PREMATURE INTERMENT.—RESUSCITATION.

“Oh sleep! thou ape of death, lie dull upon her;And be her sense but as a monument,Thus in a chapel lying.”Cymbeline.

“Oh sleep! thou ape of death, lie dull upon her;

And be her sense but as a monument,

Thus in a chapel lying.”

Cymbeline.

“Sleep may usurp on nature many hours.”Pericles.

“Sleep may usurp on nature many hours.”

Pericles.

Ida.These stories are, indeed, painfully interesting; but tell us, Evelyn, is it so certain that the shaft of Azrael had irretrievably struck these unhappy creatures of whom you speak? Is it not to be feared that instances of premature sepulture have too often occurred from want of scientific discernment? On the exhumation of the Cimetière des Innocents at Paris, during the Napoleon dynasty, the skeletons were many of them discovered in attitudes indicating a struggling to get free: indeed some, we are assured, were partly out of their coffins.

To avert this awful catastrophe it was the custom, in the provinces of Germany, to place a bell-rope in the hand of a corpse for twenty-four hours before burial. We may look on this, perhaps, as one natural source ofromanceand mystery; for the ringing of bells by the dead has been a favourite omen of the ghostly legends.

Ev.Alas! even my own professional study and duties have not been free from these melancholy scenes; and if I make not your gentle heart to tremble, fair Castaly, I will recount some of those unhappy instances of fatality, to which the errors and neglect of man may doom his fellow-mortal.

Miss C—— (of C—— Hall, in Warwickshire,) and her brother were the subjects of typhoid fever. She seemed to die, and her bier was placed in the family vault. In a week her brother died also, and when he was taken to the tomb, the lady was foundsitting in her grave-clotheson the steps of the vault; having, after her waking from the trance, died of terror or exhaustion.

A girl, after repeated faintings, was apparently dead, and was taken, as a subject, into the anatomical theatre of the “Salpetrière,” at Paris. During the night, faint groans were heard in the theatre, but no search was made. In the morning, it was evident that the girl hadattempted to disengage herself from the winding-sheet, one leg being thrust from off the trestles, and an arm resting on an adjoining table.

A slave girl of Canton, named Leaning, apparently died. She was placed in a coffin, the lid of which remained unfastened, that her parents might come and see the corpse. Three days after the apparent death, while the remains were being conveyed to the grave, a noise or voice was heard proceeding from the coffin, and on removing the covering, it was found the woman had come to life again.

In 1838, at Tonnieus, in the Lower Garonne, as the graveman threw earth on a coffin he also heard groans. Much terrified, he ran away, and a crowd assembled. On opening the coffin, the face of the buried man was distorted, and he had disengaged his arms from the folds of his winding sheet.

The Emperor Zeno was, as it is written, prematurely buried; and, when the body was soon after casually discovered, it was found that he had, to satisfy acute hunger,eaten some flesh from his arm.

Astr.One might think that Master Ainsworth, from this record, sketched the episode of the sexton and the old coffin in his “Rookwood.” The truth is equal to the fiction.

Cast.When I was at Breslau, in 1835, (and this is not one of Astrophel’s fictions,) a nun of the Ursuline Convent was placed in her coffin in the church. At midnight, the sisters assembled to chaunt the vigils over the body of their sainted sister. While the holy hymn was echoing through the oratory, the nun arose, tottered to the altar, knelt before the cross, and prayed. The sisters with a cry of horror awoke the abbess; and on her arrival, the nun again arose, and lay down in her coffin. The physician of the convent was speedily summoned, but, on his arrival,he found her dead.

There can scarcely be drawn a scene, combining the sublime and beautiful of romance, in higher intensity than this. It was the spectral visitation of a seraph.

Ida.Like many sublimities of nature, these mysteries have been profaned by unholy imitation; as for instance, the reanimation of the nuns in the opera of “Robert le Diable.” But there is an awful romance mingled with the history of those melancholy creatures, from whose inanimate clay the immortal spirit was thought to have parted, still more impressive. That instinctive, that inexpressible dread, with which we contemplate a corpse, is nothing in comparison with that thrill of astonishment which overwhelms us, when a body becomes (as in the miraculous recall of Lazarus)reanimated; when a spirit appears to visit us from the dead. Yet this is notfear, for we know it cannot injure us; it is a feeling that we are with something beyond ourselves spiritual, which had seemed to have endured a transfiguration, and been admitted into the order of angelic beings. There must be something of the supernatural which creates this fearful wonder; an impression on the heart that is an especial influence of the Deity. Else should we not behold withdread, instead of a sacredpleasure, the success of our efforts in cases of suspended animation?

This visitation from another world is one of the surest indications of our spirituality; and like the reanimation of soul and mind, and consciousness, from deep and undreaming sleep, lighting up the body into brilliancy and beauty, might drown a sceptic’s reasoning in a flood of holy faith, and overwhelm him with the belief of immortality.

