Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Lazarillo, however, did not show any immediate hurry to depart. He
lingered for a while near that edge of the platform where the two aged
ladies were seated, as though some faint vaticination of the advent of
half-a-crown still haunted his bewildered faculties. But the profligacy of
his latter conduct had effaced all memory of the liberality with which he
first dispensed his earthly treasures. His unhallowed propensity for
speldrings had exhibited itself in too glaring colours, and each lady,
while she thought of the pilfered Kirsty, clutched her reticule with a
firmer grasp, as though she deemed that the contents thereof were not
altogether safe in the vicinity of the marvellous boy. At length, finding
that delay was fruitless, Lazarillo, _alias_ Jimsy, went his way.
The phrenological organs of the remaining lads were now subjected to
similar experiments. These were, we freely admit, remarkably interesting.
One youth, being called upon to give a specimen of his imitative powers,
took off our friend Frederick Lloyd of the Theatre-Royal to the life;
whilst another treated us to a very fair personification of Edmund Glover.
Some youths in the back gallery began to whistle and scream, and the
sounds were regularly caught up and transmitted by the slumbering mimics.
A learned Pundit, who sate on the same bench with ourselves, favoured them
with a German sentence, which did certainly appear to us to be repeated
with some slight difference of accent. A Highland divinity student went
the length of asserting that the reply was conveyed in Gaelic, which, if
true, must be allowed to throw some light upon the knotty subject of the
origin of languages. Is it possible that, in the mesmeric trance, the mind
in some cases rejects as artificial fabric all the educated
conventionality of tongues, and resumes unconsciously the original and
genuine dialect of the world? We have a great mind, at some future moment
of leisure, to indite an article on the subject, and vindicate, in all its
antiquity, the speech of Ossian and of Adam.
We shall pass over several of the same class of experiments, such as the
display of Adoration, which struck us as bordering very closely upon the
limits of profanity. In justice to the operator, we ought to mention that
they were all remarkably successful. We admired the dexterity with which
two lads, under the savage influence of combativeness, punched and squared
at each other; we were pleased with the musical talents of another boy,
who varied the words, airs, and style of his singing as the fingers of the
mesmerist wandered around the several protuberances of his cranium. In
fact, we saw before us a human organ of sound, played upon with as much
ease as a mere pianoforte. After such exhibitions as these, it was
impossible to remain a sceptic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account