Chapter IV: Part 4

The ghosts of fairyland, those bright emanations of a poet’s fancy, which are wafted through the air on the thistle-down, or swing to and fro on the filmy thread of the gossamer, sprang from a deeper source than this. The fairy mythology of Shakspere, the beautiful creations of the “Tempest” and the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” are the very offspring of that _innate_ genius, that “exhausted worlds, and then _imagined new_.”

Those exquisite and tricksy spirits, the mischievous Puck and the delicate Ariel, indeed, the whole train of ghosts which appeared to Macbeth, and Richard, and Clarence, and Brutus, and Hamlet, and the spirits of the “Midsummer Night,” the “Tempest,” and “Macbeth,” of Bolingbroke and Joan of Arc, could not have been so painted, unless they had stood before the mind of Shakspere as palpable as reality.

Look, too, on those splendid illustrations of the Gothic poets by the eccentric, or, as Evelyn would call him, the half-mad Fuseli. Look on the wild pencillings of Blake, another poet painter, and you will be assured that they were ghost-seers. An intimate friend of Blake, himself a reader of the stars, has told me the strangest tales of his visions. In one of his reveries he witnessed the whole ceremony of a fairy’s funeral, which he peopled with mourners and mutes, and described with high poetic beauty. He was engaged, in one of these moods, in painting King Edward I., who was sitting to him for his picture. While they were conversing, Wallace suddenly presented himself on the field, and by this uncourteous intrusion marred the studies of the painter for that day.

EV. A most unhappy comparison, Astrophel. The difference between Shakspere and Blake is _antipodean_. Blake was a visionary, and thought his fancies real—he was mad. Shakspere was a philosopher, and knew all his fancy was but imagination, however real might be the facts he wrought from. Ben Jonson told Drummond that he lay awake one whole night, gazing in mute admiration on his great toe; surrounding which, in miniature, appeared the inhabitants of Rome, and Carthage, and Tartary, and Turkey; but he also was aware of the illusion.

CAST. My most gracious smile is yours, Evelyn, for this honour to my sweet Shakspere. I pray you accord the same to the spectral visions of a poet, in whose beautiful Aminta each line is a breath of inspiration—the day-dreams of the elegant Tasso. Listen.

“At Bisaccio, Manso had an opportunity to examine the singular effects of Tasso’s melancholy; and often disputed with him concerning a familiar spirit which he pretended to converse with. Manso endeavoured in vain to persuade his friend that the whole was the illusion of a disturbed imagination; but the latter was strenuous in maintaining the reality of what he asserted; and, to convince Manso, desired him to be present at one of these mysterious conversations. Manso had the complaisance to meet him the next day, and while they were engaged in discourse, on a sudden he observed that Tasso kept his eyes fixed upon a window, and remained in a manner immoveable; he called him by his name several times, but received no answer. At last Tasso cried out, ‘There is the friendly spirit who is come to converse with me: look, and you will be convinced of the truth of all that I have said.’ Manso heard him with surprise: he looked, but saw nothing except the sunbeams darting through the window; he cast his eyes all over the room, but could perceive nothing, and was just going to ask where the pretended spirit was, when he heard Tasso speak with great earnestness, sometimes putting questions to the spirit, and sometimes giving answers, delivering the whole in such a pleasing manner, and with such elevated expressions, that he listened with admiration, and had not the least inclination to interrupt him. At last this uncommon conversation ended with the departure of the spirit, as appeared by Tasso’s words, who, turning towards Manso, asked him if his doubts were removed. Manso was more amazed than ever; he scarce knew what to think of his friend’s situation, and waived any further conversation on the subject.”

EV. I shall forfeit your smile, sweet Castaly, or change it, alas! for a frown. I have ever thought Tasso a monomaniac, for he yielded to his illusion. I can give you in a fragment from Lorry, the counterpart of Tasso’s phantasy in a far different mind. “During these paroxysms she would talk, and was accustomed to address herself to some one individual present, with whom she conversed at first in an obscure voice, but afterwards in a distinct and audible manner. She evidently perceived him, and observed all his gestures; but all she said to him bore a reference to one idea, on which she was intent. In the mean time she appeared not to see or hear any other person, even if he exerted his voice to the utmost to make himself heard. This fact I witnessed with the greatest astonishment, but many other persons are living who can attest it. The mother of this female died unexpectedly, after which the daughter used to hold conversations with her as if she was present. She would answer questions as if interrogated by her mother; would entreat her to take care of her health, and recommend some physician as more able to restore her than others. Moreover, she would talk to her mother of her destined marriage, although it had already been some time completed, in a manner perfectly like that of a sane and modest young woman, making some objections to it, and replying to others, and appeared to be revealing all her secret wishes; in a word, she seemed perfectly collected and rational, excepting the error respecting time, and the supposed presence of her mother. This woman had in other respects good health, but was afraid of the smallest noise, and was easily affected by any thing she saw or heard. At length she fell into a consumption.”

In other cases, especially in accomplished minds, the phantasy is usually combined with _derangement of health_. A very ingenuous and elegant young lady, about the age of seventeen, was suddenly seized with catalepsy. It commenced with violent convulsions of almost every muscle of her body, and the most distressing hiccoughs. In about an hour came on a fixed spasm, one hand being placed against her head, and the other to support it. In about half an hour more, the spasm subsided, and then began the reverie in a moment, her eyes and expression indicating a fixed attention. She then conversed with imaginary persons, her eyes being wide open, and during this _ecstasy_ she was completely insensible to the most irritating, and indeed most violent _stimuli_.

