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THOUGHT is an act of the wILL. It is an act by which certain ideas are, to the exclusion of all others, summoned to present themselves to the mind's eye, that judgment may marshal them, compare, and newly combine them. Thus in solving a mathematical problem, the WILL suffers no ideas to intrude, saving only the necessary ones of lines, angles, &c.

tion, and therefore to the health and strength of the body; and whatever causes and habits have a tendency to depress the energy of the circulation to allow the blood to creep languidly through the body instead of dancing along its channels cheerily and energetically -as, for instance, laziness, which rides when it might walk-must, of necessity, have the direct effect of impairing assimilation, and therefore of enfeebling the strength and sap- But the WILL is one of the energies of the ping the very foundations of health. brain, and we have just seen that these enerBut the energy of the circulation must ex-gies can only fully exist in conjunction with clusively depend upon the energy of the heart a vigorous circulation. When the circulaand arteries; and the energy of these, as bas tion, therefore, is languid, the WILL will be been already shown, must depend upon the languidly exerted-it will be unable either to energy of their contractility, and energetic command the presence of the ideas required, contractility depends on an energetic circu- or to expel those whose presence is troublelation, and is incompatible with a high degree some, and tend only to perplex and interrupt of sensibility. Hence it directly follows that the process of thought.

When a man, with such a brain, sits down

whatever causes are calculated to increase sensibility to make us tender, if you will tolerate a vulgar expression-have an immediate to think, he finds that all sorts of ideas wholly irrelative to the subject on which he wishes and powerful effect in impeding the conversion of our food into blood, and therefore of to think, are perpetually thrusting themselves impairing the process of nutrition. Hence into his mind, "against the stomach of his arise the incalculable mischiefs of a daily in- will," and so excluding those which a feeble dulgence in what are miscalled the comforts and irresolute WILL is vainly endeavoring to of life; but which are, in reality, most perni- he will find, every now and then, that though summon and retain. If he be reading a book, cious and unnatural luxuries. A few of these his eye has been tracing the words and lines, are table-indulgences, lounging on couches, warm, carpeted rooms, window-curtains, bed- and his hand has been mechanically turning curtains, blazing fires, soft beds, wearing flan- over the leaves-he will find, I say, that his nel, (I speak of the healthy, not of the sickly knows no more of what he has just been readmind has been wandering far away, and invalid,) novel reading, hot suppers, and, though last, by no means least, that precious ing than the man in the moon. In a word, humbug, called passive exercise-that is, loll- he has no power of abstract thought—no power ing along at ease in a stuffed and cushioned to fix his attention. carriage. Not that I would totally abolish any one of these, except perhaps hot suppers and soft beds; but that I wish, by proving to you their evil influences, to induce you to use them as sparingly as the conventual habits of society will permit. Though I confess, for my own part, I see no reason why any man should feel himself called upon to injure his health -to blur the beauty of God's noblest worksolely to gratify the capricious whim of that many-headed monster, called SOCIETY.

Again, the brain itself is the product of the blood-it is as literally and truly made of blood as the most beautiful china vase is made of clay. Hence the qualities of the brain-the mental energies, as they are called -courage, the powers of abstract thinking, fortitude, patience, generosity, and above all, good-humor,* can only exist in conjunction with, and owe their very being to, a vigorous circulation. Hence it seems scarcely too much to say that thought itself is produced from the blood, since there can be no energy of thought without energy of brain, and no energy of brain without energy of circulation through that brain.

called reverie.

This state of mind is

Herein consists the difference between thought and imagination. Thought, as I said before, is an act of the WILL, and that act, to be efficient, requires a vigorous circulation. It is the office of the wILL to decide, as it were, as to what ideas shall be admitted into the brain, and what refused admittance. But imagination resembles a dream, in which the WILL is asleep. It is a condition of the brain in which all sorts of heterogeneous ideas, in despite of the WILL, come and go, in tumultuous disorder, without let or hindrance, as in a dream. In this state of the brain, the contractility of its arterial tissue is feeble, and therefore the circulation through it is feeble, and therefore the WILL, which I have shown to depend on a strong circulation, is also feeble. In this state the brain may be likened to an ideal theatre, without either checktakers or money-takers, and with all its doors thrown open, at which doors a multitudinous throng of ideas, of all colors and costumes, collected from all the corners of the earth, and every domain of nature, are perpetually making their "exits and their entrances." And as the little pieces of colored glass in a kaleidoscope will often arrange themselves into figures more beautiful than any art can emulate, so on the stage of this imaginary theatre, parties of these ideas will frequently frolic and gambol themselves into groups more grotesque, more picturesquely beautiful,

