idler of birth and fortune. He passed quickly over that period of his
life, as one of extravagance and dissipation, from which he was first
drawn by the attachment for his cousin to which his letter to Strahan
referred. Disappointed in the hopes which that affection had conceived,
and his fortune impaired, partly by some years of reckless profusion, and
partly by the pecuniary sacrifices at which he had effected his cousin's
marriage with another, he retired to Derval Court, to live there in
solitude and seclusion. On searching for some old title-deeds required
for a mortgage, he chanced upon a collection of manuscripts much
discoloured, and, in part, eaten away by moth or damp. These, on
examination, proved to be the writings of Forman. Some of them were
astrological observations and predictions; some were upon the nature of
the Cabbala; some upon the invocation of spirits and the magic of the dark
ages. All had a certain interest, for they were interspersed with
personal remarks, anecdotes of eminent actors in a very stirring time, and
were composed as Colloquies, in imitation of Erasmus,--the second person
in the dialogue being Sir Miles Derval, the patron and pupil; the first
person being Forman, the philosopher and expounder.

But along with these shadowy lucubrations were treatises of a more
uncommon and a more startling character,--discussions on various occult
laws of nature, and detailed accounts of analytical experiments. These
opened a new, and what seemed to Sir Philip a practical, field of
inquiry,--a true border-land between natural science and imaginative
speculation. Sir Philip had cultivated philosophical science at the
University; he resumed the study, and tested himself the truth of various
experiments suggested by Forman. Some, to his surprise, proved
successful, some wholly failed. These lucubrations first tempted the
writer of the memoir towards the studies in which the remainder of his
life had been consumed. But he spoke of the lucubrations themselves as