Nothing of interest in his further life remains to be told. He finally took up his residence in Edinburgh in 1769, and continued in pretty good health for some few years. A disorder of the bowels soon compelled him to make a journey to Bath, to try the effects of change of air and the mineral water, upon his system. All was of no avail; his disorder rapidly increased, and he abruptly left Bath and returned to Edinburgh. He died on Sunday, 25th August 1766. The character of this great man affords interesting materials for reflection; but we cannot at present afford space for more than an abstract of the events of his life. Afterwards we may return to the subject. THE MISERIES OF WAR. BY ROBERT HALL. (From Reflections on War.) Though we must all die, as the woman of Tekoah said, and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up; yet it is impossible for a humane mind to contemplate the rapid extinction of innumerable lives without concern. To perish in a moment, to be hurried instantaneously, without preparation, and without warning, into the presence of the Supreme Judge, has something in it inexpressibly awful and affecting. Since the commencement of the French war, now so happily closed, it may be reasonably conjectured that not less than half a million of our fellow-creatures have fallen a sacrifice. Half a million of beings, sharers of the same nature, warmed with the same hopes, and as fondly attached to life as ourselves, have been prematurely swept into the grave; each of whose deaths has pierced the heart of a wife, a parent, a brother, or a sister. How many of these scenes of complicated distress have occurred since the commencement of hostilities, is known only to Omniscience that they are innumerable cannot admit of a doubt. In some parts of Europe, perhaps, there is scarcely a family exempt. Though the whole race of man is doomed to dissolution, and we are all hastening to our long home; yet at each successive moment life and death seem to divide betwixt them the dominion of mankind, and life to have the largest share. It is otherwise in war: death reigns there without a rival, and without control. War is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph, of death, who glories not only in the extent of his conquest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims; here it is the vigorous and the strong. It is remarked by an ancient historian, that in peace children bury their parents, in war parents bury their children: nor is the difference small. Children lament their parents, sincerely indeed, but with that moderate and tranquil sorrow which it is natural for those to feel who are conscious of retaining many tender ties, many animating prospects. Parents mourn for their children with the bitterness of despair; the aged parent, the widowed mother, loses when she is deprived of her children, everything but the capacity of suffering; her heart, withered and desolate, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not. But to confine our attention to the number of the slain would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. The lot of those who perish instantaneously may be considered, apart from religious prospects, as comparatively happy, since they are exempt from those lingering diseases and slow torments to which others are liable. We cannot see an individual expire, though a stranger or an enemy, without being sensibly moved, and prompted by compassion to lend him every assistance in our power. Every trace of resentment vanishes in a moment every other emotion gives way to pity and terror. In these last extremities we remember nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature. What a scene, then, must a field of battle present, where thousands are left without assistance, and without pity, with their wounds exposed to the piercing air, while the blood, freezing as it flows, binds them to the earth, amidst the trampling of horses, and the insults of an enraged foe! If they are spared by the humanity of the enemy, and carried from the field, it is but a prolongation of torment. Conveyed in uneasy vehicles, often to a remote distance, through roads almost impassable, they are lodged in ill-prepared receptacles for the wounded and the sick, where the variety of distress baffles all the efforts of humanity and skill, and renders it impossible to give to each the attention he demands. Far from their native home, no tender assiduities of friendship, no well-known voice, no wife, or mother, or sister, is near to soothe their sorrows, relieve their thirst, or close their eyes in death. Unhappy man! and must you be swept into the grave unnoticed and unnumbered, and no friendly tear be shed for your sufferings, or mingled with your dust? We must remember, however, that as a very small proportion of a military life is spent in actual combat, so it is a very small part of its miseries which must be as cribed to this source. More are consumed by the rust of inactivity than by the edge of the sword; confined to a scanty or unwholesome diet, exposed in sickly climates, harassed with tiresome marches and perpetual alarms, their life is a continual scene of hardships and dangers. They grow familiar with hunger, cold, and watchfulness. Crowded into hospitals and prisons, contagion spreads among their ranks, till the ravages of disease exceed those of the enemy. We