Chapter I: Part 1

THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF
MYSTERY.

“We so intreateth this serious and terrible matter of Spirites,
that now and then insertyng some strange stories of
counterfeyts, doth both very lybely display their falsehood, and
also not a little recreate his reader: and yet in the ende he so
aptly concludeth to the purpose, that his hystories seeme not
idle tales, or impertinent vagaries, but very truethes,
naturally falling under the compasse of his matter.”

* * * * *

THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF
MYSTERY.

BY

WALTER COOPER DENDY,
FELLOW AND HONORARY LIBRARIAN OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON;
SENIOR SURGEON TO THE ROYAL INFIRMARY FOR CHILDREN, &c. &c.

* * * * *

LONDON:
LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
———
1841.

* * * * *

GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,
St. John’s Square, London.

* * * * *

TO HIS COUSINS,

STEPHEN DENDY, ESQ.

OF PARIS,

AND

CHARLES COOK DENDY, ESQ.

OF SOUTHGATE HOUSE, CHICHESTER;

AND TO HIS BROTHER,

EDWARD STEPHEN DENDY,

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,

IN TOKEN OF THE AFFECTIONATE REGARD

OF THE AUTHOR.

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

PAGE
THE CHALLENGE.
Scenery on the Wye—A Ghost Seer—Tintern 1-5
Abbey—Faith and Scepticism in the reality of
Phantoms

NATURE AND MOTIVES OF GHOSTS.
Notions of the Ancients regarding the nature of 6-17
Ghosts—Confidence of the Ancients in their
appearance—Modern Incidents in illustration of
real appearance—Qualities of Ghosts—Motives of
Apparitions—Ancient and modern Stories

PROPHECY OF SPECTRES.
Ancient spectral Prophecy—Modern Stories in 18-33
illustration of prophetic Spectres—Philosophy
and Poesy of Shakspere—Holy influence of
Spectral Visitations—Stories of apparently
special influence of the Deity

ILLUSION OF SPECTRES.
Reasons for early faith in Phantoms—Modern errors 34-51
regarding classic Superstitions—Shallowness and
Fallacy of modern Incidents—Explanation of Ghost
Stories by Coincidence—Incidents in proof of
Coincidence—Proneness of intellectual Minds to
credulity and exaggeration—Innocent invention of
an incident at Bowood

PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
Influence of interesting localities—Definition of 52-66
a Phantom—An intense idea—Demonomania—Stings of
Conscience—Curious effect of peculiar study or
intense thought—Darkness and Obscurity—Romance
of reality—A mysterious incident

PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT.
Second Sight—National propensity to the 67-79
Sight—Romance and Poetry of the
Mountains—_Morbid_ predisposition to Second
Sight—Unearthly Visions on the eve of
Dissolution—Glimpses of Reason in dying Maniacs

PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL CONGESTION.
Phantoms of intellectual Minds—Illusion of 80-88
Opium—Illustrations of Narcotic Influence

POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY.
Inspiration of Poesy and 89-100
Painting—Shakspere—Fuseli—Blake—Philosophy and
Madness—Illusion of Tasso—Truth of
Poesy—Splendid illusions at the onset of
Mania—Melancholy constitution and decay of
Poetic Minds—Letter of a
Cheromaniac—Sensibility—Unhappy consequences of
cherishing Romance—Fragment of John Keats

PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY WITH THE BRAIN.
Philosophy of Moral Causes—Effect of thought and 101-112
of the function of the Stomach in producing
physical changes in the Brain—Stories in proof
of this influence—Illusions from Derangements of
Vision—Curious cases of ocular Spectra from
peculiar conditions of the Eye

MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS.
Stories of Supernatural Appearances 113-122

ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION.
Credulity—Arrangement of Causes of Spectral 123-140
Illusion—Illustration of Atmospheric
Illusions—Natural Phenomena—Fata
Morgana—Schattenman of the Brocken—Romance of
unlettered minds

ILLUSIONS OF ART.
Monkish Impostures—Optical Toys—Spontaneous 141-146
Combustion

ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS.
Elemental Causes—Impositions at 147-154
Woodstock—Tedworth—Cock Lane—Subterranean
Sounds—Currents of Air—Memnon—Phonic
Instruments—Vocal curiosity in young Richmond

FAIRY MYTHOLOGY.
Origin of Faëry—Legends of the Mythology of 155-165
various Climes—Cauld Lad of Hilton

DEMONOLOGY.
Classic and Indian Mythology—Embodying of a 166-177
Demon—Stories illustrative of the Superstitions
of Ireland and Cornwall—Legend of the
Changelings—Poetry of Nature—Preadamite Beings

NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND.
Psychology of the Greeks and of the 178-192
Moderns—Essence of Phrenology—Lord
Brougham—Priestley—Paley—Johnson—Modes of
Sepulture—Paradise—Atheism—Deity—Hindu
Mythology—Senile Intellect

NATURE OF SLEEP.
Unconsciousness of Sleep—Necessity of 193-204
Slumber—Malady of Collins—Somnolency of the
Brute and of Savages—Periods of
Sleep—Sleeplessness and its Antidotes

SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION OF DREAMING.
Unconsciousness of the Dream—Arguments on this 205-213
question—Episode of a dreaming Life

PROPHECY OF DREAMS.
Ancient Prophetic Dreams—Stories of modern 214-222
Prophecies in Dreaming

MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING.
Associations of Dreaming—Incongruous 223-235
Combinations—Source of Ideas in Dreams—Innate
Idea—Undreaming Minds—Flitting of the
Spirit—Fallacy of Mental Energy in the
Dream—Illusion of Dreams—Marmontel

ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE OF DREAMS.
Celerity of Ideas in the Dream—Sacred Records of 236-256
Dreams—Danger of profane Discussion of
Scripture—Fallacy of Dreams—Consequences of
Credulity in Dreams

MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS.
Blending of Metaphysics and Philosophy—Confusion 257-269
of ancient and modern Classifications of
Dreams—Curious Cases of suspended
Memory—Anecdotes of Tenacity of
Memory—Physiology of Memory—Ghost of an
amputated Limb

INTENSE IMPRESSION.—MEMORY.
Curious Cases of Associations—Deranged 270-280
Memory—Dreams of Animals—Poetic Illustrations

INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD IN THE BRAIN.
Conditions of the Brain—Analogy of Dreaming and 281-294
Mania—Sympathetic Causes of
Dreaming—Repletion—Effects of Posture in
inducing Dreams—Phrenological Illustrations

INCUBUS OR NIGHT-MARE.
Illustrative Incidents—Night-mare of the Mind 295-303

SOMNILOQUENCE.—SOMNAMBULISM.
Stories of Sleep-talking—Stories of 304-328
Sleep-walking—Changes of disposition in
Somnambulism—Abeyance of Memory during the
Interval—Exactness and Energy during
Somnambulism—Concentration of
Power—Unconsciousness—Analysis of
Sleep-walking—Theory of _Reflex Action_ of the
Nervous System—Irresistibility—Disease of the
Brain in Somnambulists

IMITATIVE MONOMANIA.
Dance of the Middle Ages—Tarantulism—Saint Vitus’ 329-340
Dance—Tigretier—Lycanthropy—Fanaticism during
the Commonwealth—Moravians—The Kent
Tragedy—Stories of Imitative Suicide—Effects of
Stramonium, and of Gaseous Inhalation

REVERIE.
Abstraction of Idiocy—Cretinism—Wandering of the 341-352
Mind—Concentrativeness—Anecdotes illustrative of
Illusive Abstraction

ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT.
Anecdotes in illustration—Brown 353-366
Study—Apathy—Heroism—Reverie of
Philosophy—Sonata di Diavolo—Reverie at
Caerphilly—Intense Impression—Abstraction of
Deep Study—Reverie of the Dying

SOMNOLENCE.—TRANCE.—CATALEPSY.
Description of Trance—Legends of Deep 367-377
Sleepers—Stories of Modern Trances—Analogies
from Intense Impression—Periodical Catalepsy

PREMATURE INTERMENT.—RESUSCITATION.
Stories in Illustration—Romance, Life in 378-392
Death—Causes of Resuscitation—Disunion of Mind
and Body—Insensibility of the Decollated
Head—Sensations during Hanging and Drowning—Case
of Dr. Adam Clarke

TRANSMIGRATION.—ANALYSIS OF TRANCE.
State of the Spirit after Death—Fables of 393-404
Transmigration—Superstition in India and
England—Tenacity of Life—Hybernation—Sleep of
Plants—Physiology of Trance

MESMERISM.
Its origin—Commissions for its 405-430
investigation—Caspar Hauser—Sensations of
Magnetism—Magnetized Trees—Operations during
Magnetic Trance—Transference of Senses—Mineral
Traction—Clairvoyance—Trance of Santa
Theresa—Prophetess of Prevorst—Magnetic
Aura—Personal Sympathy—Socrates—Fascino—Prince
Hohenlohe

SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE.
Occult Science—A Gipsy—Spells and 431-443
Charms—Relics—Ordeals—Philosophy of Prophetic
Fulfilment—Melancholy effects of
Prophecy—Astrology—Conclusion

* * * * *

THE

PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTERY.

THE CHALLENGE.

“There are more things in heav’n and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”—HAMLET.

THERE was a shallop floating on the Wye, among the gray rocks and leafy woods of Chepstow. Within it were two fair girls reclining: the one blending the romantic wildness of a maid of Italy with the exquisite purity of English nature; the other illuming, with the devotion of a vestal, the classic beauty of a Greek.

There was a young and learned bachelor sitting at the helm. Study had stamped an air of thoughtfulness on his brow; yet a smile was ever playing on his lips, as his heart felt the truth and influence of the beautiful life around him.

Listen, gentle reader, we pray thy courtesy and thy patience, as a rude unskilful pen traces the breathed thoughts of these wanderers of the Wye.

* * * * *

CASTALY. We have roamed, dear Ida, among the classic lands of the far-off Mediterranean: we have looked, from her pinnacles of snow, on the silvery gleaminess of Switzerland, and from purple sierras on the sunny splendour of Spain; yet these English meadows, with their fringes of wild bloom, come o’er the heart with all the freshness of an infant’s dream. Yon majestic crag of Wyndcliff is flinging its purple shadows athwart the water, and floods of golden glory are streaming through the beech-woods of Piercefield: and see, our little sail, white as the wing of a swan, is wafting us towards Abbey Tintern, along this beautiful valley, where the river almost doubles on itself; meandering among its mead-flowers and its mosses, as loth to leave its luxuriant bed. Listen! the breath of evening is among the trees that dip in the ripple of the Wye their leaves of shivering gold. What a scene for minions of the moon to revel in! Say, shall we charm the lingering hours of this midsummer night among the ivied cloisters of the abbey? But where is Astrophel, our moon-struck student, who, like Chaucer’s scholar, keeps

——“at his bed’s head,
A twenty books clothed in black and red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophy?”——

They have not taught him courtesy, or he would not steal away from the light of our eyes to commune with owls and ivy-bushes.

Yet we promise him our smile for _your_ sake, Evelyn. Indeed, I am thinking his mysteries will chime in admirably with the solemnity of this lone abbey. We appoint him master of our revels.

EVELYN. Let your smile be in pity, fair Castaly, on the illusions of Astrophel. Ensconced in his dark closet, within a charmed ring of black-letter folios, he has wofully warped his studies, and has read himself into the belief that he is a GIFTED SEER. Yet love him, lady, for his virtues; for his history is a very paradox. His heart is melting with charity for the beings of earth, yet his mind is half-weaned from their fellowship. At his imminent peril, he leaps into the Isis to save a drowning boy, and the world calls him misanthrope, withal. It is the fate indeed of many a cloistered scholar, whose

——“desires are dolphin like,
And soar above the element they live in.”

