Chapter IX: Part 9

Closed the book,
With gladsome look
Still he sits and visions weaveth.
Fancy with her wiles deceiveth;
Days to come with glory gildeth;
And though all is bleak and bare,
With perversest labour buildeth
Wondrous castles in the air.
He who shall possess each palace,
Fortune has for him no malice,
Only countless joys in store:
Over rim,
And mantling brim,
His full cup of life shall pour.
Whilst he dreams,
The future seems
Like the present spread before him:
Nought to fear him,
All to cheer him,
Coming greatness gathers o'er him;
And into the ear of Night
Thus he tells his visions bright:--

"I shall be a glorious Poet!
All the wond'ring world shall know it,
Listening to melodious hymning;
I shall write immortal songs.

"I shall be a Painter limning
Pictures that shall never fade;
Round the scenes I have portrayed
Shall be gathered gazing throngs:
Mine shall be a Titian's palette!

"I shall wield a Phidias' mallet!
Stone shall grow to life before me,
Looks of love shall hover o'er me,
Beauty shall in heart adore me
That I make her charms immortal.
Now my foot is on the portal
Of the house of Fame:
Soon her trumpet shall proclaim
Even this now unhonoured name,
And the doings of this hand
Shall be known in every land.

"Music! my bewitching pen
Shall enchant the souls of men.
Aria, fugue, and strange sonata,
Opera, and gay cantata,
Through my brain,
In linked train,
Hark! I hear them winding go,
Now with half-hushed whisper stealing,
Now in full-voiced accent pealing,
Ringing loud, and murmuring low.
Scarcely can I now refrain,
Whilst these blessed notes remain,
From pouring forth one undying angel-strain.

"Eloquence! my lips shall speak
As no living lips have spoken--
Advocate the poor and weak,
Plead the cause of the heart-broken;
Listening senates shall be still,
I shall wield them at my will,
And this little tongue, the earth
With its burning words shall fill.

"Ye stars which bloom like flowers on high,
Ye flowers which are the stars of earth,
Ye rocks that deep in darkness lie,
Ye seas that with a loving eye
Gaze upwards on the azure sky,
Ye waves that leap with mirth;
Ye elements in constant strife,
Ye creatures full of bounding life:
I shall unfold the hidden laws,
And each unthought-of wondrous cause,
That waked ye into birth.
A high-priest I, by Nature taught
Her mysteries to reveal:
The secrets that she long hath sought
In darkness to conceal
Shall have their mantle rent away,
And stand uncovered to the light of day.
O Newton! thou and I shall be
Twin brothers then!
Together link'd, our names shall sound
Upon the lips of men."

Like the sullen heavy boom
Of a signal gun at sea,
When athwart the gathering gloom,
Awful rocks are seen to loom
Frowning on the lee;
Like the muffled kettle-drum,
With the measured tread,
And the wailing trumpet's hum,
Telling that a soldier's dead;
Like the deep cathedral bell
Tolling forth its doleful knell,
Saying, "Now the strife is o'er,
Death hath won a victim more"--
So, thou doleful Stethoscope!
Thou dost seem to say,
"Hope thou on against all hope,
Dream thy life away:
Little is there now to spend;
And that little's near an end.
Saddest sign of thy condition
is thy bounding wild ambition;
Only dying eyes can gaze on so bright a vision.
Ere the spring again is here,
Low shall be thy head,
Vainly shall thy mother dear,
Strive her breaking heart to cheer,
Vainly strive to hide the tear
Oft in silence shed.
Pangs and pains are drawing near,
To plant with thorns thy bed:
Lo! they come, a ghastly troop,
Like fierce vultures from afar;
Where the bleeding quarry is,
There the eagles gathered are!
Ague chill, and fever burning,
Soon away, but swift returning,
In unceasing alternation;
Cold and clammy perspiration,
Heart with sickening palpitation,
Panting, heaving respiration;
Aching brow, and wasted limb,
Troubled brain, and vision dim,
Hollow cough like dooming knell
Saying, 'Bid the world farewell!'
Parched lips, and quenchless thirst,
Every thing as if accurst;
Nothing to the senses grateful;
All things to the eye grown hateful;
Flowers without the least perfume;
Gone from every thing its bloom;
Music but an idle jangling;
Sweetest tongues but weary wrangling;
Books, which were most dearly cherished,
Come to be, each one, disrelished;
Clearest plans grown all confusion;
Kindest friends but an intrusion:
Weary day, and weary night--
Weary night, and weary day;
Would God it were the morning light!
Would God the light were pass'd away!
And when all is dark and dreary,
And thou art all worn and weary,
When thy heart is sad and cheerless,
And thine eyes are seldom tearless,
When thy very soul is weak,
Satan shall his victim seek.
Day by day he will be by thee,
Night by night will hover nigh thee,
With accursed wiles will try thee,
Soul and spirit seek to buy thee.
Faithfully he'll keep his tryst,
Tell thee that there is no Christ,
No long-suffering gracious Father,
But an angry tyrant rather;
No benignant Holy Spirit,
Nor a heaven to inherit,
Only darkness, desolation,
Hopelessness of thy salvation,
And at best annihilation.

"God with his great power defend thee!
Christ with his great love attend thee!
May the blessed Spirit lend thee
Strength to bear, and all needful succour send thee!"
Close we here. My eyes behold,
As upon a sculpture old,
Life all warm and Death all cold
Struggling which alone shall hold--
Sign of wo, or sign of hope!--
To his lips the Stethoscope.

