mend the British fair to imitate the Chinese ladies, by compressing their feet into pretty little toys, for ornament rather than for use. As they never walk during the day, the crippling process will not be attended with any inconvenience-while it will prevent them from jumping (or to use a more fashionable term, gallopading) six hours every night, in an atmosphere somewhat similar to that of the black-hole in Calcutta, by which a prodigious WEAR and TEAR of their constitutions will be saved. RECIPROCITIES OF MIND AND BODY. Does ETIOLATION merely indicate the nature of avocation and dissipation in civilised life? It indicates much more than these; but the complete investigation of the subject cannot be undertaken in this place. This etiolation is but the external sign of a host of internal modifications, if not changes of vital powers and functions, that exert a greater influence over our health and happiness, than is generally known or imagined. Is it to be supposed that the pallid cheek, the lack-lustre eye, the care-worn countenance, the languid gait, the flaccid muscle, and the indisposition to exertion, are purely insulated phenomena, unconnected with deep-rooted deviations from sound health of body and mind?—No, verily! Man is a curious and compound machine, animal and intellectual. He, in company with other living beings, has organs that are not under his command, and which digest his food, circulate his blood, and repair the wear and tear of the day, without his knowledge or consent. He has voluntary muscles, by which he transports himself from place to place-erects edifices-constructs manufactures-and becomes. equally expert in cultivating the fields in peace, and covering them with the dead bodies of his fellow-creatures in war! But he has a sentient and intellectual system. His senses, like faithful videttes, convey to the mind intelligence of every thing that passes in the world around him; and from these impressions the MIND forms its ideas, its judgments, and its determinations. That man excels all other animals in his intellectual system, there can be little doubt; but it would not be difficult to shew that, for this superiority, he pays a heavy tax in health and happiness! The animal and intellectual-in other words, the SPIRITUAL and MATERIAL portions of our being may be distinct essences, and the former may survive the latter in "another and a better world;❞—but here below, they are linked in the strictest bonds of reciprocity, and are perpetually influenced, one by the other. Thus, let certain substances be applied to certain sensible parts of our material fabric-as antimony or Prussic acid to the nerves of the stomach. The muscles become enfeebled-and the mind, even of the proudest hero, falls prostrate with its suffering companion in the animal life! Shakespeare was too observant of human nature not to notice this; and he repeatedly exemplifies it. An invisible, but a material agent, MALARIA, is made to annihilate the courage of Cæsar. He had a fever when he was in Spain; His coward lips did from their colour fly; Whoever has SEA-SICKNESS is another familiar illustration. crossed the Channel, for the first time, in stormy weather, and felt the horrors of Neptune's seasoning, must remember its depressing influence on every faculty of the soul! But does the mind fail to repay these acts of civility received from the body? No, indeed. More than half of our corporeal discomforts, and even diseases, are produced by perturbation and tribulation of mind. Look at the great commercial world. It may be compared to a monstrous animal whose brain or sensorium is placed on Cornhill, but whose nerves or feelers extend to the four quarters of the globe. Every event, political or commercial, that RECIPROCITIES OF MIND AND BODY. 13 occurs on any point of the earth's surface, vibrates along these nerves, and is tremblingly felt by the sensory "ON CHANGE❞— whence it radiates to every part of the capital and of the kingdom! What must be the consequence of such a state of things, when it is well known that even in the most quiet and domestic circles of life, a sudden gust of passion, a transient sense of fear, an unexpected piece of intelligence-in short, any strong emotion of the mind, will cause the heart to palpitate, the muscles to tremble, the digestive organs to suspend their functions, and the blood to rush in vague and irregular currents through the living machine? The detection of Antiochus's passion for Stratonica by the pulse, is a proof how early the influence of the mind on the heart was remarked. It is well known that Philip the Fifth, of Spain, died suddenly on learning the disastrous defeat of the army near Plaisance. Zimmerman states that, on opening his body, the heart was found burst. The minutest capillary tube through which the vital current flows, is under the influence of mental perturbation. Shame will crimson the cheek: -Let the emotion be changed to fear, and the lily usurps the seat of the rose-the face is blanched and bloodless. ANGER can rouse the vital organs into such preternatural activity