them dress with more expedition than usual, so that there was a general
assembly of the gentlemen and ladies before eleven o'clock, not one of
them being willing to appear in dishabille. When they were all got
together in the great hall, the young gentleman told them, he had one
favour to desire of the ladies before he would say any thing, and that
was, to know whether either of them had lost a ring? The young
gentlewoman, from whose finger it was taken, having missed it all the
morning, and not knowing how she lost it, was glad to hear of it again,
and readily owned she wanted a ring. The young gentleman asked her if
that was it, giving it into her hand, which she acknowledging to be
her's, and thanking him, he turned to his kinsman, the master of the
house--"Now Sir," said he, "I can assure you," (taking the gentlewoman
by the hand) "this is the lovely spirit by which your chamber is
haunted."--And thereupon repeated what is related.
I want words to express the confusion the young gentlewoman seemed to be
in at this relation, who declared herself perfectly ignorant of all that
he said; but believed it might be so, because of the ring, which she
perfectly well remembered she had on when she went to bed, and knew not
how she had lost it.
This relation gave the whole company a great deal of diversion; for,
after all, the father declared, that since his daughter had already
gone to bed to his kinsman, it should be his fault if he did not go to
bed to his daughter, he being willing to bestow her upon him, and give
her a good portion. This generous offer was so advantageous to the young
gentleman, that he could by no means refuse it; and his late bed-fellow,
hearing what her father had said, was easily prevailed upon to accept
him for her husband.
REMARKABLE INSTANCE
OF THE
POWER OF IMAGINATION.
It has been remarked, that when the royal vault is opened for the
interment of any of the royal family, Westminster Abbey is a place of
great resort: some flock thither out of curiosity, others to indulge
their solemn meditations.
By the former of these motives it was, when the royal vault was opened
for the interment of her illustrious Majesty Queen Caroline, that five
or six gentlemen who had dined together at a tavern were drawn to visit
that famous repository of the titled dead. As they descended down the
steep descent, one cried--"It's hellish dark;" another stopped his
nostrils, and exclaimed against the nauseous vapour that ascended from
it; all had their different sayings. But, as it is natural for such
spectacles to excite some moral reflections, even with the most gay and
giddy, they all returned with countenances more serious than those they
had entered with.
Having agreed to pass the evening together, they all went back to the
place where they dined; and the conversation turned on a future state,
apparitions, and some such topics. One among them was an infidel in
those matters, especially as to spirits becoming visible, and took upon
him to rally the others, who seemed rather inclinable to the contrary
way of thinking. As it is easier to deny than to prove, especially where
those that maintain the negative will not admit any testimonies which
can be brought against their own opinion, he singly held out against all
they had to alledge. To end the contest, they proposed to him a wager of
twenty guineas, that, as great a hero as he pretended, or really
imagined himself, he had not courage enough to go alone at midnight into
the vault they had seen that day. This he readily accepted, and was very
merry with the thoughts of getting so much money with such ease. The
money on both sides was deposited in the hands of the master of the
house; and one of the vergers was sent for, whom they engaged, for a
piece of gold, to attend the adventurer to the gate of the cathedral,
then shut him in, and wait his return.
Every thing being thus settled, the clock no sooner struck twelve, than
they all set out together; they who laid the wager being resolved not to
be imposed on by his tampering with the verger. As they passed along, a
scruple arose, which was, that though they saw him enter the church, how
they should be convinced he went as far as the vault; but he instantly
removed their doubts, by pulling out a pen-knife he had in his pocket,
and saying, "This will I stick into the earth, and leave it there; and
if you do not find it in the inside of the vault, I will own the wager
lost." These words left them nothing to suspect; and they agreed to wait
at the door his coming out, believing he had no less stock of resolution
than he had pretended: it is possible, the opinion they had of him was
no more than justice.
