found, among a thousand thinkers not more than one thinks for himself. A notion is now like soup, to which the pot alone gives unity. Among the scrapings of the pot, among the lowest rank of the people, something solid may be found; but soup remains always soup, and the golden ladle which takes up a mouthful does not destroy the relationship by separating the particles.

True scientific exertion is not the voyage of discovery of a Columbus, but the pilgrimage of a Ulysses. Man is born among strangers; to live, is to seek his home; and he does this only in so far as he exercises his reasoning powers. But the heart is the native land of thought. From this spring must he draw who wishes to drink pure. The mind is a stream at whose side thousands are encamped, who defile the water with washing, bathing, steeping flax, and other such nasty work. The mind is the arm; the heart is the will which gives motion. Strength can be created, increased, perfected; but of what use is power without the courage to employ it? A shameful cowardice of thought holds us all back. More oppressive than the censor of a despotic government is the censorship which the public exercise on the labours of mind. It is neither in intellect nor in character where most authors are wanting to rise superior to their present condition, to become better than they are. This weakness arises from pride. The artist or the author wishes to surpass or outrun his contemporary; but to surpass, both must be placed side by side; for one to outrun the other, both must travel the same way. Hence it is that good authors have so much in common with inferior ones. All the bad is contained in the good, but there is something more. The good goes the entire way of the bad, but it also goes something farther. He is always original who listens to the voice of his heart instead of the cry of the town, and has the courage to spread abroad what it teaches him. Honesty is the source of all genial spirit, and the people will become more intellectual as they become more refined. And here follows the promised useful application of this. Take some sheets of paper, and for three days successively write down without falsehood or dissimulation everything that passes through your mind. Write what you think of yourself, of your wife, of the war in Germany, of the pope's bull, of the last new French dish, of Goethe;-and after the lapse of three days you will be beside yourself with surprise at the new, unheard-of thoughts you have had. That is the art to become an original writer in three days.

IMAGINATION.*

as

To attempt a long poem in these our practical days, ought to imply on the part of the author a talent to turn to account the matter-of-fact views by which the present age is distinguished from its predecessors, or a power and a will to enlighten the world on matters left for the true poet or prophet alone to be the pioneer-or again, such a talent of description as may charm us by its music although nothing particularly new is told. Among the latter must we, in all sincerity, place the poem before us. Our author assumes, in the argument of Part I., the universal existence of "Imagination an influence, or being, affecting the world's destiniesits existence is assumed prior to the creation of the world; it is shown in Eve's temptation-in the confusion of Cain-in the power to overcome in the minds of men the threatened wrath of God-in the Deluge--in raising the tower of Babel, &c., &c.; and downwards in the world's history is it shown in dreams, in romance, in promoting poetry, astronomy, painting, literature, science, philosophy, &c., &c. In his treatment of the former part of the subject, much as we may object to its philosophy,

• An original poem in two parts. By Spero. London: David Bogue.

or rather want of philosophy, we are, nevertheless, bound to confess the poet has shown great powers of description, with a very vivid fancy; and if it was his object to transport us into the misty ether without a clue as to our whereabouts, he has succeeded most effectually in our own case; but while we say this, we are also bound to admit that our senses have been led captive by the dreamy music of his rhythm, and that in our etherial journey we have passed some pleasant spots on which we would have delighted to linger and although we wished, like the dove of Noah, to find a resting place for our feet, the wish was vain-it was not to be; "on, on for ever "--we were impelled forward to the end of the chapter; where, amidst a beautiful firework description of the horrors of war, Spero concludes the first part of his work.

:

In the second part of the poem, our author's descriptive powers are called into play; and although the passage we quote has more to do with matters of fact than imagination, yet we think they show fertility of language: it is describing

MORNING.

