The fabled effects of the basilisk, the serpent, and the evil eye, have

probably all some facts for their foundation. The effect of the human

eye in arresting the attacks of savage animals is better authenticated,

and its influence upon domestic animals may be more easily made the

subject of experimental proof. Let any one gaze steadily at a dog half

dozing at the fireside--the animal will, after a short time, become

restless, and if the stare be continued, will quit his resting-place,

and either shrink into a corner, or come forward and caress the person

staring. How much of this may be due to the habitual fixed look of stern

command with which censure or punishment is accompanied, it may be

difficult to say; but the fact undoubtedly is, that some influence,

either innate or induced, is exercised. Again, those who, in society,

habitually converse with an averted glance, we generally consider

wanting in moral force. We doubt the man who doubts himself. On the

other hand, if, in conversation, the ordinary look of awakened interest

be prolonged, and the eyes are kept fixed for a longer period than

usual, an embarrassed and somewhat painful feeling is the result; an

indistinct impulse makes it difficult to avert the eye, and at the same

time a consciousness of that impulse is an inducement to avert it. We

lay no undue stress upon these phenomena; but they are phenomena, and

fair subjects for scientific investigation. An explanation of mesmerism

has been sought in the physical effect of the stare alone; thus it is

said that, if a party look intently at a prominent object fixed to his

forehead, he will in time be thrown into mesmeric coma. There is more in

it, we think, than this; there is an influence exerted by that nearest

approach to the intercourse of soul--"the gaze into each other's

eyes"--the extent and _normae_ of which are unknown. The schoolboy's

experiment of staring out of countenance, is not so bad a test of moral

power as it would at first sight be deemed to be.

The second case we shall relate is also one at which we were personally

present, but one in which both mesmeriser and mesmerisee were, if we may

use the term, adepts--the former a gentleman of fortune and education;

the latter a half-educated young man, who had been in service as a

footman. We shall designate them as Mr M---- and G----.

At this "_soiree magnetique_" G. was brought in in the sleep-waking

state, walking, or rather staggering, and holding the arm of Mr M., his

eyes to all appearance perfectly closed, and his gait and gestures those

of a drunken man. After some little time he was detached from the

mesmeriser, and followed him to different parts of the room. When in

proximity Mr M. raised his hand, the patient's hands followed it, his

legs the same, while they receded from the hands and legs of any other

of the party present. Some of these effects were certainly curious, and

not easy of explanation. The mesmeriser would walk or stand behind the

patient, and, waving his hands somewhat after the manner of the cachuca

dancer, the hands of the patient followed his with tolerable but not

unerring precision. We determined to bear in mind these effects when

some other phenomena were exhibiting, and try whether similar results

would ensue when the attention of the parties was devoted to other

subjects. When the attention of every body present was intently strained

upon some experiments which we shall presently mention, we approached,

as though watching the experiment, very near to G., and frequently

without his at all flinching; at other times we were told by Mr M. not

to come too near, and once in particular we observed, that having had

one knee and toe in close juxtaposition, almost in contact, with the

patient's, we retained it so for several seconds before he withdrew his

leg. These facts, which would probably be explained by mesmerists on the

ground of the whole power of sensation being concentrated upon one

object, rendered, however, the experiments upon mesmeric attraction

inconclusive. Passing over several experiments, such as the

mesmerisation of water, showing community of taste, in which, after some

hesitation, the patient selected from three or four glasses of water one

which had been tasted by the mesmeriser, we come to the most important

point, viz. the clairvoyance. One of the party stood behind the patient,

and he was asked how the former was dressed; his reply, after some

hesitation was, "not over nice--he has a queerish waist-coat on," (it

was a plain white.) A book was then taken off the table--one of the

annuals. Mr M. held his hands tightly over the eyes of G., and the

title-page was presented open opposite the covered eyes of the latter;

after struggling and moving his head about for some time, just as if

endeavouring to catch a glimpse of the book, he mentioned the place of

publication, and afterwards the title. Other experiments were proposed,

such as holding a book behind the party, or to different parts of his

body; but of these some did not succeed, others were not tried. To

obviate the doubt of the book having been previously seen, we were

requested to write, in large letters, a word on a card, such as a

slightly educated person could read, and to present it, looking at the

same time as closely as we wished at the eyes of G., the lids of which

were, as before, apparently tightly held down by Mr M. We did so: the

word was _Peru_; and, after some struggles, the word was read certainly

without an exposure of any part of the eye to us. We now proposed, as

likely to be more satisfactory, to write another word on a similar card,

and, instead of the hands of the mesmeriser being held over the eyes, to

place a piece of thin paper over the card. This, it was said, was

useless and would not succeed, as the influence would not be transmitted

through the person of the mesmeriser; we then proposed that he (the

mesmeriser) should place his hand over the card; in short, that the card

should be blinded and not the eye. Our reason will be obvious. According

to the known laws of vision, viz. the convergence of all the rays of

light to a focus in the eye, were the least part of this exposed,

vision, though imperfect, of every object within the visual angle, would

follow; but, were the object covered, a partial opening would assist

vision but little, and only _quoad_ the part exposed. The experiment

thus performed would have been optically conclusive; and we cannot see,

according to any of the mesmeric hypotheses, any mesmeric reason why it

should not have succeeded: it was, however, declined. We are obliged to

omit many other points in this evening's proceedings to avoid prolixity.

Though many facts were curious, and certainly not easy of explanation by

ordinary means, there was nothing which defied it; every _experimentum

crucis_ failed, and we, of course, remained unconvinced.

The third case which we shall instance, was one at which we were also

personally present. Having been invited to view the mesmeric experiments

of Dr B., we arrived at his house, with a friend, at about ten in the

morning, and having been duly introduced to the Doctor in one room, were

instantly ushered into another, when a scene presented itself certainly

one of the most extraordinary we have ever witnessed. There were seven

females in the room, and not one man. On a sofa near the fire-place, a

young girl sat upright, supported by cushions, her eyes were fixed, and

opposite her stood a middle-aged woman, slowly moving her hands before

the eyes of the patient. On the hearth-rug near this lay a woman covered

with a coarse blanket. She appeared sound asleep, was breathing heavily,

and looked deadly pale. A third patient was seated on a chair, also

undergoing the mesmeric passes from another woman; and on the opposite

side of the room from the fire-place, two others were seated on chairs,

with their heads hanging on their shoulders, and eyes closed.

Description cannot convey the mystic and fearful appearance of this room

and its inmates to the first glance of the unexpectant spectator. Not a

word was spoken; the solemn silence, the immobility and deathlike pallor

of the objects, was awful--they were as breathing corpses. The clay-cold

nuns evoked from their tombs, presented not a more unearthly spectacle

to Robert of Normandy. The free-and-easy expressions of Dr B., however,

which first broke the silence, instantly dissolved the spell. "That

woman," he said, pointing to her on the floor, "has a disease of the

liver, and her left lung is somewhat affected. I think we shall do her

good. She is now getting into the clairvoyant state. She can see into

the next room." He then stooped over her, and said, "How are you, Mary?"

She replied, "I have the pain in my side very bad." He approached his

hand to the part affected, and again withdrew it several times, opening

the fingers as it neared, and closing them as it receded, as though he

would gently extract the pain. He again asked her how she felt; she said

better. He then pointed to the girl on the sofa, and said, "She is deaf

and dumb. We cannot get her asleep." He subsequently pointed out other

of the patients, and mentioned their ailments. These, and the sombre

darkness of the room, accounted to us for the unnatural paleness of the

patients. Dr B. next asked one of two sleeping patients to follow him

into another room. We accompanied him, and his experiments upon the

female, whom we shall call S., commenced. First of all, he placed her

hands with the palms together, and making with his fingers motions the

converse of those made in the former case, asked us to endeavour to

separate them. We did, and _instantly succeeded_, with no more effort

than would be expected were any woman of average strength purposely to

hold her hands together. "Ah!" said the Doctor, "not an easy matter, is

it?" We made no reply. He then walked, having on a pair of

loudly-creaking boots, to the other end of the room, and looked sternly

at the patient. She, after a second or two, followed him, and sat on the

same chair. He then said, "I willed her to come to me."

He next asked our friend to hold the patient's hands, and ask her a

question _mentally_, without expressing it.

After some little time she frowned, and endeavoured to withdraw her

hands.

_Dr._ "Ah, she does not like your question! Ask her another."

After some time she burst out into a fit of laughter.

_Dr._ "Ah, you have tickled her fancy now!"

What the question asked by our friend was, did not transpire. This

experiment having been so successful, we were asked to do the same. Not

without a feeling of shame we complied; and, taking hold of the

patient's hands, we mentally asked her the question--"Are you single or

married?" which question did not appear to us to involve any

metaphysical subtilty. However, after struggling and frowning for some

time, she said, with a sort of hysteric gasp, "He's a funny man!"

_Dr B._ "Ah, she can't make you out!"

We are not aware to what feature in our character the epithet _funny_

will apply; but probably our self-esteem will not permit us justly to

appreciate the appositeness of this somewhat ambiguous epithet. So much,

however, for the power of divination, with which the mesmeriser seemed

perfectly satisfied. Dr B. now showed us a camomile flower, put it in

his mouth, and chewed it. The patient made a face as if tasting

something disagreeable, and, in answer to his questions, said it was

bitter. He then did the same with a lozenge; and after some time,

required, according to the doctor, for the removal of the bitter taste,

she said she tasted _lozenges_.

_Dr B._ "There you see the community of taste." Dr B. now touched her

forehead a little above and outside of the eyebrows; she burst out

laughing.

_Dr B._ "I touched the organ of gaiety." He then did the same with the

organs of music; she set up an old English ditty. Then touching these

organs with one hand, and placing the other on the top of her head, she

instantly changed the ballad to a doleful psalm-tune. Affection,

philo-progenitiveness, were in turn touched, the doctor stating aloud

beforehand what organ he was going to excite. We should weary our

readers with a detail of the platitudes which ensued.