Energy of WILL, therefore-firmness of purpose the power of abstract thinking and reasoning-are all incompatible with a lively imagination; because the three former require an energetic circulation, while the last depends on a circulation of a contrary char

than any effort of thought and judgment cantily convinced of the unmitigated folly of accomplish. those persons who, without knowing any thing of the structure of living parts, or of their actions, or of those delicate springs, contractility and sensibility, which originate and sustain those actions-who, I say, being as ignorant as idiotism of all that concerns the nature of life and living things, are nevertheless perpetually tinkering their stomachs with quack remedies; thus stupidly presuming to mend a machine, of the very nature, and structure, and actions of which, they are as uninformed as infant Hottentots.

acter.

There can be little doubt, I think, that insanity has its cause in some injury to the vigor of the circulation through some part of the brain.

That the doubts, and fears, and anxieties of the lover, have a depressing effect on the circulation, is a fact long since established. The pensive dreamy sadness, the absent mind, the fondness for solitude, the long-drawn, impassioned sigh, so characteristic of love, is equally characteristic of languid circulation.

The same condition exists in the poet; and the mental characters of all three will be found to possess no small similarity. So great, indeed, is this resemblance, that those who begin by being poets or lovers, not unfrequently end by becoming madmen. They are all three (generally) weak, wavering, wayward beings, incapable of abstracting their minds at pleasure, unable to control their thoughts, and it may almost be said of all three alike, that they have scarcely any will or purpose of their own. Hence,

"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact;"

and hence, it is true, that the poet does not sit down to think what he shall write, but to write what he shall think. But the word "think," in the last instance is improperly used; he sits down in order to describe the ideas which his mind's eye beholds dancing in antic and ever-varying groups on the stage of his own brain's theatre-to

"Body forth

The forms of things unknown;
Turn them to shapes, and give to airy nothings
A local habitation and a name."

The health of the body depends upon the healthy performance of the nutritive actions, and disease consists in the unhealthy perfor mance of these actions, or of one or more of them. Medicines, therefore, with a very few exceptions, such as those which seem to cure by chemically combining with and neutraliz ing the poison in the system which produced the disorder-medicines, with these few exceptions, have no power over disease excepting as they have the power of increasing or diminishing the activity of the nutritive actions, absorption, secretion, circulation, &c.

When a man examines his patient, the question with him is not, Has he got a fever? or this, that, or the other disease? The question is, Which of the living actions is going wrong? And how is it going wrong? Is it going too fast or too slow? The patient has, perhaps, a foul tongue, a dry skin, a quick pulse. But these are not the disease; these are the symptoms-the outward signs of the disorder within. He has nothing to do with the cause producing them. The question, these, except as signs by which he ascertains therefore, is not what is good for a foul tongue, a hot skin, and a quick pulse, but what medicine possesses the power of controlling that particular living action, a disturbance in which has produced, in this particular instance, the symptoms in question. I say, in this particular instance, because in others, the same symptoms will be produced by a disturbance in a different living action. The same symptoms, therefore, frequently require different treatment, because the cause of those symptoms is different, although the symptoms themselves are the same. I will give you a familiar instance. One man has a foul tongue, a quick pulse, and a dry skin, produced by inflammation of one of the membranes of his brain. He therefore requires leeches to his head. Another man has the same symptoms from inflammation of the mu cous membrane of the bowels. He requires leeches too-but not to the head, but to the abdomen! Again, if a medical man finds his patient in pain, he does not forthwith run home for a dose of opium, because opium has the power sometimes of relieving pain. But he first ascertains which of the vital actions, beI have now described to you as much of ing disturbed, is producing that pain. If it the structure of the body and its functions, as arise from spasm, opium may be of service; I conceive to be necessary, in order to enable but if it arise from inflammation, opium will do you to understand what I have presently to harm instead of good. If it were only necessay on the subject of diet and regimen. And sary to attend to symptoms, and not to the you must now know quite enough to be hear-cause of those symptoms, then the proper

Hence, too, every true lover is a poet, and every true poet a lover.

