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    sm alle st injury accruing to the health of , persons so treated , on their being restored to thewaking state . He ^ practically illustrated the assertion , while we were discussing the subject during a morning visit at his house . V was maguetizedj and placed , sitting on the edge of her chair , with her body inclined sideways thoroughly out of the perpendicular , and one of her arnis extended and raised towards her head . " The magnetizer then made one " pass" over her ; , and she remained in this position , as perfectly still as ir she had been turned to marble ( her outstretched arm not moving by a hair ' s breadth ) , for full ten minutes ; or , in other words , until the spe ctators were tired of watching any longer . Should any readers

    consider that our want of patience to sit out the half-hour , during which the Count had himself suggested that we should wait , vitiated the completeness of this experiment , I recommend those ladies or gentlemen to put themselves in V——' s position , as above described , and to try to sit quite still in it for three minutes together by a watch ; allowing a friend , at the same time , to keep an eye on the arm they will have to extend , for the purpose of noting whether it moves or not during that interval . I hav e myself occasionally officiated as amateur model to ftttist-friends , and know therefore , by experience , what the difficulty is of keeping a limb extended , or the body inclined , without support , in anything like a still

    position , even for so short a time as three minutes . V- was awakened immediately after this experiment . I asked her whether she felt any sensation of stiffness in the arm which she had held out . The reply was , " None whatever ; " and she proved its truth by immediately taking up and resuming her et crochet" work , which our visit had interrupted . Some idea may be formed of the extent to which this petrifying power of the magnetic influence can be carried , by the . fact ( communicated by letter a few days ago ) that Count P— - — - suddenly stopped V- -, and struck her perfectly motionless , by a strong act of will , merely expressed by a single " pass , " while she was dancing the polka I Incredible as this must appear to most people , it is nevertheless true . Besides the young lady ' s partner in the dance , other persons were present who saw the thing done .

    I have now communicated to you the nature and result of all the experiments in Animal Magnetism which my stay in Somersetshire gave me an opportunity of witnessing—of ally at least , which I find preserved in my notes . In some few cases , I unhappily omitted to make my usual record on the spot ; and to those cases , accordingly , I-shall not direct your attention . I am unwilling to trust only to my recollection , however vivid I may consider it to be , in writing such a narrative , as the present—a narrative which I should consider to be quite valueless , unless I knew it to be throughout literally true .

    In closing this short series of letters , I can merely repeat what I wrote in commencing them . Having been allowed by Count P—— to make public , in any form I chose , the experiments which he was kind enough to show me , I availed myself of that permission , because I considered that I had enjoyed , at his house , an unusually favourable opportunity for fairly estimating , by the fairest practical demonstration , the real merits of Animal Magnetism . The proceedings which I thus resolved to report , were

    proceedings conducted by a gentleman who followed the science only for its own sake , and for whose character and position I had the best and amplest guarantee . It is on this account , quite as much as on account of the interna l evidence to their genuineness which I believe the experiments here reported to contain , that I venture to think my narrative at least worthy of attention from persons who will do me the common justice to read it with minds unprejudiced , either one way or the other .

    As to the future of Animal Magnetism , it seems to me to be already assured . The science has , of late years , gained a vast hold on the convictions of men of intellect and men of honour in all quarters . As such persons continu e to study it , year by year , more closely , and to extract from it more clearly the practical uses to which it may assuredly be directed for the benefit of humanity , so will the circle of believers , whose belief is worth gaining , inevitably widen and widen j and so will the masses , who follow , but never lead , bo drawn into that circle after them . Leave the

    to work its way honestly and boldly by its own merits , its visible , actual results ; and it will certainly continue to advance , as it has already advanced . Angry partisanship will not avail it anything ; public exhibitions of it , displayed to gaping crowds at so much a head , will lend it no assistance that is of real value . Let it be studied by each man who desires to know it , quietly and reverently , as a mystery too perilously important to be trifled with for mere amusement . Let the results of such studies as these , communicated by competent writers , and attested by competent witnesses , be the only sources whence persons who doubt the science ( and can doubt it fairly ) seek their primary information or encouragement , i "us practised , and thus examined , Animal Magnetism need ask no more j «> r then will have been conceded to it the only privilege that it ever required—the privilege of being justly judged . W . W . C .

