duced the aliments, and others worked out the raw produce, and others besides transferred mountains and piled up stones to roof over and to shelter the giant body, and there was no power able to resist him in the execution of his projects. This many-limbed Briareus, Lord of the Earth, must, of course, prove a very self-sufficient being. Since he could fulfil all his desires and satisfy all his passions without any help, he never thought of God, but perhaps took himself for the Sovereign Master of the World. In order to humble him and to make him conscious of his dependent state, God dashed him to pieces, and dissevered his huge body into an infinite number of separate beings, scattering them over the surface of the earth. These new inhabitants of the soil had lost their unity of action, their volition being no more directed by that common head which had ruled the movements of the former body. So they erred severally at random, without aim and direction; but they were stirred by a vague remembrance of, and yearning for, their former state, which forced them to help each other consciously and unconsciously, and to minister to each other, so that they might lord it over the earth with a variety of government, though they were single and isolated. Thus we have symbolized our notion of the organic unity of mankind, because we are anxious to impress our readers with this idea as forcibly as possible. For it is difficult for us to consider ourselves as children, the begotten of this our earth, because we move freely upon it, and are not rooted in its depths as the plants are; yet, though we can wander on the surface of the earth, we are unable to sever the soles of our feet from the ground, and, if we try to elevate ourselves never so little above the surface, we are soon reminded by gravitation of our connexion with our mother earth. But, though our organic union with the earth is in every moment proved by gravitation, no such manifest force of nature exists to make us feel that organic union with our fellow-men which we endeavoured to illustrate. How hard is it for us to be ever aware of this, our close connexion with all other men-so close, that the very existence of every one of us is rooted in the existence of all others, and that none of us could be even so much as a man without the others! Rather than think ourselves connected with and dependent upon every other man, we like to consider ourselves free and independent, owing to our innate and permanent notion of personal freedom. But, in spite of this freedom of our will, it appears that the varied occupations of mankind are, by disposal of a higher order, so distributed among the individuals that no one can be quite idle and unemployed upon earth. The English are proud of their discovery of the division of labour; but nature had made such a discovery long before them, for there is no division of labour more perfect than that which we may observe in mankind in general. As often as things are to be produced for the use of all, and such as we require for our daily existence, there are millions of men ready to produce such necessary articles ; and if, on the other hand, the achievement of such works is required as are to be done only once in a century, or a longer space of time, because the enjoyment and the understanding thereof is sufficient to occupy the human race for a long period, in such a case there appear on earth, at long intervals, some happily-gifted heroes of art and science, or of war and politics, to perform those imposing tasks, shedding their light through vast periods of history. Nay, if we look more accurately into the matter, we are entitled to say that not two men on earth are doing quite the same thing. The furrow drawn into the soil by one labourer is almost as different from that drawn by another, as the handwriting of one man is distinguishable from other handwritings; and a well-skilled farmer will mark the difference, quite in the same manner as the writing-master is able to tell whether or not two letters are written by the same person. And a thousand times more varied than those furrows and characters are the thoughts and sensations of men; and the different mental faculties must show their influence upon the deeds and actions of individuals, so that not two human actions can be quite equal to each other, in the same manner as not two leaves of a tree can be found perfectly alike. It may, perhaps, be difficult, in the daily and trivial occurrences of life, to show that even there the individuals do not act as mere indifferent unities among other unities of the same species, but that every one of them is a particular and essential organical part of mankind, and that what he does cannot be done in the same way by any other man living. In those things which appear to us more important because we are not on that sublime height from which all things, great and small, would appear to us of equal magnitude, it is easier to explain how entirely each individual nature has a character of its own, and is necessary in its own place. It will not be disputed that such productions cannot be brought forth by proxy, and that if Schiller had not written his Wallenstein, or Shakespeare his Hamlet, no other man on earth would have composed these poems with the same words, or the same disposition of action. Now, an eminent poetical production operates on the thoughts and sentiments of the hearers and readers, and not seldom awakes