But the strife at length is past,
They have made a truce at last,
And the settling die is cast.
Life shall sometimes sound a blast,
But it shall be but "Tantivy,"
Like a hurrying war reveillie,
Or the hasty notes that levy
Eager horse, and man, and hound,
On an autumn morn,
When the sheaves are off the ground,
And the echoing bugle-horn
Sends them racing o'er the scanty stubble corn.
But when I a-hunting go,
I, King Death,
I that funeral trump shall blow
With no bated breath.
Long drawn out, and deep and slow
Shall the wailing music go;
Winding horn shall presage meet
Be of coming winding-sheet,
And all living men shall know
That beyond the gates of gloom,
In my mansions of the tomb,
I for every one keep room,
And shall hold and house them all, till the very
Day of Doom.

V. V.

EPIGRAMS.

Bait, hook, and hair, are used by angler fine;
Emma's bright hair alone were bait, hook, line.

* * * * *

Faraday was the first to elicit the electric spark from the magnet; he found that it is visible at the instants of breaking and of renewing the contact of the conducting wires; and _only then_.

Around the magnet, Faraday
Is sure that Volta's lightnings play;
But _how_ to draw them from the wire?
He took a lesson from the heart:
'Tis when we meet, 'tis when we part,
Breaks forth the electric fire.

M.

LETTERS ON THE TRUTHS CONTAINED IN POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.

1.--THE DIVINING ROD.

_February_, 1847.

DEAR ARCHY,--As a resource against the long ennui of the solitary evenings of commencing winter, I determined to betake me to the neglected lore of the marvellous, the mystical, the supernatural. I remembered the deep awe with which I had listened many a year ago to tales of seers, and ghosts, and vampires, and all the dark brood of night; and I thought it would be infinitely agreeable to thrill again with mysterious terrors, to start in my chair at the closing of a distant door, to raise my eyes with uneasy apprehension towards the mirror opposite, and to feel my skin creep with the sensible "afflatus" of an invisible presence. I entered, accordingly, upon what I thought a very promising course of appalling reading; but, alack and well-a-day! a change has come over me since the good old times, when Fancy, with Fear and Superstition behind her, would creep on tiptoe to catch a shuddering glimpse of Cobbold Fay, or Incubus. Vain were all my efforts to revive the pleasant horrors of earlier years. It was as if I had planned going to the play to enjoy again the full gusto of scenic illusion, and through some unaccountable absence of mind, was attending a morning rehearsal only; when, instead of what I had expected, great coats, hats, umbrellas, and ordinary men and women, masks, tinsel, trap-doors, pulleys, and a world of intricate machinery, lit by a partial gleam of sunshine, had met my view. The spell I had anticipated was not there. But yet the daylight scene was worth a few minutes' study. My imagination was not to be gratified; but still it might be entertaining to see how the tricks are done, the effects produced, the illusion realised. I found myself insensibly growing philosophical; what amused me became matter of speculation--speculation turned into serious inquiry--the object of which shaped itself into "the amount of truth contained in popular superstitions." For what has been believed for ages must have something real at bottom. There can be no prevalent delusion without a corresponding truth. If the dragons, that flew on scaly wings and expectorated flames, were fabulous, there existed nevertheless very respectable reptiles, which it was a credit to a hero or even a saint to destroy. If the Egyptian worship of cats and onions was a mistake, there existed nevertheless an object of worship.

Among the immortal productions of the Scottish Shakspeare,--you smile, but _that_ phrase contains the true belief, not a popular delusion; for the spirit of the poet lived not in the form of his productions, but in his creative power and vivid intuition of nature; and the form even is often nearer you than you think: See the works of imaginative prose writers, _passim_.

Well, among the novels of Scott, I was going to say, none perhaps more grows upon our preference than the Antiquary. In no one has the great Author more gently and more indulgently, never with happier humour, displayed the mixed web of strength and infirmity of human character, (never, besides, with more facile power evoked pathos and terror, or disported himself in the sublimity and beauty of nature.) Yet gentle as is his mood, he misses not the opportunity, albeit in general he betrays an honest leaning towards old superstitions, mercilessly to crush one of the humblest. Do you remember the Priory of St. Ruth, and the pleasant summer party made to visit it, and the preparation for the subsequent rogueries of Dousterswivel, in the tale of Martin Waldeck, and the discovery of a spring of water by means of the divining rod?

I am disposed, do you know, to rebel against the judgment of the novelist on this occasion,--to take the part of the charlatan against the author of his being, and to question, whether his performance last alluded to might not have been something more and better than a trick. Yet I know not if it is prudent to brave public opinion, which has stamped this pretension as imposture. But, courage! I will not flinch. I will be desperate, with Sir Arthur, defy the sneeze of the great Pheulphan, and trust to unearth a real treasure in this discredited ground.

Therefore leave off appealing to the shade of Oldbuck, and listen to a plain narrative, and you shall hear how much truth there is in the reputed popular delusion of the divining rod.

I see my tone of confidence has already half-staggered your disbelief; but pray do not, like many other incredulous gentry, run off at once into the opposite extreme. Don't let your imagination suddenly instal you perpetual chairman of the universal fresh-water company, or of the general gold-mine-discovery-proprietary-association. What I have to fell you falls very far short of so splendid a mark.

