Astrology, alchemy, the once general belief in the healing effects of the royal touch, the use of charms and amulets, and mesmerism, are only various exhibitions of one superstition, having for their essence the same little grain of truth, and for their outward expression different forms of error. Disconnected as they appear at first sight, a brief examination discovers the common features which prove them to be of one family. By turns they have—each of them—given humiliating evidence of the irrational extravagances that reasoning creatures are capable of committing; and each of them, also, has conferred some benefits on mankind. The gibberish of Geber, and the alchemists who preceded and followed him, led to the study of chemistry, the utility and importance of which science we have only begun rightly to appreciate; and a curiosity about the foolishness of astrology led Sir Isaac Newton to his astronomical inquiries. Lord Bacon says—"The sons of chemistry, while they are busy seeking the hidden gold—whether real or not—have by turning over and trying, brought much profit and convenience to mankind." And if the delusions of talismans, amulets, and charms, and the impostures of Mesmer, have had no greater consequences, they have at least afforded, to the observant and reflective, much valuable instruction with regard to the constitution of the human mind.

In the history of these superstitions we have to consider the universal faith which men in all ages have entertained in planetary influence, and which, so long as day and night, and the moon and tides endure, few will be found so ignorant or so insensible as to question. The grand end of alchemy was to transmute the base metals into gold; and it proposed to achieve this by obtaining possession of the different fires transmitted by the heavenly bodies to our planet, and subjecting, according to a mysterious system, the comparatively worthless substances of the mineral world to the forces of these fires.

"Now," says Paracelsus, in his "Secrets of Alchemy," "we come to speake of a manifold spirit or fire, which is the cause of variety and diversity of creatures, so that there cannot one be found right like another, and the same in every part; as it may be seen in metals, of which there is none which hath another like itself; the Sun produceth his gold; the Moon produceth another metal far different, to wit, silver; Mars another, that is to say, iron; Jupiter produceth another kind of metal to wit, tin; Venus another, which is copper; and Saturn another kind, that is to say, lead: so that they are all unlike, and several one from another; the same appeareth to be as well amongst men as all other creatures, the cause whereof is the multiplicity of fire.... Where there is no great mixture of the elements, the Sun bringeth forth; where it is a little more thick, the Moon; where more gross, Venus; and thus, according to the diversity of mixtures, are produced divers metals; so that no metal appeared in the same mine like another."

This, which is an extract from Turner's translation of Paracelsus's "Secrets of Alchemy" (published in 1655), may be taken as a fair sample of the jargon of alchemy.

The same faith in planetary influence was the grand feature of astrology, which regarded all natural phenomena as the effects of the stars acting upon the earth. Diseases of all kinds were referable to the heavenly bodies; and so, also, were the properties of those herbs or other objects which were believed in as remedial agents. In ancient medicine, pharmacy was at one period only the application of the dreams of astrology to the vegetable world. The herb which put an ague or madness to flight, did so by reason of a mystic power imparted to it by a particular constellation, the outward signs of which quality were to be found in its colour or aspect. Indeed, it was not enough that "a simple," impregnated with curative power by heavenly beams, should be culled; but it had to be culled at a particular period of the year, at a particular day of the month, even at a particular hour, when the irradiating source of its efficacy was supposed to be affecting it with a peculiar force; and, moreover, it had to be removed from the ground or the stem on which it grew with a particular instrument or gesture of the body—a disregard of which forms would have obviated the kindly influence of the particular star, without whose benignant aid the physician and the drug were alike powerless.

Medical practitioners smile now at the mention of these absurdities. But many of them are ignorant that they, in their daily practice, help to perpetuate the observance of one of these ridiculed forms. The sign which every member of the Faculty puts before his prescriptions, and which is very generally interpreted as an abbreviation for Recipe, is but the astrological symbol of Jupiter.

It was on this principle that a belief became prevalent that certain objects, either of natural formation or constructed by the instruments of art, had the power of counteracting noxious agents. An intimate connection was supposed to exist between the form or colour of an external substance and the use to which it ought to be put. Red objects had a mysterious influence on inflammatory diseases; and yellow ones had a similar power on those who were discoloured with jaundice. Edward II.'s physician, John of Gaddesden, informs us, "When the son of the renowned King of England lay sick of the small-pox, I took care that everything round the bed should be of a red colour, which succeeded so completely that the Prince was restored to perfect health without a vestige of a pustule remaining." Even as late as 1765, this was put in practice to the Emperor Francis I. The earliest talismans were natural objects, with a more or less striking external character, imagined to have been impressed upon them by the planets of whose influence they were especially susceptible, and of whose virtues they were beyond all other substances the recipients. The amulet (which differs little from the talisman, save in that it must be worn suspended upon the person it is to protect, whereas the talisman might be kept by its fortunate possessor locked up in his treasure-house) had a like origin.

