The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-04 00:00:00

ADELAIDE GALLERY.

Amongst the Easter attractions here, one of the most
amusing is the afternoon performance of the Infant
Sappho. She used to amuse us most of all in her ex-
pressive delivery of the Irish national plunxty of "
trick's Day," but she has now deserted the Emerald
Isle, and exhibits an unaccountable predilection for
Scotch music. She sang on • Saturday a melody, de-
, cidedly Scotch ..in sentiment and cadence, for which we
heard no name, but which the audience (numerous and
fashionable) was informed her father composed
from the suggestions of her own dreamy war-
blings. Mr. Vinning states that the current of
her melody flowed northward. But he mistakes.
Hers is an ocean of music, of which' the bosom
heaves, and the tides ebb and flow, in sympathy with
" the waters above." There is no rocal preference. It
-is all love. The instinctive attraction of a preferred
spirit to Him who is the centre of all love, and the foun-
tain from which all music flows. In her the difference
between acquired and instinctive melody is emphatically
marked. The little she has learned is easily observed.
The powers are obvious which she possesses in common
with that large portion of the human race who
fall not within the anathema of Shakspeare,
and are pleased with concord of sweet sounds.
',tut far different and far beyond is that miraculous de-
velopment which makes Louisa Vinning, at five years of
age, an object to hear and wonder—something to bow
down before, saying " The works of God are great."
It was with this sentiment, grossly perverted, however,
Catalani said that a critic, who spoke contemptuously of
her, " blasphemed God." The vast powers of Catalani
were only those of physical structure, and merely me-
chanical. In the perception of music she was at least
equalled by many of her contemporaries. But Louisa
Vinning sings from herself, and the part that imitation
bears in the performance is trifling. Have you ever
robbed a skylark's nest ? Have you taken home the
unfledged nestling, and fed him with a mother's care ?
Then, in the next spring, have you seen him expand his
wings, and swell his throat, and strut upon your new
cut sod, in his narrow cage, as he poured out, with un- •
impaired melody and force, that selfsame " spread song"
with which his father soothed the pains of the sitting •
mother, whilst you lay gazing upon him as he was poised
in mid-air, and you were planning how to rob him of the
young one, whose love was to repay him for his music of
the skies ? If you have, then you can under Stand some-
thing of the instinct which breathes through the lips of
the Infant Sappho, who is perhaps disparaged by the
comparison with our homely skylark, when she more
resembles the mocking-bird of the New World, surpass-
ing the songsters around her in their several kinds of
melody, and possessing one far richer of her own, which
none could imitate, if any could comprehend.

PRHENOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
At each of the meetings of the London Phrenological
Society, during the past two months, papers were read
communicating observations of phenomena, which were
supposed to corroborate the doctrines of phrenology by
Mesmeric illustrations. Curious and interesting as the
proceedings of the Society have been, but little space
could be afforded to. them in a newspaper whilst the
business of Parliament was so pressing and im-
portant. On Monday last we gave a report of
the meeting, at which Mr. Atkinson informed the
Society- of the wonders which he believes accident to
hare revealed to him. At a subsequent meeting (I)r.
Elliotson; the President, in the chair) Mr. Syms read a
cormuunication from Mr. Brookes, of Birmingham, de-
tailing the case of Sarah Badger, a young. girl, who,
.hr.ving been subject to epileptic fits in her infancy, be-
came about the time of puberty decidedly insane, and
was for 12 months confined in a lunatic asylum, where
(it is consolatory to learn) she was very kindly treated,
and was permitted, though a pauper patient, to enjoy
herself with music and dancing, in the " ladies"
convalescent gallery. After her release she was
engaged • by Mr. Brookes as - housemaid, but
her fits returning, the parish officers, who seem to have
becn her guardians (1), insisted upon taking her into the
workhouse, where she had been ill-used, and would not
restore her to the Asylum, where she had been well used
and happy. Mr. Brookes, with laudable feeling, pre-
ferred keeping her in his own house at his own expense,
and would not allow her to be again exposed to the per-
secutions, which, from his statement of her revela-
tions, during the paroxysms of her disease, may rea•
sonably be considered, acting on so delicate a sys-
tem, the cause of her insanity. This inference is
the Reporter's—all that Mr. Brookes states, leads
to it inevitably. In her fits she would sometimes
imagine she was in the workhouse, and then she was
furious and malicious, and called the persons around her
by the names of thos6 at whose mercy she was in the
bated dwelling, fancying that Mr. Brooke's was her
" reverend persecutor"—the fitness of the epithet we
cannot appreciate, nor do we answer for it. In the
course of her fits she exhibited, in numerous instances,
an isolated and strongly marked excitement of the seve-
ral organs of Time and Tune especially, and occasion-
ally of Colour and other organs—and this excite-
ment was succeeded by pain in the region of
the brain, in which those faculties are said to
reside. All this occurred in 1837, but Mr. I3rookes,
having consulted a medical friend in the town, resolved
to keep his observations secret, on account of their ex-
traordinary and incredible character. The girl was at
length re-ad:nitted to the Lunatic Asylum, and after
twelve month's confinement there was released, cured
apparently of her insanity. Mr. B. took her again into
his service, and finding her in a high degree susceptible
of the Mesmeric influence, produced in her all the
Mesmero-phrenological phenomena, which were ex-
hibited in the American cases, and in those of Mr.
Atkinson, already detailed.

EXECUTION.--Joseph Wilkes, convicted at the
Stafford Assizi:s of the murder of an old man of the
Lame of Adams, at Delves Bank, Wednesbury, was exe-
cuted on Saturday in front of the Stafford County Gaol.
His associates, James 'Wilkes, his brother, Thomas
Boswell, and George Giles, ware acquitted of the murder
but convicted of the burglary, The two • former were
sentenced to transportation for life, and Giles for fifteen
years. The wretched youth admitted that he had struck
the old man, but without the slightest intention of killing
him.

WEYMOUTH ELECTION.—We have made up .the
loss sustained in the Election Committees by the result
of the Weymouth case decided this afternoon, which has
given both the seats there to the Liberal candidates, W.
Bernal and Mr. Christie. The Tory "Members" who
had wrongly usurped the seats, are Lord Villiers (the
Premier's son-in-law) and Mr. Hope.
_ On Saturday the Government steamer Medina,
from Bermudas, arrived at Southampton, after a short
voyage of fifteen days. The mails will be delivered I
this day.