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Mr. Duncan Campell, by Daniel Defoe

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Title: The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campell
       A Gentlen, who, tho' Deaf and Dumb, Writes down any
       Stranger's name at first Sight;

Author: Daniel Defoe

Release Date: August 12, 2011 [EBook #37047]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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  THE

  HISTORY

  OF THE

  LIFE

  AND

  ADVENTURES

  OF

  MR. DUNCAN CAMPBELL,


     A Gentleman, who, tho' Deaf and Dumb, writes down any Stranger's
     name at first Sight; with their future Contingencies of Fortune.


  Now Living

    In _Exeter_ Court over-against the _Savoy_ in the
    _Strand_.


     _Gentem quidem nullam video neque tam humanam atque doctam;
     nequtam immanem tamque barbaram, quae non significari futura et a
     quie busdam intelligi praedicique posse censeat._

                                        Cicero de Divinatione, lib. x.


  _LONDON_:


     Printed for E. CURLL: And sold by W. MEARS and T. JAUNCY, without
     _Temple Bar_, W. MEADOWS in _Cornhill_, A. BETTESWORTH in
     _Pater-Noster-Row_. W. LEWIS in _Covent Garden and_ W. GRAVES in
     St. _James's_ Street. M.DCC.XX. (Price 5_s._)




  TO THE
  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
  OF
  GREAT BRITAIN.


I am not unacquainted, that, ever since this book was first promised by
way of advertisement to the world, it was greedily coveted by a great
many persons of airy tempers, for the same reason that it has been
condemned by those of a more formal class, who thought it was calculated
partly to introduce a great many new and diverting curiosities in the
way of superstition, and partly to divulge the secret intrigues and
amours of one part of the sex, to give the other part room to make
favourite scandal the subject of their discourse; and so to make one
half of the fair species very merry, over the blushes and the
mortifications of the other half. But when they come to read the
following sheets, they will find their expectations disappointed, but I
hope I may say too, very agreeably disappointed. They will find a much
more elegant entertainment than they expected. Instead of making them a
bill of fare out of patchwork romances of polluting scandal, the good
old gentleman who wrote the Adventures of my Life, has made it his
business to treat them with a great variety of entertaining passages,
which always terminate in morals that tend to the edification of all
readers, of whatsoever sex, age, or profession. Instead of seducing
young, innocent, unwary minds into the vicious delight which is too
often taken in reading the gay and bewitching chimeras of the cabalists,
and in perusing the enticing fables of new-invented tricks of
superstition, my ancient friend, the writer, strikes at the very root of
these superstitions, and shows them how they may be satisfied in their
several curiosities, by having recourse to me, who by the talent of the
second-sight, which he so beautifully represents, how nature is so kind
frequently to implant in the minds of men born in the same climate with
myself, can tell you those things naturally, which when you try to learn
yourselves, you either run the hazard of being imposed upon in your
pockets by cheats, gipsies, and common fortune-tellers, or else of being
imposed upon in a still worse way, in your most lasting welfare, by
having recourse to conjurors or enchanters that deal in black arts, and
involve all their consulters in one general partnership of their
execrable guilt; or, lastly, of imposing worst of all upon your own
selves, by getting into an itch of practising and trying the little
tricks of female superstition, which are often more officiously handed
down by the tradition of credulous nurses and old women, from one
generation to another, than the first principles of Christian doctrine,
which it is their duty to instil early into little children. But I hope
when this book comes to be pretty generally read among you ladies, as by
your generous and numerous subscriptions I have good reason to expect,
that it will afford a perfect remedy and a thorough cure to that
distemper, which first took its rise from too great a growth of
curiosity, and too large a stock of credulity nursed prejudicially up
with you in your more tender and infant years.

Whatever young maid hereafter has an innocent but longing desire to know
who shall be her husband, and what time she shall be married, will, I
hope, when she has read the following sheets of a man that can set her
right in the knowledge of those points, purely by possessing the gift of
the second sight, sooner have recourse innocently to such a man than use
unlawful means to acquire it, such as running to conjurors to have his
figure shown in their enchanted glasses, or using any of those
traditional superstitions, by which they may dream of their husbands, or
cause visionary shapes of them to appear on such and such festival
nights of the year; all which practices are not ordinarily wicked and
impious, but downright diabolical. I hope that the next 29th of June,
which is St. John Baptist's day, I shall not see the several pasture
fields adjacent to this metropolis, especially that behind Montague
House, thronged, as they were the last year, with well dressed young
ladies crawling busily up and down upon their knees, as if they were a
parcel of weeders, when all the business is to hunt superstitiously
after a coal under the root of a plantain, to put under their heads that
night, that they may dream who should be their husbands. In order to
shame them out of this silly but guilty practice, I do intend to have
some spies out on that day, that shall discover who they are, and what
they have been about; and I here give notice to the public, that this
ill-acted comedy, if it be acted at all this year, must begin according
to the rule of their superstition, on that day precisely at the hour of
twelve. And so much for the pretty weeders. But as you, ladies, have had
several magical traditions delivered to you, which, if you put in
exercise and practice, will be greatly prejudicial to your honour and
your virtue, let me interpose my counsels, which will conduct you
innocuously to the same end, which some ladies have laboured to arrive
at by these impieties. Give me leave first to tell you, that though what
you aim at may be arrived to by these means, yet these means make that a
miserable fortune which would have been a good one; because, in order
to know human things beforehand, you use preternatural mediums, which
destroy the goodness of the courses, which nature herself was taking for
you, and annexes to them diabolical influences, which commonly carry
along with them fatalities in this world as well as the next. You will,
therefore, give me your pardon likewise, ladies, if I relate some other
of these practices, which bare relation of itself, after what I have
said before, seems to me sufficient to explode them.

Another of the nurse's prescriptions is this: upon a St. Agnes's night,
the 21st day of January, take a row of pins and pull out every one, one
after another, saying a _Pater Noster_, or Our Father, sticking a pin in
your sleeve, and you will dream of her you shall marry. Ben Johnson, in
one of his masks, makes some mention of this:

    And on Sweet Agnes' night
    Please you with the promis'd sight,
    Some of husbands, some of lovers,
    Which an empty dream discovers.

Now what can be more infinitely profane than to use the prayer our Lord
instituted in such a way?

There is another prescription, which is as follows: You must lie in
another county, and knit the left garter about the right-legged
stocking, let the other garter and stocking alone, and as you rehearse
these following verses, at every comma, knit a knot:--

    This knot I knit,
    To know the thing I know not yet,
    That I may see
    The man that shall my husband be;
    How he goes, and what he wears,
    And what he does all days and years.

Accordingly in your dream you will see him: if a musician, with a lute
or other instrument; if a scholar, with a book, &c. Now I appeal to you,
ladies, what a ridiculous prescription is this? But yet as slight a
thing as it is, it may be of great importance if it be brought about,
because then it must be construed to be done by preternatural means, and
then those words are nothing less than an application to the devil.

Mr. Aubrey, of the Royal Society, says, a gentlewoman, that he knew,
confessed in his hearing that she used this method, and dreamt of her
husband whom she had never seen. About two or three years after, as she
was one Sunday at church, up pops a young Oxonian in the pulpit; she
cries out presently to her sister, this is the very face of the man I
saw in my dream. Sir William Somes's lady did the like.

Another way is to charm the moon thus, as the old nurses give out, at
the first appearance of the moon, after New-year's-day, some say any
other new moon is as good, go out in the evening, and stand over the
spars of a gate or stile, looking on the moon (here remark that in
Yorkshire they kneel on a ground-fast stone) and say,

    All hail to the moon, all hail to thee,
    I prithee, good moon, reveal to me
    This night who my husband shall be.

You must presently after go to bed. The aforesaid Mr. Aubrey knew two
gentlewomen that did thus when they were young maids, and they had
dreams of those that married them.

But a great many of the wittiest part of your sex laugh at these common
superstitions; but then they are apt to run into worse: they give
themselves up to the reading of the cabalistical systems of sylphs, and
gnomes, and mandrakes, which are very wicked and delusive imaginations.

I would not have you imagine, ladies, that I impute these things as
infirmities and frailties peculiar to your sex. No; men, and great men
too, and scholars, and even statesmen, and princes themselves, have been
tainted with superstitions, and where they infect the minds of such
great personages, they make the deeper impression, according to the
stronger and more manly ideas they have of them. Their greater degree of
strength in the intellect only subjects them to greater weaknesses; such
was even the great Paracelsus, the wonder and miracle of learning in the
age wherein he lived, and such were all his followers, scholars,
statesmen, divines, and princes, that are talismanists.

These talismans that Paracelsus pretends to owe to the excogitation and
invention of honest art, seem to me to be of a very diabolical nature,
and to owe their rise to being dedicated by the author to the heathen
gods. Thus the cabalists pretending to a vast penetration into arts and
sciences, though all their thoughts are chimeras and extravagancies,
unless they be helped by preternatural means, say they have found out
the several methods appropriated to the several planets. They have
appropriated gold to the sun on the Sunday, silver to the moon on the
Monday, iron to Mars on the Tuesday, quicksilver to Mercury on the
Wednesday, tin to Jupiter on the Thursday, copper or brass to Venus on
the Friday, and lead to Saturn on the Saturday. The methods they take in
forming these talismans are too long to dwell upon here. But the
properties which they pretend belong to them are, that the first
talisman or seal of the sun will make a man beloved by all princes and
potentates, and cause him to abound with all the riches his heart can
wish. The second preserves travellers from danger, and is favourable to
merchants, tradesmen, and workmen. The third carries destruction to any
place where it is put: and it is said that a certain great minister of
state ordered one of these to be carried into England in the times of
the revolution of government caused by Oliver Cromwell. The fourth they
pretend cures fevers and other diseases; and if it be put under the
bolster, it makes the proprietor have true dreams, in which he sees all
he desires to know. The fifth, according to them, renders a man lucky
and fortunate in all his businesses and undertakings. It dissipates
melancholy, drives away all importunate cares, and banishes panic fears
from the mind. The sixth, by being put into the liquor which any one
drinks, reconciles mortal enemies, makes them intimate friends: it gains
the love of all women, and renders the proprietor very dexterous in the
art of music. The seventh makes women be easily brought to bed without
pain; and if a horseman carries it in his left boot, himself and his
horse become invulnerable.

This, Paracelsus and his learned followers say, is owing to the
influence of the stars; but I cannot help arguing these acts of
diabolical impiety. But as these arts are rarely known among the
middling part of mankind, I shall neither open their mysteries, nor
inveigh against them any farther.

The persons who are most to be avoided are your ordinary fortune-telling
women and men about this town, whose houses ought to be avoided as a
plague or a pestilence, either because they are cheats and impostors, or
because they deal with black arts, none of them that I know having any
pretensions to the gift of a second-sight. Among many, a few of the most
notorious that I can call to mind now, are as follow. The first and
chiefest of these mischievous fortune-tellers is a woman that does not
live far from the Old Bailey. And truly the justice hall in that place
is the properest place for her to appear at, where, if she was tried for
pretending to give charms written upon paper with odd scrawls, which she
calls figures, she would be probably convicted, and very justly
condemned, and doomed to have her last journey from the Old Bailey to
Newgate, and from Newgate to Tyburn. The other is a fellow that lives in
Moorfields, in which place those who go to consult him ought to live all
their lifetimes, at the famous palaces of the senseless men: he is the
successor of the famous Dr. Trotter, whose widow he married; and from
being a tailor and patching men's garments, he now cuts flourishes with
his shears upon parchment, considers the heavens as a garment, and from
the spangles thereupon he calculates nativities, and sets up for a very
profound astrologer. The third is an ignorant fellow that caws out
strange predictions in Crow-alley, of whose croaking noise I shall here
take no notice, he having been sufficiently mauled in the most ingenious
Spectators. These and such counterfeits as these, I would desire all
gentlemen and ladies to avoid. The only two really learned men that I
ever knew in the art of astrology, were my good friends Dr. Williams and
Mr. Gadbury; and I thought it necessary to pay this esteem to their
names, let the world judge of them what it will. I will here say no
more, nor hinder you any longer, gentlemen and ladies, from the
diversion which my good old friend, who is now departed this life, has
prepared for you in his book, which a young gentleman of my acquaintance
revised, and only subscribe myself,

    Yours, &c.,

    DUNCAN CAMPBELL.




  THE
  HISTORY OF THE LIFE
  AND SURPRISING ADVENTURES
  OF
  MR. DUNCAN CAMPBELL.




  THE INTRODUCTION.


Of all the writings delivered in an historical manner to the world, none
certainly were ever held in greater esteem than those which give us the
lives of distinguished private men at full length; and, as I may say, to
the life. Such curious fragments of biography are the rarities which
great men seek after with eager industry, and when found, prize them as
the chief jewels and ornaments that enrich their libraries, and
deservedly; for they are the beauties of the greatest men's lives handed
down by way of example or instruction to posterity, and commonly handed
down likewise by the greatest men. Since, therefore, persons
distinguished for merit in one kind or other are the constant subjects
of such discourses, and the most elegant writers of each age have been
usually the only authors who choose upon such subjects to employ their
pens, and since persons of the highest rank and dignity, and genii of
the most refined and delicate relish, are frequently curious enough to
be the readers of them, and to esteem them the most valuable pieces in a
whole collection of learned works; it is a wonder to me that when any
man's life has something in it peculiarly great and remarkable in its
kind, it should not move some more skilful writer than myself to give
the public a taste of it, because it must be at least vastly
entertaining, if it be not, which is next to impossible, immensely
instructive and profitable withal.

If ever the life of any man under the sun was remarkable, this Mr.
Duncan Campbell's, which I am going to treat upon, is so to a very
eminent degree.

It affords such variety of incidents, and is accompanied with such
diversity of circumstances, that it includes within it what must yield
entire satisfaction to the most learned, and admiration to persons of a
moderate understanding. The prince and the peasant will have their
several ends of worthy delight in reading it; and Mr. Campbell's life is
of that extent, that it concerns and collects, as I may say, within
itself, every station of life in the universe. Besides, there is a
demand in almost every page that relates any new act of his, for the
finest and closest disquisitions that learning can make upon human
nature, to account how those acts could be done by him. For he daily
practised, and still practises, those things naturally, which puts art
to the rack to find out how nature can so operate in him; and his
fleshly body, by these operations, is a living practical system, or body
of new philosophy, which exceeds even all those that have hitherto been
compounded by the labour and art of many ages.

If one that had speculated deep into abstruse matters, and made it his
study not only to know how to assign natural reasons for some strange
new acts that looked like miracles by being peculiar to the individual
genius of some particular admired man, but carrying his inquiry to a
much greater height, had speculated likewise what might possibly be
achieved by human genius in the full perfection of nature, and had laid
it down as a thesis by strong arguments, that such things might be
compassed by a human genius, if in its true degree of perfection, as are
the hourly operations of the person's life I am writing, he would have
been counted a wild romantic enthusiast, instead of a natural
philosopher. Some of the wisest would be infidels to so new and so
refined a scheme of thinking, and demand experiment, or cry it was all
against reason, and would not allow the least tittle to be true without
it. Yet the man that had found out so great a mystery as to tell us what
might be done by human genius, as it is here actually done, would have
been a great man within himself; but wanting further experimental
proof, could lay no claim to the belief of others, or consequently to
their esteem. But how great, then, is the man who makes it constantly
his practice actually to do what would not otherwise have been thought
to be of such a nature as might ever be acquired by mortal capacity,
though in its full complement of all possible perfection? He is not only
great within himself, he is great to the world: his experiments force
our belief, and the amazing singularity of those experiments provokes
both our wonder and esteem.

If any learned man should have advanced this proposition, that mere
human art could give to the deaf man what should be equal to his
hearing, and to the dumb man an equivalent for his want of speech, so
that he could converse as freely almost as other hearing or talking
persons; that he might, though born deaf, be by art taught how to read,
write, and understand any language, as well as students that have their
hearing, would not the world, and many even of the learned part of it,
say that nothing could be more extravagantly wild, more mad and frantic?
The learned Dr. Wallis, geometry professor of Oxford, did first of all
lay down this proposition, and was counted by many to have overshot the
point of learning, and to have been the author of a whimsical thesis.
And I should not have wondered if, after a man's having asserted this
might be done, before it was actually done, some blind devout people in
those days, had accused him of heresy, and of attributing to men a power
of working miracles. The notion of the antipodes was by the most learned
men of the age in which St. Augustin lived, and by the great St. Austin
himself, treated in no milder a manner: yet if the ability of teaching
the deaf and the dumb a language proved a truth in experience
afterwards, ought not those to turn their contempt into admiration,
ought not those very people to vote him into the Royal Society for
laying down the proposition, who, before it proved true, in fact, would
have been very forward to have sent him to Bedlam? The first instance of
this accomplishment in a dumb person was proved before King Charles II.
by this same Dr. Wallis, who was a fellow of the Royal Society, and one
of the most ingenious of that society.

But, notwithstanding this, should I come afterwards and say, that there
is now living a deaf and dumb man, and born so, who could by dint of his
own genius teach all others deaf and dumb to read, write, and converse
with the talking and hearing part of mankind, some would, I warrant,
very religiously conclude, that I was about to introduce some strange
new miracle-monger and impostor into the world, with a design of setting
up some new sect of anti-christianism, as formidable as that of
Brachmans. Should I proceed still further, and say, that this same
person, so deaf and dumb, might be able also to show a presaging power,
or kind of prophetical genius, (if I may be allowed to use the
expression,) by telling any strange persons he never saw before in his
life, their names in writing, and by telling them the past actions of
their lives, and predicting to them determined truths of future
contingencies, notwithstanding what divines say, that "in futuris
contingeatibus non datur determinata veritas," would not they conclude
that I was going to usher in a new Mahomet? Since, therefore, there does
exist such a man in London, who actually is deaf and dumb, and was born
so, who does write and read, and converse as well as anybody, who
teaches others deaf and dumb to write, and read and converse with
anybody, who likewise can, by a presaging gift, set down in writing the
name of any stranger at first sight, tell him his past actions, and
predict his future occurrences in fortune, and since he has practised
this talent as a profession with great success for a long series of
years upon innumerable persons in every state and vocation in life, from
the peeress to the waiting-woman, and from the lady mayoress to the
milliner and sempstress, will it not be wonderfully entertaining to give
the world a perfect history of this so singular a man's life? And while
we are relating the pleasant adventures with such prodigious variety,
can anything be more agreeably instructive in a new way than to
intersperse the reasons, and account for the manner how nature, having a
mind to be remarkable, performs by him acts so mysterious.

I have premised this introduction, compounded of the merry and the
serious, with the hopes of engaging many curious people of all sorts to
be my readers, even from the airy nice peruser of novels and romances,
neatly bound and finely gilt, to the grave philosopher, that is daily
thumbing over the musty and tattered pieces of more solid antiquity. I
have all the wonders to tell that such a merry kind of a prophet has
told, to entertain the fancies of the first gay tribe, by which means I
may entice them into some solid knowledge and judgment of human nature;
and I have several solid disquisitions of learning to make, accounting
for the manner of these mysterious operations, never touched upon before
in due form and order by the hands of the ancient or modern sages, that
I may bribe the judgment of this last grave class, so far as to endure
the intermixing entertainment with their severer studies.




  CHAPTER I.

    MR. CAMPBELL'S DESCENT, FAMILY, BIRTH, ETC.


Of the goodness and antiquity of the name and family of this gentleman,
nobody can ever make any question. He is a Campbell, lineally descended
from the house of Argyll, and bears a distant relation to the present
duke of that name in Scotland, and who is now constituted a duke of
England, by the style and title of Duke of Greenwich.

It happens frequently that the birth of extraordinary persons is so long
disputed by different people, each claiming him for their own, that the
real place where he first took breath grows at last dubious. And thus it
fares with the person who is the subject of the following sheets; as,
therefore, it is my proposal to have a strict regard to historical
faith, so I am obliged to tell the reader that I can with no certainty
give an account of him till after he was three years old; from which age
I knew him, even to this day; I will answer for the truths which I
impart to the public during that time, and as for his birth and the
circumstances of it, and how the first three years of his life passed, I
can only deliver them the same account I have received from others, and
leave them to their own judgments whether it ought to be deemed real or
fabulous.

The father of our Mr. Duncan Campbell, as these relate the story, was
from his infancy of a very curious, inquisitive nature, and of an
enterprising genius, and if he heard of anything surprising to be seen,
the difficulty in practice was enough to recommend to him the attempting
to get a sight of it at any rate or any hazard. It is certain, that
during some civil broils and troubles in Scotland, the grandfather of
our Mr. Campbell was driven with his wife and family, by the fate of
war, into the isle of Shetland, where he lived many years; and during
his residence there, Mr. Archibald Campbell, the father of our Duncan
Campbell, was born.

Shetland lies north-east from Orkney, between sixty and sixty-one
degrees of latitude. The largest isle of Shetland, by the natives called
the Mainland, is sixty miles in length from south-west to the
north-east, and from sixteen, to one mile, in breadth.

The people who live in the smaller isles have abundance of eggs and
fowl, which contributes to maintain their families during the summer.

The ordinary folks are mostly very nimble and active in climbing the
rocks in quest of those eggs and fowl. This exercise is far more
diverting than hunting and hawking among us, and would certainly for the
pleasure of it, be followed by people of greater distinction, was it not
attended with very great dangers, sufficient to turn sport into sorrow,
and which have often proved fatal to those who too eagerly pursue their
game. Mr. Archibald Campbell, however, delighted extremely in this way
of fowling, and used to condescend to mix with the common people for
company, because none of the youths of his rank and condition were
venturesome enough to go along with him.

The most remarkable experiment of this sort, is at the isle called the
Noss of Brassah: the Noss standing at sixteen fathoms distance from the
side of the opposite main: the higher and lower rocks have two stakes
fastened in each of them, and to these there are ropes tied; upon the
ropes there is an engine hung which they call a cradle, and in this a
man makes his way over from the greater to the smaller rocks, where he
makes a considerable purchase of eggs and fowl; but his return being by
an ascent, makes it the more dangerous, though those on the great rock
have a rope tied to the cradle, by which they draw it and the man safe
over for the most part. Over this rock Mr. Archibald Campbell and five
others were in that manner let down by cradles and ropes; but before
they could be all drawn back again, it grew dark, and their associates
not daring to be benighted, were forced to withdraw, and Mr. Campbell
was the unfortunate person left behind, having wandered too far, and not
minded how the day declined, being intent on his game. He passed that
night, you may easily guess, without much sleep, and with great anxiety
of heart. The night, too, as he lay in the open air, was, to add to his
misfortunes, as boisterous and tempestuous as his own mind; but in the
end the tempest proved very happy for him. The reader is to understand
that the Hamburghers, Bremeners, and Hollanders, carry on a great fish
trade there. Accordingly, a Holland vessel, that was just coming in the
sound of Brassah, was by this tempest driven into a creek of the rock,
which nature had made into a harbour, and they were providentially
saved from the bottom of the sea by a rock, from which, humanly
speaking, they could expect nothing but destruction, and being sent to
the bottom of that sea. As never could a man be taken hold of with so
sudden and surprising a disaster, so nobody could meet with a more
sudden and surprising relief than Mr. Campbell found when he saw a ship
so near. He made to the vessel, and begged the Hollanders to take him
in; they asked him what he would give them, or, said the barbarous
sailors, we will even leave you where you are; he told them his
disaster, but they asked money, and nothing else would move them: as he
knew them a self-interested people, he bethought himself, that if he
should tell them of the plenty of fowls and eggs they would get there,
he might not only be taken in a passenger, but made a partner in the
money arising from the stock; it succeeded accordingly: when he proposed
it, the whole crew were all at work, and, in four hours, pretty well
stored the vessel, and then, returning on board, set sail for Holland.
They offered Mr. Campbell to put him in at his own island; but having a
mind to see Holland, and being a partner, to learn their way of
merchandize, which he thought he might turn to his countrymen's
advantage, he told them he would go the voyage out with them, and see
the country of those who were his deliverers; a necessary way of speech,
when one has a design to sooth barbarians, who, but for interest, would
have left him unredeemed, and, for aught they knew, a perpetual sole
inhabitant of a dreadful rock, encompassed round with precipices, some
three hundred fathoms high. Not so the islanders, who are wrongly called
a savage set of mortals; no, they came in quest of him after so bitter a
night, not doubting to find him, but fearing to find him in a lamentable
condition; they hunted and ransacked every little hole and corner in the
rock, but all in vain. In one place they saw a great slaughter of fowls,
enough to serve forty families for a week; and then they guessed, though
they had not the ill fortune to meet the eagles frequently noted to
hover about those isles, that they might have devoured part of him on
some precipice of the rock, and dropped the remnant into the sea. Night
came upon them, and they were afraid of falling into the same disaster
they went to relieve Mr. Campbell from. They returned each to their
proper basket, and were drawn up safe by their respective friends, who
were amazed that one basket was drawn up empty which was let down for
Mr. Campbell, and that there was not the least intelligence to be had
concerning him, but the suppositious story of his having been devoured
by eagles. The story was told at home; and with the lamentation of the
whole family, and all his friends, he was looked upon to be murdered or
dead.

