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tremble at the Time of Cock-crowing: For sure we are, that the Angel of the LORD tarrieth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them; nay, That GOD himself will arise and scatter his Enemies, and make them that hate him to flie before him. And if GOD be for us, who can be against us?

OBSERVATIONS ON CHAP. VI.

MR. BOURNE might have stiled this Chapter, A Sermon on Spirit-walking; and yet I cannot help thinking, that the Nurse prevails over the Priest in it. The good Man, it must be allowed, has played the Conjuror so far as to raise us Spirits, but does not seem to have had so much of the Scholar in him as to have been able to lay them.

The Gay and the Witty will no doubt laugh at every Thing he has advanced: Perhaps it will be granted on all Hands, that he has not thrown any new Lights on the dark Subject. I make no Pretensions to any Abilities for discussing the Question; and am of Opinion, that as we know so little of the invisible World, we cannot express ourselves with too much Diffidence in speaking of it.--It must however be allowed, that Writers of the highest Character for Probity and Knowledge have

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transmitted to us Accounts of Spirits and Apparitions. Fancy, Imagination, Misinterpretations of the sacred Writings on that Subject, or Credulity, must have deceived them: For it is impossible to believe them guilty of the Baseness of an Intention to deceive us. The frequent Impostures (I shall only instance the Cock-Lane Ghost, in our own Times) that are to be met with of this Kind, naturally incline us to believe, that all such Relations are either the Forgeries of cunning Men, or the idle Tales of weak ones. It is impossible to follow our Author through all the "Howbeits, Moreovers, "and Neverthelesses," of his tedious Discourse; but to one Thing in his Peroration we readily subscribe our most unfeigned Assent; it is, "That a "good Man has not the least Reason to fear the Spite and Malice of all the Devils in Hell."

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Our Divine discovers every where an Intention of rooting out the old Man from the Hearts of his Readers: I shall be sparing of my Quotations of Chapter and Verse, as I do not think this a proper Place to imitate him in, and purpose only on the present Occasion to eraze the Vestiges of the old Woman, the Impressions of which are still too visibly to be traced on human Nature.

It was the Fashion when Mr. Bourne wrote, that Clergymen should lard every Composition with Scripture Phrases, and nothing seems to have been thought palatable by them, in which every Period was not seasoned with a Spice of Divinity.-These

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great Textuaries overlooked one Passage of holy Writ, "To every thing there is a Season."-Religion is one Thing, and the Entertainment of innocent Curiosity another.-If Clergymen take Care not to permit these Relaxations from severer Studies to engross too much of their Time, none but narrowminded Bigots will think the Investigation of antient Manners an improper Amusement for them.

The Spectator*, accounting for the Rise and Progress of antient 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 Church-yards were all haunted-every Common had a Circle of Fairies belonging to itand there was scarce a Shepherd to be met with who had not seen a Spirit. Hence

Those Tales of vulgar Sprites,
Which frighted Boys relate on Winter Nights,
How cleanly Milk Maids meet the Fairy Train,
How headless Horses drag the clinking chain:

.There is another Passage in the Spectator, where he intro duces the Girls in the Neighbourhood and his Landlady's Daugh ters telling Stories of Spirits and Apparitions;-how they stood pale as Ashes at the Foot of a Bed, and walked over Church-yards by Moon Light:-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."

Night

Night-roaming Ghosts by Saucer Eye-Balls known,
The common Spectres* of each country Town.

Gay.

Our Shakespear'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 Church-yards yawn, and Hell itself breathes out "Contagion to the World+."

The Antients, because the Cock gives Notice of the Approach and Break of Day, have, with a Propriety equal to any Thing in their Mythology, dedicated this Bird to Apollo.-They have also made him the Emblem of Watchfulness, from

*Mr. Gay has left us too 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 Spunge which (as Pliny tells us) hit off so well the Expression of the Froth in Protogenes' 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 satyrical.

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 Mau,

And told the Secrets of the World unknown.

In Scotland, Children dying unbaptized (called Tarans) were supposed to wander in Woods and Solitudes, lamenting their hard Fate, and were said to be often seen.-It is thought here very unlucky to go over their Graves.-It is vulgarly called going over "unchristened Ground."

Vanes on the Tops of Steeples were antiently in the Form of a Cock (called from hence Weather Cocks) and put up in papal Times to remind the Clergy of Watchfulness. "In summitate Crucis, quæ "Campanario vulgo imponitur, Galli Gallinacei effingi solet Figura, quæ Ecclesiarum Rectores Vigilantiæ admoneat."

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the Circumstance of his suminoning Men to their Business by his crowing, and have therefore dedicated him also to Mercury. With the Lark, he may be poetically stiled "the Herald of the Morn.”

The Day civil or political has been divided into thirteen Parts. The After-midnight and the Dead of the Night, are the most solemn of them all, and have therefore, it should seem, been appropriated by antient Superstition to the walking of Spirits.

1. After-midnight. 2. Cock-crow. 3. The Space between the first Cock-crow and Break of Day. 4. The Dawn of the Morning. 5. Morning. 6. Noon. 7. Afternoon. 8. Sunset. 9. Twilight. 10. Evening. 11. Candle Time. 12. Bed Time. 13. The Dead of the Night.-The Church of Rome made four nocturnal Vigils: The Conticinium, Gallicinium or Cock-crow, Intempestum et Antelucinum.

Durand. de Nocturnis.

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."

The Streets of this Northern Metropolis were formerly (so vulgar Tradition has it) 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 3ast, spiritus, anima. I have heard, when a Boy, many Stories concerning it.

CHAP.

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