time, a much greater. The operation is said more certainly (if this were possible) will it to have been successful. But the operators be the case, when the stomach, one of the complain that they can get few patients to submit most important of these organs, as well as the to it. Sensibility then can be drawn from one first which is called into action in the process part of the body, and concentered in another. of nutrition, is kept in a state of almost perAnother curious circumstance connected petual excitement and unnatural activity. with SENSIBILITY is SYMPATHY. All the or- How can it be conceived to be possible that gans of the body appear to sympathize with the other wheels of the machine can go right, one another. That the brain and stomach when this, the very first wheel which is put have a strong sympathy with each other is in motion, and on which the motions of all absolutely certain; the proof of which is, the others depend, goes wrong? that a violent blow on the head will produce Let this then be engraven an inch deep on vomiting; and a deranged state of the stom-the tablet of your memory, that you cannot ach will produce headache. Whatever, there-injure ONE of the organs of nutrition, without fore, affects your stomach injuriously, will injury to the whole. also affect your brain injuriously. He, there- I now come to the last law of sensibility fore, who ill-treats his stomach, does so, not which I shall mention, and it is, where all are only at the expense of his bodily health, but important, the most important. Therefore, at the expense of his understanding also—my dear John, draw your chair, put your feet that is, at the expense of his mind's health. on the fender, snuff the candles, adjust your From this law of sympathy, then, it follows spectacles, and read with attention. For I that you cannot injure any one organ of the deny it no man can read attentively who body without also injuring, to a certain ex- has not got himself fixed in a comfortable potent, the whole of the body, and the mind also. sition. And, indeed, when we consider the intimate This is the law, viz., that SENSIBILITY is alconnection which exists between all the or- ways in an inverse ratio of CONTRACTILITY. gans of the body, and the reciprocal depen- When CONTRACTILITY is vigorous, SESIBILITY dence of all upon each other-when we re- is low, and when CONTRACTILITY is feeble, member that all the nerves have one of their SENSIBILITY is always acute; and as vigorous extremities fixed in the brain or spinal marrow, CONTRACTILITY is synonymous with health and and their other extremities distributed to every strength, the greater or lesser degree of SENpoint of the body-when we recollect that all SIBILITY becomes an infallible test of the state the organs are made up, not of separate net-of the health.

For there is no pleasure and no pain which is not derived to us from impressions made by external objects upon our feeling-of which feeling SENSIBILITY is the soul. I mean the feeling as well of the mind as the body.

works, but of different portions of one and the I have already proved that it is the SENSIsame universal tissue-when we consider BILITY of our organs which establishes the this, there seems nothing surprising in the ex-necessary relation between ourselves and the istence of this sympathy. The body, although objects which surround us. From this it folcomposed of numerous parts, forms, neverthe-lows directly, that it is upon SENSIBILITY that less, one harmonious whole. And you cannot all our pleasures and all our pains depend. remove one part without injury to the whole. And again, although each organ performs a distinct function or office, yet it cannot do this without the co-operation of others. Thus the stomach can exert no influence on the food, unless well supplied with blood by the heart. If Now the SENSIBILITY of a perfectly healthy the brain dies, the heart must cease to pulsate; man is so regulated, as to afford him the and if the heart ceases to move, the brain greatest possible degree of pleasure, with the must perish. It is not then by any means least possible degree of pain-that is, consurprising that an injury to one organ should sistently with his terrestrial existence. Inbe felt by another on the contrary, it would deed, our pleasures are the voluntary and be very wonderful if it were not so. Accord-bountiful gift of nature for our pains we ingly, we see that a wound of the foot will have nobody to thank but our foolish selves. often produce locked-jaw-the disease in this So good has the great Governor of the uniinstance being at one extremity of the body, while the wound that produced it was inflicted on the other. If it were necessary to make this mutual dependence of all the organs on each other still clearer, we have only to recollect that it is impossible to injure any one wheel of a watch, without injury to the whole machine without incapacitating it properly to fulfil the office for which it was intended. And man, the master-miracle of nature, is a machine of far more delicate and complicated structure than a watch, and, therefore, more readily deranged.

Now, if no organ concerned in the preservation of health (for it is of these I am speaking, the organs of nutrition) can be disordered without disordering all the others, how much

verse been to us, that we could not, if we would, escape pleasure; but in every instance, we can avoid pain if we will. For pain is only a warning voice, intimating to us that we have got into a false position-that we are doing something which we ought not to do, or leaving something undone which we ought to do-in a word, that the proper relation between ourselves and surrounding objects has been, for the time, destroyed. Man, if he would but be content to be what nature made him, and if it were not for his cat-like pugnacity, need scarcely know what pain is.

