looked as if they had been made, and not as
if they were ordinary parts of the surrounding
scenery. Such works were, however, in some
cases, attributed to the giants, of whom there
will not be room here to speak. In the south
the same wild influence that operated upon
all the legends represented Satan as a gentleman.
In the fabliaux of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, and in the songs of the
minstrels, he is at the worst a criminal judge
who holds men to their duty; but in the
north he has a fiercer character. Phrases
now almost unmeaning on the lips of those
who use them formerly were of frightful
import. Here is an illustration from Gervasius
Tilberiensis: " There is in Catalonia a very
high mountain, called Cavaga, steep and
nearly inaccessible. On its summit is a lake,
with blackish water. Thereunder, it is said,
lies a house of demons, after the manner of a
palace, very extensive, and with one closed
gate. Its shape is unknown to the people,
because it is invisible. When anybody throws
a stone into the water there breaks out a
storm, as if the demons were offended. On
one of the peaks of this mountain are eternal
snow and ice; there is much crystal, and the
sun never shines there. Now let the reader
hear what lately happened on this spot.

"In a village built under the mountain,
named Junchera, there lived a peasant, Peter
de Cabina, who one day stayed at home, doing
some work in his own cottage. And he being
annoyed by the constant squalling of his
infant whom he could not quiet, cried out, as
people do when they consider themselves
injured, saying, 'The devil take the child!'

"Instantly his offer was accepted, and by
unseen hands his little girl was dragged out
of the cradle, and carried away in a whirlwind.
Seven years afterwards a native of
the place was travelling on foot about the
mountain, when he saw a man who ran by
wailing piteously. 'Woe's me,' he cried,
'woe's me that I am pressed under such a
burden!' Asked by the traveller, 'What
is the cause, then, of your pain?' he said,
'I have been now seven years on this
mountain Cavaga because I was committed to
the devils, and they ride me daily, and whip
me as their horse.' Lest the hearer might
doubt him, he told, as a sure sign of his
truth, that the daughter of Peter Cabina,
born at Sanchera, had also been committed
to the devil, but that the demons were tired
of managing her education, and would be
very glad to give her back, if her father
would come up the mountain for her.

"Then when the demons had been solemnly
adjured, the girl appeared in a moment. She
was of great stature, dry, frightful to behold,
with wild eyes, and in such state that her
bones, nerves, and skin, hardly hung to-
gether. She was of horrible countenance,
and spoke or understood no human language,
and there were few human affairs that they
could make her understand."

This part of the subject is, in almost every
one of its forms, so shocking, that, although
it would display, more than anything, the
active terrors, by day and by night, that were
linked with the superstition of our
forefathers, I would rather not enforce it by a
body of examples. I will end, therefore, with
one of the lighter narratives of the class. It
illustrates the phrase—now comic, once
terrible—for it was regarded as a penal
adjuration, used in many a contest, and readily
caught up by the person who was sure to
obtain something thereby—the devil take
the hindmost. In Luther's "Table-talk,"
there was a story told of a number of young
nobles who rode a race shouting, "The
devil take the hindmost." The foremost
had a led horse, which he let go, and
galloped on. Then the loose horse fell into the
rear, and at the end of the race was carried
away through the air.

A CALL UPON SOPHY.

WE will again make a short unceremonious
visit to Sophy, and be instructively amused
by M. Aimé-Martin.

Let a man roll a little air in his mouth,
and what is that? Let Napoleon twist it
between his lips and all the world is at war,
—give it to Fénélon and he shall so manage
it with his tongue that there shall be
everywhere peace. It is but a little agitated
air that sets mankind in motion. If we
could live without air we could not talk,
sing, or hear any sounds without it. There
would be a blazing sun in a black sky, —
sunshine mingled with thick darkness, and
there would be everywhere an awful silence.
There is less air in the upper than in the
lower regions of the atmosphere; the bottom
crust of air is, of course, densest. Saussure
fired a pistol on the summit of Mont Blanc,
and the report was like the snapping of a
stick. There is a well at Fulda three
hundred palms deep; throw a stone down it
and the noise it makes in its descent will
be like the firing of a park of cannon. It
goes down among dense air, and also it
reverberates. When a man speaks he strikes
air with his throat and mouth as a stone
strikes water, and from his tongue as from,
the stone spread undulating circles with
immense rapidity. Those circles may be
checked and beaten back in their course, as
it is with the waves of sound made by the
stone tumbling down a well, beaten back and
curiously multiplied. At the Castle of
Simonetti, near Milan, one low note of
music will beget a concert, for the note is
echoed to and fro by the great wings of the
building that reflect and multiply a sound
just as two mirrors reflect and multiply a sound
a lighted candle. Sound is, in fact, reflected
just as light is, and may be brought quite
in the same way to a focus. A word spoken
in the focus of one ellipse will be heard in