But perhaps you know nothing at all about the divining rod. Then I will enlighten your primitive ignorance.

You are to understand, that, in mining districts, a superstition prevails among the people, that some are gifted with an occult power of detecting the proximity of veins of metal, and of underground springs of water. In Cornwall, they hold that about one in forty possesses this faculty. The mode, of exercising it is very simple. They cut a hazel twig that forks naturally into two equal branches; and having stripped the leaves off, they cut the stump of the twig, to the length of three or four inches, and each branch to the length of a foot or something less: for the end of a branch is meant to be held in each hand, in such a manner that the stump of the twig may project straight forwards. The position is this: the elbows are bent, the forearms, and hands advanced, the knuckles turned downwards, the ends of the branches come out between the thumbs and roots of the forefingers, the hands are supinated, the inner side of each is turned towards its fellow, as they are held a few inches apart. The mystic operator, thus armed, walks over the ground he intends exploring, with the full expectation, that, when he passes over a vein of metal, or underground spring of water, the hazel fork will move spontaneously in his hands, the point or stump rising or falling as the case may be. This hazel fork is the DIVINING ROD. The hazel has the honour of being preferred, because it divides into nearly equal branches at angles the nearest equal.

Then, assuming that there is something in this provincial superstition, four questions present themselves to us for examination.

Does the divining fork really move of itself in the hands of the operator, and not through motion communicated to it by the intentional or unintentional action of the muscles of his hands or arms?

What relation has the person of the operator to the motion observed in the divining rod?

What is the nature of the influence to which the person of the operator serves as a conductor?

Finally, what is the thing divined? the proximity of veins of metal or of running water? what or what not?

Then, let me at once premise, that upon the last point I have no information to offer. The uses to which the divining fork may be turned, are yet to be learned. But I think I shall be able to satisfy you, that the hazel fork in some hands, and in certain localities, held as I have described, actually moves spontaneously, and that the intervention of the human body is necessary to its motion; and that it serves as a conductor to an influence, which is either electricity, or something either combined with electricity, or very much resembling that principle in some of its habitudes.

I should observe, that I was no wiser than you are upon this subject, till the summer of 1843, and held the tales told of the divining rod to be nonsense, the offspring of mere self-delusion, or of direct imposture. And I think the likeliest way of removing _your_ disbelief, will be to tell you the steps by which my own conversion took place.

In the summer of 1843, I lived some months under the same roof with a Scottish gentleman, well informed, of a serious turn of mind, endowed with the national allowance of caution, shrewdness, and intelligence. I saw a good deal of him; and one day by accident the subject of the divining rod was mentioned. He told me that at one time his curiosity having been raised upon the subject, he had taken pains to learn what there was in it. And for that purpose he had obtained an introduction to Mrs. R., sister of Sir G. R., then residing at Southampton, whom he learned to be one of those in whose hands the divining rod was said to move. He visited the lady, who was polite enough to show him what the performance amounted to, and to answer all his questions, and to allow him to try some simple experiment to test the reality of the phenomenon and its nature.

Mrs. R. told my friend, that being at Cheltenham in 1806, she saw for the first time the divining rod used by the late Mrs. Colonel Beaumont, who possessed the power of imparting motion to it in a very remarkable degree. Mrs. R. tried the experiments herself at the time, but without any success. She was, as it happened, very far from well. Afterwards, in the year 1815, being asked by a friend how the divining rod was held, and how it is to be used, on showing it she observed that the hazel fork moved in her hands. Since then, whenever she had repeated the experiment, the power has always manifested itself, though with varying degrees of energy.

Mrs. R. then took my friend to a part of the shrubbery, where she knew, from former trials, the divining rod would move in her hands. It did so, to my friend's extreme astonishment; and even continued to do so, when, availing himself of Mrs. R.'s permission, my friend grasped her hands with such firmness, as to preclude the possibility of any muscular action of her wrist or fingers influencing the result.

On another day my friend took with him pieces of copper and iron wire about a foot and a half long, bent something into the form of the letter V, with length enough in the horizontal limbs of the figure to form a sufficient _handle_ for either branch of these new-fashioned divining forks. He found that these instruments moved quite as freely in Mrs. R.'s hands as the hazel fork had done. Then he coated the two handles of one of them with sealing-wax, leaving, however, the extreme ends free and uncovered. When Mrs. R. used the rod so prepared, grasping it by the parts alone which were coated with sealing-wax, and walked over the same piece of ground as before, the wires exhibited no movement whatever. As often, however, as, with no greater change than touching the free ends of the wire with her thumbs, Mrs. R. established again a direct contact with the instrument, it again moved. The motion again ceased, as often as that direct contact was interrupted.

This simple narrative, made to me by the late Mr. George Fairholm, carried conviction to my mind of the reality of the phenomenon. I asked my friend why he had not pursued the subject further. He said he had often thought of doing so; and had, he believed, been mainly prevented by meeting with a work of the Count de Tristan, entitled, "Recherches sur quelques Effluves Terrestres," published at Paris in 1826, in which facts similar to those which he had himself verified were narrated, and a vast body of additional curious experiments detailed.

