HOLY RELIQUE-MANIA.

On the first introduction of the relics of saints, the mania became universal; they were bought and sold, and, like other collectors, made no scruple to steal them. It is not a little amusing to remark the singular ardour and grasping avidity of some to enrich themselves with religious morsels; their little discernment, the curious impositions and resources of the vender to impose on the good faith and sincerity of the purchaser. It was not uncommon for the prelate of the place to ordain a fast, in order to implore God that they might not be cheated with the relics of saints, which he sometimes purchased for the holy benefit of the village or town. Guibert de Nogen wrote a treatise on the relics of saints: acknowledging that there were many false ones, as well as false legends, he reprobates the inventors of those lying miracles. It was on the occasion of one of our Saviour’s teeth, that De Nogen took up hispen on this subject, by which the monks of St. Medard de Soissons pretended to work miracles; a pretension which he asserted to be as chimerical as that of several persons who believed they possessed the navel, and other parts less comely, of the body of Christ.

There is a history of the translation of Saint Lewin, a virgin and a martyr, by a monk of Bergavinck; her relics were brought from England to Bergs. The facts were collected from her brethren with religious care, especially from the conductor of these relics from England. After the history of the translation, and a panegyric on the saint, he relates the miracles performed in Flanders since the arrival of her relics. The prevailing passion of the times to possess fragments of saints is well marked, when the author particularises, with a certain complacency, all the knavish modes they resorted to, to carry off those in question. None then objected to this sort of robbery, because the gratification of the ruling passion had made it worth while to supply the market.

There is a history, by a monk of Cluny, of the translation of the body of St. Indalece, one of the earliest Spanish bishops; written by order of the Abbot of St. Juan de la Penna; wherein the author protests to advance nothing but facts; having himself seen, or learnt from other witnesses, all he relates. It was not difficult for him to gain his information, since it was to the monastery of St. Juan de la Penna that the holy relics were transported, and those who brought them were two monks of that house. His minute detail ofcircumstances, he has authenticated by giving the names of persons and places; and the account was written for the great festival immediately instituted in honour of this translation. He informs us of the miraculous manner by which they were so fortunate as to discover the body of this bishop, and the different plans that were concerted to carry it off; with the itinerary of the two monks who accompanied the holy remains; during which they were not a little cheered in their long and hazardous journey by visions and miracles.

Another has written a history of what he terms the translation of the relics of St. Majean to the monastery of Villemagne.Translationis, in fact, only a softened expression for the robbery committed on the relics of the saints, by two monks who carried them off secretly, to enrich their monastery; and they did not stick at any artifice, or lie, to achieve their undertaking. They imagined every thing was permitted to get possession of these fragments of mortality, which now had become such an important branch of commerce. They even regarded their possessors with a hostile eye. Such was the religious opinion from the ninth to the twelfth century. Our Canute commissioned his agent at Rome to purchase St. Augustine’s arm for one hundred talents of silver and one of gold! a much greater sum, observes Granger, than the finest statue of antiquity would then have sold for. Another monk describes a strange act of devotion, attested by several contemporary writers. When the saints did not readily complywith the prayers of their votaries, they flogged their relics with rods, in a spirit of impatience, which they conceived necessary to enforce obedience. To raise our admiration, Theofroy, abbot of Epternac, relates the daily miracles performed by the relics of saints—their ashes, their clothes, or other mortal spoils, and even by the instruments of their martyrdom. He inveighs against that luxury of ornaments which was indulged in under a religious pretext. “It is not to be supposed that the saints are desirous of such a profusion of gold and silver. They wish not that we should raise to them magnificent churches, to exhibit that ingenious order of pillars, which shine with gold; nor those rich ceilings, nor those altars sparkling with jewels. They desire not the purple parchment for their writings, the liquid gold to decorate the letters, nor the precious stones to embellish their covers, while you have such little care for the ministers.” The pious writer has not forgottenhimself, in his partnership-account with thesaints.

