ing to note, that the effect was invariably to raise the one in the other's estimation, as if they mutually prized most the qualities of the other. Young N- had spent two days in London-the greater portion of them, I need hardly say, at my house-about a week before; and he and his fair friend had disputed rather keenly on the topic of general discussion-the predicted event of the 10th of July. If she did not repose implicit faith in the prophecy, her belief had, somehow or another, acquired a most disturbing strength. He labored hard to disabuse her of her awful apprehensions; and she as hard to overcome his obstinate incredulity. Each was a little too eager about the matter: and for the first time since they had known each other, they parted with a little coldness: yes, although he was to set off the next morning for Oxford! In short, scarcely any thing was talked of by Agnes but the coming 10th of July and if she did not anticipate the actual destruction of the globe, and the final judgment of mankind, she at least looked forward to some event, mysterious and tremendous. The eloquent, enthusiastic creature almost brought over my placid wife to her way of thinking.

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perbolical. No one, I am sure, who recollects the occurrence I am describing, will require the appeal! May I never see or hear of the like again. The sudden shock almost drove me out of my senses. I leaped from my chair with consternation; and could think of nothing, at the moment, but closing my eyes, and shutting out from my ears the stunning sound of the thunder. For a moment I stood literally stupified. On recovering myself, my first impulse was to spring to the door, and rush down stairs in search of my wife and children. I heard, on my way, the sound of shrieking proceed from the parlor in which I had left them. In a moment I had my wife folded in my arms, and my children clinging with screams round my knees. My wife had fainted. While I was endeavoring to restore her, there came a second flash of lightning, equally terrible with the first; and a second explosion of thunder, loud as one could imagine the discharge of a thousand parks of artillery directly over head. The windows, in fact the whole house, quivered with the shock. The noise helped to recover my wife from her

swoon.

After shouting till I was hoarse, and pulling the bell repeatedly and violently, one of the servants made her appearance, but in a state not far removed from that of her mistress. Both of them, however, recovered themselves in a few minutes, roused by the cries of the children. "Wait a moment, love," said I, "and I will fetch you a few reviving drops." I stepped into the back room, where I generally kept some vials of drugs, and poured out a few drops of sal-volatile. The thought then for the first time struck me, that Miss P- was not in the parlor I had just quitted. Where was she? What would she say to all this? Bless me, where is she? I thought with increasing trepidation.

To return from this long digression-which, "Kneel down, love! husband!" she gasped, however, will be presently found to have been endeavoring to drop upon her knees, "Kneel not unnecessary-after staying a few min-down-pray for us! We are undone !" utes in the parlor, I retired to my library, for the purpose, among other things, of making those entries in my Diary, from which these Passages" are taken: but the pen lay useless in my hand. With my chin resting on the palm of my left hand, I sat at my desk, lost in a reverie; my eyes fixed on the tree which grew in the yard and overshawdowed my windows. How still, how motionless was every leaf! What sultry, oppressive, unnatural repose! How it would have cheered me to hear the faintest "sough" of wind-to see the breeze sweep freshening through the|| leaves, rustling and stirring them into life! I opened my window, untied my neckerchief, and loosened my shirt collar-for I felt suffocated with the heat. I heard at length a faint pattering sound among the leaves of the tree-and presently there fell on the windowframe three or four large ominous drops of rain. After gazing upwards for a moment “Miss P―, sir! Why, I don't—Oh, or two in the gloomy aspect of the sky, I once yes," he replied, suddenly recollecting himmore settled down to writing; and was dip- self, "about five minutes ago I saw her run ping my pen into the ink-stand, when there very swift up stairs, and havn't seen her blazed about me a flash of lightning, with since, sir." "What!" I exclaimed, with such a ghastly blinding splendor, as defies all increased trepidation, "Was it about the description. It continued, I think, six or time that the first flash of lightning came?" seven seconds. It was followed at scarce an "Yes it was, sir."-"Take this into your instant's interval with a crash of thunder, as mistress, and say I'll be with her immediateif the world had been smitten out of its ly," said I, giving him what I had mixed. I sphere and was rending asunder! I hope rushed up stairs, calling out as I went,— these expressions will not be considered hy-"Agnes, Agnes, where are you?" I received

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Edward-Edward," I exclaimed to a servant who happened to pass the door of the room where I was standing, "where is Miss P——— ?”

and presently my wife and a female servant made their appearance in the room; but I was far more embarrassed than assisted by their presence. "Is she killed?" murmured the former, as she staggered towards the bed, and then clung convulsively to me—" Has the lightning struck her?"

