BLACK ART.WITCHCRAFT.
Next to sorcery we may recollect the case of witchcraft, which occurs oftener, particularly in modern times, than any other alleged mode of changing by supernatural means the future course of events. The sorcerer, was frequently a man of learning and intellectual abilities, sometimes of comparative opulence and respectable situation in society. But the witch or wizard was almost uniformly old, decrepid, and nearly or altogether in a state of penury. The functions, however, of the witch and the sorcerer were in a great degree the same. The earliest account of a witch, attended with any degree of detail,is that of the witch of Endor in the Bible, who among other things, professed the power of calling up the dead upon occasion from the peace of the sepulcher, it appears clear, that the witch of Ender was not a being such as those believed in by our ancestors, who could transform themselves and others into the appearance of the lower animals, raise and allay tempests, frequent the company and join the revels of evil spirits, and, by their counsel and assistance, destroy human lives, and waste the fruits of the earth, or perform feats of such magnitude as to alter the face of nature. The witch of Endor was a mere fortune-teller, to whom, in despair of all aid or answer from the Almighty, the unfortunate King of Israel had recourse in his despair, and by whom, in some way or other, he obtained the awful certainty of his own defeat and death. She was liable, indeed, deservedly, to the punishment of death, for intruding herself upon the task of the real prophets, by whom the will of God was, in that time, regularly made known. But her existence and her crimes can go no length to prove the possibility that another class of witches, not otherwise resembling her than as called by the same name, either existed at a more recent period, or were liable to the same capital punishment, for a very different and much more doubtful class of offences, which, however odious, are nevertheless to be proved possible before they can be received as a criminal charge.
Witches also claimed the faculty of raising storms, and in various ways disturbing the course of nature. They appear in most cases to have been brought into action by the impulse of private malice. They occasioned mortality of greater or less extent in man and beast. They blighted the opening prospect of a plentiful harvest. They covered the heavens with clouds, and sent abroad withering and malignant blasts. They undermined the health of those who were so unfortunate as to incur their animosity, and caused them to waste away gradually with incurable disease. They were notorious two or three centuries ago for the power of the “evil eye.” The vulgar, both great and small, dreaded their displeasure, and sought by small gifts, and fair speeches, but insincere, and the offspring of terror only, to avert the pernicous consequences of their malice. They were famed for fabricating small images of wax, to represent the objects of their persecution; and, as these by gradual and often studiously protracted degrees wasted before the fire, so the unfortunate butts of their resentment perished with a lingering, but inevitable death.
This faith in extraordinary events, and superstitious fear of what is supernatural, has diffused itself through every climate of the world, in a certain stage of human intellect, and while refinement had not yet got the better of barbarism. The Celts of antiquity had their Druids, a branch of whose special profession was the exercise of magic. The Chaldeans and Egyptians had their wise men, their magicians, and their sorcerers. The Negroes have their fore-tellers of events, their amulets, and their reporters and believers of miraculous occurrences. A similar race of men was found by Columbus and the other discoverers of the New World in America; and facts of a parallel nature are attested to us in the islands of the South Seas. And, as phenomena of this sort were universal in their nature, without distinction of climate, whether torrid or frozen, and independantly of the discordant manners and customs of different countries, so have they been very slow and recent in their disappearing. Queen Elizabeth sent to consult Dr. John Dee, the astrologer, respecting a lucky day for her coronation; King James the First employed much of his learned leasure upon questions of witchcraft and demonology, in which he fully believed; and Sir Matthew Hale in the year 1664 caused two old women to be hanged upon a charge of unlawful communion with infernal agents.
The power of these witches as we find in their earliest records originated in their intercourse with “familiar spirits,” invisible beings who must be supposed to be enlisted in the armies of the prince of darkness. We do not read in these ancient memorials of any league of mutual benefit entered into between the merely human party, and his or her supernatural assistant. But modern times have amply supplied this defect. The witch or sorcerer could not secure the assistance of the demon but by a sure and faithful compact, by which the human party obtained the industrious and vigilant service of his familiar for a certain term of years, only on condition that, when the term was expired, the demon of undoubted right was to obtain possession of the indentured party, and to convey him irremissibly and forever to the regions of the damned. The contract was drawn out in authentic form, signed by the sorcerer, and attested with his blood, and was then carried away by the demon, to be produced again at the appointed time.
“To deny the possibility, nay actual exsitence ofWitchcraft and Sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed Word of God, in various passages both of the Old and New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every Nation in the World hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits.”—Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” bookiv.chapter 4,p.61.
An anonymous seventeenth-century writer reasons as follows:—“To know things aright and perfectly is to know the causes thereof. A definition doth consist of those causes which give the whole essence, and contain the perfect nature of the thing defined; where that is therefore found out, there appears the very clear light. If it be perfect, it is much the greater; though if it be not fully perfect, yet it giveth some good light. For which respect, though I dare not say I can give a perfect definition in this matter, which is hard to do even in known things, because the essential form is hard to be found, yet I do give a definition which may at the least give notice and make known what manner of persons they be of whom I am to speak:—A witch is one that worketh by the the Devil, or by some devilish or curious art, either hurting or healing, revealing things secret, or foretelling things to come, which the Devil hath devised to entangle and snare men’s souls withal unto damnation. The Conjuror, the Enchanter, the Sorcerer, the Diviner, and whatsoever other sort there is, are indeed encompassed within this circle. The Devil doth (no doubt) after divers forms, deal in these. But no man is able to show an essential difference in each of them from the rest. I hold it no wisdom or labor well spent to travel much therein. One artificer had devised them all.”
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”—Exodusxxii.18. “Neither shall ye use enchantment.”—Levit. xix.26. “Regard not them which have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them.”—Ibid.ver.31. “When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”—Deut. xviii. 9-12. Of Manasseh is recorded, that “Hecaused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Himon: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards.”—2Chron. xxxiii. 6. Lastly, St. Paul mentions “witchcraft” amongst such “works of the flesh” as “adultery, fornication, heresies, drunkenness, and murders.”—Galat. v.19-21.
Many of the heathens cordially defended magic and necromancy. For example, Asclepiades, who lived in the time of Pompey the Great, cured diseases by magic, enjoining upon his patient, in the case of falling sickness, to bind upon his arm a Cross with a Nail driven into it. Julianus, the magician, is reported to have driven the plague out of Rome by magical power. Apuleius, a deciple of Plato, wrote at length on magic. To him may be added Marcellus and Alexander Trallian. Pliny asserts in very plain language that necromancy was so prevalent in his day, but was condemned by the wisest, that it was classed with treason and poisoning. And it is notorious that magic was long used as a convenient though inefficient weapon against Christianity.—Vide, likewise, Livyi.20, and Strabo,lib. vi.
It is impossible to point to any period when the belief in witchcraft and necromancy was perfectly obliterated, or to any nation which altogether repudiated it. If one particular phase was removed, or discountenanced, some other form, substantially and inherently similar, eventually took its place.
Touching the antiquity of Witchcraft, we must needs confess that it hath been of very ancient time, because the Scriptures do testify so much, for in the time of Moses it was very rife in Egypt. Neither was it then newly sprung up, being common, and grown into such ripeness among the nations, that the Lord, reckoning by divers kinds, saith that the Gentiles did commit such abominations, for which He would cast them out before the children of Israel.—“What a Witch is, and the Antiquities of Witchcraft,”A. D.1612.
