sage guide, calling my attention to the majestic dome towering in the air, desired me to exert my will to ascend. I did so, and immediately felt myself rising as if pressed up by some elastic substance, until I reached the top. The dome, which appeared to be composed of glass, I perceived, as I approached, was covered with a thin web resembling that of a spider. The apex of this dome was surmounted by a globe representing the planet earth, with its continents and seas. Openings corresponding to the different continents admitted persons into the globe. We entered that corresponding to the continent of North America. Each of these entrances, I was told, was particularly adapted to the admission of the inhabitants of the different localities they represented. On looking down I beheld the apartment I had first entered. It was no longer vacant-each gallery was filled with spectators. On the lily-shaped rostrum stood Henry Clay and George Washington — Washington speaking to the people. "You observe," said my guide, "a secondary stem from that lily branches off and extends to this point. It appears to you a mere ornament, but it transmits the thoughts and words of the speaker to the city of Washington. Other branches, as you notice, lead in other directions. If the speaker desires his thoughts to be transmitted to any given point, he leans toward the stem leading to that point. This silken web which you have admired, is a sensitive electric telegraph. It is composed of the elements of mind; in the world you have lately inhabited it would be intangible, but it has a subtle connection with the human brain, and spirit thoughts directed through it go with the promptness of elec

tricity to their destination. Thought is electric, but its power of transmitting itself is, like that of the human voice, limited; the voice requires the artificial assistance of a speaking-trumpet to throw its sound beyond the ordinary distance; thought requires a similar artificial conductor. "You remember," said Franklin, "in my early experiments with the kite and key, I could not obtain the spark until I had established the necessary attraction, although the air was filled with the electric current. So of the thoughtelectricty, which is constantly flowing; we have to apply means to concentrate it and give it form and expression. On earth, word and gesture are media for thought, but the savans have not yet discovered the means by which unspoken thought can take form and expression. No galvanic wire nor chemical battery has yet been invented by them, through which these electric sparks may be drawn down from their unseen habitations among the clouds; but in the world of spirits this great discovery, as I have shown you, has been made. In this appliance you find the thoughts of the speaker running through these sensitive wires until, like telegraphic messages, they reach their destination on earth."

I listened to Franklin's explanation of this gigantic sensorium with my soul filled with love and admiration for the great Creator who had formed the human mind with its vast capacity for penetrating the sublime mysteries of nature.

After leaving the dome I continued my inspection of the edifice. But of its halls and galleries, its boudoirs, libraries, and peerless gardens, I will speak at some future time.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

TO THE FRENCH NATION.

TRIUMPH sits regent upon the Napoleonic banner. Napoleon the First is dictator to Napoleon the Third. By my side stands Josephine. We were not destined to part eternally. In Louis Napoleon Bonaparte her blood and mine commingle. Restez-vous, mon patrie; Napoleon shall decide aright. No, petit garçon, Napoleon le Grand will place you upon the highest pinnacle of peace.

Fate is inexorable. The decrees of destiny are more potent than the wisdom of man. France and Napoleon are indissoluble. The star of Bonaparte is destined to shine yet for the next half-century. None but a patriot shall rule France. No proud Austrian, nor weak and haughty Bourbon shall flame their colors from the palaces of France. No, my countryman! he who serves you, who leads your armies to victory, who raises your citizens to distinction, he whose courage is undaunted, he who has the power of prescience-is Napoleon.

When Louis shall join me his spirit and mine will still animate the Bonapartes who shall come after us.

Repose entire confidence in his discretion. Napoleon the Third lives only for France.

You cry for liberty of speech and liberty of the press. But liberty is anarchy. Would you demand liberty for the army? Without a head to guide and control it, the army of France would be a scourge.

Through calamity the most depressing, the hand of destiny has led Louis Napoleon to the throne of France, and against sickness and disease, against the hand of the assassin, and against vilifications of his enemies, it will hold him there, firm. His time has not yet come. Before he bids adieu to life he will secure an able leader for France.

I give him my hand. I embrace him in spirit. The shadow of Napoleon attends him by day and by

night.

Adieu,

NAPOLEON.

W. M. THACKERAY.

HIS POST MORTEM EXPERIENCE.

POOR Will Thackeray, when a stripling, was fit to kneel in the street before his mistress, that bright luminary who shone to his boyish eyes like a star of the first magnitude! Alas, he discovered her to be one of the sixteenth, and by the time he had ceased to care for polished boots and stiff, broad collars, she had dwindled down to an ordinary piece of humanity!

He found his boon companions, like himself, liable to mistake an ant for a whale and think the King of England next in royalty to a god!

What a fool he made of himself in the eyes of those who were wiser than he, when he swore the crown of England was made of unalloyed gold! The water he drank was filled with animalculæ, yet he swore it was pure as the gods' nectar. The best and freshest air he breathed contained poison, yet his boyish wisdom knew better than that.

Poor Thackeray! wiser men than he knew that youthful imagination was a cheat; that the mistress of his heart was not a goddess; and wiser beings than they all knew-angelic beings, living in the golden streets of Paradise, knew-that the conception of what the spirit after death would be able to do