Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846

"Assassin!" cried Otmar. "Ah! it is again he! God's will be done!"

"Mille diavoli! Have at thee yet!" exclaimed the Italian, struggling to disengage himself with a strong effort, and staggering back.

Succeeding in the attempt, he drew his sword. The weapons of the two men were immediately crossed. Both fought with desperation. Already a wound on Otmar's arm had rather excited his energies than disabled him, when a crowd was seen approaching rapidly from the direction of the castle. Some persons detached themselves from it, and ran forward, attracted by the previous cry of "murder," and the clash of arms. The cavaliere felt that he was lost, if he made not a fearful effort to disengage himself at once from his antagonist, and made a violent lunge at Otmar. The active young noble swerved aside. The sword passed him unscathed, and the next moment his sabre descended on to the Italian's head. With a fearful curse, the spy staggered, reeled backward, and fell to the ground.

When the persons from the castle hurried up, they found the young noble standing by his prostrate foe, and leaning upon his sabre – his cheek already pale from the loss of the blood which streamed from his wound. Before, in the confusion, much explanation could be asked or given, others of the approaching party had come up: at an order issued, a sedan chair, borne by eight men, was set down under the gateway; a female form issued from it, and, in spite of the opposition of those about her, Maria Theresa advanced through the crowd.

"What has happened? Who disturbs the peace?" she exclaimed, coming forward with that courage she evinced on all emergencies.

"Retire, I beseech you, to your chair, madam, and allow yourself to be carried on," said the young Prince Kaunitz, who formed one of the suite. "This is no sight for a woman, and a queen." And he interposed his person between his sovereign and the bodies of the Italian and the Jew.

"Permit me, prince," said Maria Theresa, waving him aside; for she had now caught sight of the pale face of Otmar, brightly illumined by the lighted torches which some of her attendants bore to light her on her way, upon her evening transit from the castle to the primate's summer palace.

"You, my young champion, here!" she cried, with tones of evident anxiety, stepping forward. "What has happened? In God's name, what is this? You are not hurt, sir?"

"Only a scratch, so please your majesty," replied Otmar; "and happy and proud I am that I should have gained it in your service."

"Tell me what has passed? How do I find you here? Who is this man?" continued the young Queen, glancing slightly at the form of the prostrate Italian.

"It is the same villain who has already dared to lay his hand upon the sacred person of your majesty," said the young noble proudly. "Chance led me to his discovery. I was hurrying to seek my Queen, to obey her orders. The wretch – I know not how – was beforehand with me. He would have waylaid me, as I must suppose. Another, who passed me at the moment, was his victim. I attacked him; and there he lies. I know no more."

"And who is that poor man?" said Maria Theresa, pointing to the body of the Jew.

Some of her attendants raised up the corpse.

"I recognise him," said Otmar. "He was the accomplice of that fellow. God's justice has fallen on him by the hand of his own confederate. But how, is still to me a mystery."

"The other still lives," exclaimed the voices of some, who had now lifted up the form of the Italian.

"Let him be conveyed to the castle," commanded the Queen. "Every inquiry shall be instituted in this affair. Let justice take its course upon the spy and traitor."

The Italian was conveyed away.

"But you are hurt, noble youth. Your cheek grows paler still," cried Maria Theresa. "Help there! Bring water! quick! He may be dying."

"It is nothing!" said Otmar, with sinking voice and failing senses. "A little faintness! I shall be better soon. A smile from you will repay all!"

His head whirled, and he fell back into the arms of the bystanders.

In spite of the alarm of the young Queen, a deep blush overspread her countenance at these last words.

"Ah! should it be so!" she murmured to herself; and, after casting a long look upon the form of the handsome youth before her, she bent her head to the earth.

Water was quickly brought from a neighbouring house. In spite of the increasing crowd attracted to the spot, Maria Theresa disdained not to bathe with her own hands the temples of the fainting man. Snatching a perfumed handkerchief from the hand of Kaunitz, she bound it tightly on the young noble's arm. In a short time, he once more opened his eyes. Water was given him to drink; and he again was able to stand, weakly, on his feet.