Such is Astrophel.

IDA. He looks his part to perfection. There is a shadowy expression in his dark eye, as it were poring over the volume of his own thoughts. Beneath the slender shaft of yon eastern window, behold this proselyte to the sublime science of shadows. He approaches.

EV. The _hour_ is on him yet.—Astrophel!

ASTROPHEL. Whisper, and tread lightly, Evelyn, for this is haunted ground. Underneath this velvet turf rest the mouldering bones of a noble. I have held communion in my slumber with the spirit by which they were once animated and moved; and the mysteries of the tomb have been unfolded to me. The _eidōlon_ of Roger Bigod has thrice come across my sight.

CAST. A ghost!

EV. And Astrophel believes the truth of this vision! Such phantasy might well become the Cistercian monks, who once stalked along these gloomy cloisters, but not an Oxford scholar.

ASTR. And why not an Oxford scholar, Evelyn? I _do_ believe in the existence of beings out of the common course of nature; and, indeed, the history of the world has ever proved the _general_ leaning to this belief, and my own mind feels that this universal adoption is a proof of _reality_ of existence. Smile at, or reason with me, you will not shake my faith, for I believe it true; and even Johnson confessed, that “although all argument might be against it, yet all belief is for it.”

EV. The diffusion of this fallacy, Astrophel, proves only the universal sameness of the constitution of mind. You may, indeed, cite the high authority of Johnson, that “a belief in the apparitions of the dead could become universal only by its truth.” Yet, if this one word, _apparition_, be rightly interpreted, it will not imply the _existence_ of real phantoms, however ethereal, _before_ the eye, for the notion so construed would have been a grand error of Imlac; no, he adopts an _indefinite_ expression, conscious that mere metaphysics were not illustrative of this subtle question.

There was one Theophilus Insulanus, who, I think, calls all those who have not faith in phantoms, _irreligious_, because, forsooth, “these ghosts are never employed on subjects of frivolous concern.” I may be under the ban of this flimsy enthusiast, but you will not gain me as a proselyte, Astrophel, for, like our great poet, I have seen too many ghosts myself.

Yet I know some few self-created wizards, who have solved to their hearts’ content those two grand mysteries, the _real_ existence and the _purpose_ of ghostly visitations; who, like Owain Glyndwr, “can call spirits from the vasty deep,” and even expect that they will “come when they do call for them.” Others have laboured under self-glamourie, and believed themselves magicians, until put _to the proof_. I remember the painter, Richard Cosway, was under this illusion; and, when the old cynic Northcote desired him to raise Sir Joshua Reynolds, the pseudo-magus confessed himself foiled, by advancing this simple excuse, “I would, were it not _sinful_!”

It were well if these monomaniacs were laid in the famous bed of St. Hilary at Poitiers; for there, with the muttering of a prayer or two, as the legend tells us, madmen may be cured.

But, in truth, the light of divine reason has so far dispelled these fancies for the supernatural, that very few of _us_, I presume, are confident in the hope of raising a ghost when we want one; or of laying it in the Red Sea for a hundred years, by two clergymen, with “bell, book, and candle,” and scraps of mystic Latin, when it becomes rude or troublesome.

IDA. Will you not concede that many visionaries have _believed_, and written from pure and even holy motives?

EV. There is no doubt of this, lady; yet while it has fanned the flame of superstition in minds of lower intellect, with many, the endeavour to _prove too much_ has marred these motives, and weakened faith, even in the credulous; so that we may hope the wild romances of Beaumont, and Burthogge, and Baxter, and Aubrey, and Glanville, and that arch-mystagogue Moreton (whose book is half full of prolix dialogues between ghosts and ghost-seers), will soon be mere objects of interest and curiosity to the black-letter bibliomaniac and the more erudite legend-hunter.

CAST. We will not submit to your anathema, Evelyn. This learned clerk has challenged our faith. What a treasury of secrets might he unfold to us from the mystic tomes of antiquity, the wonders of profane psychology; from the tales of Arabia to Vatheck and the Epicurean—from the classic mythology of Homer to the wild romances of his humble prototype Ossian.

Let it be a match: we will listen, Astrophel, while you “unsphere the spirit of Plato;” and here we sit in judgment, on the velvet throne of this our court of Tintern.

NATURE AND MOTIVES OF GHOSTS.

“In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.”
HAMLET, 4to. B.

ASTR. It is not from the sources of _mythology_ alone, that I adduce my illustrations of the reality of ghosts, but from the myriads of _incidents_ which ancient and modern _history_ record. Yet may I well crave your courtesy for the scraps of fable, and perchance of imposture, that may unwittingly creep into my discourse. Listen to me.

It was believed by the ancients that each body possessed three ghosts—to be released on its dissolution. The _manes_ at once emigrated to the region of Pluto: the _spiritus_ ascended to the skies: the _umbra_ or shade still wandered on the earth. Or, as the poet has more comprehensively sung,

“Bis duo sunt homini, manes, caro, spiritus, umbra;
Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt:
Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra,
Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit.”

Meaning that there are four principles in man, and this is their destiny:—the _flesh_ to earth; the _ghost_ to the tomb; the _soul_ to Hades; and the _spirit_ to heaven.

The queen of Carthage, confiding in this creed, threatens Æneas that her umbra will haunt him upon earth, while her manes will rejoice in his torments.