Sir Henry Halford related to us, that on a visit to a person of exalted rank in his chamber, he heard him with great energy request Garrick to play a scene in “Hamlet,” reminding him of the lines in Horace’s Epistles:

“Haud ignobilis Argis,
Qui se credebat miros audire tragœdos,
In vacuo lætus sessor plausorque theatro.”

In Dr. Darwin, too, we read of an epileptic girl, who during a fit of reverie, when insensible to all external _stimuli_, conversed fluently with imaginary people, and was surprised to hear of her illusions when fully awake.

And, in Andral, of a gentleman of distinguished ability, who believed that an absent friend was sitting among his guests, welcoming him to his table, and, with great courtesy, handing him a chair. You remember how pathetically Crabbe has illustrated this illusion in his poem of “Sir Eustace Gray.”

CAST. Hark to the profane philosopher who associates poetry with madness! Tell me, Master Evelyn, while you wandered in the Water walks of Magdalene, with the balmy breezes of heaven around your brow, and the mellow sunbeam streaming through the green leaves upon your cheek, with the inspired volumes of Virgil, and Theocritus, and Bion, and Moschus, breathing nature in all the lines of their beautiful idylls—while Astrophel, perchance, was musing among cobwebs in Friar Bacon’s study—tell me, felt you not the sublimity and truth of poesy? You remind me of the quaint tradition among the shepherds of Snowdonia, that if two persons lie down, on midsummer eve, to sleep upon a certain rock on Snowdon, one will wake a poet, the other a maniac. I pr’ythee, think otherwise of Tasso, whose reveries were an ecstasy of bright thoughts. Even when the light of day is eclipsed, as when the senseless orbs of Homer and Milton were merged in “ever-during dark,” the thoughts of a poet may be deeper and clearer for the gloom.

IDA. And so pure and holy withal. In the “Defensio Secunda,” I remember this gem of sentiments:—“Involved in darkness, not so much from the imperfection of our optic powers, as from the shadow of the Creator’s wings,—a darkness which he frequently irradiates with an inner and far superior light.”

Never did poet feel more intensely than Milton the truth of that divine thought, that “the shadow of God is light.”

CAST. And call up that glory of the Elizabethan age, Philip Sidney, whose life, in the words of Campbell, was “a poetry in action,” and who more than embodied the brightest pictures of Tasso and Ariosto, and eclipsed the glory of that Chevalier Bayard, like himself, “sans peur et sans reproche.”

EV. I cry you mercy, fairest ladies, I speak not of the light of poetry, but of its shadows. _Cheromania_ is the first form of _monomania_, or the madness of one idea; and this is marked by cheerfulness and splendid ideas, which indeed often tend to mitigate the melancholy scenes of derangement, as if “the light that led astray was light from heaven.” I will illustrate this by repeating to you the letter to his brother, of a young officer, whose progressive changes of mind, from excitement to confirmed mania, it was my duty to watch over.

_December 4th, 1832._

“To ——, Esq.

“I am Lord President of the Counsil, a most honorable situation,
and the richest gift of the Crown, which brings me in seven
thousand pounds every year. The Counsil consists of Three
Secretaries of State, of which I am one; and the Paymaster of
the Forces. When the King William the forth shall die, then
shall I be crowned King of England, and be crowned in
Westermister Abbey, By The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. I
shall on the occasion of my coronation have placed in the
different street of London one thousand pipes of wine for my
people, and at night in the Hyde Park a magnificent display of
Fireworks, and one hundred pieces of Artillery shall fire three
rounds for the amusement of my people and subjects. I have only
now to give you a list of my titles and honors:

“King of England.
First Heir Presumptive to the Crown.
Major General and Field Martial.
Duke of Leitzep.
Prince of Denmark.
Lord President of the Counsil.
Knight Banneret.
Lord Treasurer of the Exchequer.
Lieutenant Colonel ——, Lord and Baronet.
Aid de Camp to the King.
Champion of England.

“Dear ——, I wish to acquaint you that Windsor Castle belongs
to me, that the palace of Brighton also belongs to me, also I
purchased from the Duke of Wellington the splendid park and
Palace of Stratfieldsea, wherein there are very extensive
Forests of Oak and of Pines trees, together with a magnificent
sheet of Water containing Ells and Salmon Trout.

“Dear ——, I have to beg that you give my love and duty to your
wife—and give this letter to read, I pray you, according to my
desire and wish.”

I may tell you that the very onset of frenzy is often but an elevated spirit of poesy, in which brilliancy and judgment shall be companions; but, like Æsop’s bow, the mind shall be warped and wrung by being constantly bent on its subject; and thus the source of brilliancy and wit may be the source of madness. A change of subject will often do much to unbend such a mind, as a change of posture will relieve muscular fatigue, or as a sudden impression of fear or fright has thwarted a suicide on the moment of his self-attempt. Indeed mania will often appear to induce an almost inspired talent, which, I may hint to you, may be explained by the _oxygenizing_ of the blood in the brain.

In Van Swiéten, we read of a working female who, during fits of insanity, displayed the faculty of rhyming, or poetic talent; and (as I am fond of analogy) in Pinel, of one who, during his insane moments, argued (as if from concentrated memory) in an acute and intelligent manner, on the events of the Revolution.

Then Haller tells us of an idiot, who was wounded on the head, and, during its healing, the intellect became lucid (and this on the principle of a counteraction); but, on the healing being completed, again the creature was an idiot.

