BARRY CORNWALL'S SONGS. From the Athenæum. English Songs and other Small Poems. By Barry Cornwall. A new edition. Moxon. THIS edition has been revised, enriched, and essentially enlarged. The character of the volume is less exclusively musical than formerly. It now contains strains of too stirring and serious an import to be sung, however fit for declamation. The chanted rhyme, the popular ballad, will bear a heavier weight| of meaning-should wear a different aspect, both as to form and language-from the verse which the musician is to clothe: unless the latter is to be so oppressed by the poet, as to leave no free play for the exercise of his art-less definite, but not less sweet, and little less significant. But what need, for the twentieth time, to harangue on the niceties of song writing? Let the reader open the volume, illustrate, compare, and sing (if he can). The additions are chiefly in the form of "small poems" and dramatic fragments. It is with the former we shall chiefly busy ourselves and tempt our friends. The book, by its size and quality, is the very thing for a solitary traveller on a summer ramble, who will find that Nature and Verse receive the last and most exquisite relish from being read in company. The first three poems, 'A Song for the New Year,' 'London,' and 'The Old Arm Chair,' have already appeared, we are proud to say, in this journal. By way of first blossom in our new garland, we will take some verses addressed To a Friend in Autumn. Friend! the year is overgrown: Summer like a bird hath flown, Leaving nothing (fruits nor flowers) Save remembrance of sweet hours; And a fierce and froward season, Blowing loud for some rough reason, Rusheth from a land unknown. Where is laughing May, who leapt August, with her crown of corn? Will they come back to us,-soon ?—soon? Never! Time is overgrown! Strains more sad than autumn weather; The following specimens do not need a setting of either introduction or comment : Stanzas. That was not a barren time, Open to the burning day. Though her young limbs were not clad Knowing all she bore within, There was Beauty, such as feeds And the signs of all the flowers. Judge not, then, the Poet's dreams Barren all, and void of good: Fables, with a heart of truth; Starry lessons for the night. Unto Man, in peace and strife, True and false, and weak and strong,Unto all, in death and life, Speaks the poet in his song. To the South Wind. O sweet South Wind! Long hast thou lingered 'midst those islands fair, Which lie, enchanted, on the Indian deep, Like sea-maids all asleep, Charmed by the cloudless sun and azure air! Pause here awhile, and gently now unbind Wilt thou not unloose now, Rest; and let fall the fragrance from thy brow, And on her cheeks, which crimson-liked the skies; And slumber on her bosom, white as snow, We, whom the northern blast Blows on, from night till morn, from morn to eve, Hearing thee, sometimes grieve That our poor summer's day not long may last: And yet, perhaps, 'twere well We should not ever dwell With thee, sweet spirit of the sunny South; But touch thy odorous mouth Once, and be gone unto our blasts again, And their bleak welcome, and our wintry snow; And arm us (by enduring) for that pain Which the bad world sends forth, and all its woe! The last is a song without music, set, by the sweetness of cadence and syllable, so exquisitely, that the most delicate hand could not add a tone or a chord without injuring its effect. The next lyric, which we shall give, is of a different humor,-wild, fearless, and energetic: The Rising of the North. Hark,-to the sound! Without a trump, without a drum, From cellar and cave, from street and lane, Come sick, and lame, and old, and poor, Starved children with their pauper sire, And felons, hunted to their den, And all who shame the name of men, The good, the bad, come hand in hand, Flaps no proud banner, flaunting high, That word their ensign,-that the cause That the sole boon for lives of toil, : One single year, and some who now In quiet homes: their sole desire, But Hunger is an evil foe: It striketh Truth and Virtue low, Wild Hunger, stripped of hope and fear! For mark, what comes:-To-night the poor (All mad) will burst the rich man's door, And wine will run In floods, and rafters blazing bright And plate carved round with quaint device And queenly silks, from foreign lands, And Murder-from his hideous den Till creatures born For good, (whose hearts kind Pity nursed,) So, Wealth by Want will be o'erthrown, Sweet Peace! who sitt'st aloft, sedate, Between the pomp of Cræsus' state, -- "Tween deadly Frost and scorching Sun,- Must the world quail to absolute kings, Turk's bowstring,-Tartar's vile Ukase,- Oh, God!