Although these effects may, in compliance with custom, be termed sympathetic, yet the word conveys no explanation of the manner in which they are produced; and there are, besides, many cases of similar effects, to which the term sympathy is inapplicable, as they are occasioned by inanimate objects. Thus the sight of blood causes some to faint; the sight of food causes the saliva to flow from the mouth of a dog.

Now these effects, and many others which are differently explained, are perfectly analogous to those called sympathetic, and without multiplying principles and inventing new causes, as the sympathetic tendency, the imitative principle, the power of imagination, and others, may all be shown to proceed from the same

source.

The common principle to which they all apparently owe their origin is, the influence of attention inconsciously directed to particular parts, varying the degree of mental energy exerted upon, or the nervous influence sent to them, thereby altering their action, and producing a transient change of function.

How attention acts in directing the energy of the mind more strongly to particular parts, scarce needs explanation, as the very essence of this power consists in augmenting the consciousness of impressions received, and so increasing their influence. Thus we are inconscious of the ticking of a clock which is constantly in the room, or of the impression of the clothes we wear, unless our attention be particularly called to them, and then they become per. ceptible.

To appreciate justly the power of attention, it must be observed, that this, like other acts of the mind, may be voluntary or involuntary; the former being simply an intellectual operation, and devoid of perceptible emotion; the latter, the spontaneous impulse of feeling, and often beyond the control of the will.

But if this act of attention, which, is purely intellectual and voluntary, without perceptible emotion, be capable of augmenting the force of impressions, by increasing consciousness; far more is this the case when it results from feeling, and is involuntary, appertaining to the nature of a passion: as when the sight of a painful operation causes the spectator to shudder by turning his attention inward to his own feelings.

This then is the mode of attention, inconsciously and involuntarily excited, which is here alluded to, as fixing the energy of the mind more strongly on particular organs, thus varying the degree of nervous influence exerted upon them, and altering their action or condition.

In what manner the attention is inconsciously fixed upon particular parts is to be sought for in the nature of each individual instance, as seen in the following examples.

Hearing another cough vehemently and frequently, fixes the mind so strongly upon the feelings in the throat, as to produce at length a change of circulation, and occasion a sense of tickling and propensity to cough likewise. Seeing another yawn, inconsciously

fixes the attention so as to awaken a sense of weariness in the jaws, that disposes the observer to yawn also. Thinking of grateful food, on the same principle, alters the action of the secreting vessels, and increases the flow of saliva into the mouth. The flow of milk is increased in the same way, and often commences before the infant actually touches the breast of the mother. A blush may be excited by looking stedfastly and suspectingly in a person's face. The attention thus strongly directed to the feelings of the face, alters the action of its vessels, and produces the change in question. The senses of hunger and thirst may be brought on or accelerated by thinking of them; and the desire of evacuating the bladder or rectum, by circumstances accidentally directing the attention to feelings otherwise too slight to have been noticed. Bodily fatigue comes on much sooner when the sameness and dreariness of the road we travel continually reminds us of the distance we have already gone, and awakens a sense of the disparity between our strength and the effort still to be made. The sense of drowsiness, or mental weariness, is liable to be brought on in the same way by the prospect of a long story, and the anticipation of the fatiguing effort required to listen to it. In short, it is needless to multiply instances which will spontaneously occur to every one's recollection.

The truth of the principle, that these and similar phenomena depend upon the influence of increased attention to particular feelings thus augmenting their force, is not less evident in the converse of this proposition, or in the operation of causes which divert the attention from these feelings, and thus diminish or suspend their influence. A few instances will serve to illustrate this point.

Every one must have experienced how much uneasy sensations are alleviated by any thing that engages the mind and withdraws the attention. Head-ache and tooth-ache have been often removed by the receipt of agreeable news or the welcome arrival of an unexpected friend. The chess board has been found to alleviate the pains of gout; and an attack of spasmodic asthma has been suspended by strongly engaging the attention. Sudden alarm has been known to stop the paroxysm of an ague, and check the operation of an emetic. The practice of taking away the hiccough, or preventing a person from sneezing, by strongly fixing the attention, is familiar to every one; and let a cough be ever so troublesome it is commonly suspended while we are eating, the impression in the mouth and fauces suspending the influence of that in the larynx. The beneficial effect of sucking lozenges appears referable to their power of abstracting the attention from one impression by substituting another.