Bayle observes, the Roman church not being able to deny that there have been false relics which have wrought miracles, they reply that the good intentions of those believers who have recourse to them, obtained from God the reward for their good faith! In the same spirit, when it was shown that three bodies of the same saint are said to exist in several places, and that therefore they could not all be authentic, it was answered, that they were all genuine! for God had multiplied and miraculouslyreproduced them, for the comfort of the faithful! A curious specimen of the intolerance of good sense.

Prince Radzivil was so much affected by the Reformation being spread in Lithuania, that he went in person to pay the Pope all personal honours. On this occasion his holiness presented him with a precious box of relics. On his return home, some monks entreated the prince’s permission to try the effects of them on a demoniac, who hitherto had resisted every exorcism. They were brought into the church with solemn pomp, accompanied by an innumerable crowd, and deposited on the altar. After the usual conjurations, which were unsuccessful, the relics were applied. The demoniac instantly recovered. The people called outa miracle!and the Prince raising his hands and eyes to heaven, felt his faith confirmed. During this transport of pious joy, he observed that a young gentleman, who was keeper of his treasure of relics, smiled, and by his motions ridiculed the miracle. The Prince, indignantly, took the young keeper of the relics to task; who, on promise of pardon, gave the followingsecret intelligenceconcerning them. In travelling from Rome he had lost the box of relics; and not daring to mention it, he had procured a similar one, which he had filled with the small bones of dogs and cats, and other trifles similar to those that were lost. He hoped he might be forgiven for smiling, when he found that such a collection of rubbish was eulogized with such pomp, and had even the virtue of expelling demons. It was bythe assistance of this box that the Prince discovered the gross impositions of the monks and demoniacs, and Radzivil afterwards became a zealous Lutheran.

Frederick the Elector, surnamedthe Wise, was an indefatigable collector of relics. After his death, one of the monks employed by him, solicited payment for several parcels he had purchased for ourwiseElector; but the times had changed! He was advised to resign this business; the relics for which he desired payment they were willingto return; that since the Reformation of Luther, the price of such ware had considerably fallen; and that they would be more esteemed, and find abetter marketin Italy than in Germany!

In his “Traité preparatif à l’Apologie pour Herodote,” c. 39, Stephens says, “A monk of St. Anthony, having been at Jerusalem, saw there several relics, among which was a bit of the finger of the Holy Ghost, as sound and entire as it had ever been; the snout of the seraphim that appeared to St. Francis; one of the nails of a cherubim; one of the ribs of theVerbum caro factum, (the Word was made flesh,) some rays of the star that appeared to the three kings of the east; a phial of St. Michael’s sweat, when he was fighting against the devil; a hem of Joseph’s garment, which he wore when he cleaved wood, &c. All which things,” observes our treasurer of relics, “I have brought with me home very devoutly.” Henry III. who was deeply tainted with the superstition of the age, summoned all the great in the kingdom to meet in London. This summons excitedthe most general curiosity, and multitudes appeared. The king then acquainted them that the great master of the knights templars had sent him a phial containinga small portion of the sacred blood of Christ, which he had shed upon thecross! andattested to be genuineby the seals of the patriarch of Jerusalem, and others. He commanded a procession on the following day, and, adds the historian, that though the road between St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey was very deep and miry, the king kept his eyes constantly fixed on the phial. Two monks received it, and deposited the phial in the abbey, “which made all England shine with glory, dedicating it to God and St. Edward.”