"You – my Queen. You have deigned – to look upon your poor subject-to tend him" – he stammered faintly, as his eyes fell upon the lovely face before him. "You – the noble – the beautiful – the beloved" —

"Hush! hush, sir," interposed the young Queen hurriedly. "You must not speak now. Your brain wanders. You shall be conveyed to the castle, and tended there. As soon as you are fully recovered, a post is ready for you with the army. You must leave us forthwith. Be brave, be gallant, be noble, as you have ever shown yourself; and, perhaps, hereafter" —

She checked herself; with a sigh, and turned away her face.

"Yes – away from here! I must away," said Otmar. "The army, the battle-field, glory, renown, must be my only thoughts." And, sinking his head on his heart, he murmured lowly —

"Moriamur pro Rege Nostro."

Conclusion

It is well known in history, that the rising of the Hungarian saved the falling fortunes of Maria Theresa. The enthusiasm of this sensitive and energetic people, once awakened, knew no bounds. All the country nobles, with their followers, took up arms. Croatia alone supplied twelve thousand men. Immense sums of money, to support the army, were offered by the clergy; and, out of the most distant provinces, sprang up, as the soldiers sown by the teeth of Cadmus from the earth, those countless savage hordes, who under the name of Pandours carried terror into every part of Europe. From the moment of the "insurrection," as it is called, of the Hungarian nobility, the aspect of affairs began to change. The Elector of Bavaria, who, to the grief of Maria Theresa, had received the imperial crown of Germany, so long in the possession of the House of Hapsburg, chiefly by the influence of French intrigues, under the name of Charles the Seventh, was driven from his States. England and Holland were won over to the cause of the persecuted Queen; and both, especially the former, lent her large sums. The whole British nation was interested in her favour. The English nobility, instigated by the Duchess of Marlborough, offered her a subscription collected to the amount of a hundred thousand pounds; but this sum Maria Theresa nobly refused, accepting nothing that was not granted to her by the nation in Parliament assembled. By the valour of Hungarian arms, the French were at length driven out of Bohemia; and what still more contributed to the peace shortly after obtained from a great portion of the Queen's enemies, was the result of the bloody field of Hanau, which turned out entirely to the advantage of Maria Theresa and her noble allies, and at which half of the noblesse of France was either killed or wounded.

It was shortly after this great battle, in which so many bold spirits fell on either side, that a catafalk was erected at the upper end of the middle aisle belonging to the glorious Gothic Church of St Stephen's in Vienna. The service for the dead had been performed with pomp. The priests had retired from the aisle. But still, upon the steps, covered with black cloth, and illumined from above by many wax-lights, knelt two personages. The one was a female, dressed in deep mourning, who appeared to be praying fervently. A group of attendants, both male and female, in the attire of the court mourning of the day, stood at a little distance from her. The other was an old man, in a well-worn hussar dress, who had thrown himself forward on to the upper step, upon another side of the catafalk, and had buried his face in his hands. At length the female rose, gave a last look at that dark mass, which concealed a coffin, and, within, a corpse; and then, drawing her veil over her face, moved slowly towards a side-door, followed by her attendants, with a respect paid only to a royal personage. A crowd of beggars surrounded the door, where an Imperial carriage waited; and distributing the contents of a heavy purse among them, the lady said, with broken voice,

"Pray for the soul of Otmar, Baron Bartori, who died in battle for his Queen."

MESMERIC MOUNTEBANKS

In an age of utilitarian philosophy and materialism, we are proud to stand forth as the champion of he Invisible World. Maga and Magic are words which we cannot dissociate from one another, either in sound or in affection. The first was the mistress of our youth – our literary mother – our guide and instructress in the paths of Toryism, good-fellowship, and honour. Fain would we hope that, in maturer years, we have rendered back to the eldest-born of Buchanan some portion of the deep debt of gratitude which from our childhood upwards we have incurred. We have ever striven to comport ourselves in sublunary matters as beseemeth one who has sat at the feet of Christopher, imbibed the ethical lore of a Tickler, and received the sublimest of peptic precepts and dietetic instruction from the matchless lips of an Odoherty. Her creed is ours, and no other – the bold, the true, and the unwavering – and when we die, bewept, as we trust we shall be by many a youth and maiden of the next generation, we shall ask no better epitaph for our monument than that selected by poor John Keats, though with the alteration of a single word – "Here lieth one whose name is writ in Maga."

