The Samothracian mysteries continued in celebrity till some time after the commencement of the Christian era. [2] But they gradually sank with the rest of the ancient system of mythology, to which, in fact, they did not properly belong. The peculiar doctrines, however, were preserved in the memories of the initiated, and handed down by individuals. No doubt they were propagated in Europe, and it is not improbable that Paracelsus received many of his opinions from such persons, and I think a connection may be traced between him and Jacob Behmen. The Asiatic supernatural beings are all produced by imagining an excessive magnitude, or an excessive smallness combined with great power; and the broken associations, which must have given rise to such conceptions, are the sources of the interest which they inspire, as exhibiting, through the working of the imagination, the idea of power in the will. This is delightfully exemplified in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments', and indeed, more or less, in other works of the same kind. In all these there is the same activity of mind as in dreaming, that is--an exertion of the fancy in the combination and recombination of familiar objects so as to produce novel and wonderful imagery. To this must be added that these tales cause no deep feeling of a moral kind--whether of religion or love; but an impulse of motion is communicated to the mind without excitement, and this is the reason of their being so generally read and admired. I think it not unlikely that the 'Milesian Tales' contained the germs of many of those now in the Arabian Nights; indeed it is scarcely possible to doubt that the Greek empire must have left deep impression on the Persian intellect. So also many of the Roman Catholic legends are taken from Apuleius. In that exquisite story of Cupid and Psyche, the allegory is of no injury to the dramatic vividness of the tale. It is evidently a philosophic attempt to parry Christianity with a 'quasi'-Platonic account of the fall and redemption of the soul. The charm of De Foe's works, especially of 'Robinson Crusoe', is founded on the same principle. It always interests, never agitates. Crusoe himself is merely a representative of humanity in general; neither his intellectual nor his moral qualities set him above the middle degree of mankind; his only prominent characteristic is the spirit of enterprise and wandering, which is, nevertheless, a very common disposition. You will observe that all that is wonderful in this tale is the result of external circumstances--of things which fortune brings to Crusoe's hand. [Footnote 1: Partly from Mr. Green's note. 'Ed.'] [Footnote 2: In the reign of Tiberius, A. D. 18, Germanicus attempted to visit Samothrace;--'illum in regressu sacra Samothracum visere nitentem obvii aquilones depulere.' Tacit. 'Ann.' II. e. 54. Ed.] NOTES ON ROBINSON CRUSOE. [1]