in their minds resolutions fraught with influence on their future way of thinking and acting. All such consequences would not have taken place if the poetical or rhetorical work in question had not been brought to light; and so the mental disposition and the improvement of thousands would have undergone an alteration, had not this one individual poet or artist presented us with his work. In the same manner, though on a smaller scale, every one of us is working and operating within his narrow compass, coming in contact with the spheres of others, and altering their course. Those mutual influences may be compared to what the astronomers call perturbations of the course of planets, every one of which influences and alters at every moment the course of all other planets, and is influenced reciprocally by them. We call these perturbations, not because the real course of the planet is perturbed, or brought into disorder, but because an alteration is perceived in that course in which the astronomer would prefer to see the planet going, because then his calculations might follow the star with less difficulty. In this manner the course of every man's life disturbs the career of all others, and though, perhaps, in most cases, these perturbations are so small and imperceptible that they escape our human observation, yet they undoubtedly exist, and the good done by one of us benefits whole generations, as surely as the evil done by one proves an evil for all others. It is interesting to attend to this division of labour among men in those spheres in which it may more easily be observed. So in the looms of art and science, the thread broken long since is newly tied and woven into warp and woof after the lapse of many centuries, when it is least expected. A small manual of mathematics, now intelligible for a fifth form boy, is the joint result of the investigations of Euclid, Archimedes, Newton, Lagendre, and Gauss; and a boy's hand may pluck the noblest fruits of the genius of the loftiest minds. Thus each one works into the hands of the other, and so we perceive the unity of all who seem to wander in separate walks, every one by himself, apparently unmindful of the others, whereas truly all of them are as many branches of the great tree of humanity, springing from the same root, from the hidden depths of eternity. So floats the blossom of that poetical waterflower, seemingly unconnected and free on the liquid level, and floating meets her sisterblossom, and nobody but an experienced botanist knows that they are rooted closely side by side in the bottom of the lake. "AUTUMNA." A BOLD brunette she is, radiant with mirth, Who comes a-tripping over corn-fields cropped; For round her brow glitters a careless crown Like grape at vintage, when its ripe blood glows, Grapes too, a-spirt, her brimming fingers bear, And on her lips-adding no crimson there ! Ah! golden autumn hours-fly not so fast! contested mode of recording the events of the past, namely, oral tradition, such as is still the habit in some few places in the north, although with more southern nations it has long been out of practice. Toward the middle of the last century, the peaceful inhabitants of the parish of Romsoe, a secluded rural community on the shores of the Ise-Fiord, in the north-western part of the island of Seeland, were equally perplexed and alarmed by the sudden appearance of a large ship off their unfrequented coast, which for several days kept cruising about the neighbourhood. As the majority of the inhabitants about Romsoe consisted of a sea-faring population, the old sailors and fishermen were not long in finding out that the mysterious stranger was a foreign man-of-war; but they were entirely at a loss how to account for her presence, as Denmark was at that time at peace with all the world. After sundry consultations they went, according to custom, to their much respected pastor, a venerable old man, and begged of him to offer up prayers for their safety and preservation from any calamities that might possibly arise in consequence of this extraordinary phenomenon; for as such they could not help considering the strange apparition. It was not a long time, however, before those simple minds recovered their wonted equanimity; and most of them had ceased even to speculate about this event, when, in the middle of one of the following nights, the good pastor was roused from his quiet slumbers by repeated knocks at the door of his house. On first getting up he thought that it was merely some message from one of his parishioners for him to come and baptize a newly-born child, or to administer the last consolations to some dying person; but he was utterly confounded when, on getting to the door, he perceived three strangers-an officer in uniform, accompanied by two marine soldiers, armed with loaded muskets. His heart failed him sadly; but, before he could recover from his surprise, the officer advanced, and, holding a written document in his hand, accosted him in good Danish, though with an unmistakably foreign accent. "My orders are," said he in a firm but courteous voice, "to conduct you instantly to your church, there to wed a couple, who are expecting your arrival. You must allow yourself to be led blindfolded by my men without hesitation or resistance, under the most solemn promise of eternal secresy. If you object in the slightest degree to any of these conditions, I am commanded to shoot you on the spot." There was no help