Part 13

Such is the accounts which Scot has given regarding the Popish opinion of departed spirits. In another part of his work, he triumphantly asks, “Where are the soules that swarmed in time past? Where are the spirits? Who heareth their noises? Who seeth their visions? Where are the soules that made such mone for trentals, whereby to be eased of their pains in purgatorie? Are they all gone to Italie, because masse are growne deere here in England?—The whole course may be perceived to be a false practice, and a counterfeit vision, or rather a lewd invention. For in heaven men’s soules remaine not in sorrow and care, neither studie they there how to compasse and get a worshipfull burial here in earth. If they did they would not have foreslowed so long. Now, therefore, let us not suffer ourselves to be abused anie longer, either with conjuring priests, or meloncholicall witches; but be thankfull to God that hath delivered us from such blindness and error[40].” This is the congratulation of a true Protestant at an early period of the reformation; and it is certain, that with the disbelief of that future state of purgatory, taught by the Romish church, the communication of the living with the dead became less frequent. Still, however, some belief of the kind prevailed, though less tinctured with superstition. An author, styling himself Theophilus Insulanus, who, half a century ago, wrote on the second-sight of Scotland, affixes the term _irreligious_ to those who should entertain a doubt on the reality of apparitions of departed souls. “Such ghostly visitants,” he gravely affirms, “are not employed on an errand of a frivolous concern to lead us into error, but are employed as so many heralds by the great Creator, for the more ample demonstration of his power, to proclaim tidings for our instruction; and, as we are prone to despond in religious matter, to confirm our faith of the existence of spirits, (the foundation of all religions,) and the dignity of human nature.” With due deference, however, to this anonymous writer, whom we should scarcely have noticed, if he had not echoed in this assertion an opinion which was long popular, we shall advert to the opposite sentiments expressed on the subject by a far more acute, though less serious author. The notion, for instance, of the solemn character of ghosts, and that they are never employed on frivolous errands, is but too successfully ridiculed by Grose[41]. “In most of the relations of ghosts,” says this pleasant writer, “they are supposed to be mere aërial beings without substance, and that they can pass through walls and other solid bodies at pleasure. The usual time at which ghosts make their appearance is midnight, and seldom before it is dark; though some audacious spirits have been said to appear even by daylight. Ghosts commonly appear in the same dress they usually wore when living: though they are sometimes clothed all in white; but that is chiefly the church-yard ghosts, who have no particular business, but seem to appear _pro bono publico_, or to scare drunken rustics from tumbling over their graves. I cannot learn that ghosts carry tapers in their hands, as they are sometimes depicted, though the room in which they appear, if without fire or candle, is frequently said to be as light as day. Dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts; chains and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign spectres, seen in arbitrary governments: dead or alive, English spirits are free. If, during the time of an apparition, there is a lighted candle in the room, it will burn extremely blue: this is so universally acknowledged, that many eminent philosophers have busied themselves in accounting for it, without ever doubting the truth of the fact. Dogs too have the faculty of seeing spirits[42].”

There are several other minute particulars respecting ghosts given by this author, for the insertion of which we have not room; yet it would be inexcusable to omit noticing the account which he has subjoined, of the awfully momentous errands upon which spirits are sent. “It is somewhat remarkable,” he adds, “that ghosts do not go about their business like the persons of this world. In cases of murder, a ghost, instead of going to the next justice of peace, and laying its information, or to the nearest relation of the person murdered, appears to some poor labourer who knows none of the parties; draws the curtain of some decrepit nurse, or alms-woman; or hovers about the place where the body is deposited. The same circuitous road is pursued with respect to redressing injured orphans or widows; when it seems as if the most certain way would be to go to the person guilty of the injustice, and haunt him continually till he be terrified into a restitution. Nor are the pointing out lost writings generally managed in a more summary way; the ghost commonly applying to a third person, ignorant of the whole affair, and a stranger to all concerned. But it is presumptuous to scrutinize far into these matters: ghosts have undoubtedly forms and customs peculiar to themselves.”

The view which Grose has taken of the character of departed spirits is pretty correct, although I have certainly read of some spirits whose errands to the earth have been much more direct. One ghost, for instance, has terrified a man into the restitution of lands, which had been bequeathed to the poor of a village. A second spirit has adopted the same plan for recovering property of which a nephew had been wronged; but a third has haunted a house for no other purpose than to kick up a row in it—to knock about chairs, tables, and other furniture. Glanville relates a story, of the date of 1632, in which a man, upon the alleged information of a female spirit, who came by her death foully, led the officers of justice to a pit, where a mangled corpse was concealed, charged two individuals with her murder; and upon this fictitious story, the poor fellows were condemned and executed, although they solemnly persevered to the last in maintaining their innocence. It is but too evident, in this case, by whom the atrocious deed had been committed.