Return we now to Mr. Archibald Campbell, still alive, and on board the
Holland vessel; secure, as he thought within himself that, from the
delivery he lately had by the gift of Providence, he was not intended to
be liable to any more misfortunes and dangers of life, in the compass of
so small a voyage. But his lot was placed otherwise in the book of fate,
than he too fondly imagined: his time of happiness was dated some pages
lower down, and more rubs and difficulties were to be encountered with,
before his stars intended to lead him to the port of felicity. Just as
he arrived within sight of Amsterdam, a terrible storm arose, and, in
danger of their lives, for many hours, they weathered out the tempest;
and a calm promising fair afresh, they made to the coast of Zealand; but
a new hurricane prevented the ship from coming there also; and after
having lost their masts and rigging, they were driven into Lapland.
There they went ashore in order to careen and repair their ship, and
take in provisions; while the ship was repairing by the Dutch, our
islander made merry with the inhabitants, being the most inclined to
their superstitious customs; he there became acquainted with a very
beautiful woman, who fell in love with him, and after a very short space
of time he married her. About the time when the ship departed, his wife,
who was very rich, was big with child of a son, namely, Mr. Duncan
Campbell. He wrote a letter by the master of the vessel to his parents
in Shetland, concerning the various adventures he had met with, which
was delivered the June following, about the time of fishing, to his
parents, and several persons had copies thereof, and, for aught I know,
some retain them to this very day; sure I am that many remember the
particulars of this, surprising affair, who are now living in that
island.

The letter being very remarkable and singular in all its circumstances,
I shall present it to the reader word for word, as it was given into my
hands, together with some others which he wrote afterwards, in all
which I am assured by very credible persons, and undoubted authorities,
there are not the least alterations, but what the version of it from the
then Scotch manner of expression into a more modern English dress, made
absolutely necessary.

     MY DEAREST FATHER,

     The same odd variety of accident, which put it out of my power to
     be personally present with you for so long a time, put it
     likewise out of my power to write to you. At last fortune has so
     ordered it, that I can send a letter to you before I can come
     myself, and it is written expressly to tell you the adventures I
     have met with, which have detained me this tedious space of time
     from my dear father, and because the same captain of a ship that
     brings you this, might as easily have brought your son to speak
     for himself. I shall in the next place lay before you the
     necessity there is for my stay a little longer among the strange
     natives of the country where I now inhabit, and where I am, in a
     manner, become naturalized.

     You have, no doubt of it, been informed by my companions, some of
     whom I hope got safe back again, if not all, that I was lost,
     where many a brave man has perished before me, by going over the
     high precipices of the mountain Brassah, in a basket, sliding
     down by a rope. I must suppose I have given you the anguish of a
     father for a son, who you thought had lost his life by such a
     foolhardy attempt, and I implore your pardon with all the power
     of filial contrition, penitence, and duty. You have always showed
     me such singular marks of paternal affection, that I know your
     receipt of this letter will fill your heart with joy, and cause
     you to sign me an absolution and free pardon for all the errors I
     have committed, and think the sufferings I have undergone for my
     rashness and indiscretion, a sufficient atonement for my crime of
     making you by my undutifulness, a partner of my sorrows. To free
     you the more from this uneasiness, I know I need only tell you,
     that every grief of mine is gone excepting one, which is, that I
     must still lose the pleasure of seeing you a little longer. There
     was never surely a more bitter night than that which must by me
     be for ever remembered, when I was lost in the mountain of
     Brassah, where I must, for aught I know, have lived for ever a
     wild single inhabitant, but that the storm which made the night
     so uneasy to me, rendered the first approach of daylight, beyond
     measure delightful. The first providential glimpse of the morning
     gave me a view of a ship driven by the tempest into a creek of
     the rock, that was by nature formed like a harbour; a miraculous
     security of deliverance, as I thought, both for the ship's crew
     and myself. I made all the haste I could, you may be sure, to
     them, and I found them to be Dutchmen that were come for fish;
     but in lieu of fish I instructed them to load it with eggs and
     fowl, which we compassed very happily in a short space of time,
     and I was to be a sharer with the captain in the lading, and
     bargained to go for Holland, to see the sale, and nature of the
     traffic; but when we were at sea, after much bad weather, we made
     towards Zealand, but we were driven upon the coast of Finland by
     a new storm, and thence into Lapland, where I now am, and from
     whence I send you this letter.

     I could not come into a place so properly named for my reception;
     as I had been undutiful to you, and fortune seemed to make me an
     exile, or a banished man, by way of punishment for the vices of
     my youth; so Lapland (which is a word originally derived from the
     Finland word _lappi_, that is, exiles, and from the Sweden word
     _lap_, signifying banished, from which two kingdoms most of our
     inhabitants were banished hither, for not embracing the Christian
     religion), was certainly the properest country in the world to
     receive me.

     When first I entered this country, I thought I was got into quite
     another world; the men are all of them pigmies to our tall,
     brawny Highlanders; they are, generally speaking, not above three
     cubits high, insomuch that though the whole country of Lapland is
     immensely large, and I have heard it reckoned by the inhabitants
     to be above a hundred German leagues in length, and fourscore and
     ten in breadth, yet I was the tallest man there, and looked upon
     as a giant. The district in which I live now, is called Uma
     Lapmark. You must understand, sir, that when I landed at North
     Cape, in Kimi Lapmark, another district of Lapland, there was at
     that time a most beautiful lady come to see a sick relation of
     her father's, who was prefect, or governor of Uma Lapmark, which
     is a post of great distinction. This lady, by being frequently in
     the company of French merchants, who traffic now and then in that
     province of Uma Lapmark, understood French, and having heard of a
     man six foot and a half high, desired to see me, and when I
     came, she happened mightily to like my person; and she talked
     French, which when I answered, she made great signs of joy, that
     she could communicate her sentiments to me, and she told me who
     she was, how rich, and that not one in the company besides could
     understand a syllable we said, and so I might speak my mind
     freely to her; she told me the customs of the country, that it
     was divided into cantons, like our shires, and those cantons into
     rekars, or certain grounds allotted to families, that are just
     like our clans. As she was beyond measure beautiful, she was
     extremely good humoured, a thing rarely to be met among Lapland
     women, of a better stature than her country women, and very rich,
     and of good birth: I thought it would be a prodigious turn of
     fortune, for a man in my circumstances, if I could make any
     progress in her heart, which she seemed a little to open to me,
     in such a manner, for the beginning, as if such a successful
     event, if managed with prudence, might not be despaired off.
     Souls that are generous are apt to love, and compassion is the
     best introducer of love into a generous bosom, and that was the
     best stock I had to go upon in my courtship! I told her of all my
     calamities, my dangers, and my escapes; the goodness of my birth,
     as being allied to one of the greatest nobles in our island; and
     still she would ask me to tell it her over again, though every
     time I told it, just at such and such passages, she was forced to
     drop the tears from her eyes. In fine, I grew more in love with
     her, more out of a sense of gratitude now, than by the power of
     her charms before; the matter in a few days went so far, that she
     owned to me I had her heart. As to marriage, I did not then know
     the custom of the nation; I thought that if it proved only
     dangerous to me, I loved her so well that I intended to marry
     her, though the law was to pronounce me dead for it; but I did
     not know whether it might not be perilous for her too, to engage
     in such a state with me, and I resolved in that case, rather to
     be singly unhappy, than to involve her in distress, and make her
     the fair companion of my woes. I would not tell her so, for fear
     she should out of love hide from me those dangers, and therefore
     using a kind sort of dissimulation, I conjured her to tell me the
     laws and customs of marriages in that country to a tittle, and
     that nothing should hinder us from happiness. She told me
     exactly, as I find since. Our marriage, said she, will be very
     hard to compass; provided we follow the strict rule of the
     country. For our women here, are bound not to see the man who
     makes their addresses to them, in some time. His way of courtship
     is to come to the parents, and his nearest friends and relations
     must make her father presents, and supplicate him like a king, to
     grant him his daughter. The courtship often lasts two or three
     years, and sometimes has not its effect at last; but if it has,
     the woman is dragged by her father and brother to church, as
     unwilling to go to be married, which is looked upon as a greater
     part of modesty in her, according to the greater disinclination
     she shows. My father and brother, said she, will both be against
     it; you have no relations in this country to move your suit, I
     cannot be so hypocritical as to be dragged unwillingly to him I
     own I desire for my lawful husband, and therefore, as I have an
     inclination to you, and I dare own I have, I will not follow
     those methods which I disapprove. I have talked with several
     Swedes, and several polite Frenchmen, about their manner of
     espousals, and I am told, that when souls are naturally united by
     affection, the couple so mutually and reciprocally loving, though
     they had rather have their parents' leave if likely to be got,
     yet, unwilling to be disappointed, only go to the next minister's
     and marry for better for worse. This way I approve of, for where
     two persons naturally love each other, the rest is nothing but a
     modest restraint to their wishes, and since it is only custom, my
     own reason teaches me there is no error committed, nor any harm
     done in breaking through it upon so commendable an occasion. I
     have, added she, a thousand rein-deer belonging to me, beyond my
     father's power of taking away, and a third share in a rekar or
     clan, that is ten leagues in compass, in the byar or canton of
     Uma Lapmark. This is at my own disposal, and it is all your own,
     if you please to accept of it with me. Our women are very coy,
     when they are courted, though they have never so much an
     inclination to their suitor; but good reason and the commerce I
     have had with persons of politer nations than ours is, teach me
     that this proceeds entirely from vanity and affectation, and the
     greatest proof of a woman's modesty, chastity, and sincerity,
     certainly consists, contrary to the general corrupted opinion, in
     yielding up herself into the arms of the man she loves. For she
     that can dally with a heart she prizes, can give away her heart,
     when she is once balked, to any man, even though she dislikes
     him. You must judge, my dear father, I must be touched with a
     woman that was exceeding beautiful, beyond any of her nation, and
     who had thoughts as beautiful as her person. I therefore was all
     in rapture, and longed for the matrimony, but still loved her
     enough to propose the question, I resolved, to her, viz., if it
     would not be in her nation accounted a clandestine marriage, and
     prove of great damage to her.

     To this she answered with all the wisdom which could be expected
     from a woman who had given such eminent tokens of her judgment on
     other points, amidst a nation so barbarous in its manners, and so
     corrupt in its principles, as Lapland is. I am, said she,
     answerable to my father, for nothing by our laws, having no
     portion of him, but only what was presented me by my relations at
     my birth, according to custom, in lands and rein-deer. My father
     is but deputy governor; it is a Swede who is the governor of Uma;
     and if I pay to him at every mart and fair the due tribute, which
     must either consist of fifty rein-deer or one hundred and fifty
     rixdollars, he will have the priest that marries us present at
     the court of justice, according to our custom, and keep us in
     possession of our rights, that we may be enabled to pay tribute
     to the crown of Sweden. Indeed, before the abolition of the
     Birkarti, which were our native judges, we could not have married
     thus without danger to us both; but now there is none at all.

     My dear father, you must easily imagine that I could not help
     embracing with all tenderness so dear and so lovely a woman. In
     fine, I am married to her, I have lived very happy hitherto, and
     am now grown more happy, for she is big with child; and likely,
     before my letter comes to your hands, to make you a grandfather
     of a pretty boy. You will perhaps wonder that I name the sex of
     the child before it comes into the world, but we have a way in
     Lapland of finding that out, which though some judicious people
     call superstitious, I am really persuaded of by experience, and
     therefore I indulged my dear wife's curiosity, when she signified
     to me she had a mind to make the usual trial, whether the child
     she was going to be delivered of would be a boy or a girl.

     You must understand, my dear father, the people here judge of
     the sex of the child by the moon, unto which they compare a
     big-bellied woman. If they see a star appear just above the moon,
     it is a sign it will be a boy, but, if the star be just below the
     moon, they conjecture her to be big with a girl. This observation
     and remark of Laplanders has, I know, been accounted by some, and
     those wise and judicious men too, to be ridiculously
     superstitious; but I have been led into an easy belief of this
     mystery, by a mistress that is superior to wisdom itself,
     constant, and therefore probably infallible, experience. I
     therefore indulged my wife in this her request, and went with her
     to the ceremony; the star appeared above the moon, which
     prognosticates a boy, which I wish may, and I scarce doubt will,
     prove true, and when she is brought to bed I will send you word
     of it. It is remarkable, likewise, that a star was seen just
     before the moon, which we also count a very good omen. For it is
     a custom likewise here in Lapland, to consult the moon, as an
     oracle about the health and vigour of the child. If a star be
     seen just before the moon, we count it a sign of a lusty and well
     grown child, without blemish; if a star comes just after, we
     reckon it a token that the child will have some defect or
     deformity, or die soon after it is born.

     Having thus told you the manners of the country I live in at
     present, as much at large as the nature of a letter will permit,
     and related to you my own happy circumstances, and the kindly
     promises of the heavens that are ushering in the birth of my
     child, I would not have you think that I addict myself to the
     superstitions of the country, which are very many and groundless,
     and arising partly from the remainder of Pagan worship, which is
     still cultivated among some of the more obstinate inhabitants. I
     have, on the contrary, since I married her, endeavoured to repay
     my wife's temporal blessings to me with those that are endless,
     instructed her in all the points of religion, and made her
     perfectly a Christian; and she, by her devotion and prayers for
     me, makes me such amends for it that I hope in us two St. Paul's
     saying will be verified, viz., "That the woman shall be
     sanctified in her husband, and the husband shall be sanctified in
     his wife."

     However, I must take notice in this place, with all due deference
     to Christianity, that though I am obliged to applaud the prudence
     and piety of Charles the Ninth of Sweden, who, constituting
     Swedish governors over this country, abrogated their practice of
     superstitions and art magic upon pain of death, yet that king
     carried the point too far, and intermingled with these arts the
     pretensions to the gift of a second-sight, which you know how
     frequent it is with us in Scotland, and which, I assure you, my
     wife (though she durst not publicly own it for fear of incurring
     the penalty of those Swedish laws) does, as it were, inherit (for
     all her ancestors before her have had it from time immemorial) to
     a greater degree than ever I knew any of our countrywomen or
     countrymen.

     One day last week she distracted me between the extremes of joy
     and sorrow. She told me I should see you shortly, and that my
     coming son would grow to be one of the most remarkable men in
     England and Scotland, for his power of foresight; but that I
     should speedily lose her, and meet with difficulties in my own
     country, in the same manner as my father, meaning you, sir, had
     done before me, and on the same account, viz., of civil broils,
     and intestine wars in Scotland.

     These unfortunate parts of her relation I would not conceal from
     you, because the veracity of her notions should appear, if they
     are true, though you may be sure I much wish they all may prove
     false to the very last; excepting that wherein she tells me, my
     son will be greatly remarkable, and that I shall shortly see my
     dear father, which I daily long for, and will endeavour to do as
     soon as possible. Pray remember me to all friends; being,

                          Honoured sir,
                 Your most dutiful and loving son,
                                 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL.


       *       *       *       *       *


  THE SECOND LETTER.

     I am now the happiest man alive; the prosperous part of my wife's
     predictions, which I mentioned to you in my last, is come in some
     measure to pass. The child she has brought me proves a boy, and
     as fine a one as I ever beheld, (if fondness for my own makes me
     not blind); and sure it cannot be fondness, because other plain
     circumstances joined at his birth to prove it a more than
     ordinary remarkable one. He was born with a caul upon his head,
     which we count one of the luckiest signs that can be in nature;
     he had likewise three teeth ready cut through the gums, and we
     reckon that an undeniable testimony and promise given to the
     world by nature, that she intends such a person for her
     extraordinary favourite, and that he is born for great things,
     which I daily beg of heaven may come to pass.

     Since I have known for some months what it is to be a father, it
     adds a considerable weight to those affections which I had for my
     wife. I thought that my tenderness for her was at the height of
     perfection before; which shows how little we know of those parts
     of nature that we have yet never tried, and of which we have not
     yet been allotted our share to act upon the stage of life. I find
     that I did love her then as well as a husband could love a wife,
     that is, a wife without a child; but the love to a wife that has
     a child, is a feeling wonderful and inexpressibly different. A
     child is the seal and the pledge of love. Meditating upon this,
     has likewise doubled my affection to you. I loved you before, as
     a son, and because as such, I felt your tenderness; but my love
     is much increased now, because I know the tenderness which you
     felt for me as a father. With these pleasing images of thought, I
     often keep you nearer company at this vast distance, than when I
     lived irregularly under your eye. These reflections render a
     solitary life dear to me. And though I have no manner of
     acquaintance with her relations, who hate me, as I am told, nor
     indeed with almost any of the inhabitants, but my own domestics,
     and those I am forced to deal with, yet I have as much, methinks,
     as I wish for, unless I could come over to Shetland and live with
     you, which I the more ardently desire, because I think I and my
     wife could be true comforts to you, in your advanced years; now I
     know what living truly is. I am daily persuading my wife to go
     with me; but she denies me with kind expressions, and says, she
     owes too much to the place, however less pleasant in itself than
     other climates, where she had the happiness of first joining
     hands with me in wedlock, ever to part from it. But I must
     explain how I ask, and how she refuses. I resolved never directly
     and downrightly to ask her, because I know she can refuse me
     nothing; and that would be bearing hard upon the goodness of her
     will. But my way of persuading her consists in endeavouring to
     make her in love with the place, by agreeable descriptions of
     it, and likewise of the humane temper of the people; so that I
     shortly shall induce her to signify to me that it is her own will
     to come with me, and then I shall seem rather to consent to her
     will, than to have moved it over to my own. These hopes I have of
     seeing my dear father very shortly, and I know such news would
     make this letter, which I therefore send, more acceptable to him,
     to whom I will be,

                      A most dutiful and
                          affectionate son, till death,
                                  ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL.

     P.S. If I cannot bring my wife to change this country for
     another, I have brought her to that pitch of devotion, that
     whenever Providence, which, notwithstanding her predictions, I
     hope will be long yet, shall call her to change this world for
     another, it will be happy with her there; she joins with me in
     begging your blessing to me, herself, and our little Duncan, whom
     we christened so, out of respect to the name you bear.


       *       *       *       *       *


  THE THIRD LETTER.


     MY DEAR FATHER,

     I am lost in grief; I had just brought my wife (her that was my
     wife, for I have none now, I have lost all joy), in the mind of
     coming over to be a comfort to you. But now grief will let me say
     no more than that I am coming to beg comfort from you, and by
     this I prepare you to receive, when he comes, a son in tears and
     mourning.

                                                   ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL.

     P.S. I have a babe, not much above two years old, must bear the
     hardships of travelling over the ice, and all through Muscovy,
     for no ships can stir here for many months; and I cannot bear to
     live in this inhospitable place, where she died, that only could
     make it easy to me, one moment beyond the first opportunity I
     have of leaving it. She is in heaven; that should make me easy,
     but I cannot; I am not so good a Christian as she was--I am lost
     and ruined.




  CHAPTER II.

    AFTER THE DEATH OF MR. DUNCAN CAMPBELL'S MOTHER IN LAPLAND, HIS
    FATHER, ARCHIBALD, RETURNED WITH HIS SON TO SCOTLAND. HIS SECOND
    MARRIAGE, AND HOW HIS SON WAS TAUGHT TO WRITE AND READ.

Mr. Archibald Campbell, having buried his Lapland lady, returned to
Scotland, and brought over with him his son, Mr. Duncan Campbell. By
that time he had been a year in his own country, he married a second
wife; a lady whom I had known very well for some years, and then I first
saw the boy; but, as they went into the western islands, I saw them not
again in three years. She being, quite contrary to the cruel way much in
use among stepmothers, very fond of the boy, was accustomed to say, she
did, and would always think him her own son. The child came to be about
four years of age, as she has related to me the story since, and not
able to speak one word, nor to hear any noise; the father of him used to
be mightily oppressed with grief, and complain heavily to his new wife,
who was no less perplexed, that a boy so pretty, the son of so
particular a woman, which he had made his wife, by strange accidents and
adventures, and a child coming into the world with so many amazing
circumstances attending his birth, should lose those precious senses by
which alone the social commerce of mankind is upheld and maintained, and
that he should be deprived of all advantages of education, which could
raise him to the character of being the great man that so many
concurring incidents at his nativity promised and betokened he would be.

One day, a learned divine, who was of the university of Glasgow, but had
visited Oxford, and been acquainted with the chief men of science there,
happening to be in conversation with the mother-in-law of this child,
she related to him her son's misfortunes, with so many marks of sorrow,
that she moved the good old gentleman's compassion, and excited in him a
desire to give her what relief and consolation he could in this unhappy
case. His particular inclination to do her good offices, made him
recollect, that, at the time he was at Oxford, he had been in company
with one Doctor Wallis, a man famous for learning, who had told him that
he had taught a born deaf and dumb man to write, and to read, and even
to utter some sounds articulately with his mouth; and that he told him
he was then going to commit to print the method he made use of in so
instructing that person, that others, in the like unfortunate condition
might receive the same benefits and advantages from other masters, which
his deaf and dumb pupil had received from him. A dumb man recovering his
speech, or a blind man gaining his sight, or a deaf one getting his
hearing, could not be more overjoyed than Mrs. Campbell was at these
unexpected tidings, and she wept for gladness when he told it. The good
gentleman animated and encouraged her with the kindest promises, and to
keep alive her hopes, assured her he would send to one of the chief
booksellers in London to inquire after the book, who would certainly
procure it him if it was to be got, and that afterwards he would peruse
it diligently, make himself master of Doctor Wallis's method, and though
he had many great works upon his hands at that time, he would steal from
his other studies leisure enough to complete so charitable an office, as
teaching the dumb and deaf to read and to write, and give her son, who
was by nature deprived of them, the advantages of speech, as far as art
would permit that natural defect to be supplied by her powerful
interposition.

