CARLTON'S EARLY YEARS AND LATE REFLECTIONS. * CouLD we have foreseen

that one of the first fruits of the renewed activity of " the Row," slight though it is, would have been the readine. of Dr. Canyon's volume, we should have been well con- tent with the torpidity which seemed so irksome. The two preced- ing volumes of Early Years and Late Reflections we do not re- member to have seen ; but from the specimen before us we are dis- posed to believe that we have now succeeded in making acquaintance witi-the-greatest twaddler left upon the earth since the first sod was turned for the first railway. We have examples in this volume of many kinds of twaddle ; twaddle biographical, in the shape of a memoir of Henry, Martyn, which tells us no one new fact about that eminent apostle of Christianity, and is simply a very diffuse and washy compilation from his and Bishop Heber's memoirs, stlinterspersed with reflections of Dr. Carlyon's own, characterized ..by an amiable spirit of general benevolence, but utterly wanting in those qualities which entitle reflections to the honour of print and publication ; twaddle scientifico-religious, under the form of deathbed scenes and speculations about dreams ; ditto scientifico- theological, in a violent assault upon Sir David Brewster for his belief that the planets are inhabited by intellectual beings, and his fancy that the habitation of human beings after this life will • Early Tears and Late Reflections. By Clement Carlyon, M.D., late_Felletc of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Volume III. Published by Whittaker and Co.

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be among the stars ; ditto upon Professor Baden Powell, for his views of physical science in general, and inparticular for his ad- hesion to the theory of development in preference to that of suc- cessive creative interpositions. If we were asked to define and illustrate twaddle of these various kinds, we should say it con- sisted in a flood of irrelevant talk, poured forth without the faintest consciousness of what constitutes the essential facts of a case or the essential force of an argument ; and we should not seek a richer illustration of the definition than Dr. Canyon's treatment of each and every subject that is unfortunate enough to fall under his goose-quill. Our principal reason for giving more space in our columns to the notice of this book than suffices to inform our readers that it is not worth their perusal, is to ex- hibit the sort of stuff that passes for oracular in respectable circles in England. For Dr. Canyon is a physician in some part of Cornwall, and writes himself late Fellow of a College in Cam- bridge, and appears to have known Coleridge and many of the more distinguished men of the earlier part of this century. He is moreover an octogenarian ; he has travelled, has seen life in a variety of conditions, and is evidently a man. of general ouriositv, and not deficient in range of scholarship, or at least of reading. Nor do we know any condition of circumstances more advan- tageous for the intellect and philosophical culture than those in which an English physician, who has undergone a preliminary training in the exact sciences, is placed. There is, on the other hand, a temptation for such a person to twaddle, if he possess a natural proneness that way ; for he has to deal with persons whose minds are enfeebled by bodily suffering, and to whom fluent talk is often the only article of value they get in exchange for the fee. Unfortunately, Dr. Carlyon has fallen into the tempt- ation to an abnormal degree, and he now gives the public the benefit.

One long chapter of Dr. Canyon's volume is devoted to death- bed scenes ; a subject on the moral and physiological phenomena of which a physician might be expected to throw some light, to note some new or confirm some old. facts. Dr. Carlyon's object in treating the subject is, he says, " to attempt to draw from the experience of a long professional life the useful and consolatory lesson that death is a king of terrors to the ungodly only." His ofessional life must indeed have been long, if nine out of ten of his examples had fallen within 'it ; for they read by his index as follows—" Lewis' Cornaro, Sir Walter Raleigh, Cardinal Wol- sey, Hooker, Izaac Walton, John Wesley, Elizabeth Fry, Sir Edward Pellew, Lord Exmouth, John and Henry Shears, _Robert Emmett, Curran Earl of Argyll* Anna Ballen, Lady Jane Grey, Guilford Dudley, Charlotte Newman, Mary Ann James (Nesegate convicts,) Harriet Skelton, (ditto,) Woodman, (ditto,) Sir J. Mackintosh, Admiral Lord Duncan."