She was asked what was going on in the next room, and said, "Ah, Sophy

may try, but cannot get the girl asleep!" A few other experiments, such

as suspending chairs on her arms, &c., followed, and we returned to the

next room, where the deaf and dumb girl was found _fast asleep_. Upon

being asked how long she had been so, the female mesmeriser replied,

"Just after you left the room." No comment was made upon the answer of

the clairvoyante patient above given, which appeared to have been

forgotten by all but ourselves.

Had we been anxious to give a factitious interest to our narrative, we

should certainly have avoided a description of the above cases, which

could not at the same time be made to possess graphic interest, and to

relate accurately the real facts as presented; but we have selected them

as having happened to ourselves, and as being shown not by public

exhibitors, but by parties both holding a highly respectable station in

life, and being, as we believe, among the best examples to be found of

English mesmerisers. Although invited as sceptical spectators, and the

experiments being in nowise confidential, we feel that the exhibition

not being public, we have no right to mention the names of the parties.

It will be obvious that the three exhibitions we have selected differed

much in character. The first, as we have stated, to our minds defied

collusion or self-deception. The second was open to either construction,

though, from the character of the parties, we should think collusion

was, in the highest degree, improbable; and the experiments, although

not conclusive, were very curious, and some of them not easy of

explanation. In the third case, transparent and absurd as the

experiments seemed to us, and as the account of them will probably

appear to our readers, the doctor, from his position and practice, must

have been seriously injured by his mesmeric experiments; and therefore

there is fair reason to believe, that he was not a party to a fraud

which must have been objectless, and professionally injurious to him;

but how a man of experience could be carried away by such flimsy

devices, is a psychological curiosity, almost as marvellous as the

asserted phenomena of mesmerism.

We are aware that, in giving the above accounts of experiments which we

have personally witnessed, our authority, being anonymous, is of no

great weight. We state them to avoid the charge of writing on what we

have not seen, and to show that we do not attempt unfairly to decry

mesmerism without seeing it fairly tried; if we felt justified in giving

the names of the parties, these instances would be much more conclusive.

Nearly all the cases in Mr Townshend's book are given without the names

of parties, probably for similar reasons to those which have induced us

to withhold them.

The above cases supply instances of all the phenomena included in our

categories, except those of insensibility to pain, powers of prediction,

and the curative effects. Having never personally seen cases of this

description, we shall select examples of them from the book of Mr

Townshend and others; but before we give these instances, we will

extract from Mr Townshend's book his account of the first mesmeric

sitting at which he was present. This will give the reader a fair idea

of his attractive style, and of his state of mind previously to

witnessing, for the first time, mesmeric effects.

"If to have been an unbeliever in the very existence of the state

in question, can add weight to my testimony, my reader, should he

also be a heretic on the subject, may be assured that his

incredulity in this respect can scarcely be greater than mine was,

up to the winter of 1836. That, at the time I mention, I should be

both ignorant and prejudiced on the score of mesmerism, will not

surprise those who are aware of its long proscription in England,

and the want of information upon it, which, till very lately,

prevailed there.

"In the course of a residence at Antwerp, a valued friend detailed

to me some extraordinary results of mesmerism, to which he had been

an eyewitness. I could not altogether discredit the evidence of one

whom I knew to be both observant and incapable of falsehood; but I

took refuge in the supposition that he had been ingeniously

deceived. Reflecting, however, that to condemn before I had

examined was as unjust to others as it was unsatisfactory to

myself, I accepted readily the proposition of my friend to

introduce me to an acquaintance of his in Antwerp, who had learned

the practice of the mesmeric art from a German physician. We waited

together on Mr K----, the mesmeriser, (an agreeable and

well-informed person,) and stated to him that the object of our

visit was to prevail on him to exhibit to us a specimen of his

mysterious talent. To this he at first replied that he was rather

seeking to abjure a renown that had become troublesome--half the

world viewing him as a conjurer, and the other half as a getter-up

of strange comedies; 'but,' he kindly added, 'if you will promise

me a strictly private meeting, I will, this evening, do all in my

power to convince you that mesmerism is no delusion.' This being

agreed upon, with a stipulation that the members of my own family

should be present on the occasion, I, to remove all doubt of

complicity from every mind, proposed that Mr K---- should mesmerise

a person who should be a perfect stranger to him. To this he

readily acceded; and now the only difficulty was to find a subject

for our experiment. At length we thought of a young person in the

middling class of life, who had often done fine work for the ladies

of our family, and of whose character we had the most favourable

knowledge. Her mother was Irish, her father, who had been dead some

time, had been a Belgian, and she spoke English, Flemish, and

French, with perfect facility. Her widowed parent was chiefly

supported by her industry: and, in the midst of trying

circumstances, her temper was gay and cheerful, and her health

excellent. That she had never seen Mr K---- we were sure; and of

her probity and incapacity for feigning we had every reason to be

convinced. With our request, conveyed to her through one of the

ladies of our family, for whom she had conceived a warm affection,

she complied without hesitation. Not being of a nervous, though of

an excitable temperament, she had no fears whatever about what she

was to undergo. On the contrary, she had rather a desire to know

what the sensation of being mesmerised might be. Of the phenomena

which were to be developed in the mesmeric state, she knew

absolutely nothing; thus all deceptive imitation of them, on her

part, was rendered impossible.

"About nine o'clock in the evening, our party assembled for what,

in foreign phrase, is called 'une seance magnetique.' Anna M----,

our mesmerisee, was already with us. Mr K---- arrived soon after,

and was introduced to his young patient, whose name we had

purposely avoided mentioning to him in the morning; not that we

feared imposition on either hand, but that we were determined, by

every precaution, to prevent any one from alleging that imposition

had been practised. Utterly unknown as the parties were to each

other, a game played by two confederates was plainly out of the

question. Almost immediately after the entrance of Mr K---- we

proceeded to the business of the evening. By his directions

Mademoiselle M---- placed herself in an arm-chair at one end of the

apartment, while he occupied a seat directly facing hers. He then

took each of her hands in one of his, and sat in such a manner as

that the knees and feet of both should be in contact. In this

position he remained for some time motionless, attentively

regarding her with eyes as unwinking as the lidless orbs which

Coleridge has attributed to the Genius of destruction. We had been

told previously to keep utter silence, and none of our

circle--composed of some five or six persons--felt inclined to

transgress this order. To me, novice as I was at that time in such

matters, it was a moment of absorbing interest: that which I had

heard mocked at as foolishness, that which I myself had doubted as

a dream, was, perhaps, about to be brought home to my conviction,

and established for ever in my mind as a reality. Should the

present trial prove successful, how much of my past experience must

be remodelled and reversed!

"Convinced, as I have since been, to what valuable conclusions the

phenomena of mesmerism may conduct the enquirer, never, perhaps,

have I been more impressed with the importance of its pretensions

than at that moment, when my doubts of their validity were either

to be strengthened or removed. Concentrating my attention upon the

motionless pair, I observed that Mademoiselle M---- seemed at her

ease, and occasionally smiled or glanced at the assembled party;

but her eyes, as if by a charm, always reverted to those of her

mesmeriser, and at length seemed unable to turn away from them.

Then a heaviness, as of sleep, seemed to weigh down her eyelids,

and to pervade the expression of her countenance; her head drooped

on one side; her breathing became regular; at length her eyes

closed entirely, and, to all appearance, she was calmly asleep, in

just seven minutes from the time when Mr K---- first commenced his

operations. I should have observed that, as soon as the first

symptoms of drowsiness were manifested, the mesmeriser had

withdrawn his hands from those of Mademoiselle M----, and had

commenced what are called the mesmeric passes, conducting his

fingers slowly downward, without contact, along the arm of the

patient. For about five minutes, Mademoiselle M---- continued to

repose tranquilly, when suddenly she began to heave deep sighs, and

to turn and toss in her chair. She then called out, 'Je me trouve

malade! Je m'etouffe!' and rising in a wild manner, she continued

to repeat, 'Je m'etouffe!' evidently labouring under an oppression

of the breath. But all this time her eyes remained fast shut, and

at the command of her mesmeriser, she took his arm and walked,

still with her eyes shut, to the table. Mr K---- then said,

'Voulez-vous que je vous eveille?'--'Oui, oui,' she exclaimed; 'je

m'etouffe.' Upon this Mr K---- again operated with his hands, but

in a different set of movements, and taking out his handkerchief,

agitated the air round the patient, who forthwith opened her eyes,

and stared about the room like a person awaking from sleep. No

traces of her indisposition, however, appeared to remain; and soon

shaking off all drowsiness, she was able to converse and laugh as

cheerfully as usual. On being asked what she remembered of her

sensations, she said that she had only a general idea of having

felt unwell and oppressed: that she had wished to open her eyes,

but could not, they felt as if lead were on them. Of having walked

to the table she had no recollection. Notwithstanding her having

suffered, she was desirous of being again mesmerised, and sat down

fearlessly to make a second trial. This time it was longer before

her eyes closed, and she never seemed to be reduced to more than a

state of half unconsciousness. When the mesmeriser asked her if she

slept, she answered in the tone of utter drowsiness, 'Je dors, et

je ne dors pas.' This lasted some time, when Mr K---- declared that

he was afraid of fatiguing his patient, (and probably his

spectators too,) and that he should disperse the mesmeric fluid. To

do so, however, seemed not so easy a matter as the first time when

he awoke the sleep-waker; with difficulty she appeared to rouse

herself; and even after having spoken a few words to us, and risen

from her chair, she suddenly relapsed into a state of torpor, and

fell prostrate to the ground, as if perfectly insensible. Mr K----,

entreating us not to be alarmed, raised her up--placed her in a

chair, and supported her head with his hand. It was then that I

distinctly recognised one of the asserted phenomena of mesmerism.

The head of Mademoiselle M---- followed every where, with unerring

certainty, the hand of her mesmeriser, and seemed irresistibly

attracted to it as iron to the loadstone. At length Mr K----

succeeded in thoroughly awaking his patient, who, on being

interrogated respecting her past sensations, said that she retained

a recollection of her state of semi-consciousness, during which she

much desired to have been able to sleep wholly; but of her having

fallen to the ground, or of what had passed subsequently, she

remembered nothing whatever. To other enquiries she replied, that

the drowsy sensation which first stole over her was rather of an

agreeable nature, and that it was preceded by a slight tingling,

which ran down her arms in the direction of the mesmeriser's

fingers. Moreover she assured us, that the oppression she had at

one time felt was not fanciful, but real--not mental, but bodily,

and was accompanied by a peculiar pain in the region of the heart,

which, however, ceased immediately on the dispersion of the

mesmeric sleep. These statements were the rather to be relied upon,

inasmuch as the girl's character was neither timid nor

imaginative."--(P. 38-42.)

