“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.”
MACBETH.
EV. You are a most industrious gleaner among the sheaves of history,
Astrophel. But why, in all these seeming prophecies, seek to thwart the
harmonious course of nature? Leave superstition to the heathen and the
savage: be assured, in the words of Principal Robertson, that a vain
desire of prying into futurity is the error of the infancy of a people,
and a proof of its weakness.
From this weakness proceeded the faith of the Americans in dreams, their
observation of omens, their attention to the chirping of birds and the
cries of animals, all which they supposed to be indications of future
events. And if any one of these prognostics was deemed unfavourable,
they instantly abandoned the pursuit of those measures on which they
were most eagerly bent.
I wonder you brought not some _classic_ proofs of this credulity, for
such were all-prevalent in Judæa and the Eternal City.
Thus, on February the thirteenth, the Romans were conquered by the
Gauls: henceforward important acts were never undertaken on its
anniversary: nor on August the tenth by the Jews, because their first
temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the other by Titus, long
afterwards, on that day of the month.
I am not, however, without some curious stories of very modern date; one
anecdote may be recognised on the Stock Exchange. A wealthy Hebrew, who
was wont to fling his gold even into the lap of kings, was once standing
on a certain stone, at the Post Office, when he received a letter, on
which he speculated, and lost 20,000_l._ On this he cautioned his
friends never to stand on that stone, lest a similar ill-fortune should
attend _them_.
The mind of this man was a storehouse of superstition—an omen was his
leading star. A drove of pigs would check the completion of a mighty
bargain, and a flock of sheep would prompt him to sign his name to a
million.
The three brothers of his great house were once on their way to Lord
Liverpool, in order to the completion of a loan to the Treasury; when,
lo! an army of swine met them on their way. There was no more progress
to Downing Street that day; but they retired to Stamford Hill, and the
Lord Treasurer waited twenty-four hours for the Hebrews’ gold.
With Brinsley Sheridan, _Friday_ was a sort of holiday; neither journeys
were undertaken, nor new plays allowed to be produced, on that day.
I presume you were ashamed to adduce ornithoscopy, or the divination by
birds, as an illustration. Do you forget the mystic influence of three
crows on man’s destiny? But I will tell you an oriental fable; how an
accomplished Jew, named Mosollam, puzzled an augur, by shooting a
beautiful bird, from which the augur was about to prophecy on the fate
of an expedition. “Why,” said Mosollam, “did not the bird foreknow the
fate which awaited it? why did it not fly away—or why come at all?”
ASTR. I believe the augur did or might answer, that “a prophet may be
ordained to tell the fate of nations, but _not his own_.”
EV. Another vague supposition, Astrophel: there is much virtue in these
_may be’s_.
I have listened to your legends, and you will now listen to me, while I
presume to illustrate my own proofs, searching for my causes in the
beautiful eccentricities of nature alone; and a scholar like yourself,
Astrophel, with whom I have so often chopped Oxford logic, will grant it
is a precept in philosophy not to seek for more causes, than the
explanation of the fact requires.
* * * * *
On this scroll I have sketched an arrangement of phantoms or ghosts, in
two grand classes.
GHOSTS OF THE MIND’S EYE,
or
PHANTASMA.
Illusive _per_ception, or ocular { _Conversion_ of natural objects
spectra. into phantoms.
Illusive _con_ception, or spectral { _Creation_ of phantoms.
illusion.
GHOSTS OF THE EYE,
or
OPTICAL ILLUSION.
Atmospheric. { Refraction.
{ Reflection.
Gases.
Lenses and mirrors.
Disease of the eye.
In the first class there is no real or palpable object, or, if there be,
it is not what it appears; the illusion is but the reality of romance,
depending altogether on excited or disordered conditions of the mind:
the source, therefore, either of bright or gloomy phantoms, as the mood
may be.
