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A ROYAL ACADEMICIAN.-The peculiarities of Blake the painter were certainly most extraordinary, and we intend, shortly, to give a memoir of him, from the pen of one who knew him well. He once saw the ghost of a flea, which visited him in such a figure as he never naturally anticipated in an insect. The celebrated Varley gave a most extraordinary portrait of this nondescript, and says, in one of his numerous works, "Hear ing of this spiritual apparition of a flea, I asked him if he could draw for me a resemblance of what he saw; he instantly said, 'I see him now before me.' I soon felt convinced, by his mode of proceeding, that he had a real image before him, for he left off and began on another part of the paper, to make a separate drawing of the mouth of the flea, which the spirit having opened, he was prevented from completing the first sketch till he had closed it. During the time occupied in completing the drawing the spectre flen told him that all fleas were inhabited by the souls of such men as were, by nature, blood-thirsty to excess, and were, therefore, providentially confined to the size and form of insects, otherwise, were he himself, for instance, the size of a horse he would depopulate the country. He added, that if, in attempting to leap from one island to another, he should fall into the sea, he should not be lost, being able to swim." Whether Blake killed any of the species after this interview we are unable to say. UNE JEUNE FEMME.-You have abilities which, if exercised for the future with judgment and discretion, will strew the path of life with flowers. Beware of man's ingratitude, but expect few female friends. Most assuredly, follow the business on which you have determined-a determination that reflects honour upon you now, and will prosperity hereafter. PRIMROSE [Slough].-On mature deliberation, we judge that it would not be advisable to join in the undertaking, for a great pecuniary disappointment would result from it. The hint is received with thanks, and shall not be forgotten.

T. WORSLEY.-You will, unquestionably, receive some portion of the property ultimately, but nearly two years will elapse first. It will be gained by the acquaintance of a legal gentleman, who will interfere in your behalf.

W. H. SUTTON.-You possess taste and judgment. Your destiny is propitious. Go on and succeed.

VOILET.-If the time be correct the child will have a serious illness in her 3rd and 8th year, but will recover both. VENI, VIDI, VICI.-You will obtain the interest you require, and the fulfilment of your wishes will follow. At present we can say no more.

G. RICHARDSON.-Mix more in society, and you will have several opportunities afforded you. You are now but slightly loved-fan the spark into a flame, and fear not being consumed in the attempt. WESTONIENSIS.-A correspondent, from the aspects of Venus and Mercury during the present month, has forwarded us the following: "Novel entertainment will be given in the dramatic world of mimicry and music. A favourite, who has been long in abeyance, will burst forth with redoubled lustre, and revive again the days of Foote and Mathews." All we can say is, that he will be most welcome when he does come. W. H. L.-The removal will not be permanent, but it will tend to your advantage.

A. B. [Manchester].-We do not think you will obtain the amount you require. The question about the brother has been answered. You will have to reduce your prices. RECEIVED.-S. N. [Birmingham] (We do not think it probable. You will have a change in September).-B. Ly (We must, at present, decline the honour, from the enormous pressure of correspondence).-KENNTE (He is living, but a widower, and you will not see him for some time-if ever).AN OLD SUBSCRIBER (You will receive your portion before this year is out).-M. S. M. (You need be under no fear of falling a victim. Your son will soon get better).-F. S. (We do not know the Mr. Dixon you allude to. An inquiry would, certainly, be attended with a good result; but beware of treacherous females).-SOL (Do not marry yet, but stay, wait and persevere).-C. S., W. G., E. S., (1. A shoemaker.