"Agnes! Agnes! For God's sake, speak! Speak, or I shall come into your room!" No I was compelled to disengage myself from reply was made; and I thrust open the door. her grasp, and hurry her into the adjoining Heavens! Can I describe what I saw ? room, whither I called a servant to attend Within less than a yard of me stood the her; and then returned to my hapless patient. most fearful figure my eyes have ever be- But what was I to do? Medical man as I was, held. It was Agnes! She was in the atti- I never had seen a patient in such circumtude of stepping to the door, with both arms stances, and felt as ignorant on the subject, extended, as if in a menacing mood. Her as agitated. It was not epilepsy; it was not hair was partially dishevelled. Her face apoplexy, a swoon, nor any known species of seemed whiter than the white dress she hysteria. The most remarkable feature of wore. Her lips were of a livid hue. Her her case, and what enabled me to ascertain eyes, full of awful expression-of superna- the nature of her disease, was this, that if I tural lustre were fixed with a petrifying happened accidentally to alter the position of stare at me. O! language fails me utterly! her limbs, they retained, for a short time, Those eyes have never since been absent their new position. If, for instance, I moved, from me when alone! I felt as though they|| her arm, it remained for a while in the situwere blighting the life within me. I could ation in which I placed it, and gradually not breathe, much less stir. I strove to speak,|| resumed its former one. If I raised her into but could not utter a sound. My lips seemed an upright posture, she continued sitting so rigid as those I looked at. The horrors of without the support of pillows, or other asnight-mare were upon me. My eyes at sistance, as exactly as if she had heard me length closed; my head seemed turning express a wish to that effect, and assented to round; and for a moment or two I lost all my it; but the horrid vacancy of her aspect! If consciousness. I revived. There was the I elevated one eyelid for a moment, to examfrightful thing still before me; nay, close to ine the state of the eye, it was some time in me! Though I looked at her, I never once||closing, unless I drew it over myself. All thought of Agnes P. It was the tre- these circumstances, which terrified the sermendous appearance; the ineffable terror vant who stood shaking at my elbow, and gleaming from her eyes, that thus overcame muttering, "She's possessed! she's possessme. I protest I cannot conceive any thing ed! Satan has her!" convinced me that the more dreadful! Miss P. continued stand-unfortunate young lady was seized with CATing perfectly motionless, and while I was ALEPSY; that rare, mysterious affection, so gazing at her in the manner I have been fearfully blending the conditions of life and describing, a peal of thunder roused me to death; presenting (so to speak) life in the my self-possession. I stepped towards her, aspect of death, and death in that of life! I took hold of her hand, exclaiming "Agnes- felt no doubt that extreme terror, operating Agnes!" and carried her to the bed, where suddenly on a nervous system most highly I laid her down. It required some little force excited, and a vivid, active fancy, had proto press down her arms; and I drew the eye- duced the effects I saw. Doubtless the first lids over her staring eyes mechanically. terrible out-break of the thunder-storm, espeWhile in the act of doing so, a flash of light- cially the fierce splendor of that flash of ning flickered luridly over her; but her eye lightning which so alarmed myself, appaneither quivered nor blinked. She seemed rently corroborating and realizing all her to have been suddenly deprived of all sense awful apprehensions of the predicted event, and motion: in fact, nothing but her pulse- overpowered her at once, and flung her into if pulse it should be called-and faint breath- the fearful situation in which I found her: ing, showed that she lived. My eye wander- that of one ARRESTED in her terror-struck ed over her whole figure, dreading to meet flight towards the door of her chamber. But some scorching trace of lightning; but there again-the thought struck me, had she rewas nothing of the kind. What had hap-ceived any direct injury from the lightning? pened to her? Was she frightened to death? Had it blinded her? It might be so, for I I spoke to her; I called her by her name, could make no impression on the pupils of loudly; I shook her, rather violently: I might the eyes. Nothing could startle them into have acted it all to a statue. I rang the action. They seemed little more dilated chamber bell with almost frantic violence: than usual, but fixed.

