Chapter VI: Part 6

The influence of subsequent conclusions in warping the real history of an event, and giving a definite and precise character to what would otherwise have been vague and inconclusive, as is witnessed in the above story, is one of the most important fallacies pervading ghost-stories. There is no source of self-deception to which we are exposed, more insidious; and it is requisite to keep it constantly in view, not only in relations of this nature, but in the examination of events of any kind whatever. The colouring which facts receive from this source, too often hides their real character; and the reciter is perfectly unconscious of the erroneous light which he casts upon them. Hence the importance of ascertaining the peculiar bias and tendencies of thought which appertain to one who records occurrences upon which important conclusions or theories may be based.

The vicious habit which has been common among the advocates of supernatural visitations, of supporting their opinions upon the assertions of men of known probity and honour, to the complete exclusion of an examination of the sources of delusion and error to which these men were liable from the character of their previous education, habits of thought, associations, &c., and from their imperfect acquaintance with the fallacies to which they may have been exposed, has been a fertile source of error.

A so-called fact is not an abstract truth; it is simply a fact so far as it relates to the assertor, and the credence given to it by others depends upon the extent to which it agrees with their experience, or upon the knowledge that the assertor has by previous study or experience so far diminished the probability of error on the subject to which it relates, that the statement may be received without hesitation.

Another form of ghost-story is that in which the spirit of the dead has been compelled to wander in misery on the earth, for some crime or error, small or great, committed during life, and which, unless it be atoned for or rectified, prevents its eternal repose.

A story of this kind is given by Jung-Stilling, and however absurd it may be in some parts, it is interesting from the precision of its details enabling us to lay hold of a clue to the explanation of the majority of these tales.

In 1756, M. Doerien, one of the proctors of Caroline College, Brunswick, was taken ill and died, shortly after "St. John's Day" (June 24th). Immediately before his death, he requested to see another of the proctors, M. Hoefer, having some communication of importance to make to him; but before that gentleman arrived, death had taken place. After some time a report became prevalent in the college that the ghost of the deceased proctor had been seen; but as this proceeded merely from the young, little attention had been given to it. At length, in October, upwards of three months after the death of M. Doerien, as M. Hoefer was proceeding on his accustomed nightly round, between the hours of eleven and twelve, in one of the corridors he saw the spectre of that professor, clothed in a common night-gown and white night-cap. This unexpected sight terrified M. Hoefer somewhat, but recollecting that he was in the path of duty, he recovered himself, and advancing to the spectre, endeavoured to examine it by the light of the candle he held in his hand; but such a horror came over him, that he could scarcely withdraw the hand in which he extended the light, and from that moment it was so swollen, "that some months elapsed before it was healed." The following night he was accompanied in his rounds by a philosopher, Professor Oeder, who was rather sceptical on the subject of apparitions; but on approaching the spot in which the spectre had been seen on the previous evening, there they beheld it again in the same position.

Others attempted to gain a sight of the ghost, but it would not manifest itself, not even to MM. Oeder and Hoefer, until the former gentleman, wearied with his useless watching during a somewhat prolonged period, exclaimed, "I have gone after the spirit long enough to please him; if he now wants anything, let him come to me." But what followed? About fourteen days after, when he was thinking about anything else than of ghosts, he was suddenly and rudely awakened, between three and four o'clock in the morning, by some external motion. On opening his eyes, he saw an apparition opposite to the bed, standing by the clothes-press, which was only two paces from it, that presented itself in the same attire as the spirit. He raised himself up, and could then clearly discern the whole face. He fixed his eyes steadfastly upon the phantom, until, after a period of eight minutes, it became invisible.

The next morning he was again awakened about the same time, and saw the same apparition, only with this difference, that the door of the press made a cracking noise, just as if some one leaned upon it. This time the spirit remained longer, so that Professor Oeder spoke to it as follows: "Get thee hence, thou evil spirit; what hast thou to do here?" At these words the phantom made all kinds of dreadful motions, waved its head, its hands, and its feet in such a manner, that the terrified Professor began to pray, "Who trusts in God, &c.," and "God the Father dwell with us, &c.," on which the spirit vanished.

After eight days the spirit again appeared, "but with this difference, that it came from the press directly towards him, and inclined its head over him," whereupon the terrified Professor struck out at it, and the spirit retired; but no sooner had he laid down, than it again advanced, and he, noticing that its aspect was "more in sorrow than in anger," observed it attentively, and saw that the ghost had a short tobacco-pipe in its mouth. This circumstance and the spirit's mild mien induced him to address the ghost, and ask, "Are you still owing anything." He knew beforehand that the deceased had left some debts, and the amount of a few dollars, _which occasioned the inquiry_. The spirit looked attentively at this query; and at length, guided by the tobacco-pipe, when the Professor asked, "Are you perhaps owing something for tobacco?" the spirit retreated and suddenly disappeared. Measures were immediately taken to liquidate the debt which was found to be owing for tobacco.