We would willingly give the whole of the second sitting of the same

patient, in which were developed the phenomena of,

1st, "Attraction towards the mesmeriser."

2d, "A knowledge of what the mesmeriser ate and drank, indicating

community of sensation with him."

3d, "An increased quickness of perception."

4th, "A development of the power of vision."

Our space will not permit us to give these in detail. We shall therefore

give an extract from the third sitting, where the clairvoyance was more

decidedly developed, and the impressions of Mr Townshend on the

phenomena he had witnessed are stated.

"Upon first passing into the mesmeric state, Theodore seemed

absolutely insensible to every other than the mesmeriser's voice.

Some of our party went close to him, and shouted his name; but he

gave no tokens of hearing us until Mr K----, taking our hands, made

us touch those of Theodore and his own at the same time. This he

called putting us '_en rapport_' with the patient. After this

Theodore seemed to hear our voices equally with that of the

mesmeriser, but by no means to pay an equal attention to them.

"With regard to the development of vision, the eyes of the patient

appeared to be firmly shut during the whole sitting, and yet he

gave the following proofs of accurate sight:--

"Without being guided by our voices, (for, in making the

experiment, we kept carefully silent,) he distinguished between the

different persons present, and the colours of their dresses. He

also named with accuracy various objects on the table, such as a

miniature picture, a drawing by Mr K----, &c. &c.

"When the mesmeriser left him, and ran quickly amongst the chairs,

tables &c., of the apartment, he followed him, running also, and

taking the same turns, without once coming in contact with any

thing that stood in his way.

"He told the hour accurately by Mr K----'s watch.

"He played several games at dominoes with the different members of

our family, as readily as if his eyes had been perfectly open.

"On these occasions the lights were placed in front of him, and he

arranged his dominoes on the table, with their backs to the

candles, in such a manner that, when I placed my head in the same

position as his own, I could scarcely, through the shade,

distinguish one from the other. Yet he took them up unerringly,

never hesitated in his play, generally won the game, and announced

the sum of the spots on such of his dominoes as remained over at

the end, before his adversaries could count theirs. One of our

party, a lady who had been extremely incredulous on the subject of

mesmerism, stooped down, so as to look under his eyelids all the

time he played, and declared herself convinced and satisfied that

his eyes were perfectly closed. It was not always, however, that

Theodore could be prevailed upon to exercise his power of vision.

Some words, written by the mesmeriser, of a tolerable size, being

shown to him, he declared, as Mademoiselle M---- did on another

occasion, that it was too small for him to distinguish.

"Towards the conclusion of the sitting, the patient seemed much

fatigued, and, going to the sofa, arranged a pillow for himself

comfortably under his head; after which he appeared to pass into a

state more akin to natural sleep than his late sleep-waking. Mr

K---- allowed him to repose in this manner for a short time, and

then awoke him by the usual formula. A very few motions of the hand

were sufficient to restore him to full consciousness, and to his

usual character. The fatigue of which he had so lately complained

seemed wholly to have passed away, together with the memory of all

that he had been doing for the last hour.

"I must now pause to set before my reader my own state of mind

respecting the facts I had witnessed. I perceived that important

deductions might be drawn from them, and that they bore upon

disputed questions of the highest interest to man, connected with

the three great mysteries of being--life, death, and immortality.

On these grounds I was resolved to enter upon a consistent course

of enquiry concerning them; though as yet, while all was new and

wonderful to my apprehension, I could scarcely do more than observe

and verify phenomena. It was, however, necessary that my views,

though for the present bounded, should be distinct. I had already

asked respecting mesmeric sleep-waking, 'Does it exist?' and to

this question, the cases which had fallen under my notice, and

which were above suspicion, seemed to answer decidedly in the

affirmative: but it was essential still further to enquire, 'Does

it exist so generally as to be pronounced a part--though a rarely

developed part--of the human constitution?' In order to determine

this, it was requisite to observe how far individuals of different

ages, stations, and temperaments, were capable of mesmeric

sleep-waking. I resolved, therefore, by experiments on as extensive

a scale as possible, to ascertain whether the state in question

were too commonly exhibited to be exceptional or idiosyncratic.

Again, the two cases that I had witnessed coincided in

characteristics; but could this coincidence be accidental? It might

still be asked, 'Were the phenomena displayed uncertain, mutable,

such as might never occur again; or were they orderly, invariable,

the growth of fixed causes, which, being present, implied their

presence also?' In fine, was mesmeric sleep-waking not only a

state, but entitled to rank as a distinct state, clearly and

permanently characterized; and, as such, set apart from all other

abnormal conditions of men? On its pretensions to be so considered,

rested, I conceived, its claims to notice and peculiar

investigation: to decide this point was, therefore, one of my chief

objects; and, respecting it, I was determined to seek that

certainty which can only be attained by a careful comparison of

facts, occurring under the same circumstances. To sum up my

intentions, I desired to show that man, through external human

influence, is capable of a species of sleep-waking different from

the common, not only inasmuch as it is otherwise produced, but as

it displays quite other characteristics when produced."--(P.

49-52.)

In the subsequent portions of the book, similar and still more wondrous

phenomena are produced by Mr Townshend. He mesmerises several Cambridge

friends. He procures two patients, designated by the names of Anna M----

and E---- A----, who are said to be very susceptible of the mesmeric

state, and sight or mesmeric perception is manifested in a dark closet,

with large towels over the head, through the abdomen, through cards,

books, &c. &c. Anna M. is mesmerised unconsciously when in a separate

house from the mesmeriser; they predict remedies for themselves and

others, read thoughts,[4] state how they and others can be further

mesmerised and demesmerised.

As an instance of the curative effects, and the power of predicting

remedies, we cite the following:--

"Accident threw in my way a lad of nineteen years of age, a Swiss

peasant, who for three years had nearly lost the faculty of sight.

His eyes betrayed but little appearance of disorder, and the

gradual decay of vision which he had experienced, was attributed to

a paralysis of the optic nerve, resulting from a scrofulous

tendency in the constitution of the patient. The boy, whom I shall

call by his Christian name of Johann, was intelligent,

mild-tempered, extremely sincere, and extremely unimaginative. He

had never heard of mesmerism till I spoke of it before him, and I

then only so far enlightened him on the subject, as to tell him

that it was something which might, perhaps, benefit his sight. At

first he betrayed some little reluctance to submit himself to

experiment, asking me if I were going to perform some very painful

operation upon him; but, when he found that the whole affair

consisted in sitting quiet, and letting me hold his hands, he no

longer felt any apprehension.

"Before beginning to mesmerise, I ascertained, with as much

precision as possible, the patient's degree of blindness. I found

that he yet could see enough to perceive any large obstacle that

stood in his way. If a person came directly before him, he was

aware of the circumstance, but he could not at all distinguish

whether the individual were man or woman. I even put this to the

proof. A lady of our society stood before him, and he addressed her

as 'mein herr,' (sir.) In bright sunshine he could see a white

object, or the colour scarlet, when in a considerable mass, but

made mistakes as to the other colours. Between small objects he

could not at all discriminate. I held before him successively, a

book, a box, and a bunch of keys, and he could not distinguish

between them. In each case he saw something, he said, like a

shadow, but he could not tell what. He could not read one letter of

the largest print by means of eyesight; but he was very adroit in

reading by touch, in books prepared expressly for the blind,

running his fingers over the raised characters with great rapidity,

and thus acquiring a perception of them. Whatever trifling degree

of vision he possessed, could only be exercised on very near

objects: those which were at a distance from him, he perceived not

at all. I ascertained that he could not see a cottage at the end of

our garden, not more than a hundred yards off from where we were

standing.

"These points being satisfactorily proved, I placed my patient in

the proper position, and began to mesmerise. Five minutes had

scarcely elapsed, when I found that I produced a manifest effect

upon the boy. He began to shiver at regular intervals, as if

affected by a succession of slight electric shocks. By degrees this

tremour subsided, the patient's eyes gradually closed, and in about

a quarter of an hour, he replied to an enquiry on my part--'Ich

schlaffe, aber nicht ganz tief'--(I sleep, but not soundly.) upon

this I endeavoured to deepen the patient's slumber by the mesmeric

passes, when suddenly he exclaimed--his eyes being closed all the

time--'I see--I see your hand--I see your head!' In order to put

this to the proof, I held my head in various positions, which he

followed with his finger; again, he told me accurately whether my

hand was shut or open. 'But,' he said, on being further questioned,

'I do not see distinctly.--I see, as it were, sunbeams (sonnen

strahlen) which dazzle me.' 'Do you think,' I asked, 'that

mesmerism will do you good?' 'Ja freilich,' (yes, certainly,) he

replied; 'repeated often enough, it would cure me of my blindness.'

"Afraid of fatiguing my patient, I did not trouble him with

experiments; and his one o'clock dinner being ready for him, I

dispersed his magnetic sleep. After he had dined, I took him into

the garden. As we were passing before some bee-hives, he suddenly

stopped, and seemed to look earnestly at them: 'What is it you

see?' I asked. 'A row of bee-hives,' he replied directly, and

continued--'Oh! this is wonderful!--I have not seen such things for

three years.' Of course, I was extremely surprised, for though I

had imagined that a long course of mesmerisation might benefit the

boy, I was entirely unprepared for so rapid an improvement in his

vision. My chief object had been to develop the faculty of sight in

sleep-waking; and I can assure my readers, that this increase of

visual power in the natural state was to me a kind of miracle, as

astonishing as it was unsought. My poor patient was in a state of

absolute enchantment. He grinned from ear to ear, and called out,

'Das ist praechtig!' (This is charming!) Two ladies now passed

before us, when he said, 'Da sind zwei fraeuenzimmer!' (There go two

ladies!) 'How dressed?' I asked. 'Their clothes are of a dark

colour,' he replied. This was true. I took my patient to a

summer-house that commanded an extensive prospect. I fear almost to

state it, but, nevertheless, it is perfectly true, that he saw and

pointed out the situation of a village in the valley below us. I

then brought Johann back to the house, when, in the presence of

several members of my family, he recognised, at first sight,

several small objects, (a flowerpot, I remember, amongst other

things,) and not only saw a little girl, one of our farmers'

children, sitting on the steps of a door, but also mentioned that

she had a round cap on her head. In the house, I showed Johann a

book, which, it will be remembered, he could not distinguish before

mesmerisation, and he named the object. But, though making great

efforts, he could not read one letter in the book. Having

ascertained this, I once more threw Johann into the mesmeric state,

with a view to discover how far a second mesmerisation could

strengthen his natural eyesight. As soon as I had awaked him, at

the interval of half an hour, I presented him with the same book,

(one of Marryat's novels,) when he accurately told me the larger

letters of the title-page, which were as follows--'Outward Bound.'

