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result. If, instead of believing in the mysticism, and, in many cases, attaching an undue importance to effects resulting from faith in animal magnetism,—that is to say, from the workings of the excited imagination,-he had calmly examined Mesmerism, and its real power of action, as the mere physical effect of a physical cause, and divested of its psychological and all other wonders, he would have rendered good service to science.

One of the most popular writers on animal magnetism is the late M. Bertrand, who long professed it in Paris, and by whom, through the agency of one of his somnambulists, many extraordinary cures are said to have been effected, and the peace and honour of many families preserved. The work written by M. de Puységur, though very explanatory, is nevertheless scarcely intelligible; and, as a literary and scientific production, is far below that of the Baron Dupotet, which has, of late, been most severely handled by a very clever contemporary.

M. Bertrand does not deny that, without entire faith, the operations of animal magnetism are powerless; whence we may infer a further admission, that its singular results arise from the mere action of an imagination too feeble to support the strength and weight of reason. But then he goes to the full length of the psychological absurdity connected with the art, and admits the power of magnetising at a distance, by which he defeats his own argument. If the magnetiser operate at a great distance, the magnetised must be unconscious of his intention of doing so, unless he has previously announced such intention, which it is not the practice to do therefore, no aid can accrue to the operator from the workings of the patient's imagination. Again, if, as M. Bertrand would lead his readers to believe, magnetism be a spiritual essence, acting upon a corresponding but weaker spiritual essence, surely neither physical action is required to make it act, nor can it be the cause of physical action. Now, although it is true that the magnetiser who operates at a distance is said to do so by the mere power of his will, and without muscular action, the person unconsciously magnetised is affected with sleep, sometimes with somnambulism, or with headach, or with pain in any of the limbs or organs, or with insensibility to pain, or even with syncope. In either of these cases,-admitting their truth, for the sake of argument,-the action must be physical, not spiritual, and similar to any other action that either causes or removes bodily disease, because spiritual causes can yield only spiritual effects. It therefore follows that animal magnetism, if it exist, must be a form or condition of matter, and not a spiritual essence. This leads us to the further fact, that, although it may be governed by unknown laws, it cannot possibly produce any result contrary to those laws of matter which are known to us, because nature never impedes her own legislation. It is therefore clear that all the wonders of animal magnetism, which are violations of natural laws, have no existence.

As an instance of the inconsistency often shown by men labouring under hallucinations, such as those shown at the North London Hospital, we must call attention to the fact that Dr. Elliotson, in a work written by him on Human Physiology, after a clever exposition of the anatomical and physiological blunders committed by the somniloquent impostors, who, under the magnetic influence, pretend to detect and prescribe for diseases, states, as strong evidence against the reality of their pretended faculty, that, in their medical treatment, they pursue the practice of the country they are in; and that, for the same disorder which in France would be combated by them with ptisans and leeches, they would, in England, direct the ordeal of calomel and port wine.

It has been observed, that, in France, no physician of any eminence has avowed the practice of animal magnetism. Such practice has been rejected by Magendie, Dubois, Broussais, Raspail, Pariset, Marc, and many others. Every medical man who has avowed the practice of animal magnetism, and the wonders attributed to it by M. de Puységur and his contemporaries and successors, has been of mediocre professional reputation, and generally deficient in professional skill as well as in general philosophy. The only thing to be lamented in the general rejection of the magnetic theory by the most eminent men of the day is, that, in their just indignation against its lies and absurdities, they have overlooked that which, had it been submitted to proper examination, would have been found really worth their attention.

The continental professors of animal magnetism and their patients, and somnambulists, have, during the last five-and-twenty years, generally formed a body of dupes and impostors. More frequently the professors have been the former; and the fruits of their too easy credulity have been published to the world as well

authenticated facts. Certain it is that, up to the present day, the practice of magnetic somnambulism has aided neither the science of medicine nor any other branch of human knowledge; nor has it produced any known and acknowledged benefit to the human race. A few years since, a commission was appointed to examine, and report to the national institute of France, upon the existence and effects of animal magnetism. This commission was mismanaged: the avowed believers in psychological magnetism, appointed, were numerous; and the other members were induced to withdraw in disgust. The magnetists, therefore, had it all their own way, and, instead of a condemnatory, a laudatory report was made, in which not a single attribute claimed by the Mesmerism of Puységur and his followers, was disavowed. Still the members of the commission did not commit themselves by any specific acknoWledgments: all was generalized, but animal magnetism, bearing its miraculous plumage, was admitted to be a reality. Until very lately, this mysterious science was unable to gain a second footing in England. At length, however, it claimed the rights of British hospitality, and was lodged for a time at the North London Hospital. Thanks to the editor of the "Lancet," its monstrous and absurd assumptions have been reduced to their real value, and many weak-minded individuals thereby saved from dangerous delusions.