Magic, however – not Maga – is the theme of our present article; nor do we scruple at the very outset to proclaim ourselves a devout and fervent believer in almost every known kind of diablerie, necromancy, and witchcraft. We are aware that in the present day such confessions are very rare, and that when made by some reluctant follower of the occult faith, they are always accompanied with pusillanimous qualifications, and weak excuses for adherence to opinions which, in one shape or another, pervade the population of Christendom, and pass for current truth throughout the extensive realm of Heathenesse. So much the better. We like a fair field and no auxiliaries; and we are here to do battle for the memory and fair fame of Michael Scott, Doctor Faustus, and the renowned Cornelius Agrippa.

Sooth to say, we were born and bred long before Peter Parley had superseded the Fairy Tales, and poisoned the budding faculties of the infancy of these realms with his confounded philosophical nonsense, and his endless editions of Copernicus made Easy. Our nurserymaid, a hizzie from the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, was a confirmed and noted believer in dreams, omens, tatie-bogles, and sundry other kinds of apparitions. Her mother was, we believe, the most noted spaewife of the district; and it was popularly understood that she had escaped at least three times, in semblance of an enormous hare, from the pursuit of the Laird of Lockhart's grews. Such at least was the explanation which Lizzy Lindsay gave, before being admitted as an inmate of our household, of the malignant persecution which doomed her for three consecutive Sundays to a rather isolated, but prominent seat in the Kirk of Dolphington Parish: nor did our worthy Lady-mother see any reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement. For was it not most natural that the daughter – however comely – and Lizzy was as strapping a lass as ever danced at a kirn – of a woman who had the evil reputation of divining surreptitious fortunes by means of the sediment of a tea-cup – of prophesying future sweethearts in exchange for hoarded sixpences – and of milking dry her neighbours' cows by aid of cantrips and an enchanted hair rope – was it not most natural, we say, that the daughter of the witch should have been looked upon with a suspicious eye by the minister, who used annually to preach four sermons in vituperation of Her of Endor, and by the Elders, whose forefathers had turned out doggedly for the Covenant, and among whom still circulated strange and fantastic tales of bodily apparitions of the Evil One to the fugitives in the muir and the wilderness – of hideous shapes, which disturbed the gathered conventicle by the sides of the lonely burn – of spells, which made the buff-coats of their adversaries impenetrable as adamant to leaden bullet or the sweep of the Cameronian steel?

Upon these testimonials, and a strong affidavit from Lizzy, that in every other earthly matter she was innocent of the slightest peccadillo, the Lily of Lanark was installed as mistress and governante of the Nursery. We were then in the days of teething, and sorely tormented with our gums, which neither for knob of poker, nor handle of kitchen-fork – the ancient Caledonian corals – would surrender their budding ornaments. We believe, therefore, that Lizzy Lindsay erred not materially from the path of truth when she signalized us as "the maist fractious bairn that ever broke a woman's heart." Night and day did we yell, with Satanic energy, from the excruciating molar pain, and little sympathy did our tears awaken in our pillow, as we lay in fevered anguish on the exuberant bosom of our guardian. Fortunately for us, in these days Daffy's Elixir was a thing unknown, else no doubt we should have received an early introduction to dram-drinking by means of the soft carminative. The fertile genius of Lizzy suggested a better spell for allaying our infant sorrows. Whenever we indulged in a more than ordinary implacable fit of screeching, she threatened us with the apparition of "the Boo-man," a hideous spectre which was then supposed to perambulate the nurseries in the shape of Napoleon-Bonaparte. In a very short while, no Saracen child ever became dumber when threatened by its mother with a visit from the Melech-Ric, than we did at the proposed coming of the dark and sanguinary phantom. For many years afterwards we believed as sincerely in the existence of this anthropophagus as in our own; and very nearly became a Bauldy for life, from having been surprised on one occasion, whilst surreptitiously investigating the contents of a jampot, by the descent of a climbing-boy into the nursery, and the terrors of his telegraphic boo! As we grew up, our nascent intellect received still more supernatural services from the legendary lore of Lizzy. She taught us the occult and mysterious meaning of those singular soot-flakes which wave upon the ribs of a remarkably ill-pokered fire – the dark significance which may be drawn from the spluttering and cabbaging of a candle – and the misfortunes sure to follow the mismanagement of the sacred salt. Often, too, her talk was of the boding death-watch – the owl which flapped its wings at the window of the dying – and the White Dove that flitted noiselessly from the room at the fearful, and then to us incomprehensible moment of dissolution. As Hallowe'en approached, she told us of the mystic hempseed, of the figure which stalled behind the enterprising navigator of the stacks, and that awful detention of the worsted clue, which has made the heart of many a rustic maiden leap hurriedly towards her throat, when in the dead of night, and beneath the influence of a waning moon, she has dared to pry into the secrets of futurity, and, lover-seeking, has dropped the ball into the chasm of the deserted kiln.