The next night Professor Seidler remained with Oeder. The spirit again appeared, but not as formerly, at the press, but near it, close to the white wall. It was visible only to Oeder, his brother professor merely seeing "something white." From this night Oeder burnt a night-lamp, and he no longer saw the apparition; but for some nights, at the same time, from three to five, he was troubled with uneasy sensations, and frequently heard a noise at the clothes-press and knocking at the door. By degrees these sensations passed away, and he discontinued the night-lamp; but the second night after, the spectre again appeared "at the accustomed hour, but visibly darker." It had, moreover, a new sign in its hand--"It was like a picture, and had a hole in the centre, into which the spirit frequently put its hand. After long ruminating and inquiring what the deceased might mean by these signs, so much was at length elicited, that a short time before his illness he had taken some paintings in a magic lantern from a picture-dealer on trial, which had not been returned. The paintings were given to the rightful owner, and from that time Oeder continued undisturbed."

In this story we notice, first, that a report was prevalent in the college, that the ghost of M. Doerien had been seen by several persons; and it is but natural to suppose that such a statement would exercise a powerful effect upon the mind of M. Hoefer, who had been placed in the painful position of being summoned to the death-bed of his friend, to receive a communication "necessary to mention to him," but had arrived in time only to witness the death-struggle. Upwards of three months after the death of M. Doerien, and when M. Hoefer was evidently in a disordered state of health, as is indicated by the swelling of the hand, and subsequent persistence of this swelling for some time, as this gentleman was making his usual rounds by the light of a taper in the dead of night, he witnesses the first apparition in a situation pregnant with associations of the deceased. The apparition may have been an illusion, suggested at first by some outlines indistinctly seen; or it may have been, and it is more probable to have been, an hallucination excited by the association of ideas in a person whose system was in a disordered state.

That connection of ideas, similar or dissimilar, which is acquired by habit or otherwise, so that one of them, in whatever manner we may become conscious of it, will suggest and give rise to the others, without the intervention of a voluntary action of the mind, is familiar to most persons.

The association which the mind habitually forms between certain objects and scenes, and persons connected with them, is most evident when a separation has been effected by death or removal to a distance; and, as is well-known, and has probably been painfully experienced by most persons, when the mind has been rallying from a state of abstraction or reverie, the sight of some object, or an indistinct sound, which during the full activity of the faculties would not have been regarded, or would simply have sufficed to arouse an ordinary reminiscence, will cause to flash athwart the mind, a vivid and startling image of the deceased or far distant one.

We well remember some years ago, when a fellow-student, with whom we had been on very intimate terms, was cut off after a few days' illness. He had been in the habit of spending much time in our rooms. For some months after his death, particularly when wearied with study, a slight noise in the passage or at the door of the room has given rise to so vivid an impression that he was approaching, or at the door, that it has required an effort of the mind to quell the hallucination.

The apparition which M. Hoefer witnessed, was most probably an hallucination of this kind; the corridor, and position in which it occurred, recalling to memory, in all the vividness of reality, the form and lineaments of that deceased friend who had formerly frequented it along with him.

We have already seen an instance of a somewhat similar character, in the account given in a previous paper of the apparition of a father, then alive, but absent at church, to his daughter at home. In that case the apparition was excited by the sight of the arm-chair generally occupied by the old gentleman, and connected with it alone, the association of the ideas being obvious; and the state of the brain forming, so to speak, the substratum of the hallucination, was induced by uneasiness caused by a heavy thunder-storm acting on a frame debilitated by fever.

The apparition of the following night, which was seen also by Professor Oeder, was, so far as M. Hoefer was concerned, a modification of the hallucination of the preceding night, prompted by the belief that the apparition he had witnessed was supernatural; and the precise similarity of the apparition professed to have been seen by M. Oeder, to that seen by M. Hoefer on that and the preceding night, would lead to the suspicion that in the former gentleman it was a trick of the imagination alone,--a suspicion confirmed by the subsequent progress of the tale.

Professor Oeder brooded upon the apparition he had witnessed, and, it is important to mark, made every endeavour for some time to obtain a second sight of it, but failed, until wearied out with his fruitless research, he ceased to hunt after it. Fourteen days afterwards, he states that he was suddenly and rudely awakened "by some external motion" (which is evidently an after-conclusion derived from what followed), and saw the apparition of Doerien standing by the clothes-press.

In other words, he awoke suddenly out of a troubled sleep, and in the transition state between sleeping and waking, in which the mental images are as bright and defined as in dreams, the subject which had occupied his mind so much of late was presented before him in a visible form. As it not unfrequently happens when a dream has made a powerful impression on the mind, it is repeated again, so on the following night M. Oeder's hallucination occurred, but with the addition of a slight creaking noise of the clothes-press door.

