"I remarked that they did not avoid, or make way for each other to pass, as they glided about, but seemed to penetrate or go through each other. Two would come together, coalesce, their colours and forms seeming confounded, like one picture on paper seen behind another against a window. Then emerging, they would become distinct and separate. Their features, too, were very clearly marked, and expressive, all different, and of a more or less intellectual cast. The same look, however, of deep interest, which I had remarked in the first instance, pervaded all their countenances. They gazed at me as they went, too, but again I perceived no appearance of anything like dis-ments. pleasure at me; in fact, they looked at me as they did at one another. They seemed to view with much attention the whole paraphernalia about the room, especially the morbid preparations and drawings that stood and hung every where around. "It was, indeed a most striking spectacle. I stood crouching close to the fire, in wonder and fear, whilst my companion lay stretched in deep slumber, ever and anon murmuring in his dreams.

"Many there were that had their limbs in fetters; these were they who had expiated their crimes upon the tree, and had been afterwards given to the schools for dissection. Some were stout, muscular bullies-these were burglars and highwaymen; several were pale, thin, darkly-dressed, and wearing the aspect of mercantile and professional men-these were forgers, and others guilty of similar offences.

"But the excitement-the terror-added to the fag of long study, want of food and rest, were at last more than my exhausted frame was equal to,

and I fell into some nervous fit, and remained for several hours insensible.

"I recovered consciousness, the morning was far advanced-the sun shining gaily down through the skylight, and gilding with joyous radiance, even the forbidding walls and furniture of that loathsome

chamber.

"The other pupil had awakened and finding me laid senseless on the floor, had adopted some professional means to restore me, which were successful.

"I went home to my rooms, and all that day gave myself up to a deep and refreshing slumber. But time was not to be lost, so next night I was again at my work, alone.

"I now proceeded to arrange and disarrange my apparatus as formerly, convinced as I was that it had some influence in calling before my vision the remaakable spectacle I had that evening been witness to. My efforts were perfectly successful. Shortly before midnight I had again the spectral masquerade moving round me.

"I was now less under the influence of awe or alarm, and finding they had really no power to harm my body, I got familiar with them, and went on to experiment upon them night after night.

"At length I struck upon a plan whereby I could render these beings palpable to the sense of hearing as well as to that of sight. This was the the crisis, the hinge upon which the whole of my after discoveries turned. A while and I could call to my presence not only them, but spiritual essences of all degrees and descriptions; for it the classes and orders of earthly things are numerous, upon those of spirits the process of mind we call numeration cannot be brought to bear so vast is the stupendous theme.

"It was not long before I could discourse with them, and to this nocturnal converse I devoted myself with my whole energy and enthusiasm. Things now all went on smoothly with me, and from one vast view to another, I leaped with lightning celerity.

"Was it not a proud, a maddening thought, that I had rent up the curtain that veils the world of spirits from the eye of sense-that the abyss which sinks between mortality and immortality, matter and pure mind, was spanned by an arch of my construction, and that I could now snatch unbounded knowledge: for time and space had no more power to check the excursions of my intellect?

"I now found not only that my former blind surmises and conclusions were all real, but that other facts existed, to the statement of which, in the wildest dreams of my unenlightened state, I could never have given credence. But the aphorism, "Know thyself," clung to me, and one of the first and most exciting of my investigations, was the inquiry into the nature and history of my own soul. With a delight beyond the conception of one whose spirit is not etherealized, I ascertained its origin, its migrations, and its destiny, and learned to at almost all the noblest deeds which have been consummated in this world, have been by bodies which it has animated; but my delight was increased to the wildest rapture, when I knew that the spirit now sojourning in my brain was that which had fixed to their high deeds, Sobieski,

the bulwark of Christendom, and Kosciusko the—” "Hillo!" cried I, starting as the poor Pole had got thus far in raphsody. The thought struck me instantaneously. Was this the way to follow the instructions I had received with regard to his treatment-to fulfil my duty to my absent friend, and to him, too, my unfortunate patient, to whose ravings I was now listening with all interest and attention ?"

