Nay, what, we may inquire, are the oriental genii of kings, and lamps,
&c., but modifications of one and the same superstition? And what are the
said Ginns--who erect splendid palaces in the course of a few brief hours,
and transport them at pleasure from place to place--but the Evil Ones of
more modern times and northern countries, who build, according to popular
tradition, bridges, and mills, &c.?--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.

* * * * *

COLONEL BATTY'S VIEWS OF EUROPEAN CITIES.--NO. IV.

_Edinburgh._

"The Queen of the North" has contributed five majestic views to Colonel
Batty's important Series. Each of them is engraved "in the first style of
art," as a prospectus would say, and there is no falling off in points of
interest from the Parts of this work which have already been laudatorily
noticed in the _Mirror_.

The Vignette of this Part is Edinburgh Castle, from the Grass Market, in
which the fine old fortress is seen towering in all its picturesqueness
and romantic beauty. Here and there it has some of the indistinctness of
hoar antiquity: its fadings away are beautifully characteristic. The
houses in the Grass Market are boldly contrasted with the Castle, and the
"spirit" inscriptions on