to be a well-established rule that when a French or German book is to be translated into English, the task should be entrusted to an Englishman: when, on the contrary, an English work is to be translated into a foreign language, it should be put into the hands of a native of the country, into the language of which the book is to be rendered. The reason, indeed, is obvious: a very superficial acquaintance with a language will enable one to catch the meaning of writers in that language, while to write in the true idiom of a language is a gift almost confined to the natives of the country or to those who have been brought up in it from early childhood. This rule, however obvious and well ascertained in theory, is in practice continually violated, modern publishers seeming by preference to employ French and German translators for works written in those languages. The result of this bad practice not unfrequently is that the translation turned out is in a kind of intermediate language, equally perplexing to the English reader and to a native of the country in which the book was originally written. We are glad, however, that we can except from this censure M. Demmler, the translator of the work before us, whose performance on the whole is highly creditable, though here and there occur blemishes which make us almost wish that one of our countrymen had been substituted. For instance, at p. 129, in a conversation between Cornelius and Rosa, we find a most faulty expression, "What, my dear Rosa," said Cornelius, "you thought, even before receiving my letter, of coming to meet me again ?" "If I thought of it," replied Rosa, allowing her love to get the better of her bashfulness, "I thought of nothing else." We venture to suggest to M. Demmler that an English young lady, however much in love, and however bashful and fluttered, would in a similar case say, not "If I thought of it," but "Did I think of it ?" or "Do you ask if I thought of it ?" We would

also hint our opinion that the phrase "lots of persons," which, if we mistake not, the Frisian maiden has recourse to more than once, is altogether unfitted for her lips. If it be objected that Rosa is of low birth, and therefore a coarseness of language is not altogether unsuited to her, to that we make answer, that not only had she the advantage of conversing frequently with Van Baerle, but we are told that he expended great pains on her education; and, what is more than all this, to the heroes and heroines of romance there is always attributed a purity and elevation of language, they being supposed to be for the most part under the influence of passion of some kind, and passion of any kind being acknowledged to be the grand purifier and elevator of language. On these grounds, then, we submit that the expression "lots of persons" in the mouth of the fair Rosa is "very tolerable and not to be endured." Before ending our cavils, we must also protest against the continual use of the word Miss as applied to the gaoler's daughter-even the De Witts and Van Baerle employ it when addressing her. Now in England people do not say Miss where in France they say Mademoiselle. The use, indeed, of the word Miss without the name of the lady attached conveys to English ears an idea of want of education and refinement; in translations it should carefully be avoided, Mademoiselle or Fraulein, as the case may be, being substituted in its place.

With the exception of these few disfigurements, we are bound to say that the translation reads pleasantly enough; for the tale itself, as we previously intimated, we look upon it as one of the poorest which M. Dumas has turned out: upon us, indeed, it produces the effect of a rocket that will not go off, a pic-nic in a pouring rain, a roast pig without plum sauce, or any thing else which at first sight being great in promise is in performance found to be nothing.

of the young one. He found it however not difficult to account for his disappointment: "I must begin," said he to himself, "as the blessed Antony began: he has been a stout warrior, and, having endured the heat and toil of the combat, now enjoys the glorious reward of victory; while I, on the contrary, have not yet fleshed my maiden sword." Being now about fifteen years of age he returned home, and finding his parents dead, and himself thereby entitled to some little property, he resolved first of all to disencumber himself of all earthly treasure, and accordingly divided his inheritance into two equal parts; one he gave to his brothers and the other to the poor, and then set out empty-handed to commence his life of hermit.

The spot which he chose for his residence was certainly well adapted to his purpose. About seven miles south of Maiuma, the well-known port of Gaza, lay a dreary waste, the wild and desolate aspect of which struck each beholder with awe and terror. On the one side lay a pestilential marsh, on the other the waters of the Mediterranean. A reputation for robberies, accompanied with violence, added all that was wanted to complete the horrors of the scene. Here the young boy

for he was no more-built himself a cabin of rushes and sedge, and, strong in faith, took up in this his solitary abode. His appearance at this time is described as being singularly childish, his checks being perfectly smooth, while his frame, sickly and delicate, seemed little fitted to endure the austerities to which he subjected it.