When we are roaming over the flowery fields of poesy, we are seldom inclined to reflect on the mental labour by which they are embellished. We may suppose that, whatever is born of the brain is ushered in by an easy birth; but poesy is often attended by a pang of parturition, and one single line may rankle in the brain for hours ere it struggle into light; and, perhaps, require a frontal blow, as violent as that which cleft the skull of Jupiter and gave birth to Pallas.

There are some minds which can support the effort of composition with impunity; but when we recollect the diseases which are entailed on genius—the melancholy of Cowper, and the distraction of the amiable Collins, who

“passed in madd’ning pain life’s feverish dream,
While rays of genius only served to show
The thick’ning horror, and exalt his woe;”

when we remember the gloomy setting of the brilliant sun of Scott, during the period of his apoplectic tendency, when his letter “filled the minds of his publishers with dismay,” and he sunk into the delusive hope that his debts were liquidated to the full; when we are told that Ariosto was never seen to laugh, and rarely to smile; that Rousseau was ever restless, and on the verge of mania; when we reflect on the premature decay of unhappy White—

“When science self destroyed her fav’rite son;”

on the painful conflicts of Byron, when his dark hour was on him; on Chatterton, “the sleepless boy who perish’d in his pride:” are incited, almost unconsciously to echo the apostrophe of Wordsworth:—

“We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.”

IDA. The laurel, then, contains more poison than that of prussic acid in its leaf. The perils of romance are not _ever_ in these extremes; yet the mere indulgence of poetic thoughts may so raise the beau-ideal of beauty in the sensitive and youthful mind, as to unfit it for the common duties of life. Like Narcissus, the heart perishes for love of its own shadow. It becomes so acutely sensitive, as to “die of a rose in aromatic pain:” or like the Sybarite, it cannot sleep, because a crumpled rose-leaf lay beneath the pillow.

I have often thought that the secret of happiness may lie in this precept: “Take the _good_ of life as it is, a divine gift, and not _an agreeable deception_;” when _evil_ is in your path, search its cause, analyze its nature, and if you discover not that you have yourself to thank for it, at least you may prove that the evil _itself_ is made up of mere trifles, and thus you will learn to be resigned.

And with the beauty and treasures of earth: if _you_ possess them, enjoy them with a prudent and a grateful heart. If they belong to _others_, sigh not—pine not for them, but analyze them also, and you may find that the hope of their enjoyment was a phantom; for aggregated beauties are often made up of deformed or unlovely atoms.

I might illustrate my remarks by relating to you an episode of the life of my young friend Stanmore; from which I learned, with sorrow, that the heart may droop beneath its own excess of sensibility, (a mystery to those who were strangers to its secret,) and that the blossom of love may be _self-blighted_:

“His existence was a withered hope, that, like the icicle in the cup of the early flower, freezes the life-spring in which it is so deeply embosomed. In his mind was lighted a vision of Elysium, beyond what earth with all its virtue and beauty could give him: a spectral Utopia. His life was a blank. He found not happiness, _because_ he knew not contentment. He was the leader of many a forlorn hope in Spain, and fell in a midnight enterprise among the guerillas in the Sierra Morena.”

EV. And had the sword spared him, he would have died a moral suicide.

What folly, thus to chase a butterfly, instead of yielding to the virtuous influence of woman, which, beyond aught else, softens and ennobles man’s heart; entrancing it in floods of human passion, which, with all its pains, yields happiness a thousand-fold more than the maudlin sentiments of Rousseau, that, reducing love to a mere phantom, leave the lone heart to prey on its own sensibility.

Such was the romantic poet of Endymion, who for the phantom of his waking dreams, gave up the study of that science, which might have nursed and fortified a mind, so soon chilled to death by the icy finger of criticism. Erato was the mistress of John Keats; but while he wooed, he perished: like the Rosicrucian, who, to save the life of his lady, took the oath of celibacy, and thus lost her love for ever. Even in the lecture-room of Saint Thomas’s, I have seen Keats in a deep poetic dream: his mind was on Parnassus with the muses. And here is a quaint fragment which he one evening scribbled in our presence, while the precepts of Sir Astley Cooper fell unheeded on his ear:—

“Whenne Alexandre the Conqueroure was wayfayringe in y^{e} londe of Inde, there mette hym a damoselle of marveillouse beautie slepynge uponne the herbys and flourys. He colde ne loke uponne her withouten grete plesance, and he was welle nighe loste in wondrement. Her forme was everyche whytte lyke y^{e} fayrest carvynge of Quene Cythere, onlie thatte y^{t} was swellyd and blushyd wyth warmthe and lyffe wythalle.

“Her forhed was as whytte as ys the snowe whyche y^{e} talle hed of a Norwegian pyne stelythe from y^{e} northerne wynde. One of her fayre hondes was yplaced thereonne, and thus whytte wyth whytte was ymyngld as y^{e} gode Arthure saythe, lyke whytest lylys yspredde on whyttest snowe; and her bryghte eyne whenne she them oped, sparklyd lyke Hesperus through an evenynge cloude.

“Theye were yclosyd yn slepe, save that two slauntynge raies shotte to her mouthe, and were theyre bathyd yn swetenesse, as whenne bye chaunce y^{e} moone fyndeth a banke of violettes and droppethe thereonne y^{e} sylverie dewe.

“The authoure was goynge onne withouthen descrybynge y^{e} ladye’s breste, whenne lo, a genyus appearyd—‘Cuthberte,’ sayeth he, ‘an thou canst not descrybe y^{e} ladye’s breste, and fynde a simile thereunto, I forbyde thee to proceede yn thy romaunt.’ Thys, I kennd fulle welle, far surpassyd my feble powres, and forthwythe I was fayne to droppe my quille.”

PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY WITH THE BRAIN.

“My eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses.”
MACBETH.

ASTR. I marvel not, lady, that those pencilled brows do frown upon the ruthless scholar, who thus dares to dismantle the fair realm of poesy, and bind the poppy, and the cypress, and the deadly nightshade, with the myrtle and the laurel.

We shall have, ere long, a statute of lunacy against the poet and the seer; or hapless, he will imprison thee, fair creature, within a cloven pine: and like Prospero, I must break my wand and bury it certain fathoms in the earth; and, deeper than ever plummet sounded, drown my books. The pages of Ptolemy, and Haly, and Agrippa, and Lily, will be but bygone fables: and the metaphysics of the mighty mind will be controverted by the slicing of the brain and marrow with the knife of these anatomists. Nay, we must devoutly believe what they so learnedly give out, that frontal headaches in the locality of _form_, _colour_, and _number_, and forsooth in the _organ of wonder_ too, often accompany spectral illusions, and that white or grey ghosts result from excited form and deficient colour!!

Martin Luther, who was a believer in special influence, quarrelled with the physician, who referred its mystic signs to natural causes. I am not so uncourteous, yet express my wonder, Evelyn, at the confidence with which you presume to the discovery of a _material_ reason and a cause, for all the phenomena of our mysterious intellect.

EV. And why should I not, dear Astrophel, if I search for and discover it in the studies of that sublime science, the meditation on which inspired Galen with this pious sentiment: “Compono hic profecto canticum in Creatoris nostri laudem.”

Is it more profane to think that the Deity should speak to us through the medium of our senses, than by the agency of a spirit? Recollect, I have presumed neither to enter deeply into metaphysical reasoning, nor to describe, minutely, the condition of the brain; and I have alluded but slightly to the supposed function of its varied structures. Lord Bacon has observed: “He who would philosophize in a due and proper manner must _dissect_ nature, but not _abstract_ her, as they are obliged to do who will not dissect her.” Dissection, however, in its _anatomical_ sense, has not, perhaps cannot, elucidate the coincidence of symptom and pathology in cases which so seldom prove fatal, and the causes of which may be so evanescent. Still, it is only by a combination of metaphysical argument and anatomical research, with the essential aid of _analogy_, that the phenomena and disease of mind can be fairly investigated.

In the important question of insanity, there is an error among the mere metaphysicians that is fraught with extreme danger—the abstract notion of _moral_ causes being the chief excitement of mania. This error has led to that melancholy abuse of the coercive treatment and excitement of fear in a maniac; as if a savage keeper possessed the wondrous power of frightening him _into_ his wits. Hear what the magniloquent Reil writes on this point: “The reception of a lunatic should be amid the thunder of cannon; he should be introduced by night, over a drawbridge, be laid hold of by Moors, thrust into a subterranean dungeon, and put into a bath with eels and other beasts!”

And Lichtenberg, another _moral_ philanthropist, sanctioned by the divine axiom—“the rod helps God,” urges the employment of coercion and cruelty for this sublime psychological reason: that under the infliction of the lash and the cane, “the soul is forced to knit itself once more to that world, from which the _cudgels_ come!” Think ye that these moralists, if not hood-winked by false metaphysics, would have so closely copied the malevolence of an inquisitor or a devil?

We must believe that each illusive representation is marked by _some_ change in some certain portion of the brain, the function of which bears a reference to the subject or nature of the illusion: it may be so minute as not to be recognized by our vision. Indeed, if the bodily sensations of every human passion be faithfully analyzed, it will be proved that there is an _unusual feeling_ in some part, when even a thought passes through the mind, under these definitions:—_a thrill_, _a creeping_, _a glow_, _a flush_, _a chill_, _a tremor_,—nay, even fainting, convulsion, death.

Now the brain feels, and thinks, and wills; but the blood is also essential to these faculties. If part of the brain is changed, or its circulation deranged, in that instant an _effect unlike health_ is produced: and such is the illusion of the ghost-seer. Or if the substance of the organ of sense, as the eye, be altered, its function is deranged, and an illusive spectrum appears to float before it. Nay, we are assured by Tiedeman and Gall, (opinions of high value,) that they have known patients who (smile as you please) were mad only on _one side_ of the brain, and perceived their madness with _the other_; and _I_ may assure you, too, that there have been persons who really thought with half the brain only.

I will again claim the courtesy of these fair dames, while I offer another glimpse of the dull cold region of physiology.

Recollect the illustrations I have adduced in allusion to those classes, on whose privacy the ghost has the privilege of intrusion. I will now offer illustrations of those _remote influences_ which work these seeming mysteries in the sensitive or diseased brain.

A patient of Dr. Gregory, at the hour of six, _one hour after dinner_, was daily visited by a hag, or incubus, which confronted him, and appeared to strike him with a crutch. Immediately on this he would fall from his chair in a swoon. This gentleman was relieved by bleeding and abstinence.

The Abbé Pilori, in Florence, invariably saw the phantom of scorpions around him, after he had partaken of luncheon.

There was a gentleman in Edinburgh, learned in fourteen languages, of the age of seventy-six. In 1819, he began to see strange faces, in old dresses, like paintings, and his own face changing from young to old; and these phantoms came at his call. Wine drinking increased especially these spectres, during the twelve years that the illusion continued; yet his mental faculties were not much impaired. When eighty years old, he came to London to dine with the Knights of the Bath, and went back at the rate of a hundred miles a-day. His language latterly was a _patois_ of fourteen. One night he saw his dead wife’s shadow, and jumped after her out of the window, and ran after her through the conservatory; yet he remembered, when told that his wife was dead, and was then quiet. Disordered digestion aggravated his case extremely. Mr. Gragg’s opinion was, that “his thinking was correct, but the _expression_ of thought wrong.” On examination, the _dura mater_ was found adherent to the skull: in parts there was a thick effusion and vascularity over the brain, and the _carotids_ were partially ossified.