have hitherto only adverted to the sufferings of those who are engaged in the profession of arms, without taking into our account the situation of the countries which are the scene of hostilities. How dreadful to hold everything at the mercy of an enemy, and to receive life itself as a boon dependent on the sword. How boundless the fears which such a situation must inspire, where the issues of life and death are determined by no known laws, principles, or customs, and no conception can be formed of our destiny, except as far as it is dimly deciphered in characters of blood, in the dictates of revenge, and the caprices of power. Conceive but for a moment the consternation which the approach of an invading army would impress on the peaceful villages in this neighbourhood. When you have placed yourself for an instant in that situation, you will learn to sympathise with those unhappy countries which have sustained the ravages of arms. But how is it possible to give you an idea of these horrors? Here you behold rich harvests, the bounty of heaven and the reward of industry, consumed in a moment, or trampled under foot, while famine and pestilence follow the steps of desolation. There the cottages of peasants given up to the flames, mothers expiring through fear, not for themselves but their infants; the inhabitants flying with their helpless babes in all directions, miserable fugitives on their native soil! In another part you witness opulent cities taken by storm; the streets, where no sounds were heard but those of peaceful industry, filled on a sudden with slaughter and blood, resounding with the cries of the pursuing and the pursued; the palaces of nobles demolished, the houses of the rich pillaged, the chastity of virgins and of matrons violated, and every age, sex, and rank, mingled in promiscuous massacre and ruin. If we consider the maxims of war which prevailed in the ancient world, and which still prevail in many barbarous nations, we perceive that those who survived the fury of battle and the insolence of victory, were only reserved for more durable calamities; swept into hopeless captivity, exposed in markets, or plunged in mines, with the melancholy distinction bestowed on princes and warriors, after appearing in the triumphal procession of the conqueror, of being conducted to instant death. The contemplation of such scenes as these forces on us this awful reflection, that neither the fury of wild beasts, the concussions of the earth, nor the violence of tempests, are to be compared to the ravages of arms: and that nature in her utmost extent, or, more properly, divine justice in its utmost severity, has supplied no enemy to man so terrible as man. THE TORCH. Still, however, it would be happy for mankind if the effects of national hostility terminated here; but the fact is, that they who are farthest removed from its immediate desolations share largely in the calamity. They are drained of the most precious part of their population, their youth, to repair the waste made by the sword. They are drained of their wealth, by the prodigious expense incurred in the equipment of fleets, and the subsistence of armies in remote parts. The accumulation of debt and taxes diminishes the public strength, and depresses private industry. An augmentation in the price of the necessaries of life, inconvenient to all classes, falls with peculiar weight on the labouring poor, who must carry their industry to market every day, and therefore cannot wait for that advance of price which gradually attaches to every other article. Of all people, the poor are, on this account, the greatest sufferers by war, and have the most reason to rejoice in the restoration of peace. As it is the farthest from my purpose to awaken unpleasing reflections, or to taint the pure satisfaction of this day by the smallest infusion of political acrimony, it will not be expected I should apply these remarks to the peculiar circumstances of this country, though it would be unpardonable in us to forget (for to forget our dangers is to forget our mercies) how nearly we have been reduced to famine, principally, it is true, through a failure in the crops, but greatly aggravated, no doubt, in its pressure, by our being engaged in a war of unexampled expenditure and extent. contest. În commercial states (of which Europe principally consists), whatever interrupts their intercourse is a fatal blow to national prosperity. Such states having a mutual dependence on each other, the effects of their hostility extend far beyond the parties engaged in the If there be a country highly commercial, which has a decided superiority in wealth and industry, together with a fleet which enables it to protect its trade, the commerce of such a country may survive the shock, but it is at the expense of the commerce of all other nations; a painful reflection to a generous mind. Even there, the usual channels of trade being closed, it is sometime before it can force a new passage for itself: previous to which, an almost total stagnation takes place, by which multitudes are impoverished, and thousands of the industrious poor, being thrown out of employment, are plunged into wretchedness and beggary. Who can calculate the number of industrious families in different parts of the world, to say nothing of our own country, who have been reduced to poverty, from this cause, since the