-Since our bad world began, For bread-for gold-for words—for air! Man's puny life! There is no returning, after an outburst like this, to the love-ditties of Armida's Garden: nay, or even to the pleasant and careless communings with Nature in her hidden nooks, which our poet sings as musically as the Winged wind When 't bends the flowers. SHAKSPEARE'S JUG-This relic of the immortal bard has found its way to Gloucester, having been purchased at Mrs. Turberville's sale by Mrs. Fletcher, the wife of Mr. Fletcher, gunsmith, who purchased it for nineteen guineas and the duty. The jug is of cream-colored earthenware, about nine inches in height. It is divided longitudinally into eight compartments, and horizontally subdivided, and within these the principal deities of the Grecian Mythology are represented in rather bold relief. It was demised, with other effects of Shakspeare, to his sister Joan, who married William Hart, of Stratford-upon-Avon. The Harts subsequently settled in Tewkesbury, and the jug was preserved by them through several generations, with religious care; but a few years ago it passed out of their hands. Mrs Fletcher is a direct descendant of the Harts, and by her spirited competition she has again brought the interesting relic into the possession of her family, which had for so many years preserved it.-Times. ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND NEURHYP NOTISM. From Fraser's Magazine. NOTE PRELIMINARY TO OLIVER YORKE, ESQ. DEAR MR. YORKE,-May I crave a short space in the pages of Regina for a few remarks upon a topic which is making a prodigious fuss in the scientific world just now? Believe me, I have no design upon you; indeed, I could not presume to attempt to father my conceptions upon so prudent and circumspect an authority. All my modesty will permit me to ask is, that you be pleased to give currency to, without making yourself answerable for, my opinions. Yours, &c. R. S. S. [We accede cheerfully to the request of a clever, though it may be a crotchety, contributor. But we hold ourselves as free as any of our readers to judge of his reasoning.O. Y.] 1. Isis Revelata: An Inquiry into the Origin, ism and clairvoyance are the great wonders of the hour,-as indeed they were (being revived wonders even then) half a century ago, and these departments of physiology and psychology, after having been treated with contempt, ridicule, and contumely,kicked, as it were, from Dan to Beersheba, spit upon and treated despitefully, at length numbers amongst the most faithful of their adherents men of science, obstetric physicians, surgeons, and even divines! The genius of modern discovery would almost lead us to believe that the inscription which the Egyptians engraved on the pedestals of the statues of their great goddess was an abominable cheat; that instead of making her all candor and frankness, they represented her as a prude with frowns and forbidding looks, reminding one, as Sheridan somewhere says, of a board, with notice of spring-guns set in a highway, or steelthat there is something worth stealing where traps on a common, because they insinuate there is not the least cause to suspect it. We must prepare ourselves, it seems, to see the "veil of Isis," hitherto held to be sacred, impenetrable, and for ever to be closed over and clasped tightly around the greatest of ancient mysteries, now lifted by the silvery fingers of the goddess herself, her tongue wagging lightsome and glibly as that of Lord Brougham or any village wench, unkennelling the greatest of nature's pent-up secrets, and from being the In an age in which science is taking most trustworthy and confidential of her such prodigious strides, and so industri- privy councillors becoming all at once a ously enlarging her borders, it is scarcely Mrs. Candid and a blab! Well may Mr. wonderful that the doctrine of therapeutic Colquhoun christen his book Isis Revelata. magnetism should be roused once more The goddess has flung her prestige behind from its slumbers, and encouraged to pre- her; her poll-shaven priests, if any of the fer a claim to some share of the public at- race still minister amongst the pyramids, tention and respect. Within the last three may now discharge their barbers, let their years, wide-mouthed Credulity has felt no hair grow as it listeth, and import a hairlack of the marvellous wherewith to regale dresser from Bond Street; they may pay itself; since from Lord Shrewsbury down court to the ladies without running the risk to Mr. Spencer Hall,-from the " Adolorata of an auto da fè, and add a hosier and of Capricano" and the "Estatica of Cal-boot-maker to their list of tradespeople. daro," to the lady who can tell you what The murder is out! a modern dipus has Mrs. Jenkins or Mrs. Anybody else is do- unriddled this second sphynx of the land of ing at a given time any number of miles puzzles-magnetism has triumphed! off, and the wonderful boy who can read letters in the post-office, we have had an abundance of marvels of the first