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FAREWELL, thou busy world, and may
We never meet again;

Here I can cat and sleep and pray,
And do more good in one short day,
Than he who his whole age out-wears
Upon the most conspicuous theatres,
Where nought but vanity and vice appears.
Good God! how sweet are all things here!
How beautiful the fields appear!

How cleanly do we feed and lie!
Lord! what good hours do we keep!
How quietly we sleep!

What peace, what unanimity!
How innocent from the lewd fashion,
Is all our business, all our recreation!
Oh, how happy here's our leisure!
Oh, how innocent our pleasure!
valleys! O ye mountains!
ye groves, and crystal fountains!
How I love, at liberty,

ye

By turns to come and visit ye!

Dear solitude, the soul's best friend, That man acquainted with himself dost make, And all his Maker's wonders to intend.

With thee I here converse at will,

And would be glad to do so still,

For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul awake.

How calm and quiet a delight

Is it, alone

To read, and meditate, and write,

By none offended, and offending none !
To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease;
And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease.

O my beloved nymph, fair Dove,
Princess of rivers, how I love

Upon thy flowery banks to lie,
And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a summer's beam!
And in it all thy wanton fry
Playing at liberty,

And, with my angle, upon them,
The all of treachery,

I ever learned industriously to try!

Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show,
The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po;
The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine,
Are puddle-water, all, compared with thine;
And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are
With thine, much purer, to compare;
The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine
Are both too mean,

Beloved Dove, with thee

To vie priority;

Nay, Tame and Isis, when conjoined, submit,
And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

O my beloved rocks, that rise

To awe the earth and brave the skies!
From some aspiring mountain's crown
How dearly do I love,

Giddy with pleasure, to look down ;

Aud, from the vales, to view the noble heights

above;

O my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat,
And all anxieties, my safe retreat;
What safety, privacy, what true delight,
In the artificial night

Your gloomy entrails make,
Have I taken, do I take!

How oft, when grief has made me fly,
To hide me from society

E'en of my dearest friends, have I,
In your recesses' friendly shade,
All my sorrows open laid,

And my most secret woes intrusted to your privacy!

Lord! would men let me alone,
What an over-happy one

Should I think myself to be-
Might I in this desert place,
(Which most men in discourse disgrace),
Live but undisturbed and free!
Here, in this despised recess,

Would I, maugre winter's cold,
And the summer's worst excess,
Try to live out to sixty full years old;
And, all the while,

Without an envious eye

On any thriving under Fortune's smile, Contented live, and then contented die. CHARLES, COTTON.

SEEING, UNSEEN. WHEN I was dead, my spirit turned To seek the much-frequented house I passed the door and saw my friends Feasting beneath green orange boughs; From hand to hand they pushed the wine, They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each.

I listened to their honest chat;
Said one: "To-morrow we shall be
Plodding along the featureless sands
And coasting miles and miles of sea."
Said one: "Before the turn of tide
We will achieve the eyrie-seat."
Said one: "To-morrow shall be like
To-day, but much more sweet.”

“To-morrow,” said they, strong with hope,
And dwelt upon the pleasant way;
"To-morrow," cried they, one and all,
While no one spoke of yesterday.
Then life stood full at blessed noon,
I, only I, had passed away:
"To-morrow and to-day," they cried-
I was of yesterday.

I shivered comfortless, but cast
No chill across the table-cloth;
I, all-forgotton, shivered, sad
To stay, and yet to part how loth:
I passed from the familiar room,
I, who from love had passed away,
Like the remembrance of a guest
That tarrieth but a day.

CHRISTINA ROSETTI

From The North British Review.

1. Incidents in my Life. By D. D. Home.
8vo., pp. 287. London, 1863.
2. Les Habitans de l'Autre Monde, Révéla-
tions d'Outre-Tombepubliées par Camille
Flammarion. 12mo. Première Series,
pp. 108. Deuxième Series, pp. 108.
Paris, 1862, 1863.

With this object in view, we have waded ankle-deep through the quagmire of Mr. Home's autobiogaphy, threatening at every step to return to a cleaner path and a purer air, yet urged on by a sense of duty to expose to public reprobation the profane and fanatical narratives which we are called upon to believe and admire. If we have succeeded in THE world has lasted about six thousand extracting from the rubbish of the book an inyears, and its annals abound with stories of telligible notice of the manifestations, prophthe supernatural, varying in their character ecies, and miracles which it records, we shall with the people among whom they originated, have done more to establish their godless and and the individuals who believed them. False anti-Christian character than if we had dragged religions have been propagated, falling dynasties sustained, and sordid interests promoted by their agency. Miracles and lying wonders have, therefore, prevailed in every age, and under every clime,—the food of the credulous, the tools of imposture, and the moral ruin of their victims. The light of re-ple individuals who have staked their characligious truth, however, has given birth to a ter as his diciples, and testified to the truth purer faith, and the stern decisions of science of his revelations. have inaugurated a sounder philosophy. Education and knowledge have given vigor and health to the public mind, and the spiritmongers have been driven into the purlieus of "shattered nerves and depraved sensations."

