all things that they knew neither themselves nor their friends." A few
years ago a man with a brain-fever was taken into St. Thomas's Hospital,
who as he grew better spoke to his attendants, but in a language they
did not understand. A Welsh milk-woman going by accident into the ward,
heard him, answered him and conversed with him. It was then found that
the patient was by birth a Welshman, but had left his native land in
his youth, forgotten his native dialect, and used English for the last
thirty years. Yet, in consequence of this fever he had now forgotten the
English tongue, and suddenly recovered the Welsh.

Boerhaave, however, gives a still more extraordinary instance of
oblivion in the case of a Spanish tragic author who had composed many
excellent pieces, but so completely lost his memory in consequence of
an acute fever, that he forgot not only the languages he had formerly
learnt, but even the alphabet; and was hence under the necessity of
beginning to read again. His own poems and compositions were shown
to him, but he could not he persuaded that they were his production.
Afterwards, however, he began once more to compose verses; which had so
striking a resemblance to his former writings that he at length became
convinced of his being the author of them.--_From the Doctor._

* * * * *


READING COINS IN THE DARK.

(_From Sir David Brewster's Letters on Natural Magic_.)


Among the numerous experiments with which science astonishes and