Genre:

Extract, Miscellanous

Publications extracted:

New Monthly Magazine

Subjects:

Education, Progress, Magic, Supernaturalism, Monstrosities, Menageries, Palaeontology, Exhibitions, Imposture, Epidemiology, Periodicals

People mentioned:

Kenelm Digby

    The writer regrets the renunciation of 'pleasing horrors' as a result of the 'modern mania for enlightening mankind and subjecting every thing to the test of reason and philosophy' (362, 361). These remarks are applied to magic, to 'spirits or apparitions', and to 'animal monstrosities'. Of the last, the writer muses: 'we occasionally exhume the bones of the mammoth or megatherium; but we are miserably in want of a good, living, tangible, and horrible monster'. The passage continues: 'The American sea-serpent will not be coaxed into eye-sight of any thing more trust-worthy than a Yankee captain' and the recently exhibited mermaid has proved to be an impostor. (362) The writer considers the panic of the preceding summer concerning an epidemic hydrophobia, and concludes by urging the public 'to exert themselves in the getting up of some good stimulating horror, one that may interestingly fill the long columns of our newspapers during the vacation of Parliament' (363).