For a short time in his retirement his triumph was complete, but he soon found that the Adversary he had fled from was no less active in the lonely hut than in the crowded city. Excessive fasts and long estrangement from the society of his fellow-creatures produced their ordinary effects, and the disordered imagination of the young Eremite peopled his cell with apparitions the most fantastic. Various indeed were the forms which the Old Enemy assumed to ensnare or terrify the saintly child, now darting before him as a howling wolf or a yelping fox, and now again crouching at his feet in

the form and attitude of a dying gladiator. At other times he seems to have been in a jesting mood, but in his gayer moments doubtless not the less formidable. Of these we give the following instance. One night Hilarion was on his knees praying in the attitude of devotion; his head was resting on the ground, and his thoughts, as the historian tells us they will do, were somewhat wandering from his occupation; indeed, we may not uncharitably suppose that he was gradually dropping into a gentle slumber. The Enemy did not neglect his opportunity, and leaping on the back of the negligent devotee, he struck his heels into his ribs and gave his shoulders a good lashing with a whip, at the same time crying "Yeho! here; yeho! you are lazy, it seems, or perhaps jaded with your work; I think I must give you a feed." In this sally the mocking Fiend perhaps made allusion to a metaphor which the ardent boy had used to express the contempt he enter tained for his worthless carcase; that metaphor indeed which so tickled the fancy of the elder Shandy, and which, though harmless enough in itself, his indiscreet facetiousness has presented in an aspect so ludicrous that we dare not here do more than refer to it.*

The same enthusiastic temperament however which subjected Hilarion to these empty illusions, enabled him to combat and at length to overcome them. Many of his hours indeed were spent in better occupations than that of indulging in idle visions. We are told that he not only used to dig the ground for exercise, but devoted a great part of his time to plaiting baskets of rushes after the manner of the Egyptian monks, by the sale of which he procured enough for the supply of his scanty wants, being not unmindful of the saying of the Apostle, that if any man will not work neither shall he eat.

He had been twenty-two years in solitude, and was consequently about thirty-seven years of age before he became endowed with or at any rate was induced to exert his miraculous powers. A lady from the district of Eleutheropolis, whose nuptial bed was barren of offspring, broke in upon his seclusion, being the first woman he had

seen since his retirement from the world, and by tears and entreaties obtained his intercession with Heaven in her behalf, which proved not ineffectual. A wonder like this performed, he was not likely to be left at rest, and from this point miracle succeeds miracle in the pages of Jerome, till to the wearied reader the ordinary course of nature seems more strange than its interruption.

Some of these prodigies which best illustrate the modes of the thinking and acting in that age we proceed to lay before our readers. A youth of Maiuma dwelt next door to a damsel who was dedicated to the service of God. The maiden was fair to look on, and her neighbour was not insensible to her charms. Either forgetting or despising her sacred profession, he indulged in hopes of obtaining a return of his affection, and accordingly had recourse to all those arts which in that day were found efficient for such purposes, and some of which have not yet lost their efficacy. When he met her, we are told, he tenderly pressed her hand and endeavoured to enliven her ennui with gay and sportive sallies; when he saw her in the distance, nods, becks, and smiles, and, what will somewhat surprise us, whistling, intimated to the maiden the presence of an adorer. The object of all these attentions appeared unmoved by them, though subsequent events may lead us to doubt whether this coldness had not in it more of show than reality. Foiled, however, for the present, the youth betook himself to the city of Memphis, resolved to seek in the mysteries of Egyptian art some remedy for the pangs of despised love. After a year's pupilage to the priests of Esculapius, he returned home an adept, prepared to obtain by magical skill an interest in the damsel's mind which more honest means had failed to procure him. He buried under the threshold of her house a plate of Cyprian brass inscribed with words of wondrous might, and with more than earthly forms. On the moment the maiden was possessed by a demon, and, forgetful of the decorum which modesty prescribes to her sex, tore her veil from her head, and, suffering her tresses to flow unconfined, loudly called upon the name of the youth whom she had once too much despised and now

too fondly loved. Her affrighted parents led her to Hilarion's monastery and implored the interposition of the man of God, when the demon who possessed the maiden at once acknowledged the power of the Saint, and with loud cries besought his forbearance and compassion. "Twas by violence," cried he, "and not with my own good will that I was hurried here: ah! how happy was I at Memphis! how easily I led men astray there with dreams and with visions! And, oh! what torments, what agony do I suffer now! you compel me to come forth, and I, all the while, am kept fast bound under the threshold. But I go not forth, till the youth who keeps me fast, has set me free." "A mighty powerful spirit truly," replied the Saint in derision, "who can be kept fast bound by a thread and a plate of metal." "But tell me," added he, "how dared you enter into a maiden who was consecrated to God? Why not rather into the youth who sent you to her?"""Twould have been of great use, indeed," replied the spirit, "for me to enter into him who was already possessed by my colleague, the demon of love." Thus foiled in argument, the Saint had recourse to authority, and without condescending to humour the demon by sending for the youth who had bound him, or by having the spells dug up, he compelled him to come forth in spite of his reluctance, and then dismissed the released damsel, not however without a severe reprimand, intimating to the culprit that, had it not been for some indiscretion of her own, she might have set at defiance the assaults of men and of demons.

