IMAGINATION AND FEAR.

Fear of Death.—­It is recorded of a person who had been sentenced to be bled to death, that, instead of the punishment being actually inflicted, he was made to believe that it was so, merely by causing water, when his eyes were blinded, to trickle down his arm.  This mimicry, however, of an operation, stopped as completely the movements of the animated machine as if an entire exhaustion had been effected of the vivifying mud.  The man lost his life, although not his blood, by this imaginary venesection.

We read of another unfortunate being who had been condemned to lose his head, but the moment after it had been laid upon the block, a reprieve arrived; the victim was, however, already sacrificed.  The living principle had been extinguished by the fear of the axe, as effectually as it would have been by its fall.

The Editor of the Philosophical Magazine relates a remarkable instance which came within his own knowledge many years ago in Scotland.  Some silver spoons having been mislaid, were supposed to have been stolen; and an expression fell from one of the family, which was either intended, or was so understood by a young lady who acted as governess to the female children, that she had taken them.  When the young lady rose next morning, her hair, which before was dark, was found to have changed to a pure white during the night.  The spoons were afterwards found where the mistress of the family had herself deposited them.

Mons. Boutibonne, a man of literary attainments, a native of Paris, served in Napoleon’s army, and was present at a number of engagements during the early part of the present century.  At the battle of Wagram, which resulted in a treaty of peace with Austria, in November 1809, Mons. Boutibonne was actively engaged during the whole of the fray, which lasted, if I rightly remember, from soon after mid-day until dark.  The ranks around him had been terribly thinned by the enemy’s shot, so that his position at sunset was nearly isolated; and while in the act of reloading his musket, he was shot down by a cannon-ball.  The impression produced upon his mind was, that the ball had passed from left to right, through his legs below the knees, separating them from his thighs, as he suddenly sank down, shortened, as he believed, to the extent of about a foot in measurement, the trunk of the body falling backwards on the ground, and the senses being completely paralysed by the shock.  In this posture he lay motionless during the remainder of the night, not daring to move a muscle for fear of fatal consequences.  He experienced no severe suffering; but this immunity from pain he attributed to the stunning effect produced upon the brain and nervous system.  “My wounded companions,” said he, “lay groaning in agony on every side, but I uttered not a word, nor ventured to move, lest the torn vessels should be roused into action, and