In his life of Henry VIII. Lord Herbert notices thegreat fall of the price of relicsat the dissolution of the monasteries. “The respect given to relics, and some pretended miracles, fell, insomuch as I find by our records, that apiece of St. Andrew’s finger, (covered only with an ounce of silver,) being laid to pledge by a monastery for forty pounds, was left unredeemed at the dissolution of the house; the king’s commissioners, who, upon surrender of any foundation, undertook to pay the debts, refusing to pay the price again;” that is, they did not choose to repay theforty pounds, to receive a piece of the finger of St. Andrew. About this time the property of relics suddenly sunk to a South-Sea bubble; for shortly after the artifice of the Road of Grace, at Boxley, in Kent, was fully opened to the eye of the populace, and a far-famed relic at Hales in Gloucestershire,of the blood of Christ, was at the same time exhibited. It was showed in a phial, and it was believed that none could see it who were in mortal sin: and after many trials usually repeated to the same person, the deluded pilgrim at length went away fully satisfied. This relic was theblood of a duck, renewed every week, and put into a phial; one side of which wasopaque, and the othertransparent; either side of which was turned to the pilgrim which the monk thought proper. The success of the pilgrim depended on the oblations he had made. Those who were scanty in their offerings, were the longest in getting a sight of the blood. When a man was in despair he usually became generous.

THE END.W. WILSON, PRINTER, 57, SKINNER-STREET, LONDON.

THE END.

W. WILSON, PRINTER, 57, SKINNER-STREET, LONDON.

1. The discipline of the augurs is of very ancient date, having been prohibited by Moses, in Leviticus. The cup put in Joseph’s sack, was that used by Joseph to take auguries by. In its more general signification, augury comprises all the different kinds of divination, which Varrow distinguishes into four species of augury, according to the four elements; namely,pyromancy, or augury by fire;aeromancy, or augury by the air;hydromancy, or augury by the water; andgeomancy, or augury by the earth.—SeeDivination. The Roman augurs took their presages concerning futurity from birds, beasts, and the appearances of the heavens, &c.

2. SeeAugurs.

3. A coal starting out of the fireprognosticateseither a purse or a coffin, as the imagination may figure either one or the other represented upon it: the death-watch, a species of ticking spider, the inseparable companion of old houses and old furniture, is, when heard, asureprognostic of a death in the family: the sediment of the sugar, in the form of froth, rising to the top of a cup of tea, is aninfalliblepresage of the person going to receive money: the itching of the palm of the hand, which is to be immediately rubbed on wood, “that it may come to good,” or on brass, “that it may come to pass,” &c. is thecertainforeboding of being about to have money paid or otherwise transferred.

4. These are but a very small proportion of the minor species of superstitions which influence weak and uninstructed minds in all countries. The vulgar, even in the most enlightened periods, are not entirely exempt from belief in the powers of sorcery and magic, and other fantastical and imaginary agencies, such as Exorcisms, Charms, and Amulets. It is pleasing, however, to contrast the present times, in which there is almost an extinction of these delusions, with ages not very remote. It is only 182 years, (counting from 1819) since great numbers of persons were condemned to death, in the ordinary course of law, and executed for witchcraft, in England; and only 119 years (from the same date) since the like disgraceful proceedings took place in Scotland. The like trials, convictions, and executions, took place in New England, in the end of the 17th century. SeeEvelyn’s Memoirs, vol. xi. p. 35.

5. Du Cange has remarked, that the common expression, “May this piece of bread choke me!” originates with this custom. The anecdote of Earl Godwin’s death by swallowing a piece of bread, in making this asseveration, is recorded in our history. If it be true, it was a singular misfortune.

6. Dr. Fludd, or, as he stated himself in Latin,De Fluctibus, was the second son of Sir Thomas Fludd, Treasurer of War to Queen Elizabeth, was born at Milgate in Kent; and died at his own house in Coleman-Street, September 8, 1637. He was a strenuous supporter of the Rosicrucian philosophy; was considered a man of some eminence in his profession, and by no means an insignificant writer.

7. Melancthon was also a believer in judicial astrology, and an interpreter of dreams. Richelieu and Mazarine were so superstitious as to employ and pension Morin, another pretender to astrology, who cast the nativities of these two able politicians. Nor was Tacitus himself, who generally appears superior to superstition, untainted with this folly, as may appear from the twenty-second chapter of the sixth book of his Annals.