When night's dark shades retreat before the morn,
And fashion sleeps, the cooling breezes borne
Thro' Phoebus' glowing beams refresh the brow
Of labour, whistling as it drives the plough;
Light shines around or through the verdant trees,
Or sparkles on the water with the breeze.
Now rising larks high warbling hail the day,
And cheer men to their toil. Lambs sportive play
Around their dams; the chanticleer's proud crow
From distant homestead rings; now farmers throw
The seed, and sowing reckon future wealth;
Now starts the wily fox, with cautious stealth
Along the running hedge; the pack's full cry
Proclaims his course-huntsmen ride gaily by
To urge the victim's death; the loaded wain
With rustic tinkling bells, carries the grain
That men exchange for wealth. Now gain the stream
And walk along its banks, where sunbeams gleam
Thro' shady trees, where patient anglers wait,
And for its fancied treasures ply the bait,
With writhing worms, or watch the dancing float;
With steady progress glides the horse-led boat
Laden with wares, that man's industrial skill
Fashions to use. Hark to that whistle shrill
And loud-the human-freighted train glides by,
And swift retreats from sight; hot embers fly
And dance along the earth. The startled steed,
With head erect and sinews knit for speed,
With neigh defiant gallops o'er the plain,
In race unequal with the rapid train;
Now gain the road where healthful faces pass,
And change good morrow with the blooming lass,
Who trots to market with the dairy store,

Singing a simple lay of village lore

In distance heard, as soft it glides away;
Now laughter rings from rosy children gay;
The startled linnet and the chaffinch fly,

In timid haste, as travellers pass by
The varied tinted hedge of cheerful green,
Where primrose smiles, sweet violets are seen;
In yonder busy farm, with martial air,
The threat'ning turkey struts-a hen with care
Keeps warm and safe from ills her little brood,
With mother's love, and cackling finds them food;
The modest cattle, knee deep, wade the pool,
And quiet horses seek its waters cool;
The noisy ducks run waddling to the stream,
There graceful float, or dive-the peacock's scream
Discordant strikes the ear-geese lazy lie,
Or active nip the grass-from open sty
The spotted litter comes-the cooing flight
With flutt'ring sound ascends the airy height,
In circuit flies, and scans the country round-
A singing maid the milching cow has found,
And draws its treasure forth-the falling stick
From thatched and mossy barn sounds loud and quick,
By active thrashers used-in kennel hous'd,
The pack's deep howl some fancy hath aroused,
To which the watch-dog gives responsive howl,
Or warns the stranger with a bark or growl.

There are many other parts we should have liked to quote did our space permit. With all its faults there is much in the poem to cause the author-in his own words -"to throw off mortal fear," and to "press on and win the glorious name."

SOCIAL NON-CONDUCTORS.

BY JAMES Etheredge.

ENOUGH of electrical phenomena is now generally known for most persons to be aware of the condition of those bodies designed by nature to fill often the most important uses in the particular respect to which we are now alluding-scientifically known as non-conductors. Among the great natural agencies ever busied in the continnance and support of this still-teeming, still-consuming globe, electricity is one which, as every day extends the dawn of science, is found to be more and more connected with the life-springs of this reproductive machine. Some beneficial influences have been traced to it, and the progress of science seems to indicate it as a vast source of many more, now only appreciated in their results. Turning our attention, then, to that department of organised existence with which we are more immediately concerned, the body social, we discern an analogous agency, whose clearly appointed task, in all the various phases under which it is known, is the preservation and the amelioration, while its aim is the beatification, of human society. This current, inseparable from our natures-appearing more or less strongly in the diversified modifications of temper and character, in the endless combinations and reactions of mind and heart, sometimes sweeping in one direction a transient flood that o'ermasters every contrary effort of the individual; sometimes radiating steadily, calmly, and incessantly, bearing warmth and nourishment to the whole homogeneous circle-we term love. Of the palpable and universal passion we do not propose to speak; but of the feeling in its more refined, more constant, and more durable developments; not of the torrent, whose impulsive gush fills but one channel, and tends but to one point; but of the genial and fertilising medium that spreads over a broad tract, wherever its ramifications have power of reaching. Certain members of society, here and there, one in a family, are deficient in their functions as communicants of this vital, we may almost say, angelic principle of society; and these we now characterise under the appellation of non-conductors,

