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euriously attitudinizing on one leg, or poising their high-titled personages, d'aplomb, on both sides at once; the ostrich's leathery thighs were there trolling over her eggs; and the "Ibis," dressed out like a "cardinal" in scarlet; and those saucy "becs retroussés "birds, the "recurvirostra," turning up their long bills as they looked at you! In passing out of this aviary into the darker room, where solitary eagles confront keen-eyed

kites, and the horned owl sits in her spectacles blinking at the hooded grey-eyed vulture, our attention is forcibly arrested by that uncommonly silly fellow, the goose, with his name distinctly written on his green gooseberry iris, and a printed notice round his neck, drawing himself up and looking half-pleased half-sulky, like a fool, who does not know why you stare at him, but hopes it may be a tribute of your respect to his superior parts.

SNAKE-ROOM.

Confined here rather by fascination than design, we look around and see colossal boas rolled upon themselves, in the absence of any object to implicate within their immense folds; their last cast skin is folded up carefully and beside them: vipers are here openmouthed, with their lancets ready for instant innoculation: and the snake, in whose tail nature places the rattle, to warn you, as some will have it, of the danger of his head! Small wiry ophidians, rising perpendicularly, like figurantes, on the very tip-toe of their tail, stiff as corkscrews, and looking implike through their small round eyes! The "coluber aestivus," that gave you no pleasant recollections of summer, showed his many spotted coils; while freckled and specked boccals of

poisonous reptiles, less known than these, filled all the glass cupboards around. The "amphisbæna," that does not know his head from his tail, was there; and lizards, who, no doubt in consideration that they frequently lose that appendage, have been furnished by nature, in a provident freak, with one that was bifurcated. The cameleon, no longer not knowing what hue to assume next, is immutably bleached in spirits of wine; and the wide-mouthed batrachii, blown out and glazed, are fixed half erect on their bandy legs, or swim in large jars of white brandy.

These are but slight glimpses of the abounding interest of those collections, concerning which it were beside our purpose at present to say more.

IMPOSTURES.

IT is told of Bishop Butler, the celebrated author of the "Analogy," that one day, being observed by his chaplain to be peculiarly immersed in thought, he enquired what was its subject. “I was considering," said the philosopher, "whether, as individuals go mad, whole nations may not also go mad." What so profound an enquirer might have made of his conjecture, is unluckily lost to the world; but the statements which we are now about to give, show sufficiently that vast multitudes may be as fantastic, as wild, and as headlong as any lunatic under the sky. It will be seen that men may act, en masse, as much in contradiction to common sense, to common interest, and to common experience, as if they were mistaking crowns of straw for crowns of jewels; and that millions of men may be as easily duped, chicaned, and plundered, as the simplest dreamer of waking dreams, who takes counters for guineas, and canvass for cloth of gold.

The physical theory of those observations remains for higher science than man has yet attained. But nothing can be more palpable than that there are faculties of sympathy in the human intellect not dissimilar to those which make our tears fall at the sight of tears, or our frames quiver at peculiar sounds, and that those faculties may be given, as all our other faculties are, for great purposes of wisdom and happiness; while, like all those faculties, they are capable of being perverted into instruments of great suffering and singular folly. It is obvious, also, that all the higher order of delusions have always fastened themselves upon some natural and even meritorious impression of the time, and, taking advantage of the impulse, have inflamed the good into vast and sweeping evil. Thus the Crusades originated in the newlyrisen spirit of reverence for the land trod by the first leaders of Christianity. Thus the various schemes of the alchemists took advantage of the justifiable desire in the multitude to acquire wealth, and in the philosopher

to penetrate into the secrets of nature. Thus astrology took advantage of the natural homage to the Hand which made the lights of heaven, and the growing love for investigating the sublime mysteries of the skies. Thus even the extravagances of witchcraft, magic, and its whole class of fearful and disturbing delusions, found their impulse in the natural and solemn anxiety to search into our own fate, the destiny of kingdoms, and the profound and awful career of the world to come. Mankind, in successive ages, seems wandering through a great gallery of successive fatuities-some bold and brilliant, some feeble and squalid, some merely eccentric, and some fierce and fearful, of which it mounts the successive pedestals, dresses itself in the robes, and adopts the characters.

