complished. At present, amid modern marvels, we have the serious offer made to one of our large capitalists of reaching America in five days, without the aid of steam, paddles, screw, or sails. We have also realized before us cotton so prepared, as to render it an agent of greater force than even gunpowder itself. Is it improbable that former ages lighted on discoveries, which are now lost to us in numerous instances? Passing the chapter on "Mechanical Agencies," and the next section on "Optical Delusions," the pertinency of which subjects to the argument in question our readers can well conceive, we come to "Invocations of the Dead." Much curious information is here given, and the mute character of the Shade is insisted on as an evidence that it was produced by the phantasmagoria, or something similar. Brewster has contributed much to illustrate this view; but it is scarcely reconcileable with numerous details in antiquity. The Protean changes are represented as effected by this means, and the facility with which images can be now thrown upon smoke, by the concave mirrors, affords a strong approximation to the solution of many pretended apparitions of antiquity. Hydrostatics is similarly applied, in a subsequent part of the work, to explain the curious punishment of the Danaides. Weeping statues are referable to similar artifices; blood boiling on the altars, or liquefying as in that gross imposture of St. Januarius, which has been well explained in a recent Review. Such phenomena may be produced, by reddening sulphuric acid with orcanette, and mixing the tincture with spermaceti. This, at ten degrees above the freezing point in the centigrade, remains condensed, but boils at twenty. To gain this temperature, the warmth of the hand is quite sufficient.

The ancient ordeal next undergoes the deep scrutiny of our author, and he shows very cleverly the immense heat which the human body, well protected, can sustain without injury. The priestesses of Diana Parasya, in Cappadocia, walked with naked feet upon burning coals; the Hirpi did the same, and the modern conjuror is prepared in a similar manner for his feats. The Hindoo pundits have a similar secret. We do not possess the secret that the antients doubtless did on this matter, but Doctor Sementini discovered that a saturated solution of alum preserves any part, strongly impregnated with it, from the action of fire, particularly if the skin is rubbed with soap after the application of the alum. Incombustible wood in various directions, is supposed to be derived from a similar process.

"Influence over animals" is next considered. The curious attachment of various animals to odorous plants is well shown, as is also their love of music,-even fishes are represented as

moved by it, which have been generally considered devoid of hearing, and certainly Pythagoras and Orpheus have at least a modern rival in Van Amburgh. Dr. Thompson is of opinion that the Psylli possessed an art in the fascination of the serpent not at present known, save possibly in Egypt and Hindustaun. He adduces an instance from "Forbes' Oriental Memoirs," in proof that the charmed serpent is poisonous: "On the music stopping too suddenly, or from some other cause, the serpent, which had been dancing within a circle of country people, darted among the spectators and inflicted a wound in the throat of a young woman, who died in agony in half-an-hour afterwards." Dr. Thompson considers, that the vibration of sound is felt over the whole body of the animal, and that the effect is soothing when the notes are harmonious. This muscular sense appears to us somewhat singular; but the ear of the serpent does not seem eminently adapted to acute hearing. Salverte appears to lay great stress on the fact, that the modern Psylli went into the houses of the French, when they occupied Egypt, and could detect the presence of the serpents by smell, and tore them out unhurt. Our readers will find, in vol. iii. p. 325 of this Review, some singular details as to the Saadi of Cairo, who profess to enjoy the power of the ancient Psylli. The Psylli were most remarkable people. They never communicated the secret to their wives, and held it as a proof of pure strain, that their very infants could not be injured by the venom of the serpent: a powerful check also, as Salverte justly remarks, on any illicit intercourse of their wives, by the offspring being thus submitted to a test. We unhappy moderns have no such test, and among the Psylli alone was the saying a nullity, "It is a wise father that knows his own child." Still as the Psylli were somewhat numerous, and the protection of the infant simply depended on his descent from the tribe, even they might be mystified; but they had at any rate the satisfaction of immunity in all other directions. They were safe with an exception. Though a variety of plants are adduced as forming the snake charm, it is not yet known, notwithstanding that the secret rests, probably, among the modern Psylli at the present moment in Egypt and Hindustaun.

We shall not enter into the long chapter on the "Preparation of Aspirants to Initiation," further than to hint that the account of Timanthes of the mysteries of Trophonius, does seem to convey the notion that the visions of the cave were produced by narcotics, and that the singular powers of strength ascribed to myrrh by Apuleius are certainly not now possessed by the substance that bears that name. There appears to have been a secret in

the enacting of the many prodigies of valour performed by the ancient world, in some instances by the swallowing of a drug, that formed a powerful stimulant and strengthener to the nerves; and Salverte hints, that the unhappy victims of Suttee receive some such potion. The no less unhappy victims of the Inquisition, also, seem sometimes to have been enabled to undergo any pain of the Question by a previous preparation. One of the Grand Inquisitors complained of freedom from pain on the part

of his victims on one occasion.