them to the bar of reason and the judgmentseat of truth. In one feeling we trust our readers will share with us. Pitying the forlorn being who pretends to be the God-sent instructor and benefactor of his species, we have a still deeper sympathy with those sim

Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home, the arch-spiritualist of the age, claims, we grieve to say, that he is a Scotsman, born in Scotland, and descended from Scottish parents. We are therefore doubly anxious to know something of the lineage and upbringing of such a comThe historians of the occult sciences, and patriot; and in a Scottish journal we are the expounders of natural magic, have col- specially charged with the obligation to test lected the materials furnished by the wizards, the character of his miracles, and to expose the magicians, the necromancers, the astrol- the calumnies which he has published against ogers, and the alchemists of past ages; and every inquirer who has challenged the prothough the budget is large in size and mot-priety or the truth of his spiritual manifestaley in character, yet the "Incidents in the Life of Daniel Dunglas Home" present to us every species of offence against those acknowledged and impregnable laws by which the Almighty governs the moral and the physical world.

To attempt the analysis of such incidents, -to refute them or to ridicule them,-would be to acknowledge the weakness of human reason, and the insecurity of our common faith. The interests of truth, however, and the purity and sanctity of those cherished ties which connect the living with the dead, will be best promoted by displaying the characters and the deeds of the necromancers in their own black and bloated pages. In our desire to learn something about the founders of an upstart dynasty, or the apostles of a startling faith, we can hardly err if we follow their history of themselves, and judge of them by the principles and motives which they avow.

tions.

Mr. Home tells us that he was born near Edinburgh, in March, 1833, but he does not mention the name of the parish. Having required on his marriage to have "a certificate of birth," he received one with his name written Hume instead of Home; and "knowing this to be incorrect, he was obliged to make a journey to Scotland to have it rectified,' a rectification which could have been obtained by a quicker and less expensive process.

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When an infant, his cradle was frequently rocked as if he had been attended by a guardian spirit. At the age of four, when at Portobello, near Edinburgh, he saw in a vision the death of a little cousin at Linlithgow, and he named the persons attending the child, and mentioned the absence of her father at sea,-facts unknown at Portobello!

In 1842, when nine years of age, he was

taken to America by his aunt and her husband. We do not learn who his father was,* and why his mother parted with her delicate and spirit-guarded child; but we are told that his mother's great-uncle was Colin Urquhart, and her uncle, Mr. Mackenzie, and that she herself and both these relatives were seers, and gifted with the second sight. Where and how he was educated during the nine years he spent in Scotland does not appear. We find, however, that he was a member of "the Kirk of Scotland; " and we learn from himself, that, to the horror of his aunt, he became a Wesleyan. He subsequently became a Congregationalist, and finally, as we shall see, a Roman Catholic.

The earliest vision which he distinctly remembers was at Troy, in the State of New York. A boy, Edwin, and himself had agreed that the first of them that died should "appear to the other the third day afterwards." About a month later, when sitting up in bed, his room was filled with a brilliant light; and Edwin, then three hundred miles distant, stood at the foot of the bed in a robe of light, and with wavy ringlets, and after lifting his right arm to the heavens, and making three circles in the air, gradually melted away. Upon recovering his speech and muscular power, and ringing his bell, he exclaimed, "I have seen Edwin; he died three days ago, at this very hour,"—a fact confirmed by a letter a few day afterwards.

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bust of my mother. I saw her lips move, and again I heard the same words, Dan, twelve o'clock.' A third time she repeated this, and disappeared. I was extremely agitated, and rung the bell hastily to summon my aunt; and when she came I said, ' Aunty, mother died to-day at twelve o'clock, because I have seen her, and she told me.' My father found, on going to see her, that she had died at twelve o'clock, and without the presence of a relative to close her eyes."

