would be childish and absurd. The good or bad effect of power is in the use of it! To say that the whole race of man shall be stifled, because in the abuse of his power, infinite are the examples of evil which he is every day known to produce, would be equally injurious to common sense. A great quality of power, is in the quantity applied. It was incumbent on the sage to consider it fairly.

That man should be affected by a spirit, whose whole soul is spirit; whose body is no body, any longer than it is moved by that spirit, is not so far from sense and nature. The prodigy recedes as we advance in recollection. I could not, however, in the beginning, any more implicitly believe in all the wonderful effects attributed to magnetism, than the reader may at this moment, perhaps, be disposed to respect every assertion concerning it of mine. It is very common and very natural for man to be surprised at effects produced, as it should seem to him, by a supernatural cause; but I did believe, however, in the collective testimonials I had received; for, besides the force of numbers and of quality to persuade, it was strongly coincident with my own idea of things, that such a power should reasonably exist; and contemplating the inany, to us, unaccountable phenomena, in the common process and order of earthly fruition essential to human existence, I was the readier to assent to the possibility of the thing.

Upon these principles, therefore, and with the cited examples before me, I began (1789) to essay in this new scene of discovery. I thought it reasonable that man should heal by the influence of that same spirit, by which alone man liveth; - of that same spirit which gave him life! I saw no wonder in that! I tried, therefore, and my first experiment surprised me with satisfaction and delight. I tried again, and again, and had exploited far, and so far as to know from great accumulated evidence, i. e. "that no earthly

"bound, can bound this spirit." I had been able to ascertain this truth to my own satisfaction, when (toward the end of January 1795,) I was visited by a stranger.

ARRIVAL OF A POET.

The strangest of all strangers to every reasonable expectation, came to Egypt: directed, as he said, without design; and by unavoidable occurrences, from the farthest regions of the north to the shores of Alexandria. An itinerant poet, improvisatore! unencumbered by any of the cares and solicitudes of the world! To come with such a stock to the derelict and unharmonious shores of Alexandria! Wonderful, I said'; just the man I wanted. You are welcome, Sir; and he was at home in a moment. The forms of the world were very little to either of us.

Thus began our acquaintance; and our conversation thus; "How "do you pass your time, (said the Poet to me,) no theatres; no public walks; no society?" "No, (I answered,) I pass my "time as you may do, fantasticando spesso! Often the wilds of "fancy ranging."

"Alessandria, (he exclaimed,) è egli vero, è questa Alessandria?" Yes, if you love to contemplate ruin, here she sits superb in triumph! All around her devastation. A scene of human vanity: the tomb of science: the wreck of human grandeur; a city, a people in ashes!

The volume I am now transcribing, for the perusal of the intelligent, is a fruit of this beginning. The current of our conversation entrained in its vortex, of course, the modern topic of magnetism. The Poet was pleased with the account of my exploits; it gave wings to his fancy, and off we went. But the particular circumstance which gave birth to our magnetic confederation, I must here relate as matter of introduction,

STORY OF THE ARAB.

AN Arab, or one of the Egyptian peasantry, or a Fellàh, more properly speaking, officiating in my kitchen as scullion, was suffering of an inflammation in his eyes, and by the influence of magnetism had been almost instantly cured. Being under the operation, he had informed me of certain things passing at that moment in my own family, then at Pisa in Italy, which were afterwards certified by themselves to be so punctually true, as to astonish every one that heard it. I was telling this to the Poet, and he was attending earnestly to my story, when the Arab came in sight at a distance, coughing: "O, oh, (said I, to the Arab,) come here, my friend, and he came. Shall I cure thee of thy rheum?" "Would to God thou would'st." "Then sit thee down;" and he sat himself down, and I magnetised him; and in a very few minutes he was in the magnetic sleep.

I questioned, What is wanting to cure thee of thy rheum? A. Nothing more than this that thou art doing! Q. For how long time required? A. For seven minutes! Q. Shalt thou be able to tell me the instant the seven minutes elapse? A. Yes! And we laid a watch upon a table near to us; and the moment the minute index was on the line of the seven minutes, he informed us of it, and I gave over magnetising; but he did not instantly awake, nor is it in the order of magnetic effects that he should immediately awake; some aid is required to that immediate effect.

I then said to him, "the gentleman present (meaning the Poet) hath a medicine chest; couldst thou tell me if there be in any one of the preparations it contains, a medicine suitable to the cure of thy complaint?" A. Yes! Q. What is it? A. Züm el hamaida in Arabic, answerieg to sugo d'agrimonio in Italian, or to juice of sorrel in English. Q. If I place the box before thee,

shalt thou be able to pick it out from among the rest? A. Yes! And I placed the box open before him. It had four and twenty compartments, and in every one a bottle ticketed on one side; but the ticket not visible to any eye, and much less, one would think, to the eye that was closed. The box is before thee, I said to the Arab and he stretched his hand over the bottles, passing his fingers from the top of one bottle to another and at length fixing it upon one of them, and pulling it out of the box, the ticket upon the bottle was ticketed "balsam of Peru!"

We were disappointed! I said to him, "this is not the medi"cine thou namedst:" he replied "no; it is better still for my "rheum." 66 "True, it may be so," I said, "but we must have "the other." We wanted to be ascertained as to the faculty of knowing, in the magnetic state, what, with all our wakeful senses, we can neither perceive nor understand. We replaced the bottle of Peru; and he, stretching his hand as before over the contents of the box, he took out the bottle noted " sugo d'agrimonio."

To us, the circumstance, first recited, was of no more concern than what is reflected back to us from the sensations of others. We had rather it should not have happened; but we had no power to direct it. It was equally astonishing, in fact, in the second instance, as it would have been in the first. "What dost "think of this," said Ì, to the Poet? "Wonderful," he said,

beyond all human comprehension." "I would ask him," said the Poet, "if he can tell me, if I have brothers and sisters?" and I put the question to the man, and he answered the precise number of both. I did not note it at the time, and will not therefore assert the number from memory, but it was precisely the thing! The Poet was struck with amazement at the fact, and was near sinking to the ground. This was sufficient for the

curiosity of the Poet; I therefore awakened the Arab, and dismissed him.

The Poet was scared at what he had heard. "At this rate;" said he, "the secrets of the world are all open to each other!" "Thou sayest well," I replied, if the operations of magnetism were as geometrical proportions, i. e. subject to a rule of three! that consequence might educe; but no such thing. The secrets of the world are only open to him, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom, no secrets are hid! Be pesuaded of this truth.

"Thy question was concerning a fact, already known to thyself; and of no tendency but to satisfy thine own conscience about the existence of this all-knowing principle in the world; and, therefore, not exceptionable to any moral rule, nor to the laws of the great Ruler of all! But, had I, from mere motives of curiosity, or from any motive unbecoming of the dignity of magnetism, put any such like question from myself; what answer, dost thou imagine, would have resulted from my question? Why at best, no answer! But neither should I have been foolish enough to put the question."

Then," said the Poet, "I should desire to be magnetised!" and I replying to the Poet, having observed, during the scene of the Arab, remarkable signs of susceptibility in him; said to him, if thou art willing, immediately.

THE POET MAGNETISED.

It was evening of the sixth day of February, 1795. The Poet seated himself to be magnetised, but with no other professed purpose than to try the effect. I magnetised, and he sunk almost instantly into the magnetic sleep. It occurred to me to ask him,