The peculiarity of the social non-conductor is a feature resulting principally from his mental organisation: it springs from a deficiency in the mind, rather than in the heart. He is, in fact, a being not alive to the thousand minute, momentary, delicate demands and wants of his fellow creatures. By this, he enjoys an immunity from much of the world's ever-streaming flood of anxiety, and also from much of its still bubbling happiness; for, as others are more or less the recipients and channels of this misery and this happiness, he is the recipient alone; the vehicle of sympathy being the one great aspect of human character utterly unknown to him. He is wrapped in a hebetude which defends him from half the affections that appeal to our nature; he is free alike from their crowns of roses and their thorns that bind the roses closer; he is not so much a bar, as a blank. His is a state negative, with regard to attraction, not of positive repulsion; he is not actively and consciously impenetrabie, but passively irresponsive; not deaf to the calls and cries of humanity, but unthinking, unknowing, until it calls and cries. A neutralising atmosphere surrounds him as he wends his way through the world; he can spread no sympathy, he cannot convey affection; the language of love or friendship may penetrate his heart, but there it stops-it cannot pass on to another's. That heart is not hard; it is only sluggish, and wants the quickening impulse of mental percep tion; it considers itself a destination and not a medium; it is a Drosera,* that folds on the honied messenger of

This flower has the property of closing on whatsoever insect alights on it until he is starved or stifled in the embrace.

love, and conceives not that he would pass on to another. The sweetness of affection cast into it, sinks to the bottom, and may be fished up on recollection in a state of preservation; but it cannot float on the surface and regenerate the perfume that it brought. And whence arises this phenomenon of social existence? -as we said, not from a bad heart, but from a narrow mind.

Self-preservation is nature's first law; it actuates us in crises, in extremities-in fact, in the exceptional circumstances of life; but we soon learn that there are others which preside in the hourly cadencies, in the daily detail, in the minutiae and trivia-in a word, in ninetenths of the process and current of our being: these the non-conductor knows not; his mind has never progressed beyond the first law.

We must be understood as speaking strictly of a social phenomenon; in the other relations of life the non-conductor may present no points for exception. He may be an excellent man of business, or a skilful mechanic, but we doubt if he could ever be a great artist; for art is the privilege of genius alone, and genius implies sympathy, the very medium where he is essentially deficient. Business wants but talent; skill requires but application, and these are not beyond his compass: the probability is that he will attain wealth, respectability, and some sort of station. All his influences are favourable for this consummation. Many of the avenues which give access to the human heart are in him closed up. He does not possess, in common with the rest, those moral leaking points, whence health, virtue, substance are oozing out, until the structure is sapped to its foundations. He is safe from many of the seductions and from much of the contagion of disguised depravity. He has the security of the rock, and is blockish, bare, and insulated.

In the childhood of the non-conductor we shall observe scarcely more than indications of these deficiencies, which become only fully obvious as he advances to maturity; for, as so much of the future man or woman is still wrapped in the bud in childhood, this feature passes for the want of development natural to the race, and not for peculiar deficiency in the individual. To the keen observer, however, it peeps out. Be not deceived, parents: watch it, and cultivate this spot of sterility while the mind is still plastic to your training. Remark that boy:-the family are dininghis mother will sometimes shake her head, and say that Edward is sadly absent at times, yet he is not ill-natured by any means, and does anything when he is told, and if his memory serves him. But how much do these two conditions exclude?—he passes no plate till it is thrust upon him, and never cuts bread, pours out a glass of water, nor hands salt, unless by desire, which sometimes requires to be repeated. He is generally silent at table, for the business of the moment with him does not absolutely require much talking. He answers shortly, and devours rapidly; his attention is absorbed by the two operations of consuming and replenishing; and he cannot perceive that his neighbour's plate is empty, for it is not under his own nose. Indeed, a sarcastic relation once wagered that Edward would get through the whole meal, whilst the rest sat around fasting. The parents were indignant, and allowed the experiment for the honour of their son. It proceeded, but was presently put an end to by the mother's distress. And yet the boy's heart is not so thoroughly selfish as might be supposed: his perceptions are limited. His sphere of thought and action is filled by the process of eating his own dinner.

