the suspicion of something that would not bear the light, for there were discovered several papers, having very odd shapes and figures prickt into them, as it were, with pins, and drawn upon them with pens "very illfavouredly and uncommonly." These papers Carrington took, not at all to the satisfaction of the Surey people; and, the same night, they that had put the minister upon the search of the box were very ill dealt with by invisible beings. On the 20th of December, the demoniac in his fit vomited up several papers, on which Greek and other strange languages were written: these papers, too, Carrington appropriated, the Surey people objecting, and desiring to have them.

But

though he put them up with the best care he could, and among his choicest things, they, with the papers found in the box, soon after unaccountably disappeared.

Thus, it seemed hardly possible to doubt that there was some foul play going on, and, incredible as it might appear, that the sufferer's own family were cognizant of, if not participant in it. However, being interrogated, as was said, by the ministers, on the 9th of January, they denied all knowledge, whether of a contract, or of Romanists or witches, as connected with Richard's condition. Upon this, the ministers made some of them say the Lord's Prayer, when one of them was found who constantly missed the last petition; whom, accordingly, the ministers threatened with further trials, but these-Richard soon after getting well-did not take place. Nevertheless, money was collected, with a view to having the whole matter legally investigated, and it is probable that a prosecution for witchcraft would have been set on foot against all the Surey clan, had not the somewhat sudden recovery of the demoniac seemed to render further proceedings unnecessary. The ministers complained much of the hindrance thrown in their way by the disingenuousness of old Dugdale; and there are grounds to suspect that he had put his landlord, Sir E. A., upon forbidding any more meetings at the Surey, on the pretence that his "headges" were damaged by the great confluence of people.

Thus, in the face of many discou

ragements, the ministers had to carry on the warfare against the invisible foe; till at length, on the 24th of March, the demoniac being in a fit more severe than usual, Satan cried out, "Now, Dicky, I must leave thee, and must afflict thee no more as I have done: I have troubled thee thus long by obsession, and also by a combination, that never shall be discovered as long as the world endures." Upon which "Richard's body was tossed and tortured, as if something was atearing it a-pieces, and it was strained and stretcht as if it were a-vomiting, wherein nothingvisibly appeared to come out of him, and yet Satan, or whatsoever had troubled him before, did therein evidently come from or out of him." From this time he continued well, except that having some weeks after got drunk, he had some threatenings of a return of his fits. On this Mr. Jolly admonished him that he should amend his life, lest it should happen to him as to the man whose last state was worse than the first. Also he was advised to purge away the evil humours which his body might have contracted, which have often proved, and so are styled, vehiculum diaboli, the receptacle of Satan. Accordingly he took physic, and from that time was free from all fits. Some time after, he married, having returned to his former occupation of gardening; and it appears that he never ceased to speak with affection and gratitude of the ministers, especially of Mr. Carrington.

We think he was mistaken: we doubt if these gentlemen really did anything for him, and suspect that he would have got well at the time he did, had not one of them ever come to the Surey. For there was absolutely nothing in their proceedings, as reported by themselves, of a nature to have any effect in such a case. They poured forth, indeed, floods of talk, the most of it, to judge by the specimens recorded, mere quizzing or bantering of the evil spirit, who, however, as long as he kept possession of Richard's body, seems to us to have had the laugh on his side. Sometimes, it is true, they threatened and scolded him with great energy, but he was a match for them at that too. It is remarkable that not one of them ever had the boldness to lay his hands

on the young man, or to say to the demon in straightforward English (for of course they had too laudable an abhorrence of Popery to say it in Latin), "Come out of him."

What convinces us that the preachers had no hand in shortening the term of the possession is, that on the parchment which the demoniac vomited on the 10th of October, was written something respecting "six hundred days," which was then supposed to indicate the time that should elapse from the beginning of the possession until Richard's consignment to the lake of fire. Now, from the 25th of July, 1688, to the 24th of March, 1690, were just six hundred and seven days, and during this period Richard was indeed spiritually in the lake of fire, being in the company and hold of him whose element it is. For we may truly say, where the devil is, there is hell. The parchment in question, therefore, was apparently Satan's warrant to hold the debauched young man for six hundred days, not to take him at the end of that term.

