102 On Popular Ulufions. 



principle*, inftead of applying falve to a wound, 

 it was applied to the fvvord which inflifted the 

 injury. Butler did not let this folly efcape : he 

 fays of Sidrophel 



He had a fympathetic powdpr 



That wounds nine miles point-blank would folder. 



Willis and Dr. Boulton were both fympathifts. 



The mod curious inftance of fympathy that 

 has occurred to me, is contained in a paper of 

 the Mifcellanea Curiofa (torn. XIV.) A car- 

 penter cut down a tree which grew in the 

 neighbourhood of a gibbet, where a famous 

 thief had been fufpended for a confiderable time. 

 When the workman came to fplit the trunk, he 

 was aftonifhed to find, in the very centre of the 

 wood, an exafl reprefentation of the gibbet and 

 the malefador, which remained fair on each fide, 

 after he had accompliflied the divifion. He 

 carried one of the impreflions to the philofopher 

 in his neighbourhood, who gratified the learned 

 fociety with this fingular inftance of fympathy, 

 and the account was publiftied with two very 

 accurate engravings, to fatisfy the reader more 

 completely. 



The laft fympathift and healer by touch, previ- 

 ous to Dr. Mefmer (excepting Leverett, men- 

 tioned in the account before referred to) was 



* Sir Kenelm Djgby, Rattray, and others wrote on this 

 fabje£t. 



Greatrack, 