Such being the groundwork of our mystic education, it is little wonder that we turned our novel knowledge of the alphabet to account, by pouncing with intense eagerness upon every work of supernatural fiction upon which we possibly could lay our hands. We speak not now of Jack the Giant-killer, of the aspiring hero of the Beanstalk, or the appropriator of the Seven-leagued boots. These were well enough in their way; but not, in our diseased opinion, sufficiently practical. We liked the fairies better. For many a day we indulged in the hope that we might yet become possessed of a pot of that miraculous unguent, which, when applied to the eye, has the virtue of disclosing the whole secrets of the Invisible World. We looked with a kind of holy awe upon the emerald rings of the greensward, and would have given worlds to be present at the hour when the sloping side of the mountain is opened, and from a great ball, all sparkling with a thousand prismatic stalactites, ride forth, to the sound of flute and recorder, the squadrons of the Elfin Chivalry. Well do we remember the thrill of horror which pervaded our being when we first read of the Great Spectre of Glenmore, the Headless Fiend that haunts the black solitudes of the Rothemurchus Forest, whom to see is madness, and to meet is inexorable death! Much did we acquire in these days of the natural history of Wraiths and Corpse-candles-of Phantom Funerals encountered on their way to the kirkyard by some belated peasant, who, marveling at the strange array at such an hour, turns aside to let the grim procession pass, and beholds the visionary mourners – his own friends – sweep past, without sound of footfall or glance of recognition, bearing upon their shoulders a melancholy burden, wherein, he knows, is stretched the wan Eidolon of himself! No wonder that he takes to his bed that night, nor leaves it until the final journey.

Not for worlds would we have left the Grange house, which was then our summer residence, after nightfall, and, skirting the hill by the old deserted burial-ground, venture down the little glen, gloomy with the shade of hazels – cross the burn by the bridge above the Caldron pool – and finally gaze upon the loch all tranquil in the glory of the stars! Not all the fish that ever struggled on a night-line-and there were prime two-pounders, and no end of eels, in the loch – would have tempted us to so terrible a journey. For just below the bridge, where the rocks shot down precipitously into the black water, and the big patches of foam went slowly swirling round – there, we say, in some hideous den, heaven knows how deep, lurked the hateful Water-Kelpy, whose yell might be heard, during a spate, above the roar of the thundering stream, and who, if he did not lure and drown the cat-witted tailor of the district, was, to say the least of it, the most maligned and slandered individual of his race. Even in broad day we never liked that place. It had a mischievous and uncanny look; nor could you ever entirely divest yourself of the idea that there was something at the bottom of the pool. Bad as was the burn, the loch was a great deal worse. For here, at no very remote period, the fiend had emerged from its depths in the shape of a black steed, gentle and mild-eyed to look upon, and pacing up to three children, not ten minutes before dismissed from the thraldom of the dominie, had mutely but irresistibly volunteered the accommodation of an extempore ride. And so, stepping on with his burden across the gowans – which never grew more, and never will grow, where the infernal hoof was planted – the demon horse arrived at the margin of the loch where the bank is broken and the water deep, and with a neigh of triumph bounded in, not from that day to this were the bodies of the victims found. Moreover, yonder at the stunted thorn-trees is the spot where poor Mary Walker drowned herself and her innocent and unchristened bairn; and they say that, at midnight when all is quiet, you will hear the wailing of a female voice, as if the spirit of the murdered infant were bewailing its lost estate; and that a white figure may be seen wringing its hands in agony, as it flits backwards and forwards along the range of the solitary loch. Therefore, though the black beetle is an irresistible bait, we never threw a fly at night on the surface of the Haunted Tarn.

