The fever and delirium were always suspended during the concert, and music was become so necessary to the patient, that at night he obliged a female relation who sometimes sat up with him, to sing and even to dance, and who, being much afflicted, was put to great difficulty to gratify him. One night, among others, he had none but his nurse to attend him, who could sing nothing better than some wretched country ballads. He was satisfied to put up with that, and he even found some benefit from it. At last ten days of music cured him entirely, without other assistance than of being let blood in the foot, which was the second bleeding that was prescribed for him, and was followed by a copious evacuation.

This account was communicated to the Academy by M. Dodart, who had it well authenticated.

The second instance of the extraordinary effect of music is related of a dancing-master of Alais, in the province of Languedoc. Being once over-fatigued in Carnival time by the exercise of his profession, he was seized with a violent fever, and on the fourth or fifth day, fell into a lethargy, which continued upon him for a considerable time. On recovering he was attacked with a furious and mute delirium, wherein he made continual efforts to jump out of bed, threatened, with a shaking head and angry countenance, those who attended him, and even all that were present; and he besides obstinately refused, though without speaking a word, all the remedies that were presented to him. One of the assistants bethought himself that music perhaps might compose a disordered imagination. He accordingly proposed it to his physician, who did not disapprove the thought, but feared with good reason the ridicule of the execution which might still have been infinitely greater, if the patient should happen to die under the operation of such a remedy.

A friend of the dancing master, who seemed to disregard the caution of the physician, and who could play on the violin, seeing that of the patient hanging up in the chamber, laid hold of it, and played directly for him the air most familiar to him. He was cried out against more than the patient who lay in bed, confined in a straight jacket; and some were ready to make him desist; when the patient, immediately sitting up as a man agreeably surprised, attempted to caper with his arms in unison with the music; and on his arms being held, he evinced, by the motion of his head, the pleasure he felt. Sensible, however, of the effects of the violin, he was suffered by degrees to yield to the movement he was desirous to perform,—when, strange as it may appear, his furious fits abated. In short, in the space of a quarter of an hour, the patient fell into a profound sleep, and a salutary crisis in the interim rescued him from all danger.

FOOTNOTES:

[116] Dr. Burney's History of Music.

[117] It has been asserted by several moderns, that deaf people can hear best in a great noise; perhaps to prove that Greek noise could do nothing which the modern cannot operate as effectually: and Dr. Willis in particular tells us of a lady who could hear only while a drum was beating, in so much that her husband, the account says, hired a drummer as her servant, in order to enjoy the pleasures of her conversation.

[118] Many of the ancients speak of music as a recipe for every kind of malady, and it is probable that the Latin was praecinere, to charm away pain, incantare to enchant, and our own word incantation, came from the medical use of song.

[119] M. Burette, with Dr. Mead, Baglivi, and all the learned of their time throughout Europe, seem to have entertained no doubt of this fact, which, however, philosophical and curious enquirers have since found to be built upon fraud and fallacy. Vide Serrao, della Tarantula o vero falangio di Puglia.

[120] Pope's translation of the Iliad, Book 1.

[121] See a curious Dissertation on the musical modes of the Hindoos by Sir W. Jones.



CHAPTER XV.

PRESAGES, PRODIGES, PRESENTIMENTS, ETC.

The common opinion of comets being the presages of evil is an old pagan superstition, introduced and entertained among Christians by their prejudice for antiquity; and which Mr. Bayle says is a remnant of pagan superstition, conveyed from father to son, ever since the first conversion from paganism; as well because it has taken deep root in the minds of men, as because Christians, generally speaking, are as far gone in the folly of finding presages in every thing, as infidels themselves. It may be easily conceived how the pagans might be brought stedfastly to believe that comets, eclipses, and thunderstorms, were the forerunners of calamities, when man's strong inclination for the marvellous is considered, and his insatiable curiosity for prying into future events, or what is to come to pass. This desire of peeping into futurity, as has already been shown, has given birth to a thousand different kinds of divination, all alike whimsical and impertinent, which in the hands of the more expert and cunning have been made most important and mysterious tools. When any one has been rogue enough to think of making a penny of the simplicity of his neighbours, and has had the ingenuity to invent something to amuse, the pretended faculty of foretelling things to come, has always been one of the readiest projects. From hence always the assumption of judiciary astrology. Those who first began to consult the motions of the heavens, had no other design in view, than the enriching their minds with so noble a knowledge; and as they had their genius bent on the pursuit of useful knowledge, they never dreamed of converting astrology or a knowledge of the stars to the purpose of picking the pockets of the credulous and ignorant, of whose blind side advantage was taken by these sideral sages to turn them to account by making them believe that the doctrine of the stars comprehended the knowledge of all things that were, or are, or ever shall be; so that every one, for his money, might come to them and have their fortune told.

The better to gull the world, the Star-gazers assert that the heavens are the book in which God has written the destiny of all things; and that it is only necessary to learn to read this book, which is simply the construction of the stars, to be able to know the whole history of what is to come to pass. Very learned men, Origen and Plotinus among the rest, were let into the secret, and grew so fond of it, that the former,[122] willing to support his opinion by something very solid, catches at the authority of an Apocryphal book, ascribed to the patriarch Joseph, where Jacob is introduced speaking to his twelve sons: "I have read in the register of heaven what shall happen to you and your children."[123] But comets were the staple commodity that turned principally to account. In compliance, however, with the impressions of fear which the strangeness and excessive length of these stars made upon mankind, the Astrologers did not hesitate to pronounce them of a malign tendency; and the more so when they found they had, by this means, made themselves in some degree necessary, in consequence of the impatient applications that were made to them as from the mouth of an oracle, what particular disaster such and such a comet portended.

Eclipses furnished more frequent occasions for the exercise of their talent. From this worthy precedent of Judicial Astrology, others took the hint and invented new modes of divination, such as Geomancy, Chiromancy, Onomancy, and the like; till the world by degrees became so overrun with superstition, that the least trifle was converted into a presage or presentiment; and the more so when this kind of knowledge became the business of religion; and when the substance of divine worship consisted in the ordinances of Augurs who, to make themselves necessary in the world, were obliged to keep up and quicken men's apprehensions of the wrath of God, took special care to cultivate comets, and bring it into a proverb, that "so many comets so many calamities." They knew, as Livy expresses it, that it was best to fish in troubled waters, where, speaking of a contagious distemper, which, from the country villages, spread over the city, occasioned by an extraordinary drought in the year of Rome 326, he observes how, at last, it infected the mind,[124] by the management of those who lived in the superstition of the people; so that nothing was to be seen or heard except some new fangled ceremony or other in every corner. "The devil," as Bayle says, "who had a hopeful game on't, and saw superstition the surest way to get himself worshipped under the name of the false gods, in a hundred various ways, all criminal and abominable in the sight of the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, never failed, on the appearance of any rare meteor, or uncommon star, to exert his imposing arts, and make idolaters believe, they were the signs of divine wrath, and that they were all undone unless they appeased their gods by sacrifices of men and brute beasts."

Politicians have also lent a helping hand to give presages a reputation, as an excellent scheme, either to intimidate the people, or to raise their drooping spirits. Had the Roman soldiers been free thinkers, Drusus, the son of Tiberius, had not been so fortunate as to quell a desperate mutiny among the legions of Pannonia, who utterly refused to obey his commands; but an eclipse, which critically intervened, broke their refractory spirits to such a degree, that Drusus, who managed their panic fear with great dexterity and address, did what he liked with them.

An eclipse of the moon put the army of Alexander the Great into such a consternation, some days before the battle of Arbela, that the soldiers, under the impression that heaven was against them, were very reluctant to advance; and their devotion turning to downright disobedience, Alexander commanded the Egyptian astrologers, who were the deepest versed in the mystery of the stars, to give their opinions of this eclipse in the presence of all the officers of his army. Without giving themselves much trouble to explain the physical cause which it was their interest to conceal from the people, the wise men declared that the sun was on the side of the Grecians, and the moon for the Persians; and that this planet was never in an eclipse, but it threatened them with some mighty disaster: of this they quoted several ancient examples among the kings of Persia, who, after an eclipse, had always found their gods unpropitious in the day of battle. "Nothing," says Quintus Curtius,[125] "is so effectual as superstition for keeping the vulgar under. Be they ever so unruly and inconstant, if once their minds are possessed with the vain visions of religion, they are all obedience to the soothsayer, whatever becomes of the general." The answer of the Egyptian astrologers being circulated among the soldiers, restored their confidence and their courage.

On another occasion Alexander, just before he passed the river Granicus, observing the circumstance of time, which was the month Desius, reckoned unfortunate to the Macedonians from all antiquity, it made the soldiers melancholy; he immediately ordered this dangerous month to be called by the name of that which preceded it, well knowing what power and influence vain religious scruples have over little and ignorant minds. He sent private orders to Aristander his chief soothsayer, just offering up a sacrifice for a happy passage, to write on the liver of the victim with a liquor prepared for that purpose, that the gods had "granted the victory to Alexander." The notice of this miracle filled the men with invincible ardour; and now they rent the air with acclamations, exclaiming that the day was their own, since the gods had vouchsafed them such plain demonstrations of their favour. The history, indeed, of this mighty conqueror, affords more such examples of artifice, though he always affected to conquer by mere dint of bravery. But what is still more extraordinary, this very hero, who palmed so often such tricks upon others, was himself caught in his turn, as being well as exceedingly superstitious by fits. We say nothing of Themistocles,[126] who, in the war between Xerxes and the Athenians, despairing to prevail upon his countrymen by force of reasoning to quit their city, and betake themselves to sea, set all the engines of religion to work; forged oracles, and procured the priests to circulate among the people, that Minerva had fled from Athens, and had taken the way which led to the port. Philip of Macedon, whose talent lay in conquering his enemies by good intelligence, purchased at any price, had as many oracles at command as he pleased; and hence Demosthenes justly suspecting too good an understanding between Philip and the Delphian priestess, rallied her with so much acrimony upon her partiality to that prince. It is equally obvious how the same reasons of state, which kept up the popular superstition for other prodigies, should take care to encourage it with regard to comets and other celestial appearances.