water, sparkling and gushing with almost uninterrupted succession from the press. Witness the stack of books, and pamphlets, and periodicals, piled up before us this moment, as if men meant to rival Truth and Heaven by the magnitude of their labors. Magnet C. M. W. S. &c. London: John Churchill; But we have hinted that the influence of magnetism upon the animal functions is not now broached for the first time. Possibly we might be able to trace it down to the remotest ages, and there is little doubt * Solon has the following curious allusion that many phenomena of ancient times were | definition of magnetism is, "Sic vocitamus produced by some such agency, though, as eam occultam coaptationem qua absens in will be seen hereafter, we ascribe to very absens per influxum agit, sive trahendo vel different causes most, if not all, of the impellendo fiat; i. e. an occult influence by effects which are attributed to Magnetism. attraction or impulsion, which is a fundaSo far back as the seventeenth century the mental principle of Mesmer's theory. The loadstone was used by many practitioners vehicle and essence of this influence he as a curative means; indeed, most of those calls magnale magnum, an impalpable and who adopt the doctrines of Paracelsus had imponderable fluid pervading all nature. great faith in its (supposed) curative pow- In the human frame, he believes the blood ers, and some of them wrote works upon to be the seat of this influence which may the subject. Of these, by far the most be controlled by the will of another, profamous was van Helmont, a native of Brus-vided the operator be more powerfully sels, born in 1577, died in 1644, who, edu- charged with this magical influence, this imcated as a physician, devoted himself to ponderable fluid, than the subject operated chemical researches. He wrote a treatise upon. It is well that he makes a proviso to on the magnetic cure of wounds, in reply the omnipotence of the operator, otherwise to one on the same subject, the title of which he would be calling upon us to believe that we give in the foot-note, by Goclenius, a an operator more strongly imbued with the physical philosopher in high repute, and magic fluid than his neighbor might will the another by one Father Robert, a Jesuit, stoppage of the circulation of his blood, and who, like some people in our own times, so put an end to that neighbor's existence! branded magnetism as a "Satanic agency. "But he puts a bar to this violent postulate In reply to this Van Helmont wrote, "Mag- by telling us that this magnetic or magical netismus, quia passim viget, præter nomen, nil novi continet; nec paradoxus nisi iis qui cuncta derident, et in Satana dominium ablegant quæcunque non intelligant." His Τὸν δὲ κακαῖς νούσοισι κυκώμενον ἀργὰ λέαις τε "The smallest hurts sometimes increase and rage, (whichever he chooses to call it) power lies dormant in man until it is called into action; and that if either the magical power in the subject to be operated upon be stronger than the operator, or the will of the subject be opposed to the operation, it is in vain to attempt to produce any cosmic or magnetic results. His words are, "Diximus omnem fortassis magicum vim dormire et excitatione opus habere; quod perpetuo verum est, si objectum in quod agendum est non sit proxime prorsus annuat agentis impressioni, vel dispositum, si ejus interna fantasia non etiam si robore patiens sit par vel superior agenti." This admission is most important, as showing that whatever the volition of the operator may be, it is powerless and ineffectual without the volition of the subject operated upon. It is a maxim of anwhere an anxious mind is at work (O tiquity that the poppy has no influence Amongst others we may name Kircher, Mag- ἄπας μαρμαίρων μήκωνα δρέπει), and it is nes, sive de Arte Magnetica, Colon. 1664 et Rom. equally true that no magnetism or magic 1654; Magneticum Naturæ Regnum, &c., Am-known to humanity can work in opposition sterdam, 1667; Van Helmont, Opera Omnia, (including his De Magnetica Vulnerum Curatione,) to the will of man. We shall refer to this Frankfort, 1682; J. G. Burgraave, Balneum Diane Magneticum, 1600; Gul. Maxwell, Medicina Manetica, libri tres, in quibus tam theoria quam praxis continetur, Frankfort, 1679; R. Gocĺenii, Tract. de Magnet. Vuln. Curat. Frankfort, 1613; S. Wirdig, Nova Medicina Spirituum, Hamb. 1673, (from which we may conveniently give a short quotation in this place, "Totus mundus constat et positus est in magnetismo; omnes sublunarium vicissitudines fiunt per magnetismum; vita conservatur magnetismo; interitus omnium rerum fiunt per magnetismum.