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FORAGERS.

THE reader must, we think, have observed amongst the various classes which compose that curious piece of mosaic work called society, one of a particularly puzzling sort of character. It is composed of persons, and very respectable-looking persons too, who contrive to live, and live well, without any visible or known means of doing so. But there is a means for all that, and we know the trick of the thing. These persons forage: they beat about for a living, in a way which we hope presently to illustrate in a very plain, if not a satisfactory manner.

In the course of our life we have personally known three perfect specimens of the class of persons we speak of. Three only! but they were splendid geniuses in their several ways. We say in their several ways; because, though of precisely the same genus, and though proceeding on precisely the same principles, they were somewhat different both in their character and special modes of operation.

The first of these-we range them according to the chronological order of our acquaintance with them-was Dick Spelter, as he was familiarly called by his coevals; but our acquaintance with him having been in our younger years, and merely through his sons, who were our schoolfellows, we called him, with a respect for our elders becoming our years, Mister Spelter.

Dick, who was at this time somewhere about forty-five years of age, was a personage of rather tall stature, but somewhat bent. He stooped a little-a consequence, we believe, of intense mental application to the object of circumventing the difficulties of the day. His eye was always on the ground, and he was always busied in thought, even as he wound his way through the busiest streets of the city. Neither the bustling nor jostling of passing people, nor the perils of coach and cart, could for a moment withdraw him from the profound abstraction by which he seemed always engrossed. The countenance of this prince of foragers, for so we reckon him, was a peculiar one. It had a startling sinister look; proceeding, chiefly, from a habit he had acquired of gathering a large portion of his optical information by the tail of his eye, by side-long glances. This sinister expression was also heightened by an habitual grin, which he intended, we dare say, for a smile, and which on any other countenance would, perhaps, actually have been such a thing; but on his it was the most alarming-looking thing imaginable-cunning, sly, and roguish. Altogether, Dick's countenance, both in form and expression, bore a strange resemblance to that of an overgrown cat: it exhibited the same indications of a deep, designing, and treacherous nature. But the resemblance just spoken of held good in other particulars besides. Dick was quiet and demure, spoke little, and made no noise whatever of any kind. His step was slow, deliberate and measured, light and stealthy. He rather glided than walked, and when in motion always carried his hands behind him beneath the skirts of his coat. Thus it was that he might have been seen skipping noiselessly, and you would imagine, unobserved, through the streets, but Dick was wide awake. He had all his eyes about him, or, at least, the corners of them, and nothing could escape their vigilance; they were in quest of prey. Dick, in short, was what is called a deep one, and a sly one to boot.

At the time we knew Mr. Spelter, Mr. Spelter was doing nothing; that is, he was not engaged in any business, nor occupied by any employment: yet Mr. Spelter had no other ostensible means of living, not the smallest; and yet, again, Mr. Spelter and his family lived well and comfortably. They wanted for nothing, neither food nor raiment. There was a man of talent for you! Why we, ourselves, while we record the fact, are overwhelmed with admiration of his genius-of the genius of that man who could rear up a family, a large family on--nothing!

When we said that Mr. Spelter, when we knew him, was doing nothing, we will, of course, be understood in a particular and limited sense. He doing nothing! Mr. Spelter was doing an immense deal. He was the busiest man in the busy city to which he belonged; how else could he have done what he did? Maintained his family genteelly without the vulgar aid of coin, the resource of your common-place ideal men. Dick's notions were much too sublime for this. He created something, and something substantial too, out of nothing,- -never stooped to inferior practice. Mr. Spelter, however, although not engaged in any regular business during the time we enjoyed the honour of his acquaintance, had been so at one period of his life; but what that business was, when or where he carried it on, we never knew,-nor did any body else. No one could tell what he had been, although there was a pretty general though vague idea, that he had been some

thing or other somewhere or sometime. This, indeed, is a neverabsent feature in the cases of all his class. They have always started in the world in the regular way, but have, some way or other, always fallen through it.

