lawyer who sold himself to the devil for a pot of money, and was burnt by the holy Inquisition therefor. In his confession he told how he had learned from a Jew the secret of raising the devil; how he went to the castle at midnight with a book which the Jew gave him, and to make the charm sure, carried with him a loadstone, six nails from the coffin of a child of three years, six tapers of rosewax, made by a child of four years, the skin and blood of a young kid, an iron fork, with which the kid had been killed, a few hazel-rods, a flask of high-proof brandy, and some lignum-vitæ charcoal to make a fire. When he read in the book, the devil appeared in the shape of a man dressed in flesh-coloured clothes, with long nails and large fiery eyes, and he signed an agreement with him, written in blood, promising never to go to mass, and to give him his soul at the end of eight years; in return for this he was to have a million of dollars in good money, which the devil was to bring to him the next night; but when the next night came, and the lawyer had conjured from his book, instead of the devil there appeared-who do you think?—the alcalde with half the village at his heels, and the poor lawyer was handed over to the Inquisition, and burnt for dealing in the black art. I intended to repeat here some of the many tales that were told; but, upon reflection, they seem too frivolous, and must therefore give place to a more serious theme. THE MORAL AND DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. "Heaven's dove, when highest he flies, Flies with thy heavenly wings."-Crashaw. THERE is hardly a chapter in literary history more strongly marked with the peculiarities of national character than that which contains the moral and devotional poetry of Spain. It would naturally be expected, that in this department of literature all the fervency and depth of national feeling would be exhibited. But still, as the spirit of morality and devotion is the same, wherever it exists,—as the enthusiasm of virtue and religion is everywhere essentially the same feeling, though modified in its degree and in its action by a variety · of physical causes and local circumstances,--and as the subject of the didactic verse and the spiritual canticle cannot be materially changed by the change of nation and climate, it might at the first glance seem quite as natural to expect that the moral and devotional poetry of Christian |