Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

In those times, a reputed visit of the devil in _propria persona_ would have been likely to obtain more credence than it could in these: but it would probably be going too far to say that the Lord of Visinara participated in the belief of his horror-stricken household. Certain it is, he caused minute inquiries to be made, although at the express disapprobation of the spiritual directors of the neighboring monastery, some of whom were attached to the services of his chapel, and pointed out to him the grievous sin it was thus to be solicitous about the fate of an avowed heretic. But he could learn nothing. The maid who waited on her testified that she assisted Gina to undress on the previous night. In proof of which, the garments she had taken off were found in the chamber. The remainder of her clothes were in their places undisturbed; the only article missing being a nightdress, which the attendant in question said she saw her put on; and her bed had not been slept in. Giovanni spoke to his wife, but she observed a haughty silence, and it was useless to question her. He had the moat dragged, and the neighborhood for miles round scoured, but no tidings could be obtained. Yet, strange to say, in passing on that first morning through the remote corridors, he fancied he heard her voice pronounce his name in a tone of imploring agony. He searched in every nook and corner, but found nothing, and soon thought no more of it, except to marvel how his imagination could so have deceived him.

After a time, peace was restored between the count and the Lady Adelaide; but all bliss for her, all mutual confidence, had ceased for ever.

IV.

It was midnight. In the nursery at the castle sat the head nurse, and on her lap was the dying heir of Visinara, now eight or ten months old. Until nine days previous, he had been a healthy child, but, from that time, a wasting fever had attacked him, and now he was ill unto death. The Lady Adelaide, her eyes blinded with tears, knelt beside him, gazing on his colorless face. The count himself was gently rubbing his little hands to try and excite some warmth in them.

"Do you not think he looks a little, a _very_ little better?" demanded the lady, anxiously.

The nurse hesitated. She did not think so, but she was unwilling to say what she thought.

"His hands—are they any warmer, Giovanni?"

The count shook his head, and the nurse spoke. "There will be hope, madam, if this last medicine should take effect."

The Lady Adelaide pressed her lips upon the infant’s forehead, and burst into tears.

"You will be ill, Adelaide," said her husband. "This incessant watching is bad for you. Let me persuade you to take rest."

She motioned in the negative.

"Indeed, madam, but you ought to do so," interrupted Lucrezia, who was present: "these many nights you have passed without sleep; and your health so delicate!"

"Lie down—lie down, my love," interposed her husband, "if only for a short time."

Again she refused; but at length they induced her to comply, her husband promising to watch over the child, and to let her know if there should be the slightest change in him. He passed his arms round his wife to lead her from the chamber, for she was painfully weak; but they had scarcely gone ten steps from the door, when a prolonged, shrill scream, as of one in unutterable terror, reached their ears. They rushed back again. The nurse sat, still supporting the child, but with her eyes dilating and fixed on one corner of the room, and her face rigid with horror. It was she who had screamed.

"My child! my child!" groaned the Lady Adelaide.

"Nurse, what in the name of the Holy Virgin is the matter?" exclaimed the count, perceiving no alteration in the infant. "You look as if you had seen a spectre!"

"I have seen one," shuddered the nurse.

"What _have_ you been dreaming of?" he returned, angrily.

"As true as that we are all assembled here, my lord," continued the nurse, solemnly, "I saw the spirit of Gina Montani!"

A change came over the Lord of Visinara’s countenance, but he spoke not; whilst the Lady Adelaide clung to her husband in fear, and Lucrezia darted into the midst of the group, and laid hold of the nurse’s chair.

"What absurdity!" uttered the count, recovering himself. "How could such an idea enter your head?"

"Were it the last word I had to speak, my lord," continued the woman, "and to my dying day, I will maintain what I assert. I saw but now the ghost of Gina Montani. It was in a night-dress, and stood _there_, far away, where the lamp casts its shade."

"Nonsense!" said the count abstractedly. "Pray did you see anything?" he continued, banteringly, to Lucrezia, and to another attendant who was in the room. They answered that they had not: but Lucrezia was white, and shook convulsively. A wild, frantic sob, burst from the Lady Adelaide. The child was dead!

V.

Many months again slipped by, with little to distinguish them save the decreasing strength of the Lady Adelaide. She had been wasting slowly since the shock given her heart at discovering her husband’s love for Gina Montani. She loved him passionately, and she _knew_ her love was unrequited; for affections once bestowed, as his had been, can never be recalled and given to another. The illness of the mind had its effect upon the body; she became worse and worse, and, after the birth of a second child, it was evident that she was sinking rapidly. She lay upon the stately bed in her magnificent chamber, about which were scattered many articles consecrated to her girlhood, or to her happy bridal, and, as such, precious. Seated by the bedside was her husband; one hand clasping hers, in the other he held a cambric handkerchief, with which he occasionally wiped her languid brow. "Bear with me a little longer," my husband—but a short time."

"Bear with you, Adelaide!" he repeated; "would to the Blessed Virgin you might be spared to me!"

"It is impossible," she sighed, pressing his hand upon her wasted bosom.

"Adelaide"—he hesitated; after awhile—"I would ask you a question—a question which, if you can, I entreat that you will answer."

