It was remarkable, also, that Perkinism, which had so little success with the medical and scientific part of the community, found great favor in the eyes of its more lovely and less obstinate portion.  “The lady of Major Oxholin,”—­I quote from Mr. Perkins’s volume,—­“having been lately in America, had seen and heard much of the great effects of Perkinism.  Influenced by a most benevolent disposition, she brought these Tractors and the pamphlet with her to Europe, with a laudable desire of extending their utility to her suffering countrymen.”  Such was the channel by which the Tractors were conveyed to Denmark, where they soon became the ruling passion.  The workmen, says a French writer, could not manufacture them fast enough.  Women carried them about their persons, and delighted in bringing them into general use.  To what extent the Tractors were favored with the patronage of English and American ladies, it is of course not easy to say, except on general principles, as their names were not brought before the public.  But one of Dr. Haygarth’s stories may lead us to conjecture that there was a class of female practitioners who went about doing good with the Tractors in England as well as in Denmark.  A certain lady had the misfortune to have a spot as big as a silver penny at the corner of her eye, caused by a bruise, or some such injury.  Another lady, who was a friend of hers, and a strong believer in Perkinism, was very anxious to try the effects of tractoration upon this unfortunate blemish.  The patient consented; the lady “produced the instruments, and, after drawing them four or five times over the spot, declared that it changed to a paler color, and on repeating the use of them a few minutes longer, that it had almost vanished, and was scarcely visible, and departed in high triumph at her success.”  The lady who underwent the operation assured the narrator “that she looked in the glass immediately after, and that not the least visible alteration had taken place.”

It would be a very interesting question, what was the intellectual character of those persons most conspicuous in behalf of the Perkinistic delusion?  Such an inquiry might bring to light some principles which we could hereafter apply to the study of other popular errors.  But the obscurity into which nearly all these enthusiasts have subsided renders the question easier to ask than to answer.  I believe it would have been found that most of these persons were of ardent temperament and of considerable imagination, and that their history would show that Perkinism was not the first nor the last hobby-horse they rode furiously.  Many of them may very probably have been persons of more than common talent, of active and ingenious minds, of versatile powers and various acquirements.  Such, for instance, was the estimable man to whom I have repeatedly referred as a warm defender of tractoration, and a bitter assailant of its enemies.  The story tells itself in the biographical preface to his poem.