Panegyrists have also done their parts to promote the superstition of presages, as well as the flattering of poets and orators. When a hero is to be found and extolled, they exclaim, that all nature adores him; that she exerts her utmost powers to serve him; that she mourns at his misfortunes, promises him long before hand to the world; and when the world, by its sins, is unworthy to possess him longer, heaven, which calls him home, hangs out new lights, etc. With this hyperbole M. Balzac regaled Cardinal Richelieu, adding, that to form such a minister, universal nature was on the stretch; God gives him first by promise, and makes him the expectation of ages. For this he was attacked by the critics, but he defended himself; alleging, that other panegyrics had gone some notes higher: he, for example, among the ancients, who said of certain great souls that all the orders of heaven were called together to fancy a fine destiny for them, and that illustrious nation who wrote that the eternal mind was wrapt in deep contemplation, and big with the vast design, when it conceived such a genius as Cardinal Hippolito d'Este. Why could not this same writer have thought of one example more, such as that of the priest who told the Emperor Constantine that divine Providence, not content with qualifying him for the empire of the world, had formed virtues in his soul, which should entitle him to reign in heaven with his only son. Thus have flatterers seized the most surprising natural effects to enhance their hero's glory, and make their court to great men. The poets of the time of Augustus vied with each other in persuading the world that the murder of Julius Caesar was the cause of all the prodigies that followed. Horace, for instance, in one of his odes, attempts to prove that the overflowings of rivers were reckoned among bad presages; and pretends that the Tiber had not committed all those ravages, but in complaisance to his wife Ilia, who was bent on the death of his kinsman Caesar; and that all the other calamities which subsequently afflicted or threatened the Roman empire, were the consequences of his assassination. If Virgil may be credited,[127] the sun was so troubled at the death of Caesar that it went into deep mourning, and so obscured his beams, that the world was alarmed lest it never should appear again. In the mean time, no sooner was the comet observed, which followed this murder, than another set of flatterers pretended that it was Caesar's soul received into the order of the Gods; and they dedicated a temple[128] to the comet, and set up the image of Caesar with a star on his forehead.

It appears from the sermons of the ancient fathers, that the Christians of that time believed they gave great relief to the moon in an eclipse, by raising hideous shouts to the skies, which they imagined recovered her out of her fainting fit, and without which she must inevitably have expired. St. Ambrose, the author of the 215th sermon de tempore, bound up with those of St. Austin, and St. Eloy, Bishop of Noyon, declaim particularly against this abuse. It appears also from the Homilies of St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Austin, and others, that the Christians of their days drew several kinds of presages from persons sneezing at critical times; from meeting a cat, a dog, or an ill-looking (squinting) woman, a maiden, one blind of an eye, or a cripple; on being caught by the cloak on stepping out of a door, or from a sudden catch in one's joint or limb.

St. Eloy tells his people plainly, that whoever pays attention to what he meets at his first going out or coming in, or to any particular voice, or to the chirping of a bird, is so far a Pagan. Indeed, all these, and innumerable others of the same description of superstitious among Christians, are remnants of ancient paganism; as they have been denounced by the censures of popes, provincial councils, synodical decrees, and other grave authorities. And, though there were not such a cloud of witnesses, there would be no difficulty in proving the disease of pagan origin. For, independent of those who preached the gospel of our Saviour, having never promulgated such notions, we learn from several ancient authorities, that the Gentiles had all these superstitions in the highest regard. It was one general opinion among them, that the eclipses of the moon were the consequence of certain magic words by which sorcerers could wrench her from the skies, and drag her near enough the earth to cast a frothy spittle on their herbs—one of the principal ingredients in their incantations. To rescue the moon from the supposed torture she was in, and to frustrate the charm, it was necessary to prevent her from hearing the magic words, by drowning in noise and hideous outcries, for which purpose the people used to assemble during an eclipse of the moon with rough music, such as frying pans, brazen vessels, old tin kettles, etc. According to Pietro della Voile, the Persians keep up the same ridiculous ceremony to this day. It is likewise, according to Tavernier, observed in the kingdom of Tunquin, where they imagine the moon to be, at that time, struggling with a dragon. It is to the same source that we owe the imaginary raging heat of the dog-star—the pretended presages of several evils ascribed to eclipses, and all the allusions of astrology.

In a treatise written by Abogard, Bishop of Lyons, in 833, composed to undeceive a world of people, who were persuaded that there were enchanters who could command thunder, and hail, and tempest, to destroy the fruits of the earth; and that they drove a great trade by this mystery with the people of a certain country called Magonia, who came once a year, sailing in large fleets through the air, to freight with the blighted corn, for which they paid down ready money to the enchanters. So little was this matter doubted, that one day the bishop had enough to do to save three men and a woman from being stoned to death, the people insisting they had just fallen overboard from one of these aerial ships.

We do not here examine whether, in those days, the people literally were more superstitious and credulous than in the days of paganism. It is enough to say, that they were of very easy belief; and hence men began to write their histories in the style of romance, mixing up a thousand fables with the deeds of great men, such as Roland, nephew to Charlemagne; which so suited the taste of the age, that no book would afterwards go down in any other style—witness, for instance, the Manual of Devotions by James de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa, composed towards the latter end of the thirteenth century; and in which Melchior Canus, a learned Spanish bishop, is so scandalized in his eleventh book of Common Places. Another doctor of divinity,[129] speaking of the depraved state of the times, says, "It was the error, or rather folly, of some of the ancients, to think, that in writing the actions of illustrious men, the style must sink, unless they mixed up with it the ornaments, for so they called them, of poetical fiction, or something of this sort; and, consequently, thus blended truth with fable." This being the prevailing fashion of the times, we are inclined to believe, that in the histories of the crusades, many apocryphal subjects are introduced, which ought, consequently, to be read cum grano salis. This is decidedly the opinion of Pere Maimbourg,[130] who, after the relation of the battle of Iconium, won by Frederick of Barbarossa, 1190, says, "What was chiefly wonderful after this battle, was the conqueror's sustaining little or no loss, which most people ascribed to the particular protection of St. Victor and St. George, names oftenest invoked in the Christian army, which many of them said they saw engaging at the head of the squadrons. Whether in reality there might be something in it extraordinary, which has often happened, as the Scriptures inform us; or whether, by often hearing of celestial squadrons appearing at the battle of Antioch in the first crusade, warm imaginations possessed with the belief, and penetrated with these ideas, formed new apparitions of their own, but sure it is, that one Louie Helfenstein, a gentleman of reputation, and far from a visionary, affirmed to the emperor, on his oath, and on the vow of a pilgrim devoted to the holy sepulchre and the crusade, that he often saw St. George charge at the head of the squadrons, and put the enemy to flight; which was afterwards confirmed by the Turks themselves, owning that they saw some troops in white charge in the first ranks in the Christian army, though there were really none of that livery. No one, I know, is bound (continues P. Maimbourg) to believe visions of this kind, subject for the most part to notorious illusion: but I know too, that an historian is not of his own authority, to reject them, especially when supported by such remarkable testimony.

"And though he be at liberty to believe or not, yet he has no regret, by suppressing them, to deprive the reader of his liberty, when he meets with passages of this kind, of judging as he thinks fit." This reflection (says Bayle) from so celebrated an historian, not suspected of favouring the Hugonot incredulity, is a strong presumption on my side.

The abuse of presentiments has been carried to the very Scriptures. We are told, that the manner of Tamerlane giving his blessing to his two sons, by bowing down the head of the elder, and chucking the youngest under the chin, was a presage of the elevation of the latter in prejudice to the former, was grounded on the 48th chapter of Genesis, where Jacob is represented laying his right hand on the head of the younger, forseeing by inspiration that he would be the greater of the two. Meanwhile there is a difference between the two benedictions. The Tartar, wholly destitute of the knowledge of future events, did not diversify the motion of his hands, on purpose to establish a presage; and God never vouchsafing this knowledge to infidels, did not guide his hands in a particular manner to form a presage of what should befal his children;—whereas Jacob, on the contrary, filled with the spirit of prophecy, whereby he saw the fortunes of his children, directed his words and actions according to this knowledge; by which means both became presages.

Presages, presentiments, and prodigies, might be multiplied ad infinitum. Whoever reads the Roman historians will be surprised at their number, and which frequently filled the people with the most dreadful apprehensions. It must be confessed, that some of these seem altogether supernatural; while much the greater part only consist of some of the uncommon productions of nature, which superstition always attributed to a superior cause, and represented as the prognostications of some impending misfortunes. Of this class may be reckoned the appearance of two suns;[131] the nights illuminated by rays of light; the views of fighting armies; swords and spears darting through the air; showers of milk, of blood, of stones, of ashes, or of fire; and the birth of monsters, of children, or of beasts who had two heads; or of infants who had some feature resembling those of the brute creation. These were all dreadful prodigies which filled the people with inexpressible astonishment, and the whole Roman empire with an extreme perplexity; and whatever unhappy event followed, repentance was sure to be either caused or predicted by them.