"Up I sprang, covered with confusion, and unable to frame a pretence to break off the conference without exciting the suspicion or rousing the passion of the maniac.

"Excuse me for one moment," said I, "the recollection has just struck me, I left a taper burning in the midst of some papers down in the doctor's room."

Away I ran but in place of returning sent one of the keepers to watch him. This man on entering, found him leaning forward upon the table, weeping piteously.

"Next day one of his fits of despondency seized him, nor did he recover his former cheerfulness while I remained at the asylum. He hardly ever spoke to me, appearing much chagrined and embarassed in my company, as a person does in that of any one before whom he has committed himself unwarily.

"For my part I looked upon him now with far different thoughts from what I had entertained before this singular disclosure. The narrative had riveted my attention whilst he delivered it, by its originality, its interest, and the absolute belief he appeared to feel in every incident. I was struck with the linking togetner of accurate reasoning, extravagance, and preposterous absurdity it evinced-at the many instances it displayed of a wildly exuberant and lawless fancy, breaking up and confounding the more sober faculties, till sort of chaotic whole was produced, in which fantastic conception, beauty and vigour of description, richness and power of creative imagination, scientific acquirement and research, were all blended together in an incongruous tissue of delirium. I could not help thinking, was not this a mind, if properly regulated, and placed in suitable circumstances, to have conducted the most laborious investigations with adequate ability and success, and to have communicated the result, in a manner equal to the importance of the subject,— -a mind whose graces would have been as ornamental to society as its labours would have been useful. And now misfortune, haply mismanagement, had rendered it a melancholy though by no means ridiculous satire upon the class of intellects to which it belonged.

"Shortlyafter quittingthe asylum I went to travel, and did not return for eighteen months. The friend whose place I had thus temporarily filled was one of the first I sought on my arrival in England, and one of my earliest inquiries was with regard to what had become of my former patient, the Pole.

"Not long after my departure, Maryanski was removed by his relations, with the view of being placed under the care of a practitioner in France. Hereafter he disappeared from the notice of my friend for about three or four months, till he was vividly brought before it by the following circumstances:

"One night a young lady, an actress, was travelling by one of the coaches that run betwen London

German, and merely stated, that finding his present body unsuited to him, he had made arrangements to divest himself of it, and take another."

and Exeter; she was the only passenger. The night was cold, wet, windless, and dark, and no living thing could be seen from the vehicle, the lanterns of which were the sole lights that cheered the dreary road. The only noises audible, besides the mournful howling of some distant watchdog, were the rattle of heavy drops on the roof, the DON'T SAY ONE THING AND MEAN hurried plashing of the horses' feet, and the occasional sounds of encouragement addressed to the animals by the coachman and guard, anxious to get forward to where they knew that a good fire and comfortable meal awaited them.

"The passenger endeavoured to while away the tedium of her midnight journey, by watching through the rain-dimmed glass the stunted trees, and cold-looking wet hedges, as, for a moment illumined by the passing glare of the lamps, they seemed to flit away ghost-like to the rear.

"On a sudden, as the vehicle was crossing one of the gloomy and extensive plains that abound on that line of road, it was hailed from the wayside by a person who stood alone, enveloped in a voluminous cloak, and drenched with wet. The coachman halted, and the stranger craving a passage to the next town, he opened the door for his entrance.

"The lady remarked, as he passed under the light, something peculiar and unusual about his aspect, something by which she was led to believe him one of her own profession, and most likely travelling with similar views to hers. She was consequently induced to notice him with some interest.

"As the vehicle drove on, he seated himself before her, with his back to the horses, and commenced a conversation, which-she being a woman of considerable talent-was kept up for some time with much spirit. The extraordinary manners and language of the stranger afforded her not a little entertainment at first, as she believed their peculiarities to be acted for the time, and she listened to him with great attention.

