Sodom must perish, but the intercession of Abram, whose pious mind is expressed in his strivings for the wicked city, casts a gleam of light into the pit of sin. A gentle warning given by a good man sheds a similar soft hue upon this story of Staveren. A maiden, the richest heiress of the city, summons her sailing master, and says, "take twelve moons' time for your voyage, and bring me back as cargo the noblest that earth can produce." He replies, "At once I obey and weigh the anchor, but tell more nearly what you want; there are so many noble productions of the earth. Is it corn or wine? Is it amber or silk, gold or spices? Is it pearls or emeralds? It costs thee but a word, and it shall be my cargo, were it the world's most precious treasure."

But she bids him guess, and will give him no help. He sails away in doubt, but after much thought makes up his mind, as becomes a substantial wise German,

What can be more precious than the golden grain?
Without this common gift of earth, all others would be vain,
With this I'll lade the skiff and shun her anger's pain.

So he loads his vessel with wheat from Dantzic, and is back at the end of the half year. He finds in the banquet hall his lady, who receives him with looks of scornful surprise.

Art thou here, my captain, in such haste?
Were thy ship a bird, that bird had flown too fast!
I fancied thee just now on Guinea's golden shore,
What hast thou brought me, quickly say, if not the precious
ore?

The poor captain well sees he has failed of his errand, and answers reluctantly,

The best wheat I bring, potent lady, to thee!

No better can be found far as the land meets the sea.

At the news she expresses the greatest scorn and anger. Did I not bid thee, she cries, bring me the noblest, the best that the earth holds, and didst thou dare to bring me "miserable wheat of which these loaves are made?”

Then answered the old man, Despise not that by which we're fed,

God bids us daily pray him for our daily bread.

How highly I esteem it, she cries, thou soon shalt see,

On which side did you take in this trash you bring for me?

On the right, he replies. Very well, she says, then throw it all into the sea from the left. Prepare to do this immediately, and I will come myself to see that you obey.

He went, but not to do the bidding at which his soul revolts. He calls together the hungry poor, and assembles them on the landing, thinking her hard heart will be touched at the sight, and she will not dare to offend God by this wanton waste of his gifts.

But the crowd of famished wretches implored in vain a little of the wheat to give them just one day, free from suffering. She persisted in her whim of pride, and all was thrown into the sea. The poor people looked on, wringing their hands, but the ship-master can no longer contain himself. He curses her, and predicts that she will yet be compelled to pick up the wheat, grain by grain, from the mud of the streets. She jeers at him. However, within the year the curse falls on her, losses are announced from every quarter, all is gone, and she begs from door to door the bread everywhere denied her, and at last sobs away her miserable life alone on a bed of straw.

This example does not warn her countrymen. They persist in their course of luxury, selfishness, and arrogance, when lo! a miracle comes to punish them, by stopping up the source of their ill-used wealth. Where the wheat had been thrown into the sea rose up a sand-bar, known by the name of Frauen sand. On this grows a plant unlike any known before, it is like corn, only there is no grain in the ear. This mysterious obstacle barred up their haven, spoiled their trade, their city sunk into poverty; - one morning they drew up fish when they went to the wells, and, in a few hours, the sea made good its triumph over Staveren.

Though written into prose, the thread of this story must show its texture. The legend is put into its present form by Simrock, and as well as most of those by his helpers, is graceful, vigorous, and of an expression whose simplicity and depth does not suffer by comparison with the volks lieder, even when they are on the same subject. The manner is different, but the same spirit dictates both, each in the manner of its own time.

In a perhaps not less pious, though less meek spirit, comes a tale a little farther on. Prince Radbot is about to be baptized, he has his foot in the water's brink when he bethinks himself to ask the priest, "where now are all my ancestors who died without baptism?"

"In hell," replied the pious bishop,
"Thy fathers who died as heathens,
King Radbot, are now in hell."

That enraged the valiant Degen (blade).
"Base priest," cried he, "my fathers,
My fathers were valiant men;

Rather will I, yes, by Wodan I swear it,
Be with those heroes in their hell,
Than with you in your priests' heaven."
He spake it and walked away in defiance.

The anecdote resembles one well hacknied, but the sentiment is so based on truth, that it might be expressed anywhere.