In a mind excited or exhausted, the natural sympathy between the _brain_ and the _stomach_ is wrought up to an extreme. And in the two most interesting cases of spectral illusion on record, this instance is beautifully illustrated. The bookseller of Berlin, Nicolai (whose phantasms are become so hackneyed a tale in the records of Psychology), had been thus mentally excited. It were long to repeat the circumstantial and scientific detail of his waking visions: of his ghosts of departed friends, and of strangers to him, and of the groups of shadowy figures which glided through his chamber at these spectral levees; and how his philosophic mind distinguished the intrusion of the spectre at the door and the real friend to whom its opening gave admittance; and how they disappeared when he shut his eyes, and came again as he opened his lids; or how he was at last amused by his analysis of all these illusive spectra. But the sympathy to which I have alluded will be efficiently proved by one quotation from the Prussian’s recital. During the time leeches were applied to his temples, his chamber was crowded with phantoms. “This continued uninterruptedly till about half-past four o’clock, when my digestion commenced. I then fancied that they began to move more slowly: soon after, their colour began to fade, and at seven o’clock they were entirely white: then they seemed to dissolve in the air, while fragments of some of them continued visible a considerable time.” On other occasions, they attempted to re-appear, and changed to white, more and more faintly as his health improved.

There is equal interest, both for science and curiosity, in the illusion of Mrs. A. (as told by Brewster, in his “Natural Magic”), and which sprung from the like causes. The sympathetic sensitiveness of this lady was so acute, that an expression of pain in another produced it in the _corresponding_ part of herself. And she, too, was intruded on by spectres of men and women, and cats and carriages, and by corpses in shrouds peering over her shoulder at her toilet-glass, and ghastly likenesses of gentlemen in grave-clothes, sitting unceremoniously in arm chairs in her drawing-room. And yet the perfect restoration of the lady’s health was coincident with her _complete_ freedom from these spectral visitations.

You will read in the Anatomie of Melancholy, that “Eremites and anchorites have frequently such absurd visions and revelations, by reason of much fasting.” In exhaustion, too, or on the approach of vertigo, if we shut our eyes, we seem as if turning round ourselves, and if we open them, then this whimsical movement is referred to the chairs and tables in our chamber.

These, then, are the remote sympathies with the organs of digestion; and this chiefly by the derangement of the circulation of the blood, between the brain and the heart.

In the case of an enlarged heart, Dr. Kelly discovered that a dark spectrum was perceived _synchronous_ with the _systole_, or contraction of _its ventricles_; so that the patient could count his pulse merely by watching the motion of this illusive shade on the white ceiling of his room.

The study of these false perceptions, which result from derangement or disease of the eye, are replete with interest. You are aware that the function of a nerve of sensation is so deranged by disease, that in some cases of paralysis cold bodies will appear heated. So, by analogy, is the function of a nerve of _sense_ deranged, if its _fibrillæ_ be disordered.

We have _Myopia_, or short sight; _Presbyopia_, or long sight; _Chrupsia_, or coloured vision. We have night-blindness, or dim vision, and day-blindness, or intolerance of light,—as in the albino, or owl. I had, and I have now, a second relative, whose vision is insensible to certain colours; and the chemist, Dalton, we know, could not distinguish blue from pink.

In a Glasgow Medical Journal, I read this statement by a patient:—“No colour contrasts to me so forcibly with black as azure blue, and as you know that the shadows of all objects are composed of black, the forms or objects which have acquired more or less of this blue hue, from being distant, become defined and marked by the possession of shadows, which are invisible to me in the high-coloured objects in a foreground, and which are thus left comparatively confined and shapeless masses of colour.”

The eye may be curtailed of half its object. Mr. Abernethy and Dr. Wollaston were both often in this dilemma of a sense, so that only one-half of a person or a name, on which they were looking, was visible to them. Mr. Abernethy, in his facetious way, referring to his own name, told us he could see as far as the _ne_, but could not see a bit of the _thy_. This illusion is at once explained by anatomy. The optic nerve, at one point, interlaces some, and crosses other of its fibres: thus _one_ nerve chiefly supplies _one-half of both eyes_. Disease of nerve may thus paralyse _one-half_ of each _retina_: the _other_ half only perceiving half the object or word.

In many cases of disordered sensibility of the retina, it is influenced by the minute _villi_ or vessels in the _tunics_ of the eye. In the case of exhausted energy of this retina, usually accompanied by night-blindness, where there is no vision but in a strong light, floating specks termed _muscæ volitantes_ often become so numerous, as to impart a notion of films floating in the watery humour of the eye, or before the _cornea_. It is a curious question, in what portion of the retina the _spectra_ of _muscæ volitantes_ are excited. They appear in or near the axis of vision; but as they do not interrupt the _visual rays_ from _material objects_, it is possible they may arise on that spot considered to be destitute of vision, with regard to _external_ impression. Or they may be produced by detached parts only of the objects, which impinge on the retina, reaching the brain. If the integrity of certain of its fibres, which by converging form the optic nerve, be destroyed, distorted or imperfect objects will be presented. This speck may be a _musca volitans_.

