was very ill; she said she felt very uncomfortable all over her body, and thought she was going into hysterics.

The first time this occurred, our efforts were directed to remove the disagreeable sensations by soothing passes. She continually said, she should be better presently: but finding no amelioration take place, we began to suspect the cause of the evil, and had a dress of another material substituted for the silk one. Immediately on the removal of the dress her countenance brightened, and her forebodings of hysterics and fainting gave place to her accustomed gaiety. On the other occasion also, the instantaneous ease that followed the removal of the dress was apparent. The fact that silk produces such effects is well known to mesmerizers: but the laws of its operation, and the circumstances that enter into combination with, or modify it, we are unable to explain. We have occasionally seen persons allow a silk handkerchief to lie on their lap, or hold it, or even take up a silk dress to admire it, without showing any signs of repugnance to it.

The occurrence of unpleasant circumstances, such as those just described, render it necessary to introduce a caution that persons look well to the circumstances of the case before they begin the mesmeric operations. A mesmerizer should be prepared to be calm and undisturbed; whatever may occur, to be frightened at nothing; and always on the look-out, by passes or otherwise, to remove any unpleasant symptom he may perceive in the patient.

It has before been mentioned, how we succeeded in producing community of feeling in Mary by using the proper method of operation. This phenomenon is often called community of taste, because, we apprehend, this is the most easily producible, and generally most easy of verification; but it is, speaking with more exactness, community of impressions of the senses, because it extends to all bodily impressions, under which we shall hereafter have occasion to show that mental operations are included.

The community we are here speaking of does not always appear in a participation of motion, but the feelings of the entranced are sometimes as if the motion actually took place in them, when in fact it does not. Thus we were one day conversing with a mesmerized person, whom we shall style Mrs. B., on this subject, and had just been applying the hand to the eye; she evinced no movement, but presently, in illustration of some such remarks as the above, observed, "Just now, when you were rubbing your eye, it seemed nearly the same as if I did it myself." This person had had some experience in the mesmeric state, and had learned to distinguish her own impressions from those received from the mesmerizer. This intelligence she did not possess at first, for she evinced much spleen on the mesmerizer eating a clove, and asked why they gave her such things; but afterwards she would address her mesmerizer thus-" Oh! I am so thirsty, do drink up your tea,"-"I am so fond of apples, will you eat one;" thus evidencing the perfect but unseen link that bound her to the mesmerizer. When the operator complied with her request, she smacked her lips with expressions of satisfaction.

In community of taste we generally observe the lips and jaws to move corresponding to the movements of the mesmerizer, and the

entranced person to go through the operation of swallowing. Thus on one occasion, having entranced two persons when we were eating our supper, it afforded much amusement to a gentleman standing by, to observe the jaws of each person work with increased energy as we conveyed a fresh spoonful to our mouth. To exhibit this phenomenon properly it is best to use something inodorous, in order that nothing but the taste may be exercised, and, of course, to take care that the taste of one substance has disappeared, before another be tried; moreover, the mesmerizer should place himself behind the entranced, in order that no objection may exist. Of course in all similar experiments the like precautions are expedient. It were futile to give further illustrations of this phenomenon, because there are but few persons who have not opportunities of verifying it for themselves-that is, if they choose.

But we must not forget, that the link of community is not always very strong, when actual contact does not exist. One person often mesmerized, whom we have designated as Miss A., seldom showed much community, unless when in contact with the mesmerizer; but she did occasionally manifest it when a little removed. The impressions generally occupied some little time in their transmission from us to her, but she seldom failed of being accurate, provided the proper passes had been employed at the commencement of attempting the phenomenon, as was also the case with her in all manifestations of community of impressions.

Community of smell we cannot be said to have tested, for under this head we can hardly class sundry pinches of snuff, with which we have tickled Miss A.'s nose through our own. One evening, when a gentleman was present who had seen nothing of Mesmerism, and did not believe in it, we were showing community of taste, standing behind Miss A. with the back towards her. The gentleman, thinking it might all have been preconcerted, suddenly drew his snuffbox from his pocket, and presented it to us; we with all expedition took a pinch, and immediately Miss A. began to sneeze, and bitterly complained of our giving her such nasty stuff. We cannot vouch that emotions of wonder did not obscure the gentleman's judgment that evening, but he afterwards had calmer opportunities for observing Mesmerisin, and framed his resolution to practise it.

