sung and told by wandering beggars and travelling merchants, until it became universal tradition. Some old emigrant brought it over to this country; and there in Hudson-street hang the Fish and the Ring, to commemorate the loves of a past century.

Now laugh if you will; I think I have made out quite a respectable collection of American antiquities. If I seem to you at times to look back too lovingly on the Past, do not understand me as quarreling with the Present. Sometimes, it is true, I am tempted to say of the Nineteenth Century, as the exile from New Zealand did of the huge scramble in London streets, 'Me no like London. Shove me about.'

Often, too, I am disgusted to see men trying to pull down the false, not for love of the true, but for their own selfish purposes. But notwithstanding these drawbacks, I gratefully acknowledge my own age and country as pre-eminently marked by activity and progress. Brave spirits are everywhere at work for freedom, peace, temperance, and education. Everywhere the walls of caste and sect are melting before them; everywhere dawns the golden twilight of universal love! Many are working for all these things, who have the dimmest insight into the infinity of their relations, and the eternity of their results; some, perchance, could they perceive the relation that each bears to all, would eagerly strive to undo what they are now doing; but luckily, heart and hand often work for better things than the head wots of.

LETTER XIX.

June 2, 1842.

You seem very curious to learn what I think of recent phenomena in animal magnetism, or mesmerism, which you have described to me. They have probably impressed your mind more than my own; because I was ten years ago convinced that animaĺ magnetism was destined to produce great changes in the science of medicine, and in the whole philosophy of spirit and matter. The reports of French physicians, guarded as they were on. every side by the scepticism that characterizes their profession and their country, contained amply enough to convince me that animal magnetism was not a nine-days' wonder. That there has been a great deal of trickery, collusion, and imposture, in connection with this subject, is obvious enough. Its very nature renders it peculiarly liable to this; whatsoever relates to spiritual existence cannot be explained by the laws of matter, and therefore becomes at once a powerful temptation to deception. For this reason, I have taken too little interest in public exhibitions of animal magnetism ever to attend one; I should always observe them with distrust.

But it appears to me that nothing can be more unphilosophic than the ridicule attached to a belief in mesmerism. Phenomena of the most extraordinary character have occurred, proved by a cloud of witnesses. If these things have really happened, (as thousands of intelligent and rational people testify,) they are governed by laws as fixed and certain as the laws that govern matter. We call them miracles, simply because we do not understand the causes that produce them; and what do we fully understand? Our knowledge is exceedingly imperfect, even with regard to the laws of matter; though the

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world has had the experience of several thousand years to help its investigations. We cannot see that the majestic oak lies folded up in the acorn; still less can we tell how it came there. We have observed that a piece of wood decays in the damp ground, while a nut generates and becomes a tree; and we say it is because there is a principle of vitality in the nut, which is not in the wood; but explain, if you can, what is a principle of vitality? and how came it in the acorn?

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They, who reject the supernatural, claim to be the only philosophers, in these days, when, as Peter Parley says, every little child knows all about the rainbow.' Satisfied with the tangible inclosures of their own penfold, these are not aware that whosoever did know all about the rainbow, would know enough to make a world. Supernatural simply means above the natural. Between the laws that govern the higher and the lower, there is doubtless the most perfect harmony; and this we should perceive and understand, if we had the enlarged faculties of angels.

There is something exceedingly arrogant and short-sighted in the pretensions of those who ridicule everything not capable of being proved to the senses. They are like a man who holds a penny close to his eye, and then denies that there is a glorious firmament of stars, because he cannot see them. Carlyle gives the following sharp rebuke to this annoying class of thinkers :

"Thou wilt have no mystery and mysticism? Wilt walk through the world by the sunshine of what thou callest logic? Thou wilt explain all, account for all, or believe nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt even attempt laughter?'

'Whoso recognises the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of mystery, which is everywhere under our feet and among our hands; to whom the universe is an oracle and a temple, as well as kitchen

and cattle-stall-he shall be called a mystic, and delirious? To him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt protrusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, when he kicks his foot through it? Wert thou not born? Wilt thou not die? Explain me all this—or do one of two things: retire into private places with thy foolish cackle; or, what were better, give it up; and weep not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world all disembellished and prosaic, but that thou thyself art hitherto a sandblind pedant?'

But if there be any truth in the wonders of animal magnetism, why has not the world heard of them before? asks the inquirer. The world did hear of them, centuries ago; and from time to time they have re-appeared, and arrested local and temporary attention; but not being understood, and not being conveyed to the human mind through the medium of religious belief, they were soon rejected as fabulous stories, or idle superstitions; no one thought of examining them as phenomena governed by laws which regulate the universe.

It is recorded that when the plague raged in Athens, in the days of Plato, many recovered from it with a total oblivion of all outward things; they seemed to themselves to be living among other scenes, which were as real to them, as the material world was to others. The wisdom of angels, perchance, perceived it to be far more real.

Ancient history records that a learned Persian Magus who resided among the mountains that overlooked Taoces, recovered from the plague with a perpetual oblivion of all outward forms, while he often had knowledge of the thoughts passing in the minds. of those around him. If an unknown scroll were placed before him, he would read it, though a brazen shield were interposed between him and the parchment; and if figures were drawn on the water, he

at once recognised the forms, of which no visible trace remained.

In Taylor's Plato, mention is made of one Clearchus, who related an experiment tried in the presence of Aristotle and his disciples at the Lyceum. He declares that a man, by means of moving a wand up and down, over the body of a lad, 'led the soul out of it,' and left the form perfectly rigid and senseless; when he afterwards led the soul back, it told, with wonderful accuracy, all that had been said and done.

This reminds me of a singular circumstance which happened to a venerable friend of mine. I had it from her own lips. She was taken suddenly ill one day, and swooned. To all appearance, she was entirely lifeless; insomuch that her friends feared she was really dead. A physician was sent for and a variety of experiments tried, before there were any symptoms of returning animation. She herself was merely aware of a dizzy and peculiar sensation, and then she found herself standing by her own lifeless body, watching all their efforts to resuscitate it. It seemed to her strange, and she was too confused to know whether she were in that body, or out of it. In the mean time, her anxious friends could not make the slightest impression on the rigid form, either by sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell; it was to all appearance dead. The five outward gates of entrance to the soul were shut and barred. when the body revived, she told everything that had been done in the room, every word that had been said, and the very expression of their countenances. The soul had stood by all the while, and observed what was done to the body. How did it see when the eyes were closed, like a corpse? Answer that, before you disbelieve a thing because you cannot understand it. Could I comprehend how the simplest violet came into existence, I too would urge that

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