8. The notedThumersen, in the seventeenth century, was invested at Berlin with the respective offices of printer to the court, bookseller, almanack-maker, astrologer, chemist, and first physician. Messengers daily arrived from the most respectable houses in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, and even from England, for the purpose of consulting him respecting the future fortunes of new-born infants, acquainting him with the hour of their nativity, and soliciting his advice and directions as to their management. Many volumes of this singular correspondence are still preserved in the Royal library at Berlin. He died in high reputation and favour with his superstitious contemporaries; and his astrological Almanack is still published in some of the less enlightened provinces of Germany.

9. I so well remember the Chaldean predictions to Pompey, to Crassus, and to this same Cæsar, that none of them should die, but full of years and glory, and in his house, that I am surprised that there are yet some persons capable to believe those, whose predictions are every day contradicted and refuted by the court.

10. Antipater and Achinapolus have shewn, that Genethliology should rather be founded on the time of the conception than on that of the birth.

11. Astrologers and wise men of the present day, thanks to a statute or two in the civil code, limit their star-gazing faculties to the making of calendars or almanacks.

12. In 1523, the astrologers having prophesied incessant rains and fearful floods, the abbot of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, built a house on Harrow-the-Hill, and stored it with provisions. Many persons followed his example and repaired to high places. However, no extraordinary floods appearing, the disappointed soothsayers pacified the people by owning themselves mistaken just one hundred years in their calculation.—Hall.

13. From this art of Solomon, exhibited through the medium of a ring or seal, we have the eastern stories which celebrate the seal of Solomon, and record the potency of its sway over the various orders ofdemons, or of genii, who are supposed to be the invincible tormentors or benefactors of the human race.

14. The discovery of the virtues of the Peruvian bark may here serve as an instance. The story goes, that an Indian (some say a monkey) being ill of a fever, quenched his thirst at a pool of water, strongly impregnated with the bark from some trees having accidentally fallen into it, and that he was in consequence cured.

15. John Atkins, author of the Navy Surgeon: 1742.

16. Turner, in his collection of Cases, p. 406, gives one of a woman who died hydrophobical, from a mad dog biting her gown; and of a young man who died raving mad, from the scratch of a cat, four years after the accident.

17. This species of delusion reminds us of the Florentine quack, who gave the countryman his pills, which were to enable him to find his lost ass. The pills beginning to operate on his road home, obliged him to retire into a wood, where he actually did find his ass. The clown, as a matter of course, soon spread the report of the wonderful success of the empiric, who, no doubt, in consequence of this circumstance, reaped an ample reward from the proprietors of strayed cattle.

18. James the First wrote a philippic against it, entitled a “Counterblaste to Tobacco,” in which the royal author, with more prejudice than dignity, informs his loving subjects, that “it is a custome loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, painfull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs; and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse.”

19. The prohibition of the bath was numbered among the restrictions to which certain priestesses were bound by the rigid rules of their order.

20. An eminent physician of the fourth century, born at Pergamus, or, according to others, at Sardis, where he resided for some time.

21. Called Amidenus, from the place of his birth, flourished at Alexandria, about the end of the fifth century.

22. The word Alchymy seems to be compounded of the Arabic augmentative particleal, and the LatinKemiaor Greekχημια, chemistry. This etymology, however, is objected to by some, who deny the Arabians any share in the composition of the word; urging thatalchemiaoccurs in an author who wrote before the Europeans had any commerce with the Arabians, or the Arabians any learning,i. e.before the time of Mahomet.

23. Philosoph. Magazine, Vol. vi. p. 383.

24. Descartes imagined that he had found out a diet that would prolong his life five hundred years.

25.Quædam opera magica mulieribus perfecta fuère, sicut de productione aquarum reperimus apud Chaldæos; si decem Virgines se ornent, vestimenta rubra inducant, saltent ita ut una altera impellat, idque progrediendo et retrogrediendo, digitos denique versus solem certis signis extendant, ad finem perducta illâ actione, aquas illici et prodire dicunt. Sic scribunt, si quatuor mulieres in terga jaceant, et pedes suas cum composione versus cœlum extendant, certa verba, certos item gestus, adhibeat illas turpi hac actione grandinem decidentem avertere.—Tiedman’s “Disputatio de quæstione, quæ fuerit artium magicarum origo.”

