"For well we wat it is his Ghaist

Wow, wad some folk that can do't best
Speak til't, and hear what it confest :
To send a wand'ring Saul to rest
'Tis a good deed
Amang the dead."

In the "Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. xiii. p. 557, parish of Lochcarron, county of Ross, we read: "There is one opinion which many of them entertain, and which indeed is not peculiar to this parish alone, that a popish priest can cast out devils and cure madness, and that the Presbyterian clergy have no such power. A person might as well advise a mob to pay no attention to a merry-andrew as to desire many ignorant people to stay from the (popish) priest."

Pliny tells us that houses were anciently hallowed against evil spirits with brimstone! This charm has been converted by later times into what our satirist, Churchill, in his "Prophecy of Famine," calls "a precious and rare medicine," and is now used (but I suppose with greater success) in exorcising those of our unfortunate fellow-creatures who feel themselves possessed with a certain teazing fiery spirit, said by the wits of the South to be well known, seen, and felt, and very troublesome in the North.(a)

(a) "Various ways," says an essayist in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for October, 1732, vol. ii. p. 1002, "have been proposed by the learned for laying of Ghosts. Those of the artificial sort are easily quieted. Thus when a fryer, personating an Apparition, haunted the chambers of the late Emperor Josephus, the present king, Augustus, then at the Imperial Court, flung him out of the window, and laid him effectually. The late Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester, and the late Mr. Justice Powell, had frequent altercations upon this subject. The bishop was a zealous defender of Ghosts; the justice somewhat sceptical, and distrustful of their being. In a visit the bishop one day made his friend, the justice told him, that since their last disputation he had had ocular demonstration to convince him of the existence of Ghosts. How,' says the bishop, 'what ocular demonstration ? am glad, Mr. Justice, you are become a convert; I beseech you let me know the whole story at large.' 'My Lord,' answers the justice, as I lay one night in my bed, about the hour of twelve, I was wak'd by an uncommon noise, and heard something coming up stairs, and stalking directly towards my room. I drew the curtain, and saw a faint glimmering of light enter my clamber.'- Of a blue colour, no doubt,' (says the bishop)- Of a pale blue,' (answers the

In the "New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors," 8vo. Camb. 1767, p. 71, I find the following: "I look upon our sailors to care as little what becomes of themselves as any set of people under the sun, and yet no people are so much terrified at the thoughts of an Apparition. Their sea-songs are full of them; they firmly believe their existence: and honest Jack Tar shall be more frightened at a glimmering of the moon upon the tackling of the ship, than he would be if a Frenchman was to clap a blunderbus to his head. I was told a story by an officer in the navy, which may not be

I was

justice); the light was follow'd by a tall, meagre, and stern personage, who seemed about 70, in a long dangling rugg gown, bound round with a broad leathern girdle; his beard thick and grizly; a large furr cap on his head, and a long staff in his hand; his face wrinkled, and of a dark sable hue. struck with the appearance, and felt some unusual shocks; for you know the old saying I made use of in court, when part of the lanthorn upon Westminster Hall fell down in the midst of our proceedings, to the no small terror of one or two of my brethren: Si fractus illibatur Orbis Impavidum ferient Ruine.

But, to go on it drew near, and stared me full in the face.' And did not you speak to it?' (interrupted the bishop); there was money hid or murder committed to be sure.' My Lord, I did speak to it,' -And what answer, Mr. Justice? My Lord, the answer was (not without a thump of the staff and a shake of the lanthorn), that he was the watchman of the night, and came to give me notice that he had found the street door open, and that, unless I rose and shut it, I might chance to be robbed before break of day.' The judge had no sooner ended but the bishop disappear'd."

The same essayist (p. 1001) says: "The cheat is begun by nurses with stories of bug-bears, &c., from whence we are gradually led to the traditionary accounts of local Ghosts, which, like the genii of the ancients, have been reported to haunt çertain family seats and cities famous for their antiquities and decays. Of this sort are the Apparitions at Verulam, Silchester, Reculver, and Rochester: the Dæmon of Tidworth, the Black Dog of Winchester, and the Bar-guest of York. Hence also suburbian Ghosts, rais'd by petty printers and pamphleteers. The story of Madam Veal has been of singular use to the And aftereditors of Drelincourt on Death.' wards ironically observes: "When we read of the Ghost of Sir George Villiers, of the Piper of Hammel, the Dæmon of Moscow, or the German Colonel mentioned by Ponti, and see the names of Clarendon, Boyle, &c., to these accounts, we find reason for our credulity; till, at last, we are convinc'd by a whole conclave of Ghosts met in the works of Glanvil and Moreton." Mr. Locke assures us we have as clear an idea of spirit as of body.

