They have only to give movement and direction to what has lain so long dead and torpid,-to stetch forth their graceful Phrenological hand, and strew whatever arid and uninviting scientific path they enter with the rich and fragrant flowers of an unwonted fascination and attraction.

I cannot, Sir, here conceal from you, that, amidst my Phrenological studies, I occasionally encounter some slight shocks of discrepancy, and seeming contradiction. These, however, I may say, rather whet than cool my ardour. What I cannot turn gracefully aside, in my scientific strength, I seek, with the bold ardour of a noble steed, to overleap; and, in your true Phrenological spirit, when I have passed such barriers, I endeavour to let the recollection of their opposition drop secretly from my mind. Thus, the peculiar configuration of my head tells me I have an exceeding mathematical genius; the region of pure intellect, also, is admirably developed ; and the protuberance of language, in its richness, swells nearly into deformity. Candour, however, obliges me to say, that mathematics have always been my peculiar aversion; I have stumbled, in darkness and bewilderment, at the very threshold of pure mental speculation; and in place of rivalling the fame of Adelung, or Sir William Jones, in the vigour and rapidity with which I grapple and overcome languages, I must honestly say, that nearly ten years wrestling with the French language has been scarcely sufficient to enable me to read the Tales of Mercier, or the Fables of La Motte. I intend, however, speedily again to overhaul my intellectual character. I must examine, so to speak, how the declivities and swellings of the mental surface run; and it is not impossible that I may discover, and easily turn aside, some injurious obstruction, which has, during the whole of my life, caused the stream of intellectual character to flow away in difficult and reluctant channels. I shall still, therefore, in future, continue to draw (Phrenologice) the inferences of my deepest predilections rather from the configuration of my head than the feelings of my heart. I am not without confident hopes of speedily flashing forth in the dazzling brightness of my real and long-hid character,-of breaking the intellectual mystery in which I have hitherto lived,—of existing, as it were, again, in a beauty of mental form, heretofore unknown to myself; and, in my later years, beneath the bland and quickening influence of the Phrenological spring, if I may so speak, of casting aside the slough, or uncomely hair, of my intellectual hide, and, like the wild-horse, cheered by the quickening warmth of a new sun, of shewing many sportive tricks of elasticity and vigour. I shall then, contrasting my former mental character with the more singular and opposing biasses and capacities which Phrenology shall have dragged into light, seem, as it were, to bear about with me a kind of double Janus visage, in which, however, the youthful bloom and beauty of my Phrenological face, so to say, shall at once throw into the shade the emaciated and fast-waning features of my former intellectual self. In this state of mental transformation, I shall look back upon my former self with those callous feelings of indifference with which I call up the memory of a friend from whom I have willingly separated. It may be, that I shall then recognise only a few feeble features of resemblance between the peculiarities of my former mental character, and the more noble and fundamental intellectual change which I anticipate for myself. Perhaps, indeed, as in the remote descendants of an ancient house, some scattered features may often be traced, which assimilate them to the parent stock, as something in the arch of the eyebrows, the play of the mouth, the expression of the eyes, or even the sound of the voice; so it may, perhaps, be with myself, amidst the greatness of my intellectual change. I shall, however, in the dignified and sublime spirit of Phrenology which swells my bosom, look upon such insulated traces of my former self merely, so to speak, as scientific landmarks, which shall enable me more decisively to pronounce upon the extent of the revolution which has taken place, and to estimate more accurately the crowd and peculiarity of those mental obstacles which the rush of the Phrenological tide has so triumphantly and resistlessly swept away.