The notions of other mystic scholars are thus recorded by old Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy:” as those of Surius—“that there be certain monsters of hell and places appointed for the punishment of men’s souls, as at Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead men are familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living. Saint Gregory, Durand, and the rest of the schoolmen, derive as much from Ætna in Sicily, Lipara, Hiera—and those volcanoes in America, and that fearful mount Heckleberg in Norway, where lamentable screeches and howlings are continually heard, which strike a terror to the auditors: fiery chariots are continually seen to bring in the souls of men in the likeness of crows, and devils ordinarily goe in and out.” And then, to bring this phantasy to a climax by a pandemonium of ghosts, listen to Bredenbachius, in his “Perigranions in the Holy Land,” where “once a yeare dead bodies arise about March, and walk, and after awhile hide themselves again: thousands of people come yearly to see them.” And this reminds me of the phantom of old Booty, who at the hour of his death in England was seen by the crew of a ship running into the crater of Stromboli in the remote Mediterranean,—a story which even in the present century was made the subject of discussion in a justice court.

Now, you must know, the ancients believed that only those who died of the sword possessed this privilege.

These are the words of Flavius Josephus: “What man of virtue is there that does not know that those souls which are severed from their fleshly bodies in battles by the sword are received by the ether, that purest of elements, and joined to that company which are placed among the stars:—that they become good demons and propitious heroes, and shew themselves as such to their posterity afterwards; while upon those souls that wear away in and with their distempered bodies, comes a subterranean night to dissolve them to nothing, and a deep oblivion to take away all the remembrance of them? And this, notwithstanding they be clean from all spots and defilements of this world; so that in this case the soul at the same time comes to the utmost bounds of its life, and of its body, and of its memorial also.”

The mystery of the nature of these ghosts I may not presume to define; but there are many learned writers of antiquity who believed in their _materiality_, and broached the intricate question of their quality and formation.

The alchymist Paracelsus writes of the _astral element_ or _spirit_—one of the two bodies which compose our nature: being more ethereal, it survived some time after the death of the more substantial form, and sometimes became the familiar spirit of the magician. And what writes Lucretius the Epicurean to illustrate his credence in apparitions? That the surfaces of bodies are constantly thrown off by a sort of centrifugal force; that an exact image is often presented to us by this surface coming off as it were entire, like the cast skin of the rattle-snake or the shell of the chrysalis; and thus the ideas of our absent or departed friends _strike_ on the mind.

The olden chymists, in the age of Louis XIV. accounted for spectral forms by the saline atoms of a putrid corpse being set free, and combining again in their pristine form. Listen, I pray you, to this grave philosophy of an abstruse essay, writ in 1794.

“The apparitions of souls departed do, by the virtue of their formative plastic power, frame unto themselves the vehicles in which they appear out of the moisture of their bodies. So ghosts do often appear in church-yards, and that but for a short time, to wit, before the moisture is wholly dried up.”

“Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave.”

And we read in the chronicles, that “during the time the ancients _burned_, not _buried_ their dead, there was no such appearance of ghosts as is now.”

Why waves the coarse grass ranker over the grave? It is touched by the larva of the rotting carcase, which, ascending from its putrid chrysalis, a butterfly, or Psyche, flits awhile like an ephemera, and drops again into the vault.

A sentiment something like this, I believe, was the grand cause of the enrolment of the mummies by the Egyptians; for they thought while the body remained entire, the soul was flitting about it: and the early Christians even believed that a portion at least of the soul remained, uncorrupted by the body.

Evelyn will grant that among the Romans there was a devout wish to be buried near venerated beings and saints, an _emanation_ from whose bodies, they believed, would inspire the hearts of the believers.

And here I will relate a story from the Dinan Journal of 1840, and also the fragment of a very mysterious tale told with all the solemnity of a faithful chronicle.

“We had the curious spectacle of a long procession of girls from Pleudiheus, passing through our streets to the chapel of Saint Anne, to offer up prayers for the repose of the soul of the mother of one of them, who has been dead twenty-two years, and who every five years has appeared to her daughter, urging her to have masses said for her. This time the troubled spirit prescribed the day, hour, and place of the service, and even the precise dresses she would have the votaries wear. Consequently, they were all lightly clothed in white, although the rain fell and the streets were full of mud.—Some of the inhabitants of Dinan affirm that they saw the ghost of the deceased, marching at the head of the procession to the door of the chapel, where it remained till the mass was finished, and then suddenly vanished.”

Returning from the harbour to Cadiz with some Spanish doñas, the Baron Geramb heard a voice in French, crying, “Save me! Help, help!” but at the time he took little or no heed of the matter. On the morrow was seen on the shore of the harbour a body on a black board, with lighted tapers by its side, which was covered by the Baron’s direction. During a tempest in the evening, some secret impulse directed him again to the shore. Before his bewildered sight arose from the spot a shapeless phantom wrapped in the black winding-sheet which he had provided.

The phantom moved along with gigantic strides, assuming a globular form, and then, whirling in spiral circles, bounded off, and appeared at a distance like a giant. The spectre led the Baron to the streets of Cadiz, its course being accompanied by a noise as of the tinkling of autumnal leaves. In Cadiz a door suddenly opened with force, and the spectre rushed like lightning into the house, and plunged into the cellar. There was the sound of deep groaning, and the Baron descended into the vault: there lay the corpse naked and livid, and on it was prostrated an aged man, uttering the deep sighs of abject misery and despair. In a gloomy corner of this cave of death leaned the phantom, revolving in its spiral whirls, and then changing to a floating cloud of light; and then there beamed forth the pale features of a youth, undulating as if on the bosom of a wave, which murmured in the ear. Then came the chaunting of anthems and prayers for the dead, and a glittering young girl in white robes glided into the cellar, and knelt in devotion by the body.

The phantom—and so the legend proceeds.

