Electricity was to be the wonder working talisman! I lectured him out of all opposition, silenced his scruples, and got him to fix an evening for the exorcisation of the evil spirit as it might well be called which had taken possession of him. Let the reader fancy, then, N's sitting-room, about seven o'clock in the evening, illuminated with a cheerful fire, and four mould can dles; the awful electrifying machine duly disposed for action; Mr. S of Hospital, Dr. and myself, all standing round it, adjusting the jars, chains, &c.; and Nambo busily engaged in laying bare his master's neck, N- all the while eyeing our motions with excessive trepidation. I had infinite difficulty in getting his consent to one preliminary-the bandaging of his eyes. I succeeded, however, at last, in persuading him to undergo the operation blindfolded, in as suring him that it was essential to success; for that if he was allowed to see the application of the conductor to the precise spot requisite, he might start, and occasion its apposition to a wrong place! The real reason will be seen presently; the great manœuvre could not have been practised but on such terms; for how could I give his head a sudden twist round at the instant of his receiving the shock, if he saw what I was about? I ought to have mentioned that we also prevailed upon him to sit with his arms pinioned, so that he was completely at our mercy. None of us could refrain from an occasional titter at the absurdity of the solemn farce we were playing-fortunately, however, unheard by N. At length, Nambo being turned out, and the doors locked, lest, seeing the trick, he might disclose it subsequently to his master, we commenced operations. Sworked the machine -round, and round, and round, whizzing-sparkling-crackling till the jar was moderately charged: it was then conveyed to N's neck, Dr.- using the conductor, N, on receiving a tolerably smart shock, started out of his chair, and I had not time to give him the twist I had intended. After a few moments, however, he protested that he felt "something loosened" about his neck, and was easily induced to submit to another shock considerably stronger than the former. The instant the rod was applied to his neck, I gave the head a sudden excruciating wrench towards the left shoulder, S--striking him, at the same moment, a smart blow on the crown. Poor N--!" Thank God!" we all exclaimed, as if panting for breath. "I-i-s it all over?" stammered N-faintly-quite confounded with the effects of the threefold remedy we had adopted. "Yes-thank God, we have at last brought your head round again, and your face looks forward now as heretofore!" said I. "O, remove the bandage-remove it! Let my own eyesight behold it !-Bring me a glass!" "As soon as the proper bandages have been applied to your neck, Mr. N.” "What, eh-a second pudding, eh?" "No, merely a broad band of dyachlym plaster, to prevent-hem the contraction of the skin," said I. As soon as that was done, we removed the handkerchiefs from his eyes and arms. "Oh, my God, how delightful!" he exclaimed, rising and walking up to the mirror over the mantelpiece. Ecstacy All really right again"- "My dear N, do not, I beg, do not work your neck about in that way, or the most serious disarrangement of the-the parts," said I— "Oh, it's so, is it? Then I'd better get into bed at once, I think, and you'll call in the morning.' I did, and found him in bed. "Well, how does all go on this morning?" I inquired. "Pretty well-middling," he replied, with some embarrassment of ness * manner. "Do you know, Doctor, only that were turned-and-thatI've been thinking about it all night that-most ridiculous piece of busilong-and I strongly suspect His serious air alarmed me-I began to fear that he had discovered the trick. "I strongly suspecthem-hem"-he continued. "What?" I inquired, rather sheepishly. Why, that it was my brains Why, to be sure, Mr. N—” and he was so ashamed about it, that he set off for the country immediately, and among the glens and mountains of Scotland, endeavored to forget that ever he dreamed that HIS HEAD WAS TURNED. THE PENITENT'S RETURN. BY MRS. HEMANS. Can guilt or misery ever enter here? My father's house once more, Is it the brooding night? All solemnized it seems, And still'd and darken'd in each time-worn hue, And this high elm, where last I stood and linger'd-where my sisters made The days once eloquent with tones They never more may bring, Sweet as e'er woo'd a woman's lip To Love's delicious spring; Deep as the distant clarion's breath Upon the moonlight air, Inspiring high and glorious deeds, It were a pride to share! The form whose beauty imaged forth On which the morn may brightly rise, No gift of thine, love, meets my gaze, No, not, to soothe me in my tears, Thou'st pass'd, my love, like some pale star Nor left to cheer my blighted path One lonely ray behind! They tell me I am waning fast, They deem the festive dance may woo My eyes are wandering fast and far I perish in their festive light, I die amidst their mirthOh! take me to thine arms, dear love, From this cold, cheerless earth! TRUTH, YOUTH, AND AGE. Truth. What is Immortality? Youth. It is the glory of the mind, The deathless voice of ancient Time; The light of genius, pure, refined! The monument of deeds sublime! O'er the cold ashes of the dead It breathes a grandeur and a power, Which shine when countless years have fled, Magnificent as the first hour! Of the old forgotten graves, MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE PHYSICAL NECESSITIES OF MAN. THE primary physical wants of the human being are food, clothing, shelter, and defence. To supply these, he has cleared and cultivated the earth-he has invented his various arts, and built houses and cities. At first, we see him like the other animals, laboring under the wants which their common nature produces-under sufferings to which they are alike exposed, actuated by passions which boil in their blood, Hunger, Thirst, the inclemency of the skies, the fear and anger of self-preservation in the midst of powerful and inflammable enemies. Hunger and Thirst cultivate the earth. Fear builds castles and embattles cities. The animal is clothed by nature against cold and storm, and shelters himself in his den. Man builds his habitation, and weaves his clothing. With horns, or teeth, or claws, the strong and deadly weapons with which nature has furnished them, the animal kinds wage their war; he forges swords and spears, and