Finally, my dear John, you will observe that every thing connected with life-all the actions, the energies, and beauties of the body; all the actions, energies, and beauties of the mind, as well as the body and mind themselves, are under the dominion of the circulation of the blood, from which both mind and body must inevitably derive each its tone and character. So that "the body and the mind are like a jerkin and a jerkin's lining-rumple the one and you rumple the other."

June,

remedy for a foul tongue would be a scraper. that he does not know how to do it. But you One man has headache from inflammation of shall travel from Dan to Beersheba, and the brain, another from flatulence of the should you meet a thousand passengers by stomach. Brandy will cure the one and kill the way, not a soul of them but will underthe other. take, should you complain of being unwell, to cure you on the spot.

Again, cough may be produced by tubercles in the lungs, by inflammation of their mucous Now all this folly and mischief is attributmembrane, by inflammation of their coverings, able to no less a personage than that respectby inflammation oftheir parenchymatous sub-able old lady, said to be the mother of Wisstance, by disease of the heart, by disease of dom-I mean Experience. It happens thus. the liver, by an accumulation of water in the Mr. Noaks gets a pain in his bowels-his chest, of matter in the chest, &c. &c. neighbor Styles experienced a similar pain last week, took brandy, and got well. Relying on this experience, he recommends brandy to Noaks. Noaks takes a glass, and feels better-another glass, and feels better still— a third cures him. Next year his son complains of a pain in his bowels, and his father, mindful of the experience of himself and eke his neighbor Styles, administers to his son, in full confidence, a bumper of brandy. The son gets rather worse, but then his father recollects that the first glass did not cure his own pain, and so he gives his son another, and advises him to go to bed. Next morning, however, the pain being no better, some other neighbor assures the father that he has often experienced wonderful relief, whenever he has had a pain in the bowels, from gin and peppermint. So the father gives the son a bumper of gin and peppermint. But although brandy, and gin, and peppermint, might have cured the colic-pains of his two neighbors, it would not be found to be quite the thing for the inflammation which is already raging among his poor son's bowels. doctor is called in, who finds that his patient At last the has been laboring for thirty or forty hours under a disease which will often kill its victim in twenty-four; and that however mild it might have been at its onset, it has now, by the aid of brandy and gin, been urged on to incurable violence.

I will tell you what happens every day. One of the faculty of ninnies gets a cough, and meeting with another of the same faculty, he is assured that so, or so, or so, is a "fine thing for a cough." The "fine thing for a cough " is straightway procured. Shortly he has occasion to call on his tailor, and his tailor incontinently recommends him another "fine thing." The following week his tinker brings home a mended sauce-pan; and then the tinker's "fine thing" must have a trial also. Then comes the butcher, and the baker, and the tallow-chandler, and the knifegrinder, each armed at all points with "the finest thing in the world for a cough," But somehow or other the cough still goes on, ugh, ugh, ugh, barking away as before. Having frittered away a month or two in these follies, he then does just what he should have done at first-he walks off to the doctor, who finds that the cough was produced by inflammation of the covering of the lungs, which the abstraction of a little blood and a blister would, at the onset, have removed at once; but that now coagulable lymph has been poured from the inflamed surface, the covering of the lungs is adhering to the lining of the chest, and the patient has contracted a deadly disease which no art can remedy. The tinker, and the tailor, and the butcher, and the baker, when informed of this, lift up their hands and eyes, and cry, "Lord have Experience may be the mother of Wisdom, mercy upon us, who could have thought it?" for ought I know, but she is certainly the And then march away to their other custom- mother of Mischief also. Experience may ers, to whom, if they happen to have coughs teach a man to make bricks, and to lay bricks, too, they very composedly recommend their but she can never teach him the practice of "fine things for a cough over again. of physic. Money is of no use to a man unIs it not perfectly astonishing that a car-less he knows how to lay it out; and experipenter, or a bricklayer, who would never ence is unprofitable, unless a man knows think of pretending to mend your shoes, should how to apply it. And as money may be laid nevertheless have no hesitation whatever in out to the injury of the spender, so experioffering his services to mend your health. If ence misapplied becomes a curse in the you carry your kettle to be mended to any hands of its possessor. Farewell. one but a tinker, he will tell you honestly

E. JOHNSON.

TO A DYING CHILD.