FOOTNOTES:

[122] Euseb. Praep. Evang. l. 6. c. 9.

[123] Legi in tabulis coeli quaecunque contingent vobis et Feliis vestris.

[124] Nec corpora modo affecta tabo, sed animos quoque multiplex religio, et pleraque externa invasit, novos ritus sacrificando vaticinandoque, inferentibus in domos, quibus quaestui sunt capti superstitione animi. L. 4, dec. 1.

[125] Tacit, Annal. lib. 1, et ib. 4, cap. 10.

[126] Plutarch in his life.

[127] Georg. l. 1.

[128] Suetonius in vita Caesaris.

[129] Petseus, in Galfredo Monimetensi.

[130] Hist. Crusade, l. 5.

[131] Nothing is more easy than to account for these productions, which have no relation to any events, no more than comets, that may happen to follow them. The appearance of two suns has frequently happened in England, as well as in other places, and is only caused by the clouds being placed in such a situation as to reflect the image of that luminary; nocturnal fires, inflamed spears, fighting armies, were no more than what we call aurora borealis, northern lights, or inflamed vapours floating in the air; showers of stones, of ashes, or of fire, were no other than the effects of the eruptions of some volcano at a considerable distance. Showers of milk were only caused by some quality in the air condensing and giving a whitish colour to the water, etc.



CHAPTER XVI.

PHENOMENA OF METEORS, OPTIC DELUSIONS, SPECTRA, ETC.

The meteors known to the ancients were called [Greek: Lampdes Pithoi] Bolides, Faces, Globi, etc. from particular differences in their shape and appearance, and sometimes under the general term of comets. In the Philosophical Transactions, they are called, indiscriminately, fire-balls, or fiery meteors; and names of similar import have been applied to them in the different languages of Europe. The most material circumstances observed of such meteors may be brought under the following heads: 1. Their general appearance. 2. Their path. 3. Their shape or figure. 4. Their light and colour. 5. Their height. 6. The noise with which they are accompanied. 7. Their fire. 8. Duration, 9. Their velocity. Under these different heads meteors have been investigated by the scrutinizing of philosophy, and many superstitious notions, long entertained concerning them, entirely exploded. Meteoric phenomena, it has been demonstrated, all proceed from one common cause—irregularity in the density of the atmosphere. When the atmospheric fluid is homogenous and of equal density, the rays of light pass without obstruction or alteration in their shape or direction; but when they enter from a rarer into a denser medium, they are refracted or bent out of their course; and this with greater or less effect according to the different degrees of density in the media, or the deviation of the ray from the perpendicular. If the second medium be very dense in proportion, the ray will be both refracted and reflected; and the object from which it proceeds, will assume a variety of grotesque and extraordinary shapes, and it will sometimes appear as in a reflection from a concave mirror, dilated in size, and changed in situation.

The following striking effects are known to proceed from this simple cause.

The first is the mirage, seen in the desert of Africa. M. Monge, a member of the National Institute, accompanied the French army into Egypt. In the desert, between Alexandria and Cairo, the mirage of the blue sky was inverted, and so mingled with the sand below, as to impart to the desolate and arid wilderness an appearance of the most rich and beautiful country. They saw, in all directions, green islands, surrounded with extensive lakes of pure and transparent water. Nothing could be conceived more lovely and picturesque than this landscape. On the tranquil surface of the lakes, the trees and houses, with which the islands were covered, were strongly reflected with vivid hues, and the party hastened forward to enjoy the cool refreshments of shade and stream, which these populous villages preferred to them. When they arrived, the lake, on whose bosom they floated, the trees, among whose foliage they were embowered, and the people who stood on the shore inviting their approach, had all vanished, and nothing remained but an uniform and irksome desert of sand and sky, with a few naked huts and ragged shrubs. Had they not been undeceived by their nearer approach, there was not a man in the French army who would not have sworn, that the visionary trees and lakes had a real existence in the midst of the desert.

The same appearance precisely was observed by Dr. Clarke at Raschid, or Rosetta. The city seemed surrounded by a beautiful sheet of water, and so certain was his Greek interpreter, who was acquainted with the country, of this fact, that he was quite indignant at an Arab, who attempted to explain to him, that it was a mere optical delusion. At length, they reached Rosetta in about two hours, without meeting any water; and, on looking back on the sand they had just crossed, it seemed to them, as if they had just waded through a vast blue lake.

A similar deception takes place in northern climates. Cities, battlements, houses, and all the accompaniments of populous places, are seen in desolate regions, where life goes out, and where human foot has never trod. When approached they vanish, and nothing remains but a rugged rock, or a misshapen iceberg.

Captain Scoresby, in his voyage to the arctic regions, on the coast of East Greenland, constantly saw those visionary cities, and gives some highly curious plates of the appearances they presented. They resembled the real cities seen on the coast of Holland, where towers, and battlements, and spires, "bosomed high in tufted trees," rise on the level horizon, and are seen floating on the surface of the sea. Among the optic deceptions noticed by Captain Scoresby, was one of a very singular nature. His ship had been separated by the ice, from that of his father for some time; and he was looking for her every day, with great anxiety. At length, one evening, to his utter astonishment, he saw her suspended in the air in an inverted position, traced on the horizon in the clearest colours, and with the most distinct and perfect representation. He sailed in the direction in which he saw this visionary phenomenon, and actually found his father's vessel by its indication. He was divided from him by immense masses of icebergs, and at such a distance that it was quite impossible to have seen the ship in her actual situation, or seen her at all, if her spectrum, or image, had not been thus raised several degrees above the horizon into the sky, by this most extraordinary refraction, in the same manner as the sun is often seen, after he is known to have set, and actually sunk far below the line of direct vision.

The Fata Morgana are further illustrations of this optic delusion. This phenomenon is seen at the Pharo of Messina, in Sicily, under certain circumstances. The spectator must stand with his back to the east, on an elevated place behind the city, commanding a view of the bay, and having the mountains, like a wall, opposite to him, to darken the back ground of the picture; no wind must be abroad to ruffle the surface of the sea; and the waters must be pressed up by currents, as they sometimes are, to a considerable height in the middle of the strait, and present a slight convex surface. When all these circumstances occur, as soon as the sun rises over the heights of the Calabrian shore, and makes an angle of 45 degrees with the horizon, all the objects on the shore at Reggio are transferred to the middle of the strait, and seen distinctly on the surface of the water, forming an immoveable landscape of rocks, trees, and houses, and a moveable one of men, horses, and cattle; these are formed into a thousand separate compartments, presenting most beautiful and ever varying pictures of animate and inanimate nature, on the swelling surface of the water, broken by the currents, present separate plates of convex mirrors to reflect them; they then as suddenly disappear, as the broad aquatic mirror of the current passes on.

Sometimes the atmosphere is so dense that the objects are seen, like Captain Scoresby's ship, snatched up into the regions of the air, thirty or forty feet above the level of the sea; and in cloudy weather, nearer to the surface, bordered with vivid prismatic colours. Sometimes colonades of temples and churches, with cross-crowned spires, are all represented as floating on the sea, and by a sudden change of representation, the pillars are curved into arcades, and the crosses are bent into crescents, and all the edifices of the floating city undergo the most extraordinary and fantastic mutations. All these images are so distinct, and produce objects seemingly as palpable as they are visible, as sensible to touch as to sight, that the people of the country are firmly persuaded of their reality. They consider the edifices as the enchanted palaces of the fairy Morgana, and the moving objects as living things which inhabit them. Whenever the optic phenomenon occurs, they meet together in crowds, with an intense curiosity, mixed with awe and apprehension, which is not removed by an acquaintance with those natural causes, by which Mr. Swinburn and other foreign travellers, who have witnessed the scene, are able to account for it.

The lakes of Ireland are equally susceptible of producing those vivid delusions, and the imagination of the people, as lively as that of the Sicilians, clothes them with an equal reality. There is scarcely a loch in that country, in which the remains of cities have not been at various times discovered; and many men have been met with who would solemnly swear they saw, and who no doubt did see, representations of them in certain states of the atmosphere. The most celebrated is that which occurs on the lake of Killarney. This romantic sheet of water is bounded on one side by a semi-circle of rugged mountains, and on the other by a flat morass, and the vapour generated in the mass, and broken by the mountains, continually represent the most fantastic objects; and often those on shore are transferred to the water, like the Fata Morgana.

Many of the rocks are distinguished for their marked and lengthened echoes, and the structure, which in acoustics reflects sounds to the ear, from a point from whence they did not come, reflects images on the eye, from a place very different from where the objects stood which produced them. Frequently men riding along shore, are seen as if they were moving across the lake, and this has given rise to the story of O'Donougho. This celebrated chieftain was, according to the tradition of the country, endued with the gift of magic; and, on one occasion, his lady requested him to change his shape, that she might see a proof of it. He complied, on condition that she would not be terrified, as such an effect on her must prove fatal to him. Her mind failed her, however, in the experiment, and at the sight of some horrible figure he assumed, she shrieked, and he disappeared through the window of his castle, which overhung the lake. From that time he continues an enchanted being, condemned to ride a horse, shod with silver, over the surface of the lake, till his horse's shoes are worn out. On every May morning he is visible, and crowds assemble on the shore to see him. Many affirm they have seen him; and one person relates many particulars of his apparition, that the deception must have proceeded from some real object, a man riding along shore, and transferred to the middle of the water, by the optic delusion of the Fata Morgana.