Oeder was now fully convinced of the supernatural character of his visitant, and when the spectre again appeared to him, which was after a period of eight days, he having adopted the opinion at that period very prevalent, of troubled spirits, proceeded to inquire as to the cause of its visitations; and noticing a white tobacco-pipe in the spirit's mouth, and _knowing_ that the deceased Doerien had "left some debts to the amount of a few dollars," he asked, "Are you perhaps owing for tobacco?" whereupon the spirit disappeared. Here then we find an hallucination, either in the dreaming or waking state, presenting the precise similitude of the Professor's opinions and conceptions respecting the possible cause of the spectre.

The following night, when the spectre appeared again, a friend was with Oeder, but this friend saw "nothing further than something white,"--no very extraordinary sight in a room which had white walls, and was not perfectly dark.

From this time Oeder used a night-lamp, and the spectre no more appeared, but by certain sensations and noises he knew it was in the apartment.

The invisibility of the spectre, when the light was present, would indicate that a sensation of light excited in the eye by a disordered state of the head, such as we have fully dwelt upon in a previous part of the work, played an important part of the hallucination; and the disturbed sleep for so many nights, and uneasy sensations, point to a circumstance which we have not yet alluded to, that the Professor's health was not in good condition,--the probable cause of the whole series of hallucinations.

The uneasy sensations ceased, the light was dispensed with, the spectre again came, but it was darker, and contained a new sign in its hand, which, by following out a similar course of reasoning as upon the tobacco-pipe, and by long ruminating and inquiring, the Professor puzzled out to signify some paintings belonging to a magic lantern which Doerien had received on trial before his death, and which had not been returned. They were sought up, sent to their rightful owner, and the apparition vanished to return no more.

It is to be remembered that this story, like most others of a similar nature, has been written under a full belief of the supernatural character of the apparitions, and it has received a colouring accordingly; and our comments suffice to show that no care, no attempt, has been made by the ghost-seer, to ascertain how much the apparitions might depend upon some illusion or hallucinations connected with his bodily health. The progress of the tale further shows that the apparitions occurred, in both M. Hoefer as well as Professor Oeder's case, in connection with symptoms of disordered health, and that they added nothing to what these gentlemen knew, or could work out, as M. Oeder did, by his own reason and judgment; in short, that they were simple images of ideas they already possessed or arrived at from the information they obtained.

Other sources of error in the judgment could be pointed out, and other causes of illusion and hallucination in the above tale, but we have written sufficient to show its worthlessness.

One of the most formidable objections to the majority of ghost-stories of this nature is the insufficiency of the authority upon which they are given. In many instances we cannot trace them satisfactorily to their origin; in others, we have received them after they have passed through the hands of several persons; and in still more (as in the tales we have just analysed) there is intrinsic evidence that no endeavour has been made to obviate or elicit the sources of fallacy to which the ghost-seer has been exposed, and diminish as much as possible the chances of error.

The story of the "Last Hours of Lord Lyttleton" is a singularly interesting example of a ghost-story, based upon insufficient authority, and probably also upon a trivial circumstance, receiving almost universal credence; and it shows, moreover, how readily the superstitious feelings of the listeners will lead them to receive without due examination, tales which in themselves may be utterly void of satisfactory foundation; and induce them to retail subsequently an account which has probably received its precision and colouring from their imaginations alone.

Oft as the story has been told, we are necessitated again to quote it in part, in order to show more fully the nature of the authority upon which it depends.

A gentleman, who was on a visit to Lord Lyttleton, writes:--

"I was at Pitt Place, Epsom, when Lord Lyttleton died; Lord Fortescue, Lady Flood, and the two Miss Amphletts, were also present. Lord Lyttleton had not long been returned from Ireland, and frequently had been seized with suffocating fits; he was attacked several times by them in the course of the preceding month, while he was at his house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square. It happened that he dreamt, three days before his death, that he saw a fluttering bird; and afterwards, that a woman appeared to him in white apparel, and said to him, 'Prepare to die, you will not exist three days.' His Lordship was much alarmed, and called to a servant from a closet adjoining, who found him much agitated, and in a profuse perspiration: the circumstance had a considerable effect all the next day on his Lordship's spirits. On the third day, while his Lordship was at breakfast with the above personages, he said, 'If I live over to-night, I shall have jockied the ghost, for this is the third day.' The whole party presently set off for Pitt Place, where they had not long arrived before his Lordship was visited by one of his accustomed fits; after a short interval, he recovered. He dined at five o'clock that day, and went to bed at eleven, when his servant was about to give him rhubarb and mint-water; but his Lordship perceiving him stir it with a tooth-pick, called him a slovenly dog, and bade him go and fetch a tea-spoon; but on the man's return, he found his master in a fit, and the pillow being placed high, his chin bore hard upon his neck, when the servant, instead of relieving his Lordship on the instant from his perilous situation, ran in his fright and called out for help, but on his return he found his Lordship dead."