The history of this case is evidently from the pen of Carrington, but is subscribed by all the ministers who took part in the proceedings. The names are-Thomas Jolly, Charles Sagar, Nicholas Kershaw, Robert Waddington, Thomas Whally, John Carrington. Besides these, three ministers are named as having occasionally assisted at the meetings, Mr. Frankland, Mr. Pendlebury, and Mr. Oliver Heywood. Affidavits respecting the whole matter were sworn before Lord Willoughby and Mr. Ralph Egerton, justices of the peace for the county of Lancaster.

A mysterious circumstance is mentioned in the preface of the six ministers, which shows how much some parties unknown were bent upon cushioning the affair. On the 16th of September, 1695, about seven in the evening, one of the ministers (it is not mentioned which), walking by the "Bell and Dragon," an apothecary's shop, at King's-street end in Cheapside, with the fair copy of the narrative, and the only copy of a postscript designed for it, wrapped together in his pocket, to be offered for the press, about half a dozen men suddenly clasped about him, and, notwithstanding his struggling and calling for help,

got the copies from him, which, with all his endeavours, he was not able to regain. This delayed the publication till a new fair copy could be made; and the narrative at length saw the light in 1697; but the only copy of the postscript having got into the hands of the conspirators, it was lost to the world for ever. What light it might have thrown, if preserved, upon the "combination that shall never be discovered as long as the world endures," it is impossible now to conjecture; but we think there can be very little doubt that the "half-a-dozen men"-the dark authors of its abstraction-were either witches or Romanists, if not something worse.

We conclude with a brief account of a demonopathic affection, of which no less a person was the subject than the illustrious Pascal, a name more terrible to Jesuits than that of my Lord Palmerston, President Ochsenbein, or the great arch-socialist and patron-saint of Swiss progress-the devil himself.

The mother of Pascal was a very pious and charitable lady, and had a number of poor people, to whom she gave a small monthly pension. Among them was a woman, who was popularly looked upon as a witch, and with whom it was often recommended to Madame Pascal to have as little as possible to do; but the good lady, who was by no means of a credulous cast of mind, gave no heed to the warnings. At this time it happened that the little Blaise, then a year old, fell into a kind of atrophy, which was accompanied by two unusual circumstances. The first was, that he could not see water without getting into a state of violent agitation; the second was still stranger: it was, that he could not bear the sight of both his parents together. Separately, their caresses afforded him great delight, but the moment they both presented themselves to him at the same time, he uttered loud cries, and struggled with all his might. This lasted a year, and the child's health had failed to such a degree, that it was thought his death was not far off. Every one said that he was under a charm, cast upon him by the reputed witch above-mentioned; but his parents had no ear for these representations, which seemed to them the dictates of a ridiculous superstition. One day,

nevertheless, Monsieur Pascal called the old woman into his study, intending to tell her of what reports she was a subject; but he had scarcely opened his mouth, when, to his great surprise, she anticipated him, by begging that he would not believe what was said, since the people accused her of such things merely from envy, because she partook of the bounty of his wife. He now tried to frighten her, pretended to be quite sure that she had bewitched his child, and threatened her with the terrors of the law, unless she would immediately tell him the truth. Horribly alarmed, she threw herself on her knees before him, and protested she would tell him every thing, if he would but promise that her life should be spared.

M. Pascal was surprised at the effect of his threats, and asked the woman what she had done, and why she had practised against the welfare of his family. She reminded him that she had once entreated him to conduct a lawsuit for her, and that he had refused, believing her cause not to be just. To revenge herself, she had bewitched his child, and she was sorry to tell him that the spell which was on the little sufferer was mortal. "What," cried the unhappy father-"my son must die, then ?" "There is yet a means," replied the hag, "of saving his life: that is, by transferring the charm to another, who will then die in his stead." M. Pascal hereupon said he would far rather lose his child, than save him by what he could not but look on as the murder of a fellowcreature. The woman said, the enchantment could be transferred to a beast. "Take one of my horses, then," said the father. "Nay," said the witch, "there is no need of taking anything so valuable; a cat will do." They gave her a cat, which she threw out of the window; and though the animal had but a fall of six feet, it died on the spot. The woman demanded a second cat, which M. Pascal directed to be given.