Cast.It is this combination of vitality and death—so seemingly a paradox—that forms the basis of many of our deepest romances; as the “Spectre Life in Death,” in the Ancient Mariner, of the melancholy Coleridge,—himself a wild visionary of the first order. If I remember, he is writing of a spectre ship. —

——“Betwixt us and the sun.And straight the sun was fleck’d with bars —(Heaven’s mother send us grace!)As if through a dungeon-grate he peer’dWith broad and burning face.Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud,)How fast she neers and neers.Are thosehersails that glance in the sun,Like restless gossameres?Are thoseherribs, through which the sunDoth peer, as through a grate?And is that woman all her crew?Is that a Death—and are there two?Is Death that woman’s mate?Her lips were red, her looks were free,Her locks were yellow as gold,Her skin was as white as leprosy,The night-mare Life in Death was she,Who thicks man’s blood with cold.”

——“Betwixt us and the sun.

And straight the sun was fleck’d with bars —(Heaven’s mother send us grace!)As if through a dungeon-grate he peer’dWith broad and burning face.Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud,)How fast she neers and neers.Are thosehersails that glance in the sun,Like restless gossameres?

And straight the sun was fleck’d with bars —

(Heaven’s mother send us grace!)

As if through a dungeon-grate he peer’d

With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud,)

How fast she neers and neers.

Are thosehersails that glance in the sun,

Like restless gossameres?

Are thoseherribs, through which the sunDoth peer, as through a grate?And is that woman all her crew?Is that a Death—and are there two?Is Death that woman’s mate?

Are thoseherribs, through which the sun

Doth peer, as through a grate?

And is that woman all her crew?

Is that a Death—and are there two?

Is Death that woman’s mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,Her locks were yellow as gold,Her skin was as white as leprosy,The night-mare Life in Death was she,Who thicks man’s blood with cold.”

Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold,

Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The night-mare Life in Death was she,

Who thicks man’s blood with cold.”

Ev.It is melancholy that a noble mind should be so perverted by poppy-juice. And yet the Mahometan beats him hollow at this sort of burlesque.

There is a fiction in Sale’s notes to the “Koran.” During the building of his magnificent temple, King Solomon sleeps in death. He remains supported by his staff, on which he had been leaning, until a worm eats away the prop, and the body falls prostrate to the ground.

But we need not go to the East for our specimens. Even in the year 1839, in our Emerald Isle of superstition, they would have us believe a miracle of this kind.

In a field near Lurgan, a man, called Farland, had received money from a widow, wherewith to pay her rent;—this he failed to do. On her remonstrance and declaration, she was asked to name her witnesses. She answered,—“No one but God and herself.” “Then,” rejoined the man, “your God was asleep at the time.” The attestation of three witnesses records, that he was instantly struck in a trance as he was resting on his spade, and in that attitude he had ever since continued!

Cast.And is it not a blot on the page of science, that so many ill-fated creatures are thus, through an error, doomed to dissolution? Say, gentle Evelyn, has not your philosophy discovered some mode of discernment between life and death, which would smile the philanthropist on to patient watching?

Ev.To a degree. But it were vain to offer here precepts for such discrimination, which, sooth to say, are not yet absolute. The rosy tint of complexion may remain for some time, and even perspiration may break forth,after death; or the body may assume themost deathlikeaspect, and yet vitality is onlyin abeyance. Among our recoveries, it is true, there are manyspontaneousrousings, and this especially if deep impression has been the cause of trance.

Listen to the following, from a journal of 1834:—“The wife of Thomas Benson, livery-lace maker, of Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, being suddenly taken ill, to all appearance expired; and, when every symptom of life had fled, the body was duly laid out. On the following night, between nine and ten o’clock, whilst the undertaker was in the house receiving instructions for the funeral, to the astonishment and terror of the whole family, Mrs. Benson came down stairs, having been in a trance nearly thirty hours. Her situation has so terribly shocked her, that but faint hopes are entertained of her recovery.”

It is melancholy to know how often these cases are abandonedto nature; but science may do much, andshould domore, to relieve them; although we possess not the wondrous phial of Renatus, nor have developed the creative mysteries of Prometheus or Frankenstein.

Yet the recovery of François de Civille, was almost as great a wonder. He was thrown, at the siege of Rouen, into insensibility. He was, in this state, carried home by his servant. During a week he became warm, but exhibited no other sign of life. He was, at this period, flung out of a window by the besiegers, and cast upon a dunghill, where he lay naked for three or four days. Yet, even after this, he was restored to life.

Astr.You confess thewonder, Evelyn, that is some concession; you may, perchance, believe another of equal interest.

