history of the Jansenist and Cevennes con- looking, enjoying to the full their physivulsionnaires. Some of the facts we have cal and moral faculties. It was impossible related are observed in the state of hypno- on seeing them to imagine the existence of tism or nervous sleep with which physicians the slightest illness. are familiar. The hallucinations of which we have given some instances, are too common to astonish us. But the likeness of this epidemic to others that have been observed, does not account for its symptoms. The resemblance of its phenomena to some already witnessed does not, after all, ex plain them. Can physiologists give the reasons for an insensibility that is accompanied by such remarkable development of muscular energy? Can they account for a preternatural acuteness of the senses? can any physical explanation tell us why the moral marvel exists of virtue turning to vice, and piety to hatred of God?

We have repeatedly inquired of persons familiar with the events at Morzine, if there could be any want of good faith in the patients whose symptoms contradicted received medical experience. With one accord it is agreed that there is no sort of acting among any of those afflicted. Nothing can be more terribly real than the trouble that has befallen them.

The medical opinions that have as yet been pronounced on the Morzine evil seem to us remarkably vague. This harlequin malady unites symptoms of hysteria, epilepsy, mania, and gastric disturbance; and yet some principal features accompanying usually each of these diseases are wanting. The excellent health of the "possessed" between their seizures seems to point out that there is no great physical mischief at work. A physician repcrts of the women whose cases he observed," They were fat and fresh

I

Had we space, it would be interesting to trace the strange influence of credulity on our perceptions. We have related facts that have been solemnly attested by grave persons of good faith at Morzine. Let not our readers be startled if we readily admit that such of those facts as trench on the supernatural might be proved on analysis never to have had any existence except in the minds of those who believed they witnessed them. But "possession" is not more curious a disease than the existence of epidemic illusions, such as we believe broke out at St. Médard among the Camisards of the Cevennes, and now at Morzine, when a whole population testifies to marvels. Has this frequent disorder of human perception been sufficiently examined? We do not set down those who believe in spiritist and other marvels as knaves or fools, but as victims of a very common disturbance of the faculties that we think deserves serious attention from all interested in the search of truth. We need not the Morzine evidence to remind us that nothing is less certain than any given, unless the organs of observation be specially sound and in high training; and to accept any fact as certain we must have other witness to it than that of our senses. Chablais epidemic leads us into questions that concern us deeply, for it not only exhibits curious phenomena in those actually convulsed, but it also warns us of the remarkable iability to error of our perceptions when they are swayed by foregone conclusions.

The

JOHN RANDOLPH'S DEATH BED.

[WE are very glad to print this correction from our friend Mr. Dillwyn Parrish, not only because it is important to remind our readers of what they may have forgotton, but that it may recall to the minds of some of the older ones Dr. Joseph Parrish, of Philadelphia, whom it is such a pleasure to us to

remember.

In the Living Age, vol. 15, p. 153, (No. 180, for 23d Oct. 1847) will be found Dr. Parrish's full account of the Death bed, and of the scene referred to.]

In No. 1088 of the Living Age, there is, copied from Frazer's Magazine, an article entitled," Virginia First and Last," in which the writer, in a sketch of John Randolph, makes this statement:

told, in answer to his inquiry, that his end was not far distant, he appeared to make some preparation therefor, which consisted chiefly in arranging his clothes, adjusting his position, &c., after which, for a short time," says the deposition, "he lay perfectly quiet, his eyes were closed, and I concluded he was disposed to sleep. He suddenly roused from this state with the words, Remorse, Remorse. It was twice repeated; at the last time, at the top of his voice, evidently with great agitation, he cried out, "Let me see the word;"- no reply followed, having learned enough of the character of my patient, to ascertain that when I did not know exactly what to say, it was best to say nothing. He then exclaimed, "Get a Dictionary; let me see the word." I'cast my eyes around, and told him I believed there "Many assertions have been circulated was none in the room. "Write it down then: against Randolph's personal character, which let me see the word." I picked up one of are utterly unfounded. They are traceable his cards from the table-"Randolph of in part to the hate he excited by his relent- Roanoke and inquired whether I should less attacks, but still more to his contempt for write on that." Yes, nothing more proper." the ignorant and fanatical sects by which Then with my pencil I wrote, Remorse. He he was surrounded. He has for many years took the card in his hands in a hurried manserved the Methodists and Baptists of Vir-ner, and fastened his eyes on it with great ginia, as Voltaire has elsewhere, to point intensity. "Write it on the back," he extheir exhortations the allegation being, claimed. I did so and handed it to him that on his deathbed, when he could speak no longer, he wrote the word, Remorse. It has since been proved that he simply wrote the name of a neighbour - R. E. Morse whom he desired to see! Mr. Randolph was kind to his slaves while he lived, and liberated them at his death."