But perhaps the most wonderful, and apparently preternatural effect arising from this cause, is the spectre of the Hartz Mountains in Hanover. There is one particular hill, called the Brocken, in which he appears, terrifying the credulous, and gratifying the curious to a very high degree. The most distinct and interesting account is given by Mr. Hawe, who himself was a witness to it. He had climbed to the top of the mountain thirty times, and had been disappointed, but he persevered, and was at length highly gratified. The sun rose about four o'clock in a serene sky, free from clouds, and its rays passed without obstruction, over another mountain, called the Heinschoe. About a quarter past five he looked round to see if the sky was clear, and if there was any chance of his witnessing what he so ardently wished, when suddenly he saw the Achtermanshoe, a human figure of monstrous size turned towards him, and glaring at him. While gazing on this gigantic spectre with wonder mixed with an irrepressible feeling of awe and apprehension, a sudden gust of wind nearly carried off his own hat, and he clapped his hand to his head to detain it, when to his great delight the colossal spectre did the same. He then changed his body into a variety of attitudes, all which the figure exactly imitated, but at length suddenly vanished without any apparent cause, and again as suddenly appeared. He called the landlord of the inn, who had accompanied him, to stand beside him, and in a little time two correspondent figures, of dilated size, appeared on the opposite mountain. They saluted them in various ways by different movements of their bodies, all which the giants returned with perfect politeness, and then vanished. A traveller now joined Mr. Hawe and the innkeeper, and they kept steadily looking for their aerial friends, when they suddenly appeared again three in number, who all performed exactly the same movements as their correspondent spectators. Having continued thus for some time, appearing and disappearing alternately, sometimes faintly, and sometimes more distinct, they at length faded away not again to return. They proved, however, that the preternatural spectre, which had so long filled the country with awe and terror, was no unreal being, still less an existence whose appearance suspended the ordinary laws of God and Nature; that, on the contrary, it was the simple production of a common cause, exhibited in an unusual manner, but as regular an effect, and as easy to be accounted for, as the reflection of a face in a looking glass.

This constitution of the atmosphere, and its capability of dilating objects, and altering their position by reflection and refraction, will easily account for many phenomena which have been considered miraculous and preternatural in early ages, by the ignorant; and in our own, by the weak and superstitious. Such was probably the origin of the crosses seen by Constantine and Constantius in the first ages of Christianity, and such was that of the cross which appeared in the sky in France, to which so many bore attestation. A large cross of wood, painted red, had been erected beside the church, as a part of the ceremony they were performing. In the winter, when the air is most frequently condensed by cold, and its different strata of various degrees of tenacity, on a clear evening after rain, when particles of humidity, still floating in the air gives it greater power of reflection and refraction, when the sun was setting, and his horizontal beams found most favourable to produce meteoric phenomena, the spectrum of this wooden cross was cast on the concave surface of some atmospheric mirror, and so reflected back to the eyes of the spectators from an opposite place, retaining exactly the same shape and proportions, but dilated in size, and changed in position; and it was moreover tinged with red, the very colour of the object of which it was the reflected image. This delusive appearance continued till the sun was so far sunk below the horizon, as to afford no more light to illumine the object, and the image ceased when the rays were no longer distinctly reflected.



CHAPTER XVII.

ELUCIDATION OF SOME ANCIENT PRODIGIES.

Many of the prodigies recorded by the ancients, admit of a natural explanation; and an attentive examination will show that a small number of causes, which may be discerned and developed, will serve for the explanation of nearly the whole of them. There are two reasons for our believing accounts of prodigies:—

1. The number and agreement of these accounts, and the confidence to which the observers and witnesses are entitled.

2. The possibility of dissipating what is wonderful, by ascertaining any one of the principal causes which might have given to a natural fact a tinge of the marvellous.

Now, as regards the first reason, the ancients have recorded various occurrences: for instance, a shower of quicksilver at Rome is mentioned by Dion Cassius, in the year 197 of our era, and a similar event is related under the reign of Aurelian. If we attend to phenomena taking place in our time, such as a shower of blood, tremendous hail stones weighing a pound each, and containing a stone within them; showers of frogs, and other almost unaccountable occurrences, we must consign them to, "the annals in which science has inserted the facts, she has recognized as such, without as yet pretending to explain them."

Respecting the second reason, the deceptive appearance which nature sometimes assumes, the exaggeration, almost unavoidable, by partially informed observers, of the details of a phenomenon, or its duration; improper, ill-understood, or badly translated expressions, figurative language, and a practical style; erroneous explanations of emblematical representations; apologues and allegories adopted as real facts. Such are the causes, which, singly or together, have frequently swollen with prodigious fictions the page of history; and it is by carefully removing this envelope, that elucidations must be sought of what has hitherto been improperly and disdainfully rejected. A few examples will illustrate these several positions.

The river Adonis being impregnated, during certain seasons, with volumes of dust raised from the red soil of that part of Mount Libanus near which it flows, gave rise to the fable of the periodical effusion of the blood of Adonis. There is a rock near the Island of Corfu, which bears the resemblance of a ship under sail: the ancients adapted the story to the phenomenon, and recognised in it the Phenician ship, in which Ulysses returned to his country, converted into stone by Neptune, for having carried away the slayer of his son Polyphemus. A more extensive acquaintance with the ocean, has shown that this appearance is not unique; a similar one on the coast of Patagonia, has more than once deceived both French and English navigators; and rock Dunder, in the West Indies, bears a resemblance, at a distance equally illusive. There is another recorded by Captain Hardy, in his recent travels in Mexico, near the shore of California; and the "story of the flying Dutchman," is founded on a similar appearance at the Cape of Good Hope, connected with a tradition which has been long current there among the Dutch colonists. Another instance is afforded by the chimaera, the solution of which enigma, as given by Ovid, is so fully substantiated by the very intelligent British officer who surveyed the Caramania a few years since. Scylla the sea monster, which devoured six of the rowers of Ulysses, M. Salverte, a recent compiler on the marvellous, is tempted to regard as an overgrown polypus magnified by the optical power of poetry, though we are disposed to give the credit to an alligator, or its mate, a crocodile; and this occurrence is not so fictitiously represented, as it is supposed to be.

MAGICAL PRETENSIONS OF CERTAIN HERBS, ETC.

In the enumeration of plants possessing magical properties, Pliny mentions those which, according to Pythagoras, have the property of concealing water. Elsewhere, without having resource to magic, he assigns to hemp an analogous quality. According to him, the juice of this plant poured into water becomes suddenly inspissated and congealed. It is probable enough, that he indicated a species of mallow, the hemp-leaved marsh-mallow, of which the mucilaginous juice produces this effect to a certain point, and an effect which may also be obtained from every vegetable as rich in mucilage.

Of vegetable productions, many produce intoxicating effects, such as berries of the night-shade,[132] scammony, and various species of fungi. These unquestionably have been made subservient to demonological purposes, which, with the ignorant, have passed off for supernatural agency. The priests, to whom the little comparative learning of the dark ages attached, knew well how to impose upon the credulous: but imposition was not always their object; an extent of benevolence prevailed which contemplated the relief of their fellow creatures afflicted with sickness.

It was maintained by the Egyptians that, besides the gods, there were many demons which communicated with mortals, and which were often rendered visible by certain ceremonies and songs; that genii exercised an habitual and powerful influence over every particle of matter; that thirty-six of these beings presided over the various members of the human body; and thus, by magical incantations, it might be strengthened, or debilitated, afflicted with, or delivered from disease. Thus, in every case of sickness, the spirit presiding over the afflicted part, was first duly invoked. But the magicians did not trust solely to their vain invocations; they were well acquainted with the virtues of certain herbs, which they wisely employed in their attempts at healing. These herbs were greatly esteemed: such, for instance, as the cynocephalia, or, as the Egyptians themselves termed the asyrites,[133] which was used as a preventive against witchcraft; and the nepenthes which Helen presented in a potion to Menelaus, and which was believed to be powerful in banishing sadness, and in restoring the mind to its accustomed, or even to greater, cheerfulness, were of Egyptian growth. But whatever may be the virtues of such herbs, they were used rather for their magical, than for their medicinal qualities; every cure was cunningly ascribed to the presiding demons, with which not a few boasted that they were, by means of their art, intimately connected.

There can be no question, as attested by the earliest records, that the ancients were in possession of many potent remedies. Melampus of Argos, the most ancient Greek physician with whom we are acquainted, is reputed to have cured one of the Argonauts of barrenness, by exhibiting the rust of iron dissolved in wine, for the space of ten days. The same physician used hellebore as a purgative on the daughters of King Proteus, who were labouring under hypochondriasis or melancholy. Bleeding was also a remedy of very early origin, and said to have been first suggested by the hypopotamus or sea horse, which at a certain time of the year was observed to cast itself on the sea shore, and to wound itself among the rocks or stones, to relieve its plethora. Podalerius, on his return from the Trojan war, cured the daughter of Damaethus, who had fallen from a height, by bleeding her in both arms. Opium, the concrete juice of the poppy, was known in the earliest ages; and probably it was opium that Helen mixed with wine, and gave to the guests of Menelaus, under the expressive name of Nepenthe, to drown their cares, and encrease their hilarity. This conjecture, in a considerable degree, is supported from the fact, that Homer's Nepenthe was procured from the Egyptian Thebes, whence the tincture of opium, according to the nomenclature of the pharmacopeia about fifty years ago, and still known by this name in the older writers; and, if Dr. Darwin may be credited, the Cumaean Sybil never sat on the portending tripod without first swallowing a few drops of juice of the cherry-laurel.

