?--who cleave mountains, excavate
ditches, and fly away with monasteries and hermitages, in an incredibly
short space of time?
However, we have finished; for less than a folio could not do that justice
to our subject in its various bearings which it requires;--nor, indeed,
would less than an intimate acquaintance with all the tongues and
traditions of all nations that are, or ever have been, upon the face of
the earth--so intermingled are divine revelations, corrupt mythologies,
wild and palpable fictions, fantastic imaginings, exaggerated allegories,
poetical machinery, and the very insanity of human hopes, fears, and
wishes, &c. &c., in the great and never to be analyzed body of popular
superstition!
Can any of the readers of the _Mirror_ throw additional light on the
subject of coincident traditions?--Can any of its contributors show the
connexion which subsists between oriental mythology, allegory, and
legendary lore, with that of the Scandinavian nations? This Sir Walter
Scott has omitted to do;--but this might afford, even formed of the
materials to be gleaned from various desultory sources, another volume
upon "Demonology and Witchcraft."
M.L.B.
* * * * *
FINE ARTS.
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