greatest fervour were bald.' Upon this Dr. Spurzheim makes a remark, which, though not particularly striking either for its profoundness or novelty, was certainly never before met with, fairly imprinted in a handsome royal octavo.It is inconceivable,' says he, that the bald state of the head can produce devotion! This position he proceeds, in his usual manner, to demonstrate from experience; for, on looking about us in the world, we shall find that every bald man is not pious, and though women do not grow baid,' (wherefore then do they wear wigs?) yet many of them are pious and devout." Hence it follows, as a legitimate inference, that the bald state of the head is no evidence of piety, nor a well-covered one the slightest indication of atheism. If, indeed, it were true that baldness had a tendency to promote piety and devotion, then the preparers and venders of bears'-grease and Macassar-Oil would deserve to be prosecuted as common enemies to religion. But the fact is, as the Doctor sagely determines, that a bald head, or a hairy head, have no more to do with piety and impiety than a muslin nightcap or a Welch wig.

"Priests,' we are informed, who have chosen this state from natural propensity or vocation, and those who have become priests by the influence of external circumstances, or from various other views, present a very different degree of developement in the middle of the upper part of their heads.' The younger sons of noblemen, for instance, who enter into holy orders to obtain a genteel livelihood, have, some of them, this part of the head quite flat; while many of the poor, self-taught, or entirely untaught enthusiasts, who voluntarily sacrifice all they might honestly earn by the thimble or lapstone to become preachers, have, in the same place, an elevated cone, abruptly rising in the form of a sugar-loaf; its height from the base of the cranium falling something short of the Peak of Teneriffe.

"The special faculty of this organ is veneration in general, without determining the object to be venerated or the manner of venerating. Hence this faculty being inherent in man, all nations venerate something or other; some adore the sun, moon, and all the host of Heaven; others adore animals, reptiles, insects, idols of wood and of stone; some adore God, and some the devil. Christians venerate with their heads uncovered, Jews wear their hats while adoring, and Mahometans take off their shoes. Some sit, others prostrate themselves, and some dance at their devotions; one man sighs, another groans, and a third howls; but all these are only different ways of manifesting the existence of the same organ.

"Having established the existence of this organ, it becomes an easy matter to demonstrate the existence of a God. If God has produced any faculty,' (as he does nothing in vain,) there must be some object which that faculty may accomplish. Is it then possible, that while there is an organ of religion, God should not exist? Certainly not. Hence God exists!! An admirable proof indeed, which, taking for granted, that God created the organ, deduces his existence from the existence of that organ! Hence! ye trifling Clarke's, Locke's, Bentley's, Bayles, Woollaston's, and Paley's, who pretend to demonstrate the being and attributes' of God from necessity,' from the works of creation, or from his work carrying on in your hearts.' Surely your ghosts must blush, (if ghosts can blush at any thing,) where the departed spirits of Messrs. Gall and Spurzheim unblushingly enter the fields of Elysium," &c. &c. Lect. III. p. 74.

Our entertaining lecturer finally sums up the evidence adduced by these learned persons' versus experience, logic,

anatomy, and common sense; and ends his little book by saying,

"If Dr. Spurzheim seriously believes that this system is true; and supposes that he is able to make one sensible disinterested person believe the same; if he imagines that a revolution must take place in the science of human nature in consequence of his discoveries; that the treatment of the sick and the insane is to be regulated according to his rules; and that children may be educated on craniological principles; if he be really not in jest, but is honestly serious in proposing all this; then I have only one remark to make:-the English people have sometimes been charged with enjoying a kind of unnatural pleasure in gazing upon manners of every description; and the great anxiety which most persons, acquainted with this new science, have evinced to obtain a sight of its most strenuous advocate, generates a strong suspicion that such a charge is, indeed, but too well founded.'"

CRANIAD.

The CRANIAD is the production of a lady distinguished for her taste in the fine arts and belles lettres-being both a painter and a poet. It is short; but it is both very spirited and very humorous; and the ridicule which it casts upon the doctrines of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, is at Once pungent and polite. This subject, however, is really so ineffably absurd, as to be below the serious notice even of the satirist; and were we not desirous that posterity should have no reason to accuse the wise, as well as the simple, of this enlightened nation, of having been led astray by an ignis fatuus, we should consider the most contemptuous notice of these empirics, as conferring too great an honour on them. We blush for our country, when we observe in it, as we every day do, a host of needy impostors, whom their own land has thrust out in disgust, not only received with welcome and encouragement, but sometimes distinguished by riches and honours. If there be any person, who really believes there can be truth in the system of Gall and Spurzheim, we should look upon him as capable of any absurdity-we should not even be surprised at hearing that he had taken it into his head

"To shear his hogs, (poor fool!) and milk his bull."

For our own parts, though appearances are somewhat against our supposition, we look upon these men as rather knaves than fools; for supposing them to have been desirous of acquiring wealth and reputation among their facile contemporaries, and a never-dying fame with posterity, by putting a cheat upon a credulous world, it certainly re quired a good deal of sagacity to conjecture shrewdly,

that such a scheme as theirs would be successful. On a momentous question, an ancient philosopher exclaimed, "Si erro, libenter erro;" but here this triumphant consideration can have no place, for we cannot accede to the miscalled reasonings of the craniologist, without descending from the intellectual rank which, as part of the human species, we have hitherto flattered ourselves that we possess. Were we disposed, for once, to be as unphilosophical as the heathen sage was in that particular instance, we might declare, that we would not, if we could, make such a concession, that "fire could not melt it out of us," and that we would rather die in our specticism" at the stake." Out of these materials, however, such as they are, a very entertaining little poem has been constructed,-such a one as increases the doubts expressed in our account of the preceding article, of the genius of females being so very much inferior, as some gentlemen have politely supposed, to that of their own sex.-We must extract a few passages. A lady (a conscientious believer in the craniological doctrines) is represented as having discovered in her lover's head the organ of infanticide; and the consequences of the discovery, as depicted in the following lines, will by many people be thought much too serious to be laughed at.