BY R. SHELTON MACKENZIE, LL.D.

When, tempest-wrecked, 'mid ocean-waves the seaman struggles on,
Though mountain-high the waters rise-though hope be all but gone,-
Yet may one memory cheer his soul amid the breakers' roar, -
The thought of that thrice-blessed home he never may see more,-
The thought of all the loved, the far, to whom his life is life,-
Then, then his failing energies regather for the strife.

In the life-struggle on he speeds, with strengthened heart and hand,
And grasps the plank that bears him to yonder friendly strand!
-Thus do I struggle-hopeless all, for oh it is in vain-

Grasping at every chance that health may tint thy cheek again!

Yet is it hard, my drooping flower, to think that there can be
Nought which may glad a father's heart, with bright-eyed Hope, for thee:
For in thy cheek, so wasted now-once like the roses' bloom,-
I read, too well, the omens sad which tell me of thy doom:
In thy faint voice,-thy feeble steps,-thy racking, constant pain,—
Thy patience sweet, which suffers aye, and never doth complain,-
Thy low, deep sigh (for us who weep)-thy fixed and thrilling gaze,
With all the fitful brightness which belongs to dying days.
I feel that Hope were madness, that thy time on earth is brief,
-But tears are vain, my task is now to calm thy mother's grief.

Methinks thou wert as fair a flower as Earth hath ever borne !
Thy cheek was radiant with the hues which tint the dewy morn,—
Thy voice was sweet as is the tone of some dear bird of song,
A sudden burst of melody, as we speed through life along,-
Thy bounding step was free and fleet,-thy lovely form of grace
Well suited with the beauty which adorned thy mind and face,-
Thine eyes! the diamond's light was nothing to their flash
Whene'er they spoke, all joyful, from beneath each long, dark lash,—
Thou wert more like the fancy-thought which fills a poet's dream
Than aught that ever glanced across Earth's melancholy stream.

Oh, child of lovely mind and form! if thou wert not mine own
Methinks I could have loved thee well for thy sweet self alone:-
But here when in thy features blend thy mother's and thy sire's,—
When from thy fount of feeling springs the love which never tires,―
When sweet Affection, frank and full, flowed with thy slightest word,-
When every lip confessed thy worth, and every heart adored,―
When, early dowered with mental wealth, thy wit surpassed thy years,-
When never yet (till now, in grief) for thee flowed forth our tears,
-How gladly might a father's heart exult in such a child,

And Heaven must pardon if it throb with anguish deep and wild.

Oh, early-gifted! seldom yet hath Nature's hand combined
Strength or long years with such a quick maturity of mind:-
The earliest flower, the rarest fruit first withers and decays,
And thus, my child, for thee is not the boon of length of days,—
Yet oh, how bitter is the thought that gifts so rich as thine
Should, for a moment, cheat our hope, and then, for aye, decline:
What wildering dreams have often sprung and fancied all thy life,
Lovely and loved,-with woman's charms,-a bride,-a happy wife,-
With "olive branches round about" thy happy, happy hearth.
-It was a father's dream, sweet child, a fantasy of Earth.

I think on all that thou hast been,-I view thee as thou art

Yet, pallid flower, far dearer now to this afflicted heart;

The love which once it cherished so, still holds its primal sway,

Linked with a tender, soft regret above thy sad decay:

The pride, for thee, which swelled this heart, for all that thou hast been, Falls chastened now,-like fading light upon day's closing scene!