Among his heteromeneous list of cases,—presenting for the most part no characteristic fact except that persons of various temper- ament, dying under various circumstances, exhibit a variety of emotion, that seems, as far as we can judge, to have less relation to what Dr. Canyon means by godliness to almost any other quality or circumstance of life or death,—there occur two or three cases that are drawn from his own professional experience. One is of an " old eountay surgeon and apothecary, who," says our Doctor, " was glaringly devoid of many of the most prominent and characteristic Christian virtues ; yet he used to boast that when he lay down at night it was a matter of indifference to him whether he awoke again in this world or not, being sure that whenever he died he_should go to heaven;and I never heard that he was shaken in this opinion." An ordinary reasoner would cite this fact.as .proving that death had no terrors for ,the un- godly. But " exceptio probat regulam," so let us proceed to the next case, which is that of a " young, lovely, and interesting woman," whose medical attendants found her dying suddenly of an affection of the heart. It fell to Dr. Canyon's lot to an- nounce to the patient the awful fact that she had not many hours to live. The Doctor describes her to have been of exemplary cha- racter, and as one taken by surprise rather than as unprepared to die—" as one who could take refuge under her merciful Saviour's wings." What would the reader expect in this case ?—of course, that the young lady received the announcement with calm resignation. On the contrary, the narrative begins with " I never shall forget the consternation which I once wit- nessed in a young, lovely," &c. A third case is cited, of a farmer finding himself suddenly smitten with death, and having only time to make his will, which he did with perfect composure. Upon this case the Doctor writes, " There was really no opportunity of ascertaining the religious condition of this man." We believe there is only one other case drawn from Dr. Canyon's own experience, and that is a case of a man dying after and through a course of hard drinking. The one fact in this case bearing upon the question is that the dying man " attempted earnestly to pray." We doubt whether any man ever more com- pletely failed to make out a plausible case than Dr. Carlyon has failed to establish his doctrine that death is a terror only to the ungodly. Not that we in the least doubt that the serenity of a deathbed is, meteris paribus, and when the patient's mind is not affected seriously by bodily suffering, ordinarily proportionate to the consciousness of a well-spent life and the conviction of a life to come ; but if our belief depended on Dr. Canyon's facts, we should certainly conclude rather the other way. And we adduce his statements to show what a muddle his mind must have been in when he fancied that by his long array of unsifted anecdotes, and his mal-apropos personal experience, he was rendering a ser- vice to religion. Science of course is out of the question; for, physician though he be, there is not in the whole chapter an observation directed to the really physiological phenomena of deathbeds.

Another long chapter of the volume is devoted to the subject of dreams ; a matter of the deepest psychological interest, and on which a physician might also be supposed' to have reflected to more purpose than an ordinary layman. That we are not, how- ever, to expect much light upon it from Dr. Carlyon, becomes evident from this sentence near the opening of the chapter—" How it happens that the mind is so circumstanced as to lose its control over the operations of the brain in sleep and in disease, is a point that must be referred to the same category with other mysteries of our nature." A little farther on, we get a taste of the Doctor's general philosophy, and a measure of his apprehension of the state iof thel science with which he is particularly dealing, in the follow- ing tribute to the late Mr. Abernethy.

I have ever thduplit it .in the highest degree creditable to Mr. 4.1?ernethy, that the main strength of his argument with the materialists of file day. consists in the reasonableness of supposing, that as, by their own admission, there is a inbtiloand invisible fluid subservient to animal life, so there must ben goveining and directing spirit resembling that which con- stitutes the very being of God Himself. -He avoids availing himself of the dogmatic teaching of the Scriptures, and merely asks his opponents what reason they can assign for their disbelief of a spiritual more than of an animal nature in man, seeing that the -vital fluid is equally invisible with the mental essence. His argument is not merely unanswerable to the extent to which he carries it, but is implicated with our belief of the indispensable necessity that the machinery of the body should have a mind set over it, capable of eommunitating with the One Eternal God." We are not acquainted with Yr. Abernethy's " argument with the materialists of his day," but we are bold to say that if there be no better ground for believing in the immaterial soul of man than there is for believing in a. "vital fluid that is equally in- visible -with the mental essence," the less said for the future

about immaterial soul the better. Still, though our Doctor is plainly no master of mysteries, he might have many curious facts to tell us about dreams ; and when he announces as the result of his observation and reflection on the subject--thal

"the hints which dreams occasionally afford of a harbour of refuge for the soul beyond the turmoils of the present life, are .as clear as they are gratifying. We have communications made to us which completely subvert the axiom of the materialists—' Nihil ease in intellectu quod non hilt prius in sensu.' That the spirit of MSS, in short, is so constituted as to adffait.of

his holding communion _with the Spirit of God,. is a doctrine alikeimprn ted by the authority of inspired penmen, by the arguments of the soundest metaphysicians, and by what we can collect from-our own unsophisticated ratiocination and reflections "—