She looked at him inquiringly, and he resumed, in a low voice: "What became of Gina Montani?"

Even amidst the pallid hue of death, a flush appeared in her cheeks at the words. She gasped once or twice with agitation before she could speak. "Bring not up that subject now; the only one that came between us to disturb our peace—the one to which I am indebted for my death. I am lying dying before you, Giovanni, and you can think but of her."

"My love, why will you so misunderstand me?"

"These thoughts excite me dreadfully," she continued. "Let us banish them, if you would have peace visit me in dying."

"May your death be far away yet," he sighed.

"Ah! I trust so—a little longer—a few days with you and my dear child!" And the count clasped his hands together as he silently echoed her prayer.

"Will you reach me my small casket?" she continued; "I put a few trinkets in it, yesterday, to leave as tokens of remembrance. I must show you how I wish them bestowed."

He rose from his seat, and looked about the room; but he could not find the jewelcase. "The small one, Giovanni," she said; "not my diamond casket. I thought it was in the mosaic cabinet. Or, perhaps, they may have taken it into my dressing-room."

He went into the adjoining apartment, and had found the missing casket, when a shriek of horror from the lips of the Lady Adelaide smote his ear. He was in an instant at her bedside, supporting her in his arms; the attendants also came running in. "My dearest Adelaide, what is it that excites you thus?" But his inquiries were in vain. She lay in his arms, sobbing convulsively, and clinging to him as if in terror. Broken words came from her at length: "I looked up—when you were away—and saw—there, in that darkened recess—_her_. I did—I did, Giovanni!"

"Whom?" he said becoming very pale.

"Her—Gina Montani. She was in white—a long dress it seemed. Oh! Giovanni, leave me not again."

"I will never leave you, Adelaide. But this—it must have been a fancy—an illusion of the imagination. We had just been speaking of her."

"You remember," she sobbed, "the night our child died—nurse saw the same spectre. It may—"

The lady’s voice failed her, and her husband started, for a rapid change was taking place in her countenance.

"I am dying, Giovanni," she said, clinging to him, and trembling with nervous terror. "Oh, support me! A doctor—a priest—Father Anselmo—where are they? He gave me absolution, he said. Then why does the remembrance of the deed come back again now? They would not have done it without my sanction. Giovanni, my husband—protect and love our child—desert him never. Giovanni, I say, can they indeed forgive—or does it rest above? If so, oh! why did I have her killed? Giovanni, who is it—Father Anselmo?—God?—_who_ is to forgive me? It _was_ murder! Giovanni, where are you? My sight is going—Giovanni—" Her voice died away, and the count bowed his head in his anguish, whilst the attendants pressed forwards to look at her countenance. The Lady Adelaide had passed to another world!

VI.

It was years after the death of Lady Adelaide, that workmen were making some alterations in the Castle of Visinara, preparatory to the second marriage of its lord, who was about to espouse the lovely Elena di Capella. They were taking down the walls of a secret passage, or corridor, leading out of the chapel to the neighboring monastery. Standing, looking on, was the count, still, to all appearance, youthful, though he was, in reality, some years past thirty, but his features were of a cast that do not quickly take the signs of age. By his side stood a fair boy of seven years old—his heir—open-hearted, engaging, with a smiling countenance, on which might be traced his father’s features, whilst he had inherited his mother’s soft blue eyes and her sunny hair.

"What a while you are!" exclaimed the child, looking on, with impatience, to see the walls come down. "You should hit harder."

"The walls are very thick, Alberto," observed his father. "All these niches, which have been blocked up, and in the olden time contained statues, have to come down also."

"They are taking down a niche now, are they not, papa?"

"Not yet. They are removing the wall which has been built before it. It appears fresher, too, than the rest; of more recent date."

"It seems extraordinarily fresh, my lord," observed one of the workmen. "The materials are old, but it has certainly been rebuilt within a few years—within ten, I should say."

"Not it," laughed the count. "These corridors have not been touched during my lifetime."

"This portion of them has, my lord, you may rely upon it."

As he spoke, the remainder came down with a tremendous crash, leaving the niches exposed, There was no statue there—but the corpse of the unfortunate Gina Montani, standing upright in her night-dress, was revealed to their sight—nearly as fresh as if she had died but yesterday, having been excluded from the air. The features, it is true, were scarcely to be recognized, but the hair—the long brown curls falling on her neck—was the same as ever. This was her horrible death then—to be walled up alive! The count grew sick and faint as he gazed. Before he had time to collect his startled thoughts, the child pulled at and clung to his arm. "Take me away. What is that dreadful thing? You look white and cold too, not as you always do. Oh, what is it? Dear papa, take me from here!"

The workmen were affrighted—perhaps more so, though less shocked, than the count. But one of them, partially recovering himself, touched the corpse with an implement he had been using, and it came down a heap of dust. The Lord of Visinara turned, and with steps that tottered under him, bore his child back to the castle.

VII.