There are difficulties attending the verification of community of hearing, but yet we have met with some evidence of its existence in the following way, afforded especially in the case of the intelligent Mrs. B. just now adverted to:-It was very easy to destroy her impressions from the senses, but yet, immediately after this had been effected, she once or twice appeared still to hear the voices of persons not in communication with her. On interrogation, she averred that she heard nothing of herself, and was sensible of the voices only in proportion as the impressions of the mesmerizer were transmitted to her. This was borne out by the further observation that, the mesmerizer's attention being abstracted from the noises about her, she appeared to be totally unconscious of them, so long as she continued in the state in which the senses are paralyzed.

Community of sight we occasionally verified in the case of Miss A. Sometimes she complained that the exertion of looking hurt her eyes,

and she refused to observe what impressions were conveyed to her; but two or three times she described minutely the objects we were contemplating, speaking, however, only when questioned, for she seldom exerted herself spontaneously. Thus a friend having fixed a kaleidoscope towards the light, we observed attentively the coloured star, holding Miss A. by the hand. First we elicited that the star was vandyked, with six sharp points; then she told the colours, in answer to our questions of "What next?" Red spot in the middle, then two or three coloured rings, as green, blue, &c.; then purple, then the yellow points, with a red spot in the centre of each. She hesitated somewhat at the purple, as being difficult to find a name for. We considered her perfectly accurate in all but this colour, for our appreciation of colour enabled us only to distinguish some shade dark and dingy-a dirty black; but two gentlemen who were present pronounced, after some hesitation, that it was purple. This phenomenon is worth noticing, insomuch as her appreciation of the impression was more accurate than ours. Her phrenological organ of colour is larger than ours, and it may be some way due to this that such a result was obtained.

We now come to community of touch, and of impressions on the nerves generally-as of sensations of heat, cold, pain, &c., of which we before gave one or two instances. Mrs. B. finding herself inconveniently warm, would ask her mesmerizer to doff a warm garment; most mesmerized persons would only complain of the heat. As to touch, we have occasionally taken hold of some object, and desired a description from Miss A. of what she held in her hand. She would then close her hand, and rub her fingers together, in order to ascertain in which hand the object was, and then tell the shape as well as she could, in which she was often successful. Once we held a watch; after a little feeling, she said she held a watch. We quietly slipped the watch, and held it by the guard-chain; she then said she felt a chain in her hand. In this she was assisted by no lucidity, for she was at that time too unskilful to employ that endowment. Miss A. very rarely showed community of impressions, unless it was purposely excited; and we believe it is owing to this that she rarely showed community of thought, or a knowledge of what was passing in our mind. Some persons can readily discover, not only what is passing in the mind of the mesmerizer, but in that also of a third person. That this phenomenon is properly classed under the head of community of feeling we will proceed to render probable. Now, perhaps, some of our readers do not believe in phrenology; to them we say that Mesmerism furnishes abundant facts, which of themselves can hardly fail to bring conviction to the most sceptical. By it we are led into a royal road for expeditiously ascertaining the functions of the different parts of the brain. Many phrenologists have on good grounds adopted the hypothesis, that when the mind is in activity the brain is in motion here and there in its several parts; this is all with which we have to do at present. Mesmerized persons, by an operation of lucidity, can look at the brain, and do perceive it in motion. Proceeding, then, on these grounds, supposing a particular idea to correspond to a particular state of the brain, be it either a state of rest or of motion, and a change to follow

as the idea changes, the brain being the mechanical instrument by which mental operations are conveyed, a mesmerized person will feel the same conditions of rest and motion in his own brain, and thus particular ideas will be conveyed to his mind corresponding to the ideas of the mesmerizer, or even of a third person. Here again we can cite the testimony of Mrs. B., who, sitting behind us, was very attentive to the current of our thoughts, while we were penning some notes on this subject, and she asserted her conviction of the truth of them. She further gave us some details of thoughts she had discovered by a participation in them, and named certain ideas from which she dissented at the time of perceiving them. She could also avoid the contemplation of the thoughts of the mesmerizer; for supposing that she might know what the mesmerizer was writing in a letter, we asked her, but she answered indignantly, "Do you suppose I look over other people's letters ?" We conceive that the operation of avoiding the gathering of the thoughts of the mesmerizer while community of feeling exists, must be something analogous to the effort by which we forcibly divert the mind from dwelling on any train of ideas that present themselves with disagreeable strength and pertinacity which we suppose to be effected by an excitement being supplied to some other part of the brain stronger than that in the excited part. There may exist a power of transposing the excite

ment.

