to make a mental effort, upon which his eyes became fixed and he saw objects at a great distance, reading the title and discerning the precise shape of books in public libraries, or watching absent friends engaged in unusual occupations! This state of clairvoyance, however, never lasted more than sixty seconds, nor could he ever see the same object twice--limitations of his endowment which secured for him greater credit than he would have otherwise possessed. Occasionally he would assist the effort he had to make by fixedly gazing at some shining object, such as a small flaw in a mirror or a glass. Another restraint under which he labored, and which yet increased the faith of others, consisted in this, that such sights as presented themselves spontaneously to him proved invariably to be true, while the visions which he purposely evoked were not unfrequently unfounded in fact. Among recent magicians of this class, a Parisian, Edmond, is perhaps the most generally known. He is a man without education, who leads a life of asceticism, and is said to equal the famous Lennormand in his ability to guess the future by gazing intently at certain cards. The latter, although not free from the charge of charlatanism, possessed undoubtedly the most extraordinary talent of divining the thoughts of those who came to consult her, and an almost marvelous tact in connecting the knowledge thus obtained with the events of the day. She began her career already as a young girl at a convent-school, where her playmates asked her laughing who would be the next abbess, and she mentioned an entirely unknown lady from Picardy as the one that would be appointed by the king. Contrary to all expectations the favorite candidates were put aside, and the unknown lady appointed, although eighteen months elapsed before her prophecy was fulfilled. As early as 1789 she predicted the overthrow of the French government, and during the Revolution her reputation was such that the first men of the land came to consult her. The unfortunate princess Lamballe and Mirabeau, Mme. de Staël and the king himself, all appeared in her stately apartments. Her efforts to save the queen, to whose prison she managed to obtain access, were unsuccessful; but when her aristocratic connections caused her to be imprisoned herself, even the noble and virtuous Mme. Tallien sought her society. The new dynasty, whose members were almost without exception more or less superstitious, as it is the nature of all Corsicans, consulted her frequently; the great Napoleon came to her in 1793, when he was disgusted with France, and on the point of leaving the country; he sent for her a second time in 1801 to confer with her at Malmaison, and the fair Josephine actually conceived for her a deep and lasting attachment. Afterwards, however, she became as obnoxious to the Emperor as his inveterate enemy, Mme. de Staël; she was repeatedly sent to prison because she predicted failures, as in the case