—we naturally look out for some interesting experiences. But here again, unfortunately, Dr. Carlyon seems utterly unable to perceive how facts bear upon conclusions ; and consequently, he supplies a series of instances of dreams which it seems to us very " irreverent reverence " to attribute to " the communion of 'the human soul with the Spirit of God." Indeed, he does not pretend that the majority of dreams are anything but direct results of the state of the brain, and indirect results of the general health, though, with his usual felicity in avoiding the point of interest in any subject, he makes no attempt to show in what the peculiarity of dreaming, as a physiological phenomenon, consists, nor what determines the specific varieties of dreams. But it is in the dreams specially cited as independent of bodily influences that his marvellous capacity for twaddle manifests itself. Thus, the sen- sations attendant upon drowning, as recorded by persons who have been recovered from that state, are cited as a phenomenon analogous to those dreams which are supposed to be independent opodily influences. It is known that one peculiarity of those ons is, that a vast train of thought passes through the 14400_, and a long series of years sweeps over the memory, -16.,the short space of time during- which external conscious- ness is suspended. Orclinary,inductive philosophy would argue from this that some abnormal condition of brain was at work in the prediction of the corresponding kind of dream ; for surely in drowning the brain is in an abnormal condition, and to call the phenomena of consciousness attendant upon asphyxia by drowning spontaneous in the sense of being independent of the conditions of the animal organization, and particularly of the brain, is to use words without meaning, or rather with a meaning as perverse as possible. Yet, adds Dr. Carlyon in commenting on these phenomena, " it is difficult, either phrenologically or meta- physically, to connect them with the brain as the proximate ex- citing cause." That is—to reduce this assertion to an exact form the state of the consciousness being usually dependent on the state of the brain, a tremendous shock is given to the brain, and a vast change takes place concurrently in the state of the con- sciousness ; yet the latter change is not to be connected with the former. We have no particular admiration for phrenology or metaphysics, but we do not believe either so absurd as to reject in this case the simple induction of common sense. Let us see, however, what kind of dreams the Doctor selects as beyond the explanation of brain-disturbance, and as supernatural in their character. He begins, not with a dream, but with a pre- sentiment. He says— "The final cause of a dream, or presentiment, is not often apparent, yet it is so often enough to show that we are capable of thus receiving impree- dons which can scarcely be defined otherwise than as spiritual. I may men- tion the following as a well-authenticated ease, although I have not the de- tails before me. When Sir Evan Nepean was officially connected with the - Home Office as a Secretary, somersons under sentence of death were un- - expectedly reprieved, and an orderpe to that effect was made out to be for- warded instantly to the place of execution. On the following night, Sir Evan was unable to sleep, and was induced to leave his bed and take a walk in the Park in the hope of getting to sleep on his return. While up, he was led to go into his office ; and there, to his great consternation, ho saw the re- prieve lying on the table. He immediately-took the necessary measures, and by great exertion managed to get it to the county-town just in time." .

—In what possible sense can this incident be treated as a pre- dictive presentiment ? It does not appear that Sir Evan Nepean had any presentiment at all, but went by what must be called pure accident into his office, and when there found that the reprieve had not been sent. It might as well be called a predictive presenti- ment if a man took a walk by the river-side and there happened to help a person who would otherwise ha' e been drowned. Un- doubtedly, there are presentiments of mysterious coincidence with after occurrences, but this is not one.

With the two following cases we leave the subject of dreams, predictive or otherwise—not much wiser, we confess, than before we read Dr. Carlyon's experiences.

"The following are instances of dreams of a predictive character, where the final cause was by no means discernible ; and all I can vouch for is their accuracy, they having occurred to myself. Upon one occasion I witnessed in a dream a very fearful, or rather, I ought to say., a mostglmstly sight,— that of a corpse frightfully disfigured by decomposition, which, some months afterwards, was repeated in a far more fearful reality. "What occurred to me on another occasion I ern far more inclined to speak of, as the circumstances connected with the dream relate to the decease of a gentleman to whose memory I recur with feelings of gratitude for very many acts of personal kindness, and the testimony of a long life which I am happy to hear to that benevolence and -integrity which characterized him equally in public and in private. It was many months prior to the sudden death of the late Kr. Tremayne, that I saw in a dream a funeral cortege winding its way up the new road from the St. Austell valley, and gradually appro'aching the mansion at_Heligan. I seemed to be looking out for it, and awaiting its arrival ; and on its near approach, I hastened into the house to announce-it. I recollect nothing further. What mean such dreams as these, so myiteil- ously blending the present with that which is about to happen ? Arc they glimpses of that eternal condition when the future and the past will be alike present ?"

Can human folly go farther ? A physician in the daily or at least -the familiar habit of witnessing death in all its various forms, and who must at one time of his life have -seen daily corpses and such like " ghastly sights," dreams on two occasions of death, and-some months afterwards he sees in reality a decom- posed corpse, and his friend dies suddenly. Why, Macedon and Monmouth" are nothing to this, and Fluellen was a sounder philosopher than Dr. Carlyon. If the ordinary principle of ease- , ciation is not enough to account for such " predictive dreams " as these, it ought to be banished ffir ever from our philosophy.

have only to add, that the rest of "Dr. Carlyon's specula- tions and experiences resemble those we have given.