ty years ago and more, when the great anatomist, Tiedemann,
was in London, he paid a visit to De Ville's Phrenological Museum. I
saw him as he entered the place. He was erect and tall, with an air
somewhat stately, yet perfectly unassuming. His head was not so
remarkable for great size as for its fine symmetry, and the organs of
the moral and intellectual portions of it were in a rare degree
harmoniously blended. It was the characteristic head of a curious,
indefatigable, conscientious inquirer into the _arcana_ of physical
things--one who was not given to indulge in unprofitable, visionary
speculations. His visit to De Ville being strictly private, there was
no opportunity afforded me of hearing his remarks. But, afterwards, it
was told me by De Ville himself, that Tiedemann supposed (and in this
he resembled all other opponents of phrenology) that because he had
tested the capacity of a great many negro and European skulls, by
filling them with millet seed, and found that, on an an average, those
of the Africans were scarcely inferior in size to the skulls of
Europeans--that from that fact he thought it probable that the negro,
if placed in advantageous circumstances, ought to be capable of
exhibiting powers of mind equal to the European.

"But when the humble, self-educated follower of Gall demonstrated to
this celebrated physiologist and anatomist that the _forehead_ of the
negro is _usually_ much smaller than that of the European, and that,
moreover, its form, with few exceptions, is irregular and
ill-balanced; and when he showed that the size of the negro skull in
the basilar portion, where the organs of the affections (which we
possess in common with the lower animals) lie, was, in proportion to
the upper and anterior parts, which are the seats of the moral and
intellectual faculties, larger in the negro than in the European--when
De Ville showed, by many instances, that this is always and infallibly
the case (with the exception of the heads of criminals), Tiedemann
raised his hands and said, 'The labor of years is now, I clearly see,
of no use to me; and I must destroy many valuable things bearing upon
this theme.' Thus, by following the _true_ mode of investigating this
department of natural history, was an uneducated man, of good talents,
enabled to correct a mistake in anatomy and physiology committed by
one of the ablest anatomists that Europe has given birth to.

"For the long term of twenty-two years the