When the mother came home, the child, who could hear no knocking, and
therefore it must be by a strange and inexplicable instinct in nature,
was the first that ran to the door, and falling in a great fit of
laughter, a thing it was not much used to before, having on the contrary
rather a melancholy cast of complexion, it clung round its mother's
knees, incessantly embracing and kissing them, as if just at that time
it had an insight into what the mother had been doing for it, and into
its own approaching relief from its misery.

When the mother came with the child in her hand to the father, to tell
him the welcome news, the child burst afresh into a great fit of
laughter, which continued for an unusual space of time; and the scene of
such reciprocal affection and joy between a wife and her own husband, on
so signal an occasion, is a thing easier to be felt by parents of a good
disposition, imagining themselves under the same circumstances, with
regard to a child they loved with fondness, than to be expressed or
described by the pen of any writer. But it is certain, whenever they
spoke of this affair, as anybody, who knows the impatience of parents
for the welfare of an only child, may guess, they must be often
discoursing it over, and wishing the time was come; the boy, who used
seldom so much as to smile at other times, and who could never hear the
greatest noise that could be made, would constantly look wishfully in
their faces and laugh immoderately, which is a plain indication that
there was then a wonderful instinct in nature, as I said before, which
made him foretaste his good fortune, and, if I may be allowed the
expression, the dawnings as it were of the second-sight, were then
pregnant within him.

To confirm this, the happy hour of his deliverance being come, and the
doctor having procured Mr. Wallis's book, came with great joy, and
desired to see his pupil; scarce were the words out of his mouth when
the child happened to come into the room, and running towards the
doctor, fell on his knees, kissed his hand eagerly, and laughed as
before, which to me is a demonstration that he had an insight into the
good which the doctor intended him.

It is certain, that several learned men, who have written concerning the
second-sight, have demonstrated by incontestable proofs, and undeniable
arguments, that children, nay, even horses and cows, see the
second-sight, as well as men and women advanced in years. But of this I
shall discourse at large in its proper place, having allotted a whole
future chapter for that same subject of second-sightedness.

In about half a year, the doctor taught his little dumb pupil first to
know his letters, then to name anything whatsoever, to leave off some
savage motions which he had taken of his own accord before, to signify
his mind by, and to impart his thoughts by his fingers and his pen, in a
manner as intelligible, and almost as swift through the eyes, as that is
of conveying our ideas to one another, by our voices, through the
conduits and portholes of the ears. But in little more than two years he
could write and read as well as anybody. Because a great many people
cannot conceive this, and others pretend it is not to be done in nature,
I will a little discourse upon Doctor Wallis's foundation, and show in a
manner obvious to the most ignorant, how this hitherto mysterious help
may be easily administered to the deaf and the dumb, which shall be the
subject of the ensuing chapter.

But I cannot conclude this without telling the handsome saying with
which this child, when not quite six years old, as soon as he thought he
could express himself well, paid his first acknowledgment to his master,
and which promised how great his future genius was to be, when so witty
a child ripened into man. The words he wrote to him were these, only
altered into English from the Scotch.

     SIR,

     It is no little work you have accomplished. My thanks are too
     poor amends; the world, sir, shall give you thanks; for as I
     could not have expressed myself without your teaching me, so
     those that can talk, though they have eyes, cannot see the things
     which I can see, and shall tell them; so that in doing me this,
     you have done a general service to mankind.




  CHAPTER III.

    THE METHOD OF TEACHING DEAF AND DUMB PERSONS TO WRITE, READ, AND
    UNDERSTAND A LANGUAGE.


It is, I must confess, in some measure, amazing to me that men, of any
moderate share of learning, should not naturally conceive of themselves
a plain reason for this art, and know how to account for the
practicability of it, the moment they hear the proposition advanced; the
reasons for it are so obvious to the very first consideration we can
make about it. It will be likewise as amazing to me that the most
ignorant should not conceive it, after so plain a reason is given them
for it, as I am now going to set down.

To begin: how are children at first taught a language that can hear? are
they not taught by sounds? and what are those sounds, but tokens and
signs to the ear, importing and signifying such and such a thing? If,
then, there can be signs made to the eye, agreed by the party teaching
the child, that they signify such and such a thing, will not the eye of
the child convey them to the mind, as well as the ear? They are indeed
different marks to different senses, but both the one and the other do
equally signify the same things or notions, according to the will of the
teacher, and consequently must have an equal effect with the person who
is to be instructed, for though the manners signifying are different,
the things signified are the same.

For example; if, after having invented an alphabet upon the fingers, a
master always keeps company with a deaf child, and teaches it to call
for whatsoever it wants by such motions of the fingers which, if put
down by letters, according to each invented motion of each finger, would
form in writing a word of a thing which it wanted; might not he by these
regular motions teach its eye the same notions of things, as sounds do
to the ears of children that hear? The manner of teaching the alphabet
by fingers, is plainly set down in the following table.

When the deaf child has learned by these motions a good stock of words,
as children that hear first learn by sounds, we may, methinks, call not
improperly, the fingers of such a dumb infant, its mouth, and the eye of
such a deaf child, its ear. When he has learnt thus far, he must be
taught to write the alphabet, according as it was adapted to the motions
of his fingers; as for instance, the five vowels, _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_,
_u_, by pointing to the top of the five fingers, and the other letters,
_b_, _c_, _d_, &c., by such other place or posture of a finger, as in
the above-mentioned table is set forth, or otherwise, it shall be agreed
upon. When this is done, the marks B, R, E, A, D, and so of all other
words, corresponding with such fingers, conveys through his eyes, unto
his head, the same notion, viz., the thing signified, as the sound we
give to those same letters, making the word 'bread,' do into our head,
through the ears.

This once done, he may be easily taught to understand the parts of
speech, as the verb, the noun, pronoun, &c., and so, by rules of grammar
and syntax, to compound ideas, and connect his words into a language.
The method of which, since it is plainly set forth in Doctor Wallis's
letter to Mr. Beverly, I shall set it down by way of extract; that
people in the same circumstances with the person we treat of, and of the
like genius, may not have their talents lost for want of the like
assistance.

When once a deaf person has learned so far as to understand the common
discourse of others, and to express his mind tolerably well in writing,
I see no room to doubt but that, provided nature has endowed him with a
proper strength of genius, as other men that hear, he may become
capable, upon farther improvement, of such farther knowledge as is
attainable by reading. For I must here join with the learned Doctor
Wallis in asserting, as to the present case before us, that no reason
can be assigned why such a deaf person may not attain the understanding
of a language as perfectly as those that hear; and with the same learned
author I take upon me to lay down this proposition as certain, that
allowing the deaf person the like time and exercise, as to other men is
requisite in order to attain the perfection of a language, and the
elegance of it, he may understand as well, and write as good language,
as other men; and abating only what doth depend upon sound, as tones,
cadences, and such punctilios, no whit inferior to what he might attain
to, if he had his hearing as others have?

       *       *       *       *       *

_An Extract from Dr. Wallis, concerning the method of teaching the Deaf
and Dumb to Read._

It is most natural, (as children learn the names of things), to furnish
him by degrees with a nomenclator, containing a competent number of
names of things common and obvious to the eye, that you may show the
thing answering to such a name, and these digested under convenient
titles, and placed under them in such convenient order, in several
columns, or other orderly situation in the paper, as by their position
best to express to the eye their relation or respect to one another. As
contraries or correlatives one against the other, subordinates or
appurtenances under their principle, which may serve as a kind of local
memory.

Thus, in one paper, under the title mankind, may be placed, not
confusedly, but in decent order, man, woman, child (boy, girl).

In another paper, under the title body, may be written, in like
convenient order, head (hair, skin, ear), face, forehead, eye (eyelid,
eyebrow), cheek, nose (nostril), mouth (lip, chin), neck, throat, back,
breast, side (right side, left side), belly, shoulders, arm (elbow,
wrist, hand,--back, palm), finger (thumb, buckle, nail), thigh, knee,
leg (shin, calf, ancle), foot (heel, sole), toe.

And when he hath learned the import of words in each paper, let him
write them in like manner, in distinct leaves or pages of a book,
prepared for that purpose, to confirm his memory, and to have recourse
to it upon occasion.

In a third paper, you may give him the inward parts; as skull (brain),
throat (windpipe, gullet), stomach, guts, heart, lungs, liver, spleen,
kidney, bladder (urine), vein (blood), bone (marrow), flesh, fat, &c.

In another paper, under the title beast, may be placed horse
(stonehorse, gelding), mare (colt), bull (ox), cow, calf. Sheep, ram
(wether), ewe (lamb), hog, boar, sow, pig, dog, (mastiff, hound,
greyhound, spaniel), bitch (whelp, puppy), hare, rabbit, cat, mouse,
rat, &c.

Under the title bird, or fowl, put cock, capon, hen, chick, goose
(gander), gosling, duck (drake), swan, crow, kite, lark, &c.

Under the title fish, put pike, eel, place, salmon, lobster, crawfish,
&c.

You may then put plants or vegetables under several heads or
subdivisions of the same head; as tree (root, body, bark, bough, leaf,
fruit), oak, ash, apple-tree, pear-tree, vine, &c. Fruit: apple, pear,
plum, cherry, grape, nut, orange, lemon. Flower; rose, tulip,
gilliflower herb, (weed), grass, corn, wheat, barley, rye, pea, bean.

And the like of inanimates; as heaven, sun, moon, star, element, earth,
water, air, fire; and under the title earth,--clay, sand, gravel, stone.
Metal; gold, silver, brass, copper, iron (steel), lead, tin (pewter),
glass. Under the title water, put sea, pond, river, stream; under that
of air, put light, dark, mist, fog, cloud, wind, rain, hail, snow,
thunder, lightning, rainbow. Under that of fire; coal, flame, smoke,
soot, ashes.

Under the title clothes, put woollen (cloth, stuff), linen (holland,
lawn, lockarum), silk, (satin, velvet), hat, cap, band, doublet,
breeches, coat, cloak, stocking, shoe, boot, shirt, petticoat, gown, &c.

Under the title house, put wall, roof, door, window, casement, room.

Under room, put shop, hall, parlour, dining-room, chamber, study,
closet, kitchen, cellar, stable, &c.

And under each of these, as distinct heads, the furniture or utensils
belonging thereunto; with divisions and subdivisions, as there is
occasion, which I forbear to mention, that I be not too prolix.

And in like manner, from time to time, may be added more collections, or
classes of names or words, conveniently digested, under distinct heads,
and suitable distributions, to be written in distinct leaves or pages of
his book in such order as may seem convenient.

When he is furnished with a competent number of names, though not so
many as I have mentioned, it will be seasonable to teach him under the
titles singular and plural, the formation of plurals from singulars, by
adding _s_, or _es_; as hand, hands; face, faces; fish, fishes, &c.,
with some few irregulars, as man, men; woman, women; foot, feet; tooth,
teeth; mouse, mice; louse, lice; ox, oxen, &c.

Which, except the irregulars, will serve for possessives, to be after
taught him, which are formed by their primitives by like addition of _s_
or _es_, except some few irregulars, as my, mine; thy, thine; our, ours;
your, yours; his, her, hers; their, theirs, &c.

And in all those and other like cases, it will be proper first to show
him the particulars, and then the general title.

Then teach him in another page or paper, the particles, a, an, the,
this, that, these, those.

And the pronouns, I, me, my, mine, thou, thee, thy, thine, we, us, our,
ours, ye, you, your, yours, he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its, they,
them, their, shoes, heirs, who, whom, whose.

Then under the titles substantive, adjective, teach him to connect
these, as my hand, your head, his foot, his feet, her arm, her arms, our
hats, their John's coat, William's band, &c.

And in order to furnish him with more adjectives, under the title
colours, you may place black, white, gray, green, blue, yellow, red,
&c., and having showed the particulars, let him know that these are
called colours. The like for taste and smell; as sweet, bitter, sour,
stink.

And for hearing, sound, noise, word.

Then for touch or feeling, hot, warm, cold, cool, wet, moist, dry, hard,
soft, tough, brittle, heavy, light, &c.

From whence you may furnish him with more examples of adjectives with
substantives; as white bread, brown bread, green grass, soft cheese,
hard cheese, black hat, my black hat, &c.

And then inverting the order, substantive, adjective, with the verb
copulative between; as silver is white, gold is yellow, lead is heavy,
wood is light, snow is white, ink is black, flesh is soft, bone is hard,
I am sick, I am not well, &c., which will begin to give him some notion
of syntax.

In like manner when substantive and substantive are so connected; as
gold is a metal, a rose is a flower, they are men, they are women,
horses are beasts, geese are fowls, larks are birds, &c.

Then as those before relate to quality, you may give him some other
words relating to quantity. As long, short, broad, narrow; thick, thin;
high, tall, low; deep, shallow, great, big, small (little), much,
little; many, few, full, empty; whole, part, piece; all, some, none,
strong, weak, quick, slow, equal, unequal, bigger, less.

Then words of figure; as straight, crooked, plain, bowed, concave,
hollow, convex; round, square, three-square, sphere, globe, bowl, cube,
die, upright, sloping, leaning forward, leaning backward, like, unlike.

Of gesture; as stand, lie, sit, kneel, sleep.

Of motion; as move, stir, rest, walk, go, come, run, leap, ride, fall,
rise, swim, sink, drawn, slide, creep, crawl, fly, pull, draw, thrust,
throw, bring, fetch, carry.

Then words relating to time; place, number, weight, measure, money, &c.,
are, in convenient time, to be showed him distinctly; for which the
teacher, according to his discretion, may take a convenient season.

As likewise the time of the day; the days of the week, the days of the
month, the months of the year, and other things relating to the
almanack, which he will quickly be capable to understand, if once
methodically shown him.

As likewise the names and situation of places and countries, which are
convenient for him to know; which may be orderly written in his book,
and showed him in the map of London, England, Europe, the world, &c.

But these may be done at leisure, as likewise the practice of
arithmetic, and other like pieces of learning.

In the mean time, after the concord of substantive and adjective, he is
to be showed by convenient examples, that of the nominative and verb;
as, for instance, I go, you see, he sits, they stand, the fire burns,
the sun shines, the wind blows, the rain falls, the water runs, and the
like, with the titles in the top nominative verb.

After this, under the titles nominative verb, accusative, give him
examples of verbs transitive; as I see you, you see me, the fire burns
the wood, the boy makes the fire, the cook roasts the meat, the butler
lays the cloth, we eat our dinner.

Or even with a double accusative; as, you teach me writing or to write,
John teacheth me to dance, Thomas, tell me a tale, &c.

After this you may teach him the flexion or conjugation of the verb, or
what is equivalent thereunto; for in our English tongue each verb hath
but two tenses, the present and the preter; two participles, the active
and the passive; all the rest is performed by auxiliaries, which
auxiliaries have no more tenses than the other verbs.

Those auxiliaries are, do, did, will, would, shall, should, may, might,
can, could, must, ought, to, have, had, am, be, was. And if by examples
you can insinuate the signification of these few words, you have taught
him the whole flexion of the verb.

And here it will be convenient, once for all, to write him out a full
paradigm of some one verb, suppose 'to see,' through all those
auxiliaries.

The verb itself hath but these four words to be learned, see, saw,
seeing, seen, save that after thou, in the second person singular, in
both tenses, we add est, and in the third person singular, in the
present tense, eth or es, or instead thereof, st, th, s, and so in all
verbs.

Then to the auxiliaries, do, did, will, would, shall, should, may,
might, can, could, must, ought, to, we join the indefinite see. And
after have, had, am, be, was, the passive particle seen, and so for all
other verbs.

But the auxiliary, 'am,' or 'be,' is somewhat irregular in a double
form.

Am, art, is; plural are; was, wast, was; plural were.

Be, beest, be; plural be; were, wert, were; plural were.

Be, am, was, being, been.

Which, attended with the other auxiliaries, make us the whole passive
voice.

All verbs, without exceptions, in the active participle, are formed by
adding ing, as see, seeing; teach, teaching, &c.

The preter tense and the participle are formed regularly, by adding ed,
but are often subject to contractions and other irregularities,
sometimes the same in both, sometimes different, and therefore it is
convenient here to give a table of verbs, especially the most usual, for
those three cases, which may at once teach their signification and
formation; as boil, boiled; roast, roasted, roasted; bake, baked, baked,
&c.; teach, taught, taught; bring, brought, brought; buy, bought,
bought, &c.; see, saw, seen; give, gave, given; take, took, taken;
forsake, forsook, forsaken; write, wrote, written, &c.; with many more
fit to be learned.

The verbs being thus dispatched, he is then to learn the prepositions,
wherein lies the whole regimen of the noun. For diversity of cases we
have none, the force of which is to be insinuated by convenient
examples, suited to their different significations; as for instance,
_of_ a piece _of_ bread, a pint _of_ wine, the colour _of_ a pot, the
colour _of_ gold, a ring _of_ gold, a cup _of_ silver, the mayor _of_
London, the longest _of_ all, &c.

And in like manner, for, off, on, upon, to, unto, till, until, from, at,
in, within, out, without, into, out of; about, over, under; above,
below; between, among; before, behind, after; for, by, with, through,
against, concerning; and by this time he will be pretty well enabled to
understand a single sentence.

In the last place, he is in like manner to be taught conjunctions, which
serve to connect not words only, but sentences; as and, also; likewise,
either or whether; neither, nor, if, then, why, wherefore, because,
therefore, but, though, yet, &c.; and these illustrated by convenient
examples in each case, as, _Because_ I am cold, _therefore_ I go to the
fire, _that_ I may be warm, _for_ it is cold weather.

_If_ it were fair, _then_ it would be good walking, but however,
_though_ it rain, _yet_ I must go, _because_ I promised; with other like
instances.

And by this time his book, if well furnished with plenty of words, and
those well digested under several heads, and in good order, and well
recruited from time to time as new words occur, will serve him in the
nature of a dictionary and grammar.

And in case the deaf person be otherwise of a good natural capacity, and
the teacher of a good sagacity, by this method, proceeding gradually
step by step, you may, with diligence and due application of teacher and
learner, in a year's time, or thereabouts, perceive a greater progress
than you would expect, and a good foundation laid for farther
instruction in matters of religion and other knowledge which may be
taught by books.

It will be convenient all along to have pen, ink, and paper, ready at
hand, to write down in a word what you signify to him by signs, and
cause him to write, or show how to write what he signifies by signs,
which way of signifying their mind by signs deaf persons are often very
good at; and we must endeavour to learn their language, if I may so call
it, in order to teach them ours, by showing what words answer to their
signs.

It will be convenient, also, as you go along, after some convenient
progress made, to express, in as plain language as may be, the import of
some of the tables; as for instance:--

The head is the highest part of the body, the feet the lowest part; the
face is the fore part of the head, the forehead is over the eyes, the
cheeks are under the eyes, the nose is between the cheeks, the mouth is
under the nose and above the chin, &c.

And such plain discourse put into writing, and particularly explained,
will teach him by degrees to understand plain sentences; and like
advantages a sagacious teacher may take, as occasion offers itself from
time to time.

This extract is mostly taken out of the ingenious Dr. Wallis, and lying
hid in that little book, which is but rarely inquired after and too
scarcely known, died in a manner with that great man. And as he designed
it for the general use of mankind that laboured under the misfortune of
losing those two valuable talents of hearing and speaking, I thought it
might not be amiss (in the life of so particular a dumb person as I am
writing) to give them this small but particular fragment of grammar and
syntax.

It is exactly adjusted to the English tongue; because such are the
persons with whom the Doctor had to deal, and such the persons whose
benefit alone I consult in this treatise.

One of the chief persons who was taught by Dr. Wallis was Mr. Alexander
Popham, brother-in-law (if I am not mistaken) to the present Earl of
Oxford; and he was a very great proficient in this way; and though he
was born deaf and dumb, understood the language so well as to give under
his hand, many rare indications of a masterly genius.

The uncle of his present Sardinian Majesty, as I have been credibly
informed, had the want of the same organs, and yet was a perfect
statesman, and wrote in five or six different languages elegantly well.

Bishop Burnet, in his book of travels, tells us a wonderful story,
almost incredible; but tells it as a passage that deserves our belief.
It is concerning a young lady at Genoa, who was not only deaf and dumb,
but blind, too, it seems, into the bargain; and this lady, he assures us
as a truth, could, by putting her hand on her sister's mouth, know
everything she said.

But to return back to England. We have many rare instances of our own
countrymen, the principal of whom I shall mention, as their names occur
to my memory. Sir John Gawdy, Sir Thomas Knotcliff, Sir ---- Gostwick,
Sir Henry Lydall, and Mr. Richard Lyns of Oxford, were all of this
number, and yet men eminent in their several capacities, for
understanding many authors, and expressing themselves in writing with
wonderful facility.

In Hatton garden, there now lives a miracle of wit and good nature, I
mean the daughter of Mr. Loggin, who, though born deaf and dumb, (and
she has a brother who has the same impediments), yet writes her mind
down upon any subject with such acuteness as would amaze learned men
themselves and put many students that have passed for wits, to the
blush, to see themselves so far surpassed by a woman amidst that
deficiency of the common organs. If anybody speaks a word distinctly,
this lady will, by observing narrowly the motion of the speaker's lips
pronounce the word afterwards very intelligibly.

As there are a great many families in England and Ireland that have
several, and some even have five or six dumb persons belonging to them;
and as a great many more believe it impossible for persons born deaf and
dumb to write and read, and have thence taken occasion to say and assert
that Mr. Campbell could certainly speak, I could never think it a
digression in the history of this man's life to set down the grammar by
which he himself was taught, and which he has taught others (two of
which scholars of his are boys in this town), partly to confute the
slander made against him, and partly for the help of others dumb and
deaf, whose parents may by these examples be encouraged to get them
taught.




  CHAPTER IV.

    YOUNG DUNCAN CAMPBELL RETURNS WITH HIS MOTHER TO EDINBURGH. THE
    EARL OF ARGYLE'S OVERTHROW. THE RUIN OF MR. ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL AND
    HIS DEATH. YOUNG DUNCAN'S PRACTICE IN PREDICTION AT EDINBURGH
    WHILE YET A BOY.


Our young boy, now between six and seven years of age, half a Highlander
and half a Laplander, delighted in wearing a little bonnet and plaid,
thinking it looked very manly in his countrymen, and his father, as soon
as he was out of his hanging sleeves, and left off his boy's vest,
indulged him with that kind of dress, which is truly antique and heroic.
In this early part of his nonage he was brought to Edinburgh by his
mother-in-law, where I myself grew afresh acquainted with her, his
father being then but lately dead, just after the civil commotion, and
off and on, I have known him ever since, and conversed with him very
frequently during that space of time, which is now about three or four
and thirty years, so that whatever I say concerning him in the future
pages I shall relate to the reader from my own certain knowledge, which,
as I resolved to continue anonymous, may, perhaps, not have so much
weight and authority as if I had prefixed my name to the account. Be
that as it will, there are hundreds of living witnesses that will
justify each action I relate, and his own future actions while he lives
will procure belief and credit to the precedent ones, which I am going
to record; so that if many do remain infidels to my relations, and will
not allow them exact (the fate of many as credible and more important
historians than myself), I can however venture to flatter myself that
greater will be the number of those who will have a faith in my writings
than of those who will reject my accounts as incredible.

Having just spoke of the decease of Mr. Archibald Campbell, the father
of our young Duncan Campbell, it will not be amiss here to observe how
true the predictions of his Lapland mother were, which arose from
second-sight, according to the notices given by the child's father, to
his grandfather, in his letter from Lapland, even before it was born,
which shows that the infant held this second-sighted power, or occult
faculty of divination, even by inheritance.