The great love he had for his child made him forget that, in order to transfer the charm, the devil's name must be invoked anew, and the sin of witchcraft repeated. This thought did not occur to him till a long time after, and he was deeply grieved at having made himself the accomplice of

such a crime. Who can tell but it was to punish him for this transgression, that his son lived to be such a thorn in the side of the Jesuits?

The next morning the woman made a poultice for the belly of the child, consisting of three kinds of herbs, which were gathered for her by a child under seven years of age. When M. Pascal came at noon from the palais de justice, he found his wife and the whole family weeping, and received the afflicting news that the child was dead. He met the witch on the stairs, and gave her a buffet that tumbled her over head and heels; but she quickly got up, and said she had forgotten to mention in the morning that the child would seem to be dead until midnight, but would then come to himself again. Although the child had now every ap pearance of death, the father directed that it should be let alone, and paid no attention to the shrugs and shakings of the head which this apparent credulity, in a man so little disposed to anything of the kind, called forth.

The parents remained from this moment at the side of the cradle that contained their child, abandoning the care of it to no one else. They heard hour after hour strike, till midnight; the child still showing no signs of life. At length, as it drew towards one o'clock, the child began to yawn. They took it up and warmed it; they gave it wine and sugar, which it swallowed, and then took the nurse's breast, yet without opening its eyes, or giving any token of consciousness. This continued till six in the morning, when the child opened its eyes, and, seeing its father and mother together, began to scream.

About six or seven days after this, it began to be able to bear the sight of water; and as its father came home from an absence of a few days, he found it playing in the arms of its mother, and pouring water out of one glass into another. He drew near, but the child began to cry out; and it was some days before it could endure to see its parents together. end of three weeks it was perfectly well, in soul and body, and recovered its flesh as before the commencement of its illness.

At the

The above is related in the Life of Pascal, by H. Reuchlin, on the authority of Marguerite Perier, his niece.

CHARLES LAMB has devoted one of his admirable essays to maintaining the position, that the plays of Shakspeare are less calculated for performance on a stage than those of almost any other dramatist whatever. "Their distinguishing excellence," he argues, “is a reason that they should be so. There is so much in them, which comes not under the province of acting, with which eye, and tone, and gesture, have nothing to do." What Shakspeare himself might have thought of this theory, it is, of course, not easy to conjecture. But if the adaptation of means to ends be, as is generally believed, an evidence of intellectual power, he could hardly have considered it complimentary to his ge nius.

What is a play? Not surely a poetic development of character and story merely a series of dialogues elaborated with more or less imaginative power, and constituting that anomalous form of writing known and dreaded as a dramatic poem? On the contrary, if a play means anything at all, it means a story acted; and, just as in nature and real life much is expressed and told by look, and gesture, and tone, so will the true dramatist, in constructing his play, leave much for the actors to fill up by look, and tone, and gesture. These have a significance beyond words, and there is no surer sign of a dramatic genius, than the instinct or the skill, call it as you may, which leaves these to speak when words would be out of place.

If a good play, then, require action to develop its full significance, and if Shakspeare's plays be, as by the world's confession they are, the best plays in the world, for that very reason must they be the best fitted to receive that best of all interpretations-the living commentary of histrionic genius. Lamb's proposition might, therefore,

we think, be with perfect truth reversed, and the majority of Shakspeare's plays be pronounced unfitted in an especial manner for stage representation, and this precisely because there is so much in "them, which comes directly within the province of acting; with which eye, and tone, and gesture, have everything to do."

