We returned this with the strongest expression of admiration, and requested that it might now be developed to the highest possible degree

Our friend readily consented, and shortly presented us with the result, which he informed us belonged to the Spasmodic or German School. We perused it with indescribable sensations of surprise and delight:

`The night was wildly tempestuous -- a hurricane raved through the murky forest -- furious torrents of rain lashed the groaning earth. With a headlong rush -- down a precipitous mountain gorge -- dashed a mounted horseman armed to the teeth -- his horse bounded beneath him at a mad gallop, snorting fire from its distended nostrils as it flew. The rider's knotted brows -- rolling eyeballs -- and clenched teeth -- expressed the intense agony of his mind -- weird visions loomed upon his burning brain -- while with a mad yell he poured forth the torrent of his boiling passion:

"Firebrands and daggers! hope hath fled!
To atoms dash the doubly dead!
My brain is fire -- my heart is lead!

"Her soul is flint, and what am I?
Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye.
Nothingness is my destiny!"

There was a moment's pause. Horror! his path ended in a fathomless abyss. . . . A rush -- a flash -- a crash -- all was over. Three drops of blood, two teeth, and a stirrup were all that remained to tell where the wild horseman met his doom.'

The young man was now recalled to consciousness, and shown the result of the workings of his mind; he instantly fainted away.

In the present infancy of the art we forbear from further comment on this wonderful discovery; but the mind reels as it contemplates the stupendous addition thus made to the powers of science.

Our friend concluded with various minor experiments, such as working up a passage of Wordsworth into strong, sterling poetry: the same experiment was tried on a passage of Byron, at our request, but the paper came out scorched and blistered all over by the fiery epithets thus produced.

As a concluding remark: could this art be applied (we put the question in the strictest confidence) -- could it, we ask, be applied to the speeches in Parliament? It may be but a delusion of our heated imagination, but we will still cling fondly to the idea, and hope against hope.


  By PanEris using Melati.

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