med, and immediately ran to his assistance, took his
sword from him, and assured him that what he conceived to be a spider,
was nothing more than a bit of wax, which he might see upon the table.

"He remained some time in this spasmodic state; but at length he began
to recover, and to deplore the horrible passion from which he still
suffered. His pulse was very strong and quick, and his whole body was
covered with a cold perspiration. After taking an anodyne draft, he
resumed his usual tranquillity.

"We are not to wonder at this antipathy," continues Zimmermann; "the
spiders at Barbadoes are very large, and of an hideous figure. Mr.
Matthews was born there, and his antipathy was therefore to be
accounted for. Some of the company undertook to make a little waxen
spider in his presence. He saw this done with great tranquillity, but
he could not be persuaded to touch it, though he was by no means a
timorous man in other respects. Nor would he follow my advice to
endeavour to conquer this antipathy by first drawing parts of spiders
of different sorts, and after a time whole spiders, till at length he
might be able to look at portions of real spiders, and thus gradually
accustom himself to whole ones, at first dead, and then living
ones."[81]

Dr. Zimmermann's method of cure, appears rather more ingenious, than
his way of accounting for the disease. Are all the natives of
Barbadoes subject to convulsions at the sight of the large spiders in
that island? or why does Mr. William Matthews' having been born there
account so satisfactorily for his antipathy?

The cure of these unreasonable fears of harmless animals, like all
other antipathies, would, perhaps, be easily effected, if it were
judiciously attempted early in life. The epithets which we use in
speaking of animals, and our expressions of countenance, have great
influence on the minds of children. If we, as Dr. Darwin advises, call
the spider _the ingenious spider_, and the frog _the harmless frog_,
and if we look at them with complacency, instead of aversion,
children, from sympathy, will imitate our manner, and from curiosity
will attend to the animals, to discover whether the commendatory
epithets we bestow upon them, are just.

It is comparatively of little consequence to conquer antipathies which
have trifling objects. An individual can go through life very well
without eating sturgeon, or touching spiders; but when we consider the
influence of the same dispo