And woo my wand'ring thought, and wreathe my throb- And when the fight was done, have ye not stray'd bing brow.

WANDERING THOUGHTS.

or as the harshest discords, to the same elements of sound, modulated by the genius of Handel and the lips of a land-Siren into harmony that

"floats upon the wings

Of Silence, through the empty vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the Raven-down
Of Darkness, till it smiles."

It was a fine Sunday forenoon. The last bell of the village Church had given its final toll: the congregation were in their pews, composing their faces and (some of them) their minds, to devout attention: the beaux were brushing their whiskers, and the belles adjusting their curls and smiles, for the most death-doing effect: the Recollecting the many instances in which other peoSunday-scholars sat upon the front benches of the gal-ple's thoughts have been made visible—“How curious lery, their whisperings and titterings not quite audible it would be," thought I, "if what is now passing in the enough yet, to attract the forbidding nod of the teacher, hundreds of heads before me, could but be exposed to who sat by as the censor of their conduct: the organ and choir had gone through the strains preliminary to the service: and the minister was just rising, one hand upon the pulpit, and the other passing his white handkerchief reverentially over his lips, ere he let them be the portals of Sacred Truth.

“Now”—thought I, seated at an angle of the gallery, whence nearly the whole scene was visible-"now I am resolved, that my mind shall not run wild, as it commonly does at meeting. My attention shall not waver, for a single minute." So, bracing every muscle of my face and body, I followed the preacher steadily through his opening prayer, and caught every word and note of the succeeding hymn. Nay, I marked the text; and ran over the probable aspects under which the good man would consider it, while he was hemming! by way of prelude to his exordium. This fixed my attention through the first page of the sermon: but there, alas! away flew my thoughts; and led me a wilder chase, surely, than ever wight was led by elf or bogle. They were seduced by something-I hardly know what either uttered from the pulpit, or presented to my eyes. Every body knows the speed of thought: that is, every one knows that its speed cannot be known, or estimated: therefore no one will be surprised if mine had traversed a thousand realms, in that barely conceivable fraction of Eternity, somewhere elegantly called 'less than no time.' Minister and sermon vanished altogether. I was busy with what I, and all the world besides, had been, were, and would be, doing: aye, and had not been, were not, and never would be doing. The actual and the fabled past-the possible, but still more the impossible future, flitted before me. I heard conversations among the dead, and the absent-saw them-talked with them. Presently my mind ran upon supernatural agencies, assisting man to see and hear things from which he is parted by walls, or by seas; or even by the grave, or by the mysterious boundaries that divide matter and spirit. Hence the transition was natural, to Chrysal, and Le Diable Boiteux,* and those visions of Mirza, Will Honeycomb, and others, so authentically chronicled in The Spectator. Scarcely had these occurred to me, when my mental phantasmagoria assum. ed a form and method, as unlike its previous irregularity, as ten thousand many-colored beads rolling confusedly over the floor, are to a tasteful reticulation of them, assorted, and strung by the hand of Beauty upon silken threads: or as the types of a printer in that chaotic state called pi, to the prettiest verses ever indited by love-sick swain to his ladye-love, printed by those very types on a sheet of " Ames' best gilt-edged:"

*The work of Le Sage, commonly called ""The Devil on Two

Sticke."

my view!" Instantly, a Being, whom at a glance I knew to be super-human, stood beside me. She had not the deformity, or the arch, mischievous look, of Le Sage's witty demon; or the ethereal make of the GoldSpirit, that detailed to Johnstone the no less wonderful than true "Adventures of a Guinea." A Sylph she certainly was: but of the German stock, as I saw by her rather unsylphlike form,-her sturdy shoulders, and broad, substantial face. Her eyes (likewise characteristic of Germany) were so penetrating, that they could pierce the most solid substances, and discern

things invisible by the best microscope-nay, even nonentities, material or immaterial. This was manifest from the ineffable intensity of her gaze, as she would now bend it on some tangible object near her, and now,

like Mad Mathesis in the Dunciad, to pure space lift her ecstatic stare. Her dress, and appearance in other respects, were those usual to Sylphs: save that in her right hand she held a wand, and in her left what seemed a human skull, not ghastly and terrible, with grinning teeth and cross-bones, like an unmannerly memento mori; but scraped smooth, and its surface neatly laid off into thirty or forty compartments, by black lines.

Without waiting (as the well known usage of ghosts is) for me to accost her, my aërial visitant said, that she had seen my wish, to know what the congregation were thinking of; and had come to gratify it.