It would gratify the reader, we dare say, if we could give him "a swatch o Spelter's way,"-if we would give a detailed specimen of his proceedings in the way of foraging; but we must at once declare that we cannot do this. His ways were mysterious; you only saw results. All that we can say about the matter is, then, that his house never wanted abundance of the creaturecomforts of life: there were hams, cheeses, kits of butter, boxes of candles and soap,-everything, in short, necessary to good housekeeping, and in never-failing, never-ending supply. But where they came from, or how obtained, who could tell?—we never could, nor could we ever even form a conjecture on the subject. There they were, and that is all we can say about them. We have reason, however, to believe that Dick did sometimes sail rather near the wind in some of his catering expeditions; that is, that some of his transactions had a shade-just a shade or so-of swindling in their complexion. We have heard that something approaching to this was the character of a particular case of a sack of potatoes, which Dick had somehow or other come across. this as it may, there certainly were some unpleasant consequences attending this affair. Dick was actually pursued-not at law, for nobody ever dreamt of throwing away money in pursuing Dick at law, but in his own proper person, and by the proper person of the owner of the potatoes. On that occasion, Dick, being hard pressed, took to the roof of his own house through a skylight; for the enemy had made a lodgment even in the very heart of his domicile; and escaped, after exhibiting sundry feats of fearlessness and agility in skipping along steep roofs and scrambling over airily situated chimneys, all at the height of some hundred feet from the ground. It is said that the potato-man had the temerity to give Dick chase over a roof or two, but soon abandoned the pursuit, as equally hopeless as dangerous.

Be

The next in order of our foragers is Sandy Lorimer. Although pursuing the same peculiar walk in life, and acting on precisely the same principles as Dick, Sandy was, in other respects, a totally different man. He, again, was a stout, bold, noisy personage, with an imposing presence, and loud, hearty voice. Dick carried his points by circumvention; Sandy by a coup-de-main. He advanced boldly on his prey, pounced on it at once, and bore it off in triumph. He did the thing by open, fearless-we suppose we must call it-effrontery. Sandy had formed a general intimacy, not merely a trading acquaintance, (mark the excellent policy of this,) with a large circle of dealers of all sorts,-grocers, butchers, bakers, &c. &c. &c. Being on this footing with these persons, he entered their premises, when on the hunt for provender, with a hearty freedom and familiarity of manner that admirably facilitated his subsequent proceedings, and altogether deprived them of the power of denial. They could not, in fact, find in their hearts to refuse him anything, even though perfectly conscious at the moment that they would never see a farthing of its value; his manner was so taking, so plausible, so imposing. The impudent courage of the man, too, was admirable; beyond all praise. The length of a score, either as to figures or time, or both, never daunted him in the slightest degree. He would enter the shop where the fatal document existed, and face the inditer thereof with as bold and unflinching a front as if the money was due to him; and that shop he never left without adding something to the dismal record of his obligation.

His butcher's shop, for instance,-where there was, to our certain knowledge, a score against him a yard long, and which had been standing for years,-he would enter with a shout, an hilarious roar, slap the butcher on the shoulder with a hearty thwack, and ask him what news? He would then turn round on his heel, and commence a regular survey of all the tid-bits exposed for sale, praising and admiring everything he saw. At length his wellpractised eye selects a choice morsel.

"There, now, Mr. B.," he would say, advancing towards the article in question, "there, now, is what I would call a nice little roast. That does you credit. What may the weight be ?"

The butcher instinctively takes it down, and puts it into the scale; not, however, with much alacrity, for he has certain misgivings on the subject. But Sandy never minds this, though he sees it very well he is not to be driven from his purpose by sulky looks. "Eleven pounds and a half, Mr. Lorimer," at length says the butcher.

"Boy," says Sandy, addressing a little ragged urchin, who is in waiting to carry for customers, "take this out to my house ;" and,

without giving the butcher time to adopt counteracting measures,
should he have contemplated them, the beef was popped into the
boy's tray, and despatched from the premises. This is one
particular point in the forager's practice. Another is, never to
trust to the seller of an article sending it home to you, but always
to see it despatched, beyond hope of recal, before leaving the shop
yourself. These points Mr. Lorimer always carefully observed,
and his success was commensurate with his forethought.
Besides catering for the family, however, Mr. Lorimer picked up
a very tolerable independent living of his own; and this he
accomplished by the following process. On entering a grocer's
shop, he is particularly struck with the rich look of a cut cheese
that is lying on the counter. He openly expresses his admiration
of it, being on a familiar footing with the shopkeeper. He takes
up the knife that is lying beside it, with a hearty, pleasant freedom
of manner; keeping the shopkeeper the while in play by an ani-
mated conversation. He cuts off a whacking slice, and despatches
it, having probably asked his friend to toss him over a biscuit.
Luncheon, then, has been secured, but something is wanted to
wash it down. A glass of ale or a draught of porter is in request,
but this he cannot with a good grace ask where he has had his
cheese. Indeed, there is no such opportunity as would warrant
him in asking it. He must catch some one of his numerous friends
in the liquor line in the act, in the particular predicament, of
bottling; and this a little perseverance, aided by a shrewd guess of
the most likely places, enables him to accomplish. He has also
acquired the free entrance (by what means we know not) of a
certain range of bonded cellars, where he can, occasionally, pick
up a glass or two of choice wine, which, with a biscuit, and per-
haps a slice of ham foraged in some other quarter, he can make a
pretty substantial passover.