About half a dozen

foreign to the purpose. of the sailors on board a man-of-war took it into their heads that there was a Ghost in the ship; and being asked by the captain what reason they had to apprehend any such thing, they told him they were sure of it, for they smelt him. The captain at first laughed at them, and called them a parcel of lubbers, and advised them not to entertain any such silly notions as these, but mind their work. It passed on very well for a day or two; but one night, being in another ghost-smelling humour, they all came to the captain and told him that they were quite certain there was a Ghost, and he was somewhere behind the small beer barrels. The captain, quite enraged at their folly, was determined they should have something to be frightened at in earnest, and so ordered the boatswain's mate to give them all a dozen of lashes with a cato'-nine-tails, by which means the ship was entirely cleared of Ghosts during the remainder of the voyage. However, when the barrels were removed, some time after, they found a dead rat, or some such thing, which was con cluded by the rest of the crew to be the Ghost which had been smelt a little before."

Our author accounts for this philosophically: "A great deal may be said in favour of men troubled with the scurvy, the concomitants of which disorder are, generally, faintings and the hip, and horrors without any ground for them.

The following was communicated to me by a gentleman, to whom it had been related by a sea captain of the port of Newcastle-uponTyne. "His cook," he said, "chanced to die on their passage homeward. This honest fellow, having had one of his legs a little shorter than the other, used to walk in that way which our vulgar idiom calls, 'with an up and down.' A few nights after his body had been committed to the deep, our captain was alarmed by his mate with an account that the cook was walking before the ship, and that all hands were upon deck to see him. The captain, after an oath or two for having been disturbed, ordered them to let him alone, and try which, the ship or he, should get first to Newcastle. But, turning out, on farther importunity, he honestly confessed that he had like to have caught the contagion, and on seeing something

move in a way so similar to that which an old friend used, and withal having a cap on so like that which he was wont to wear, verily thought there was more in the report than he was at first willing to believe. A general panic diffused itself. He ordered the ship to be steered towards the object, but not a man would move the helm. Compelled to do this himself, he found, on a nearer approach, that the ridiculous cause of all their terror was part of a main-top, the remains of some wreck, floating before them. Unless he had ventured to make this near approach to the supposed Ghost, the tale of the walking cook had long been in the mouths, and excited the fears, of many honest and very brave fellows in the Wapping of Newcastle-upon-Tyne."

(*) Dr. Johnson, in his description of the Buller of Buchan, in Scotland, pleasantly tells us: "If I had any malice against a walking spirit, instead of laying him in the Red Sea, I would condemn him to reside in the Buller of Buchan."

Spirits that give disturbance by knocking are no novelties. Thus I find the following passage in "Osborne's Advice to his Son," 8vo. Oxf., 1656, p. 36. He is speaking of unhappy marriages, which, says he, 66 must needs render their sleepe unquiet, that have one of those cads or familiars still knocking over their pillow."

Could our author have known of the affair in Cock-lane, he might have been equally happy in alluding to Miss Fanny's scratching.

Allan Ramsay, in his Poems, p. 227, explains Spelly Coat to be "one of those frightful spectres the ignorant people are terrified at,and tell us strange stories of; that they are clothed with a coat of shells, which make a horrid rattling; that they'll be sure to destroy one, if he gets not a running water between him and it. It dares not meddle with a woman with child."

In the North of England Ghost is pronounced "Guest." The streets of Newcastle-upon-Tyne were formerly, according to vulgar tradition, haunted by a nightly Guest, which appeared in the shape of a mastiff dog, &c., and terrified such as were afraid of shadows. This word is a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon gart, spiritus, anima. I have heard, when a boy, many stories concerning it.

The following is in Drake's "Eboracum," p. 7, Appendix. "Bar-guest of York. I have been so frightened with stories of this bar-guest, when I was a child, that I cannot help throwing away an etymology upon it. I suppose it comes from the A.S. buph, a town, and gart, a Ghost, and so signifies a town sprite. N.B. that part is in the Belgic and Teut. softened into gheest and geyst. Dr. Langwith."