"At length his topics and words became so strange and wild, that she could not follow them, and ceased to understand him. A feeling of wonder, doubt, and vague alarm seized her, and she sat trembling, and fervently wishing for the termination of the stage. Suddenly she heard a slight clicking sound, as of a small spring, and her eye could catch a dim, metallic gleaming through the darkness of the vehicle-a moment, and the head of her fellowtraveller fell heavily forward upon her lap, and her hands were bathed with some scalding fluid. She screamed aloud-the horses were suddenly drawn up the guard pulled open the door, and the light from the lantern showed him the lady, pale and gasping with terror, with the male passenger prone upon her knees, his head turned to one side, and air gurglin from a deep wound in his neck. The fluid that bathed her hands and dress was blood. In the bottom of the carriage was a pocket-case of surgical instruments, and a slender bright bistoury, falling out as the door was opened, tinkled among the stones of the roadway.

"I shall go no further with the scene.

"This traveller turned out to be the young Pole, my former patient. In a pocket of the instrumentcase, was found a note addressed Alexis Maryanski, of such a street, London-his father. It was in

ANOTHER.

BY CHARLES

SWAIN.

The little lane-the greenwood lane-
Where Mary dwelt, was gay with singing,
For brook and bird in many a strain
Down vale and moor their notes were flinging;
But Mary's heart was deaf to song,
No longer she her tears could smother,
For she had learnt-at last-'twas wrong
To say one thing, and mean another!

'Tis right-'tis due, when hearts are true,
To show that heart withont deceiving,
And not to speak, in idle freak,
To try if one's the power of grieving!
In Mary's heart, and Mary's mind,
She loved one youth, and loved no other,
But Mary's tongue was oft inclined

To say one thing, and mean another!

Would all might see how sweet 'twould be
If truth alone their words directed;
How many a day might then be gay
That passeth now, in tears, dejected.
Would all might learn, and all discern,
That truth keeps longest, friend or brother;
Then maids be kind, and speak your mind,
Nor say one thing, and mean another!

A REMINISCENCE.

I knew thee when
Thou wert a little child,

And dream'd not then
A thing so sweet and mild
Could ever be
Aught but a child to me.

I watched thee growing
To beauteous womanhood,

And scarcely knowing
Why entranced I stood,
Unconscious duty
Offered to thy beauty.

The spell came on,
And thou in beauty's pride
Now brilliant shone;
Whilst standing at thy side
I altered grew,
And thou wert altered too.

In silent sadness

I gazed with deep devotion;
Love grew to madness-
When thou with sweet emotion,
Banished pain
By loving me again.

THE WONDERS OF MINCING LANE.

pleasant-smelling substances. My attention was chiefly attracted by a number of rows of pretty-looking bottles, containing some pale bright liquid, which several of the "Lane men" were busily sipping, smacking their lips after each taste, with uncommon relish. I inquired if the thin-looking bottles contained Johannesberg or Tokay? "No," I was answered, "castor-oil!" After that, I was prepared to find the "Lane men" hob-an-nobbing in laudanum, or nibbling lumps of jalap or aloes.

THERE are few persons who have not in the course of their lives swallowed certain nauseous doses of bark, colocynth, alecs, or castoroil; who have not indulged in the luxury of otto of rose or musk; who have not had some dealings with the colourman, or the dyer; and yet I feel tolerably certain that not one-hundredth portion of those same readers know anything of where such articles come from, how they arrive here, and through what chan- The time appointed for the sale approached; nel they are finally distributed. It will not and, leaving the dark broker's offices, we did occur to them that those costly drugs, and our best to reach Garraway's, where the aucdyes, and perfumes arrived in this country tion of these articles takes place. Scores of from all parts of the world in huge packages; clerks and principals were proceeding from that, in fact, ship-loads of them come at a the Lane towards the same spot. We hurried time; that the bales and cases which contain along Fenchurch Street, across Gracechurch them fill enormous piles of warehouses in Street, and up a part of Lombard Street, folthree or four of our docks; that several hun-lowing close to the rear of a rather portly dred merchants and brokers obtain a handsome broker, who cleared a way for us in quite an living, many realising fertunes, by their sale; easy off-hand manner, that was very pleasant and that some millions sterling are embarked to us; but not so agreeable to the six men in the trade.