There is every reason to believe that the Pagan priesthood were under the influence of some narcotic preparation during the display of their oracular power, but the effects produced would seem rather to resemble those of opium, or perhaps of stramonium, than of prussic acid, which the cherry-laurel water is known to contain.

The priests of the American Indians, says Monardur, whenever they were consulted by the chief gentlemen, or caciques, as they are called, took certain leaves of the tobacco, and cast them into the fire, and then received the smoke thus produced by them into their mouths, which caused them to fall upon the ground. After having remained in this position for some time in a state of stupor, they recovered, and delivered the answers, which they pretended to have received during the supposed intercourse with the world of spirits.

The narcotic, or sedative influence of the garden radish, was known in the earliest times. In the fables of antiquity we read, that, after the death of Adonis, Venus, to console herself, and repress her desires, lay down upon a bed of lettuces. The sea onion, or squill, was administered by the Egyptians, in cases of dropsy, under the mystic title of the eye of Typhon. The practices of incision and scarification, were employed in the Greek camp at the siege of Troy; and the application of spirits to wounds, was likewise understood; for we find Nestor applying a poultice compounded of cheese, onion, and meal, mixed up with the wine of Pramnos, to the wounds of Machaon.

To bring some inactive substance into repute, as promising some extraordinary, nay, wonderful medicinal properties, requires only the sanction of a few great names; and when once established on such a basis, ingenuity, argument, and even experiment, may open their otherwise powerful batteries in vain. In this manner all the quack medicines, ever held in any estimation, got into repute. And the same vulgar prejudice, which induces people to retain an accustomed remedy upon bare assertion and presumption, either of ignorance or partiality, will, in like manner, oppose the introduction of any innovation in practice with asperity, and not unfrequently with a quantum sufficit of scrutiny and abuse, unless, indeed, it be supported by authorities of still greater weight and consideration.

The history of many articles of diet, as well as medicine, amply prove how much their reputation and fate have depended upon some authority or other. Ipecacuanha had been imported into England for many years, before Helvetius, under the patronage of Louis XIV, succeeded in introducing it into practice in France; and, to the Queen of Charles II., we are indebted for the introduction of that popular beverage, tea, into England. Tobacco has suffered as many variable vicissitudes in its fame and character. It has been successively opposed and commended by physicians, condemned and praised by priests and kings, and proscribed and protected by governments, until, at length, this once insignificant production of a little island, has succeeded in propagating itself through every climate and country. Nor is the history of the potatoe less remarkable or less strikingly illustrative of the imperious influence of authority. This valuable plant, for upwards of two centuries, received an unprecedented opposition from vulgar prejudice, which all the philosophy of the age was unable to dissipate, until Louis XIV. wore a bunch of the flowers of the potatoe, in the midst of his court, on a day of mirth and festivity. The people then, for the first time, obsequiously acknowledged its utility, and began to express their astonishment at the apathy which had so long prevailed with regard to its general cultivation.

Another instance may be furnished of overbearing authority, in giving celebrity to a medicine, or in depriving it of that reputation to which its virtues entitle it, is seen in the history of the Peruvian bark. This famed medicine was imported into Spain by the Jesuits, where it remained seven years, before a trial was given to it. A Spanish priest was the first to whom it was administered, in the year 1639, and even then its use was extremely limited; and it would undoubtedly have sunk into oblivion, but for the supreme power of the church of Rome, under whose protecting auspices it gained a temporary triumph over the passions and prejudices which opposed its introduction. Pope Innocent X. at the intercession of the Cardinal de Lugo, who was formerly a Spanish Jesuit, ordered the bark to be duly examined, and on the favourable report, which was the result of this examination, it immediately rose into high favour and celebrity.

The root of the male fern, a nostrum for the cure of the tape worm, was secretly retailed by Madame Noufleur. This secret was purchased by Louis XV. for a considerable sum of money. It was not until this event that the physicans discovered, that the same remedy had been administered in the same complaint by Galen. The history of popular remedies in the cure of gout, is equally illustrative of this subject. The Duke of Portland's celebrated powder was nothing less than the deacintaureon of Caelius Aurelianus, or the antidotus et duobus centaurae generibus of Aetius, the receipt for which, a friend of his grace brought with him from Switzerland, into which country, in all likelihood, it had been introduced by the early medical writers, who had transcribed it from the Greek volumes, soon after their arrival into the western part of Europe.[134]

The active ingredient of a no less celebrated preparation for the same complaint, the Eau medicinale de Husson, a medicine brought into fashion by M. de Husson, a military officer in the service of Louis XVI has been discovered to be the meadow saffron. Upon searching after and trying the properties of this herb, it was observed that similar effects in the cure of the gout were ascribed to a certain plant, called hermodaclyllus, by Oribasius (an eminent physician of the 4th century) and Aetius, who flourished at Alexandria towards the end of the 5th century, but more particularly by Alexander of Tralles, a physician of Asia Minor, whose prescription consisted of hermodaclyllus, ginger, pepper, cummin seed, aniseed, and scammony, which he says will enable those who take it to walk immediately. On an inquiry being immediately set on foot for the discovery of this unknown plant, a specimen of it was procured at Constantinople, and it actually did turn out to be a species of meadow saffron, the colchicum autumnale of Linnaeus.

The celebrated fever powder of Dr. James was evidently not his original composition, but an Italian nostrum, invented by a person of the name of Lisle; a receipt for the preparation of which is to be found at length in Colborne's complete English Dispensary for the year 1756. The various secret preparations of opium which have been extolled as the discovery of modern days, may be recognised in the works of ancient authors. The use of prussic acid in the cure of consumptions, lately suggested by M. Magendie, at Paris, is little more than the revival of the Dutch practice in this disorder; for Linnaeus informs us, that distilled laurel water was frequently used in the cure of pulmonary consumption.[135]

We shall conclude these observations with a few remarks on what are termed patent medicines, nostrums, or quack medicines, and their boasted pretensions in general. There is, in fact, but one state of perfect health, yet the deviations from this state, and the general species of diseases are almost infinite. Hence it will easily be understood, that in the classes of medical remedies, there must likewise he a great variety, and that some of them are even of opposite tendencies. Such are both the warm and cold bath considered as medical remedies. Though opposite to each other in their sensible effects, each of them manifests its medical virtues, yet only in such a state of the body as will admit of using it with advantage. From these premises, it is evident that an universal remedy, or one that possesses healing powers for the cure of all diseases, is, in fact, a non-entity, a mere delusion, the existence of which is physically impossible, as the mere idea of such a thing involves a contradiction. How, for instance, can it he conceived, that the same remedy should be capable of restoring the tone of the muscular fibres, when they are relaxed, and also have the power of relaxing them when they are too rigid; that it should coagulate the fluids when in a state of resolution, and again attenuate them when they are too viscid; that it should moderate the nerves when in a state of preturnatural sensibility, and likewise restore them to their proper degree of irritability when they are in a contrary state.

The belief in an universal remedy has long been abandoned, even among the vulgar, and long exploded in those classes of society, which are not influenced by prejudice, or tinctured with fanaticism. It is, however, sincerely to be regretted, that the daily press continues to be inundated with advertisements; and that the lower, and less informed class of the community, are still imposed upon by a set of privileged impostors, who frequently puzzle the intelligent to decide, whether the impudence or the industry with which they endeavour to establish the reputation of their respective poisons, be the most prominent feature in their character. In illustration of this last observation, it may further be observed, that most of the nostrums advertised as cough drops, etc., are preparations of opium, similar, but inferior, to the well-known paregoric elixir of the shops, but disguised and rendered more deleterious by the addition of heating and aromatic gums. The injury which may be occasioned by the indiscriminate employment of such medicines might be very serious and irremediable, as is well known to every person possessing the smallest portion of medical knowledge. The boasted, though groundless pretensions of certain illiterate empirics to cure diseases which have eluded the skill and penetration of the faculty, is another absurdity into which people of good common sense have been most woefully entrapped. The lessons of experience ought to prove the most useful, as purchased at the greatest trouble and expense; but if people choose to run over a precipice with their eyes open, they leave themselves nothing to regret, and the public less to lament, by their fall.

It was justly observed by the sagacious and intelligent Bacon, "that a reflecting physician is not directed by the opinion which the multitude entertain of a favourite remedy, but that be must be guided by a sound judgment; and consequently, he is led to make very important distinctions between those things which only by their name pass for medical remedies, and others, which in reality possess healing powers." We avail ourselves of the quotation, as it indirectly censures the conduct of certain medical practitioners, who do not scruple to recommend what are vulgarly called patent and other quack preparations, the composition of which is carefully concealed from the public. Having acquired their unmerited reputation by mere chance, and being supported by the most refined artifices, in order to delude the unwary, we are unable to come at the evidence of perhaps nine tenths of those who have experienced their fatal effects, and who are now no longer in a situation to complain.