26. This method of solving the above problem is supported by the authority of many fathers of the church.

27.Amasis cum frui Amplexibus Ladices nequiret impotentem sese ab ea redditum contendebat pertinacissime. Vide Herodotum, lib. 2.

28. It is clearly shewn by the earliest records, that the ancients were in the possession of many powerful remedies; thus Melampus of Argos, the most ancient Greek physician with whom we are acquainted, is said to have cured one of the Argonauts of sterility, by administering the rust of iron in wine for ten days; and the same physician used Hellebore as a purge, on the daughters of King Prœtus, who were afflicted with melancholy. Venesection was also a remedy of very early origin, for Podalerius, on his return from the Trojan war, cured the daughter of Damethus, who had fallen from a height, by bleeding her in both arms. Opium, or a preparation of the poppy, was certainly known in the earliest ages; and it was probably opium that Helen mixed with wine, and gave to the guests of Menelaus, under the expressive name ofnepenthe, (Odyss. Δ,) to drive away their cares, and increase their hilarity; and this conjecture receives much support from the fact, that thenepentheof Homer was obtained from the Egyptian Thebes, (whence the Tincture of Opium has been calledThebaicTincture;) and if the opinion of Dr. Darwin may be credited, the Cumæan Sibyll never sat on the portending tripod without first swallowing a few drops of the juice of the cherry-laurel.“At Phœbi nondum Patiens, immanis in antro,Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possitExcussisse deum: tanto magis ille fategatOs rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.”Æneid, l. vi. v. 78.There is reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the influence of some narcotic during the display of their oracular powers, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble those of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of Prussic acid. Monardus tells us, that the priests of the American Indians, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, orcaciques, as they are called, took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and then received the smoke which they thus produced in their mouths, in consequence of which they fell down upon the ground; and that after having remained for some time in a stupor, they recovered, and delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during their supposed intercourse with the world of spirits. The sedative powers of the garden lettuce were known in the earliest times. Among the fables of antiquity we read, that after the death of Adonis, Venus threw herself upon a bed of lettuces, to lull her grief and repress her desires. The sea onion, orsquill, was administered by the Egyptians in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the Eye of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in the camp of the Greeks before Troy, and the application of spirit to wounds, was also understood, for we find the experienced Nestor applying a cataplasm, composed of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.

“At Phœbi nondum Patiens, immanis in antro,Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possitExcussisse deum: tanto magis ille fategatOs rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.”Æneid, l. vi. v. 78.

“At Phœbi nondum Patiens, immanis in antro,

Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit

Excussisse deum: tanto magis ille fategat

Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.”

Æneid, l. vi. v. 78.

There is reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the influence of some narcotic during the display of their oracular powers, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble those of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of Prussic acid. Monardus tells us, that the priests of the American Indians, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, orcaciques, as they are called, took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and then received the smoke which they thus produced in their mouths, in consequence of which they fell down upon the ground; and that after having remained for some time in a stupor, they recovered, and delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during their supposed intercourse with the world of spirits. The sedative powers of the garden lettuce were known in the earliest times. Among the fables of antiquity we read, that after the death of Adonis, Venus threw herself upon a bed of lettuces, to lull her grief and repress her desires. The sea onion, orsquill, was administered by the Egyptians in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the Eye of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in the camp of the Greeks before Troy, and the application of spirit to wounds, was also understood, for we find the experienced Nestor applying a cataplasm, composed of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.

29.Æis addatur quod scripsit Necepsos, draconem radios habentem insculptum, collo suspensum, ita ut contingeret ventriculum, mire ei prodesse.—Tiedman.

