ocial matters, unsophisticated sage!
Weak Superstition dead; knocked safely on the head,
Long since buried deeper than the bed of the Red Sea,
Did you not fondly fancy? Did you think that necromancy
Practised now at the expense of any fool could be?

Oh, MR. FARADAY, simple MR. FARADAY!
Persons not uneducated--very highly dressed
Fine folks as peer and peeress, go and fee a Yankee seeress,
To evoke their dead relations' Spirits from their rest.
Also seek cunning men, feigning, by mesmeric ken,
Missing property to trace and indicate the thief,
Cure ailments, give predictions: all of these enormous fictions
Are, among our higher classes, matters of belief.

Oh, MR. FARADAY, simple MR. FARADAY!
Past, you probably supposed the days of DR. DEE,
Up turned his Crystal, though, but a little while ago,
Full of magic visions for genteel small boys to see.
Talk of gentility! see what gullibility
Fashionable dupes of homoeopathy betray,
Who smallest globules cram with the very biggest flam,
Swallowing both together in the most prodigious way.

Oh, MR. FARADAY, simple MR. FARADAY!
Men of learning, who, at least, should better know, you'd think,
Credit a pack of odd tales of images that nod,
Openly profess belief that certain pictures wink,
That saints have sailed on cloaks, and without the slightest hoax,
In the dark, by miracle, not like stale fish, did shine,
Nor phosphorus, that slowly, might, in personages holy--
As in others, possibly, with oxygen combine.

Oh, MR. FARADAY, simple MR. FARADAY!
Guided by the steady light which mighty Bacon lit,
You naturally stare, seeing that so many are
Following whither fraudulent Jack-with-the-Lanterns flit.
Of scientific lore, though you have an ample store,
Gotten by experiments, in one respect you lack;
Society's weak side, whereupon you none have tried,
Being all Philosopher and nothing of a Quack.

* * * * *

A PHRENOLOGICAL PUZZLE.

We are continually hearing of some individual or other who is remarkable
for what is called an "Enlarged Benevolence." We wish MR. DONOVAN would
explain to us the meaning of this phrase, for though we sometimes hear
of an enlargement of the heart, or of a newspaper having been
"permanently enlarged," we are puzzled to understand how there can be an
enlargement of an individual's benevolence.

*