But the rapidity with which the harmless absurdity has often darkened into the remorseless crime, should be a warning to legislators and nations against all deviations from the path of soberness. Against these deviations, we admit that there is a growing barrier in the general life of labour and general difficulty of subsistence inflicted on European nations. Poverty is a great restorer of the mind to the stern realities of existence. Yet what could be more rapid than the change of England, two centuries ago, from the mild monarchical feeling to the fury and tyranny of the Commonwealth-or the change of France from festivity and loyalty into the maniacal horrors of the Revolution?

The work which has suggested these remarks, is one of research and ingenuity, but it goes only into a very limited portion of the subject. It is true, that space is required, but so much interest might be thrown upon the national history of the human mind, that we should be glad to see the topic adopted on a more diversified and comprehensive scale. The chapter of human extravagances is but half opened, and we propose heads for its further investigation. The investigation would derive additional

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions. By Charles Mackay.

interest from its being ranged under centuries, and exhibiting the actual connexion between the "delusions" and the habits of the age. Thus a striking intellectual view of the sixteenth century might give the history of the Fountain of Youth, which so many adventurers went to seek in the South Seas, and the dreams of Eldorado, eminently the result of the romantic and adventurous age of Elizabeth. Ascending still higher, the fifteenth might give the history of the Philosopher's Stone, and the Elixir of Immortality. The fourteenth the age of astrology. The thirteenth the fortune-telling and juggling of the wandering minstrels of France and Italy. The twelfth the papal assumption of universal temporal power, as curious a delusion as any in the annals of human craft. The tenth, ninth, and eighth, might exhibit the connexion of relic worship, of legends, and spiritual terrors, with the power of Rome, and the profound ignorance of the people. Thus going back to the Gothic invasions, and those wild and often terrible superstitions connected with their worship in the forests and deserts of the north. The fourth and third centuries might give a valuable view of those stern superstitions of the Egyptian anchorites, which spread so rapidly through the Christian world, and formed the groundwork of the whole conventual system of later times.

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Or, returning towards our period, there would be ample materials for curious and interesting narrative, in the miracles of the Abbe Paris in the eighteenth century, in the divining rod, and in the mesmerism of France, and the illuminatism of Germany. The miracles of Prince Hohenlohe are the only contribution which the nineteenth century is yet prepared to add to such an enquiry. But the horrors and absurdities of the French Revolution covered so large a space of the European mind within our memory, that human vice or folly has scarcely been able yet to find a spot to pitch its tent upon. But our age will not be without its share. Some new extravagance will run away with the common understanding of man, and whether it be popery or puseyism, revolution or the art of flying, teetotalism or projects for living on sawdust, and extracting champagne out of ditch

water, the world will not be left without its legacy of delusion for the laugh and for the rivalry of posterity.

We come to the moneyed delusion; the most showy piece of financial charlatanism on record.

There is nothing new under the sun. Every individual who has money, is marked as the natural object of swindlers. Every nation which has money, becomes equally the natural object of conspirators against its purse. The cause and the consequence go together, by a strict necessity. Such things never happen in poor countries. As Hudibras remarks

"No Jesuit e'er took in hand
To build a church in barren land,
Nor ever thought it worth his while
A Russ or Swede to reconcile."