66

A few months after this event, Mr. Home's commerce with the invisible world took a new form. On going to bed three loud raps struck the head of the bed, as if made by a hammer, and next morning, when at breakfast with his aunt," their ears were assailed by a perfect shower of raps all over the table.” So you've brought the devil to my house," cried the aunt; and, seizing a chair, she threw it at the supposed offender. Dreading the recurrence of these satanic sounds, the pious woman summoned to her help the three parsons in the village, Congregationalist, Baptist, and Wesleyan, to exorcise the noisy spirits. While the Baptist minister was praying for "the cessation of these visitations,” “at every mention of the holy names of God and Jesus there came gentle taps on his chair; while at every expression of a wish for God's loving mercy to be shown us and our fellowcreatures, there were loud rappings, as if joining in our heartfelt prayers.' Mr. Home says, 66 was the turning point of In the year 1850, Mr. Home's mother pre- his life," and he "resolved to place himself dicted that she would die, in "four months at God's disposal." In " carrying out this from this time," and "without a relative resolution," he says," he has suffered deeply." near to close her eyes." On the forenoon of" His honor has been called in question; his the last day of her allotted term, a telegram pride wounded; his worldly prospects blightintimated to her son that she was seriously

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*We have heard it stated, as on the authority of Mr. Home himself, that his father was a brother of the Earl of Home. His connection, real or assumed, with that noble family may be presumed from his name, Daniel Dunglas Home, Dunglas being the title of the eldest son of the Earl of Home. In Scotland we are always anxious to know the parentage and education of our distinguished countrymen ; and if Mr. Home's character as a prophet and a worker of miracles shall be established, the parish

registers of Mid-Lothian will be searched with a peculiar interest.

"" 66

This,"

ed; and he was turned out of his house and home at the age of eighteen, though still a child in body from the delicacy of his health, without a friend, and with three younger children depending on him for their support."

In spite of the prayers of the ministers, the rappings continued as before, and a new phenomenon increased the horrors of his aunt." The chairs and tables, and other pieces of furniture, moved about the room without any visible agency, and without even the contact of hands.

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away; but, to her astonishment, the table and that he was sent to say what would reonly moved in a more lively manner, as if lieve her." On entering the house, he went pleased to bear such a burden. Seeing this, she in a trance, spirit-guided, to her bedroom; was greatly incensed, and determining to stop he dissipated by a few passes her acute pain, it, she angrily placed her whole weight on the prescribed simple herbs for immediate, and table, and was actually lifted up with it bodily other herbs for continued use, and thus profrom the floor!" Bible and all! duced "the magical effect of giving her such health as she had not enjoyed for eighteen years.”

In the house of another aunt the manifestations took a new and a higher a form. Here “ Mr. H. first began to ask questions" of the spirits, and "receive intelligent replies." Appealing thus to the spirit of his mother, she replies,

"Daniel, fear not, my child; God is with you, and who shall be against you? Seek to do good: be truthful and truth-loving, and you will prosper, my child. Yours is a glorious mission-you will convince the infidel, cure the sick, and console the weeping."

The religious convictions of the aunt who adopted our medium were so opposed to these unearthly conversations, that he was commanded to leave her house; and being thrown upon the world whose infidels he was to convert, whose sick he was to heal, and whose mourners he was to comfort, his spiritual manifestations assumed different forms, and required new processes for their display. Hitherto the spirits spoke, and tables and chairs moved, spontaneously; but they became vocally dumb and mechanically feeble. They spoke only by raps following the contact of the letters of the alphabet; they required a clock to register their responses; and they moved only by the imposition of hands, and at the bidding of their guests.

Visiting Mr. Home both in a trance and a waking state, the spirit of the father of a boy called Ezra told Mr. Home that Ezra was to die in three weeks, and begs that he may visit him. The spirit wish was obeyed. Little Ezra named the person who was to carry him to his grave; and being at this time visited by a deacon of the Church, the good man expressed his dislike of such incredible manifestations. In recording this incident, Mr. Home assails the deacon as he has done all those who question his visions, as "telling untruths and misrepresentations.' The poor restless boy frequently appeared to Mr. Home, imploring him to write messages to his mother and sister, and sometimes" took possession " of the medium's hand, "and used it in writing his own autograph!”

In 1852, at Lebanon and Springfield, new phases of magic were displayed. Tables, poising themselves on two side-legs, danced and kept time correctly to several tunes sung by the company! A medium called Mr. Henry Gordon held an amicable seance with Mr. Home; but as in optics two lights sometimes produce darkness, so the two mediums neutralized each other, and the spiritual house was divided against itself. At Springfield, three gentlemen mounted a rocking and restless table, and perambulated the room in sounds of thun

"Thus thrown before the world by the mysterious working of Providence," the manifestations which Mr. Home evoked “ became public all over the New England States; "der and great guns. This feat was outdone and "he shrank from the prominent position thus given to him," and "embarked on the tempestuous sea of a public life."

