Countenance, however, is not within the reach of any of these substances or combinations. It is a species of moral beauty, as superiour to mere charms of surface, as mind is to matter. It is, in fact, visible spirit-legible intellect, diffusing itself over the features, and enabling minds to commune with each other by some secret sympathy unconnected with the senses. The heart has a silent echo in the face, which frequently carries to us a conviction diametrically opposite to the audible expression of the mouth; and we see, through the eyes, into the understanding of the man, long before it can communicate with us by utterance.

It

This emanation of character is the light of a soul destined to the skies, shining through its tegument of clay, and irradiating the countenance, as the sun illuminates the face of nature before it rises above the earth to commence its heavenly career. Of this indefinable charm, all women are alike susceptible. is to them what gunpowder is to warriours; it levels all distinctions, and gives to the plain and the pretty, to the timid and the brave, an equal chance of making conquests. It is, in fine, one among a thousand proofs of that system of compensation, both physical and moral, by which a superiour Power is perpetually evincing his benignity; affording to every human being a commensurate chance of happiness, and inculcating upon all, that when they turn their faces towards heaven, they should reflect the light from above, and be animated by one uniform expression of love, resignation, and gratitude.

SECTION IX.

Philosophy of Apparitions.-QUARTERLY REVIEW.

Extract.

NOTWITHSTANDING the eagerness with which almost all educated persons disclaim a belief in the supernatural, and denounce, as a vulgar absurdity, the very notion of apparitions, yet there are few, even of the boldest and least credulous, who are not occasionally the victims of the very apprehensions which they deride; and many such have been ingenuous enough to confess, that their skepticism receives more support from their pride than from their reason.

Occupied with professional toil, or engaged with the objects

Tèg'à'ment. Ir-rå'de 'å-ting.

of sense, and the dazzling prizes of ambition, the man of the world scarcely recognises himself as the possessor of a spiritual nature; in him

"This faculty divine

Is chained and tortured,-cabined, cribbed, confined,
And bred in darkness;"*

but even over this darkness the truth will sometimes shine forth, "The beam pour in, and time and skill will couch the blind."

In the infinite variety of his works and ways, the Almighty has provided numerous means for maintaining a strong sense of the supernatural. A mind of even ordinary energy, naturally turns inward when withdrawn from its daily routine of thought and action; and when placed under circumstances of powerful association, or, when witnessing striking phenomena in the natural or moral world, it readily reverts to its own origin and destiny, and spontaneously claims kindred with the spiritual. Amid the solitude of ancient grandeur, the traveller feels as if he were encircled by its former tenants;—he acknowledges" the power and magick of the ruined battlement ;" and, "becoming a part of what has been," he recognises, in the sacred awe which breathes around him, the force of the re mark, that

But it is not merely by its own creations that the mind feels its connexions with the spiritual world. There are events and scenes in nature so rare in their occurrence, or so overpowering in their grandeur, or so terrifick in their effects, that the mind springs, as it were, its earthly cable, and feels itself in the immediate presence of more exalted intelligences. Amid the darkness and crash of the thunder-storm, human courage stands appalled, and we feel as if the divine ubiquity were concentrated in this powerful appeal to our fears. In the still more terrifick phenomena of the earthquake, the poet has well described

"The awe

Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds
Plunge into the clouds for refuge, and withdraw
From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herds

Stumble o'er heaving plains; and man's dread hath no words."

Nor is it by material phenomena only that the mind is withdrawn from its earthly concerns to a due sense of its positions

*Rêkôg'nh-zéz. Mền-taneing. Rỏôtiên. Ap-palld.

* Byron.

and its relations. Moral events address themselves still more powerfully to mankind; and through the channel of the affections, we are often roused from a lethargy that would otherwise prove fatal. When domestick affliction presses its cold hand upon the heart, and throws a blackness over nature, material objects almost cease to influence us; the mind discovers its true place in the scheme of infinite wisdom, and, longing to follow the disembodied spirit from which it has been torn, would almost welcome the stroke that should effect its liberation. Such are some of the means by which ordinary minds are impressed with a serious, though unacknowledged, awe of the unseen world. The various phenomena of apparitions may be divided into two great classes :-' -Those which may be seen by several persons at the same time;-and those which are seen by only one person at a time.

The first of these divisions embraces two very opposite classes of phenomena. While it includes the supernatural visions which were displayed during the Jewish theocracy, and at the establishment of Christianity, it comprehends, also, the whole system of impostures which prevailed in the heathen temples. The extraordinary manner in which the Almighty deigned to hold converse with his peculiar people, and the miracles by which our Saviour and his disciples overpowered the incredulity of their hearers, were special interpositions of Providence, rendered for the accomplishing of the high objects of divine government.d But far different from these beneficent revelations, were the lying miracles of ancient idolatry. The sciences of the times, limited as they were, became, in the hands of the priest and the magician, the unhallowed instruments of imposture, with which to operate upon the minds of the ignorant and the credulous and thus, the common people, unacquainted with the powers of nature, and the resources of art, became the willing victims of a base superstition.