There can be no doubt, also, that the infallible attendants on magical rites, smoke, unguents, and perfumes, contributed in no small degree to the delusions. It is perfectly evident, that the real material employed was concealed under the application of something else; nor would even the witch-cauldron of Macbeth, though made by Shakspeare to assume a metaphysical character, be bereft of the needful incantation potions. The anointing of the witch, and the belief of some witches that they really flew in the air, is well shown in this portion of the work, as well as that act of thaumaturgical vengeance by which, in the case of Pentheus, the application of belladonna caused him to affirm he saw two suns,-two Thebes. Opium alone, on the uninitiated to its operation, would cause many persons to believe that they had seen a magic world, by the singular delusions that it summons before the recipient of it. In all ages, Salverte remarks, the witches have outnumbered the wizards, which he attributes to the greater impressiveness of the sex. In fact, the influence of the imagination has operated largely in the production of spectres. What can be more natural than the vision that appeared to Brutus before the battle of Philippi? His thoughts full of the impending strife, his mind revolving the questionable character of the great deed of his life, his murdered friend fresh in the soul's eye,the very image left on the memory! The writer of this has nearly experienced the very same emotions, from the shock received by the intelligence of the sudden death of a friend. He fancied him, when the lone hour of night came on, standing immediately before him, sad and sorrowful; and it required all his nerve, on this and a former occasion, to rid his spirit of its visionary terrors, by walking up to the spot and thrusting his hand through the impalpable, to get perfectly rid of the mental fallacy. Then, again, those singular delusions of optical sense in some countries, such as the Spectre of the Brocken, must deeply aid the visionary. We believe this feeling to be an inherent principle of temperament in some very amiable natures, for were it otherwise we should have no Swedenborgians. Medicine and apparent abstinence from food, were also implements of power

carefully applied by the Thaumaturgists. We have Abaris and Epimenides given as eminent instances of the last by our author. Let us look at the singular legends of these men. Abaris had an arrow that always pointed to his home, and he was a Hyperborean. What was this but a compass? By it, Suidas informs us Abaris traversed the wind. Pythagoras seized this golden arrow, (a magnet gilded,) and compelled Abaris to explain it. The only oracle it could give forth, was the indication of the source of magnetic attraction. We think Epimenides harshly dealt with by Dr. Thompson. A prophet is the expression which St. Paul gives to him, and we think he would scarce have received this title unless he had been an angelos, and not the undignified impostor that Dr. Thompson describes him. The apparent resuscitation of the dead is much dwelt on, as another of the modes of the Thaumaturgic art. Dr. Thompson shows, in a valuable note, that many apparent signs of death may be deceptive,—such as the immobility of the body; the cadaverous aspect; the coldness of the surface; absence of respiration and pulsation; and the sunken state of even the eye itself. He gives as the only unquestionable signs of death, extinction of animal heat, rigidity of the body, in which the direction of the limb when changed remains, and commencing decomposition. Apollonius of Tyana was supposed to have raised the dead, but in the solitary instance given of his power in this respect by his biographer, the girl only seemed to die, and he owns the plashing rain that fell upon her features on the pyre might have revived her senses. His merit simply consisted, as Salverte remarks, in distinguishing, like Asclepiades in a precisely similar instance, between real and apparent death. We shall not here discuss, but reserve for a later period of this article, the vast difference between this and the instances recorded in the Gospel narrative.

Passing the account of "Poisons," we proceed to "Predictions of the Thaumaturgists influencing Agriculture." The diagnosis by which Pythagoras and others are stated to have arrived at information as to the approach of earthquakes appears reasonable, though veiled in profound mystery: the tasting of the well water was possibly no bad criterion. Pherecydes, the master of Pythagoras, announced to the inhabitants of Samos an approaching earthquake by this process. This cognizance of approximate physical circumstances was doubtless a portion of the physical history of that school, from which the author of the " Vestiges of the Creation" has borrowed his theory of the earth.

Passing meteorology as applied to magic, we come to a singular chapter, which claims as electricians Prometheus, Tarchon, Numa, Tullus Hostilius, Salmonius, Zoroaster, and others. The

singular rites of Jupiter Elycius, which Numa drew from Egeria's teaching, and to which Tullus Hostilius fell a victim, certainly have the appearance of an attempt to obtain conclusions from electrical phenomena. The goddess instructed Numa "fulmen piare," or in modern language to conduct lightning to a harmless point, the death of Tullus, when confessedly employed in their rites, as stated by thunder, the remarkable account of Salmonius, and the titles given to Jupiter of "Kataibates" and Elicius, distinguishing between that which descends, and in the fearful and destructive power of ground-lightning devastates the earth, and that in which it is harmlessly elicited,-all this certainly does look wondrous like a knowledge of electricity at a very early period. Prometheus, in that extraordinary detail of the benefits he had conferred on his kindred Earth, as detailed by Æschylus, mentions pλoyarà onμata, "signs of fire." Schutz refers this to lightnings; Blomfield says "loquitur de éμτvpoμavτela; ignispicio: male Schutzius de fulguribus intelligit." We rather doubt this as the whole interpretation. We know omens were drawn from the direction that the altar-flame took; but we do not confine this passage to that instance only. It is well known from Servius, that Prometheus was skilled in the art "eliciendorum fulminum," and he states that he discovered it, and reIvealed it to man. The temple at Jerusalem appears to have been shielded by conductors, since lightning, Michaelis tells us, never struck it over 1000 years. The author of the "Recognitions" tells us of Zoroaster, that the Persians worshipped him under this name as a son of Shem, who by magical power brought fire from heaven. This, combined with the death of this magician, perishing by the Spirit of Fire, which he had often invoked, looks vastly like an electrician consumed by his elicited flame. The oracles of Plethon, given by Salverte at p. 188, vol. ii., look wondrously like the same story, and we know well, that the Mongol Princess Alankava asserted that she felt a celestial light penetrate her bosom, and confidently affirmed that she should bring forth three male children of the sun. Her children, the Sons of Light, founded three dynasties. From one descended the father of the Kap-Giaks Tartars, another was the ancestor of the Seljuck, and from the third sprang Genghis and Tamerlane. No doubt this was an attempt to show the same affinity with heaven that Zoroaster affected, and which he called in electricity to prove. Ktesias says that India was acquainted with the use of eonductors of lightning. Porsenna was said to possess, among other magical powers, that of hurling lightning on his foes, and the daring of Scævola, in placing his hand in the enchanted flame, as he possibly supposed it, of the Etruscan king