wherein they saw all their spirits; the Baron
Dupotet has a magic mirror (I think it is
Cahagnet who gives the receipt for its proper
making), Raphael, the weather prophet, also
had his, and sensitives say they can see in it
spirits and appearances by the score. Dee and
Kelly had spiritual friends and companions
perpetually with them; so have Mademoiselle
Adèle, Mademoiselle Blanche, Mrs. Haydon,
Miss Marshall, Mr. Home, and many others;
even down to a poor lady with a spiritual
husband, who wrote a book the other day
announcing her approaching maternity as the
result of her union. Dee and Kelly were to be
the propagators of a new faith, the writers of a
new book or Bible; what says the Seer of
Poughkeepsie, what says the authoress of Light
in the Valley, what say all who have adopted
spiritualism as a new revelation, and regarded it
as the gateway of a further dispensation? Dee
and Kelly get " direct writing;" so do the
Baron Guldenstubbé, and many others; and
they got unconscious writing, like the author
of that little volume of Spirit Rhymes, which
we take leave to say are about the most
wretched verse ever printed, like the
effusions of all the self-deluding users of the
planchette, and like all writing mediums generally.
They saw hands, isolated and endued
with motion and intelligence; so does Mr.
Home, so does Mrs. Marshall, so does Mr.
Squire, so do their respective "circles;" but
of what substance it would be, perhaps, rash
to say: certainly not of spiritual. Later, in the
way of time, Richard Jones caused Jane Brooks
to be condemned and executed, because he had
epileptic fits, rose up in the air, hung by his
hands from the ceiling, was carried over the
garden wall to the haystack, with many other
things like those which people report of Mr.
Home, as his ordinary manner of manifestation.
Then there was the Demon of Tedworth sent by
the angry drummer, who made every article of
furniture in Mr. Mompesson's house dance about
like mad, but who got wounded one day when
knocking about under a pile of wood in the
chimney. Some one fired a pistol into the pile,
and blood was found afterwards on the hearth
and down the stairs. But it seemed quite
natural to the Mompessons that a demon should
bleed; so that proof of humanity and earthly
circumstance went for nothing. This demon
was in the habit of lifting tables and chairs into
the air, flinging blocks of wood, warming-pans,
pitchers, and the like, into the children's beds;
of thrusting the old lady's Bible into the ashes
face downwards; and marking the floor of the
room, strewn with ashes for the purpose, with
claws large and small, crosses, triangles, and
mystical rubbish past comprehension. The same
tricks were played at Woodstock, when the
commissioners took possession, and a royalist
spirit resolved to dislodge them. The same
things are done now, when tables are made to
rear up in the air, paw the ground like horses,
and rub themselves against you like dogs; when
sofas and chairs run of themselves about the
room, and cushions and footstools are flung
about by unseen hands. It is exactly the same
thing now as formerly, the name alone changed
to suit the intellectual tendencies of the age.

In the Annual Register for 1802 there is a
curious Spectre Story, as it is called, useful
in showing how long a time these things have
lasted publicly in England, under the exact form
of paid mediumship, as at present. A Mr.
D., a gentleman of fortune, living in Baker-street,
was summoned by a foreigner before
the Commissioners of Requests for a debt
of one guinea, said to be owing to him for an
evening's entertainment "in the spectrological
art." The man had good letters of recommendation
to the nobility, and among others was
engaged by Mr. D., of Baker-street, to " amuse a
select party" with his spectres and apparitions.
He had no sooner begun than Mr. D. came up
to him, put a stop to the proceedings on the
plea of their being disagreeable to the company,
tendered him half a guinea for his trouble, and
sent him off. The foreigner of distinction sued
him for breach of contract, and Mr. D. was, of
course, compelled to pay the sum agreed on.
So that this evening's entertainment in the
spectrological art resulted in the outlay of a
guinea to cause several young ladies to go
off into fits, and in a very sensible lecture
from the Chairman of the Commissioners of
Requests on the folly of encouraging these
equivocal representations. I wonder what the
chairman would say now if he saw the marvels
of the fashionable world of spirits! I, the
writer of this article, have seen something of
these spirit doings, and I will state candidly
what I have seen, and what I have thought. I
do not affect infallibility; but I believe that I
am unprejudiced, and I know that I love truth.

In a small street off one of the west-central
squares live two women, one old the other
young, and both mediums. To them went I and
a party of friends; some believing, others
wholly sceptical, others, like myself, of no fixed
opinion, but anxious to know the truth. When
we entered, a clergyman was interrogating the
spirits, and seemingly much edified by their
answers. After a time he took up the Bible from
the floor, and turned the leaves till he came to
some which the spirits had doubled, while under
the table; but which he scarcely found applicable
to his present questions. However, he
helped the spirits and the medium handsomely
out of the difficulty, by saying that they bore
on the subject of his last week's lectures; but
as it would be rather hard to find a series of
texts that did not bear on any theological
subject whatsoever, or that could not be twisted so
as to seem to bear on it, I confess I did not
think that experiment very satisfactory. The
company arriving irregularly, the circle was
perpetually disturbed; and as the spirits only
rapped when the younger medium was present,
it was trying to those who came in good faith,
to have to submit to the total cessation every
time the medium, and the spirits, and the candle
streamed down stairs to answer the door. In