Thus another class of phenomena resolves itself in the same way as those before enumerated; and like the effects ascribed to sympathy and imitation, may be accounted for without multiplying causes, or resorting to the invention of more principles.

The extensive influence which the mind exerts over the involuntary functions, is conspicuous in them all; and considering each

organ in the animal frame as forming part of a sentient being, its participation in mental impressions, in all cases, ultimately proceeds from different modifications of one general principle, or change of feeling causing change of action.

ART. VI.-Life and Writings of James Hogg.

[OTHING is so destructive of that spirit of adventure, which leads the mind into new and unexplored regions of intellect, as the pride of learning, which considers its own attainments as the limits of human knowledge, and looks down from its fancied elevation on all those who have not been taught to prate, in trim phrase, of the philosophical creed that happens to be in fashion, or of certain books written in languages that have ceased to be spoken for many centuries. To an acquaintance with them every one must be trained, and on them his opinions must be formed, or he can hardly expect to be admitted into good society any more than he should if his coat were not in fashion. Nothing is so rare as originality of genius; and, according to the modes of education that have long prevailed, and are still in use, in our public institutions, the little that exists is in danger of being extinguished in its very dawning. Every boy is required to perform the same tasks, and in the same manner, without the slightest regard to the original bent of the mind; and if, unfortunately, he is either unfit or disinclined, he must be breeched into the knowledge of what he justly perhaps considers useless, or sink into a listless lethargy, and be degraded in his own eyes, and in those of his fellows, as an incorrigible dunce. Wo to the poor child whose fancy wanders to the clear waters where the little fishes twinkle in his mental vision like beams of light, in freedom and in beauty, or to the heathery slope where his soul dances to the melody of the lark overhead; he will soon be recalled from the dream of delight, in bitterness and tears, to the hated volume from which he is doomed to hear one dull sentence rung in his ears a hundred times. By this mode of treatment, the soul is stunted, and prevented from putting forth its shoots and blossoms in the uncontrolled energy of nature; and rather resembles a tree which creeps along a garden wall, than the magnificent oak that has not been profaned by the axe of the woodman. Men bred under such discipline, are precisely what education has made them. They passively receive what is poured into their minds, and give it out again unchanged by meditation and reflection; or, if any change has taken place, it is a weakening and dilution. Their intellectual range is confined to the narrow circle that has been trode on by the men of many generations; yet they fold the academic stole around their infirmities, and pace it with a degree of self importance that is quite ridiculous. By their own unaided strength, they would never have raised themselves above the level of hewers of wood, and drawers of water; and those unascended steeps where alone true science is to be found, have never once entered their minds. Yet their vanity is harmless, and might be tolerated, if they did not imagine themselves equal to the great

poets of antiquity; because they understand the structure of their verse, and have sometimes feloniously dared to substitute their own worthless dross for their fine gold; or deem themselves the rivals of the father of Greek philosophy, because they have learned from him to construct a syllogism. It is not such men, that, by the ingenuity and the splendour of their inventions, shed a lustre on our common nature or by the originality of their imaginations, add to the stock of immortal poetry. Bacon looked through the philosophy of his age only to discover its utter worthlessness, and to substitute something better in its place; and the gigantic genius of Shakespeare was never subjected to the shackles of the schools.