"I am," said she, "the Spirit of PHRENOLOGY. The human mind, including those affections vulgarly sup posed to dwell in the heart,-resides in the skull: and there every faculty, every affection, has its appropriate seat. See, here are the Intellectual Powers, clustered about the forehead: in the centre, dwell the Moral Feelings: and behind, are the Sensual Affections. Now, by observing how the organs whereby these several traits work, have affected the contiguous parts of the cranium,-I, and my favored votaries, can tell precisely the character, and sometimes even the history, of man or woman. By looking at any of the five hundred heads before us, I can plainly see what is passing within. I have never yet gifted any mortal with that power: you shall be the first to receive it. Take this glass, and look through it at any of the heads below."

She then waved her wand; and I directed the eyeglass as she had bidden me.

Even I, who long have scarcely wondered at any thing, could not help being surprised at the spectacle which now presented itself. Every skull at which my membrane disappeared: the convolusions of the brain, glass pointed, became transparent: the tough, lining in its two hemispheres and their three lobes, pervaded by innumerable nerves, veins, ducts, and fibres, all swelling, sinking, vibrating and quivering,—were palpable to my view: and (by the magic of the wand and

the glass) all these workings, which, in reality, were the processes of thought, assumed a form as distinctly legible as what I am now writing.

deed, was a genteel and wealthy merchant; but had one brother, a blacksmith, and another, a carpenter; whereas no nearer relation of the young lady's had been a mechanic, than two great uncles-a shoemaker and a tinker. Even these were dead, and the memory of their vulgar trades was nearly extinct; while the blacksmith and carpenter were living, in the neighborhood: she would have to assume their family name, associate with them, and call them "uncle !" Such a thought was intolerable: its odiousness could only be palliated, by recollecting a large fortune, which the bridegroom was to receive from his father. I glanced at the brains of the young couple. The reigning topic there, of course, was the happiness that awaited them. Charming castles-in-the-air they built. These I need not describe; as every body has built very similar ones, and knows their appearance, if not their material and durability. A pretty lass of sixteen, from contemplating the graceful wavings of a silken 'zephyr' that floated in spires a-down her shoulders, passed to the last evening's party, where she and her zephyr had glided, amid boundless admiration, through a dozen sets of cotillons. A dandy near her, with equal complacency, was gazing on the exquisite contour of his own boot. I saw seve

Briefly thanking my instructress for having so much improved upon the plan of Asmodeus, who, to enlighten Don Cleofas, (as all readers of 'The Devil on Two Sticks' will remember) had to unroof all Madrid and interpret to him the thoughts and actions of its inhabitants,—I set about perusing the singular pages before me. It was marvellous, to see how few were thinking of what the preacher said. Except a schoolmaster, who was mousing after slips in grammar,—a controversial sectarian, busied in heresy-hunting, with design to exercise his skill in refutation,—critics of various calibre, detecting faults or discerning beauties, in tone, look, gesture, emphasis, or composition,-a young woman, whose attention was at least as much occupied by the minister's white teeth and nicely tied cravat, as by his words, an old one, who found great edification in the drawl and twang wherewith he uttered some long, sonorous names,—and a dozen pious men, with two or three dozen pious women, who sincerely relished the bread and waters of Life,-none, of fully two hundred whose tablets of thought I read, attended to the sermon any more than I did. Each was pursuing some vagary|ral, both ladies and gentlemen, whose pensive, downof imagination, or some suggestion of memory.

cast eyes would have led me to suppose them intent wholly upon devotion, had I not seen that their thoughts were bent upon some parts of their own dress. A still greater number had their minds fixed, with envy, admiration, or cavilling, on the dresses of those around them. Beaux and belles, or those who wished to be such, were engrossed with the idea of the figure they made in each other's eyes: and hopes of conquest, from the consciousness of beauty, wit, or wealth, floated through many a brain.