-P. 178. A singular expression is also pointed out as occurring in the Amphitryo of Plautus, "Quid, si ego illum tractim tangam, ut dormiat," which, although used figuratively for, "What if I knock him on the head?" may be literally rendered, "What if I continually manipulate him till he sleep?" * more at length hereafter, when we come to test the pretensions of animal magnetism. We may observe, however, that in another treatise (Actio Regiminis) Van Helmont admits even more pointedly that the assent of the subject operated upon is an indispensable condition precedent to the success of the experiment. Thus the inconsistency is complete. In one place we have him insisting upon the omnipotence of the occult magnetic influence in man; interview with Iris the sister of the Oceanin another he clogs his principle with a ides, and learned from her not only how proviso which destroys it whenever that she fills the clouds with water, but whereproviso is called into action. We fancy abouts in the human body the mystic thread we shall be able to make it tolerably clear, which connects it with the soul is to be shortly, that ALL the power rests with the found, what kind of scissors she uses to cut (human) subject operated upon, and that it, and of what material the thread itself is whether the operator will or no, the subject composed! None of these things would can induce coma and its several sequences have been at all inconsistent with some whenever he chooses. This en parenthèse. things that have been forced into light at Another of Van Helmont's "great mys- the point of his pen; and he would not teries" is, that there is in man a peculiar power which enables him by the mere force of his will and imagination, to act at a distance, and so instil a virtue and exercise an influence upon a very remote object. This he admits is beyond his comprehension, and yet he somewhere tells us that in consequence of having tasted, in the course of his experiments in 1633, the root of the aconite, he saw his own soul seated, not in his head, but in the region of his stomach! He describes it as a spiritual substance (ponderable, of course!) of a crystalline appearance, luminous, and having the figure of a man! have lacked implicit believers, even if we pass from his own times to the days of Burgomaster Dr. Von Meyer (who believes that dogs have blue souls as well as men !) and the believers in magnetic clairvoyance. Extravagant, however, as all these things must unquestionably appear to men of common sense, they are not to be "pished" or "pooh-poohed" down, or despatched at once with the imputation of "flam" upon their heads. To show their tenacity of life, we need only turn to the mesmerists of the present day, whose stock in trade they really are; for without meaning any disrespect to our contemporaries, we must "My intuitions," quoth he, "immediately than Van Helmont. Even Mr. Colquhoun, say that, in theory, they have got no farther became much stronger and of greater compass, and this mental clearness was combined learned, able, penetrating, and eloquent as with a feeling of extraordinary pleasure. I he is, clings to the extravagancies of the slept not, I dreamed not, my health was per- Belgian chemist (indeed we chiefly borrow fect. I felt, perceived, and thought no longer our illustrations from his book), and exwith the head, but in the region of the stom-cuses his inability to explain them by pleadach (1), as if knowledge had now taken her ing the general ignorance of the age in seat in that part!" which we live. Speaking of the mystical union of the soul and the body he says This is, indeed, marvellous, and can only be accounted for on the presumption that the empty belly had risen in envious rebellion against the overstocked head, and (the latter having become delirious) had at length succeeded in dividing the empire of knowledge with it! If Goldsmith had only known of this, he never would have set a whole village wondering where their pastor stowed away all his knowledge, much less. would he have ventured to say "And still the wonder grew, How one small head could carry all he knew." We are very much of Kant's opinion ourselves. We have long had our own notions touching mineral magnetism. We think The only way in which we can account it not impossible that we may live to see for Van Helmont's miraculous visions is, all the accepted notions concerning it exthat he lived for thirty years in his labora- ploded. The science of electro-magnetism tory, which, like the cobbler's stall, served has opened a new phase in chemical scihim "for parlor, and bedroom, and kitchen, ence, and electricity may yet explain both and all." One favored with such waking magnetism and gravitation. The law of visions ought at least to have learned how polarity has already entered into astronoa man's "will" acted upon 66 very remote mical calculations, and we think it will yet objects;" indeed it would not have sur- be found that electricity is the main eleprised us to hear that he had procured an ment in polarity; but even if we had room, |