“My mother being sick to death of a fever three months after I was born, which was the occasion she nursed me no longer, her friends and servants thought, to all outward appearance, she was dead, and so almost two days and a night. But Dr. Winston coming to comfort my father, went into my mother’s room, and looking earnestly in her face, said, ‘She is so handsome, and looks so lovely, I cannot think she is dead;’ and suddenly took a lancet out of his pocket, and with it cut the sole of her foot, which bled. Upon this he immediately caused her to be laid upon the bed again, and to be rubbed, and such means, as she came to life, and opening her eyes, saw two of her kinswomen stand by her, my Lady Knolleys and my Lady Russell, both with great wide sleeves, as the fashion then was, and said, ‘Did not you promise me fifteen years, and are you come again?’ which they not understanding, persuaded her to keep her spirits quiet in that great weakness wherein she then was; but some hours after she desired my father and Dr. Howlsworth might be left alone with her, to whom she said, ‘I will acquaint you, that during the time of my trance I was in great quiet, but in a place I could neither distinguish or describe; but the sense of leaving my girl, who is dearer to me than all my children, remained a trouble upon my spirits. Suddenly I saw two by me clothed in long white garments, and methought I fell down upon my face upon the dust, and they asked me why I was so troubled in so great happiness. I replied, O let me have the same grant given to Hezekiah, that I may live fifteen years, to see my daughter a woman; to which they answered, It is done, and then at that instant I awoke out of my trance.’ And Dr. Howlsworth did then affirm that that day she died made just fifteen years from that time.”

I remember a story of the effect of deep impression on a sensitive mind: the sleep of a love-sick Juliet, without the entrancing draught of the friar.

A young French lady in the Rue St. Honoré, at Paris, was condemned by her father to a hated marriage while her heart was devoted to another. She fell into a trance, and was buried. Under some strange influence her lover opened her grave, and she was revived, and married. Thus the romance of the “Beauty of Verona” was acted without its tragedy.

I have heard, but where I recollect not, a story of another French lady, who was actually the subject of an anatomist. On the evidence of some faint signs of vitality, he not only restored the lady to life, but united himself to her in marriage.

There is no doubt, also, that Rachael, Lady Russell, would have been buried alive, had not the devoted affection of her husband, and his constant visits to her coffin, prevented it.

I read, too, that Shorigny, an hysterical girl in Paris, was watched daily by her physician, after he was assured by the friends that she was dead. On the sixth day, the cloth covering was seen to move, the eyes soon after opened, and she gradually recovered.

Ev.It is one of the anomalies of our science, thatsimilarcauses will often produceoppositeeffects. We may be thrown into trance by fright; and intense alarm may be the cause of recovery. I may relate an oriental anecdote as an analogy, which, however, I beg you to receive with some reservation.

A Persian, at the siege of Sardis, was about to kill Crœsus, whom he did not recognise. By his side was the king’s dumb child, who, in a sudden paroxysm of agony, screamed out, “Kill not Crœsus.” From this instant (as it were a miracle), Herodotus writes, his speech was fully restored!

We learn from Bourgeois, in 1838, that a medical man, from the sudden influence of grief, sunk into a cataleptic state, but his consciousness never left him. The lamentations of his wife, the sympathetic condolence of his medical friends, and the arrangements regarding his funeral, were to him distinctly audible. He knew that he was in his coffin, and that there was a solemn procession following him to the grave. As the solemn words of “Earth to earth” were uttered, and the dust fell on his coffin lid, the consciousness of this, and his horror at his impending fate, burst the fetters of his icy trance—he shrieked aloud, and was saved.

In the “Psychological Magazine” we read of a lady who fell into a state of catalepsy, after a violent nervous disorder.

“It seemed to her, as if in a dream, that she was really dead. Yet she was perfectly conscious of all that happened around her in this dreadful state. She distinctly heard her friends speaking, and lamenting her death, at the side of her coffin; she felt them pull on her dead clothes, and lay her in it. This feeling produced a mental anxiety which was indescribable. She tried to cry, but her soul was without power, and could not act on her body. She had the contradictory feeling, as if she were in her own body, and yet not in it, at one and the same time. It was equally impossible for her to stretch out her arm, or to open her eyes, as to cry, although she continually endeavoured to do so. The internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height, when the funeral hymns were sung, and when the lid of the coffin was about to be nailed on. The thought that she was to be buried alive was the first one which gave activity to her soul, and caused it to operate on her corporeal frame.”

I have been assured that the soldier who has been placed in his grave by such an error, has been awoke in his coffin by the volley fired over him.

Parallel with these are the instances in which vitality seemed to be instantly excited by acute pain.

I remember the case of a cataleptic girl, related by the Abbé Menon, who was doomed to dissection; the first stroke of thescalpelawoke her, and she lived.

Cardinal Sommaglia was not so fortunate. He fell intosyncopefrom intense grief, and it was decided that he should be opened and embalmed. As the surgeon’s knife punctured the lungs, the heart throbbed, and the cardinal attempted to avert the knife with his hand; but thediewas cast, and he shortlydied.

The Abbé Prevost was also sacrificed in this way.

As Vesalius, the physician of Philip II., was opening the thorax of a Spanish gentleman, the heart palpitated. Death also occurred here. Vesalius was brought before the Inquisition, but was pardoned.

A gentleman was seized, apparently with apoplexy, while at cards. A vein was opened in both arms, butno blood flowed. He was placed in a room with two watchers, who slept, alas! too long; for in the morning the room wasdeluged with bloodfrom the punctures, and his life was gone.

These are indeed unhappy instances of the errors of omission and commission entailed on the fallibility of science. I believe a French author, Bruhier, has collected fifty-two cases of persons buried alive, four which were dissected prematurely, fifty-three which recovered, and seventy-two which were falsely reported dead.