Such, then, is Mr. Lorimer.

mortification on being thus addressed by the major -the man, of all others, from whom he was most desirous to conceal the luscious treasure; for he knew that he would not only carry off the usual sample for himself, but that he would come day after day, as long as a fig remained, to get samples for his friends, (this, of course, fudge,) in an affected zeal to find purchasers for the consignee. All this accordingly took place, and the major effected an entrance into the fig-room, carried off his sample, and returned to the charge next day; but, fortunately, the figs had been all disposed of and removed in the interim. Our friend could never conceive where or how the major had obtained his intelligence in the case just mentioned; but it was, after all, only one of a thousand every whit as mysterious and unaccountable. The major was evidently born with an intuitive talent for finding the depositories of good things, be these where they might they could not escape him; for his vigilance was great, his scent unerring.

Being fond of all sorts of delectable edibles, fish was, of course, on the major's list; and he was, fortunately, so situated locally as to put a good deal of enjoyment of this kind in his way. He lived, in the first place, in a village situated on the sea-coast, several of the wealthier inhabitants of which kept pleasure-boats, with which they went frequently a-fishing for amusement. Now, the movements of these boats the major watched with a sharp and wary eye, so that they could not land a tail, on returning from a piscatory expedition, without his presence or his knowledge. Hovering about on the coast, like a huge sea-gull, he pounced on the boat the moment it touched the strand; having been seen, some time previously, bowing, and scraping, and smiling to the party as they approached the shore. "Pleasant day, gentlemen, for your excursion ;-excellent sport, I hope-some beautiful fish, no doubt. Ah! there now!"-(the major is now leaning over the gunwale, and pointing out with his cane some of the choicest specimens of the finny tribe which it contains,)—"there is a lovely fish: three pound weight, if it's an ounce. There is another beautiful fish, -and there-and there-and there: all these are excellent." The amateur fishermen take the hint, and the major is invited to take a few. He runs up to the house in a twinkling a servant-girl, with a clean towel or a basin, is at the side of the boat, with the major's compliments to "the gentlemen," and in another twinkling a dozen of the best fish are on their way to the major's kitchen!

:

CURIOUS INSTANCE OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION.

The next on our list is Major Longson,-the civil, polite, wellinformed, bowing-and-scraping Major Longson. By the way, we never knew precisely how he acquired this same military title; we rather think it was a local-militia honour, for the major's name never appeared in any army-list. Be this as it may, however, major he was always called, and by no other title was he known. The major was an elderly man, grey-headed, and of a grave, thoughtful, and intelligent countenance; mild and pleasant of speech-soft, smooth, and insinuating; but he was a most determined forager and a perfect master of his business, which, however, he conducted in a quiet, gentlemanly sort of way. In his mode of proceeding there was a peculiarity which does not charac- A YOUNG man of fortune, who had led what is called so gay a terise the practice of the other two. The major dealt largely in life as considerably to injure both his health and fortune, was at samples,-samples of wine, samples of cheese, samples of tea, length obliged to consult the physician upon the means of restorsamples of everything; but we suppose we must be more explicit.ing at least the former. One of his principal complaints was the To be so, then. The major had a habit of making tours amongst frequent presence of a set of apparitions, resembling a band of the dealers in the articles named, and all others useful in house- figures dressed in green, who performed in his drawing-room a keeping, (the major was a bachelor, and had therefore no family to singular dance, to which he was compelled to bear witness; though provide for, nobody but himself,) and in the most polite and engag- he knew, to his great annoyance, that the whole corps de ballet ing manner possible, requested a sample of some particular com- existed only in his own imagination. His physician immediately modity. It was at once given him; and if the article was, say informed him, that he had lived upon town too fast and too long tea, he never failed to go home with at least a pound weight in his not to require an exchange to a more healthy and natural course pocket; and so of all the other necessaries of which he stood in of life. He therefore prescribed a gentle course of medicine, but earnestly recommended to his patient to retire to his own house in the country, observe a temperate diet and early hours, practising regular exercise, on the same principle avoiding fatigue; and assured him that, by doing so, he might bid adieu to black spirits and white, blue, green, and grey, with all their trumpery. The patient observed the advice, and prospered. His physician, after the interval of a month, received a grateful letter from him, acknowledging the success of his regimen. The green goblins had disappeared, and with them the unpleasant train of emotions to which their visits had given rise, and the patient had ordered his town-house to be disfurnished and sold, while the furniture was to be sent down to his residence in the country, where he was determined in future to spend his life, without exposing himself to the temptations of town. One would have supposed this a well-devised scheme for health. But, alas! no sooner had the furniture of the London drawing-room been placed in order in the gallery of the old manor-house, than the former delusion returned in full force!