On this scroll I have recorded those _moods of mind_, which, excited by
memory or association, or influenced by such casualties as solitude,
moonlight darkness, or localities of interest, or the poring over tales
of horror at midnight, may be considered the _predisposing causes_ of
illusion. Such are:—
Temperament Credulity,
Enthusiasm,
Superstition,
Timidity,
Imagination,
Poetic frenzy.
Excitement Sympathy,
Exalted joy,
Deep grief,
Love,
Hatred,
Protracted anxiety,
Delirium of fever,
Delirium of alcohol,
Delirium of narcotics,
Exhaustion,
Disease of the brain.
The second class, which are spectres or ghosts of the eye, may be
scientifically explained by the laws which govern the _material world_.
These are the only substantial ghosts which I can grant to my friend.
The objects themselves exist, and are exactly as they appear. The
philosopher regards them as interesting exceptions to general rules,
from _peculiar_ combinations of _natural_ causes. The unlearned will
term them preternatural _phenomena_, simply because they are of uncommon
occurrence. But which among the works of divine creation is not a
phenomenon? We may think we know a law of nature, but can we analyse it?
Novelty and magnitude astonish, but that which is familiar excites not
our surprise. We gaze with delight on the progress of an eclipse; we
watch with wonder the eccentric course of the comet; but we look on the
sun in its meridian glory with a cold and apathetic indifference. Yet do
they all alike display Divine Omnipotence, and the expansion of a
vegetable germ, the bursting of a flower, is as great a miracle as the
overwhelming of a deluge, the annihilation of a mighty world.
To discriminate between these classes is not difficult: we may prove
their nature by simple experiment. _Optical illusions_ will be _doubled_
by a straining or altering of the axes of the eyes; and, by turning
round, as they are removed from the axis of vision, they will disappear.
So, indeed, will those of the second class, which are _real_ objects
converted into phantoms by mental excitement or disorder.
But in the purely _metaphysical ghost_ or phantom, the change of
position or locality will not essentially dispel the illusion, (the
spectrum following, as it were, the motion of the eye;) because it
exists in the mind itself, either as a faint or transient idea, or a
mere outline, fading perhaps in a brighter light, or as the more
permanent and confirmed impression of insanity, (unchanged even by
“brilliant glare,”) or from the day-dream of the castle-builder, to the
deep and dreadful delusion of the maniac.
Among the mute productions of nature, there are eccentricities and
rarities, which, in default of analysis or explanation, would not fail
of being referred to some supernatural agency: as Leo Afer, according to
Burton, accounts for the swarms of locusts once descending at Fez, in
Barbary, and at Arles, in France, in 1553. “It could not be from natural
causes; they cannot imagine whence they come, but from heaven. Are these
and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, &c. lifted
up into the middle region by the sunbeams, as Baracellus the physician
disputes, and thence let fall with showers, or there engendered?
Cornelius Gemma is of that opinion, they are there conceived by
celestial influences: others suppose they are immediately from God, or
prodigies raised by arts and illusions of spirits which are princes of
the ayre.”
Over Languedoc there once burst an awful and supernatural cloud, from
which fell immense snow-flakes like glittering stars. There is nothing
strange in this, for the shape of the snow-flake is ever that of an
_asteroïd_. But then there came pouring down gigantic hail-stones, with
their glassy surface impressed with the figures of helmets, and swords,
and scutcheons. This too may be the effect of very sudden and irregular
congelation; but this law was not known, and therefore its result was a
mystery.
Among the wonders seen by the great traveller, Pietro della Valla, was
the _bleeding_ cypress-tree, which shadows the tomb of Cyrus, in Italy.
Under the hollow of its boughs, in his day, it was lighted with lamps
and was consecrated as an oratory. To this shrine resorted many a devout
pilgrim, impressed with a holy belief in the _miracle_. And what was
this but the glutinous crimson fluid, exuding from the diseased alburnum
of a tree, which the woodmen indeed term _bleeding_, but which the
ancient Turks affirmed, or believed, to be converted on every Friday
into drops of real blood?