Astr.There is a solemn problem associated with this, on which I have often reflected, the solution of which, I presume, your philosophycannotoffer to us. At what moment would the mind cease to influence the body, were there no recovery from the trance? I have sometimes felt a mysterious influence, apart, I am sure, from philosophy, that whispered me, the life, which I had watched in its ebb, was at length gone. Yet, of the transit of an immaterial spirit, although convinced of the sublime truth, it is certain weknownothing.

Ev.Nothingdemonstrative. It is not, however, when the bodyseemsdead, for consciousness, or thesystemiclife, may for awhile be suspended by mere cold. But dissolution isthat point, unknown to us, when the principle of life (whether that be the influence ofarterialblood, or electricity, magnetism, or galvanism,) is not excitable—whenmoleculardeath has ensued; not even irritability, thatvis insitaorvis nervosaof Haller, remaining. Of course mind must instantly depart on the commencement ofdecomposition, the brain beingthentotally incompatible with mind. Thestoicsbelieved the soul to occupy the bodyuntil it was putrified, and resolved into itsmateria prima.

Astr.I once thought, Evelyn, that the difference in the tenacity of life in the man and the zoophyte might with some subtlety be explained on this principle—thus: That the life of a reasoning creature was inits soul; that of an inferior animal in itsspinal irritability. Thus, when man is decapitated, hissoulis gone from him—he is dead; but when vitality is in thevis nervea, as in the insect, life may exist without a head, that is, the organ of a soul. The butterfly will flutter, I am told, long after decapitation.

Ev.Theexcito-motaryprinciple illustrates this fact, without the requisition of such a notion; and life, we know, may beartificially sustainedfor a time after decapitation. The interesting physiology of thereflex actionsof a nerve explains this, and all the terrific convulsions of galvanized bodies.

Cast.I think I have a glimpse of your meaning, Evelyn. May we not believe, then, that there is truth in the affirmation, that Charlotte Corday’s cheeksblushedat her exposure after her decollation?

Ev.There is far more romance than truth, fair Castaly, in this story; but I do believe the probability of a story almost as marvellous, that the lips of Mary Stuartprayed visiblyafter her head fell from her body. Sœmmering has written, that if the open eyes of a decollated head be turned full on the sun, the lids will immediately close, but this of coursewithout consciousness.

Cast.And yet somelearnedmen believed the head of Charlotte Corday sensible of its state, from this asserted fact of its blushing.

Ev.They shouldnothave believed without complete evidence. Indeed, this question may now be deemed decidedin the negative, by the experiments of a learned professor of Heidelburg, on the head of Sebastian Zink, decollated at Rastadt. On placing bitters on the tongue, and hallooing “pardon” in his earat the instant of decapitation, it was proved that there was an utter insensibility to all.

Ida.Then sensation is instantly destroyed. In this, as in all his dispensations, how is the mercy of the Deity displayed!

Ev.It is still a question with us, whether our physical sensations on the point of dissolution are often so acute as they appear.

Cabanis and the famous Guillotine declared their conviction that no pain was felt at the moment of or after decapitation. In the works of Lord Bacon, we read of one who was suspended till he was all but dead, and his declaration was that his suffering was a mere trifle. Cowper also left a manuscript, in which he states that in one of his three attempts at suicide, he hung himself over his door in the Temple, but that he did not suffer in the least.

Ida.And in drowning?

Ev.While the medical committee of the Humane Society were framing those scientific rules which have rendered the process of resuscitation so successful, I remember especially one pale and melancholy girl, who glided in before us like a spectre. She had attempted suicide, but her intention was happily thwarted, after she had been for many minutes in the water, and was apparently lifeless.

True, the mental agony which prompts to such an act, will often overwhelm sensation; but this creature wasconscious of her act, and assured us that the sensation of drowning was butan intense feeling of faintness preceding a sinking into insensibility, with a short spasmodic struggle; an uneasiness rather than a pain. When Clarence therefore, recounting his dream, exclaims, —

“My God, methought whatpainit was to drown!”

I believe, he should rather have referred his feelings to hisrecovery, if the words of the pale girl were true; for, when consciousness and sensation are returning, the feeling is intense. Throughout the body, as it is recovering fromapatheticnumbness, the sense of returning circulation of the blood is terrible: an acute sensation ofpins and needlesin the brain and the marrow of the spine. No wonder, then, that these resuscitated beings will request thatno effortsmay be made, should they again be in the state of suspended animation. The sensation on being born is probably as acute as that on dissolution.

Ida.Then thereisconsciousness?