I have said, that, in my scientific pursuits, some touch of discrepancy oc

casionally ruffles the placid smoothness of my Phrenological credulity. I was at a concert some nights ago, where an admirable and exquisite performer enchanted and enraptured me, by the mingled power, and graceful, expressive delicacy of his execution. I anticipated a strong confirmation of the truth of my darling science, when he kindly gratified the impatience of my somewhat unmannerly enthusiasm, by allowing me to lay my scientific and practised hand on his head. My consternation and bewilderment, however, were extreme, when I felt, so to speak, no beating of the musical pulse, no organ of tune,-" total eclipse,"-Combe and Spurzheim rolling disastrously on the descendant, at the very moment when I expected some irrefragable touch of Phrenological science to greet my impatient finger. This, I must say, seemed to me, amidst the too overwhelming surprise of the moment, nearly as extraordinary as if a man could see by the soles of his feet, or think and live without his head. However, subsequent reflec tion, and the consoling and sympathetic counsellings of my Phrenological friends, have somewhat blunted the edge of my disappointment. And without infringing the sacredness of scientific truth, or the Confession of Faith of the Phrenological College, I escape from the dilemma which seemed ready to ensnare and entangle me, by merely believing, that a man may often do well what he is even led to by no peculiar strength or bias; that the effects of sedulous practice and habit sometimes (to the terror of weak Phrenologists) treacherously assume, as it were, the form and aspect of the deeper and truer propensities of the soul. It does indeed, I must allow, seem, at first sight, somewhat humiliating and rebutting to estimate the intellectual riches of Shakespeare or Milton, or take the dimensions of the gigantic genius of Handel, as your tailor takes your measure for a doublet, or a pair of breeches. I would only, however, here observe, that the greatest and most sublime truths in science are often admirably worked out by the simplest means. The seeming feebleness and inadequacy, therefore, of our Phrenological tools-looking to the splendour and magnitude of their results -ought rather, then, to beget the deepest sentiments of admiration and conviction than any profane and irreverent movements of ridicule or incredulity. I may here communicate to you, somewhat in confidence, that several of my associates-zealous and enthusiastic proselytes of this fascinating science-are at present on the momentous eve of forming matrimonial connections, guided solely by the noble lights and prognostics of Phrenology. The fervour and purity of their scientific faith may well, in such an event, beget our admiration, although, perhaps, it may be unable to charm others into imitation. My scientific friends, in this decisive and eventful step of their lives, shall wisely not have yielded to the delusive and vain ardours of that soft passion, which, as our poets gratuitously say, "enchants the world." They shall have made their matrimonial happiness flow, as a just and emphatic corollary, from the pure and abundant source of their Phrenological science; they shall have been guided alone by the bearings of the Phrenological map of the human passions and affections. And should any of my friends, by some dread fatality, be deceived in the fair object of their Phrenological choice, and find that they have not indeed taken gentleness and affection to their arms, I know well, that, in the noble enthusiasm of science, they will keep the unhappy secret locked within their own bosoms, and, amidst all the pitiless peltings of the domestic storm, they will, with the Roman spirit of Curtius of old, rejoice in so trying and decisive a self-devotion, which shall so eminently accelerate the advance of this sublime science.

It has been hinted to me, by a zealous and well-intentioned, but unscientific friend of mine, that my religious belief stands no slight hazard, from the inevitable tendency of my Phrenological doctrines. He idly supposes that the views of our system lead inevitably to materialism; that if we inseparably associate certain predominant tempers and dispositions of mind with certain marked and distinctive peculiarities in the configuration of the head, we seem to make mind receive the whole of its individual bias, and direction, and control, from the influence and contact of matter. That

we here, he says, elevate what is, in truth, subservient, into the controlling and directing power; that we rashly make our Phrenological signs not merely those which indicate mental qualities, but which rather, in some sort, produce, or at least modify them; and that, amidst the affected strictness of our science, we forget the pure spiritual nature of the divine principle within us, which we seek so idly and irreverently to entangle within the feeble meshes of our Phrenology. To these charges of my serious metaphysical friend I feel myself generally averse formally to reply. I have, to say the truth, in what regards the moral or religious tendencies of my Phrenology, entrusted for some time my conscience to several of my scientific intimates, of the most admirable and piercing acumen, and endeavour to shake myself free from anxiety or disquietude. My wife, indeed, frequently hints that my religion sits about me more loosely than heretofore, and fears, that, as I have lately swung from the moorings of my ancient political creed, or rather lost all confidence in its most public and zealous advocates, through the unerring lights of Phrenology, that I may, perhaps, from similar principles, also fors wear my religion. To say the truth, indeed, this system has somewhat darkened, I fear, the purity of my former belief in the free agency and accountability of man ; and amidst all the intoxicating fervours of my scientific enthusiasm, I cannot at times escape what might almost seem the legitimate inference from our system,—that if the soul is thus swayed and directed by the physical formation of the head, -if every variety of disposition and intellectual bias is inseparably connected and associated with a certain marked and distinctive craniological developement, that then our actions would seem the result of a dread and irresistible necessity. What I had formerly imagined was spiritual and indestructible, my Phrenology, I fear, irreverently tells me is ever controlled and clogged by the adamantine chains, so to speak, of that matter by which it is bound down and encircled; and, in place of the free and uncurtailed majesty of its flight, it receives its laws, its tendency, and its direction, from the peculiar form and configuration of those cells of the head and the brain which it inhabits. But I do not here desire to enter into the deeper and more recondite bearings of the science, lest, in my yet imperfect scientific strength, I should realize the fate of the ancient Milo, and, caught between some griping and relentless cleft of the Phrenological tree, fall an easy sacrifice to the feeblest infidel arm. It may be, that, what at times now seems so dark and hideous a spectre, if I may so say, may yet be found to be but the insubstantial shadow of my too rash and easily excited fears.

