and casuists, already abounded in the sunny Muspel-heim, in which the Teutons settled, and they had to exchange their gloomy, foggy, and stormy Nifel-heim of reality, for a spiritual Nifel-heim of doctrinal controversies. They turned their elfs and sprites, their kobolds and gnomes, their spirits of air, water, and fire, into so many evil spirits. They looked upon the literature of the Greeks and Romans, of which they knew nothing, as the work of Beelzebub. Art was an enchantress of the senses, and sculpture invented by the father of all ‘lies,’ to deceive us with mock-creatures, to seduce men, and to cheat them of their share in everlasting salvation. In this gloomy spirit the newly converted Teuton Christians built churches, and, sunken in the most atrocious superstition, occupied themselves with the casting out of devils. Nature was, in fact, one grand dwelling-place for demons. Plague, poverty, and sickness, were attributed to the agency of the enemy of mankind. Epileptic fits and insanity were signs that the demon had taken possession of unfortunate wretches, who were either tormented or put to death. Satan, with his legions of devils, continually harassed mankind. To mortify and kill the body by fasting, chanting, whipping, praying, and self-inflicted mortification, was thought the only worthy and cheerful occupation of mankind. In addition to these religious tendencies, wars were waged with merciless cruelty, either in favour of, or against the new Christian superstition. A few so-called _learned_ theologians studied the Jewish Cabala, Egyptian mysteries, Zoroastrian magical calculations, Greek sophisms, and Alexandrian Neo-Platonism. How could art have flourished under such circumstances? Incantations, astrological calculations, alchemical experiments, were the order of the day. The few learned men, whether architects or others, as soon as they produced anything astounding, were said to have received their ideas or plans, or their powers, from the devil. Who was to create any beautifully shaped product of art, surrounded by such misgivings? This struggle lasted for several centuries; until, stimulated by movements in the far East, the Christian world left its secluded haunts in cloisters, monasteries, churches, and castles, and mixed once more with the outer world, and the whole gloomy medley of Christianised northern mythology had to yield to new forms in art.