You may hear in Italy unto this day, various versions of this tradition. One will tell you that the Lord of Visinara offered moneys and treasures, to the half of his possessions, to the monks, if they would lay the troubled spirit of Gina Montani, but that, although they tried hard, they could not do it. According to another version, the friars would not try, for that no heretic’s soul may be prayed for in the Roman Church. But, however the monks may have settled it amongst themselves, all versions of the history agree in one particular, that the ghost _was not_ laid; that it never would be, and never could be, but still wanders on the earth. And you were wise to profess faith in it too, if you go amongst the Italians, unless you would be looked on as an unbeliever, not a degree better than the poor Protestant maiden Montani.

Several descendants of Giovanni and Adelaide of Visinara, are still scattered about Italy, though greatly reduced in station. And the accredited belief is, that whenever death is going to remove one of these, the spirit of the ill-fated Gina appears and shows itself to them in the moments of their last and most terrible agonies.

VISION OF CHARLES XI.

From Sharpe’s Magazine

We are in the habit of laughing incredulously at stories of visions and supernatural apparitions, yet some are so well authenticated, that if we refuse to believe them, we should, in consistency, reject all historical evidence. The fact I am about to relate is guaranteed by a declaration signed by four credible witnesses; I will only add, that the prediction contained in this declaration was well known, and generally spoken of, long before the occurrence of the events which have apparently fulfilled it.

Charles XI., father of the celebrated Charles XII., was one of the most despotic, but, at the same time, wisest monarchs, who ever reigned in Sweden. He curtailed the enormous privileges of the nobility, abolished the power of the Senate, made laws on his own authority; in a word, he changed the constitution of the country, hitherto an oligarchy, and forced the States to invest him with absolute power. He was a man of enlightened and strong mind, firmly attached to the Lutheran religion; his disposition was cold, unfeeling, and phlegmatic, utterly destitute of imagination. He had just lost his queen, Ulrica Eleonora, and he appeared to feel her death more than could have been expected from a man of his character. He became even more gloomy and silent than before, and his incessant application to business proved his anxiety to banish painful reflections.

Towards the close of an autumn evening, he was sitting in his dressing-gown and slippers, before a large fire, in his private apartment. His chamberlain, Count Brahe, and his physician, Baumgarten, were with him. The evening wore away, and his majesty did not dismiss them as usual; with his head down and his eyes fixed on the fire, he maintained a profound silence, weary of his guests, and fearing, half unconsciously, to remain alone. The count and his companion tried various subjects of conversation, but could interest him in nothing. At length Brahe, who supposed that sorrow for the queen was the cause of his depression, said with a deep sigh, and pointing to her portrait, which hung in the room,

"What a likeness that is! How truly it gives the expression, at once so gentle and so dignified!"

"Nonsense!" said the king, angrily, "the portrait is far too flattering; the queen was decidedly plain."

Then, vexed at his unkind words, he rose and walked up and down the room, to hide an emotion at which he blushed. After a few minutes he stopped before the window looking into the court; the night was black, and the moon in her first quarter.

The palace where the kings of Sweden now reside was not completed, and Charles XI. who commenced it, inhabited the old palace, situated on the Ritzholm, facing Lake Modu. It is a large building in the form of a horseshoe: the king’s private apartments were in one of the extremities; opposite was the great hall where the States assembled to receive communications from the crown. The windows of that hall suddenly appeared illuminated. The king was startled, but at first supposed that a servant with a light was passing through; but then, that hall was never opened except on state occasions, and the light was too brilliant to be caused by a single lamp. It then occurred to him that it must be a conflagration; but there was no smoke, and the glass was not broken; it had rather the appearance of an illumination. Brahe’s attention being called to it, he proposed sending one of the pages to ascertain the cause of the light, but the king stopped him, saying, he would go himself to the hall. He left the room, followed by the count and doctor, with lighted torches. Baumgarten called the man who had charge of the keys, and ordered him, in the king’s name, to open the doors of the great hall. Great was his surprise at this unexpected command. He dressed himself quickly, and came to the king with his bunch of keys. He opened the first door of a gallery which served as an antechamber to the hall. The king entered, and what was his amazement at finding the walls hung with black.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked he.

The man replied, that he did not know what to make of it, adding, "When the gallery was last opened, there was certainly no hanging over the oak panelling."

The king walked on to the door of the hall.

"Go no further, for heaven’s sake," exclaimed the man; "surely there is sorcery going on inside. At this hour, since the queen’s death, they say she walks up and down here. May God protect us!"

"Stop, sire," cried the count and Baumgarten together, "don’t you hear that noise? Who knows to what dangers you are exposing yourself! At all events, allow me to summon the guards."

"I will go in," said the king, firmly; "open the door at once."

The man’s hand trembled so that he could not turn the key.

"A fine thing to see an old soldier frightened," said the king, shrugging his shoulders; "come, Count, will you open the door?"

"Sire," replied Brahe, "let your majesty command me to march to the mouth of a Danish or German cannon, and I will obey unhesitatingly, but I cannot defy hell itself."

"Well," said the king, in a tone of contempt, "I can do it myself."

