ON VAMPYRISM.

"Carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris,

Et plenum poto sanguine guttur habent."

Ovid.

VOLTAIRE was astonished that, in the eighteenth century, people should believe in vampyres; and that the doctors of the Sorbonne should give their imprimatur to a dissertation on these unpleasant personages. The philosopher of Ferney would scarcely have experienced less surprise had he lived to see them introduced into popular novels, represented as figuring at the drawing-room, shining in fashionable assemblies, favourites with the ladies, and this not alone in barbarous London, but forming the delight and admiration of elegant audiences in the superlatively polished capital of his own country. Indeed, their success among our refined and delicately-nerved neighbours has infinitely surpassed what they have met with among ourselves. We are not aware that many of our dramatists have hitherto attempted to draw tears from the pathetic amours of these interesting bloodsuckersthat "source of sympathetic tears has been only sparingly unlocked"— and except the strange history of the "leaden-eyed" vampyre Lord Ruthven, which the circumstances attending its composition principally contributed to force into the hands of all the lovers of the marvellous, we are not aware that the "Broucolaca" has hitherto become a favourite in the English closet. But at Paris he has been received with rapturous applause at almost all the spectacles, from the Odeon to the Porte St. Martin; all the presses of the Palais Royal have for the last two years been employed in celebrating, and describing, and speculating on him and his adventures, and in putting forth perpetual nouveautés on all the cognate topics-" Infernal Dictionaries"- "Demoniana""Ombres Sanglantes"-" Diable peint par lui-même," &c. &c. Where are the descendants of the Encyclopædists and the worshippers of the goddess Reason, when Parisian readers and audiences are running mad

after " loups-garour" and “ apparitions nocturnes," "cadavres mobiles," &c., all "puisées dans les sources réelles"? Thirty years ago, what bookseller in the Palais Royal would have risked the conflagration of his whole stock by exposing for sale any of these superstitious treasures drawn from sacred legends and monkish impositions? The revulsion has indeed been somewhat sudden, and does not tend to remove prevalent impressions on the instability of Parisian sentiments and opinions. From believing in the eternal sleep of death, and persecuting every one who hinted a suspicion unfavourable to the absolute supremacy of matter, it is rather a rapid bound to the study of demonolatry, and a lively interest in apparitions and spectres of all sorts.

If we are disposed to partake any interest in these subjects, it may, perhaps, be forgiven to us who have never professed ourselves votaries of Diderot and Bayle. We call our readers to witness, we have never said a syllable derogatory to the ghost of Mrs. Veal, or General Clavering, or any other respectable individual of spiritual memory. We have, therefore, a fair right, without inconsistency or fickleness, to say a few words on the subject of that most appalling of the whole corps demoniaque, the Vampyre. The belief in the existence of vampyres is one of the most extraordinary and most revolting superstitions which ever disturbed the brains of any semi-barbarous people. It is the

most frightful embodying of the principle of evil, the most terrific incarnation of the bad demon, which ignorance and fanaticism ever suggested to the weak and the deluded. It displays superstition in its grossest and most unrelieved horrors.-Other creatures of fanatical creation have a mixture of good and bad in their composition-their mischief is sometimes distinguished by sportiveness and mingled with good humour-they are malicious, but not malignant-and the lightness and triviality of their spite against human nature is often united with an airiness of movement and a spirituality of character which render them amusing, and often highly poetical. Puck, Will-o'-th'-wisp, the Bogles, the Ogres, the Nixies, and id genus omne, if they are to be considered as emanations of the Evil principle, are at least inspired with much of his drollery, and only a small portion of his gall and malignity;the Gnomes are sulky and splenetic persons, but there is a certain impotence about them which prevents their becoming very terrific;-the Lamia and the Larvæ of the ancients were, indeed, horrid creations— but the latter were mere shadows, which takes off much of their monstrosity-but the Vampyre is a corporeal creature of blood and unquenchable blood-thirst-a ravenous corpse, who rises in body and soul from his grave for the sole purpose of glutting his sanguinary appetite with the life-blood of those whose blood stagnates in his own veins. He is endowed with an incorruptible frame, to prey on the lives of his kindred and his friends-he reappears among them from the world of the tomb, not to tell its secrets of joy or of woe, not to invite or to warn by the testimony of his experience, but to appal and assassinate those who were dearest to him on earth-and this, not for the gratification of revenge or any human feeling, which, however depraved, might find something common with it in human nature, but to banquet a monstrous thirst acquired in the tomb, and which, though he walks in human form and human lineaments, has swallowed up every human motive in its brutal ferocity. The corporeal grossness, the substantiality palpable to feeling as to sight," of this monster of superstition, renders it singularly terrific, and lays hold on the mind with a sense of shuddering and sanguinary horror which belongs to few of the aërial demons of imagination, however ghastly or malignant. Fancy, (for such tricks will flit across the fancy of the least superstitious) fancy your friend with whom you are walking arm-in-arm, or your mistress on whose bosom your head reposes, a spirit-a Gnome or an Undineor any mere spirit-the idea is startling; if pursued it may lead an active imagination to a disagreeable sense of the possibility of happiness being an imposition, and pleasure "an unreal mockery,"-but it is not overpoweringly painful;-but let the idea of your companion or your mistress being a Vampyre cross the brain-the blood would run chill, and every sense be oppressed by the bare supposition, childish and absurd as it would be felt to be

"'twould shake the disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls."