Johann belonging to an institution of the blind situated at some

distance from our residence, I had unhappily only the opportunity

of mesmerising him three times subsequently to the above successful

trial. The establishment, also, of which he was a member, changed

masters; and its new director having prejudices on the score of

mesmerism, there were difficulties purposely thrown in the way of

my following up that which I had so auspiciously begun."--(Pp.

176-179)

Many of these cases of clairvoyance, given by Mr Townshend, appear on

the face of them ambiguous; thus the reading is said to be effected with

difficulty and imperfectly, the difficulty to be increased by the

superposition of obstacles. Others, as related, certainly admit of no

explanation by deductions from ordinary experience. All we can say of

them, therefore, is, that we have fairly sought to see such phenomena,

and have never succeeded; when we see them, and can properly test them,

we will believe them. But from the internal evidence of the latter

portion of Mr Townshend's book, which we shall presently discuss, we

cannot, although not doubting his honesty of purpose, set our faith upon

his experiments and judgment.

Mr Townshend gives no account of the phreno-mesmerism, or of the

surgical operations performed without any evidence of pain during the

mesmeric states. We have already related one of the former exhibitions,

which, we think, requires no further comment. Viewed abstractedly, the

attempt to support by the assumed accuracy of one science, at best in

its infancy, and confessedly fallible, another still more so, is making

too large demands upon public credulity to require much counter

argument. With regard to the surgical cases, they stand on a very

different ground; three operations, among the most painful of those to

which man is ever subjected, are alleged to have been performed during

the mesmeric state--Madame Plantin, amputation of cancerous breast; and

James Wombwell and Mary Ann Lakin, amputation of the leg above the knee.

The case of Wombwell was canvassed at length at the Royal Medical and

Chirurgical Society of London; and in that and the other cases there

seems to have been no question raised as to the facts of the patients

having undergone the operation without the usual evidence of suffering.

In Wombwell's case the divided end of the sciatic nerve was purposely

(it appears to us very wantonly) touched with the forceps, but without

any appearance of sensation on the part of the patient. In all these

cases the medical men most opposed to mesmerism seem to have admitted

the fact, and to have rested their incredulity on the various cases

known to them, of parties having borne operations with such fortitude as

not to have expressed the usual cries of suffering.

In Madame Plantin's case it is stated; that she subsequently confessed

to a nurse in an hospital, that she felt the full pain, but purposely,

and by great effort, kept silent. This confession is, however, strongly

denied by Dr Elliotson and others, and does not appear to be clearly

substantiated.

A professional "_odium_" appears to have arisen on the subject; and,

from the controversial tone of the speaking and writing on both sides,

it is difficult to get at the truth. We must say, however, that,

admitting the facts, which the antagonists of mesmerism seem to do, we

are more inclined to believe the paralysis of nervous sensation by

mesmeric influence, than that, with such inadequate motives as the

_patients_ could feel, they should have such marvellous self-control as

to feign sleep, and keep their whole muscular system in a relaxed state,

while suffering such exquisite pain. Medical men are, indeed, better

judges of the power of endurance and simulation than we can pretend to

be; but, to make their testimony conclusive, they should have witnessed

the operation. The elaborate research for causes explanatory of an

unseen case, lessens the weight of authority which would otherwise be

very high.

Many other minor cases, such as teeth drawn, and division of tendons,

are given; and though we have never had an opportunity of witnessing

such effects, we must say we think, from their benefit to suffering

humanity, the possibility, however remote, of their truth, deserves

more calm and dispassionate enquiry than appears hitherto to have been

given them.

While doctors, however, seek to explain, by various profound theories,

the efficient causes of asserted mesmeric cures, a member of the Church

of England, and popular preacher at Liverpool, the Rev. Hugh M. Neill,

M.A., has cut the Gordian knot, by a sermon preached at St Jude's

Church, on April 10th, 1842, and published in Nos. 599 and 600 of the

_Penny Pulpit_, price twopence. By this sermon it appears to have

occurred to the philosophic mind of the reverend divine, that mesmeric

marvels may be accounted for as accomplished by the direct agency of

Satan! Doubtless Satan is as actively at work in this the nineteenth

century, as in any anterior period of our history; but we are inclined

to think the progress of civilization has opened a sufficient number of

channels for his ingenuity, without rendering it necessary that he

should alarm the devout by miraculously interfering to assuage human

suffering.

We have given above as many instances as our space will permit, of the

asserted phenomena of mesmerism; and now to return to Mr Townshend's

book.

In taking a general view of the lines of argument adopted by the author

to support the possibility or probability of mesmerism, we perceive they

are of two sorts, essentially different, and in some measure

inconsistent with each other.

1st, It is very properly argued, that our whole knowledge of the normal

course of nature is derived from experience; that a law is a mere

generalization from that experience, and is not any thing intrinsically

or necessarily true. Thus, if the sun were to rise in the west

to-morrow, instead of in the east, it would at first sight appear to be

a deviation from natural laws; in other words, a miracle. If, however,

the latter circumstance were wanting, after the first sensation of the

marvellous had subsided, the philosopher would enquire, whether, instead

of being a deviation from a law, it were not a subordinate instance of

some higher law, of which the period of history had been too short to

give any co-ordinate instances; and were it found, by a long course of

experience, that in every 4000 years a similar retrocession of the earth

took place, a new law would be established. Applying this to mesmerism,

it is said our notions of sleep and waking, of sight and hearing, and of

the possible limits and modes of sensation, are derived from experience

alone; we cannot estimate or understand the _modus agendi_ of a new

sensation, because we have never experienced it. If, then, it be proved,

by the acts of A, B, or C, that they attain cognizance of objects by

other means than those which any known organ of sensation will permit,

you must admit the fact, and by degrees its _rationale_ will become

supported by the same means as all other truths are supported, viz. by

habitual experience. Its law is, indeed, nothing but its constant

recurrence under similar circumstances. To take Mr Townshend's own mode

of enunciating this--

"Are we entitled to conclude, in any case, that, because we have

not hitherto been able to assign a law to certain operations, they

are therefore absolutely without law? Are we to assert, that the

orderly dispositions of the universe are deformed by a monstrous

exception; or is it not wiser to believe that our own knowledge is

in fault, whenever Nature appears inconsistent with herself? Surely

we have enough order around us to suggest, that all which to us

seems chance, is 'direction which we cannot see;' that all apparent

anomalies are but like those discords which, in the most masterly

music, prepare the transitions from one noble passage to another,

and are actually essential to the general harmony. In many

instances this is not mere conjecture. How much of fancied

imperfection and disorder has fled before our investigation! The

motions of comets at first appear to offer an exception to the

exact arrangements of the universe.--'They traverse all parts of

the heavens. Their paths have every possible inclination to the

plane of the ecliptic; and, unlike the planets, the motion of more

than half of those which have appeared has been retrograde--that

is, from east to west.' Yet have we been able to detect the

elements of regularity in the midst of all this seeming confusion,

and to predict with certainty the day, the hour, and the minute of

a comet's return to our region of the sky.

"Experience also shows, that apparently insulated and lawless

phenomena may not only be reduced to a law, but to a well-known

law; that many a familiar agent puts on strange disguises; and that

events, with which, in their mazy channels, we seem to be

unacquainted, may be perfectly recognised by us at their source.

Thus galvanism and magnetic force are proved, by recent

discoveries, to be only forms of electricity; showing that a fact

may be altered, not in itself, but in the circumstances that

surround it, and that complexity of development is perfectly

consistent with unity of design. Instances like these, while they

encourage us to enquiry, should teach us to believe that all which

is needed to vindicate the regularity of nature is a more extended

observation on our parts."--(Pp. 14-15.)

This is the highest and safest ground for the advocate of mesmerism to

tread; to support himself on this he has only to demonstrate his facts

beyond the possibility of a doubt, and the truth of the phenomena,

however inconsistent with previous experience, must in the end be

admitted. But to support him on this high ground his proof must be

demonstrative; he must be able to say--I ask not for faith, nor even a

balanced mind; but doubt to the utmost, examine with the most rigorous

scepticism; I stand upon the facts alone; I offer no explanation, or at

least I make their truth dependent upon no explanation. They are or they

are not. I will prove their existence, and I will defy you to disprove

them.

It will not, we conceive, be denied, that one essential attribute of the

social mind, a jealousy of credence in apparent anomalies, is a just and

necessary guard upon human knowledge. If mere assertion were believed,

every succeeding day would upset the knowledge of the preceding day; and

however high the character of the assertor of new and abnormal facts may

be, he must not expect them to be received upon the strength of his

assertion. The best men may be deceived, and the best men may be led

astray by enthusiasm. When the slightest discovery in physical science

is published, it is immediately assailed by doubts from every quarter;

and its promulgator, if he be accustomed to research and trained to

scientific investigation, never complains of these doubts, because he

knows the vast number of perplexing deceptions in which he has himself

been entangled, and the caution with which he himself would receive a

similar announcement.