Ev.The evidence of Dr. Adam Clarke will illustrate this interesting question. Yet I differ somewhat with him, regarding so perfect a consciousness during submersion. In his life, you will see the following dialogue with Dr. Lettsom, in which Clarke describes his own case of immersion:

“Dr. Lettsom said,—‘Of all that I have seen restored, or questioned afterwards, I never found one who had the smallest recollection of any thing that passed, from the moment they went under water, till the time in which they were restored to life and thought.’ Dr. Clarke answered Dr. L.,—‘I knew a case to the contrary.’ ‘Did you, indeed?’ ‘Yes, Dr. L., and the case was my own. I was once drowned.’ And then related the circumstances, and added,—‘I saw my danger, but thought the mare would swim, and I knew I could ride when we were overwhelmed. It appeared to me, that I had gone to the bottom with my eyes open. At first, I thought I saw the bottom clearly, and then felt neither apprehension nor pain; on the contrary, I felt as if I had been in the most delightful situation; my mind was tranquil and uncommonly happy. I felt as if in Paradise, and yet I do not recollect that I saw any person; the impressions of happiness seemed not to be derived from any thing around me, but from the state of my mind. And yet I had a general apprehension of pleasing objects; and I cannot recollect that any thing appeared defined, nor did my eye take in any object, only I had a general impression of a green colour, as of fields or gardens. But my happiness did not arise from these, but appeared to consist merely in the tranquil, indescribably tranquil, state of my mind. By and by, I seemed to awake as out of a slumber, and felt unutterable pain and difficulty of breathing; and now I found I had been carried by a strong wave, and left in very shallow water upon the shore, and the pain I felt was occasioned by the air once more inflating my lungs and producing respiration. How long I had been under water I cannot tell; it may however be guessed at by this circumstance: when restored to the power of reflection, I looked for the mare, and saw her walking leisurely down shore towards home, then about half a mile distant from the place where we were submerged. Now, I aver,—1st. That in being drowned I felt no pain;—2nd. That I did not, for a simple moment, lose my consciousness;—3rd. I felt indescribably happy, and, though dead as to the total suspension of all the functions of life, yet I felt no pain in dying; and I take for granted, from this circumstance, those who die by drowning feel no pain, and that probably it is the easiest of all deaths;—4th. That I felt no pain till once more exposed to the action of the atmospheric air, and then I felt great pain and anguish in returning to life, which anguish, had I continued under water, I should have never felt;—5th. That animation must have been totally suspended from the time I must have been under water, which time might be in some measure ascertained by the distance the mare was from the place of my submersion, which was at least half a mile, and she was not, when I first observed her, making any speed;—6th. Whether there were any thing preternatural in my escape, I cannot tell; or whether a ground swell had not, in a merely natural way, borne me to the shore, and the retrocession of the tide (for it was then ebbing), left me exposed to the open air, I cannot tell. My preservation must have been the effect of natural causes; and yet it appears to be more rational to attribute it to a superior agency. Here then, Dr. L., is a case widely different, it appears, from those you have witnessed, and which argues very little for the modish doctrine of the materiality of the soul.’ Dr. Lettsom appeared puzzled with this relation, but did not attempt to make any remarks on it.”

And well he might; for if animation weretotally suspended, consciousness would have been suspended also.

TRANSMIGRATION.—ANALYSIS OF TRANCE.

“Thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras, ere I will allow of thy wits; and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam.”Twelfth Night.

“Thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras, ere I will allow of thy wits; and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam.”

Twelfth Night.

“Through all thy veins shall runA cold and drowsy humour, which shall seizeEach vital spirit.”Romeo and Juliet.

“Through all thy veins shall run

A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize

Each vital spirit.”

Romeo and Juliet.

Astr.You have granted me more than you desire, dear Evelyn. If life berestored, it had neverdesertedthe body, and yet the mindhaddeserted it.

The mind and body, then, are both independent of each other. From this truth, a metaphysical question of deep and wondrous interest arises.In what condition does the mind exist, during so long a period, uninfluencing and uninfluenced by the power of perception?I remember searching for some elucidation of this mystery among those ghost-stories of the Hebrews, founded on the “purgatorie of souls” in Stehelin’s “Traditions of the Jews,” but I rose from my reading unenlightened.

Ida.And ever will, Astrophel. Profane curiosity must fail in such a study; adoration alone can sanctify this mystic question, on which theologians and philosophers, even those devoutly confident in the sublime truths of immortality, have so essentially differed.

Like Astrophel, Paley inquires where is the soul during suspended vitality? and Priestly, where when the body was created? Hume, with the subtlety of a sceptic, asks how can the soul long be the same, seeing that, like the body, its particles are constantly changing? While Glanville thinks himself a wondrous wight, as he prates of its “essential spissitude, a something that is more subtle than body, contracting itself into aless ubi.”

Were this sublime secret fathomable by the deepest intellect, then would be unfolded things above, which are ordained to be ever mysteries to creatures on earth; such as the future existence of the spirit, and the nature of Paradise.

Although revelation has given us glimpses, enough to satisfy humble devotion, what mind candecideon the exact nature and changes of its own future state? The negative answer is at once returned by the variety of these learned opinions:—That the soul is, immediately after death, submitted to its reward or punishment;—That its state after death is one ofhalfhappiness or misery, until it be again joined to its body on the resurrection; and then it shall enjoy or suffer theextremesof felicity or torment;—That the soul rests in quiet unconsciousness until the day of judgment;—And lastly, that souls are purified by purgatory and comparative suffering, andthenare admitted into the realms of perpetual enjoyment.