Penny Encyclopædias, although Lord Brougham had advanced considerably towards manhood, were not then the fashion. Information for the people was not yet collected into hebdomadal tracts; and those who coveted the fruit of the tree of knowledge were left to pursue their horticultural researches at their own free will. In the days of which we write, the two leading weekly serials were the "Tales of Terror" and "The Terrific Register," to both of which we regularly subscribed. To our present taste – somewhat, we hope, improved since then – the latter seems a vulgar publication. It was neither more nor less than a rifacciamento of the most heinous and exaggerated murders, by steel, fire, and poison, which could be culled from the records of ancient and modern villany. It was, in short, the quintessence of the Newgate Calendar, powerful enough to corrupt a nation; as a proof of which – we mention it with regret – the servant lad who ten years ago purloined it from our library, has since been transported for life. We even dare to back it, for pernicious results, against the moral influence which has been since exercised by the authors of Oliver Twist and Jack Sheppard, to both of whom the penal colonies have incurred a debt of lasting gratitude. It is true that, in point of sentiment, these gentlemen have the advantage of the Editor of The Terrific Register, but he beats them hollow in the broad delinquency of his facts. But in the Tales of Terror we possessed a real supernatural treasure. Every horrible legend of demon, ghost, goule, gnome, salamandrine, and fire-king, which the corrupted taste of Germany had hatched, was contained in this precious repository. It was illustrated also, as we well remember, by woodcuts of the most appalling description, which used to haunt us in our sleep long after we had stolen to our bed at half-past eleven punctually, in order that we might be drenched in slumber before the chiming of the midnight hour – at which signal, according to the demonologists, the gates of Hades are opened wide, and the defunct usurer returns to mourn and gibber above the hiding-place of his buried gold.

Gradually, however, we waxed more bold; and by dint of constant study familiarized ourselves so much with the subject, that we not only ceased to fear, but absolutely longed for a personal acquaintance with an apparition. The History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which shortly afterwards fell into our hands, inspired us with the ambition of becoming a practical magician, and we thirsted for a knowledge of the Cabala. We had already done a little business in the way of turnip lanterns, the favourite necromantic implements of the ingenuous Scottish youth – hideous in the whiteness of their vegetable teeth, and not unappalling when dexterously placed upon the edge of the kirk-yard wall. Electric shocks conveyed by means of the door-handles, phosphoric writings on the wall, and the mystery of spontaneous bells, were our next chemical amusements; nor did we desist from this branch of practice until we had received a most sound castigation, at the recollection of which our bones still ache, from a crusty old tutor whose couch we had strewn, not with roses, but with chopped horse-hair.

We are old enough to recollect the first representation of Der Freischutz, and it is an era in our dramatic reminiscences. Previously to that, we had seen a Vampire appear upon the boards of the Edinburgh stage, and after an extravagant consumption of victims throughout the course of three acts, fall thunder-smitten by an indigo bolt through a deep and yawning trap-door. But Zamiel, as then represented by Mr Lynch, completely distanced the Blood-sucker. With feelings of intensest awe, we beheld the mysterious preparations in the Wolf's Glen – the circle of skull and bone – the magic ring of light blue that flickered round it – the brazier with the two kneeling figures beside it – the owl on the blasted tree, which opened its eyes and flapped its wings with true demoniacal perseverance – and the awful shapes that appeared at the casting of every bullet! But when, as the last of them was thrown from the mould, a crash of thunder pealed along the stage, and lurid lightnings glared from either wing – when the cataract was converted into blood, and the ferocious form of Lynch stood forth as the Infernal Hunter, discharging, after the manner of such beings, two rifles at once – our enthusiasm utterly overcame us; we gave vent to an exulting cheer, and were conducted from the boxes in a state of temporary insanity.

We pass over our classical studies. We were no great dab at Virgil, but we relished Apuleius exceedingly, and considerably petrified the Rector, by giving up, as the subject of our private reading, "Wierus de Prœstigiis Demonum." Our favourite philosopher was Sir Kenelm Digby, whose notions upon sympathy and antipathy we thought remarkably rational; so much so, that up to the present time, we recognise no other treatment for a cut finger than a submersion of the bloody rag in vitriol and water, and a careful unction of the knife. We lost our degree in medicine by citing as a case in point the wonderful cure of Telephus by the application of oxide of iron, which we held to be no specific at all, except as obtained from the spear of Achilles. This dogma, coupled with our obstinate adherence to the occult doctrines of Van Helmont, the only medical writer whose works we ever perused with the slightest satisfaction, was too much for the bigoted examinators. We were recommended to go abroad and study homœopathy. We did so, and we swear by Hahnemann.