The circumstances attending the apparition, as related by Lord Lyttleton, according to the statement of a relative of Lady Lyttleton's, were as follows:

"Two nights before, on his retiring to bed, after his servant was dismissed and his light extinguished, he had heard a noise resembling the fluttering of a dove at his chamber window. This attracted his attention to the spot; when, looking in the direction of the sound, he saw the figure of an unhappy female whom he had seduced and deserted, and who, when deserted, had put a violent end to her own existence, standing in the aperture of the window from which the fluttering sound had proceeded. The form approached the foot of the bed, the room was preternaturally light, the objects of the chamber were distinctly visible; raising her head and pointing to a dial which stood on the mantel-piece of the chimney, the figure, with a severe solemnity of voice and manner, announced to the appalled and conscience-stricken man that, at that very hour, on the third day after the visitation, his life and his sins would be concluded, and nothing but their punishment remain, if he availed himself not of the warning to repentance which he had received. The eye of Lord Lyttleton glanced upon the dial, the hand was upon the stroke of twelve; again the apartment was involved in total darkness, the warning spirit disappeared, and bore away at her departure all the lightness of heart and buoyancy of spirit, ready flow of wit, and vivacity of manner, which had formerly been the pride and ornament of the unhappy being to whom she had delivered her tremendous summons."

From a passage in the Memoirs of Sir Nathanial Wraxall, it would seem that the sole authority for the above story was his Lordship's _valet-de-chambre_, for he writes:--

"Dining at Pitt Place, about four years after the death of Lord Lyttleton, in the year 1783, I had the curiosity to visit the bedchamber, where the casement-window, at which Lord Lyttleton asserted the dove appeared to flutter, was pointed out to me; and at his stepmother's, the Dowager Lady Lyttleton's, in Portugal Street, Grosvenor Square, I have frequently seen a painting, which she herself executed, in 1780, expressly to commemorate the event; it hung in a conspicuous part of her drawing-room. There the dove appears at the window, while a female figure, habited in white, stands at the foot of the bed, announcing to Lord Lyttleton his dissolution. Every part of the picture was faithfully designed, _after the description given to her by the valet-de-chambre who attended him, to whom his master related all the circumstances_."

In addition it would appear, according to Lord Fortescue, that the only foundation upon which this story rests, is as follows:--

"I heard Lord Fortescue once say," writes a friend of Sir Walter Scott, "that he was in the house with him (Lord Lyttleton) at the time of the supposed visitation, and he mentioned the following circumstances as the only foundation for the extraordinary superstructure at which the world has wondered:--A woman of the party had one day lost a favourite bird, and all the men tried to recover it for her. Soon after, on assembling at breakfast, Lord Lyttleton complained of having passed a very bad night, and having been worried in his dreams by a repetition of the chase of the lady's bird. His death followed, as stated in the story."[69]

It would seem highly probable, therefore, that this story has been framed much after the same fashion as that of the "three black crows," and the singular differences which we find in the versions we have given, fully confirm this view.

Connected with the foregoing story is another of the apparition of Lord Lyttleton, on the night of his death, to Miles Peter Andrews, one of his most intimate friends. This apparition occurred at Dartford Mills, where Mr. Andrews was then staying, and doubtless, in its origin and mode of development, the story is in every respect similar to that of Lord Lyttleton's.

The March number of "_Household Words_,"[70] for 1853, contains a ghost-story which exhibits another form of the belief, differing from those which we have already dwelt upon, and it is interesting from its comparatively recent occurrence, and from its having to a certain extent received the confirmation of a law-court.

In the colony of New South Wales, at a place called Penrith, distant from Sydney about thirty-seven miles, lived a farmer named Fisher. He was unmarried, about forty-five years old, and his lands and stock were worth not less than £4000. Suddenly Fisher disappeared, and a neighbour, named Smith, gave out that he had gone to England for two or three years, and produced a written document authorizing him to act as his agent during his absence. As Fisher was an eccentric man, this sudden departure did not create much surprise, and it was declared to be "exactly like him."

About six months after Fisher's disappearance, an old man called Ben Weir, who had a small farm near Penrith, and who always drove his own cart to market, was returning from Sydney one night, when he beheld, seated on a rail which bounded the road--Fisher. _The night was very dark, and the distance of the fence from the middle of the road was at least twelve yards._ Weir, nevertheless, saw Fisher's figure seated on the rail. He pulled his old mare up, and called out, "Fisher, is that you?" No answer was returned, but there, still on the rail, sat the form of the man with whom he had been on the most intimate terms. Weir, who was not drunk, though he had had several glasses of strong liquor, jumped off his cart, and approached the rail. To his surprise, the form vanished.