Miss Cardiff is an even-tempered, placid-looking, elderly young lady, supposed by all people, with one exception only, to be exactly on the threshold of perpetual celibacy. She has grown up a non-conductor; to which fact may be attributed her unquestioned right

of property in herself, and her undisturbed retention of the family name; otherwise, she is good-humoured, not uneducated, nor repulsive in personal appearance. Why does she remain a solitary shrub in the garden of society?-no upas atmosphere surrounds her; there is nothing in the least offensive in her air or manner; she appears to desire your company by her mode of receiving your address; you accept the tacit invitation, and commence a dialogue. If you happen to advance some subject immediately interesting to her, 'tis all very well-flowers, canaries, keeping an album, or the crochet stitch-you may probably quit the interview without learning that she is non-conductive; but should any topic, foreign to her prepossessions and therefore to her understanding, enter the field of your discourse, the reciprocity ceases, and the conversation, with every effort on your part to sustain, and every demonstration on her's to countenance those efforts, presently flags and falls unless diverted to some better suited subject. In a mixed company we once observed Miss C. seated beside an amiable young companion of her own sex, some ten years in the minority, when the latter, having skimmed a variety of general topics, without apparently finding one of interest to either, remarked:"And so you've just returned, I hear?" "Yes," was the placid assent. "From Chiswick? fine weather?" "Beautiful weather."

"Friends all well?"

"All in excellent health, I assure you."
A short pause.

"Did you see Mr. D.'s family?"
"Oh! yes; spent a week there."-
"Indeed; a pleasant family, I believe ?"
"Yes, very, do you know them?"

"Oh! no; yes; not all of them, thoroughly; I've seen-I've met—” Here a pause.

effected, the lady would, in course of time, either have become assimilated to his own mental structure - every gush of enotion, every welling forth from the core of the varied affections would, like oozing and unstanched blood, which presently coagulates and clots, and so stanches itself, have sealed up all exuberance of her heart into the smoothest petrifaction-or that heart would have broken. Which of these two alternatives would have crowned the experiment, it is of course impossible to pronounce. Certain we are, that in the former case Mr. L. would never have been conscious of the change; the fact that his own penumbra was gradually spreading a correspondent night over the brightness of the binary planet, could not come within the range of his perceptions, as the day itself would have existed unappreciated; but in the latter case, he would have been astonished, dumbfounded, completely perplexed for a reply, yet conscious of innocence, at the insinuations which might have fallen from the lips of severe friends. He is in easy circumstances, and very respectable; he has never been accused of incivility in his life; he gets bows which he always returns instinctively, but he does not comprehend the telegraphic dispatch of a nod. All his relations make a point of shaking hands with him, which he allows with the greatest readiness; he accepts any little attention with the most affable courtesy; he answers all questions to the best of his ability; he makes way for any body, on application; he is never repulsive, or obstinate, or stiff in any opinion he utters-thus his opponent thinks he has made a convert, his partisan is staggered in his own judgment; both alike mistaken, for it turns out that he thinks, if at all, precisely as at first. Mr. L. has two political ideas wherein he is interested, the reformed representation, and the window tax; he can talk with animation and in defence of them: one is the vital string of his mercantile success, the source of his fortune; the other, the basis of his political dignity: he ignores all other political questions as complicated, vexatious, and tending to useless dissension.

"Yes," said the old gentleman with the smallest wink at Miss Cardiff, who now raised her eyebrows in incipient comprehension and surprise, "we know what we know, but we must surmise nothing, you know. Never mind, Emily, my girl, I'll take care of you; I've got my eye on him, the rogue !"

"Really, uncle, it is too bad! I did not think you could, or would," protested the young lady, as if the subject was one of the most intolerable and harrowing to her feelings. The old gentleman, however, did not think so, for he played upon them a few minutes to the same thrilling measure. Miss Cardiff thought so, if she thought at all about them, for she presently resumed her silence, her air of placid complacency, and her solitary seat.