Other apparitions of this kind may be considered as the illusions of well-known diseases. Thus there can be no difficulty in considering the following apparition, given on the authority of Aubery and Turner, as having had its origin in the Delirium Tremens of drunkenness. “Mr. Cassio Burroughs,” says the narrator of this very choice, yet, we believe, authentic story, “was one of the most beautiful men in England, and very valiant, but very proud and blood thirsty. There was in London a very beautiful Italian lady,” (whom he seduced.) “The gentlewoman died; and afterwards, in a tavern in London, he spake of it, (contrary to his sacred promise,) “and then going” (out of doors) the ghost of the gentlewoman did appear to him. He was afterwards troubled with the apparition of her, even sometimes in company when he was drinking. Before she did appear, he did find a kind of chilness upon his spirits. She did appear to him in the morning before he was killed in a duel.”

Of the causes of many apparitions which have been recorded, it is not so easy as the foregoing narrative, to obtain a satisfactory explanation. Such is the case of the story related of Viscount Dundee, whose ghost about the time he fell at the battle of Killicranky, appeared to Lord Balcarras, then under confinement, upon the suspicion of Jacobitism, at the Castle of Edinburgh. The spectre drew aside the curtain of his friend’s bed, looked stedfastly at him, leaned for some time on the mantlepiece, and then walked out of the room. The Earl, not aware at the time that he was gazing on a phantom, called upon Dundee to stop. News soon arrived of the unfortunate hero’s fate. Now, regarding this, and other stories of the kind, however authentic they may be, the most interesting particulars are suppressed. Of the state of Lord Balcarras’s health at the time, it has not been deemed necessary that a syllable should transpire. No argument, therefore, either in support of, or in opposition to, the popular belief in apparitions, can be gathered from an anecdote so deficient in any notice of the most important circumstances upon which the developement of truth depends. With regard to the spectre of Dundee appearing just at the time he fell in battle, it must be considered, that agreeable to the well-known doctrine of chances, which mathematicians have so well investigated, the event might as well occur then as at any other time, while a far greater proportion of other apparitions, less fortunate in such a supposed confirmation of their supernatural origin, are quietly allowed to sink into oblivion. Thus, it is the office of superstition to carefully select all successful coincidences of this kind, and register them in her marvellous volumes, where for ages they have served to delude and mislead the world.

To this story we shall add another, from Beaumont’s World of Spirits, for no other reason, than because it is told better than most ghost stories with which I am acquainted. It is dated in the year 1662, and it relates to an apparition seen by the daughter of Sir Charles Lee, immediately preceding her death. No reasonable doubt can be placed on the authenticity of the narrative, as it was drawn up by the Bishop of Gloucester, from the recital of the young lady’s father.

“Sir Charles Lee, by his first lady, had only one daughter, of which she died in child-birth; and when she was dead, her sister, the Lady Everard, desired to have the education of the child, and she was by her very well educated, till she was marriageable, and a match was concluded for her with Sir William Perkins, but was then prevented in an extraordinary manner. Upon a Thursday night, she, thinking she saw a light in her chamber, after she was in bed, knocked for her maid, who presently came to her; and she asked, ‘Why she left a candle burning in her chamber?’ The maid said, ‘She left none, and there was none but what she brought with her at that time.’ Then she said it was the fire, but that, her maid told her, was quite out; and said she believed it was only a dream. Whereupon she said, it might be so, and composed herself again to sleep. But about two of the clock she was awakened again, and saw the apparition of a little woman between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was her mother, that she was happy, and that by twelve of the clock that day she should be with her. Whereupon she knocked again for her maid, called for her clothes, and when she was dressed, went into her closet, and came not out again till nine, and then brought out with her a letter sealed by her father; brought it to her aunt, the Lady Everard, told her what had happened, and declared, that as soon as she was dead, it might be sent to him. The lady thought she was suddenly fallen mad, and thereupon sent presently away to Chelmsford for a physician and surgeon, who both came immediately; but the physician could discern no indication of what the lady imagined, or of any indisposition of her body: notwithstanding the lady would needs have her let blood, which was done accordingly. And when the young woman had patiently let them do what they would with her, she desired that the chaplain might be sent to read prayers; and when prayers were ended, she took her guitar and psalm-book, and sat down upon a chair without arms, and played and sung so melodiously and admirably, that her music-master, who was then there, admired at it. And near the stroke of twelve, she rose and sat herself down in a great chair with arms, and presently fetching a strong breathing or two, immediately expired, and was so suddenly cold, as was much wondered at by the physician and surgeon. She died at Waltham, in Essex, three miles from Chelmsford, and the letter was sent to Sir Charles, at his house in Warwickshire; but he was so afflicted with the death of his daughter, that he came not till she was buried, but when he came he caused her to be taken up, and to be buried with her mother, at Edmonton, as she desired in her letter.”