30. On the subject of the Jewish magii, the works of Buxtorf, Lightfoot, Bekker, and others, have been consulted.

31.Les Juifs croient que Lilis veut faire mourir les garçons dans le huitième jour après leur naissance, et les filles dans le vingt-unième. Voici le remède des Juifs Allemans pour se préserver de ce danger. Ils tirent des traits en ronde avec de la craϊe, ou avec des charbons de bois, sur les quatre murs de la chambre oû est l’accouchée, et ils écrivent sur chaque trait:Adam! Eve! qui Lilis se retire. Ils écrivent aussi sur le parti de chambre les noms des trois anges qui président à la médicine,Senai,Sansenai, etSanmangelof, ainsi que Lilis elle-même leur apprit qu’il falloit faire lorsqu’elle espéroit de les faire tout tous noyer dans la mer.Elias, as quoted by Becker.

32. This remarkable confession may be found in Menange’s. Observations sur la langue Françoise, Part II. p. 110.

33. This was written in 1560, and before the era of revolutions had commenced even among ourselves. He penetrated into the important principle merely by the force of his own meditation.

34. Vide Lectures on Phrenology, by Drs. Gall and Spurtzheim.

35. This word is supposed to be formed from the Greekονομα, name; andμαντεια,divination. There is in fact something rather singular in the etymology; for, in strictness, Onomancy should rather signify divination by asses, being formed from oνos,asinusandμαντεια. To signify divination by names it should be Onomatomancy.

36.PythianorPythia, in antiquity, the priestess of Apollo, by whom he delivered oracles. She was thus called from the god himself, who was styledApollo Pythius, from his slaying the serpent Python; or as others will have it,αποτου ποδεσδαι, because Apollo, the sun, is the cause of rottenness; or, according to others, fromπυνδανομαι,I hear, because people went to hear and consult his oracles.—The priestess was to be a pure virgin. She sat on the covercle, or lid, of a brazen vessel, mounted on a tripod; and thence, after a violent enthusiasm, she delivered her oracles;i. e.she rehearsed a few ambiguous and obscure verses, which were taken for oracles.All the Pythiæ did not seem to have had the same talent at poetry, or to have memory enough to retain their lesson.—Plutarch and Strabo make mention of poets, who were kept in by Jupiter, as interpreters.The solemn games instituted in honor of Apollo, and in memory of his killing the serpent Python with his arrows, were called Pythia or Pythian games.

All the Pythiæ did not seem to have had the same talent at poetry, or to have memory enough to retain their lesson.—Plutarch and Strabo make mention of poets, who were kept in by Jupiter, as interpreters.

The solemn games instituted in honor of Apollo, and in memory of his killing the serpent Python with his arrows, were called Pythia or Pythian games.

37. The art of knowing the humour, temperament, or disposition of a person, from observation of the lines of the face, and the character of its members or features, is called Physiognomy. Baptist Porta and Robert Fludd, are among the top modern authors, and it has since been revived by Lavater, on this subject. The ancient authors are the Sophist Adamantius, and Aristotle, whose treatise on Physiognomy is translated into Latin by de Lacuna.

38. When the thoughts are much troubled, and when a person sleeps without the circumstance of going to bed, or putting off his clothes, as when he nods in his chair; it is very difficult, as Hobbes remarks, to distinguish a dream from a reality. On the contrary, he that composes himself to sleep, in case of any uncouth or absurd fancy, easily suspects it to have been a dream.—Leviathan, par. i. c. 1.

39. For the notion of this threefold soul, read the following verses attributed to Ovid:—Bis duo sunt nomini:Manes,Caro,Spiritus,Umbra:Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt,Terra legitCarnem, tumulum circumvolatUmbraOrcus habetManes,Spiritusastra petit.

39. For the notion of this threefold soul, read the following verses attributed to Ovid:—

Bis duo sunt nomini:Manes,Caro,Spiritus,Umbra:Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt,Terra legitCarnem, tumulum circumvolatUmbraOrcus habetManes,Spiritusastra petit.

Bis duo sunt nomini:Manes,Caro,Spiritus,Umbra:

Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt,

Terra legitCarnem, tumulum circumvolatUmbra

Orcus habetManes,Spiritusastra petit.

40. Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, book xv. chap. 39; also Discourse on Devils and Spirits, chap. 28.