There is a wondrous mystery, I grant, enveloping this story; but if there be any truth in that alchymic re-animation, _Palingenesy_—

“If chemists from a rose’s ashes,
Can raise the rose itself in glasses;”

nay, if the sparkling diamond shines forth from a mass of charcoal, why may not the ashes of a body be made into a ghost, illustrative of the philosophy of substantial apparitions, adopted by Kircher,—a body _rebuilt_, after being resolved, for a time, into its constituent elements? The Parisian alchymists of the seventeenth century, indeed, demonstrated this mystery, and raised a phœnix from its ashes. They submitted to the process of distillation some earth from the cemetery of the Innocents; during which ceremony, they were scared by the appearance of perfect human shapes, struggling in the glass vessels they were employing. And, lastly, Dr. Ferriar thus deposes:—A ruffian was executed, his body dissected, and his skull pulverised by an anatomist. The student, who slept in the chamber of experiment, saw, in the night-time, a progressive getting together of the fragments, until the criminal became perfect, and glided out at the door.

And here is a legend of deeper mystery still.

There was a merry party collected in a town in France, and amongst all the gay lords and ladies there assembled, there was none who caused so great a sensation as a beautiful young lady, who danced, played, and sang in the most exquisite style. There were only two unaccountable circumstances belonging to her: one was, that she never went to church or attended family prayers; the other, that she always wore a slender, black velvet band or girdle round her waist. She was often asked about these peculiarities, but she always evaded the interrogatories; and still, by her amiable manners and beauty won all hearts. One evening, in a dance, her partner saw an opportunity of pulling the loop of her little black girdle behind: it fell to the ground, and immediately the lady became pale as a sheet; then, gradually shrunk and shrunk, till at length nothing was to be seen in her place but a small heap of grey ashes.

And what think you now, Evelyn?

EV. I think your candle burned very blue, Astrophel, when you were poring over these midnight legends; yet, I believe, I may, by and by, explain the story of your Lady of the Ashes;—all, excepting the mystery of the sable girdle. But, methinks, you should not have stopped short of the qualities by which we may recognise the _genus_ of these phantoms. There was once, as I have heard, a ghost near Cirencester, which vanished in a very nice perfume, and a melodious twang; and Master Lilly, therefore, concluded it to be a fairy: and Propertius, I know, writes of another; and he decided, that the scent diffused on her disappearance, proclaimed her to be a goddess! Glanville has set himself to argue upon, nay, demonstrate, all questions regarding materiality and immateriality, and the nature of spirits; puzzling us with mathematical diagrams, and occupying fifteen chapters on the nature of the witch of Endor: and Andrew Moreton, too, in his “Secrets,” comments, with pedantic profanation, on the “infernal _paw-wawing_ of this condemned creature.” Coleridge, and even Sir Walter, who had a mighty love of legends, propose a question, whether she was a ventriloquist or an aristocratic fortune-teller, or an astrologer or a gipsy, imposing on the credulity of Saul. And yet that same Sir Walter very shrewdly suggested to Sir William Gell the _manufacture_ of a ghost, with a thin sheet of tin, painted white, so that by half a turn the spectre would instantly vanish.

CAST. A ghost, I believe, according to the rules of phantasy, ought to be without matter or form, or indeed any sensible properties. Yet are very serious tales related of guns bursting when fired at them, and swords broken by their contact, and of loud voices issuing from filmy phantoms through which the moonbeams are seen to glimmer. A spirit ought, of course, to communicate with us in another way than that which we know, and possess those ethereal faculties of creeping through chinks or keyholes, and of resuming its airy form, like the sylph of Belinda, when the “glittering forfex” had cut it in twain. An exquisite morceau of such a phantom just now flits across my memory. It is of two old ladies dwelling in two border castles in Scotland. One of these dames was visited by the spectre _bust_ of a man; and the other by the _lower half_ of him. Which had the better bargain, I know not, but I believe—

ASTR. Nay, it were not difficult, lady, to overwhelm me with tales like yours—the idle and unmeaning gossip of a winter’s night: but there are many spectral visitations so intimately associated with events, that the faculty even of prophecy cannot be doubted. Bodine, as Burton writes, is fully satisfied that “these souls of men departed, _if_ corporeal, are of some shape, and that absolutely round, like sun and moone, because that is the most perfect form: that they can assume other aërial bodies, all manner of shapes at their pleasure, appear in what likeness they will themselves: that they are most swift in motion, can pass many miles in an instant, and so likewise transform bodies of others into what form they please, and, with admirable celerity, remove them from place to place: that they can represent castles in the ayre, armies, spectrums, prodigies, and such strange objects to mortal men’s eyes; cause smells, savors, deceive all the senses; foretel future events, and do many strange miracles.”

Then the eccentric Francis Grose has thus summed up many of their wondrous attributes:—

“The spirit of a person deceased is either commissioned to return for some especial errand, such as the discovery of a murder, to procure restitution of lands, or money unjustly withheld from an orphan or widow: or, having committed some injustice whilst living, cannot rest till that is redressed. Sometimes the occasion of spirits revisiting this world is to inform their heir in what secret place or private drawer in an old trunk they had hid the title-deeds of the estate, or where, in troublesome times, they had buried the money and plate. Some ghosts of murdered persons, whose bodies have been secretly buried, cannot be at ease till their bones have been taken up and deposited in sacred ground, with all the rites of Christian burial.” The ghost of Hamlet’s father walked on the platform at Elsineur, to incite his son to revenge his murder; and many modern phantoms have enlivened the legends of our local histories, bent on the same mysterious errand.

The mythology of the ancients, and the fairy superstition of our own land, are also replete with legends of these apparitions. The rites of sepulture were essential for the repose of the manes. If the body was not quietly entombed, the soul was wandering on the banks of Styx for one hundred years, ere it was permitted Charon to ferry it across the river. Thus spoke the shade of Patroclus to Achilles, in his dream:

“Thou sleep’st, Achilles, and Patroclus, erst
Thy best belov’d, in death forgotten lies.
Haste, give me burial: I would pass the gates
Of Hades, for the shadows of the dead
Now drive me from their fellowship afar.”