need.

We have often been surprised at the singular talent which the major possessed of scenting out edibles, and that in the most unlikely places. He must either have had some wonderful gift of nose, or some strange intuitive guiding power that conducted him to his prey. A friend of ours and an acquaintance of the major's, at whose place of business he occasionally called, once happened to have a small consignment of figs from Smyrna sent to him. Our friend was in a totally different line of business, dealing in nothing that would either eat or drink, but of this consignment he took charge, stowing the drums of figs into a small dark back room that they might be out of harm's way; being too tempting an article to keep in an exposed place. But, of all the depredators whom our friend dreaded, there was no one whom he so much feared as the major, whose foraging habits he well knew. When he came, therefore, the door of the little apartment in which the figs were stored was always carefully closed, and every allusion to the delicate fruit sedulously avoided in his presence. Vain pre--the green figurantes, whom the patient's depraved imagination caution! Bootless anxiety! One morning the major entered our friend's counting-house with a peculiarly bland countenance, and smiling and bowing, said, he had been informed that Mr. S. had got a consignment of figs! If perfectly convenient, he would like to see them ;--he was extremely fond of figs ;—a fine wholesome fruit, &c. &c.

We leave the reader to conceive our friend's amazement and

had so long associated with these moveables, came capering and frisking to accompany them, exclaiming with great glee, as if the sufferer should have been rejoiced to see them “Here we all are! here we all are!" The visionary, if I recollect right, was so much shocked at their appearance, that he retired abroad, in despair that any part of Britain could shelter him from the daily persecution of this domestic ballet.—Sir Walter Scott.

THE HORSE-CHESNUTS OF THE PALAIS ROYAL. On the evening of the 12th of July 1789, the Parisians first learned that their favourite, Necker, had been banished from the court. The garden of the Palais Royal, which was the place of rendezvous of the agitators of that day, was thronged with citizens. All were in agitation and confusion. Indignation and wishes for revenge filled every breast, but no one dared to give vent to the thoughts which burned within him. Suddenly a young man broke from the crowd, and mounting upon a table which had been placed for refreshments under the noble trees which then shaded the garden, he thus addressed the people: "Let us each wear a green branch-for green is the colour of hope-and let us march against our oppressors."

Popular indignation is like a train laid of gunpowder. Though fraught with mighty mischief, it remains cold and quiet till the animating spark is applied which makes it burst forth with resistless fury. Thus it was with the Parisians. The words of Camille Desmoulins (for it was he who had addressed them) were the enlivening spark; his hearers were seized with a sudden enthusiasm that bore everything before it. They tore down the branches of the magnificent horse-chesnuts which hung above their heads; they spent the following day in organizing their measures and supplying themselves with arms; and on July 14th, with the horse-chesnut branches yet woven round their hats, they had attacked and taken the Bastile. Those horse-chesnuts! Little did their planter think they would ever serve as emblems of liberty. In the year 1629, the Cardinal Richelieu began to build the magnificent palace, since called the Palais Royal; and in the central garden he had planted horsechesnut trees, then newly introduced into France; he having conceived the idea of having them trained so as to form one vast canopy supported on arches, to throw a refreshing shade over the whole garden. The Cardinal was then in the zenith of his power; a body guard had just been appointed to attend him; he had triumphed over his enemies; and, in fact, ruled France more despotically than any absolute monarch. He said himself, that whatever he willed he did; and as he willed to make his horsechesnuts magnificent trees, all that man could do, aided by unbounded power and unlimited wealth, was done. It is said that the Cardinal expended 300,000 francs upon this garden, and that it amply repaid the wealth and labour bestowed upon it.