These things form a little-known world of their own. They thrive mostly in Mincing Lane, London. Even the omniscient Times knows nothing about them. The Thunderer is powerless within the drug circle. Search its acres of advertisements, but it will be in vain; nothing is to be found there of the dye and drug sales which are to be held on Thursday next at Garraway's. These mysteries are only to be learnt at the "Jerusalem," in Mincing Lane, London, at the "Baltic," or from the columns of the Public Ledger, a daily periodical devoted to all such matters, and known only to the initiated. In its columns you will find a motley list of all the vile materials of the Pharmacopoeia; and in such quantities as to justify a belief in the existence of some enormous conspiracy to poison all living creatures.

Mincing Lane is like no other lane, and Mincing Lane men are like no other men. Any Thursday morning, between the hours of ten and eleven, and at every alternate doorway, may be observed catalogues of various drugs and dyes that are to be on sale at noon, gibbetted against the door posts. Mincing Lane men will be seen rushing madly along the pavement, as if a fire had just broken out, and they were in quest of the engines, jamming innocent lookers-on against gateways, and waggon-wheels, and lamp-posts.

who were offering toasting-forks and washleather bags for sale at the corner of Birchin Lane. I never could account for the extraordinary demand existing for those two articles in that neighbourhood; unless it be that bankers' clerks indulge freely in toast-andwater, and carry their dinners to office in the leather bags.

Out of Birchin Lane, down one narrow passage to the left, and around another straight forward, and there was Garraway's. We soon lost sight of the pictures in frames for sale outside, and turned to study the pictures out of frames inside. In the dark, heavy-looking coffee-room, there were assembled some of the mightiest City potentates,--the Alexanders, Nimrods, and Cæsars of the drug and dye world. I drew in my breath as I viewed that knot of stout, well-favoured persons, congregated at the foot of the old-fashioned staircase leading to the public sale-room above. I trod those stairs lightly, half in veneration, and laid my hands gently and respectfully on the banisters that I knew must have been pressed of old by mighty men of commerce. Down those wide sweeping stairs many had often times tripped lightly homewards, after a day of golden labour, laden with the fruit of the fabled garden; sometimes, too, with gloomy brows, and feverish, flushed faces.

What a strange scene presented itself in the sale-room, when, by dint of scuffling and It was into one of these obscure passages squeezing, we managed to force our way in. that I turned with a companion, groping our There could not have been a man left in all slow way up a narrow staircase, at the risk of Mincing Lane, to say nothing of Fenchurch constant concussions with frantic Mincing Street. The fog had come up the stairs and Lane men. We found ourselves in a broker's choked up the gas-lights, as effectually as office, and thence in his sample room. This though all the Lane men had been smoking was a large square apartment, with wide counters extending round the four sides, and several tables and stands across the centre. On these lay papers containing various odd looking, un

VOL. I.-D

like double Dutchmen. The queer little pulpit was shrouded in a yellow haze. The windows were completely curtained, half with cobwebs, half with fog, The sale was about

་་

to commence, and the din and war of words auctioneering, known only at Garraway's. I got to be bewildering; whilst hundreds of thought the broker would have gone abso pens were plunging madly into invisible ink-lutely mad, as the bids went rapidly on: seme stands, and scratching imaginary sentences slow man, of inferior intellect, would have and figures upon myriads of catalogues.

given the buyers time to overbid each other: he seemed to take delight in perplexing the whole room, and as quickly as a voice cried out "Hep!" (the bidding interjection of Garraway's) so instantaneously fell the everlasting little hammer; and as surely did the seller cowl harder than ever, as much as to say, "I should just like to catch anybody else in time for that lot." In this fashion above three hundred lots were sold in less time than many people in the last century would have taken to count them up.

