The tones of the magnetiser have been sometimes so affected and fantastic as to excite uncontrollable laughter. The following is a sample of the tender discourses which are used on these occasions. It is given by M. Dupau, on the best authority:

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"Be of good cheer, my child; — do not take it so to heart; moment, and you will feel the sweet and soothing influence which Heaven is sending to you:- you are just going to be plunged in an ocean of ideas, the delicious influence of which will effect a happy change. Complete health will be the blessed result of those unutterable raptures of your soul. Think of nothing now but the inexpressible happiness you are going to enjoy. There, there, my dear friend, — proceed, raise yourself in spirit to attain the blessing of a cure. Nothing, I promise you, can hinder it now,' &c.

Need we wonder that prodigies have been wrought by such an imposing ceremony as this over a worn-out frame and a susceptible imagination? And is it necessary to suppose the existence or the communication of some subtle power, in order to account for the changes which are effected upon such patients by such agency?

We have said that the faculty of producing somnambulism, which the magnetisers boast of possessing, is their strong hold. Here, too, the force of the imagination accounts for a great deal. Instances are of daily occurrence, where persons of a weakly state of body are thrown into an imperfect sleep by artificial means, But it is well known, that there is such a thing as natural somnambulism; and during the existence of the fit (if it may be so called) all those phenomena which are said to be peculiar to magnetic somnambulism have notoriously taken place. We will relate a case, which not long since occurred in the parish of Lambeth. A butcher's lad, about sixteen years old, one evening as he was sitting in his chair, bent forward his head on his hands, and after being in that position perfectly asleep for ten minutes, suddenly started up, went for his whip and spur, and asked for the saddle. He mounted the horse, but was prevented from going farther by the people about him; he was brought into the house, and he supposed that he was detained at the turnpike-gate; he took out sixpence, and insisted on his change. He occasionally joined in the conversation that was going on his questions and answers were as intelligent as usual, The eyes were completely closed during the whole time; he was bled and physicked, and after having been for one hour in this state, he awoke, and had not the slightest recollection of what had passed! Instances of a similar description to this might be adduced in considerable numbers.

The magnetisers tell us, that the somnambulists of their manufacture differ widely from the natural ones. They pretend that, between the operator and the sleeping patient, there prevails a secret relation, which enables the latter to be cognisant of the thoughts and intentions of the doctor. Of the truth of this assertion no proof

whatever has been given. They further ascribe to those persons during the access of the fit the faculty of reading a book, or a sealed letter, with their eyes shut; nay, it is said that they foresee events; that they have intuitively a knowledge of the nature of their own diseases, as well as the means of curing them; and it has been lately found out that these somnambulists can see exactly the nature of the disorder, and the remedies that are suitable to it, of any person who may be put in magnetic relation to them!

But why should the munificence of these doctors stop short here? The somnambulist has it now in his power to perform an imaginary journey during the magical sleep; can bring home intelligence of persons in the remotest regions, or, if nothing better offer, can make scientific discoveries in those distant quarters. A trip to the West, or East Indies is accomplished with as much facility as an excursion into a neighbouring province. There is no case scarcely of the successful application of animal magnetism which has been published that does not contain an interesting voyage by the patient in pursuance of this wonderful property.

The lengths to which these impostors would go in attempting to practise on the public credulity is almost beyond belief. One of the least irrational of the craft very gravely relates the account of an experiment which he made on one of his somnambulists. He held a watch at the back of the patient's head, a few inches from the occiput. The patient, not without an effort of her wonderful power, which seemed to put her to intense pain, was able at last to tell the hour exactly, the watch still being held in a position completely inaccessible to the natural organs of vision! But even this piece of extravagance is outdone. We have the solemn assurance of a magnetiser, that a respectable somnambulist of his own made a spiritual voyage to the moon, where she found inhabitants like ourselves, brought into the world, and leaving it in the same way that the men of earth are produced and die; but she complained that the bodies of the lunar beings were flattened, and that they moved by crawling.

