good angel to avoid going into a wood with her lover, or into
any dark or retired place where she might not be able to make
people hear her if she cried out. Alas for her if she pay no
attention to the warning!
"Never again shall she put garland on;
Instead of it she'll wear sad cypress now,
And bitter elder broken from the bough."
_Figs_, if green, betoken embarrassment; if dried, money to the
poor, and mirth to the rich.
_Hearts-ease_ betokens heart's pain.
_Lilies_ predict joy; _water-lilies_, danger from the sea.
_Lemons_ betoken a separation.
_Pomegranates_ predict happy wedlock to those who are single, and
reconciliation to those who are married and have disagreed.
_Quinces_ prognosticate pleasant company.
_Roses_ denote happy love, not unmixed with sorrow from other
sources.
_Sorrel_. To dream of this herb is a sign that you will shortly
have occasion to exert all your prudence to overcome some
great calamity.
_Sunflowers_ shew that your pride will be deeply wounded.
_Violets_ predict evil to the single, and joy to the married.
_Yellow-flowers_ of any kind predict jealousy.
_Yew-berries_ predict loss of character to both sexes.
[62] It is quite astonishing to see the great demand there is,
both in England and France, for dream-books, and other trash
of the same kind. Two books in England enjoy an extraordinary
popularity, and have run through upwards of fifty editions in
as many years in London alone, besides being reprinted in
Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin. One is _Mother
Bridget's Dream-book and Oracle of Fate_; the other is the
_Norwood Gipsy_. It is stated, on the authority of one who is
curious in these matters, that there is a demand for these
works, which are sold at sums varying from a penny to
sixpence, chiefly to servant-girls and imperfectly-educated
people, all over the country, of upwards of eleven thousand
annually; and that at no period during the last thirty years
has the average number sold been less than this. The total
number during this period would thus amount to 330,000.
It should be observed that the rules for the interpretation of dreams are
far from being universal. The cheeks of the peasant girl of England glow
with pleasure in the morning after she has dreamed of a rose, while the
_paysanne_ of Normandy dreads disappointment and vexation for the very
same reason. The Switzer who dreams of an oak-tree does not share in the
Englishman's joy; for he imagines that the vision was a warning to him
that, from some trifling cause, an overwhelming calamity will burst over
him. Thus do the ignorant and the credulous torment themselves; thus do
they spread their nets to catch vexation, and pass their lives between
hopes which are of no value and fears which are a positive evil.
OMENS. Among the other means of self-annoyance upon which men have
stumbled, in their vain hope of discovering the future, signs and omens
hold a conspicuous place. There is scarcely an occurrence in nature which,
happening at a certain time, is not looked upon by some persons as a
prognosticator either of good or evil. The latter are in the greatest
number, so much more ingenious are we in tormenting ourselves than in
discovering reasons for enjoyment in the things that surround us. We go
out of our course to make ourselves uncomfortable; the cup of life is not
bitter enough to our palate, and we distil superfluous poison to put into
it, or conjure up hideous things to frighten ourselves at, which would
never exist if we did not make them. "We suffer," says Addison,[63] "as
much from trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting
of a star spoil a night's rest, and have seen a man in love grow pale and
lose his appetite upon the plucking of a merrythought. A screech-owl at
midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice
of a cricket has struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is
nothing so inconsiderable which may not appear dreadful to an imagination
that is filled with omens and prognostics. A rusty nail or a crooked pin
shoot up into prodigies."
[63] _Spectator_, No. 7, March 8, 1710-11.
The century and a quarter that has passed away since Addison wrote has
seen the fall of many errors. Many fallacies and delusions have been
crushed under the foot of Time since then; but this has been left
unscathed, to frighten the weak-minded and embitter their existence. A
belief in omens is not confined to the humble and uninformed. A general
who led an army with credit has been known to feel alarmed at a
winding-sheet in the candle; and learned men, who had honourably and
fairly earned the highest honours of literature, have been seen to gather
their little ones around them, and fear that one would be snatched away,
because,
"When stole upon the time the dead of night,
And heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes,"
a dog in the street was howling at the moon. Persons who would acknowledge
freely that the belief in omens was unworthy of a man of sense, have yet
confessed at the same time that, in spite of their reason, they have been
unable to conquer their fears of death when they heard the harmless insect
called the death-watch ticking in the wall, or saw an oblong hollow coal
fly out of the fire.
Many other evil omens besides those mentioned above alarm the vulgar and
the weak. If a sudden shivering comes over such people, they believe that,
at that instant, an enemy is treading over the spot that will one day be
their grave. If they meet a sow when they first walk abroad in the
morning, it is an omen of evil for that day. To meet an ass, is in like
manner unlucky. It is also very unfortunate to walk under a ladder; to
forget to eat goose on the festival of St. Michael; to tread upon a
beetle, or to eat the twin nuts that are sometimes found in one shell.
Woe, in like manner, is predicted to that wight who inadvertently upsets
the salt; each grain that is overthrown will bring to him a day of sorrow.
If thirteen persons sit at table, one of them will die within the year;
and all of them will be unhappy. Of all evil omens this is the worst. The
facetious Dr. Kitchener used to observe that there was one case in which
he believed that it was really unlucky for thirteen persons to sit down to
dinner, and that was when there was only dinner enough for twelve.
Unfortunately for their peace of mind, the great majority of people do not
take this wise view of the matter. In almost every country of Europe the
same superstition prevails, and some carry it so far as to look upon the
number thirteen as in every way ominous of evil; and if they find thirteen
coins in their purse, cast away the odd one like a polluted thing. The
philosophic Beranger, in his exquisite song, _Thirteen at Table_, has
taken a poetical view of this humiliating superstition, and mingled, as is
his wont, a lesson of genuine wisdom in his lay. Being at dinner, he
overthrows the salt, and, looking round the room, discovers that he is the
thirteenth guest. While he is mourning his unhappy fate, and conjuring up
visions of disease and suffering and the grave, he is suddenly startled by
the apparition of Death herself, not in the shape of a grim foe, with
skeleton-ribs and menacing dart, but of an angel of light, who shews the
folly of tormenting ourselves with the dread of her approach, when she is
the friend, rather than the enemy, of man, and frees us from the fetters
which bind us to the dust.
If men could bring themselves to look upon death in this manner, living
well and wisely till her inevitable approach, how vast a store of grief
and vexation would they spare themselves!
Among good omens, one of the most conspicuous is to meet a piebald horse.
To meet two of these animals is still more fortunate; and if on such an
occasion you spit thrice, and form any reasonable wish, it will be
gratified within three days. It is also a sign of good fortune if you
inadvertently put on your stocking wrong side out. If you wilfully wear
your stocking in this fashion, no good will come of it. It is very lucky
to sneeze twice; but if you sneeze a third time, the omen loses its power,
and your good fortune will be nipped in the bud. If a strange dog follow
you, and fawn on you, and wish to attach itself to you, it is a sign of
very great prosperity. Just as fortunate is it if a strange male cat comes
to your house and manifests friendly intentions towards your family. If a
she cat, it is an omen, on the contrary, of very great misfortune. If a
swarm of bees alight in your garden, some very high honour and great joys
await you.
Besides these glimpses of the future, you may know something of your fate
by a diligent attention to every itching that you may feel in your body.
Thus, if the eye or the nose itches, it is a sign you will be shortly
vexed; if the foot itches, you will tread upon strange ground; and if the
elbow itches, you will change your bedfellow. Itching of the right hand
prognosticates that you will soon have a sum of money; and, of the left,
that you will be called upon to disburse it.
These are but a few of the omens which are generally credited in modern
Europe. A complete list of them would fatigue from its length, and sicken
from its absurdity. It would be still more unprofitable to attempt to
specify the various delusions of the same kind which are believed among
oriental nations. Every reader will remember the comprehensive formula of
cursing preserved in _Tristram Shandy_--curse a man after any fashion you
remember or can invent, you will be sure to find it there. The oriental
creed of omens is not less comprehensive. Every movement of the body,
every emotion of the mind, is at certain times an omen. Every form and
object in nature, even the shape of the clouds and the changes of the
weather; every colour, every sound, whether of men or animals, or birds or
insects, or inanimate things, is an omen. Nothing is too trifling or
inconsiderable to inspire a hope which is not worth cherishing, or a fear
which is sufficient to embitter existence.