We remember once spending two days at Brighton at the same hotel with a renowned old money-lender. The man was lean and stooping,dressed in rusty black-with grey hairs that inspired no respect-a dull large grey eye" without speculation," (unless, perhaps, at the look

of a post-obit)-hollow cheeks, a vulture nose, and a blotchy truculent sort of complexion, which, with long clawy hands, made up a character of most uninviting appearance. He was quite alone-prowled about a great deal with a quiet creeping step-spoke little-read the papersand never took above two meals in a day, which, indeed, he seemed to order more for form than any thing else, as his daily consumption certainly could not extend to two ounces. There was altogether something repulsive to sympathy about this old Shylock; and whether or not from any involuntary associations connected with his known profession (which certainly of itself might entitle him to succeed to the distinction of the monks, whom Voltaire called the modern vampyres), or more, as we believe, from his red hollow cheeks, adunc nose, and small appetite for butchers' meat, we wrote this man down in our imagination a Vampyre. We involuntarily avoided meeting him, and felt much disposed to think that his nightly abode was in the buryingground of St. James, or St. Martin, and that he was only at Brighton on a foraging excursion, not in quest of title-deeds and annuity-bonds, but of the richer dainties which the assemblage of youth of both sexes might afford to a being of his presumed propensities. Our acquaintance with vampyres at that period wasbut slight--had we then known all we have since learnt of them, we should infallibly have given information at the Pavilion of the suspicious vampyrio-fœnerator, and have taken a place in the Dart with all possible speed. Not long after this circumstance, we (yes we, the magnificent we) were at a ball in London, and, with a modest resignation of our collective dignity, were forming not a whole quadrille, but, one in a quadrille together with a young lady of a mind and person both exquisitely poetical. She complained of being fatigued, saying, as she sat down on a sofa, "I was up half last night."" Were you dancing?" was the reply. "No! I was reading Calmet on Vampyres with my brother! !"-Calmet on Vampyres, in such a scene of brilliance, and beauty, and innocent and splendid enjoyment! Calmet on Vampyres perused by the midnight lamp by those pure and lovely eyes of the blue of sixteen summers! What a contrast of images!-The book was bought and read.

Next to the famous Mississippi scheme of Law, Vampyrism appears to have become the ruling mania in France and in Europe. From the year 1730 to 1735 vampyres formed the general topic of argument and speculation. Pamphlets were published on them-the journals continually detailed fresh prodigies achieved by them-the philosophers scoffed at them -sovereigns sent officers and commissioners to enquire into their terrific proceedings. Hungary, Poland, Silesia, Bohemia, and Moravia, were the favourite scenes of their appearance and exploits. The people of these countries, sunk in the most abject ignorance, and living in a condition and on a coarse food little above the brutes, placed implicit faith in these wonders. A vampyre haunted and tormented almost every village. Deceased fathers and mothers, who had reposed for years in their graves, appeared again at their dwellings-knocked at the doors, sat down to table in silence, ate little or nothing, sometimes nodded significantly at some unfortunate relation in token of their approaching death, struck them on the back, or sprang on their bellies or throats, and sucked draughts of blood from their veins. In general, however, this last consummation of vampyrism was left as an inference from

