the question, they brought forward a pure boy-child, or a pregnant woman,
who, gazing intently on the glass, and searching it with their eyes,
called for, and demanded, a solution of the question proposed. The devil
then answered these inquiries by certain images, which, by a kind of
refraction, shone from the water on the polished and mirror-like surface
of the phial."

_Catoptromancy_, or divination by the mirror, is as old as the time of the
Roman Emperors. In one of the passages relating to this method of inducing
what is called clairvoyance, we have an illustration of the early
acquaintance of mankind with some of the forms of mesmerism. The passage
is found in Spartian's life of Ditius Julian, the rich Roman who purchased
the Empire when it was put up to auction by the Praetorian guards. "Julian
was also addicted to the madness of consulting magicians, through whom he
hoped either to appease the indignation of the people, or to control the
violence of the soldiery. For they immolated certain victims (human?) not
agreeable to the course of Roman sacrifice; and they performed certain
profane incantations; and those things, too, which are done at the mirror,
in which boys with their eyes blindfolded are said, by means of
incantations, to see objects with the top of the head, Julian had recourse
to. And the boy is said to have seen (in the mirror) both the approach of
Severus and the death of Julian."

The passage may be variously rendered, according to different readings and
punctuations, either as "boys, who can see with their eyes blindfolded, by
reason of incantations made over the top of the head;" or, "boys, who,
having their eyes blindfolded, can see with the top of the head, by reason
of incantations;" or, "boys, who, having their eyes blindfolded, can see
with the top of the head, it being operated on by way of incantation."
This seeing, or seeming to see, with the top of the head, is one alleged
variety of the modes of modern clairvoyance. It seems difficult to imagine
that the boy Horner, whose case is related by Mr. Topham, in a letter to
Dr. Elliotson, dated May 31, 1847, could have heard any thing of these
pagan practices. Mr. Topham, a barrister and man of credit, states: "After
five or six weeks' mesmerism, he began spontaneously to exhibit instances
of clairvoyance. The first occasion was on the 11th of September. It was
in the dusk of the evening, so that the room where he was mesmerised was
nearly