the intellect of an audience can never safely be fatigued by complexity. The necessity for verbose explanation on the part of Trueman at the close of “Fashion ” is, however, a serious defect. The dénouement should in all cases be full of action and nothing else. Whatever cannot be explained by such action should be communicated at the opening of the play.

The colloquy in Mrs. Mowatt's comedy is spirited, generally terse, and well seasoned at points with sarcasm of much power. The management throughout shows the fair authoress to be thoroughly conversant with our ordinary stage effects, and we might say a good deal in commendation of some of the "sentiments interspersed : we are really ashamed, nevertheless, to record our deliberate opinion that if "Fashion succeed at all (and we think upon the whole that it will) it will owe the greater portion of its success to the very carpets, the very ottomans, the very chandeliers, and the very conservatories that gained so decided a popularity for that most inane and utterly despicable of all modern comedies the "London

Assurance" of Boucicault.

The above remarks were written before the comedy's representation at the Park, and were based on the author's original MS., in which some modifications have been made - and not at all times, we really think, for the better. A good point, for example, has been omitted, at the dénouement. In the original, Trueman (as will be seen in our digest) pardons the Count, and even establishes him in a restaurant, on condition of his carrying around to all his fashionable acquaintances his own advertisement as restaurateur. There is a piquant, and dashing deviation, here, from the ordinary routine of stage "poetic justice," which could not

have failed to tell, and which was, perhaps, the one original point of the play. We can conceive no good reason for its omission. A scene, also, has been introduced, to very little purpose. We watched its effect narrowly and found it null. It narrated nothing; it illustrated nothing; and was absolutely nothing in itself. Nevertheless it might have been introduced for the purpose of giving time for some other scenic arrangements going on out of sight.

HUMAN MAGNETISM; ITS CLAIM TO DISPASSIONATE INQUIRY. BEing AN ATTEMPT ΤΟ SHOW THE UTILITY OF ITS APPLICATION FOR THE RELIEF OF HUMAN SUFfering. BY W. NEWNHAM, ESQ., M.R.S.L., AUTHOR OF THE "RECIPROCAL INFLU ENCE OF BODY AND MIND, ETC. NEW YORK: WILEY AND PUTNAM.

[Text: Broadway Journal, April 5, 1845.]

THIS is a work of vast importance and high merit, but one of which (on account of its extent of thesis) it is almost impossible to speak otherwise than cursorily, or at random, within the limits of a weekly paper.

The title explains the subject in its generality. The origin of the work is thus stated in an Introductory Chapter :

"About twelve months since, I was asked by some friends to write a paper against mesmerism and I was

1 Here follows the cast, with some words of personal comment on the actors.

- ED.

furnished with materials, by a highly esteemed quondam pupil, which proved incontestably that under some circumstances the operator might be duped that hundreds of enlightened persons might equally be deceived — and certainly went far to show that the pretended science was wholly a delusion, a system of fraud and jugglery by which the imaginations of the credulous were held in thraldom through the arts of the designing. Perhaps in an evil hour I assented to the proposition thus made but on reflection I found that the facts before me only led to the direct proof that certain phenomena might be counterfeited; and the existence of counterfeit coin is rather a proof that there is somewhere a genuine standard gold to be imitated."

Now the fallacy here is obvious, and lies in a mere variation of what the logicians style "begging the question."

Counterfeit coin is said to prove the existence of genuine but this is no more than the truism that there can be no counterfeit where there is no genuine - just as there can be no badness where there is no goodness the considerations being purely relative; but, because there can be no counterfeit where there is no original, does it in any manner follow that any undemonstrated original exists? In seeing a piece of gold we know it to be counterfeit by coins admitted to be genuine; but were no coin admitted to be genuine, how should we establish the counterfeit, and what right should we have to talk of counterfeits at all? Now in the case of mesmerism our author is merely begging the admission.

Such reasoning as this has an ominous look in the very first page of a scientific work - and accordingly we were not surprised to find Mr. Newnham's treatise

illogical throughout.

Not that we do not thoroughly coincide with him in his general views - but that we attain (for the most part) his conclusions by different, and we hope more legitimate routes than his own. In some important points his ideas of prevision, for example, and the curative effects of magnetism- we radically disagree-and most especially do we disagree with him in his (implied) disparagement of the work of Chauncey Hare Townshend, which we regard as one of the most truly profound and philosophical works of the day a work to be valued properly only in a day to come.

We hope, however, that nothing here said by us will influence a single individual to neglect a perusal of the book of Mr. Newnham. It should be read, as a vast store-house of suggestive facts, by all who pretend to keep pace with modern philosophy.

In saying above that we disagree with the author in some of his ideas of the curative effects of magnetism, we are not to be understood as disputing, in any degree, the prodigious importance of the mesmeric influence in surgical cases: that limbs, for example, have been amputated without pain through such influence, is what we feel to be fact. In instances such as that of Miss Martineau, however, we equally feel the weakness of attributing the cure to magnetism. Those who wish to examine all sides of a question would do well to dip into some medical works of authority before forming an opinion on such topics. In the case of Miss Martineau we beg leave to refer to the "London Lancet," for March, 1845, page 265 of the edition published by Burgess & Stringer.

PROSPECTS OF THE DRAMA.

MRS. MOWATT'S

COMEDY.

[Text: Broadway Journal, April 5, 1845.]

So deeply have we felt interested in the question of Fashion's success or failure, that we have been to see it every night since its first production; making careful note of its merits and defects as they were more and more distinctly developed in the gradually perfected representation of the play.

We were enabled, however, to say but little either in contradiction or in amplification of our last week's remarks - which were based it will be remembered, upon the original MS. of the fair authoress, and upon the slightly modified performance of the first night. In what we then said we made all reasonable allowances for inadvertences at the outset — lapses of memory in the actors embarrassments in scene-shifting a word for general hesitation and want of finish. The comedy now, however, must be understood as having all its capabilities fairly brought out, and the result of the perfect work is before us.

in

In one respect, perhaps, we have done Mrs. Mowatt unintentional injustice. We are not quite sure, upon reflection, that her entire thesis is not an original one. We can call to mind no drama, just now, in which the design can be properly stated as the satirizing of fashion as fashion. Fashionable follies, indeed,

as a class of folly in general, have been frequently made the subject of dramatic ridicule - but the distinction is obvious although certainly too nice a one to be of any practical avail save to the authoress of the new