At my friend's instance, I sent to Paris for the book, which I have, however, only recently read through. I recommend it to your perusal, if the subject should happen to interest your wayward curiosity. Any thing like an elaborate analysis of it is out of the question in a letter of this sort; but I shall borrow from it a few leading facts and observations, which, at all events, will surprise you. I am afraid, after all, I should have treated the Count as a visionary, and not have yielded to his statements the credence they deserve, but for the good British evidence I had already heard in favour of their trustworthiness; and still I suspect that I should have imagined many of the details fanciful had I perused them at an earlier period than the present; for, it is but lately that I have read Von Reichenbach's experiments on the action of crystals, and of what not, upon sensitive human bodies; a series of phenomena utterly unlike those explored by the Count de Tristan, but which have, nevertheless, the most curious analogy and interesting points of contact with them, confirmatory of the truth of both.

But permit me to introduce you to the Count: he shall tell you his own tale in his own way; but as he does not speak English, at least in his book, I must serve as dragoman.

"The history of my researches is simply this:--Some twenty years ago, a gentleman who, from his position in society, could have no object to gain by deception, showed to me, for my amusement, the movements of the divining rod. He attributed the motion to the influence of a current of water, which I thought no unlikely supposition. But my attention was rather engaged with the action produced by the influence, let that be what it might. My informant assured me he had met with many others, through whom similar effects were manifested. When I was returned home, and had opportunities of making trials under favourable circumstances, I found that I possessed the same endowment myself. Since then I have induced many to make the experiment; and I have found a fourth, or at all events a fifth of the number, capable of setting the divining rod in motion at the very first attempt. Since that time, during these twenty years, I have often tried my hand, but for amusement only, and desultorily, and without any idea of making the thing an object of scientific investigation. But at length, in the year 1822, being in the country, and removed from my ordinary pursuits, the subject again came across me, and I then determined to ascertain the cause of these phenomena. Accordingly, I commenced a long series of experiments, from 1500 to 1800 in number, which occupied me nearly fifteen months. The results of above 1200 were noted down at the time of their performance."

The scene of the Count's operations was in the valley of the Loire, five leagues from Vendome, in the park of the Chateau de Ranac. The surface of ground which gave the desired results, was from 70 to 80 feet in breadth. But there was another spot equally efficient near the Count's ordinary residence at Emerillon, near Clery, four leagues southwest of Orleans, ten leagues south of the Loire, at the commencement of the plains of Sologne. The surface was from north to south, and was about of the same breadth with the other. These _exciting tracts_ form, in general, bands or zones of undetermined, and often very great length. Their breadth is very variable. Some are only three or four feet across, while others are one hundred paces. These tracts are sometimes sinuous and sometimes ramify. To the most susceptible they are broader than to those who are less so.

The Count thus describes what happens when a competent person, armed with a hazel fork, walks over these _exciting_ districts.

When two or three steps have been made upon the exciting tract of ground, the fork (which I have already said is to be held horizontally with its central angle forward,) begins gently to ascend; it gradually attains a vertical position--sometimes it passes beyond that, and lowering itself with its point towards the chest of the operator, it becomes again horizontal. If the motion continue, the rod, descending, becomes vertical with the angle downwards. Finally, the rod may again ascend and reassume its first horizontal position, having thus completed a revolution. When the action is very lively, the rod immediately commences a second revolution; and so it goes on as long as the operator walks over the exciting surface of ground.

It is to be understood that the operator does not grasp the handles of the fork so tightly but that they may turn in his hands. If, indeed, he tries to prevent this, and the fork is only of hazel twig, the rotatory force is so strong as to twist it at the handles and crack the bark, and finally, fracture the wood itself.

I can imagine you at this statement endeavouring to hit the proper intonation of the monosyllable "Hugh," frequently resorted to by Uncas, the son of Chingachkook, as well as by his parent, on similar occasions; though I remember to have read of none so trying in their experience. I anticipate the remarks you would subsequently make, which the graver Indian would have politely repressed:--"By my patience, this bangs Banagher, and exhausts credulity. The assertion of these dry impossibilities is too choking to listen to. The fork cannot go down in this crude and unprotected state. It is as inconvenient a morsel as the 'Amen' inopportunely suggested to the conscience-stricken Macbeth. Cannot you contrive some intellectual cookery to make the process of deglutition easier? Suppose you mix the raw facts with some flowery hypothesis, throw in a handful of familiar ideas to give a congenial flavour, and stir into the mess some leaven of stale opinion to make it rise; so, do try your hand at a philosophical souffle."

_Do manus._

Then you are to imagine that a current of electricity, or of something like it, may use your legs as conductors, as you walk over the soil from which it emanates, the circuit which it seeks being completed through your arms and the divining rod.

Nothing, then, would be more likely, upon analogy,--the extreme part of the current traversing a _curved_ and movable conductor,--than that the latter should be attracted or repelled, or both alternately, by or from the soil below, or by your person, or both.

And see, what would render such an explanation plausible? Why, the cessation of the rotatory motion of the divining fork, on the operator simultaneously holding in his hands a _straight_ rod of the same substance,--that is, conjointly with the other,--offering a shorter road to the journeying fluid, and so superseding the movable one. Well, the Count de Tristan did this, and the result was conformable to the hypothesis. When he walked over the exciting soil, with two rods held in his two hands, the one a hazel fork, the other a straight hazel twig, no motion whatever manifested itself in the former.

I flatter myself, that if you now continue to disbelieve, the fault is not mine: the fault must lie in your organisation. You must have a very small bump of credulity, and a very large bump of incredulity. You must be, actively and passively, incapable of receiving new ideas. How on earth did you get your old ones?--They must come by entail. But you are still a disbeliever?