The principal apparitions of former times, seem to have been of an optical nature. The properties of lenses and concave mirrors, and especially that of forming images in the air which eluded the grasp of the observer, and possessed all the characteristicks of an incorporeal existence, were certainly known to the ancient magicians. Hence, it was easy to obtain from inverted and highly illuminated statues and pictures, aerial representations of their gods and heroes, or of their departed friends. But though such apparitions had the requisite resemblance to Im-pôs'tshire. Gåvårn

Kris-tshe-ân'è 'tě. Sis'têm-not, tum.
In'strù'mênts.

ment. Be-nèf'è-sènt.

their prototypes, they still wanted the appearance of real life. This defect, however, they were able to supply. They possessed the art of giving an erect position to inverted images, so that it was easy to exhibit erect apparitions in the air.

Other sources of such apparitions as may be seen by several persons at once, have their origin in particular functions of vision itself; and to the deceptions which spring from them, the best and the least informed are equally liable. The thousand and one apparitions, which, from age to age, have continued to terrify the young and the ignorant, have generally presented themselves during the hours of twilight and darkness; at which hours the imagination steps in as an auxiliary to physical causes. At such times, all objects, from the obscurity in which they are involved, are seen with difficulty. This obscurity of objects, combined with certain affections and singular changes wrought upon the organs of vision, powerfully contributes to the production of illusions in the dark. It is a curious circumstance, that the spectres of this kind, are always, as they ought to be, white, because no other colour can be seen in the dark; and they are always created, either out of inanimate objects which reflect more light than those around them, or which are projected against a more luminous ground, or they are formed out of human beings or animals whose colour or change of place renders them more visible in the dark.

SECTION X.

Philosophy of Apparitions-Continued.-Ib.

THAT class of apparitions which can be seen only by one person at a time, may originate in three different causes. First, they may be the result of mere optical illusion, presented to a person of the soundest mind and in the most perfect health; or of certain physical affections of the eye, occasioned by some temporary derangement of its functions, and exaggerated by the imagination. Secondly, they may have their origin entirely in the imagination when rendered morbid by an early-instilled and deeply-seated belief in apparitions, and when excited by local associations. Thirdly, they may arise, in persons of the soundest minds and with the best regulated imaginations, from a diseased state of the vital functions,-exhibiting themselves in open day, and even in the midst of the social circle.

'Egz-hib'it. 'Awg-zîl'yâ'rẻ. ©Dê-rånje'mênt—not, munt. Egz-hib'it-ing

One of the most extraordinary illusions of the description last mentioned, is that of Nicolai, a bookseller of Berlin, who communicated an account of his own case to the Prussian Academy of Science.

Towards the close of the year 1790, and at the commencement of 1791, M. Nicolai had been agitated by various misfortunes which preyed deeply upon his mind, when, on the 24th of February, an event occurred which threw him into still deeper distress. At about ten o'clock in the morning, just as his wife and a friend were entering his room for the purpose of consoling him, he perceived, at the distance of a few paces, the standing figure of a person deceased, which remained from seven to eight minutes, and which the rest of the party, of course, were unable to see. A little after four o'clock in the afternoon, the same figure appeared to him when he was alone; and upon his going out, in order to mention the circumstance to his wife, the spectre accompanied him to her apartment, alternately vanishing and reappearing. A little after six o'clock, several stalking figures also appeared; but they had no connexion with the figure already mentioned.

When his mind had become more composed, and his bodily indisposition had been removed by medical treatment, Nicolai expected that these apparitions would take leave of him. His expectations, however, were disappointed, for they increased in number, and underwent the most extraordinary transformations. The standing figure of the deceased person never appeared to him after the 24th of February; but several other figures occupied its place. These figures were chiefly representations of persons whom he did not know, though he sometimes saw those of his acquaintances. The figures of living persons occurred more frequently than those of persons who were deceased; and he distinctly observed, that acquaintances with whom he daily conversed, never appeared to him as phantasms. After some weeks, when he had become familiar with these unbidden guests, he endeavoured to conjure up phantasms of his acquaintances, by bringing them before his imagination in the most lively manner; but, although he had, only a short time previous, seen them as phantasms, by this process he never could succeed in giving them an external locality.

When he was conversing with his physician and his wife, respecting the phantasms which hovered around him, the figures

Prush'an. To'ardz. Fig'ure-not, fig'er. dâl-tèr'nåte-le-not awl-têr'nåte-lẻ. Fig'drez. Wèr.