Nature then has endowed us with a certain degree of SENSIBILITY, and my object is to shew that we cannot increase this without diminishing our proper amount of pleasure,

and augmenting our proper share of pain-cessively high, CONTRACTILITY,that is,strength, without enfeebling our CONTRACTILITY-in a is excessively low. word, without injury to our health and It is true, that this is a case of extreme illstrength.

ness, and that every departure from health will not produce this extreme state to things. But it will produce an approximation to it. In the slightest departure from health the same state of things will be produced, the only difference being in degree.

Pain is invariably the result of impressions too acutely or strongly made; and a SENSIBILITY is that property by which impressions are felt, it is perfectly manifest, that the more acute SENSIBILITY is, the more acutely impressions will be felt. And thus those impressions, To prove this, let us take a peep into "my which in a healthy state of the SENSIBILITY lady's chamber." Here you will find the afford only pleasure, become painful; and same circumstances of heightened SENSIBILIthose which always produce pain become TY, and depreciated CONTRACTILITY, which more painful. This is so very clear, as to you observe in the sick room-only in a less render amplification wholly unnecessary. degree. It is true, that she can bear an orIn order to prove that wherever there is a dinary degree of light without pain, and the a high degree of SENSIBILITY, there is always sound of your foot-fall may not give her the a low degree of CONTRACTILITY, i. e. strength headache; but if you leave the door ajar, she -and that wherever there is a low degree of will assuredly take cold-if the force of your strength, there is always a high degree of friendship cause you to press her hand a litSENSIBILITY—you need only look through the tle too forcefully, she will assuredly scream—

world.

"A man's a man for a' that."

and if you steal slily behind her when she Let us first approach the couch of sickness. thinks she is alone, and cry, "Bo! to a Tread lightly-for the slightest noise makes goose!" she will assuredly fall in hysterics. the poor sufferer start, and gives him the If you press her arm strongly between your headache. Be careful to close the door after finger and thumb, you will make it black and you, for the faintest breath of air gives him blue-while it would require, in order to procold. See how he is shading his eyes with duce the same effect on one of Mr. Barclay's his hand, for the few rays of light which draymen, little less than the gripe of a blackstruggle feebly through the Venetian blinds smith's vice. "The hand of little employment are painful to them. Observe his hand! How hath daintier sense." white and bloodless! If you take it in your So much for SENSIBILITY: now for her coNown, you must handle it as you would an in- TRACTILITY. Could she carry a bushel-basket fant's-an ordinary pressure will make him of potatoes upon her head for a mile without cringe with pain. His banker has just fail- resting? Not she. Yet why can she not? ed, and reduced him to ruin; but you must It is true, she is a lady: but, as Burns says, not breathe a syllable of this in his hearingit would kill him. Do you observe that rope suspended over the bed from the ceiling, with a small cross bar of wood attached to the And is not a woman a woman for a' that? end of it? So faint is the contractility of his There is many a woman neither so tall nor muscles, that he could not, without this con- so well proportioned who would carry a trivance, raise himself in bed. Observe him bushel of potatoes on her head without restas he carries his cup of gruel to his pallid ing, from Pedlar's Acre to Pennyfields, and lips-mark how the liquid quivers in the ves- think herself well rewarded with a shilling. sel-hark how its edge rattles against his There must be some better reason for this teeth, as he applies it to his mouth-the con- great difference than the mere fact of one betractile property of the muscles of his arm is ing a lady and the other a woman. The true so feeble that they have not power to keep the reason is, that the contractility of my lady's limb steady even while he carries nourish- organs, especially her muscles, has sunk ment to his mouth. His heart, too, contracts exactly as much below the natural standard so feebly, that it cannot send the blood far as their SENSIBILITY has been elevated above enough to reach the skin. It is this which makes it so deadly pale-it is this, too, which makes him shiver on the application of the slightest current of air.

it.

Thus, then, we have indisputable proof that SENSIBILITY and CONTRACTILITY are always in an inverse ratio of each other. But you must be careful to observe, that it is not increased SENSIBILITY that gives rise to diminished coNTRACTILITY, but it is diminished coNTRACTILITY that increases SENSIBILITY; increased SENSIBILITY being no more than the proof of diminished CONTRACTILITY, that is, enfeebled health and strength.