But when once a superstitious regard was paid to the external marks of a natural object, it was a short and easy step to produce the semblances of the revered characters by an artificial process, and then bestow on them the reverential feelings which had previously been directed to their originals. The ordinary course taken by a superstition in its degradation is one where its first sentiment becomes lost to sight, and its form is dogmatically insisted on. It was so in that phase of feticism which consisted in the blind reliance put on artificial talismans and amulets. The original significance of the talisman—the truth which was embodied in it as the emblem of the unseen powers that had produced it, in accordance with natural operations—was forgotten. The rows of lines and scratches, and the variegations of its colour, were only thought of; and the cunning of man—ever ready to make a god for himself—was exerted to improve upon them. In the multitude of new devices came inscriptions of mystic numbers, strange signs, agglomerations of figures, and scraps from sacred rituals—Abraxas and Abracadabra, and the Fi-fo-fum nonsense of the later charms.

Creatures that were capable of detecting the influence of the planetary system on that portion of Nature which is unquestionably affected by it, and of imagining its presence in inanimate objects, which, to use cautious language, have never been proved by science to be sensible of such a power, of course magnified its consequences in all that related to the human intellect and character. The instant in which a man entered the world was regarded as the one when he was most susceptible. Indeed, a babe was looked upon as a piece of warm and pliant wax: and the particular planet which was in the ascendant when the nurse placed the new child of Adam amongst the people of earth stamped upon it a distinctive charactery. To be born under a particular star was then an expression that meant something. On the nature of the star it depended whether homunculus, squealing out its first agonies, was to be morose or gentle, patient or choleric, lively or saturnine, amorous or vindictive—a warrior or a poet—a dreamer or a man of action.

Laughing at the refinements of absurdity at which astrology had arrived in his day, the author of "Hudibras" says:—

Involved in this view of the universe was the doctrine that some exceptional individuals were born far superior to the mass of their fellow-creatures. Absurd as astrology was, still, its postulates having once been granted, the logic was unassailable which argued that those few on whose birth lucky stars had shone benignantly, had a destiny and an organization distinct from those of ordinary mortals. The dicta of modern liberalism, and the Transatlantic dogma that "all men are by nature born equal," would have appeared to an orthodox believer in this planetary religion nothing better than the ravings of madness or impiety. Monarchs of men, whatever lowly station they at first occupied in life, were exalted above others because they possessed a distinctive excellence imparted to them at the hour of birth by the silent rulers of the night. It was useless to strive against such authority. To contend with it would have been to wrestle with the Almighty—ever present in his peculiarly favoured creatures.

Rulers being such, it was but natural for their servile worshippers to believe them capable of imparting to others, by a glance of the eye or a touch of the hand, an infinitesimal portion of the virtue that dwelt within them. To be favoured with their smiles was to bask in sunshine amid perfumes. To be visited with their frowns was to be chilled to the marrow, and feel the hail come down like keen arrows from an angry sky. To be touched by their robes was to receive new vigour. Hence came credence in the miraculous power of the imposition of royal, or otherwise sacred hands. Pyrrhus and Vespasian cured maladies by the touch of their fingers; and, long before and after them, earthly potentates and spiritual directors had, both in the East and the West, to prove their title to authority by displaying the same faculty.

In our own country more than in any other region of Christendom this superstition found supporters. From Edward the Confessor down to Queen Anne, who laid her healing hands on Samuel Johnson, it flourished; and it was a rash man who, trusting to the blind guidance of human reason dared to question that manifestation of the divinity which encircles kingship. Doubtless the gift of money made to each person who was touched did not tend to bring the cure into dis-esteem. It can be easily credited that, out of the multitude who flocked to the presence of Elizabeth and the Stuart kings for the benefit of their miraculous manipulations, there were many shrewd vagabonds who had more faith in the coin than in the touch bestowed upon them. The majority, however, it cannot be doubted, were as sincere victims of delusion as those who, at the close of the last century, believed in the efficacy of metallic tractors, and those who now unconsciously expose their intellectual infirmity as advocates of electro-biology and spirit-rapping. The populace, as a body, unhesitatingly believed that their sovereigns possessed this faculty as the anointed of the Lord. A story is told of a Papist, who, much to his astonishment, was cured of the king's evil by Elizabeth, after her final rupture with the court of Rome.