I watch thy couch, at midnight's hush, when silence reigns around,

And, by my side, beloved child, another may be found:

Thy gentle mother o'er thy rest an anxious vigil keeps,
Presses my hand and points to thee, and sadly, sadly weeps.

Thou art our very pulse of life-and must we lose thee now,
Just in the morning of thy youth, with promise on thy brow?
We'll miss our merry songstress, with her melodies of heart,
Snatches of music sweeter far than ever framed by Art,—
We'll miss the winning play-fellow, whose very glance was glee,—
We'll miss the fairy dancer with her motions light and free,-

We'll miss the glad "good morrow!" and the prayerful "good night !"-
We'll miss the thrilling beauty of those eyes so darkly bright,―
-Even here, as I watch over thee, they open on me now
Undimmed and brilliant as if Pain had never pressed thy brow.

Yet, Beautiful!—if God should call thy spirit from its clay-
If, from the tears and cares of earth, he summon thee away:
Wilt thou not come,-if oh, indeed, a spirit-child may come,-
And breathe the blessed air of heaven above what was thy home;
Wilt thou not hover round that home of which thou art the light;
Wilt thou not come to us, in dreams, in the still hour of night;
Wilt thou not sweetly whisper us, "not lost but gone before;"
Shall not the happy day arrive when we shall weep no more;
When, in the better, brighter sphere, the lost of Earth shall rise-
Enfranchised from this world of pain-to yonder glorious skies?

His will is done!-what Time might bring if it had left us thee
Lies hidden from our ken behind the veil of mystery.

A thousand griefs might have been thine in Life's tempestuous wave-
Perhaps, in mercy, God would claim the boon of life he gave!
-Be still, my spirit, think of all his mercy leaves thee here;

Friends, health, and hope to live for yet: whate'er the heart holds dear :
A happy home-though one bright gem be shattered from its zone,—
The trusting love, which, years ago, made one true heart mine own.
One bud for hope to cherish, for pride to boast is left,

And while I mourn I still can say "I am not quite bereft."

Liverpool, May, 1836.

THE EXPIATION;

or, ARDENT TROUGHTON, THE WRECKED MERCHANT.*

BY THE SUB-EDITOR.

"SEND the men here. All, all!" exclaimed Gavel, as he rose from binding the drunken

a vile plot between the passenger and the mate to take the command from me. They have begun by murdering my faithful Williams ;" and he looked askance at the poor old man in my arms, but the dying steward neither spoke nor moved. "Up, my men, and fall upon Gavel and Troughton-up, my good fellows, and I'll give every man of you

a bottle of rum."

"Liar as well as murderer!" exclaimed

and felon master. Terrible and revolting was the scene that ensued. The growling brute, whom we had just overthrown, lay the sullen mate, "though dead men cannot bound and helpless upon the deck of the cab-rise up and accuse you, your own pistol will. in, gnashing his teeth in the impotence of his rage, and giving vent to his exasperation by sin? or this gentlemen, Mr. Ardent TroughMy men, do you believe this drunken assasthe most horrid blasphemies. Also, on the deck, the poor old steward, with his silver ton, who has been so good and so kind to us hair, dabbled in his own blood, was supported in my arms, his life ebbing fast away from the mortal wound. I was vainly endeavoring to staunch the stream that, trickling along the deck, actually came and licked the very hand that had thus ruthlessly wasted it, and life together.

The haggard and worn-out crew assembled in the cabin.

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all?"

"Don't know what to think," said the boatswain, luxuriating in idea upon the promised bottle of rum. neither you nor Mr. Troughton bore the cap"We know, Mr. Gavel, that tain any good will; now I calculate, seeing as how short we are of hands, that if Captain and he'll hand out the rum, I'll vote that he Tomkins means to be as good as his word, be released, and all this murdering affair left to be sifted out by the big wigs when we get on shore-now that's my notion."

My men-my good, my dear men," began to whine from the deck, the overthrown and pusillanimous Tomkins come to my relief. You see there is mutiny and murder the rest of the fellows, with one exception. And mine-and mine-and mine!" said here I am innocent, totally innocent. It is "Ardent Troughton," said Gavel to me solemnly, "these are your reformed crew

* Continued from p. 290.