ecessors, her last-born and eleventh
baby lay peaceably slumbering, an infant Hercules.

Among Mrs. Harry Siddons's intimate friends and associates were the
remarkable brothers George and Andrew Combe; the former a lawyer by
profession, but known to the literary and scientific world of Europe and
America as the Apostle of Phrenology, and the author of a work entitled
"The Constitution of Man," and other writings, whose considerable merit
and value appear to me more or less impaired by the craniological theory
which he made the foundation of all his works, and which to my mind
diminished the general utility of his publications for those readers who
are not prepared to accept it as the solution of all the mysteries of
human existence.

His writings are all upon subjects of the greatest importance and
universal interest, and full of the soundest moral philosophy and the
most enlightened humanity; and their only drawback, to me, is the
phrenological element which enters so largely into his treatment of
every question. Indeed, his life was devoted to the dissemination of
this new philosophy of human nature (new, at any rate, in the precise
details which Gall, Spurzheim, and he elaborated from it), which, Combe
believed, if once generally accepted, would prove the clew to every
difficulty, and the panacea for every evil existing in modern
civilization. Political and social, religious and civil, mental and
moral government, according to him, hinged upon the study and knowledge
of the different organs of the human brain, and he labored incessantly
to elucidate and illustrate this subject, upon which he thought the
salvation of the world depended. For a number of years I enjoyed the
privilege of his friendship, and I have had innumerable opportunities of
hearing his system explained by himself; but as I was never able to get
beyond a certain point of belief in it, it was agreed on all hands that
my brain was deficient in the organ of causality, _i.e._, in the
capacity of logical reasoning, and that therefore it was not in my power
to perceive the force of his arguments or the truth of his system, even
when illustrated by his repeated demonstrations.

I am bound to say that my cousin Cecilia Combe had quite as much trouble
with her household, her lady's-maids were quite as inefficient, her
housemaids quite as careless, and her cooks quite as fiery-tempered and
unsober as those of "ordinary Christians," in spite of Mr. Combe's