For what were these plays written— the stage or the closet? Was it not for the stage, and was not their suc. cess there the primary aim of their author in composing them? Is it not manifest, moreover, that it was to the stage that he looked and trusted for the permanent endurance of the reputation, which, while it proved profitable to his worldly fortunes, must have gratified his ambition of posthumous fame? How otherwise shall we explain his indifference to their being printed, while his poems and sonnets were published under his own care? We know from these, that he cherished the poet's dream of the immortality of his powerful rhyme;" and yet, great as these poems are, what are they in comparison to his dramatic works? What the "Venus and Adonis" to "As You Like It?" or the "Rape of Lucrece" to "Hamlet" or "Macbeth?" And is it to be thought, that Shakspeare himself was unconscious of this superiority, or that he Iwould have been so indifferent to their publication as he was, had he not believed that the stage was the proper medium for preserving his dramas for after times, and ensuring them a better appreciation and a wider fame than the widest bookseller's circulation?

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Let us not imagine, that we are better judges on this subject than the poet himself. He knew, and no writer has in his practice demonstrated more clearly, that the drama in its highest form, not only, as Mr. Fletcher puts it, "admits, but demands living

impersonation" for its adequate development. There are people, no doubt, who profess to be independent of, and superior to all assistance from this living impersonation-who will tell us they cannot bear to have their fine visions brought down to the standard of flesh and blood. Happy people, who can embrace a cloud with so much substantial rapture! But for ourselves, we can boast no such etherial gifts of apprehension. We have our visions too, and can protest with the poet, at fitting time and place, that

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter,"

Yet would we not surrender, for a paradise of such visions, our treasured recollections of the actual stage.

And must we think that Shakspeare had no foreshadowing of future Juliets, who should lend a more than silver sweetness to the tremulous passionladen accents of maiden love; of future Imogens, investing that "most perfect wife" with a dignity, and grace, and delicate tenderness, beautiful as the ideal being revealed to his inward eye in his hour of inspiration? Scott, we know, declared that some of his own conceptions were reflected from the stage with a force beyond what he had himself believed to be inherent in them. Is it, then, too much to supif Shakspeare had witnessed pose, a Barry, a Pritchard, or a Siddons, he might have acknowledged that the creations of his own thought received from their impersonation, a charm more exquisite, and a more vivid completeness? It could not, indeed, have been otherwise, if these illustrious performers fulfilled, as they did, the great purpose of their art, "to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature." For never yet did fancy pourtray womanhood so fair, but a real woman, endowed with the intense sympathies of genius, and inspired for the time with the soul of Juliet or Desdemona, must have eclipsed the ideal dream. Not one, but all the faculties are charmed—

"Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And sculpture to be dumb."

The heart thrills, while the imagination is rapt, and the memory is enriched for ever, with a vision beyond VOL. XXXI.-NO. CLXXXIV.

the mere poet's painting. Let any one who doubts this see Rachel or Helen Faucit, and if he does not straightway renounce his heresy, let him distrust, not the genius of these gifted artists, but his own capacity. Intelligibilia, non intellectum adferunt. In this matter, one illustration is worth pages of argument. Let us, then, take one from many, which present themselves, among the impersonations of the latter of these ladiesHermione, in the last, or, as it is called, the statue-scene, in "The Winter's Tale." Two acts have intervened, since the outraged queen has been left for dead, slain, as it seemed, by the tidings of her boy's death, that crowning-stroke to her affliction. The actress has, therefore, in a manner, lost the hold upon the sympathies of her audience, which it is so important to retain without interruption. She has moreover, throughout this long scene, not one word allotted to her, and yet upon her its whole interest depends. Here is a task for genius and skill-to engage the very souls of the audience, and to transport them, without the aid of tone or gesture, so thoroughly into the scene, that the words of Leontes and Perdita shall be the very echo of their own thoughts and emotions. A reader of high imaginative power may, perhaps, be able to do this in some measure for himself; but still his picture will be vague and soulless-a mere colourless phantom, in contrast to the thrilling reality which this great actress places before us, and which words must, alas! be ever inadequate to pourtray. Let us, however, essay the sketch.

We pass into the scene, conscious that it is no "dead likeness" that we are to be shown; but how little anticipating to see the form so instinct with thought, and almost spiritual beauty, which the withdrawal of the curtain reveals! At once, with electric force, an awe strikes us, like that which subdues Leontes to silence, as noted by Paulina thus:

"I like your silence, it the more shows off Your wonder."

Hermione stands before us as she appeared to Antigonus in his dream, "In pure white robes, like very sanctity." We think not then of the sym

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