"A grave digger?" “Follow me, and thou shalt know." 'I again gave him my hand with trembling reluctance, and we struck to the right in a direction towards a dim light, which till now escaped my notice. After proceeding some distance, we approached the entrance of a cave, which descended gently into the bosom of the earth, through a passage dimly lighted by a lamp, leading into an apartment that struck me with inexpressible dismay. It was a charnelhouse of skulls, which I took for granted appertained to thousands of murdered wretches, made away with by a band of robbers, of which this wily old wretch was the stoolpigeon, or chief, I hardly knew which. His whole appearance was a composition of supernatural horrors. There did not seem a drop of blood in his body, or an ounce of flesh on his bones. His eye, deep sunk in his head, glimmered dimmer than the half expiring lamp which obscured rather than illuminated the passage by which we had descended; and his cheeks, for want of the support of teeth, had sunk in on either side, and met together lovingly in the roof of his mouth. His head was without a single hair, and the glossy surface of the skull, divided by lines into different compartments, like the divisions of a map. Each of these was numbered after the manner of sheet maps, teaching children geography. "Gracious heaven!" exclaimed I, mentally, "he is not only a robber but a necromancer! perhaps one of the infernal quizzical imps of Number Nip! perhaps the wooden demon himself. This forest has long been famous for evil doings, and these lines and figures are doubtless the spell by which this diabolical caitiff works his infernal ends." I cast my eyes from the necromancer to the paraphernalia by which he was surrounded. Nothing was seen but skulls piled up in various recesses, or lying about in horrible confusion, so that at every step, they rolled beneath my feet, and grinned in my face, as if in scorn of these impotent injuries. The rest of the embellishments of this Golgotha, have escaped my recollection, for as I continued to stare around, my courage deserted me, my senses wandered, and I trembled from head to foot. "Thou art cold and doubtless hungry too," said the old mystery of horror-" I was inhospitable not to offer thee something to eat." 'He then arose and went to an obscure part of the cave. "He is gone to prepare for me the feast of the worms," thought I," or perhaps he will presently invite me, like the ghost in Don Juan, to an entertainment of shin-bones and petty-toes. Would I were home again, and perish all new sciences." Presently, however, he returned, and to my very agreeable surprise, presented a piece o "Eat, drink and cold venison, some bread, and a flaggon of beer. be merry," quoth he-" for to-morrow I die!" responded I, inwardly, with a sigh. However hunger is lord of the world, and will swallow up fear, when he is sharp set. I fell upon the venison, and ate as if it were my last; I swallowed oceans of beer, in hopes it would infuse into me a portion of Dutch courage, but in vain. While I was taking my meal, the necromancer or whatever he might be, was examining a large skull, divided and marked in like manner with his own, and apparently comparing it with mine, while he ever and anon exclaimed "Bless me astonishing !--wonderful!-one would think they had belonged to one and the same person!-Pray, my good friend, if you can stop eating for one moment, tell me, had you ever any other head on your shoulders than the one you carry now?" "Not that I know of," replied I. "Astonishing-curious-remarkable-never saw such an iden tity-wit-locality-amativeness-philoprogenitiveness--ideality -wonder--acquisitiveness-concentrativeness-adhesiveness-cautiousness-tune--size-weight-coloring-language-com parison-casualty-love of approbation-order-combativeness, and what not! I would give thousands for your skull. Why, sir, you must be a universal genius. You have the finest collection of organs in the world. You are a poet, a mechanic, a chymist, a philosopher, a musician, a lover of children, an artist, a metaphysician, and anything else you please, besides."" pp. 237-244. A very few words will be sufficient to vindicate this remarkable science from the aspersions thrown upon it in this memoir. It had always heretofore been supposed since Adam first showed his face in the world, that the passions, propensities, and mental qualifications of a man were best expressed by the front side of his head, whereas this science teaches that they are only to be correctly judged of by the backside; thereby entirely changing the face of things, and clearly showing that our ancestors have all along been looking upon the wrong side of them. Which sufficiently accounts for the slow progress the world has been making until within a few years past; and also for the sudden start it has lately taken. It has ever been a universal sentiment that the most important study of mankind is man; notwithstanding which, and the great apparent opportunities we have of examining individual character, such have been the peculiar difficulties of the subject, that a very imperfect knowledge, after all, has ever been obtained of it. For before the practice of phrenology, the most approved means of judging of a man's character was by observing his conduct; which could only be conclusively determined upon after he had closed his life, nor was this test a perfect one; for who could decide how the same person would have acted, exposed to the operation of different circumstances. And, indeed, it is one of the tritest maxims, that so far from easily ascertaining the character of others, it is one of the severest tasks to become acquainted with our own. Now, through the help of this science of phrenology, all such difficulties are at once done away with; and by a mere glancing of our eyes, or even momentary application of our fingers, to the heads of our neighbors, we are as certainly informed of what they can and will do, as by our experience of what they have done. Thereby changing future time at once into present; a thing which people at all times of life have continually desired to do, but never before been able to effect, unless it may be a few learned grammarians. We have not time to notice all the beneficial