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an instance of this, in Relation 17th, of a Dutch lieutenant who had the faculty of seeing Ghosts; and who, being prevented making way for one which he mentioned to some friends as coming towards them, was, with his companions, violently thrown down, and sorely bruised. We further learn, by Relation 16th, that the hand of a Ghost is 'as cold as a clod.'

"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 but of this there are few instances, and those mostly Ghosts who have been laid, perhaps in the Red Sea (of which more hereafter), and whose times of confinement were expired: these, like felons confined to the lighters, are said to return more troublesome and daring than before. No Ghosts can appear on Christmas Eve; this Shakspeare has put into the mouth of one of his characters in Hamlet.'

"Ghosts," Grose adds, "commonly appear in the same dress they usually wore whilst living; though they are sometimes clothed all in white; but that is chiefly the churchyard 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. One instance, however, of an English Ghost dressed in black is found in the celebrated ballad of William and Margaret,' in the following lines:

And clay-cold was her lily hand,

That held her sable shrowd."'

This, however, may be considered as a poetical licence, used, in all likelihood, for the sake of the opposition of lily to sable.

"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 once doubting the truth of the fact Dogs too have the faculty of seeing spirits, as is instanced in David Hunter's relation, above quoted; but in that case they usually show signs of terror, by whining and creeping to their master for protection: and it is generally supposed that they often see things of this nature when their owner cannot; there being some persons, particularly those born on a Christmas Eve, who cannot see spirits.

"The coming of a spirit is announced some time before its appearance by a variety of loud and dreadful noises; sometimes rattling in the old hall like a coach and six, and rumbling up and down the staircase like the trundling of bowls or cannon-balls. At length the door flies open, and the spectre stalks slowly up to the bed's foot, and opening the curtains, looks steadfastly at the person in bed by whom it is seen; a Ghost being very rarely visible to more than one person, although there are several in company. It is here necessary to observe, that it has been universally found by experience, as well as affirmed by divers Apparitions themselves, that a Ghost has not the power to speak till it has been first spoken to: so that, notwithstanding the urgency of the business on which it may come, everything must stand still till the person visited can find sufficient courage to speak to it: an event that sometimes does not take place for many years. It has not been found that female Ghosts are more loquacious than those of the male sex, both being equally restrained by this law.

"The mode of addressing a Ghost is by commanding it, in the name of the three persons of the Trinity, to tell you who it is, and what is its business: this it may be necessary to repeat three times; after which it will, in a low and hollow voice, declare its satisfaction at being spoken to, and desire the party addressing it not to be afraid, for it will do him no harm. This being premised, it commonly enters into its narrative, which being completed, and its request or commands given, with injunctions that they be immediately executed, it vanishes away, frequently in a flash of light; in which case, some Ghosts have been so considerate as to desire the party to whom they appeared to shut their eyes: some

times its departure is attended with delightful music. During the narration of its business, a Ghost must by no means be interrupted by questions of any kind; so doing is extremely dangerous : if any doubts arise, they must be stated after the spirit has done its tale. Questions respecting its state, or the state of any of their former acquaintance, are offensive, and not often answered; spirits, perhaps, being restrained from divulging the secrets of their prisonhouse. Occasionally spirits will even condescend to talk on common occurrences, as is instanced by Glanvil in the Apparition of Major George Sydenham to Captain William Dyke, Relation 10th. (2)

"It is somewhat remarkable 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 the 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 curtains of some decrepit nurse or alms-woman, or hovers about the place where his body is deposited. The same circuitous mode is pursued with respect to redressing injured orphans or widows: when it seems as if the shortest and 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 too far into these matters: Ghosts have undoubtedly forms and customs peculiar to themselves.

"If, after the first appearance, the persons employed neglect, or are prevented from, performing the message or business committed to their management, the Ghost appears continually to them, at first with a discontented, next an angry, and at length with a furious countenance, threatening to tear them in pieces if the matter is not forthwith executed: some

times terrifying them, as in Glanvil's Rela. tion 26th, by appearing in many formidable shapes, and sometimes even striking them a violent blow. Of blows given by Ghosts there are many instances, and some wherein they have been followed with an incurable lame

ness.