This is one of the most interesting ghost-stories on record. Yet, when strictly examined, the manner in which a leading circumstance in the case is reported, affects but too much the supernatural air imparted to other of its incidents. For whatever might have been averred by a physician of the _olden time_, with regard to the young lady’s sound state of health during the period she saw her mother’s ghost, it may be asked—if any practitioner of the present day would have been proud of such an opinion, especially when death followed so promptly after the spectral impression.

——“There’s bloom upon her cheek; But now I see it is no living hue, But a strange hectic—like the unnatural red Which autumn plants upon the perish’d leaf.”

Probably the languishing female herself might have unintentionally contributed to the more strict verification of the ghost’s prediction. It was an extraordinary exertion which her tender frame underwent, near the expected hour of dissolution, in order that she might retire from all her scenes of earthly enjoyment, with the dignity of a resigned christian. And what subject can be conceived more worthy the masterly skill of a painter, than to depict a young and lovely saint cheered with the bright prospect of futurity before her, and ere the quivering flame of life which for a moment was kindled up into a glow of holy ardour, had expired for ever, sweeping the strings of her guitar with her trembling fingers, and melodiously accompanying the notes with her voice, in a hymn of praise to her heavenly Maker? Entranced with such a sight, the philosopher himself would dismiss for the time his usual cold and cavelling scepticism, and giving way to the superstitious impressions of less deliberating bye-standers, partake with them in the most grateful of religious solaces, which the spectacle must have irresistibly inspired.

Regarding the confirmation, which the ghost’s mission is, in the same narrative, supposed to have received from the completion of a foreboded death, all that can be said of it is, that the coincidence was a _fortunate_ one; for, without it, the story would, probably, never have met with a recorder, and we should have lost one of the sweetest anecdotes that private life has ever afforded. But, on the other hand, a majority of popular ghost-stories might be adduced, wherein apparitions have either visited our world, without any ostensible purpose and errand whatever, or, in the circumstances of their mission, have exhibited all the inconsistency of conduct so well exposed in the quotation which I have given from Grose, respecting departed spirits. “Seldom as it may happen,” says Nicolai, in the memoir which he read to the Society of Berlin, on the appearance of spectres occasioned by disease, “that persons believe they see human forms, yet examples of the case are not wanting. A respectable member of this academy, distinguished by his merit in the science of Botany, whose truth and credulity are unexceptionable, once saw in this very room in which we are now assembled, the phantom of the late president Maupertius.” But it appears that this ghost was seen by a philosopher, and, consequently, no attempt was made to connect it with superstitious speculations. The uncertainty, however, of ghostly predictions, is not unaptly illustrated in the table-talk of Johnson. “An acquaintance,” remarks Boswell, “on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that walking home one evening at Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a brother, who had gone to America; and the next packet brought an account of that brother’s death. Mackbean asserted that this inexplicable _calling_ was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly calling _Sam_. She was then at Litchfield; but _nothing ensued_.” This casual admission, which, in the course of conversation, transpired from a man, _himself_ strongly tainted with superstition, precludes any farther remarks on the alleged nature and errand of ghosts, which would now, indeed, be highly superfluous. “A lady once asked me,” says Mr. Coleridge, “if I believed in ghosts and apparitions? I answered with truth and simplicity, No, Madam! I have seen far too many myself[43].”

DEUTEROSCOPIA, OR SECOND-SIGHT.

The nearer we approach to times when superstition shall be universally exploded, the more we consign to oblivion the antiquated notions of former days, respecting every degree of supernatural agency or communication. It is not long ago, however, since the _second sight_, as it is called, peculiar to the Scotch Highlanders, was a subject of dispute, and although it be true, as some assert, ‘that all argument is against it,’ yet it is equally certain that we have many well attested facts for it. We think upon the whole that the question is placed in its true light, in the following communication from a gentleman in Scotland, who had opportunities to know the facts he relates, and who has evidently sense enough not to carry them farther than they will bear. What is called in this part of the island by the French word _presentiment_, appears to me to be a species of second sight, and it is by no means uncommon: why it is less attended to in the ‘busy haunts of men,’ than in the sequestered habitations of the Highlanders, is accounted for by the following detail, and we apprehend upon very just grounds.

