mated and inanimate, and that at a considerable distance, without the assistance of any intermediate substance; and it exhibited in the human body some properties analogous to those of the loadstone, especially its two poles. This animal magnetism, he added, was capable of curing directly all the disorders of the nervous system, and indirectly other maladies; it rendered perfect the operation of medicines; and excited and directed the salutary crises of diseases, so that it placed these crises in the power of the physician. Moreover, it enabled him to ascertain the state of health of each individual, and to form a correct judgment as to the origin, nature and progress of the most complicated diseases; in short, he says, nature offers in this magnetism a universal means of healing and preserving mankind."

The sons of Esculapius may well be supposed to have stood aghast at the announcement of this grand catholicon. The honored founder of their profession, and his followers in every age, had sought by the aid of the medicinal properties of various vegetable and mineral substances, to restore the diseased frame of man to health, but here was a discovery which at once showed the folly of all their boasted knowledge and experience, and, simple in its application, was to preserve mankind from all the ills attendant upon human nature.

The object for the attainment of which the visionary philosophers of former times had in vain sought, was at length reached, and Mesmer was the fortunate discoverer, the happy instrument of conferring all these blessings upon the world. Miraculous cures were effected by him during his journeys through various parts of Europe, and many there were who hesitated not to ascribe to him divine power. Paris was the principal seat of his operations, and here his popularity was for a time unbounded.

So great was the excitement produced by this wonderful man, and so numerous had his followers become, that in 1784 the king of France appointed a committee, consisting of four physicians and five members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, to investigate the subject. MM. Bailly, Lavoisier, and our distinguished countryman Dr. Franklin, who was then acting as our minister at the French court, were members of the committee. M. Deslon, a pupil and partner of Mesmer, was at this time practicing animal magnetism in Paris, and endeavored to convince the committee of the justice of its pretensions. He opened his argument by the assertion "that there is but one nature, one disease, and one remedy; and that remedy is animal magnetism." However much those distinguished philosophers may have been disgusted by the presentation of a theory so contrary to common sense and all experience, they continued their investigations, and witnessed the effects of his operations upon a great number of individuals. It may be well here to give an account of the manipulations prac

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ticed by Mesmer and Deslon, since these are retained with slight variations, by their followers in this country. The person who was to be magnetized was placed in the sitting position on a convenient sofa or upon a chair. The magnetizer, sitting on a little higher seat, before his face, and at about a foot distant, recollects himself a few moments, during which he holds the thumbs of the patient, and remains in this position until he feels that the same degree of heat is established between the thumbs of that person and his own. Then he draws off his hands in turning them outwards, and places them upon the shoulders for nearly one minute. Afterwards he carries them down slowly by a sort of friction, very light, along the arms, down to the extremities of the fingers,-he begins again the same motion five or six times; it is what magnetizers call passes. Then he passes his hands over the head, keeps them there a few moments, brings them down in passing before the face, at the distance of one or two inches, to the epigastrium, where he stops again, either in bearing upon that region, or without touching it with his fingers. And he thus comes down slowly along the body to the feet. These passes, or motions, are repeated during the greatest part of the course, and when he wishes to finish it, he carries them even beyond the extremities of the hands and feet, in shaking his fingers at each time. Finally, he performs before the face and the chest some transversal motions, at the distance of three or four inches, in presenting his two hands, put near one another, and in removing them abruptly."

The attention of the committee was early called to the effect which these manipulations would have upon the nerves of diseased persons according to the acknowledged principles of nervous action. Subsequent observations and enquiries confirmed them in the belief that the phenomena witnessed were referable wholly to the imaginations of the persons magnetized, and that the whole system was a trick to impose upon the ignorant and credulous; and they thus reported it to his Majesty. This full exposure of the base imposture by an enlightened and able committee, after a fair examination, was not sufficient to restore sanity to its deluded believers. Its professors, who were amassing vast fortunes through the credulity of the people, maintained the deception by avowing the discovery of new facts and new principles. A short time after the report of the committee named above, a professor discovered that somnambulism and clairvoyance formed parts of the science of animal magnetism. This discovery revived anew the drooping interest of the people, and for a time maintained its popularity. At this period almost every nation in Europe could boast of some professors in this new and wonderful science.

But as the novelty of the discovery wore away, it fast declined into comparative obscurity, and for the last half century has attracted little notice, until within two or three years. Through the active exertions of its believers, it has again risen from the obscurity so justly merited, and challenges a new investigation of its claims. The presumption of its friends is only equalled by their folly. The superior light which is now possessed concerning the action of the human mind, and of the nervous system, renders a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena attendant upon their experiments yet more easy, and the refutation of their theory consequently more decided. Had the deluded followers of Mesmer remained in Europe; had our country been spared the disgrace of furnishing victims to their knavery and deception, we might feel disposed to philosophize more calmly concerning their course, than our feelings will now permit. Prepared by a thorough knowledge of human nature, acquainted with the spirit of credulity which our unexampled national and individual success has generated, they have commenced their operations among us, and judging from their past success, may not improbably secure to this generation and this country, a reputation through coming ages, compared with which that of the age of witchcraft might well be envied.

Providence, in Rhode Island, was selected as the most proper place in this country for the propogation of their doctrines, and to the surprise and confusion of its friends elsewhere, a vast majority of its citizens are said to have become infected with this mental and moral poison. Numerous "professors" and "patients" have arisen, who are aiding by their marvellous performances in spreading the infection far and near. An edition of the famous work of Deleuze, lately published by a citizen of Providence, embraces an account of the progress of the science in that city, and also the names of many distinguished divines and scholars in different parts of the country who had become, if not believers in its principles, at least anxious inquirers concerning it. We trust that most of these names are used without the consent of the individuals, and that ere long they will publish to the world their disbelief in the science. This is due to themselves, lest their own names should be dishonored by a connection with the delusion, and to the people, lest others respecting their high talents and acquirements, should become its easy victims.