The excesses which are committed under the name of Animal Magnetism would be a fit subject for laughter, or amusing speculation, if it were not that they were the source of a great deal of mischief, morally as well as physically, to the community, where they are permitted to take place. Magnetisers do not affect to eradicate disease, particularly disease of that species over which their fascinations have the greatest controul. In all such disorders, they can do no more than keep off the paroxysm, and that is effected by their being enabled to substitute one sort of nervous affection for another. A girl, subject to epilepsy, will postpone the fit, by being plunged into that imperfect sleep which is called somnambulism. This is done by her own imagination as soon as the magnetiser approaches, to whom she, in her simplicity, ascribes the power. If this operation is not frequently repeated, epilepsy returns in a more aggravated

shape, the necessity for the artificial application increases on itself, and complete exhaustion if not new disorders are the result.

Instances are numerous in which paralysis has succeeded the repetition of the process of magnetism in cases of catalepsy. Even before the fatal consummation has had time to arrive, the patient who is habitually subjected to magnetism exhibits in her languid, squalid, and emaciated frame, the best proofs of the strong hostility which subsist between those nervous concussions (whatever be their origin) and the natural constitution of man.. Another objection rises to the practice of magnetism, which derives accumulated force from the discovery of the inefficiency of that art as a remedy in disorders, -we mean the moral ascendancy which it gives to the operator over his patient. We need not here dwell upon the various revolting uses to which that extraordinary influence may be perverted. It will be sufficient to state that so completely subjugated do the generality of patients become, that one of those doctors has boasted that they follow him as a dog follows its master.

It would be impossible to do justice to the able and scientific manner in which M. Dupau, the author of the letters at the head of this paper, has detected the impositions of the band of quacks who have ventured to make use of the language of science and reasoning to give a colour of propriety to their absurdities. He has convicted them of ignorance and of fraud, and we think has established to the satisfaction of every well regulated mind, that they are likely, if allowed to go on unchecked, to prove a very mischievous race. has seldom fallen to our lot to meet with a work like this, which so firmly resting on established truths so conclusively exposes error, which, drawing its materials from: the depths of science has, by lucid arrangement and simple expression, placed them under the command of minds the most uninformed.

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ART. VII. De l'Ordre Légal en France, et des Abus d'Autorité. Par M. Duvergier de Hauranne, ancien Membre de la Chambre des Députés. 8vo. pp. 341. Paris. 1826. Treuttel and Wurtz,

London.

We fully agree with M. Duvergier de Hauranne, the intelligent and patriotic author of this work, that at a period like the present, when men's minds are in a state of excitation in the two worlds, and the nations are in search of new institutions, adapted to the degree of civilisation at which they are arrived, it is an immense advantage for France that she is in possession of a Charter securing at least some of the privileges and immunities of which other countries are still in expectation. That Charter, such as it is, compensates the French, in some measure, for thirty years of intestine dissensions and foreign war; and we believe that any attempt

to annul it, or openly to violate any one of its principal articles, would be attended with the most serious consequences.

Yet no Englishman, at least, would say, and we apprehend no enlightened Frenchman, living beyond the influence of the court and the ministers, imagines that the Charter granted by Louis XVIII., even if acted upon with the most perfect good faith, is sufficiently extensive in its provisions for the rights and liberties of the people. Our own great charter was an improvement of a previous one, and even then how imperfect were its stipulations! How frequently were they trodden under foot by the sovereign! How often were they renewed and enlarged! What an indomitable love of freedom, rising far beyond that proportion of it which they inspired, was necessary for their defence, and for the transmission of the noble spirit that gave them birth down to our own days!!

