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NEW BOOKS

LEGENDS OF THE RHINE.

[These are three novel-sized volumes from the prolific pen of Mr. Grattan, whose Highways and Byeways have probably started off hundreds of scribbling tourists to the Continent, much to the annoyance of the keepers of old castles and other necromantic haunts.  These Legends, however, have little to do with the Rhine, which is perhaps fortunate for their success, as most of the traditionary stories of the romantic river have been dished up in as many forms and fashions as French cooks are accustomed to serve up eggs.  A few of our Correspondents have tried their taste, but we hope not the reader’s patience, in Rhin-onomy; and Mr. Planche, moreover, has wandered and sailed up and down the district, picking to new van its mystic stories in every form common to our literature.  We have enjoyed every inch of the stream and its banks, coloured after nature, in a panorama on paper, to put into your pocket or portmanteau; and just now Views on the Rhine are publishing in sixpenny portions, and becoming as little rare as Views on the Thames; till we may as well say thick as leaves on the Rhine, as in Vallainbrosa.

Mr. Grattan’s Legends are stated to be freely adapted from the literature of the countries where the scenes are laid.  They consist of some ten or dozen stories of untiring length but too much for entire extract.  For the sake of some delightfully graphic writing we are induced to quote a portion of one of the tales—­The Curse of the Black Lady, a legend of the twelfth century.  The scene lies in the Low Countries, and introduces an admirably-drawn portrait of a knight of the period.]

The Castle of the Countess of Hainault at Mons was a complete specimen of the splendid architecture of the twelfth century, or that which is now called Gothic; pointed windows abounding in coloured glass, unpolished marble, heavy wooden doors, thickly studded with iron nails, leading into immense corridors, interminable passages, and branching staircases.

It was early in a morning of the month of February, that the horn of a knight was heard beyond the castle wall, and immediately replied to by the warder; and when the draw-bridge was slowly replaced and the portcullis heavily withdrawn, a knight followed by a squire, whose surcoat bore the Flander’s lion, entered.  The cap of the knight was of black velvet, and slight bars of steel, bent into the form of a semicircle, crossed each other at the top of his head and served at once for defence and for ornament.  His boots of thick leather reaching almost to the knees bespoke him an inhabitant of a maritime country, having spurs formed of a single point of iron, long and obtuse, and these being gilt would have announced the wearer’s rank in chivalry, even if his whole equipment and