A PROFESSOR IN AN EASTERN PARADISE.

A prose fantasy by the English poet Lang, describes the beauties and mysteries of an ideal Oriental Paradise concluding his description with a humorous satire on the misadventures of an Oxford professor of Arabic who in imagination has been transferred to the heaven of his studies and there meets with the author, as described in the following All the land is misty and fragrant with the perfume of the softest Latakia, and the gardens are musical with the bubbling of countless naghiles; and I must say that to the Christian soul which enters that paradise the whole place has, certainly, a rather curions air, as of a highly transcendental Cremorne. There could be no doubt, however, that the faithful were enjoying themselves amazingly-"right lucky fellows," as we read in the new translation of the Qur An, for so the learned call the Koran of our ignorance. Yet even here all was not peace and pleasantness, for I heard my name called by a small voice, in a tone of patient, subdued querulousness. Looking hastily round, I with some difficulty recognized, in a green turban and slid gown to match, my old college tutor and professor of Arabic. Poor old Jones had been the best and the most shy of university men. As there was never any undergraduate in his time (it is different now) who wished to learn Arabic, his place had been a sinecure, and he had chiefly devoted his leisure to "drawing" pupils who were too late for college chapel. The sight of a lady of his acquaintance in the streets had at all times been alarming enough to drive him into a shop or up a lane, and he had not survived the creation of the first batch of married fellows. How he had got into this thoroughly wrong paradise was a mystery which he made no attempt to explain. "A nice place this, eh?" he said to me; "nice gardens; remind me of Magdalen a good deal. It seems, however, to be decidedly rather gay just now, don't you think so? Commemoration week, perhaps, a great many young ladies up, certainly; a good deal of cup drunk in the gardens, too, I always did prefer to go down in Commemoration week myself; never was a dancing man. There is a great deal of dancing here, but the young ladies dance alone, rather like what is called the ballet I believe at the opera. I must say the young persons are a little forward; a little embarrassing it is to be alone here, especially as I have forgotten a good deal of my Arabic. Don't you think, my dear fellow, you and I could manage to give them the slip? Run away from them, eh?" He uttered a timid little chuckle, and at that moment an innumerable host of hours began a ballet d'action illustrative of a series of events in the career of the Prophet. It was obvious that my poor uncomplaining old friend was really very miserable. The "thornless loto trees" were all thorny to him, and the "tal'h trees with piles of fruit, the outspread shade, and water outpoured" could not comfort him in his really very natural shyness. A happy thought occurred to me. In early and credulous youth I had studied the works of Cornelous youth I had studied the works of Cornelius Agrippa and Petrus de Abano. Their lessons, which had not hitherto been of much practical service, recurred to my mind. Stooping down I drew a circle round myself and my old friend in the fragrant white blossoms which were strewn so thick that they quite hid the grass. This circle I fortified by the usual signs employed, as Benvenuto Cellini tells us, in the conjuration of evil spirits. I then proceeded to utter one of the common forms of exorcism. Instantly the myriad houris assumed the forms of irritated demons; the smoke from the uncounted narghiles burned thick and black; the cries of the frustrated ginns who were no better than they should be rang wildly in our ears; the palm tree shook beneath a mighty wind; the distant summits of the minarets rocked and wavered, and, with a tremendous crash, the paradise of the faithful disappeared.[A. Lang, in the Fornightly Review.