incompatible with success, to which, by the way, it should be added, his looks and the expression of his countenance powerfully contribute.

By others a condition has been insisted on, which must, in many instances, be found hard to comply with. It is a sincere belief in animal magnetism.

Room is not allowed to us in these pages, even if inclination prompted, to enumerate the alleged phenomena of animal magnetism. This has been done with the patience, and, some doubters would add, the imagination, characteristic of their nation, by some German writers. The inquisitive into such matters we again refer to the pages of Prichard on Insanity.* A bare enumeration must suffice us at this time.

The first degree of magnetism is termed the waking state of somnambulism; the second is that of imperfect or half sleep; the third the stage of inward darkness or magnetic stupor, innere dunkelheit. To this succeeds inward illumination, innere-klarheit, which subsists during the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages. The fourth stage is that of somnambulism; the fifth is that of clairvoyance, selbstbeschauung, or second or clearsightedness; the sixth is universal clearsightedness, allgemeine klarheit.' This inward illumination, this lucid somnambulism and transfer of the senses to remote parts of the body, is a discovery made since the time of Mesmer by a physician of Lyons, named Petetan.

In the state of clairvoyance, the magnetised person or somnambulist, can merely distinguish, by means of the eyes, strong light from darkness; and, according to Treviranus, when the eyelids are open, which seldom happens, the pupils are either turned up, as if spasmodically, or are dilated and insensible— all power of moving them being suspended. At the same time, the sense of feeling becomes metamorphosed into something equivalent to perfect sight, so that the individual perceives, by means of the former, the finest of those modifications which are generally perceptible to the visual sense. She recognizes,-for the subjects of these observations are generally females,-not only the circumferences and surfaces, but also the colours of objects. She can distinguish the position of the hands of a watch held before her; and by merely touching, or sometimes without coming into contact with it: she can read writing, and write without any aid from her eyes! The epigastrium is the chief seat or medium of this new species of vision, and somnambulists distinguish the hand on a watch held close to the region of the stomach; and, also, to the forehead, back of the head, the ends of the fingers, &c.; and, as Gmelin positively declares, they know the cards of a pack from each other when they are so placed that there is no possibility of their having been seen by the eyes. A somnambulist, mentioned by Tardy, read a piece of writing in characters strange and unknown to her, by pressing it on her stomach; her eyes having been securely closed. A damsel, whose case is given in the Strasburg Zeitung, was able to read, not only letters folded up and placed within a cover over her stomach, but a book in another chamber, on a leaf of which a man had placed his open hand, while, with the other, he held the hand of a third person, the latter holding in like manner a fourth, and a chain being thus formed, as in electrical experiments, the last holding his open hand upon the stomach of the somnambulist. Some of these cases are reported to have occurred to individuals who fell spontaneously into the magnetic state without the manipulatory process;

• See Select Medical Library, Nos. 6-7. Chap. XIL. On Ecstatic Affections. VOL. II.-3

but it has been well observed, that they were all collected in places in which the practice of the art was rife and a matter of public interest.

It is assumed by the historians of animal magnetism, that there is a strict analogy in all the phenomena of natural and artificial somnambulism, and this is one of the grounds on which they attempt to render the facts which they report less incredible, by connecting them with a series of phenomena frequently observed.

In a still higher degree, the intensity of the new species of vision without eyes becomes capable of displaying objects too fine for the ordinary ken of mankind. Fischer and Tardy report that their patients saw, during the process of magnetising, a halo of light surrounding both themselves and the operators, and rays issuing from the points of their fingers. Nasse has reported a series of experiments on this magnetic light. His somnambulist saw the breath of her magnetiser issuing from his mouth like flames of fire.

In the fifth stage, or that of complete clairvoyance, patients see the whole interior of their own bodies, and are able to describe minutely all the internal organs, with as much accuracy as an anatomist who sees them laid open by the knife. In this state the clairvoyant has the instinct of remedies, and is capable of prescribing for himself. Persons brought into magnetic relation with him possess, also, this power of self-penetration; and sympathize with him in other respects, tasting pepper or salt when either of these articles is put into his mouth.

In the sixth and last degree, the perception of the magnetised, which had been confined to the interior of his own body, becomes now so keen as to give him an insight into all nature: things hidden in futurity, or in distance of space, are subjected to his survey. Weinholt's patient ascertained the illness of her brother, separated from her at the distance of some hundred miles. In the Strasburg hospital, a patient, being in relation with a stranger, told him that his indisposition arose from a fall on horseback, which had really occurred fifteen years before.

