_Simile of the Soul and the Magnetic Needle_ (Vol. vi. _passim_; Vol. vii.,
p. 508.).--Southey, in his _Omniana_ (vol. i. p. 210.), cites a passage
from the _Partidas_, in which the magnetic needle is used in illustration.
It is as follows:
"E bien assi como los marineros se guian en la noche escura por el
aguja, que les es medianera entre la piedra e la estrella, e les
muestra por de vayan, tambien en los malos tiempos, como en los buenos;
otrosi los que han de consejar al Rey, se deven siempre guiar por la
justicia; que es medianera entre Dios e el mundo, en todo tiempo, para
dar guardalon a los buenos, e pena a los malos, a cada uno segund su
merescimiento."--2 _Partida_, tit. ix. ley 28.
This passage is especially worthy of attention, as having been written half
a century before the supposed invention of the mariner's compass by Flavius
Gioias at Amalfi; and, as Southey {88} remarks, "it must have been well
known and in general use before it would thus be referred to as a familiar
illustration."
I do not think that any of your correspondents have quoted the halting
lines with which Byron mars the pathos of the Rousseau-like letter of Donna
Julia (_Don Juan_, canto I. stanza cxcvi.):
"My heart is feminine, nor can forget--
To all, except one image, madly blind;
So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,
As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul."