“The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears: and sometimes voices.”
TEMPEST.
EV. So, you see, the effect of novelty is never more powerfully
displayed than by unusual impressions on the finer senses; that
appearances which the eye perceives, and which the mind cannot explain,
become phantoms, involving some special motive of wonder or dismay.
So eccentric impressions on the mechanism of the internal _ear_ may be
equally illusive. We have ghosts of the ear as well as of the eye.
As ignorance has often warped the optical phenomena which certain
atmospheric changes may produce, so peculiar and unusual sounds may be
accounted for on equally erroneous principles, especially if they chance
to resemble sounds which are the effects of daily or common causes.
As the Hebrew bards hung their harps by the waters of Babylon, the Irish
were wont, during their mourning for the death of a chief, to loosen
their harp-strings, and hang them on the trees; and while the wind swept
the strings, they ever believed that the harp itself sympathized in
their sorrow.
Thus, when the lament, or “ullaloo,” of these wild Milesians boomed
along the mountain glens, mingled with the coione, or funeral song, and
the poetical cadence blended with the winds, how easy to impart to it a
more than human source; and thus the dismal coronach among the Scottish
Highlands may be mystified into the “boding scream of the Banshee.”
It is a classical question whether the rebel giant, Typhœus, was crushed
by Jupiter beneath the island of Inarime, or Mount Ætna; but it might
readily be believed by the Sicilian, who had read this mythological
tale, that the volcanic convulsions arose from the vain struggles for
freedom of this monster, who sent forth flames from his mouth and eyes.
Within a mountain of Stony Arabia, to the north of Tor, very strange
noises are often heard as of the striking of an harmonic hammer, or the
sound of a humming-top, which completely infuriate the camels on the
mountain when they hear it. The Arabs believe these sounds to proceed
from a subterranean convent of monks, the priest of which, to assemble
them to prayer, strikes with a hammer on the nakous, a metallic rod
suspended in the air. M. Teetzen, who visited the spot, assures us that
the cause of all this is the mere rolling of volumes of sand from the
summit and sides of the mountain.
In the last century, I remember there was a legend current in the west
of England, of the “Bucca,” a demon whose howling was heard amid the
blast which swept along the shore. It was a sure foreboding of
shipwreck. The _prophecy_ was often but too fully verified, but the
voice of the demon was merely the premonitory gale from one certain
quarter, which is always the _avant-courier_ of a tempest.
I remember, when I was a child, the prevalent belief in Horsham, that,
at a certain hour of the night, the ghost of Mrs. Hamel was heard
groaning in her vault, beneath the great eastern window, and it required
some self-possession to walk, at midnight, around this haunted tomb; for
few would believe that the noises were nothing more than the wind
sweeping along the vaulted aisles of the church.
Those very extraordinary impositions on the sense of hearing at
Woodstock, in the truth of which, Astrophel, your faith was so firm,
were resorted to to create terror, and effect a political purpose. In
“the genuine History of the good Devil of Woodstock,” written in 1649,
we are told of the pealing of cannon, the barking of dogs, and neighing
of horses, and other mysterious sounds, which certainly created the
greatest wonder and anxiety, until “funny Joe Collins” explained and
demonstrated all the mechanical process of this imposture. You will find
also the account of these gems of marvellous history in Sinclair and
Plott, and the chronicles of those days, which eclipse the haunted house
of Athenodorus in Pliny.
In the 16th century, Master Samuel Stryck discussed the whole question
regarding these haunted houses, and warnings of ghosts, and belief in
the reality of apparitions, in his work published at Francofurt, “De
Jure Spectrorum,” and thus he runs up the question of damages: “If the
house be haunted, the tenant might bring in a set-off against his rent,
thus—‘Deduct for spectres in bed and bed-room, and elsewhere, 5_l._
10_s._’”
The drama of the Drummer, by Addison, I believe was founded on the
mystery of the “Demon of Tedworth,” which beat the drum in the house of
Mr. Mompesson. This also was the source of extreme wonder, until the
drummer was tried, and convicted, and Mr. Mompesson confessed that the
mystery was the effect of contrivance.
The author of the Pandemonium, or Devils’ Cloyster, garnished his book
with tales of this nature. In 1667, when he slept in “my Lady chamber,”
in the house of a nobleman, he was waited on by a succession of spectral
visitors; the explanation of which Ferriar and Hibbert, and others, have
wrought for you, if you deign to turn over the leaves of their natural
philosophy.
The impostures of the Stockwell miracles of 1772 are recorded, with
other curiosities, in the “Every-day Book” of Hone, the skilful and
unwearied collector of our ancient mysteries.
The Cock-lane ghost is another instance of illusion in the ears of the
credulous. Although Dr. Johnson, the Bishop of Salisbury, and other
learned Thebans, sat in solemn judgment to develop its mystery, I
believe many were so in love with the marvellous, that they regretted
the unravelling of the plot, and still believed; as Commodore Trunnion,
in despite of evidence as to the fluttering in his chimney, swore that
he knew a devil from a jackdaw, as well as any man in the kingdom.
ASTR. I wonder, Evelyn, at your veneration for the classics; for are
they not replete with stories, which, if true, (and I believe them so,)
will undermine all your philosophy? When Pausanias writes of the ghosts
at Marathon, of horses and men who were heard rushing on to battle four
hundred years after they were slain; and Plutarch of the spectres and
supernatural sounds in the baths at Chæronea, the scene of bloodshed and
murder;—what may be their motives, but the record of acknowledged
incidents?
EV. The classics, if they might rise up and listen, would believe me,
dear Astrophel, so clear and simple is the source of these illusions.
Of the credulity of the Romans I have spoken; but even in minds not
prone to superstition, deep mental impression, or constant dwelling on a
subject of interest, will effect this illusion of a sense.
