would greatly tend to establish the truth of the science, and it is of sufficient importance to induce persons to make inquiry. Every quack-medicine advertisement asserts these things, and supplies names; but few trust to them, and fewer still take the trouble to pass a correspondence with the names. Joseph Ady certainly too boldly gave the name of "his friend" Sir Peter Laurie, and, if I mistake not, of the Lord Chancellor, as having recovered large property through his means. The appeal met with a flat denial. In the case of "Adolphe at home," there was every motive to be more particular, because it was his special business and calling to give such important informations for the recovery of estates. I was greatly disappointed that no names for reference were given. Now, it may be thought that I am writing in a bantering spirit, and am throwing ridicule on the whole subject of mesmerism. By no means. If, in the train of thought as I write, some suspicious arise, either on account of a seeming suppression, or from an ill-judged manner of setting forth an exhibition—or if there arise but a half-suspicion—a doubt, a difficulty to admit all that is claimed—it is in the very nature of the discussion that the stretched cord should fly back the whole length. Had I been entirely disposed to ridicule the science, I might have taken "the bull by the horns," or have attended Miss Martineau in her vaccination; but really, and in good faith, I had no such intention when I began to write this paper on mesmerism. The fact is, I neither believe nor disbelieve it, and therefore vacillate, and am now on one side, and now on the other; and if I am treating it lightly now, according to the different state of mind, I have been through the greater part treating it gravely.
I am uncertain, from what I have seen, if mesmeric influence be given more through the hand or the eye—both are used; but surely the perfect clairvoyant, who can travel, being in "rapport," with any one to any part of the world, might easily, one would suppose, converse with, and if not that, be conversant with the doings of the object of his affection. The transmission of a glove, for instance, by post, might be enough for "rapport." Surely the electric fluid, if it be electric, might pass through such a chain. Do you remember the strange correspondence kept up by two lovers at a great distance, mentioned by Strada, and quoted from him by the Guardian, No. 119. In the person of Lucretius, he "gives an account of the chimerical correspondence between two friends, by the help of a load-stone, which had such virtue in it that it touched two several needles. When one of these needles, so touched, began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, began to move at the same time, and in the same manner. He tells us that the two friend; being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner that the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed the needles on each of these plates, in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon separating one from another, into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles under, each of them retired in privacy at the time appointed, and immediately looked at the dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for—making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion. The friend, at the same time, saw his own sympathetic needle moving itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant, over cities, mountains, seas, or deserts." If any ask, what this has to do with mesmerism? the answer is, that both the needle and the thing or person mesmerised may be under the same power—electricity; and some are of that opinion. That a piece of metal, made a loadstone, should, wherever
