spectacles. In other respects, however, she was very infirm. She could not walk halfa-dozen steps, and was carried into the garden or to her carriage, from her sleeping room to the salon, or from the salon to the salle-à-manger. Nor was she ever brought in till her guests were assembled. Then, what would be the surprise of a stranger to see this wrapped-up figure carried between two valets, casting off her envelopes, placed at the table, and entering into the liveliest conversations, as if but thirty years of age! Nothing could surpass the charm of the surprise. Then it should be added that she had preserved all her teeth, her beautiful hair, her pretty features, and when conversation took an animated turn, a ray of the old youthful grace lighted up her countenance. It is right to add, that though early nourished in a sceptical school, and for many years, if not adverse, yet very indifferent to religion, Madame de Boigne turned with far greater interest to the momentous subject long before death, long before she had experienced any serious warnings of her bodily frailty. Her only brother died some years before her, but with her characteristic passion for the parental name she bequeathed all her wealth to the only being belonging to her who bore the name of Osmond. Now, to all those who had heard her converse, to all especially who knew her familiarity with various celebrated characters and scenes, it was a matter of great curiosity to know what writings this aged woman had left, for that she did write was well known. Memoirs were hinted at, and the surprise was considerable when it was found that she had written two romances, of which the present is one. She had, however, much imagination, and more sentiment. She liked to draw a set of characters, her own among the rest, to put them in situations such as she had known; she thought she could do more substantial justice both to her own ideas and to private and public sentiments by working them up thus. Undoubt edly some of her pictures are well given, but the romance, Une Passion dans le Grand Monde, take it as a whole, is not only very tedious, but has many of the oldfashioned theories of love and honour which, as theories, carefully and deliberately set forth, are sure to repel modern readers. The form adopted, too, that of letters, is wearisome and diffuse. It is a Sir Charles Grandison minus the wit. The old lady's character, meant, no doubt, as the embodiment of Madame de Boigne's own peculiarities, is the cleverest and most interesting, but unfortunately Madame de Romignère (this self-drawn character) dies before the close of the first volume, and we have to wade through a long history of a needless quarrel between adoring lovers, an unloving marriage consequent upon the quarrel, an explanation coming too late, and giving rise to some struggles of passion and duty, and finally to get rid of the whole combat by death. In different parts of the book we have some shrewd political remarks. The hero, Romuald, and his friend interchange ideas on the state of France after the Russian campaign; also during the Hundred Days, and again in the Bourbon period. They cannot suppress, spite of their instincts for Legitimacy, their disappointment with the returned family. In December, 1816, we have an account of Romuald's reception at Court by Louis XVIII., and not a little of sarcasm is displayed. At first, the hero, a distinguished military Bonapartist officer, is flattered by the King's intimate knowledge of his antecedents. Louis goes back as far as 1806, and refers to the mention of Romuald's name in the bulletin of an affair at Czarnovo, which, as it chanced, occurred on the very anniversary day of his presentation. Astonished, Romuald tells his uncle, who had been at the levée with him, how wonderfully kind the King must be to inform himself so minutely respecting the affairs of an insignificant person. His uncle laughs heartily, and answers, "Don't fancy that he dreamt of giving you pleasure; he only wanted to show off his marvellous memory before a new comer; we old courtiers are a little tired of the charlatanerie of dates and anniversaries," &c. (Vol. I., p. 203). Our hero is compelled thus to go back to his first impression of the King. "I don't like his countenance; it is hard when he is serious false when he smiles." --- A few days afterwards he goes to visit Monsieur, the future Charles X., and the Duchesse d'Angoulême. The former welcomes him cordially, and here he is inclined to be pleased, but he is asked, whether he has ever been in Germany? - an embarrassing question to a Bonapartist. He replies honestly, however, "Oui, Monseigneur, plusieurs fois," and there is an end of the interview. Here Romuald fancies that the assumed ignorance of his previous history was a piece of generous feigning, but the undeceivable uncle again smiles, and tells him he is a novice, it is no such thing. Then they go to the Duchesse d'Angoulême. It is plain that there, at least, is no trickery, but it is still disappointing. Who would 720 PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF THE SUN AND MOON. not have felt emotion at first seeing the all the curious influences attributed to sun daughter of the martyred King? · "My uncle having introduced me," writes Romuald, "I obtained a very cold inclination of the head, and a You have been but a short time in Paris, which looked to me a little reproachful. Then addressing herself to my uncle, she said, exactly in the same tone, 'Hombert [his youngest son] was of the escort yesterday; he kept too near the wheels; he did not show his common sense. I told him so, but you must repeat to him that he must not let it happen again.' The substance of what she said was quite right and kind; but it was the manner, so little gracious, that I felt deeply saddened. By what fatality is it that a Princess, to whom all hearts would be open, has learnt to chill every one? I went out of the Tuileries ill satisfied, but above all, vexed to have found this illustrious woman, whose misfortunes and virtues had so often occupied my mind, different from all I had anticipated." and moon, whether as light-giving bodies or the absence three cases of disease occurred on the dark or These are interesting