France, though never equaling the wealth of England, at least during the last two centuries, has always been an opulent kingdom. Its fertility, its favourable climate, and the frugal habits of its people, have always made it recover with singular ease from the poverty produced by its rebellions and wars. But this easy recovery has been attended with peculiar dangers. Its despotic monarchs, finding wealth pouring spontaneously into their hands, have often been tempted to waste it in desperate invasions of Europe, or on profligate corruptions of manners at home. From the time of Francis I, to that of Louis XIV., the alternation of parsimonious with profligate princes, had exhibited alternately the power of France to restore itself, and the power of the throne to exhaust the public prosperity. But the death of Louis XIV. was a crisis in public affairs. No king of France had so much embodied in his own character the spirit of the nation.

He was generous, splendid, aspiring, and bold, but this was the bright side of the medal. He could be selfish, pitiful, insidious, and wasteful. This last quality was ultimately felt by his people to threaten France with ruin. The enormous expenses of his wars, and the scandalous prodigality of his court, had long threatened France with bankruptcy; and at his death in 1715, the cry arose that the kingdom was ruined. Still the expenditure was below the revenue, the former being but 142 millions of livres, while the latter was

145, thus leaving three millions of surplus. But then there was a debt of 3000 millions, for which this surplus was the only sum provided to discharge the interest. The Duke of Orleans, who was appointed regent during the minority of Louis XV., then only seventeen years old, assumed the power of the throne, with no other faculties for its guidance than a great deal of wit, a great deal of gayety, and a passion for pleasure astonishing even to the French themselves.

cover popularity, by giving up its servants to public vengeance. The farmers-general had long been an obnoxious class; contracting for the receipt of the revenues, they were naturally tempted to deal severely with reluctant payers of taxes. Obloquy naturally directed itself against them, and their employment, unpopular from its circumstances, was pronounced to involve every subtlety of chicane, and every atrocity of oppression. Some of them had grown immensely rich, and might justly be suspected of fraud, We have already observed, that but the Government fell with indiscri"there is nothing new under the minate violence upon them all. We sun;" and the condition of France, see in this act, how closely the Revothe king, and the finances, at the be- lution of 1789 copied the regency, ginning of the reign of the unfortu- The iniquitous decree which flung all nate Louis XVI., has the strongest the bankers and moneyed men of Paris imaginable similitude to that of France and the provinces into dungeons, at the commencement of the regency. within our memory, was only a The remedy for the evil in both in- repetition, though on a more sweepstances was also the same; for the pur- ing scale, of the persecution which pose of rescuing the government from assailed the moneyed men of almost a the responsibilities of a national bank- century before. Informers were enruptcy, the calling of the States-couraged to give evidence against General was advised. But the catastrophe of the French monarchy was destined to the delay of nearly a century. The Duc de Noailles, a man of penetration, and wise beyond his time, resisted the revival of a power so undefined, and suggested the hazards of popular legislation so powerfully, that the regent, shrewd with all his dissoluteness, shrank from the experiment, and put off a day which might thereby have anticipated the horrors of the Revolution.

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But money must be found to pay the public creditor; and the first expedient showed at once the dishonesty and the ignorance of the French financiers. The coinage was called in, and a new coinage issued to the holders, at a depreciation of one-fifth. this operation, a sudden gain was made of twenty-two millions of livres. But every holder of 1000 livres was cheated of 200. This was of course instantly felt in the price of corn, and commodities of all kinds, as also in the exchanges; and on the whole, France probably lost ten times the amount which the minister gained; but the immediate evil was lightened, and the fraud was forgotten.

The Government having fallen in popular estimation by cheating the people, now made an attempt to re

them, by the promise of a fifth of their fines. A tenth of all their goods dis covered was given to the discoverers. The innkeepers were commanded to refuse horses to them, when in their fright they endeavoured to escape from France. As they were actually the collectors of the whole revenue, and of course employed a vast number of subordinate officers, all those officers sharing the same odium were exposed to the same punishment. The Bastile was crowded with the principals, the provincial prisons were equally crowded with their dependents. The fortunate distinction between this period and that of the Revolution was, that the populace were not yet the executioners of the law; and out of their whole number, but one, Samuel Bernard, a farmer-general, was put to death. He was so opulent, that he was able to offer six millions of livres for his life. But he must have been remarkable for oppression or atrocity of some kind; for, tempting as the offer was to a prodigal court, it dared not remit his sentence. The remaining criminals, if such they were, expiated their offences in the pillory, the galleys, or the dungeon. But the hint of fine, perhaps adopted from the offer of the unfortunate farmer-general, became soon realized in the practice of the government. The offence