Mr. Luxham is a gentlemanly elderly bachelor. The fact of his continuing so did at one time cause the gentlest zephyr of surprise to waft some speculations across his mind; but they ended in his conviction, that the softer sex are, with the rarest exceptions, flighty and volatile in their understandings to a degree utterly incompatible with the comfort of a calm and consistent man. Mr. L., it was believed, was once set in motion by a hymenward tendency, but the fair celestial who, cro-sing his well-regulated orbit, caus d this temporary deviation, discovered ere long that non-conductibility was a predominant element in his character, and she therefore exercised a counter influence which proved ettectual at once. Had ever the legal union been

for its craft; a partial infusion has been often found to make the man more fitting for the purpose. It may form excellent stuff in the composition of a military chief; it saves him at once from all those thousand petty incursions to which the feelings of other men are subject: in his case it acts as a sort of moral blinker to the mind, it shuts out the exquisite world of light and motion that would otherwise press immediately on his senses: he looks straight forward and sces nothing but duty; through this he traces his path to desire, which just peeps out beyond. The minister of state could not be without some portion of this element. A large share of it is indispensable to the composition of the staunch partisan and the adherent of a faction. Tracing it to a stage of ranker development, we find it in the bailiff, the Newgate turnkey, and the public executioner. Now these are all plants of, not only inevitable, but necessary growth on the human soil under the conditions which it enjoys at presen: ; therefore this mental element, non-conductibility, has its uses, serving to steady and support some of the lower limbs of that society which, while it rejects and abhors its presence among the graceful and delicate blossoms of its retinement, is yet glad to receive, if not to acknowledge, the obligations it has to the shaggy and repulsive defender of its stems. But let us strive after order. Order is heaven's first law; let it be society's too; let it regulate our principles and affections. Wherever the phase of character we have been considering may have its utility, let us assure ourselves that these cases are exceptional and not general; that they do not exist at our firesides, in our family circles, within our house. holds, nor within the widest compass of domestic society.

2 B

We believe that the influence of this phenomenon nas often been felt, sometimes wondered at, but, perhaps, not before investigated and traced to its source. To its source, then, we return, and leave it. Its full development is in the maturity of the individual; it is not known at a glance: but a little study will discover, and some pains will eradicate or change this leaden vein of character in the embryo, which, otherwise, may grow with its growth, till it terminate in the semi-petrifaction of the future man or woman.

ANDRI VERSALIUS, THE FIRST ANATOMIST.

Ir is unquestionable that we are longer lived than our ancestors, and it is equally true that our present success in medicine and surgery is due to our more perfect knowledge of the peculiarities of the human frame; and if the old proverb which teaches us to study most those sciences which lead to a knowledge of ourselves, be true, then is anatomy among the most useful of modern appliances. We say modern, because it is only within a comparatively recent period that the prejudices of society have allowed the anatomical student to pursue undisturbed the investigations necessary to the elucidation of physical truths. We are all familiar with the history of the terrible and appalling scenes that were wont to be enacted in churchyards and cemeteries some few years since, and the horrible murders which resulted from the defective state of the law in not providing the medical schools with legal subjects for dissection. With those atrocities in daily course of enactment, and with their relation made as frequent a subject of comment and alarm, arose an agitation among the members of the medical profession and the public, the result of which was the passing of the present law, by which the fearful trade of the resurrectionist in this country was at once and for ever abolished. There are, almost inevitably, a vast number of friendless persons always floating on the surface of society. Dying in prisons, hospitals, and workhouses, their bodies are unclaimed; which, coming into possession of the surgeons, are the legitimate subjects of anatomical study; and thus it happens, often, that the worthiess and the vile, whose lives were useless and "cumbered the earth," are the means in their death of advancing the cause of science and morality. It must not be forgotten, however, that the same law which gives the body of the malefactor to the student, obliges him, when the purposes of science are served, to provide decent interment to the mangled remains.