The red snow, which is not uncommon in the arctic regions, is thus
tinted by very minute cryptogamic plants; and the fairy ring is but a
circle of herbage poisoned by a fungus.
In Denbighshire (I may add) the prevalent belief is, that the
_shivering_ of the aspen is from _sympathy_ with that tree in Palestine,
which was hewn into the true cross.
The simple stratification of vapours, especially during sudden
transitions of temperature, may produce very interesting optical
phenomena; not by refraction or reflection, but merely by partial
obscuration of an object. We have examples of these illusive spectra in
the gigantic icebergs seen by Captain Scoresby, and other arctic
voyagers, which assumed the shape of towers, and spires, and cathedrals,
and obelisks, that were constantly displacing each other in whimsical
confusion and endless variety, like the figures of a kaleidoscope.
Phipps thus describes their majestic beauty: “The ice that had parted
from the main body, they had now time to admire, as it no longer
obstructed their course; the various shapes in which the broken
fragments appeared were indeed very curious and amusing. One remarkable
piece described a magnificent arch, so large and completely formed, that
a sloop of considerable burden might have sailed through it without
lowering her masts. Another represented a church, with windows, pillars,
and domes.”
We may scarcely wonder at the mystifications of nature, when she assumes
these gorgeous eccentricities, as have been witnessed also in the barren
steppes of the Caraccas, on the Orinoko, where the palm-groves appear to
be cut asunder; in the Llanos, where chains of hills appear suspended in
the air, and rivers and lakes to flow on arid sand; in the lake of the
Gazelles, seen by the Arabs and the African traveller; and the lakes
seen by Captain Munday, during his tour in India.
The very clearness of the atmosphere, like that which floats around the
Rhine, renders distance especially distinct; but mountainous regions,
from the attraction of electric clouds, afford the highest examples of
atmospheric beauty and effect. London and other cities, however crowded
with lofty buildings, are not deficient in these aërial illusions. Even
from the bridge of Blackfriars I have seen a cumulo stratus cloud so
strangely intersect the steeples and the giant chimneys of London, as
distinctly to represent a sea-port, with its vessels and distant
mountains.
We have among us several minor illusions, which are only less imposing
because more familiar; and though often occurring, few are recorded with
scientific accuracy. The phosphorescence of the marshes, the ignis
fatuus, Will o’Wisp, Jack o’ the Lanthorn, or Friar Rush, and the
corpse-candles, are mere luminous exhalations, strained into the
marvellous by the vulgar, and thus set down as heralds of mortality. The
dancing-light of luminous flies has been termed the _green light of
death_; and, if you wish for more, Astrophel, read the “Armorican
Magazine” of John Wesley, or the quaint volume of Burton, and
thereabouts where he writes in this fashion: “The thickness of the aire
may cause such effects, or any object not well discerned in the dark,
fear and phantasie will suspect to be a ghost or devil. Glowwormes,
firedrakes, meteors, ignis fatuus, which Plinius calls Castor and
Pollux, with many such that appear in moorish grounds, about
church-yards, moist valleys, or where battles have been fought, the
causes of which read in Goclenius, Velcurius, Finkius, &c.”
The Parhelia, or mock suns, are produced by the reflection of the sun’s
light on a frozen cloud. How readily these phenomena are magnified you
may learn from ancient and modern records. In 1223 four suns were seen
of crimson, inclosed in a wide circle of crystal colour. This is
natural: but then comes the miracle. In the same year two giant dragons
were seen in the air, flapping their monstrous wings and engaging in
single combat, until they both fell into the sea and were drowned! Then,
in 1104, there were seen four white circles rolled around the sun: and
in 1688, two suns and a reversed rainbow appeared at Bishop’s Lavington,
in Wiltshire: and in February, 1647, there is an account and sketch of
three suns, and an inverted rainbow, which Baxter terms “Binorum
Pareliorum Φαινομενον.” And because there were two lunar and one solar
eclipses in 1652, it was called, as Lily records, “Annus tenebrum,” or
“the dark year.”