In the year 1685, the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle sailed out
of the ports of Holland without any obstruction, the Earl of Argyle in
May; with three ships for Scotland, and Monmouth in June, with the same
number for England.

The Earl setting out first, was also the first at landing. Argyle having
attempted to land in the north of Scotland, and being disappointed by
the vigilance of the Bishop of the Orcades, landed in the west, and
encamped at Dunstaffnage Castle, in the province of Lorn, which had
belonged to him. He omitted nothing that might draw over to him all the
malcontents in the kingdom, whom he thought more numerous than they
afterwards appeared to be. He dispersed about his declarations, wherein,
after protesting that he had taken up arms only in defence of religion
and the laws, against an unjust usurper (so he styled James the Second),
he invited all good Protestants, and such Scotch as would assert their
liberty, to join him against a prince, he said, who was got into the
throne to ruin the Reformation, and to bring in Popery and arbitrary
power. Next he sent letters to those he thought his friends, among whom
was Mr. Archibald Campbell, who, according to the vast deference payed
by the Scots to their chief, joined him, though in his heart of quite a
different principle, to call them to his assistance. He detached two of
his sons to make inroads in the neighbourhood, and compel some by
threats, others by mighty promises, to join him. All his contrivances
could not raise him above three thousand men, with whom he encamped in
the Isle of Bute, where he was soon, in a manner besieged by the Earl of
Dumbarton, with the king's forces, and several other bodies, commanded
by the Duke of Gordon, the Marquis of Athol, the Earl of Arran, and
other great men, who came from all parts to quench the fire before it
grew to a head.

The Earl of Argyle being obliged to quit a post he could not make good,
went over into a part of the country of his own name, where, having
hastily fortified a castle called Ellingrey, he put into it the arms and
ammunition taken out of his ships, which lay at anchor under the cannon
of a fort he erected near that place. There his rout began; for going
out from the castle with his forces to make an incursion, one of his
parties was defeated by the Marquis of Athol, who slew four hundred of
his men; and Captain Hamilton, who attacked his ships with some of the
king's, and took them without any resistance.

The Earl of Dumbarton advancing towards him, at the same time, by long
marches, while he endeavoured to secure himself by rivers, surprised him
passing the Clyde in the village of Killern, as he was marching towards
Lenox. Dumbarton coming upon them at night, would have stayed till the
next day to attack the rebels, but they gave him not so much time, for
they passed the river in the night, in such confusion, that being
overcome by fear, they dispersed as soon as over. Argyle could scarce
rally so many as would make him a small guard, which was soon scattered
again; Dumbarton having passed the river, and divided his forces to
pursue those that fled. Argyle had taken guides to conduct him to
Galloway; but they mistaking the way, and leading him into a bog, most
of those that still followed him quitted their horses, every man
shifting for himself.

Argyle himself was making back alone towards the Clyde, when two
resolute servants, belonging to an officer in the king's army meeting
him, though they knew him not, bid him surrender. He fired at and missed
them; but they took better aim, and wounded him with a pistol ball. Then
the earl drawing his two pistols out of the holsters, quitted his horse,
that was quite tired, and took the river. A country fellow, who came
with those two, that had first assaulted him, pursued him with a pistol
in his hand; the earl would have fired one of his, but the flint failing
he was dangerously wounded in the head by the peasant. He discovered
himself as he fell senseless, crying out. Unfortunate Argyle. This
nobleman, how far soever he may be thought misled in principle, was
certainly in his person a very brave and a very gallant hero. They made
haste to draw him out and bring him to himself; after which, being
delivered up to the officers, the erring, unfortunate great man, was
conducted to Edinburgh and there beheaded.

Many gentlemen that followed the fortunes of this great man, though not
in his death, they shared in all the other calamities attending his
overthrow. They most of them fled into the remotest isles and the
obscurest corners of all Scotland; contented with the saving of their
lives; they grew exiles and banished men of their own making, and
abdicated their estates before they were known to be forfeited, because,
for fear of being informed against by the common fellows they commanded,
they durst not appear to lay their claims. Of this number was Mr.
Archibald Campbell, and this new disaster wounded him deep into the very
heart, after so many late misadventures, and sent him untimely to the
grave. He perfectly pined away and wasted; he was six months dying inch
by inch, and the difference between his last breath and his way of
breathing during all that time, was only, that he expired with a greater
sigh than he ordinarily fetched every time when he drew his breath.

Everything the Lapland lady had predicted so long before, being thus
come to pass, we may the less admire at the wonders performed by her
son, when we consider this faculty of divination to be so derived to him
from her, and grown as it were hereditary.

Our young prophet, who had taught most of his little companions to
converse with him by finger, was the head at every little pastime and
game they played at. Marbles, which he used to call children's playing
at bowls, yielded him mighty diversion; and he was so dexterous an
artist at shooting that little alabaster globe from between the end of
his forefinger and the knuckle of his thumb, that he seldom missed
hitting plum, as the boys call it, the marble he aimed at, though at the
distance of two or three yards. The boys always when they played coveted
to have him on their side, and by hearing that he foretold other things,
used to consult him, when they made their little matches, which were
things of great importance in their thoughts, who should get the
victory. He used commonly to leave these trifles undecided, but if ever
he gave his opinion in these trivial affairs, the persons fared well by
their consultation, for his judgment about them was like a petty oracle,
and the end always answered his prediction. But I would have my reader
imagine, that though our Duncan Campbell was himself but a boy, he was
not consulted only by boys; his penetration and insight into things of a
high nature, got air, and being attested by credible witnesses won him
the esteem of persons of mature years and discretion.

If a beautiful young virgin languished for a husband, or a widow's mind
was in labour to have a second venture of infants by another spouse; if
a housekeeper had lost anything belonging to her master, still little
Duncan Campbell was at hand; he was the oracle to be applied to, and the
little chalked circle, where he was diverting himself with his
play-fellows near the cross at Edinburgh, was frequented with as much
solicitation, and as much credit, as the tripos of Apollo was at Delphos
in ancient times.

It was highly entertaining to see a young blooming beauty come and slily
pick up the boy from his company, carry him home with as much eagerness
as she would her gallant, because she knew she should get the name of
her gallant out of him before he went, and bribe him with a sugarplum to
write down the name of a young Scotch peer in a green ribbon that her
mouth watered after.

How often after he has been wallowing in the dust, have I myself seen
nice squeamish widows help him up in their gilded chariots, and give him
a pleasant ride with them, that he might tell them they should not long
lie alone; little Duncan Campbell had as much business upon his hands as
the parsons of all the parishes in Edinburgh. He commonly was consulted,
and named the couples before the minister joined them; thus he grew a
rare customer to the toyshop, from whence he most usually received fees
and rewards for his advice. If Lady Betty Such a one was foretold that
she should certainly have Beau Such a one in marriage, then little
Duncan was sure to have a hobby-horse from the toyshop, as a reward for
the promised fop. If such a widow, that was ugly, but very rich, was to
be pushed hard for as she pretended, though in reality easily won,
little Duncan, upon insuring her such a captain, or such a
lieutenant-colonel, was sure to be presented from the same child's
warehouse, with a very handsome drum, and a silvered trumpet.

If a sempstress had an itching desire for a parson, she would, upon the
first assurance of him, give the little Apollo a pasteboard temple, or
church, finely painted, and a ring of bells into the bargain, from the
same toy-office.

If a housekeeper lost any plate, the thief was certain to be catched,
provided she took little master into the store room, and asked him the
question, after she had given him his bellyful of sweetmeats.

Neither were the women only his consulters; the grave merchants, who
were anxious for many ventures at sea, applied to the boy for his
opinion of their security, and they looked upon his opinion to be as
safe as the insurance office for ships. If he but told them, though the
ship was just set sail, and a tempest rose just after on the ocean, that
it would have a successful voyage, gain the port designed, and return
home safe laden with the exchange of traffic and merchandize, they
dismissed all their fears, banished all their cares, set their hearts at
ease, and, safe in his opinion, enjoyed a calm of mind amidst a storm of
weather.

I myself knew one Count Cog, an eminent gamester, who was a person so
far from being of a credulous disposition, that he was an unbeliever in
several points of religion, and the next door to an infidel; yet, as
much as he was a stranger to faith, he was mastered and overpowered so
far in his incredulity by the strange events which he had seen come
frequently to pass from the predictions of this child, that he had
commonly daily access to this boy to learn his more adverse and more
prosperous hours of gaming. At first indeed he would try, when the child
foretold him his ill fortune, whether it would prove true, and relying
upon the mere hazard and turn of the die, he had always, as he observed,
a run of ill luck on those forbidden days, as he never failed of good if
he chose the fortunate hours directed by the boy. One time above all the
rest, just before he was departing from Edinburgh, and when the season
of gaming was almost over--most persons of wealth and distinction
withdrawing for pleasure to their seats in the country--he came to young
Duncan Campbell to consult, and was extremely solicitous to know how
happily or unluckily he should end that term, as we may call it, of the
gamester's weighty business, viz., play, there being a long vacation
likely to ensue, when the gaming table would be empty, and the box and
dice lie idle and cease to rattle. The boy encouraged him so well with
his predictions on this occasion, that Count Cog went to the toyshop,
brought him from thence a very fine ivory T totum, as children call it,
a pretty set of painted and gilded little ninepins and a bowl, and a
large bag of marbles and alloys; and what do you think the gamester got
by this little present and the prediction of the boy? why, without
telling the least tittle of falsehood, within the space of the last
week's play, the gains of Count Cog really amounted to no less than
20,000_l_. sterling neat money.

Having mentioned these persons of so many different professions by
borrowed names, and perhaps in a manner seemingly ludicrous, I would not
have my reader from hence take occasion of looking on my account as
fabulous. If I was not to make use of borrowed names, but to tell the
real characters and names of the persons, I should do injury to those
old friends of his who first gave credit to our young seer, while I am
endeavouring to gain him the credit and esteem of new ones, in whose way
it has not yet happened to consult him. For many persons are very
willing to ask such questions as the foregoing ones; but few or none
willing to have the public told they asked them; though they succeeded
in their wish, and were amply satisfied in their curiosity. I have
represented them perhaps in a ludicrous manner, because though they are
mysterious actions they are still the actions of a boy, and as the
rewards he received for his advices did really and truly consist of such
toys as I mentioned, so could they not be treated of in a more serious
manner, without the author's incurring a magisterial air of pedantry,
and showing a mind, as it were, of being mighty grave and sententious
about trifles. There are, however, some things of greater weight and
importance done by him in a more advanced stage of life, which will be
delivered to the public with that exactitude and gravity which becomes
them; and in some of those relations the names of some persons that are
concerned shall be printed, because it will not at all be injurious to
them, or because I have their leave, and they are still living to
testify what I shall relate.

In the mean time, as the greatest part of his nonage was spent in
predicting almost innumerable things, which are all, however, reducible
to the general heads above mentioned, I will not tire the reader with
any particulars; but instead of doing that, before I come to show his
power of divination, in the more active parts of his life, and when
after removing from Edinburgh to London, he at last made it his public
profession; I shall account how such divinations may be made, and divert
the reader with many rare examples, taken from several faithful and
undoubted historians, of persons who have done the like before him, some
in one way, and some in another; though in this he seems to be peculiar,
and to be, if I may be allowed the expression, a species by himself,
alone in the talent of prediction; that he has collected within his own
individual capacity all the methods which others severally used, and
with which they were differently and singly gifted in their several ways
of foreseeing and foretelling.

This art of prediction is not attainable any otherwise, than by these
three ways; first, it is done by the company of familiar spirits and
genii, which are of two sorts; some good and some bad; who tell the
gifted person the things of which he informs other people. Secondly, it
is performed by the second-sight, which is very various, and differs in
most of the possessors, it being but a very little in some, very
extensive and constant in others; beginning with some in their infancy,
and leaving them before they come to years; happening to others in a
middle age, to others again in an old age, that never had it before, and
lasting only for a term of years, and now and then for a very short
period of time; and in some, intermitting, like fits as it were, of
vision, that leave them for a time, and then return to be as strong in
them as ever, and it being in a manner hereditary to some families,
whose children have it from their infancy, without intermission, to a
great old age, and even to the time of their death, which they often
foretell before it comes to pass, to a day, nay, even to an hour.
Thirdly, it is attained by the diligent study of the lawful part of the
art of magic.

Before I give the reader an account, as I shall do in three distinct
discourses, first, concerning the intercourse which familiar spirits,
viz., the good and bad genii, have had and continue to have to a great
degree with some select parts of mankind; secondly, concerning the
wonderful and almost miraculous power of a second-sight, with which
many, beyond all controversy, have been extraordinarily but visibly
gifted; and, thirdly, concerning the pitch of perfection to which the
magic science has been carried and promoted by some adepts in that
mysterious art; I will premise a few particulars about the genii which
attended our little Duncan Campbell, and about the second-sight which he
had when yet a child, and when we may much more easily believe that the
wonders he performed and wrote of, must have been rather brought about
by the intervention of such genii and the mediation of such a sight,
than that he could have invented such fables concerning them, and
compassed such predictions as seem to want their assistance, by the mere
dint of a child's capacity.

One day, I remember, when he was about nine years of age, going early to
the house where he and his mother lived, and it being before his mother
was stirring, I went into little Duncan Campbell's room to divert myself
with him, I found him sitting up in his bed with his eyes broad open,
but as motionless as if he had been asleep, or even, if it had not been
for a lively beautiful colour which the little pretty fair silver-haired
boy always had in his cheeks, as if he had been quite dead; he did not
seem so much as to breathe; the eyelids of him were so fixed and
immoveable, that the eyelashes did not so much as once shake, which the
least motion imaginable must agitate; not to say that he was like a
person in an ecstacy, he was at least in what we commonly call a brown
study, to the highest degree, and for the largest space of time I ever
knew. I, who had been frequently informed by people who have been
present at the operations of second-sighted persons, that at the sight
of a vision the eyelids of the person are erected, and the eyes continue
staring till the object vanishes; I, I say, sat myself softly down on
his bed-side, and with a quiet amazement observed him, avoiding
diligently any motion that might give him the least disturbance, or
cause in him any avocation or distraction of mind from the business he
was so intent upon. I remarked that he held his head sideways, with his
mouth wide open, and in a listening posture, and that after so lively a
manner, as, at first general thought, made me forget his deafness, and
plainly imagine he heard something, till the second thought of
reflection brought into my mind the misfortune that shut up all passage
for any sound through his ears. After a steadfast gaze, which lasted
about seven minutes, he smiled, and stretched his arms as one recovering
from a fit of indolence, and rubbed his eyes; then turning towards me,
he made the sign of a salute, and hinted to me, upon his fingers, his
desire for pen, ink, and paper, which I reached him from a little desk
that stood at his bed's feet.

Placing the paper upon his knees, he wrote me the following lines, which
together with my answers I preserve by me, for their rarity, to this
very day, and which I have transcribed word for word, as they form a
little series of dialogue.

_Duncan Campbell._ I am sorry I cannot stay with you; but I shall see my
pretty youth and my lamb by and by, in the fields, near a little coppice
or grove, where I go often to play with them, and I would not lose
their company for the whole world; for they and I are mighty familiar
together, and the boy tells me everything that gets me my reputation
among the ladies and nobility, and you must keep it secret.

_My question._ I will be sure to keep it secret; but how do you know you
are to meet them there to-day? Did the little boy appoint you?

_Duncan Campbell._ Yes, he did, and signified that he had several things
to predict to me concerning people, that he foreknew would come to me
the week following to ask me questions.

_My question._ But what was you staring at when I came in?

_Duncan Campbell._ Why, at that little boy that goes along with the lamb
I speak of, and it was then he made me the appointment.

_My question._ How does he do it? Does he write?

_Duncan Campbell._ No, he writes sometimes, but oftener he speaks with
his fingers, and mighty swift; no man can do it so quick, or write half
so soon; he has a little bell in his hand, like that which my mother
makes me a sign to shake when she wants the servants: with that he
tickles my brain strangely, and gives me an incredible delight of
feeling in the inside of my head; he usually wakes me with it in the
morning when he comes to make me an appointment. I fancy it is what you
call hearing, which makes me mighty desirous I could hear in your way;
it is sweeter to the feeling, methinks, than anything is to the taste;
it is just as if my head was tickled to death, as my nurse used to
tickle my sides; but it is a different feeling, for it makes things like
little strings tremble in my temples and behind my ears. Now I remember,
I will tell you what it is like, that makes me believe it is like your
hearing, and that strange thing which you that can speak, call sound or
noise: because, when I was at church with my mother, who told me the
bells could be heard ringing a mile off, as I was kneeling on the bench,
and leaning over the top of the pew and gnawing the board, every time
the man pulled the rope, I thought all my head beat as if it would come
to pieces, but yet it pleased me methought, rather than pained me, and I
would be always gnawing the board when the man pulled the rope, and I
told my mother the reason: the feeling of that was something like the
little bell, but only that made my head throb, as if it would break, and
this tickles me, and makes, as it were, little strings on the back of my
ears dance and tremble like anything; is not that like your way of
hearing? If it be, it is a sweet thing to hear; it is more pleasant than
to see the finest colours in the world; it is something like being
tickled in the nose with a feather till one sneezes, or like the feeling
after one strikes the leg when it has been numb, or asleep, only with
this difference, that those two ways give a pain, and the other a
pleasure. I remember, too, when I had a great cold, for about two
months, I had a feeling something like it, but that was blunt, dull,
confused, and troublesome. Is not this like what you call hearing?

_My question._--It is the finest kind of hearing, my dear: it is what we
call music. But what sort of a boy is that that meets you? and what sort
of a lamb?

_Duncan Campbell._ Oh! though they are like other boys and other lambs
which you see, they are a thousand times prettier and finer? you never
saw such a boy nor such a lamb in your lifetime.

_My question._ How big is he? As big as you are? And what sort of a boy
is he?

_Duncan Campbell._ He is a little little pretty boy, about as tall as my
knee, his face is as white as snow, and so are his little hands; his
cheeks are as red as a cherry, and so are his lips; and when he
breathes, it makes the air more perfumed than my mother's sweet bags
that she puts among the linen; he has got a crown of roses, cowslips,
and other flowers upon his head, such as the maids gather in May; his
hair is like fine silver threads, and shine like the beams of the sun;
he wears a loose veil down to his feet, that is as blue as the sky in a
clear day, and embroidered with spangles, that look like the brightest
stars in the night; he carries a silver bell in one hand, and a book and
pencil in the other, and he and the little lamb will dance and leap
about me in a ring as high as my head; the lamb has got a little silver
collar with nine little bells upon it; and every little piece of wool
upon its back, that is as white as milk, is tied up all round it in
puffs, like a little miss's hair, with ribbons of all colours; and round
its head, too, are little roses and violets stuck very thick into the
wool that grows upon its forehead, and behind and between its ears, in
the shape of a diadem. They first meet me dancing thus; and after they
have danced some time, the little boy writes down wonderful things in
his book, which I write down in mine; then they dance again, till he
rings his bell, and then they are gone all of a sudden, I know not
where; but I feel the tinkling in the inside of my head caused by the
bell less and less, till I don't feel it at all, and then I go home,
read over my lesson in my book, and when I have it by heart, I burn the
written leaves, according as the little boy bids me, or he would let me
have no more. But I hear the little bell again, the little boy is angry
with me, he pulled me twice by the ear, and I would not displease him
for anything, so I must get up and go immediately to the joy and delight
of my life.

I told him he might, if he would promise me to tell me farther another
time; he said he would, if I would keep it secret. I told him I would,
and so we parted; though just before he went, he said he smelt some
venison, and he was sure they would shortly have some for dinner; and
nothing was so sure as that, my man had my orders to bring a side of
venison to me the next day to Mrs. Campbell's, for I had been hunting,
and came thither from the death of a deer that morning; and intended, as
usual, to make a stay there for two or three days.

There are, I know, many men of severe principles, and who are more
strict, grave, and formal in their manner of thinking, than they are
wise, who will be apt to judge of these relations as things merely
fabulous and chimerical, and not contented with being disbelievers by
themselves, will labour to insinuate into others this pernicious notion,
that it is a sign of infirmity and weakness in the head to yield them
credit. But though I could easily argue these Sir Gravities down, though
a sentence or two would do their business, put them beyond the power of
replying, and strike them dumb, yet do I think it not worth my while;
their greatest and most wonted objection against these Eudemons and
Kakodemons, being, that it arises all from the work of fancy, in persons
of a melancholic blood. If we consider the nature of this child's
dialogue with me, will it not be more whimsically strange and
miraculous, to say that a child of nine years' old had only a fancy of
such things as these, of which it had never heard anybody give an
account, and that it could, by the mere strength of imagination, predict
such things as really after came to pass, than it is, when it does so
strangely predict things, to believe the child does it in the manner
itself owns it does, which is by the intervention of a good demon, or a
happy genius. Departing, therefore, from these singular and wise men's
opinions, who will believe nothing excellent can happen to others, which
it has not been their lot to enjoy a share of, I shall take my farewell
hastily of them, without losing my own time or theirs, in the words of
the ingenious Monsieur le Clerc: _Acerbos homines non moror, indignos
quippe, qui haec studia tractent, aut quorum, judicii ulla ratio
habeatur._

I shall rather see how far these things have lain open to the eyes of,
and been explained by the ancient sages; I will relate who among them
were happy in their genii, and who among the moderns, whose examples may
be authorities for our belief; I will set down as clearly as I can what
perception men have had of genii or spirits by the sense of seeing; what
by the sense of hearing; what by the sense of feeling, touching, or
tasting; and in fine, what perception others have had of these genii by
all the senses, what by dreams, and what by magic, a thing rarely to be
met with at once in any single man, and which seems particular to the
child, who was the subject of our last little historical account. When I
have brought examples and the opinions of wise philosophers, and the
evidence of undeniable witnesses, which one would think sufficient to
evince persons of the commerce men have with spirits, if they were not
past all sense of conviction; I shall, not so much to corroborate what I
say, as to shame some wiseacres, who would by their frail reason scan
all things, and pretend to solve the mysteries ascribed to spirits, as
facts merely natural, and who would banish from the thoughts of men all
belief of spirits whatsoever, I shall, I say, in order to put to shame
these wiseacres, if they have any shame left, produce the opinions of
the Fathers as divines, show the doctrines of spirits in general to be
consistent with Christianity, that they are delivered in the Scripture
and by Christian tradition, in which, if they will not acquiesce, I
shall leave them to the labyrinth of their own wild opinions, which in
the end will so perplex their judgments of things, that they will be
never able to extricate themselves; and these different heads will be
the subject of the chapter ensuing; and will, or I am greatly mistaken,
form both an instructive, edifying, and entertaining discourse, for a
reader really and truly intelligent, and that has a good taste and
relish for sublime things.




  CHAPTER V.

    AN ARGUMENT PROVING THE PERCEPTION WHICH MEN HAVE, AND HAVE HAD,
    BY ALL THE SENSES, AS SEEING, HEARING, ETC., OF DEMONS, GENII, OR
    FAMILIAR SPIRITS.