This statement has been published before, and as it contradicts a fact in the history of that eminent man, I herewith forward that part of the deposition of my father, Dr. Joseph Parrish, which bears upon the question. The deposition was made to the commission appointed by the Court to take the testimony as to the validity of Randolph's will; and was extensively published in the years 1833

and '34.

again. He was excessively agitated at this period, and repeated" Remorse!" You have no idea what it is, you can form no idea of it whatever: it has contributed to bring me to my present situation; but I have looked to the Lord Jesus Christ, and hope I have obtained pardon." He then said, “Now let John (his body servant) take your pencil and draw a line under the word," which was accordingly done. I inquired what was to be done with the card. Put it in your pocket, and take care of it, and when I am dead, look at it."

Thirty-two years have passed since the death of Randolph, and as he occupies a prominent place in American History, it is important that the facts attending his death After a long and interesting conversation should not be misrepresented. The circumwith his physician, he said, "I confirm every stances attending that event made a deep disposition in my Will, especially that re-impression, not only where his death occurspecting my slaves whom I have manumitted, ed, but in the Southern States of the Union. and for whom I have made provision." Being

From the Saturday Review.

WIVES AND THEIR FOLLOWERS.

ladydom will succeed in regaining the rights and privileges of which it has been ousted, or whether an iron despotism of THERE are various theories of marriage. married Amazons will crush out all oppoThere is the Protestant theory, with its sition, we do not venture to predict. We corollary, the Divorce Court; and there is only note the signs of the times, which the Catholic theory, to which Mr. Matthew seem to portend an impending storm. The Arnold turns in these days with such infi- rancorous hatred which exists between the nite relief. But the theory which seems to dowagers and the young married women obtain most favour just now in the fashion- cannot long smoulder on. There will soon able world may be defined as the elastic be an outbreak of hostilities. In the first theory. It is that which allows a young instance, perhaps, the attack will be carwife, in addition to her husband, a select ried on by constitutional means. Already train of male adorers. There was an old- it is whispered that, led by a mother who fashioned notion that husband and wife has suffered many things of frisky matrons, were all in all to each other. The conju- the Young Lady's Defence Association ingal relation was viewed as a snug little tends to apply to Parliament for an act vehicle, expressly constructed to carry two. declaring it penal for a married woman to In it Darby and Joan jogged pleasantly take part in any but square dances. On along, too much engrossed in each other's the other hand, it is said that a Minister society to find the journey dull. Marriage who enjoys the full confidence of the Conà la mode in 1865 suggests a different com- federate sirens has promised to retaliate by parison. Instead of the modest convey- a bill for the suppression of dowagers, as ance to which, twenty years ago, it might included in the category of common nuihave been likened, it resembles now-a-days sances. The conflict may end in secession. a great gaudy Parisian omnibus, capable of Female London may be split into two accommodating plenty of outsiders. In camps. Tyburnia may be allotted to the other words, it has become the fashion for the young matron of the modern school to supplement the prosaic attachment of her husband by the attentions of any handsome young man or men whom she may be able to attract to her side, and hold there in silken fetters. So systematic has the practice grown, that it is said that, in the newest form of marriage settlement drawn by fashionable solicitors, the contingency of "followers" is expressly provided for. After the stipulations for pin-money and jointure, comes a special clause limiting them to any number not exceeding twenty. If this should be true, we cannot say that it causes us much surprise. Nothing that fashionable wives can say or do will henceforth cause surprise. Ces mères de famille An adorer is usually a young man with a sont capables de tout. The high jinks they great deal of time on his hands, and no parhave lately been up to are evidently the ticular inclination to marry. His training prelude to higher. When the mother of is generally on this wise. He has had, or promising lads at Eton may be seen pranc- fancies he has had, a disappointment in ing about London ballrooms as if recently love. For this heart-ache, a certain amount bitten by the tarantula, when elderly peer- of relief has been obtained by shooting exesses, who should be at home dandling peditions to Albania, and fishing excursions their grandchildren, foot it nightly upon to Norway. Such consolation as a French parquet floors, we feel instinctively that a cook can afford has not been wanting. A crisis must be approaching. The old de- stud of hunters at Melton or Market Harcencies are crumbling away, and society borough may be regarded as a strictly medis about to enter on a new phase. In what ical prescription for a poor young fellow sufshape the fashionable world will emerge fering from chronic depression. To a being from the disintegration which seems immi- thus cruelly blighted the balm of female nent, how regulated and reconstituted, it is sympathy is unspeakably delicious. And it impossible to foretell. Whether young-is an article to be had now-a-days in any