"Females of old, more modest in their art,

With all their wiles, sought but to touch the heart;
In the full eye their empire pleas'd to find,
The voice assur'd them of the captive mind.
But now, Sophronia bids her lover bend
His throbbing brows ere she his suit attend;
Gall and Spurzheim extended at her side,
By them each prominence of skull is tried:
Oft had the youth found murder in her eyes,
But murder in his poll the maid descries.
Not modish killing, by polite cartel,
Of gallant foemen who in duel fell;
But murder with the deepest crimson dy'd,
Murder most foul and dark!-Infanticide.
The clustering locks her trembling fingers part,
While love and science combat in her heart.
'Alas! here swells the largest knob of all:
'Must love be sever'd, or must system fall?

Must I put trust in Cupid or Spurzheim?

'Can Gall be wrong, or was my faith a dream?
'Can I, a student, ever think to wed

'Such fatal conformation of the head,

'Or I, a woman, ever trust the lore

'Which bids me rest on tenderness no more?

Shall these huge quartos regulate my mind,
Or in thy looks shall I my system find?'

She paus'd,-when woman pauses nature pleads,—
That best lov'd legend in her law she reads,
Which form'd her sex, confiding and sincere,
Nor much to sin, save sins in love severe.

'Perish the art, and burn the books!' she cried:
The ready fire the happy lover plied.

The greedy flames the pond'rous tomes invade,
No scintillating sparks around them play'd.
Slowly they simmer with a sullen light,
No object shewing, or distinct or bright;
The fume of folly, light as gas, ascends,
While down the dross of ignorance descends,
Not yet quite cured, the learn'd Sophronia cries,
'Let's analize the ashes?' Prosper tries;-
A large deposit gratifies his care,

(Though still it seem'd that much was lost in air :)
Six parts of lead, of brass he counted ten,
Two of experience in the ways of men,
Anatomy and logic furnish'd two,

And the whole twenty stood expos'd to view.
Sophronia smil'd: Pleas'd I the ruin see,
'Prosper, of all which dar'd calumniate thee!

Be thy head round or square, thy soul is mine;

'And that soul's lodging-who shall dare define?'"

The effect of this strange system on the mind and conduct of a male practitioner, is humorously described in the story of Cerebro, some of whose whims are related in the following lines.

"Much did Cerebro then of systems dream,

First delv'd through Gall, then puzzled through Spurzheim;
Through London streets walk'd forth with map in hand,
And at each square-brow'd stranger made a stand;

Got into chat, 'bout weather, and all that,

Then humbly pray'd the stranger-move his hat!
And when beneath his grasp his skull he got,
Offer'd to tell if he were knave or not.
On his own pate with finger-tips would pore,
And took a music-master at threescore.
Then, by experience of repeated feeling,
Found in himself, a wond'rous itch for stealing;
When in his desk the pilfer'd cash was found,
He cooly said, 'Sir, feel my head all round,
'The knob of covetiveness you'll explore,
'So large, the wonder is, I took no more,
When to that strong incentive you may join,
"A mighty ideality of coin.'

Now first Cerebro felt his brain diseas'd:
One half his head was angry-t'other pleas'd.

When he compar'd it with the graphic page,
He found three-quarters of an inch of rage;
And when he felt the frenzied fancies come,
He mark'd the place exactly with his thumb;
Sent for Monro with his half-reasoning head,
But call'd the servant back ere he was sped,
Convinced no power of surgery could aid
Ailments coeval with his carcase made.
Now knew that from his birth he'd been insane,
Nor wonder'd he had toil'd so long in vain.
Found individuality a curse;

In short, he every day grew worse and worse.
Still groping round his poor moon-stricken pate,
The mad-half prone new organs to create,
Soon self-destructiveness to touch he brought,
And the next morning saw the laudanum bought.
He drank, he slept, and wak'd! we fain would say,
Where no projectors vex the tranquil day,

No system-mongers dare the brazen lie,

No quacks write books, nor simple readers buy,” &c.

ART. VIII. Tragedies, By W. SOTHEBY, Esq. 8vo. Murray. 1814.

Iran; a Tragedy, altered and adapted for Representation. By W. SOTHEBY, Esq. Murray. 1816.

Ellen; or the Confession: a Tragedy. Altered and adapted for Representation. By W. SOTHEBY, Esq. Murray.

1816.

We have, on various occasions, expressed our attachment to our national drama; nor can we but feel gratified that either of the histrionic Muses should listen with favour to the call of living genius, although the strain be characterized by zeal rather than by skill. We are inclined to regard the stage, when properly regulated, not merely as the ready recreation of vacant indolence, but as usefully contributing to moral purposes, without the ostentation of puritanical strictness. It has, indeed, lost much of its pristine excellence; but the pursuits of mankind must generally be taken in succession; and if we are prone to boast that our fate has cast us upon times, when the sun of reason has diffused its beans in every quarter, we must not complain too loudly, if our fancy be no longer courted with the genial and glowing dreams of the morning. We should almost doubt, whether an age of refinement be the best fitted for a deep study of