constructs implements of destruction that will send death almost as far as his eye can mark his foe, and sweep down thousands together. The animal that goes in quest of his food, that pursues or flies from his enemy, has feet, or wings, or fins; but man bids the horse, the camel, the elephant, bear him, and yokes them to his chariot. If the strong animal would cross the river, he swims. Man spans it with a bridge. But the most powerful of them all stands on the beach and gazes on the ocean. Man constructs a ship, and encircles the globe. Other creatures must traverse the element nature has assigned, with means she has furnished. He chooses his element, and makes his means. Can the fish traverse the waters? So can he. Can the bird fly the air? So can he. Can the camel speed over the desart? He shall bear man as his rider. But to see what he owes to inventive art, we should compare man, not with inferior creatures, but with himself, looking over the face of human society, as history or observation shows it. We shall find him almost sharing the life of brutes, or removed from them by innumerable differences, and incalculable degrees. In one place we see him harboring in caves, naked, living, we might almost say, on prey, seeking from chance his wretched sustenance, food which he eats just as he finds it. This extreme degradation is rare; perhaps nowhere are all these circumstances of destitution found together-but still they are found, fearfully admonishing us of our nature. Man has as yet done nothing for himself-his own hands have done nothing for him-he lives like a beggar on the alms of nature. Turn to another land, and you see the face of the earth covered with the works of his hand-his habitation, wide-spreading, stately cities-his clothing and the ornaments of his person culled and fashioned from the three kingdoms of nature. For his food, the face of the earth bears him tribute; and the seasons and changes of heaven concur with his own art in ministering to his board. This is the difference which man has made in his own condition by the use of his intellectual powers, awakened and goaded on by the necessities of his physical constitution. He stands naked in the midst of nature, but armed with powers which will make him her sovereign lord. Want, Pain, and Death, howling in the forest, urge him on, and he rouses up the powers of his invincible mind to the contention with physical evil. It is not his hand alone that delivers him from this lot of affliction; but it is his mind working in that powerful organ. His first food is from nature's bounty; his next is from his own art. He sees that the seeds she casts into the ground spring up with another season. He casts them in, and waits for the season. He then, at her guidance, chooses the soil and prepares it; and thus his first step towards the conquest of nature, is to observe her own silent and mysterious operations. The early history of the great primary arts of life, their origin, and the first steps of their progress, lie buried in the darkness of antiquity; but thus much we may understand, that man found himself in the midst of a world teeming with natural productions, and full of the operation of natural powers offering him benefit, or menacing him with destruction. The various knowledge, the endlessly multiplied arts, by which he fills his life with the supplies of its great necessities, and with all its great resources of security and power, or with which he adorns it, are all merely the regulated application of powers of nature acting at his discretion upon her own substances and productions. But the various knowledge, the endlessly multiplied observation, the experience and reasonings of man added to man, of generation following generation, which were required to bring to a moderate state of advancement the great primary arts subservient to physical life, the arts of providing food, habitation, clothing, and defence, to man, we are utterly unable to conceive. We are born to the knowledge, which was collected at first by the labors of many generations. How slowly with continual accessions of knowledge were those arts reared up which still remain to us! How many arts which had laboriously been brought to perfection, have been displaced by superior invention, and fallen into oblivion? Fenced in as we are by the works of our predecessors, we see but a small part of the power of man contending with the difficulties of his lot. But what a wonderful scene would be opened up before our eyes, with what intense interest 48 ATHENEUM, VOL. 5, 3d series. should we look on, if we could indeed behold man armed only with his own implanted powers, and going forth to conquer the creation! If we could see him beginning by subduing evils, and supplying painful wants; going on to turn those evils and wants into the means of enjoyment-and at length, in the wantonness and pride of his power, filling his existence with luxuries! If we could see him from his first step, in the untamed though fruitful wilderness, advancing to subdue the soil, to tame and multiply the herds,-from bending the branches into a bower, to fell the forest and quarry the rock,-seizing into his own hands the element of fire, directing its action on substances got from the bowels of the earth,fashioning wood, and stone, and metal, to the will of his thought,-searching the nature of plants to spin their fibres, or with their virtues to heal his disease;-if we could see him raise his first cities, launch his first ship, calling the winds and waters to be his servants, and to do his work,-changing the face of the earth,-forming lakes and rivers,-joining seas, or stretching the continent itself into the dominion of the sea ;-if we could do all this in imagination, then should we understand something of what man's intellect has done for his physical life, and what the necessities of his physical life have done in forcing into action all the powers of his intelligence. But there are still higher considerations arising from the influence of man's physical necessities on the destiny of the species. It is this subjugation of natural evil, and this created dominion of art, that prepares the earth to be the scene of his social existence. His hard conquest was not the end of his toil. He has conquered the kingdom in which he was to dwell in his state. That full unfolding of his moral powers to which he is called, was only possible in those states of society which are thus brought into |