Part 12

The more lucrative part of his business was that which they carried on in a secret way. He was consulted in cases of difficulty by a class of superstitious persons, and an implicit faith was placed in his statements and predictions. The "wise man" was sought in all cases of accident, disaster, or loss. He was consulted as to the probabilities of the return and safety of the distant and the absent; of the chances of the recovery of the sick, and of the destiny of some beloved friend or relative. The consultation with such a man would often have a sinister aim; to discover by the stars whether an obnoxious husband would survive, or whether the affections of courted or inconstant lover could be secured. Very often long-continued diseases and inveterate maladies were ascribed to an "ill-wish;" and the planet-ruler was sought to discover who was the ill-wisher, and what charm would remove the spell. It is needless to say that the practices of these astrologers were productive, in a large number of cases, of much disturbance among neighbours and relatives, and great mischief to all concerned, except the man who profited by the credulity of his dupes.

Some of these charlatans no doubt were believers in the imposture, but the greater number were arrant cheats. In Leeds and its neighbourhood there were, some five-and-thirty years ago, several "wise men." Among the number was a man known by no other name than that of "Witch Pickles." He was avowedly an Astrological Doctor, and _ruled the planets_ for those who sought him for that purpose. He dwelt in a retired house on the road from Leeds to York, about a mile from the Shoulder of Mutton public-house, at the top of March Lane. His celebrity extended for above fifty miles, and persons came from the Yorkshire Wolds to consult him. The man and the house were held in awe by boys and even older persons who had belief in his powers. Little was known of his habits, and he had few visitors but those who sought his professional assistance. He never committed anything to writing. He was particular in inquiring into all the circumstances of any case on which he was consulted before he pronounced. He then, as he termed it, proceeded to _draw a figure_, in order to discover the conjunction of the planets, and then entered upon the explanation of what the stars predicted. Strange things were told of him, such as that he performed incantations at midnight on certain days in the year when particular planets were in the ascendant; and that on such occasions strange sights and sounds would be seen and heard by persons passing the house. These were the embellishments of vulgar rumour. The man was quiet and inoffensive in his demeanour, and was fully sensible of the necessity of a life of seclusion. He is believed to have practised a few tricks to awe his visitors, such as lighting a candle or fire without visible agency, and other tricks far more ingenious than the modern table-rapping.

"Witch Pickles" was only one among the number who derived a large profit from this kind of occupation. He was one of the more respectable of the class, as he never descended to the vile tricks of others of the profession--tricks practised upon weak and credulous women and girls--which will not bear description.[16]

[16] Abridged from _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, No. 25.

One of the most celebrated works on Astrology is that of Dr. Sibly, twelfth edition, 1817, in two octavo volumes, containing more than eleven hundred pages. The following will give an idea of the pretensions of the book, which is a remarkable book, if it really went through twelve editions. The owner of a privateer, which had not been heard of, called to know her fate. Dr. Sibly gave judgment on a figure "rectified to the precise time the question was propounded. The ship itself appeared well formed and substantial, but not a swift sailer, as is demonstrated by an earthy sign possessing the cusp of the ascendant, and the situation of the Dragon's Head in five degrees of the same sign." The ship itself was pronounced to have been captured.

"From the whole account it is clear that Dr. Sibly's system--how now esteemed by astrologers the writer knows not--has but this alternative: either one and the same figure will tell the fate of all the ships which have not been heard of, including their sailing qualities, or the stars will never send an owner to ask for news except just at the moment when they are in a position to describe this particular ship."[17]

[17] _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, No. 34.

Hannah Green; or, "Ling Bob."

This noted sibyl lived in a cottage on the edge of the moor on the left of the old road from Otley to Bradford, between Carlton and Yeadon, and eight miles from Leeds. She was popularly known as "The Ling-bob Witch," a name given her, it is supposed, from her living among the ling-bobs, or heather-tubs. She was resorted to on account of her supposed knowledge of future events; but, like the rest of her class, her principal forte was fortune-telling, from which it is said she for herself realized a handsome fortune.