ASTR. The original impressions in all cases are, I presume, from _without_: how is the _internally_ excited idea presented as a prominent image _before_ the eye?

EV. That form of disordered vision to which I allude, occurring so often in nervous persons, or resulting from close application to study, does not often appear to depend on a _turgid_ condition of the vessels of the _choroïd coat_ or _retina_. It is usually relieved more by _tonics_ than by depletion; and very strange illusions of sight will sometimes be produced merely by depressing medicines, especially the preparations of antimony. Yet these dark specks appear to be floating _before_, and often at some distance _withoutside_ the eye. Therefore we may believe that excited images or _more perfect forms_ may also appear before the retina, _palpable_. Between the first impression and its recurrence, a long period may have passed (memory being unlimited); and it is sufficient that one sole idea be excited to produce a succession; as a _spark_ of fire will ignite a _train_ of gunpowder; or as an electric spark will discharge a whole battery.

In the curious case of _photopsia_, or _suffusio scintillans_, we have a series of illusive spectra, in the forms of “lucid points,” and “yellow flames,” and “fiery veils,” and “rings of light.” In some cases of ophthalmia, and in acute inflammation of the brain, the candles and other bright objects in the chamber will look like blood. Beguelin, as we read in the “Berlin Memoirs,” by straining his eyes on a book, always saw the letters red.

There is a story in Voltaire, that the Duke of Florence threw the dice with a field-officer of his enemy. The spots on the dice seemed, to his _excited brain_, like drops of blood: he instantly ordered a retreat of his army. And this is not wonderful; it is but excited sensibility, of which many analogies indeed may be artificially produced, as the flash of light from the pricking of the retina with a fine needle, and the beautiful _iris_ which is formed by pressure on the globe of the eye. In the very interesting history of the prisoner in the dungeon of the Chatelet at Paris, the _phosphorescence_ of the eye was itself the source of light, in this instance so powerful as to enable the prisoner to discern the mice that came around him to pick up the crumbs, although the cell was pitchy dark to others.

There are many curious illusions resulting from over-straining or over-excitement of the eye.

Dr. Brewster, in the Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. iii. says, “If in a fine dark night we unexpectedly obtain a glimpse of any object, either in motion or at rest, we are naturally anxious to ascertain what it is, and our curiosity calls forth all our powers of vision. Excited by a feeble illumination, the retina is not capable of affording a permanent vision of the object; and while we are straining our eye to discover its nature, it will entirely disappear, and afterwards _re-appear_ and _vanish_ alternately.”

A friend of Buffon had been watching the progress of an eclipse through a very minute aperture. For three weeks after this there was a perfect spectrum of the lucid spot marked on every object on which he fixed his eyes.

Dr. Brewster had been making protracted experiments on some brilliant object, and for several hours after this a dark spectrum, associated with intense pain, floated constantly before his eye.

In the third volume of his Physiology, Dr. Bostock thus concludes the account of his own ocular spectra: “It appeared as if a number of objects, principally human faces or figures, on a small scale, were placed before me, and gradually removed, like a succession of medallions. They were all of the same size, and appeared to be all situated at the same distance from the face. After one had been seen for a few minutes, it became fainter, and then another which was more vivid seemed to be laid upon it, or substituted in its place, which in its turn was superseded by a new appearance.”

Coloured vision may arise from permanent defect or from acute disorder: from some peculiar refraction of a ray of light on the lens of the eye, or by the optical laws of the _accidental_ colours.

The ray of white light consists of the three prismatic or primitive colours. Now, if the eye is fatigued by one of these colours, or it be lost, mechanically or physiologically, the impression of _two_ only will remain, and this accidental or complementary colour is composed of the two remaining constituents of the white ray. Thus, if the eye has been strained on a _red_ colour, it is insensible to this, but perceives the _blue_ and the _yellow_, the combination of which is _green_. So, if we look long on a _green_ spot, and then fix the eye on _white_ paper, the spectrum will be of light _red_. A _violet_ spot will become _yellow_; a _blue_ spot _orange-red_: a black spot will entirely disappear on a _white_ ground, for it has _no_ complementary colour; but it appears _white_ on a _dark_ ground, as a white spot will change to black.

By this law I may explain the impression made by black letters on the red ground of a play-bill, which appear _blue_. The accidental colour of orange-red is blue; that of black is white. By looking on this, the black letter first becomes white, and the accidental colour of the red—_blue_, is transferred to the white ground of the letters.

ASTR. Then, as D’Agessau recommended the parliament of Paris to leave the demoniac of our times to the physician and not the divine, you would delegate the management of all those, to whom the mysterious world of shadows is unfolded, to the sapient leech with his phials and his lancet.

EV. Nay, I presume not to so potent a faculty. Many of the slight imperfections of vision are, as I have confessed, merely exaggerations of romantic ideas floating in the memory; and this is not a novel notion, for Plato and other philosophers held it long before our time.

_Muscæ volitantes_ are usually, though not always, _substantial_: i.e. depending on _points_ or _fibres_ in the axis of vision, on _congestions_, or _varicose_ states of the vessels of the _choroïd_ or _retina_, or of atoms floating in the _humours_. These specks, which do not appear alike in the eyes of all, and the brilliant beams in the _suffusio scintillans_, so varied and so whimsical, might be readily moulded into human form, by the imagination of an enthusiast, or the feelings of the ghost-seer, who is usually morose and melancholy, in a state of _longing_ for a ghost or a mystery.