“Of all the subjects which philosophers have chosen for exercising their faculty of reasoning, there is not one more worthy of their attention, than the contemplation of the human mind. There they will find an ample field wherein they may range at large, and display their powers; but at the same time it must be observed, that here, unless the philosopher calls in religion to his aid, he will be lost in a labyrinth of fruitless conjectures, and here, in particular, he will be obliged to have a reference to a _great first cause_; as the mind of man (whatever may be asserted of material substances,) could never be formed by chance; and he will find its affections so infinitely various, that instead of endeavouring to investigate, he will be lost in admiration.

“The faculty or affections of the mind, attributed to our neighbours of the Highlands of Scotland, of having a foreknowledge of future events, or, as it is commonly expressed, having the _second sight_, is perhaps one of the most singular. Many have been the arguments both for and against the real existence of this wonderful gift. I shall not be an advocate on either side, but shall presume to give you a fact or two, which I know to be well authenticated, and from which every one is at liberty to infer what they please.

“The late Rev. D. M’Sween was minister of a parish in the high parts of Aberdeenshire, and was a native of Sky Island, where his mother continued to reside. On the 4th of May, 1738, Mr. M’Sween, with his brother, who often came to visit him from Sky, were walking in the fields. After some interval in their discourse, during which the minister seemed to be lost in thought, his brother asked him what was the matter with him; he made answer, he hardly could tell, but he was certain their mother was dead. His brother endeavoured to reason him out of this opinion, but in vain. And upon the brother’s return home, he found that his mother had really died on that very day on which he was walking with the minister.

“In April, 1744, a man of the name of Forbes, walking over Culloden Muir, with two or three others, was suddenly, as it were, lost in thought, and when in some short time after he was interrupted by his companions, he very accurately described the battle, which was fought on that very spot two years afterwards, at which description his companions laughed heartily, as there was no expectation of the pretender’s coming to Britain at that time.”

Many such instances might be produced, but I am afraid these are sufficient to stagger the credulity of most people. But to the incredulous, I shall only say, that I am very far from attributing’ the second sight to the Scotch Highlanders more than to ourselves. I am pretty certain there is no man whatever, who is not sometimes seized with a foreboding in his mind, or, as it may be termed, a kind of reflection which it is not in his power to prevent; and although his thoughts may not perhaps be employed on any particular exigency, yet he is apt to dread from that quarter, where he is more immediately concerned. This opinion is agreeable to all the heathen mythologists, particularly Homer and Virgil, where numerous instances might be produced, and these justified in the event; but there is an authority which I hold in more veneration than all the others put together, I mean that now much disused book called the Bible, where we meet with many examples, which may corroborate the existence of such an affection in the mind; and that too in persons who were not ranked among prophets. I shall instance one or two. The first is the 14th chapter of 1 Samuel, where it is next to impossible to imagine, that had not Jonathan been convinced of some foreboding in his mind, that he would certainly be successful, he and his armour-bearer, being only two in number, would never have encountered a whole garrison of the enemy. Another instance is in the 6th chapter of Esther, where the king of Persia, (who was no prophet,) was so much troubled in his mind, that he could not sleep, neither could he assign any reason for his being so, till the very reason was discovered from the means that were used to divert his melancholy, _viz._ the reading of the records, where he found he had forgot to do a thing which he was under an obligation to perform. Many of the most judicious modern authors also favour this opinion. Addison makes his Cato, sometime before his fatal exit, express himself thus, “What means this _heaviness_ that hangs upon me?” Shakspeare also makes Banquo exclaim, when he is about to set out on his journey, “A heavy summons hangs like lead upon me.” De Foe makes an instance of this kind the means of saving the life of Crusoe, at the same time admonishing his readers not to make light of these emotions of the mind, but to be upon their guard, and pray to God to assist them and bear them through, and direct them in what may happen to their prejudice in consequence thereof.

“To what, then, are we to attribute these singular emotions? Shall we impute them to the agency of spiritual beings called guardian Angels, or more properly to the “Divinity that stirs within us, and points out an _hereafter_?” However it may be, it is our business to make the best of such hints, which I am confident every man has experienced, perhaps more frequently than he is aware of.