In this garden Louis XIII. delighted to walk with his favourite minister; and when Richelieu died he left it and the palace to his sovereign. Louis died a few months after the Cardinal, and the palace, the name of which was now changed from the Palais Cardinal to the Palais Royal, became the favourite residence of Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV., during his minority. Under the shade of these trees did that much-praised monarch imbibe his first lessons of tyranny from the artful Mazarin; under these trees were those measures devised which led to all the troubles of the Fronde; and in this garden Mazarin received the mandate which, for a time, banished him from France.

When Louis XIV. attained his full power, he gave this palace to his brother Philip, duke of Orleans; whose wife, the Princess Henrietta of England, drank in this garden the fatal eau sucrée which caused her death. His second wife, the witty Duchess, whose Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV. are so well known, delighted to walk under these trees, and by her amusing sallies to delight her attendant nobles. In 1787, the Palais Royal came into the possession of the famous Egalité; and as it was then his great object to be popular, he threw the garden open to the public. From this period the garden of the Palais Royal was the general rendezvous of the Parisian citizens; and here they met to discuss the measures of government and organize their resistance. Seats were placed at intervals under the trees; and in the centre, under the shade of the largest tree in the garden, the famous Arbre de Cracovie, was a table, on which the citizens were supplied by the servants of the Duke with refreshments gratis. It was on this table that Camille Desmoulins mounted when he addressed the people; and from this tree that the first badges of French liberty were torn. Alas! that they who fought so bravely for freedom should so abuse it when obtained. But their minds had been debased by slavery, and they struggled against their oppressors like demons rather than like men.

Soon after the commencement of the Revolution, the greater part of the trees of the Palais Royal were removed, and a row of shops, and gambling and coffee houses, were erected; and a circus was erected in the centre among the remaining trees.

In 1798 this building took fire, and was burnt to the ground, the

venerable horse-chesnuts perishing in the flames. Pale and sickly suckers, which look like ghosts of the former trees, have risen from the roots; but their leaves no longer wear the bright tints of hope; they are brown and withered, like the hopes of the Parisians. One of these trees comes into leaf much sooner than the others; and it is a remarkable fact that when Napoleon Bonaparte returned from Elba on March 20th, 1815, the only tree in leaf at that early season which could give his followers green boughs, was a tree in the garden of the Palais Royal, and one in the gardens of the Tuileries which had been reared from the same old stock.

HINTS ABOUT THE INVISIBLE WORLD. WHAT a vast world is nearly crumbled into ruins under the iron grasp of intellect! All that can be conceived of the most sublime, mean, terrific, vulgar, wild, and stupid, is heaping together, like a worthless pile of rubbish! "Airs from heaven, and blasts from hell," are resolved into agitations of the atmosphere. Old women are as snug and safe as if they were in paradise. One would be hanged if he drowned a witch. Mrs. Veal's ghost sells no more of "Drelincourt on Death." The "second sight" is a pair of spectacles. Milton's celestial host are "shorn of their beams" by the same process which has divested Shakspeare's hags of all their unearthly terrors. The very schoolboy, passing through a churchyard, instead of "whistling to keep his courage up," discourses of "natural magic." The mechanic, travelling in the dark, is as composed as the assessor of the Westminster Assembly, who, when he beheld his satanic majesty standing by his bedside, waited patiently to receive his commands, but the silence continuing unbroken, he coolly told him, "If thou hast nothing to do, I have," and so turned himself to sleep. No man now gets a chance of drawing up a deed of partnership, signed with his own blood. Quacks sell pills, but nobody has discovered the elixir vite. Nature, in the "Invisible World," once "abhorred a vacuum," and therefore "no place was void, but all full of spirits, devils, or other inhabitants; not so much as a hair-breadth was empty in heaven, earth, or water above or under the earth." But the very invisible world is becoming a vacuum itself; where spirits, devils, hobgoblins, fairies, witches, and all the other rout, once sported, roaring, yelling, singing, dancing, or riding on broomsticks, there is now nothing but atmospheric vapours, exhalations, aurora borealis, steam-engines, and natural phenomena.