My well-meaning friend hints, that it may perhaps be difficult for me to return, should I follow much farther the dictates of my scientific ardour; and irreverently mentions, that a most acute and pertinacious Phrenologist, whose energy had carried him forward to an enviable distance on the perilous road, when, in the feeling of some unwonted misgivings of contrition, he began to think of gathering up his religion, found he had imperceptibly dropt it by the way. I have, however, prudently resolved to take myself to task at the different stages of my Phrenological advance, and should I feel the haze of scepticism or infidelity gradually rising into the horizon, so to speak, of my religious belief, I shall then resolutely pause, amidst that intoxicating fervour of speculation which none but your deep, Eleusinian, initiated Phrenologists know, and begin to distrust the predictions and delusive splendours of this sublime science which has so long fascinated and beguiled me.

My enthusiastic ardour in the prosecution of Phrenological science led me, some time ago, to adopt a very peculiar and decisive step, with a view to my still farther improvement, and immediate gratification. I had become somewhat tired of pursuing my scientific speculations upon the skulls of the dead, which, as I in general knew nothing of the traditionary character of those of whom I possessed these sad memorials, I often found resolve insensibly into a mere deceitful play of pleasing and ingenious fancy. I was therefore unable to compare and check the results of my Phrenological speculations by the true and avowed biasses and attributes of character of those departed spirits,

upon whom, like the ancient Egyptians, I passed sentence after death. This uncertain and inconclusive mode of study, which had at times irritated and inflamed my too-ardent and susceptible temperament, and been productive of no little domestic discord, led me to look impatiently around me for some wide and inviting field, where I might still pursue, amidst all the certainties and salutary checks of living character, my darling Phrenological pursuits. It at once occurred to me, that the Gentlemen of the Bar presented to my scientific ardour that inviting range for Phrenological appreciation which I had long so eagerly sought in vain. I easily prevailed upon the servants of their robing, or tyring-room, to allow me to officiate along with them, veiled beneath the impenetrable disguise of the perruquier, and to assist in putting on and adjusting the wigs of the Advocates before they spring forth into the arena of the Parliament House, to display their curls and their law. It so happens, I know not from what cause, (fortunate, in respect to my Phrenological self,) that the greater number of the Advocates who wear bar-wigs are either wholly or partially affected with baldness. I shall not stop to inquire whether this arise from the violent heats of animated and dignified contention, or whether the continued friction and movement of the wig, like the "Gutta cavat lapidem," may not be traced as the cause of this inviting peculiarity. I may merely observe, that I did my utmost to profit by the spectacle of so chequered and varied an assemblage of heads, which my ingenuity had placed so immediately under my observation. Those who stood then unsuspicious before me knew not what a scientific and finely-appreciating adept was at that moment looking insatiate, through the Phrenological windows, upon every maze and intricacy of the inward inan. They knew not, that, while I seemed to wield my brush, or adjust a curl, I was even then at the bottom of the well of truth, illumined by the irrefragable beams of Phrenological light. I regretted, however, that I was, in general, only allowed a passing glance, that the panorama of intellect was fatally transitory,-that I was permitted no time to pause over the rich and fascinating banquet presented by such striking and singular varieties of Phrenological developement. I was, indeed, repeatedly sharply reproved for being dilatory in my assumed office. However, the sight of such a varied and rapid succession of skulls was, to my scientific mind, so admirably instructive, and so soothingly gratifying, that I felt it at times as impossible that I should have immediately clapped on their wigs without taking first a greedy and insatiate glance of the riches before me, as it would be for me not to inhale the fragrance of the summer flowers as I pass along, or for a traveller, parched and fainting with thirst, not to drink from the stream which flows cool and sparkling at his feet. When, in this truly enviable situation for a Phrenologist, I saw on the head of some grim, arid, unimaginative, matter-of-fact old lawyer, some striking indication, which I knew to correspond exactly with the peculiarities of his real character, I could not refrain a suppressed chuckle of triumph, and was often on the point of breaking forth amid the buoyancy and intensity of my Phrenological rapture, into some empassioned exclamation of astonishment and admiration, which would assuredly have at once revealed the enthusiastic Phrenologist beneath the unexpected disguise of the barber. I need not, I believe, assure you, who must know the high character of the Bar so well, that I discovered in most of those who passed under my piercing and infallible scrutiny the indubitable indications of distinguished talent, of amiable biasses, and of pure and honourable purposes. And among its younger members, who have the felicity (in the eye of the Phrenologist) to be struck with partial baldness, I owe it, as some return for the scientific treat I enjoyed, to say, that the incations of distinguished mental endowment seemed to me striking and unambiguous. I augur, in the spirit of assured conviction, that there appears to me no hazard that the Bar shall speedily fall beneath its present high reputation. The bright, but too fleeting, glimpses of Phrenological light, which beamed upon me, lead me to believe that the stream of legal talent shall gather additional power and volume as it flows. Meanwhile, the younger members of the Bar, in the assured confidence of future success, can only