2. Remain as you are. 3. Your 24th year).-S. T. 93. C. L. A. (It had reference to the past; we are afraid no more can be expected).-J. S. (For a fortunate day, consult our calendar). -A. H. (It would much offend).-S. CRIPPS (You will not). -S. A. J. (Beware of cause for jealousy).-A. E. (You have slighted the affections of one who truly and tenderly loved you. And yet well, no matter.).-E. B. (You are sought by one already who can tell you as well as we can).-JESSE (It would occupy us nearly a week to comply with your wishes). -E. V. (You have seen him, and the union will be prosperous).-E. A. AN ENQUIRER (Your lover will return soon, when you may look, with confidence, to happier times, and brighter prospects).-M. G. (You would have had one before now had you not been a victim to deception).—H. C. (You assuredly will).

At the moment of our going to press, it has been found necessary, from want of room, to defer a considerable portion of correspondence, prepared for this number, until the appearance of our next. All querists not responded to in this number will, therefore, find their replies in next week's "Oracle."

TO OUR QUERISTS AND SUBSCRIBERS.-Many letters having been received from persons resident in remote places, complaining that, in consequence of the difficulty and expense incurred in procuring the work, they have been unable to avail themselves of the gratuitous astrological advice we proffer, the following arrangements have been made to meet the wishes of our readers and the public generally :-All subscribers to "THE ASTROLOGER," by payment of six months' subscription in advance (8s. 6d.), or a quarter's subscription (4s. 3d.), will be entitled to a copy, sent every Friday evening, post free, to any part of the United Kingdom, and, in addition, have priority of attention in the solution of such questions as they may feel desirous of having calculated. All who may, therefore, wish to enjoy these privileges, are recommended to send their real name and address with the post-office order for the above sum, drawn in favour of our publisher, to OUR OFFICE ONLY, and, at the same time, state the initials under which they should be answered in the "ORACLE." Strict honour and confidence will be observed, and the utmost attention may be relied upon.

GENERAL NOTICE.

All the back numbers of this unique and original publication have been reprinted, and can now, without extra charge, be obtained through any bookseller in town or country. For a small sion of a complete volume on the OCCULT SCIENCES, and the sum like eighteen-pence, the purchaser would be thus in possesgeneral tendency of its pages to elevate and refine will be admitted by all who have had the opportunity of perusal. For those gratifying and encouraging letters which he has received from men of high intellect and lofty station, the Astrologer here begs to offer his sincere, though comprehensive, acknowledgments, and urges his friends and subscribers generally to recommend a work which aims at disseminating a creed of TRUTH and BEAUTY, inculcating the highest doctrine which the human mind is capable of receiving, and endeavouring to sow the seeds of hope and concord, that may ripen into a future harvest of peace and good will to all men.” ESTO PERPETUA !

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WHERE IS THE SOUL DURING SLEEP?

SOME metaphysicians have endeavoured to simplify the sub tlety of the operations of the human mind by pinning down their belief in an uninterrupted succession, or, as it is technically called, concatenation of ideas. Thus it is presumed that our thoughts are even in action, carried off in different directions, and hurried away upon new trains of reflection by the influence which external objects possess upon the sensorium through the agency of our corporeal senses. Still the materialists, who laugh to scorn all credence in existence apart from matter, and who regard as dotards those who anticipate the enjoyment of a bodiless futurity, break in upon the reveries of the metaphysical student with the hard and rigid interrogation, "Does not the simple phenomenon of sleep destroy your fine-spun theory?-is not the chain of ideas broken at those intervals of repose?-what becomes of that elegant abstraction which you style the soul during these mighty chasms of oblivion? Dreams,' you may respond. Oh, purblind worshipper of spiritualities! 'Dreams are the lost links; they follow up this interminable association of conceptions; they render the series complete, and display in one clear and lucid succession

[PRICE TWOPENCE.