Another person once surprised us in the following way :- -We were sitting holding her hand, and meditating to leave her for a few minutes; as soon as the resolve was taken, she tightly grasped our hand with both of hers, and exclaimed, "Don't;" and she said we were going to leave her. As yet no movement had been made, and there was nothing to indicate our departure but the mental action of resolving on it. Writers on Mesmerism have given details of many examples of this phenomenon more interesting than the above, and we hope our readers may follow them in their success.

If community of impressions shows the existence of some invisible link between the mesmerizer and the entranced, the attraction manifested towards him shows it much more strongly. We ourselves have never seen the head or hand of a mesmerized person following the hand of the mesmerizer, although many mesmerists speak of this as a very ordinary phenomenon; but we have frequently seen a partial development of this in the mesmerized person pointing with the hand towards the mesmerizer, as he moved to different positions in the room, following his motions as he shifted about. Once, indeed, on making passes down the arm of a mesmerized person, we observed that, when the passes were along the outer side of the arm, so as to traverse the back of the hand, the fingers being negligently curved, as the pass descended along the back of the hand the fingers became straight, or rather turned back as much as possible; then, as the pass descended along the inside of the arm and hand, the fingers bent in to meet it; and so they turned one way or the other, according as the pass was made within or without. The former instance of attraction that we have given appeared only to exist in Miss A., when we were at a little distance from her, and she felt uncomfortable at the absence when her attention was occupied by conversing with per

sons put regularly in communication with her, she would scarcely ever point towards us. But the cause to which we assign the pointing is itself an attraction towards the mesmerizer that we have never seen a mesmerized person free from, and it appears to co-exist with, and form a part of the mesmeric state in all cases, and can hardly be classed among the phenomena producible at will. We have seldom been fortunate enough to meet with mesmerized persons who would give an account of their likes and dislikes, any further than that they existed but a person whom a mesmerizer had been essaying ineffectually to entrance, and had felt much of the influence without losing consciousness, was at that point left by the mesmerizer, who, desisting from his operations, became engaged in another part of the room; she very speedily roused up, and said she was so aroused by the horrible feeling of desolation and loneliness that she experienced; and her description might warrant the idea put forth by some mesmerists-that the entranced seems to live through the operator, and to be animated from his mind. However, we have seen persons in whom this attraction existed so strongly, that a very slight removal of the mesmerizer would produce weeping or hysterics; yet if a person in communication should take them by the hand, and engage their attention in conversation, they would appear perfectly contented and happy; only if an opportunity for recovering the hand of the mesmerizer presented itself, the person in communication received an instant dismissal. Some persons will make no resistance by word or deed to the departure of the mesmerizer, unless they be questioned, and then they will always express a dislike of being left by him; thus we see the manifestations of this phenomenon, similar in kind but different in degree.

Occasionally, on returning after absence to our subject, when her attention has been much engaged in conversation, we have crept noiselessly up behind her chair, but she would seem unaware of the circumstance, till, by an effort of volition, we caused her to feel our presence, and then she would become impatient to obtain possession of our hand; but if her attention were not much diverted, she would easily feel our entrance into the room, although her back were to the door and she were not lucid. And now comes the question, could she feel the presence of any other person? As far as we can collect from many instances, we are led to the opinion that mesmerized persons feel all the people in the room, and that the comfort or discomfort of such feelings depends much on the disposition of mind of each of the spectators moreover, they appear to have different feelings of the same person at different times, according to the warmth or coldness of his benevolence on each occasion. It has sometimes been a source of annoyance, when a friend, to whom we entertained no repugnance, was witnessing our experiments, to find the patient disposed to be sulky, and unwilling to do anything we required. It was no use to put the person in communication, to relieve the unpleasant impressions from a non-mesmerized body: she would observe nothing hardly but the disagreeable person. Once, in particular, an old gentleman was present, who appeared to behave with interest and attention; but our patient was so much oppressed, that we almost failed in some experiments. As soon as he left the