Weir noticed that the ghost was marked by "a cruel gash" on the forehead, and that there was the appearance of fresh blood about it; and before leaving the spot, he marked it by breaking several branches of a sapling close by.

On returning home he told his story to his wife, who, however, told him that he was drunk, and ridiculed him.

On the following Thursday night, when old Ben was returning from market,--again in his cart,--he saw seated upon the same rail, the identical apparition. He had purposely abstained from drinking that day, and was in the full possession of all his senses.

Weir again told his wife of the apparition, to be again ridiculed by her, and he remarked, "Smith is a bad un! Do you think Fisher would ever have left this country without coming to bid you and me good-bye?"

The next morning Ben waited on a Mr. Grafton, a justice of the peace, who lived near to him, and told his tale. The magistrate was at first disposed to treat the account lightly, but after consideration, he summoned one of the aboriginal natives, and at sunrise met Weir at the place where the apparition had occurred, and which was sufficiently marked by the dead and broken branches of the sapling.

The rail was found to be stained in several places, and the native, without any previous intimation of the object of the search, was directed to examine them, and he shortly pronounced them to be "_white man's blood_," and searching about, he pointed out a spot whereon a body had been laid. "Not a single shower of rain had fallen for several months previously,--not sufficient to lay even the dust upon the roads. Notwithstanding this, however, the native succeeded in tracking the footsteps of one man to the unfrequented side of a pond at some distance. He gave it as his opinion that another man had been dragged thither. The savage walked round and round the pond, eagerly examining its borders, and the sedges and weeds springing up around it. At first he seemed baffled,--no clue had been washed ashore to show that anything unusual had been sunk in the pond; but having finished this examination, he laid himself down on his face, and looked keenly along the surface of the smooth and stagnant water. Presently he jumped up, uttered a cry peculiar to the natives when gratified by finding some long-sought object, clapped his hands, and pointing to the middle of the pond, to where the decomposition of some sunken substance had produced a slimy coating streaked with prismatic colours, he exclaimed, '_White man's fat!_' The pond was immediately searched; and, below the spot indicated, the remains of a body were discovered. A large stone and a rotted silk handkerchief were found near the body; these had been used to sink it."

By the teeth, and buttons upon the waistcoat, the body was identified as that of Fisher. Smith was arrested, and, upon this evidence, tried before the late Sir Francis Forbes, found guilty, sentenced to death, and hung; but previous to the execution, "he confessed that he, and he alone, committed the murder, and that it was upon the very rail where Weir swore that he had seen Fisher's ghost sitting, and that he had knocked out Fisher's brains with a tomahawk."

We quote this story as an interesting example of one of the best and most consistent of the tales of this kind, although it is probable that a more thorough investigation of the circumstances connected with it, would show an origin of a nature similar to that of the "Last Hours of Lord Lyttleton."

Several statements in the story require confirmation, and throw doubt upon the whole.

The assertion that Weir, on a "very dark" night, saw seated upon a rail, at a distance of _twelve yards_, a resemblance of Fisher which he took to be real, and was not aware of the actual nature of the appearance until he advanced towards it, is a statement too improbable to be worthy of credence unless supported by other and less objectionable evidence; and notwithstanding the extraordinary degree to which the visual and other senses of the aboriginal natives are, as we are aware, often developed, yet that they will enable them to state that an old blood-stain is produced by the blood of a white man, or that an iridescent scum floating at a distance on water is produced by the fat of the white man, are statements which cannot be admitted without strong confirmatory evidence.

It not unfrequently happens that dreams appear to foreshadow events, the occurrence of which could not be anticipated by the reasoning faculties. Many of the instances recorded of this kind are after-conclusions founded upon imperfectly remembered dreams, and are consequently worthless. Such, for example, is the story stated by Mrs. Crowe of a gentleman "who has several times been conscious on awaking that he had been conversing with some one, whom he has been subsequently startled to hear had died at that period."[71]

Other dreams have received a verification from the natural results of the dreamer's superstitious folly.

Mrs. Crowe has quoted the following example from a continental newspaper:--

"A letter from Hamburg contains the following curious story relative to the verification of a dream. It appears that a locksmith's apprentice, one morning lately, informed his master (Claude Soller), that on the previous night he dreamt that he had been assassinated on the road to Bergsdorff, a little town at about two hours' distance from Hamburg. The master laughed at the young man's credulity, and to prove that he himself had little faith in dreams, insisted upon sending him to Bergsdorff, with 140 rix dollars (£22 8_s._), which he owed to his brother-in-law who resided in the town. The apprentice, after in vain imploring his master to change his intention, was compelled to set out at about eleven o'clock. On arriving at the village of Billwaerder, about halfway between Hamburg and Bergsdorff, he recollected his dream with terror but perceiving the baillie of the village at a little distance talking to some of his workmen, he accosted him, and acquainted him with his singular dream, at the same time requesting, that as he had money about his person, one of his workmen might be allowed to accompany him for protection across a small wood which lay in his way. The baillie smiled, and in obedience to his orders, one of the men set out with his young apprentice. The next day the corpse of the latter was conveyed by some peasants to the baillie, along with a reaping-hook, which had been found by his side, and with which the throat of the murdered youth had been cut. The baillie immediately recognized the instrument as one which he had on the previous day given to the workman who had served as the apprentice's guide, for the purpose of pruning some willows. The workman was apprehended, and on being confronted with the body of his victim, made a full confession of his crime, adding that the recital of the dream had alone prompted him to commit the horrible act. The assassin, who is thirty-five years of age, was a native of Billwaerder, and previously to the perpetration of the murder, had always borne an irreproachable character."