the varied proceedings of the spirit from the very moment utero-gestation commences, to the death-sigh which consigns the body to decomposition.' But behold how such arguments vanish, like the footprints of a child upon the elastic moss, before the stern and unswerving utterance of physiological facts; these declare that many individuals never dream throughout their lives, and are actually ignorant of the mean. ing of a vision, that dreams are merely the results of certain disorganisations in the animal functions, stimulating the substance of the brain to a partial and confused extent, and that, consequently, it is evident that dreams are traceable simply to the action of the nervous system." Doubtless these men imagine such reasonings are conclusive, when they are only excessively contemptible. Their shallowness, indeed, is visible after a moment's consideration. Experience sweeps away all their inflated pretensions to wisdom; and the heart, thrilling up at the voice of memory, tells us that we have all dreamed, and that our sleep is not the sodden and sluggish immobility of a carcase. Arguments are useless, in this particular place, to display the reality of an immortal essence being peculiar to each human creature. We will regard our readers as persons possessed of such inquisitive and reflective minds as to have settled this point long ago to their own satisfaction. Granted,

then, that the soul of man is deathless, the question very naturally arises as to its condition and its whereabouts, when our bodies are involved by slumber in a state of stupor and unconsciousness. As it is undying, it is impossible that it can be capable of undergoing, for a single instant, a kind of temporary annihilation--such as sleep would imply, viewed through the dull spectacles of the infidel. It is only in accordance with our notions of an immortal other-self to believe that it is as incessantly active with its unextinguishable life, and as exempt from all wearisomeness as it is eternal and God-born. Hence, while we coincide with the definition of Scaliger, that "sleep is a repose or binding of the outward senses necessary for the preservation of the body," we cannot assent to his opinion that such rest is requisite for the due sustentation of the soul, since eternity is its element, and, in consequence, unceasing movement must be to it not only unirksome but natural. Impressed, therefore, as we must necessarily be, with the accuracy of these deductions, our imaginations are spontaneously aroused with the lustre and magnificence of that prodigious problem, Where are our souls during sleep? None can utter, with a vestige of authority, a scornful negative of a favourite fancy that we ourself have formed upon this mystic question. Though we do not positively agree with Baxter, in his quaint but exquisitely charming creed--namely, that dreams are wrought upon our souls by immaterial beings, who seize advantage of the moment when we are deprived by somnolency of the agency of our senses-we are, nevertheless, captivated by the very beauty and possibility of the thought into a belief that, in the slumbers of the substantial form, the soul receives a temporary emancipation from the thraldom of its earthly prison, that a death of moments comes upon our bodies on the midnight couch-that, in the language of Dr. Sherlock, " we are no longer encloistered in a tabernacle of flesh," but that, assimilated by our immateriality with another realm, our spirits seek the regions rife with a kindred exist. ence, and hold, for a time, converse with a brighter world. We have already shown that, to those who are impressed with the truth of the veritable basis of all religions—namely, neverending futurity, or, in other words, an immortal soul-it is in defiance of right reason and common sense to conceive that our spirit can be lulled to a state of drowsiness or prostration during sleep, or that the concatenation of ideas or of sentience, can be interrupted at intervals. Acknowledge that the chain of thought is broken for a single second's duration, and immortality and a hereafter become a shibboleth-an impossibility. It is ostensible, therefore, that, believing in these vast and glorious truths, we are compelled to uphold, by our concur rence, the supposition that our incorruptible being is ever watchful during the inertness of our body, though, at the same time, from the oblivion of the doings of the dim night that screens the etherial transactions from our mind on waking, it is obvious that the human memory is a faculty that does not participate in these fantastic wanderings, save with casual glimpses. That there is great probability attached to these imaginings is moreover evident in the simple fact that mere

infants partake of dreams before their reason has budded, before even they have acquired the power of speech, for we may frequently observe the sheen of laughter flit across their features during slumber, when unseen creatures seem to

touch the dimpled cheek with roses red, And tickle the soft lips until they smile." Without something like this doctrine, how can we account for those sensations with which we all of us awake occasionallysometimes with an inexplicable but burning gladness enthralling our very hearts with secret joy-sometimes with a misery and desolation of feeling which is regarded by many as a foreboding of some terrible calamity, but which we should more readily ascribe to the occurrences of the soul during the past slumber. Bowing down in acquiescence to this doctrine, we possess the keystone of the arch that spans futurity; dissenting from it, we are involved in obscurities and contradictions.

THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM.

BY THOMAS CHATTERTON.

THE sun revolving on its axis turns,
And with creative fire intensely burns;
Impe!l'd by forcive air, our earth supreme
Rolls with the planets round the solar gleam.
First Mercury completes his transient year,
Glowing, refulgent, with reflective glare;
Bright Venus occupies a wider way,
The early harbinger of night and day;
More distant still our globe terraqueous turns,
Nor chills intense, nor fiercely heated burns;
Around her rolls the lunar orb of light,
Trailing her silver glories through the night.
On the earth's orbit see the various signs,
Mark where the sun, our year completing, shines;
First the bright Ram his languid ray improves,
Next glaring wat 'ry thro' the Bull he moves;
The amorous Twins admit his genial ray;
Now burning, thro' the Crab he takes his way;
The Lion flaming, bears the solar power,
The Virgin faints beneath the sultry shower.
Now the just Balance weighs his equal force,
The slimy Serpent swelters in his course;
The sabled Archer clouds his languid face,
The Goat, with tempests, urges on his race;
Now in the water his faint beams appear,
And the cold Fishes end the circling year.
Beyond our globe the sanguine Mars displays
A strong reflection of primæval rays;
Next belted Jupiter far distant gleams,
Scarcely enlighten'd with the solar beams;
With four unfix'd receptacles of light,

He towers majestic through the spacious height;
But farther yet the tardy Saturn lags,
And five attendant luminaries drags;
Investing with a double ring his pace,
He circles through immensity of space.

OLD SONGS.-We often hear that such and such things are not "worth an old song." Alas! how very-very few things are. What pleasurable recollections do some of them purify the stream of life; they can delay it on its shelves and awaken? What pleasurable tears do they excite? They rapids; they can turn it back again to the soft mossy banks, amidst which its sources issue, or like, indeed, the potent staff of one of old, they can bid the waters of a clear and joyous spring gush from the rocks in a wilderness, where only crowding cares might be supposed to dwell.

THE WORLD AND ITS CREATION. of our world, and the system to which it belongs. Here, how

(Concluded from our last.)

E must now bring this analysis to a close, having been only tempted to extend the paper to this length from the interesting nature of the controversy, as developed in the columns of a daily paper. Since this series was commenced, the arrogant Bobadil of the Times, Anti-Megatherium, has retired from the contest, having first commenced the onslaught, and provoked the recrimination. With a tacit confession of defeat, this doughty champion of common-place and bigotry resigns his opponents "to the care of the periodical Punch," thereby advocating the employment of the very weapons of ridicule which, in his first letters, he so mercilessly condemned when used against him. Such is human nature; but once again to the "Vestiges."