He took the key, opened the massive oak door, and entered the hall, pronouncing the words, "With the help of God." His three attendants, whose curiosity overcame their fears, or who, perhaps, were ashamed to desert their sovereign, followed him. The hall was lighted by an innumerable number of torches. A black hanging had replaced the old tapestry. The benches round the hall were occupied by a multitude, all dressed in black; their faces were so dazzlingly bright that the four spectators of this scene were unable to distinguish one amongst them. On an elevated throne, from which the king was accustomed to address the assembly, sat a bloody corpse, as if wounded in several parts, and covered with the ensigns of royalty; on his right stood a child, a crown on his head, and a sceptre in his hand; at his left an old man leant on the throne; he was dressed in the mantle formerly worn by the administrators of Sweden, before it became a kingdom under Gustavus Vasa. Before the throne were seated several grave, austere looking personages, in long black robes. Between the throne and the benches of the assembly was a block covered with black crape; an axe lay beside it. No one in the vast assembly appeared conscious of the presence of Charles and his companions. On their entrance they heard nothing but a confused murmur, in which they could distinguish no words. Then the most venerable of the judges in the black robes, he who seemed to be their president, rose, and struck his hand five times on a folio volume which lay open before him. Immediately there was a profound silence, and some young men, richly dressed, their hands tied behind their backs, entered the hall by a door opposite to that which Charles had opened. He who walked first, and who appeared the most important of the prisoners, stopped in the middle of the hall, before the block, which he looked at with supreme contempt. At the same time the corpse on the throne trembled convulsively, and a crimson stream flowed from his wounds. The young man knelt down, laid his head on the block, the axe glittered in the air for a moment, descended on the block, the head railed over the marble pavement, and reached the feet of the king, and stained his slipper with blood. Until this moment surprise had kept Charles silent, but this horrible spectacle roused him, and advancing two or three steps towards the throne, he boldly addressed the figure on its left in the well-known formulary, "If thou art of God, speak; if of the other, leave us in peace."

The phantom answered slowly and solemnly, "King Charles, this blood will not flow in thy time, but five reigns after." Here the voice became less distinct, "Woe, woe, woe to the blood of Vasa!" The forms of all the assembly now became less clear, and seemed but colored shades: soon they entirely disappeared; the lights were extinguished; still they heard a melodious noise, which one of the witnesses compared to the murmuring of the wind among the trees, another to the sound a harp string gives in breaking. All agreed as to the duration of the apparition, which they said lasted ten minutes. The hangings, the head, the waves of blood, all had disappeared with the phantoms, but Charles’s slipper still retained a crimson stain, which alone would have served to remind him of the scenes of this night, if indeed they had not been too well engraven on his memory.

When the king returned to his apartment, he wrote an account of what he had seen, and he and his companions signed it. In spite of all the precautions taken to keep these circumstances private, they were well known, even during the lifetime of Charles, and no one hitherto has thought fit to raise doubts as to their authenticity.

DIVINATION, WITCHCRAFT, AND MESMERISM.

From the Dublin University Magazine.

It seems strange that so obvious a case as that of Barlaam and the monks of Mount Athos has not been brought into the mesmerical collection of _pièces justificatives_. The first compiler of the authorities on which it rests is Ughelli. The story is told in modern language by Mosheim, by Fleury, and by Gibbon at the years 1341-51. In taking the version of it by the last (Decline and Fall, c. 63,) we shall run least risk of being imposed on by over-credulity.

"The Fakirs of India and the monks of the Oriental Church," says the complacent philosopher of Lausanne, "were alike persuaded that in total abstraction of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinions and practices of the monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented in the words of an abbot who flourished in the eleventh century. ’When thou art alone in thy cell,’ says the ascetic teacher, ’shut thy door and seat thyself in a corner: raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thine eyes and thy thoughts towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the naval; and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and etherial light.’ This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly was confined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not inquisitive how the divine essence could be a _material_ substance, or how an _immaterial_ substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. But in the reign of the younger Andronicus these monasteries were visited by Barlaam, a Calabrian monk, who was equally skilled in philosophy and theology. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer, and Barlaam embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists who placed the soul in the naval; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of heresy and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to renounce or dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation of God."

Gregory illustrated his argument by a reference to the celestial light manifested in the transfiguration of our Lord on Mount Thabor. On this distinction issue was taken by the disputatious Calabrian, and the result was the convocation of a synod at Constantinople, whose decree "established as an article of faith the uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, the reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the addition of a single absurdity."

