430

frost.

In p. 99 we learn that not more than six days of perfect calm occur in the course of a year.

In p. 103 we come to the Logan Stone at Castle Treryn; of which, mirabile dictu, our author does admit (p. 105) that the Druids may have made a superstitious use. He conceives, however, that they were formed by the clements only disintegrating the granite; but some of them we know to be formed of stone which indurates, instead of decomposes, by time; and we believe that a rock suitable for the purpose was selected, and artificial means employed to form the upper ledge into a point below, sufficient to effect the vibration by the aid of the preponderance above."

In p. 109 we are told,

"That the ancient Roodloft [of St. Buryan's] has been lately removed, from an idea that it deadened the voice of the preacher; and that the parishioners have also converted the original forms into modern pews; a change which has cruelly violated the venerable uniformity of the interior."

Fearful of having conceded too much, our Author proceeds with ano

[May,

ther throw at Dr. Borlase (who perhaps has really misapplied Druidism to the rocks at Carn Boscawen (p. 113); and then (p. 124) tells us, that the Cromlech could not be an allar, on account of its gibbous superficies.

In p. 150 we find that the Athenian Tunny fishery was carried on by the same means, as that of the Pilchards, East and West Looe+. so admirably described in Mr. Bond's

In p. 163 a most curious fact is recorded, viz. that Nature may be detected " at work in changing calcareous sand into stone;" a process which explains the appearance of fossil fish and shells; "as the sand in several parts of the coast is passing into the state of a solid compact rock," we are inclined to think that these fossil phænomena followed the first separation of the sea from the land, and may be anterior to the Deluge. We warmly recommend

to the notice of our readers our author's

account of the modes by which the lapidification of calcareous sand may be effected; because it appears to us calculated to furnish a probable method of fabricating artificial stone.

Rock Basins (mentioned in p. 211) we give up as not Druidical; but though he has made tobacco of poor Borlase's book, and tried to puff it away in his geological pipe, we are happy to see, from p. 174, that he speaks with respect for his talents, when he comes to his burial place at Ludgvan.

Here we take our leave of this instructive and interesting Guide; and if we have indulged ourselves in a little revenge for his gibes upon us Antiquaries, by a quid pro quo concerning pretty Poissardes, &c. we rest satisfied here; because, in the language of Burchell, in the Vicar of Wakefield, “if he has had his joke, we have had our answer."

† See vol. xcu. i. p. 234.

96. Sketches

1824.]

pp. 460.

66

THE power of seeing apparitions is plainly (miracles excepted) an optical question. With regard to divine interposition, our author proves the supposed special mission of apparitions to be absurd," by the case of Col. Gardiner, in which a miracle was claimed by Dr. Doddridge in favour of revelation; by Lord Herbert of Cherbury in behalf of deism (pp. 190, 194); by the extraordinary conduct of ghosts, in not revealing murders, &c. to Justices of the Peace, and parties seriously concerned, instead of servants and ignorant people; and (we add ourselves) by the direct prohibition of Providence, in regard to the Rich Man and Lazarus. The fact appears to be simply this; that as there are glasses by which phantasmagoric forms may be created in empty air, so there are certain morbific states, often connected with indiges tion, in which ideas become actually visible and personified. The fact of such extraordinary creations is philosophically attested by the inhalation of nitrous oxide, febrile miasmata, undue sanguineous action (which imparts extraordinary vividness to our ideas), and other existing causes, which this sound and well-written book most satisfactorily displays. All that is necessary to get rid of being haunted is bleeding, purgatives, and re-commencement of digestion. See pp. 43, 44, &c.

Books like these we rejoice to see; for the age is absolutely crazy with fanaticism and poetry. Moreover, superstition insults the wisdom of Deity by supposing that things are not conducted according to reason; and that a true account of physical action is supersedable by utter impossibilities, viz. that man can actually determine what are, and what are not divine interpositions; a branch of knowledge which the Scripture positively says, we are to leave to the end of all things.

We only speak thus of ghost stories, converted into pious frauds; for of the actual existence of ghosts, as non-entities of morbific creation, there can be no doubt. In such states of disease, the eye, we repeat, gives a visible bodily form to inere ideas or delirious ravings.

We have before (xC11. ii. p. 241)

431

given an instance of a horse-jockey in Bedlam, who absolutely believed a woman to be a mare; and the instances quoted by our author of similar perversions, are too numerous to be quoted.

By works like these Religion is more established than by the anile absurdities which it is the intention of such works to expose. It is plainly proved, with regard to existence, that only inhalation of a particular atmosphere may confer feelings of pleasure or pain. Sir Humphry Davy exclaimed, after inhaling the nitrous oxide, "Nothing exists but thoughts; the universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures, and pains." (P. 18.) Blumenbach, or his editor Elliotson, says, that the more profound and accurate our philosophical knowledge becomes, the more clear and incontrovertible will be the conformity of the Word of God to his works; and when we find that the simple inhalation of a particular air produces such wonderful changes in the action of the human mind; when men in their present mode of existence can see and feel another and a different world, by processes so simple, nothing in revelation concerning a future existence becomes improbable, or even unphilosophical, with regard to the very modes of such being, whatever they may be. Girtanner, many years ago, presumed that the principle of vitality existed in the base of pure air; and though the forms and processes of an immortal state of existence cannot be made the subject of Physiological Knowledge, yet Science may obtain such analogical information, as to produce an effect devoutly to be wished; viz. removing Religion out of the hands of the ignorant, as it has done medicine out of the hands

of barbers.

Books like this, logical, deductive, precise, and luminous, but very multifarious, cannot be briefly analysed. There is no form of spectral illusion (we can only say) which our author does not treat in the most satisfactory manner. He shows the very methods which disease takes to create such illusions in all their various manners of exhibiting themselves; nor does the book contain technical terms so as to confine it to the medical library. In short, it is a most instructive book, a fine intellectual tonic; a book which ought to be read by all who consider the foundation of their thinking upon

truth