A French girl became so susceptible under magnetic influence that she took the diseases of persons in the same room with her, but in no ways touching her. Her lucid state (words acquire odd meaning) continuing, she reached the last stage of clairvoyance, and, being in Paris, could see her mother, who was living in a small town many miles off, could tell the occupations, attitudes, and even the most intimate thoughts of the old lady. Still farther; this magnetised clairvoyante had the gift of foreseeing, sometimes days in advance, the visits of persons to her mother, their conversation, the reception of a letter, the effect it would have upon the good lady, and her subsequent reflexions thereon. Finally, for to the most wonderful narrative there must be an end, this gifted personage foretold to her father, who it seems was with her in Paris, the receipt of letters from her mother, and their contents. She saw, one day, that her mother was sick, and she dictated a prescription for the latter, which reached the residence at Arcis sur l'Aube, just at the very time when her father had received a letter apprizing him of his wife's sickness.

As a counterpart to this display of filial love by the aid of animal magnetism, is the case of a mother, who was magnetised, being rendered able, in conse quence, to see, at once, the disease of her child, whom she had before this thought to be on the point of death, and to prescribe with such success that the little sufferer was soon restored to health,

Pleasant and encouraging to the hungry and the needy must be a knowledge of their ability, by the aid of animal magnetism, to transmute water into various beverages, such as wine and lemonade, and into the more nutrimental fluids,— milk, chocolate, &c. Present water to a somnambulist, and she at one time tastes wine, then milk. Our readers will be the less surprised at this power of transmutation, when we point out to them, in the pages of the learned Rabelais, a case of a parallel nature.

But we have not yet done tickling the imaginations of our readers by the particulars of the clairvoyance of the French girl, whose dutiful conduct in prescribing for her mother has just been noticed. This transcendental person; but why should we withhold the name of Clarissa, and be prevented from echoing, with some slight alterations, the exclamation of the Abbé Raynal in his eulogy of Eliza Draper: "Territoire d'Anjinga tu n'es rien, mais tu as donné naissance à Eliza!" Ville d'Arcis sur l'Aube tu n'es rien, mais tu as donné naissance à Clarice, the flower of French magnetism, as Joan of Arc was of French chivalry. Both broke through the conventional trammels, which would have held in common minds, and obeyed the star of their destiny, in despite of sinister predictions and discouragements. Clarissa, who it seems was believed to have been deaf from birth, had been told by certain magnetisers that she was not susceptible of the magnetic influence; but on seeing M. Chapelain, one of the grand-masters of the art, she was soon thrown into a state of somnambulism and subsequent clairvoyance. In this state she was so lucid, or we should rather say became so lucid, that she could see perfectly well her internal ear, and give an accurate anatomical description of it. Still more; she revealed the important fact, that she had not been born deaf as was supposed, but that her deafness proceeded from a shock given to her internal ear, by the report of firearms discharged in rejoicings, whilst she was being carried to church to be baptised.

The skill displayed by Mademoiselle Clarice in the diagnosis of her deafness, was but the prelude, as it ought ever to be with all true Esculapians, to devising the means of cure. These were, for our notions of French practice, tolerably active. One day she took, conformably with her own prescriptions, three grains of tartar emetic; on another, twenty-four grains of ipecacuanha. These will produce, as we learn, their customary effects, without the state of somnambulism being in the least disturbed: and why should they by an emetico-cathartic course of treatment, when another French lady had a cancerous breast removed by the knife, whilst in this beatific state of somnambulism, and was not at all aware, until told, of what had been done. But even this, wonderful as it seems, is surpassed by the one which we shall soon quote of the learned Panurge's surgery, as recorded by that shining light of Montpelier, the grave and decorous Rabelais.

After these specimens of the power of animal magnetism, need we feel surprised, whatever other sentiments may also be experienced, that its zealous partisans and practisers, such as Dr. Filassier, should proclaim its power of enabling us to detect the nature and alterations of all the fluids, even the aeriform ones, and the most delicate changes of organic structure in the human body; and, also, to point out the most assured therapeutical treatment:-Or that another great magnetiser, M. Foissac, should gravely attribute to magnetic somnambulism all that is recorded of the supernatural in the predictions of the pythias,

sibyls, fairies, sorcerers, &c. When we add, that this same M. Foissac regards Moses and our Saviour and his Apostles as magnetisers or magnetic somnambulists, we have reached the climax, and afforded a lesson to those weak good men who, by their pleased credulity, furnish aliment and incentive to the labours of the transcendental practisers of animal magnetism. By the transcendental, we mean all those who, not content with watching the state of the nervous system, and of the body in general under various influences and agents,—seek to transplant the senses, and to invest finite man with infinite power for ends thus far unimportant if not absolutely frivolous.