Of the truth of facts so long and openly discussed, there can be no question. The monks of Mount Athos did indeed put themselves into a state which may with safety be called one of mental lucidity, by fixing their eyes intently on a point. Mr. Robertson, who used to induce the mesmeric sleep by causing his votaries to fix their eyes on a wafer, had better precedent than he supposed for his practice; and Miss Martineau, who, in her artificial trances, saw all objects illuminated has been unconsciously repeating a monastic method of worship. The contemptuous indifference of Gibbon for once arises from defect of information; and when in a note he observes that Mosheim "unfolds the causes with the judgment of a philosopher," while Fleury "transcribes and translates with the prejudices of a Catholic priest," himself gives a luculent example of the errors of philosophy, and of the often unsuspected approach of prejudice to truth. Mosheim’s observation, notwithstanding the damaging approval of Gibbon, is not without its value. "There is no reason," he says, "for any to be surprised at this account, or to question its correctness. For among the precepts and rules of all those in the East who teach men how to withdraw the mind from the body, and to unite it with God, or inculcate what the Latins call a contemplative and mystic life, whether they are Christians, or Mohammedans, or Pagans, there is this precept, viz., _that the eyes must be fixed every day for some hours upon some particular object_, and that whoever does this will be rapt into a kind of ecstasy. See what Engelbert Kempfer states concerning the monks and mystics of Japan; and the account of those of India by Francis Bernier." Strange that Mosheim, observing the uniformity both of the process and of its results in so many different parts of the world, should not have suspected that there was something more in this species of lucidity than the merely casual effects of a distempered imagination. By fixing the gaze even of the lower animals on an immovable point, they fall into a condition equally unnatural, and which, if they had language to express their visions, would probably be found equally clairvoyant.

A favorite subject of mediæval art is the life of the Christian ascetic in the Desert. In these representations a human skull may generally be seen placed before the eyes of the devotee. Such an object would fix the gaze and induce the ecstasy as well as any other. The charm of this species of contemplation must have been intense, since in search of its exaltations and illuminations the very convents were deserted; and during the fourth and fifth centuries the deserts of Idumea, of Egypt, and of Pontus, swarmed with anchorites, who seemed to live only for the sake of escaping from life, and in their fasts and mortifications rivalled, if they did not for a time even surpass, the Fakirs of the East. To such an extent was this religious enthusiasm carried, that in Egypt the number of the monks was thought to equal that of the rest of the male population. Strange consideration, if it be the fact, that a few passes of a mesmeric operator should produce the same effects which these multitudes procured through toils so painful and sacrifices to themselves and to society so costly.

The Egyptian method of inducing clairvoyance in boys, by causing them to gaze on a pool of ink in the palm of the hand, has already been identified with the practice of Dr. Dee, whose blank spherical mirror is now said to be in the possession and use of a distinguished modern mesmeriser. Divination by the crystal is a well-known mediæval practice; and from the accounts of it which Delrio and others have handed down it appears to have resembled, in some remarkable particulars, the method now in use among the soothsayers of Cairo. It does not appear to make any difference whether the polished object be black or white, a mirror, a solid ball, or a transparent globe containing water: the same extraordinary series of appearances is alleged to follow an earnest inspection of it. Before proceeding to Delrio’s singular corroboration of this use of the crystal, it will be well to state what is known of divination by the phial and by the mirror. Divination by the phial is technically known as _gasteromancy_. "In this kind of divination," says Peucer, "the response is given by pictures, not by sounds. They procured glass vessels of a globular shape, filled with fair water, and set round them lighted tapers; and after invoking the demon with a muttered incantation, and proposing the question, they brought forward a pure boy-child, or a pregnant woman, who, gazing intently on the glass, and searching it with their eyes, called for, and demanded, a solution of the question proposed. The devil then answered these inquiries by certain images, which, by a kind of refraction, shone from the water on the polished and mirror-like surface of the phial."

_Catoptromancy_, or divination by the mirror, is as old as the time of the Roman Emperors. In one of the passages relating to this method of inducing what is called clairvoyance, we have an illustration of the early acquaintance of mankind with some of the forms of mesmerism. The passage is found in Spartian’s life of Ditius Julian, the rich Roman who purchased the Empire when it was put up to auction by the Prætorian guards. "Julian was also addicted to the madness of consulting magicians, through whom he hoped either to appease the indignation of the people, or to control the violence of the soldiery. For they immolated certain victims (human?) not agreeable to the course of Roman sacrifice; and they performed certain profane incantations; and those things, too, which are done at the mirror, in which boys with their eyes blindfolded are said, by means of incantations, to see objects with the top of the head, Julian had recourse to. And the boy is said to have seen (in the mirror) both the approach of Severus and the death of Julian."

The passage may be variously rendered, according to different readings and punctuations, either as "boys, who can see with their eyes blindfolded, by reason of incantations made over the top of the head;" or, "boys, who, having their eyes blindfolded, can see with the top of the head, by reason of incantations;" or, "boys, who, having their eyes blindfolded, can see with the top of the head, it being operated on by way of incantation." This seeing, or seeming to see, with the top of the head, is one alleged variety of the modes of modern clairvoyance. It seems difficult to imagine that the boy Horner, whose case is related by Mr. Topham, in a letter to Dr. Elliotson, dated May 31, 1847, could have heard any thing of these pagan practices. Mr. Topham, a barrister and man of credit, states: "After five or six weeks’ mesmerism, he began spontaneously to exhibit instances of clairvoyance. The first occasion was on the 11th of September. It was in the dusk of the evening, so that the room where he was mesmerised was nearly dark. My previous mode of mesmerising him had been by pointing at his eyes, but on this occasion I began by making passes over the top of his head, and continued them after he was in the sleep. In the course of five or six minutes after the sleep was induced, he suddenly exclaimed that he could see into the room above us (the drawing-room). I said, ’Your eyes are closed; how can you see?’ And he replied, ’I don’t see with my eyes; I see from the top of my head. All the top of my head seems open.’ He then described, &c. I found every thing as he had described, &c." Mr. Topham, it need scarcely be added, does not appear to have been at all aware of the passage in Spartian, which, indeed, has not been cited or referred to in any published work for nearly two hundred years back.