In the above picture you will observe two things,-first, that the CONTRACTILITY of the invalid has almost intirely disappeared, leaving him powerless; and secondly, that his SENSIBILITY is so acute, that those impressions of light, sound, touch, &c., which under ordinary circumstances were only necessary to the enjoyment of existence, have now become From this it follows, therefore, that the scurces of painful suffering; thus proving, degree of SENSIBILITY depends upon the degree that whenever SENSIBILITY is advanced be- of CONTRACTILITY; and this is fortunate, for yond the natural standard, the sources of pain we have on that very account only to raise are multiplied, and those of pleasure dimin- CONTRACTILITY, in order to lower an irritable, ished. And that wherever SENSIBILITY is ex- acute, troublesome, and unhealthy degree of

SENSIBILITY to the natural standard. This dry sponge, whenever that thread passes can be easily done; so easily that I will trough an empty cell, its sides will be entirely undertake, within one month, without fee or unsupported and uncompressed. So of the body reward, or pill or potion of any kind, and on a nerve passing through the body (which the peril of my head, to enable any lady body consists of a congeries of vessels) will within the pale of his Majesty's United have its sides everywhere compressed and Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to supported, so long as those vessels are well carry a bushel of potatoes on her head from filled and fully distended. But if these vesPedlar's Acre to Pennyfields without rest- sels be half empty, if their sides be allowed, ing, and that too with no more pain and la- as it were, to collapse and fall away from the bor to herself than may be sufficient to spare nerves which they everywhere surround, it her pocket the expense of sixpenny worth of is manifest that those nerves will not be so rouge. firmly compressed and well supported while Now, then, it is quite clear that whatever all the vessels surrounding them were fully causes, circumstances, regimen, or conduct, distended. It is this half-filled state of the veshave a tendency to heighten SENSIBILITY must sels which constitutes that lax and soft state of necessarily have a tendency to depress con- the body called flabby. This loose, flabby, and TRACTILITY; since I have proved that a high uncompact state of the body, therefore, is highdegree of the former is wholly incompatible ly favorable to SENSIBILITY, since SENSIBILITY with a high degree of the latter, and therefore is always increased accordingly as surroundcannot exist in conjunction with it. ing pressure and support are removed from the nerves.

The reason why a high degree of SENSIBILITY cannot exist in conjunction with a high But a state of body the very opposite to degree of CONTRACTILITY is this:-the nerves that just described is alone favorable to coN(which are the seat of sensibility) are more TRACTILITY: for I have before proved that or less acutely sensible, accordingly to the vigorous CONTRACTILITY can only reside in greater or less degree of firmness with which recently organized matter; and in order that they are compressed on all sides by the parts this recent organization, this perpetual youth, immediately surrounding them and in con- as it were, of the several parts of the body tact with them. Thus the nerves of the may be kept up, an abundant supply of heal bones, ligaments, and sinews are so firmly thy blood is absolutely indispensable. Thus compressed on all sides by the unyielding CONTRACTILITY in perfection requires a highly structure of these parts, that they are almost distended condition of the blood-vessels, and, wholly insensible. You may cut them, lace-consequently, a firm and compact state of the rate them, without giving pain. The muscles body-a state exactly contrary to that just (that is, the red flesh) cannot be wounded described as favorable to the development of without considerable pain, because their SENSIBILITY. Hence arises a most important structure is not so firm as that of the bones, corollary, viz. that whatever increases the sinews, &c. But which is much more com- natural vigor of the circulation, increases the pact and firm than the structure of the skin, CONTRACTILITY and lessens the SENSIBILITY and therefore a wound inflicted on a mus- of the body; and whatever lessens the SENcle will not produce anything like the acute- SIBILITY of the body by increasing its conness of pain which is felt on wounding the TRACTILITY, increases also the natural vigor skin. In the nerves of the eye and ear it of the circulation, since the blood is circulatwas necessary that a SENSIBILITY of the very led by virtue of the contractile power of the highest degree should exist in order to en-heart and arteries.

able these organs to feel the very slight The degree of SENSIBILITY, therefore, is aland subtile impressions of light and sound. ways not only in an inverse ratio of the deAccordingly we find that from these nerves gree of CONTRACTILITY, but also of the circu all surrounding pressure is removed entire-lating power; and, since all the motions of ly; these nerves being, as it were, expand- the body are performed by virtue of coned into a sort of quivering jelly as that part TRACTILITY, and the whole process of nutriwhere they are destined to receive their na- tion by virtue of the circulation, this is the tural impressions. same as saying that the degree of SENSIBILITY Now, a very large portion of the body is, is always in an inverse ratio of the degree as you know, made up of a conglomeration of of health and strength-which is the fact. blood-vessels. The whole body, then, taken A very familiar instance of the increase of as a whole, will be the more compact and SENSIBILITY, produced by lessening the quanfirm accordingly as these vessels are fully tity of the blood, is to be found in the fact, distended with blood; precisely as sponge that a dose of cathartic medicine wholly inbecomes a more compact body when distend-competent to affect the bowels under ordied with water than when dry; since, when nary circumstances, will be found quite sufdry, its cells are filled with air, but when satu- ficient to do so if administered after bloodrated with water, they are filled with water, letting. which is a far more compact material than air. If you draw a thread through a sponge saturated with water, the sides of that thread will be every where compressed and supported by either the solid parts of the sponge or by the wa- | ter. Whereas, if you draw a thread through a