The Charter is indeed a valuable possession to the French, but still they have much to effect in order to obtain and secure their liberties. The true importance of that document is, that it is a rallying point, it is a tangible and acknowledged authority, from which the people may set out in a career of freedom, without exposing the country to new revolutions. By developing the principles recognised in the Charter, and by providing institutions for the maintenance and the practical application of those principles, the French have it in their power to erect, by degrees, a constitution as perfect as they can desire. The preservation of the franchises which they already possess, and the acquisition of those which they have still to attain, must, however, be the results of perseverance, firmness, remonstrance, and, above all, the diffusion of sound knowledge through the community. Violent impatience, disaffection, and open hostility, can but tend to frustrate their hopes, and even to render them unfit to exercise the privileges which, we trust, they are still destined to enjoy.

We are aware of no work that has appeared in France, since the Restoration, which points out the defects of the Charter, and the means by which they may be remedied, with so much perspicuity and such dignified moderation as the volume now before us. It is such an essay as De Lolme might have written, if he had lived in our time. The source to which M. Duvergier de Hauranne uniformly appeals is our own consitution, that perennial fountain of liberty, which but becomes more pure and more abundant as new nations arise to drink from its expanding stream. His plan is to investigate the nature of the institutions secured to France by the Charter, to define the improvements of which they are susceptible, and to ascertain how far the reign of law is, or is not substituted for the arbitrary will of the government. Looking to things rather than to persons, he is more desirous of discovering the means for preventing the abuses of authority than of enumerating those abuses too minutely. When his argument requires it, he does not scruple to censure the acts of the ministry, and to warn

them of the consequences of their misconduct; but he is manifestly more anxious that they should be taught to execute their high functions under the guidance and the control of law, than that they should be visited by any sweeping sentence of condemnation.

It is,' he premises, the defence of our new social order that I undertake. We constantly hear it said that the Revolution reduced every thing to dust, and that the Restoration has left every thing in this unpleasant situation; that we have no longer an aristocracy; that the throne is without support amidst a vast democracy, and, in a word, that we are in a state of complete anarchy. The authors of these assertions are like those physicians who imagine a disease in order that that they might have an opportunity of applying their own remedies; and it may be observed that they are by no means unanimous among themselves. Some wish to separate us again into different classes, and propose the re-establishment of the privileges of the noblesse, the rights of primogeniture, entails, and the old corporations; while others, acknowledging the impossibility of restoring the ancient aristocracy, endeavour to subject us to the sacerdotal power, to place us under a theocracy, for which the nation feels an insurmountable aversion. Let us reject these rash and fatal councils! Let us not follow those guides who look upon the Charter only as the frame of a provisiónal social state (le cadre d'un état social provisoire *); they would urge the monarchy to a precipice.

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It is, besides, incorrect to say that there is no aristocracy in France. We have the constitutional aristocracy of the Chamber of Peers, to which it would be easy, if it were seriously desired, to give the dignity, the independence, and the lustre of which it stands in need. The mass of the nation forms, it is true, a great democracy, but it includes within it a natural aristocracy, composed of persons who are eminent for their talents, their opulence, their public services, and the antiquity of their families. Among these eminent individuals, may be distinguished members of the old and the new nobility, whose influence is very extensive, and who possess, in the civil code, more than sufficient means to preserve to their families the rank which they occupy in society. Our aristocracy is the only one adapted to our condition; it derives its source from the nation, and has the great advantage of being invested with no privileges which wound the pride of the people, or are burdensome to itself. The evil with which we are affrighted does not exist; and if there be any degree of anarchy amongst us, it is in a great measure the work of the very persons who point it out; it is the result of their propositions, of the pretensions which they revive, and the alarm which the public feel in consequence of them. Add to this the application, under a constitutional régime, of laws which were made for the empire, the frequent illegality of the acts of the government, and the subjection of the ministry to a secret congregation which, under the pretext of promoting religion, mingles in all the affairs of the state, and covers France with spies. These are our real evils, and for these a remedy should be found.' Avertissement, pp.v—viii.

Hence it may be seen that M. Duvergier de Hauranne does not belong to either of the two extreme parties who are now contend

* Drapeau Blanc, du 25 Octobre, 1825.