It is said in the ninth book of the Morals of Aristotle, It is better to
come at the probable knowledge of some things above us in the heavens,
than to be capable of giving many demonstrations relating to things here
below. This is no doubt an admirable proposition, and speaks the lofty
aims of that sublime mind from whence it proceeded. Among all the
disquisitions in this kind, none seem to me more excellent than those
which treat concerning the genii that attend upon men, and guide them in
the actions of life. A genius, or demon, of the good kind, is a sort of
mediate being, between human and divine, which gives the mind of man a
pleasant conjunction with angelic and celestial faculties, and brings
down to earth a faint participation of the joys of heaven. That there
have been such fortunate attendants upon wise men, we have many rare
instances. They have been ascribed to Socrates, Aristotle, Plotinus,
Porphyrius, Iamblicus, Chicus, Scaliger, and Cardan. The most celebrated
of all these ancients, was Socrates; and as for his having a genius, or
demon, we have the testimonies of Plato, Xenophon, and Antisthenes, his
contemporaries, confirmed by Laertius, Plutarch, Maximus Tyrius, Dion
Chrysostomus, Cicero, Apuleius, Ficinus, and others; many of the
moderns, besides Tertullian, Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Austin, and
others; and Socrates himself, in Plato's Theage, says, By some divine
lot I have a certain demon which has followed me from my childhood as an
oracle; and in the same place intimates that the way he gained his
instruction, was by hearing the demon's voice. Nothing is certainly so
easy as for men to be able to contradict things, though never so well
attested, with such an air of truth as to make the truth of the history
doubted by others as well as themselves, where no demonstrative proof
can be brought to convince them. This has been the easy task of those
who object against the demon of Socrates; but when no demonstrative
proof is to be had on either side, does not wisdom incline us to lean to
the most probable? Let us then consider whether the evidences are not
more credible, and witnesses of such a thing are not persons of more
authority than these men are, who vouchsafe to give no reason but their
own incredulity, for maintaining the contrary, and whether those,
therefore, by the right rule of judging, ought not much sooner than
these, to gain over our assent to their assertions?

We will, however, laying aside the histories of those ancient times, the
sense whereof, by various readings and interpretations being put upon
the words, is rendered obscure and almost unintelligible, descend to
more modern relations, the facts whereof shall be placed beyond doubt,
by reason of the evidences we will bring to attest them, and shall
consequently prove the perception men have of spirits, or genii, by
every sense.


  SECTION I.

We will first begin as to the perception of spirits by the sight.

Mr. Glanvil, in his Collections of Relations, for proving Apparitions,
Spirits, &c., tells us of an Irishman that had like to have been carried
away by spirits, and of the ghost of a man, who had been seven years
dead, that brought a medicine to his bed-side.

The relation is thus:--

A gentleman in Ireland, near to the Earl of Orrery's, sending his butler
one afternoon to buy cards, as he passed a field, to his wonder, he
espied a company of people sitting round a table, with a deal of good
cheer before them, in the midst of the field; and he, going up towards
them, they all arose and saluted him, and desired him to sit down with
them; but one of them whispered these words in his ear: Do nothing this
company invites you to. Hereupon he refused to sit down at the table,
and immediately table and all that belonged to it were gone, and the
company are now dancing and playing upon musical instruments. And the
butler being desired to join himself with them, but he refusing this
also, they all fall to work, and he not being to be prevailed with to
accompany them in working, any more than in feasting or dancing, they
all disappeared, and the butler is now alone; but instead of going
forwards, home he returns, as fast as he could drive, in a great
consternation; and was no sooner entered his master's door, but he fell
down and lay some time senseless, but coming again to himself, he
related to his master what had passed.

The night following, there comes one of his company to his bed-side, and
tells him, that if he offered to stir out of the doors the next day, he
would be carried away. Hereupon he kept within; but towards the evening,
having need to make water, he adventured to put one foot over the
threshold (several standing by), which he had no sooner done but they
espied a rope cast about his middle; and the poor man was hurried away
with great swiftness, they following him as fast as they could, but
could not overtake him; at length they espied an horseman coming towards
him, and made signs to him to stop the man whom he saw coming near him,
and both ends of the rope, but nobody drawing; when they met he laid
hold of one end of the rope, and immediately had a smart blow given him
over his arm with the other end; but by this means the man was stopped,
and the horseman brought him back with him.

The Earl of Orrery hearing of these strange passages, sent to the master
to desire him to send this man to his house, which he accordingly did;
and the morning following, or quickly after, he told the earl that his
spectre had been with him again, and assured him that that day he should
most certainly be carried away, and that no endeavours should avail to
the saving of him; upon this he was kept in a large room with a
considerable number of persons to guard him, among whom was the famous
stroaker, Mr. Greatrix, who was a neighbour. There were, besides other
persons of quality, two bishops in the house at the same time, who were
consulted concerning the making use of a medicine, the spectre or ghost
prescribed, of which mention will be made anon, but they determined on
the negative.

Till part of the afternoon was spent, all was quiet; but at length he
was perceived to rise from the ground, whereupon Mr. Greatrix and
another lusty man clapped their arms over his shoulders, one of them
before him, and the other behind, and weighed him down with all their
strength; but he was forcibly taken up from them, and they were too weak
to keep their hold, and for a considerable time he was carried into the
air, to and fro over their heads, several of the company still running
under him to prevent his receiving hurt if he should fall; at length he
fell, and was caught before he came to the ground, and had by that means
no hurt.

All being quiet till bed-time, my lord ordered two of his servants to
lie with him, and the next morning he told his lordship, that his
spectre was again with him, and brought a wooden dish with grey liquor
in it, and bid him drink it off; at the first sight of the spectre he
said he endeavoured to awake his bed-fellows; but it told him, that that
endeavour should be in vain; and that he had no cause to fear him, he
being his friend, and he that at first gave him the good advice in the
field, which had he not followed, he had been before now perfectly in
the power of the company he saw there; he added, that he concluded it
was impossible but that he should have been carried away the day before,
there being so strong a combination against him; but now he could assure
him there would be no more attempts of that nature, but he being
troubled with two sorts of sad fits, he had brought that liquor to cure
him of them, and bid him drink it; he peremptorily refusing, the spectre
was angry, and upbraided him with great disingenuity, but told him,
however, he had a kindness for him, and that if he would take plantain
juice he should be well of one sort of fits, but he should carry the
other to his grave; the poor man having by this somewhat recovered
himself, asked the spectre whether by the juice of plantain he meant
that of the leaves or roots? It replied, The roots.

Then it asked him whether he did not know him? He answered, No; it
replied, I am such a one; the man answered he had been long dead; I have
been dead, said the spectre or ghost, seven years, and you know that I
lived a loose life, and ever since, I have been hurried up and down in a
restless condition with the company you saw, and shall be to the day of
judgment; then he proceeded to tell him, that had he acknowledged God in
his ways, he had not suffered such severe things by their means; and
farther said, you never prayed to God before that day you met with this
company in the fields.

This relation was sent to Dr. Henry More by Mr. E. Fowler, who said, Mr.
Greatrix told it several persons; the Lord Orrery also owned the truth
of it; and Mr. Greatrix told it to Dr. Henry More himself, who
particularly inquired of Mr. Greatrix about the man's being carried up
into the air, above men's heads, in the room, and he did expressly
affirm that he was an eye-witness thereof.

A vision which happened to the ingenious and learned Dr. Donne, may not
improperly be here inserted. Mr. Isaac Walton, writing the life of the
said doctor, tells us, that the doctor and his wife, living with Sir
Robert Drury, who gave them a free entertainment at his house in
Drury-lane, it happened that the Lord Haye was by King James sent in an
embassy to the French King, Henry IV., whom Sir Robert resolved to
accompany, and engaged Dr. Donne to go with them, whose wife was then
with child, at Sir Robert's house. Two days after their arrival at
Paris, Dr. Donne was left alone in that room in which Sir Robert and he
and some other friends had dined together. To this place Sir Robert
returned within half an hour; and as he left so he found Dr. Donne
alone, but in such an ecstacy, and so altered in his looks, as amazed
Sir Robert to behold him, insomuch that he earnestly desired Dr. Donne
to declare what had befallen him in the short time of his absence. To
which Dr. Donne was not able to make a present answer; but after a long
and perplexed pause, did at last say, I have seen a dreadful vision,
since I saw you; I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me, through this
room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her
arms; this I have seen since I saw you. To which Sir Robert replied,
Sure, sir, you have slept since I saw you, and this is the result of
some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now
awake. To which Dr. Donne's reply was, I cannot be surer that I now live
than that I have not slept since I saw you, and am as sure at her second
appearing she stopped and looked me in the face and vanished. Rest and
sleep had not altered Dr. Donne's opinion the next day; for he then
affirmed this vision with a more deliberate and so confirmed a
confidence, that he inclined Sir Robert to a faint belief that the
vision was true, who immediately sent a servant to Drury house, with a
charge to hasten back and bring him word whether Mrs. Donne were alive;
and if alive, what condition she was in as to her health. The twelfth
day the messenger returned with this account; that he found and left
Mrs. Donne very sad and sick in bed, and that after a long and
dangerous labour she had been delivered of a dead child, and upon
examination the abortion proved to be the same day, and about the very
hour that Dr. Donne affirmed he saw her pass by in his chamber. Mr.
Walton adds this, as a relation which will beget some wonder, and well
it may, for most of our world are at present possessed with an opinion
that visions and miracles are ceased, and though it is most certain that
two lutes both being strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one
played upon, the other, that is not touched, being laid upon the table
at a fit distance, will, like an echo to a trumpet, warble a faint,
audible harmony in answer to the same tune, yet many will not believe
that there is any such thing as a sympathy with souls, &c.


  SECTION II.

I shall next relate some little histories to show what perception men
have had of spirits by the sense of hearing. For, as Wierus says,
spirits appear sometimes invisibly, so that only a sound, voice, or
noise, is perceived by men, viz., a stroke, knocking, whistling,
sneezing, groaning, lamenting, or clapping of the hands, to make men
attent to inquire or answer.

In Luther's Colloquia Mensalia, &c., set forth in Latin, at Frankfort,
anno 1557, it being a different collection from that of Aurifaber, which
is translated from high Dutch into English. We have the following
relation:--

It happened in Prussia, that as a certain boy was born, there presently
came to him a genius, or what you please to call it, for I leave it to
men's judgments, who had so faithful a care of the infant, that there
was no need either of mother or servant; and, as he grew up, he had a
like care of him; he went to school with him, but so, that he could
never be seen either by himself, or any others in all his life.
Afterwards he travelled into Italy, he accompanied him, and whensoever
any evil was like to happen to him, either on the road or in the inn, he
was perceived to foretell it by some touch or stroke; he drew off his
boots as a servant; if he turned his journey another way, he continued
with him, having the same care of him in foretelling evil; at length he
was made a canon; and as, on a time, he was sitting and feasting with
his friends in much jollity, a vehement stroke was struck on a sudden on
the table, so that they were all terrified; presently the canon said to
his friends, be not afraid, some great evil hangs over my head. The next
day he fell into a great fever, and the fit continued on him for three
whole days, till he died, miserably.

Captain Henry Bell, in his narrative prefixed to Luther's Table, printed
in English, anno 1652, having acquainted us how the German copy printed
of it had been discovered under ground, where it had lain hid fifty-two
years, that edition having been suppressed by an edict of the Emperor
Rudolphus the second, so that it was death for any person to keep a copy
thereof; and having told us that Casparus van Spar, a German gentleman,
with whom he was familiarly acquainted, while he negotiated affairs in
Germany for King James the first, was the person that discovered it,
anno 1626, and transmitted it into England to him, and earnestly desired
him to translate the said book into English, says, he accordingly set
upon the translation of it many times, but was always hindered from
proceeding in it by some intervening business. About six weeks after he
had received the copy, being in bed with his wife, one night, between
twelve and one of the clock, she being asleep, but himself awake, there
appeared to him an ancient man standing at his bed-side, arrayed all in
white, having a long and broad white beard hanging down to his girdle,
who taking him by his right ear, said thus to him: Sirrah! will you not
take time to translate that book which is sent unto you out of Germany?
I will shortly provide for you both place and time to do it; and then he
vanished. Hereupon, being much affrighted, he fell into an extreme
sweat, so that his wife awaking and finding him all over wet, she asked
him what he ailed? He told her what he had seen and heard; but he never
regarded visions nor dreams, and so the same fell out of his mind. But a
fortnight after, being on a Sunday; at his lodging in King-street,
Westminster, at dinner with his wife, two messengers were sent from the
whole council-board, with a warrant to carry him to the Gate-house,
Westminster, there to be kept till farther order from the lords of the
council; upon which warrant he was kept there ten whole years close
prisoner, where he spent five years of it in translating the said book,
having good cause to be mindful of the old man's saying: I will shortly
provide for you both place and time to translate it.

Though the perception of spirits chiefly affects the hearing and seeing
faculties, yet are not the other senses without some participation of
these genial objects, whether good or evil; for, as St. Austin says, The
evil work of the devil creeps through all the passages of the senses; he
presents himself in figures, applies himself to colours, adheres to
sounds, introduces odours, infuses himself in savours, and fills all the
passages of intelligence; sometimes cruelly tormenting with grief and
fear, sometimes sportingly diverting man or taunting with mocks; and on
the other hand, as the learned Walter Hilton, a great master of
contemplative life, in his Scale of Perfection sets forth, that
appearances or representations to the corporeal senses may be both good
and evil.

But before I conclude upon this head, to give still more weight and
authority to the perception men have had of these genii, both by the
senses of hearing and seeing, I will relate two very remarkable
fragments of history of this kind, told us by persons who demand our
credit, and done within the memory of our grandfathers and fathers.

The first is concerning that Duke of Buckingham who was stabbed by
Felton, August the twenty-third, 1628.

Mr. Lilly, the astrologer, in his book entituled Monarchy or No
Monarchy, in England, printed in quarto, 1651; having mentioned the Duke
of Buckingham, writes as follows: Since I am upon the death of
Buckingham, I shall relate a true story, of his being admonished often
of the death he should die, in this manner:--

An aged gentlemen, one Parker, as I now remember, having formerly
belonged unto the duke, or of great acquaintance with the duke's father,
and now retired, had a demon appeared several times to him in the shape
of Sir George Villiers, the duke's father: this demon walked many times
in Parker's bedchamber, without any action of terror, noise, hurt, or
speech; but at last, one night, broke out in these words: Mr. Parker, I
know you loved me formerly, and my son George at this time very well, I
would have you go from me, you know me very well to be his father, old
Sir George Villiers of Leicestershire, and acquaint him with these and
these particulars, &c.; and that he above all refrain the council and
company of such and such, whom he then nominated, or else he will come
to destruction, and that suddenly. Parker, though a very discreet man,
partly imagined himself in a dream all this time; and being unwilling to
proceed upon no better grounds, forbode addressing himself to the duke;
for he conceived, if he should acquaint the duke with the words of his
father, and the manner of his appearance to him, such apparitions being
not usual, he should be laughed at and thought to dote, in regard he was
aged. Some few nights past without farther trouble to the old man, but
not very many nights after, old Sir George Villiers appeared again,
walked quick and furiously in the room, seemed angry with Parker, and at
last said, Mr. Parker, I thought you had been my friend so much, and
loved my son George so well, that you would have acquainted him with
what I desired, but I know you have not done it; by all the friendship
that ever was betwixt you and me, and the great respect you bear my son,
I desire you to deliver what I formerly commanded you to my son. The old
man seeing himself thus solicited, promised the demon he would, but
first argued it thus, that the duke was not easy to be spoken withal,
and that he would account him a vain man to come with such a message
from the dead: nor did he conceive the duke would give any credit to
him; to which the demon thus answered: If he will not believe you have
this discourse from me, tell him of such a secret and named it, which he
knows none in the world ever knew but myself and him. Mr. Parker being
now well satisfied that he was not asleep, and that the apparition was
not a vain delusion, took a fit opportunity, and seriously acquainted
the duke with his father's words and the manner of his apparition. The
duke laughed heartily at the relation, which put old Parker to a stand,
but at last he assumed courage, and told the duke that he acquainted his
father's ghost with what he found now to be true, viz., scorn and
derision. But, my lord, says he, your father bid me acquaint you by this
token, and he said it was such as none in the world but your two selves
did yet know. Hereat the duke was amazed and much astonished, but took
no warning or notice thereof, keeping the same company still, advising
with such counsellors and performing such actions as his father by
Parker countermanded. Shortly after, old Sir George Villiers, in a very
quiet but sorrowful posture, appears again to Parker, and said, Mr.
Parker, I know you delivered my words to George, my son, I thank you for
so doing, but he slighted them, and now I only request this more at your
hands, that once again you repair to my son, and tell him that if he
will not amend, and follow the counsel I have given him, this knife or
dagger, and with that he pulled a knife or dagger from under his gown,
shall end him; and do you, Mr. Parker, set your house in order, for you
shall die at such a time. Mr. Parker once more engaged, though very
unwillingly, to acquaint the duke with the last message, and so did; but
the duke told him to trouble him no farther with such messages and
dreams, and told him he perceived he was now an old man and doted; and
within a month after, meeting Mr. Parker on Lambeth bridge, said, Now,
Mr. Parker, what say you of your dream? Who only returned; Sir, I wish
it may never have success, &c. But within six weeks after, he was
stabbed with a knife, according to his father's admonition beforehand,
and Mr. Parker died soon after he had seen the dream or vision
performed.

This relation is inserted also in the great Lord Clarendon's History,
and in Sir R. Baker's Chronicle. The Lord Clarendon, in his History,
vol. i. lib. i., having given some relations, says, that amongst others,
there was one, meaning this of Parker, which was upon a better
foundation of credit than usually such discourses are founded upon. And
he tells us that Parker was an officer in the king's wardrobe in Windsor
Castle, of a good reputation for honesty and discretion, and then about
the age of fifty years or more. This man had, in his youth, been bred in
a school in the parish where Sir George Villiers, the father of the duke
lived, and had been much cherished and obliged in that season of his age
by the said Sir George, whom afterwards he never saw. About six months
before the miserable end of the Duke of Buckingham the apparition was
seen. After the third appearance, he made a journey to London, where the
court then was; he was very well known to Sir Ralph Freeman, one of the
masters of the requests, who had married a lady that was nearly allied
to the duke, and was himself well received by him. He informed the duke
with the reputation and honesty of the man, and Sir Ralph Freeman
carried the man the next morning, by five of the clock, to Lambeth,
according to the duke's appointment, and there presented him to the
duke, who received him courteously at his landing, and walked in
conference near an hour with him, and Sir Ralph's and the duke's
servants at such a distance that they heard not a word; but Sir Ralph
always fixed his eyes on the duke, who sometimes spoke with great
commotion and disorder; and the man told Sir Ralph in their return over
the water, that when he mentioned those particulars that were to gain
him credit, the duke's colour changed, and he swore he could come to
that knowledge only by the devil; for that those particulars were known
only to himself and to one person more, who, he was sure, would never
speak of them. So far the Lord Clarendon.

I will now subjoin an authentic relation, which Mr. Beaumont tells us at
the end of his book of Genii, or Familiar Spirits, printed in the year
1705, he had just before received from the mouth of the then Bishop of
Gloucester himself. It is as follows, word for word:--

Sir Charles Lee, by his first lady, had only one daughter, of which she
died in childbirth; and when she died, her sister, the Lady Everard,
desired to have the education of the child; and she was by her very well
educated till she was marriageable; and a match was concluded for her
with Sir William Perkins, but was then prevented in an extraordinary
manner. Upon a Thursday night, she thinking she saw a light in her
chamber after she was in bed, knocked for her maid, who presently came
to her; and she asked why she left a candle burning in her chamber? The
maid said she left none, and there was none, but what she brought with
her at that time. Then she said it was the fire; but that the maid told
her was quite out, and said she believed it was only a dream: whereupon
she said it might be so, and composed herself again to sleep; but about
two of the clock she was awakened again, and saw the apparition of a
little woman between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was
her mother, and that she was happy, and that by twelve of the clock that
day she should be with her; whereupon she knocked again for her maid,
called for her clothes, and when she was dressed, went into her closet,
and came not out again till nine; and then brought out with her a
letter, sealed, to her father, brought it to her aunt, the Lady Everard,
told her what had happened, and desired that, as soon as she was dead,
it might be sent to him; but the lady thought she was suddenly fallen
mad; and thereupon sent presently away to Chelmsford for a physician and
surgeon, who both came immediately, but the physician could discern no
indication of what the lady imagined, or of any indisposition of her
body; notwithstanding, the lady would needs have her let blood, which
was done accordingly; and when the young woman had patiently let them do
what they would with her, she desired that the chaplain might be called
to read prayers, and when prayers were ended, she took her guitar and
psalm book, and sat down upon a chair without arms, and played and sung
so melodiously and admirably, that her music master, who was then there,
admired at it; and near the stroke of twelve, she rose and sat herself
down in a great chair with arms, and presently fetching a strong
breathing or two, immediately expired, and was so suddenly cold as was
much wondered at by the physician and surgeon. She died at Waltham, in
Essex, three miles from Chelmsford; and the letter was sent to Sir
Charles, at his house in Warwickshire; but he was so afflicted with the
death of his daughter, that he came not till she was buried: but when he
came he caused her to be taken up, and to be buried by her mother at
Edmonton, as she desired in her letter. This was about the year one
thousand six hundred and sixty-two or sixty-three; and this relation the
Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Gloucester had from Sir Charles Lee
himself; and Mr. Beaumont printed it in his book above mentioned, from
the bishop's own mouth.

The relations which I have given above, are not like the trifling
accounts too often given of these things, and therefore causing grave
ones to be ridiculed in common with them. They are of that nature, that,
whoever attempts to ridicule them, will, instead of turning them into
jest, become the object of ridicule himself.

The first story, which has in it such amazing circumstances, and such
uncommon and dreadful incidents concerning the butler in Ireland, is, as
the reader sees, attested by no less a personage than an Earl of Orrery,
two bishops, and many other noblemen and gentlemen being present and
eye-witnesses of what the earl said. What greater testimony would the
most incredulous have? They say such things are told for interest. What
interest could an earl and many noblemen have in promoting such an
imposture? The incredulous say, likewise, great and learned men delight
sometimes in putting frauds upon the world, and after laugh at their
credulity. Would a number of noble laymen choose two prelates to carry
on such a fraud; and would two pious bishops probably combine with
several, and some servants there present, in spreading such a deceit?
It is past believing, and it demands the strictest of moral faith that
can be given to the most unquestioned history that the pen of man ever
wrote.

The second story is founded, first, upon the experience of one of the
most ingenious men of that age, Dr. Donne, and then upon the proof made
by his friend Sir Robert Drury, who could at first scarce believe it;
and shall we doubt the credit of men, whose company, for their credit be
it spoken, a British ambassador was proud of gaining.

The third story is told by Luther himself, who began the great work of
the Reformation.

The fourth is told by one that was a king's public minister and told
from his own trial of the matter, where he could have no interest in the
telling it.

The fifth is related by those great historians, the Lord Clarendon and
Sir Richard Baker, as a truth relied upon by themselves, and fit to be
credited by their readers.

The sixth and last was related to Mr. Beaumont, by the Lord Bishop of
Gloucester, who received the account from Sir Charles Lee himself, to
whose granddaughter the matter happened.