It is now some years since we received our first inkling of mesmeric revelation. Since then, we have read almost every work which has appeared upon the subject; and we scruple not to say that we are a profound believer in all of its varied mysteries. In it we recognise a natural explanation of all our earlier studies; and we hail with sincere delight the progress of a science which reconciles us to magic without the necessity of interposing a diabolic agency. The miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, as related by Philostratus, become very commonplace performances when viewed by the light of mesmerism. The veriest bungler who ever practised the passes can explain to you the nature of that secret intelligence which enabled the clair-voyant philosopher, then at Ephesus, to communicate the murder of Domitian to his friends at the moment it took place at Rome. Second-sight has ceased to be a marvel: the preternatural powers, long supposed to be confined to Skye, Uist, and Benbecula, are now demonstrated to be universal, and are exhibited on the platform by scores of urchins picked up at random from the gutter. Even the Arabian Nights have become probable. Any perambulating mesmeriser can show you scores of strapping, fellows, reduced by a single wave of his hand to the unhappy condition of the young Prince whose lower extremities were stone. Comus was nothing more than a common Professor of the science; and Hermotimus a silly blockhead, who could not wake himself from his trance in time to prevent his wife from consigning him to the funeral pile.

The practical utility of the science is no less prodigious. Is it nothing, think you, if you have suffered a compound fracture of the leg, so bad that amputation is indispensable, to be relieved from all the horrors of the operation, from the sickening sight of the basins, the bandages, and the saw – to feel yourself sinking into a delicious slumber at the wave of the surgeon's hand, and to wake up ten minutes afterwards an unsuffering uniped, and as fresh as the Marquis of Anglesea? Is it nothing, when that back-grinder of yours gives you such intolerable agony that the very maid-servants in the attics cannot sleep o'nights because of your unmitigated roaring – is it nothing to avoid the terrible necessity of a conscious Tusculan disputation with Nasmith or Spence – to settle down for a few moments into a state of unconsciousness, and to revive with your masticators in such a condition as to defy the resistance of a navy biscuit? Or, if you are a stingy person and repugnant to postage, do you think it is no advantage to get gratis information about your friends in India through the medium of your eldest son, who, though apparently sitting like a senseless booby in your armchair, is at this moment invisibly present in the mess-room at Hyderabad, and will express, if you ask him, his wonder at the extreme voracity with which Uncle David devours his curry? Why, in that boy you possess an inestimable treasure! You may send him to Paris at a moment's notice for a state of the French funds – he will be at St Petersburg and back again in the twinkling of an eye – and if our own sight is failing, you have nothing to do but to clap the last number of the Magazine below him, and he will straightway regale your heart with the contents of the leading article.

There is a great deal of romance about Mesmerism. We have nowhere read a more touching story than that of the two consumptive sisters who were thrown into the Magic trance about the end of autumn, who lay folded in each other's arms – pale lilies – throughout the whole of the dreary winter, and awoke to life and renovated health in the joyous month of May, when the leaves were green, the flowers in bud, and the lambkins frolicking on the meadow! Read you ever any thing in novels so touching and pathetic as this? Nor is the case once recounted to us by a friend of our own, a noted mesmerizer, one whit less marvellous. In the ardent prosecution of his art, he had cast his glamour upon a fair Parisian damsel of the name of Leontine – we believe she was a laundress – and daily held conference with the dormant Delphic girl. On one occasion he left her, wrapt in the profoundest sleep, in his chamber, and proceeded to perambulate the Boulevards on his own secular affairs. On returning, he found poor Leontine suffused in tears; deep and stifling sobs disturbed her utterance, nor was it until the charmer had soothed her with a few additional passes, that she could falter out the tender reproach – "Why did you not bring me some bonbons on the shop where you eat those three ice-creams?" Our friend had not walked alone through Paris. The spirit of the loving Leontine was invisibly clinging to his arm.