But when many of the more confirmed illusions are depending on structural disease in the membranes and humours of the eye, I am confident in the resources of our science to relieve, if not to remove. Coleridge indeed has expressed his belief, that by some convulsion of the eye, it may see projected before it part of its own body, easily magnified into the whole by slight imagination. If this be true, the whole mystery of the Death-fetch is unravelled.

The nerves and their _ganglia_ are often diseased, when we least suspect: and _calcareous_ and _scrofulous_ tumours, pressing on the _optic axis_, in the brain, or on the _pneumogastric_ nerve above its _recurrent_ branch, and disease in the bronchial glands around the cardiac plexus, may exist, with the very slightest sensations of pain. Even in extreme _disorganization_ of the brain, there may be _remissions_ of painless repose; and in other cases, where _pain_ is _synchronous_ with illusion, the illusion may subside although the pain remains; an indication, or proof, indeed, of _structural_ cause for the phantasy. And this discrimination, Astrophel, of the line of distinction between sanity and derangement, is often of a hair’s breadth; and the law confesses here the high value of pathology, seeing that, in cases of suicide or of idiocy, and other states which involve the rites of sepulture, the conveyance of entailed estates, or personal responsibility, the judgment of the physician is held to be _oracular_.

MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS.

“Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol:
The noise of battle hurtled in the air.”
JULIUS CÆSAR.

ASTR. Methinks you claim too much homage from our courtesy to your philosophy, Evelyn. Can we believe that all these wondrous forms and shadows are but an illusion of the eye, or of the mind’s eye? And, if I grant this truth in regard to the eye of _one_ mind, can we so easily libel the evidence of a multitude, to whom the world of shadows is unlocked?

We are now wandering in the very land of omens; and will this cold philosophy of thine presume to draw aside the veil of mystery, which hangs over the mountain and the cataract of yon wild principality?

E’en now the legends of many climes crowd on my memory; and, while this purple cloud is o’er the sun, listen, I pr’ythee, to the traditions which I have gathered; muse on the _sequences_ of these strange appearances, and you will at length confess, with the Benedictine Calmet—“Realité des apparitions est prouvée par l’événement des choses prédites.”

The Tan-we or Tan-wed are streams of lucid fire, rolling along the lands of a freeholder, who, warned of his coming fate, immediately makes his will, and shortly after _dies_.

Among the gloomy gorges of Preselle, in Pembrokeshire, comes dancing on that blue wild-fire the “Canwyl y Cyrph,” or “Corpse-candle.” As the shades of evening are approaching, the spectre of the doomed comes flitting before us, with a lighted taper in its hand, and with a solemn step halts not until it rests on its destined grave, in the church-yard ground. If dignities and fortune have been the earthly lot of this doomed mortal, then is there shadowed forth an awful pageantry of hearse and ghostly steeds, and mute mourners, all gliding away to the place of the tomb, and, like the phantoms of the Aensprecker, in Holland, (a funeral procession of no less fatality,) they foretell the doom of some ill-fated friend.

Among the dingles of the Bachwy, in Radnorshire, amid scenery of wild and lonely beauty, a few rugged stones denote the site of an ancient castle of a Welsh prince; it is the ruin of the “Black Rock.” The opposing masses of this eternal rock, tapestried with deep green moss and lichen, fold in upon the stream directly over its matchless cataract, which falls abruptly from the upper to the lower valley into this gloomy gorge; the sunbeam playing on the upper ledge of the waterfall, while its deep basin is shrouded in Stygian darkness. Into this gulph it was the pleasure of the prince to hurl from his castle walls, those whom fate had made his prisoners. Often since the era of these cruelties, (as I learned from the oral legends of the peasants,) before a death, a strange unearthly groaning is heard, the “Kyhirraeth,” becoming fainter and fainter until the last gasp of the mortal whose doom it forebodes.

There is the dead-bell, which the Scottish peasants believe to foretell the death of a friend; and the death-cart of Lancashire, which is heard rattling along the streets like a whirlwind; and the Owke Mouraske, a demon of Norway, which never enters a house but some one of the family dies within the year. We are assured also by the Saxon, Cranmer, that ere one of the electoral house of Brandenburgh dies, a woman in white appears to many throughout the dominions of Prussia.

The wild mountains that surround us are prolific in the “Anderyn y Corff,” or “Corpse-bird,” and the “Cwm Amon,” or “Dogs of Hell,” which are believed to be demons of death, in the shape of hounds, and, like the mongrel of Faust, marked by a train of fire. These howl forth their awful warning, while the death-peal rings in the ears of the nearest kin of one about to die.

There is the legend of the “Ellyllon,” a prototype of the Scotch and Irish “Banshie,” which appears as an old crone, with streaming hair and a coat of blue, with her boding scream of death. The “Gwrach y Rhibyn,” or “Hag of the Dribble,” whose pastime is to carry stones in her apron across the mountains, and then to loosen her apron-string, and by the shower of stones to make a “dribble.” This hag, at twilight, flaps her raven wing against the chamber window of a doomed creature, and, with a howl, cries out, “A a a ui ui Anni.”

In the wilderness of Zin, which stretches between Palestine and the Red Sea, both the Bedouin Arab and the traveller are greeted by the sound of _matin_ bells, like the convent peal which calls the nuns to their devotion; and this, according to tradition, has been heard ever since the crusades.

Then there is a fatal spirit of the desert, which, like an ignis fatuus, lures men to destruction, by

“Airy tongues that syllable men’s names.”

The Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, writes of those who, wandering unwarily from the track of the caravans in Tartary, hear the phantom voice of some dear friend (who indeed sometimes appears in person), which entices them from the route, and they perish in the desert.