"It should have been observed that Ghosts, in delivering their commissions, in order to ensure belief, communicate to the persons employed some secret, known only to the parties concerned and themselves, the relation of which always produces the effect intended. The business being completed, Ghosts appear with a cheerful countenance, saying they shall now be at rest, and will never more disturb any one; and, thanking their agents, by way of reward communicate to them something relative to themselves, which they will never reveal.

"Sometimes Ghosts appear, and disturb a house, without deigning to give any reason for so doing with these, the shortest and only way is to exorcise (3) and eject them; or, as the vulgar term is, lay them. For this purpose there must be two or three clergymen, and the ceremony must be performed in Latin; a language that strikes the most audacious Ghost with terror. A Ghost may be laid for any term less than an hundred years, and in any place or body, full or empty; as, a solid oak— the pommel of a sword-a barrel of beer, if a yeoman or simple gentleman-or a pipe of wine, if an esquire or a justice. But of all places the most common, and what a Ghost least likes, is the Red Sea; it being related in many instances, that Ghosts have most earnestly besought the exorcists not to confine them in that place. It is nevertheless considered as an indisputable fact, that there are an infinite number laid there, perhaps from its being a safer prison than any other nearer at hand; though neither history nor tradition gives us any instance of Ghosts escaping or returning from this kind of transportation before their time."(*)

NOTES TO GHOSTS, OR APPARITIONS.

(1) The learned Moresin traces thus to its origin the popular superstition relative to the Coming again, as it is commonly called, or Walking of Spirits :

"Animarum ad nos regressus ita est ex Manilio lib. i. Astron. cap. 7, de lacteo circulo:

'An major densa stellarum turba corona. Contexit flammas, & crasso lumine candet, Et fulgore nitet collato clarior orbis. An fortes animæ, dignataque nomina cœlo Corporibus resoluta suis, terræque remissa. Huc migrant ex orbe, suumque habitantia cœlum:

Æthereos vivunt annos, mundoque fruuntur.'

"Lege Palingenesiam Pythagoricam apud Ovid. in Metam. & est observatum Fabij Pont. Max. disciplina, ut atro die mauibus parentare non liceret, ne infesti manes fierent. Alex. ab Alex. lib. v. cap. 26. Hæc cum legerent papani, & his alia apud alios similia, voluerunt & suorum defunctorum animas ad eos reverti, & nunc certiores facere rerum earum, quæ tum in cœlis, tum apud inferos geruntur, nunc autem terrere domesticos insanis artibus: sed quod sint fœminæ fœcundæ factæ his technis novit omnis mundus." Papatus, p. 11.

From the subsequent passage in Shakspeare the walking of spirits seems to have been enjoined by way of penance. The Ghost speaks thus in "Hamlet"

"I am thy Father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night; And for the day confin'd to fast in fires Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purg'd away."

There is a passage in the " Spectator," where he introduces the girls in his neighbourhood, and his landlady's daughters, telling stories of Spirits and Apparitions: how they stood, pale as ashes, at the foot of a bed, and walked over churchyards by moonlight: of their being conjured to the Red Sea, &c. He

wittily observes that "one spirit raised another, and, at the end of every story, the whole company closed their ranks and crowded about the fire."

In the "Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. xxi. (8vo. Edinb. 1799) p. 148, parish of Monquihitter, in the additional Communications from the Rev. A. Johnstone, we read: "In opinion, an amazing alteration has been produced by education and social intercourse. Few of the old being able to read, and fewer still to write, their minds were clouded by ignorance. The mind being uncultivated, the imagination readily admitted the terrors of superstition. The appearance of Ghosts and Demons too frequently engrossed the conversation of the young and the old. The old man's fold, where the Druid sacrificed to the demon for his corn and cattle, could not be violated by the ploughshare. Lucky and unlucky days, dreams, and omens, were most religiously attended to, and reputed witches, by their spells and their prayers, were artful enough to lay every parish under contribution. In short, a system of mythology fully as absurd and amusing as the mythology of Homer obtained general belief. But now, Ghosts and Demons are no longer visible. The old man's fold is reduced to tillage. The sagacious old woman, who has survived her friends and means, is treated with humanity, in spite of the grisly bristles which adorn her mouth: and, in the minds of the young, cultivated by education, a steady pursuit of the arts of life has banished the chimeras of fancy. Books, trade, manufacture, foreign and domestic news, now engross the conversation; and the topic of the day is always warmly, if not ingenuously, discussed. From believing too much, many, particularly in the higher walks of life, have rushed to the opposite extreme of believing too little; so that, even in this remote corner, scepticism may but too justly boast of her votaries."