dowagers and their daughters; Belgravia to the young married women. In this eventuality, much will depend on the attitude of the male sex. Should they adopt a policy of non-intervention and strict neutrality, the rivalry will soon come to an end. Even now, if young husbands could be induced to assert the authority which is dropping from their hands, they might easily reclaim their skittish partners to a sense of duty and propriety. As it is, they remain cynically indifferent to their vagaries, flattered to find their wives admired, and thankful to be relieved from the trouble of admiring them themselves. Possibly they think that in a multitude of adorers there is safety.

kind of union in which the bride is called an old fool and the bridegroom is covered with deserved ridicule. Old Mrs. Piozzi's weakness for the handsome young actor Conway was not more absurd.

quantity, upon very easy terms. It is this flattery-pearl-powder? They would be particular combination of melancholy and as much foreign to her nature as disinterestmoney upon which the sharp young matron ed counsels would be to that of the pretty of the modern school pounces. It offers a rake who hides a mercenary soul beneath a remunerative investment for any superfluous fascinating manner, and who, having marsympathy which she may have at her dis- ried for money, flirts for valuable consideraposal. With clever management, she may tion only. count on having a yacht and a mail phae- Adoration, as we have interpreted the ton for years at her command. Sighs and term, has its ludicrous side. Moving, as it sentiment are well bestowed when they were, on parallel lines with marriage, it exyield a profitable return in kid gloves, opera hibits corresponding oddities and incongruiboxes, white-bait dinners, and Derby-day ties. In matrimony we sometimes find ineluncheons. This is the black-mail which quality of rank, disparity of years, incomBeauty, in this material age, exacts. One patibility of tastes; and the same features approaches it no longer with a sonnet ad- often mark the relation between adorer and dressed to the eyebrow, or the chivalrous de- adored. When, for instance, an elderly votion of an Esmond to his "dear mistress," dowager, who counts her admirers by genbut with tribue of a more solid and sub-erations, tries to revive the fires of her youth stantial kind. When the adorer is sufficient- by fastening on a green guardsman, we are ly broken to harness, he is exhibited in pub-treated to a caricature of that particular lic, dancing attendance at ball and opera, upon his liege lady. As a precaution, she drops a few hints that his story is a sad one, and that she is giving him "good advice." If this flow of good advice were suspended, she darkly intimates that he might turn desperate and throw himself into the Serpentine. The thought that she alone stands between an impetuous young man and a muddy grave ought to silence the malicious comments of Lady A. and the prudish remarks of Mrs. B. This process of advice-giving is evidently no sinecure. It begins about luncheon-time, continues at intervals during the afternoon, is resumed in the Park, is suspended during the dinner-hour, when both monitress and pupil feel pressing need of restoratives, recommences at the Opera to the acompaniment of Titiens' or Patti's warblings, and is finally adjourned to the ball-room or supper-table, where champagne and lobster-salad impart irresistible cogency to the lady's arguments, and render her listener particularly amenable to reason. One can only guess at the gist of all this advice. Judging by the result, it must consist of an earnest exhortation to the duty of extravagance, with practical suggestions how a gay young bachelor can best fulfil that duty. It bears frut, too, in silly little resolves pour les beaux yeux de Madame-such as the sentimental vow to dance with her alone, to stand in a tableau as Romeo to her Juliet, and to fill a photograph book with her likeness in every attitude known to the fashionable artist. Ill-natured people persist in thinking that advice which has this tendency is the advice of Circe rather than of Mentor; but who expects words of wisdom from a lovely idiot, intoxicated with vanity, who can dispense with only one thing less than

One is reminded of an ill-assorted marriage by the spectacle of plump inanity listening with a face of foolish wonder to the banter of a literary dangler. Yet it is spirited of a matron who has reached that epoch when life passes into vegetation, and which is popularly described by "the three f's," to try to improve her style by cultivating the society of a sporting novelist. But the funniest combination in this adoration system which a shake of the social kaleidoscope reveals, is one which as yet, in England, has no counterpart in any aspect of married life. Our ideas about the matrimonial tie have received, of late years, an encrmous development. There is no knowing whither the progress of civilization, under the direction of the present leaders of fashion, may, upon this question, carry us. But as yet polygamy is not an institution of the country, and the least likely form of polygamy to take root in England is that which allots to wives a plurality of husbands. In any unsophisticated island of the Pacific, where this state of things exists, it must be difficult, one would think, for the lady to keep her various lords and masters in good humour and prevent ugly collisions. If so, there is a lesson which the experienced woman of the world would do well to learn from her savage sister. A single-handed flirtation is a simple matter, but it is not so easy to drive a harmonious team of adorers. Worshippers at the same shrine in the temple of fashion are apt to hate each other cordially. Each is dis