notices, speaking, "Sir James Wylie, of the Imperial Russian as we know they do, the mind of the writer. Service, pointed out to an English physician We wish there were more of them, instead one of the barracks at St. Petersburg, in which of page upon page of rhapsody and exag-shaded side of the establishment for one on the gerated love; yet Madame de Boigne tries hard to be moral, and prefers killing her hero to admitting a stain on his name. From the Spectator. other, though the apartments on both of these sides communicated freely with each other, and the discipline, diet, and treatment were in every respect the same.' "The absence of light exercises a very great THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF THE influence over the power possessed by food in SUN AND MOON. In a recent work of some interest but little method, Dr. Forbes Winslow has given us some account of a very curious subject, professedly the physiological influence of light upon the body. He has, however, mixed up with this discussion many things which belong to the larger subject with which we have headed this article, i.e., all sorts of influences attributed, truly or untruly, to bodies which, among some of their properties, radiate or reflect light. For example, a great section of his essay is occupied with considering the effect attributed to the moon on the atmospheric tides, and through those on the health of man. Now, we suppose it is obvious that the effect of the moon on the atmospheric tides bas nothing to do with its reflection of light. That is the result of its gravity, and its gravity would be the same even if it were a wholly dark body of the same mass. Dr. Forbes Winslow need scarcely have given us a digest of On the Influence of Light on Life and Health. By Forbes Winslow, M.D. London: Longmans. increasing the size of animals. Whatever arouses and excites the attention of the animal, and makes it restless, increases the natural waste of the different parts of the system, and diminishes the tendency of food to enlarge the body. To the rearers of poultry the rapidity with which fowls fatten when kept in the dark is well known; and direct experiment on other animals, whether by keeping them in the dark lids, as is adopted in India, have led to similar or by the cruel practice of sowing up their eyeresults. Absence of light, from whatever cause produced, seems to exercise a soothing and quieting influence on all animals, increasing their disposition to take rest, making less food necessary, and causing them to store up a greater portion of what they eat, in the form of fat and muscle. From a Paper on the 'Scientific Principles involved in the Feeding and Fattening of Stock,' read by Ed. W. Davey, M.B.M. R.I., at the Roy. Dub. Soc., April 14, 1859.” And in the first of these passages it can scarcely be said with certainty that light alone made the difference, as every one knows that the warmth of rooms with a northern aspect is apt to be very different from that of rooms with the opposite aspect; PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF THE SUN AND MOON. 66 721 on rhages from the lungs or those of plethora, like but if these barrack rooms were artificially mind. But he quotes for us from Dr. Mosekept at the same temperature, the great dif- ley and others some curious cases of an apference must have been rather one of light parent influence of the moon, - probably than of heat. In the latter of these pas- exercised through the atmosphere, since it sages we have apparently a real case of the took effect as much at new moons, when the specific effect caused by excluding light, and moon gives no light, as at full moons, light alone, on animal life, for the closing of hæmorrhages of the lungs, on which it is of the eyelids could only affect the general course not at all unnatural that special conhealth through the optic nerve; but then ditions of the atmospheric tides, by increaseven here the general sanitary effect of ing or lightening the pressure on the blood light on the body, as distinguished from that vessels of the lungs, should have a very conon the mere visual apparatus, is not exclud-siderable effect. The most curious of these ed, though the evidence that creatures kept cases seems to be the following (which wholly in the dark, no less than those pre- certainly does not seem to belong properly vented from opening their eyes, fatten fast- to a treatise on " the influence of light :") — er than others, seems to show that the influence of light generally is to excite, and that its exclusion leaves the organization more at rest for the processes of mere assimilation. It would be worth inquiring what effect, if any, is produced on the general bodily condition of blind men by the quiescence of the optic nerve. From general experience, we should be apt to doubt whether it is in any degree the same as that here supposed to take effect on the lower animals. The usual impression certainly is that the organization of the blind increases in acuteness in all the other senses in precise proportion to the loss they have sus tained in the privation of sight; and, of course, if the general activity of the mental organization is not diminished, there would not be any probability of a greater stimulus to the mere assimilating processes. What we miss so much in Dr. Forbes Winslow's account of this interesting subject is any attempt to isolate for us carefully the spe-vised to leave England during the winter and cific effects of light. He tells us, for instance, of the bad effects of mining work, and of cellar work, and so forth, but here the absence of effectual ventilation is probably a far more important incident than the absence of light. He tells us nothing whatever of the diseases (if any) mental or bodily peculiar to the blind. He tells us exceedingly little of either good or bad effects produced by light which can be clearly separated from more general causes. In short, his book throws little explicit light on any one subject, and is little more than a rather curious account of the various impressions and superstitions on the subject of solar and lunar influences, most of which science has not confirmed, and a very few rather vague conclusions which it has