From universal remedies or panaceas, to nostrums and specifics, such, for instance, as pretend to cure the same disease in every patient, is easy and natural. With the latter also, impositions of a dangerous tendency are often practised. It may be asked how far they are practicably admissible, and in what cases they are wholly unavailing? The answer is not difficult. In those diseases, which in every instance depend upon the same cause, as in agues, the small-pox, measles, and many other contagious distempers, the possibility of specifics, in a limited sense, may be rationally, though hypothetically admitted. But in either maladies, the causes of which depend on a variety of other concurrent circumstances, and the cure of which in different individuals, frequently requires very opposite remedies, as in dropsy, various species of colds, the almost infinite variety of consumptions, etc. a specific remedy is an imposition upon the common sense of mankind. Those who are but imperfectly acquainted with the various causes from which the same disorder originates in different individuals, can never entertain such a vulgar and dangerous notion. They will easily perceive, how much depends upon ascertaining with precision, the seat and cause of the complaint, before any medicine can be presented with safety or advantage:—even life and death are, we are sorry to add, too often decided by the first steps. Different constitutions, different symptoms, and stages of disease, all require more or less a separate consideration. What is more natural than to place confidence in a remedy, which has been known to afford relief to others in the same kind of disposition? The patient anxiously enquires after a person who has been afflicted with the same malady; he is eager to know the remedy that has been used with success; his friend or neighbour imparts to him the wished for intelligence; he is determined to give the medicine a fair trial, and takes it with confidence. From what has been stated, it will not be difficult to conceive, that if his case does not exactly correspond with that of his friend, any chance remedy may prove extremely dangerous, if not fatal.

Hence it becomes evident, that the results are not to be depended upon, nor the chance risked. The physician is obliged to employ all his sagacity, supported by his own experience, as well as by that of his predecessors; and yet he is often under the necessity of discovering, from the progress of the disease, what he could not derive from the minutest research. How then can it be expected, that a novice in the art of healing should be more successful, when the whole of his method of cure is either the impulse of the moment, or the effect of his own credulity? It may be therefore truly said, that life and death are frequently entrusted to chance!

The late Dr. Huxham, a physician of some eminence in his day, when speaking of Asclepiades, the Roman empiric, says: "This man from a declaimer turned physician, and set himself up to oppose all the physicians of his time; and the novelty of the thing bore him out, as it frequently doth the quacks of the present time; and ever will while the majority of the world are fools." In another place, he curiously contrasts the too timid practice of some regular physicians, with the hazardous treatment, which is the leading feature of quacks: "The timid, low, insipid practice with some, is almost as dangerous as the bold, unwarranted empiricism of others; time and opportunity, never to be regained, are often lost by the former; while with the latter, by a bold push, you are sent off the stage in a moment."

From what has been said, it may confidently be asserted, that a universal remedy still remains as great a desideratum as the philosopher's stone; and either can only obtain credit with the weak-minded, the credulous, or the fanatic. One of the most unfortunate circumstances in the history of such medicines, is the insinuating and dangerous method, by which they are puffed into notice. And as we have little of the beneficial effects which they daily must produce, by being promiscuously applied, people attend only to the extraordinary instances, perhaps not one in fifty, where they have afforded a temporary or apparent relief. It is well known, that the more powerful a remedy is, the more permanent and dangerous must be its effects on the constitution; especially if it be introduced like many patent medicines, by an almost indefinite encrease of the dose. There is another consideration, not apt to strike those who are unacquainted with the laws of the animal economy. When it is intended to bring about any remarkable change in the system of an organized body, such means are obliged to be employed as may contribute to produce that change without affecting too violently the living powers, or without carrying their action to an improper length. Indeed, the patient may be gradually habituated to almost any stimulus, but at the expence of a paralytic stroke on an impaired constitution. Such are among the melancholy effects of imposture and credulity! "Were it possible," says a learned authority, "to collect all the cases of sacrifices to the mysterious infatuation, it is probable that their number would exceed the enormous havoc made by gunpowder or the sword." Another reputable writer makes the following terse remark on this subject: "As matters stand at present," says he, "it is easier to cheat a man out of his life, than of a shilling: and almost impossible either to detect or punish the offender. Notwithstanding this, people still shut their eyes, and take every thing upon trust, that is administered by any pretender to medicine, without daring to ask him a reason for any part of his conduct. Implicit faith, every where else the object of ridicule, is still sacred here."

FOOTNOTES:

[132] The berries of the belladonna or deadly nightshade, produce, when eaten, a furious madness, followed by sleep, which lasts for twenty-four hours. Such drugs as produce mental stupefaction, without impairing the physical powers, may have given rise to the accounts of men being transformed into brutes, so frequent in what are denominated the fabulous writers, while the evanescent but exquisite joys of an opposite description, an anticipation of what implicit obedience would ensure them for ever, produced blind, furious, devoted adherents to any philosophical speculator, who would venture to try so desperate an experiment.

[133] The Rowan tree or Mountain ash, is used by the Scottish peasantry with the same view; and a small twig of it is sewed up in the cow's tail, to preserve the animal and its produce from the influence of witches and warlocks.

[134] See Pharmacologia, by Dr. Paris.

[135] Vide "Amenetates Academicae," vol. 4.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE PRACTICE OF OBEAH, OR NEGRO WITCHCRAFT—CHARMS—THEIR KNOWLEDGE OP VEGETABLE POISONS—SECRET POISONING.

Obeah, a pretended sort of witchcraft, arising from a superstitious credulity, prevailing among the negroes, has ever been considered as a most dangerous practice, to suppress which, in our West India colonies, the severest laws have been enacted. The Obeah is considered as a potent and most irresistible spell, withering and paralyzing, by indiscribable terrors and unusual sensations, the devoted victim. One negro who desires to be revenged on another, and is afraid to make an open and manly attack on his adversary, has usually recourse to this practice. Like the witches' cauldron in Macbeth, it is a combination of many strange and ominous things. Earth gathered from a grave, human blood, a piece of wood fastened in the shape of a coffin, the feathers of the carion crow, a snake or alligator's tooth, pieces of egg-shell, and other nameless ingredients, compose the fatal mixture. The whole of these articles may not be considered as absolutely necessary to complete the charm, but two or three are at least indispensable.[136]

It will of course be conceived, that the practice of OBEAH can have little effect, unless a negro is conscious that it is practised upon him, or thinks so;[137] for, as the whole evil consists in the terrors of a superstitious imagination, it is of little consequence whether it be practised or not, if he only imagines that it is. But if the charm fails to take hold of the mind of the proscribed person, another and more certain expedient is resorted to—the secretly administering of poison to him. This saves the reputation of the sorcerer, and effects the purpose he had in view.

An OBEAH man or woman (for it is practised by both sexes) is a very dangerous person on a plantation; and the practice of it is made felony by law, punishable with death where poison has been administered, and with transportation where only the charm has been used. But numbers have, and may be swept off, by its infatuation, before the crime is detected; for, strange as it may appear, so much do the negroes stand in awe of those Obeah professors, so much do they dread their malice and their power, that, though knowing the havoc they have made, and are still making, they are afraid to discover them to the whites; and, others perhaps, are in league with them for sinister purposes of mischief and revenge.

A negro, under the infatuation of Obeah, can only be cured of his terrors by being made a Christian: refuse him this boon, and he sinks a martyr to imagined evils. A negro, in short, considers himself as no longer under the influence of this sorcery when he becomes a christian. And instances are known of negroes, who, being reduced by the fatal influence of Obeah to the lowest state of dejection and debility, from which there were little hopes of recovery, have been surprisingly and rapidly restored to health and cheerfulness by being baptized christians. The negroes believe also in apparitions, and stand in great dread of them, conceiving that they forbode death, or some other great evil, to those whom they visit; in short, that the spirits of the dead come upon the earth to be revenged on those who did them evil when in life. Thus we see, that not only from the remotest antiquity, but even among slaves and barbarians, the belief in supernatural agencies has been a popular creed, not, in fact, confined to any distant race or tribe of people; and, what is still more surprising, there is a singular and most remarkable identity in the notion or conception of their infernal ministry.

In the British West Indies, the negroes of the windward coast are called Mandingoes, a name which is here taken as descriptive of a peculiar race or nation. There seems reason, however, to believe, that a Mandingo or Mandinga-man, is properly the same with an Obi-man. A late traveller in Brazil gives us the following anecdotes of the Mandinga and Mandingueiro of the negroes in that country. "One day," says Mr. Koster, "the old man (a negro named Apollinario) came to me with a face of dismay, to show me a ball of leaves, tied up with a plant called cypo, which he had found under a couple of boards, upon which he slept, in an out-house. The ball was about the size of an apple. I could not imagine what had caused his alarm, until he said that it was Mandinga which had been set for the purpose of killing him; and he bitterly bewailed his fate, that at his age, any one should wish to hasten his death, and to carry him from this world, before our lady thought fit to send him. I knew that two of the black women were at variance, and suspicion fell upon one of them, who was acquainted with the old Mandingueiro of Engenho Velho; therefore she was sent for. I judged that the Mandinga was not set for Apollonario, but for the negress whose business it was to sweep the out-house. I threatened to confine the suspected woman at Gara unless she discovered the whole affair. She said the Mandinga was placed there to make one of the negresses dislike her fellow-slaves, and prefer her to the other. The ball of Mandinga was formed of five or six kinds of leaves of trees, among which was the pomegranate leaf; there were likewise two or three bits of rag, each of a peculiar kind; ashes, which were the bones of some animals; and there might be other ingredients besides, but these were what I could recognize. This woman either could not from ignorance, or would not give any information respecting the several things of which the ball was composed. I made this serious matter of the Mandinga, from knowing the faith which not only many of the negroes have in it, but also some of the mulatto people. There is another name for this kind of charm; it is called feitico, and the initiated are called feiticeros; of these there was formerly one at the plantation of St. Joam, who became so much dreaded, that his master sold him to be sent to Maranham."