41. Philosophy of Apparitions, by Dr. Hibbert.

42. “As I sat in the pantry last night counting my spoons,” says the butler, in the Comedy of the Drummer, “the candle, methought, burnt blue, and the spay’d bitch look’d as if she saw something.”

43. The Friend, a series of Essays, by S. T. Coleridge, Esq. vol. I, page 248.

44. “There is a species to whom, in the Highlands, is ascribed the guardianship or superintendence of a particular clan, or family of distinction. Thus the family of Gurlinbeg was haunted by a spirit called Garlen Bodachar; that of the Baron of Kilcharden by Sandear or Red Hand, a spectre, one of whose hands is as red as blood; that of Tullochgorum by May Moulach, a female figure, whose left hand and arm were covered with hair, who is also mentioned as a familiar attendant upon the clan Grant.”SirWalter Scott’s Border Minstrelsy.

45. In the year 1646 two hundred persons were tried, condemned, and executed for witchcraft, at the Suffolk and Essex assizes; and in 1699 five persons were tried by special commission, at Paisley, in Scotland, condemned and burnt alive, for the same imaginary crime.—(SeeHowell’sLetters.)

46. It is rather an unfortunate circumstance that all the books, (and there were several,) which treated of the arts of conjuration, as they were practised among the ancients, not one is now extant, and all that we know upon that subject has been collected from isolated facts which have been incidentally mentioned in other writings. From these, however, it would appear, that many of the deceptions which still continue to excite astonishment, were then generally known.

47. Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart.

48. Glanvil was chaplain to his Majesty, and a fellow of the Royal Society, and author of the work in question, entitled “Saducesmus Triumphatus, or a full and plain evidence concerning witches and apparitions,” in two parts, “proving partly by holy Scripture, and partly by a choice collection of modern relations, the real existence of apparitions, spirits, and witches.” Printed 1700.

49. Webster, another divine, wrote “Criticisms and interpretations of Scripture,” against the existence of witches, &c.

50. This story must be accounted for some way or other; or belief in the appearance of the apparitions must be credited. Either the miller himself was the murderer, or he was privy to it, unperceived by the actual perpetrators; or he might be an accomplice before the fact, or at the time it was committed, but without having inflicted any of the wounds. The compunctious visitings of his troubled conscience, the dread of the law in the event of the disclosure, coming from any one but himself, doubtless made him resolve to disburthen his guilty mind; and pretended supernatural agency was the fittest channel that presented itself for the occasion. That Walker and Sharp never confessed any thing, ought not to be matter of wonder. There was no evidence against them but the miller’s apparition, which, they were well assured, would not be likely to appear against them; they were determined therefore not to implicate themselves; well knowing, that however the case stood, Graime the miller could not be convicted, because, in the event of his story of the apparition being rejected, they must be acquitted, although suspicion and the circumstances of the pregnancy, &c. were against them; and again, if the miller had declared himself, after this, as evidence for the crown, his testimony, if taken at all, would be received with the greatest caution and distrust; the result might, in fact, have been, that the strongest suspicions would have fallen upon him as the real murderer of Anne Clarke; for which, under every consideration of the case, he might not unjustly have been tried, condemned, and executed. The statement of Lumley proves nothing that was not generally known. That Anne Clarke was murdered was well known, but by whom nobody ever knew. She afterwards appeared to the miller; and why to the miller in preference to any one else, unless he had had the least hand in it? and with the exception of Sharp and Walker, the only living being who was thoroughly acquainted with the catastrophe, but who himself was, in fact, as guilty as either of the other two.The Mr. Fanhair, who swore he saw “the likeness of a child standing upon Walker’s shoulders” during the trial, ought to have been freely blooded, cupped, purged, and dieted, for a month or two, until the vapours of his infantile imagination had learned to condense themselves within their proper focus: then, and then only, might his oath have been listened to. Besides, thechildcould only be a fœtus, at what period of gestation we are not told, and to have appeared in proper form, it ought to have had its principal appendage with it—the mother. The two, however, might have been two heavy for Walker’s shoulders: nevertheless, the gallantry of the times, certainly, would not have refused her a seat in the dock alongside her guilty paramour; or a chair in the witness’-box, if she came to appear as evidence against him.

