pottery; but nothing grieved him so much as the loss of one vessel of inconceivable rarity, and my friend, who was heartily tired of his endless lamentations, wrote to me to get something antique like it for her directly, which might banish from his mind the recollection of his loss. I knew not where to find such a curiosity; and so, that nothing might be wanting on my part, I went to our potter, or as he chose to call himself, to the master modeller, and ordered, according to a design I gave him, a cup to look as like an antique as was possible. The man was highly flattered by the commission, and must needs put his name and title at length on the vase, which of course rendered it useless for my purpose; he was therefore obliged to begin it over again, and I failed not to enjoin him from putting his name, as the vase was intended to pass for the work of a master who had been dead more than a thousand years. Nevertheless, as I now find, he must have promised himself immortality from his labours, as he could not refrain from inserting his initials at least, under the handle, to hand them down to posterity.”—“The devil!” cried the professor, with rather a clouded brow.
“So it is,” continued the lady. “Look here as I read it, your inscription proves ‘Adam Stephen Graal did it.’ ”
The counsellor burst out into a laugh, but the professor would not give up his graal yet. “You jest, Madam! Ay, ay, this is all an invention of your own. Very good, upon my word.”
“It is perfectly true, nevertheless,” replied she, “you may convince yourself by my friend Graal’s first essay, which I fortunately have preserved, and where the inscription is legible at full length. I shall be happy to present you with it as a new curiosity for your museum.”
A general laugh from every one present put an end to the conversation; and they all unanimously agreed neither to be superstitious themselves, nor to blame credulity too hastily in others.
FRAGMENT OF A PROJECTED ODE
On the Influence of Fancy upon Mythology.
On some green cape’s delicious brow,
(Watching the vast and glorious main
That spread its purple robe below,)
With eyes half-closed in reverie
Has seen the ocean’s King afar,
And the young Sisters of the sea
Floating around his pearly car:—
He sees their locks, that fringe the while
With braided green the deep they lave,
And that superb, immortal smile,
Which, where it lingers, lights the wave—
He knows the sound, that swoons along
His golden East’s voluptuous tide,
To be the Nereids’ distant song
Around their Monarch’s path of pride!
And there, as slumber heavier falls,
Fond Fancy still his eye beguiles;
With Nymphs, he treads the blue deep’s halls,
Or, with the Just, their shining isles.[1]J.
- ↑ Allusive to the beautiful superstition of the Fortunate Isles, in which the departed great and good were imagined to re-exist in a state of elysian happiness.
