The Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans, have each, in their turn, invaded and established themselves in England. History also informs us, that the ancient Britons were either exterminated by their invaders, the Picts, the Scots, and the Saxons, or forced to take shelter on the confines of Cornwall, or in the mountains of Scotland and Wales. I am aware of the difficulty of tracing, at this advanced period, any vestige of the primitive inhabitants of this country; but, if a possibility does exist, to Wales I should give the preference for research. The remnant of Britons retiring to that country, the barrier formed by the range of mountains separating Wales from England, and preventing intercourse between the inhabitants, and the peculiar prejudices, customs, and habits of the Welsh at this day, favour the conjecture, that if the form or size of cranium of the ancient Britons can now be found, it will be in that country.

Before I conclude, allow meto make a few observations upon the supposed increase and decrease of the head at various periods of life after the age of maturity. As much difference of opinion exists upon this point, I trust I shall not be deemed presumptuous in differing from writers far my superiors in the science, provided I show a consistency in my objections. An impartial Phrenologist is an admirer of truth. We have all the same aim: if we differ, nature alone will put us right. Upon my first acquaintance with the science, this subject, the increase in size at various periods, so strenuously insisted on by an experienced London Phrenologist, cast a damp upon my zeal in its favour. Since that time I have endeavoured to make every necessary inquiry which the interest of the science so justly demands, but cannot find one single well-attested fact to warrant me in supposing that the head does either increase or decrease after the period of full manhood; and that the apparent variation in size of the skull, which is, after such period, often observed, is to be ascribed solely to the integuments and hair. The time I have occupied this evening prevents my going

much into particulars; but I have heard it stated of a certain learned judge, whose judicial knowledge was so enlarged, and practice so extensive, that his wig was no longer able to cover the necessary expansion of his skull! Alteration, splicing, or remaking, was the inevitable consequence, in order to render this said wig wearable. Nay, a Phrenologist has asserted, that, in one of the campaigns of Buonaparte, the increase of his soldiers' heads rendered their helmets useless; but, upon their return into winter-quarters, they assumed their former dimensions. If it were possible for such circumstances to occur, no experienced individual in the hatting trade could possibly doubt their consistency; but the reverse is the fact. My own experience has been to this effect:That the heads of infants increase very rapidly the first and second years, the health and vigour of the child influencing the development. In the first seven years the head attains an increase, from its birth, greater than in any seven years afterwards. It is needless for me to reply to the several objectors to Phrenology, who assert that the brain attains its full dimensions at this period of life, and alleging the increase afterwards to be caused by thickness of skull, hair, and integument. I can only say, that a great increase is observed in the head after the age of seven years, the cause of which I leave the explanation of to others more competent to decide than a hatter, who is satisfied with his circumference. From seven years the head undergoes a gradual increase until the period of maturity. Great increase is sometimes observed at particular periods, and likewise a total stand, for a length of time, is observed in different youths; but upon this, without a knowledge of the general health, and every circumstance likely to affect the activity of the brain, it would be imprudent in me to hazard mere conjecture. The head I have always found to attain its full dimensions in accordance with the bodily frame. I fix the utmost limit my experience will allow to the age of 25 years. The more general period of full attainment of size is between 17 and 23. Many heads

are at their full size at the age of 16; in confirmation of which I can appeal, not only to my own experience, but to every individual in the trade who has devoted himself to a just consideration of the subject, and also to a register of sizes kept for the last 25 years by one of the most extensive establishments in Bond Street, for the sole rule and guidance of its manufacturers, wherein are numbered the names of gentlemen of all grades of intellect, and men of all professions and pursuits, in the higher circles of society, where no apparent increase can be found to warrant a conjecture at variance with the opinion I have stated. The facts I could adduce, the names I could enumerate, of individuals who have figured in the political world, and in the literary and scientific, would trespass too much upon your time. I shall appeal to one or two circumstances only. English gentlemen, upon their appointments to settlements in India, leave with their hatters the measurements of their heads before their departure from this country, and annual exportations are made of their several orders for ten, twenty, or thirty years, during their residence. No difficulty is found by the hatter in fitting; no increase is thought of. The body returns sometimes emaciated, the head retains its usual size, saving the consequent decrease arising from the loss of integument or hair, At home, gentlemen residing wholly in the country, and others occasionally in town, never see their hatter for years, nor is it ever considered necessary, provided an accurate measurement of the head has been taken. If variation in size did take place, such a circumstance, from the numberless instances of strong excitement and increased action of the mental powers, would be easily manifested, and renewal of measurements must be continually necessary. The hatting trade in general would not be, as they now certainly are, entirely ignorant of the fact. But the subject cannot remain long a matter of doubt. The increased facilities of casting, the numerous characters in various situations of life which are now annually added to the catalogue of

public and private collections, together with the interesting experiments, by a member of this Society, in taking the curves and circles of the head, will soon set aside all differences. I shall always be willing to exchange error for truth, and, with a sufficient confirmation of facts opposed to my present ideas, hail its dawn, and acknowledge myself benefited by the correction.

L.

ARTICLE VII.

DR FOSSATI'S LECTURE ON PHRENOLOGY.

De la Nécessité d'étudier une nouvelle doctrine, avant de la juger, et application de ce principe à la physiologie intellectuelle. Par M. le Dr Fossati. Paris, 1827.

We have just received a very sensible pamphlet with the above title, from Dr Fossati, the pupil and friend of Dr Gall. The discourse was delivered on the 14th January, 1827, at the opening of a course of Lectures on Phrenology, in Dr Gall's house, at Paris, and the subject was well calculated to remove prejudice, and to lead to the patient examination of the principles and facts of Phrenology.

Dr Fossati shows, by the history of all great discoveries, that the new doctrine is any thing but singular in the amount of opposition with which it has been met, and in the ridicule and alarm which have been raised in their turn against it. It is even in the very nature of a discovery that it should be received with suspicion and distrust; for what is a discovery but the manifestation of a truth previously unknown? And on the other hand, what are the false systems but new errors announced as truths? How then can the public be expected instantly to distinguish the true from the false, particularly

if the thing announced requires meditation, study, and research? Most men give the same reception to the charlatan and to the man of genius; to new extravagances and new errors, as to new truths and new inventions. These are first left to float vaguely about, then they are decried, then consequences are deduced from them, then applications are made of them, then one becomes enthusiastic, and another angry, and all take good care in the mean time not to examine them. Who are the men that form their opinions only after study and inquiry? Where are they who have fixed their political, physical, religious, or philosophic opinions, only after having known, weighed, and decided the real grounds on which truth ought to stand?

History shows human nature to have been the same in all ages. Everybody knows the persecution suffered by Galileo, for having innocently proved that the earth turns on its own axis every day, and moves round the sun every year; but the vexatious annoyance which he met with from the learned men and critics of his time are less generally known. Even the professors of Padua mocked him, and the mathematicians, the natural philosophers, and the academies, spoke of his discoveries just as our peasants speak of them in our own day, when you try to explain to them the earth's motion. In 1597 he invented the geometrical compass, and ten years after he was forced to seek a decision against Balthazar Capra, who had appropriated the invention. In 1609 he invented the telescope, discovered the inequalities of the moon, and that the milky-way was nothing more than an infinity of fixed stars; he discovered the spots on the sun, the phases of Venus, the planets of Jupiter and their periods; and more lately, the mode of marking in degrees the longitude at all times and at all places; he discovered the rotation of the sun on its own axis; and as a reward for so many discoveries, he was summoned to the Holy Office at Rome, and condemned to two years' imprisonment. His letters and his writings, particularly those in the Saggiatore, show the kind of imputa