The following finely written conversation on the subject of Ghosts, between the servants in Addison's comedy of the "Drummer, or

Haunted House," will be thought much to our purpose.

"Gardener. I marvel, John, how he (the spirit) gets into the house when all the gates are shut.

Butler. Why, look ye, Peter, your spirit will creep you into an augre hole. He'll whisk ye through a key-hole, without so much as justling against one of the wards.

Coachman. I verily believe I saw him last night in the Town-close.

Gard. How did he appear?
Coachm. Like a white horse.

Butl. Pho, Robin, I tell ye he has never appeared yet but in the shape of the sound of a drum.

Coachm. This makes one almost afraid of one's own shadow. As I was walking from the stable t'other night without my lanthorn, I fell across a beam, and I thought I had stumbled over a spirit.

Butl. Thou might'st as well have stumbled over a straw. Why a spirit is such a little thing, that I have heard a man, who was a great scholar, say, that he'll dance ye a Lancashire Hornpipe upon the point of a needle. As I sat in the pantry last night counting my spoons, the candle methought burnt blue, and the spayed bitch looked as if she saw something.

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Gard. Ay I warrant ye, she hears him many a time and often when we don't."

The "Spectator," accounting for the rise and progress of ancient superstition, tells us our forefathers looked upon nature with more reverence and horror before the world was enlightened by learning and philosophy, and loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and enchantments. There was not a village in England that had not a Ghost in it. The churchyards were all haunted. Every common had a circle of fairies belonging to it, and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit. Hence

"Those tales of vulgar sprites Which frighten'd boys relate on winter nights,

How cleanly milk maids meet the fairy train,
How headless horses drag the clinking

chain :

Night-roaming Ghosts by saucer-eyeballs known,

The common spectres of each country town."

(Gay.)

Shakspeare's Ghosts excel all others. The terrible indeed is his forte. How awful is that description of the dead time of night, the season of their perambulation!

"Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and Hell itself breathes out

Contagion to the world."

Thus also in Home's "Douglas: "

"In such a place as this, at such an hour, If ancestry can be in aught believ'd, Descending spirits have convers'd with man, And told the secrets of the world unknown." Gay has left us a pretty tale of an Apparition. The golden mark being found in bed is indeed after the indelicate manner of Swift, but yet is one of those happy strokes that rival the felicity of that dash of the sponge which (as Pliny tells us) hit off so well the expression of the froth in Protogenes's dog. It is impossible not to envy the author the conception of a thought which we know not whether to call more comical or more pointedly satirical.

(2) "Wherein the Major reproved the Captain for suffering a sword he had given him to grow rusty; saying, 'Captain, Captain, this sword did not use to be kept after this manner when it was mine.' This attention to the state of arms was a remnant of the Major's professional duty when living."

(3) The following is from Moresini "Papatus," p. 7: "Apud alios tum Poetas, tum Historiographos, de magicis incantationibus, exorcismis, & curatione tam hominum quam belluarum per carmina haud pauca habentur, sed horum impietatem omnium superat longe hac in re Papismus, hic enim supra Dei potestatem posse carmina, posse exorcismos affirmat,

ita ut nihil sit tam obstrusum in Colis quod exorcismis non pateat, nihil tam abditum in inferno quod non eruatur, nihil in terrarum silentio inclusum quod non eliciatur, nihil in hominum pectoribus conditum quod

non reveletur, nihil ablatum quod non restituatur, & nihil quod habet orbis, sive insit, sive non, è quo dæmon non ejiciatur."

