Common into Buckinghamshire, to West Wycombe, not in Shakspeare's time deformed by a church so unsightly and in such vile taste, with its "hypethral mausoleum," which looks rather like an overgrown pound. And so to High or Chipping Wycombe, called also by Harrison, as we have seen, East Wycombe, whose most interesting feature is its large and handsome church, with its fine Perpendicular tower. (iv) From High Wycombe to London, 29 miles.-The road runs alongside of the Wick till, when a mile beyond Loudwater, that streamlet turns south towards the Thames; and then makes for Beaconsfield, to be made famous in after days by the residence of Waller (at Hall Barns) and Burke (at Gregory's, or Butler's Court, as he named it). The church lies close by the wayside, and might well attract the traveller's notice. And now on by a gentle descent, passing on the right of Bulstrode Park, with its old earthwork and legend of Saxcn daring, and then across the common by Gerard's or Jarrett's Cross. And so crossing the Colne into Middlesex, to Uxbridge, in whose main street still stand many houses that, to judge from their appearance and style, were there when Shakspeare passed through. The place has long outshone its mother village. "Though," says a writer in 1761, "it is entirely independent, and is governed by two bailiffs, two constables, and four headboroughs, it is only a hamlet to Great Hillington" [sic]. The road would now, no doubt, begin to give evidence of the proximity of the metropolis in an increasing number of passengers. The attractive force of the great centre would be more manifestly shown, and Shakspeare would see a striking illustration of one of his own similes : As many arrows, loosed several ways, Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial's centre; So may a thousand actions, once afoot, End in one purpose, and be all well borne From Hillingdon Hill, with Harrow on his left and Windsor in the distance on his right, he would look down on the champaign in which London lies. And then, now on the very threshold of his Promised Land, across Hillingdon Heath, and through Northcote, near Southall; over Hanwell Common, through Ealing Dean to Acton, by Kensington Gravel Pits, through Tyburn, all along Oxford Street as far as High Street, when, following the old line, he would turn off by St. Giles'-inthe-Fields (then really so), and proceed along Broad Street, and so along Holborn, houses now beginning to multiply around him, and so, at last, into LONDON. J. W. HALES. * London and its Environs, &c., 6 vols. Printed for R. and J. Dodsley. 1761. "Out of the mouth of babes." My little niece and I-I read My Plato in my easy chair: We worked in silence, but, alas! Among the cards a mighty spill. And then the little ape exclaimed, "Well! Such is life! Look, Uncle Will ! I gave a start and dropped my book It was the Phædo I had read A sympathetic current thrilled, Like lightning, through my heart and head. I eyed with curious awe the child, The unconscious Sibyl, where she sat, Whose thoughtless tongue could babble forth Strange parables of life and fate. Yes, such is life! a Babel house, A common doom hath tumbled all, King, Queen, and Knave, and plain, and trump, A motley crew in motley fall! We rear our hopes, no Pharaoh's tomb, Nor brass could build so sure a name; But, soon or late, a sad collapse, And great the ruin of the same. Ab such is life! Oh, sad and strange That Love and Wisdom so ordain! Some ere the Builder's hands have yet One card against another lain; Some when the house is tiny still; Or should you win the topmost stage, "But I can build it up again." My height of awe was reached. Can babes Behold what reason scans in vain ? Ah, childhood is divine, I thought,— Yes, Lizzie, build it up again! F. E. T. Dual Consciousness. RATHER more than two years ago we considered in these pages the theory originally propounded by Sir Henry Holland, but then recently advocated by Dr. Brown-Sequard, of New York, that we have two brains, each perfectly sufficient for the full performance of mental functions. We did not for our own part either advocate or oppose that theory, but simply considered the facts which had been urged in support of it, or which then occurred to us as bearing upon it, whether for or against. We showed, however, that some classes of phenomena which had been quoted in support of the theory seemed in reality opposed to it when all the circumstances were considered. For example, Brown-Sequard had referred to some of those well-known cases in which during severe illness a language forgotten in the patient's ordinary condition had been recalled, the recollection of the language enduring only while the illness lasted. We pointed to a case in which there had not been two mental conditions only, as indicated by the language of the patient, but three; the person in question having in the beginning of his illness spoken English only, in the middle of his illness French only, and on the day of his death Italian only (the language of his childhood). The interpretation of that case, and of others of a similar kind, must, we remarked, be very different from that which Brown-Sequard assigned, perhaps correctly, "to cases of twofold mental life." A case of the last-named kind has recently been discussed in scientific circles, which appears to us to bear very forcibly on the question whether Holland's theory of a dual brain is correct. We propose briefly to describe and examine this case, and some others belonging to the same class, two of which were touched upon in our former essay, but slightly only, as forming but a small part of the evidence dealt with by Brown-Sequard, whose arguments we were then considering. We wish now to deal, not with the question of the duality of the brain, but with the more general question of dual or intermittent consciousness. Among the cases dealt with by Brown-Sequard was that of a boy at Notting Hill, who had two mental lives. Neither life presented anything specially remarkable in itself. The boy was a well-mannered lad in his abnormal as well as in his normal condition, or one might almost say (as will appear more clearly after other cases have been considered) that the two boys were quiet and well-behaved. But the two mental lives were entirely distinct. In his normal condition the boy remembered * See the Cornhill Magazine for September, 1874. nothing which had happened in his abnormal condition; and vice versa, in his abnormal condition he remembered nothing which had happened in his normal condition. He changed from either condition to the other in the same manner. "The head was seen to fall suddenly, and his eyes closed, but he remained erect if standing at the time, or if sitting he remained in that position (if talking, he stopped for a while, and if moving, he stopped moving); and after a minute or two his head rose, he started up, opened his eyes, and was wide awake again." While the head was drooped, he appeared as if either sleeping or falling asleep. He remained in the abnormal state for a period which varied between one hour and three hours; it appears that every day, or nearly every day, he fell once into his abnormal condition. This case need not detain us long; but there are some points in it which deserve more attention than they seem to have received from Dr. Brown Sequard. It is clear that if the normal and abnormal mental lives of this boy had been entirely distinct, then in the abnormal condition he would have been ignorant and-in those points in which manners depend on training-ill-mannered. He would have known only, in this condition, what he had learned in this condition; and as only about a tenth part of his life was passed in the abnormal condition, and presumably that portion of his life not usually selected as a suitable time for teaching him, the abnormal boy would of necessity be much more backward in all things which the young are taught than the normal boy. As nothing of this kind was noted, it would appear probable that the boy's earlier years were common to both lives, and that his unconsciousness of his ordinary life during the abnormal condition extended only to those parts of his ordinary life which had passed since these seizures had begun. Unfortunately Brown-Sequard's account does not mention when this had happened. It does not appear that the dual brain theory is required so far as this case is concerned. The phenomena seem rather to suggest a peculiarity in the circulation of the brain corresponding in some degree to the condition probably prevailing during somnambulism or hypnotism, though with characteristic differences. It may at least be said that no more valid reason exists for regarding this boy's case as illustrating the distinctive duality of the brain than for so regarding some of the more remarkable cases of somnambulism; for though these differ in certain respects from the boy's case, they resemble it in the circumstances on which Brown-Sequard's argument is founded. Speaking generally of hypnotism,—that is, of somnambulism artificially produced,-Dr. Carpenter says, "In hypnotism, as in ordinary somnambulism, no remembrance whatever is preserved, in the waking state, of anything that may have occurred during its continuance; although the previous train of thought may be taken up and continued uninterruptedly on the next occasion when hypnotism is induced." In these respects, the phenomena of hypnotism precisely resemble those of dual consciousness as observed in |