The Mr. Fanhair, who swore he saw “the likeness of a child standing upon Walker’s shoulders” during the trial, ought to have been freely blooded, cupped, purged, and dieted, for a month or two, until the vapours of his infantile imagination had learned to condense themselves within their proper focus: then, and then only, might his oath have been listened to. Besides, thechildcould only be a fœtus, at what period of gestation we are not told, and to have appeared in proper form, it ought to have had its principal appendage with it—the mother. The two, however, might have been two heavy for Walker’s shoulders: nevertheless, the gallantry of the times, certainly, would not have refused her a seat in the dock alongside her guilty paramour; or a chair in the witness’-box, if she came to appear as evidence against him.

51. By Mumia is here understood, that which was used by some ancient physicians for some kind of implanted spirit, found chiefly in carcases, when the infused spirit is fled; or kind of sympathetic influence, communicated from one body to another, by which magnetic cures, &c. were said to be performed. Now, however, deservedly exploded.

52. For a curious specimen of thisodium theologicum, see the “Censure” of the Sorbonne on Marmontel’s Belisarius.

53. This king is invoked in the first part of Shakspeare’s play of Henry the Sixth, after the following manner:—“You speedy helpers that are substitutesUnder the lordly monarch of the North—Appear!”

53. This king is invoked in the first part of Shakspeare’s play of Henry the Sixth, after the following manner:—

“You speedy helpers that are substitutesUnder the lordly monarch of the North—Appear!”

“You speedy helpers that are substitutes

Under the lordly monarch of the North—

Appear!”

54. This description is taken from an ancient Latin poem, describing the lamentable vision of a devoted hermit, and supposed to have been written by St. Bernard, in the year 1238; a translation of which was printed for private distribution by William Yates, Esq. of Manchester.

55. Sir Thomas Brown, who thinks that this view may be confirmed by expositions of Holy Scripture, remarks, that, “whereas it is said, thou shalt not offer unto devils; (the original word is seghuirim), that is, rough and hairy goats, because in that shape the devil must have often appeared, as is expounded by the Rabin; as Tremellius hath also explained; and as the word Ascemah, the god of Emath, is by some conceived.”

56. See an interesting dissertation on this subject, in Douce’s Illustrations of Shakspeare, Vol. i. p. 382. It is also noticed in the Border Minstrelsy, Vol. ii. p. 197.

57. Dio of Syracuse was visited by one of the furies in person, whose appearance the soothsayers regarded as indicative of the death which occurred of his son, as well as his own dissolution.

58. Sir Walter Scott has supposed that this mythological account of the duergar bears a remote allusion to real history, having an ultimate reference to the oppressed Fins, who, before the arrival of the invaders, under the conduct of Odin, were the prior possessors of Scandinavia. The followers of this hero saw a people, who knew how to work the mines of the country better than they did; and, therefore, from a superstitious regard, transformed them into spirits of an unfavourable character, dwelling in the interior of rocks, and surrounded with immense riches.—Border Minstrelsy, v. ii. p. 179.

59. It is said that, in Orkney, they were often seen clad in complete armour.—Brand’s description of Orkney.8vo. Edinburgh, 1701. p. 63.

60. In Germany, probably for similar reasons, the dwarfs have acquired the name ofelves—a word, observes Mr. Douce, derived from the Teutonic ofhelfin, which etymologists have translatedjuvare.

61. Minstrelsy of the Scottish border, vol. ii. page 215.

62. Before dismissing this subject of fairies, I shall slightly advert to the strange blending which took place of Grecian and Teutonic fables. “We find,” says Sir Walter Scott, “the elves accordingly arrayed in the costume of Greece and Rome, and the fairy queen and her attendants transformed into Diana and her nymphs, and invested with their attributes and appropriate insignia.” Mercury was also named by Harsenet, in the year 1602, the prince of the fairies.

Back to Index Next