se are taken from that say, what remains? Why a blank, a
void like Ginnungagap.

As the writer, of his own accord, has exposed some of the blemishes of
his book--a task, which a competent critic ought to have done--he will
now point out two or three of its merits, which any critic, not
altogether blinded with ignorance might have done, or not replete with
gall and envy would have been glad to do. The book has the merit of
communicating a fact connected with physiology, which in all the pages of
the multitude of books was never previously mentioned--the mysterious
practice of touching objects to baffle the evil chance. The miserable
detractor will, of course, instantly begin to rave about such a habit
being common: well and good; but was it ever before described in print,
or all connected with it dissected? He may then vociferate something
about Johnson having touched:--the writer cares not whether Johnson, who,
by the bye, during the last twenty or thirty years, owing to people
having become ultra Tory mad from reading Scott's novels and the
"Quarterly Review," has been a mighty favourite, especially with some who
were in the habit of calling him a half crazy old fool--touched, or
whether he did or not; but he asks where did Johnson ever describe the
feelings which induced him to perform the magic touch, even supposing
that he did perform it? Again, the history gives an account of a certain
book called the "Sleeping Bard," the most remarkable prose work of the
most difficult language but one, of modern Europe,--a book, for a notice
of which, he believes, one might turn over in vain the pages of any
review printed in England, or, indeed, elsewhere.--So here are two facts,
one literary and the other physiological, for which any candid critic was
bound to thank the author, even as in Romany Rye there is a fact
connected with Iro Norman Myth, for the disclosing of which, any person
who pretends to have a regard for literature is bound to thank him,
namely, that the mysterious Finn or Fingal of "Ossian's Poems" is one and
the same person as the Sigurd Fofnisbane of the Edda and the Wilkina, and
the Siegfried Horn of the Lay of the Niebelungs.

The writer might here conclude, and, he believes, most triumphantly; as,
however, he is in the cue for writing, which he seldom is, he will for
his own gratification, and for the sake of others, dropping metaphors
about vipers and serpents, show up in particular two or three sets