A notable country dame was reckoning up how many pounds of butter she had made from two milch cows, in the past month: and her husband, arranging the course of a new post-and-rail fence.-A jockey was feasting his hopes on the profit he should make from a horse, which he had bought when poor, spavined, and broken down, at a very low price, but by physicking and feeding had apparently so improved, that he expected to sell him to a certain greenhorn for ten times cost, as a firstrate steed. A small wit was laying a train of conver- An eminent lawyer's thoughts ran upon his successsation, by which he might have an opportunity to let ful defence, the day before, of a profligate woman, off a capital pun: and he almost laughed aloud, at the charged with murder. The result had confirmed what anticipated success of his pun-trap.-A slow genius, he had often before remarked of men-their proneness much given to rounded sentences and premeditated im- to judge of human conduct chiefly, if not solely, by the promptus, was mourning over a lost opportunity of say-success which crowns it. During the trial, his wretched ing the best thing in the world, which had not occurred to him till it was entirely too late.-An old bachelor was musing on some infallible rules for governing wives, which he designed to impress upon certain married men of his acquaintance. He regretted his own single state, only because it gave him no opportunity of putting these rules in practice, and setting a pattern to all husbands, in the difficult art of wife-ruling.—A staid and tidy spinster, had her thoughts engrossed by some excellent hints on nursery discipline; which it was a pity that all matrons would not adopt.-A smart lad of seventeen, was meditating an essay upon female education. An elderly gentleman was considering how much he could give his daughter, who was soon to be married; and the probable amount of her lover's fortune. Kindly and parental as the spirit of his reflections manifestly was, I could not but be struck with his unconcern about the mind, temper, habits, or morals, of his intended son-in-law. "He is well to do in the world, makes a decent figure in society, and seems to be liked by his acquaintance,”were the only thoughts at all relating to those important subjects. The mind of the lady-mother (who sat in the same pew) was ruffled, by one great objection to the match-the young man's family. His father, in

client had been regarded with frowns and scowls by every one, except a brother lawyer, who, either from humanity and justice, or to show his astuteness, had suggested some trivial point of defence to the advocate. But no sooner was she acquitted, than the fickle crowd surrounded her with cheers, and a hundred gratulating hands! "Her acquittal of this charge," thought the lawyer, "has made them forget not only her still possible if not probable guilt in this instance, but the unapproachable infamy of her whole past life! Thus it is, that applauses have attended the successful employment of usurped authority by statesmen and generals, whom failure would have made to swing as criminals. Victory is never called to give an account of herself. Right or wrong, she is ever her own sufficient justification." Another lawyer was thinking of an enemy he had lately made, by counselling him against a lawsuit, as one in which he could not possibly succeed; and by refusing to undertake its management, because it was plainly unjust. The litigant had gone in great wrath to another advocate, who, less discerning or less scrupulous, had promptly engaged to carry him through with flying colors. This latter gentleman was also in the congregation. Queen Mab must have been driving

over his fingers; for all his dreams were of fees. He was at this moment chuckling over an enormous one, recently extorted from a widowed mother, in some very plain affair (which, he persuaded her, was very complex and critical) respecting her deceased husband's estate. "Dead men's estates," said he to himself, "are our richest mines. I despise the sentimental eant about widows and orphans. They are the very clients who can best afford to pay fat fees; for all they have, they got for nothing-a mere windfall to them."

who had the misfortune to have incurred the habit of frequent intoxication, from which all his good sense, and deep consciousness of disgrace, could not deliver him-was, for the thousandth time, in secret agony, bewailing the loathsome vice which he felt to be bowing down his soul to the dust; breathing imprecations upon his own childish imbecility, and upon the heartless companions who had so often tempted him astray; and resolving to make one more effort at emancipation from the chains of his habit, and from the fiendlike influences of the unprincipled or unthinking beings who called themselves his "friends."-One of these was then near him; and was at that moment triumphing in the recollection of having, three times in as many months, seduced him from resolutions of sobriety, most solemnly formed; and laying a plan to lead him again, the next day, into a week's debauch. Cicero, with all his vanity, never plumed himself more upon the most brilliant effort of his eloquence-Alexander upon his greatest victory— no, nor even any Chesnut street or Broadway dandy ever exulted more in the gloss and fitting of his tailor's

room, in the achievements he remembered, and the achievements he planned. For my part, his poor victim seemed to me like a wretch, struggling for life in a deep and filthy abyss; up the steep, slippery sides of which, whenever he was near escaping,-the other, like some foul beast, fit inhabitant of such a place, seized and drew him back again.