The following passage, from a sermon by the late Canon Melville, is interesting: “It is unnecessary for us to inquire what those arts may have been in which the Ephesians are said to have greatly excelled. There seems no reason for doubting that, as we have already stated, they were of the nature of magic, sorcery, or witchcraft; though we cannot profess accurately to define what such terms might import. The Ephesians, as some in all ages have done, probably laid claim to the intercourse with invisible beings, and professed to derive from that intercourseacquaintance with, and power over, future events. And though the very name of witchcraft be now held in contempt, and the supposition of communion with evil spirits scouted as a fable of what are called the dark ages, we own that we have difficulty in believing that all which has passed by the names of magic and sorcery may be resolved into sleight of hand, deception, and trick. The visible world and the invisible are in very close contact: there is, indeed, a veil on our eyes, preventing our gazing on spiritual beings and things, but we doubt not that whatever passes upon the earth is open to the view of higher and immaterial creatures. And as we are sure that a man of piety and prayer enlists good angels on his side and engages them to perform towards him the ministrations of kindness, we know not why there cannot be such a thing as a man whose wickedness has caused his being abandoned by the Spirit of God, and who, in this his desertion, has thrown open to evil angels the chambers of his soul, and made himself so completely their instrument, that they may use him in the uttering or working strange things, which shall have all the air of prophecy or miracle.”
The oldest and most authentic record from which we can derive our ideas on the subject of witchcraft, unquestionably is the Bible. The Egyptians and Chaldeans were early distinguished for their supposed proficiency in magic, in the production of supernatural phenomena, and in penetrating into the secrets of future time. The first appearance of men thus extraordinarily gifted, or advancing pretensions of this sort, recorded in Scripture, is on occasion of Pharoah’s dream of the seven years of plenty, and seven years of famine. At that period the king “sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all the wise men; but they could not interpret the dream,” which Joseph afterwards expounded.
Their second appearance was upon a most memorable occasion, when Moses and Aaron, armed with miraculous powers, came to a subsequent king of Egypt, to demand from him that their countrymen might be permitted to depart to another tract of the world. They produced a miracle as the evidence of their divine mission: and the king, who was also named Pharoah, “called before him the wise men and the sorcerers of Egypt, who with their enchantments did in like manner” as Moses had done; till, after some experiments in which they were apparently successful, they at length were compelled to allow themselves overcome, and fairly to confess to their master, “This is the finger of God”!
The spirit of the Jewish history loudly affirms, that the Creator of heaven and earth had adopted this nation for his chosen people, and therefore demanded their exclusive homage, and that they should acknowledge no other God. It is on this principle that it is made one of his early commands to them, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” And elsewhere the meaning of this prohibition is more fully explained: “There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer; these shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones.”
As a matter of fact, it is computed that in the year 1515, no less than five hundred witches were burnt in Geneva alone, and the same was the case in other parts of Christendom,—a proof at once of the craft and power of Satan, and of the demorilization of those who had deliberately elected to become his servants and slaves. The earliest statute against witchcraft enacted in England, was passed in the reign of King HenryVI.; and additional laws of great stringency and severity, sorely needed, were enacted under the Tudors, by HenryVIII., Queen Elizabeth, and JamesI.In the year 1604, the great Act of Parliament against witchcraft, drawn up by Coke and Bacon, was passed; and it is asserted that no less than twelve bishops attended the committee of the House of Lords when the bill was under discussion. Sir Matthew Hale and Sir Thomas Browne, men of high legal and literary rank and mark, each gave evidence at the trials which speedily followed. In this particular, as in some others, England followed Geneva. Between the years 1565 and 1700, eleven wizards or sorcerers were burnt at the stake in the Carrefour du Bordage, in Guernsey, the square devoted by the city authorities of that island to this kind of punishment. The last case of death for Witchcraft there took place in 1747.
It may here be put on record that at the period of the Reformation, and during the succeeding century, the power of casting out devils was claimed exclusively by those who remained in visible communion with the See of Rome, and many Roman Catholic writers of those periods maintained that no such power belonged either to any teacher of heresy or to schismatics.
FROM AN OLD RECORD.