The Corona, or halo around the sun, moon, and stars, is easily
illustrated by the zone formed by placing, during a frost, a lighted
candle in a cloud of steam or vapour.
The Aurora Borealis is _arctic electricity_, and is beautifully imitated
by the passage of an electric flash through an exhausted glass cylinder.
The rainbow is a combination of _natural prisms_ breaking the light into
colours; and it may be seen in the cloud, or in the spray of the ocean,
or in the beautiful cascades of Schaffhausen, Niagara, or Terni, or
indeed in any foaming spray on which the _meridian_ sunbeams fall, or
even in the dewy grass, lying, as it were, on the ground.
When the sun shines on a cloud, there is always a bow produced visible
to all who are placed at the proper angle. The lunar rainbow is
achromatic, or destitute of colour, because reflected light is not
easily refracted into colour. In a brilliant sunset the floods of light
around him often indicate the gradation of prismatic colouring.
CAST. In some waterfalls I have seen the Iris form a complete circle; as
in the Velino at Terni, and in others, especially in Ionia and Italy. A
perfect illusion is produced, for the bow seems to approach the
spectator and then recede, as if Juno were sending her messenger on some
special mission. There are many minds which would yield with delight to
this conviction, and such probably was the illusion of Benvenuto
Cellini—was it not? “This resplendent light is to be seen over my
shadow till two o’clock in the afternoon, and it appears to the greatest
advantage when the grass is moist with dew. It is likewise visible in
the evening at sunset. This phenomenon I took notice of when I was at
Paris, because the air is exceedingly clear in that climate, so that I
could distinguish it there much plainer than in Italy, where the moists
are much more frequent, &c.” A consciousness of superior talent, and
probably the homage which was paid him even by the members of the holy
conclave, were the springs of this flattering vision.
IDA. The beauty of these must light up even the fancy of a child, yet a
holier feeling will ever inspire a Christian philosopher, when the bow
is seen in the cloud, for it was the sign of the covenant. There is,
indeed, something in the glories of the firmament which never fails to
elevate my own thoughts, and I can readily sympathise with the Spanish
religionists of the fifteenth century, and with the North Americans, who
gaze upon the beautiful constellation of the “Southern Cross,” insulated
as it is from all other stars in its own dark space; in solemn belief
that it is the great symbolical banner held out by the Deity in approval
of their faith.
EV. The “Fata Morgana,” in the straits of Reggio, presents a perfect
scene of enchantment; when the shouts of “Morgana, Morgana,” echo from
rock and mountain, as the wondering people flock in crowds to the shore.
During this splendid illusion, gigantic columns, and cloud-capt towers,
and gorgeous palaces, and solemn temples, are floating on the verge of
the horizon, and sometimes beneath this picture of a city, on the very
bosom of the water, a _fainter_ spectrum may be seen, which is a
reflected image of the other. These spectra are usually _colourless_,
but if certain watery vapours are floating in the air, they are
beautifully fringed with the three primitive colours of the prism. Such
also is the illusion of the Calenture, or _sylvan scenes_ of the ocean.
CAST. Let us seek these wonders of the waters, Astrophel; perchance we
might, in some enchanted hour, see even beneath yon Severn flood the
grotto of Sabrina, with its green and silver weeds, its purple shells
and arborescent corallines; and, if we dive into the depths of the sea,
might we not light on the palace of Amphitrite, and, while the Nereids
and Tritons were mourning over the desolation of a shipwreck, hear the
echo of some Ariel’s song “full fathom five,” undulating through the
water; or realise the overwhelming of Maha-Velipoor, in the curse of
Kehama:
“Their golden summits in the noontide ray,
Shone o’er the dark green deep, that roll’d between;
For domes, and pinnacles, and spires were seen
Peering above the sea.”
