In my last paper I endeavoured to furnish my readers with a description of serpent-charming, as at present practised by the jugglers of Egypt, Arabia, and India. I now come to a review of the opinions maintained respecting this mysterious art, and the secret on which it depends, by some of the most eminent philosophers who have turned their attention to the subject. These opinions are as various as they are numerous, no two individuals who have written upon the practice agreeing in any one particular, save only their determination to regard the whole affair as an imposture--the snake-charmers as clever and designing cheats, and all who believed in the reality of their performances, as silly dupes. I shall merely advert to some of the most striking of these suppositions, and then proceed to an investigation of their merits, ere advancing my own theory on the subject. Many travellers who have written on the practice of serpent-charming have declared it as their conviction that the process is based in deception, that is, that the serpents charmed forth from holes are by no means wild creatures, who really and naturally inhabit those recesses, but animals which have been previously tamed, their poisonous fangs extracted, and placed there by the juggler or an accomplice, in order to the performance of his pretended miracle. Amongst the most prominent of these objectors are to be found the Abbé Dubois and the traveller Denon; and the latter author even goes so far as to affirm that the secret of the Psylli was a piece of nonsense that he might easily have discovered had he been so disposed. A precious traveller truly! to have had it in his power to discover a secret that a hundred naturalists would have given their very eyes to become acquainted with, and yet to neglect taking the necessary trouble. Ah, Monsieur Denon, how you do remind me of the witty fable of the fox and the sour grapes! The Abbé Dubois, though equally sceptical, does not venture to handle this mysterious subject quite so cavalierly as Denon. He says that the Psylli perform various _tricks_ with serpents, which, though apparently terrible, are not very dangerous, as they _always_ take the precaution to have the fangs previously removed, and to have with them the venomous vesicle extracted. He likewise informs us that they are _supposed_ to have the power of charming those dangerous reptiles, and of commanding them to approach and surrender themselves at the sound of music; and he quotes the passages of scripture to which I referred in my preceding article, as confirmatory of the authenticity of the practice; yet he will not admit that even this mass of evidence will convince that the charmer’s art is aught but an imposture. “Without dwelling,” says he, “on the literal accuracy of this striking passage of Holy Scripture, I may confidently affirm that the skill which the Indian _pretenders to enchantment_ claim in this particular, is rank imposture.