such was the peculiar property of the powder. And when the conjurors said to him "Why should you go away? Stay with us, and be one of us," he willingly consented.'

We should be sorry to think that a remembrance of the Homeric story has unconsciously led Miss Frere to colour or modify the ayah's language, but her words are almost a paraphrase from the Odyssey.

The nautch-woman here has also the character of Kirk, and the charm represents the Φάρμακα λυγρά which turned the companions of Eurylochos into swine, while Kirke's wand is wielded by the sorcerers who are compelled to restore to life the victims whom they had turned into stone, and by the Rakshas from whom Ramchundra, in the story of Truth's Triumph, seeks to learn its uses. The rod, she replies, 'has many supernatural powers; for instance, by simply uttering your wish and waving it in the air, you can conjure up a mountain, a river, or a forest, in a moment of time.'

At length the wanderer is found; but Panch - Phul Ranee and Seventee Bai have the insight of Eurykleia, and discern his true majesty beneath the fakeer's garb. The Rajah came towards them so changed that not even his own mother knew him; no one recognised him but his wife. For eighteen years he had been among the nautch-people; his hair was rough, his beard untrimmed, his face thin and worn, sunburnt and wrinkled, and his dress was a rough common blanket.' Can we possibly help thinking of the wanderer who in his beggar's dress reveals himself to the swineherd and of his disguise, and lastly of his recognition by his old nurse when she saw the wound made by the bite of the boar who slew Adonis? So in the vengeance of

Chandra we see the punishment of the suitors by Odysseus, an incident still further travestied in Grimm's legend of the 'King of the Golden Mountain.' So too as we read of the body of Chundun Rajah which remained undecayed though he had been dead many months, or of Sodewa Bai who a month after her death looked as lovely as on the night on which she died, we are reminded of the body of Hector which Aphroditê anointed with ambrosial oil and guarded day and night from all unseemly things.

But though the doom of which Achilles mournfully complained to Thetis lies on all or almost all of these bright beings, they cannot be held in the grasp of the dark power which has laid them low. Briar - rose and Surya Bai start from their slumbers at the magic touch of the lover's hand, and even when all hope seemed to be lost, wise beasts provide an antidotə which will bring back life to the dead. In the story of Panch - Phul Ranee these beneficent physicians are jackals who converse together like the owls of Luxman or the crows in the tale of Faithful John. Do you see this tree?' says the jackal to his wife. 'Well, if some of its leaves were crushed and a little of the juice put into the Rajah's two ears and upon his upper lip, and some upon his temples also, and some upon the spearwounds in his side, he would come to life again and be as well as ever.' These leaves reappear in Grimm's story of the Three Snakeleaves, in which the snakes play the part of the jackals. In this tale a prince is buried alive with his dead wife, and seeing a snake approaching her body, he cuts it in three pieces. Presently another snake crawling from the corner saw the other lying dead, and soon returned

with three green leaves in its mouth, and laying the parts of the body together so as to join, put one leaf on each wound, and the dead snake was alive again. The prince applying the leaves to his wife restores her also to life.

If we sought to prove the absotute identity of the great mass of Hindoo, Greek, Norse and German legends, we surely need go no further. Yet we cannot resist the temptation of adding a few words on the story of Tara Bai, whom the disguised wife of Logedas Rajah finds on a gold and ivory throne. 'She was tall and of a commanding aspect; her black hair was bound by long strings of pearl: her dress was of fine spun gold and round her waist was clasped a zone of restless throbbing light-giving diamonds: her neck and her arms were covered with a profusion of costly jewels but brighter than all shone her bright eyes, which looked full of gentle majesty." But Tara Bai is the star (boy) child or maiden, the Asteropaios of the 'Iliad, of whom the Greek myth says only that he was the tallest of all the men, and that he was slain by Achilles. This is, in fact, but one of the many phases assumed by the struggle between the powers of light and darkness. This child in the Deccan stories appears not only as Guzra Bai, but as Panch - Phul Ranee, as Surya Bai, as the wife of Muchie Lal, the fish or frog-sun. * These women are the daughters of a gardener or a milkwoman, in whom we see the image of Dêmêtêr, the bountiful earth, who lavishes on her children her treasures of fruits, milk and flowers.

* Max Müller, Chip from a German Workshop,' vol. ii. p. 248.

Since the translation from the text of Taylor, we do not

The path is inviting, and we have done little more than enter upon it; but we must not now follow it further. Enough however has been said to show that these Hindoo tales will not only delight children but will be a mine of wealth for those who care to acquaint themselves with one of the most important chapters in the history of the human mind. of the German popular stories Grimm, by the late Mr. Edgar remember to have met with so genuine and so lively an additition to this charming branch of literature. We are grateful to Miss Frere for her beautiful and, as we trust, faithful rendering of these Hindoo tales, which are presented to us in an English style of admirable grace and simplicity. To Anna Liberata de Souza we have to express not only our hearty thanks but our earnest hope that she will give us all the stories which she can remember herself or which she can by her utmost diligence gather from her kinsfolk or her friends.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

[Illustrated London News, July 17, 1869.]

THERE is no English poet now living who has so many readers in England as Longfellow. His writings are, indeed, known to the million; they find a place on shelf or table in the humblest artisan's home, where Tennyson and Browning have not yet come. This may not be so much the case in America, for aught we know. Though highly esteemed by his fellow - citizens as one of the brightest ornaments of their literature, Professor Longfellow is there, perhaps, regarded more as a consummate scholar and artist of poetry than as the favourite and familiar author of the largest class. He may be to them what Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Browning are to us: the cherished literary companion rather of those whose taste and sentiment have attained a certain degree of culture. If it be So, from what can this difference arise? It would be a mistake to suppose that it is because of any general superiority in the average mental refinement and intelligence of our own people. We are often told, on the contrary, that, compared with the population of the United States, at least of the New England States, the working classes aud lower middle classes of Great Britain are sadly behind in education. It is a more likely explanation