ckness_, and 'twas thought would have
dy'd, but did recover."

There was likewise one "_William Writtle_, condemned at _Maidston
Assizes_ for a double murder, told a Minister that was with him after he
was condemned, that his mother told him, that when he was a Child, there
crept always to him a Snake, wherever she laid him. Sometimes she would
convey him up Stairs, and leave him never so little, she should be sure
to find a Snake in the Cradle with him, but never perceived it did him
any harm."

One of the most striking alleged facts connected with the mysterious
relation existing between the serpent and the human species is the
influence which the poison of the _Crotalus_, taken internally, seemed
to produce over the _moral faculties_, in the experiments instituted by
Dr. Hering at Surinam. There is something frightful in the disposition
of certain ophidians, as the whip-snake, which darts at the eyes of
cattle without any apparent provocation or other motive. It is natural
enough that the evil principle should have been represented in the form
of a serpent, but it is strange to think of introducing it into a human
being like cow-pox by vaccination.

You know all about the _Psylli_, or ancient serpent-tamers, I suppose.
Savary gives an account of the modern serpent-tamers in his "Letters on
Egypt." These modern jugglers are in the habit of making the venomous
_Naja_ counterfeit death, lying out straight and stiff, _changing it
into a rod_, as the ancient magicians did with their serpents, (probably
the same animal,) in the time of Moses.

I am afraid I cannot throw much light on "Christabel" or "Lamia" by any
criticism I can offer. Geraldine, in the former, seems to be simply
a malignant witch-woman, with the _evil eye_, but with no absolute
ophidian relationship. Lamia is a serpent transformed by magic into
a woman. The idea of both is mythological, and not in any sense
physiological. Some women unquestionably suggest the image of serpents;
men rarely or never. I have been struck, like many others, with the
ophidian head and eye of the famous Rachel.

Your question about inherited predispositions, as limiting the sphere of
the will, and, consequently, of moral accountability, opens a very wide
range of speculation. I can give you only a brief abstract of my own
opinions on this delicate and difficult subject. Crime and sin, being
the _preserves_ of two great organized interests, have been guarded
against all re