PREMATURE INTERMENT.—RESUSCITATION. Stories in Illustration—Romance, Life in 378-392 Death—Causes of Resuscitation—Disunion of Mind and Body—Insensibility of the Decollated Head—Sensations during Hanging and Drowning—Case of Dr. Adam Clarke
TRANSMIGRATION.—ANALYSIS OF TRANCE. State of the Spirit after Death—Fables of 393-404 Transmigration—Superstition in India and England—Tenacity of Life—Hybernation—Sleep of Plants—Physiology of Trance
MESMERISM. Its origin—Commissions for its 405-430 investigation—Caspar Hauser—Sensations of Magnetism—Magnetized Trees—Operations during Magnetic Trance—Transference of Senses—Mineral Traction—Clairvoyance—Trance of Santa Theresa—Prophetess of Prevorst—Magnetic Aura—Personal Sympathy—Socrates—Fascino—Prince Hohenlohe
SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE. Occult Science—A Gipsy—Spells and 431-443 Charms—Relics—Ordeals—Philosophy of Prophetic Fulfilment—Melancholy effects of Prophecy—Astrology—Conclusion
“There are more things in heav’n and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”—HAMLET.
THERE was a shallop floating on the Wye, among the gray rocks and leafy woods of Chepstow. Within it were two fair girls reclining: the one blending the romantic wildness of a maid of Italy with the exquisite purity of English nature; the other illuming, with the devotion of a vestal, the classic beauty of a Greek.
There was a young and learned bachelor sitting at the helm. Study had stamped an air of thoughtfulness on his brow; yet a smile was ever playing on his lips, as his heart felt the truth and influence of the beautiful life around him.
Listen, gentle reader, we pray thy courtesy and thy patience, as a rude unskilful pen traces the breathed thoughts of these wanderers of the Wye.
CASTALY. We have roamed, dear Ida, among the classic lands of the far-off Mediterranean: we have looked, from her pinnacles of snow, on the silvery gleaminess of Switzerland, and from purple sierras on the sunny splendour of Spain; yet these English meadows, with their fringes of wild bloom, come o’er the heart with all the freshness of an infant’s dream. Yon majestic crag of Wyndcliff is flinging its purple shadows athwart the water, and floods of golden glory are streaming through the beech-woods of Piercefield: and see, our little sail, white as the wing of a swan, is wafting us towards Abbey Tintern, along this beautiful valley, where the river almost doubles on itself; meandering among its mead-flowers and its mosses, as loth to leave its luxuriant bed. Listen! the breath of evening is among the trees that dip in the ripple of the Wye their leaves of shivering gold. What a scene for minions of the moon to revel in! Say, shall we charm the lingering hours of this midsummer night among the ivied cloisters of the abbey? But where is Astrophel, our moon-struck student, who, like Chaucer’s scholar, keeps