Phrenological Society, Edinhurgk. 223 



from one who, we should conceive, from the displeasure he ex- 

 presses at the Edinburgh Review, must be a decided disciple of 

 the doctrines, if not a member of the Phrenological Society. We 

 shall here give an extract from the communication. 



According to our correspondent, " the good people of Edin- 

 burgh say that the air of intelligence, the spirit of inquiry, and 

 the universal diflfusion of University education was the cause of 

 the Doctor's favourable prognosis :" but whether the Doctor ac- 

 tually reasoned thus or not, our anonymous friend seems willing 

 to ascribe the fair play which the Doctor has ultimately met with 

 in that quarter to another cause, no less powerful in its conse- 

 quences wherever a sufficient degree of intelligence maybe found 

 under similar circumstances. He considers the inhabitants of 

 Edinburgh as being, " for a considerable portion of the year, in 

 the circumstances of the Athenians of old, ivho spent their time 

 in nothing else hut either to tell or hear some new thing." — But 

 we shall suffer our correspondent to tell his own story: — 



" I am inclined to ascribe the free inquiry into the doctrines 

 of phrenology in Edinburgh, chiefly to the state of society in that 

 city. Whoever has lived in the country, or in a s:nall town, and 

 more espe:'ially if it have no commercial connexions to keep the 

 minds of the inhabitants on the tenter-hooks of anxiety, must 

 have observed the rapidity with which all reports that once get 

 into the vortex of circulation are disseminated. Now Edinburgh 

 is precisely such a gossiping circle. Although its population be 

 reckoned at about 100,000, it has no commerce, and for one 

 half of the year the courts of justice do not sit, during which 

 time two thirds of the population are absolutely idle ; which re- 

 cession from business gives them full leisure to inquire into the 

 affairs of their neighbours, as well as into those of tlie world at 

 large. Miss Jenny cannot get married quietly, the whole town 

 knows everv circumstance connected with the affair from the day 

 the proposals were made to that which is to crown her wishes : 

 a stranger cannot set his foot, or his nose, within the pre- 

 cincts of the place, but the whole population gets into full ciiase 

 to hunt him out: the father nuist be informed of his family; the 

 mother, if he be young, will take his fortune, profession, married 

 or single state, under her own more immediate inspection — but 

 • of course without any eye to her own blooming daughter, ad- 

 vancing, in spite of fate, out of her teens, in wliich she has stuck 

 fast for the last fifteen years. Should the stranger be aged and 

 appear rich, every engine is set in motion to discover his con- 

 nexions: and if no cousin fewer than twenty degrees removed be 

 hit upon, then will all the arts of attentivencss and insinuation be 

 put in re(ini<-ition, and the tnifortunatc man is not unfrcquently 

 worried with kindness. To this peculiar state of society then, to 



the 