Or the legend of _Thierna Na Oge_, in Lough Neagh, in Ireland; for Moore
has sung—
“On Lough Neagh’s banks, when the fisherman strays,
He sees the round towers of other days;”
and why may not _we_?
Who that has wandered among the dark mountains of Brecon, remembers not
the blue pool of Lynsavaddon, and has not listened to the tales of the
mountaineers, of the city over which to this day its waves are rolling?
and in the beautiful vale of Eidournion, in Merioneth—but listen to a
fragment of a romance of this valley, which from memory I quote:—
There was a proud and wealthy prince in Gwyneth, when the beautiful isle
was under the rule of the Cymri. At his palace gate a voice was once
heard echoing among the mountains these words: ‘Edivar a
ddau’—Repentance will come. The prince demanded ‘When?’ and in the
rolling thunder the voice was again heard, ‘At the third generation.’
Nothing daunted, the wicked lord lived on, committing plunder and all
evil excesses, and laughing to scorn the holy hymns in the churches. A
son and heir was born to him, and there was a gorgeous assemblage in the
hall of beautiful ladies and high-born nobles, to celebrate the festival
of his birth.
It was midnight, when in the ear of an old harper, a shrill voice
whispered, ‘Edivar, Edivar;’ and a little bird hovered over him, and
flew out of the palace in the pale moonshine: and the harper and the
little bird went together into the mountains. The bird flitted before
him in the centre of the moon’s disc, and warbled its mournful cry of
‘Edivar’ so plaintively, that the old man thought of the shriek of his
little child Gwenhwyvar, as she sunk beneath the waters of Glaslyn.
On the top of the mountain he sank down with weariness, and the little
bird was not with him; all was silent, save the cataract and the
sheep-bells on the mountain side. In alarm at the wild solitude around
him, he turned towards the castle, but its lordly towers had vanished,
and in the place of its woods and turrets there was a waste of rolling
waters—with his lone harp floating on their surface.
EV. I am unwilling to check your flight, fair Castaly, but my
illustrations are not yet exhausted.
The “Spectre of the Brocken” is a mere shadow of the spectator on a
gigantic scale. This phantom, the “Schattenmann,” according to vulgar
tradition, haunts the lofty range of the Hartz mountains, in Hanover. It
is usually observed when the sun’s rays are thrown horizontally on thin
fleecy clouds, or vapour of highly reflective power, assuming the shape
of a gigantic shade on the cloud.
The romantic region of the Hartz was the grand temple of Saxon idolatry,
the very hot-bed of terrible shadows; the first of May especially being
the grand annual rendezvous of unearthly forms. Even now, it is
affirmed, Woden, known in Brunswick as the Hunter of Hackelburgh, (whose
sepulchre, an immense rough stone, is shown to the traveller,) is still
influential in the Oden Wald and among the ruins of Rodenstein: even as
in our own Lancashire, a dark gigantic horseman rushes on a giant steed
in stormy nights, over “Horrock Moor;” indeed, a spot or tomb is still
shown where he used to disappear.
Thus are the “Spectres of the Brocken” invested with supernatural
dignity, in the minds of credulity and ignorance. And no wonder, for,
although the discoverer of this gigantic illusion, Mr. Jordan, might
convince the Germans of the nature of this shadow, how could the
credulous believe, when they beheld a _second figure_, a faint refracted
spectrum of the shadow, that it was any other than the shadow king of
the Brocken himself, frowning defiance on intruders.
And this reminds me of the confession of Gaffarel, in his “Unheard of
Curiosities” of the seventeenth century; in his quaint chapter on the
“readynge of the cloudes and whatever else is seene in the air, and of
hieroglyphicks in the cloudes.”
Among other miraculous illusions, as recorded by Cardanus, “An angel
once wafted on the cloudes above Millane, and great was the
consternation at its appearance, until Pellicanus, a philosopher, made
it plainly appear, that this angel was nothing else but the reflection
of an image of stone, that was on the top of the church of Saint Godart,
which was represented in the thick cloudes as in a looking-glasse.”