Speaking of the green-beads (contas verdas) which are another object of superstition in South America, and of the reliance placed upon them by the Valentoens, a lawless description of persons among the colonists of Brazil; the same author gives us this further view of the Mandingueiros and their charms. "These men," says he, "wore on their necks strings of green beads, which had either come from the coast of Africa, bearing the wonderful property of conveying in safety their possessors through all descriptions of perils, or were charmed by the Mandingueiros, African sorcerers, who had been brought over to the Brazils as slaves, and in secret continued the prohibited practice of imparting this virtue to them. Vincente had been acquainted with some of the men, and was firmly persuaded of the virtues of the green beads. When I expressed my doubts of the efficacy of the beads, against a musket ball well directed, his anger rose; but there was pity mingled with it."

Labat brings these stones from the Orellana, or river of the Amazons. "I was informed," says our author, "that Contas verdas came from Africa; but some have found their way from the Orellana, and been put into requisition by the Mandingueiros." Mr. Southey has also given an account of the "green stones of the Amazons," in his history of Brazil, vol. 1. p. 107.

In another place, some traveller presents us with the Mandingueiros in the new character of charmer of snakes. "The Mandingueiros are famous, among other feats, for handling poisonous snakes, and can, by particular noises or tunes, call those reptiles from their holes, and make them assemble around them. These sorcerers profess to render innoxious the bites of snakes, to persons who submit to their charms and ceremonies. One of the modes which is adopted for this purpose, is that of allowing a tame snake to crawl over the head, face, and shoulders of the person who is to be curado do cobras, cured of snakes, as they term it. The owner of the snake repeats a certain number of words during the operation, of which, the meaning, if they contain any, is only known to the initiated. The rattle-snake is said to be, above all other species, the most susceptible of attention to the tunes of the Mandingueiros." The above accounts I should not have related upon the authority of one or two authors, I have heard them repeated by several individuals, and even some men of education have spoken of the reputed efficacy of the tame snakes of the Mandingueiros, as if they were somewhat staggered in their belief of it. "These men do certainly play strange tricks and very dexterously." The same writer also observes, "One of the negroes whom I had hired with the plantation of Jaguaribi, had one leg much thicker than the other. This was occasioned, as he told me, by the bite of a rattlesnake; he said he had been cured from the bites of snakes by a certain curador de cobra, or Mandingueiro, and had therefore not died; but that as the 'moon was strong,' he had not escaped receiving some injury from the bite."

Beaver, in his African Memoranda, says, "There is another sort of people who travel about in the country, called Mandingo-men, (these are Mahommedans;) they do not work; they go from place to place, and when they find any chiefs or people, whom they think they can make anything of, they take up their abode sometime with them, and make gree-grees, and sometimes cast seed from them for which they make them pay."

On this, and other occasion, the word gree-gree is applied to a house whence oracles are delivered: but it is also used for a charm or obi. "They themselves," (the natives of the coast) says the author, last quoted, "always wear gree-grees, or charms, which they purchase of the Mandingoes, to guard them against the effects of certain arms, or of poison, and on which they place the utmost reliance. They have one against poison; another against a musket; another against a sword; and another against a knife; and, indeed, against almost every thing that they think can hurt them. Mandingo priest, or gris gris merchant, that is, a seller of charms, which carried about a person, secure the wearer from any evils,—such as poison, murder, witchcraft, etc. To this priest I had made some handsome presents, and he, in return, gave me twelve gris gris, and assured me that they would inevitably secure me from all danger, at the same time he gave me directions how to dispose of them. Some were to be carried about my person; one secretly placed over each archway; another kept under my pillow, and another under the door of the house I was then building." The Byugas hold these people in great reverence, and say that they 'talk with God.'

Mr. Long, in his history of the West Indies, states that, under the general name of Obi-men is also included the class of Myal men, or those who, by means of a narcotic poison, made with the juice of an herb (said to be the branched Calalue, a species of solanum) which occasions a trance of a certain duration, endeavour to convince the deluded spectators of their power to reanimate dead bodies.

Additional particulars of this superstition preserved by Labat, Edwards, and others, are to be joined with those now produced;[138] but after all, the questions to be solved are, whether Obi, Mandinga, and gree gree, are usually words of similar import, and whether those who are conversant in them are all alike, priests of one system of religious faith and worship, or whether the one does not belong to the worship of a good power, and the other to that of an evil one.

It is remarkable, that while the Etymology of Obi has been sought in the names of ancient deities of Egypt, and in that of the serpent in the language of the coast, the actual name of the evil deity or Devil, in the same language, appears to have escaped attention. That name is written by Mr. Edwards, Obboney; and the bearer of it is described as a malicious deity, the author of all evil, the inflictor of perpetual diseases, and whose anger is to be appeased only by human sacrifices. This evil deity is the Satan of our own faith; and it is the worship of Satan which, in all parts of the world constitutes the essence of sorcery.

If this name of Obboney has any relation to the Ob of Egypt, and if the Ob, both anciently in Egypt, and to this day in the west of Africa, signifies "a serpent," what does this discover to our view, but that Satan has the name of serpent among the Negro nations as well as among those of Europe? As to how it has happened that the serpent, which, in some systems, is the emblem of the good spirit, is in others the emblem of the evil one, that is a topic which belongs to a more extensive enquiry. This is enough for our present satisfaction to remember that the profession of, and belief in sorcery or witchcraft, supposes the existence of two deities, the one, the author of good, and the other the author of evil; the one worshipped by good men for good things, and for good purposes: and the other by bad men for bad things and purposes; and that this worship is sorcery and the worshippers sorcerers.

It will be seen above, that since African charms are to prevent evil, and others to procure it, the first belong to the worship, and are derived from the power, of the good spirit; and the second are from the opposite source. It is to be concluded, then, that the superstition of Obi is no other than the practice of, and belief in the worship of Obboney or Oboni, the evil deity of the Africans, the serpent of Africa and of Europe, and the old serpent and Satan of the scriptures; and that the witchcraft of the negroes is evidently the same with our own. It might indeed be further shown, that the latter have their temporary transformations of men into alligators, wolves, and the like, as the French have their loups-garoux, the Germans their war-wolves, wolf-men, and the rest.[139]

The negroes practising obeah are acquainted with some very powerful vegetable poisons, which they use on these occasions, and by which they acquire much extensive credit. Their fetiches are their household gods, or domestic divinities; one of whom is supposed to preside over a whole province, and one over every family. This idol is a tree, the head of an ape, a bird, or any such thing, as their fancy may suggest. The negroes have long been held famous in the act of secret or slow poisoning.

If doubts and difficulties envelope the discovery of poisons, whose distinguishing character is the rapidity of these effects, how much greater must be the uncertainty when we are required to ascertain the administrations of what are called slow poisons. This subject, indeed, is so closely entwined with popular superstitions, that it is difficult to separate truth from falsehood. In Italy, for example, it was formerly said, that poisons were made to destroy life at any stated period—from a few hows to a year. This, however, turns out to be a mere fiction; and, it is well understood, that we know of no substances that will produce death at a determinate epoch. The following case of the late Prince Charles of Augustenburgh, nevertheless, shows that the idea of slow poison is still very prevalent, even among the physicians of continental Europe.

Prince Charles of Augustenburgh, Crown Prince of Sweden, and the predecessor of Bernadotte, in that station, fell dead from his horse on the 22nd of May, 1810, while reviewing troops in Scania. His death, during that stormy period of public affairs, excited great attention, and an opinion soon spread abroad that he had been poisoned. The king ordered a judicial investigation; and it appeared that Dr. Rossi, the physician of the late Prince, had, without directions, proceeded to inspect the body twenty-four hours after death; that he had performed this operation with great negligence, omitting many things which the law presented, which the assisting physicians proposed, and which were essential to render it satisfactory; and finally, that the coats of the stomach, instead of being preserved and submitted to chemical analysis were, according to his own acknowledgment, thrown away. The royal tribunal adjudged him to be deprived of his appointment, and to be banished from the kingdom. This decision would not of course, diminish the suspicion already excited; and among other physicians, who were consulted on the case, M. Lodin, professor of Medicine at Lynkoping, presented two memoirs, in which he stated it as his opinion, that a slow poison of a vegetable nature, and probably analogous to the aqua tofania, had been administered to the Prince, and that this had caused the apopletic fit of which he died. His reasons were:

1. That the Prince had always enjoyed good health previous to his arrival in Sweden, and, indeed, had not been ill, until after eating a cold pie at an inn, in Italy. He was shortly after seized with violent vomiting, while the rest of the company experienced no ill effects.