Men who will not believe such things as these, so well attested to us,
and given us by such authorities, because they did not see them
themselves, nor anything of the like nature, ought not only to deny the
demon of Socrates, but that there was such a man as Socrates himself;
they should not dispute the genii of Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, Marc Antony,
but avow that there were never any such men existing upon earth, and
overthrow all credible history whatsoever. Meanwhile, all men, but those
who run such lengths in their fantastical incredulity, will, from the
facts above mentioned, rest satisfied, that there are such things as
evil and good genii, and that men have sometimes a commerce with them by
all their senses, particularly those of seeing and hearing, and will not
therefore be startled at the strange fragments of histories which I am
going to relate of our young Duncan Campbell, and look upon some
wonderful adventures which he performed by the intervention of his
familiar demon or genius, as falsehoods, only because they are uncommon
and surprising, more especially since they were not done in a corner,
but by an open way of profession of a predictor of things, in the face
of the metropolis of London, where he settled young, as will appear in
the progress of his life. However, some people, notwithstanding all
this, may allege, that though a man may have a genius appear to him, so
as to convey into his mind, through his senses, the knowledge of things
that are to come to pass, yet this happens but on very eminent and
extraordinary occasions. The murder, for example, of a prime minister,
and the favourite of a monarch, in such a manner as it was performed on
the great Duke of Buckingham, by Felton, was a thing so uncommon, that
it might perhaps deserve, by the permission of Heaven, an uncommon
prediction; the others likewise are instances eminent in their way,
particularly that of the lady Everard's niece; for that young lady being
then marriageable, and a treaty for that end being on foot with Sir
William Perkins, the Divine Providence foreseeing that such a state
might call away her thoughts, hitherto bent on him and spiritual
affairs, and fix them on the trifles of this world, might perhaps permit
her to be called by a holy mother to the state of happiness she before
her enjoyed, lest her daughter's mind should change, and she go into the
ways of a sinner. But if these supereminent, these scarce and rare
examples, may be admitted of man's holding a conversation with the
spiritualized beings of another world; it will, however, be far below
the dignity of human reason, methinks, to make such large concessions to
people who pretend to converse that wonderful way, as to allow them the
credit of being able to do it upon every slight occasion, and every
indifferent occurrence of human life.

I cannot help acknowledging, that a man of wisdom may at first thought,
make such an objection; but reflection will presently retract it, and
the same good sense that taught him to make an objection so well upon
the first thought, will teach him, upon second thoughts, to acquiesce in
the answer.

Infants may have, no doubt, the benefit of such an attending genius, as
well as people more advanced in years; as may be seen in one of the
instances, which is a very famous one, relating to the boy born in
Prussia, who was attended by one constantly, from the time of his birth
to his death. Besides, it is a mistake in the understanding to imagine,
that death, which is the determination and end of life, is of more
consequence to be known than the manner of regulating that life; for in
reality, according to the right way of considering death, or the
determination of a man's life, derives its importance from the steps
which he took in the due regulation of it; and therefore, every, the
least step proper to be taken for the due regulation of life, is of more
consequence to be known than the death of a person, though this at first
sight carries the face of significance, and the other nothing better
than the look of a trifle. Marriage, for example, is a step in life of
the utmost importance, whether we consider that estate with regard to
this, or the next world. Death is but the finishing of one person, but
marriage may be the introducing of many into the world with happiness;
it is therefore a thing of more importance to be known beforehand, and
consequently more worthy of the communication of a genius, to the man
with whom he conversed. Posidonius tells us, that a certain Rhodian
dying, nominated six of his equals, and said who should die first, who
next, and so on, and the event answered the prediction; why, then,
though some people are apt to make a jest of it, may not a man, by the
intervention of his good genius, tell a woman that is to have six
husbands, who she shall have first, who next, and so on, and the event
answer the prediction? If men of learning may acquire such knowledge as
to attain to extraordinary things by their ordinary faculties, why may
not ordinary things be taught others in this extraordinary way? For will
anybody say that it is easier for a man to accommodate himself to the
knowledge of a demon or genius than for a demon or genius to accommodate
himself to the knowledge of a man? Certain it is, indeed, that if this
good genius, that induces a man with a prophetic kind of science, be
anything resembling a good angel, the primary end of his being permitted
to direct mankind must consist in things relating more to their welfare
hereafter: yet I know not why they may not sometimes inspire, or openly
direct them in human knowledge, and in things relating to human life, so
they are of a good tendency; more especially since such a good
inspiration may be a counterbalance to the bad knowledge which some have
been inspired with by evil spirits. I would not be thought to go too far
in a point of this nature, and have, therefore, though perhaps I could
say much more if I followed entirely my own private opinion, and would
venture to introduce it here, in order to communicate it to others, and
make it a public one, said no more on this head than what divines
generally teach.

But the most unexceptionable mistress, that teaches these things to be
in nature, is experience. If we had very many people gifted this way,
the extraordinary thing would have been become ordinary, and therefore I
cannot help wondering that it should be so ordinary a thing for wise men
themselves to wonder too much at things because they are extraordinary,
and suspect them as frauds because they are uncommon.

There has scarce been any period of time in which some person of this
prophetic class has not existed, and has not been consulted by the
greatest of men, and their predictions found at the long run to come
true; ignorant men always rise to their belief of them by experience,
and the most learned men submit their great opinions to experience, but
your men of middling talents, who make up their want of reason with
bustling obstinacy and noisy contradiction, have been and still continue
to be their own opposers, and without discovering the reason for what
they say, they content themselves with having the laugh on their sides,
and barely affirming without proving, that it is a kind of ideal juggle
and intellectual legerdemain, by which these modern predictors impose
things upon the eye of reason, as the corporeal eye is imposed upon by
sleight of hand; but it is a strange thing that men of such quick reason
cannot give us a sample of the frauds. Thus, I remember to have read, I
cannot tell where, the story of some courtiers, who, when a great artist
of legerdemain was to act before the King, pretended to be so
quick-sighted, that nothing he did should escape their discovery, were
left by his nimble fingers in the dark, and forced at last with blushes
to own they had no better eyes than other people. In a word, if people
will be led by suspicions and remote possibilities of fraud and
contrivance of such men, all historical truth shall be ended, when it
consists not with a man's private humour or prejudice to admit it. Now,
therefore, to prove by experience and undeniable testimonies, that these
kind of genii will submit to little offices, in order to bring men to
greater good, I will give three or four curious passages that will set
the reasonable reader at ease, and prepare him for reading the passages
of Mr. Campbell's life with pleasure, and as a fine history of wonderful
facts, that, though they seem to surpass belief, yet ought to have his
credit.

What in nature can be more trivial than for a spirit to employ himself
in knocking on a morning at a wainscot by the bed's-head of a man who
got drunk over-night, according to the way that such things are
ordinarily explained? And yet I shall give you such a relation of this,
that not even the most devout and precise Presbyterian will offer to
call in question. For Mr. Baxter, in his Historical Discourse of
Apparitions, writes thus:--

There is now in London an understanding, sober, pious man, oft one of my
hearers, who has an elder brother, a gentleman of considerable rank,
who, having formerly seemed pious, of late years does often fall into
the sin of drunkenness, he often lodges long together here in his
brother's house; and whensoever he is drunk and has slept himself sober,
something knocks at his bed's-head, as if one knocked on a wainscot;
when they remove his bed it follows him; besides other loud noises, on
other parts where he is, that all the house hears; they have often
watched him, and kept his hands lest he should do it himself. His
brother has often told it me, and brought his wife, a discreet woman, to
attest it; who avers, moreover, that as she watched him, she has seen
his shoes under the bed taken up, and nothing visible to touch them.
They brought the man himself to me, and when we asked him how he dare
sin again after such a warning, he had no excuse: but being persons of
quality, for some special reason of worldly interest, I must not name
him.

Two things are remarkable in this instance, says Mr. Baxter. First, what
a powerful thing temptation and fleshly concupiscence is, and what a
hardened heart sin brings men to; if one rose from the dead to warn such
sinners, it would not of itself persuade them.

Secondly, says Mr. Baxter, it poses me to think what kind of spirit this
is that has such a care of this man's soul, which makes me hope he will
recover. Do good spirits dwell so near us, or are they sent on such
messages? or is it his guardian angel? or is it the soul of some dead
friend that suffers? and yet, retaining love to him, as Dives to his
brethren, would have him saved? God yet keeps such things from us in the
dark.

So far we have the authority of the renowned and famous Mr. Baxter, who
makes this knocking of the spirit at the bed's-head, though what we
commonly call frivolous, an important errand.

Another relation of this kind was sent to Mr. John Beaumont, whom I
myself personally know, and which he has inserted in his Account of
Genii, or Familiar Spirits, in a letter by an ingenious and learned
clergyman of Wiltshire, who had given him the relation likewise before,
by word of mouth. It is as follows:--

Near eighty years since, in the parish of Wilcot, which is by Devizes,
in the vicar's house, there was heard for a considerable time the sound
of a bell constantly tolling every night. The occasion was this: A
debauched person who lived in the parish came one night very late and
demanded the keys of the church of the vicar, that he might ring a peal,
which the vicar refused to let him have, alleging the unseasonableness
of the time, and that he should, by granting his desires, give a
disturbance to Sir George Wroughton and his family, whose house adjoined
the churchyard. Upon this refusal, the fellow went away in a rage,
threatening to be revenged of the vicar, and going some time after to
Devizes, met with one Cantle or Cantlow, a person noted in those days
for a wizard, and he tells him how the vicar had served him, and begs
his help to be even with him. The reply Cantle made him was this; Does
he not love ringing? he shall have enough of it: and from that time a
bell began to toll in his house, and continued so to do till Cantle's
death, who confessed at Fisherton gaol, in Sarum, where he was confined
by King James during his life, that he caused that sound, and that it
should be heard in that place during life. The thing was so notorious
that persons came from all parts to hear it; and King James sent a
gentleman from London on purpose to give him satisfaction concerning the
truth of the report. Mr. Beaumont had likewise this story, as he tells,
from the mouth of Sir George Wroughton's own son; with this remarkable
circumstance, that if any in the house put their heads out of the window
they could not hear the sound, but heard it immediately again as soon as
they stood in the room.

The reader here sees that good and bad genii exercise themselves upon
very little functions, knocking at bed's-heads, and ringing of bells.
For proof of this we have the testimonies of two divines, of a man of
quality and probity, and the same satisfaction that a learned king had,
who sent to inquire into the matter; and after this there can be, I
think, no room for doubt.

But to carry the point still nearer home; inasmuch as I know some will
leave no stone unturned to make the extraordinary actions which the
person whose life I write has performed, appear impostures, and inasmuch
as for this end they may say, that though many people may have been
gifted in this extraordinary manner, yet not so as to make a profession
of it, and therefore, from thence they take their suspicions, I shall in
this place, to remove every nicest scruple they can have touching this
affair, give the reader one instance of this kind likewise, before I
proceed with my history.

There lived not many years since a very aged gentlewoman in London, in
Water-lane, by Fleet-street, whose name was Pight, who was endowed with
a prophetic spirit; and the ingenious Mr. Beaumont, whom I personally
knew, and who had a familiar genius himself, gives the world this
account of her. She was very well known, says he, to many persons of my
acquaintance now living in London. Among others, a gentleman, whose
candour I can no way suspect, has told me, that he often resorted to her
as to an oracle; and that as soon as he came into her presence, she
would usually tell him, that she knew what he was coming for, for that
she had seen his spirit for some time before; and without his saying
anything to her, she would commonly tell him what the business was which
he came to consult her about, and what the event of it would be; which
he always found to fall out as she said, and many other persons now
living can testify the like experience of her as to themselves.

Before I conclude this chapter, I am willing to give the public one
farther little history of the like kind with the foregoing ones, with
this only difference, that if it be valued according to the worth the
world has always attributed to the very ingenious person whom it
concerns, it will be far the most famous of them all, and therefore
fittest to finish this chapter, and to crown this part of the work, in
which we are showing that persons have had a perception of genii or
spirits, not visible at the same time to others.

The famous Torquatus Tasso, Prince of the Italian poets, and scarce
inferior to the immortal Virgil himself, and who seems to enjoy the
intermingled gifts of the most accurate judgment of this Latin poet, and
the more fertile and copious invention and fancy of the Greek one,
Homer, strongly asserted his own experience in this kind. His life was
written and published in French, anno 1692, by D.C.D.D.V. who, in his
preface, tells us, that in what he writ he has followed chiefly the
history given us in Italian by John Baptista Manso, a Neapolitan
gentleman, who had been a very intimate friend to Tasso. In his life,
among other things, he acquaints us that Tasso was naturally of that
melancholic temperament, which has always made the greatest men, and
that this temperament being aggravated by many hardships he had
undergone, it made him sometimes beside himself, and that those
melancholic vapours being despatched, he came again to himself, like
those that return from fits of the falling sickness, his spirit being as
free as before. That, near his latter end, he retired from the city of
Naples, to his friend Manso, at Bisaccia, a small town in the kingdom of
Naples, where Manso had a considerable estate, and passed an autumn
there in the diversions of the season.

And here the French author gives us an account of Tasso's sensible
perception of a genius, as follows:--As after these amusements, he
usually retired to his chamber, to entertain himself there with his
friend Manso, the latter had the opportunity to inquire into one of the
most singular effects of Tasso's melancholy, of this heroic melancholy,
as I may call it, which raised and brightened his spirit, so far it was
from depressing or rendering it obscure; and which, among the ancients,
would have reasonably caused them to have ascribed a familiar demon to
him, as to Socrates. They were often in a warm debate concerning this
spirit, with which Tasso pretended to have so free a communication. I am
too much your friend, said Manso to him one day, not to let you know
what the world thinks of you concerning this thing, and what I think of
it myself. Is it possible, that being enlightened as you are, you should
be fallen into so great a weakness as to think you have a familiar
spirit; and will you give your enemies that advantage, to be able to
prove by your own acknowledgment, what they have already published to
the world? You know, they say, you did not publish your Dialogue of the
Messenger, as a fiction; but you would have men believe that the spirit
which you make to speak there, was a real and true spirit; hence men
have drawn this injurious consequence, that your studies have embroiled
your imagination, so that there is made in it a confused mixture of the
fictions of the poets, the inventions of the philosophers, and the
doctrine of religion.

I am not ignorant, answered Tasso, of all that is spread abroad in the
world on account of my Dialogue; I have taken care divers times to
disabuse my friends, both by letter and word of mouth: I prevented even
the malignity of my enemies, as you know at the time I published my
Dialogue. Men could not be ignorant that I composed it for the young
Prince of Mantua, to whom I would explain after an agreeable manner, the
principal mysteries of the Platonic philosophy. It was at Mantua itself,
after my second flight from Ferrara, that I formed the idea of it, and I
committed it to paper a little after my unfortunate return. I addressed
it to this prince, and all men might have read in the epistle
dedicatory, the protestation I there make, that this dialogue, being
written according to the doctrine of the Platonics, which is not always
conformable to revealed truths, men must not confound what I expose
there as a philosopher, with what I believe as a Christian. This
distinction is by so much the more reasonable, that at that time nothing
extraordinary had happened to me, and I spake not of any apparition.
This can be attested by all those with whom I lodged, or whom frequented
in this voyage; and therefore there is no reason for confounding the
fiction of my Dialogue with what has happened to me since. I am
persuaded of all you say to me, replied Manso; but truly I cannot be of
what you believe, at present, concerning yourself. Will you imagine that
you are in commerce with a spirit? And I ask you, of what order is that
spirit? Shall we place him in the number of the rebels, whom their pride
precipitated into the abyss? or of the intelligences, who continued firm
in faith and submission to their creator? For there is no mean to take
in the true religion, and we must not fall into the extravagances of the
gnomes and sylphs of the cabalists.

Now the spirit in question cannot be a demon: you own that instead of
inspiring you anything contrary to piety and religion, he often
fortifies in you the maxims of Christianity: he strengthens your faith
by profound reasonings, and has the same respect with you for sacred
names and things. Neither can you say that it is an angel; for though
you have always led a regular life, and far from all dissoluteness;
though for some years past you have applied yourself, after a
particular manner, to the duties of a true Christian, you will agree
with me, that these sorts of favours are not common; that a man must
have attained to a high degree of sanctity, and not be far from the
pureness of celestial spirits, to merit a familiar converse, and bear a
harmony with them. Believe me, there is nothing in all these discourses
which you imagine you have with this spirit. You know, better than any
man, those symptoms which the black humours wherewith you are tormented
causes in you. Your vapours are the source of your visions, and yourself
would not judge otherwise of another person to whom a like thing should
happen; and you will come to this in your own respect also, if you will
make a mature reflection, and apply yourself to blot out, by an effort
of reason, these imaginations which the violence of your evil effect
causes in you. You may have reason, replied Tasso, to think so of the
things that pass in me; but as to myself, who have a sensible perception
of them, I am forced to reason after another manner. If it were true
that the spirit did not show himself to me, but in the violent assault
of my vapours; if he offered to my imagination but wandering and
confused species, without connection or due sequel; if he used to me
frivolous reasonings, which ended in nothing; or if having begun some
solid reasoning he broke it off on a sudden, and left me in darkness, I
should believe with you, that all things that pass are but mere dreams
and phantoms; but it is quite otherwise. This spirit is a spirit of
truth and reason, and of a truth so distinct, of a reason so sublime,
that he raises me often to knowledges that are above all my reasonings,
though they appear to me no less clear; that he teaches me things which,
in my most profound meditations, never came into my spirit, and which I
never heard of any man, nor read in any book. This spirit, therefore, is
somewhat of real; of whatsoever order he be, I hear him and see him,
nevertheless for its being impossible for me to comprehend and define
him. Manso did not yield to these facts, which Tasso would have passed
for proofs; he pressed him with new questions, which were not without
answers. Since you will not believe me on my word, said Tasso to him
another day, after having well disputed, I must convince you by your own
eyes, that these things are not pure imaginations: and the next day,
conversing together in the same chamber, Manso perceived that, on a
sudden, he fixed his eyes towards the window, and that he stood, as it
were, immoveable; he called to him and jogged him many times, but
instead of answering him; See there the spirit, says Tasso, at last,
that has been pleased to come and visit me, and to entertain himself
with me; look on him, and you will acknowledge the truth of what I say.

Manso, somewhat surprised, cast his eyes towards the place he showed
him, and perceived nothing but the rays of the sun passing through the
glass, nor did he see anything in all the chamber; though he cast his
eyes round it with curiosity, and he desired him to show him the spirit,
which he looked for in vain, while he heard Tasso speak with much
vehemency. He declares in a letter which he writ concerning this to the
Admiral of Naples, that he really heard no other voice but Tasso's own;
but they were sometimes questions made by him to the pretended spirit,
sometimes answers that he made to the pretended questions of the spirit,
and which were couched in such admirable terms, so efficacious,
concerning subjects so elevated, and so extraordinary, that he was
ravished with admiration, and dared not to interrupt him. He hearkened,
therefore, attentively, and being quite beside himself at this
mysterious conversation, which ended at last by a recess of the spirit,
as he found by the last words of Tasso; after which, Tasso, turning
himself to him, Well, said he, are your doubts at last dissipated? On
the contrary, answered Manso, I am more embroiled than ever; I have
truly heard wonderful things; but you have not showed me what you
promised me. You have seen and heard, resumed Tasso, perhaps more
than----he stopped here; and Manso, who could not recover himself of his
surprise, and had his head filled with the ideas of this extraordinary
entertainment, found himself not in a condition to press him farther.
Meanwhile he engaged himself not to speak a word to any man of these
things he had heard, with a design to make them public, though he should
have liberty granted him. They had many other conversations concerning
this matter, after which Manso owned he was brought to that pass, that
he knew not what to think or say, only, that if it were a weakness in
his friend to believe these visions, he much feared it would prove
contagious to him, and that he should become at last as credulous as
himself.

Dr. Beaumont, who is still living, and with whom I have had formerly
some acquaintance myself, has set down, among the others, this relation
at large concerning Tasso, and gives this reason for it: Because, says
the doctor, I think it contains a sufficient answer to what many learned
friends have said to myself on the like occasion.

Perhaps it may not be ungrateful to the reader, if I subjoin here the
short eulogium writ on Tasso, by the famous Thuanas, which is as
follows:--

Torquatus Tasso died about the forty-fifth year of his age, a man of a
wonderful and prodigious wit, who was seized with an incurable fury in
his youth, when he lived at the court of Ferrara, and nevertheless, in
lucid intervals, he writ many things both in verse and prose, with so
much judgment, elegancy, and extreme correctness of style, that he
turned at length that pity which many men had conceived for him, into an
amazement; while by that fury, which, in others, makes their minds
outrageous or dulls them, after it was over, his understanding became as
it were more purified, more ready in inventing things, more acute in
aptly disposing them after they were invented, and more copious in
adorning them with choice words and weight of sentences; and that which
a man of the soundest sense would scarce excogitate at his leisure, with
the greatest labour and care imaginable, he, after a violent agitation
of the mind set beside itself, naturally performed with a wonderful
felicity, so that he did not seem struck with an alienation of mind, but
with a divine fury. He that knows not these things, which all men know
that have been in Italy, and concerning which himself sometimes
complains, though modestly, in his writings; let him read his divine
works, and he must necessarily conclude, either that I speak of another
man than Tasso, or that these things were written by another man than
Tasso.

After having given my readers so many memorable accounts concerning the
perception men have had in all ages, and still continue to have of genii
or familiar spirits, by all the senses, as seeing, hearing, &c., which
accounts have been attested by men of the greatest learning and quality,
if any of them still remain dissatisfied, I am contented, and desire
them, for their punishment, to lay down the book before they arrive at
the more pleasant parts of it, which are yet to come, and not to read
one tittle farther. These unbelieving gentlemen shall then be at
liberty, according as their different spirits dictate, to ridicule me
in the same manner as many more learned and greater men than I have been
satirized, before my time, by persons of a like infidel temper, who
would fain pass incredulity upon the world as wisdom; and they may, with
all the freedom in nature, bestow upon me those merry appellations
which, I very well know such extraordinary freethinkers imagine to
belong of right, to any author, that either believes himself, or would
possess the world with an opinion and belief, that there is such a thing
as the holding commerce and conversation in this habitable world with
genii, and familiar spirits. I shall only first tell them all I have to
say to terminate the dispute between them and me.

Those who, to give themselves the air and appearance of men of solid
wisdom and gravity, load other men, who believe in spirits, with the
titles of being men of folly, levity, or melancholy, are desired to
learn, that the same folly, as they are pleased to term it, of opinion,
is to be found in the greatest men of learning that ever existed in the
universe. Let them, in order to be convinced of this, read Apuleius's
book, _de deo Socrat._; Censorinus's book _de die Nat._ c. 3;
Porphyrius, in his book _de Abstinentia_; Agrippa, in his _Treatise de
Occult. Phil._ 1. 3, c. 22, and also c. 21; _Natalis_ comes in his
_Myth._ 1. 4, c. 3; Maraviglia, in his _Pseudomantia. Dissertation._ 9
and 11, and _Animadversion_. 10; Plato in his _Timoeus et Cratylus_;
Ammianus Marcellinus's History, book 21; Hieronimus Cardanus in his book
_de Vita Propria_, c. 47; the great Kircher, in his _OEdipus
AEgyptiacus_, vol. iii. p. 474; Pausanius, in _Cliac. Poster._; that
immortal orator, Cicero, lib. i. _de Divinatione_; lib. ii. _de Natura
Deorum_; the _Histoire Prodigieuse_, written by Pere Arnault; and a book
entituled _Lux e Tenebris_, which is a collection of modern visions and
prophecies in Germany by several persons, translated into Latin, by Jo.
Amos. Comenius, printed at Amsterdam, 1655. And if they will be at the
pains of having due recourse to these quotations, they will find that
all these men, whose learning is unquestionable, and most of whom have
been in a firm and undisputed possession of fame for many centuries,
have all unanimously agreed in this opinion, how foolish soever they may
think it, that there ever was and ever would be a communication held
between some select men and genii, or familiar spirits. I must therefore
desire their pardon, if I rejoice to see them remain wise by themselves,
and that I continue to be esteemed by them a fool among so much good
company.