In the spring of 1645 several witches were seized at Manningtree in England and were subsequently condemned and hanged. One of these was an old woman named Elizabeth Clarke, and the most important witness against her was “Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree, gent.” It appears that Hopkins had watched with her several nights in a room in the house of a Mr. Edwards in which she was confined, to keep her from sleeping until she made a confession, and to see if she was visited by her familiars. He declared, among other things, that on the night of the 24th of March, which appears to have been the third night of watching, after he had refused to let her call one of her imps or familiars, she confessed that six or seven years before, she had surrendered herself to the devil, who came to her in the form of “a proper gentleman, with a laced band.” Soon after this a little dog appeared, fat and short in the legs, in color white, with sandy spots, which when he hindered it from approaching her, vanished from his sight. She confessed that it was one of her imps named Janiara. Immediately after this had disappeared, another came in the form of a greyhound, which she called Vinegar Tom; and it was followed by another in the form of a polecat. “And this informant further saith, that going from the house of the said Mr. Edwards to his own house, about nine or ten o’clock of the night with his greyhound with him, he saw the greyhound suddenly give a jump, and run as if she had been in full course after a hare; and that when the informant made haste to see what his greyhound so eagerly pursued, he espied a white thing about the size of a kitten, and the greyhound standing aloof from it; and that, by-and-by, the said white imp or kitten danced about the said greyhound and by all likelihood bit a piece of the flesh of her shoulder, for the greyhound came shrieking and crying to this informant with a piece of the flesh torn from her shoulder. And this informant further saith that coming into his own yard that night, he espied a black thing porportioned like a cat, only it was thrice as big, sitting on a strawberry bed, and fixing its eyes on this informant; and when he went toward it, it leaped over the pale toward this informant, as he thought, butran quite through the yard with his greyhound after it to a great gate which was underset with a pair of turnbull-strings, and did throw the said gate wide open, and then vanished; and the said greyhound returned again to this informant shaking and trembling exceedingly.” Hopkins had not ventured to remain alone with the witch, but had with him John Stern, who also added “gentleman” to his name, and who confirmed all that Hopkins had said, deposed to the coming of imps and added that the third imp was called Sack-and-Sugar. They watched at night with another woman, named Rebecca West, and saw her imps in the same manner. She stated that the first time she saw Satan he came to her at night, and told her he must be her husband, and married her. The severe treatment to which the accused were exposed, forced confessions from them all, and they avowed being guilty of every species of mischief, from the taking away of human life to the spoiling of milk. The names and forms of their imps were equally fantastic. Rebecca Jones, a witch from St. Osythe’s, said that she had met a man in a ragged suit with great eyes, that terrified her exceedingly, and that he gave her three things like moles but without tails, which she fed with milk. Another had an imp in the form of a white dog, which she called Elimanzer, and which she fed on milk pottage. One had three imps, which she called Prick-ear, Jack and Frog. Several witnesses, poor and ignorant people, were brought to testify to the mischief which had been done by these means. A countryman gravely related how, passing at day by the house of one of the women, named Anne West, he was surprised to find her door open at that early hour, and looking in he saw three or four things like black rabbits, one of which ran after him. He seized upon it, and tried to kill it, but it seemed in his hands like a piece of wool, and stretched out in length as he pulled it without any apparent injury. Then recollecting that there was a spring near at hand, he hurried thither and attempted to drown it, but it vanished from his sight as soon as he put it in the water. He then returned toward the house and seeing Anne West standing outside the door in her smock, he asked why she sent her imps to torment him. This seems to have been the first appearance of Matthew Hopkins as a witch-finder, for which he afterwards became notorious, and which he now assumed as a legal profession. He proceeded in a regular circuit through Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambrigeshire, and Huntingdon, accompanied by John Sterne and a woman whose business it was to examine the bodies of the females in search of their marks.In August 1645, we find them at Bury, in Suffolk, where, on the 27th of that month, no less than eighteen witches were executed at once, and a hundred and twenty more were to have been tried, but a sudden movement of the king’s troops in that direction obliged the judges to adjourn the session. Some of the imps here appeared in the shape of snakes, wasps and hornets, and even of snails. They were mostly employed in petty offences; one man and his wife were guilty only of having bewitched the beer in a brewhouse and making it stink. Others however, confessed to have caused mischief of a more serious character.