It is not our purpose to lament that Mr. Hogg was denied the advantages of a school education, which he could not have enjoyed but at such a risk, but to trace the progress of his genius in what we conceive to be the most favourable situation for its development. It was his high privilege, that even in boyhood, his eye was familiar with the elements of poetry;-that even then, his soul soared to heaven on the wing of the eagle, and grew giddy over the cataract, and drank inspiration in the breezes of the hill, and worshipped nature on her mountain throne;-that the first music to which he listened was the sound of the brooks, and the winds, and the thunders, with which he held mysterious communings;-that he was nursed in the solitude of the deep glens, and amid the sublime drapery of the mists and the clouds, where nature and superstition alike dispose the mind to lofty musings;-and that he was left undisturbed to the wildness and the grandeur of his own imaginations, where every object administered to his favourite propensities, and where he moulded each into a thousand combinations that never existed but in his own mind. He was in truth a student of nature, before he was aware of her influences, or could give utterance to his feelings in language; and fortune placed him in a situation where she was unveiled to his eye in all her infinitude and omnipotence.

But, fully to understand the circumstances that kindled his genius into activity, and developed the extraordinary powers of his mind, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the features of the country where he was born, and the moral and intellectual character of the people among whom he passed his early days. The glens and the mountains of Etterick and Yarrow combine almost all the soft beauty and wild sublimity that Highland scenery exhibits. In the lower district of Yarrow, that lovely stream winds among hills of no great height, gently swelling, and green to the summits; in some places finely wooded, but generally naked, and well suited to the pasture of flocks. This is their common character, but some miles from the mouth of the valley, dark heathy mountains are seen towering to a considerable height above the surrounding hills, and give an interesting variety to the scene. Towards the head, the glen widens, and embosoms St. Mary's Loch, and the Loch of the Lowes; and above these sweet lakes, terminates in a wild mountainpass, that divides it from Moffatdale. In the loftiest and most rugg

ed regions of this pass, the Grey-Mare's Tail, a waterfall 300 feet in perpendicular height, dashes and foams over stupendous rocks. This celebrated fall is formed by a stream that flows from LochSkene, a dark mountain-lake about a mile above it, surrounded by inaccessible heights on all sides save one, and that is strewed by a thousand black heathery hillocks of the most grotesque and irregular forms. This place is so solitary, that the eagle has built her nest in an islet of the lake for ages, and is overhung by the highest mountains in the south of Scotland. The character of Etterick is similar to that of Yarrow, except, perhaps, that its tints are softer and more mellow, and it is destitute of lakes. These valleys, so celebrated in Border legend and song, are skirted by hills, extending many miles on both sides, and, as there is no great road through them, the people have long lived shut out from the rest of mankind, in a state of pastoral simplicity and virtuous seclusion, alike remote from the vices of boorish rusticity, and fawning servility. Among the wild mountains at the head of Etterick and Yarrow, the sturdy champions of the Covenant found an asylum when they were chased like wild beasts, by a relentless presecution, from every other part of the country. Their preachers held their conventicles in the most sequestered glens, and made many converts, from whom a number of the present race are descended; but, while they cherish the memory of these glorious men, and as well they may, retain all the noble-mindedness that arises from the consciousness of an illustrious ancestry, their moral features have lost much of the sternness of their fathers, and are softened down into the gentler virtues of more peaceful times; yet, if we were asked what people of Britain had suffered least from the evil consequences of excessive refinement, we should answer, without hesitation, the inhabitants of Etterick and Yarrow. In these interesting valleys, there is hardly a cottage that has not its legend, or a cleugh that is not famed for some act of romantic chivalry, or tenanted by some supernatural being, or sanctified by the blood of some martyr. In such a country, full of chastened beauty, and dark sublimity, and visionary agency, and glorious recollections, it was the good fortune of Hogg to be born, and to spend the greater part of his life.

His mother Margaret Laidlaw, was, like himself, a self-taught genius. Her mother had died while she was yet young; but being the eldest of several children, and her father far from wealthy, she was kept at home to superintend the household affairs, and assist in bringing up her younger brothers and sisters, during those years when the children of the Scottish peasantry, even the poorest, are sent to school; and they at the proper age enjoyed the usual advantages. About the age of twelve or thirteen she began to feel her inferiority to them; and on the Sabbath, her only day of rest, she used to wander out alone to a solitary hill side, with a Bible under her arm, and, humbled by a sense of her ignorance, to throw herself down on the heath, and water the page with bitter tears. By the ardour of her zeal, she soon accomplished the object of her dearest wishes, and supplied the deficiencies of her education.