"Now I perceive," cried the man, "by plain experience that the excommunication against the Queen is of no effect, since God hath blessed her with such a gift."

Nor would it be wise to suppose that none were benefited by the treatment. The eagerness with which the vulgar crowd to a sight, and the intense excitement with which London mobs witness a royal procession to the houses of Parliament, or a Lord Mayor's pageant on its way from the City to Westminster, may afford us some idea of the inspiriting sensations experienced by a troop of wretches taken from their kennels to Whitehall, and brought into personal contact with their sovereign—their ideal of grandeur! Such a trip was a stimulus to the nervous system, compared with which the shock of a galvanic battery would have been but the tickling of a feather. And, over and above this, was the influence of imagination, which in many ways may become an agent for restoring the tone of the nervous system, and so enabling Nature to overcome the obstacles of her healthy action.

Montaigne admirably treated this subject in his essay, "Of the Force of Imagination"; and his anecdote of the happy results derived by an unfortunate nobleman from the use of a flat gold plate, graven with celestial figures, must have occurred to many of his readers who have witnessed the beneficial effects which are frequently produced by the practices of quackery.

"These apes' tricks," says Montaigne, "are the main cause of the effect, our fancy being so far seduced as to believe that such strange and uncouth formalities must of necessity proceed from some abstruse science. Their very inanity gives them reverence and weight."

And old Burton, touching, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," on the power of imagination, says, quaintly:—

"How can otherwise blear eyes in one man cause the like affection in another? Why doth one man's yawning make another man yawn? Why do witches and old women fascinate and bewitch children; but, as Wierus, Paracelsus, Cardan, Migaldus, Valleriola, CÆsar Vanninus, Campanella, and many philosophers think, the forcible imagination of one party moves and alters the spirits of the other. Nay more, they cause and cure, not only diseases, maladies, and several infirmities by this means, as 'Avicenna de Anim. 1. 4, sect. 4,' supposeth in parties remote, but move bodies from their places, cause thunder, lightning, tempests; which opinion Alkindus, Paracelsus, and some others approve of."

In this passage Burton touches not only on the effects of the imagination, but also on the impression which the nervous energy of one person may create upon the nervous sensibility of another. That such an impression can be produced, no one can question who observes the conduct of men in their ordinary relations to each other. By whatever term we christen it—endeavouring to define either the cause or its effect—we all concur in admitting that decision of character, earnestness of manner, enthusiasm, a commanding aspect, a piercing eye, or a strong will, exercise a manifest control over common natures, whether they be acting separately or in masses.

Of the men who, without learning, or an ennobling passion for truth, or a high purpose of any kind, have, unaided by physical force, commanded the attention and directed the actions of large numbers of their fellow creatures, Mesmer is perhaps the most remarkable in modern history. But we will not speak of him till we have paid a few minutes' attention to one of his predecessors.

The most notable forerunner of Mesmer in this country was Valentine Greatrakes, who, in Charles the Second's reign, performed "severall marvaillous cures by the stroaking of the hands." He was a gentleman of condition, and, at first, the dupe of his own imagination rather than a deliberate charlatan. He was born on the 14th of February, 1628, on his father's estate of Affane, in the County of Waterford, and was, on both sides, of more than merely respectable extraction, his father being a gentleman of good repute and property, and his mother being a daughter of Sir Edward Harris, Knt, a Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland. The first years of his school-life were passed in the once famous Academy of Lismore; but when he had arrived at thirteen years of age his mother (who had become a widow), on the outbreak of the rebellion, fled with him and his little brothers and sisters to England, where the fugitive family were hospitably entertained by Mr. Edmund Harris, a gentleman of considerable property, and one of the justice's sons. After concluding his education in the family of one John Daniel Getseus, a High-German minister of Stock Gabriel, in the County of Devon, Valentine returned to Ireland, then distracted with tumult and armed rebellion; and, by prudently joining the victorious side, re-entered on the possession of his father's estate of Affane. He served for six years in Cromwell's forces (from 1650 to 1656) as a lieutenant of the Munster Cavalry, under the command of the Earl of Orrery. Valentine's commission was in the earl's regiment; and, from the time of entering the army till the close of his career is lost sight of, he seems to have enjoyed the patronage and friendship of that nobleman's family.

