Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Lord Byron was told by the commander of a packet, that being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs; and there being a faint light, he could see, as he thought distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the same service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Supposing it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes, and made an effort to sleep. Still the pressure continued; and still, as often as he ventured to take another look, he saw the figure lying crosswise, in the same position. To add to the wonder, on putting his hand forth to touch the figure, he found the uniform in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after, Captain Kidd received the startling intelligence, that on the above night, his brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appearance, Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt.-Moore's Life of Byron.

Grimaldi, the father of the celebrated "Joe," the clown, had a vague and profound dread of the 14th day of the month. At its approach, he was always nervous, disquieted, and anxious: directly it had passed, he was another man again, and invariably exclaimed, in his broken English, "Ah! now I am safe for another month." But it is remarkable that Grimaldi actually died on the 14th day of March, and that he was born, christened, and married, on the 14th of the month.

Mrs. Crowe relates that on board one of Her Majesty's ships lying off Portsmouth, the officers being one day at the mess-table, a young Lieutenant R. suddenly laid down his knife and fork, pushed away his plate, and turned extremely pale. He then rose from the table, covered his face with his hands, and retired. The president of the mess, supposing him to be ill, sent to inquire after him. At first, Mr. R. was unwilling to reply: but on being pressed, he confessed that he had been seized by a sudden and irresistible impression, that a brother he had in India was dead. "He died," said he, on the 12th of August, at six o'clock; I am perfectly certain of it." No argument could overthrow this conviction, which, in due course of post, was verified to the letter. The young man had died at Cawnpore, on the day above named.

[ocr errors]

Watching for the Dead on St. Mark's and Midsummer Eve was formerly customary in Yorkshire. On St. Mark's Eve, (April 24,) persons would sit and watch in the church porch, from 11 o'clock at night till 1 in the morning. In the third year, (for it must be done thrice,) the watchers were said to see the spectres of all those who were to die the next year pass by into the church.

The same custom on Midsummer Eve is thus noticed in the Connoisseur, No. 56: "I am sure my own sister Hetty, who died just before Christmas, stood in the church porch last Midsummer Eve, to see all that were to die in that year in our parish: and she saw her own apparition." In the Athenian Oracle, vol. ii. p. 515, we find: "On last Eve, nine others, besides myself,' went into a church porch with an expectation of seeing those who should die that year; but about eleven o'clock, I was so afraid that I left them; and all the nine did positively affirm to me, that about an hour after, the church-doors flying open, the minister, (who, it seems, was much troubled that night in his sleep,) with such as should die that year, did appear in order, which persons they named to me; and they appeared all then very healthful, but six of them died in six weeks after, in the very same order that they appeared." Mrs. Bray relates that at Tavistock, Devon, two brothers sat up one Midsummer Eve, in the church porch, from an idea that if, at twelve o'clock at night, they looked through the keyhole of the door, they would see all those who were to die that year walk into the church from the opposite doorway. They fancied they saw themselves in the funeral procession! Certain it is that they both died within a very short time from this watching.

What a dream of beauty and tenderness has Dr. Faber, with true poetic soul, figured in his wild dirge upon the banks of the Charwell, over his "blighted love, and his chosen's bier: "

The dew falls fast, and the night is dark;
The trees stand silent in the park.

The fatal lights have all died out;

And nought is heard but a lone owl's shout,
The mists keep gathering more and more,
But the stream is silent as before.

From bridge to bridge with tremulous fall
The river droppeth down,

And it washeth the base of a pleasant hall
On the skirts of Cambridge Town.
Why should I think of my boyhood's bride,
As I walked by this low-voiced river side?
And why should its heartless waters seem,
Like a horrid thought in a feverish dream?
But it will not speak, and it keeps its bed
The words that are sent us from the dead.
The river is green, and runneth slow,
We cannot tell what it saith;
It keepeth its secrets down below,—
And so doth death.

[blocks in formation]

LITERARY HISTORY OF MADMEN.

In the year 1860, M. Octave Delepierre published an ingenious and interesting work, the object of which is to prove that "madness enters in some measure into most of the great minds with which history makes us acquainted; and that it often becomes very difficult to establish the difference which predispositions to madness present, from certain conditions known as those of reason." The authority of M. Lélut is invoked to prove that Pythagoras, Numa, Mahomet, and others, whose influence has been of such vast amount in the world, were all in some measure affected in mind: "they were simply men of genius and enthusiasm, with partial hallucinations." The good dæmon which so often whispered counsel in the ears of Socrates, and the amulet discovered after death in Pascal's pocket, have convinced M. Lélut, who has ingeniously attempted to convince others, of the insanity of these great philosophers.

Strange is the supposition whicn regards as madmen so many of the great men who have left their stamp upon the history of the world. Numa was mad, inasmuch as he professed that a certain nymph appeared to him in a cavern, which he called Egeria.* Notwithstanding which, however, some may be of opinion that of the two hypotheses-the first, that Numa was mad and yet capable in his madness of thinking out much legislative wisdom, and of establishing many prudent institutions; the other, that Numa being of sound mind, was politician enough to perceive that superstition was the most powerful instrument by which to impress new doctrines upon a primitive people-the latter has about it a far greater appearance of probability. Even if Numa were mad, was not the nymph still a lie? And the wisdom which he somehow acquired not a lie? A madman's delusion, though it be true for him, is not true for the universe, and cannot therefore but die with its author. So Numa's wise laws have had their influence and are still working in the world, while the temporary accessories by which they were rendered acceptable to the barbarian mind have long since vanished.