changes which this science is expected to work in our customs, manners, and laws; they may, however, in some small measure, be judged of by a single instance. To take a principal one in the law. A man commits a murder; society is put in great terror, and to great expense and trouble in catching the felon and bringing him to justice, when after all he may get off, for the want of sufficient evidence of the fact, and commit half a dozen more like crimes before he can be legally hung; it being a rule of some of our courts not to punish a man for any offence before he can be proved to have committed it. Now observe the effects of this science;—a man in walking the streets, riding in a stage coach, sitting in the theatre or anywhere else, sees a person before him with a fully developed murder bump on the back of his head; he immediately gives secret information of the fact; the criminal is forthwith seized without having an opportunity to escape; and this being a matter of easy proof, he may be tried, condemned, sentenced, and executed off hand. For it certainly is a matter of equal justice whether you hang a man before or after the crime, provided only you are satisfied that, if left unhung, he would be sure to commit it; and moreover the being beforehand with him, has this great advantage, that you thereby save the life of the murdered person. But we might as well attempt to count the stars, as to enumerate the various excellencies of this wonderful science. Nor is ART. IV.-Observations on the Growth of the Mind. By PERHAPS there has been no age, since the world was established as the abode of man, so generally confident of progress, and so full of anticipations of further advancement, as our own. It looks back on the ages that are past, and asserts that it is wiser and better than they. It looks forward on the ages to come, and acknowledges that they will far surpass it. Though proud of its superiority, it is generous and impartial in its pride, for it is prepared and willing to be excelled. It is conscious of its abundant acquisitions, but it has been taught by many of these, that there is more to be acquired; and it calls, with a voice of disinterested hopefulness, on the still nobler and more successful exertions of future time. This voice of the age, feeble and stifled in many regions of the earth, rings out with an earnest distinctness from those districts in which mankind are the most intelligent and free, enjoying the greatest share of light and the greatest liberty to make use of it. Never was the voice so loud, so united, so cheering. We join in it with all our strength. It is to us the voice of reason and truth. It is our nature proclaiming its origin and its destiny; it is experience holding high converse with futurity; it is deep calling unto deep. For melancholy auguries we have no faith; and for the outcry against innovation, no reverence. We hold courage to be wisdom, and confidence to be true philosophy. We do not doubt, nor fear. And yet we think, that amid the prevailing excitement of the times, there may be occasionally discerned something like extravagance, a passion for the unreal and undefinable, a straining after improbabilities; as if there were no bounds to human power, no limit to its capacities. There is a disposition in some, who have observed the attainments already made by the human mind, to employ their fancy in searching out all possible attempts and improvements, in all the provinces of art and intellect. It is a matter of course, that such a disposition should be developed by the fermentations and powerful workings, which have been going on in society. But we find fault with it on two accounts. The first is, that its indulgence is a useless employment of time. It is as idle, as it is easy, to sit down and foretell that such and such great things may come to pass. It is far more difficult, and far more useful, to go to work in perfecting some improvement already commenced, or in producing some actual and available invention. In our opinion, the man who adds ever so little to the real stock of human knowledge, or actively engages in diffusing and enforcing the undoubted laws of virtue, is beyond comparison a more valuable member of society than the man who merely imagines future glories and attainments, just within the precincts of possibility, but which even he himself who imagines them, cannot clearly explain. The second objection which we entertain against this romantic disposition, is, that it is regardless of the checks which do and always must operate to retard the march of improvement, and of the visible limits within which the Creator has confined the human intellect. If we stop for a few moments to take a glance at some of these checks and limits, it will not be because they are not obvious, but because they are so, and that being so, they are nevertheless overlooked and disregarded in the flights of wild conjecture. We may notice first, the boundaries and successive stages of life. Its utmost extent is but a short period for any considerable advancement in the wide field of knowledge; and appears much shorter, when we reflect how small a portion of it can be devoted to vigorous and effectual exertion. What a long blank is denoted by those words, infancy and childhood! What a large portion of life is consumed in learning how to use the hands, the feet, and the tongue! Years pass away before there is strength in the body or discretion in the mind. Years pass away before the simplest elements of knowledge are imbibed, or a moiety of that learning is acquired which has been in the world for centuries. We all begin the race of existence on the same line; we start from the same post; ignorance and helplessness are the inevitable commencement of all that is human. The first lessons of the spelling book are as incomprehensible to an infant, as the Principia of Newton, or the Analogy of Butler. Then youth comes, as it always has come, and always will come, fiery, passionate, reckless, headstrong; refusing counsel, confiding in its own wisdom, and contradicting the best established dictates of reason, prudence, and experience. The most perfect system of instruction imaginable can only in some measure restrain, but it cannot eradicate youthful passion; it |