Sec

gusted to find the ground continually pre- one who flirts deliberately and dangeroccupied by the other. When you come ously, there are ten who flirt because they in prepared to talk soft nonsense and look see or hear that it is the fashion to flirt. unutterable things, it is provoking to find Even wives who have graduated in a very that you have been forestalled in the phi- different school, sprung of houses that have landering business. You either stay to long been reputed models of decorum, and glare defiance at the enemy, or you march endowed with every charm of person and off in dudgeon. A plurality of adorers manner, are not ashamed to stoop to the must cause the fair object of their common folly of the hour. "Lud, Sir Peter, would regards to pass many anxious moments. you have me be out of the fashion?" is still Suppose her to have caught in her meshes the remonstrauce of our modern Lady an eldest son, a blustering officer, and a Teazles. When the present fashion of frivclfashionable clerk. It must require exqui- ity has passed away, there will be a reaction, site finesse to maintain them in a semi-do- and perhaps a cold fit of piety may sucmestic state, and prevent them from enga- ceed, which will send them once more to ging in a triangular duel. It is very much dress churches or disseminate tracts. like giving three irritable and unfriendly ondly, it is matter for congratulation that, tom-cats the run of your house. At every as more indiscretions are due to impulse corner they put up their backs and spit at than to circulation, sentiment should have each other. If the three adorers could so completely fled the female bosom. divest themselves of sentiment, and realize Transcendentalism is dead; passion is exthe fact that they are brought together to tinct; the study of Rousseau has given way swell the triumph of a frivolous woman, to the study of the share-list. A cold clear things would go on much more smoothly eye to self-interest may be painful evidence and pleasantly. They would perceive that, of the extent to which woman is infected in ministering to her vanity or love of by the materialism of the times, but it is a pleasure, each has a separate function, and wonderful safeguard against mistakes. Far that, as long as each keeps within its limits, the most objectionable feature connected there need be no collision. The eldest son with the fashionable theory of marriage apwould understand that he was retained for pears to us to be the open recognition ornament, and for the amiable purpose of which society accords to it. If a young wife inflaming the dowager's envy. The gallant likes to have two or three handsome young captain, who has partially succeeded in men constantly dangling after her, and her toning down his military swagger to the husband is a consenting party to the arrangelevel of drawing-room manners, would see ment, no one cares to spoil her little game. that he was retained for purposes of gen- But it should meet with frowns, instead of a eral utility, to go errands, and see lawyers, general smile of encouragement. As matand manage jobs in the City. And the ters stand, all her acquaintance are in a conspoilt child of the Circumlocution Office, as spiracy to aid and abet it. She would feel he trips, in the last new thing in coats, to aggrieved if, when she dines out or goes to his daily task of précis-writing and lunch- the Opera, a place at her side were not reeon-eating, would reflect with conscious served for the adorer; or if, through want pride that, after all, he has the best of the of tact on the part of her hostess, he were co-partnership, since upon him are thrown not included among the company at any all those tender little offices of the ball-country-house to which she pays a visit. room, such as leading cotillions, retailing tittle-tattle, and calling carriages, which have a special tendency to endear a man to the fair sex.

Those who view woman as a delicate index of the surrounding moral atmosphere will be disposed to draw, from the increased giddiness of young married women, unfavorable conclusions as to the present state of society. Yet one or two considerations may be suggested as tending to allay alarm. And, first, it would be a mistake to attach too much importance to what is, after all, a prevalent fashion of the day, like crinoline, or table-turning, or amateur theatricals. Woman is eminently gregarious. For

Of all the social phenomena of the day, the indulgence shown to the flirtations of married women is calculated to inspire most alarm. A semi-detached husband may or may not be an evil, but at least society should have the good taste to consider it one.

POEM RECITED BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN. I HAVE been urged by several friends to send you the enclosed poem written down by myself from Mr. Lincoln's lips, and although it may not be new to all of your readers, the events of the last week give it now a peculiar interest.