peace of Europe was interrupted? The plague of a widely extended war possesses, in fact, a sort of omnipresence, by which it makes itself everywhere felt; for while it gives up myriads to slaughter in one part of the globe, it is busily employed in scattering over countries exempt from its immediate desolations the seeds of famine, pestilence, and death. If statesmen, if Christian statesmen at least, had a proper feeling on this subject, and would open their hearts to the reflections which such scenes must inspire, instead of rushing eagerly to arms from the thirst of conquest, or the thirst of gain, would they not hesitate long, would they not try every expedient, every lenient art consistent with national honour, before they ventured on this desperate remedy, or rather, before they pluuged into this gulf of horror? THE LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE. WHO that has reached the comparatively brief age of forty, can look back upon the days of his childhood, without wonderment at the ages of changes that have intervened; or hesitate to declare, that this is not the world into which he was born? His thought are instantaneously wafted to other regions, and the lightning itself is his courier: in a brief day, he is carried over lands and seas, which formerly it would have tasked him weeks to traverse; and with a touch, he can lighten the deepest gloom with a radiance like that of sunshine. These, no doubt, have been glorious changes, and they are the worthy trophies of a being who was created but a "little lower than angels." But let us estimate their worth and importance aright. They are external changes As is the case in the intellectual, such also it is in the HOW TO BREAK OFF A BAD HABIT.-The late Mr Loudon, the celebrated writer on gardening, &c., during the time he was suffering so severely from the pain in his arm, found no ease but from taking laudanum; and he became at last so habituated to the use of this noxious potion, that he took a wine-glassful every eight hours. After the amputation of his arm, however, he wished to leave off taking it, as he was aware of its injurious effects upon his general health; and he contrived to cure himself by putting a wine-glassful of water into his quart bottle of laudanum every time he took out a wine-glassful of the potion, so that the mixture became gradually weaker every day, till at last it was little more than water; and he found he had cured himself of this dan gerous habit, without experiencing any inconvenience. The Story Teller. WHAT A MOTHER CAN ENDURE.* A TRUE STORY. CHAPTER I. GRIM cold was reigning during the last days of the month of January, 1841. The streets of Antwerp had put on their winter garments, and shone in pure white; the snow was still falling-not in tender flakes, enchanting the eye with their whirling dance, but in solid crystals, rattling like hail against the windows of the closely shut-up houses; and the sharp, icy wind drove most of those comfortable citizens, who ventured to appear on their thresholds, back to their heated stoves. Notwithstanding the bitter frost, and though it was only nine o'clock in the morning, many people, as it was market-day, were to be seen in the streets. The younger tried to get warm by running; sedate people breathed into their benumbed hands; the work-people beat their arms briskly round their bodies. At this moment, a young lady was walking, at a moderate pace, through a by-street, whose inhabitants she must have known well; for she went in and out of the poor houses, and frequently left them with an expression of satisfaction on her face. A silk quilted cloak enveloped her slender figure; a velvet bonnet covered her beautiful head, and protected her cheeks, which were nevertheless a little tinged with purple by the sharp air; a boa was twisted round her neck, and her hands hidden in a fine muff. This young lady, evidently of a rich family, stood on the threshold of a house, which she was about to enter, when she saw at a distance an acquaintance approaching. She now remained standing at the door of the humble dwelling, until her friend had come near; when she went up to her with a merry laugh, and addressed her thus: "Good morning, Adele, how are you?" "Pretty well. And you?" "Very well, thank Heaven! I am in such good health, and so happy, that I really cannot express it!" "How is that? Methinks, the weather is not so very pleasant!" "Oh yes, Adele! at least I find it so. Though I have only been up an hour, I have already visited twenty poor dwellings. But I have seen such poverty, my dear Adele, as might break one's heart! Hunger, cold, disease, destitution, beyond all description! Oh! now I feel the blessings of being wealthy; for what delight is there in charity!" "One would say that you are going to cry. I see the tear sparkling in your eyes! Indeed, you are wrong to be so sentimental. The poor people are not so badly off; there are so many distributions;-coals, bread, potatoes, all in abundance. Only yesterday I again subscribed fifty francs; and I confess that I prefer having my money distributed by others, to going to all the dirty dwellings myself." "Adele, you don't know the real poor. Do not judge of them from those tatterdemalions who consider beggary a good trade; and soil and tear their clothes on purpose to excite disgust and compassion! Come with me, my friend, and