Part 13

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.

“In great towns the hurry and dissipation that attend the opulent, and the little leisure that the poor have, from following the avocations which necessity drives them to, prevent them from taking any notice of similar instances to the foregoing, which may happen to themselves. But the case is quite different in the Highlands of Scotland, where they live solitary, and have little to do, or see done, and consequently, comparatively have but few ideas. When any thing of the above nature occurs, they have leisure to brood over it, and cannot get it banished from their minds, by which means it gains a deep and lasting impression, and often various circumstances may happen by which it may be interpreted, just like the ancient oracles by the priests of the heathen deities. This solitary situation of our neighbours is also productive of an opinion of a worse tendency—I mean the belief in spirits and apparitions, to which no people on earth are more addicted than the Scotch Highlanders: this opinion they suck in with their mother’s milk, and it increases with their years and stature. Not a glen or strath, but is haunted by its particular _goblins_ and _fairies_. And, indeed, the face of the country is in some places such, that it wears a very solemn appearance, even to a philosophic eye. The fall of cataracts of water down steep declivities, the whistling of the wind among heath, rocks and caverns, a loose fragment of a rock falling from its top, and in its course downward bringing a hundred more with it, so that it appears like the wreck of nature; the hooting of the night-owl, the chattering of the heath-cock, the pale light of the moon on the dreary prospect, with here and there a solitary tree on an eminence, which fear magnifies to an unusual size; all these considered, it is not to be wondered at, that even an enlightened mind should be struck with awe: what then must be the emotion of a person prejudiced from his infancy, when left alone in such a situation?”

Until the last century the spirit Brownie, in the Highlands of Scotland, was another subject of second sight, as the following story will shew.— “Sir Normand Macleod, and some others, playing at tables, at a game called by the Irish Falmer-more, wherein there are three of a side and each of them threw dice by turns; there happened to be one difficult point in the disposing of the table-men; this obliged the gamester, before he changed his man, since upon the disposing of it the winning or losing of the game depended. At last the butler, who stood behind, advised the player where to place his man; with which he complied, and won the game. This being thought extraordinary, and Sir Normand hearing one whisper him in the ear, asked who advised him so skilfully? He answered, it was the butler; but this seemed more strange, for he could not play at tables. Upon this, Sir Normand asked him how long it was since he had learned to play? and the fellow owned that he never played in his life; but that he saw the spirit Brownie reaching his arm over the player’s head, and touching the part with his finger on the point where the table-man was to be placed[44].”

The circumstance, however, deserving most notice, is the reference which the objects of second-sight are supposed to bear to the seer’s assumed gift of prophecy. It is said, in one of the numerous illustrations which have been given of this faculty, that “Sir Normand Mac Leod, who has his residence in the isle of _Bernera_, which lies between the Isle of North-Uist and Harries, went to the Isle of Skye about business, without appointing any time for his return: his servants, in his absence, being altogether in the large hall at night, one of them, who had been accustomed to see the second-sight, told the rest they must remove, for they would have abundance of company that night. One of his fellow-servants answered that there was very little appearance of that, and if he had any vision of company, it was not like to be accomplished this night; but the seer insisted upon it that it was. They continued to argue the improbability of it, because of the darkness of the night, and the danger of coming through the rocks that lie round the isle; but within an hour after, one, of Sir Normand’s men came to the house, bidding them to provide lights, &c. for his master had newly landed.

The following illustrations of the second-sight are given by Dr. Ferriar, in his “Theory of Apparitions.”

“A gentleman connected with my family, an officer in the army, and certainly addicted to no superstition, was quartered early in life, in the middle of the last century, near the castle of a gentleman in the north of Scotland, who was supposed to possess the second-sight. Strange rumours were afloat respecting the old chieftain. He had spoken to an apparition, which ran along the battlements of the house, and had never been cheerful afterwards. His prophetic visions surprise even in the region of credulity; and his retired habits favoured the popular opinions. My friend assured me, that one day, while he was reading a play to the ladies of the family, the chief, who had been walking across the room, stopped suddenly, and assumed the look of a seer. He rang the bell, and ordered a groom to saddle a horse; to proceed immediately to a seat in the neighbourhood, and enquire after the health of Lady ——. If the account was favourable, he then directed him to call at another castle, to ask after another lady whom he named.

“The reader immediately closed his book, and declared he would not proceed till those abrupt orders were explained, as he was confident they were produced by the second-sight. The chief was very unwilling to explain himself; but at length the door had appeared to open, and that a little woman without a head, had entered the room; that the apparition indicated the death of some person of his acquaintance; and the only two persons who resembled the figure, were those ladies after whose health he had sent to enquire.