But, whatever stock of courage he had, on his entrance into that antique
and reverend pile, he no sooner found himself shut alone in it, than, as
he afterwards confessed, he found a kind of shuddering all over him,
which, he was sensible, proceeded from something more than the coldness
of the night. Every step he took was echoed by the hollow ground; and,
though it was not altogether dark, the verger having left a lamp burning
just before the door that led to the chapel (otherwise it would have
been impossible for him to have found the place), yet did the glimmering
it gave, rather add to, than diminish, the solemn horror of every thing
around.
He passed on, however; but protested, had not the shame of being laughed
at, prevented him, he would have forfeited more than twice the sum he
had staked to have been safe out again. At length he reached the
entrance of the vault: his inward terror increased; yet, determined not
to be overpowered by fear, he descended; and being come to the last
stair, stooped forwards, and struck the pen-knife with his whole force
into the earth. But, as he was rising in order to quit so dreadful a
place, he felt something pluck him forward; the apprehension he before
was in, made an easy way for surprise and terror to seize on all his
faculties: he lost in one instant every thing that could support him,
and fell into a swoon, with his head in the vault, and part of his body
on the stairs.
Till after one o'clock his friends waited with some degree of patience,
though they thought he paid the titled dead a much longer visit than a
living man could choose. But, finding he did not come, they began to
fear some accident: the verger, they found, though accustomed to the
place, did not choose to go alone; they therefore went with him,
preceded by a torch, which a footman belonging to one of the company had
with him. They all went into the Abbey, calling, as they went, as loud
as they could: no answer being made, they moved on till they came to the
vault; where, looking down, they soon perceived what posture he was in.
They immediately used every means they could devise for his recovery,
which they soon effected.
After they got him out of the Abbey to the fresh air, he fetched two or
three deep groans; and, in the greatest agitation, cried, "Heaven help
me! Lord have mercy upon me!" These exclamations very much surprised
them; but, imagining he was not yet come perfectly to his senses, they
forbore farther questions, till they had got him into the tavern, where,
having placed him in a chair, they began to ask how he did, and how he
came to be so indisposed. He gave them a faithful detail, and said, he
should have come back with the same sentiments he went with, had not an
unseen hand convinced him of the injustice of his unbelief. While he was
making his narrative, one of the company saw the pen-knife sticking
through the fore-lappet of his coat. He immediately conjectured the
mistake; and, pulling out the pen-knife before them all, cried out,
"Here is the mystery discovered: for, in the attitude of stooping to
stick the knife in the ground, it happened, as you see, to go through
the coat; and, on your attempting to rise, the terror you was in
magnified this little obstruction into an imaginary impossibility of
withdrawing yourself, and had an effect on your senses before reason had
time to operate." This, which was evidently the case, set every one,
except the gentleman who had suffered so much by it, into a roar of
laughter. But it was not easy to draw a single smile from him: he
ruminated on the affair, while his companions rallied and ridiculed this
change in him: he well remembered the agitations he had been in. "Well,"
replied he; when he had sufficiently recovered, "there is certainly
something after death, or these strange impulses could never be. What is
there in a church more than in any other building? what in darkness more
than light, which in themselves should have power to raise such ideas as
I have now experienced? Yes," continued he, "I am convinced that I have
been too presumptuous: and, whether spirits be or be not permitted to
appear, that they exist, I ever shall believe."
THE
WESTMINSTER SCHOLARS.
A few years since, some Westminster scholars received great insult from
a hackney-coachman, who treated them with the greatest scurrility,
because they would not comply with an overcharge in his fare. This
behaviour the youths did not forget, and were resolved to punish him
without danger of prosecution; upon which one of them devised the
following whimsical turn of revenge.
Four of these gentlemen, one dark evening, about nine o'clock, (having
previously learned where his coach would be) called him from off the
stand, and desired the coachman to drive over Westminster Bridge to
Newington. They had not long been seated, when one of them, with a
sportive tone of voice, said, "Come, boys, let us begin."