of the rich, whatever it might be, was atoned for by a sum of money; and by this single contrivance, the government squeezed out of the collectors of the revenue not less than 180 millions of livres. Nothing could be more popular than this mode of raising money; for it at once spared the pockets of the people, and punished the most unpopular class in France. But the use of this enormous sum was the reverse of popular. The regent was notoriously the most profligate individual in the most profligate country of Europe. Prodigality and profligacy are twins in every country. A hundred millions of this money were lavished no one could tell how, unless it was in extravagant largesses to the companions of the regent's pleasures, or in personal excess. The example of the court, always contagious, produced corruption in every act, and every organ of the state. It produced corruption even in the infliction of the penalties. Fines were sold, even before they were raised. The story is told of a nobleman of the court, who came to one of those rich culprits, then under sentence of a heavy fine, and offered to obtain his acquittance for a bribe of a hundred thousand crowns. The answer was, "You are too late, my lord; your wife has been here already, and made a bargain with me for fifty thousand." But remedies of this order were obviously temporary, and must end in general ruin. The money disappeared not only from the farmers-general, but from every class of commerce. The regent was slowly roused from his lethargy, but the time was come when he could sleep no longer; and when at last he opened his eyes, he saw the whole country on the eve of famine and rebellion.

and the death of his father in 1688, making him master of the estate, he set out for London and the world. In London his life was what might be expected from a man of great personal vanity, no principle, and a passion for indulgence of every kind. Gaming was the fashionable vice of the age. Law soon became a most dexterous gamester. But fortune is proverbially a coquette, and after some years of remarkable success, suddenly every thing went wrong with him, and he was forced to mortgage Lauriston. His gallantries, still more culpable, brought him into still more serious hazard. He was engaged in a duel; and though he escaped, yet, having killed his adversary, he was tried for murder, and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to a fine, on an application to the court, which regarded his act only as manslaughter. But, on an appeal from the family of the deceased, he was detained in prison. From this confinement he contrived to make his way to the continent; a reward was offered for his apprehension, but in vain, and he remained abroad, pursuing a rambling, but evidently an unprincipled career, gambling and speculating in every country from Flanders to Hungary. His ultra-dexterity at play was so remarkable as even to attract the notice of the higher powers, and he was successively expelled by the magistracy from Venice, Genoa, and Paris.

This was the time for charlatans, and the most complete of charlatans suddenly appeared. John Law was born in Edinburgh in 1671, the son of a goldsmith, who gradually acquired wealth sufficient for the purchase of an estate, from which he was designated Law of Lauriston. The goldsmith of his day was generally a banker, and young Law acquired his first knowledge of banking in his father's counting-house. But the vivacity of his disposition, and the shapeliness of his figure, introducing him into society, where he was even called Beau Law, he at length grew weary of the desk,

But during all this period of idleness, and often of personal distress, Law had not forgotten the lessons of his early life; and finance, and its application to the various necessities of the European states, was the frequent study of a mind, evidently subtle and inventive by nature. In an early part of his exile, he is said to have even ventured back to Scotland, for the purpose of urging the plan of a Scottish Land Bank-the notes issued by which were never to exceed the value of all the lands of the kingdom. The principle of all Law's projects was, "that no country can grow rich which limits itself to a circulation in specie; and that paper is essential to the development of the national resources;" an assertion which, in that day, and especially on the continent, was looked on by the multitude with unbelief and horror, by some as a brilliant discovery, and by all as a

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