Again, we have a "Denckwuerdige Geschichte von der Krystall-Guckery," which makes skilful use of all the fabulous elements of the magic mirror legends. It tells of a mirror that always reveals to its possessor the truth, and by means of which the future may be divined. A prominent feature of the nursery tales of to-day is discoverable in it—that if children look at night into a mirror an ugly, forbidding face will gaze out upon them. The book, however, presents few interesting details, and we may therefore pass it and others of the same period by in order to hasten on to the present. And to whom would not the name of Hoffmann at once occur! He who delighted to employ, and weave in the magic web of his fiction, all that was marvellous and mysterious, will undoubtedly have dealt with the subject we now have in hand. In fact the magic mirror has three times figured in his works: once in "Der Goldene Topf," again in the "Lebensansichten des Kater Murr," and finally in the novel "Das öde Haus." A few passages may be taken from the last-mentioned novel as illustrations of the point we are considering. A small forsaken cottage bears an evil name; it hides a secret from the world. "This was what people said in the town, and I who tell this story could get no rest with thinking of it; daily I walked by the house with the curtained windows. Once, as I was passing, I saw the curtain move and a beautifully-shaped hand adorned with a brilliant diamond ring place a crystal carafe upon the window-sill. The memory of this picture aroused in my mind a visionary dream, and on the following day when I looked up to the window at which the hand had appeared, the countenance of the vision I had seen was regarding me with a look of sorrowful entreaty. I seated myself upon a bench opposite, the back of which was turned to the house, so that by leaning over the arm I could gaze without disturbance at the fatal window and the lovely maiden. Absorbed in contemplation, I failed to observe an Italian pedlar who was offering me his wares. But being seized by the arm I at last gave attention to the importunities of the pedlar, who, with the words 'I have other beautiful things here,' pulled out the lower drawer of his box, and held at a short distance before me, at an angle, a little round pocket-mirror that lay in the drawer among a number of other trinkets. I beheld the desolate house behind me, the window, and, marked in the distinctest outlines, the lovely angelic form of my vision. I quickly purchased the little glass, which now made it possible for me, in easy posture and without attracting the attention of the neighbors, to look towards the window of my hopes.... The little mirror that so deceptively reflected the lovely form, I had now devoted to domestic purposes. I was in the habit of tying my cravat before it. And so it happened once, while I was in the act of performing this important duty, that it