but to obey; so the old man returned to his room, to finish dressing, and at the same time to tell his wife not to mind his absence. He then resigned himself into the hands of the strangers, by whom he was blindfolded and led to the church, which is situated in a lonely spot, at some distance from the village, not far from the shore, and surrounded by a little cemetery, planted with shrubs and trees. They led him away in silence; and the bandage was not removed from his eyes until he actually stood in the church, where he was still more bewildered by a strange scene. The whole place was brilliantly lighted up, and filled with people, but of a far different aspect from its habitual peaceful congregation for they seemed nearly all to be warriors. The pews and the nave were filled with foreign marine soldiers and sailors, all in green uniform and fully armed, as if on parade or prepared for battle. In front of the altar stood the bridal couple, surrounded by a number of officers. The bridegroom had all the marks of a high-bred man. He wore a richer uniform than the rest, had a star upon his breast, and seemed a young though sullen-looking man. The bride was a lovely lady with a rich dress, and she had an angelic countenance; but her beauty could not hide a sad expression and deadly pallor. Such was the sight that dazzled the good parson's eyes when he stood in the church. After he had been introduced to the bridal pair, the officer who had conducted him thither, and who acted throughout as interpreter, for they all spoke a foreign, and to him unintelligible, language, commanded him in the name of the bridegroom to take a solemn oath upon the Bible of unconditional compliance and eternal secresy with regard to what was to be done, and what he might see upon the occasion. Although this proceeding was most irregular, there was no help for it but to obey. So the old clergyman swore tremblingly to what they exacted from him. After this he was made to solem nize the marriage-when there was produced a very elegant sort of certificate, such as is used for royal persons, which he himself, the bridegroom and bride, and their witnesses, signed in due form, instead of writing their names in the register of the church, as is the usage upon ordinary occasions. Hereupon he was again blindfolded, and hurried back to his house by the same men who had brought him to the place, and there left with the injunction not to stir until the next morning. He was, however, too much excited to remain quiet; so he told his wife that he had only come back to fetch something which he had previously forgotten, and then, in spite of his fears, crept out of doors again, and returned on a bye-road to the neighbourhood of the church, where he concealed himself unobserved behind the stone wall of the cemetery, among some bushes. From this hiding-place he could see that the mysterious congregation had not yet left the place. The lights were still burning, and the people seemed to him occupied in chanting a kind of strange, but very solemn and melodious hymn; when, all of a sudden, he was startled by the report of a single shot fired within the building, and followed by one single piercing shriek. Then all was still; the lights were extinguished; and, some time after, he perceived that a silent procession began to move from the church towards the neighbouring seashore. But he was too frightened to see or remember more, and returned home by the same road he had last come by, as soon as it was safe for him to move. On the following morning he, as a matter of course, immediately repaired to the church, in order to discover, if possible, a clue to this strange event, and to try and find out something about the tragedy which he suspected to have been enacted whilst he was listening from his hiding-place to what appeared to be, and could have been, nothing else than a most sinister deed. But, on a first inspection, every trace of the scene of the preceding night seemed to him to have as utterly vanished as if the whole had been a mere dream. Without wishing or daring to violate his involuntary oath, he could not, however, resist the temptation of availing himself of the aid of his sexton, an old and trustworthy man, who, besides his communal office, had for many years held the position of a confidential servant to the good pastor. From this circumstance there had sprung up between them a sort of intimacy by no means uncommon in such cases. To this man he therefore threw out all sorts of vague hints of his suspecting that something might have happened of late in or about the church, and that he considered it part of their official duties to make, in all quietness and secresy, such searches on the spot, as would show whether these suspicions had any real foundation or not. They, consequently, went together to the church, and, after having prudently locked the doors from within, renewed in common the hitherto fruitless examination of the place. They went into every corner, and looked at everything, until they grew tired, and were on the point of giving up all hopes of finding any traces that might lead them to discover something, when the sexton suddenly perceived that one of the great flagstones in front of the altar, which covered the opening into one of the ancient family vaults under the church, had recently been moved. The good parson was seized with violent alarm, fearing to find his worst suspicions confirmed; and his friend soon |