A like use of the suspended ring, indicating the early acquaintance of practitioners in these arts with one of the alleged evidences of the so-called _odylic_ force, is thus described by Peucer among various modes of hydromancy: "A bowl was filled with water, and a ring suspended from the finger was librated in the water; and so, according as the question was propounded, a declaration or confirmation of its truth, or otherwise, was obtained. If what was proposed was true, the ring, of its own accord, without any impulse, struck the sides of the goblet a certain number of times. They say that Numa Pompilius used to practise this method, and that he evoked the gods, and consulted them in water, in this way."

_Crystallomancy_ is the art of divining by figures, which appear on the surface of a crystal ball, in like manner as on the phial filled with water. Concerning this practice, Delrio has the following remarkable passage, citing his contemporary, Spengler: "A man well versed in the Greek and Latin fathers, and happy, if he had not presumed, with unclean hands, to dabble in the mysteries of our faith (Spenger), has published in Germany a learned commentary on the nature of demons, which he has prefixed to Plutarch’s Essay, _De Defectu Oraculorum_. From this (says Delrio) I extract, in his own words, the following narrative. There are some (he says) who, being consulted on matters unknown, distinctly see every thing that is inquired after in _crystals_; and a little further on proceeds to state, that he once had an acquaintance, a man of one of the best families of Nuremberg, and that this acquaintance of his came to him on one occasion, bringing with him a crystal gem, of a round form, wrapped up in a piece of silk, which he told him he had received from a stranger, who encountering him several years before in the market-place, had asked his hospitality, and whom he had brought home with him and lodged for the space of three days; and that when the stranger was departing, he had left him the crystal as a present, in token of his obligation, and had taught him the use of it; thus, that if there was any thing he particularly wished to be informed of, he should take out this crystal and desire a pure male child to look into it and say what he should see there; and that it would come to pass that whatever he desired to be informed of, would be indicated by appearances seen by the boy. And he affirmed that he never was deceived in any instance, and that he learned matters of a wonderful kind from the representations of those boys, although no one else, by the closest inspection, could see any thing except the clear and shining gem. At a certain time, however, when his wife was pregnant of a male child, appearances were visible to her also in the crystal. First of all, there used to appear the form of a man clad in the ordinary habit of the times, and then would open the representation of whatever was inquired after; and when all was explained, the same figure of the man would depart and disappear; but in his departure would often appear to perambulate the town and enter the churches. But the report of these appearances having spread in all directions, they began to be threatened by the populace. It also appeared, that certain men of learning had read in the crystal some statements respecting doubts entertained by them in their studies; and moved by these and other reasons, Spengler stated that the owner of the crystal came to him, representing that he thought the time was come when he ought to cease making such a use of it; for that he was now persuaded he had sinned in no light degree in doing so, and had for a long time suffered grievous pangs of a disturbed conscience on that account, and had come to the determination of having nothing further to do with experiments of that kind, and had accordingly brought the crystal to him to do with it whatever he pleased. Then Spengler, highly approving his resolution, states that he took the crystal, and having pounded it into minute fragments, threw them, together with the silk wrapper, into a draw-well." So far Delrio.

Another variety of this process is found in the _Onuchomanteia_, or nail-divinition, also spoken of by Delrio. "In this species," says he, "male children, before they have lost their purity, smear their nails with oil and lamp-black, and then, holding up the nail against the sun, repeating some charm, see in it what they desire. This mischief," he goes on to say, "has gone even farther in our own time. I myself knew one Quevedo, a veteran Spanish soldier, but more distinguished in war and arms than in piety, who, being in Brussels at the time when the Duke of Medina Cæli set sail from Gallicia for Belgium, clearly showed in more than one of his nails the fleet leaving the port of Corunna, and soon after dreadfully tossed by a tempest. Thus this man, who could also cure the wounds of others by his words alone, rendered his own spiritual state incurable by any one."

The like use of the crystal ball and spherical phial, containing water, suggests a version of the epigrams of Claudian—"De crystallo in quo aqua inclusa"—which has not been afforded by any of the commentators. Globules of water are sometimes found inclosed in crystals, as well as in amber. On one of those singular gems Claudian has composed a series of epigrams, which ascribe properties to the stone, and make allusion to uses of it hardly reconcileable with the idea of its being a merely puerile curiosity. The earlier epigrams of the series are neat and playful, but insignificant:—

"The icy gem its aqueous birth attests,
Part turned to stone, while part in fluid rests;
Winter’s numbed hand achieved the cunning feat,
The perfecter for being incomplete.

"Nymphs who your sister nymphs in glassy thrall
Hold here imprisoned in the crystal ball;
Waters that were and are, declare the cause
That your bright forms at once congeals and thaws.

"Scorn not the crystal ball, a worth it owns,
Greater than graven Erythrean stones;
Rude though it seems, a formless mass of ice,
’Tis justly counted ’mongst our gems of price."