A fresh, full-faced young man, with lively eyes, was meditating plans of study. He chalked out a vast round of knowledge for acquisition; and determined to set about it 'tomorrow.' A restricted diet, and regular

A physician's features were kindled with a fine glow, which, at first, I attributed to something said in the sermon: but on looking at his brain, I discovered that he was laying schemes of professional beneficence, and thinking of the indigent, whose sufferings he had gratuitously relieved. Every fibre in his organ of benevolence, thrilled with delight, as he quoted Dr. Boerhaave's trite, but noble saying, that "The poor were his best patients, for God himself stood paymaster for them." All the well paid triumphs of his skill among the rich and great-and they were many-filled a comparatively small space in his mind. Another Doctor was rumina-chef d'œuvre,-than this magnanimous hero of the barting upon a decline into which a poor woman who lived near him was falling; and which, he had ascertained, proceeded partly from the want of necessaries and comforts, but still more from a wounded spirit,—the result of a drunken husband's brutality and degradation. The Doctor therefore resolved, secretly to supply her wants; and to try if the husband could not be reclaimed, by first creating a healthier social atmosphere around him-explaining, distinctly, the mischiefs wrought by strong drink-prevailing upon the moderate drinkers, whose example or invitations oftenest led him astray, to abstain entirely-reclaiming the less inveterately disso-hours for exercise, and for each one of his dozen intended lute of his boon companions-and then by approaching him, with kind yet frank remonstrances, and persuading him to read Mr. S......'s "Temperance Tales."A third physician was exulting in a profitable job he had made for himself, by passing off a bronchial affection for pulmonary; and curing it, with great eclat, after a studiously protracted and expensive course of treatment.-A cancer-doctor, who differed from the last chiefly in having no diploma, was counting up his gains from an art he had, of irritating a trifling sore by the application of his nostrums, until every body took it for a cancer; and then gradually healing it, by some more simple means, which any old woman would have employed, but which he pretended to be of a secret composition, known only to himself. Sometimes his first nostrums overacted their part, and made a real cancer. Then, death inevitably ensued. But as these cases, even joined to those originally cancerous, in which he always failed, were less than half of all that he man-to have derived all his classical lore from a Dictionary aged; and as he always contrived, when the result was fatal, to lay the blame upon some previous treatment of the patient, or upon the inherent malignity of the disease; he seemed to be wonderfully successful; and scarcely any one questioned his infallibility. A fifth Doctor was brooding over the encroachments of a neighboring physician upon his practice. The Congress-man, and several others with large families and estates, had gone over to the enemy.

A skilful mechanic, remarkable for his honesty-he was a tailor who never cabbaged-and even more remarkable as having a keen zest for literature, but

studies, were parts of the plan. I could not help admiring his constancy, when, by movements in several organs which conjointly do the office of what the vulgar call memory, I perceived that he had resolved exactly the same things (including the "tomorrow") every week, for five years past. As the punster might say, he was evidently a young man of good resolution.—There were several persons, who passed for great scholars,-now busied in conning over the names of different authors; by quoting which, they designed to maintain and extend their reputations for learning. And in those repositories of the brain, where they were commonly supposed to have laid up immense stores of knowledge, the fruit of extensive reading and profound reflection,—I found little more than what was contained in title pages and indexes: which these gentlemen got by rote, and oft times displayed to the wondering vulgar. One, in particular, who was accounted a universal genius, I found

of Quotations; his knowledge of Law, Medicine, and Theology, from similar works in each of those Sciences; and his ability to calculate Almanacs, (which had given him a great name as an astronomer and mathematician) from a set of very simple Tables in a book on Astronomy, which any one might use, who had passed through the course of "reading, writing, and cyphering," in an ordinary country school.

In some, on the contrary, of whom the world judged unfavorably, I was glad to discern traits quite opposite to those commonly ascribed to them. A grum, proud looking man, of dark bilious complexion, scowling

brow, and most ungracious carriage, proved, on exami- | if I do not cling to those virtuous friends, cherish that nation, to have extraordinary benevolence. His mind merited respect, and praise those laudable measures!— was completely engrossed by plans for relieving the dis- In practice, how works this vaunted system of party tressed, and by a delicious retrospect of innumerable discipline? It arrays the two halves of society against past charities,-all studiously concealed from the public each other-sets neighbors, friends, and even brothers view, and, as far as possible, from every human eye or at variance-causes angry paroxysms of contention, in ear. Another, whose quiet, cold aspect, and his never which not only the good feelings of men are turned to talking of Religion, because he deemed it a matter ex-bitterness, but their morals are often debauched, and a clusively between him and his Maker, made most people | sure foundation laid in their profligacy, and blind devoregard him as an infidel-showed thoughts animated by tion to party leaders, for the overthrow of their liberthe most fervent devotion. 'Tis true, he did not listen ties!-In elections, it directs the voter's choice by conclosely to the sermon: but he gave himself up to siderations the most foreign and impertinent that can be thanksgiving and prayer: Thanks, for unnumbered conceived: makes him choose a sheriff, constable, or mercies; and prayer, that his gratitude for them might state legislator, not by his real fitness for the office in be increased that his mind might be purified and en-view, but by his wearing the badge of this or that party!lightened, his belief guided aright, and his life made use- a criterion about as rational, as that adopted in Lilliput,— ful to mankind, and every way acceptable to Heaven. where appointments were regulated by the candidate's He breathed not a wish for health, riches, or any other wearing high-heeled or low-heeled shoes, and breaking mere earthly blessing; but only, that, if it should please his eggs at the little or the big end!-Whoever goes to God to visit him with any affliction, he might be ena-such an extreme of bigotry, as to let party ties govern bled to bear it with fortitude and cheerful resignation. I saw more than one instance of very worthy persons, who had taken umbrage at some imagined tokens of pride in each other, some fancied slight, or undesigned offence and were thus led to entertain mutual ill will,—which the slightest frankness in making an advance on either side, would effectually have dissi-party, will not think of buying it with the more scarce pated.

