I think that even this brief and hurried account must have compelled my readers to cast from their minds all notion of the snakes being _laid in the proper places_ by the jugglers beforehand, as preparatory to a performance, as I have shown in the instances above mentioned that no such thing could have been done. And the idea of the creature’s having been previously rendered harmless, is also overturned by the circumstance of the Cobra de Capella, handled one day with impunity by Forbes, having on the following morning bitten a young woman, who died of the effects of the poison within an hour. I trust, then, that I have brought you to admit that the art of snake-charming is a _genuine_ art, whether simple or not remains to be proved when the true secret shall have been found out; and that the professors of this secret are not impostors, at least not in this particular, but at the very least as respectable characters as the rat-catchers of our native country, who, my readers are of course aware, pretend likewise to possess the secret of charming and enticing rats from any place. In my next paper I shall conclude this subject of _charming_, and endeavour to explain some of the modes by which various animals are thus seduced. H. D. R. KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE.--No. I. BOULDERS. In using the above terms, let it not be supposed that I mean to imply by the one a perfect knowledge, or a knowledge of everything, and by the other a perfect ignorance, or a total want of any knowledge. Either of such conditions of the mind is incompatible with human organization; the one, a perfect knowledge, belongs alone to an order of intelligence infinitely excelling that of man; and the other, a perfect ignorance, must be sought for in creatures so far below him as to possess no intelligence. The idiot is not without perception and knowledge, though of an imperfect and irregular kind. The dog knows its master, recognizes and obeys his voice. The horse knows and traces, after years of absence, the road he had once been accustomed to travel; and even reptiles and fishes acquire a knowledge of persons, of times, and of things; all this being independent of that range of intelligences which has been given to every creature for the preservation of its own existence, and for ensuring the continuance of its species. The terms Knowledge and Ignorance are used, then, in a comparative sense, being, according to circumstances, convertible one into the other. What, for instance, is knowledge at one time, becomes ignorance at another; and the man who seems wise to those who know less than he does, seems equally foolish to those who know more--a strong reason surely why no one, however gifted he may to himself appear, should despise his less gifted brethren. Mounted he may indeed be on a hill so high that he can discern objects in the distance which are hidden from the more humble plodders of the plain