A plague on their natural phenomena! One now-a-days cannot indulge in a good ghost-story without being laughed at! It is as hard to get a believer in witchcraft, as it was once to find a sceptic who would dare to doubt. Everything must be explained and expounded; our very children begin to question, inquire if angels really have wings, ask for the precise latitude and longitude of Robinson Crusoe's island, and wonder what kind of a bundle the honest Pilgrim in his Progress had tied upon his back. It was not so with our forefathers. They believed too much, and we believe too little. The catalogue of what they did believe is formidable enough. "Some one knave in a white sheet hath cozened and abused many thousands, specially when Robin Goodfellow kept such a coil in the country. In our childhood our mothers' maids have so terrified us with an ugly devil having horns on his head, fire in his mouth, and a tail at his breech; eyes like a basin, fangs like a dog, claws like a bear, a skin like a negro, and a voice roaring like a lion, whereby we start and are afraid when we hear one cry Bah! and they have so frayd us with bull-beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, Pans, faunes, sylvans, Kitt-with-the-candlestick, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, giants, imps, conjurors, nymphs, changelings, incubus, Robin Goodfellow, the spoorn, the man-in-the-oak, the hellwain, the fire-drake, the puckle, Tom Thomb, Hobgoblin, Tom Tumbler, Boneless, and such other bugbears, that we are afraid of our own shadows, insomuch that some never fear the devil but on a dark night; and then a polled sheep is a perilous beast, and many times is taken for our father's soul, specially in a churchyard, where a right hardy man heretofore durst not to have passed by night but his hair would stand upright. Well, thanks be to God, this wretched and cowardly infidelity, since the preaching of the gospel, is in part forgotten, and, doubtless, the rest of these illusions will, in a short time, by God's grace, be detected, and vanish away.'

"It would require a better demonologist than I am," says Sir Walter Scott, to explain the various obsolete superstitions which Reginald Scot has introduced as articles of the old English faith, into the preceding passage. .. The catalogue, however,

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serves to show what progress the English have made in two centuries, in forgetting the very names of objects which had been the sources of terror to their ancestors of the Elizabethan age." To the same effect speaks Godwin. "The improvements that have been made in natural philosophy have, by degrees, convinced the enlightened part of mankind that the material universe is everywhere subject to laws, fixed in their weight, measure, and duration, capable of the most exact calculation, and which in no case admit of variation and exception. It was otherwise in the infa..cy and less mature state of human knowledge. The chain of causes and consequences was yet unrecognised; and events occurred for which no sagacity that was then in being was able to assign an original. Hence men felt themselves habitually disposed to refer many of the appearances with which they were conversant to the agency of invisible intelligence; sometimes under the influence of a benignant disposition, sometimes of malice, and sometimes, perhaps, from an inclination to make themselves sport of the wonder and astonishment of ignorant mortals. Omens and portents told these men of some piece of good or ill fortune speedily to befall them. The flight of birds was watched by them as foretokening somewhat important. Thunder excited in them a feeling of supernatural terror. Eclipses with fear of change perplexed the nations. The phenomena of the heavens, regular and irregular, were anxiously remarked from the same principle. During the hours of darkness men were apt to see a supernatural being in every bush; and they could not cross a receptacle for the dead, without expecting to encounter some one of the departed uneasily wandering among graves, or commissioned to reveal somewhat momentous and deeply affecting to the survivors. Fairies danced in the moonlight glade; and something preternatural perpetually occurred to fill the living with admiration and awe."

That all this rubbish has been swept away is certainly matter of sincere congratulation. The intellect of man must necessarily have been pressed down under such a load of imaginary nonsense. The affections were depraved and perverted under the fear of witchcraft. Law was abused, religion insulted, and the character of God affronted by the most stupid, mean, and cruel superstitions. But has not wheat been rooted up in weeding out the tares? Has the public mind not lost somewhat of that relish for those works of high imagination which deal with invisible things? In giving up ghosts have we not nearly lost sight of angels? It seems to be an inevitable concomitant of man's progress, that in great alterations and transitions something should be lost as well as gained. The hand-loom weavers of Glasgow, Preston, &c., have long groaned under the effect of those gigantic inventions which have diffused manufactures over the world. The roadinnkeepers and stage-coach proprietors are feeling the effects of railroads. So, in the region of mind, we have lost as well as gained; and in turning out the black, grey, green, and blue spirits, with all their trumpery, from the invisible world, we have nearly demolished the invisible world altogether. Opinion is, doubtless, in this respect, as in other matters, in a state of gradual fusion. To separate the genuine metal from the refuse incorporated with it, a melting of the entire mass seems necessary. But it is very unlikely that the mind of man can remain at rest without an "invisible world." The vast void which, in all ages, and in all countries, has been filled up with both the poetry and the prose of superstition, must be occupied with just and commensurate opinions, worthy of man as a rational being, and of the progress of society.