I confess that, besides the other agitating of her features apparently the same as when circumstances of the moment, this extraor- I last saw her. Her eyes were closed: her dinary, this unprecedented case too much cheeks very pale, and mouth rather open, as distracted my self-possession, to enable me if she were on the point of speaking. The promptly to deal with it. I had heard and hair hung in a little disorder on each side of read of, but never before seen such a case. her face, having escaped from beneath her cap. No time, however, was to be lost. I deter- My wife sat beside her, grasping her right mined to resort at once to strong anti-spas- hand-weeping, and almost stupified; and modic treatment. I bled her from the arm the servant that was in the room when I freely, applied blisters behind the ear, im- entered, seemed so bewildered as to be worse mersed her feet, which, together with her than useless. As it was now nearly nine hands, were cold as marble, in hot water, o'clock, and getting dark, I ordered candles. and endeavored to force into her mouth a I took one of them in my hand, opened her little opium and ether. Whilst the servants eye-lids, and passed and repassed the candle were busied about her, undressing_her, and several times before her eyes, but it produced carrying my directions into effect, I stepped no apparent effect. Neither the eye-lids for a moment into the adjoining room, where blinked, nor the pupils contracted. I then I found my wife just recovering from & vio- took out my penknife, and made a thrust lent fit of hysterics. Her loud laughter, with the open blade, as though I intended to though so near me, I had not once heard, so plunge it into her eye; it seemed as if I absorbed was I with the mournful case of might have buried the blade in the socket, Miss P. After continuing with her till for the shock or resistance called forth by the she recovered sufficiently to accompany me attempt. I took her hand in mine, and found down stairs, I returned to Miss P——'s bed- it damp and cold; but when I suddenly left room. She continued exactly in the condi- it suspended, it continued so for a few motion in which I had left her. Though the ments, and only gradually resumed its former water was hot enough to parboil her tender situation. I pressed the back of the blade of feet, it produced no sensible effect on the cir- my penknife upon the flesh at the root of the culation or the state of the skin; and finding nail, (one of the tenderest parts perhaps of the a strong determination of blood towards the whole body,) but she evinced not the slightest region of the head and neck, I determined to sensation of pain. I shouted suddenly and have her cupped between the shoulders. I loudly in her ears; but with similar ill sucwent down stairs to drop a line to the apo- cess. I felt at an extremity. Completely thecary, requesting him to come immediately baffled at all points; discouraged and agitated with his cupping instruments. As I was beyond expression, I left Miss P- in the delivering the note into the hands of a serv- care of a nurse, whom I had sent for to attend ant, a man rushed up to the open door, where upon her, at the instance of my wife, and I was standing, and, breathless with haste, hastened to my study to see if my books begged my instant attendance on a patient could throw any light upon the nature of this, close by, who had just met with a severe to me, new and inscrutable disorder. After accident. Relying on the immediate arrival hunting about for some time, and finding but of Mr. the apothecary, I put on my hat little to the purpose, I prepared for bed, deand great-coat, took my umbrella, and fol- termining on the next morning to send off lowed the man who had summoned me out. for Miss P-'s mother, and Mr. NIt rained in torrents, for the storm, after from Oxford, and also to call upon my emiabout twenty minutes' intermission, burst nent friend, Dr. D, and hear what his forth again with unabated violence. The superior skill and experience might be able thunder and lightning were really awful! to suggest. In passing Miss PI stepped in to take my farewell for the evening. "Beautiful, unfortunate creature!" thought I, as I stood gazing mournfully on her, with my candle in my hand, leaning "What mystery is against the bed-post. upon thee? What awful change has come over thee?-the gloom of the grave and the I hurried home, full of agitation at the||light of life—both lying upon thee at once. scene I had just quitted, and melancholy apprehensions concerning the one to which I was returning. On reaching my lovely patient's room, I found, alas! no sensible effects produced by the very active means which had been adopted. She lay in bed, the aspect

[The new patient proved to be a noted and very profane boxer, who had in returning home dislocated his ancle. His pain and blasphemies were horrible, and during one of his imprecations a flash of lightning struck him DEAD!"]