It is well known that sensations from without will not only frequently excite dreaming, but will also often determine the character of the dreams. The following story is evidently an example of a dream of this nature.

On the 30th July, 1853, the dead body of a young woman was discovered in a field at Littleport, in the Isle of Ely. There could be little doubt that the woman had been murdered; and at the adjourned inquest held before Mr. W. Marshall, one of the coroners for the isle, on the 29th August, the following extraordinary evidence was given:--

"James Jessop, an elderly respectable-looking labourer, with a face of the most perfect stolidity, and who possessed a most curiously shaped skull, broad and flat at the top, and projecting greatly on each side over the ears, deposed: 'I live about a furlong and a half from where the body was found. I have seen the body of the deceased. I had never seen her before her death. On the night of Friday, the 29th of July, I dreamt three successive times that I heard the cry of murder issuing from near the bottom of a close called Little Ditchment Close (the place where the body was found). The first time I dreamt I heard the cry, it woke me. I fell asleep again, and dreamt the same again. I then woke again, and told my wife. I could not rest; but I dreamt it again after that. I got up between four or five o'clock, but I did not go down to the Close, the wheat and barley in which have since been cut. I dreamt once, about twenty years ago, that I saw a woman hanging in a barn, and on passing the next morning the barn which appeared to me in my dream, I entered, and did find a woman there hanging, and cut her down just in time to save her life. I never told my wife I heard any cries of murder, but I have mentioned it to several persons since. I saw the body on the Saturday it was found. I did not mention my dream to any one till a day or two after that. I saw the field distinctly in my dream, and the trees thereon, but I saw no person in it. On the night of the murder the wind lay from that spot to my house."

"Rhoda Jessop, wife of the last witness, stated that her husband related his dreams to her, on the evening of the day the body was found."[72]

It is highly probable, that in this instance, the screams of the unfortunate woman, borne upon the wind, were the exciting cause of the dreams, and the direction from which the sound came would be sufficient to call up the associated idea of the fields in which the murder occurred. The powerful impression made upon the mind of the man, according to his own account, will sufficiently account for the repetition of the dreams; and the statement that the particulars of the dream were not related until after the finding of the body, must induce a little caution to the reception of the above version as an actual detail of the facts of the case. This remark applies also to the dream interpolated in the evidence.

Among the most vivid and connected dreams, are those excited by a dominant or absorbing train of thought, which has engaged the mind during waking hours, or by powerful or protracted emotion.

M. Boismont relates a dream, which he conceives is to be classed among the inexplicable phenomena of this nature, but which, with all deference to that distinguished psychologist, is rather to be placed in the category we have just named.

Miss R., gifted with an excellent judgment, and religious without bigotry, lived, before her marriage, at the house of an uncle, a celebrated physician, and a member of the Institute. She was at that time separated from her mother, who had been attacked, in the country, by a severe illness. One night, this young lady dreamed that she saw her mother before her, pale, disfigured, about to render the last breath, and showing particularly lively grief at not being surrounded by her children, of whom one, curé of one of the parishes in Paris, had emigrated to Spain, and the other was in Paris. Presently she heard her call upon her many times by her Christian name; whereupon the persons who surrounded her mother, supposing that she called her grand-daughter, who bore the same name, went to seek her in the neighbouring room, but a sign from the invalid apprised them that it was not the grand-daughter, but the daughter who resided in Paris, that she wished to see. Her appearance expressed the grief she felt at her absence; suddenly her features changed, became covered with the paleness of death, and she fell without life on the bed.

The lady had died during that night; and it was subsequently ascertained, that the circumstances delineated in the dream, simulated those which had occurred by the death-bed.

What are the circumstances of this case?--A mother dangerously ill--her children away from home. What more likely to occur to a child cognisant of these facts, than the train of thought which engendered and caused this dream? The events attending a death-bed scene under such circumstances were all but inevitable, and we cannot, justifiably, consider this case in any other light than that of a "simple coincidence."

Many physiologists and metaphysicians are of opinion, and there is much ground for the belief, that every sensation which has been actually experienced, may become the subject of perception at some future time, although, in the interval, all trace of its existence may have been lost, and it is beyond the power of the will to recall.