Others out of a mere contempt of religion, or cowardly, for fear of
being thought pusillanimous by men, turn bravos to Heaven, and laugh at
every notion of spirits as imbibed from the nurse or imposed upon us by
priests, and may top these lines upon us with an elegant and a
convincing magisterial sneer, though the divine Socrates was of our
opinion, and even experienced it to be true, having a genius himself:--

    The priests but finish what the nurse began,
    And thus the child imposes on the man.

These bring into my mind a saying of Sir Roger L'Estrange on Seneca,
which I must apply to Socrates; I join in opinion with a Christian
heathen, while they remain heathen Christians.

The third sort, out of a pretended veneration to religion and divinity,
may call me superstitious and chimerical. To them I answer, I will
continue chimerical and superstitious with St. Austin; who gives the
same opinion in his _Civitate Dei_ with Ludovicus Vives; let them be
solider and more religious divines than St. Austin in disowning it. Thus
I bid these austere critics heartily farewell; but let my better-natured
readers go on and find a new example of this conversation being held
with the genii by our Duncan Campbell.




  CHAPTER VI.

     A NARRATIVE OF MR. CAMPBELL'S COMING TO LONDON AND TAKING UPON
     HIM THE PROFESSION OF A PREDICTOR; TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF
     MANY STRANGE THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS JUST AS HE FORETOLD.


To proceed on regularly with the life of young Duncan Campbell, I must
let the reader know that he continued thus conversing with his little
genius, as is set forth above in the dialogue he had with me, and
predicting many things of the like nature, as I have described, till the
year 1694, when he was just fourteen years of age, and then he left
Scotland.

But before I come to speak of the manner of his departure from thence,
his half native country, inasmuch as his father was of that country,
and he had his education there, what education he could have, being deaf
and dumb. I must let the reader know that in the year 1692, my very good
friend, Mrs. Campbell, his mother-in-law, died, and left him there at
Edinburgh, an orphan of twelve years of age.

He was, I may venture to say, the most beautiful boy of that age I ever
knew; and the sensible reader, who considers a child of good birth, with
the misfortunes of being deaf and dumb, left fatherless and motherless
in the wide world, at twelve years old, without any competency for his
maintenance and support, without any relations, in a manner, that knew
him or assisted him; all the little fortune his father had having been
lost in the civil commotions in Scotland, as I have related above, need
not hear me describe the compassion I and many more had for him; because
such a reader must certainly feel in his own bosom the same lively acts
of pity and commiseration at the hearing of such a mishap as I had at
the seeing it, or at least as I have now revived afresh within me at the
relating it.

However, it came so to pass, that a person of the name of Campbell, and
who was a distant relation of the boy, though he himself was but in
indifferent circumstances, was resolved to see him provided for one way
or another, in a manner somewhat suitable to his condition, and till
that time to take the best care of him himself that he was able.

Several ladies of quality who had known his perfections, coveted to make
the boy one of their domestics, as a page, or a playfellow to their
children; for though he could not speak, he had such a vivacity in all
his actions, such a sprightliness of behaviour, and such a merriment
accompanying all his gestures, that he afforded more entertainment than
the prettiest and wittiest little prattlers at those years are wont to
do. Mr. Campbell had certainly accepted of some of these fortunate
offers for his little cousin, which were many of them likely to prove
very advantageous, if it had not been put in his head by some friends,
particularly myself, that if he had a mind to dispose of the boy in that
manner, the best way he could take would be to present him to the late
Earl of Argyle, who for his namesake and for his father's sake, as well
as the qualifications and endowments of the boy, would more naturally,
according to all probability, take a greater pleasure and delight in
him, and consequently provide better for him, and with a more lasting
care, than any other person of quality that had a sudden liking to him,
which might change, and took him as a stranger out of a bare curiosity.
Mr. Campbell was by these reasons overruled in the disposal of his
little dumb prophetical cousin, as he called him, and resolved that an
offer should be made of him to the present illustrious Duke of Argyle's
most noble father. But it so unfortunately happened, that the earl
making very much a longer stay at London than was expected, Mr.
Campbell, the uncle, sent our young Duncan Campbell, his nephew,
handsomely accoutred, and with a handsome sum of money in his pocket, by
sea, with Captain Meek of Kircaldie, to London, with letters of
recommendation to the earl's favour, and just a few days before young
Duncan arrived in London, the earl was set out on his journey to his
seat in Scotland.

I had now left him for near three years, not having seen him since about
a year after his mother's death; and then coming to London, I had by
mere accident an appointment to meet some Scotch gentlemen at the
Buffalo at Charing-cross. There happened at that time to be a great
concourse of Scotch nobility there at an entertainment; and one of the
ladies and gentlemen passing by and seeing one of my friends, desired
him to come in, and told him both he and his companion should be very
welcome to partake of the diversion. The lady told him they had got a
lovely youth, a Scotch miracle, among them, that would give us exquisite
delight, and write down to us all the occurrences of our future lives,
and tell us our names upon our first appearance. The moment I heard of
it, Duncan Campbell came into my head; but as it is a thing not rare to
be met with in Scotland for second sighted persons to tell such things,
and as the Earl of Argyle was in the north, I thought little Duncan had
been under his protection and with him, and did not dream of meeting
with him there; and accordingly told my friend, before I went in, that I
believed I knew a lad in Scotland would exceed this in foresight, let
him be as dexterous in his art as he would.

As soon as I entered the room, I was surprised to find myself
encompassed and surrounded by a circle of the most beautiful females
that ever my eyes beheld. In the centre of this angelic tribe was seated
a heavenly youth, with the most winning comeliness of aspect that ever
pleased the sight of any beholder of either sex; his face was divinely
fair, and tinged only with such a sprightly blush as a painter would use
to colour the picture of health with, and the complexion was varnished
over by a blooming like that of flourishing fruit, which had not yet
felt the first nippings of an unkind and an uncivil air; with this
beauty was joined such a smiling draught of all the features as is the
result of pleasantry and good humour. His eyes were large, full of
lustre, majestic, well set, and the soul shone so in them, as told the
spectators plainly how great was the inward vivacity of his genius; the
hair of his head was thick, and reclined far below his shoulders; it was
of a fine silver colour, and hung down in ringlets like the curling
tendrils of a copious vine. He was by the women entertained, according
to the claim which so many perfections joining in a youth just ripening
into manhood might lay to the benevolent dispositions of the tender sex.
One was holding the basin of water, another washing a hand, a third with
a towel drying his face, which another fair had greedily snatched the
pleasure of washing before, while a fourth was disposing into order his
silver hairs with an ivory comb, in a hand as white, and which a monarch
might have been proud to have had so employed in adjusting the crown
upon his head; a fifth was setting into order his cravat; a sixth stole
a kiss, and blushed at the innocent pleasure, and mistook her own
thoughts as if she kissed the angel and not the man; and they all rather
seemed to adore than to love him, as if they had taken him not for a
person that enjoyed the frequent gift of the second-sight, but as if he
had been some little prophet peculiarly inspired; and while they all
thus admired and wondered, they all consulted him as an oracle. The
surprise of seeing a young man so happy amidst the general concurring
favours of the fair, made me be for awhile lost in a kind of delightful
amazement, and the consideration of what bliss he was possessed made me
scarce believe my own eyes, when they told me it was Duncan Campbell,
who I had left an unhappy orphan at Edinburgh. But so it was, though he
was much altered in stature, being now shot up pretty fast in his growth
since I had seen him, and having gained a kind of a fixed comportment,
such as we may daily observe in those who are taking leave of their
minority, and stepping into a stage of maturer life.

The first remarkable thing I knew him do in London, being in this
splendid company, where there were so many undoubted witnesses of
quality too, that had ocular proof of his predictions at that public
tavern: I choose to record it here in the first place according to its
due order. It was in the year 1698.

Among this angelical class of beauties were Dr. W--lw--d's lady and
daughter. Upon earth there was not sure a more beautiful creature than
the daughter was; she was the leading light of all the sparkling tribe;
and Otway's character suits her exactly; for she was among ten thousand
eminently fair. One would imagine prosperous and lucky fortune was
written upon her face, and that nothing unhappy could be read in so fair
a book; and it was therefore the unanimous consent of all, that by way
of good omen to the rest, his predictions should begin to be opened
luckily that day, and that therefore he should first of all be consulted
about her.

Accordingly, the mother, to be satisfied of his talent before she
proceeded to any other questions, asked him in writing if he knew the
young lady, her name, and who she was. After a little ruminating and
pondering upon the matter, and taking an exact view of the beauty, he
wrote down her name, told Mrs. W--lw--d she was her daughter, and that
her father was a doctor. Convinced by his so readily telling the name
and quality of persons he had never seen in his lifetime, that fame had
not given a false character of his capacity, she proceeded in her
questions as to her future fortune. He gazed afresh at her very eagerly
for some time, and his countenance during that time of viewing her
seemed to be ruffled with abundance of disturbance and perplexity. We
all imagined that the youth was a little touched at the heart himself
with what he saw, and that instead of telling hers, he had met in her
bright eyes with his own destiny, the destiny of being for ever made a
slave and a captive to so many powerful and almost irresistible charms.

At length, after having a long debate within himself, which we thought
proceeded from the strugglings of love and passion, he fetching a great
sigh, which still convinced us more, took the pen and wrote to Mrs.
W--lw--d, that he begged to be excused, and that his pen might remain as
dumb and silent as his tongue on that affair. By this answer we
concluded, one and all, that our former conjectures were true, and we
joined in pressing him the more earnestly to deliver his real and
sincere opinion concerning the accidents upon which the future fortunes
of her life were to turn and depend. He showed many mighty reluctances
in the doing it; and I have often since considered him in the same
anguish as the late great Dr. Ratcliff, who was endeavouring by study to
save a certain fair one, whom he loved with a vehemence of temper, and
who was, as his reason told him, got far away beyond the reach of the
art of physic to recover. At last he wrote in plain terms that his
backwardness and unwillingness to tell it, arose from his wishes that
her fortune would be better than his certain foreknowledge of it told
him it would be, and begged that we would rest satisfied with that
general answer, since it was in so particular a case, where he himself
was a well-wisher in vain, to the lady about whom he was consulted. The
young lady herself thinking that if she knew any disasters that were to
befall her she might, by knowing the nature of them beforehand, and the
time when they were likely to happen, be able, by timely prudence and
forecast, to avert those evils, with many beseechings urged him to
reveal the fatal secret. After many struggles to avoid it, and as many
instances made to him both by mother and daughter for the discovery of
his prescience in that point, he complied with very great difficulty;
and blotting the paper with tears that trickled fast from his eyes, he
gave her the lamentable scroll, containing the words that follow; viz.,
I wish it had not fallen to my lot to tell this lady, whom everybody
that but once looks at her must admire, though they must not have leave
to love, that she is not much longer to be possessor of that lovely
face, which gains her such a number of adorers. The smallpox will too
soon turn a ravisher, and rifle all those sweets and charms that might
be able to vanquish a king and to subdue a conqueror of mighty battles.
Her reign is doomed, alas! to be as short as it is now great and
universal; I believe she has internal beauties of the mind, not the
least inferior to those external excellences of the body; and she might,
perhaps, by the power of her mind alone, be absolute queen of the
affections of men, if the smallpox threatened not too surely to be her
farther enemy, and, not contented to destroy the face, was not
perversely bent to destroy the whole woman. But I want words to express
my sorrow. I would not tell it if you did not extort the baneful secret
from my bosom. This fair creature, whose beauty would make one wish her
immortal, will, by the cruel means of the smallpox, give us too sudden a
proof of her mortality. But neither the mother nor herself ought too
much to repine at this, seeing it appears to be the decree of
Providence, which is always to be interpreted as meant for our good, and
seeing it may be the means of translating her the sooner only to her
kindred angels, whose beauty she so much resembles here on earth, and to
be among the lowest class of whom, is better than being the greatest
beauty of the world here below, and wearing an imperial crown. While I
comfort you, I cannot help the force of nature, which makes me grieve
myself; and I only give you, because you compel me to it, so particular
and so exact an answer to so particular and so exacting a question.

The mother, who took the paper, was prudent enough to conceal from the
daughter what he said; but nature would force its way, and bubbled from
her eyes; and the daughter perceiving that, pressed hard to see it, and
wept at the consideration that hard fate, though she knew not
particularly what way, was to befall her. Never surely was anything so
beautiful in tears, and I obtained of the mother to see the writing. At
last, in general terms, to free her from a suspense of mind, it was told
her that some trouble should happen to her that should diminish her
beauty. She had courage enough to hear that misfortune with disdain, and
crying, If that be all, I am armed, I don't place much pride in that
which I know age must shortly after destroy, if trouble did not do it
before; and she dried up her tears; and, if what Mr. Bruyere says, be
true, viz., that the last thing a celebrated woman thinks of when she
dies, is the loss of her beauty, she showed an admirable pattern of
female philosophy, in bearing such a cruel prediction with such
unspeakable magnanimity, as exceeded even the patience of stern
stoicism, considering she was a woman, to whom beauty is more dear than
life.

If any evil, that is impending over people's heads, could be evaded by
foreknowledge, or eluded by art, she had the fairest opportunity of
having this prediction annulled, which would have been more to the
satisfaction of the predictor than knowing it verified, than ever any
woman had. Her mother was specifically told that the fatal distemper
should be the smallpox; her father was, and is still, a very eminent
physician; and distempers of that kind, especially, are much more easily
prevented by care, than cured by art, and by art more easily set aside,
when there is a timely warning given to a physician to prepare the body
against the danger of the poison, than when the distemper has once
catched hold of a body at unawares, when it is unpurged of any gross
humours that may accompany it. But neither the foreknowledge and caution
of the mother, nor the skill and wisdom of the great physician her
father, were sufficient to ward off the approaching harm, that was
written in the books of fate. Not many suns had finished their yearly
courses, before she was forced to submit to the inevitable stroke of
death, after the infectious and malicious malady had first ravished her
beauty, rioted in all her sweets, and made an odious deformed spectacle
of the charmer of mankind. The death of the daughter worked hard upon
the mother's bowels, and dragged her speedily after her, with a broken
heart to the grave.

This lady, whose fortune so great and so distinguished an assembly had
chosen to hear as a happy forerunner and lucky omen of all their own,
which were to be asked afterwards in their turns, proving so contrary to
their expectations, already unfortunate in the prediction, and having
been in tears about the matter, disheartened all the rest of the
beauties from consulting him farther that day. The person who kept the
tavern, by name, Mrs. Irwin, alleged that as some people were very
fortunate, and others unfortunate upon the same day, so one lady might
be before told a mishap one minute, and another lady all the prosperity
in nature the very next minute following, and therefore that what the
unfortunate lady had heard was not to be taken as ominous, or as what
could malignantly influence the day, neither ought it to be the least
hinderance to any who had the curiosity of being let into the secrets of
time beforehand. However, whether the ladies were convinced or no; if
she prevailed over their belief in that point, she could not prevail
over their humour, which, though they might not believe the former
prediction ominous to themselves, were naturally awed for fear of the
like, peradventure, for a time, and so it was agreed, _nemine
contradicente_, as a witty lady wrote it down, That no more petitions
should for that day be presented by any of that company to his dumb, yet
oracular, majesty. Mrs. Irwin, however, would have her way; said she did
not presume to such honour as to call herself of that company, and that
therefore she might consult him without breaking through the votes of
the assembly. Many endeavoured to dissuade her, but as she was
passionately fond of knowing future events; and had a mighty itch to be
very inquisitive with the oracle about what might happen, not only to
herself, but her posterity; it was agreed that he should have the
liberty of satisfying her curiosity, since she presumed her fortune was
sure to be so good, and was so forward and eager for the knowledge of
it. But, alas! such is too often the fantastical impulse of nature
unluckily depraved, that it carries us often into wishes of knowing,
what when known we would be glad to unknow again, and then our memory
will not let us be untaught.

Mrs. Irwin was at that time in a pretty commodious way of business,
everything in plenty round about her, and lived more like a person of
distinction, that kept such a cellar of wine, open house, and a free
table, than like one who kept a tavern. She brought in her pretty
children, that were then almost babies, the youngest having not long
been out of the nurse's arms, or trusted to the use of its own legs.
These children she loved as a mother should love children; they were the
delight of her eyes all day, and the dream of her imagination all night.
All the passions of her soul were confined to them; she was never
pleased but when they were so, and always angry if they were crossed;
her whole pride was centered in them, and they were clothed and went
attended more like the infants of a princess, than of a vintner's
relict. The fortune of these was what she had near at heart, and of
which she was so eager of being immediately apprised. Her impatience was
proportionable to the love she had for them, and which made her wish to
foreknow all the happiness that was like to attend them. She sat
cheerfully down, presented one to him, and smiling, wrote the question
in general terms, viz., is this boy to be happy or unhappy. A melancholy
look once more spread itself all over the face of the predictor, when he
read the too inquisitive words, and he seemed mightily to regret being
asked a question, to which he was by his talent of foreseeing compelled
to give so unwelcome an answer. The colour of the poor woman flushed and
vanished alternately, and very quick, and she looked not quite like the
picture of despair, but a disconsolate woman, with little hopes on one
hand, and great doubts and dismal fears on the other. She professed she
read great evil in the troubles of his face, thanked him for his good
nature, told him that they all knew that though he could foretell he
could not alter the acts and decretals of fate, and therefore desired
him to tell her the worst; for that the misfortunes, were they never so
great, would be less dreadful to her than remaining in the state of fear
and suspension. He at last wrote down to her that great and unexpected
and even unavoidable accidents would involve the whole family in new
calamities, that the son she asked him about would have the bitterest
task of hardship to go through withal, while he lived, and that to
finish all more unhappily, he would be basely and maliciously brought to
an untimely end, by some mortal enemy or other, but that she should not
trouble herself so much on that head, she would never see it, for it
would happen some years after she was departed from the world. This
melancholy account closed up the book of predictions for that day, and
put a sad stop to all the projected mirth and curiosity. Now I must tell
the reader how and when the event answered the prediction. And in a few
words, it was thus; poor Mrs. Irwin, by strange accidents, decayed in
the world, and dying poor, her sons were forced to be put out
apprentices to small trades, and the son, whom the above-mentioned
prediction concerned, was, for stealing one cheese from a man in the
Haymarket, severely prosecuted at the Old Bailey, and on Wednesday, the
23rd of December, 1713, hanged at Tyburn, with several other criminals.

The two foregoing passages are of so tragical a nature, that it is time
I should relieve the minds of my readers with some histories of ladies
who consulted him with more success and advantage, to whom his
predictions were very entertaining, when they so came to pass in their
favour, the relation whereof will consequently be agreeable to all
readers who have within them a mixture of happy curiosity and good
nature.

Two ladies, who were the most remarkable beauties in London, and most
courted, turned at the same time their thoughts to matrimony; and being
satiated, I may say wearied, with the pleasure of having continually
after them a great number and variety of adorers, resolved each, about
the same time, to make a choice of their several men, to whom they
thought they could give most happiness, and from whom they might receive
most. Their names, for they are both persons of distinction, shall be
Christallina and Urbana. Christallina was a virgin, and Urbana a young
widow. Christallina engrossed the eyes, the hearts, and the sighs of the
whole court; and wherever she appeared, put any court lady out of her
place, that had one before in the heart of any youth; and was the most
celebrated toast among the _beau monde_. Urbana's beauty made as
terrible havock in the city; all the citizens' daughters that had many
admirers, and were in fair hopes of having husbands when they pleased
themselves, as soon as Urbana had lost her old husband, found that they
every day lost their lovers; and it was a general fear among the
prettiest maids, that they should remain maids still, as long as Urbana
remained a widow. She was the monopolizer of city affection, and made
many girls, that had large stocks of suitors, bankrupts in the trade of
courtship, and broke some of their hearts, when her charms broke off
their amours. Well, but the day was near at hand when both the belles of
the court and the city damsels were to be freed from the ravages which
these two tyrants, triumphant in beauty and insolent in charms, made
among the harvest of love. Each had seen her proper man, to whom the
enjoyment of their person was to be dedicated for life. But it being an
affair of so lasting importance, each had a mind to be let into the
knowledge of the consequences of such a choice, as far as possible,
before they stepped into the irrevocable state of matrimony. Both of
them happened to take it into their heads, that the best way to be
entirely satisfied in their curiosity, was to have recourse to the great
predictor of future occurrences, Mr. Duncan Campbell, whose fame was at
that time spread pretty largely about the town. Christallina and Urbana
were not acquainted with each other, only by the report which fame had
made of beauty. They came to Mr. Campbell's on the same day, and both
with the same resolution of keeping themselves concealed and under
masks, that none of the company of consulters, who happened to be there,
might know who they were. It happened that on that very day, just when
they came, Mr. Campbell's rooms were more than ordinarily crowded with
curious clients of the fair sex, so that he was obliged to desire these
two ladies, who expressed so much precaution against, and fear of having
their persons discovered, to be contented with only one room between
them, and with much ado they complied with the request, and condescended
to sit together _incog._ Distant compliments of gesture passed between
them, the dress and comportment of each making them appear to be persons
of figure and breeding, and after three or four modish courtesies, down
they sat, without so much as once opening their lips, or intending so to
do. The silence between them was very formal and profound for near half
an hour, and nothing was to be heard but the snapping of fans, which
they both did very tunably, and with great harmony, and played as it
were in concert.

At last, one of the civil, well-bred mutes, happening to sneeze, the
other very gracefully bowed, and before she was well aware, out popped
the words, Bless you, madam. The fair sneezer returned the bow, with
an--I thank you, madam. They found they did not know one another's
voices, and they began to talk very merrily together, with pretty great
confidence, and they taking a mutual liking from conversation, so much
familiarity grew thereupon instantly between them, that they began not
only to unmask, but to unbosom themselves to one another, and confess
alternately all their secrets. Christallina owned who she was, and told
Urbana the beau and courtier that had her heart. Urbana as frankly
declared that she was a widow, that she would not become the lady's
rival, that she had pitched upon a second husband, an alderman of the
city. Just by that time they had had their chat out, and wished one
another the pleasure of a successful prediction, it came to
Christallina's turn to visit the dumb gentleman, and receive from his
pen oracular answers to all the questions she had to propose. Well, he
accordingly satisfied her in every point she asked him about; but while
she was about this, one of Mr. Campbell's family going with Urbana to
divert her a little, the widow rallied at the virgin as a fool, to
imagine that she should ever make a conquest of the brightest spark
about the court, and then let fly some random bolts of malice to wound
her reputation for chastity. Now it became the widow's turn to go and
consult; and the same person of Mr. Campbell's family in the mean time
entertained Christallina. The maid was not behindhand with the widow;
she rallied against the widow, represented her as sometimes a coquette,
sometimes a lady of pleasure, sometimes a jilt, and lifted up her hands
in wonder and amazement that Urbana should imagine so rich a man as an
alderman such a one, should fall to her lot. Thus Urbana swore and
protested that Christallina could never arrive at the honour of being
the wife to the courtly Secretarius, let Mr. Campbell flatter her as he
would; and Christallina vowed that Campbell must be a downright wizard
if he foretold that such a one as Urbana would get Alderman Stiffrump as
a husband, provided a thing so improbable should come to pass.

However, it seems, Duncan had told them their own names and the names of
their suitors, and told them farther, how soon they were both to be
married, and that too directly to their heart's content, as they said
rejoicingly to themselves, and made their mutual gratulations.