It is vain to cite instances of truths unappreciated by the age in which

they were advanced. We deprecate as much as any the persecution with

which occasionally men who have seen far in advance of their age have

been attacked; but the saying, "Malheureux celui qui est en avance de

son siecle," is not always true: if the new truth be difficult of

demonstration it will be proportionately tardy of reception, but if easy

of proof it is very rapidly received. As an example of this we may

instance the discovery of Volta. In the history of physical science,

never was a more sudden leap taken than by this illustrious man--that a

juxtaposition of matter in its least organic form should produce such

surprising effects upon the human organism, was to the world, as it

existed in the year 1800, a most marvellous phenomenon; and had the link

in the finest chain of proof been wanting, men would have been justified

in any degree of scepticism or incredulity. But it was easy of

demonstration; any one with a dozen discs of iron and zinc, and the same

number of penny-pieces, could satisfy himself; and the consequence was,

the discovery was instantly admitted. Let mesmerists put the same power

of self-satisfaction into the hands of the world, and doubt will be at

once removed; if, as they say, their science is not of equal exactitude,

they must bide their time and not complain.

Magnetism and electricity, moreover, often cited by Mr Townshend, and

undoubtedly the most surprising additions to human knowledge within the

historical period, though abnormal, are not contradictory to

experience--they were an entirely new series of facts added to our

previous store--they did not destroy or lessen the force of any

previously received truths. Not so mesmerism, and therefore the more

stringent should be, and is, the proof required.

Come we now to the second class of arguments adopted in favour of

mesmerism, and by the same persons (Mr Townshend, for instance) as

support the first. Mr Townshend says, (p. 29,) "to the mesmeriser the

facts of mesmerism are no miracles;" and yet he avers that mesmerism can

make the blind see and the deaf hear. (Pp. xxxii., and 178.) We cannot

very clearly see his notion of a miracle. Passing over this, however,

and taking him to assert what the first branch of his argument requires

to be asserted, that there is no miracle, or that there is nothing but

the contradiction of a necessary truth, such as that three angles of a

triangle are equal to two right angles, which _may_ not fall within some

natural law of which we have not all the data--we cannot see why, in the

second half of his book, he so sedulously endeavours to prove that

mesmerism is consistent with experience, and may be supported upon

similar grounds, and accounted for by similar theories, to those by

which the agency of the imponderable forces is established and accounted

for. After using every argument in his power to show the fallibility of

experience, and the reasons why we should not disbelieve mesmerism

because contradictory to it, which contradiction he admits in terms, the

author writes a chapter, the title of which is, "Conformity of Mesmerism

with General Experience."--(P. 155.) As instances of these reverse modes

of viewing the subject, we quote the following passages--the one taken

from the commencement of the book, where the first line of argument is

adopted; the other from the latter portion, where the second is.

"Thus, then, till the initial step towards a comprehension of

mesmerism be taken anew, there is no hope that it will ever be

understood or appreciated. Why unavailingly seek to reduce it to a

formula of which it is unsusceptible? If we ascribe it to a power

already ascertained, why not treat it, at least, as an entirely new

function of that power? Why limit it to what we know, when,

possibly, it may be destined to extend the boundaries of our

knowledge? Why are we to be trammelled with foregone conclusions?

Yet upon these very restrictions the opponents of mesmerism insist;

thus taking away from men the means of investigating the agency in

question, by forcing them to set about it in the wrong way."--(P.

12.)

Having, then, thus expressed himself in the early part of the work,

towards the close we find the following sentence. "Taking this simple

view of sensation, (that objects should be brought into a certain

relation with us by something intermediate,) we find nothing in

mesmerism contradictory of nature. Under its influence, the human frame

continues to be still a system of nerves acted upon by elastic media,

for the purpose of conveying to us the primal impulse of the Almighty

Mind, which made, sustains, and moves the universe--having, as I trust,

shown the conformity of mesmerism in all essential points with the

principles of nature, and the inferences of reason," &c. &c.

If we are to admit mesmerism as a series of facts apparently

inconsistent with experience, it is most hasty and unphilosophical to

attempt to generalize it by crude hypotheses. To rest its probable truth

upon these hypotheses, is to take a totally different ground, and one

much lower and more assailable. We have no desire to be

hypercritical--to expose minor scientific inaccuracies in the work

before us; but we do not hesitate to assert, that, independently of its

inconsistency with the previous course of reasoning, the hypothesis or

hypotheses of Mr Townshend are most unsatisfactory.

Heat, light, electricity, magnetism, are by some regarded as specific

fluids; by others, as undulations of one or more specific fluid; and by

a third class, as undulations or polarizations of ordinary matter. Thus,

by the first, light would be viewed as a material emanation from the

luminous body; by the second, as an undulation of an imponderable ether,

existing between the luminous body and the recipient; and by the third,

as an undulation of the air, glass, or other matter, placed between the

luminous body and the object. The last would regard the ether in the

planetary spaces, not as a specific imponderable fluid, but as a highly

attenuated expansion of air, gas, or other matter, having all the

functions of ordinary matter. Whewell has, indeed, published a

_demonstration_ that all matter is ponderable, and that imponderable

matter is not a conceivable idea. Be this as it may, the diversity of

opinion on this point shows the difficulty the mind finds in departing

from the truths of phenomena to the uncertainties of hypothesis; but if

hypothesis be justifiable, which it is only on the ground of absolute

necessity to link together, and render conventionally intelligible,

certain undoubted, undeniable facts, which have been associated together

under the terms _electricity_, _magnetism_, &c.--how difficult and

dangerous it must be when the facts which it seeks to associate are

denied by the mass of thinking men, when they are confessed to be

mysterious and irregular by their most strenuous advocates, each of whom

differs, in many respects, as to these facts!

These difficulties have by no means been conquered by Mr Townshend. At

p. 11, he objects to this mode of theorizing, in the following strong

terms:--

"A certain school of German writers especially have theorized on

our subject, after the false method of explaining one class of

phenomena in nature by its fancied resemblance to another. Wishing,

perhaps, to avoid the error of the spiritualists, who solve the

problem in debate by the power of the soul alone, they have

ransacked the material world for analogies to mesmerism, till the

mind itself has been endued with its affinities and its poles. Such

attempts as these have done the greatest disservice to the cause we

advocate. They submit it to a wrong test. It is as if the laws of

light should be applied to a question in acoustics. It is as if we

should expect to find in a foreign kingdom the laws and customs of

our own."--(P. 11.)

And yet, in the subsequent parts of his book, he asserts mesmerism to be

capable of "reflection like light"--to have "the attraction of

magnetism"--to be "transferred like heat;" to escape from a point like

electricity, and to have the sympathetic undulations of sound!--(Pp.

335, 6, 7, and 8.)

Such general resemblances as the following are given:---

"We know that electricity is capable of all that modification in

its action which our case demands. Sometimes its effects are sudden

and energetic; sometimes of indefinite and uninterrupted

continuance. It is 'capable of moving with various degrees of

facility through the pores or even the substance of matter;' and is

not impeded in its action by the intervention of any substance

whatever, provided it be not in itself in an electric state. This

capacity of varied action and of pervading influence, has already

been shown to characterize the mesmeric medium."--(P. 335.)

Why, what is here stated of electricity, may be said of heat, of light,

of any force, and its moving through the pores may be denied as easily

as asserted; by many it is thought to be a molecular polarization, and

not a transmission.

Zinc and silver are said (p. 237) to "produce a taste resulting from the

galvanic concussion, and not from any actual flavour." This is

incorrect; zinc and silver produce a taste when in voltaic

communication, because they decompose the saliva, and eliminate acid and

alkaline constituents.

Further on it is said, (p. 237,) "A spark drawn by means of a pointed

metal from the nose of a person charged with electricity, will give him

the sensation of smelling a phosphoric odour." This is also an erroneous

assumption; the electric spark, in passing through the atmosphere,

combines its constituents, and forms nitrous acid. This has a pungent

smell; probably there are some other physical changes wrought upon the

constituents of the atmosphere by the electric spark, which are now

objects of anxious enquiry to natural philosophers; yet none of them

have any doubt that the electric smell is the result of a physical or

chemical action of the spark, by which either the air is decomposed, or

fine portions of metal carried off, or both. So again--

"The electric medium is a far more swift and subtle messenger of

vision than is the luminous ether. 'A wheel revolving with celerity

sufficient to render its spokes invisible, when illuminated by a

flash of lightning, is seen for an instant with all its spokes

distinct, as if it were in a state of absolute repose, because,

however rapid the motion may be, the light has already come and

ceased before the wheel has had time to turn through a sensible

space.' Again, some ingenious experiments, by Professor Wheatstone,

demonstrate to a certainty, that the speed of the electric fluid

much surpasses the velocity of light. It is, therefore, a different

medium; yet can it serve for all the purposes of vision, and even

in a superior manner. After hearing these things, shall we start at

the notion of mesmeric sensation being conveyed through another

medium than that in ordinary action? Even should the sleep-waker

perceive the most distant objects, (as some are said to have done,)

can we, from the moment a means of communication is hinted to us,

be so much amazed? If his perception be more vivid, there seems to

be an efficient cause in his abjuring the grosser media for such as

are more swift and subtle."--(P. 272.)

The electric medium is _not_ a messenger of vision. To call the light

produced by the electric spark electricity, would be the same as to call

magnetism electricity, heat electricity, motion electricity--for all

these are produced by it, and it by them. All modes of force are capable

of producing the other phenomenal effects of force. It is an obvious

fallacy to call the medium which transmits electric light, an electric

medium; this, if carried out, would overthrow natural as well as

conventional divisions, would subvert "the pales and forts of reason."

Mr Townshend, accustomed to metaphysical abstractions, shows, in these

and many other instances, a want of acquaintance with physical science,

and entirely fails when he bases his reasoning upon it. Many of the

arguments of Mr Townshend are of such a transcendental nature, that we

fear, should we attempt to follow them, our readers would lose their

clairvoyance in the mist of metaphysical speculation. The following will

give a fair specimen of the conclusion to which such reasoning tends:--

"Indeed, if we lay to heart the deceptiveness and mutability of all

the external species of matter, at the same time considering that

we have no reason to deem it capable of change in its ultimate and

imperceptible particles; if, also, we reflect, that whatever is not

palpable in itself is yet indicated by its effects, forces us on

pure reason by withdrawing at once the aid and the illusion of our

external senses, we shall perhaps come to the conclusion that the

Invisible is the only true, exclaiming, with the old Latinist,

'Invisibilia non decipiunt.'"--(P. 355.)

