the sixth day from that to which I have already alluded, that with this magic leg, carefully packed up, the acute artisan again made his appearance before the expecting and impatient Wodenblock. There was a proud twinkle in Turningvort's grey eye, which seemed to indicate, that he valued even the thousand guineas, which he intended for Blanche's marriage portion, less than the celebrity, the glory, the immortality, of which he was at length so sure. He untied his precious bundle, and spent some hours in displaying and explaining to the delighted burgher the number of additions he had made to the internal machinery, and the purpose which each was intended to serve. The evening wore away in these discussions concerning wheels within wheels, and springs acting upon springs. When it was time to retire to rest, both were equally satisfied of the perfection of the work; and at his employer's earnest request, the artist consented to remain where he was for the night, in order that early next morning he might fit on the limb, and see how it performed its duty.

Early next morning all the necessary arrangements were completed, and Mynheer Von Wodenblock walked forth to the street in ecstasy, blessing the inventive powers of one who was able to make so excellent a hand of his leg. It seemed indeed to act to admiration; in the merchant's mode of walking, there was no stiffness, no effort, no constraint. All the joints performed their office without the aid of either bone or muscle. Nobody, not even a connoisseur in lameness, would have suspected that there was any thing uncommon, any great collection of accurately adjusted clock-work under the full wellslashed pantaloons of the substantial-looking Dutchman. Had it not been for a slight tremulous motion occasioned by the rapid whirling of about twenty small wheels in the interior, and a constant clicking, like that of a watch, though somewhat louder, he would even himself have forgotten that he was not, in all respects, as he used to be, before he lifted his right foot to bestow a parting benediction on his poor relation.

He walked along in the renovated buoyancy of his spirits till he came in sight of the Stadt House; and just at the foot of the flight of steps that lead up to the principal door, he saw his old friend, Mynheer Vanoutern, waiting to receive him. He quickened his pace, and both mutually held out their hands to each other by way of congratulation, before they were near enough to be clasped in a friendly embrace. At last the merchant reached the spot where Vanoutern stood; but what was that worthy man's astonishment to see him, though he still held out his hand, pass quickly by, without stopping, even for a moment to say, "How d'ye do?" But this seeming want of politeness arose from no fault of our hero's. His own astonishment was a thousand times greater, when he found that he had no power whatever to determine either when, where or how his leg was to So long as his own wishes happened to coincide with the manner

move.

in which the machinery seemed destined to operate, all had gone on smoothly; and he had mistaken his own tacit compliance with its independent and self-acting powers for a command over it which he now found he did not possess. It had been his most anxious desire to stop to speak with Mynheer Vanoutern but his leg moved on, and he found himself under the necessity of following it. Many an attempt did he make to slacken his pace, but every attempt was vain. He caught hold of the rails, walls, and houses, but his leg tugged so violently, that he was afraid of dislocating his arms, and was obliged to go on. He began to get seriously uneasy as to the consequences of this most unexpected turn which matters had taken; and his only hope was, that the amazing and unknown powers, which the complicated construction of his leg seemed to possess, would speedily exhaust themselves. Of this however, he could as yet discover no symptoms.