And this is a prevailing sentiment among the North American Indians:

“The bones of our countrymen lie uncovered, their bloody bed has not been washed clean, their spirits cry against us,—they must be appeased.”

In the letter of Pliny the Consul, to Sura, we learn that there was at Athens a house haunted by a chain-rattling ghost. Athenodorus, the philosopher, hired the house, determined to quiet the restless spirit. “When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in the fore part of the house, and, after calling for a light, together with his pencil and tablets, he directed all his people to retire. The first part of the night passed in usual silence, when at length the chains began to rattle. However he neither lifted up his eyes, nor laid down his pencil, but diverted his observation by pursuing his studies with greater earnestness. The noise increased, and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. He looked up and saw the ghost exactly in the manner it had been described to him—it stood before him beckoning with the finger. Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and threw his eyes again upon his papers; but the ghost, still rattling his chains in his ears, he looked up and saw him beckoning him as before. Upon this he immediately arose, and, with the light in his hand, followed it. The spectre slowly stalked along as if encumbered with his chains, and, turning into the area of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus, being thus deserted, made a mark with some grass and leaves where the spirit left him. The next day he gave information to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. This was accordingly done, and the skeleton of a man in chains was there found; for the body having lain a considerable time in the ground, was putrified, and had mouldered away from the fetters. The bones, being collected together, were publicly buried; and thus, after the ghost was appeased by the proper ceremonies, the house was haunted no more.”

Yet, not only to entreat the rites of sepulture, the phantom will walk according to some law of those beings remote from the fellowship of human nature,—it may be to obtain readmission to that earth from which it was, by some fairy spell, in exile.

In the wilds of Rob Roy’s country, there is many a Highlander believing still the traditions of the Daoine Shi, or Men of Peace: and among the legends of Aberfoyle there is one phantom tale that is apropos to my illustrations.

There was one Master Robert Kirke. He was one evening taking his night walk on a fairy hill, or dunshi, in the vicinity of his manse. On a sudden he fell to the ground, struck, as it appeared to many, by apoplexy: the seers, however, believed it to be a trance inflicted on him by the fairy people for thus invading the sacred bounds of their kingdom. After the interment, the phantom of the minister appeared to one of his relatives, and desired him to go to Grahame of Duchray, his cousin, and assure him that he was not dead, but was at that time a prisoner in elf land, and the only moment in which the fairy charm could be dissolved, was at the christening of his posthumous child. The counter-spell was this: that Grahame should be present at the baptism, holding a dish in his hand, and that when the infant was brought, he should throw the dish over the phantom; the appearance of which at that moment was faithfully promised.

When the child was at the font, and while the guests were seated, the apparition sat with them at the table; but fear came upon the Græme at this strange glamourie: he forgot the solemn injunction, and it is believed that Mr. Kirke, to this day, “drees his weird in fairy land.”

PROPHECY OF SPECTRES.

“I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound.”
HAMLET.

EV. These are very meagre spectres, Astrophel, or accomplices, as the lawyer would say, _after_ the fact.

ASTR. I have reserved Prophecies for this evening. In the earliest profane records of our globe, we read of the frequent visitations of prophetic phantoms. Listen, Evelyn, to a story of your own Pliny;—the legend of Curtius Rufus. When he was in low circumstances, and unknown in the world, he attended the governor of Africa into that province. One evening, as he was walking in the public portico, he was extremely surprised with the apparition of a woman, whose figure and beauty were more than human. She told him she was the tutelar power who presided over Africa, and was come to inform him of the future events of his life: that he should go back to Rome, where he should be raised to the highest honours, should return to that province invested with the proconsular dignity, and there should die. Upon his arrival at Carthage, as he was coming out of the ship, the same figure accosted him upon the shore. It is certain, at least, that being seized with a fit of illness, though there were no symptoms in his case that led his attendants to despair, he instantly gave up all hope of recovery, and this prediction was in all its points accomplished.

The shade of Romulus appeared to Julius Proculus, a patrician, foretelling the splendour of Rome. The fate of the battle of Philippi was shown to Brutus in his tent, by the evil spirit of Cæsar; and Cassius also saw the phantom of Julius on his horse, prepared to strike him, shortly before his suicide. In the Talmud we read of the announcement of the Rabbi Samuel’s death to two of his friends, six hundred miles off. Then, the host of legends in that ‘treasure-booke’ of mystery, “Wanley’s Wonders;” the visions of Dion; of Alexander; of Crescentius; of the Pope’s legate at the Council of Trent; of Cassius Severus of Parma; and myriads of analogies to these; nay, may we not believe that the Grecian bards wrote fragments of real history, when Patroclus foretels the death of Hector, Hector that of Achilles, and Mezentius of Orodes, or when Œdipus predicts the lofty fate of his family to Theseus?

But leave we the olden classics for the proofs of later ages. In the pine-forests of Germany, and in wild Caledonia, the legends of spirits and shadows abound in the gossip of the old crones, both in the hut of the jager and the sheiling of the Highland peasant.

The _Taisch_ (like the _Bodach Glas_ of Fergus Mac Ivor,) murmurs the prophecy of death, in the voice of the _Taishtar_, to one about to die; and the _Wraith_, _Swarth_, _Waft_, or _Death-Fetch_, appears in the _Eidōlon_, or likeness, of the person so early doomed, to some loved friend of the party, or sounds of wailing and prophetic voices scream and murmur in the mountain-blast. The wild romances of Ossian, and the shadowy mysteries so brightly illustrated in the poesy of the “Lay,” the “Lady of the Lake,” and “Marmion,” prove how deeply the common mind of Scotland leans to her mysteries; how devoutly her seers foretell a doom. The evidence of Martin, the historian of the Western Isles, is clear and decisive testimony of the possession of a faculty of foresight; and in the reflecting minds of many sages, who seek not to explain it by the term _coincidence_, or to impute the vision to mere national superstition. Indeed, in their records we have rules noted down, by which the seer may overcome the imperfections of his vision. If this be filmy or indistinct, the cloak or plaid must be turned, and the sight is clear; but then the fated seer is often presented with _his own_ wraith.

