cies, of the affections of a young lady to whom he was attached, could not refrain from repeating, when under the influence of the prevailing powers, "This is the flower she loved so much, And this the bower she planted; Upon questioning these individuals, and others similarly situated, it is found that they are constrained, by a predilection which they cannot explain, to use a certain form of words in expressing their emotions, in preference to all others. It is true, that in some cases this choice may be determined by adventitious circumstances, or by the activity of other powers than that of language, such as Time, Tune, &c., but generally no such explanation will suffice; and the difficulty or impossibility they experience in signifying the same idea by any other series or arrangement of terms, shews clearly a deviation from health in that faculty by which artificial language is suggested to the mind. I have purposely avoided all allusion to a somewhat analogous phenomenon observed in idiots and cretins of the most degraded order, inasmuch as it is my intention to treat of the subject in a separate paper. From such individuals you frequently hear no other words than papa, mamma, or short syllables without meaning; but this limited vocabulary proceeds either from the non-existence or ineducability of the power of language, or from the destitution of those ideas which it is the office of this power to represent, and not from any departure from original sanity or strength. Nor is it here proposed to comment upon the habit which almost all lunatics acquire of thinking aloud, or addressing objects and that either do not exist or are persons not present; for there, as in cases of incoherence, it is obviously other faculties of the mind than language which have succumbed under the pressure of disease. These faculties people the loathsome cell with the loved and lost of other years; they fill the mind with a crowd of recollections; they convey false impressions, or erroneous interpretations of real impressions: but the power of language, though acting in compliance with the suggestions of disease, discharges its duty faithfully, if these are voluntarily represented in an intelligible manner, and in accordance with the laws regulating the relations of words; for incoherence consists in the want of connexion between the ideas-the things signified,-not between the different words or signs. There is, however, a modification of disease which bears nearly the same relation to the unimpaired exercise of language which incoherence does to the other powers of the mind. This constitutes the second division of the subject, and comprehends cases of impaired function and decreased activity of language. Our examples of these must be deferred till next Number. ARTICLE III. FUNERAL ORATION: DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON ASSEMBLED AT THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, NOVEMBER 17, 1832, AT THE BURIAL OF GASPAR SPURZHEIM, M. D. BY CHARLES FOLLEN, J. U. D., Professor of German Literature in Harvard University. 'IT is finished.'-These were the last words of the only Being on earth, who when he was called off from the great work assigned to him in this world, could stand before his employer and say, The work which thou gavest me to do, behold I have done it.' Many, very many, who are born into this world, though fitted for extensive usefulness, leave it without having so much as begun to understand and laid hold on the great object of existence; while the most gifted and most successful of men have to close their last account with the sad consciousness that they leave their work unfinished. At the close of life they look back on all the great undertakings in which they had engaged, with the same mournful anticipation with which a dying parent contemplates his uneducated children. Still their parting look upon life is cheered by the conviction, that although they have not finished they at least have begun to live, and left the germs of life to ripen in the minds of an improved and grateful posterity. Amidst innumerable instances of ample means and noble talents neglected and abused, it is a source of consolation and of hope to meet with an individual, who, being born to great intellectual riches, employs them, not in order to establish his own superiority over others, but rather to counteract the partiality of nature, by endeavouring to elevate the condition of his fellow-men, until his own greatness be lost in the general advancement of society. It is a source of philanthropic enthusiasm to meet with an individual who uses his superior knowledge, not to eclipse, or to dazzle, or to enslave others, but to enable and to induce all men to see the truth, that the truth may make them free. It has been our privilege lately to become acquainted with such a true friend of human freedom, and universal happiness; to have our minds called forth by his invigorating and inspiring energy; while our affections grew up around him to prepare a home for the solitary stranger. Our eyes have followed his noble figure in the streets of our city; we have sought his presence in the crowded hall, to listen with interest and delight to the original thoughts, the generous senti ments, the practical wisdom, flowing forth in rich streams of native eloquence from the pure fountains of his soul; and there we have waited till the crowd had dispersed, to press his hand in gratitude for our share of the general benefit. We have seen him sitting down to sumptuous meals provided in honour of him, and have seen him fasting for the want of food adapted to his simple taste. We have welcomed him at our firesides; we have seen him surrounded by our children; and the hearty applause he drew from these little hearers, who listen with their hearts and judge by their affections, has convinced us, that the charm which had attached us to the successful lecturer was not the spell of a great name, or of talent, learning, or eloquence; that the light which shone in his countenance, was not the reflection of many lamps, or of admiring eyes; but that it was the spirit of truth and goodness within, which lighted up his face, and gave life and meaning to every sound and every motion. And of all this power of eloquence, by which words became pictures to the eye and music to the ear,-of all those bright manifestations of a mind that had searched into the kingdoms of nature and the institutions of man, that had studied the wonderful architecture of the human frame in order to reach the more mysterious recesses of the mind,-of all these powers and charms, which but a few days since excited, engaged, and delighted so many of us,-of that fulness of thought and action embodied in a frame which nature herself seemed to have designed to be a stronghold of life and health, is there nothing left of all this?