And yet the facts of mesmerism are to be judged of by the very senses

which mesmerism proves to be so fallacious. It is because we _see_ that

E---- A---- reads when the book is presented to the back of his hand,

that we are to believe that he does not perceive with the usual organs.

Upon the rule which the author adopts, that "the invisible is the only

true," we cannot rely upon our deceptive organs and should disbelieve

mesmerism _because_ we see it.

To analyse, in detail, the hypotheses of Mr Townshend would be quite

impossible in our limited space. We might, indeed, adopt method

sometimes used in controversial writing, and string together a parallel

column of minor contradictions. This would however, not only be totally

devoid of interest to the reader, but is not the object we have in view.

We seek not for critical errors or inconsistencies, but merely to

examine if there be any broad lines of truth or probability in his

theory. It is summed up as follows:--

"The real nature of vision is as shut to the vulgar as the mesmeric

mode of sight is to the learned.

"By the eye we appreciate light and colour only: the rest is an

operation of the judgment.

"Viewed metaphysically, seeing is but a particular kind of

knowledge: viewed physically, seeing consists in certain nervous

motions, responsive to the motions of a medium. That medium, in our

ordinary condition, is light, the action of which seems cut off and

intercepted in the case of mesmeric vision.

"When, therefore, we hear that a mesmerised person has correctly

seen an object through obstacles which to us appear opaque, we,

conceiving no means of communication between the person and the

object, exclaim that the laws of nature have been violated. But, in

all cases where information is conveyed through interrupted spaces,

show but the means of communication, and astonishment ceases.

"When we know that there is a medium permeating, in one or other of

its forms, all substances whatever, and that this medium is

eminently capable of exciting sensations of sight; and when we take

this in conjunction with a heightened sensibility in the

percipient person, rendering him aware of impulses whereof we are

not cognisant, we are no longer inclined to deny a fact or suppose

a miracle.

"Finally, all sensation has but one principle. All that is required

for its production is, that objects should be brought into a

certain relation with us by something intermediate; and this is

effected by the impulsions of certain media upon nerves, the last

changes in which are the immediate forerunners of completed

sensation."--(P. 279.)

In short, we think we do not unfairly express the author's theory in the

following query. As the application of the highest human powers (those

of Newton, for instance) have resolved the transmission of light to the

sensorium into the vibrations of an all-pervading ether, what is more

probable than that a similar ethereal medium may convey sensations of

objects through other channels? This may be, but another important

ingredient is wanting, viz. organization, or definite molecular

arrangement. Prick the eye, and, by the resulting morbid derangement,

change the molecular arrangement of its particles, and vision is

destroyed; pulverise the glass through which you look, and it is no

longer transparent. The ether (if there be an ether) in the pores of

these substances, can only convey correct impressions when these

particles have a definite arrangement; but the mesmeric ether is

dependent upon no such necessity. Density and tenacity, opacity and

transparency, homogeneous or heterogeneous bodies, are all equally

penetrable. And what is more strange, the mesmeric ether conveys

correct, and not distorted impressions. The same perception of form

which is conveyed through air, is convoyed through the cover of a book,

through the bones of the skull, or the muscles of the stomach. And,

still more extraordinary, this impression is identical as to the mental

idea it conveys with that conveyed in the normal manner through the eye.

The mesmeric ether has, therefore, not only the power of conveying

impressions, but of preserving their continuity through any impediment.

The formal impressions of a chair or table, which are conveyed by

ordinary vision in right lines to the retina, if these lines be

distorted by any intervening want of uniformity in the matter, are

proportionally distorted. Let striae of glass of different density

intervene in an optical lens, and the objects are distorted; increase

the number of striae, the object is more imperfect; and carry the

molecular derangement further, opacity is the result. Transparency and

opacity, then, viewed apart from all hypotheses, resolve themselves into

organization or molecular arrangement. Yet, by the mesmeric medium, a

chair or table is conveyed to the recipient in its distinct form, or,

what amounts to the same thing for the argument of conformity, they give

to the mind distinct ideas of these objects. If, then, there be a

mesmeric medium, which, being a purely hypothetic creation, cannot be

disproved, its requisites must be so totally at variance with the

requisites of ordinary ethereal media, that none of the rules which can

be applied to this can be applied to that. The arguments of Mr Townshend

depend on analogy, where there is no analogy.

Many of the objects of vision, all indeed by which reading is effected,

are purposely constructed to suit the peculiar organization of the

eye--they are artifices specially appropriated to given sensations; thus

_black_ letters are printed on _white_ paper, because experience has

told us that black reflects no light, while white reflects all the

incident light. If we wish to read by another sense, we adapt our object

to such a sense; thus, for those who read by the finger, raised letters

are prepared, differing from the matrix in position but not in colour;

if we read by the ear, we address it by sounds and not by forms or

colours; and it would be far from impracticable to read by smell or

taste, by associating given odours or given tastes with given ideas.

In all this, however, each sense requires a peculiar education and long

training--it is only by constant association of the word _table_ with

the thing _table_, that we connect the two ideas; but mesmeric

clairvoyance not only conveys things as things in all their proper forms

and colours, (p. 164,) without the intervention of the usual senses, but

it also dispenses with education or association, or instantly adapts to

a new sense the education hitherto specially and only adapted to

another.

Thus the mesmeric medium should, and does, according to Mr Townshend,

(pp. 97, 99, 101,) convey to the person accustomed to read by the eye,

ideas and perceptions which he has hitherto associated with the

sight--to him accustomed to read by touch, ideas associated with

touch--and so of the rest, and that not of sight or touch of the object

itself, but of a mere arbitrary symbol of the object.

_Table_ of five letters or forms--_table_ of two sounds, bearing no

resemblance to these letters or forms, or to the thing--_table_ but a

mere conventional substitute for the purpose of human convenience, yet

by the all-potent mesmeric medium, for which they have not been

previously framed, are definitely conveyed, and produce the require

perception and the required association.

We trust we need go no further to show that mesmeric clairvoyance has,

at all events, no conformity with general experience; and that, if it be

true, the proofs of its truth cannot be based on its analogy with other

sensations. To sum up our arguments, we say--1st, That without

undervaluing testimony, mesmeric clairvoyance is not sufficiently proved

by competent witnesses to be admitted as fact: 2d, The reasoning in

support of it is insufficient, and, in most cases, fallacious.

Perhaps the best arguments employed by Mr Townshend in favour of the

possibility of clairvoyance, are the authenticated cases of normal

sleepwalking; these have been very little examined, but appear, in one

respect, strikingly to differ from mesmeric coma. The eyes of the

somnambulist are said to be open, and therefore there is every optical

power of vision, and an increase of ordinary visual perception is all

that is requisite. The acts performed by the sleepwalker are, moreover,

generally those to which he is habitually accustomed; and, when this is

not the case, he fails, as many disastrous accidents have too fatally

testified.

At the close of Mr Townshend's book is a short appendix, containing some

testimonials to the verity of mesmeric effects. Several of these are

anonymous, and the value of their authority cannot therefore be judged

of. Others are testimonies to mesmeric effects produced upon the

patients, E---- A---- or Anna M----. None of these are from persons of

very high authority; and they are, certainly, not such as would induce

us to rest our faith upon them. We grant to them their full right to be

convinced; but their testimony is not of sufficient force to produce

conviction in others. The two last testimonials, however, are of a very

different character. One of these is by Professor Agassiz, and the other

by Signor Ranieri of Naples. Both these are testimonials, not to any

effect produced upon an accustomed patient, but upon the testifiers

themselves; and the former, coming from a man of high distinction, and

accustomed to physical research, is undoubtedly of great weight. We

therefore give it in full.

"Desirous to know what to think of mesmerism, I for a long time

sought for an opportunity of making some experiments in regard to

it upon myself, so as to avoid the doubts which might arise on the

nature of the sensations which we have heard described by

mesmerised persons. M. Desor, yesterday, in a visit which he made

to Berne, invited Mr Townshend, who had previously mesmerised him,

to accompany him to Neufchatel, and try to mesmerise me. These

gentlemen arrived here with the evening courier, and informed me of

their arrival. At eight o'clock I went to them. We continued at

supper till half past nine o'clock, and about ten o'clock Mr

Townshend commenced operating upon me. While we sat opposite to one

another, he, in the first place, only took hold of my hands, and

looked at me fixedly. I was firmly resolved to arrive at a

knowledge of the truth, whatever it might be; and therefore, the

moment I saw him endeavouring to exert an action upon me, I

silently addressed the Author of all things, beseeching him to give

me power to resist the influence, and to be conscientious in regard

to myself, as well as in regard to the facts. I then fixed my eyes

upon Mr Townshend, attentive to whatever passed. I was in very

suitable circumstances; the hour being early, and one at which I

was in the habit of studying, was far from disposing me to sleep. I

was sufficiently master of myself to experience no emotion, and to

repress all flights of imagination, even if I had been less calm;

accordingly it was a long time before I felt any effect from the

presence of Mr Townshend opposite me. However, after at least a

quarter of an hour, I felt a sensation of a current through all my

limbs, and from that moment my eyelids grew heavy. I then saw Mr

Townshend extend his hands before my eyes, as if he were about to

plunge his fingers into them; and then make different circular

movements around my eyes, which caused my eyelids to become still

heavier. I had the idea that he was endeavouring to make me close

my eyes; and yet it was not as if some one had threatened my eyes,

and, in the waking state, I had closed them to prevent him. It was

an irresistible heaviness of the lids, which compelled me to shut

them, and by degrees I found that I had no longer the power of

keeping them open; but did not the less retain my consciousness of

what was going on around me; so that I heard M. Desor speak to Mr

Townshend, understood what they said, and heard what questions they

asked me, just as if I had been awake; but I had not the power of

answering. I endeavoured in vain several times to do so; and when I

succeeded, I perceived that I was passing out of the state of

torpor in which I had been, and which was rather agreeable than

painful.