2. The Prince was naturally very temperate.

3. Ever since he arrived in Sweden he had experienced a loss of appetite, with cholic and diarrhoea; and

4. That on dissection, the spleen was found of a black colour and in a state of decomposition, and the liver indurated and dark coloured. Whilst during life he had experienced no symptoms corresponding to these appearances. Dr. Lodin confessed, however, that he was unacquainted with the effects that indicate the administration of a slow poison, but thought the previous symptoms were such as might be expected from it.

For the credit of the profession, this conjectural opinion met with decided reprobation from other medical men. It appeared that the Prince had, for several days previously, been subject to giddiness and pain in the head, and that all the symptoms were readily referable to a simple case of apoplexy, while the appearances on dissection showed that rapid tendency to putrefaction, which is frequently observed in similar cases.

The public are highly indebted to professor Beckman for a very elaborate article, in which he has concentrated nearly all that is known concerning secret poisoning. Of this we shall here present our readers with an abstract, as peculiarly adapted to the demonology of medicine, aided with some facts from other sources.

Professor Beckman considers it unquestionable, that the ancients were acquainted with this kind of poison, and thinks that it may be proved from the testimony of Plutarch, Quintilian, and other respectable authors. The former states that a slow poison, which occasioned heat, a cough, spitting of blood, a consumption, and weakness of intellect, was administered to Aratus of Sicyon. Theophrastus speaks of a poison prepared from aconite, which could be moderated in such a manner as to have effect in two or three months, or at the end of a year or two years; and he also relates, that Thrasyas had discovered a method of preparing from other plants a poison which, given in small doses, occasioned a certain but easy death, without any pain, and which could be kept back for a long time without causing weakness or corruption. The last poison was much used at Rome, about two hundred years before the christian era. At a later period, a female named Locusta, was the agent in preparing these poisons, and she destroyed, in this way, at the instigation of Nero, Britannicus, son of Agrippina.

The Carthagenians seem also to have been acquainted with this act of diabolical poisoning; and they are said, on the authority of Aulus Gellius, to have administered some to Regulus, the Roman general. Contemporary writers, however, it must be added, do not mention this.

The principal poisons known to the ancients were prepared from plants, and particularly aconite, hemlock, and poppy, or from animal substances; and among the latter none is more remarkable than that obtained from the sea-hare (Lepus marinus or Apylsia depilans of the system of nature). With this, Titus is said to have been dispatched by Domitian. They do not seem to have been acquainted with the common mineral poisons.

In the year 1659, during the pontificate of Alexander VII, it was observed at Rome, that many young women became widows, and that many husbands died when they became disagreeable to their wives. The government used great vigilance to detect the poisoners, and suspicion at length fell upon a society of young wives, whose president appeared to be an old woman, who pretended to foretel future events, and who had often predicted very exactly the death of many persons. By means of a crafty female their practices were detected; the whole society were arrested and put to the torture, and the old woman, whose name was Spara, and four others, were publicly hanged. This Spara was a Sicilian, and is said to have acquired her knowledge from Tofania at Palermo.

Tophania, or Tofania, was an infamous woman, who resided first at Palermo and afterwards at Naples. She sold the poison which from her acquired the name of Aqua della Toffana (it was also called Acquetta di Napoli, or Acquetta alone), but she distributed her preparation by way of charity to such wives as wished to have other husbands. From four to six drops were sufficient to destroy a man; and it was asserted, that the dose could be so proportioned as to operate in a certain time. Labat says, that Tofania distributed her poison in small glass phials, with this inscription—Manna of St. Nicholas of Bavi, and ornamented with the image of the saint. She lived to a great age, but was at last dragged from a monastery, in which she had taken refuge, and put to the torture, when she confessed her crimes and was strangled.

In no country, however, has the art of poisoning excited more attention than it did in France, about the year 1670. Margaret d'Aubray, wife of the Marquis de Brinvillier, was the principal agent in this horrible business. A needy adventurer, named Godin de St. Croix, had formed an acquaintance with the Marquis during their campaigns in the Netherlands—became at Paris a constant visitor at his house, where in a short time he found means to insinuate himself into the good graces of the Marchioness. It was not long before this Marquis died; not, however, until their joint fortune was dissipated. Her conduct, in openly carrying on this amour, induced her father to have St. Croix arrested and sent to the Bastile. Here he got acquainted with an Italian, of the name of Exili, from whom he learnt the art of preparing poisons.

After a year's imprisonment St. Croix was released, when he flew to the Marchioness and instructed her in the art, in order that she might employ it in bettering the circumstances of both. She assumed the appearance of a nun, distributed food to the poor, nursed the sick in the Hotel Dieu, and tried the strength of her poisons, undetected, on these hapless wretches. She bribed one Chaussee, St. Croix's servant, to poison her own father, after introducing him into his service, and also her brother, and endeavoured to poison her sister. A suspicion arose that they had been poisoned, and the bodies were opened, but no detection followed at this time. Their villainous practices were brought to light in the following manner:—St. Croix, when preparing poison, was accustomed to wear a glass mask; but, as this happened once to drop off by accident, he was suffocated and found dead in his laboratory. Government caused the effects of this man, who had no family, to be examined, and a list of them to be made out. On searching them, there was found a small box, to which St. Croix had affixed a written paper containing a request, that after his death "it might be delivered to the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the street Neuve St. Paul, as every thing it contains concerns her, and belongs to her alone; and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of use to any person except her; and in case she shall be dead before me, to burn it, and every thing it contains; without opening or altering any thing; and in order that no one may plead ignorance, I swear by God, whom I adore, and all that is most sacred, that I advance nothing but what is true. And if my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, be thwarted in this point, I charge their consciences with it, both in this world and the next, in order that I may unload mine, protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris, this 25th May, in the afternoon, 1672. De Sainte Croix"

Nothing could he a greater inducement to have it opened, than this singular petition, and that being done, there was found in it a great abundance of poisons of every kind, with labels, on which their effects proved, by experiments on animals, were marked. The principal poison, however, was corrosive sublimate. When the Marchioness heard of the death of her lover and instructor, she was desirous to have the casket, and endeavoured to get possession of it by bribing the officers of justice; but as she failed in this, she quitted the kingdom. La Chaussee, however, continued at Paris, laid claim to the property of St. Croix, was seized and imprisoned, confessed more acts of villainy than was suspected, and was in consequence broke alive upon the wheel, in 1673,—The Marchioness fled to England, and from thence to Liege, where she took refuge in a convent. Desgrais, an officer of justice, was dispatched in pursuit of her, and having assumed the dress of an Abbe, contrived to entice her from this privileged place. Among her effects at the convent there was found a confession, and a complete catalogue of all her crimes, in her own hand-writing. She was taken to Paris, convicted, and on the 16th of July, 1676, publicly beheaded, and afterwards burnt.

The practice of poisoning was not, however, suppressed by this execution, and it was asserted, that confessions of a suspicious nature were constantly made to the priests. A court for watching, searching after, and punishing prisoners was at length established in 1697, under the title of chambre de poison, or chambre ardente. This was shortly used as a state engine, against those who were obnoxious to the court, and the names of individuals of the first rank, both male and female, were prejudiced. Two females, la Vigreux and la Voison were burnt alive, by order of this court, in February, 1680. But it was abolished in the same year.

Professor Beckman relates the following, as communicated to him by Linnaeus: "Charles XI, King of Sweden, having ruined several noble families by seizing on their property, and having, after that, made a journey to Torneo, he fell into a consumptive disorder, which no medicine could cure. One day he asked his physician in a very earnest manner what was the cause of his illness. The physician replied, 'Your Majesty has been loaded with too many maledictions.'—'Yes,' returned the king, 'I wish to God that the reduction of the nobilities' estates had not taken place, and that I had never undertaken a journey to Torneo.' After his death his intestines were found to be full of small ulcers."

There has been a great diversity of opinions as to the nature of these poisons. That prepared by Tofania appears to have been a clear insipid water, and the sale of aqua fortis was for a long time forbidden in Rome, because it was considered the principal ingredient. This, however, is not probable.

In Paris, the famous poudre de succession (also a secret poison) was at one time supposed to consist of diamond dust, powdered exceedingly fine; and at another time, to contain sugar of lead as the principal ingredient. Haller was of this last opinion. In the casket of St. Croix were found sublimate, opium, regulus of antimony, vitriol, and a large quantity of poison ready prepared, the principal ingredients of which the physicians were not able to detect. Garelli, physician to Charles VI, King of the Two Sicilies, at the time when Tofania was arrested, wrote to the celebrated Hoffman, that the Aqua Tofania was nothing else than crystallized arsenic, dissolved in a large quantity of water by decoction, with the addition, (but for what purpose we know not) of the herb Cymbalaria, (probably the Antirrhinum Cymbalaria). And this information he observes, was communicated to him by his imperial majesty himself, to whom the judicial procedure, confirmed by the confession of the criminal, was transmitted. But it was objected to this opinion, that it differed from the ordinary effects of arsenic, in never betraying itself by any particular action on the human body.

The Abbe Gagliani, on the other hand, asserts that it is a mixture of opium and cantharides, and that the liquor obtained from its composition, is as limpid as rock water, and without taste. Its effects are slow, and almost imperceptible. Beckman appears to favour this idea, and suggests that a similar poison is used in the East, under the name of powst, being water that had stood a night over the juice of poppies. It is given to princes, whom it is wished to despatch privately; and produces loss of strength and understanding, so that they die in the end, torpid and insensible.[140]