MESMERISM.

А РОЕМ.

IN THREE FITS.

"He comes! he comes! good Lord defend us!

With magic rites and things tremendous."

"Terrible Tractoration."-FESSENDEN.

"Last night we saw!"

"Lord! what?"

"A comet !"

"Heaven preserve and keep us from it!"

"Three Old Women Weatherwise."-SAVILLE CAREY.

Geo. Colman, the Younger.

PROEM.

EACH age has epidemic fits
When public bodies lose their wits,
Which dying out but disappear
To be revived another year;
Men.rush together on to battle,

Or fly, like herds of frightened cattle;
When dupes are led by rogues' pretences,
And fancy fools the sober senses;
When wild Imaginations seize on

The terribly affrighted Reason,

Till hosts of ill-set heads are knocked,

As by electric current shocked,

As crazy as a hat that's cocked.

The mind's machine, when screws get loose,

Transforms a Solon to a goose,

And chain of truth with those who think

Is ruined by a broken link,

So that the even-balanced mind,
Like bladder fattened up by wind,
Pricked by a foolish pin of doubt
Lets Folly in and Judgment out.

Thus ignorance of nature's laws
Gives pretext for some hidden cause,
And makes a mystery dread and serious
Of matters not at all mysterious;
Divining causes for effects

As parsons' sermons torture texts,
And thus create for every sense

A cause to fit the consequence.

'Twas thus the Frenchman, who was told
His facts and theory would not hold,
Replied, I know the theory acts,

The fault is only with the facts.
Hail! Mesmerism! Protean sprite,
Thou ignis fatuus of the night,

That in the world's dark places blazeth
And e'en the mid-day sun amazeth--
Thou zigzag spirit of all ages,
Astounding gulls, perplexing sages,

Thou wandering light from clime to clime,
Seen here and there by Father Time,
Playing thy pranks, which fright and please,
Through years which number centuries—
Most charming child of superstition!
O'er all the earth extends thy mission,

Oft killed-oft in thy tricks detected,

But Anteus-like still resurrected,

Alive as ever, and still fatter,

"Mid crush of worlds and wreck of matter."

From those that on thee marches steal

Thou 'scapst their fingers like an eel,

And changest on the painter's easel
From like a camel to a weasel;
From that, with nimble flirt of tail,
To something "very like a whale,"
Now tall as Ossa heap'd on Pelion,
Now small as mutable chameleon,
About whose tint the travellers had
Almost a fight, they were so mad,
Thou hast more hues than it, or prism,
Bright many-sided Mesmerism !
Thou great Uncaught! defying still
Pursuit of science, Wisdom's skill,

And sagely manifesting best

When lynx-eyed Reason's snug at rest,

Hear, slippery, undetected Spirit

A wondrous tale! I pray you hear it !—