the causeway, mangled her arms with pins,
and beat her on the face, breast, and stomach
with the wooden bar of her door. When left
to herself, she crawled for protection to the
constable and was refused it; but, in the house
of a merciful woman, who was a widow, she
found refuge, and the widow, Alice Russell,
bound her neighbour's wounds, and put her
into her own bed. By this Christian deed,
she incurred the wrath of the people brutalised
by superstition, and was subjected by
them to indignities, and kept in a state of
incessant terror, whereof twelve days afterwards
she died. But, on the day after the
first outrage, Anne Izzard was again dragged
out for ill-usage, after which she took refuge
under the roof of the clergyman, who was
blamed sorely for the shelter he afforded.

The belief in witches, even at this day,
survives in many corners of the land, among an
untaught people; while superstition of the
grossest kind, though, not the most atrocious,
is to be met with everywhere. In the London
drawing-room of the wealthy connoisseur
in rappings; in the remote hovel of the poor
man, who to avoid misfortune, is induced to
swallow necromantic mixtures, and among
whose household treasures are to be found
constantly such documents as this: "The
gar (jar) of mixtur is to be mixt with
half a pint of gen (gin), and then a tablespoon
to be took mornings at Eleven O'clock,
four and eigt, and four of the pills to be took
every morning fasting, and the paper of
powder to be divided in ten parts, and one part
to be took every night, Going to bed in a
little honey. The paper of arbs (herbs) is
to be burnt a small bit at a time, on a few
cooles with a little hay and rosemery, and
whiles it is burning, read the two first verses
of the 68 Salm, and say the Lord's prayer
after."

                         GHOST-MUSIC.

NEAR Rupes Nova, in Finland, there is a lake, in
which, before the Governor of the Castle dies, a spectrum,
in the habit of Arion with his harp, appears, and makes
excellent music;—BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy.

          BENEATH the pallid castle walls
             Of Rupes, where the rocks scowl grimly,
          And down dark crags the sunlight falls,
                                 A lake lies dimly.

          Nothing is seen upon its shore
             But weary waters, flat and grey,
          Or boat that in the distance hoar
                                 Fadeth away.

          Or, peering out between the sedge,
             The bittern; or the heron drinking;
          Or stork that by the water's edge
                                 Seems always thinking.

          Yet, round about, by night or noon,
             A murmur of enchantment flies,
          Far-sounding, like a fairy tune
                                  When daylight dies.

          The rocks all round—broad, brown, and bare,
             Down-trampled by the eternal streams—
          Have struggled into shapes that glare
                                  Like sculptured dreams.

          And in the trees that shade the ground
             The furtive wind sits always humming;
          And in the caves is heard a sound
                                 Of elfish drumming.

          The Lake is smooth, and bare, and wide;
             The distant shore looks out like sleep;
          And sleepy water-lilies ride
                                  At anchor deep,

           And open their white vases dim,
             And ruffle their dark leaves, and quake,—
          Like water-nymphs that by the brim
                                 Lie half-awake.

           And ever, when that ghostly mere
             The moonlight paves with shaking gold,
          Upward there grows a sense of fear
                                 And gathering cold.

          For, in the blue-black depths, a cell
             Holds a swart goblin, known far round
          For weaving one portentous spell,
                                  On which is wound

          The life of him who sits in state
             Within the neighbouring castle walls,
           And governs with an iron weight
                                   His vassal thralls.

          He sways them with a lordly will,
             And holds their lives within his hand:
          Death seems his slave; yet fears he still
                                   When Death shall stand

          Before him like a master, sent
             To call him through the dark away:
          He knows that when his life is spent
                                The Elf will play.

          He knows that up from watery gloom
             The awful Elf will rise, and take
          The Harp that lies like sleeping doom
                                Beside the Lake;

          That lies in broken rock and weed,
             Untouch'd from year to year, except
          When the loosed winds with shuddering speed
                                The strings have swept.

          The dreadful Fairy heaves the Harp
             From out the weed, from out the stone;
          He sits upon a headland sharp,
                                 And wakes its tone.

          At first it seems a little sound,
             Fine, and faint, and far away,
          From behind the hills that bound
                                That rocky bay.

          At first it has not strength to shake
             The lightest leaf upon the tree,
          Nor rouse the ripple on the Lake,
                                  Nor start the bee

          From out the swinging fox-glove bells,
             Nor sway the spider on his thread;
          But soon the music pants and swells,
                                 Till, overhead,