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    PEACE THE ACCOMPLICE . An esteeme d correspondent has called to account one of our contributors or his hatred of that which he accounts a false peace : we print our cores pondent ' letter , with the graceful versos that he encloses , and our contributor will next week answer as ho best can . Meanwhile , let him have u » o shield of a Muso not less eloquent ; we extract the subjoined lines from

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning ' s Casa Guidi Windows—a noble appeal from the false to the true Peace . - . " A cry is up in England , which doth ring The hollow wopld throngh , that for ends of trade And virtue , and God ' s better worshipping ' , We henceforth should exalt the name of Peace , ' And- leave those rusty vfars that eat , the soul , — . ' . ( Besides their clippings at our golden fleece . ) I , too , have loved peace , and from bole to bole Of immemorial , undeciduous trees , " Would write , as lovers use , upon a scroll The holy name of Peace , and set it high Where none should pluck it down . On trees , I say , — Not upon gibbets !—With , the greenery Of dewy branches ' and the flowery May , Sweet mediation ' twixt the earth and sky , Providing , for the shepherd ' s holiday ! Not upon gibbets I—though the vulture leaves Some quiet to the bones he first picked bare . Not upon dungeons ! though the wretch who grieves And groans within , stirs not the outer air As much as little field-mice stir the sheaves . Not , upon chain-bolts ! though the slave ' s despair Has dulled his helpless , miserable brain , And left him blank beneath the freeman ' s whip , To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain . Nor yet on starying homes ! where many a lip Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain f I love no peace which is jiot fellowship , And which includes not mercy . I would have Rather , the raking of the guns across The world , and shrieks against Heaven ' s architrave . Bather , the straggle in the slippery fosse , Of dying men and horses , and the wave Blood-bubbling . . . . . Enough said !—By Christ ' s own cross , And by the faint heart of my womanhood , Such things are better than a Peace which sits Beside the hearth in self-commended mood , And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits Are howling out of doors against the good ~ Of the poor wanderer . What ! your peace admita Of outside anguish while it sits at home ? I loathe to take its name upon my tongue-It is no peace . ' Tis treason , stiff with doom , — 'Tis gagged despair , and inarticulate wrong , Annihilated Poland , stifled Rome , Dazed Naples , Hungary fainting ' neath the thong-, And Austria wearing a smooth olive-leaf On her brute forehead , while her hoofe outpresa The life from these Italian souls , in brief . O Lord of Peace , who art Lord of Righteousness , Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief , Pierce them with conscience , purge them with redress , And give us peace which is no counterfeit !"

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    March 13 , 1852 . ] THE LEADEB . : W

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    THE SICILIAN BRIDE . Although the theatrical week has been busy , I have been theatrically ' idle ; and instead of doing my duty in gaseous boxes , have lived through the rolling hours in severer studies , or in enchanted drawing-rooms , watching the Drama of Life , and following its shifting scenes with something of keener interest than the Stage has power to excite . We talk of tragedies and dramas , farces and comedies—nay , we write them sometimes , and strut triumphant at the feeble achievement ; yet what are allour poor intentions compared with the terrible reality daily being aoted around us ! Oh , if the curtain of smooth appearance and polished indifference could but for a moment bo drawn up , what a stage , and what situations on that stage , would meet the eyo ! The aching hearts that throb beneath the smiling brows!—the dark entangled perplexity of desire and crime which lies under the calm exterior I—the doubts that rack , the lusts that rage , the hate that festers , the anguish that eats away the heart , tho mad ambitions that torment it , —all veiled from the gaze by a conventional propriety of speech and deportment ! Such volcanoes boiling and seething under tho graceful vine-clad mountain ; such abysses of horror lightly bridged over by a fair-sooming appearance ! But , happily for us all , we live bosido the volcano , and hoed it not , because we see it not ; tho drama is acted , but the curtain is not raised , and -we see little or nothing of it , and so we betako ourselves to theatres , where some exaggerated picture of it may bo seen . Vivian , who haa lost his eagerness of tho stage since he lias loarnt to raise for himself a corner of tho curtain , and so watch tho Drama of Life as it is played out before him , has boon this week sacrificing duty to philosophy , and is forced to rely on tho roports of others for nvucli of tho week ' s record . Balfe ' s now opera , for example , I did not see . Frankly , I Was not greatly tempted . Tho Balfeian ballad is ray abomination . I never could dream that ! dwelt in marble halls ; my heart novor is bowed down withweight of woo ; and as to our boing happy yot—it all depends upon the other " party . " Nevertheless , there is a certain life—movement- —animal spirits—call it what vou will , in Balfe ' s music , not without its claim upon popularity . His writing has an Irish accent in it , bright , sprightly , gomaL something vulgar , perhaps , and ovorlaid with blarney , but pleasant and full of life . In a short comic opera he i 3 charming y but a grand opera , and tho poetry by Bunn— " that gives us pauso" 1 I did not go ; and as far as I con

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 13, 1852, page 257, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1926/page/21/