The most remarkable victim of this inquisition, was an aged clergyman named Lowes, who had been vicar of Brandeston, near Framlingham, in that county fifty years, a well known opponent of the new church government. This man, we are told by Sterne, one of the inquisitors, had been indicted for a common imbanatator, and for witchcraft above thirty years before, and the grand jury found the bill for a common imbanator, who now, after he was found with the marks, confessed that in pride of heart to be equal with, or rather above God, the devil took advantage of him, and he covenanted with the devil and sealed it with his blood, and had those familiars or spirits, which sucked on the marks found on his body, and did much harm both by sea and land, especially by sea, for he confessed he being at Lungarfort, in Suffolk, where he preached, as he walked upon the wall there, he saw a great sail of ships pass by, and that, as they were sailing by, one of the three imps, namely, his yellow one, forthwith appeared to him and asked him what he should do, and he bade it go and sink such a ship, one that belonged to Ipswich, so he confessed that the imp went forthwith away, and he stood still and viewed the ships, and perceived that the ship to be immediately in more trouble and danger than the rest; for he said the water was more boisterous near that than the rest, tumbling up and down with waves, and soon after it sunk directly down into the sea, when all the rest sailed on in safety; then he confessed, he made fourteen widows in one quarter of an hour. When asked if it did not grieve him to see so many men cast away in a short time, he swore by his Maker, “No; he was joyful to see what power his imps had.” He was hanged, in 1645, at Bury St. Edmund’s.
About sixty or seventy years ago, a man of piety and integrity arrived in Germany from Philadelphia, to visit his poor old parents, and, with his well-earned wealth, to place them beyond the reach of care. He went out to America while he was still young, and had succeeded so far as to become overlooker of various mills on the Delaware river, in which situation he had honorably laid up a considerable sum.
In the neighborhood of Philadelphia, not far from the mills above-mentioned, there dwelt a solitary man in a lonely house. He was very benevolent, but extremely retired and reserved, and strange things were related of him, among which was his being able to tell a person things that were unknown to every one else. Now it happened, that the captain of a vessel belonging to Philadelphia, was about to sail to Africa and Europe. He promised his wife that he would return in a certain time, and also that he would write to her frequently. She waited long, but no letters arrived: the time appointed passed over, but her beloved husband did not return. She was now deeply distressed and knew not where to look for counsel or consolation. At length, a friend advised her for once to go to the pious solitary and tell her griefs. The woman followed his advice, and went to him. After she had told him all her troubles, he desired her to wait a while there, until he returned and brought her an answer. She sat down to wait, and the man opening a door, went into his closet. But the woman thinking he stayed a long, long time, rose up, went to the window in the door, lifted up the little curtain, and looking in, saw him lying on the couch or sofa like a corpse; she then immediately went back to her place. At length he came and told her that her husband was in London, in a coffee-house which he named, and that he would return very soon: he then told her also the reason why he had been unable to write. The woman went home pretty much at ease.
What the solitary had told her was minutely fulfilled, her husband returned, and the reasons of his delay and his not writing were just the same as the man had stated. The woman was now curious to know what would be the result, if she visited the friendly solitary in company with her husband. The visit was arranged, but when the captain saw the man, he was struck with amazement; he afterwards told his wife that he had seen this very man, onsuch a day (it was the very day that the woman had been with him), in a coffee-house in London; and that he had told him that his wife was much distressed about him; that he had then stated the reason why his return was delayed, and of his not writing, and that he would shortly come back, on which he lost sight of the man among the company.
