of the human spirit "to bend the shows of things to
the desires of the mind."

In Perceforest and Amadis de Gaul a garland and a
rose bloom on the head of her who is faithful, and
fade on the brow of the inconstant. In the story of
the Boy and the Mantle even a mature reader may be
surprised with a glow of virtuous pleasure at the
triumph of the gentle Venelas; and indeed all the
postulates of elfin annals,--that the fairies do not
like to be named; that their gifts are capricious and
not to be trusted; that who seeks a treasure must not
speak; and the like,--I find true in Concord, however
they might be in Cornwall or Bretagne.

Is it otherwise in the newest romance? I read the
Bride of Lammermoor. Sir William Ashton is a mask for
a vulgar temptation, Ravenswood Castle a fine name for
proud poverty, and the foreign mission of state only a
Bunyan disguise for honest industry. We may all shoot
a wild bull that would toss the good and beautiful, by
fighting down the unjust and sensual. Lucy Ashton is
another name for fidelity, which is always beautiful
and always liable to calamity in this world.



But along with the civil and metaphysical history of
man, another history goes daily forward,--that of
the external world,--in which he is not less strictly