Astr.Is it not strange that in this notion of purgatory, with slight variations, pagans, and Romanists, and Egyptians, and Brahmins, so nearly accord? In the creed of the Brahmins, there is something of sublimity, whatever may be their error, and Ida will not chide, if I repeat the essence of their creed, which Robertson has gathered from the “Baghvat Geeta.”

“Every intelligent nature, particularly the souls of men, they conceived to be portions separated from this great spirit; to which, after fulfilling their destiny on earth, and attaining a proper degree of purity, they would be again reunited. In order to efface the stains with which a soul, during its residence on earth, has been defiled by the indulgence of sensual and corrupt appetites, they taught that it must pass, in a long succession of transmigrations, through the bodies of different animals, until, by what it suffers and what it leaves in the various forms of its existence, it shall be so thoroughly refined from all pollution, as to be rendered meet for being absorbed into the divine essence, and returns, like a drop, into that unbounded ocean from which it originally issued.”

Aristotle, in taking up this notion of transmigration in his book “De Animâ,” says that “the soul was always joined to a body, sometimes to one, sometimes to another.” And from this idea were taken the stories of Fadlallah and the Dervis, in the “Spectator,” of the “Transmigrations of Indus,” and the beautiful fable of “Psyche,” or the soul, which when a body died, could not livealoneon earth, and so crept into another. Herodotus, in the second book of his history, has some allusions to the Egyptian creed; and, indeed, the fear of this transmigration was the origin of mummies among the Copts. Their belief that the soul (the immortality of which they very early, if not the first, decided,) could not leave the body whenentire, induced them to preserve that body as long as possible; and the mummy unrollers and hieroglyphic readers must commit sad sacrilege, by exposing their sacred dust to the decomposition of air.

When the body was dissolved, however, the soul entered that of some animal that instant born; and profane commentators have, on this creed, presumed to explain the sacred story of the “banishment and savage life of Nebuchadnezzar.” At the end of 30,000 years, it again entered that of a man; and it is likely that their object in embalming was, to have the soulre-enter the same bodyfrom choice and habit.

Simonides, four hundred years after the siege of Troy, ungallantly reversed this doctrine, deciding that “the souls of women were formed of the principles and elements of brutes.” The Pythagorean system was, if not more courteous, at least more just.

“Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies;And here and there th’ embodied spirit flies.By time, or force, or sickness, dispossess’d,And lodges, where it lights, in bird or beast;Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find,And actuates those according to their kind.From tenement to tenement is toss’d,The soul is still the same, the figure only lost.”

“Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies;

And here and there th’ embodied spirit flies.

By time, or force, or sickness, dispossess’d,

And lodges, where it lights, in bird or beast;

Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find,

And actuates those according to their kind.

From tenement to tenement is toss’d,

The soul is still the same, the figure only lost.”

This is from Dryden’s translation of Chaucer.

And Burton’s record is as follows:

“The Pythagoreans defendMetempsychosisandPalingenesia, that souls go from one body to another,epotâ prius Lethes nudâ, as men into wolves, beares, dogs, hogs, as they were inclined in their lives, or participated in conditions:

‘——inque ferinasPossumus ire domus pecudumque in corpora condi.’

‘——inque ferinas

Possumus ire domus pecudumque in corpora condi.’

“Lucian’s cock was firstEuphorbus, a captaine:

‘Ille ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belliPanthoides Euphorbus eram.’ ”

‘Ille ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belli

Panthoides Euphorbus eram.’ ”

And Plato, in Timæus, and in Phædo —

Ev.Enough of Plato, dear Astrophel; or believe, with me, thathisphilosophy on this point was merelyfigurative of the similarity of mind, or genius, or feature, between the dead and the living;—as it was said of old, that the soul of Raphael had transmigrated to the body of Francesco Mazzola (Parmegiano),becausehis style and personal beauty so closely resembled those of the all but divine master of his art.

And pray what was the gist of that special astronomer, who affirmed that he “saw something written in the moon?”—A wild romance only? No, forsooth. Pythagoras may classically vociferate —

“——errat, et illinc,Huc venit, hinc illuc, et quoslibet occupat artusSpiritus: eque feris humana in corpora transit,Inque feras noster.”

“——errat, et illinc,

Huc venit, hinc illuc, et quoslibet occupat artus

Spiritus: eque feris humana in corpora transit,

Inque feras noster.”

But read further, and you will find the high moral to be a severe injunction against flesh-eating:

“Then let not piety be put to flight,To please the taste of glutton appetite;But suffer innate souls secure to dwell,Lest from their seats your parents you expel:With rabid hunger feed upon your kind,Or from a beast dislodge a brother’s mind.”

“Then let not piety be put to flight,

To please the taste of glutton appetite;

But suffer innate souls secure to dwell,

Lest from their seats your parents you expel:

With rabid hunger feed upon your kind,

Or from a beast dislodge a brother’s mind.”

Think you this injunction will be obeyed, in the face of the “Almanac des Gourmands?”

Ida.Evelyn is severe. May I tell him that, among the records of the East, he will find incidents blended with this idea which may almost consecrate the creed of a Pagan. As the honey is hung close to the poisoned sting of the bee, there may be a bright spot to illuminate the gloomy annals of superstition. The very belief intransmigrationmay impart an atom of mercy, even to an infidel; and where superstition, shorn of the light of Christianity,mustprevail, it were better sure to foster that notion which may, even in one little sentiment, half humanize the heart.