And so on through several others, until he comes to that one which seems to indicate something beyond a merely figurative use of the word "nymphs;" though, after all, it is possible that the word was originally written with an _l_, instead of _n_, which would make all the difference between "nymphs" and "waters":—

"While the soft boy the slippery crystal turns,
To touch the waters in their icy urns,
Safe in its depths translucent he beholds
The nymphs, unconscious of the winter colds:
And the dry ball exploring with his lip,
Seems, while he fails, the illusive lymph to sip."

The Latin is subjoined:—

"Dum crystalla puer contingere lubrica gaudet
Et gelidum tenero pollice versat onus,
Videt perspicuo deprensas in marmore nymphas,
Dura quibus solis parcere novit hyems:
Et siccum religens labiis sitientibus orbem,
Irrita quæsitis oscula figit aquis."

Not the least remarkable of the qualities here ascribed to the crystal ball is its energy in imparting the sensation of cold. Dom Chifflet, who, in 1665, published his learned treatise at Antwerp on the objects then recently discovered in the supposed tomb of King Childeric, at Tournay, says of the crystal ball which was found amongst them, "You would say it was petrified ice; so cold it was, that my palm and fingers, after handling it, were quite torpid." And cites Anslem Boetius, in his book on stones and gems, as saying, "the crystal is of so cold and dry a nature, that placed beneath the tongue of a feverish person, it allays the thirst; and held in the hands even of those violently fevered, it refreshes and cools them, especially if it be of considerable size, and of a spherical figure;" and another writer on the same subject, Andreas Cisalpinus, who states of the marble called ophite, that "they make of it little globes, for the handling of such as are in burning fever, the coldness of the stone expelling the disease." So far Dom Chifflet. It seems almost as if we were reading Reichenbach. "He (Reichenbach) found that crystals are capable of producing all the phenomena resulting from the action of a magnet on cataleptic patients. Thus, for instance, a large piece of rock crystal, placed in the hand of a nervous patient, affects the fingers so as to make them grasp the crystal involuntarily, and shut the fist. Reichenbach found that more than half of all the persons he tried were sensible of its action." Chifflet probably was a man of a nervous temperament. Those who desire to see the crystal ball in question, may inspect it, where it is still preserved, with other objects found in the tomb, at the Gallerie de Medailles, in Paris. Two similar balls may be seen here in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy.

The use of water in communicating an ecstacy similar to the mesmeric lucidity, is largely dwelt on by the mystical writers known as the Neo-Platonists. Psellus describes a mode of divinition among the Assyrians by a basin, which smacks strongly of the mesmeric practice. "The water, which is poured into the basin, seems, as to its substance, to differ in nothing from other water; but it possesses a certain virtue, infused into it by incantations, whereby it is rendered more apt for the reception of the demon." The effect of the waters of some sacred places on those accustomed to their influence, was also such as is claimed for the mesmerized waters of our present practitioners. Jamblichus gives this account of the Colophonian oracle:—"There was a subterranean place at Colophon, near Ephesus, in which was a fountain. The priest on stated nights sacrificed, then drank the water, and afterwards prophesied, being rendered invisible to the spectators. It might seem," he says, "to some that the Divine Spirit passed into the priest through the water. But this is not so; for the divine influence is not transmitted thus according to the laws of distance and division, through these things which participate in it, but comprehends them from without, and inwardly illuminates and fills them with lucidity, and fills the water also with a certain virtue conducive to the prophetic faculty, that is, a clarifying virtue; so that when the priest drinks, it purifies the luminous spirit which is implanted in him, and accommodates it to God, and by that purifying and accommodating process, enables him to apprehend the deity. But there is another kind of presence of the god, besides the virtue infused into the wafer, which illumines all around, above, and within us, and which no man wants, if he can only attain to the necessary state of congruity. And so of a sudden it falls on the prophet, and makes use of him as an instrument; and he in the meantime has no command of himself, and knows not what he says, nor where he is, and with difficulty comes to himself again, after the response given. Moreover, before drinking the water, he abstains for a day and night from food, and partakes of certain mysteries inaccessible to the vulgar; from which it is to be collected that there are two methods by which man may be prepared for the reception of the divine influence: one by the drinking of purgatorial water, endowed by the Deity with a clarifying virtue; the other, by sobriety, solitude, the separation of the mind from the body, and the intent contemplation of the Deity."