Many strange tales have been told of her; such as her power of transforming herself, after nightfall, into the shape of any she list; and of her odd pranks in her nightly rambles, her favourite character being that of the _hare_, in which personation she was unluckily shot by an unsuspecting poacher, who was almost terrified out of his senses by the awful screams which followed the sudden death of the Ling-bob witch.

In the year 1785, D----, of Sheffield, being at Leeds, had the curiosity to pay a visit to the noted Hannah Green. He first questioned her respecting the future fortunes of a near relative of his, who was then in circumstances of distress, and indeed in prison. She told him immediately that his friend's trouble would continue _full three times three years_, and he would then experience _a great deliverance_, which, in fact, was on the point of being literally verified, for he was then in the Court of King's Bench.

He then asked her if she possessed any foreknowledge of what was about to come to pass on the great stage of the world; to which she replied in the affirmative. She said, war would be _threatened once, but would not happen_; but the second time it would blaze out in all its horrors, and extend to all the neighbouring countries; and that the two countries [these appear to be France and Poland], at a great distance one from the other, would in consequence obtain their freedom, although after hard struggles. After the year 1790, she observed, many great persons, even kings and queens, would lose their lives, and that _not by fair means_. In 1794, a great warrior of high blood is to fall in the field of battle; and in 1795, a distant nation [thought to be negro slaves], who have been dragged from their own country, will rise as one man, and deliver themselves from their oppressors.

Hannah appears to have been one of a somewhat numerous class, many of whom were resident in Yorkshire. Very few of them went beyond the attempt to foretell the future events in the lives of individuals; they did not work with such high ambition as drawing the horoscopes of nations. Their predictions were always vague, and so framed as to cover a number of the most probable events in the life of every individual.

Hannah really died on the 12th of May, 1810, after having practised her art about forty years; and Ling-bob became a haunted and dreaded place. The house remained some years untenanted and ruinous, but was afterwards repaired and occupied. Her daughter and successor, Hannah Spence, laid claim to the same prescience, but it need hardly be added, without the same success.[18]

[18] See a pamphlet of 1794; _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, Nos. 20 and 21.

Oddities of Lady Hester Stanhope.

This eccentric lady, grand-daughter of the great Lord Chatham, held implicit faith in the influence of the stars on the destiny of men, a notion from which every crowned head in Europe is not, at this day, exempt.

Lady Hester brought her theories into a striking though rather ridiculous system. She had a remarkable talent for divining characters by the conformation of men. This every traveller could testify who had visited her in Syria; for it was after she went to live in solitude that her penetration became so extraordinary. It was founded both on the features of the face and on the shape of the head, body, and limbs. Some indications she went by were taken from a resemblance to animals; and wherever such indications existed, she inferred that the dispositions peculiar to those animals were to be found in the person. But, independent of all this, her doctrine was that every creature is governed by the star under whose influence it was born.

"Animal magnetism," said Lady Hester, "is nothing but the sympathy of our stars. Those fools who go about magnetizing indifferently one person and another, why do they sometimes succeed and sometimes fail? Because if they meet with those of the same star with themselves, their results will be satisfactory; but with opposite stars they can do nothing."

"What Lady Hester's _own star_ was," says her physician, "may be gathered from what she said one day, when, having dwelt a long time on this her favourite subject, she got up from the sofa, and approaching the window, she called me. 'Look,' said she, 'at the pupil of my eyes; there! my star is the sun--all sun--it is in my eyes: when the sun is a person's star it attracts everything.' I looked, and I replied that I saw a rim of yellow round the pupil. 'A rim!' cried she; 'it isn't a rim--it's a sun; there's a disk, and from it go rays all around: 'tis no more of a rim than you are. Nobody has got eyes like mine.'"

Lady Hester delighted in anecdotes that went to show how much and how justly we may be biassed in our opinions by the shape of any particular part of a person's body independent of the face. She used to tell a story of ----, who fell in love with a lady on a glimpse of those charms which gave such renown to the Onidian Venus. This lady, luckily or unluckily, happened to tumble from her horse, and by that singular accident fixed the gazer's affections irrevocably. Another gentleman, whom she knew, saw a lady at Rome get out of a carriage, her head being covered by an umbrella, which the servant held over her on account of the rain; and seeing nothing but her foot and leg, swore he would marry her--which he did.