In Aubrey’s “Miscellanies” we read how Sir Richard Napier, immediately before his death, was journeying from Bedfordshire to Berks, and saw his own apparition lying stark and stiff on the bed; how Lady Diana Rich, the Earl of Holland’s daughter, was met by her death-fetch in the garden at Kensington, a month ere she died of small-pox;—and listen to this legend of Aventine.

“The emperor Henry went down through the Strudel: in another vessel was Bruno, bishop of Wurtzberg, the emperor’s kinsman. There sat upon a rock, that projected out of the water, a man blacker than a Moor, of a horrible aspect, terrible to all who beheld it, who cried out, and said to Bishop Bruno, ‘Hear! hear! Bishop: I am thine evil spirit; thou art mine own; go where thou wilt, thou shalt be mine: yet, now will I do nought to thee, but soon shalt thou see me again.’ The bishop crossed and blessed himself; but the holy sign was powerless. At Posenbeis, where dwelt the Lady Richlita of Ebersberg, the floor of the banqueting-room fell, in the evening: it was the death-fall of the bishop.”

As the protector Seymour was walking with his duchess, at their country seat, they perceived a spectral bloody hand thrust forth from a wall; and he was soon after beheaded.

It is recorded, that, like Julius Cæsar, James of Scotland had three warnings. The saintly man in Lithgow palace, and another phantom, in Jedburgh, warned King James of his fate: the latter wrote a Latin couplet on the mantel-piece in the hall: had he read it wisely, he had not died at Flodden.

The demon, or the guardian angel of Socrates, was also a prophetic mentor—not only to the sage himself, but even to his companions in his presence; and the slighting of its counsel often brought regret to those who were the subjects of its warning.

In the minds of Xenophon and Plato its influence was devoutly believed, and from the hive of the Attic bee I steal this honied morsel:—“One Timarchus, a noble Athenian, being at dinner in company with Socrates, he rose up to go away, which Socrates observing, bade him sit down again, for, said he, the demon has just now given me the accustomed sign. Some little time after, Timarchus offered again to be gone, and Socrates once more stopped him, saying, he had the same sign repeated to him. At length, when Socrates was earnest in discourse, and did not mind him, Timarchus stole away; and, in a few minutes after, committed a murder, for which, being carried to execution, his last words were, ‘That he had come to that untimely end for not obeying the demon of Socrates.’”

When Ben Jonson was sojourning at Hawthornden, he told Mr. Drummond of his own prophetic vision, that, “about the time of the plague in London, being in the country at Sir Robert Cotton’s house, with old Camden, he saw, in a vision, his eldest son, then a young child, and at London, appear unto him, with the mark of a bloody cross on his forehead, as if it had been cut with a sword; at which, amazed, he prayed unto God; and in the morning, he came to Mr. Camden’s chamber, to tell him, who persuaded him it was but an apprehension, at which he should not be dejected. In the mean time, there came letters from his wife, of the death of that boy in the plague. He appeared to him of a manly shape, and of that growth he thinks he shall be at the resurrection.”

From Walton’s Lives I select the following fragment: it is a vision of Doctor Donne, the metaphysician, whose wife died after the birth of a dead child. “Sir Robert (Drury) returned about an hour afterwards. He found his friend in a state of extasy, and so altered in his countenance, that he could not look upon him without amazement. The doctor was not able for some time to answer the question, what had befallen him; but, after a long and perplexed pause, at last said, ‘I have seen a dreadful vision since I last saw you. I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this I have seen since I saw you.’ To which Sir Robert answered, ‘Sure, Sir, you have slept since I went out, and this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake.’ Donne replied, ‘I cannot be more sure that I now live, than that I have not slept since I saw you; and am as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopped, looked me in the face, and vanished.’”

There was a _promise_ by Lord Tyrone to Lady Beresford of a visitation from the tomb. Even when the phantom appeared to her in the night, the lady expressed her diffidence in its reality, but it placed a mark upon her wrist, and adjusted her bed-curtains in some supernatural fashion, and even wrote something in her pocket-book: so that with earnestness she related to her husband in the morning this impressive vision; and it was not long ere missives came, which by announcing the death of Lord Tyrone proved the spectre prophetic.

The tragedian John Palmer died on the stage at Liverpool. At the same hour and minute, a shopman in London, sleeping under a counter, saw distinctly his shade glide through the shop, open the door, and pop into the street. This, an hour or two after, he mentioned very coolly, as if Mr. Palmer himself had been there.

Cardan saw, on the ring-finger of his right hand, the mark of a bloody sword, and heard at the same time a voice which bade him go directly to Milan. The redness progressively increased until midnight: the mark then faded gradually, and disappeared. At that midnight hour his son was beheaded at Milan.

It was told by Knowles, the governor of Lord Roscommon when a boy, that young Wentworth Dillon was one day seized with a mood of the wildest eccentricity, contrary to his usual disposition. On a sudden he exclaimed, “My father is dead!” And soon after missives came from Ireland to announce the fact.

The father of Doctor Blomberg, clerk of the closet to George IV., was captain in an army serving in America. We are told by Doctor Rudge, that six officers, three hundred miles from his position, were visited after dinner by this modern Banquo, who sat down in a vacant chair. One said to him, “Blomberg, are you mad?” He rose in silence, and slowly glided out at the door. He was slain on that day and hour.

In the “Diary of a Physician” (an embellished record of facts), we read the story of the spectre-smitten Mr. M——, whose leisure hours were passed in the perusal of legends of diablerie and witchcraft. One evening, when his brain was excited by champagne, he returned to his rooms, and saw a dear friend in his chair; and this friend had died suddenly, and was at that moment _laid out_ in his chamber;—a combination of horrors so unexpected and intense, that monomania was the result.