But that we may not lose character for impartial history with the lovers of the rare and the marvellous, we shall continue our remarks on the subject of animal magnetism by a brief retrospective review of some of the olden authorities in its favour. In doing this, we must invoke for our readers that large and even robust faith which the animal magnetisers very properly deem to be of the very last importance and, surely, it is no unreasonable request to make,-that they who read an explanation and history of the magnetic wonders of the olden time should be in a state of mind similar to those who are called upon to witness or participate in the magnetic displays of the present day. If this our plea be admitted, we would call into court FRANÇOIS RABELAIS, Doctor of Medicine of Montpelier; MICHEL MONTAIGNE, Doctor of Laws, Counsellor of the Parliament of Bordeaux, &c.; Robert Burton, Vicar and Rector; WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, Master of the Human Heart; and MIGUEl de Cervantes, Doctor of Fun and Knighterrantry. We propose to show, by these witnesses, that animal magnetism has, in fact, though not in name, been practised and been productive of the most wonderful effects from a very early period. Whilst adducing their testimony, we shall connect its different parts with such explanations and illustrations, of more modern date, as may be thought pertinent and calculated to strengthen the main position.

Burton is brought forward, with the Anatomy of Melancholy' in his hand. We shall now, in the first place, from the testimony of this witness, endeavour to show that the so-called magnetic fluid, diffused through nature and acting on and through the instrumentality of the human body, is a deceptio sensús; and that a more careful observation, by the aid of a compound solar microscope, and, perhaps still better, by the reflecting telescope through which the moon and its inhabitants have been recently seen, would show, that the real active agency consists in the movements and freaks of those minute and hitherto invisible beings pervading all space, which, for want of a better name, have been called spirits of the air; or, in plainer English, little devils. Some idea may be formed of their extreme smallness, from the fact narrated in one of the legends, that ten thousand of them could dance a saraband on the point of a needle. Burton quotes Paracelsus in proof of their existence. This latter, as we all know, was a distinguished physician, and discoverer of the elixir of life: but by some mistake or mishap, probably in one of his drunken bouts, he either broke or lost the vial; and had not time to prepare a fresh supply before he was carried off by a pleurisy, in the forty-eighth year of his age. "Paracelsus confesseth that he saw them divers times, and conferred with them;" and "Leo Suavius, a Frenchman, will have the ayre to be as full of them as snow falling in the skies, and that they may be seen, and withal sets down the means how men may see them." In showing that these little devils really constitute what has been thought to

be the subtle magnetic fluid, we make the same advances in the etiology of somnambulism, and self-penetration and clairvoyance, which some pathologists have made, of late years, in the etiology of various malignant fevers, cholera, &c., viz. : that the deteriorated air, or miasm, supposed to produce these diseases, is, in fact, a prodigious accumulation of animalculæ. The resemblance applies also, in another interesting particular. It is; that, in both, the argument just stops short of proof by demonstration.

The existence of these little devils being admitted, it is easy to understand how they find entrance into the various organs and cavities of the body, and play in it such important parts. They are, as we learn, " in their proper shapes round," and, of consequence, can easily insinuate themselves through the pores of the skin, and of the lining membrane of the lungs, &c., just as globules of oil or quicksilver would: and as the entrance of the latter is favoured by friction, so is that of the vivacious and far-seeing and knowing little folks invited and facilitated by the manipulations and passes of the magnetiser. We meet, now and then, with some thick-skinned and insensible bodies, which will not allow of the ingress of these beings; and this explains why their owners cannot be magnetised. Of the attributes and powers of these little devils, it is testified, (Burton loquitur,) that they can assume all manner of shapes at their pleasure, appear in what likeness they will themselves; that they are most swift in motion, can pass many miles in an instant, and so likewise transform bodies of others into what shape they please; that they can represent castles in the air, palaces, armies, spectrums, prodigies, and such strange objects to mortal men's eyes, cause smells, savours, &c., deceive all the senses; and that they can foretell future events, and do many strange miracles. They know the virtues of herbs, plants, stones, minerals, &c., of all creatures, birds, beasts, the four elements, stars, planets; can aptly apply and make use of them as they see good. Some of these spirits or diavolini are desirous of men's company, very affable and familiar with them, as dogs are; others again do abhor them as we would serpents. In fine, as Thomas (quere, which), Durand and others grant that they have understanding far beyond men, can probably conjecture and foretell many things; they can cause and cure most diseases, and deceive our senses; they have excellent skill in all arts and sciences, and the most illiterate devil is quovis homini scientior, as Cicogna maintains out of others.

We have marked in italics the enumeration of those qualities and powers for which the little devils (diavolini) are most noted; so that our readers cannot fail to see at once the entire coincidence between these and the clairvoyant manifestations in animal magnetism. One can readily imagine, and, with magnetic vision, see how these intelligent and prescient animalculæ, for we may call them so, pass into the body of the magnetised with the quickness and insinuation of an electric current, and occupy various regions of the body. Some take up their station in the ventricles of the brain, others in the cavities of the heart; some, again, in the channels of the senses, and so on in every part: but, more especially, do they love to congregate in the epigastric region, in and about the stomach; whether because of certain crapulous propensities which still adhere to their mixed nature,-or from sympathy with the presiding principle or archæus of the body, which some distinguished men in medical science have supposed to be located in the epigastric centre, observations have not yet enabled us to determine.