correct, although not even his pen can do full justice to them; but there is little truth in the tale. It is said, that there was indeed a young lady sent from the Mauritius to France, for education, during the time that Monsieur de la Bourdonnais was governor of the colony--that her name was Virginia, and that she was shipwrecked in the St. Geran. I heard something of a young man being attached to her, and dying of grief for her loss; but that part of the story is very doubtful. The "Bay of the Tomb," the "Point of Endeavour," the "Isle of Amber," and the "Cape of Misfortune," still bear the same names, and are pointed out as the memorable spots mentioned by St. Pierre.--_Recollections of the Mauritius_. * * * * * THE COSMOPOLITE. * * * * * COINCIDENT POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. (_For the Mirror_.) In No. 475 of the _Mirror_, p. 98, will be found an article by a correspondent (H.) on "English Superstition," introducing a very interesting Cheshire legend, as a counterpart to a Scottish one, related by the celebrated author of "Demonology and Witchcraft." H. remarks of his tale that "it gives rise to many interesting conjectures respecting the probable causes of such a superstition being believed in countries with apparently so little connexion or intercourse as Cheshire and Scotland." Perhaps it may be as well to refer to what Sir W. Scott has said upon this very subject, in note xi. to canto 4 of his "Lady of the Lake," ere we proceed to utter a few specimens of coincident superstitions:-- "A work of great interest might be compiled upon the origin of popular fiction, and the transmission of similar tales from age to age, and from country to country. The mythology of one period would then appear to pass into the romance of the next century--and that, into the nursery tale of subsequent ages. Such an investigation, while it went greatly to diminish our ideas of the richness of human invention, would also show that these fictions, however wild and childish, possess such charms for the populace, as enable them to penetrate into countries unconnected by manners and language, and having no apparent intercourse to afford the means of transmission. It would carry me far beyond my bounds to produce instances of this community of fable, among nations who never borrowed from each other anything intrinsically worth learning. Indeed, the wide diffusion of popular fictions may be compared to the facility with which straws and feathers are dispersed abroad by the wind, while valuable metals cannot be transported without trouble and labour." Sir Walter, in appending this observation to a tradition extracted from "Grahame's Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire" pp. 116-118, remarks--"that this story, translated by Dr. G. from a Gaelic tradition, is to be found in the _Otia Imperialia_ of Gervase of Tilbury."