Some records remain written "on the leaves of the stone book," more astonishing even than the petrified relics of bones and shells, as revealing, by their delicate but indubitable traces, the occurrence of the natural phenomena of rain and wind, and the daily walks of animals along the margins of the sea beach at those periods of uncalculated antiquity. "Slabs (of sandstone) are found marked, over a great extent of surface, with that peculiar corrugation or wrinkling which the receding tide leaves upon a sandy beach when the sea is but slightly agitated; and not only are these ripple-marks, as they are called, found on the surface, but casts of them are found on the under side of slabs lying above. The phenomena suggest the time when the sand, ultimately formed into these stone slabs, was part of the beach of a sea of the carboniginous era; when, left wavy by one tide, it was covered over with a thin layer of fresh sand by the next, and so on, precisely as such circumstances might be expected to take place at the present day. Sandstone surfaces, ripple-marked, are found throughout the subsequent formations. At more than one place in England they further bear the impression of rain drops which have fallen upon them-the rain, of course, of the inconceivably remote age in which the sand-stones were formed. In the Greensill sandstone, near Shrewsbury, it has even been possible to tell from what direction the shower came which impressed the sandy surface, the rims of the marks being somewhat raised on one side exactly as might be expected from a slanting shower falling at this day on one of our beaches. Impressions still more important in the inferences to which they tend have been observed-namely, the footmarks of various animals. In a quarry at Corncockle Muir, in Dumfriesshire, the vestiges of an animal, supposed to have been a tortoise, are distinctly traced up and down the slope, as if the creature had had occasion to pass backwards and forwards in that direction only, possibly in its daily visits to the sea. Some slabs similarly impressed, in the Stourton quarries, in Cheshire, are further marked with a shower of rain, which we know must have fallen afterwards, for its little hollows are impressed in the footmarks also, though more slightly than on the rest of the surface, the comparative hardness of a trodden place having apparently prevented so deep an impression being made. Some of the prints indicate small animals, but others denote birds of what would now be an unusually large size. One animal having a foot fifteen inches in length, and stride of from four to six feet, has been appropriately entitled ornithicknites giganteus.”

It is a curious fact that the ripple marks and footprints are found to extend through declivities of more than forty feet perpendicular height-a distance much greater than that covered by the rise of the tides at present. Can this be owing to a subsequent increase of dip in the strata of sandstone, or may we consider it another proof of the more violent activity of the natural phenomena during those early periods?

Hitherto we have accompanied our author through his descriptions of inorganic nature, if not with perfect accordance, at any rate with considerable complacency, acknowledging our obligations to him for his interesting pictures of the grand and wonderful phenomena displayed in the process of the formation

ever, our commendations must cease. When he enters on the territory of organised nature, and proceeds to unfold his second law-the law of development-the author falls sadly below the promise which the learning and ingenuity displayed in the earlier chapters had given.

The theory he embraces is not only false in itself-leading, as it does, towards the rankest materialism-but is enforced with far inferior ability; supported by analogies that are sometimes forced, and at other times laughably childish, and exhibits a crudity of idea and inaccuracy of reasoning which our previous experience with him would not have led us to expect. The theory is thus unfolded :

"What mystery is there here, and how shall I proceed to enunciate the conception which I have ventured to form of what may prove to be its proper solution? The whole train of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most recent, are, then, to be regarded as a series of advances of the principle of development, which have depended upon external physical circumstances to which the resulting animals are appropriate. The nucleated vesicle, the fundamental form of all organisation, we must regard as the meeting point between the inorganic and the organic-the end of the mineral, and beginning of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, which thence start in different directions, but in perfect parallelism and analogy. We are drawn on to the supposition that the first step in the creation of life upon this planet was a chemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal vesicles were produced. This is so much, but what were the next steps? I suggest, then, as an hypothesis already countenanced by much that is ascertained, and likely to be further sanctioned by much that remains to be known, that the first step was an advance, under favour of peculiar conditions, from the simplest forms of being to the next more complicated, and this through the medium of the ordinary process of generation?" [The italics are the author's.]

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This theory is prefaced by a copious quotation of instances that show by how nice gradations, tribes, genera, and species of animals merge into one another, the whole forming a chain of unbroken connexion from the lowest to the highest being in the scale of organisation. Instead, therefore, of deducing what appears the only legitimate inference-that the Creator has designed these living beings, varying by such fine shades of form and habit, of faculties and appetites, in order that no domain of nature may remain unpeopled, and no store of her ample provision go to waste-the writer assumes that they have grown out of one another, some unknown change of material condition having caused, or rendered possible, their attainment of a higher degree of physical organisation.