"In this state I heard the watchman cry ten o'clock; then I heard

it strike a quarter past; but afterwards I fell into a deeper

sleep, although I never entirely lost my consciousness. It appeared

to me that Mr Townshend was endeavouring to put me into a sound

sleep; my movements seemed under his control, for I wished several

times to change the position of my arms, but had not sufficient

power to do it, or even really to will it; while I felt my head

carried to the right or left shoulder, and backwards or forwards,

without wishing it; and, indeed, in spite of the resistance which I

endeavoured to oppose, and this happened several times.

"I experienced at the same time a feeling of great pleasure in

giving way to the attraction, which dragged me sometimes to one

side, sometimes to the other; then a kind of surprise on feeling my

head fall into Mr Townshend's hand, who appeared to me from that

time to be the cause of the attraction. To his enquiry if I were

well, and what I felt? I found I could not answer, but I smiled; I

felt that my features expanded in spite of my resistance; I was

inwardly confused at experiencing pleasure from an influence which

was mysterious to me. From this moment I wished to wake, and was

less at my ease; and yet on Mr Townshend asking me, whether I

wished to be awakened, I made a hesitating movement with my

shoulders. Mr Townshend then repeated some frictions, which

increased my sleep; yet I was always conscious of what was passing

around me. He then asked me, if I wished to become lucid, at the

same time continuing, as I felt, the frictions from the face to the

arms. I then experienced an indescribable sensation of delight, and

for an instant saw before me rays of dazzling light, which

instantly disappeared. I was then inwardly sorrowful at this state

being prolonged--it appeared to me that enough had been done with

me; I wished to awake, but could not, yet when Mr Townshend and M.

Desor spoke, I heard them. I also heard the clock, and the watchman

cry, but I did not know what hour he cried. Mr Townshend then

presented his watch to me, and asked if I could see the time, and

if I saw him; but I could distinguish nothing. I heard the clock

strike the quarter, but could not get out of my sleepy state. Mr

Townshend then woke me with some rapid transverse movements from

the middle of the face outwards, which instantly caused my eyes to

open, and at the same time I got up, saying to him, 'I thank you.'

It was a quarter past eleven. He then told me, and M. Desor

repeated the same thing, that the only fact which had satisfied

them that I was in a state of mesmeric sleep, was the facility with

which my head followed all the movements of his hand, although he

did not touch me, and the pleasure which I appeared to feel at the

moment when, after several repetitions of friction, he thus moved

my head at pleasure in all directions."--(P. 385 to 388.)

This we think a most interesting and valuable document, and the best key

we have ever seen to the _facts_ of mesmerism. It is the production of a

resolute, religious, and philosophic mind, and bears all the impress of

truth; it proves that there are facts worthy of the most careful

investigation--it proves a power of inducing a comatose or sleep-waking

state--an influence exercised by one mind over another--and it goes far

to prove a physical attraction subsisting between two persons in

mesmeric relation. But, on the other hand, how strikingly do the

phenomena here described differ from those exhibited by the other

patients. In those cases, to use the general proposition of Mr

Townshend, "the sleep-waker seems incapable of analysing his new

sensations while they last, still more of remembering them when they are

over. The state of mesmerism is to him as death."--(P. 156.) Here, on

the other hand, the patient analyses all the sensations he experienced,

and recollects them when they are over; here, notwithstanding the

efforts of the mesmeriser, the production of the mesmeric effect, and no

resistance on the part of the mesmerisee, the latter does not become

clairvoyant; "_je ne distinguais rien_," are the emphatic words of

Professor Agassiz.

Precisely similar is the testimony of Signor Ranieri, the historian--

Having been mesmerised by my honourable friend Mr Hare Townshend, I

will simply describe the phenomena which I experienced before,

during, and after my mesmerisation. Mr Townshend commenced by

making me sit upon a sofa, he sat upon a chair opposite me, and

keeping my hands in his, placed them on my knees. He looked at me

fixedly, and from time to time let go my hands, and placed the

points of his fingers in a straight line opposite my eyes, at an

inch, I should think, from my pupils; then, describing a kind of

ellipse, he brought his hands down again upon mine. After he had

moved his hands thus alternately from my eyes to my knees for ten

minutes, I felt an irresistible desire to close my eyelids. I

continued, nevertheless, to hear his voice, and that of my sister,

who was in the same room. Whenever they put questions to me, I

always answered him correctly; but the whole of my muscular system

was in a state of peculiar weakness, and of almost perfect

disobedience to my will; and, consequently, the pronunciation of

the words with which I wished to answer had become extremely

difficult.

"Whilst I experienced to a certain point the effects of sleep, not

only was I not a stranger to all that was passing around me, but I

even took more than usual interest in it. All my conceptions were

more rapid; I experienced nervous startings to which I am not

accustomed; in short, my whole nervous system was in a state of

perfect exaltation, and appeared to have acquired all the

superabundance of power which the muscular system had lost.

"The following are the principal phenomena which I was able to feel

distinctly. Mr Townshend did not fail to ask me occasionally if I

could see him or my sister without opening my eyelids; but this was

always impossible, and all that I could say I had seen was a

glimmering of light, interrupted by the black and confused images

of the objects presented to me; a light which appeared to me a

little less clear than that which we commonly see when we shut the

eyelids opposite the sun or a candle.

"Mr Townshend at last determined to demesmerise me. He began to

make elliptical movements with his hands, the reverse of those

which he had made at the commencement; I could now open my eyes

without any kind of effort, my whole muscular system became

perfectly obedient to my will; I was able to get up, and was

perfectly awake; but I remained nearly an hour in a kind of

stupefaction very similar to that which sometimes attacks me in the

mornings, if I rise two or three hours later than usual."--(P. 388

to 390.)

Similar, as to the general conclusions, are the reports of the French

Academy and the testimonies of all rigorous and well-conducted

scientific examination. These testimonies apply to facts which it is the

duty of those experimentalists and physiologists, who have time and

opportunity at their disposal, fairly to investigate.

The insensibility to pain, and to the effects of the galvanic shock, are

also within the limits of the credible--and the latter is the more easy

of proof, as being incapable of simulation. As we stated at the

commencement, so we repeat here; mesmerism has been too little

investigated by competent persons, and is too much mystified by

charlatanism, to enable us accurately to define the limits of the true

and false, far less to predict what may be the discoveries to which it

may lead. With regard to the facts of clairvoyance, we are at present

entirely incredulous. Mr Townshend says, p. 91--

"Let, then, body after body of learned men deny the phenomena of

mesmerism, and logically disprove their existence; an appeal may

ever, and at any moment, be made to the proof by experiment; and

even should experiment itself fail a thousand times, the success of

the thousandth and first trial would justify further examination.

Till the authority of observation can be wholly set aside, the

subject of our enquiry can never be said to have undergone its

final ostracism."

This is certainly a strong proposition; nevertheless it is with the hope

that observation may be directed to the _facts_ of mesmerism, that we

have written the preceding pages. In reasoning on a subject, we can use

only those lights which experience has given us. The efficacy of logical

disproof, somewhat contemptuously treated by Mr Townshend in the above

passage, is yet fully vindicated by the latter half of the book itself,

which is an endeavour, logically, to bring home mesmerism to the

understanding of men of experience. It is vain to make light of logic,

when the parties who set it at nought are themselves obliged to use it

to prove its own worthlessness. You must not exalt _reason_, and we will

give you the _reason_ why--this cuts their own ground from under them.

We so far agree with the last quoted sentence, as to admit that, when

experiments fairly tried by competent parties have and do succeed,

mesmerism will be established--hitherto they have _not_ succeeded. The

alleged proofs are not brought home to the observation of cautious,

thinking men; and reason, thus at once derided and appealed to, is

unsatisfied. Time "may bring in its revenges," may show things which

would be to us marvellous; and we deny no future possibilities. At

present, we admit some very curious phenomena, which we would willingly

see further examined; but we are unconvinced of those facts of mesmerism

enounced by its professors, which wholly contradict our previous

experience. Upon what we consider the only safe grounds for the general

admission of newly asserted facts, the evidence in support of these

should more than counterpoise the evidence for their rejection. Up to

the present time, balancing, as we have endeavoured to do, impartially,

the evidence in favour of clairvoyance, and the preternatural powers of

mesmerism, against those of an opposite tendency, the former seems to us

inordinately outweighed. On the other hand, the production, by external

influence, either of absolute coma or of sleep-waking, whether resulting

from imagination in the patient, or from an effort of the will on the

part of the mesmeriser, or from both conjointly, has been too lightly

estimated and too little examined. This alone is in itself an effect so

novel, so mysterious, and apparently so connected with the mainsprings

of sentient existence, as to deserve and demand a rigorous, impartial,

and persevering scrutiny.

* * * * *

Since this article was written, the letters of Miss Martineau have

appeared. Had these been published earlier, we should undoubtedly have

noticed them at some length; they have not, however, induced us to alter

any thing we have written; they have, indeed, confirmed one remark made

above. The effects described by Miss Martineau as produced upon herself,

are credible and not preternatural, while the second-sight of the girl

J---- is preternatural and not credible; _i. e._ not credible as

preternatural, otherwise easily explicable.

In this, as in every mesmeric case, the marvellous effects are developed

by the uneducated--the most easily deceived, and the most ready to be

deceivers.

The clairvoyant writers have greatly the advantage of the sceptics in

one respect, viz. the public interest of their communications. Every one

reads the description of new marvels, few care to examine the arguments

in contravention of them.

"Pol, me occidistis, amici,

Non servastis, ait, cui sic extorta voluptas,

Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: For an account of one of the most notorious of the public

exhibitions of mesmeric clairvoyance, we refer the reader, who may feel

sufficiently interested in the matter, to the papers of Dr Forbes in the

_Lancet_, New Series, Vol. i. p. 581, and to the counter statement in

the _Zoist_, Vol. ii. No. 7.]

[Footnote 4: P. 316.]

AESTHETICS OF DRESS.

NO. II.

ABOUT A BONNET.