I'll show to you working people, whose clothes are not ragged, and whose dwellings are not filthy; and who will open their mouths, not to crave charity, but to thank and to bless for gifts voluntarily bestowed upon them. You will see the torments of hunger depicted in their features, the frozen black bread between the benumbed fingers of the children, the tears of the mother, and the gloomy despair of the father! Oh! if you fixed your eyes upon this dumb image of grief and misery, what angelic pleasure would you find in being able to remedy all this with a little money! You would see poor children jump up, and grasp your clothes; the mother gratefully smiling on you; the father, in joyous forgetfulness, press *From Conscience's Flemish Tales. London: Longman and Co. ing your delicate hand in his own bony fingers, and moistening it with his burning tears! And then, Adele, you too would shed tears of happiness, and not withdraw your hands from theirs, however rough they might be! Now see, Adele, it is the remembrance of such hours as these, that fills me with emotion!" Whilst Anna, with deep feeling and a tender voice, was thus painting these scenes of misery, her friend did not speak, nor even utter such short words or ejaculations as betray the sympathy of the hearer. The emotion of her friend had fully communicated itself to her; and when Anna looked at her, she was just drawing her handkerchief from her muff, in order to wipe away two tears which were running down her cheeks. "Anna," she said, "I shall go with you to visit these poor people. I have plenty of money about me; let us devote this morning to works of benevolence." Anna viewed her friend with emotion, and the expression of her face showed how happy she felt to have enrolled another benefactress for her poor townspeople. Accompanied by Adele, she went some paces farther on to a house, where she knew she would find destitute people. The house, at whose threshold she was standing when she had first perceived her friend, was now forgotten. This was, indeed, pardonable, as she had never before been in it, and was only going to enter it at random, to see whether it might not, perhaps, shelter some poor families as yet unknown to her. CHAPTER II. IN a chamber of the house, before which the charitable young lady had stopped, an unfortunate family was living. Four bare walls were here the solitary dumb witnesses of misery and grief; and the scene of utter destitution which it presented was such as would not only fill the heart with sorrow, but with a degree of bitter feeling against human nature at large. The air in the room was as cold as in the street, but still more insupportable from the musty damp which penetrated the clothes. A poor fire was burning on the hearth, fed by the fragments of some wretched old furniture, and slowly flickering up from time to time in a feeble blaze. On a little bed in the middle of the room there lay an invalid child, not more than a year old; its pale face, its emaciated tiny arms and sunken eyes seemed clearly to show, that a still colder resting-place would soon receive the poor little creature. On a large stone at the side of the little bed there was sitting a young woman covering her face with her hands. Her dress of faded stuff, worn out by frequent washing, did not, however, bespeak that sort of poverty which solicits alms in public; on the contrary, its tidiness and the many neat repairs it had undergone, would at once betray what trouble she had been at to conceal her distress. Every now and then a deep sigh heaved from her breast, and some sparkling drops ran down the fingers with which she covered her face. But at the least movement of the child she lifted up her head, looked with sobs and shuddering at its withered cheeks, and after having wrapped the thin covering more closely around its cold little limbs, sank again in tears and despair upon her seat on the stone. The deepest silence was reigning in this abode of misery, only that the frozen snow struck rattling against the window-panes, whilst the wind whistled through the chinks of the door and howled in the chimney. For some time the woman had been sitting as if asleep on her stone. The sickly child had not stirred, and so she had not raised her head; she even seemed to have ceased weeping, as there were no more drops glittering on her fingers. The chamber was like the grave tenanted by the dead, never more to be opened. All at once a feeble voice was heard from the fire-place: "Oh! dear, dear mother! I am hungry!" He who uttered this cry was a boy four or five years old, who sat in the corner of the hearth, and had squatted so near the fire that he was scarcely perceptible. He was trembling with cold as if shaken by ague, and an attentive listener might have distinetly heard the chattering of his teeth. Be it that the woman had not heard his plaintive cry, or that it was out of her power to satisfy his demand, she did not answer, and remained motionless on her stone. There then followed a death-like silence for some minutes; sorrow. At last he sighed,-"Theresa, we are very wretchbut soon the boy raised his voice again, and cried, “Deared, my wife. I have been standing all the morning at mother! I am so very hungry! O let me have a little the railroad station, and have not earned one penny. What piece of bread!" are we to do now? Oh! dear, would that I were dead!" The man had no words sufficiently to express his grief, but its pangs were not the less intense for that. He drooped his head on his shoulder, his eyes stared motionless on the floor, and it was evident, from the clenching of his fists and the compression of his fingers, that a convulsion of despair was thrilling through his nerves. This time she raised her head; for the voice of the boy was deadly piercing, and must have cut the heart of the mother like the sharp blade of a knife. A dismal fire glowed in her eyes, despair spoke from her features. She answered, amidst a flood of tears, "Johnny, dear, be silent for God's sake! I am myself starving, poor child, and there is nothing in the house!" "But, mother, I feel such pains in my stomach!