The Swan plays a distinguished part in Rhine poesy. This bird which the always most discerning Greeks consecrated to the service of genius, rather than birds of frequent song, this most beautiful bird seems always floating before us on the Rhine. In some of these poems the peculiar feeling of delight mixed with expectation you have in looking up stream is made to take shape as the approaching swan. There are two, one a volks lied, the other modern, founded on the same tale and called Schwanen Ritter, Knight of the Swan. It is a tale of a lady left by her father's death under the power of a bad servant, who will only set her free from prison on condition of marrying him. She has no hope but in prayer, and as she beats her breast in anguish, a little silver bell attached to her rosary is made to ring. Its sound is very soft in her chamber, but vibrates loud as thunder in distant lands to call the destined knight to her rescue. This bell was to me a new piece of ballad furniture, and one of beautiful meaning. Looking down from her lonely window, she sees the knight approach in a boat to which a swan is attached by a golden chain, both as pilot and rower. He greets her with a proud calmness, lands, fights the good fight, wins back her inheritance, and becomes her husband.

But he asks for one boon, that she will promise never to inquire his name and birthplace. The usual catastrophe follows; she asks him "at each favorable time" zu jeden frist. He resists her importunities with dignity and pathetic warnings as to what must ensue if she does not rise above this weakness. But she, at last, is so unworthy as to entreat him, if he loves their children, to tell her. He no longer refuses, declares his princely descent, divides among his three sons the fairy accoutrements of sword, horn, and ring, each of which is the pledge of a ducal inheritance. The swan-drawn boat appears, and the frail beauty is left to bear the heavy years of a widowed and degraded life.

The volks lied is the answer of the mother to the questions of the children, orphaned by her fault, and her account of the vision of purity and bliss which once shone before her is answered naturally enough,

O Mutter, das ist seltne Mär.

O this is a strange tale, mother.

So must young children answer, if told by their parents of visions of purity and bliss that had shone on their young eyes, and might have remained the companions of a whole life, had they been capable of self-denial and constancy. But when they hear that eye now so cold and dull has ever seen the silver swan approach on the blue stream, they may well reply

O this is a strange tale, mother.

In the German tales men are as often incable of abstinence and faith to their word, as women. The legends of Nixenquell and Melusine may be balanced against this of Schwanen ritter. The fairness of feeling towards women, so conspicuous when Germany was first known to the Romans, is equally so in all these romances. Men and women are both frail, both liable to incur stain, but also both capable of the deepest religion, truth, and love. The ideal relation between them is constantly described with a delicacy of feeling, of which only the highest minds in other countries are susceptible.

"Swan-rings" are another subject, expressing the thoughts of which the bird is an emblem. Charlemagne has lost the beautiful Svanhild. He cannot be drawn away from the

body. He will not touch food, nor attend to the most urgent business. All expostulations only draw from him a few agonized words, "You are all mistaken: she is not dead, she only sleeps, see how beautiful she is, I cannot leave her till she awakes." On the evening of the third day he sinks, exhausted, into sleep beside the corpse. The good bishop Turpin wishes to have him removed, but finds it impossible; his hold of the cold hand cannot be loosed. Suspicion being aroused, the bishop exercises till he finds in the mouth of Svanhild, one of those rings, on which was engraved the swan. He takes it away, and puts it on his own finger. The king awakes, and at once orders the now disenchanted body to be buried, but turns all the folly of affection to Turpin, on whom he hangs like a child, enumerating all his charms and virtues. The bishop, terrified at being invested with this power of witchcraft, rushes down to the river, and throws the ring in. The monarch, who has followed with hasty steps, gazes wistfully into the blue depths, seeking the magnet, but not able to recover it, fixes near the spot his royal dwelling, and thence Aix arose.

Very grand are the lineaments of Charlemagne as descried in these national memories. The ballads which describe him crossing the Rhine, where the moon has made him a bridge of light, to bless the vines on either shore, rousing the ferry-man to go with his shadowy host to fight the battles of his sometime realm against one as great in mind, but not in soul as himself, and those of his confession, and Eginhard and Emma, paint the noblest picture, and in the fulness of flesh and blood reality. He is a king, indeed, a king of men, in this, that he is most a man, of largest heart, deepest mind, and most powerful nature. See in Eginhard and Emma his meeting with his peers, and way of stating the offence, the fearful yet noble surrender of the self-accused Eginhard, the calm magnanimity with which the inevitable sentence is pronounced, and then his grief for the loss of his child.

Equally natural and sweet is the conduct of the lovers, wandering forth on different sides of the road, the princess now in pilgrim's weeds, not daring to speak to one another for days. Then the kindness of the good woodmen, and the sleep which total weariness found at last in the open forest. There is no violent transition in their lives from a