From the belief in omens springs the superstition that has, from very
early ages, set apart certain days, as more favourable than others, for
prying into the secrets of futurity. The following, copied verbatim from
the popular _Dream and Omen Book_ of Mother Bridget, will shew the belief
of the people of England at the present day. Those who are curious as to
the ancient history of these observances, will find abundant aliment in
the _Every-day Book_.
"_The 1st of January._--If a young maiden drink, on going to bed, a pint
of cold spring water, in which is beat up an amulet, composed of the yolk
of a pullet's egg, the legs of a spider, and the skin of an eel pounded,
her future destiny will be revealed to her in a dream. This charm fails of
its effect if tried any other day of the year.
"_Valentine Day._--Let a single woman go out of her own door very early in
the morning, and if the first person she meets be a woman, she will not be
married that year; if she meet a man she will be married within three
months.
"_Lady Day._--The following charm may be tried this day with certain
success: String thirty-one nuts on a string, composed of red worsted mixed
with blue silk, and tie it round your neck on going to bed, repeating
these lines:
"Oh, I wish! oh, I wish to see
Who my true love is to be!
Shortly after midnight, you will see your lover in a dream, and be
informed at the same time of all the principal events of your future life.
"_St. Swithin's Eve._--Select three things you most wish to know; write
them down with a new pen and red ink on a sheet of fine wove paper, from
which you must previously cut off all the corners and burn them. Fold the
paper into a true lover's knot, and wrap round it three hairs from your
head. Place the paper under your pillow for three successive nights, and
your curiosity to know the future will be satisfied.
"_St. Mark's Eve._--Repair to the nearest churchyard as the clock strikes
twelve, and take from a grave on the south side of the church three tufts
of grass (the longer and ranker the better), and on going to bed place
them under your pillow, repeating earnestly three several times,
'The Eve of St. Mark by prediction is blest,
Set therefore my hopes and my fears all to rest:
Let me know my fate, whether weal or woe;
Whether my rank's to be high or low;
Whether to live single, or be a bride,
And the destiny my star doth provide.'
Should you have no dream that night, you will be single and miserable all
your life. If you dream of thunder and lightning, your life will be one of
great difficulty and sorrow.
"_Candlemas Eve._--On this night (which is the purification of the Virgin
Mary), let three, five, seven, or nine young maidens assemble together in
a square chamber. Hang in each corner a bundle of sweet herbs, mixed with
rue and rosemary. Then mix a cake of flour, olive-oil, and white sugar;
every maiden having an equal share in the making and the expense of it.
Afterwards it must be cut into equal pieces, each one marking the piece as
she cuts it with the initials of her name. It is then to be baked one hour
before the fire, not a word being spoken the whole time, and the maidens
sitting with their arms and knees across. Each piece of cake is then to be
wrapped up in a sheet of paper, on which each maiden shall write the love
part of Solomon's Songs. If she put this under her pillow she will dream
true. She will see her future husband and every one of her children, and
will know besides whether her family will be poor or prosperous, a comfort
to her or the contrary.
"_Midsummer._--Take three roses, smoke them with sulphur, and exactly at
three in the day bury one of the roses under a yew-tree; the second in a
newly-made grave, and put the third under your pillow for three nights,
and at the end of that period burn it in a fire of charcoal. Your dreams
during that time will be prophetic of your future destiny, and, what is
still more curious and valuable, says Mother Bridget, the man whom you are
to wed will enjoy no peace till he comes and visits you. Besides this, you
will perpetually haunt his dreams.
"_St. John's Eve._--Make a new pincushion of the very best black velvet
(no inferior quality will answer the purpose), and on one side stick your
name at full length with the very smallest pins that can be bought (none
other will do). On the other side make a cross with some very large pins,
and surround it with a circle. Put this into your stocking when you take
it off at night, and hang it up at the foot of the bed. All your future
life will pass before you in a dream.