Now, although we make it an invariable rule to believe every thing which we read or hear, we were not a little desirous to behold with our own eyes an exhibition of these marvellous phenomena. But somehow or other, whilst the papers told us of Mesmeric miracles performed in every other part of the world, Edinburgh remained without a prophet. Either the Thessalian influence had not extended so far, or the Scottish frame was unsusceptible to the subtle fluid of the conjuror. One or two rumours reached us of young ladies who had become spellbound; but on inquiring more minutely into the circumstances, we found that there was an officer in each case, and we therefore were inclined to think that the symptoms might be naturally accounted for. There was, however, no want of curiosity on the part of the public. The new science had made a great noise in the world, and was the theme of conversation at every tea-table. Various attempts at mesmerization were made, but without success. We ourselves tried it; but after looking steadfastly for about twenty minutes into a pair of laughing blue eyes, we were compelled to own that the power was not in us, and that all the fascination had been exercised on the other side. Nobody had succeeded, if we except a little cousin of ours – rather addicted to fibbing – who averred that she had thrown a cockatoo into a deep and mysterious slumber.

Great, therefore, was our joy, and great was the public excitement, when at length a genuine professor of the art vouchsafed to favour us with a visit. He was one of those intelligent and patriotic men who go lecturing from town to town, inspired thereto by no other consideration than an ardour for the cause of science. The number of them is absolutely amazing. Throughout the whole winter, which is popularly called the lecturing season, the dead walls of every large city in the empire are covered with placards, announcing that Mr Tomlinson will have the honour of delivering six lectures upon Syria, or that Mr. Whackingham, the famous Timbuctoo traveller, will describe the interior of Africa. They are even clannish in their subjects. The Joneses are generally in pay of the League, and hold forth upon the iniquity of the Corn-duties. The Smiths, with laudable impartiality, are divided between slavery and liberation, and lecture pro or con, as the humour or opportunity may serve. The Macgillicuddies support the Seceding interest, and deliver facers in the teeth of all establishments whatsoever. The Robinsons are phrenological, the Browns chemical, and the Bletheringtons are great on the subject of universal education for the people. To each and all of these interesting courses you may obtain admittance for the expenditure of a trifling sum, and imbibe, in exchange for your shilling or half-crown, a considerable allowance of strong and full-flavoured information. Always ardent in the cause of science, we never, if we can help it, miss one of these seducing soirees: and we invariably find, that whatever may have been the heterodoxy of our former opinion, we become a convert through the powerful arguments of these peripatetic apostles of science.

Our new Xavier belonged to what is called the mesmerico-phrenological school. He was a man of bumps as well as passes – a disciple alike of German Spurzheim and of English Elliotson. His placard was a modest one. It set forth, as usual; the disinterested nature of his journey, which was to expound to the intelligent citizens of Edinburgh a few of the great truths of mesmerism, illustrated by a series of experiments. He studiously disclaimed all connexion with preternatural art, and ventured to assure every visitor, that, so far as he was concerned, no advantage should be taken of their attendance at his Seance in any future stage of their existence. This distinct pledge removed from our minds any little scruple which we otherwise might have felt. We became convinced that the lecturer was far too much of a gentleman to take advantage of our weakness, and report us to the Powers of Evil; and accordingly, on the appointed night, after a bottle or so of fortifying port, we took our way to the exhibition-room, where Isis was at last to be revealed to our adoring eyes.

We selected and paid for a front seat, and located ourselves in the neighbourhood of a very smart bonnet, which had mesmerically attracted our eye. Around us were several faces well known in the northern metropolis, some of them wearing an expression of dull credulity, and others with a sneer of marked derision on the lip. On looking at the platform, we were not altogether surprised at the earliness of the latter demonstration. There was no apparatus there beyond a few chairs; but around a sort of semicircular screen were suspended a series of the most singular portraits we ever had the fortune to behold. One head was graced with a mouth big enough to contain a haggis, and a coronal of erected hair like a hearth-brush surmounting it left no doubt in our mind that it was intended for a representation of Terror. It was enough, as a young Indian officer afterwards remarked, to have made a Chimpanzee miscarry. Joy was the exact portraiture of a person undergoing the punishment of death by means of tickling. We should not like to have met Benevolence in a dark lane: he looked confoundedly like a fellow who would have eased you of your last copper, and knocked you down into the bargain. As for Amativeness, he seemed to us the perfect incarnation of hydrophobia. In fact, out of some two dozen passions, the only presentable personage was Self-esteem, a prettyish red-haired girl, with an expression of fun about the eyes.