The contemplation of Versalius in his study, with his eyes fixed on the crucifix, as if invoking a blessing on his labours, and his hand clasped on the arm of the dead man, so soon in his silence and ghastliness to yield him knowledge and instruction, is at once a lesson and a warning-a lesson for all who would undervalue the painful efforts of the studious in their search after truth, and a warning to the conservatives of consumption, cholera and typhus, the lovers of things as they were, not to sacrifice the health and welfare of their poorer fellows to a vain and presumptuous belief in the infallibility of ignorance. A vast deal of harm has been done in the world by "letting things alone."

A glance at the picture will admit the spectator at once into a knowledge of the state of art in the fourteenth century, and show him that the student was wont to practise in secresy and solitude-alone, but not lonely; for every fresh discovery, every artery laid bare beneath the scapel knife, and every muscle taken up and traced to its origin, must have been a triumph and a joy to his spirit beyond any that the world without was capable of communicating. It will tell its story, too, of the prejudice-rampant then, and not quite conquered yet-which existed in the public

mind with regard to everything connected with the dissecting room; for the closed door and the covered body, the grinning skull and the open book, are eloquent in their silence; while the knife and saw, and tweezers, and ink-bottle, tell each their tale of labour and observation. And has not the poverty and unreward that ever clings to the labourer in art and science a voice here too? Undoubtedly; for the bare walls have but a single ornament, and that a crucifix. But let us not be mistaken here it is not by wealth and honours that the searchers after truth are rewarded-for, viewed simply as so much work, the occupation of the student would be dreary and hard enough; but, considered in its true light, as a labour of love, and we arrive at a solution of the seeming mystery, and understand why men are content to encounter poverty and the world's neglect and coldness in the prosecution of their undertakings: does the painter work in his lonely garret from early morn till night for the mere money that his task will bring? does the author write for merely pay? does the scholar waste the midnight oil for nothing but hard cash? does the surgeon or anato nist brave the pestiferous fumes of the dissecting room, or the physician sit patiently beside the bedside of fever and disease for money only? Oh no; though the glittering prizes of life be showered on the heads of more fortunate indivi duals, and unbounded wealth reward the labour, sometimes, of the merest adventurers, yet the philosophic study of nature, and the glimpses of holy truth which brighten the student's lonely path, are of better worth to him than all riches of the world!

But to our picture: who was Versalius, or Andre Vasale, as he was sometimes called?

This celebrated anatomist, the first man, we are told, who practised the art of dissection, came from a family distinguished for its medical knowledge; a proof that talent is sometimes hereditary. His great grandfather, John Versalius, or Vasale, was physician to Mary of Burgundy, first wife of Maximilian I.; his grandfather, Everhard, is known as the author of the "Commentaries on Hippocrates' Aphorisms;" his father was apothecary to the emperor Charles V.; and he himself wrote a distinguished book called De Humani Corporis Fabrica, the then best work on anatomy which had appeared. This, though ridiculed by the profession as being the composition of a mere boy-for he was only eighteen when was written has continued to be consulted, and is even now considered as a standard work on the subjects of which it treats.

He was born at Brussels, in the year 1514 (though the date is variously given as 1512 and 1516), and was educated at Louvain. Having early shown a liking for anatomy, by such decided proofs as the dissection of rats, moles, and the smaller animals, he was sent to Paris, where he pursued his favourite study under the auspices of Silvius the physician.

But the pupil was enabled soon to instruct the master; for though dissections were formerly practised, they had long been discontinued, because they were considered by the priests and the people as both impious and unlawful; indeed, in a consultation of divines, held at Salamanca, by command of Charles V., it was expressly denounced as profane and contrary to good morals to anatomise the human body for the sake of learning its structure. However truly the priests of that and the succeeding age may be considered as the depositories of learning, it appears pretty certain, however, that they were determined to keep it to themselves.

Returning to Louvain, he pursued his studies with such ardour and success, that he was enabled, besides bringing out his great work, to communicate his knowledge to others. For this purpose he travelled into Italy, read lectures, and made anatomical demonstrations at Pisa, Bologna, and other cities; and about the year 1537 was elected by the Venetian senate to a professor