So then, having "put down" hats, we come to bonnets; this is the due

order of things--hats should be taken off before bonnets always; "common

politeness makes us stop and do it." And here, as the immortal Butler

found it necessary in olden times to lament the perils that environed a

man meddling with a hard subject, so we might well indulge in an

ejaculation at what may be our fate if we presume to take liberties with

the head-dress of the ladies. Actaeon, when he contemplated Diana

_simplicem munditiis_, paid a severe penalty in the transformation of

his own head; and so, perhaps, we may incur--but never mind; the task,

worthy of a Hercules, (for the hydra of female fashion is more than

hundred-headed,) must be gone through with, and the _scrivano umillimo_

must push his pen even under the pole of a lady's bonnet.

The best-dressed woman in the world was our great-great-great

progenitrix; we really cannot trace up the pedigree, but you all know

whom we mean--your common mother and ours: we have the highest authority

among our own poets for saying so. There can be no doubt that her

_coiffure_ was perfect. It is a law of nature--it was true then--it has

been true ever since--it is indisputable at the present day--the

expressive beauty of a woman lies in her face: whatever, therefore,

conceals the face is a disfigurement, and inherits the principle of the

ugly. Ye who would study the aesthetics of human habiliments, look at the

lovely lines of the female face; contemplate that fairest type of the

animated creation; observe the soft emotions of her gentle soul, now

shooting forth rays of tender light from between her long enclasping

eyelashes, now arching her rosy lips into the playful lineaments of

Cupid's mortal bow; or gaze upon the subdued and affectionate

contentment of the maternal countenance--remember, while you were yet

young, your mother's look of love, that look which was all-powerful to

master your fiercest passions in your wildest mood--who will say that

the female face ought to be concealed? As far as we, the more powerful,

though not the better, portion of the human race are concerned--off with

the bonnet! off with the veil! say we. But there are others to be

consulted in settling this preliminary dogma of taste--the feelings and

the inclinations of woman herself are entitled to at least as much

regard as the imperious wishes of man. She, who possesses the bright but

fleetly fading gift of beauty, has also that inestimable, indefinable

accompaniment of it--modesty. Beauty is too sensitive a gem to be always

exposed to the light of admiration; it must be ensheathed in modesty for

its rays to retain their primitive lustre; it would perish from exposure

to the natural changes of the atmosphere, but it would die much sooner

from the incomprehensible, yet positive, effects of moral lassitude. To

use a commonplace simile, gentle reader, woman's beauty is like

champagne, it gets terribly into a man's head: do not, however, leave

the cork out of your champagne bottle--the sparkling spirit will all

evaporate; and do not quarrel with your sweet-heart if she muffles up

her face sometimes, and will not let you look at it for a week

together--her eyes will be all the brighter when you next see them.

There is a good cause for it; man is an ungrateful, hardly-pleased

animal; every indulgence that woman grants him loosens her power over

him. Women have an innate right to conceal their heads!

We arrive, then, at the foundation of taste for a lady's head-dress. Her

face, her head, is naturally so beautiful, that the less it is

concealed--as far as the mere gratification of the eye is concerned--the

better; but the necessity for veiling and protecting this precious

object is so inevitable, that a suitable extraneous covering must be

provided; let that covering be as consonant to her natural excellence as

it is possible to make it.

Now, we are not going to write a history of all the changes of female

head-dress that have taken place since the world began: nothing at all

of the kind. We refer the curious amateur to the work of that learned

Dutchman--we forget his name, 'tis all the same--_De Re Vestiaria_; or

he may look into Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_--there is a pretty

considerable variety of bonnets or caps to be seen therein, we

calculate. If he be a decided _cognoscente_, let him rather go to the

Attic gallery in the British Museum, and examine the Panathenaic

procession, where the virgins are in the simple attire of the best days

of Greece: but here, or in any of the monuments of that foster-country

of art, and in all the series of Roman sculpture and coins, he will find

no head-dress for a female beyond that of the veil. The great artists

and the great conquerors of the world never tolerated any thing beyond

this flowing drapery of the veil, as the covering for their wives' or

daughters' heads. They were satisfied with the beautiful contrast given

by the curving lines of its graceful folds; they admired its simplicity;

and they saw the perfect suitableness of its nature to its purpose. The

veil could be hastily drawn over the head, so as to conceal every

feature, and protect it from the gaze of man or the roughness of the

seasons--and it could as easily be withdrawn partially to allow of "a

sidelong glance of love," or wholly to give "a gaze of welcome," to a

relation and a friend. Happy men those old Greeks and Romans! they had

no bills for milliners--whatever their jewellers' accounts might have

come to! When they travelled, their slaves were not pestered with

bonnet-boxes and similar abominations--a clean yard or two of

Phoenician gauze, or Asian linen, set up Mrs Secretary Pericles, or

Mrs General Caesar, with a braw new veil. There was little caprice of

fashion--the veil would always fall into something like the same or at

least similar folds; and we do believe that, for a thousand years or

more, the type of the _mode_ remained fixed. Whether the ancient

Asiatics made their women wear precisely the same mask-veils as those

jealous rascals the Turks and Arabs do at the present day, we do not

know, and we are not now going to enquire: we only wish to protest, _en

passant_, against these same modern Eastern veils; they are the most

frightful, unclassical, unbecoming things ever invented as face-cases.

Our present purpose is with the head-dress of modern British ladies--let

us look into their bonnets.

And truly a bonnet, taken by itself, without the jewel that often lies

under it--a bonnet _per se_--is as bad a thing as a hat; something

between a coal-scuttle and a bread-basket; it is only fit to be married

to the hat, and, let us add--settled in the country. But it is,

nevertheless capricious in its ugliness, just as its possessor is

capricious in her prettiness; for, look at it from behind, its lines do

not greatly deviate from the circular form of the head; it seems like a

smart case;--look at it from before; there it is seen to best advantage

as an oval frame, set with ribands, flowers, and laces, for the sweet

picture within; but look at it from the side, and the genuine, vulgar,

cookmaid form of the coal-scuttle is instantly perceived. It serves in

this view evidently as blinkers do to a horse in harness, just to keep

the animal from shying, or to guard off a chance stroke of the whip. But

it is uncommonly tantalizing into the bargain. You walk along Regent

Street some fine day, and for a hundred paces or more you are troubled

by the crowd keeping you always in the rear of an old, faded, frumpy

bonnet, that hinders you from watching a sweet little _chapeau-de-soie_

immediately beyond. Your patience is exhausted, and your curiosity

driven to the highest pitch of anxiety; you make a desperate stride,

push by the old bonnet, and look round with indignation to see what

beldam had thus been between you and the "cynosure of neighbouring

eyes:"--whew! 'tis the pretty young shop-girl that served you with your

last pair of gloves, and measured them so fascinatingly along your hand,

that your heart still palpitates with the electrical touch of her

fingers. You pocket your indignation, exchange one of your blandest

smiles, and pass on, still striding to see what lovely features grace

that exquisite _chapeau_. Half afraid, of course--for she is a lady

evidently, and you pique yourself on being a perfect gentleman--you

venture, as you pass, to let your eye just glance within the sacred

enclosure of blonde and primroses;--pshaw! it's old Miss Thingamy, that

you had to hand down to dinner the other day at Lady Dash's; and

instantly catching your eye, she gives you a condescending nod, and

you're forced to escort her all the way up to Portland Place! It's

enough to make a man hang himself; and, to say the truth, many a poor

fellow has been ruined by bonnets before now--even Napoleon himself had

to pay for _thirty-six_ new bonnets within _one month_ for Josephine!

Bonnets, however, have more to do with women than with men; and we defy

our fair friends to prove that these articles of dress, about which they

are always so anxious, (a woman--a regular genuine woman, reader--will

sacrifice a great deal for a bonnet,) are either useful or ornamental.

And first, for their use; if they were good for any thing, they would

protect the head from cold, wet, and sunshine. Now, as far as cold is

concerned, they do so to a certain degree, but not a tenth part so well

as something else we shall talk of by and by; as for wet--what woman

ever trusted to her bonnet in a shower of rain? What woman does not

either pop up her parasol, or green cotton umbrella, or, if she has not

these female arms, ties over it her pocket-handkerchief, in a vain

attempt to keep off the pluvious god? Women are more frightened at

spoiling their bonnets than any other article of their dress: let them

but once get their bonnets under the dripping eaves of an umbrella, and,

like ostriches sticking their heads under ground, they think their whole

persons safe;--we appeal to any man who has walked down Cheapside with

his eyes open, on a rainy day, whether this be not true. And then for

the sun--who among the ladies trust to her bonnet for keeping her face

from freckling? Else why all the paraphernalia of parasols? why all

these endless patents for sylphides and sunscreens of every kind, form,

and colour? why can you never meet a lady in a summerwalk without one of

these elegant little contrivances in her hand? Comfort, we apprehend,

does not reside in a bonnet: look at a lady travelling, whether in a

carriage or a railroad diligence--she cannot for a moment lean back into

one of the nice pillowed corners of the vehicle, without running

imminent risk of crushing her bonnet; her head can never repose; she has

no travelling-cap, like a man, to put on while she stows away her bonnet

in some convenient place: the stiffened gauze, or canvass, or paper, of

which its inner framework is composed, rustles and crackles with every

attempt at compression; and a pound's worth or two of damage may be done

by a gentle tap or squeeze. Women, if candid, would allow that their

bonnets gave them much more trouble than comfort, and that they have

remained in use solely as conventional objects of dress--we will not

allow, of ornament. The only position in which a bonnet is becoming--and

even then it is only the modern class of bonnets--is, when they are

viewed full front: further, as we observed before, they make a nice

_encadrement_ for the face: and, with their endless adjuncts of lace,

ribands, and flowers, they commonly set off even moderately pretty

features to advantage. But is only the present kind of bonnet that does

so; the old-fashioned, poking, flaunting, square-cornered bonnet never

became any female physiognomy: it is only the small, tight,

come-and-kiss-me style of bonnet now worn by ladies, that is at all

tolerable. All this refers, however, only to that portion of the fairer

half of the human race which is in the bloom and vigour of youth and

womanhood: those that are still in childhood, or sinking into the vale

of years, cannot have a more inappropriate, more useless, covering for

the head than what they now wear, at least in England. Simplicity, which

should be the attribute of youth, and dignity, which should belong to

age, cannot be compatible with a modern bonnet: fifty inventions might

be made of coverings more suitable to these two stages of life.