From this process man is allowed to claim no exemption. He, too, is one of the "series of advances of the principle of development, and owes the superiority of his rank in the scale of animals to the accident of the earth producing more vigorous nourishment, or enjoying a more genial climate, than in the time of his ancestors, the Saurians. What" peculiar condition" of the terrestrial surface completed his happy formation-that is, when and how the simial progenitors of man happened to get the intermaxillary bone withdrawn, the cauda effaced, the brain enlarged, &c. &c.-we must not inquire. It was, no doubt, a singular time. How forlorn the young "human" must have looked in the strange world around him, and how very much he must have puzzled his monkey-parents!

The stronghold of the theory rests upon the discoveries of the geologists, that the earth has really shown some traces of this successive development of life, in the regular gradations of beings through the various formations and depositions of strata; so that, as the writer remarks, " organic life presses in wherever there was room or encouragement for it; the forms being always such as suited the circumstances, and in a certain relation to them." But it is strongly antagonistic to the development theory that all the various forms of life are found contemporaneously. Many species and genera existing in the primitive epochs may, indeed, have disappeared; but the types remainfrom the lowest mollusc to the highest mammal. If the species rose into one another through a natural process of improvement, under improved physical conditions, why were not all promoted

or why are not the instances of promotion still discoverable? It may be said that time is necessary-time, of length to which our existence is only a point. This may be true as respects the completion of a change; but surely the progress would be visible. If it were possible at any period for a family of apes to originate the race of men, we ought still to find the young tribes of new men issuing from woods haunted by the orang-outang, and seeking dwelling-places more congenial to their improved faculties. We said that some of the author's analogies were forced and

childish. What else can we term his adduction of fancied resemblances in the vegetable tribes to the forms assumed by currents of electricity? ex. gr. "In the marks caused by positive electricity, we see the ramifications of a tree, as well as of its individual leaves; those of the negative recal the bulbous or the spreading root, according as they are clumped or divergent. A plant thus appears as a thing formed on the basis of a natural electrical operation-the brush realised. We can thus suppose the various forms of plants as immediately the result of a law in electricity variously affecting them, according to their organic character, or respective germinal constituents. In the poplar the brush is usually vertical, and little divergent; the reverse in the beech; in the palm a pencil has proceeded straight up for certain distance, radiates there, and turns outwards and downwards; and so on."

THE SUPPER OF THE DEAD.

COUNT Cagliostro was the name of an individual who made a great sensation in Paris, about the middle of the reign of the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth. He had extraordinary powers of divination; declared that he was upward of a thousand years old; and claimed for himself all the attributes which have been bestowed upon sorcerers and necromancers. He was an accomplished man, and contributed largely to the odium which attached to the Queen Marie Antoinette, in the victim and not an accomplice. Several interesting stories are affair of the diamond necklace, in which that august lady was a related of him, and we select the following as a specimen, from the memoirs of a public character recently deceased.

It was in 1785, that the re-appearance of Cagliostro was isted a secret gathered from the magic lore of ancient Egypt, made public. Rumours were immediately rife that there exby means of which people could communicate with the creatures of the other world. Some persons confidently asserted that they had supped with the most celebrated females of antiquity. On this subject I will relate what was stated by the hapless Marechal Duke de Noailles, whose scrupulous regard for veracity needs no guarantee. He was at my house in company with the Bishop of Arras, the Archbishop of But still more curious is the following:-M. Swainson deve- Rouen, the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, the Duke de Sully, loping what is known as the Mackay system of zoology, arranged the Marquis de Saucoart, Madame d' Aubeterre, Madame de the order of quadrumanous animals without leaving room for the Castellane, and the Marchioness de Roche-Aymon, who, as inclusion of man-a being whom he places in the exterior posi-well as myself, was a lady of the queen's bed-chamber. tion assigned him by the highest authority,

66 a little lower than

the angels." The author, led by the necessities of his theory, has recast this arrangement, and placed man at the head of the mammalia, among his congeners the simiæ; and supports this alteration by the analogy of what does the reader think? the carrion crow, because this plumed biped, standing highest among the aves, representing all their capacities and habits; the voracity of the vulture, the soaring flight of the hawk; the groundpecking habits of the scansores, the taste for vegetable food of the parrots, &c., &c.; this "type of types" requires some better animal than an ape to equiponderate it among the quadrumana. Therefore, man must take his stand by the side of his brother, the orang-outang, lest the carrion crow should be ashamed of its mammalian counterpart:

When extended into the region of the intellectual qualities and moral government of man, the failure of the theory is still more signal. We have neither space nor inclination to follow the author through his disquisition upon a theme to which his powers, hampered as they are by the stern materialism of his system, are so painfully inadequate. We must conclude with the conclusion whereto his doctrines have finally led him, and a corollary of such chilling and disconsolate destiny for man upon this earth we hope never again to meet. "It is clear from the whole scope of the natural laws, that the individual, as far as the present sphere of being is concerned, is to the Author of Nature a consideration of inferior moment. Everywhere we see the arrangements for the species perfect; the individual is left, as it were, to take his chance amidst the mêlée of the various laws affecting him. If he be found inferiorly endowed, or ill befals him, there was at least no partiality against him. The system has the fairness of a lottery, (!) in which every one has the like chance of drawing a prize."

One word more and we have done. From private sources we have learned that the author of the " Vestiges of Creation"though here, for several reasons, spoken of as a male-is none other than Ada, the daughter of Byron, and the present Countess of Lovelace. Zadkiel, in judging her nativity ten years ago, said, "Mercury, in conjunction with Herschel and the moon in trine to Herschel, will render the native eccentric, and fond of curious studies." Those who have by them "The Grammar of Astrology" will do well to refer to the other indications given, which will not only furnish another proof of the truth of the astral science, but serve as a key to the motives which prompted the writing of the work itself.

It was in June, 1782. For some time previously I had expressed a desire to the grand almoner to see the Count de Cagliostro, when he should be working any important experiment. Prince Louis told me that he would not forget me when the next supper of the dead was to be given. On the 14th of June, I received a note to this effect :

MY LORD MARECHAL,-I have not forgotten my promises; and I have to invite you this evening to sup with whomsoever you please. I will be answerable that the cheer is good, but will not be responsible for the guests. Make up your mind who you would wish to have, for it is essential that you should bring somebody.-I have the honour, &c.

The hour of meeting was mentioned in the postcript. It was at the Palais Royal, in the grand almoner's own apartment. The Chevalier de Bouffler, the Prince of Nassau, the lawyer Gerbier, M. d'Espremenil, the host and myself were the company. We were acquainted with each other, and, therefore, the spirit of the conversation did not flag. Prince Louis took occasion to observe that he expected the Count Cagliostro.

When this personage made his appearance, our curiosity was on the tip-toe. He was magnificently dressed; his air was grave; his manners solemn; and his whole demeanour, altogether majestic, had a particular effect upon us, as we all looked upon him as little better than a charlatan. He did not talk much, and appeared at intervals to be absorbed in deep and all absorbing meditation. At three quarters past eleven he started, and addressing us collectively, he said, "Gentlemen, will you favour me with the names of the guests you wish to invite."

He then took a scrap of virgin parchment, a new pen which he dipped in a crimson liquid, and waited while we dictated the names we had selected. Prince Louis, impelled by his princely and prelatic haughtiness, spoke the first; at which the Chevalier de Boufflers said to me, in a tone sufficiently loud to be heard by all the standers-by-" Only observe the prince's absence of mind; he forgets that he is in his own house."

recollection, chose the Cardinal Duperron; Joan of Arc was The grand almoner, whom this observation brought to his mentioned by the Chevalier de Boufflers; the Prince of Nassau wished to see Caesar; Cicero was the bean ideal of Gerbier the lawyer; the Counsellor d'Espremenil wished Cataline to form part of the company; and I expressed my should be invited in my name. earnest desire that the great constable, Anne de Montmorency

When all these names were written, the Count de Cagliostro

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