When the Munster horse was disbanded in 1656, Valentine retired to Affane, and for a period occupied himself as an active and influential country gentleman. He was made Clerk of the Peace for the County of Cork, a Register for Transplantation, and a Justice of the Peace. In the performance of the onerous duties which, in the then disturbed state of Ireland, these offices brought upon him, he gained deserved popularity and universal esteem. He was a frank and commanding personage, of pleasant manners, gallant bearing, fine figure, and singularly handsome face. With a hearty and musical voice, and a national stock of high animal spirits, he was the delight of all festive assemblies, taking his pleasure freely, but never to excess. Indeed, Valentine was a devout man, not ashamed, in his own household, and in his bearing to the outer world, to avow that it was his intention to serve the Lord. But, though he had all the purity of Puritanism, there was in him no taint of sectarian rancour or uncharitableness. When an anonymous writer aspersed his reputation, he responded—and no one could gainsay his words—with regard to his public career:—"I studied so to acquit myself before God and man in singleness and integrity of heart, that, to the comfort of my soul, and praise of God that directed me, I can with confidence say I never took bribe nor reward from any man, though I had many and great ones before me (when I was Register for Transplantation); nor did I ever connive at or suffer a malefactor to go unpunished, if the person were guilty of any notorious crime (when I had power), nor did I ever take the fee belonging to my office, if I found the person were injured, or in want; nor did I ever commit any one for his judgment and conscience barely, so it led him not to do anything to the disturbance of the civil peace of the nation; nor did I take anything for my fee when he was discharged—for I bless God he has taken away a persecuting spirit from me, who would persuade all men to be Protestants, those principles being most consonant to Truth and the Word of God, in my judgment, and that profession which I have ever been of, and still am.... Yet (though there were orders from the power that then was, to all Justices of the Peace, for Transplanting all Papists that would not go to church), I never molested any one that was known or esteemed to be innocent, but suffered them to continue in the English quarters, and that without prejudice. So that I can truly say, I never injured any man for his conscience, conceiving that ought to be informed and not enforced."

On the Restoration, Valentine Greatrakes lost his offices, and was reduced to the position of a mere private gentleman. His estate at Affane was a small one; but he laboured on it with good results, introducing into his neighbourhood a more scientific system of agriculture than had previously been known there, and giving an unprecedented quantity of employment to the poor. Perhaps he missed the excitement of public business, and his energies, deprived of the vent they had for many years enjoyed, preyed upon his sensitive nature. Anyhow, he became the victim of his imagination, which, acting on a mind that had been educated in a school of spiritual earnestness and superstitious introspection, led him into a series of remarkable hallucinations. He first had fits of pensiveness and dejection, similar to those which tormented Cromwell ere his genius found for itself a more fit field of display than the management of a brewery and a few acres of marsh-land. Ere long he had an impulse, or a strange persuasion in his own mind (of which he was not able to give any rational account to another), which did very frequently suggest to him that there was bestowed on him the gift of curing the King's Evil, which for the extraordinariness of it, he thought fit to conceal for some time, but, at length communicated to his wife, and told her, "That he did verily believe that God had given him the blessing of curing the King's Evil; for, whether he were in private or publick, sleeping or waking, still he had the same impulse; but her reply was to him, that she conceived this was a strange imagination." Such is his statement.

Patients either afflicted with King's Evil, or presumed to be so, were in due course brought before him; and, on his touching them, they recovered. It may be here remarked that in the days when the Royal Touch was believed in as a cure for scrofula, the distinctions between strumous and other swellings were by no means ascertained even by physicians of repute; and numbers of those who underwent the manipulation of Anointed Rulers were suffering only from aggravated boils and common festering sores, from which, as a matter of course, nature would in the space of a few weeks have relieved them. Doubtless many of Valentine's patients were suffering, not under scrofulous affections, but comparatively innocent tumours; for his cures were rapid, complete, and numerous. A second impulse gave him the power of curing ague; and a third inspiration of celestial aura imparted to him command, under certain conditions, over all human diseases. His modes of operation were various. When an afflicted person was laid before him, he usually offered up a prayer to God to help him, to make him the humble instrument of divine mercy. And invariably when a patient derived benefit from his treatment, he exhorted him to offer up his thanks to his Heavenly Father. After the initiatory supplication the operator passed his hands over the affected part of the sick person's body, sometimes over the skin itself and sometimes over the clothes. The manipulations varied in muscular force from delicate tickling to violent rubbing, according to the nature of the evil spirits by which the diseased people were tormented. Greatrakes's theory of disease was the scriptural one: the morbific power was a devil, which had to be expelled from the frame in which it had taken shelter. Sometimes the demon was exorcised by a few gentle passes; occasionally it fled at the verbal command of the physician, or retreated on being gazed at through the eyes of the mortal it tormented; but frequently the victory was not gained till the healer rubbed himself—like the rubber who in our own day makes such a large income at Brighton—into a red face and a copious perspiration. Henry Stubbe, a famous physician in Stratford-upon-Avon, in his "Miraculous Conformist," published in 1666, gives the following testimony:—