I am at this time attending a big, strong, dread-naught custom-house officer for a slight attack of paralysis which he sustained some weeks since. Since the attack I have bled him nine times, taking away thirty ounces of blood each time. He was also cupped once

LES OISEAUX.

pour son exile.

by Mr. Cowley, of Osborn Street. You may easily imagine that a man who can bear this, and yet walk about the street without sup- Couplets addressès a Monsieur Arnault, partant port, must, at least, be no chicken. Yet so much has his sensibility, (I speak now of moral SENSIBILITY, which, after all, is but the physical SENSIBILITY of those parts of the nervous system which are susceptible of impressions by moral causes,)—so much, I say, has this man's SENSIBILITY been increased by bleeding that a cross word is sufficient to make him burst into tears.

As moral SENSIBILITY is but the SENSIBILITY of those parts of the system which are capable of being impressed by moral causes, it follows that the qualities of the mind will be, in a great measure, regulated by the relative degrees of CONTRACTILITY and SENSIBILITY in individuals. When the brain is but ill supplied with blood, and that blood but feebly circulated, and therefore imperfectly vivified, the SENSIBILITY to moral causes or stimuli will be morbidly acute. Such a person is easily and morbidly affected by causes to which others are wholly insensible: a sudden loud knock at the door, for instance, will make him start almost from his seat.

If you speak to him of a contingent evil, however slight and remote, he views it through a mental telescope, always applying that end of the instrument to his eye which magnifies the object and increases its proximity. If you speak of a contingent good, the telescope is instantly turned, and he views it through the opposite end, which diminishes its value, lessens its probability, and renders it only visible at the extreme point of a long perspective. In short, he is timid, desponding, infirm of purpose, imaginative and incapable of continued application.

Such a man may be a poet, but never a mathematician.

"Tri

L'Hiver redoublant ses ravages,

Desole nos toits et nos champs,
Les oiseaux sur d'autres rivages,
Portent leurs amours et leurs chants.

IMITATION.

Now is winter's spirit moving,
Borne upon the northern blast,
Far away our warblers roving,
Quit these dreary shores at last.

Truants now, no longer near us,

Other lands enjoy their strain,
Yet they're constant, and will cheer us
When the spring returns again.

'Tis some Power mysterious guiding
Leads these wanderers on their way,
Blindly in that Power confiding,
To some fairer clime they stray.

Go, ve gay and tuneful legions,

Why with us your stay prolong;
Go, and cheer more favored regions
With your plumage and your song.

Hark, the tempest's wild commotion

Strips the sere and yellow trees;
Fly, and seek beyond the ocean

Fairer, happier climes than these.

Though from us ye now are straying,
We, though losers, don't complain,
Zephyr's balmy wings conveying,
Spring will see you here again.

JOHN WARING.

FRANK FARLEY.

Like a man to double business bound.

HAMLET.

On the contrary, when CONTRACTILITY is vigorous, and the circulation consequently energetic, the brain will be abundantly supplied with healthy blood, its nervous tissue firmly supported everywhere within the meshes of that tissue formed by the interlacings of well-filled blood-vessels, and its SENSIBILITY therefore will be, in a corresponding degree, obtuse. It requires a strong moral cause to operate on the mind of such a man. fles light as air," have no power to excite, to irritate, or in any way affect him: he is, consequently, bold, patient, good-humored, in- "O MOST Sapicnt Bedle.mite !" flexible, unimaginative, and capable of long“Well! I think a man is justified incontinued mental exertion. Such a man may "Halt! nonsense-you're wrong, radicalbecome a great_mathematician, but never a ly, constitutionally, primarily, secondarily, poet. I think I could show that all the pe- and ultimately wrong-you've taken up a culiarities of the human mind are to be ac- bad position, and defended it worse-if pos counted for as depending upon certain modi-siblefications of the two physical properties-conTRACTILITY and SENSIBILITY; but, on this sub-dicate-"

"Well, but Harry, hear me I wish to pre

ject, I have said enough, and perhaps you "O, have done! do-come hold your tongue will add, "and to spare;" therefore, my dear-and tell me what you intend to do with John, for the present, I bid you farewell. yourself this evening."