soothe themselves with the indulgence of those wishes, not unbecoming or irreverent in aspirants, that the old overshadowing timber may, in the ripeness of a proper season, be hewn down, and allow the crowd of young and vigorous plants to raise their depressed heads, to spread forth their branches, and expand themselves into the majestic dignity of trees of the forest.

The effect of my Phrenological knowledge upon my mind has been, in some respects, sufficiently strange and unlooked-for. It has deprived, in my sight, our poets of many of their greatest charms. Those descriptions, in which they fancifully trace an analogy between the outward features of their personages and their mental qualities,-those enthusiastic bursts of feeling and passion in which lovers trace, with so delighted an assurance, the indications of every fair, or graceful, or noble attribute of female character, in the fascinating and irresistible beauty of their mistresses, and which, in my former deplorable ignorance, touched me with so fond and lively a rapture, these I now zealously endeavour to estimate, by the light of more novel and enlarged views. I find it, however, I must ingenuously own, no easy task to wean myself from these old and fond poetic predilections. The feelings of my heart, when I meet with these passages of fascinating and seductive beauty, which our Phrenological science opposes, generally rebel against the more sober and decisive dictates of my now enlightened judgment; and when I feel myself hurried along by the powerful and delicious influence of such expressions, I now, in my enlarged philosophy, at once chill and arrest their force, by stretching forth, so to speak, my cold and irresistible Phrenological hand, which at once, with a sad and disastrous, yet wisely corrective power, throws a deadening and sullen gloom across the animated brightness of the poetic horizon. In my enthusiastic passion for this new science, I should now, in much that is esteemed most vital and essential, wish to model and construct anew our poetical system. I would have poets no longer to speak of the fascinating and commanding beauty and majesty of the human form or countenance. I would desire they would no longer describe, with such inimitable and expressive, yet delusive poetic colouring, the irresistible and soft beauty of an Helen, which even touched the old into reverence as she passed,-the matron loveliness of the sorrowing Andromache,-the godlike bearing of a Hector,-the venerable age of a Priam, or the grace and fascinating beauty of a Paris; I would now, indeed, rather wish, amidst my scientific hallucination, that the poet should at once draw a veil over all the deceitful and fleeting blandishments of outward feature; I would have him at once to ascend, as it were, into the "arcana rerum." I would desire, that, in describing his feigned personages, he should rather walk by the sure and stubborn head-marks of Phrenology, than the deceitful play and vacillation of human features; and that, in characterising his heroes and heroines by the peculiar configuration of their skulls, he should there break forth into some noble and enthusiastic aspirations of his art. Besides, should his poetic wings seem in hazard of carrying him aloft in too devious and hazardous a flight, he should still possess this advantage over all cultivators of the divine art, that he might at once, from the precision of the scientific rules he walks by, regulate his course with the most striking and unswerving accuracy. He might sink gracefully and sportively down, from where he first ascended, upon some singularly jutting promontory on the skull of his poetical victim, or on some shelving and gentle declivity of amativeness, of wit, or of tune. He might, in short, suitably close the splendour and vigour of his poetic flight, by descending, like a feathered Mercury, at once on your true scientific ground; and should, in the intensity of his wrapt emotion, his poetic mantle still too closely cling to him, he might gracefully toss it aside, as no longer necessary, and stand forth your ardent and insatiate Phrenologist, amidst the Golgotha of skulls. I would have, indeed, your Phrenological poet climb into no daring elevation but by the assured ladder of his Phrenology alone; I would not have him vainly to grasp the unsubstantial colours of the passing clouds, so to speak, but rather to lay hold, amid all his delightful wanderings, of the stable pillars of his Phrenology. I can indeed assure him, from some de

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