In the “Museum of Wonders,”vol. 2, chap. ii., page 152, there is a striking instance of a presentiment, related by Madame de Beaumont, in the eigth volume of the “Universal Magazine for Art and Nature.” She says, “My whole family still remembers an accident, from which my father was preserved by a presentiment of danger. Sailing upon the river is one of the common amusements of the city of Rouen, in France. My father also took great pleasure in these water-parties, and he seldom suffered many weeks to pass over without enjoying it. On one occasion he agreed with a party to sail to Port St. Omer, about ten miles from Rouen. Dinner and musical instruments had been sent on board the vessel, and every preparation made for a pleasant excursion. When it was time to go on board, an aunt of my father’s, who was deaf and dumb, uttered a kind of howl, placed herself at the door, blocked up the way with her arms, struck her arms together, and gave by signs to understand that she conjured him to remain at home. My father who had promised himself much pleasure from this excursion, only laughed at her entreaties: but the lady fell at his feet, and manifested such poignant signs of grief, that he at length determined to yield to her entreaties, and postpone his excursion to another day. He therefore endeavored to detain the rest also; but they laughed at him for being so easily persuaded, and set sail. Scarcely had the vessel proceeded half the distance, before those on board had the greatest reason to repent that they had not followed his advice. The vessel went to pieces, several lost their lives, and those that saved themselves by swimming were so much terrified at their narrow escape, that they with difficulty got the better of it.”
No mechanical explanation can apply to this remarkable presentiment. The warning angel found he could work on no one better than the person who was deaf and dumb, he therefore selected her for the execution of his commission.
In the same volume of the “Museum of Wonders,” page 153, there is an equally striking presentiment related, which the editor had from the lips of a credible person. This individual had a friend who had a responsible situation in the country. Being unmarried, he committed his domestic concerns to the care of a housekeeper, who had been with him many years. His birthday arrived, he made many preparations for celebrating it; and told his housekeeper early in the morning, that as the day was fine, she should clean out a certain arbor in the garden, which he named, because he intended to pass the day in it with his guests. Scarcely had she received this commission, than she seemed quite in a maze, and she delayed the fulfillment of it. At length she entreated him rather to receive his guests in one of the rooms of the house, for she had a presentiment that the arbor would that day be struck by lightning. He laughed at her assertion, as there was no appearance of a storm coming on that day, and on her renewing her entreaties, he was only the more urgent that the arbor he had pointed out should be made ready, that it might not appear that he gave way to her superstitious feelings. At length she went, and did as her master ordered her. The day continued fine, the company that had been invited arrived, they went into the arbor and made themselves merry. In the meantime, however, clouds had gathered in the distant horizon, and were at length powerfully driven toward the place by the wind. The company were so intent upon their entertainment, that they did not in the least observe it; but scarcely was the housekeeper aware that the storm was approaching, than she begged her master to leave the arbor with his company, for she could not divest herself at all of the idea of the lightning striking it. At first they would not listen to her, but she continued her entreaties unremittingly; and, at length, as the storm approached with great violence, they suffered themselves to be induced to leave the arbor. They had not been in the room more than a few minutes when the lightning struck the arbor, and dashed everything that had been left in it to pieces.
FROM A LETTER IN MORITZ’S EXPERIMENTALPSYCHOLOGY.
“You desire me to give you a written account of what I lately verbally related to you regarding the soul’sfaculty of prescience. As my experience rests solely upon dreams, I have certainly reason to apprehend that many will take me for a fantastic dreamer; but if I can contribute anything to the very useful object of your work, it is no matter—let people think what they will. Be that as it may, I vouch for the truth and veracity of what I shall now more particularly relate.
“In the year 1768, while learning the business of an apothecary in the royal medical establishment at Berlin, I played in the seventy-second drawing of the Prussian numerical lottery, which took place on the 30th of May of the same year, and fixed upon the numbers 22 and 60.
“In the night preceeding the day of drawing, I dreamed that toward twelve o’clock at noon, which is the time when the lottery is generally drawn, the master-apothecary sent down to me to tell me that I must come up to him. On going up stairs, he told me to go immediately to Mr. Mylius, the auctioneer, on the other side of the castle, and ask him if he had disposed of the books which had been left with him for sale; but that I must return speedily, because he waited for his answer.