Listen to this contrast, between some orient sects, along the eastern shores of Hindostan. The daughters of Guzzerat fold their infants to their bosoms drugged with opium; and when the babe is thus poisoned, the Hindu girl will answer with a languid and seeming innocent smile, “It is not difficult to blast a flower-bud.”

Then the Kurrada Brahmins (as we read in the “Rudhiradhyaya”), believing themselves the agents of Vishara Boot, the spirit of poison, sacrifice the pundits to their vampire goddess, Maha-Lackshmi.

Equally blind, yet more happy in thenatureof their superstition, are the Shravuch Banians, or the proselytes of Jena. The Yati, or officiating priest ofthisorder, in purifying the temples, sweeps the floor with the Raju-hurrun, a broom of cotton-threads, lest hapless one little insect may be destroyed. And this we may believe, from the creed of transmigration being influential among these people. Sir Paul Rycaut also, in his oriental history, informs us of parallel incidents among the devout Mahomedans, who, believing that in the body of a brute may reside the soul of a departed relative, ransom, with their gold, many a bird that would otherwise flutter away its captivity in a cage.

Cast.I will not flout your praises, Ida; but, in our own island, this illusion has rather ledtocaptivity. I remember the story of a lady, living in Worcestershire, who, under the innocent delusion that her daughters were changed into singing-birds, hung her pew in the cathedral with cages of goldfinches and linnets. And Lord Orford, in his “Reminiscences,” thus records the monomania of the Duchess of Kendal:

“In a tender mood, he (King George) promised the duchess that if she survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a visit. The duchess, on his death, somuch expectedthe accomplishment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the windows of her villa, at Isleworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till the royal bird, or she, took the last flight.”

Astr.You spoke of the absolutesenselessnessof trance; and yet there were some hints of the awakening power of fear. Is this consistent?

Ev.I expected your objection. In the cases of perfect catalepsy, the brain is not conscious of its mind, or if the mind be active, there is noassurance of its activity. But, as its faculties are awakened, it usually begins to work exactly where it left off;—one of the most imposing proofs, both of a separate existence during life, and of our bodies’unconsciousnessof this transient disunion.

Astr.I may own, Evelyn, that your illustrations of our questions, in despite of somestrainingat explanation, carry, onmanypoints, conviction to my own mind, but not onall. There is another question equally interesting with the former.How is vitality preserved during this protracted abstinence?

Ev.Remember, dear Astrophel, my confession, that thereareinexplicable mysteries. But, to the point of your last question. We are aware of the long period during which the body may fast after shipwreck, or beneath a fallen cliff, or even on the incarceration of animals for the purpose of experiment. Thus Captain Bligh, and seventeen persons, sailed four thousand miles in an open boat, with a small bird occasionally for the food of all. The Juno’s crew, wrecked off Aracan, existed twenty-three days without food; and the wreck of the Medusa is fresh in our memories. Here the bodyfeeds on its own fat, shrinkinguntil that supply is lost, and then it dies.

I might relate to you the very impressive stories of Anne Moore, of Tutbury; of Janet M’Cleod, told by Dr. Mackenzie; and many strange facts related by Dr. Willan, Sir William Hamilton, and others.

I might refer you to legends, of which I can scarcely press for your belief. As the strange but authenticated story of Anna Garbero, of Racconiggi, forty miles from Turin, who existed without nutrition for two years, becoming like a shrivelled mummy. And that of Eve Hergen, who existed thirteen years upon the odour of flowers! But even with that incredulous frown of Astrophel’s, and that faint smile of thine, fair Castaly, let me at once to my explanations.

Innaturalsleep the functions of the body are impeded. One of these is digestion. As there is little waste of the system there is little necessity for repletion, and life can be supported by avery slightaction of the heart, a minute current of blood; like the slender vitality of infants, who, even in a state of health, seem frequently scarcely to breathe. The circulation is materially influenced in sleep, the pulse being slower and more feeble than during waking; the relaxation of thecutaneousvessels inducing frequent perspiration, especially in debilitated systems, and in the last stages ofadynamicfevers.

The body of the cataleptic patient descends to the condition of less complex animal life, in which there appears a much greater simplicity of organization; and we well know, as we descend in the scale of creation, towards the cold-blooded single-hearted animals, and especially if we reach thezoophyte, in how exact a proportion to this simplicity of structure is the tenacity of life increased. “Fish,” says Sir John Franklin, “were taken out of the nets frozen, and became a solid mass of ice, being by a blow of a hatchet easily split open; they, however, recovered their vitality on being thawed.”

A course ofsystematicabstinence will enable us, if we wished it, to endure extreme privations, which a high feeder would soon sink under; and this is probably the discipline adopted by the fakirs of India, who fast so long under the influence of superstitious devotion.

Vaillant’s spider lived without food nearly one year; John Hunter’s toad fourteen months; land tortoises eighteen months; a beetle three years; and two serpents, according to Shaw, five years; an antelope has survived twenty days without food; some dogs forty days; an eagle 23 days.