Bless me! how am I to proceed? I catch at the slenderest straw of analogical suggestion. I have heard that the best cure, when you have burned your finger, is to hold it to the fire. Let me try a corresponding proceeding with you. My first statement has sadly irritated and blistered your belief; oblige me by trying the soothing application of the following fact:--

Although, in general, the divining rod behaves with great gravity and consistency, and looks contemplatively upward, when it comes upon grounds that move it, and then twirls respectably round, as you might twirl your thumbs in a tranquil continuity of rotation, yet there are some--a small proportion only--in whose hands it gibs at starting, and with whom it delights to go in the opposite direction. I say "delights" considerately; for it has a voice in the matter. So that a divining rod that has been used for some little time to go the wrong way, requires further time before it will go round right again.

The Count de Tristan found out the key to this anomaly.

He had discovered that a thick cover of silk upon the handles of the divining fork, like Mr. Fairholm's coating of sealing wax, entirely arrested its motion. Then he tried thinner covers, and found they only lowered, as it were, and lessened it. The thin layer of silk was only an imperfect impediment to the transmission of the influence. Then he tried the effect of covering one handle only of the divining rod with a thin layer of silk stuff. He so covered the right handle, and then the enigma above proposed was explained. The divining fork, which hitherto had gone the usual way with him, commencing by ascending, now, when set in motion, descended, and continued to perform an inverse rotation.

I think this is the place for mentioning, that when the Count walked over the exciting soil, rod in hand, but trailing likewise, from each hand, a branch of the same plant, (which therefore touched the ground with one end, and with the other touched, in his hand, the magic fork,) the latter had lost its virtue. There is no motion when the ends of the divining rod are in direct communication with the soil. The intervention of the human body is necessary for our result.

Then we are at liberty to suppose that the two sides of our frame have some fine difference of quality; that there is in general a sort of preponderance upon the right side; that in general, in reference to the divining rod, there is a superior vigour of transmission in the right side; that _this difference_, whatever it may be, of kind or degree, determines a current, causes motion, in the unknown fluid, which, in a simple arched conductor, with its ends upon the soil, remains in equilibrium. To explain the result of the last experiment I have cited of the Count de Tristan, no difference in quality in the two sides of the body need be assumed. Difference in conducting power alone will do. Then it might be said, that by covering the right handle of the divining rod, he checked the current rushing through the right side of the frame, and so gave predominance to the left current. One cannot help conjecturally anticipating, by the way, that with left-handed diviners, the divining rod will be found habitually to move the wrong way.

But it will not do _now_, to let this indication of a curious physiological element pass slurred over and unheeded,--this evidence so singularly furnished by the Count de Tristan's experiments, of a positive difference between the right and left halves of the frame, as if our bodies were the subjects of a transverse polarity. I expect it is too late to pass over now any such facts, the very genuineness of which derives confirmation, from their pointing to a conclusion so new to, and unexpected by their observer, yet recently made certain through an entirely different order of phenomena, observed by one clearly not cognisant of the Count de Tristan's researches.

I allude to the investigations of the Baron Freyherr von Reichenbach, published in Wohler and Liebig's "Annals of Chemistry," and already translated for the benefit of the English reader, and familiar to the reading public.

I take it for granted, Archy, that you have read the book I refer to, and that I have only to bring to your recollection two or three of the facts mentioned in it, bearing upon the present point.

Then you remember that Von Reichenbach has shown, that the two ends of a large crystal, moved along and near the surface of a limb, in certain sensitive subjects, produced decided but different sensations, one that of a draught of cool air, the other of a draught of warm air. That the proximity of the northward pole of a magnet again produces the former, of the southward pole the latter; of the negative wire of a voltaic pile, the former, of the positive wire, the latter; finally, that _the two hands_ are equally and similarly efficient, the right acting like the negative influence, the left like the positive, of those above specified. Von Reichenbach came to the conclusion, from these and other experiments, that the two lateral halves of the human body have opposite relations to the influence, the existence of which he has proved, while he has in part developed its laws. And he throws out the very idea of a transverse polarity reigning in the animal frame. Do you remember, in confirmation of it, one of the most curious experiments which he leads Fraeulein Maix to execute; valueless it might be thought if it stood alone, but joined with parallel effects produced on others, its weight is irresistible. Miss M. holds a bar magnet by its two ends. In any case it is sensibly inconvenient to her to do so. But when she holds the southward or positive pole of the magnet in her right hand, the northward or negative pole in her left, the thing is bearable. When, on the contrary, she reverses the position of the magnet, she immediately experiences the most distressing uneasiness, and the feeling as of an inward struggle in her arms, chest, and head. This ceases instantly on letting go the magnet.

I will not inflict upon you more of Von Reichenbach, though sorely tempted, so much is there in common between his Od and the influence investigated by the Count de Tristan. If you know the researches of the former already, why _verbum sat_; if not, I had better not attempt further to explain to you the _ignotum per ignotum_.

And in truth, with reference to the divining rod, I have already given my letter extension and detail enough for the purpose I contemplated, and I will add no more. I had no intention of writing you a scientific analysis of all that I believe to be really ascertained upon this curious subject. My wish was only to satisfy you that there is something in it. I have told you where you may find the principal collection of facts elating to it, should you wish further to study them; most likely you will not. The subject is yet in its first infancy. And what interest attaches to a new-born babe, except in the eyes of its parents and its nurse? I do not in the present instance affect even the latter relation. I am contented with exercising the office of registrar of the births of this and of two or three other as yet puling truths, the feeble voices of which have hitherto attracted no attention, amidst the din and roar of the bustling world. Hoping that I have not quite exhausted your patience, I remain, Dear Archy, yours faithfully.