-'s room,

Is thy mind palsied as thy body? How long is this strange state to last? How long art thou doomed to linger thus on the confines of both worlds, so that those, in either, who love thee may not claim thee! Heaven guide our thoughts to discover a remedy for thy fearful

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floor, and trampled upon it with apparent triumph! This horrid dream awoke me and haunted my waking thoughts. May I never pass such a dismal night again.

I rose from bed in the morning, feverish

sion about the mouth approaching to a smile. She had, I found, continued, throughout the night, motionless and silent as a corpse. With a profound sigh I took my seat beside her, and examined the eyes narrowly, but perceived no change in them. What was to be done? How was she to be roused from this fearful,—if not fatal lethargy?

disorder!" I could not bear to look upon her any longer; and after kissing her lips, hurried up to bed, charging the nurse to summon me the moment that any change whatever was perceptible in Miss P—. I dare say I shall be easily believed when I apprize the||and unrefreshed; and in a few minutes' time reader of the troubled night that followed hurried to Miss P's room. The mustard such a troubled day. The thunder-storm applications to the soles of the feet, together itself, coupled with the predictions of the with the blisters behind the ears, had proday, and apart from its attendant incidents duced the usual local effects without affecting that have been mentioned, was calculated to the complaint. Both her pulse and breathleave an awful and permanent impression in ing continued calm. The only change perone's mind. "If I were to live a century ceptible in the color of her countenance was hence, I could not forget it," says a distin- a slight pallor about the upper part of the guished writer. The thunder and light-cheeks; and I fancied there was an expresning were more appalling than I ever witnessed even in the West Indies, that region of storms and hurricanes. The air had been long surcharged with electricity; and I predicted, several days before hand, that we should have a storm of very unusual violence. But when with this we couple the strange prophecy that gained credit with a prodigious number of those one would have suspected to be above such things-neither more nor less than that the world was to come to an end on that very day, and the judgment of mankind to follow: I say, the conincidence of the events was not a little singular, and calculated to inspire common folks with wonder and fear. I dare say, if one could find them out, that there were instances of people being frightened out of their wits on the occasion. I own to you candidly that I, for one, felt a little squeamish, and had not a little difficulty in bolstering up my courage." I did not so much sleep as dose interruptedly for the first three or four hours after getting into bed. I, as well as my alarmed Emily, would start up occasionally, and sit listening, under the apprehension that we heard a shriek, or some other such sound, proceed from Miss P's room. The image of the blind boxer flitted in fearful forms about me, and my ears seemed to ring with his curses. It must have been, I should think, between two and three o'clock, when I dreamed that I leaped out of bed, under an impulse sudden as irresistible-slipped on my dressing grown, and hurried down stairs to the back drawing-room. On opening the door, I found the room lit up with funeral tapers, and the apparel of a dead room spread about. At the further end lay a coffin on tressels, covered with a long sheet, with the figure of an old woman sitting beside it with long streaming white hair, and her eyes, bright as lightning, directed towards me with a fiendish stare of exultation. Suddenly she rose up-pulled off the sheet that covered the coffin-pushed aside the lid-plucked out the body of Miss P- dashed it on the

While I was gazing intently on her features, I fancied that I perceived a slight muscular twitching about the nostrils. I stepped hastily down stairs, (just as a drowning man, they say, catches at a straw,) and returned with a phial of the strongest solution of ammonia, which I applied freely with a feather to the interior of the nostrils. This attempt, also, was unsuccessful as the former ones. I cannot describe the feelings with which I witnessed these repeated failures to stimulate her torpid sensibilities into action, and not knowing what to say or do, I returned to dress with feelings of unutterable despondency. While dressing, it struck me that a blister might be applied with success along the whole course of the spine. The more I thought of this expedient the more feasible it appeared:-it would be such a direct and powerful appeal to the nervous system—in all probability the very seat and source of the disorder!--I ordered one to be sent for instantly, and myself applied it, before I went down to breakfast. As soon as I had despatched the few morning patients that called, I wrote imperatively to Mr. N, at Oxford, and to Miss P's mother, entreating them by all the love they bore Agnes, to come to her instantly. I then set out for Dr. D's, whom I found just starting on his daily visits. I communicated the whole case to him. He listened with interest to my statement, and told me he had once a similar case in his own practice, which, alas! terminated fatally in spite of the most anxious and combined efforts of the elite of the faculty of London. He approved of the course I had adopted-most especially the blister on the spine; and earnestly recommended me to

resort to galvanism-if Miss P——— should|| her throat, and finding it was not swallowed, not be relieved from the fit before the evening-when he promised to call and assist in carrying into effect what he recommended. "Is it that beautiful girl I saw in your pew last Sunday, at church?" he inquired suddenly.

