and as she would always be at hand when wanted, I gave her such instructions as at the time seemed requisite, and went several times more-I think about six or seven in all to see that they were duly carried out, and what the effects might be; after which my personal attentions to the case were brought to a close. Miss Martineau bears the following testimony to my services

"When Mr. Hall saw how congenial was the influence of this new mesmerist, he advised our going on by ourselves, which we did till the 6th of September. I owe much to Mr. Hall for his disinterested zeal and kindness. He did for me all he could; and it was much to make a beginning, and put us in the way of proceeding.'

"We must take Miss Martineau's own account of the first essay of her maid, and its effects. That it produced feelings which all but rendered a further use of opiates needless, and gave her a good appetite for the first time for five years, is a fact that common sense can much better comprehend than it could the generality of medical reports:

"Within one minute (after the maid began) the twilight and phosphoric lights appeared; and in two or three more, a delicious sensation of ease spread through me a cool comfort, before which all pain and distress gave way, oozing out, as it were, at the soles of my feet. During that hour, and almost the whole evening, I could no more help exclaiming with pleasure, than a person in torture crying out with pain. I became hungry, and ate with relish, for the first time these five years. There was no heat, oppression, or sickness during the séance, nor any disorder afterwards. During the whole evening instead of the lazy hot ease of opiates, under which pain is felt to lie in wait, I experienced something of the indescribable sensation of health, which I had quite lost and forgotten. I walked about my rooms, and was gay and talkative. Something of this relief remained till the next morning; and then

there was no reaction. I was no worse than usual; and perhaps rather better. Nothing is to me more unquestionable and more striking about this influence than the absence of all reaction.'

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My departure for Scotland prevented me hearing much more of the case than was intimated, in very general terms, in a letter with which Miss Martineau favoured me at Dumfries, and in the inquiry of Mr. Howitt to which I have alluded, until the month of October. It was then that, at Edinburgh, Mr. Combe, Mr. R. Chambers, and Mrs. Crowe, informed me that Miss Martineau's cure was becoming a topic of conversation in select circles; and presently I received a gratifying assurance of it from Miss Martineau herself, dated the 10th of that month, in which she said that such amendment of her health had been made, that she had now no fear of a relapse'-that she could walk three miles with a relish-that her maid had carried on the cure pretty far, when a benevolent lady came to her aid, out of pure zeal and kindness, and proceeded with it'-and that she could not feel sufficiently thankful for such a resurrection.' Shortly afterwards, in another letter, Miss Martineau informed me of the somnambulist, 'J,' of whom so much has been said; and, in allusion to her own case, spoke of the utter inadequacy of surgery to relieve it if mesmerism had failed, and stated that she had the day before walked nearly five miles, and that she had also been walking through Shields, the first time for five years she had been in a town!' Miss Martineau's last letter to me was dated the 4th of December, and in it she stated that she continued quite well, feeling nothing whatever of her late complaints.'

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Such, to the extent I have been concerned in it, is my own narrative of this cure, which may be useful as an impartial corollary to the accounts which have been published by Miss Martineau and Mr. Greenhow themselves. Still in how much the cure is itself indebted to mesmerism, or how far Mr. Greenhow's state

ment, that the patient's condition in December is but the natural sequel of progressive improvement begun in, or antecedent to, the month of April,' may be consistent with his conversation with and pledge to me at Midsummer, I must leave the reader to determine. But my own solemn conviction is, that if Miss Martineau had recovered under ordinary treatment, instead of under that of mesmerism, there is not in the empire a medical practitioner who would not have been exceedingly proud of the case (had it been exclusively in his own hands), as well as decidedly opposed to an admission that the condition in December was but the natural sequel of progressive improvement begun in, or antecedent to, the month of April.'

"I am, sir,

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Yours, respectfully,

"SPENCER T. HALL.”

"January 27, 1845."

CHAPTER VIII.

EXPERIMENTS UPON, OR AFFECTING THE AUTHOR-BY MR. J. RODGERS AND MR. FOWLER-BY A LITTLE BOY-BY A SCEPTIC-BY MR. SOMERVILLE BECKHAUS-BY H. S. THOMPSON, ESQ.-BY DR. ELLIOTSON-BY MR. HOLBROOK-BY MRS. HOWITT, AND OTHERS.

It was not remarkable that, after seeing so much of the influence of mesmerism upon others, I should be occasionally desirous of knowing what would be its effects upon myself. These have been as various as the characters of those who operated. The first who tried his hands upon me was Mr. John Rodgers-the next was Mr. Fowler; but neither of them produced any effect beyond that of soothing me into a very quiet but not somnolent condition, by passes over the top of my head and down the spine. The first time that I really felt completely magnetised, was when I was trying to produce the effect upon another a little boy, eleven years old, with blue eyes, light hair, fair complexion, and of a temperament certainly not the most active. This was in the office of Mr. Burton, printer (now the Mercury office), Leicester. It was too soon after dinner, so that all my nervous power was needed for the purposes of digestion, when this boy sat down to me in presence of Mr. Burton and Mr. William Taylor, of Nottingham, who happened at the time to be in Leicester. Having taken the boy's hands, I placed the ends of my thumbs and his in juxta-position, and continued to look him steadily in the face for about twenty

minutes. Not observing the change in him I had anticipated, I asked him how he felt. His answer was, "Very well." I then told him to rise, which he did; but on trying to do the same, I found myself as fast locked by the invisible influence to my chair as if I had been nailed in it! The sensation now experienced was one I can scarcely describe. Perhaps it would be more proper to call it a lack of sensation since, though unable to rise from the chair, I could not feel my contact with it. During the whole of this time I was, however, perfectly awake; but for the moment my condition was palpably contradictory of the adage of "Where there's a will there's a way." The boy was at length directed to relieve me, by wafting me with a silk handkerchief; but owing to his not doing this very effectively, my feelings for some hours afterwards were any thing but comfortable.

In a somewhat similar manner I was once influenced at Birmingham. It was on the evening of one of my lectures that a young man called upon me at my inn, and said he wished to be mesmerised. After some importunity I consented to try him; but soon found that instead of controlling him he was very powerfully influencing me. This I told him; but he was very inhumane as well as sceptical, saying that it was all imagination on my part that he had not influenced me in the manner stated-nor would he, when I wished him, use the simple means necessary for my restoration. Since then I have generally been careful of committing myself to any intercourse of the kind with scepticswho are for the most part a very inconsiderate race, vulgarly imagining that they have a sort of right to take up the time and strength of a believer, and then to neglect if not to insult him when they have done. Their self-love makes them believe it wise to doubt what they are often in reality too ignorant to comprehend, and to talk of scepticism as something really substantial, having positive rights and claims on the believer, which is altogether a fallacy. Scepticism at best is but