--only a little morsel of bread! oh pray, pray give it me!" The expression of the boy's face was now so imploring, and hunger with its yellow paleness so forcibly stamped on it, that the mother, bewildered, jumped up, as if she was going to take some desperate step. With trembling haste she pulled a little halfpenny roll from beneath the cover of the little bed, which she handed to the boy, saying, "Here, Johnny! I have kept this to make a porridge of it for your poor little sister; but I suppose the dear little lamb will scarcely want it any more!" Her voice was stifled, for her motherly heart was overflowing with sorrow. As soon as Johnny saw the bread shining before his eyes like a star of good fortune, his mouth watered from craving, the muscles of his cheeks quivered; he jumped up, and seized the little bread with both hands at once, like a wolf pouncing upon its prey. Hastily and with indescribable delight the boy put his teeth in the bread, and devoured some bits of it, until somewhat more than half of the roll was gone; then he suddenly stopped, looked more than once longingly at the remaining half, carried it more than once to his mouth, but did not eat any more of it. At last he got up, went slowly up to his mother, shook her arm to arouse her from the sleep into which she seemed to have relapsed, gave her the little piece of bread, and said with a gentle voice, "Mother, dear, take this; I have saved a little piece for baby. I am still very hungry, and in great pain; but when father comes home I shall have bread and butter, sha'n't I, mother?" The unfortunate woman clasped her arms round the good child, and pressed him affectionately to her breast; one moment after she let him go from her lap without apparently noticing it, and relapsed into her former despondency. Johnny crept quietly to his sick little sister, kissed her emaciated cheeks, saying, "Sleep on, dear Mary!" and returned to the hearth, where he silently cowered down on the floor. All this happened at the same time when the charitable young lady was standing at the threshold of this poor dwelling, and saw her friend coming at a distance. The woman, forgetting her own woe, and only mindful of the agonies of her husband, clasped her arm round his neck, and answered sobbing: "Oh! don't talk so, it won't last so for ever. It is not your fault that we are so unhappy!" "Father! father!" the boy cried; "I am hungry, shall I have now some bread and butter?" These words shook the man, all his frame trembled, he fixed his looks as in madness on the complaining child, and cast on him such a wild and singular gaze that Johnny ran frightened to the hearth, and from thence called in tears to his father: "Oh! father, dear, I won't do it any more!" more. In the same convulsed state both of body and mind, the man now went to the little bed, and looked with a still sharper glance at the dying, helpless babe, who once more raised her dying eyes, upon her father. "Theresa," he cried, "indeed I cannot stand it any It is all over, it must now come to that!" "To what? In the name of Heaven what do you mean?' The man, in whose breast a severe struggle had been going on, was silent, but perceiving in what a fright he had put his good wife by his expression of despair, he seized her hand, saying with the deepest despondency: "Theresa, my wife, you know it, ever since our marriage I have always worked hard; I have not allowed one day to pass without providing for you and the children.Should I now be obliged to beg, after having toiled for ten years? Should I now ask from door to door for the bread. which I have hitherto earned by the sweat of my brow? Theresa, I cannot do that, even if we should all of us die of hunger and distress. Look here, I blush for shame at the bare idea of it. To beg? No, there is still one other way remaining to us, at least, to get a temporary supply of food. It is true that it weighs heavily upon my heart, my wife; but what is to be done? I shall go and sell our handbarrow at to-day's auction. May-be I shall get work before we have spent the money for it, and then we shall save to buy a new barrow. Just wait another half-hour, and then I'll bring all of you something to eat!" The handbarrow was the only instrument by which the poor workman earned his daily bread; no wonder therefore that he was so much averse to selling it. Nor was the wife less disconsolate at this expedient to which their distress alone could drive them, but she was obliged to consent to it, as her heart was crying for 'help for her "Yes, only go to the auction and sell the barrow, as our Johnny is shrivelling up from