Lady Hester delighted in prophecies some of which, with their fulfilments and non-fulfilments, are very amusing. There is reason to think, from what her ladyship let fall at different times, that Brothers, the fortune-teller in England, and Metta, a village doctor on Mount Lebanon, had considerable influence on her actions and, perhaps, her destiny. When Brothers was taken up and thrown into prison (in Mr. Pitt's time), he told those who arrested him to do the will of heaven, but first to let him see Lady Hester Stanhope. This was repeated to her ladyship, and curiosity induced her to comply with the man's request. Brothers told her that "she would one day go to Jerusalem and lead back the chosen people; that on her arrival in the Holy Land, mighty changes would take place in the world, and that she would pass seven years in the desert." Trivial circumstances will foster a foolish belief in a mind disposed to encourage it. Mr. Frederick North, afterwards Lord Guildford, in the course of his travels came to Brusa, where Lady Hester had gone for the benefit of the hot baths. He, Mr. Fazakerley, and Mr. Gally Knight would often banter her on her future greatness among the Jews. "Well, madam, you must go to Jerusalem. Hester, Queen of the Jews! Hester, Queen of the Jews!" was echoed from one to another; and probably at last the coincidence of a name, a prophecy, and the country towards which she found herself going, were thought, even by herself, to be something extraordinary. Metta took up the book of fate from that time and showed her the part she was to play in the East. This man, Metta, for some years subsequent to 1815, was in her service as a kind of steward. He was advanced in years, and, like the rest of the Syrians, believed in astrology, spirits, and prophecy. No doubt he perceived in Lady Hester Stanhope a tincture of the same belief; and on some occasion in conversation he said he knew of a book on prophecy which he thought had passages in it that related to her. This book, he persuaded her, could only be had by a fortunate conjunction connected with himself; and he said if she would only lend him a good horse to take him to the place where it was, he would procure her a sight of it, but she was never to ask where he fetched it from. All this exactly suited Lady Hester's love of mystery. A horse was granted to him; he went off and returned with a prophetic volume which he said he could only keep a certain number of hours. It was written in Arabic, and he was to read and explain the text. The part which he propounded was, "That a European female would come and live on Mount Lebanon at a certain epoch, would build a house there, and would obtain power and influence greater than a sultan's; that a boy without a father would join her; that the coming of the Mahedi would follow, but be preceded by war, pestilence, famine, and other calamities; that the Mahedi would ride a horse born saddled, and that a woman would come from a far country to partake in the mission." There were many other incidents besides which were told.

"The boy without a father" was thought by Lady Hester to be the Duke of Reichstadt; but when he died, not at all discountenanced, she fixed on some one else. Another portion of the prophecy was not so disappointing, for in 1835 the Baroness de Feriat, an English lady residing in the United States, wrote of her own accord, asking to come and live with her, "When," remarks the discriminating doctor, "the prophecy was fulfilled." For the fulfilment of the remainder of the prophecy, Lady Hester was resolved at least not to be unprepared. She kept with the greatest care two mares, called Laïla and Lulu; the latter for Lady Hester herself, and the former, which was "born saddled," or in other words of a peculiar hollow-backed breed, was for the Murdah or Mahedi, the coming of whom she had brought herself to expect, by the words of St. John, "There is one shall come after me who is greater than I." These mares she cherished with care equal to that paid by the ancient Egyptians to cats; and she would not allow them to be seen by strangers, except by those whose _stars_ would not be baneful to cattle.

[Illustration: A Hermit of the Sixteenth Century.]

Hermits and Eremitical Life.

Men have, in most times, withdrawn themselves from the world and taken up their abode in caverns or ruins, or whatever shelter they could find, and lived on herbs, roots, coarse bread and water. In many cases, such persons have deemed these austerities as acceptable to God, and this has become one of the rudest forms of monastic life. It is not from this class of persons that we propose to introduce a few portraits of hermit life, but rather to those whose peculiarities have taken a more eccentric turn, almost in our own time.