"Proofs that he revives the Ferment of the Blood.—Mr Bromley's brother, of Upton upon Severne, after a long quartane Ague, had by a Metastasis of the Disease such a chilnesse in the habit of the body, that no clothes could possibly warme him; he wore upon his head many spiced caps, and tenne pounds weight of linen on his head. Mr Greatarick stripped him, and rubbed him all over, and immediately he sweat, and was hot all over, so that the bath never heated up as did the hand of Mr Greatarick's; this was his own expression. But Mr Greatarick causing him to cast off all that multitude of caps and cloaths, it was supposed that it frustrated the happy effect, for he felt the recourse of his disease in some parts rendered the cure suspicious. But as often as Mr Greatarick came and rubbed him he would be all in a flame againe for half-an-hour: the experiment whereof was frequently practised for five or six dayes at Ragly."

Greatrakes himself also speaks of his more violent curative exertions making him very hot. But it was only occasionally that he had to labour so vehemently. His eye, the glance of which had a fascinating effect on people of a nervous organization, and his fantastic ticklings, usually produced all the results required by his mode of treatment.

The fame of the healer spread far and wide. Not only from the most secluded parts of Ireland, but from civilized England, the lame and blind, the deaf, dumb, and diseased, made pilgrimages to the Squire of Affane. His stable, barn, and malt-house were crowded with wretches imploring his aid. The demands upon his time were so very many and great, that he set apart three days in the week for the reception of patients; and on those days, from six in the morning till six in the evening, he ministered to his wretched clients. He took no fee but gratitude on the part of those he benefited, and a cheering sense that he was fulfilling the commands of the founder of his religion. The Dean of Lismore cited him to appear before the ecclesiastical court, and render an account of his proceedings. He went, and on being asked if he had worked any cures, replied to the court that they might come to his house and see. The judge asked if he had a licence to practise from the ordinary of the diocese; and he replied that he knew of no law which prohibited any man from doing what good he could to others. He was, however, commanded by the court not to lay his hands again on the sick, until he had obtained the Ordinary's licence to do so. He obeyed for two days only, and went on again more earnestly than ever.

Let a charlatan or an enthusiast spread his sails, the breeze of fashion is always present, and ready to swell them. The Earl of Orrery took his quondam lieutenant by the hand, and persuaded him to go over to England to cure the Viscountess Conway of a violent headache, which, in spite of the ablest physicians of England and France, she had suffered from for many years. Lord Conway sent him an urgent invitation to do so. He complied, and made his way to Rugby, in Warwickshire, where he was unable to give relief to his hostess, but was hospitably entertained for a month. His inability to benefit Lady Conway did not injure his reputation, for he did not profess to be able to cure every one. An adverse influence—such as the sins of a patient, or his want of faith—was enough to counteract the healing power. In the jargon of modern mesmerism, which practically was only a revival of Greatrakes's extravagances, the physician could affect only those who were susceptible. But though Lady Conway was beyond the reach of his mysterious agency, the reverse was the case with others. The gentry and commonalty of Warwickshire crowded by thousands to him; and he touched, prayed over, and blessed them, and sent them away rejoicing. From Rugby he went to Worcester, at the request of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of that city; and from Worcester he was carried up to London. Lord Arlington commanded him to appear at Whitehall, and mumble in his particular fashion for the amusement of Charles II. A man who could cure gout by a touch would have been an acquisition to such a court as then presided over English manners.