Suddenly a cry burst upon my ear so dole fully and shrilly, that I fancied somebody had fallen down the old-fashioned staircase. It was only the "house-crier," proclaiming in a painful, distracted sort of voice, that the sales were "on." Every man to his place if he can find one! Old musty brokers, of the last century, with large watch-seals, white cravats, and double chins, grouped together in one dark corner: youthful brokers, with very new hats, zephyr ties, and well-trained whiskers, hovered about the front of the auctioneer's pulpit; rising brokers, with inky hands, upturned sleeves of dusty coats, and an infinity of papers protruding from every pocket, were in all parts of the room ready to bid for anything. Ranged against the walls on cithor side were scores of incipient brokers -the lads of the Lane. Hundreds of pens began to scratch upon catalogues; hundreds of voices were hushed to a low grumbling whisper. The first seller (every vendor is an auctioneer at Garraway's) mounted the tribune, and the curious work began. My former experience had shown salesmen to be anxious to make the most of everything, and strive, and puff, and coax, and dally, until they felt convinced the utmost farthing had been bid; and then, and not until then, did the "going, going," merge into the "gone," and the coquetting hammer fell. But those were evidently old-fashioned, disreputable sales. They don't stand any nonsense at Garraway's. There is no time to consider. The biddings fly about like lightning. Buying and selling at Garraway's is done like conjuring--the lots are disposed of by hocus-pocus. So rapidly does the little nubbly hammer fall on the desk, that one might well imagine himself near an undertaker's shop with a very lively business.

Ile

The "rising" broker was followed by one of the old school, a pleasant-looking, easygoing man, the very reverse of his predecessor. He consumed as much time in wiping and adjusting his spectacles, as had sufficed just before to knock down a score of lots. couldn't find a pen that didn't splutter, and he couldn't make his catalogue lie flat on the desk; and at last the impatience of the "rising" men, and the Lane Lads-Young Mincing Lanc-was manifested by a sharp rapping of boot-heels on the floor, which soon swelled to a storm. The quict broker was not to be hurried; he looked mildly around over his glasses, and rebuked rebellion with " Boys, boys! no nonsense." The bids went smoothly along; patent drugs, rich dyes, and costly spices fell before the calculating hammer; but cach time, ere it descended, the bland seller gazed inquiringly, and I almost fancied imploringly, at the bidder, lest he had made a mistake, and might wish to retract his rash "Hep!"

The broker who followed, dealt largely in flowing language, as well as drugs and dyes. He assured the company present--and looked very hard at me, as though I was perfectly aware of the fact, and was ready to back him

parcel-about twenty cases of alces--that he was determined on giving away to a very musty old dealer, who, however, shook his ancient head, and declined the 'bitter bargain.

that he intended to give all his lots away; he was determined to get rid of them, and he really would not allow his friends to leave the I said that the first "seller" was one of the room, without distributing his goods among rising men, with dark bushy whiskers, a them. Considering his liberal spirit, I thought sharp twinkling eye that was everywhere at his friends evinced very little thankfulness; once, and a strong piercing voice. He let off for the lots moved as slowly as presents could his words in sharp cracks like detonating balls. be supposed to do. There was one nice little By way of starting pleasantly, he flung himself into an attitude that looked like one of stark defiance, scowling with his dark eyes on the assembled buyers, as though they were plotting together to poison him with his own drugs. Up went the first lots: a pleasant assortment of nine hundred cases of castoroil, two hundred chests of rhubarb, and three hundred and fifty "serons" of yellow bark. The rising broker stormed and raved, as bid followed bid, piercing the murmuring din with sharp expletives. One, two, three, four--the nine hundred cases were disposed of in no time by some miraculous process of short-hand

There were a few score tons of some mysterious article, with an unintelligible name, that hung somewhat heavily at two-pence three farthings pcr pound. It was amusing to see how politely anxious the broker was to work the figure up to threepence; not that he wanted the extra farthing; he'd rather have flung it all into the sea than have felt such a paltry desire; but he just wanted to see the thing go at even money; it would look so