mere hunger, and I myself am scarcely able to stand; and the innocent baby who lies languishing here--Oh! would you were already a little angel in heaven, dear child!" Another hour passed away before the miserable mother arose from her melancholy depression. She too was hungry, she too felt her starving body sink, and pain was raging in her bowels. But she was sitting at a heart-famishing children. rending death-bed, and awaiting sorrowfully the terrible moment when she was to see her child depart. How could she think of her own torments? No! a mother is a mother always-happy, or miserable, or poor: there is no feeling more intense, no instinct more powerful, than that which links a mother to her child; and this feeling, this instinct, are still more intense and more overwhelming in those who are conscious how much care, how much anxiety, trouble, and toil they have devoted to their children. And that is the case peculiarly with the poor. When the clock struck ten, the woman and the boy were simultaneously touched, as by some secret emotion. She jumped up from her stone, and he from the hearth, and both of them exclaimed in the same voice,"There is father, Johnny!" "Mother, there is father!" A happy smile cast a new expression on their features. They heard the noise of some vehicle at the door, and hastily rose to meet him whom they expected. A man, however, entered the room before they had reached the door. Whilst he was shaking the snow from his shoulders Johnny had seized upon one of his hands as if he wanted to drag the father further into the room. The man had given his other hand to his wife, and looked at her with deepest Here her tears began anew to flow; the man was seized by another convulsion, again he clenched his fists in agony. Yet he restrained himself, and ran in despair out of the door. Immediately afterwards was heard the rattling of the handbarrow, which was rapidly driving off, but the sound died immediately away. (To be continued.) A CURIOUS STORY. An old gentleman in this city relates one of the most thrilling romances of real life we ever heard of. In this romance he was a principal actor. Many years ago, in Vermont, an insane man suddenly disappeared. No trace of his whereabouts could be discovered, and many supposed that he was dead. Seven years after his disappearance, a person who had known him dreamed that he had been murdered by a certain family residing near at hand, and that he was buried in a certain spot. This dream occurred several times, and was so vivid that the dreamer related it, and induced other persons to aid him in digging at the spot indicated in his dream. They dug and found bones. They also found a button and a knife, which were identified as the property of the missing man. The family, consisting of a mother and two young men, sons, were arrested and imprisoned. The sons, to save the mother, confessed the murder. On trial, however, they pleaded not guilty; but were, nevertheless, found guilty and condemned to be hanged. The sentence, was, however, commuted to imprisonment for life in the state prison, to which they were sent. Soon after the trial, a paragraph appeared in the Post of this city, which led the old gentleman referred to (who was acquainted with all the parties in the affair,) to believe that the man supposed to be murdered was alive. He was set to work, and by dint of inquiry, found the insane man on a farm in New Jersey. He was working on this farm under the supposition that it was his own. The old gentleman addressed him, saying,"Don't you know me?" "No-never saw you before." The old man dropped an English shilling, which the insane man instantly clutched. "Now," said the old gentleman, "tell me who I am, and who you are, and I'll give you that shilling.” The insane man did as required, and proved to be the missing individual. He was taken back to Vermont, and the two men released, of course. The insane man had, however, to be exhibited publicly, and to thousands of people, before they would believe that “he was himself." This story is truth, and can be easily proved by a reference to the legitimate records of the time. It is a most curious "romance in real life," and goes ahead of all the fictions ever invented.-U. S. Amer. Repub. A GHOST STORY. PROFESSOR GREGORY, of Edinburgh, has published an abridged translation of Researches on Magnetism, by Baron Von Reichenbach, containing much interesting matter for the scientific inquirer. The Professor characterises Reichenbach as "exceedingly accurate, and truly scientific" in his investigations; and states, that he has "entire confidence in the correctness of every statement of fact made by him." The conclusions come to are, that magnets act on the human body, especially in certain conditions; that two forces exist in these magnets, one attracting and affecting the needle, and one which acts on the nervous system, and which exists, unmixed, in crystals. This new force is supposed to be the true agent in Animal Magnetism; and the work is mainly devoted to experiments connected with it. The subject is one on which we cannot enter at present; but, as a popular illustration, we give an extract under the title of a Ghost Story; and if the learned Baron succeeds in putting down superstition of this kind, he will be doing" the States some service." "A singular occurrence, which took place at Colmar, in the garden