May I also recount to you this vision from Moore’s Life of Byron? “Lord Byron used sometimes to mention a strange story which the commander of the packet, Captain Kidd, related to him on the passage. This officer stated, that being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs, and, there being a faint light in the room, could see as he thought distinctly the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the same service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still as often as he ventured to take another look, he saw the figure lying across him in the same position. To add to the wonder, on pulling his hand forth to touch this form, he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed, _dripping wet_. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after, he received the startling intelligence, that on that night his brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appearance Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt.”

From Dr. Pritchard, I quote this fragment:—“A maid-servant, who lived in the house of an elderly lady, some years since deceased, had risen, early on a winter’s morning, and was employed in washing by candle-light the entry of the house; when she was greatly surprised at seeing her mistress, who was then in a precarious state of health, coming down stairs in her night dress. The passage being narrow, she rose up to let her mistress pass, which the latter did with a hasty step, and walked into the street, appearing, to the terrified imagination of the girl, to pass through the door without opening it. The servant related the circumstance to the son and daughter of the lady, as soon as they came down stairs, who desired her to conceal it from their mother, and anxiously waited for her appearance. The old lady entered the room, while they were talking of the incident, but appeared languid and unwell, and complained of having been disturbed by an alarming dream. She had dreamed that a dog had pursued her from her chamber _down the staircase, and along the entry, and that she was obliged to take refuge in the streets_.”

In the manuscripts of Lady Fanshawe, how evident is the fact of spectral prophecy! Sir Richard Fanshawe and his lady were sleeping in a baronial castle in Ireland, surrounded by a moat. At midnight she was awoke by a ghostly and fearful screaming; and, gleaming before the window in the pale moonlight, a female spectre hovered, her light auburn hair dishevelled over her shoulders. While the lady looked in mute astonishment, the spectre vanished, uttering two distinct shrieks. Her terrific story was told in the morning to her host, who evinced no wonder at the mystery, “Indeed,” quoth he, “I expected this. This was the prophetic phantom of our house, the spectre of a lady wedded to an ancestor, and drowned by him in the moat from false notions of dignity, because she was not of noble blood. Since this expiation, the phantom appears before every death of my near relations, and one of these died last night in my castle.”—Here may be the prototype of the “White Lady of Avenel.”

Among the most exalted families we have other confident records of the recurrence of prophetic phantoms, antecedent to great events. A spectre of this kind formed a part of the household establishment of the Macleans. During the peninsular war, at the moment that the head of the clan died at Lisbon, this wraith was seen to ride screaming along the shore in Scotland.

Arise Evans, in a 12mo. tract, “sold at his house in Long Alley in Blackfriars in 1653,” entitled “An Echo from Heaven,” foretold the restoration of Charles II.; and his true prophecy was based on the vision of a young face with a crown on, appearing after the shades of Fairfax and of Cromwell.

There is an incident in Roman history so impressive in its catastrophe, so exact in its periods, that few, I think, will deny the inspiration. At the moment that Stephanus stabbed Domitian in his palace at Rome, the philosopher Apollonius Tyaneus, in his school at Ephesus, exclaimed: “Courage, Stephanus! strike the tyrant home!” and a minute after, _when Parthenius completed this homicide_, he added, “he suffers for his crimes—he dies.”

I have slightly sketched these illustrations, and I presume to term them prophecies. There are others so complex, yet so complete in every part, as to convert, I might hope, even the unbelief of Evelyn. To the relations of Sir Walter and Dr. Abercrombie, I will add one from Moreton, in his “Essay on Apparitions:” “The Reverend D. Scott, of Broad Street, was sitting alone in his study. On a sudden the phantom of an old gentleman, dressed in a black velvet gown, and full bottom wig, entered, and sat himself down in a chair opposite to the doctor. The visitor informed him of a dilemma in which his grandson, who lived in the west country, was placed, by the suit of his nephew for the recovery of an estate. This suit would be successful, unless a deed of conveyance was found, which had been hidden in an old chest in a loft of the house. On his arrival at this house, he learned that his grandson had dreamed of this visit, and that his grandfather was coming to aid him in the search. The deed was found in a false bottom of the old chest, as the vision had promised.”

In a letter of Philip, the second Earl of Chesterfield, is told the following strange story, which, although not a prophecy, cannot be within the pale of our philosophy. “On a morning in 1652, the earl saw a thing in white, like a standing sheet, within a yard of his bedside. He attempted to catch it, but it slid to the foot of the bed, and he saw it no more. His thoughts turned to his lady, who was then at Networth, with her father, the Earl of Northumberland. On his arrival at Networth, a footman met him on the stairs, with a packet directed to him from his wife, whom he found with Lady Essex her sister, and Mrs. Ramsey. He was asked why he returned so suddenly. He told his motive; and on perusing the letters in the packet, he found that his lady had written to him requesting his return, for she had seen a thing in white, with a black face, by her bedside. These apparitions were seen by the earl and countess, _at the same moment_, when they were forty miles asunder.”

The miraculous spirit which the influence of Joan of Arc infused into the desponding hearts of the French army, is writ on the page of history. Before her proposition for the inauguration of Charles VII. at Rheims, she heard a celestial voice in her prayer, “Fille, va, va! je seray à ton ayde—va!” and her revelation of secrets to the king, which he thought were locked within his own bosom, raised in the court implicit belief in her inspiration.

And now, Evelyn, I ask you,

“Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer cloud,
Without our special wonder?”——

Ere you smile at my phantasie, and overwhelm me with doubts and solutions, I pr’ythee let me counsel your philosophy. Dig to a certain depth in the field of science, and you may find the roots and the gold dust of knowledge: penetrate deeper, and you will strike against the granite rock, on which rest the cold and profitless reasonings of the sceptic.