Gay, in imitation of the style of our old Ennius, Chaucer, gives us a fine description of one of these haunted houses:

"Now there spreaden a rumour that everich night

The rooms ihaunted been by many a sprite,
The miller avoucheth, and all thereabout
That they full oft hearen the hellish rout;
Some saine they hear the gingling of chains,
And some hath heard the psautries straines,
At midnight some the heedless horse imeet,
And some espien a corse in a white sheet,
And oother things, faye, elfin, and elfe,
And shapes that Fear createn to itself."

The learned Selden observes, on this occasion, that there was never a merry world since the fairies left dancing and the parson left conjuring. The opinion of the latter kept thieves (a) in awe, and did as much good in a country as a justice of peace.

Bourne, chap. ii., has preserved the form of exorcising a haunted house, a truly tedious process, for the expulsion of demons, who, it should seem, have not been easily ferreted out of their quarters, if one may judge of their unwillingness to depart by the prolixity of this removal warrant.

One smiles at Bourne's zeal in honour of his Protestant brethren, at the end of his tenth chapter. The Vulgar, he says, think them no conjurers, and say none can lay spirits but popish priests: he wishes to undeceive them, however, and to prove at least negatively that our own clergy know full as much of the Black Art as the others do.

Upon the subject of exorcising, the following books may be consulted with advantage: "Fustis Dæmonum, cui adjicitur Flagellum Dæmonum," 12mo. Venet. 1608: (a prohibited book among the Roman Catholics :) and "Practica Exorcistarum F. Valerii Poli

(a) See several curious charms against thieves in Scot's "Discovery of Witchcraft," b. ii. c. 17, and particularly St. Adelbert's curse against them. That celebrated curse in "Tristram Shandy," which is an original one, still remaining in Rochester Cathedral, is nothing to this, which is perhaps the most complete of its kind.

dori Patavini ad Dæmones et Maleficia de Christi Fidelibus expellendum :" 12mo. Venet. 1606. From this last, Bourne's form has been taken.

St. Chrysostom is said to have insulted some African conjurers of old with this humiliating and singular observation: "Miserable and woful creatures that we are, we cannot so much as expel fleas, much less devils."

In

"Obsession of the Devil is distinguished from possession in this. In possession the Evil One was said to enter into the body of the man. obsession, without entering into the body of the person, he was thought to besiege and torment him without. To be lifted up into the air, and afterwards to be thrown down on the ground violently, without receiving any hurt; to speak strange languages that the person had never learned; not to be able to come near holy things or the sacraments, but to have an aversion to them; to know and foretell secret things; to perform things that exceed the person's strength; to say or do things that the person would not or durst not say, if he were not externally moved to it; were the antient marks and criterions of possessions."(a) Calmet, in Bailey's Dictionary.

Allan Ramsay, in his Poems (4to. Edinb. 1721), p. 27, mentions, as common in Scotland, the vulgar notion that a Ghost will not be laid to rest till some priest speak to it, and get account of what disturbs it:

(a) In Dr. Jorden's Dedication of his curious treatise "Of the Suffocation of the Mother," 4to. Lond. 1603, to the College of Physicians in London, he says, "It behoveth us, as to be zealous in the truth, so to be wise in discerning truth from counterfeiting, and naturall causes from supernatural power. I doe not deny but there may be both possessions, and obsessions, and witchcraft, &c., and dispossession also through the prayers and supplications of God's servants, which is the only meanes left unto us for our reliefe in that case. But such examples being verye rare now a-dayes, I would in the feare of God advise men to be very circumspect in pronouncing of a possession; both because the impostures be many, and the effects of naturall diseases be strange to such as have not looked thoroughly into them."

Baxter, in his "World of Spirits," p. 223, observes that "Devils have a greater game to play invisibly than by Apparitions. O happy world, if they did not do a hundred thousand times more hurt by the baits of pleasure, lust, and honour, and by pride, and love of money, and sensuality, than they do by witches!"

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