MAC DAVUS.

HORAE CATULLIANE.

LETTER TO EUSEBIUS.

MY DEAR EUSEBIUS,--I have lately spent a few weeks with our old friend Gratian, at his delightful retreat in Devonshire, which he has planted, fenced, and cultivated, and made as much a part of himself in its every fit and aspect as his own easy coat. You see him in every thing, in the house and out of it. Cheerful, happy, kind, and best of men! Not an animal in his stall, or his homestead, but partakes of his temper. His horses neigh to you, his cows walk up to you, his pigs run to you, rather disappointed, for you have not his stick to rub their backs with. Rise in the early morning, when the dew is sparkling on the lawn, and his spaniel greets you, runs round and round you with a bark of joyous welcome; and even his cat will, as no other cat will, show you round the gravel walks. And thrice happy are all when their expected master appears, somewhat limping in his gait, (and how few, under his continual pain, would preserve his cheerfulness as he does!) Every creature looks up into his face as better than sunshine, and he forgets none. He has a good word for all, and often more than that in his pockets. The alms beggar, the Robin, is remembered and housed. There is his little freehold of wood raised some feet from the ground opposite the breakfast room window--an entrance both ways--there is he free to come and go, and always find a meal laid for him. Happy bird, he pays neither window-tax nor servant's tax, and yet who enjoys more daylight, or is better served?

Our good old friend still goes on improving this and improving that--has his little farm and his garden all in the highest perfection. Nor is the _least_ care bestowed on the greenhouse, and the little aviary adjoining; for here are objects of feminine pleasure, and he loves not himself so well as he does the mistress of all, the mother and the partner. O the terrestrial paradise, in which to wait old age, and still enjoy, and breathe to the last the sunshiny breath of heaven, and feel that all is blessed and blessing; for there is peace, and that is the true name for goodness within! You shall have, my dear Eusebius, no farther description. A drop-scene, however, is not amiss to any little conversational drama. You may shift it, if you like, occasionally to the small snug library--just such a one as you would have for such a retreat. Our excellent friend took less part in our talk than we could have wished; for it began generally at night, and his infirmity sent him to bed early. But in spite of a little remnant of influenza, I and the Curate often kept it up to a late hour, which you, Eusibius, will construe into an _early_ one. Never mind; though, perhaps, it was whispered to his discredit that the Curate kept bad hours. Those, however, who _knew_ the fact did not keep better, and so he thought all safe. How sweet and consoling is sometimes ignorance!

Now, the Curate--let me introduce you,--"My dear Eusebius, the Curate, a class man some year or two from Oxford--a true man, in a word, worthy of this introduction to you, Eusebius." "Mr. Curate, my friend Eusebius; see, don't trust to his gravity of years; it is quite deceptive, and the only deceit he has about him. He is Truth in sunshine and a fresh healthy breeze. So now you know each other." I wish, Eusebius, this were not a passage out of an imaginary conversation. Wait but for the swallow, and you shall shake hands; and you, I know, will laugh merrily within ten minutes after; and a laugh from you is as good as a ticket upon your breast, "All is natural here;" and for the rest, let come what will, that is uppermost. There will be no restraint. I cannot forbear, Eusebius, writing to you now, early in this new year, paying you this compliment, that your real conversations resemble in much "Landor's Imaginary," which you tell me you so greatly admire. Full, indeed, are they, these last two volumes, his works, of beautiful thoughts set off with exquisitely appropriate eloquence. You are in a garden, and if you do not always recognise the fruit as legitimate, you are quite as well pleased to find it like Aladdin's, and would willingly store all, as he did, in the bosom of your memory. Precious stones, bigger than plums and peaches, are good for sore eyes, and something more, though they have not the flavour of apricots.

We--that is, the Trio--had been reading one evening; or rather, our friend Gratian read to me and the Curate, the "Conversation with the Abbe Delille and W. L." We loitered, too, in the reading, as we do when the country is of a pleasant aspect, to look about us and admire--and we interspersed our own little talk by the way. Our friend could not consent that Catullus should walk with, and even, as it should seem, take the lead of his favourite Horace. "Catullus and Horace," says Landor, "will be read as long as Homer and Virgil, and more often, and by more readers."

"If," said the Curate, "Catullus were not nearly banished from our public schools and our universities."

"As he deserves," replied Gratian; "for although there is in him great elegance, yet is there much that should not be read; and his most beautiful and most powerful little poem, his 'Atys,' is in its very subject unfit for schoolboys."

CURATE.--Yes, if in the presence of a master; that makes the only difficulty. The poem itself is essentially chaste, and of a grand tragic action, and grave character--is in fact a serious poem, and as such any youth may read it _to himself_, scarcely to another. The very subject touches on that mystical, though natural sanctity that every uncorrupted man is conscious of in the temple of his own person. To _impart_ a thought of it is a deterioration. But a master must not hear it; and even for a very inferior reason. He cannot be a critical instructor.

GRATIAN.--You are right: that was a deep observation of Juvenal; it gave the caution,

"Maxima debetur pueris _reverentia_."

I have often thought that good masters have ever shown very great tact in reading the Classics, where there is so much, even in the purest, that it is best not to understand.