The evils which would result to the human race, should the doctrines of animal magnetism become generally prevalent, are sufficiently weighty to awaken every friend of man to use his influence to check its destructive ravages. The whole system of civil society would be broken up, and all would be thrown into perfect anarchy. The worst horrors of the French revolution would be witnessed among us, when a man under the influence

of this infatuation, should see or think that he saw, in every fellow man a witness of his most secret acts, an intruder into his most sacred employments. Life, property, character, all would be at the mercy of every designing wretch; the holy ties of friendship and kindred would be severed by the artful villain, and existence itself would become a curse.

I cannot close this article without transcribing for the edification of my readers, an extract from a report published in Blackwood's Magazine, for September, 1837, purporting to be from "a committee appointed by the Metropolitan Joint Stock Medical, Scientific and Literary Association," and which, according to their credulity, they may believe to be a bona fide description of the effects of this wonderful agent upon the suffering Mulhooly, or a most severe satire upon the science of Animal Magnetism.

"From Dr. Eliotson your committee received a report, signed by his colleagues, containing the following results :

Patrick Mulhooly, hod-carrier, aged 27, had fallen from a four story house in October last, and had received such severe injuries in both his legs, that they were amputated on the following day. Since then he had been totally unable to walk without crutches, or some support in the shape of wooden limbs, into which the stumps of the knees were ingeniously fixed. Baron Dupotet's first object was to draw as great a flow of blood as possible to the extremities, in order that a tendency downwards might be created, to be made available in the further course of the cure.

Accordingly, he magnetized Mulhooly on the 10th, 11th, and 12th of July, and on the fourth sitting succeeded in throwing him into a state of somnambulism. On the 14th of July, the extraordinary effects of this treatment began to develop themselves. Slight excrescences, similar in form to very young radishes, protruded from the end of the limb, the glow of health returned to the cicatrix of the wound, and the intellect, imagination, and memory of the patient were increased in a most astonishing degree. In proof of this Mulhooly, in answer to a question put to him by Dr. Hamilton Roe, conversed with the greatest fluency in the unknown tongue, which Dr. Roe not being himself in a state of magnetism was unable to understand. But the committee having been informed that several apostles and seven angels had recently arrived at the new church near Oxford street, one of Cloud's omnibuses was sent to bring them to the scene of the experiment. In a short time the twelve apostles and all the angels arrived in the conveyance, sixteen inside and three out. One of the angels, a native of Tipperary, undertook to interpret the replies of Mulhooly, and the branch of your committee present at this case comes to the unanimous conclusion, that the faculties of Mulhooly were enlarged as asserted above.

Dr. Roe having asked in the unknown tongue, "Who am I?" Mulhooly answered, 'ochan yecrab rothoval oy!' which the angel interpreted to mean, 'a pillar of the elect;' upon which the Doctor professed himself satisfied, and said it was the truth.

At another sitting the excrescences, originally small, had assumed the appearance of well defined toes-a heel and sole were afterwards developed, and at the eleventh sitting the cure was completed. The celebrated dancer, Mademoiselle Taglioni, having been invited to enter into magnetic 'rapport' with Mulhooly, touched his hand, and then fixing a thread round the patient's thumb, held it, at

the other extremity of the room. She then lifted up one of her graceful feet to an uncommon elevation, and spun round with the velocity of a gig-wheel. Mulhooly unconsciously imitated every attitude, and seemed even to have a greater power over his limbs than the beautiful sylph herself. He placed his right foot on his own shoulder, and spun round for more than a minute at that height, holding his left leg in a horizontal position all the time. He then leapt down from his shoulder and danced the Cachuca dance in exact imitation of Taglioni. In one of the pirouettes towards the conclusion he exerted himself so prodigiously, that having struck the mouth of Mr. Gardner, one of the committee, with his heel, a tooth was displaced with great violence, the extent of which may be judged of from the fact of the tooth being driven backwards through the palate, grazing the spinal column at the back of the neck, and severely wounding Dr. Eliotson in the abdomen at a distance of fourteen feet."

The contempt which is felt in England for the base impostors who seek to deceive the ignorant through their pretended miracles, could not be more plainly evinced than in the publication of such an article in a work which deservedly holds the first rank among the literary periodicals of the age. Let it not be said that in this country man is less under the influence of reason, or less disposed to heap contempt upon the intriguing professors and deluded victims of Animal Magnetism.

C. S.

MARY'S GRAVE.

"Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved!
How selfish sorrow ponders on the past,
And clings to thoughts now better far removed!
But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last."

THE bright, bright dream is o'er! and hushed the lay
Of love; the laughing flowers, that decked the shore
Of Hope's transparent ocean-where the joyous light of day
Shone through their dew-drops-live, alas! no more.
The fairy forms-by Fancy cast before

My eye, that sought to pierce the mystic gloom
Of time to come, and scan its mystic lore-
In Mary's grave have found a living tomb,
Withered and faded in their infant bloom.

Isle of the Holy Cross! thou art the grave
Of innocence-within thy rock-girt pale,
The bones of her, whom pity could not save,

Lie mouldering. Would that oblivion's veil

Might shroud that form from thought; but what avail
Such prayers? Still grasping memory renews

The impress of that image. Wishes fail-
Clear, through the glittering screen of ocean-dews,
That hallowed spot, still wayward Fancy views.