They then instantly dressed themselves in black clothes, and every
necessary befitting mourners at a funeral, (which articles they brought
with them in small parcels.) And the night was particularly favourable
for carrying their scheme into execution: for it was uncommonly dark,
and _very still_. 'Twas such a night that Apollonius Rhodius thus
describes--
"Night on the earth pour'd darkness; on the sea,
The wakesome sailor to Orion's star
And Helice turn'd heedful. Sunk to rest,
The traveller forgot his toil; his charge,
The centinel; her death-devoted babe,
The mother's painless breast. The village dog
Had ceas'd his troublous bay: each busy tumult
Was hush'd at this dread hour; and darkness slept,
Lock'd in the arms of silence."
To terrify him the more, they wore linen hat-bands and scarfs, instead
of crape. And when they had got into the loneliest part of St. George's
Fields (for at that time they were not built over as at present), they
called to him, and desired him to stop, as they wanted to get out.
They marked the side the coachman came to open the door of; and he that
sat next the other door, opened it at the same instant.
What the coachman felt on seeing the first mourner move out with the
greatest solemnity, can be better conceived than expressed: but what
were his terrors when the second approached him, a majestic spare figure
about six feet perpendicular, who passed him (as did the first) without
speaking a word.
As fast as one youth got out, he went round to the other side of the
coach, stepped in, and came out a second time at the opposite door.
In this manner they continued, till the coachman, if he had the power
of counting, might have told forty.
When they had thus passed out seemingly to the number of twenty, the
poor devil of a coachman, frightened almost to death, fell upon his
knees, and begged for mercy's sake the King of Terrors would not suffer
any more of his apparitions to appear; for, though he had a multitude of
sins to account for, he had a wife and a large family of children, who
depended upon his earnings for support.
The tallest of these young gentlemen then asked him, in a hoarse tone of
voice, what was his heaviest sin? He replied, committing his lodger, a
poor carver and gilder, to the Marshalsea, for rent due to him, which
the badness of the times, and his business in particular, would not
enable him to pay. He said, he would not have confined him so long, but
in revenge for a severe beating he gave him one day when they fell to
loggerheads and boxed. He further told them, the poor man had been six
months in captivity; and that he understood from a friend of his, the
other day, that he made out but a miserable living by making brewers'
pegs, bungs for their barrels, and watchmakers' skewers.
The young gentleman then told him, that if he did not instantly sign his
discharge, which he would write, he might rest assured of no mitigation
of the dreadful punishment he would go through in a few minutes; for
those he had seen come out of his coach were his harpies in disguise,
and were now in readiness to bear him to the infernal regions.
The trembling villain, without the least hesitation, complied. One of
the scholars fortunately having a pen and ink, the King of Terrors wrote
the discharge in a fair leaf of his pocket-book, as well as he could in
the dark, and then made the coachman sign it.
Having so done, the scholars told him he might go for the present, and
that he would find his coach in less than an hour in Piccadilly or
Oxford Street.
One of the youths then mounted the box, while the others got within, and
away they drove to the Marshalsea, but in the way they stopped till they
had taken off their disguise.
The youth who had the discharge, after making a collection among the
others, went into the prison, and gave the poor fellow what set him at
liberty the next morning.
The scholars then drove on to Oxford Street, congratulating themselves
on the success of their adventure, and all happy to a degree of rapture
at being instrumental in obtaining the captive's liberty.
About a quarter of an hour after they quitted the coach, they observed
the coachman arrive; who mounted the box, and drove home, muttering the
bitterest execrations, and damning his father confessor for bilking him
of half a guinea which he gave him that morning for an absolution, that
was to have rubbed out the entire score of his transgressions.
THE
IDEOT'S FUNERAL.
The following extraordinary affair happened about ten years since, at a
village in the north of England.
About midnight, the minister of the parish was not a little alarmed at
hearing the church bell tolling. He immediately dispatched one of his
servants for the beadle, to inquire into the cause of this wonderful
event; who, when he came, appeared to be under more dreadful
apprehensions than the clergyman himself. However, the result of their
deliberations was, that, in order to be certainly informed of the truth
and ground of the matter, they should go forward to the church: but, on
their way, what served considerably to increase their fears, was their
seeing a light within the church. The great bell gave over tolling, and
was succeeded, in its turn, by the little, or handbell (commonly used in
that country at funerals), which, in a short time, also became silent.