his vote, will find himself served like Addison's good tory knight; who would stop at none but tory inns; and thus invariably met with the worst fare, and beds the most full of vermin, on all the road. For candidates, like Sir Roger's landlords, finding that a preference can be obtained at the cheap price of loyalty to a

and precious coin of integrity, knowledge, and skill in business." He went on to recapitulate, mentally, the measures which he thought especially good or bad, in each party; and concluded by a solemn resolve, that he NEVER would list under the banner, or adopt the distinctive name, of either; but (despite the proscription by both, which he saw to attend such a course) would make war upon what was evil, and uphold what was good, in both, so long as he preserved his Reason. As he took this vow, though his brain heaved with intense emotion, his brow was calm and smooth as marble; and his whole aspect wore the appearance only of cool yet earnest attention to the preacher.

Party politics ran high at that time. I directed my glass at the head of a dispassionate, honest man, who had incurred the suspicion and dislike of both sides, by refusing to join either. The imputation of double dealing-for each party suspected him of secretly courting the other had given him serious pain: but being thoroughly convinced that his position, however disagreeable, was the true one for every man who wished well to the country, he had resolved to maintain it, at all hazards. He now communed with himself thus: "If there is a truth which no rational being can deny, it is, that no set of men, nor any system of human measures, is perfectly wise and honest. Yet each of these parties Near him sat a thorough going partisan; one who arrogates to itself and its measures such immaculate-read nothing but the "Clarion of Freedom," a newspaness and wisdom, that whoever questions either, is de-per, the confessed organ of his party: or, if he ever did nounced, and spurned from political fellowship! If look into the " Star of Liberty" on the other side, it was there is any other truth equally unquestionable, it is, only to see what new lies its editor was telling--what that no large portion of such a people as ours, is utterly new trick he was about to play.' His mind was now wicked or foolish, nor are their acts all worthy of con- engaged in surveying the relative merits of the two demnation. Yet here, every member of either party sides. On his own, all seemed bright and spotless. (forming nearly half of our people,) is required, on "Were ever statesmen so pure, so able?" thought he pain of similar excommunication, to denounce the other "Was ever eloquence so splendid, or reasoning so unparty and all its acts! Is bound, on his allegiance, to be- answerable? Was ever a party so palpably, so indispulieve every leader on his own side an angel, and every one tably RIGHT, in all its aims, in all its acts, in all its memon the other side a demon! For there is no limit, short bers ?"-On the opposite side, it was far otherwise. of this, when once it is assumed and conceded, that There, all was black. Folly, falsehood, corruption, proparty connexions, and not inherent merils or faults, are to fligacy of every hue and in every form, composed an asdetermine the allotment of praise or blame. It cannot semblage without one redeeming virtue: a hideous be for the public good-it cannot be RIGHT-that prin- monster, with which it became all good men and true ciples so irreconcilable with truth and justice shall pre-patriots, to wage implacable war. Such were the ideas vail! No! I see faults-many and grievous faults--on he had drawn from the "Clarion of Freedom."-It both sides; in men, and in measures. I will censure all that I see!--I discern much that is praiseworthy on both sides: there are men of talents and virtue on both of whom, some are my personal friends and all have my respect. May my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,'

chanced, that not far off, and just beyond our neutral friend, sat as devoted a member of the opposite party: one, whose oracle was the "Star of Liberty," and who regarded the hostile paper as the repository of all that was vile. I found in his brain almost an exact copy of the thoughts which I had just read in that of his adver