While I was in South Wales, in 1836, I conversed with a labourer in the
Cyfarthfa works at Merthyr Tydvil, an illiterate seer, who saw, three
times appearing before him, an unsubstantial tram-road; and on it a
train drawn by a horse, and in this, the dead body of a man. Twice this
_shadow_ emerged from the earth, and on the third ascent he looked on
it, and recognized the well-known face of a comrade. The man was horror
struck, but his friend lived to laugh _at him_.
When my friend, Mr. David Taylor, ascended the mountain that rises over
Chamouni, on the opposite side of the valley to Mont Blanc, his
magnified shadow was distinctly seen by him on the vapoury cloud that
floated between these giant rocks.
In February 1837, two gentlemen, on whom I confidently trust, were
standing on Calton Hill while a murky cloud hung over Edinburgh. Above
this veil Arthur’s Seat peeped out like a rocky island beneath two white
arches, like the lunar bows; and on the cloud itself, each gentleman saw
the shadow of his companion magnified to gigantic proportions.
The aeronaut, among other glories of his ascent, may by chance be
gratified by the shadow of his balloon on the face of a cumulus cloud;
thus did the Duke of Brunswick, who ascended with Mrs. Graham, in August
1836. And this is the analogous recital of Prince Puckler Muskau, in his
“Tutti Frutti.”
“We dipped insensibly into the sea of clouds which enveloped us like a
thick veil, and through which the sun appeared like the moon in Ossian.
This illumination produced a singular effect, and continued for some
time, till the clouds separated, and we remained swimming about beneath
the once more clear azure heavens. Shortly after we beheld, to our great
astonishment, a species of ‘Fata Morgana,’ seated upon an immense
mountain of clouds the colossal picture of the balloon and ourselves
surrounded by myriads of variegated rainbow tints. A full half hour the
spectral reflected picture hovered constantly by our side. Each slender
thread of the network appeared distended to the size of a ship’s cable,
and we ourselves two tremendous giants enthroned on the clouds.”
The phantom, which rode side by side with Turpin, might be a mere
reflected shadow in the mist; indeed, Burton writes that “Vitellio hath
such another instance of a familiar acquaintance of his, that after the
want of three or four nights’ sleep, as he was riding by a river-side,
saw another riding with him, and using all such gestures as he did, but
when _more light appeared, it vanished_.”
The principles of refraction are the sources of many an illusion, which
is startling even to those who are aware of them. The sea, the vessels
floating on its surface, the rocks and buildings on its shores, often
appear elevated far beyond their usual position: things are thus
presented to the eye which, in the direct course of the rays, would be
completely out of sight; and the praises bestowed on the Irish telescope
may not have been a bull, although we are assured that we may _see
through it round the corner_.
Baron Humboldt, Mr. Huddart, Professor Vince, Captain Scoresby and
others, will entertain you with these natural eccentricities, if you
read the learned letter of Sir David Brewster, on “Natural Magic;” and
he will teach you how easy is the solution of all these marvels, on the
principles of atmospheric reflection. Yet how many are there who are not
contented with the light of our philosophy, though it may fall like a
sunbeam on the mind. Like the recorder of the “Unheard-of Curiosities,”
they, at one time, confess the _optical illusion_, as when the Romans
“saw their navy in the clouds;” at another, as when Constantine
professed to see the “Crosse shining most gloriously in the aire,”
marked with the motto, “In hoc signo vinces,”—philosophy was silent,
and they believed it _might_ be divine.
But a mind in its _state of nature_ cannot know all this. If a savage
looked on the two white horses cut on the chalk hills of Berkshire and
of Wiltshire, on the white cross of the Saxons on the Bledlow Ridge in
Buckinghamshire, and on the white-leaf cross near Princes
Risboro’,—would he not deem them deities, or the work of a magician or
a devil?