He who could thus easily bring youths and virgins to their senses, would of course find no difficulty in controlling a brute. Lovers, Syrian or Italian, at Maiuma or Verona, are a stubborn and a stiff-necked generation. It is therefore, for a reason that will subsequently appear, and certainly not with any purpose of enhancing the saint's reputation for miraculous powers, that we now record his triumph over an animal which is admitted on all hands to be unendowed with reason.

A camel of the Bactrian or twohumped breed, and of enormous size, was seized with a sudden frenzy, tearing and biting, and treading people

under foot. Its strength and violence were such that the stoutest ropes pulled by more than thirty men were required to drag it into the presence of the Saint. The blood-shot eyes of the infuriated beast, its foam-flecked jaws, from which lolled its swollen and livid tongue, its fearful bellowing that rent the air, had no terrors for the prepared mind of Hilarion. He calmly bade those who brought it let loose the beast, which they had no sooner done, than, appalled at their own act, they fled in every direction, and the Saint was left alone with the camel, which made at him with all the force and fury of insanity. Unmoved, he advanced to meet it, and, addressing the demon that possessed it in terms of withering scorn, he stretched forth his hand and stood awaiting the result [interim porrecta stabat manu]. At the moment, obedient to the mandate, the beast halted in its career, and falling to the ground, acknowledged in crouching humbleness the awful presence of the man of God.

The modern advocates of mesmerism have sought and found an useful support for their somewhat rickety science in the early miracles of the Romish Church, and the one we have just narrated seems that of all others the most adapted to their purpose. In the outstretched arm of the saint they will recognise without difficulty the mystic pass, and the sudden tameness of the beast they will attribute to that strange agency under which we have seen young people at evening parties sinking into the magnetic coma. This feat of Hilarion's, indeed, bears a striking resemblance to that wondrous work which a few years ago was wrought by Miss Martineau on a constipated cow. It will be interesting to many to trace out the features of the likeness but for ourselves we confess the inquiry has no kind of attraction. The imputation of prejudice and of narrowness of mind, we are aware we shall incur; and to that imputation we submit ourselves with lowliness and resignation. The story of the saint is probably wholly apocryphal; but, even if not, we cannot help looking on him

and Miss Martineau no less-as led away by an imagination that believed all it desired, and desired nothing so much as what was extraordinary. Harriet and Hilarion-his camel and her cow-are by us equally regarded with the incredulity of suspicion.

The fame attending wonders like these soon dispelled the solitude and obscurity which Hilarion courted. The blessed Antony himself, proud of his disciple's increasing reputation, not only honoured him with frequent epistles, but, as we often see an old practitioner kindly throw business in the way of a beginner, so the Eremite of the Thebaid, when sick persons came to him from Syria, referred them to their fellow-countryman, who would have saved them a long and tedious journey.

The enthusiast's cell of rushes and sedge had long given place to a crowded monastery,* and now other hermitages sprung up on all sides, filled with admirers and imitators, who, however, somewhat relaxed the severe discipline of their founder and model. To the hermitages were for the most part attached gardens and vineyards, with stalls for the oxen employed in their cultivation, which gave an opening in the hearts of the brethren for the old worldly feelings of rapacity and avarice to creep in. To restrain, as far as in him lay, these rapidly-increasing evils, Hilarion assumed the pastoral care of the solitaries who dwelt near; and every year, just before the vintage came round, made a visitation of their cells, with a view to stifle in its birth each lurking disorder, to uphold the faint-hearted with exhortation, and arouse the unworthy by exposure and reproof. Before his departure a list was made out of the brethren at whose hermitages he intended to make a stay, and of those whom in passing he would look in upon. It may be supposed that the love of variety in a life so irksome, perhaps not unmingled with the wish to witness the disgrace or discomfiture of an offending Brother, would induce many of the solitaries to accompany him in his route, and sometimes, we are told, he had as many as two