confirmed. Dr. Forbes Winslow himself has evidently little or no belief in any special influence of the moon's light on mental disease, except so far as he considers all excess of light, especially if it prevents sleep, exciting to the FOURTH SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. V. to reside in the south of France. Whilst there his attacks came on periodically, obeying faithfully the principal changes of the moon. Dr. Moseley considers this to be one of the most decisive examples of lunar influence recorded in medical history. The following particulars of his illness deserve attentive consideration. On February 14, 1786, when near Toulon, hæmorrhage came on; the moon was at its full on the in Provence, he had another attack. There preceding day. On February 29, when at Aix, was a new moon on the 28th. The moon was again at its full on the 13th of April, and on the 15th the patient had another attack of hæ moptysis. A new moon appeared on the 29th of the same month, and on the 26th, when at: Tain upon the Rhone, he had a relapse.. At. Châlones, in Burgundy, there was a full moon on the 13th of May, and on the 14th his hæmor moon was again at its full, he had anothercatrhage returned. At Dijon, June 11, when the tack. On July 11, at Paris, the moon was again at its full. At this lunan period the hæmorrhage returned. Again, when at Yar mouth, in the Isle of Wight, on August 9, the 150. moon was then at its full. The hæmoptysis | And, turning, she perceived approaching near returned. Dr. Moseley alluded to the remarkable fact that the last three attacks of hæmorrhage from the lungs came on at the instant the moon appeared above the horizon." If this curious relation between the atmospheric tides and the hæmorrhages of the fungs could be traced in any sufficient number of cases to exclude the possibility of mere coincidence, a mechanical influence of great importance on the physiology of the body would have been discovered which would affect seriously many other branches of medicine. Dr. Forbes Winslow's essay, however, is faulty in suggesting so much and establishing so little, on the curious and interesting subject with which he has dealt. THE COURTSHIP OF PIETY. 1. BLUE-EYED MISS PIETY, walking sedately, To battle with the world that does me wrong, 2. Who knoweth not the gentle English maid, In clean trim gown of academic shade, And antique proverbs silvery on her tongue? Who hath not heard how wise men have pursued her, Sung in her praise, and wooed her? How they have built her temples in the land, And how, tho' many a wooer seeks her hand, And how, altho' she is divinely fair, In vestal black she clothes her vestal limbs, A dapper little man in broadcloth guise, A little hammer gript he while he went, said he ; "My name is SCIENCE, you remember me?" At this the maiden turned to fly, not heeding; But the Professor seized her hand, proceeding: 4. "So cold, so coy! why is it, sweet, that still Willing am I my wife should have her way. What should a lady do with demonstrations? Wedded together, we should rule the nations. Your fancies I will never contradict; And, hark you! if we ever disagree On questions that affect this mortal sphere, 'Twill be my best endeavour, do not doubt it, From the Fortnightly Review. MUSIC THE EXPRESSION OF CHARACTER. THERE are few things that are at once so interesting and so difficult as the analysis of the mental phenomena which exist in connection with musical performances of all kinds. Next to the love of personal adornment, there is no other gratification, in which mind and sense each plays its part, that is so universal as the passion for music. It is found strong and influential in the lowest savage races, in men of the highest culture and the noblest gifts in civilized society, and in connection with every variety of personal character, of individual tastes and pursuits, and of physical "Ach, lieber Gott! mine love, and art thou temperament. Setting aside the half-legen there? Beloved shape, for ever wandering; And - - leider!—yester-eve thy phantom face The luminous space of Saturn's rings did gladden I faint within thy nebulous embrace. Gesund mich boden. O ever-roaming, insubstantial love. On earth, on air, in the blue gulfs above, Thy breath full oft I feel, yet seldom thee. Over all worlds glimmers thy footstep bright, Leaving a blinding agony of light. But would thou wert for ever near, to set dary accounts of the musical gifts of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, in more modern times we have distinguished men, so unlike as Henry the Eighth, Luther, Louis the Fourteenth of France, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and the great Duke of Wellington, all sensitive to the musical influences in a high degree, in contrast with its almost complete absence in a mind in many respects most sensitive and highly organizedthat of the first Napoleon; and in the large majority of our greatest modern English statesmen. The contrasts in the case of poets are as striking. The sensibility to Thy truth on scoffing souls that find thee musical sounds in Shakespeare and Milton was exquisite; in Goethe it was comparatively feeble, and rather the result of a deliberate exercise of the reflective and selfinspecting faculty, than the true spontaneous action of genuine sensibility. Still more was the perception of musical beauty in Wordsworth and Keble little better than an act of the intellect, allied with a certain fondness for melody when associated with pleasant thoughts and memories. In Cowper, the refined, the sensitive, and the lover of all moral and natural harmony, the musical faculty scarcely existed; while in Rogers, man of the world, banker and minor poet, and the most caustic of talking satirists, it was strong and vivid to extreme old age. The same variety exists in ordinary people, but still with the qualification that very few persons are altogether destitute of all capacity for being pleased or affected by music. The number of the absolutely destitute is, indeed, so small, that, taken in company with our present improved notions on matters of art, scarcely any educated man will avow that he cares nothing whatever for music. It is almost as dangerous to imply this in talking to a |