The phenomena upon which this opinion has been principally founded, have been observed in the delirium of certain febrile diseases, and in dreaming.

There is a case on record of a woman, who, during the delirium of fever, repeated long passages in the Hebrew and Chaldaic tongues. When in health she was perfectly ignorant of these languages; and it was ascertained, that the sentences she spoke in her delirium, were correct passages from known writers in them. It was subsequently discovered, that at one period of her life she had lived with a clergyman who was in the habit of walking up and down the passage, reading aloud from Hebrew and Chaldaic works, and it was the sensations thus derived, and retained unconsciously to herself, which had been revivified by the changes induced during the progress of the fever.

A case is also recorded by Dr. Abercrombie, in which a servant-girl who had manifested no "ear" for, or pleasure in music, during sleep was heard to imitate the sounds of a violin, even the tuning, and to perform most complicated and difficult pieces of music. This girl had slept for some time, and much to her annoyance, in a room adjoining that occupied by an itinerant violinist who was somewhat of an enthusiast in his art, and was accustomed to spend a portion of the night in practising difficult pieces of music, often preventing this female from sleeping. The music she had thus heard, registered in the mind, so to speak, was repeated, unconsciously, during the disturbed action of the brain consequent upon imperfect health and dreaming.

The principle which has been deduced from these and similar cases, gives a ready explanation to numerous stories which it has been customary to regard as coming within the pale of the supernatural.

Those instances in which, during a dream, the places in which documents of value, which had been lost or misplaced, have been revealed, are examples of revivified sensations which had been lost sight of, and of which the return had been determined by the protracted exercise of the mind to recover the missing traces.

Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to "The Antiquary," relates the following highly interesting illustration:--

"Mr. R----d, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of tiend (or tithe), for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay improprietors of the tithes). Mr. R----d was strongly impressed with the belief, that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased those lands from the titular; and therefore, that the present prosecution was groundless. But after an industrious search among his father's papers, an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand, when he conceived the loss of the lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He even went to bed with this resolution, and with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose.

"His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not supprised at such apparitions. Mr. R----d thought he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding, that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to acquire any evidence in support of his belief. 'You are right, my son,' replied the paternal shade; 'I did acquire right to these tiends, for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are in the hands of Mr. ----, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never, on any other occasion, transacted business on my account. It is very possible,' pursued the vision, 'that Mr. ---- may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token,--that when I came to pay his account, there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.'

"Mr. R----d awoke in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came there, he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man; without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them; so that Mr. R----d carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.

"The author's theory is, that the dream was only the recapitulation of information which Mr. R----d had really received from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have lost during waking hours.

"It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad consequences to Mr. R----d, whose health and spirits were afterwards impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the visions of the night."

An instance which is related by Mrs. Crowe, receives its explanation also from this source.

"A case occurred not many years since in the North of Scotland, where a murder having been committed, a man came forward, saying, that he had dreamt that the pack of the murdered pedlar was hidden in a certain spot; whereon, a search being made, it was actually found. They at first concluded he was himself the assassin, but the real criminal was afterwards discovered; and it being asserted, though I have been told erroneously, that the two men had passed some time together, since the murder, in a state of intoxication, it was decided that the crime, and the place of concealment, had been communicated to the pretended dreamer," &c.

If the statement that the murderer and the dreamer had spent some time together in a state of intoxication, after the murder had been committed, be correct, the supposition that the murder had been communicated to the dreamer, forgotten when the state of intoxication had passed away, but subsequently recalled during the progress of a dream, affords an easy and natural explanation of the whole matter.

As an example of that class of dreams which are inexplicable, but which, unfortunately, are of little weight from the imperfect authority upon which they are given, and from the fact that they bear intrinsic evidence of having been received without inquiry into the circumstances under which they occurred, and the fallacies to which the dreamer and subsequent details had been exposed, we quote the following from the works of the Rev. John Wesley.[73]

"Among the congregation at Ambleside were a gentleman and his wife, who gave me a remarkable relation. She said she had often heard her brother relate, what an intimate acquaintance had told her, that her husband was concerned in the rebellion of 1745. He was tried at Carlisle, and found guilty. The evening before he was to die, sitting and musing in her chair, she fell fast asleep. She dreamed one came to her and said, 'Go to such a part of the wall, and among the loose stones you will find a key, which you must carry to your husband.' She waked; but thinking it a common dream, paid no attention to it. Presently she fell asleep again, and dreamed the very same dream. She started up, put on her cloak and hat, and went to that part of the wall, and among the loose stones found a key. Having, with some difficulty, procured admission into the gaol, she gave this to her husband. It opened the door of his cell, as well as the lock of the prison door.(!) So at midnight he escaped for life."

It is not uncommon to find persons asserting that they have had dreams which have prefigured events, often trivial, in the common run of life.