of the poet Pfeffel, has been made generally known by various writings. The following are the essential facts:-The poet, being blind, had employed a young clergyman, of the evangelical church, as amanuensis. Pfeffel, when he walked out, was supported and led by this young man, whose name was Billing. As they walked in the garden, at some distance from the town, Pfeffel observed, that, as often as they passed over a particular spot, the arm of Billing trembled, and he betrayed uneasiness. On being asked, the young man reluctantly confessed that, as often as he passed over that spot, certain feelings attacked him, which he could not control, and which he knew well, as he always experienced the same, in passing over any place where human corpses lay buried. He added, that, at night, when he came near such places, he saw supernatural appearances. Pfeffel, with the view of curing the youth of what he looked on as a fancy, went that night with him to the garden. As they approached the spot in the dark, Billing perceived a feeble light, and when still nearer, he saw a luminous ghost-like form floating over the spot. This he described as a female form, with one arm laid across the body, the other hanging down, floating in the upright posture, but tranquil, the feet only a hand-breadth or two above the soil. Pfeffel went alone, as the young man declined to follow him, up to the place where the figure was said to be, and struck about in all directions with his stick, besides running through the place of the figure; but the ghost was not more affected than a flame would have been: the luminous form, according to Billing, always returned to its original position after these experiments. Many things were tried during several months, and numerous companies of people were brought to the spot; but the matter remained the same, and the ghost seer adhered to his serious assertion, and to the opinion founded on it, that some individual lay buried there. At last Pfeffel had the place dug up. At a considerable depth was found a firm layer of white lime, of the length and breadth of a grave, of considerable thickness, and when this had been broken into, there were found the bones of a human being. It was evident that some one had been buried in the place, and covered with a thick layer of lime (quicklime), as is generally done in times of pestilence, of earthquakes, and other similar events. The bones were removed, the pit filled up, the lime mixed and scattered abroad, and the surface again made smooth. When Billing was now brought back to the place, the phenomena did not return, and the nocturnal spirit had for ever disappeared. causes. "It is hardly necessary to point out to the reader what view the author takes of this story, which excited much attention in Germany, because it came from the most truthful man alive, and theologians and psychologists gave to it sundry terrific meanings. It obviously falls into the province of chemical action, and thus meets with a simple and clear explanation from natural and physical decomposition, fermentation, putrefaction, gasification, A corpse is a field for abundant chemical changes, and general play of affinities. A stratum of quicklime, in a narrow pit, unites its powerful affinities to those of the organic matters, and gives rise to a long continued working of the whole. Rain-water filters through, and contributes to the action: the lime on the outside of the mass first falls to a fine powder, and afterwards, with more the air. Slaked lime prepared for building, but not used, water, forms lumps which are very slowly penetrated by on account of some cause connected with a warlike state of society some centuries since, has been found in subterraneous holes or pits, in the ruins of old castles; and the mass, except on the outside, was so unaltered that it fore, that in such circumstances there must be a very slow has been used for modern buildings. It is evident, thereand long continued chemical action, partly owing to the slow penetration of the mass of lime by the external carbonic acid, partly to the changes going on in the remains of animal matter, at all events, as long as any is left. In the above case, this must have gone on in Pfeffel's garden, and as we know that chemical action is invariably associated with light, visible to the sensitive, this must have been the origin of the luminous appearance, which again must have continued until the mutual affinities of the organic remains, the lime, the air, and water, had finally come to a state of chemical rest or equilibrium. As soon, therefore, as a sensitive person, although otherwise quite healthy, came that way, and entered within the sphere of the force in action, he must feel, by day, like Mademoiselle Maix, the sensations so often described, and see, by night, like Mademoiselle Reichel, the luminous appearance. Ignorance, fear, and superstition, would now dress up the feebly shining vaporous light into a human form, and furnish it with human limbs and members; just as we can at pleasure fancy every cloud in the sky to represent a man or a demon. "The wish to strike a fatal blow at the monster of superstition, which, at no distant period, poured out on European society from a similar source, such inexpressible misery, when, in trials for witchcraft, not hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of innocent human |