When the sailors of Lord Nelson saw the bloated corpse of the murdered
Prince Caraccioli floating erect in the water directly towards their
ship, can we wonder they should deem it a _supernatural_ visitation?
When Franklin set his bells a ringing, by drawing down the electric
fluid from the thunder-cloud, and when Columbus foretold to the hour the
sun’s eclipse;—can we wonder that the transatlantic Indians listened,
as to one endued with preternatural knowledge, or that the other might
be thought superhuman? And when the king of Siam was assured that water
could be congealed into ice, on which the sounding skate could
glide,—can we wonder that he smiled in absolute disbelief of such a
change, and called the tale a lie.
Thus, when the peasants of Cardigan, who were not versed in Pontine
architecture, looked on the bridge which the monks of _Yspitty C’en
Vaen_ had thrown across the torrent of the _Monach_, they could not
believe it a work of human, but of _infernal_, hands, and called it the
“Devil’s Bridge.”
On my ascent of the Vann mountain in Brecon, there often came a mass of
limestone rolling down the precipice. “Ah sure,” said the old shepherd,
who was watching his fold on the mountain-side, “the fairies are at
their gambols, master, for they sometimes do play at bowls with these
chalk stones.” Such was his explanation; but, on my gaining another
ridge of the Brecon Beacon, I startled a whole herd of these fairies,
who scudded off as fast as their legs could carry them, having first
changed themselves into a flock of sheep.
There was once a caravan journeying from Nubia to Cairo, which met the
Savans attending on the expedition of Napoleon into Egypt, among whom
was Rigo, the painter. Struck with the deep character of expression in
the face of one of the Nubians, Rigo induced him, with gold, to sit for
his portrait. The African sat calmly perusing its progress until the
laying on of the _colours_, when, with a cry of terror, he rushed from
the house, and, to his awe-struck companions, affirmed that his head and
half his body had been cut off by an enchanter. And this impression was
not solitary, for an assemblage of the Nubians were equally
terror-struck, and (somewhat like those _monomaniacs_ who refuse to
drink water which reflects their faces, believing that they are
_swallowing their friends_,) could never be dispossessed of the notion
that the picture was formed of the loppings and toppings of the human
frame.
We believe these influences the more, because we see that, even to some
few men wiser than they, a leaning to superstition will warp a simple
fact into a wonder; and that mere sensitiveness of mind may work as
great a fear.
Suetonius tells us that Caligula and Augustus were the most abject
cowards in a thunder-storm; and the bishop of Langres D’Escaro fell in a
fainting-fit whenever an eclipse took place,—a weakness which at length
proved his death.
There was an old house in Angoulême, the “Chateau du Diable,” on the
spot where the sable fiend was wont to repair to enjoy his moonlight
walk. The house was never finished, for the devil, jealous of this
usurpation, like Michael Scott’s spirit, destroyed every night the walls
which had been erected during the day. At length the men abandoned their
work in despair. On the twenty-fifth night in May (1840), the ruined
windows seemed on an instant in brilliant illumination, which struck the
inhabitants of the little village of “Petit-Rochford” with wonder and
dismay. Some dauntless heroes, however, sallied forth with weapons to
storm the enchanted castle. In an upper room, lighted by eight blood-red
wax candles, they discovered a man of a strange and melancholy aspect,
tracing cabalistic figures on the sanded floor. He was conveyed to the
maire, and was proved to be a poor sawyer, named Favreau, who, bound by
a superstitious oath, self-administered, had thus created a sensation of
terror throughout a whole community.
In the records of the Harleian Miscellany, the curious reader may
discover one which might impress his mind with some terrific ideas of
the natural history of the south of England in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. It is styled, “The True and Wonderful.” The
portion of the MSS. to which I allude is the “Legend of the Serpent of
St. Leonard’s Forest.” This terrific legend of my own native town was a
favourite of my boyish days; it has moulted some feather of its once
awful interest, and is now but the shadow of a memory; and those who
were once converts to its reality, now laugh the legend to scorn.