Pax vobiscum.

E. JOHNSON.

"Hem-ah-fill your glass whilst I scan over my memoranda. Mortlake, that's impossible dull, decidedly dull. Lady Dar rington's

"Well, no more of this; let us change the conversation."

"Ay-you must absolutely go there. Why, it's a private and peculiar party, expressly for the purpose of reviewing Bulwer's last. “Frank, I beg your pardon, but do consult And double quick, my dear boy. Lady Ca- your own conscience-call a council of war roline will be there. Apropos-attention- of your senses—hold a court-martial on that here's her health-you cannot refuse." "Avec plaisir, mon cher capitaine. I always obey my superior officer-Lady Caroline Belvoir."

"Um―you drank Caroline' last time the lady's health was proposed."

"Well-why not give her her titles?" "I suppose you think it particularly loverlike; but, serieusement, whither are your marching orders to-night?"

"Why-ah-if you must know the truth -I-ah-nave to make a particular-that is, private-not that it's very especial-but a kind of indispensable engagement-you understand-to see a friend in the neighborhood of Covent Garden to-night?"

same penchant of yours, for Fanny Melton, and drum it out of your head. Now I ask it, as a particular favor. Why, my dear boy, think of Lady Caroline. What? in treaty with one, and make advances upon another -two at a time-it will never do. Come, come, promise you won't go to Drury Lane to-night."

66

Very well."

"That's too vague. Come, yes or no." "No-there, hang it-what an unbounded nuisance you are. Here, waiter, coffee. This is a devilish nice place of Wood's, though it is in the city."

"Just within the frontiers, viola tout, and one benefit is, that not a soul here marches "Don't try to steal a march on me-I am under the same colors with ourselves, so that too practised a tactician. Pray is not Drury we make our meal in peace and quiet. Of Lane in that neighborhood? And if I recol- all bores, recommend me to a west-end lect rightly, there is a species of edifice-coffee-room or a club. Why, I dropped into sometimes denominated a theatre-therea- the bouts n'est ce pas ?"

66

Well, Harry, be it so thither go I." "To-night?"" "Certainement."

"To the exclusion of Lady Darrington's party?"

Partly-I may look in towards the close of the evening."

"Not up there, stupid. Frank, you're running your head into an ambuscade-you're marching up to a masked battery, and you'll be knocked head over heels-that you will. Take my advice-don't go to Drury Lane again, at least not till Fanny Melion has been dismissed. Hey-have I pointed the muzzle true? Nay, man, don't blush sothe coffee-room will be up in arms

"Captain Stewart, I must request"O yes, we all know that."

but yesterday, by way of a novelty, to get a chop, and by my hopes of promotion, for three-quarters of an hour, I demolished but two mouthfuls of meat, whilst I was all the time being crammed with all manner of deuced nonsense. How do Harry's,' and 'Devilish glad to see you's,' and "Been at Lady Thingumbob's lately,' and 'seen Crampton to-day's,' till I was fain to give them all the cut direct."

"In order that you might do the same to your chop?"

Chop! cold-cold, Frank, cold as parade on a November morning."

"Well, certainly this comfortable little tavern has so far the advantage. Waiter, is my cab at the door?"

"See, sir."

"Yes, sir, cab at the door.”

"Well, let us have our a-a-a

"Yes, sir." (N.B. I am requested, by the waiters in general, to announce to the public that "Yessir," "Nossir," "Seesir," &c. are to be "etymologically enunciated" as separate words.)

And now that the young gentlemen are in the act of paying the bill, and going to the caḥ, let us just examine their externals, which being collated, and concocted with the above dicta, may induce a fair conjecture as to the penetralia. Captain Stewart's back being towards us, we can only perceive, by occasional turns of his cranium, that he possesses a moderately handsome, merry face, with curly auburn hair, large whiskers and moustaches, à la millitaire: his actions are quick, and the decided manner of wielding his firmly knit frame, combined with the unembarrassed tone of his voice, and his firm gaze,

"Sir, I consider the inappropriateness of pronounce him to be a man of decision of your

"Now Frank! Frank! don't be mutinous. My dear boy, believe me, I only meant your advantage. Really, I'

character, though combined with a reckless gaiety, and somewhat domineering tone. Frank Farley's pale Grecian countenance, dark hair and eyes, and expressive features,