"_First New Moon of the year._--On the first new moon in the year take a
pint of clear spring water, and infuse into it the _white_ of an egg laid
by a _white_ hen, a glass of _white_ wine, three almonds peeled _white_,
and a tablespoonful of _white_ rose-water. Drink this on going to bed, not
making more nor less than three draughts of it; repeating the following
verses three several times in a clear distinct voice, but not so loud as
to be overheard by any body:
'If I dream of water pure
Before the coming morn,
'Tis a sign I shall be poor,
And unto wealth not born.
If I dream of tasting beer,
Middling then will be my cheer--
Chequer'd with the good and bad,
Sometimes joyful, sometimes sad;
But should I dream of drinking wine,
Wealth and pleasure will be mine.
The stronger the drink, the better the cheer--
Dreams of my destiny, appear, appear!'
"_Twenty-ninth of February._--This day, as it only occurs once in four
years, is peculiarly auspicious to those who desire to have a glance at
futurity, especially to young maidens burning with anxiety to know the
appearance and complexion of their future lords. The charm to be adopted
is the following: Stick twenty-seven of the smallest pins that are made,
three by three, into a tallow candle. Light it up at the wrong end, and
then place it in a candlestick made out of clay, which must be drawn from
a virgin's grave. Place this on the chimney-place, in the left-hand
corner, exactly as the clock strikes twelve, and go to bed immediately.
When the candle is burnt out, take the pins and put them into your left
shoe; and before nine nights have elapsed your fate will be revealed to
you."
We have now taken a hasty review of the various modes of seeking to
discover the future, especially as practised in modern times. The main
features of the folly appear essentially the same in all countries.
National character and peculiarities operate some difference of
interpretation. The mountaineer makes the natural phenomena which he most
frequently witnesses prognosticative of the future. The dweller in the
plains, in a similar manner, seeks to know his fate among the signs of the
things that surround him, and tints his superstition with the hues of his
own clime. The same spirit animates them all--the same desire to know that
which Infinite Mercy has concealed. There is but little probability that
the curiosity of mankind in this respect will ever be wholly eradicated.
Death and ill fortune are continual bugbears to the weak-minded, the
irreligious, and the ignorant; and while such exist in the world, divines
will preach upon its impiety and philosophers discourse upon its absurdity
in vain. Still it is evident that these follies have greatly diminished.
Soothsayers and prophets have lost the credit they formerly enjoyed, and
skulk in secret now where they once shewed their faces in the blaze of
day. So far there is manifest improvement.
THE MAGNETISERS.
Some deemed them wondrous wise, and some believed them mad.
_Beattie's Minstrel_.
[Illustration: T]
The wonderful influence of imagination in the cure of diseases is well
known. A motion of the hand, or a glance of the eye, will throw a weak and
credulous patient into a fit; and a pill made of bread, if taken with
sufficient faith, will operate a cure better than all the drugs in the
pharmacopoeia. The Prince of Orange, at the siege of Breda, in 1625, cured
all his soldiers, who were dying of the scurvy, by a philanthropic piece
of quackery, which he played upon them with the knowledge of the
physicians, when all other means had failed.[64] Many hundreds of
instances, of a similar kind, might be related, especially from the
history of witchcraft. The mummeries, strange gesticulations, and
barbarous jargon of witches and sorcerers, which frightened credulous and
nervous women, brought on all those symptoms of hysteria and other similar
diseases, so well understood now, but which were then supposed to be the
work of the Devil, not only by the victims and the public in general, but
by the operators themselves.
[64] See Van der Mye's account of the siege of Breda. The
garrison, being afflicted with scurvy, the Prince of Orange
sent the physicians two or three small phials, containing a
decoction of camomile, wormwood, and camphor, telling them to
pretend that it was a medicine of the greatest value and
extremest rarity, which had been procured with very much
danger and difficulty from the East; and so strong, that two
or three drops would impart a healing virtue to a gallon of
water. The soldiers had faith in their commander; they took
the medicine with cheerful faces, and grew well rapidly. They
afterwards thronged about the prince in groups of twenty and
thirty at a time, praising his skill, and loading him with
protestations of gratitude.