The Hon. Charles Hamilton, in the reign of George II., proprietor of Pain's Hill, near Cobham, Surrey, built a hermitage upon a steep brow in the grounds of that beautiful seat. Of this hermitage Horace Walpole remarks that it is a sort of ornament whose merit soonest fades, it being almost comic to set aside a quarter of one's garden to be melancholy in. There is an upper apartment supported in part by contorted logs and roots of trees, which form the entrance to the cell, but the unfurnished and neglected state of the whole proves the justness of Walpole's observation. Mr. Hamilton advertised for a person who was willing to become a hermit in that beautiful retreat of his. The conditions were that he was to continue in the hermitage seven years, where he should be provided with a Bible, optical glasses, a mat for his bed, a hassock for his pillow, an hour-glass for his timepiece, water for his beverage, food from the house, but never to exchange a syllable with the servant. He was to wear a camlet robe, never to cut his beard or nails, nor ever to stray beyond the limits of the grounds. If he lived there, under all these restrictions, till the end of the term, he was to receive seven hundred guineas. But on breach of any of them, or if he quitted the place any time previous to that term, the whole was to be forfeited. One person attempted it, but a three weeks' trial cured him.

A Correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ describes a gentleman near Preston, Lancashire, as more successful in the above eccentricity. He advertised a reward of 50_l._ a year for life to any man who would undertake to live seven years underground, without seeing anything human; and to let his toe and finger nails grow, with his hair and beard, during the whole time. Apartments were prepared underground, very commodious, with a cold bath, a chamber organ, as many books as the occupier pleased, and provisions served from his own table. Whenever the recluse wanted any convenience he was to ring a bell, and it was provided for him. Singular as this residence may appear, an occupier offered himself, and actually stayed in it, observing the required conditions, for four years.

In the year 1863 there was living in the village of Newton Burgoland, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, a hermit whose real name was scarcely known, though he had resided there nearly fifteen years. Yet he was no recluse, no ascetic, but lived comfortably, and enjoyed his dinner, his beer, and his pipe; and, according to his own definition, he was entitled to be called a hermit. "True hermits," he said, "throughout every age, have been the firm abettors of freedom." As regarded his appearance, his fancies, and his habits, he was a hermit, a _solitaire_ in the midst of human beings. He wore a long beard, and had a very venerable appearance. He was very fantastic in his dress, and had a multitude of suits. He had no less than twenty different kinds of hats, each with its own name and form, with some emblem or motto on it--sometimes both. Here are a few examples:--

No. Name. Motto or Emblem.

1. Odd Fellows Without money, without friends, without credit.

5. Bellows Blow the flames of freedom with God's word of truth.

7. Helmet Will fight for the birthright of conscience, love, life, property, and national independence.

13. Patent Teapot To draw out the flavour of the tea best--Union and Goodwill.

17. Wash-basin of Reform White-washed face and collyed heart.

20. Bee-hive The toils of industry are sweet; a wise people live at peace.

The shapes of the hats and the devices on them were intended to symbolize some important fact or sentiment.

He had twelve suits of clothes, each with a peculiar name, differing from the others, and, like his hats, intended to be emblematical. One dress, which he called "Odd Fellows," was of white cotton or linen. It hung loosely over the body, except being bound round the waist with a white girdle buckled in the front. Over his left breast was a heart-shaped badge, bearing the words, "Liberty of Conscience," which he called his "Order of the Star." The hat which he wore with the dress was nearly white, and of common shape, but had on it four fanciful devices, bound with black ribbon, and inscribed, severally, with these words: "Bless, feed--good allowance--well clothed--all workingmen."

Another dress, which he called "Foresters," was a kind of frock-coat, made of soft brown leather, slightly embroidered with braid. This coat was closed down the front with white buttons, and bound round the waist with a white girdle, fastened with a white buckle. The hat, slightly resembling a turban, was divided into black and white stripes, running round it.

Another dress, which he named "Military," had some resemblance to the military costume at the beginning of the present century; the hat was between the old-fashioned cocked-hat and that worn by military commanders; but, instead of the military plume, it had two upright peaks on the crown, not unlike the tips of a horse's ears. This hat, which he asserted cost five pounds, he never wore but on important occasions.