as to overcome, for a time, habitual decrepitude. Thus Muley Moloc, though lying on the bed of death, worn out by an incurable disease, and not expected to live an hour, started from his litter during the important crisis of a battle between his troops and the Portuguese-rallied his army-led them to victory—and immediately expired! These and a thousand instances that might be cited, may enable us to form some idea of the wide range of physical effects resulting from the almost unlimited "play of the passions" among so thinking, so reading, so commercial, and so political a people as the English. It is by the brain, or organ of intellect, that man is distinguished and raised above all other animals. The nerves of sense, by which impressions are conveyed to this organ, are not so acute in the lord of the creation as in many of the inferior orders of animated beings. He is surpassed by the eagle in sight-by the hare in hearing-and by almost all other animals in taste. But when the human species began to congregate in cities, it was soon obvious that the exertion of the intellect must predominate over that of the body. As civilization advanced, intellectual labour came more into demand, and the labourers multiplied in proportion. At the present period, as was before observed, the employment of a very large class of human beings, especially in cities, consists almost entirely in mental exertion. To such an extent is intellectual labour now arrived, that a very large and influential class of society live entirely, and support themselves honourably, by "teaching the young ideas how to shoot" -while others, who have no actual occupation, rack their minds with inventions, schemes, and projects, that fade away as fast as they are engendered. It is well known that, the more a voluntary muscle is exercised, within a reasonable limit, the stronger and more capable of exertion it becomes. It is so with the intellectual faculties. The more these faculties are brought into play, (within a certain bound of moderation) the more extensive becomes the sphere of their power. The senses of touch, smell, hearing, all acquire acuteness in proportion as they are exercised. But this extra development and sensibility of the intellectual faculties cannot take place but at the expense of some corporeal function or structure. An attentive examination of every class of society, from the prime minister down to the attorney's clerk, will convince us that, in proportion as the intellect is highly cultivated, improved, and strongly exerted, the body sufferstill a period at length arrives, when the corporeal deterioration begins to re-act on the mental powers, and then proud man finds that the elasticity, even of the immortal mind, may be impaired by pressure too long continued-and that, like springs of baser metal, it requires occasional relaxation. Civilized, and more especially civic life, by rendering the senses more acute, makes the passions more ungovernable. In congregated masses of society, every kind of food for the passions is not only superabundant in quantity, but of the most stimulating quality. Hence, in all the upper classes of society -in all, indeed, who work with the head rather than with the hand-and also among those who have no work at all-we find an unnatural and insalutary degree of excitement kept up in the brain and nervous system by the "play of the passions." The extent of injury which our health sustains in this way is beyond all calculation! Plato was not very far wrong when he asserted, that "all diseases of the body proceed from the mind or soul:"-" omnia corporis mala ab anima procedêre." Unquestionably a very great proportion of them originate in this source. In this country, where man's relations with the world around him are multiplied beyond all example in any other country, in consequence of the intensity of interest attached to politics, religion, commerce, literature, and the arts—where the temporal concerns of an immense proportion of the population are in a state of perpetual vacillation-where spiritual affairs excite great anxiety in the minds of many-and where speculative risks are daily run by all classes, from the disposers of empires in Leadenhall Street down to the potatoe-merchant in Covent Garden, it is really astonishing to observe the deleterious influence of these mental perturbations on the functions of the corporeal fabric. The operation of physical causes, numerous as these are, dwindles into complete insignificance, compared with that of anxiety, tribulation, discontent-and, I may add, ENNUI, of mind. EDUCATION. Before concluding the subject of WEAR and TEAR of civilized life, and adverting to one or two of the principal means of repair, I shall take the liberty of making a few brief remarks on modern education, and its influence on mind and body. I shall not be ranked among the "Laudatores temporis acti," when I avow my conviction that the mode as well as the amount of modern education, as far as mule youth is concerned, are as much superior to those of former times, as our carriages, machinery, and |