In Dr. Akenside's "Pleasures of Imagination," b. i. we read :—

"Hence by night The village matron, round the blazing hearth, Suspends the infant audience with her tales, Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes,

THE Gipsies, as it should seem by some striking proofs derived from their language,(1) came originally from Hindostan, where they are supposed to have been of the lowest class of Indians, namely Parias, or, as they are called in Hindostan, Suders. They are thought to have migrated about A. D. 1408 or 1409, when Timur Beg ravaged India for the purpose of spreading the Mahometan religion. On this occasion so many thousands were made slaves and put to death, that an universal panic took place, and a very great number of terrified inhabitants endeavoured to save themselves by flight. As every part towards the north and east was beset by the enemy, it is most probable that the country below Multan, to the mouth of the Indus, was the first asylum and rendezvous of the fugitive Suders. This is called the country of Zinganen. Here they were safe, and remained so till Timur returned from his victories on the Ganges. Then it was that they first entirely quitted the country, and probably with them a considerable number of the natives, which will explain the meaning of their original name. By what track they came to us If they went straight cannot be ascertained. through the southern Persian deserts of Sigistan, Makran, and Kirman, along the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Euphrates, from thence they might get, by Bassora, into the

great deserts of Arabia, afterwards into Arabia Petræa, and so arrive in Egypt by the Isthmus of Suez. They must certainly have been in Egypt (2) before they reached us,(3) otherwise it is incomprehensible how the report arose that they were Egyptians.(*)

Blackstone, in his "Commentaries," (a) has the following account of them: "They are a strange kind of commonwealth among themselves of wandering impostors and jugglers, who first made their appearance in Germany about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Munster, it is true, who is followed and relied upon by Spelman, fixes the time of their first appearance to the year 1417: (5) but as he owns that the first he ever saw were in 1529, it was probably an error of the press for 1517, especially as other historians inform us, that when Sultan Selim conquered Egypt, in 1517, several of the natives refused to submit to the Turkish yoke, and revolted under one Zinganeus, whence the Turks call them Zinganees; but being at length surrounded and banished, they agreed to disperse in small parties all over the world, where their supposed skill in the black art gave them an universal reception in that age of superstition and credulity. In the compass of a very few years they gained such a number of idle prose

(a) Edit. 8vo. Dublin, vol. iv. p. 165.

:

lytes (6) (who imitated their language and complexion, and betook themselves to the same arts of chiromancy, begging and pilfering) that they became troublesome and even formidable to most of the states of Europe.(7) Hence they were expelled from France in the year 1560 and from Spain 1591:(8) and the government of England took the alarm much earlier, for in 1530 they are described, stat. 22 Hen. VIII. c. x., as an ' outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no craft, nor feat of merchandize, who have come into this realm and gone from shire to shire, and place to place, in great company, and used great, subtle, and crafty means to deceive the people, and also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies.' Wherefore they are directed to avoid the realm, and not to return under pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of their goods and chattells; and upon their trials for any felony which they may have committed, they shall not be intitled to a jury de medietate linguæ. And afterwards it was enacted by statutes and 2 Ph. and Mary, c. iv., and 5 Eliz. c. xx,, that if any such persons shall be imported into the kingdom, the importers shall forfeit forty pounds. And if the Egyptians themselves remain one month in the kingdom, or if any person, being fourteen years old, whether natural-born subject or stranger, which hath been seen or found in the fellowship of such Egyptians, or which hath disguised him or herself like them, shall remain in the same one month at one or several times, it is felony without benefit of clergy. And Sir Matthew Hale informs us that at one Suffolk assize no less than thirteen persons were executed upon these statutes a few years before the Restoration. But,

to the honour of our national humanity, there are no instances more modern than this of carrying these laws into practice." Thus far Blackstone.

In Scotland they seem to have enjoyed some share of indulgence: for a writ of privy seal, dated 1594, supports JOHN FAW, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt, in the execution of justice on his company and folk, conform to the laws of Egypt, and in punishing certain persons there named, who rebelled against him, left him, robbed him, and refused to return home with him. James's subjects are commanded to assist in apprehending them, and in assisting Faw and his adherents to return home. There is a like writ in his favour from Mary Queen of Scots, 1553; and in 1554 he obtained a pardon for the murder of Nunan Small.(9) So that it appears he had staid long in Scotland, and perhaps some time in England,(10) and from him this kind of strolling people might receive the name of Faw Gang, which they still retain.(11)

:

Since the repeal of the act against this class of people, which, if I mistake not, took place in 1788, they are said not to be so numerous as before they still however are to be met with, and still pretend to understand palmistry and telling fortunes, nor do I believe that their notions of meum and tuum are one whit less vague than before.(12)

Perhaps, in the course of time, they will either degenerate into common beggars, or be obliged to take to a trade or business for a livelihood. The great increase of knowledge in all ranks of people has rendered their pretended arts of divination of little benefit to them, at least by no means to procure them subsistence.