In London he immediately became a star. The fashion of the West, and the wary opulence of the East, laid their offerings at his feet. For a time he ruled from Soho to Wapping. Mr. Justice Godfrey gave him rooms for the reception of patients in his mansion in Lincoln's-inn-Fields; and thither flocked the mob of the indigent and the mob of the wealthy to pay him homage. Mr. Boyle (the brother of the Earl of Orrery), Sir William Smith, Dr. Denton, Dr. Fairclough, Dr. Faber, Sir Nathaniel Hobart, Sir John Godolphin, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Whichcot, and Dr. Cudworth, were amongst his most vehement supporters of the sterner sex. But the majority of his admirers were ladies. The Countess of Devonshire entertained him in her palace; and Lady Ranelagh frequently amused the guests at her routs with Mr. Valentine Greatrakes, who, in the character of the lion of the season, performed with wondrous results on the prettiest or most hysterical of the ladies present. It was held as certain by his intimate friends that the curative property that came from him was a subtle aura, effulgent, and of an exquisitely sweet smell, that could only be termed the divine breath. "God," says Dr. Henry Stubbe, "had bestowed upon Mr. Greaterick a peculiar temperament, or composed his body of some particular ferments, the effluvia whereof, being introduced sometimes by a light, sometimes by a violent friction, should restore the temperament of the debilitated parts, re-invigorate the blood, and dissipate all heterogeneous ferments out of the bodies of the diseased by the eyes, nose, mouth, hands, and feet. I place the gift of healing in the temperament or composure of his body, because I see it is necessary that he touch them. Besides, the Right Honourable the Lord Conway observed one morning, as he came into his Lordship's chamber, a smell strangely pleasant, as if it had been of sundry flowers; and demanding of his man what sweet water he had brought into the room, he answered, None; whereupon his Lordship smelled upon the hand of Mr. Greaterick, and found the fragrancy to issue thence; and examining his bosom, he found the like scent there also." Dean Rust gave similar testimony; and "Sir Amos Meredith, who had been Mr. Greaterick's bed-fellow," did the like.

Amongst the certificates of cures performed, which Greatrakes published, are two to which the name of Andrew Marvell is affixed, as a spectator of the stroking. One of them is the following:—

"Mr Nicholson's Certificate.

"I, Anthony Nicholson, of Cambridge, Bookseller, have been affected sore with pains all over my body, for three-and-twenty years last past, have had advice and best directions of all the doctors there; have been at the bath in Somersetshire, and been at above one hundred pounds expense to procure ease, or a cure of these pains; and have found all the means I could be advised or directed to ineffectual for either, till, by the advice of Dr Benjamin Whichcot and Dean Rust, I applyed myself to Mr Greatrake's for help upon Saturday was sevenight, being the latter end of March, and who then stroked me; upon which I was very much worse, and enforced to keep my bed for five or six days; but then being stroked twice since, by the blessing of God upon Mr Greatrake's endeavours, I am perfectly eas'd of all pains, and very healthy and strong, insomuch as I intend (God willing) to return home towards Cambridge to-morrow morning, though I was so weak as to be necessitated to be brought up in men's arms, on Saturday last about 11 of the clock, to Mr Greatrake's. Attested by me this tenth day of April, 1666. I had also an hard swelling in my left arm, whereby I was disabled from using it; which being taken out by the said Mr Greatrake's, I am perfectly freed of all pain, and the use thereof greatly restored.

"Anthony Nicholson.

"In the presence of Andrew Marvell, Jas. Fairclough, Tho. Alured, Tho. Pooley, W. Popple."

There were worse features of life in Charles the Second's London than the popularity of Valentine Greatrakes; but his triumph was of short duration. His professions were made the butts of ridicule, to which his presence of mind and volubility were unable to respond with effect. It was asserted by his enemies that his system was only a cloak under which he offended the delicacy of virtuous women, and roused the passions of the unchaste. His tone of conversation was represented as compounded of the blasphemy of the religious enthusiast and the blasphemy of the profligate. His boast that he never received a fee for his remedial services was met by flat contradiction, and a statement that he received presents to the amount of £100 at a time from a single individual. This last accusation was never clearly disposed of; but it is probable that the reward he sought (if he looked for any) was restoration, through Court influence, to the commission of magistrates for his county, and the lost clerkship of the peace. The tide of slander was anyhow too strong for him, and he retired to his native country a less honoured though perhaps a not less honest man than he left it. Of his sincerity at the outset of his career as a healer there can be little doubt.