Probably, without exception, these are irrelevant conclusions: the affirmative instances being marked, to the total neglect of the negative. For example:--A lady with whom we are acquainted was accustomed to relate a dream which she had had, in which she thought that she was in the nursery watching one of her children play, when suddenly it tripped over the fender, and fell against the ribs of the grate, and before it could be extricated, the face was severely burned. On the following day the child she had seen in her dream, happened to have an accident in the nursery very similar to that she had seen occur in the dream.

On inquiry, however, it proved that dreams of this nature respecting her children were quite usual to the lady, and that at one time or other she had witnessed while sleeping almost all those accidents occur to which infant life is exposed. This was the only instance in which any one had apparently come true; and _until_ this had occurred she had very properly and correctly attributed her dreams to the anxiety she naturally entertained respecting her young family.

Of all the divisions, or rather branches, of supernatural lore, none has obtained more universal credence, none has been more persistent, than that of _presentiments_.

A history of _presentiments_ would form a curious, if not very instructive work, and it alone would almost suffice to indicate the absurdity of the belief in its main features.

We have instances of _high spirits_ foreboding evil; _low spirits_ foreboding the same; _sudden illness_ shadowing forth calamity, _not_ to the person affected, but to a companion; _sudden dullness of sight_ presaging death--indeed a collection of these instances would show that every obscure sensation, every variation of emotion or passion, preceding an evil occurrence, has at one time or other been regarded as a presentiment of that evil.

Jung-Stilling has so well described the nature of the faculty of presentiment, and the circumstances under which it is most commonly developed, that we cannot do better than quote the words of that celebrated writer on this subject. He writes:--

"As the developed faculty of presentiment is a capability of experiencing the arrangements which are made in the world of spirits, and executed in the visible world, second-sight certainly belongs also under this head. And as those who possess this capability are generally simple people, it again follows from hence, that a developed faculty of presentiment is by no means a quality which belongs solely to devout and pious people, or that it should be regarded as a divine gift; I take it, on the contrary, for a disease of the soul, which we ought rather to endeavour to heal than promote.

"He that has a natural disposition for it, and then fixes his imagination long and intensely, and therefore _magically_, upon a certain object, may at length be able, with respect to this object, to foresee things which have reference to it. Grave-diggers, nurses, and such as are employed to undress and shroud the dead, watchmen, and the like, are accustomed to be continually reflecting on objects which stand in connexion with death and interment; what wonder, therefore, if their faculty of presentiment at length develop itself on these subjects; and I am inclined to maintain, that it may be promoted by drinking ardent spirits."[74]

In addition to this, Mrs. Crowe remarks:--

"It is worthy of observation that idiots often possess some gleams of this faculty of second-sight or presentiment; and it is probably on this account that they are in some countries held sacred. Presentiment, which I think may very probably be merely the vague and imperfect recollection of what we _knew_ in our sleep, is often observed in drunken people."[75]

Cicero,[76] after relating the myth of the apparition of Tages, in Etruria, adds:--

"But I should indeed be more foolish than they who credit these things, if I seriously argue the matter."

Equally foolish it would be for us to attempt to show the absurdity of the foregoing opinions; and we fear it would be a bootless and inutile task to argue with those who regard the statements of the studiously and transcendentally superstitious and ignorant, the incoherence of the drunkard, the depressed feelings experienced after a debauch, or the vague gleams of understanding in an idiot, as evidences of communication with the spirit-world.

We know two ladies gifted with the faculty of ordinary presentiment, and who boast (if we may use that expression) that they are members of a family of which no scion has died for years without some supernatural indication of its occurrence. We well remember _after_ the information had been received by them of the death of the last male representative of one branch of the family, that they told how on the night of the death they happened to be awake in bed, when certain strange noises were heard about the bed-curtains, "as of a mouse" scrambling upon them, and immediately afterwards a blow was struck upon a large chest of drawers which stood opposite the foot of the bed, and the sound was as though the chest had been broken to pieces. We did not draw the inference which the ladies did from this circumstance, namely, that it was an intimation of the death of their relative, for, unfortunately for the romantic view of the question, we knew that such nightly occurrences as these were somewhat common with them, and that a simple and comfortable house in a densely-populated manufacturing district had been peopled by them with nightly noises and sounds, audible alone to them, to such an extent, that the adaptation of a presentiment to any particular occurrence was a matter of little difficulty.

We also well remember, some years ago, when an infant brother lay dying, that our mother and the nurse were startled in the dead of night by a strange fluttering at the window. On the curtain being raised, the light of the candle showed a bird fluttering and beating against one of the panes. Was it an omen of death, and an emblem of the happy transition of the baby-spirit to another world? A few moments' examination soon showed that it was no spectre bird, but apparently a robin, which had been disturbed in the darkness, and was attracted by the light, and no sooner was the window darkened than it flew away.