And Lord Lindsay, in his travels through Egypt and the defiles of Edom, tells us one circumstantial story from Vincent de Blanc, of a man decoyed away from the caravan of an Arabian merchant by the entreaties of a phantom voice.

Before an heir of Clifton sleeps in death, a sturgeon is always, it is affirmed, taken in the river Trent. This incident, like many others, becomes important from its consequence.

The park of Chartley is a wild and romantic spot, in its primitive state, untouched by the hand of the agriculturist, and was formerly attached to the royal forest of Needwood, and the honour of Tutbury, of the whole of which the ancient family of De Ferrars were once the puissant lords. Their immense possessions, now forming part of the duchy of Lancaster, were forfeited by the attainder of Earl Ferrars, after his defeat at Burton Bridge, where he led the rebellious barons against Henry III. The Chartley estate, being settled in dower, was alone reserved, and handed down to its present possessor. In the park is preserved, in its primitive purity, the indigenous Staffordshire cow, small in stature, of a sand-white colour, with black ears, muzzle, and tips at the hoofs. In the year of the battle of Burton Bridge, a black calf was born, and the downfall of the great house of Ferrars happening at the same period, gave rise to the tradition, which to this day has been held in veneration by the common people, that the birth of a party-coloured calf from the wild breed in Chartley Park, is a sure omen of death within the same year to a member of the lord’s family. A calf of this description has been born whenever a death has happened in the family of late years. The decease of the last earl and his countess, of his son Lord Tamworth, of his daughter, Mrs. William Jolliffe, as well as the deaths of the son and heir of the present nobleman and his daughter, Lady Frances Shirley, have each been forewarned by the ominous birth of a spotted calf. In the spring of a late year, an animal perfectly black was calved by one of this weird tribe, in the park of Chartley, and this birth also has been followed by the death of the countess.

In the beautiful chapel of Rosslinne, founded by William Saint Clair, prince of Orkney, there is a legend of the spectral light, which illumined its gothic beauty, on the eve of a death among his descendants. And my sweet Castaly will remember how pathetically Harold sings the fate of Rosabelle Saint Clair.

In other districts, on the coming of such an event, these lights are seen of various colours, and are termed “Dr’ Eug,”—“the Death of the Druid;” and _they_ also marshal the funeral procession to the very verge of the grave.

Dr. Caldicot solemnly writes, that when a Christian is drowned in the Dee, a light appears over the spot, by which the body is easily discovered; and hence the river is called “Holy” Dee.

The mysteries of the “Skibbereen Lights” are recorded by an honourable gentleman of Ireland, and ladies and philosophers journeyed far to behold them, and _believed_.—In a cottage in a marshy flat near Bantry lived a man named Harrington, a perfect _anatomie vivante_, and bedridden,—his heart devout,—his books all of a religious kind. In his chamber, strange lights soon appeared, at first like the dim moonlight on the wall, deepening often into _yellow_ light, and flickering round the room. There was often a group of literati and fashion assembled there, on whom the light danced and displayed all the various emotions of the parties. Once at noon, but mostly at midnight, the light appeared; and on all occasions Harrington seemed to anticipate before others beheld them. Science has searched for causes; but neither in the arts of an impostor, or the natural exhalation of luminous gases, has been yet discovered a solution of this mystery.

In the wild country around Dolgelly, where Cader Idris frowns upon the floods and fells of Merioneth,—where the Mawddach, after its magnificent fall, rolls its waters through the brown and purple valley to join the Wonion, and then expand into the mountain estuary of Abermaw,—the wanderer will hear from many lips this current story.

On a dark evening, a few winters ago, some persons were returning to Barmouth, on the south or opposite side of the river. As they approached the ferry-house at Penthryn, which is directly opposite Barmouth, they observed a light near the house, which they conjectured to be produced by a bonfire; and greatly puzzled they were to discover the reason why it should have been lighted. As they came nearer, however, it vanished; and when they inquired at the house respecting it, they were surprised to learn, that not only had the people there displayed no light, but they had not even seen one, nor could they perceive any signs of it on the sands. On reaching Barmouth, the circumstance was mentioned, and the fact corroborated by some of the people there, who had also plainly and distinctly seen the light. It was settled, therefore, by some of the old fishermen, that this was a “death token;” and sure enough the man who kept the ferry at that time was drowned at high water a few nights afterwards, on the very spot where the light was seen. He was landing from the boat, when he fell into the water, and so perished.

The same winter the Barmouth people, as well as the inhabitants of the opposite banks, were struck by the appearance of a number of small lights, which were seen dancing in the air at a place called Borthwyn, about half a mile from the town. A great number of people came out to see these lights, and after a while they all but one disappeared, and this one proceeded slowly towards the water’s edge, to a little bay where some boats were moored. The men in a sloop which was anchored near the spot saw the light advancing; they saw it also hover for a few seconds over one particular boat, and then totally disappear. Two or three days afterwards the man to whom that particular boat belonged was drowned in the river, while he was sailing about Barmouth harbour in that very boat.

On a lofty mountain, rising over Marbach in Austria, stands the church of Maria-Taferl; and miracles on miracles are related of this sacred spot, since the time when the “Vesperbild,” an image of the Virgin, was fixed on its oak. Even angels have visited the shrine. In the 17th century these angelic visitants appeared in processions bearing a red cross, while stars shone around the head of the Virgin. On one occasion a red cross was borne along and a taper was lighted, _by no mortal hand_, at the feet of the Vesperbild; and this is recorded and attested by the crowd who gazed in wonder on the miracle.