AQUILIUS. (I choose to give myself that name)--Or rather to pass lightly over, for you cannot help seeing it; put your foot across it, and not lengthways; as you would over a rut in a bad bit of road, which may nevertheless lead to a most delightful place at the end. I cannot but think the "Atys" to be a borrowed poem. It is quite Greek--unlike any thing Roman. What Roman ever expressed downright mad violent action? How much there is in it that reminds you of the story of Pentheus of Euripides. Both deny a deity, and both are punished by their own hands. But the resemblance is less in the characters than in the vivid pictures and rapidity of action; and the landscape glows like one fresh from Titian's pencil. Our friend Landor, here, I see, calls the author "graceful." He says of Virgil that he is not so "graceful as Catullus."

CURATE.--Grace, as separate from beauty, I suppose, means something lighter. It admits a feeling not quite in earnest, not so serious but it may be sported with.

GRATIAN.--It is a play, however, at which only genius is expert. It is many years since I read Catullus,--I confess I thought him rather a careless fellow, and that his Lesbia was but a doll to dress out in the tawdry ribbons of his verse.

AQUILIUS.--Whatever his Lesbia was, his verses are chaste; and if I find a Lesbia that is not as his verse, I think it a duty of charity to conclude there were two of the name; and we know that one Lesbia was a feigned name for Clodia.

GRATIAN.--That is not very complimentary to the constancy of Catullus.

CURATE.--I am afraid we are speaking of a virtue that was not Roman. I have been reading Catullus very recently, and was so much pleased with his gracefulness, that I thought it no bad practice to translate one or two of his small pieces: as I translated I became more and more aware of the clear elegance of his diction.

AQUILIUS.--I have always been an admirer of Catullus; and as I think a little employment will dissipate the remaining imaginary symptoms of influenza, when our friend and host is indulging his pigs by rubbing their backs with the end of his stick, and extending his walk to admire his mangel-worzel, or talking to his horses, his dogs, or his cat, and learning their opinions upon things in general, (for he is persuaded they have opinions, and says he knows many of them, and intends one day to catalogue them;) or while he is beyond his own gates, (and whoever catches a sight of his limp and supporting stick, is sure to hasten pace or to slacken it, loving his familiar talk,) looking out for an object of human sociality, I will steal into his library--take down his Catullus, and try my hand, good master Curate, against you. We will be, or at least believe ourselves to be,

"Et cantare pares et decantare parati."

GRATIAN.--Ay, do; and as the shepherds were rewarded by their umpires of old, will I reward one or both with this stick. Shall I describe its worth and dignity after the manner of Homer, that it may be worthy of you, if you are "baculo digni;" but whatever Aquilius may say in its disparagement, it is not a bit the worse for its familiarity with my pig's back. It is a good pig, and shall make bacon for the winner, which is the best lard he will get for his poetry. But I feel a warning hint, and must to bed--it is no longer with me the

"Cynthius aurem
Vellit et admonuit."

The warning comes rather stronger upon bone and muscle. Heaven preserve you both from the pains of rheumatism in your old age. I suppose a troubled conscience, which they say never rests, is but the one turn more of the screw: so good night.

Our friend gone, we took down Catullus, and read with great pleasure many of his short pieces, agreeing with Landor as to the gracefulness of the poet, and resolved, if it be trifling, to trifle away some portion of our time in translating him, and with this resolve we parted for the night.

We did not, Eusebius, meet again for some days, the Curate being fully employed in his rounds of parochial visiting by day, and in preparation by night for his weekly duty. You must imagine you now see us after tea retired to the snug library. Gratian, some years the elder, resting, (if that word may be allowed to his pain,--if not to his pain, however, it shall be due to his patience) resting, I say, his whole person in his easy chair, and tapping pretty smartly with his stick the thigh from his hip to his leg, and then settling himself into the importance of a judge; but do not imagine you see us like two culprits about to be condemned for feloniously breaking into the house of one Catullus, and stealing therefrom sundry articles of plate, which we had melted down in our own crucibles, and which were no longer, therefore, to be recognised as his, but by evidence against us. All translators show a bold front; for if they come short of the meed of originality, they shift off from them the modesty of responsibility, and unblushingly ascribe all faults to their author. We were therefore easy enough, and ready to make as free with our Rhadamanthus as with our Catullus. Not to be too long--thus commenced our talk.

AQUILIUS.--The first piece Catullus offers is his dedication--it is to an author to whom I owe a grudge, and perhaps we all of us do. He has caused us some tears, and more visible marks, and I confess something like an aversion to his concise style. It is to Cornelius Nepos. How much more like a modern dedication, than one of Dryden's day, both as to length and matter.

AD CORNELIUM NEPOTEM.

This little-book--and somewhat light--
'Tis polished well, and smoothly bright,
To whom shall I now dedicate?
To you, Cornelius, wont to rate
My trifling wares at highest worth.
E'en then, when boldly you stepped forth,
First of Italians to compose,
In three short books of nervous prose,
All age's annals--work of nice
Research, and studiously concise.
Such as it is receive--and look
With usual favour on my book;
And grant, O queen of wits and sages,
Motherless Virgin, these my pages
May pass from this to future ages.

CURATE.--Queen of wits and sages,--"O Patrima Virgo"--is that translating?

GRATIAN.--That's right--have at him!