“‘That’s just the thing,’ thought I, still dreaming; ‘the lottery will just be drawing, and as I have executed my commission, I will run quickly to the general lottery-office, and see if my numbers come out’ (the lottery was drawn at that time in the open street); ‘if I only walk quick, I shall be at home again soon enough.’
“I went therefore immediately, (still in my dream.) in compliance with the orders I had received, to Mr. Mylius, the auctioneer, executed my commission, and, after receiving his answer, ran hastily to the general lottery-office, on the ‘Hunters’ Bridge.’ Here I found the customary preparations, and a considerable number of spectators. They had already begun to put the numbers into the wheel—and the moment I came up, No. 60 was exhibited and called out. ‘Oh,’ thought I, ‘it is a good omen, that just one of my own numbers should be called out the moment I arrive.’
“As I had not much time, I now wished for nothing so much as that they would hasten as much as possible with telling in the remaining numbers. At length they were all counted in, and now I saw them bind the eyes of the boy belonging to the orphan-school, and the numbers afterward drawn in the customary manner.
“When the first number was exhibited and called out, it was No. 22. ‘A good omen again!’ thought I; ‘No. 60 will also certainly come out.’ The second number was drawn—and behold, it was No. 60!
“Now they may draw what they will, said I to some one who stood near me; ‘my numbers are out—I have no more time to spare.’ With that, I turned myself about and ran directly home.
“Here I awoke, and was as clearly conscious of my dream as I am now relating it. If its natural connection and the very particular perspicuity, had not been so striking, I should have regarded it as nothing else than a common dream, in the general sense of the term. But this made me pay attention to it, and excited my curiosity so much that I could scarcely wait till noon.
“At length it struck eleven, but still there was no appearance of my dream being fulfilled. It struck a quarter—it struck half-past eleven—and still there was no probability of it. I had already given up all hope, when one of the work-people unexpectedly came to me, and told me to go up stairs immediately to the master-apothecary. I went up full of expectation, and heard with the greatest astonishment that I must go directly to Mr. Mylius, the auctioneer, on the other side of the castle, and ask him if he had disposed of the books at auction which had been entrusted to him. He told me also, at the same time, to return quickly, because he waited for an answer.
“Who could have made more despatch than I? I went in haste to Mr. Mylius, the auctioneer, executed my commission, and, then after receiving his answer, ran as quickly as possible to the general lottery-office, on the ‘Hunters’ Bidge’; and, full of astonishment, I saw that No. 60 was exhibited and called out the moment I arrived. As my dream had been thus far so punctually fulfilled, I was now willing to wait the end of it, although I had so little time; I therefore wished for nothing so much as that they would hasten with counting in the remaining numbers. At length they finished. The eyes of the orphan-boy were bound, as customary, and it is easy to conceive the eagerness with which I awaited the final accomplishment of my dream.
“The first number was drawn and called out, and behold, it was No. 22! The second was drawn, and this was also as I had dreamed, No. 60!
“It now occurred to me that I had already stayed longer than my errand allowed; I therefore requested the person who was next to me in the crowd to let me pass. ‘What,’ said one of them to me, ‘will you not wait till the numbers are all out?’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘my numbers are already out, and they may now draw what they please, for ought I care.’ With that, I turned about, pushed through the crowd, and ran hastily and joyfully home.Thus was the whole of my dream fulfilled, not only in substance, but literally and verbatim.
“It will perhaps not be disagreeable to you, if I relate two other occurences of a similar nature:—
“On the 18th of August, 1776, I dreamed I was walking in the vicinity of the ‘Silesian Gate,’ and intended to go home thence, directly across the field, by the Ricksdorf or Dresden road.