Mahomet mad too! because, amongst other things, the angel Gabriel was said to have paid visits to him. When Pococke inquired of Grotius where the proof was of that story of the pigeon trained to pick peas from Mahomet's ear, and to pass for an angel dictating to him? Grotius answered that there was no proof! Now, the word this man spoke has been the life guidance of one hundred and eighty millions of men these twelve hundred years. These hundred and eighty millions were made by God as well as

* See Egeria, a poem, of graceful thought and nervous fancy, by Charles Mackay, LL.D.

[ocr errors]

we. A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour than in any other word whatever." * And we are asked to believe that it was the wisdom of madness!

Of Cromwel!'s grievous madness there will be little doubt in certain minds. Did not a spectre appear to him in the open day, or some strange woman open the curtains of his bed at night, and predict to him that he should be king of England? And a Huntingdon physician told Sir Philip Warwick that he had often been sent for at midnight; Mr. Cromwell was full of hypochondria, thought himself near dying, and had "fancies about the town cross. Moreover, he was subject to uncontrollable fits of laughter on serious occasions. "One that was at the battle of Dunbar told me that Oliver was carried on by a Divine impulse. He did laugh so excessively as if he had been drunk. The same fit of laughter seized him just before the battle of Naseby:"+

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Again, there was once a report raised by the devil, that Mr. Whitefield was mad," and he himself says, "he might very well be taken to be really mad, and that his relations counted his life madness." Here is an account from his journal, of what seems to have been a compound of indigestion and nightmare, wherein may be discernible by certain mortals something of a mad ring: "One morning rising from my bed, I felt an unusual impression and weight upon my chest. In a short time the load gradually increased, and almost weighed me down, and fully convinced me that Satan had as real possession of my body as once of Job's. . . . I fancied myself like a man locked up in iron armour; I felt great heavings in my body, prayed under the weight till the sweat came. How many nights did I lie groaning under the weight, bidding Satan depart from me in the name of Jesus."

But why continue a list, which by a "speciality" criticism might be made to include almost every great actor in this mad world-George Fox stitching for himself a leathern suit; Ignatius Loyola, "that errant, shatter-brained visionary fanatic," as Bishop Lavington calls him; St. Francis, founder of the Franciscans, who was wont to strip himself naked in proof of his innocence, and to appear in fantastical dresses; and many others in whom appears a mixture, more or less, of fanaticism and imposture.

Perhaps if there is one man to whom a reader of English history would point as having entertained wide and philosophical views instead of having faith in the expediency-doctrine of the moment -that man is Edmund Burke. "He possessed (says Coleridge) and had sedulously sharpened that eye which sees all things, actions, and events in relation to the laws which determine their existence, and circumscribe their possibility. He referred habitually to principles, he was a scientific statesman."

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

When the far-seeing sagacity of Burke, in foretelling the unhappy results of the French Revolution, first struck into the minds of his party, from which he had been separated, it was reported that he was in a state of mind bordering on insanity, especially after he had in the House of Commons, addressed to the chair, with much vehemence of manner, the words of St. Paul: "I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak the words of truth and soberness." Burke's niece ventured to name to him the above absurd rumour, when he very sensibly replied: "Some part of the world, my dear—I mean the Jacobins, or unwise part of it-think, or affect to think, that I am mad; but believe me, the world twenty years hence will, and with reason too, think from their conduct, that they must have been mad."

These rumours, however, gained strength, particularly after the death of Burke's son: he was said to wander about his grounds kissing his cows and horses; but his affection for domestic animals had been remarkable from his early manhood, and Reinagle painted him patting a favourite cow. This picture brought from London to Beaconsfield an old friend, to ascertain the truth or falsehood of the story-when Burke, without knowing the object of his visit, unsuspiciously showed him portions of the Letters on a Regicide Peace, which he was then writing. The circumstance of his being seen to throw his arms round the neck of his son's favourite horse, to weep and sob convulsively, as he kissed the animal, had, however, a greater share in substantiating the rumour, than had Reinagle's picture.

Lord Chatham, contemporary with Burke, was also alleged to have been insane. Horace Walpole fosters this scandal, and the fact of the Earl placing himself under Dr. Addington, originally a "mad doctor," "strengthened the rumour; but Addington had been the village doctor at Hayes, where Lord Chatham resided. His ill-managed expenditure, and his freaks of extravagance, backed the report, which, after all, was little better than an invention of Chatham's political enemies.

The hallucinations and madness of Tasso, of Benvenuto Cellini, of the painter Fuseli, of Cowper, of Swift, and of many others whose names press under the pen, exhibit a picture of the human mind which would almost make us agree with Aristotle, that it is the fame of a good poet to be mad.

That Swift not only expired "a driv'ler and a show," but lived a madman, is what the world generally believes; but Mr. W. R. Wilde, F.R.C.S.* having stated all that is really known of Swift's sufferings and disease, asserts that up to the year 1742, Swift showed no symptom whatever of mental disease, beyond the ordinary decay of nature. Towards the end of that year the cere

* The closing years of Dean Swift's Life. By W. R. Wilde, F.R.C.S. Second Edition, 1849.

« ForrigeFortsæt »