On their near approach to the church, they discovered, by the help of
the light within, the _mort-cloth_ moving up and down the area thereof.
Though this last part of the dreadful scene might have been sufficient
to intimidate persons possessed of no ordinary degree of courage; yet
such was the bravery and resolution of the Reverend Doctor, that he even
ventured to accost the nocturnal disturber of their repose: when, on
lifting up the _mort-cloth_, to his inexpressible surprise, he
discovered the terrible apparition to be only an unhappy young man
belonging to the parish, who had for some time past been disordered in
his senses, and who had got into the church by some secret means or
other, and, as the good Doctor readily conjectured, was amusing himself
in this manner, by the representation of a funeral: a case not at all
unlikely, as ideots in general are remarkably fond of any thing relative
to a funeral procession.
THE
VENTRILOQUIST.
The following anecdote is related by Adrianus Turnibis, the greatest
critic of the sixteenth century, and who was admired and respected by
all the learned in Europe.
"There was a crafty fellow," says he, "called Petrus Brabantius, who, as
often as he pleased, would speak from his stomach, with his mouth indeed
open, but his lips unmoved, of which I have been repeatedly an eye and
ear witness. In this manner he put divers cheats on several persons:
amongst others, the following was well known.
"There was a merchant of Lyons, lately dead, who had acquired a great
estate by unjust dealings. Brabantius happening to be at Lyons, and
hearing of this, comes one day to Cornutus, the son and heir of this
merchant, as he walked in a portico behind the church-yard, and tells
him that he was sent to inform him of what was to be done by him; and
that it was more requisite to think about the soul and reputation of his
father, than thus wander about the church-yard, lamenting his death. In
an instant, while they were thus discoursing, a voice was heard, as if
it was that of the father, though, in reality, it proceeded from his
own stomach. Brabantius seemed terribly affrighted. The voice informed
the son the state his father was in by reason of his injustice, what
tortures he endured in purgatory, both on his own, and his son's
account, whom he had left heir of his ill-gotten goods: that no freedom
was to be expected by him, till just expiation was made by giving alms
to such as stood most in need, and that these were the Christians who
were taken by the Turks: that he should put entire confidence in the man
who was by special providence now come to him, and give him money, to be
employed by religious persons for the ransom of so many as were captives
at Constantinople. Cornutus, who was a good sort of a man, yet loth to
part with his money, told Brabantius that he would advise upon it; and
desired he would meet him in the same place the next day. In the mean
time, he began to suspect there might be some fraud in the place, as it
was shady, dark, and fit for echoes or other delusions. The next day,
therefore, he takes him to an open plain, where there was neither bush
nor briar; but there, notwithstanding all his precaution, he hears the
same story, with this addition, that he should forthwith deliver
Brabantius six thousand franks, and purchase three masses daily to be
said for him, or else the miserable soul of his father could not be
freed. Cornutus, though thus bound by conscience, duty, and religion,
yet with reluctance delivered him the money, without taking any receipt,
or having any witness to the payment of it. Having thus dismissed him,
and hearing no more of his father, he became somewhat more pleasant than
he had been since his father's death. One day this change in him was
observed by some friends, who were at dinner at his house; upon which he
told them what had befallen him: when his friends so derided him, one
and all, for his credulity, in being so simply cheated of his money,
that, for mere grief and vexation, within a few days after, he died."
THE
FEMALE FANATIC,
AND
_HEAVENLY VISITOR_.
The following curious affair happened a few years since at Paris, and is
well attested by a gentleman of the greatest respectability.
