(_For the Mirror._)
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes
tyrannize and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober
probability.--JOHNSON.
The superstitions of nations must always be interesting, since they afford
a criterion of the progress that knowledge and reason have made. To trace
the origin of the belief that departed spirits revisit the earth, a belief
apparently so repugnant to reason and revelation, must ever attract the
attention of the curious. For it is a question of importance to religion,
even although the existence of apparitions would not in the slightest
degree invalidate those sacred writings on which the bases of religion are
founded; on the contrary, if the reality of apparitions (that is of the
existence of apparitions) could be ascertained, another proof would be
added to an immense weight of testimony of the ability possessed by the
Deity to arrest or alter what appears the ordinary course of nature.
The existence of apparitions has been acknowledged by many, and a tendency
towards a belief of them is to be remarked in many more. Ardent, and what
is stranger still, since directly opposed to ardent, morbid minds are too
ready to embrace "the pleasing dreadful thought," and to this may be
attributed the prevalence of this kind of superstition among the poets, and
all indeed of an enthusiastic temperament.[3] Some of the tales urged in
defence of apparitions are upon a _primâ facié_ observation to be traced to
an exuberance[4] of imagination on the part of the ghost, others that are
plainly false, and others that as they cannot be authenticated, are not
worthy of notice. I shall here give what I consider an example of the
former.
[3] Dr. Johnson, it is well known, was a firm believer in
ghosts, as the following extract will show:--"That the dead are
seen no more," said Imlac, "I will undertake to maintain,
against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and
of all nations. * * * This opinion which, perhaps, prevails as
far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by
its truth(!): those that never heard of one another would not
have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience could make
credible."--_Rasselas_, chap. xxx.
[4] When the grammarians could not interpret some word in a
sentence, which they could make without it, they used to
attribute the unfortunate word to a natural redundancy in the
language, and in the same manner all ghost stories could be
solved by referring it to "an exuberance," &c. &c.
During the celebrated Peninsular campaign, as a lady, whose son, a French
officer in Spain, was seated in her room, she was astonished to perceive
the folding doors at the bottom of the apartment slowly open, and disclose
to her eyes, _her son_. He begged her not to be alarmed, and informed her
that he had been just killed by a grape-shot, and even showed her the wound
in his side; the doors closed again and she saw no more. In a few days she
received a letter, which informed her that her son had fallen, after
distinguishing himself in a most gallant manner, and mentioning the time of
his death, which happened at precisely the same moment the apparition was
seen by her! And when I add that the lady was not _at all addicted to
superstition_, the strangeness of the occurrence is considerably increased.
What inference is to be drawn from this extraordinary tale? I confess I
cannot, and do not, believe that apparitions revisit the earth even at the
"glimpses o' the moon," nor does this story at all change my opinion, and
for one grand reason, which is this--That it is highly improbable that the
course of nature would be interrupted for the production of so
insignificant an effect, for it appears an unnecessary exertion of divine
power, when the good attained would be little or none.
Let us, therefore, attribute it to a powerful imagination acting on a mind
already affected with anxiety, and I believe we shall have no occasion for
yielding to the idea of an apparition to explain the circumstance. I am
acquainted with another tale of the same kind, but I am debarred from
relating it, from my not being authorized to do so by the person, a
gentleman of large property in Scotland, to whom it occurred. Lord Byron
was much addicted to that species of superstition of which I am treating:
the gloomy idea of spirits revisiting the earth to gaze on those who they
loved, was congenial to his mind, and an overheated fancy indulged beyond
its due limits, converted the morbid visionary into the superstitious
ascetic.
There is an account of a ghost related in the Notes to Moore's Life of the
Noble Poet (vol. i.) I have mentioned, which I shall detail here, as it may
have escaped the memory of some of your readers. A captain of a merchant
vessel was on a voyage to some port; having retired to rest, he was
disturbed in the night by a horrid dream, that his brother, an officer in
the navy was drowned. He awoke and perceived something dark lying at the
foot of the hammock, and on putting out his hand discovered it was a naval
uniform, wet. Some days after this his dream was confirmed by a letter
informing him of his brother's death by drowning.
At Oakhampton, in Devonshire, there are the remains of a beautiful castle
dismantled by Henry VIII. on the attainder of Henry Courtenay, which is
situated in a park, concerning which many traditions exist, one of which I
will give here as it was told by a native. A great many years ago, there
lived a lady at Oakhampton Castle, who was famous for her love of cruelty
and for unbounded ostentation. This lady was killed, and her ghost haunted
some house in Oakhampton much to the discomfiture of all the inhabitants
thereof. A conclave of "most grave and reverend signiors" was convoked, who
ordained that the disturbed spirit should every night pluck a blade of
grass till all should be gathered. And now, every night at the chilly hour
of midnight, the lady in a splendid coach with four skeleton horses, a
skeleton coachman, and skeleton footmen, is to be seen in the park obeying
the dictum of the Oakhampton worthies. This legend will be found, I am
told, in "Fitz, of Fitzford," by Mrs. Bray. I shall not comment on this, as
it evidently appears a wild legend, on which we can found nothing.
There is another tale which I shall recount here, since I can vouch for its
authenticity.
During the Irish Rebellion of 1798, a gentleman went to take possession of
a house in a lone district of Ireland. The house had been uninhabited for
some time, and was out of repair. Between nine and twelve at night, when
the gentleman had retired to rest, he was alarmed by hearing a noise; he
listened, the noise increased till the house rung with the repeated shocks;
he hastily sprung out of bed, and imagining it was the Rebels, he rushed
into the room where his servant slept; "Patrick, get up, the Rebels are
breaking in," said he, "Don't you hear the noise?" "Lord bless yer honor's
worship and glory, it's only the Daunder." "Daunder, sir, you rebel, the
Daunder, what do you mean?" The servant explained that the knocking was
regularly heard every night at the same time, and such was the case.
Various parts of the wall were pulled down, and the house almost rebuilt,
but to no purpose.
_Foley Place._
AN ANTIQUARY.
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