He happened to be going in the direction of the Leyden Canal; and when he arrived in sight of Mynheer Turningvort's house, he called loudly upon the artificer to come to his assistance. The artificer looked out from his window with a face of wonder. "Villain!" cried Wodenblock, " come out to me this instant!-You have made me a leg with a vengeance!It won't stand still for a moment. I have been walking straight forward ever since I left my own house, and, unless you stop me yourself, Heaven only knows how much farther I may walk.-Don't stand gaping there, but come out and relieve me, or I shall be out of sight, and you will not be able to overtake me." The mechanician grew very pale; he was evidently not prepared for this new difficulty. He lost not a moment, however, in following the merchant to do what he could towards extricating him from so awkward a predicament. The merchant, or rather the merchant's leg, was walking very quick, and Turningvort, being an elderly man, found it no easy matter to make up to him. He did so at last, nevertheless, and, catching him in his arms, lifted him entirely from the ground. But the stratagem (if so it may be called) did not succeed, for the innate propelling notion of the leg hurried him on along with his burden at the same rate as before. He set him therefore down again, and stooping, pressed violently on one of the springs that protruded a little behind. In an instant the unhappy Mynheer Von Wodenblock was off like an arrow, calling out in the most piteous accents," I am lost! I am lost! I am possessed by a devil in the shape of a cork leg! Stop me! for Heaven's sake, stop me! am breathless-I am fainting! Will nobody shatter my leg to pieces? Turningvort! Turningvort! you have murdered me!" The artist, perplexed and confounded, was hardly in a situation more to be envied. Scarcely kowing what he did, he fell upon his knees, clasped his hands, and with strained and staring eyeballs, looked after the richest merchant in Rotterdam, running with the speed of an enraged buffalo, away along the canal towards Leyden, and bellowing for help as loudly as his exhaustion would permit.

I

Leyden is more than twenty miles from Rotterdam, but the sun had not yet set, when the Misses Backsneider, who were sitting at their parlour window, immediately opposite the Golden Lion," drinking

tea, and nodding to their friends as they passed, saw some one coming at furious speed along the street. His face was pale as ashes, and he gasped fearfully for breath; but, without turning either to the right or the left, he hurried by at the same rapid state, and was out of sight almost before they had time to exclaim, "Good gracious! was not that Mynheer Von Wodenblock, the rich merchant of Rotterdam.

Next day was Sunday. The inhabitants of Haarlem were all going to church, in their best attire, to say their prayers, and hear their great organ, when a being rushed across the market-place like an animated corpse, -white, blue, cold, and speechless, his eyes fixed, his lips livid, his teeth set, and his hands clenched. Every one cleared away for it in silent horror; and there was not a person in Haarlem, who did not believe it a dead body endowed with the power of motion.

On it went through village and town, towards the great wilds and forests of Germany. Weeks, months years, past on, but at intervals the horrible shape was seen, and still continues to be seen, in various parts of the north of Europe. The clothes however, which he who was once Mynheer Von Wodenblock used to wear, have all mouldered away; the flesh, too, has fallen from his bones and he is now a skeleton-a skeleton in all but the cork leg, which still, in its original rotundity and size, continues attached to the spectral form, a perpetuum mobile, dragging the wearied bones for ever and for ever over the earth!

May all good saints protect us from broken legs! and may there never again appear a mechanician like Turningvot, to supply us with cork substitutes of so awful and mysterious a power!

THE SISTERS OF SCIO.

[FROM THE LITERARY SOUVENIR FOR 1830.] "Yes, weep, my sister! weep, till from the heart The weight flow forth in tears-yet sink thou not! I bind my sorrow to a lofty part,

For thee, my gentle one! Our orphan lot

To meet in quenchless trust; my soul is strong-
Thou, too, wilt rise in holy might, ere long.

A breath of our free heavens and noble sires,

A memory of our old victorious dead;

These mantle me with power; and though their fires
In a frail censer briefly may be shed,

Yet shall they light us onward, side by side;
Have the wild birds, and have not we a Guide?

Cheer, then, beloved! on whose meek brow is set
Our Mother's image-in whose voice a tone,
A faint, sweet sound of hers is lingering yet,
An echo of our childhood's music gone;

Cheer then! Thy sister's heart and faith are high;
Our faith is one-with thee I live and die!"

WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS.

[FROM BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, NO. CLX.]

It is chiefly by his sonnets that Wordsworth will be known to posterity. Boileau says,

"Un sonnet sans défaut vaut seul un long poëme,

Mais en vain mille auteurs y pensent arriver;

A peine

-Peut on admirer deux ou trois entre mille."