“I found the field full of stubble, and it seemed as if the corn that had stood there had only been reaped and housed a short time before. This was really the case, although I had not previously seen it. On entering the Ricksdorf road, I perceived that some persons had collected before one of the first houses, and were looking up at it. I consequently supposed that something new had occurred in or before the house, and for this reason, on coming up, I asked the first person I met—‘What is the matter here?’ He answered with great indifference, ‘The lottery is drawn.’—‘So,’ said I, ‘is it drawn already? What numbers are out?’ ‘There they stand,’ replied he, and pointed with his finger to the door of a shop that was in the house, which I now perceived for the first time.
“I looked at the door, and found that the numbers were written up, on a black border round the door, as is frequently the case. In order to ascertain if there was really a shop, with a receiving house for the lottery, at the commencement of the Ricksdorf road, I did not think it too much trouble to go there, and found that this was really the case. To my great vexation, I found that only one of my numbers had come out. I looked over the numbers once more, in order not to forget them, and then went home disappointed.
“On awaking, I was hindered, by an accidental noise, from immediately recollecting my dream, but shortly afterward it again occurred to me; and, after a little reflection, I remembered it as clearly as I have now related it, but found it difficult to recollect all the five numbers.
“That No. 47 was the first, and No. 21 the second of the numbers, I remembered perfectly well; that the third which followed was a 6, I was also certain, only I was not confident whether the 0 which I had seen hereabouts belonged to the 6 or the following number 4, which I also remembered very distinctly to have seen; and I was not certain of this, it might have been just as well 6 and 4 alone as 60 and 40.
“I was the least confident as to the fifth number: that it was between 50 and 60 I was certain, but which I could not precisely determine. I had already laid money uponNo. 21, and this was the number which, according to my dream, should come out.
“As remarkable as my dream appeared to be in other respects, yet I was diffident of it, from being unable to remember all the five numbers. Although I was quite certain that among the sixteen numbers mentioned—that is, those between 50 and 60, and the six previously indicated—all the five which I had seen in my dream were contained; and although there was still time to secure the numbers, yet it did not suit me on account of the considerable sum it would require to stake upon all the sixteen numbers, I therefore contented myself with a fewAMBSandTERNES, and had, besides this, the disappointment of selecting a bad conjunction of numbers.
“The third day afterward (the 21st of August, 1776) the lottery was drawn. It was the two hundred and fifteenth drawing, and all the five numbers which I had seen in my dream came out exactly—namely, 60, 4, 21, 52, 42; and I now remembered that No. 52 was the fifth of those which I had seen in my dream, and which I could not previously recollect with certainty.
“Instead of some thousand dollars, I was now compelled to be contented with about twenty!
“The third, and, for the present, the last occurrence of this kind, which I shall relate, was as follows:—
“On the 21st of September, 1777, I dreamed that a good friend of mine visited me, and after the conversation had turned upon the lottery, he desired that he might draw some numbers out of my little wheel of fortune which I had at that time.
“He drew several numbers, with the intention of staking money upon them. When he had done drawing, I took all the numbers out of the wheel, laid them before me upon the table, and said to him, ‘The number which I now take up will certainly come out at the next drawing.’ I put my hand into the heap and drew out a number, unfolded it, and looked at it: it was very plainly 25. I was going to fold it up and put it again into the wheel, but that very moment I awoke.
“Having so clear a recollection of my dream, as I have now related it, I had much confidence in the number, and therefore staked so much upon it as to be satisfied with the winnings; but two hours before the lottery was drawn, I received my money back from the lottery-agent, with the news that my number was completely filled up. The lottery was drawn on the 24th of September, and the number really came out.
“Although I very willingly allow, and am well awarethat many and perhaps the generality of dreams arise from causes which are founded merely in the body, and therefore can have no further significance—yet I believe I have been convinced by repeated experience that there are not unfrequently dreams, in the origin and existence of which the body, as such, has no part; and to these, in my opinion, belong the three instances above mentioned.
“I do not think that the contents of these dreams ought to give occasion to any one to judge wrongfully; for otherwise, I could just as well have selected others: but I have placed them together precisely because of their similarity.
“Christ Knape,“Doc. of Philosophy, Medicine, and Surgery.”