One might here suppose he read of the rites of St. Patrick’s Purgatory. The water of the lake there is usually called wine, and it may be that on minds and bodies "which have attained to the needful congruity," it has operated as wonderful effects as the Colophonian fount itself. The proceedings of the priestess at Brancidæ, who also, from amongst other sources, derived the afflatus, or _Waren_, from a fountain, are to the same purpose. "The prophetic priestess at Brancidæ either sits on an axis [exposing herself to the influence, as the Pythoness on her Tripod], or holds a wand in her hand, given by some god, or dips the hem of her garment, in water, or inhales a certain vapor of water, and by these methods is filled with the divine illumination, receives the god, and prophesies. But, that the prophetic faculty comes from no corporeal or animal source, and from no local or material instrumentality, but solely and extrinsically from the presence of the incoming deity, appears from this, that the priestess, before she gives her oracle, performs many ceremonious rites, observes strict purity, bathes, abstains for three days from food, dwells apart, and so, by little and little, begins to be illuminated and enraptured." What the exact meaning of sitting on an axis may be, it is difficult to divine; but those who allege that a patient may be thrown into the mesmeric trance by holding a magnetized branch—and those also who have read of all the phenomena of exorcism being as fully elicited by a satchel of feathers as by a bag of reliques—will readily apply the wand "presented by some deity," and placed in the hand of the priestess at the moment when she should receive the final cataleptic impulse. If there be truth in the alleged modern cases of _clairvoyance_, we need not be surprised at the singular coincidences which have sustained the credit of Colophon and Delphi.

Not to dwell on other methods of inducing the afflatus, such as by characters and amulets, by music, by dancing, and by movements of the body, I shall now proceed with the effects alleged to have been produced on the _afflati_. Jamlichus must still be our principal authority. Lucidity and prevision have already been sufficiently indicated, and have doubtless been readily recognized: the other symptoms will be found not less remarkable and equally familiar:—"Man has a double life—one annexed to the body, the other separate from every thing bodily.... In sleep we have the capacity of being wholly loosed from the chains that confine our spirit, and can make use of the life which is not dependent on generation. When the soul is thus separate from the body in sleep, then that (latter) kind of life which usually remains separable and separate by itself, immediately awakes within us, and acts according to its proper nature,... and in that state has a presaging knowledge of the future." Then, omitting a distinction between sleeping and waking inspiration, and coming to the latter, in which, also, the _offlati_ have a presaging power, he proceeds:—"Yet those (latter) are so far awake that they can use their senses, yet are not capable of reasoning,... for they neither (properly speaking) sleep when they seem to do so, nor awake when they seem awake; for they do not of themselves foresee, nor are they moved by any human instrumentality; neither know they their own condition; nor do they exert any prerogative or motion of their own; but all this is done under the power and by the energy of the deity. For that they who are so affected do not live an ordinary animal life is plain, because many of them, on contact with fire, are not burnt, the divine inward afflatus repelling the heat; or, if they be burnt, they do not feel it; neither do they feel prickings, or scratchings, or other tortures. Further, that their actions are not (merely) human, is apparent from this, that they make their way through pathless tracks, and pass harmless through the fire, and pass over rivers in a wonderful manner, which the priestess herself also does in the Cataballa. By this it is plain that the life they live is not human, nor animal, nor dependent on the use of senses, but divine, as if the soul were taking its rest, and the deity were there instead of the soul. Various sorts there are of those so divinely inspired, as well by reason of the varying divinity of the inspiring gods as of the modes of inspiration. These modes are of this sort—either the deity occupies us, or we join ourselves to the deity, &c.... According to these diversities, there are different signs, effects, and works of the inspired; thus, some will be moved in their whole bodies, others in particular members; others, again, will be motionless. Also they will perform dances and chants, some well, some ill. The bodies, again, of some will seem to dilate in height, of others in compass; and others, again, will seem to walk in air."

Taking these various manifestations in order, and beginning with the alleged power of resisting the action of fire, the reader will not need to be reminded of many seemingly well-authenticated cases of escape from the fire-ordeal. It has been usual to ascribe the preservation of those who have walked bare-footed over heated ploughshares to the use of astringent lotions: and where opportunity existed for preparation of that kind, their escape may perhaps be so explained. But in most instances the accused was in the custody of the accusers, and not likely to have access to such phylacteries. The exemption from the effects of fire was not confined to those cases of exaltation attendant on the enthusiasm of conscious virtue. Bosroger (La Piéte Affligée, Rouen, 1752) states of one of the possessed sisters of St. Elizabeth at Louviers, in 1642: "One morning Sister Saint-Esprit was rapt as in an ecstasy. The bishop commanded the devil to leave her. Immediately she experienced dreadful contortions, and an access of rage, and, on a sudden, says the exorcist, her demon left her like a flash of lightning, and threw the young woman into the fire, which was a considerable one, casting her with her face and one hand direct between the two andirons; and when they ran to drag her away, they found that neither her face nor her hand were in anywise burnt."

It would be idle to multiply instances of this sort from the monkish writers. The preservation of the three youths in the Chaldæan furnace was one of the miracles most adapted to the servile yet audacious imitations of the Thaumaturgists. It is only when their statements correspond in unsuspected particulars with the phenomena of experience—as, for example, in the case of Barlaam and the monks of Mount Athos—that they can be adduced without offending the judgment of rational inquirers. But the action of burning is an operation of mechanical and chemical forces; and how any amount of spiritual or electrical effusion could prevent the expansion of the fluids in the tissues and the disruption of the skin, seems hard to imagine. Something more must, one should think, have been needed; and if the mesmeric and Pagan oracular ecstasies be identical, this testimony of Jamblichus would lead us to suppose that that something was supplied by the mind. However this may be, we shall be better able to judge after the investigation of some other of the alleged concomitants of Pagan inspiration.