the other facts-and the statement was, that certain men or women of the village grew pale, and gradually wasted away-young girls in the flower of health lost the roses of their cheeks, and sank into rapid and premature decay-then an apparition of some deceased individual was seen, and suspicion instantly fixed on him or her as the cause. The grave of the apparition was resorted to-where the corpse was invariably found fresh and well-preserved-the eyes open, or only halfclosed-the face vermilion-coloured-the hair and nails long-the limbs supple and unstiffened-and the heart beating. Nothing more was necessary to fix on the body the crime of vampyrism, and to attach to it the guilt of having drained the streams of life from all the pale youths and hectic maidens in the vicinity. Some judicial forms of proceeding were, however, often observed before proceeding to inflict the last penalty of justice on the offender. Witnesses were examined as to the facts alleged--the corpse was drawn from its grave, and handled and inspected; and if the blood was found fluid in the veins, the members supple, and the flesh free from putrescence, a conviction of vampyrism passed-the executioner proceeded to amputate the head, extract the heart, or sometimes to drive a stake through it, or a nail through the temples, and then the body was burnt and its ashes dispersed to the winds. Burning was found the only infallible mode of divorcing the spirit from the frame of these pertinacious corpses. Impalement of the heart, which had been long considered to be the mears of fixing evil and vagrant spirits to the tomb, and which, in the case of suicides, our own law has somewhat barbarously retained from the days of superstition, was often ineffectual. A herdsman of Blow, near Kadam, in Bohemia, on undergoing this ceremony, laughed at the executioners, and returned them many thanks for giving him a stake to defend himself against the dogs. The same night he arose to his nocturnal meal, and suffocated more persons than he had ever attacked before his impalement. He was at last exhumed and carried out of the village. On being again pierced with stakes he cried out most lustily-sent forth blood of a brilliant erubescence-and was at last finally quelled by being burnt to cinders. This fact, with many other similar narratives, is related in a work called "Magia Posthuma," by Charles Ferdinand Schertz, dedicated to Prince Charles of Lorraine, Bishop of Olmutz, and printed at Olmutz in 1706. The Rev. Père Dom. Augustin Calmet, Abbé de Senones (Abbey, as Voltaire insinuates, of 100,000 livres de rente) quotes, in his grand treatise on apparitions and vampyres, an extraordinary case of vampyrism detailed in the Glaneur Hollandois, No. XVIII.-In a canton of Hungary, near the famous Tockay, and between the river Teisse and Transylvania, the people called the Heiduques were possessed by a firm conviction of the powers of vampyres. About 1727 a certain Heiduque, an inhabitant of Medreiga, named Arnold Paul, was crushed to death under a load of hay. Thirty days afterwards four persons of the village died suddenly with all the symptoms indicative of death by vampyrism. The people, puzzled and eager to discover the vampyre delinquent, at last recollected that Arnold Paul had often related how, in the environs of Cassova, on the frontiers of Turkish Servia, he had been tormented and worried by a Turkish vampyre. This, according to the fundamental laws of vampyrism, should have converted Arnold into a vam

pyre in his grave; for all those who are passive vampyres on earth, invariably become vampyres active when they descend to the tomb.Arnold Paul had, however, always stated that he had preserved himself from contagion from the attacks of the Turkish vampyre by eating some of the earth of his grave and by embrocating himself with his blood. These precautions appeared, however, to be fruitless, for the inhabitants of Medreiga, on opening his tomb forty days after his death, found upon him all the undoubted indices of an arch-vampyre his corpse ruddy, his nails elongated, his veins swelling with a sanguinary tide which oozed from his pores and covered his shroud and winding-sheet. The hadagni or bailiff of the place, "qui etoit un homme expert dans le vampirisme," proceeded to impale Vampyre Arnold through the heart; on which he sent forth horrid cries with all the energy of a living subject. His head was then cut off and his body burnt. Similar execution was then performed on the four deceased persons, the supposed victims of Vampyre Arnold's attacks, and the Heiduques fancied themselves in safety from these terrific persecutors.-Five years afterwards, however, the same fatal prodigies reappeared. During the space of three months, seventeen persons of different ages and sexes died with all the old diagnostics-some without any visible malady-others after several days of languor and atrophy. Amongst others a girl named Stanoska, daughter of the Heiduque Stotuïtzo, went one night to rest in perfect health, but woke in the middle of the night shrieking and trembling violentlyshe asserted, that the son of the Heiduque Millo, who had died nine weeks before, had attacked her in her sleep and had nearly strangled her with his grasp. Heiduque Millo's son was stantly charged with vampyrism. The magistrates, physicians, and surgeons of the commune repaired to his grave, and found his body with all the usual characteristics of animation and imputrescence, but they were at a loss to understand from what channel he had derived his faculties. At last it was discovered that the exusted vampyre Arnold Paul had strangled, not only the four deceased persons, but also a number of cattle, whose flesh had been plentifully eaten by Millo's son and other villagers. This discovery threw the Heiduques into fresh consternation, and afforded a horrid prospect of an indefinite renewal of the horrors of vampyrism. It was resolved to open the tombs of all those who had been buried since the flesh of the cattle had been consumed. Among forty corpses, seventeen were found with all the indubitable characteristics of confirmed vampyres. The bodies were speedily decapitated, the hearts impaled, and the members burnt, and their ashes cast into the river Teisse. The Abbé Dom. Calmet enquired into these facts, and found them all judicially authenticated by local authorities, and attested by the officers of the Imperial garrisons, the surgeon-majors of the regiments, and the principal inhabitants of the district. The procès verbal of the whole proceedings was sent in January 1735 to the Imperial Council of War at Vienna, who had established a military commission to enquire into the facts. "Procès verbaux" and "juridical authentications" certainly are highsounding things-but a sceptical critic has pretended, with a degree of malice prepense against the Vampyrarchy which we ourselves are far from applauding, that his Imperial Majesty's surgeons-major and coun

in