Valentine Greatrakes did unconsciously what many years after him Mesmer did by design. He in his remarkable career illustrated the power which a determined man may exercise over the will and nervous life of another.

As soon as the singular properties of the loadstone were discovered, they were presumed to have a strong medicinal effect; and in this belief physicians for centuries—and indeed almost down to present times—were in the habit of administering pulverized magnet in salves, plaisters, pills, and potions. It was not till the year 1660 that it was for the first time distinctly recorded in the archives of science, by Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, that in a state of pulverization the loadstone no longer possessed any magnetic powers. But it was not till some generations after this that medical practitioners universally recognized the fact that powder of magnet, externally or internally administered, was capable of producing no other results than the presence of any ordinary ferruginous substance would account for. But long after this error had been driven from the domains of science, an unreasonable belief in the power of magnets applied externally to the body held its ground. In 1779-80, the Royal Society of Medicine in Paris made numerous experiments with a view to arrive at a just appreciation of the influence of magnets on the human system, and came to the conclusion that they were medicinal agents of no ordinary efficacy.

Such was the state of medical opinion at the close of the last century, when Perkins's tractors, which were supposed to act magnetically, became the fashion. Mr. Perkins was a citizen of Connecticut, and certainly his celebrated invention was worthy of the 'cutest people on the 'varsal earth. Barnum's swindles were modest ventures by comparison. The entire world, old and new, went tractor-mad. Every valetudinarian bought the painted nails, composed of an alloy of various metals (which none but Perkins could make, and none but Perkins sell), and tickled with their sharp ends those parts of his frame which were regarded as centres of disease.

The phenomena apparently produced by these instruments were astounding, and misled every observer of them; until Dr. Haygarth of Bath proved by a process to which objections was impossible, that they were referable not to metal points, but to the mental condition of those who used them. "Robert Thomas," says Dr. Haygarth in his interesting work, "aged forty-three, who had been for some time under the care of Dr. Lovell, in the Bristol Infirmary, with a rheumatic affection of the shoulder, which rendered his arm perfectly useless, was pointed out as a proper object of trial by Mr. J. W. Dyer, apothecary to the house. Tuesday, April 19th, having everything in readiness, I passed through the ward, and, in a way that he might suspect nothing, questioned him respecting his complaint. I then told him that I had an instrument in my pocket which had been very serviceable to many in his state; and when I had explained to him how simple it was, he consented to undergo the operation. In six minutes no other effect was produced than a warmth upon the skin, and I feared that this coup d'essai had failed. The next day, however, he told me that 'he had received so much benefit that it had enabled him to lift his hand from his knee, which he had in vain several times attempted on Monday evening, as the whole ward witnessed.' The tractors I used being made of lead, I thought it advisable to lay them aside, lest, being metallic points, the proof against the fraud might be less complete. Thus much, however, was proved, that the patent tractors possessed no specific power independent of simple metals. Two pieces of wood, properly shaped and painted, were next made use of; and in order to add solemnity to the farce, Mr. Barton held in his hand a stop-watch, whilst Mr. Lax minuted the effects produced. In four minutes the man raised his hand several inches; and he had lost also the pain in his shoulder, usually experienced when attempting to lift anything. He continued to undergo the operation daily, and with progressive good effect; for on the twenty-fifth he could touch the mantel-piece. On the twenty-seventh, in the presence of Dr. Lovell and Mr. J. P. Noble, two common iron nails, disguised with sealing-wax, were substituted for the pieces of mahogany before used. In three minutes he felt something moving from his arm to his hand, and soon after he touched the board of rules which hung a foot above the fire-place. This patient at length so far recovered that he could carry coals and use his arm sufficiently to help the nurse; yet, previous to the use of the spurious tractors, he could no more lift his hand from his knee than if a hundredweight were upon it, or a nail driven through it—as he declared in the presence of several gentlemen, whose names I shall have frequent occasion to mention. The fame of this case brought applications in abundance; indeed, it must be confessed that it was more than sufficient to act upon weak minds, and induce a belief that these pieces of wood and iron were endowed with some peculiar virtues."

The result of Dr. Haygarth's experiments was the overthrow of Perkins, and the enlightenment of the public as to the real worth of the celebrated metallic tractors. In achieving this the worthy physician added some interesting facts to the science of psychology. But of course his influence upon the ignorant and foolish persons he illuminated was only transient. Ere a few short years or even months were over, they had embraced another delusion—not less ridiculous, but more pernicious.