Now all animals fall asleep at certain temperatures, which they cannot resist, but the common effect ofextremecold is death. Dr. Solander was yielding to the influence of intense cold inTerra del Fuego, but was saved by the firmness of Sir Joseph Banks. Richmond, the black, lay down on the snow to sleep, and died.

There is a close analogy between this state and thehybernationof animals, although the causes are not similar.Animalculæoften become torpid for lack of moisture, and, even after the lapse of twenty-seven years, have been revivified by water. The smallfurcularia anastobeawill repeatedly become animated and lively by a single drop of water, its previous condition being completely quiescent. The snail, the alligator, indeed most of theophidianandsaurianreptiles, assume the torpid state in a period of extreme drought; and Humboldt states this also of thecentenes solosus, a Madagascar hedgehog.

This hybernation of animals, as of the marmot and the dormouse, resembles the deep sleep arising from cold of acertaindegree; for if this beintense, they will sometimes be momentarily roused from it. They may be constantly kept awake by heat and powerful light.

Thus hybernation and thesleep of plantstake place from the withdrawal ofstimuli;heatbeing theanimal—lightthevegetablestimulus.

Cast.The sleep of plants? a fiction surely!

Ev.Nay, a truth. Theirritabilityof plants is excited by their peculiar stimulus; when this is withdrawn, they fall to sleep. Most of thediscousflowers turn to the sun in his course, as the sun-flower, thehelianthus, and thecroton. The acacia leaves at noon point towards the zenith. The tamarind, theoxalis, and the trefoil, fold their leaves on the exclusion of light. The evening primrose shuts its blossom at sunset, while that minion of the moon, the night-blowingcactus, then onlybegins to bloom; perhaps like the owl, and goat-sucker, and bat, who findthe sun too powerful an excitant.

Vegetables may be put asleep by the withdrawal of proper stimulus,—the exclusion of this light. But this is a law of nature, and ordained for a special purpose. It is chieflyduring fructification; the leaves at night folding round the flowers and seed-vessels, to protect them from the chilling blight of the night cold, which would congeal their juices. In this condition of the plant its irritability ceases, but the circulation of its sap-vessels is not suspended. Its vitality continues, but if the exercise of itspeculiar phenomenabe long discontinued, it will fade and die. Now thevis insitaof the muscle resembles vegetable irritability; and, as this is lost and sensibility suspended, the body is indeed in a condition of vegetable sleep; for vegetables have not of course sensation, although the Darwinian romance would endow thedionæa, thehedysarum, and themimosawith sensibility, and all the blossom-beauties of Flora with the fervour of sexual passion. Trance then is caused bythe removal of a stimulus. As somnambulism may result from aredundancyof nervous energy, trance and catalepsy, as well asincubus, seem to arise from aninefficientsecretion or supply of this quality, in whatever it may consist, or an impediment to its transmission from thesensoriumor brain to the expansion of a nerve. Thus the motive power of a muscle is in these diseasessuspended, which inparalysismay bepermanentlyimpaired or destroyed.

To describe this state, I must abound in negatives. The brain is not conscious: there is no sensation. Even the marrow by itsreflex facultydoes not excite a muscle: there is no action: the mind has no cognizance: the body is for a time paralyzed. What is there then which may be termed life? merely involuntary circulation and gentle breathing. In this condition also there is a congestion of dark blood about the brain and in the right side of the heart; the circulation being reduced to an extremelentoror sluggishness, while in realasphyxiathere is a total stagnation.

I have done with minute pathology: as there are however two diseases,epilepsyandinsanity, which may be theresultof catalepsy, I may offer a precept on the point. The propensity to trance cannot suddenly be averted, but the state of the body and mind are important studies for our treatment. Melancholy and apathy are the features of the mind of the cataleptic, and languor and faulty secretions the symptoms of the body. Cheerful society, sympathy with suffering, but firmness in resisting sloth and erroneous fancies, and the direction of the patient’s mind to moral recreations, comprehend the sum of ourmentaltreatment.

It is equally essential to ensure regulation of the secretions, especially those of the liver. We should employcuppingfrom the nape of the neck, if there be pain, or heat, or fulness of the head, and constant but gentle exercise. The head should not be low during sleep, nor should food be taken within two hours of retiring to rest. I believe obedience to these slight precepts will frequently mitigate, perhaps in the end avert the attacks, especially if they have arisen from diseased conditions of the body, or gloomy or depraved studies, and deep contemplation.

The most simple or unconnected form of catalepsy, is that most likely to end in madness. Perhaps, too, in deep and gloomy subjects, which begin by absorbing mind and sense, the end is thus; so that cataleptic abstraction is but the reverie or foretaste of mania.

As to suspected cases of still existing vitality: where there isplethora, I would employ bleeding, or cupping,insufflation,Galvanism; and I should not in extreme cases fearacupuncture of the heart, and galvanic shocks then transmitted through the needle. Beclard, in “La Pitié,” in Paris, allows the needle to remain three or four minutes and then withdraws it, and I have learned from my oriental friends, that the Chinese practice this mode extensively.

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