was compelled to desist for fear of choking her. She was, therefore, obliged to resort to other means of conveying support to her exhausted frame. The blister on the spine, and the renewed sinapisims to the feet, had failed to make any impression! Thus was every successive attempt an utter failure! The disorder continued absolutely inaccessible to the approaches of medicine. The baffled attendants could not but look at her, and lament. Could it be that Agnes was to continue in this dreadful condition till her energies sunk in death? What would become of her lover? of her mother? These considerations totally destroyed my peace of mind. I could neither think, read, eat, nor remain any where but in the chamber, where, alas! my presence was so unavailing!

Dr. D made his appearance soon after dinner; and we proceeded at once to the room where our patient lay. Though a little paler than before, her features were placid as those of chiselled marble. Notwithstanding all she had suffered, and the fearful situ

still looked very beautiful. Her cap was off, and her rich auburn hair lay negligently on each side of her, upon the pillow. Her forehead was white as alabaster. She lay with her head turned a little on one side, and her two small white hands were clasped together over her bosom. This was the nurse's ar

"We'll try it!" he replied briskly, with a confident air-"We'll try it! First, let us disturb the nervous torpor with a slight shock of galvanism, and then try the effect of your organ." I listened to the suggestion with interest, but was not quite so sanguine in my expectations as my friend appeared to be. In the whole range of disorders that affectation in which she lay at that moment, she the human frame, there is not one so extraordinary, so mysterious, so incapable of management, as that which afflicted the truly unfortunate young lady, whose case I am narrating. It has given rise to almost infinite speculation, and is admitted, I believe, on all hands to be—if I may so speak—a nosological anomaly. The medical writers of anti-rangement: for, "poor sweet young lady," quity have left evidence of the existence of this disease in their day-but given the most obscure and unsatisfactory description of it, confounding it, in many instances, with other disorders-apoplexy, epilepsy, and swooning. Celsus, according to Van Swieten, describes such patients as these in question, under the term "attoniti," which is a translation of the title I have prefixed to this paper; while in our own day, the celebrated Dr. Cullen classes it as a species of apoplexy, at the same time stating that he had never seen a genuine instance of catalepsy. He had also found, he says, those cases which were reported such, to be feigned ones. More modern science, however, distinctly recognizes the disease as one peculiar and independent; and is borne out by numerous and unquestionable cases of catalepsy, recorded by some of the most eminent members of the profession. Dr. Jebb, in particular, in the appendix to his "Select Cases of Paralysis of the Lower Extremities," relates a remarkable and affecting instance of a cataleptic patient.

On returning home from my daily roundin which my dejected air was marked by all the patients I had visited-I found no alteration whatever in Miss P. The nurse had failed in forcing even arrow-root down

she said, "I couldn't bear to see her laid straight along, with her arms close beside her, like a corpse, so I tried to make her look as much asleep as possible." The impression of beauty, however, conveyed by her symmetrical and tranquil features, was disturbed as soon as, lifting up the eyelids, we saw the fixed stare of the eyes. They were not glassy or corpse-like, but bright as those of life, with a little of the dreadful expression of epilepsy. We raised her in bed, and she, as before, sate upright, but with a blank, absent aspect, that was lamentable and unnatural. Her arms, when lifted and suspended, did not fall, but sunk down gradually. We returned her gently to her recumbent posture, and determined at once to try the effect of galvanism upon her. My machine was soon brought into the room; and when we had duly arranged matters, we directed the nurse to quit the chamber for a short time, as the effect of galvanism is generally found too startling to be witnessed by a female spectator. I wish I had not myself seen it in the case of Miss P-! Her color went and came-her eyelids and mouth started open-and she stared wildly about her with the aspect of one starting out of bed in a fright. I thought at one moment that the