—nothing but what is enclosed in the narrow case before us? Our hands shall let down into the grave what our eyes have seen; but that which we have known with our hearts, what we have venerated and loved, no eye has ever seen, no hand can ever touch. The disembodied spirit has joined the invisible company of brother spirits above; while his memory remains with us, embalmed in grateful hearts, where it has power still to stir up to the pursuit of truth, to generous actions, to universal love. The solemn task to speak the praises of our departed friend, has been assigned to me, as his countryman by birth, and by adoption and domestic ties, a citizen of this country. I wish to perform this duty in his spirit, not attempting to present what my own mind might invent, or my personal feelings dictate; but from the scanty records I can obtain, give you the simple story of his life, which is his best eulogy*. (Here Dr Follen * This account has been compiled chiefly from the writings of Gall and Spurzheim, and from an article in No. III. of the Foreign Quarterly Review, by Richard Chenevix, published in a separate pamphlet, with notes by Dr relates facts essentially included in the biographical sketch published in our 35th No., p. 132, and which it is unnecessary now to repeat.) In Paris, Dr Spurzheim married a lady of great merit. She was a widow and had three daughters when he married her. Dr Spurzheim had no children of his own. Several ladies of this city, who were introduced to Mrs Spurzheim in Paris and in London, remember her with the highest esteem and delight. Her whole manner expressed a union of true humility, tender attachment, and conscious power, which excited at once affection and confidence. She entered fully into her husband's pursuits, and aided him by her uncommon skill in drawing. To her To her pencil we are indebted for a number of those excellent drawings used by Dr Spurzheim in his lectures. But far more important to him was the aid which he derived from the unseen and inexhaustible treasures of a true and devoted heart. It was often observed how well their characters seemed to be fitted for each other. They were both adepts in that profoundest of all sciences, and most pleasing of all the fine arts, Christian benevolence shewn forth in beautiful manners. It is characteristic of Dr Spurzheim, that one of the reasons which influenced him in the choice of his wife, was the knowledge that she had undergone great suffering, which he thought essential to the perfection. of human nature. An ancient philosopher thought that no one could become a good physician, who had not himself endured many diseases. Whatever be the merits of this speculation as regards the medical profession, it is certainly true in morals,that no one can so readily perceive and deeply understand, and so successfully alleviate the sufferings of others, as he who is himself a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Dr Spurzheim was devotedly attached to his wife, and he remained so after her death to the end of his own life. While he was in this country, though surrounded by many whom he had soon made his friends, he often mourned the loneliness of his situation, particularly when indisposition or fatigue made him long after those small services of domestic affection and ever watchful care, of which those who devote themselves wholly to one of the great general interests of mankind, be it the cause of religion or of science, stand in special need ;-that wholesome atmosphere of constant love, the absence of which seems to be felt more painfully, the more unconscious we are while we inhale it. In his last sickness, he, in a mournful manner, ascribed his illness to the want of warm linen on his return from his lectures, saying, with a sigh, that if his wife had been living, it would have been before the fire ready for him. The disease of his heart he as Spurzheim. For a number of anecdotes, illustrating his character, I am indebted to the kindness of friends. cribed to his loss of her, saying, his pulse had intermitted ever since her death. The death of his wife, which took place about three years since, seemed to remind him more strongly that his life and his labours belonged to all mankind, whose vital interests he thought most effectually to promote by developing particularly the principles of education, morality, and religion, to which his studies of human nature had led him. In the summer of the present year, Dr Spurzheim came to this country, where lectures on Phrenology had been delivered long before his arrival, and a phrenological society formed at Philadelphia. On board the ship he proved himself a friend in need to a number of poor emigrants, many of whom being taken sick on their passage, experienced his kind and successful medical assistance. Dr Spurzheim arrived at New York on the 6th of August, in the heat of summer, while the cholera was raging there, and immediately went on to New Haven, where he stopped a few days. A letter from one of the most eminent men of Yale College, in whose family Dr Spurzheim spent much of his time, speaks of the "amiable, winning simplicity of his manners, and his unpretending good sense, and good feeling." From New Haven he came on to this city, with which he felt already familiar, through a number of Bostonians, with whom he had become acquainted in Europe. He intended to stay in this country about two years, to lecture in the principal towns, then to visit the different tribes of our Indians, and at last to return to Paris. The easy access which that city presents to so many treasures of science, and its being the place of residence of some of his most intimate friends, gave rise, now and then, to feelings of homesickness, which were soon merged, however, in that universal benevolence which made him consider any portion of the human family with which he happened to be connected, and to whom he could do some good, as his nearest relatives. The time of Dr Spurzheim's residence amongst us is familiar to so many of my hearers, that I shall confine myself to those points which, if they be rightly improved by us, will be a lasting benefit to this community. Permit me to make some remarks,-first, on his lectures, and then on his private life and character, and his death. He delivered in Boston one course of lectures on the anatomy of the brain, principally for medical men; and two courses of popular lectures on Phrenology, one in Boston and another in Cambridge, which he had nearly completed when death overtook him in the midst of his labours. In his anatomical demonstration of the brain, he endeavoured to unfold the design of nature in the complicated structure of this organ, by tracing its |