If we consider how many have attempted, and how few have succeeded in this species of composition, we shall acknowledge the truth of the latter part of the above assertion. The very shortness of the sonnet is its difficulty. Like the man who had not time to write a short letter, many authors, more especially in the present day, seem to have no leisure to condense their thoughts. They are able, indeed, to pour out their unpremeditated verse with much facility; and if they be men of real talent, some merit will undoubtedly be found in their composition; but this merit must necessarily be of an expanded kind. Water runs apace-richer potations issue more slowly from the cask. Now a sonnet is worth nothing unless it condense the elasticity of thought into its own small compass. We do not require that a hogshead should be filled with ottar of roses; but we do demand that the small and portable vial should contain a precious essence. When we read the sonnets of Milton, or of Warton, we feel that each of them is the result of more thought, and more tends to produce thought in others, than many a long poem which has issued from a mind of weaker stuff. On this ground, more than on account of their nonconformity to the sonnet rules, I should deny the name of sonnet to the compositions of Bowles, or Mrs Charlotte Smith. They may be pretty songs, or pathetic elegies, but they are not sonnets. They were popular, for they neither resulted from deep thought, nor required deep thought for the comprehension of them. The sonnets of Shakspeare and Milton (however admired by the few) have never been popular, because they address themselves to the understanding as well as the heart, to the imagination rather than to the fancy. Of this stamp are the sonnets of Wordsworth. They may therefore fail to delight the popular palate in an equal degree with (as some wit called them)" Mrs. Charlotte Smith's whipt syllabubs in black glasses;" but they will be dear to the lovers of original excellence as long as any thinking minds can be found in the community. They will be remembered-for there is something in a good sonnet peculiarly rememberable. "Brevity," says Shakspeare, is the soul of wit;" and inasmuch as the soul survives the body, condensed wisdom also possesses a principle of longevity beyond the" thews and outward flourishes" of wordy rhetoric. Proverbs live, while whole epics perish.

Amongst Wordsworth's miscellaneous sonnets (and they are numerous) there is scarcely one which is not good-there are many which are strikingly fine. They are all written after the strictest model of the legitimate sonnet, which from its artful construction and repeated rhymes, presents many difficulties to the composer; and yet there is an ease in Wordsworth's management of the sonnet, which proves that this is a kind of composition the most congenial, the most fitted to his powers. The lines are sufficiently broken to prevent the repetition of the same rhymes from palling on the ear; yet not so much as altogether to prevent their recurrence from being perceived, (a fault by no means uncommon,) so as to confound the distinction between rhyme and blank verse. The subjects are varied; and from Wordsworth's sonnets it would be easy to select specimens of the descriptive, the pathetic, the playful, the majestic, the fanciful, the imaginative. I have already pre-sented my reader with a glorious example of Wordsworth's majestic style, in the sonnet to Milton. I will now, therefore, confine myself to one other specimen, which appears to me to combine many of the charac teristics which I have mentioned distinctively above :

"Where lies the land to which yon ship must go?

Festively she puts forth in trim array,

As vigorous as a lark at break of day;

Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow?

What boots th' enquiry ?-Neither friend nor foe

She cares for; let her travel where she may,

She finds familiar names, a beaten way

Ever before her, and a wind to blow.

Yet still I ask, what Haven is her mark?

And, almost as it was when ships were rare,
(From time to time, like pilgrims, here and there
Crossing the waters,) doubt and something dark,
Of the old Sea some reverential fear

Is with thee at thy farewell, joyous Bark!"

Here we have beautiful description, majesty of numbers, a lively fancy, a touch of pathos, and a fine exercise of the imaginative powers. I cannot conclude this branch of my subject, without pointing out to the reader's notice, more especially, Wordsworth's Introductory Sonnet, that on the extinction of the Venetian Republic, and the series of Sonnets on the river Duddon. That, in particular, which begins,

"Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour,"

is a fine instance of the vigour with which an original mind can refresh a hackneyed theme. It is rather unlike the sonnets of young ladies and young masters on the same subject.