In Holy Island, near the ruins of the convent (in the dungeons of which
romance has decided the fate of Constance Beverley), was a small
fortress of invalid soldiers. One of them once conducted a visitor to a
steep rock, under which, he said, there must be a profound cavern, as
the sound of a bell was distinctly heard every night at twelve o’clock,
deep in the bowels of the earth. The traveller soon discovered that the
mysterious sound had _never been heard_ by the oldest inmates, _until_
the poem of “Marmion” appeared, in which the condemnation and the death
of Constance in the dungeons of the cathedral are so forcibly described.
This is, however, a _metaphysical_ source of mystery.
In volcanic regions, as in that of the Solfatara, near Naples, these
strange and subterranean sounds are not unfrequently heard; and in the
rocky and caverned coasts of our own island also, where dwell the
unlettered and the superstitious, by whose wild and romantic fancy these
noises are readily magnified into the supernatural.
Camden, in his “Britannia,” informs us,—“In a rock in the island of
Barry, in Glamorganshire, there is a narrow chink, or cleft, to which if
you put your ear you shall perceive all such sorts of noises as you may
fancy smiths at work under ground, strokes of hammers, blowing of
bellows, grinding of tools.” At Worm’s Head, in the peninsula of Gower
in Glamorganshire, these sounds are, even now, often heard; and it
requires but a moderate stretch of imagination to create all this
cyclopean imagery, when the sea is rolling in cavities under our feet,
and the tone of its voice is magnified by confinement and repercussion.
From some such source probably sprung the fable of “the Syrens,” two
solitary maidens, who, by their dulcet voices, so enchanted the
navigators who sailed by their rocks, that they forgot home and the
purpose of their voyage, and died of starvation. Ulysses, instructed by
his mother Circe, broke the spell, and the ladies threw themselves into
the sea with vexation. This fable, like many of the classic mysteries,
may be thus topographically explained.
In the grand duchy of Baden, near Friburg, is a very curious example of
an Æolian lyre, constructed, as the traditions of the mountains will
have it, by the very _genius loci_ himself.
In a romantic chasm of these mountains, most melodious sounds are
sometimes heard from the top of fir-trees overhanging a waterfall. The
current of air, ascending and descending through the chasm, receives a
counter impulse from an abrupt angle of the rock, and, acting on the
tops of the string-like branches of the trees, produces the soft tones
of the Æolian harp, the effect of which is much enhanced by the gushing
of the waterfall.
There may be in these natural sounds the source of many fables of the
ancients: the moaning of the wind among the branches of a pine-grove
might be the wailing of a hamadryad.
Among the granite rocks on the Orinoco, Baron Humboldt heard the
strangest subterranean sounds; and at the palace of Carnac, some of
Napoleon’s _savans_ heard noises exactly resembling the breaking of a
string. It is curious that Pausanias applies exactly this expression to
the sounds of the Memnonian granite,—the colossal head of Memnon, which
was believed to speak at sunrise. He writes,—“It emits sounds every
morning at sunrise, which can be compared only to that of the breaking
of the string of a lyre.”
Juvenal has the same notion, but he has multiplied the sounds.
The mystery of Memnon may be readily explained, by the temperature and
density of the _external_ air differing from that _within_ the crevices,
and the effort of the current to promote an equilibrium; yet these
simple sounds were in course of time warped into articulate syllables,
and at length obtained the dignity of an oracular voice. And in these
illustrations, fair Castaly, you have the clue to all the mysteries of
demonia and fairyland.
To these natural illusions, let me add the triumphs of phonic mechanism
and the peculiar faculty of the ventriloquist, the secrets of which the
science of Sir David Brewster has so clearly developed. The wondrous
heads of Memnon, and Orpheus, and Æsculapius, the machines of Albertus
Magnus, and Sylvester, are now held but as curious specimens of art, and
are indeed eclipsed by the speaking toys of Kratzenstein, and Kempelin,
and Willis, and Savart, and the ingenious instruments of Wheatstone.
Of ventriloquism, it is not my purpose to speak; but there is a wonder
of our time in the person of young Richmond, which, with many
distinguished physiologists, I examined at the _conversazione_ of Dr.
E——, in C—— Street.
When Richmond sat himself to _perform_, we heard a subdued murmur in his
throat for about half-a-minute, when suddenly a sound issued of the most
exquisite and perfect melody, closely resembling, but exceeding in
delicacy, the finest musical box. The mouth was widely open, and the
performance was one of considerable effort. The sounds were a mystery to
us at the time, for they were perfectly unique, and are yet not
satisfactorily explained. It is decided, however, by some, that the
upper opening of the windpipe may be considered as a Jew’s-harp, or
Æolina, of very exquisite power, _behind_ the cavity of the mouth,
instead of being placed _between the teeth_.
ASTR. And thus concludes our lecture on special mechanics.
EV. I professed no more, Astrophel. It may be the privilege of the
_sacred poet_ to soar beyond the confines of our own planetary system:
“Into the heav’n of heav’ns he has presum’d,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air.”
But the study of philosophy is nature and nature’s _known laws_. If we
lean, for one moment, to the credence of a _modern_ miracle, there is an
end to our philosophy. Revealed truth, and the immaterial nature of the
mystical essence within us, we may not lightly discourse on. The sacred
histories of Holy Writ, and the miracles recorded in its pages—the
hand-writing in the hall of Belshazzar, the budding of Aaron’s rod, the
standing still of the sun upon Gibeon, and, above all, the miracles of
the Redeemer, are of too holy a nature to be submitted to the test of
philosophical speculation: they rest on the _conviction_ of conscience
and the heart; a proof far more sublime than may ever be elicited by the
ingenuity of man, or the workings of his sovereign reason.