Meantime, we confess to a strong tendency, not so much to believe in a ghost, as to be afraid of one. We do not like to think of spirits when solitary at dark midnight. We are inclined to wonder, with Dr. Johnson, how "six thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it seems undecided whether or not there has been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it, but all belief is for it."

An intimate friend, on whose entire veracity we can rely, communicates the following case, which shows that strange doings do still occasionally occur, in spite of modern philosophy.

We were residing in a house (about seven years ago) in which a variety of noises were heard, similar in nature and character to those which Southey has so minutely related in his Life of the Wesleys, as occurring in the house of their parents. Every attempt was made by persons not disposed to give themselves up to the influence of blind terror, in order to discover by what means the noises and disturbances were produced, but in vain.

As the house was a boarding-school for a select number of young ladies, it was of great importance to the amiable and intelligent mistress of the mansion, that it should not be known, even to the inmates, that "midnight scenes" occurred, as they would very naturally be attributed to trickery, and as she herself did so attri bute them. Little notice was therefore taken of the disturbances, and the servants were quietly changed, without the real reason being assigned. Still the noises continued, and the whole house. hold became aware of them. A strict search and investigation led to nothing-there seemed no possible means of communication by which they could be produced, and the inmates appeared all too visibly under the influence of terror to be likely to be conniving at any trick. The writer has sat up with the lady of the house (a woman of polished education and very excellent sense and courage), and heard the fall of a heavy foot approaching the room-door; and when a rush was made into the passage nothing could be seen. A latch purposely fastened has been shaken with great violence, no person being within the closet, the door of which it secured. Noises like animals fighting and scratching in passages, and like something furiously sweeping up and down stairs, were perpetually heard. The writer was sitting with several other persons in the kitchen, when the supposed apparition, ghost, or evil spirit, came distinctly down stairs, rushed across the kitchen-floor, apparently entered a large water-butt, agitated the water with violence, as if it had been all thrown out suddenly, while not a drop was found to be spilled, nor the water in the least disturbed. Blows were also distributed by the wicked spirit or malicious trickster-the writer received one while lying in bed awake. These were the general character of the nocturnal disturbances; if they were the result of trick, they were managed with a dexterity, and continued with a perseverance, quite astonishing, and worthy of some nobler employment, while their effect was most disastrous-they ruined the school, and shortly afterwards the mistress of the school died.

The reader may depend on the facts as here stated, and perhaps some of them may have had similar circumstances coming under their personal cognizance. The modus operandi may be explained by Brewster, but we have never yet been able to clear up, to our own satisfaction, whether the noises proceeded from ghosts, cats, rats, or quicksilver. They have, at all events, left on our minds a strong disposition to swallow a good ghost story, and a tendency to bear a grudge against any hard-headed member of a Mechanics' Institution, who would spoil us of our pleasure in believing it. Lest we should lose favour with any of our readers, we will freely confess, in the words of Sir Walter Scott, that "tales of ghosts and demonology are out of date at forty years and upwards; it is only in the morning of life that this feeling of superstition comes o'er us like a summer cloud,' affecting us with fear, which is solemn and awful rather than painful. The present fashion of the world seems to be ill-suited for studies of this fantastic nature; and the most ordinary mechanic has learning sufficient to laugh at the figments which, in former times, were believed by persons far advanced in the deepest knowledge of the age.

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"I cannot, however, in conscience, carry my opinion of my countrymen's good sense so far as to exculpate them entirely from the charge of credulity. Those who are disposed to look for them may, without much trouble, see such manifest signs, both of superstition and the disposition to believe in its doctrines, as may render it no useless occupation to compare the follies of our fathers with our own. The sailors have a proverb that every man in his lifetime must eat a peck of impurity; and it seems yet more clear that every generation of the human race must swallow a certain measure of nonsense. There remains hope, however, that the grosser faults of our ancestors are now out of date; and that whatever follies the present race may be guilty of, the sense of humanity is too universally spread to permit them to think of tormenting wretches till they confess what is impossible, and then burning them for their pains."

SECRETS.

A SECRET is like silence-you cannot talk about it, and keep it; it is like money-when once you know there is any concealed, it is half discovered. "My dear Murphy," said an Irishman to his friend, "why did you betray the secret I told you?"-"Is it betraying you call it? Sure, when I found I wasn't able to keep it myself, didn't I do well to tell it to somebody that could?"— Tin Trumpet.

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