Thus placed "Before the world," which is the title of his second chapter, he begins by making himself useful to it. A spirit calling himself Uncle Tilden comes to Mr. Home when in a trance, and tells him where to find certain title-deeds of land long lost and anxiously sought for. The deeds were of course found in the predicted place, and in a box of the predicted form.

On another occasion, his guardian spirits sent him on horseback to tell a gentleman, unknown to him, "that his mother was ill,

by another, in which five men, weighing in the lump eight hundred and fifty-five pounds, bestrode a table (without castors), which moved a distance of from four to eight inches. This sagacious table became light or heavy according to order; and the truth of this was experimentally tested by "weighing the end of the table with a balance."

These mechanical miracles were varied with others of an optical kind. Dark rooms shine with brilliant light; "a tremulous phosphorescence gleams over the walls; odic emanations radiate from human bodies, or shoot meteor-like through the apartment." The lady of the house mentally requires the

lights to cease" and every form is lost in | the deepest gloom."

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In another seance at Springfield we have a revelation of spiritual truth. Mr. Home had previously assured us that the spiritual forces at his command "are calculated to revolutionize the current ignorance both of philosophy and theology, as men have made them; but we have now a special doctrine established by spiritual authority. During a general conversation, Mr. Home fell into a sudden trance, exclaiming," Hanna Brittan is here." Her brother being in the room, mentally inquired how he could be assured of her pres

ence.

The suspension of the law of falling bodies was most curiously exhibited at New York in June, 1852. A perfectly smooth mahogany table, covered "with loose papers, a lead pencil, two candles, and a glass of water," was "violently moved; " and when elevated to an angle of thirty degrees, and held there, pencil, candles, water, glass, and papers, all refused to fall, "remaining as if glued on the polished surface." At the request of the company, the table suspended itself in the air; and two gentlemen, seated upon it back to back, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, were rocked backward and forward, and finally thrown on the ground, when the table" got tired of rocking them."

"Mr. Home began to exhibit signs of the deepest anguish. Rising from his seat, he In the following August, at the house of walked to and fro in the apartment, wring- Mr. Cheney, at Manchester, U. S., "Mr. ing his hands, and exhibiting a wild and Home was first lifted in the air-a manifes frantic manner. He uttered bitter lamenta- tation which frequently occurred to him both tions, exclaiming, Oh, how dark! What in England and France" On this occasion dismal clouds! What a frightful chasm! Deep down, far down!--I see the fiery flood! he was lifted a foot from the floor, palpitaHold! Stay! Save them from the pit! I'm ting from head to foot with emotions of joy in a terrible labyrinth! I see no way out! and fear.

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There's no light! How wild! gloomy! The "Again and again he was taken from the clouds roll in upon me! The darkness deep-floor; and in the third time he was carried to ens! My head is whirling! Where am I?""

Hanna Brittan "had become insane from believing in the doctrine of endless punishment so graphically depicted in the scene above described; " and the spirit of Hanna, so distracted on earth, has since informed Mr. Home, "that the burning gulf, with all its horrible imagery, existed only in the traditions of man! and in her own distracted brain."

Before leaving Springfield, Mr. Home healed many of the sick, feeling in himself their symptoms, and “ telling the seat and causes

of the disease."

At New York, in May 1853, Mr. Home figures in numerous" public and private circles." The spirit of a lady shipwrecked in the steamer Atlantic in 1849 is called up. "A violent storm" ensues. The wind roars and whistles-the waters rush-the waves break-the joints of the ship creak, and the laboring vessel rolls from side to side. Having" identified her presence by these demonstrations, the spirit delivered a homily, occupying nearly three pages, in which she moralizes and expounds the principles of spirit-rapping, "expressing the spirit idea of a hell," which, of course, is not that of holy writ.

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the lofty ceiling of the apartment, with which his hand and head came in gentle contact."

After describing this miracle, Mr. Home tells us, that when thus elevated, he feels an electrical fulness about his feet; that he is generally lifted perpendicularly, his arms becoming rigid, and drawn above his head; that when he reaches the ceiling, he is sometimes brought into the horizontal position; that he has been frequently kept suspended four or five minutes; that he has left pencilmarks on the ceiling of some house in London; and that this " elevation or levitation has happened only once" in the light of day."

In the third chapter of this marvellous work, entitled "Farther Manifestations in America," we have an account of new visions, new feats performed by dead matter, and amusing pranks played by the outlaws of the invisible world. At the Theological Institute of Newburgh, where he was boarded, Mr. Home's spirit-body was separated from his body of flesh. "He saw the whole of his nervous system, as it were composed of thousands of electrical scintillations; he also saw the body which he knew to be his lying motionless on the bed." Thus emerged from his clay, his guardian angel wafted him upwards on a purple-tinted cloud, till he saw

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