(1) See "A Dissertation on the Gipsies, being an Historical Enquiry concerning the manner of Life, Economy, Customs, and Conditions of these People in Europe, and their Origin, written in German by Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellman, translated into English by Matthew Raper, Esq., F.R.S. and

A. S.," 4to. Lond. 1787, dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., P.R.S.

It seems to be well proved in this learned work that these Gipsies came originally from Hindostan. A very copious catalogue is given of Gipsy and Hindostan words collated, by which it appears that every third Gipsy word

is likewise an Hindostan one, or still more, that out of every thirty Gipsy words eleven or twelve are constantly of Hindostan. This agreement will appear uncommonly great, if we recollect that the above words have only been learned from the Gipsies within these very few years, consequently after a separation of near four complete centuries from Hindostan, their supposed native country, among people who talked languages totally different, and in which the Gipsies themselves conversed; for under the constant and so long continued influx of these languages, their own must necessarily have suffered great alteration.

In this learned work there is also a comparison of the Gipsies with the above caste of Suders but I lay the greatest stress upon those proofs which are deduced from the similarity of the languages. In the supplement it is added that Mr. Marsden, whose judgment and knowledge in such matters are much to be relied upon, has collected, from the Gipsies here, as many words as he could get, and that by correspondence from Constantinople he has procured a collection of words used by the Cingaris thereabouts: and these, together with the words given by Ludolph in his "Historia Ethiopica," compared with the Hindostan vulgar language, show it to be the same that is spoken by the Gipsies and in Hindostan. See in the seventh volume of the "Archæologia," p. 388, Observations on the Language of the Gipsies, by Mr. Marsden; and ibid. p. 387, Collections on the Gipsy Language, by Jacob Bryant, Esq.

In the above work we read that, in 1418, the Gipsies first arrived in Switzerland near Zurich and other places, to the number, men, women, and children, of fourteen thousand.

The subsequent passage exhibits a proof of a different tendency. "In a late meeting of the Royal Society of Gottingen, Professor Blumenbach laid before the members a second decad of the crania of persons of different nations contrasted with each other, in the same manner as in the first, and ranged according to the order observed by him in his other works. In the first variety was the cranium of a real Gipsy, who died in prison at Clausenburg, communicated by Dr. Patacki of that place. The resemblance between this and that of the Egyptian mummy in the first decad was very strik

ing. Both differed essentially from the sixtyfour crania of other persons belonging to foreign nations, in the possession of the author: a circumstance which, among others, tends to confirm the opinion of Professor Meiners, that the Hindoos, from whom Grellman derives the Gipsies, came themselves originally from Egypt." "British Critic." Foreign Catalogue, vol. ii. p. 226.

See upon the subject of Gipsies the following books: Pasquier," Recherches de la France," p. 392; "Dictionnaire des Origines," v. Bohemiens; De Pauw," Recherches sur les Egyptiens," tom. i.p. 169; "Camerarii Horæ Subsecivæ;" "Gent. Mag." 1783, vol. liii. p. 1009; Ibid. 1787, vol. lvii. p. 897. Anecdotes of the Fife Gipsies will be found in "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine," vol. ii. pp. 282, 523. On the Gipsies of Hesse Darmstadt, ibid. vol. ii. p. 409. Other notices concerning the Scottish Gipsies in the same work, vol. i. pp. 43, 65, 66, 154, 167.

(2) Harrison, in his Description of Eng land prefixed to "Holinshed's Chronicle," 1587, p. 183, describing the various sorts of cheats practised by the voluntary poor, after enumerating those who maim or disfigure their bodies by sores, or counterfeit the guise of labourers or serving-men, or mariners seeking for ships which they have not lost, to extort charity, adds: "It is not yet full three score years since this trade began; but how it hath prospered since that time it is easie to judge, for they are now supposed of one sex and another to amount unto above ten thousand persons, as I have heard reported. Moreover, in counterfeiting the Egyptian Roges, they have devised a language among themselves which they name Canting, but others pedlers French, a speach compact thirty years since of English and a great number of odd words of their own devising, without all order or reason: and yet such is it as none but themselves are able to understand. The first deviser thereof was hanged by the neck, a just reward no doubt for his deceits, and a common end to all of that profession."

The beggars, it is observable, two or three centuries ago, used to proclaim their want by a wooden dish with a moveable cover, which they clacked, to show that their vessel was empty. This appears from a passage quoted