A widow-lady, aged about sixty-two, who lodged in a two-pair-of-stairs
floor, in the _Rue de la Ferronnerie_, with only a maid-servant, was
accustomed to spend several hours every day at her devotions, before
the altar dedicated to St. Paul, in a neighbouring church. Some villains
observing her extreme bigotry, resolved (as she was known to be very
rich) to share her wealth. Therefore one of them took the opportunity to
conceal himself behind the carved work of the altar; and when no person
but the old lady was in the church, in the dusk of the evening, he
contrived to throw a letter just before her. She took it up, and not
perceiving any one near her, supposed it came by a miracle; which she
was the more confirmed in, when she saw it was signed, _Paul the
Apostle_, and purported, "The satisfaction he received by her addressing
her prayers to him, at a time when so many new-canonized saints
engrossed the devotion of the world, and robbed the primitive saints of
great part of their wonted adoration; and, to shew his regard for his
devotee, said, he would come from Heaven, with the angel Gabriel, to sup
with her, at eight in the evening."
It is scarcely credible to think any one could be deceived by so gross a
fraud: but to what length of credulity, will not superstition carry the
weak mind! The infatuated lady believed it all; and rose from her knees
in a transport, to prepare the entertainment for the heavenly guests she
expected.
When the supper was bespoke, and the sideboard set out to the best
advantage, she thought that her own plate (which was worth near four
hundred pounds sterling) did not make so elegant a shew as she desired;
therefore sent to her brother (who was a Counsellor of the Parliament of
Paris) to borrow all his plate; charging her maid not to tell the
occasion, but only, that she had company to supper, and should be
obliged to him if he would lend her his plate for that evening. The
Counsellor was surprised at this message, as he knew the frugality of
his sister's way of life; and suspected that she was enamoured with some
fortune-hunter, who might marry her for her fortune, and thereby deprive
the family of what he expected at his sister's death: therefore he
absolutely refused to send the plate, unless the maid would tell him
what guests she expected. The girl, alarmed for her mistress's honour,
replied, that her pious lady had no thoughts of a husband; but that, as
St. Paul had sent her a letter from heaven, saying, that he and the
_Angel Gabriel_ would come to supper with her, her mistress wanted to
make the entertainment as elegant as possible. The Counsellor, who knew
the turn of his sister's mind, immediately suspected some villains had
imposed on her; and sent the maid directly with the plate, while he went
to the Commissary of the quarter, and gave him this information. The
magistrate accompanied him to a house adjoining, from whence they saw,
just before eight o'clock, a tall man, dressed in long vestments, with a
white beard, and a young man in white, with large wings at his
shoulders, alight from a hackney-coach, and go up to the widow's
apartment. The Commissary immediately ordered twelve of the foot _guet_
(the guards of Paris) to post themselves on the stairs, while he himself
knocked at the door, and desired admittance. The old lady replied, that
she had company, and could speak to no one. But the Commissary answered,
that he must come in: for that he was St. Peter, and had come to ask St.
Paul and the Angel, how they came out of heaven without his knowledge.
The divine visitors were astonished at this, not expecting any more
Saints to join them: but the lady, overjoyed at having so great an
apostle with her, ran eagerly to the door; when the Commissary, her
brother, and the _guet_, rushing in, presented their musquets, and
seized her guests, whom they immediately carried to the Chatelot.
On searching the criminals, two cords, a razor, and a pistol, were found
in St. Paul's pocket; and a gag in that of the feigned angel. Three days
after, their trial came on: when, in their defence, they pleaded, that
the one was a soldier of the French foot-guards, and the other a
barber's apprentice; and that they had no other evil design, but to
procure a good supper for themselves at the expence of the widow's
folly; that, it being carnival time, they had borrowed the above
dresses; that the soldier had found the two cords, and put them into his
pocket; the razor was what he used to shave himself with; and the pistol
was to defend himself from any insults so strange a habit might expose
him to, in going home. The barber's apprentice said, his design also was
only diversion; and that, as his master was a tooth-drawer, the gag was
what they sometimes used in their business. These excuses, frivolous as
they were, were of some avail to them; and, as they had not manifested
any evil design by an overt act, they were acquitted.