In the age when alchymy began to fall into some disrepute, and learning to
lift up its voice against it, a new delusion, based upon this
power of imagination, suddenly arose, and found apostles among all the
alchymists. Numbers of them, forsaking their old pursuits, made themselves
magnetisers. It appeared first in the shape of mineral, and afterwards of
animal, magnetism, under which latter name it survives to this day, and
numbers its dupes by thousands.
The mineral magnetisers claim the first notice, as the worthy predecessors
of the quacks of the present day. The honour claimed for Paracelsus, of
being the first of the Rosicrucians, has been disputed; but his claim to
be considered the first of the magnetisers can scarcely be challenged. It
has been already mentioned of him, in the part of this work which treats
of alchymy, that, like nearly all the distinguished adepts, he was a
physician; and pretended, not only to make gold and confer immortality,
but to cure all diseases. He was the first who, with the latter view,
attributed occult and miraculous powers to the magnet. Animated apparently
by a sincere conviction that the magnet was the philosopher's stone,
which, if it could not transmute metals, could soothe all human suffering
and arrest the progress of decay, he travelled for many years in Persia
and Arabia, in search of the mountain of adamant, so famed in oriental
fables. When he practised as a physician at Basle, he called one of his
nostrums by the name of azoth--a stone or crystal, which, he said,
contained magnetic properties, and cured epilepsy, hysteria, and spasmodic
affections. He soon found imitators. His fame spread far and near; and
thus were sown the first seeds of that error which has since taken root
and flourished so widely. In spite of the denial of modern practitioners,
this must be considered the origin of magnetism; for we find that,
beginning with Paracelsus, there was a regular succession of mineral
magnetisers until Mesmer appeared, and gave a new feature to the delusion.
Paracelsus boasted of being able to _transplant_ diseases from the human
frame into the earth, by means of the magnet. He said there were six ways
by which this might be effected. One of them will be quite sufficient as a
specimen. "If a person suffer from disease, either local or general, let
the following remedy be tried. Take a magnet, impregnated with mummy,[65]
and mixed with rich earth. In this earth sow some seeds that have
a congruity or homogeneity with the disease; then let this earth, well
sifted and mixed with mummy, be laid in an earthen vessel; and let the
seeds committed to it be watered daily with a lotion in which the diseased
limb or body has been washed. Thus will the disease be transplanted from
the human body to the seeds which are in the earth. Having done this,
transplant the seeds from the earthen vessel to the ground, and wait till
they begin to sprout into herbs; as they increase, the disease will
diminish; and when they have arrived at their full growth, it will
disappear altogether."
[65] Mummies were of several kinds, and were all of great use in
magnetic medicines. Paracelsus enumerates six kinds of
mummies; the first four only differing in the composition
used by different people for preserving their dead, are the
Egyptian, Arabian, Pisasphaltos, and Libyan. The fifth mummy
of peculiar power was made from criminals that had been
hanged; "for from such there is a gentle siccation, that
expungeth the watery humour, without destroying the oil and
spirituall, which is cherished by the heavenly luminaries,
and strengthened continually by the affluence and impulses of
the celestial spirits; whence it may be properly called by
the name of constellated or celestial mummie." The sixth kind
of mummy was made of corpuscles, or spiritual effluences,
radiated from the living body; though we cannot get very
clear ideas on this head, or respecting the manner in which
they were caught.--_Medicina Diatastica; or, Sympathetical
Mummie, abstracted from the Works of Paracelsus, and
translated out of the Latin_, by Fernando Parkhurst, Gent.
London, 1653, pp. 2, 7. Quoted by the _Foreign Quarterly
Review_, vol. xii. p. 415.
Kircher the Jesuit, whose quarrel with the alchymists was the means of
exposing many of their impostures, was a firm believer in the efficacy of
the magnet. Having been applied to by a patient afflicted with hernia, he
directed the man to swallow a small magnet reduced to powder, while he
applied at the same time to the external swelling, a poultice made of
filings of iron. He expected that by this means the magnet, when it got to
the corresponding place inside, would draw in the iron, and with it the
tumour; which would thus, he said, be safely and expeditiously reduced.