other great sage, inferior only to Newton—the
calculating doubt-weigher, Descartes—had he
not believed in the yet nobler hope of the
alchemists—believed in some occult nostrum or
process by which human life could attain to the
age of the Patriarchs?"*

his career of philosophy.  .  .  .  .  . Many years
later we find Newton in correspondence with Locke,
with reference to a mysterious red earth by which
Boyle, who was then recently dead, had asserted
that he could effect the grand desideratum of
multiplying gold. By this time, however, Newton's faith
had become somewhat shaken by the unsatisfactory
communications which he had himself received from
Boyle on the subject of the golden recipe, though he
did not abandon the idea of giving the experiment a
further trial as soon as the weather should become
suitable for furnace experiments."—Quarterly
Review, No. 220, pp. 125-6.

* Southey, in his Doctor, vol. vi. p.2, reports the
conversation of Sir Kenelm Digby with Descartes,
in which the great geometrician said, "That as for
rendering men immortal, it was what he could not
venture to promise, but that he was very sure he
could prolong his life to the standard of the patriarchs."
And Southey adds, "that St. Evremond, to
whom Digby repeated this, says that this opinion of
Descartes was well known both to his friends in
Holland and in France." By the stress Southey
lays on this hearsay evidence, it is clear that he was
not acquainted with the works and biography of
Descartes, or he would have gone to the fountain-head
for authority on Descartes's opinions—viz. Descartes
himself. It is to be wished that Southey had done
so, for no one more than he would have appreciated
the exquisitely candid and lovable nature of the
illustrious Frenchman, and the sincerity with which
he cherished in his heart whatever doctrine he
conceived in his understanding. Descartes, whose
knowledge of anatomy was considerable, had that
passion for the art of medicine which is almost
inseparable from the pursuit of natural philosophy. At
the age of twenty-four he had sought (in Germany)
to obtain initiation into the brotherhood of the
Rosicrucians, but unluckily could not discover any
member of the society to introduce him. "He
desired," says Cousin, "to assure the health of man,
diminish his ills, extend his existence. He was
terrified by the rapid and almost momentary passage
of man upon earth. He believed it was not, perhaps,
impossible to prolong its duration." There is
a hidden recess of grandeur in this idea, and the
means proposed by Descartes for the execution of
his project were not less grand. In his Discourse
on Method, Descartes says, "If it is possible to
find some means to render generally men more wise
and more able than they have been till now, it is,
I believe, in medicine that those means must be
sought. **** I am sure that there is no one, even in the
medical profession, who will not avow that all which
one knows of the medical art is almost nothing in
comparison to that which remains to learn, and that
one could be exempted from an infinity of maladies,
both of body and mind, and even, perhaps, from the
decrepitude of old age, if one had sufficient lore of
their causes and of all the remedies which nature
provides for them. Therefore, having design to
employ all my life in the research of a science so
necessary, and having discovered a path which appears
to me such that one ought infallibly, in following, to
find it, if one is not hindered prematurely by the
brevity of life or by the defects of experience, I
consider that there is no better remedy against those
two hindrances than to communicate faithfully to the
public the little I have found," &c. (Discours de
la Méthode, vol. i. Œuvres de Descartes, Cousin's
edition.) And again, in his Correspondence (vol.
ix. p.341), he says, "The conservation of health
has been always the principal object of my studies,
and I have no doubt that there is a means of
acquiring much knowledge touching medicine which,
up to this time, is ignored." He then refers to his
meditated Treatise on Animals as only an entrance
upon that knowledge. But whatever secrets Descartes
may have thought to discover, they are not made
known to the public according to his promise. And
in a letter to M. Chanut, written 1646 (four years
before he died), he says ingenuously, "I will tell you
in confidence that the notion, such as it is, which I
have endeavoured to acquire in physical philosophy,
has greatly assisted me to establish certain foundations
for moral philosophy; and that I am more easily
satisfied upon this point than I am on many others
touching medicine, to which I have, nevertheless,
devoted much more time. So that" (adds the grand
thinker with a pathetic nobleness)—"so that, instead
of finding the means to preserve life, I have found
another good, more easy and more sure, which is—not
to fear death"

In thoughts like these the night wore away,
the moonbeams that streamed through my
window lighting up the spacious solitudes
beyond—mead and creek, forest-land, mountain-top
—and the silence without broken by the wild cry
of the night-hawk and the sibilant melancholy
dirge of the shining chrysococyx;*—bird that
never sings but at night, and obstinately haunts
the roofs of the sick and dying, ominous of woe
and death.

* Chrysococyx lucidus viz. the bird popularly
called the shining, or bronzed cuckoo. "Its note is
an exceedingly melancholy whistle, heard at night,
when it is very annoying to any sick or nervous
person who may be inclined to sleep. I have known
many instances where the bird has been perched on
a tree in the vicinity of the room of an invalid uttering
its mournful notes, and it was only with the
greatest difficulty that it could be dislodged from its
position." Dr. Bennett's Gatherings of a Naturalist
in Australasia.

But up sprang the sun, and, chasing these
gloomy sounds, outburst the wonderful chorus
of Australian groves, the great king-fisher opening
the jocund melodious babble with the glee
of his social laugh.

And now I heard Faber's step in Lilian's
room—heard, through the door, her soft voice,
though I could not distinguish the words. It
was not long before I saw the kind physician
standing at the threshold of my chamber. He
pressed his finger to his lip, and made me a sign
to follow him. I obeyed, with noiseless tread
and stifled breathing. He waited me in the
garden under the flowering acacias, passed his
arm in mine, and drew me into the open
pasture-land.

"Compose yourself," he then said; "I bring
you tidings both of gladness and of fear. Your
Lilian's mind is restored: even the memories
which had been swept away by the fever that
followed her return to her home in L——are