AQUILIUS.--To be sure it is. What English reader would know else that Minerva was meant by "Motherless Virgin?" he would have to go back to the story of Jupiter beating her out of his own brains. So as he is not familiar with the creed, as one of it, I let him into the secret of it at once; and thus out comes the book from the "Minerva Press," "labe to bublion."

GRATIAN.--(Reads, "O Patrima Virgo," &c.) Well, well--let it pass. The dedication won't pay along reckoning. We must not look too nicely into the mouth of the book--let it speak for itself. Now, Mr. Curate, what have you?

CURATE.--I didn't trouble myself with such a dedication, but passed on to "Ad Passerem Lesbiae."

GRATIAN.--More attractive metal.

CURATE.--Not at all attractive; for there is considerable difficulty, and as I suppose a corrupted text, before we reach six lines. Here I let the bird loose.

Sparrow, minion of my dear,
Little animated toy,
Whom the fair delights to bear
In her bosom lapt in joy.

Whom she teases and displeases,
With her white forefinger's end,
Thus inviting savage biting
From her tiny feather'd friend.

Image burning of my yearning,
When at fondness she would play;
Thus she takes her aught that makes her
Pensive moments glide away.

'Tis a balm for her soft sorrow,
Tranquillising beauty's breast;
Would I might her plaything borrow,
So to lull my cares to rest.

I would prize it, as the maiden
Prized the golden apple thrown,
Which displacing her in racing,
Loosed at last her virgin zone.

AQUILIUS.--Here lies the difficulty:

"Quum desiderio meo nitenti
Carum nescio quid lubet jocari,
(Ut solatiolum sui doloris
Credunt, quum gravis acquiescet ardor.")

Another edition has it:

"Credo ut gravis acquiescat ardor."

GRATIAN.--Leave it to OEdipus--make sense of it, and we must not be too nice.

AQUILIUS.--Well, then, it possibly means, that she passes off the pain of the bite with a little coquetry and action, as we move about a limb pretty briskly when it tingles.

GRATIAN.--O, the cunning--argumentum ad hominem.

AQUILIUS.--Thus I venture--

AD PASSEREM LESBIAE.

Little sparrow, gentle sparrow,
Whom my Lesbia loveth so;
Her sweet playmate, whom she petteth,
And she letteth
To her bosom come and go.

Loving there to hold thee ever,
Her forefinger to thy bill,
Oft she pulleth and provoketh;
And she mocketh,
Till you bite her harder still.

Then new beauty glistening o'er her,
Pain'd and blushing doth she feign,
Some sweet play of love's excesses,
And caresses
More to soothe or hide her pain.

Would thou wert my pretty birdie,
Plaything--playmate unto me,
Knowing when her loss doth grieve me,
To relieve me,
For she seeks relief from thee.

Birdie, thou shouldst be such treasure
As the golden apple thrown,
Was to Atalanta, spying
Which in flying,
Cost the loosening of her zone.

CURATE.--That may be a possible translation of the difficulty, if the text be somewhat amended; but who ever heard of a hurt from the peck of a sparrow?

GRATIAN.--I'll take you into our aviary to-morrow, and you shall try on your own rough-work finger the peck of a bullfinch; and I think you may grant that Lesbia's finger was a little softer. Who would trust the tenderness of a Curate's forefinger, case-hardened as it is with his weekly steel-pen work, and deadened by the nature of it, against all Lesbias and their sparrows. Lesbia's forefinger was the very pattern of a forefinger, soft to touch as to feel--that did no work. I dare to say Shakspeare was thinking of such a one, when he said,

"The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense."

There's something playfully pretty, and lightly tender in this little piece; but I don't see by what link of thought poor Atalanta is brought in, and thus stripped to the skin, as she was out-stripped in the race. Admitting the text emendable, may not there be supposed such a connexion as this,--that he wishes the bird would be his plaything, that he might lay it as an offering at her feet,--that she might take it, as did Atalanta the golden apple, and become herself the winner's reward? Why should not I come in with an ad libitum movement? We, limping rheumaticists, have ever a spiteful desire to trip up the swift-footed. Now, then, for an old man's limp against Atalanta's speed.

Birdie, be my plaything, go--
At her flying feet be thrown;--
Like the golden apple, woo her,
Atalanta's wise pursuer
Cast and won her for his own;--
Pretty birdie aid me so.

Galatea won her lover by the apple. "Malo me Galatea petit."

CURATE.--A well thrown apple that golden pippin, grown doubtless from a pip dropt on Mount Ida, and hence the name. We shall not run against you, I perceive.

GRATIAN.--Don't talk of golden pippins, or I shall mount my hobby, and go through the genealogy of my whole orchard, and good-bye to Catullus.

CURATE.--If you give way to your imagination, you may invent a thousand meanings to the passage; but taking it as I find it, I would attach only this meaning to it,--that Catullus would say, "Lesbia's favourite sparrow" would be as attractive to me as was the golden apple which was thrown in her way when she was racing, to Atalanta. She was to be married to the first youth who could outrun her, so that literally she was very much run after.

GRATIAN.--Run after, indeed! Her pursuer, Hippomanes, hadn't my rheumatism (tapping his knee and leg with his stick) or she would have had the apple, and not him. You young men of modern days do not throw your golden apples, but look to pick up what you can. These old tales, or old fables, cast a shade of shame upon our unromantic days. There was a king's daughter offered like a "handy-cap," as if the worthy of mankind were a racing stud.