They went away each satisfied that she should have her own lover, but
Christallina laughed at Mr. Campbell for assigning the alderman to
Urbana; and Urbana laughed at him for promising the courtier to the arms
of Christallina.

This a pretty good figure of the tempers of two reigning toasts with
regard to one another.

First, their curiosity made them, from resolving to be concealed,
discover one another wilfully; from utter strangers grow as familiar as
old friends in a moment, swear one another to secrecy, and exchange the
sentiments of their hearts together; and, from being friends, become
envious of each other's enjoying a similitude of happiness; the
compliments made on either side face to face, were, upon the turning of
the back, turned into reflections, detraction, and ridicule; each was a
self-lover and admirer of her own beauty and merit, and a despiser of
the other's.

However, Duncan Campbell, proved at last to be in the right; Urbana was
wrong in her opinion of Christallina's want of power over Secretarius,
and Christallina was as much out in her opinion that Urbana would miss
in her aim of obtaining Stiffrump; for they both proved in the right of
what they thought with regard to their own dear single persons, and
were made happy according to their expectations, just at the time
foretold by Mr. Campbell.

Christallina's ill wishes did not hinder Urbana from being mistress of
Alderman Stiffrump's person and stock, nor did Urbana's hinder
Christallina from showing herself a shining bride at the Ring, in
Secretarius's gilded chariot, drawn by six prancers of the proud Belgian
kind, with her half dozen of liveries with favours in their hats,
waiting her return at the gate of Hyde Park.

Both loved and both envied, but both allowed of Mr. Campbell's
foreknowledge.

Having told you two very sorrowful passages, and one tolerably
successful and entertaining; I shall now relate to you another of my own
knowledge, that is mixed up with the grievous and the pleasant, and
chequered, as it were, with the shade and the sunshine of fortune.

Though there are vicissitudes in every stage of life under the sun, and
not one ever ran continually on with the same series of prosperity; yet
those conditions which are the most liable to the signal alterations of
fortune, are the conditions of merchants; for professed gamesters I
reckon in a manner as men of no condition of life at all; but what comes
under the statute of vagabonds.

It was, indeed, as the reader would guess, a worthy and a wealthy
merchant, who was to run through these different circumstances of being.
He came and visited our Mr. Campbell in the year 1707, he found him
amidst a crowd of consulters; and being very eager and solicitous to
know his own fortune just at that critical juncture of time, he begged
of him, if possible, to adjourn his other clients to the day following,
and sacrifice that one wholly to his use; which as it was probably more
important than all the others together, so he wrote down that he would
render the time spent about it more advantageous to Mr. Campbell; and,
by way of previous encouragement, threw him down ten guineas as a
retaining fee.

Mr. Campbell, who held money in very little esteem, and valued it so
much too little, that he has often had my reprehensions on that head,
paused a little, and after looking earnestly in the gentleman's face,
and reading there, as I suppose, in that little space of time in
general, according to the power of the second-sight, that what concerned
him was highly momentous, wrote him this answer; That he would comply
with his requests, adjourn his other clients to the day following, and
set apart all the remnant of that, till night, for inspecting the future
occurrences of which he had a mind to be made a master.

There is certainly a very keen appetite in curiosity; it cannot stay for
satisfaction, it is pressing for its necessary repast, and is without
all patience: hunger and thirst are not appetites more vehement and more
hard and difficult to be repressed than that of curiosity; nothing but
the present now is able to allay it. A more expressive picture of this I
never beheld than in the faces of some, and the murmurs and complaints
of others, in that little inquisitive company, when the unwelcome note
was given about signifying an adjournment for only twenty-four hours.

The colour of a young woman there came and went a hundred times, if
possible, in the space of two minutes; she blushed like a red rose this
moment, and in the switch of an eyelash she was all over as pale as a
white one: the suitor, whose name her heart had gone pit-a-pat for the
space of an hour to be informed of from the pen of a seer, was now
deferred a whole day longer; she was once or twice within an ace of
swooning away, but he comforted her in particular, by telling her,
though he said it only by way of jest, that the day following would be a
more lucky day to consult about husbands than the present that she came
on. The answer was a kind of cordial to her hopes, and brought her a
little better to herself.

Two others, I remember, sisters and old maids, that it seems were
misers, women ordinarily dressed and in blue aprons, and yet, by
relation, worth no less than two thousand pounds each, were in a peck of
troubles about his going and leaving them unsatisfied. They came upon an
inquiry after goods that were stolen, and they complained that by next
morning at that time, the thief might be got far enough off, and creep
into so remote a corner, that he would put it beyond the power of the
devil and the art of conjuration to find him out and bring him back
again. The disturbance and anxiety that was to be seen in their
countenances was like that which is to be beheld in the face of a great
losing gamester, when his all, his last great stake, lies upon the
table, and is just sweeping off by another winning hand into his own
hat.

The next was a widow who bounced, because, as she pretended, he would
not tell her what was best to do with her sons, and what profession it
would be most happy for them to be put to; but in reality all the cause
of the widow's fuming and fretting, was not that she wanted to provide
for her sons, but for herself; she wanted a second husband, and was not
half so solicitous about being put in a way of educating those children
she had already, as of knowing when she should be in a likelihood of
getting more. This was certainly in her thoughts, or else she would
never have flounced about in her weed, from one end of the room to the
other, and all the while of her passion, smile by fits upon the
merchant, and leer upon a young pretty Irish fellow that was there. The
young Irishman made use of a little eye-language; she grew appeased,
went away in quite a good humour, scuttled too airily down stairs for a
woman in her clothes, and the reason was certainly that she knew the
matter before, which we took notice of presently after: the Irishman
went precipitately after her down stairs without taking his leave.

But neither were the two misers for their gold, the virgin for a first
husband, nor the widow for a second, half so eager as another married
woman there was for the death of her spouse. She had put the question in
so expecting a manner for a lucky answer, and with so much keen desire
appearing plainly in her looks, that no big-bellied woman was ever more
eager for devouring fruit; no young, hasty bridegroom, just married to a
beauty, more impatient for night and enjoyment, than she was to know
what she thought a more happy moment, the moment of her husband's last
agonising gasp. As her expectation was the greatest, so was her
disappointment, too, and consequently her disorder upon his going and
leaving her unresolved. She was frantic, raging, and implacable; she was
in such a fury at the delay of putting off her answer to the day
following, that in her fury she acted as if she would have given herself
an answer which of the two should die first, by choking herself upon the
spot, with the indignation that swelled in her stomach and rose into her
throat on that occasion. It may look like a romance to say it, but
indeed they were forced to cut her lace, and then she threw out of the
room with great passion; but yet had so much of the enraged wife left,
beyond the enraged woman, as to return instantly up stairs, and signify
very calmly, she would be certain to be there next day, and beseeched
earnestly that she might not meet with a second disappointment.

All this hurry and bustle created a stay a little too tedious for the
merchant, who began to be impatient himself, especially when word was
brought up that a fresh company was come in; but Mr. Campbell was denied
to them; and to put a stop to any more interruptions, the merchant and
the dumb gentleman agreed to slip into a coach, drive to a tavern in the
city, and settle matters of futurity over a bottle of French claret.

The first thing done at the tavern, was Mr. Campbell's saluting him upon
a piece of paper by his name, and drinking his health. The next paper
held a discourse of condolence for a disaster that was past long since;
namely, a great and considerable loss that happened to his family, in
the dreadful conflagration of the city of London. In the third little
dialogue which they had together, he told the merchant that losses and
advantages were general topics, which a person unskilled in that art
might venture to assign to any man of his profession; it being next to
impossible that persons who traffic should not sometimes gain, and
sometimes lose. But, said Mr. Duncan Campbell, I will sketch out
particularly, and specify to you some future misfortunes with which you
will unavoidably meet; it is in your stars, it is in destiny, that you
should have some trials, and therefore when you are forewarned, take a
prudent care to be forearmed with patience, and by longanimity, and
meekly and resignedly enduring your lot, render it more easy, since
impatience can't avert it, and will only render it more burdensome and
heavy. He gave these words to the merchant; who pressed for his opinion
that moment. By your leave, resuming the pen, said the dumb gentleman,
in writing, we will have this bottle out first and tap a fresh one, that
you may be warmed with courage enough to receive the first speculative
onset of ill fortune, that I shall predict to you, with a good grace,
and that may perhaps enable you to meet it when it comes to reduce
itself into action, with a manful purpose and all becoming resolution.
The merchant agreed to the proposal, and put on an air of the careless
and indifferent as well as he could, to signify that he had no need to
raise up an artificial courage from the auxiliary forces of the grape.
But nature, when hard pressed, will break through all disguises, and not
only notwithstanding the air of pleasantry he gave himself, which
appeared forced and constrained, but in spite of two or three sparkling
and enlivening bumpers, a cloud of care would ever and anon gather and
shoot heavily across his brow, though he laboured all he could to dispel
it as quickly, and to keep fair weather in his countenance. Well, they
had cracked the first bottle, and the second succeeded upon the table,
and they called to blow a pipe together. This pipe Mr. Campbell found
had a very ill effect; it is certainly a pensive kind of instrument, and
fills a mind, anything so disposed, with disturbing thoughts, black
fumes, and melancholy vapours, as certainly as it doth the mouth with
smoke. It plainly took away even the little sparks of vivacity which the
wine had given before; so he wrote for a truce of firing those sort of
noxious guns any longer, and they laid down their arms by consent, and
drank off the second bottle. A third immediately supplied its place, and
at the first glass, the opening of the bottle, Mr. Campbell began to
open to him his future case, in the following words: Sir, you have now
some ventures at sea from such and such a place, to such a value. Don't
be discomforted at the news which you certainly will have within three
months, but it will be false at last, that they are by three different
tempests made the prey of the great ocean, and enrich the bottom of the
sea, the palace of Neptune. A worse storm than all these attends you at
home, a wife who is, and will be more, the tempest of the house wherein
she lives. The high and lofty winds of her vanity will blow down the
pillars of your house and family; the high tide of her extravagance will
roll on like a resistless torrent, and leave you at low water, and the
ebb of all your fortunes. This is the highest and the most cutting
disaster that is to befall you; your real shipwreck is not foreign but
domestic; your bosom friend is to be your greatest foe, and even your
powerful undoer for a time; mark what I say, and take courage, it shall
be but for a time, provided you take courage; it will upon that
condition be only a short and wholesome taste of adversity given to you,
that you may relish returning prosperity with virtue, and with a
greater return of thanks to Him that dispenses it at pleasure to
mankind. Remember, courage and resignation is what I advise you to; use
it, as becomes you, in your adversity, and believe that as I foretold
that adversity, so I can foretell a prosperity will again be the
consequence of those virtues; and the more you feel the one ought not to
cast you down, but raise your hopes the more, that he who foretold you
that so exactly, could likewise foretell you the other. The merchant was
by this put into a great suspense of mind, but somewhat easier by the
second prediction being annexed so kindly to the first fatal one. They
crowned the night with a flask of Burgundy, and then parting, each went
to their respective homes.

The reader may perchance wonder how I, who make no mention of my being
there, as in truth I was not at the tavern, should be able to relate
this as of my own knowledge; but if he pleases to have patience to the
end of the story, he will have entire satisfaction in that point.

About half a year after, the merchant came again, told him that his
prediction was too far verified, to his very dear cost, and that he was
now utterly undone, and beyond any visible means of a future recovery,
and doubting lest the other fortunate part of the prediction was only
told him by way of encouragement, for groundless doubts and fears always
attend a mind implunged in melancholy, besought him very earnestly to
tell him candidly and sincerely if there was no real prospect of good,
and rid him at once of the uneasiness of such a suspension of thought;
But pray too, said he, with all the vehemence of repeated expostulation,
satisfy me if there are any farther hopes on this side the grave?

To this Duncan Campbell made a short, but a very significant reply in
writing. May the heavens preserve you from a threatening danger of life.
Take care only of yourself, great and mighty care; and if you outlive
Friday next, you will yet be great and more fortunate than ever you was
in all the height of your former most flourishing space of life. He
coloured inordinately when Duncan Campbell said Friday, and conjured him
to tell him as particularly as he could what he meant by Friday. He told
him he could not particularise any farther, but that great danger
threatened him that day; and that without extraordinary precaution it
would prove fatal to him, even to death. He shook his head, and went
away in a very sorrowful plight. Friday past, Saturday came, and on that
very Saturday morning came likewise the joyful tidings, that what
ventures of his were given over for lost at sea, were all come safe into
the harbour. He came the moment he received those dispatches from his
agent, to Mr. Duncan Campbell's apartment, embraced him tenderly, and
saluted him with much gladness of heart, before a great roomful of
ladies, where I happened to be present at that time; crying out in a
loud voice, before he knew what he said, that Mr. Campbell had saved his
life, that Friday was his birthday, and he had intended with a pistol to
shoot himself that very day. The ladies thought him mad; and he,
recovered from his ecstacy, said no more, but sat down, till Mr.
Campbell dismissed all his clients; and then we three went to the tavern
together, where he told me the whole little history or narrative, just
as is above related.

The fame which Mr. Duncan Campbell got by the foregoing, and several
other predictions of the like kind, was become very large and extensive,
and had spread itself into the remotest corners of this metropolis. The
squares rung with it, it was whispered from one house to another through
the more magnificent streets, where persons of quality and distinction
reside; it catched every house in the city, like the news of stock from
Exchange-alley; it run noisily through the lanes and little
thoroughfares where the poor inhabit; it was the chat of the tea-table,
and the babble of the streets; and the whole town, from the top to the
bottom, was full of it. Whenever any reputation rises to a degree like
this, let it be for what art or accomplishment, or on what account
soever it will, malice, envy, and detraction, are sure to be the
immediate pursuers of it with full mouth, and to hunt it down if
possible, with full cry. Even the great Nostradamus, though favoured by
kings and queens, which always without any other reason creates enemies,
was not more pursued by envy and detraction for his predictions in
Paris, and throughout France, than our Duncan Campbell was in London,
and even throughout England. Various, different, and many were the
objections raised to blot his character and extenuate his fame, that
when one was confuted another might not be wanting to supply its place,
and so to maintain a course and series of backbiting, according to the
known maxim, Throw dirt, and if it does not stick, throw dirt
continually, and some will stick.

Neither is there any wonder; for a man, that has got applauders of all
sorts and conditions, must expect condemners and detractors of all sorts
and conditions likewise. If a lady of high degree, for example, should
say smiling, though really thinking absolutely what she says, for fear
of being thought over-credulous: Well, I vow, some things Mr. Campbell
does are surprising after all; they would be apt to incline one to a
belief that he is a wonder of a man; for one would imagine the things he
does impossible: why, then, a prude, with an assumed, supercilious air
and a scornful _tihee_, would, in order to seem more wise than she was,
reply; Laud, madam, it is more a wonder to me that you can be imposed
upon so. I vow to Gad, madam, I would as soon consult an almanack maker,
and pin my faith upon what he pricks down; or believe, like my creed, in
the cross which I make upon the hand of a gipsy. Lard, madam, I assure
your la'ship he knows no more than I do of you. I assure you so, and
therefore believe me. He has it all by hearsay. If the lady that
believed it, should reply, that if he had notice of every stranger by
hearsay he must be a greater man than she suspected, and must keep more
spies in pay than a prime minister; the prude's answer would be with a
loud laugh, and giggling out these words; Lard, madam, I assure you
nothing can be more easy; and so take it for granted. Because she was
inclined to say so, and had the act of wisdom on her side, forsooth,
that she appeared hard of belief, which some call hard to be put upon,
and the other lady credulous, which some though believing upon good
grounds are called, and so thought, foolish; the prude's answer would be
thought sufficient and convincing.

Thus malice and folly, by dint of noise and impudence, and strong though
empty assertions, often run down modesty and good sense. Among the
common people it is the same, but only done in a different manner. For
example, an ordinary person that had consulted, might say, as he walked
along, there goes the dumb gentleman who writes down any name of a
stranger at first sight. Steps up a blunt fellow, that takes
stubbornness for sense, and says, That is a confounded lie; he is a
cheat and an impostor, and you are one of his accomplices; he will tell
me my name, I suppose, if you tell it him first: he is no more dumb
than I am; he can speak and hear as well as us; I have been with those
that say they have heard him; I wish I and two or three more had him in
our stable, and I warrant you with our cartwhips we would lick some
words out of his chaps, as dumb as you call him. I tell you it is all a
lie, and all a bite. If the other desires to be convinced for himself by
his own experience, the rougher rogue, who perhaps has stronger sinews
than the other, answers, If you lie any farther I will knock you down;
and so he is the vulgar wit, and the mouth of the rabble-rout, and thus
the detraction spreads below with very good success, as it does above in
another kind.

As there are two comical adventures in his life, which directly suit and
correspond with the foregoing reflections, this seems the most proper
place to insert them in. The first consists of a kind of mob-way of
usage he met with from a fellow who got to be an officer in the army,
but by the following behaviour will be found unworthy of the name and
the commission.

In the year 1701, a lady of good quality came and addressed herself to
him much after the following manner. She told him she had choice of
lovers, but preferred one above the rest; but desired to know his name,
and if she made him her choice what would be the subsequent fate of such
a matrimony. Mr. Duncan Campbell very readily gave her down in writing
this plain and honest reply; That of all her suitors she was most
inclined to a captain, a distinguished officer, and a great beau, naming
his name, and one that had a great many outward, engaging charms,
sufficient to blind the eyes of any lady that was not thoroughly
acquainted with his manner of living. He therefore assured her, and
thought himself bound, being conjured so to do, having received his fee,
though there was danger in such plain and open predictions, that he was
a villain and a rogue in his heart, a profligate gamester, and that if
she took him to her bed, she would only embrace her own ruin. The lady's
woman, who was present, being in fee with the captain, resolving to give
intelligence, for fear the officer, her so good friend, should be
disappointed in the siege, slily shuffled the papers into her pocket,
and made a present of them to the military spark. Fired with indignation
at the contents, he vowed revenge; and in order to compass it, conspires
with his female spy about the means. In fine, for fear of losing the
lady, though he quarrelled with Duncan Campbell, a method was to be
found out how to secure her by the very act of revenge. At last it was
resolved to discover to her, that he had found out what she had been
told by Mr. Campbell, but the way how he had been informed was to remain
a secret. He did do so, and ended his discovery with these words:--I
desire, madam, that if I prove him an impostor, you would not believe a
word he says. The lady agreed to so fair a proposal. Then the captain
swore that he himself would never eat a piece of bread more till he had
made Mr. Campbell eat his words; nay, he insisted upon it that he would
bring him to his tongue, and make him own by word of mouth, that what he
had written before was false and calumnious. To which the lady answered
again, that if he performed what he said, she would be convinced. This
brave, military man, however, not relying upon his own single valour and
prowess, to bring about so miraculous a thing as the making a person
that was dumb to speak, he took with him for this end three lusty
assistants to combine with him in the assassination. The ambuscade was
settled to be at the Five Bells tavern, in Wych-street, in the Strand.
After the ambush was settled with so much false courage, the business of
decoying Mr. Campbell into it was not practicable any other way than by
sending out false colours. The lady's woman, who was by her own interest
tied fast to the interests of the beau, was to play the trick of
Delilah, and betray this deaf and dumb Samson, as he will appear to be a
kind of one in the sequel of the story, into the hands of these
Philistines. She smooths her face over with a complimenting lie from her
mistress to Mr. Campbell, and acted her part of deceit so well, that he
promised to follow her to the Five Bells with all haste; and so she
scuttled back to prepare the captain, and to tell him how lucky she was
in mischief; and how she drew him out by smiles into perdition. The
short of the story is, when they got him in among them, they endeavoured
to assassinate him; but they missed of their aim; yet it is certain they
left him in a very terrible and bloody condition; and the captain went
away in as bad a plight as the person was left in, whom he assaulted so
cowardly with numbers, and to such disadvantage. I was sent for to him
upon this disaster, and the story was delivered to me thus, by one of
the drawers of the tavern, when I inquired into it. They began to banter
him, and speaking to him as if he heard, asked him if he knew his own
fortune; they told him it was to be beaten to death. This was an odd way
of addressing a deaf and dumb man. They added, they would make him speak
before they had done. The boy seeing he made no reply, but only smiled,
thought what passed between them was a jest with an old acquaintance,
and withdrew about his business. The door being fastened, however,
before they began the honourable attack, they vouchsafed to write down
their intent in the words above mentioned, which they had uttered before
to make sure that he should understand their meaning, and what this odd
way of correction was for. All the while the maid who had brought him
into it was peeping through a hole and watching the event, as appears
afterwards. Mr. Campbell wrote them the following answer, viz., That he
hoped for fair play, that he understood beargarden as well as they; but
if a gentleman was amongst them he would expect gentlemanly usage. The
rejoinder they made to this, consisted, it seems, not of words but of
action. The officer in conjunction with another ruffian, one of the
strongest of the three he had brought, commenced the assault. As good
luck would have it, he warded off their first blows, it seems, with
tolerable success, and a wine quart pot standing upon the table, Duncan
took to his arms, and at two or three quick blows, well managed, and
close laid in upon the assailants, felled them both to the ground. Here
it was that the maid discovered her knowledge of it, and privity to the
plot to the whole house; for she no sooner sees the famous leader, the
valiant captain, lie sprawling on the floor with bleeding temples, but
she shrieked out with all the voice she could exert, Murder, murder,
murder! Alarmed at this outcry, the master and all the attendants of the
tavern scampered up stairs, burst into the room, and found Duncan
Campbell struggling with the other two, and the quart pot still fast
clenched in his hand, which they were endeavouring to wrench from him.
The drawers rescued him out of their hands, and inquired into the
matter. The maid in a fright confessed the whole thing. The officer and
his associate rubbed their eyes as recovering from a stunning sleep,
reeled as they went to rise, paid the reckoning and slunk pitifully
away; or, as the rakes' term for it is, they brushed off, and for all
their odds had the worst of the lay. I, who had some authority with Mr.
Campbell, by reason of my years, and the strict acquaintance I had with
his mother, when I came and found him in that pickle, and had the whole
relation told to me by the people of the house, though I could not
forbear pitying him within my own mind, took upon me to reprehend him,
and told him that these hardships would by Providence be daily permitted
to fall upon him, for he met with them twenty times, while he continued
in that irregular way of living and spending his time, that might be so
precious to himself and many others, in drunkenness and debauchery; and
I think the lessons I wrote down to him upon that head, though a little
severe just at that juncture, were, notwithstanding, well timed, and
did, as I guessed they would, make a more solid impression in him than
at any other. In all these scuffles, whether it is that being deaf and
dumb an affront works deeper upon a man, and so renders him far more
fierce or resolute, it must be said, that, though nature has been kind
in making him very strong, robust, and active withal, yet he has bore
some shocks, one would imagine, beyond the strength of a man, having
sometimes got the better of five or six ruffians in rencounters of the
like kind.

The next banter he met with was in a gentler way, from an unbelieving
lady, and yet she came off with very ill success, and the banter turned
all upon herself in the end.

A lady of distinction, whose name shall therefore be concealed in this
place, came with two or three of her special friends, who took her for
the most merry, innocent, spotless virgin upon earth, and whose modesty
was never suspected in the least by her relations or servants that were
nearest about her; after having rallied Mr. Campbell with several
frivolous questions, doubting his capacity, and vexing and teasing him
with gay impertinences beyond all patience, was by him told, that he did
not take fees in his profession to be made a jest of like a common
fortuneteller, but to do real good to those who consulted him, as far as
he was able by his predictions; that he was treated with more respect by
persons of a higher condition, though her own was very good, and so
offered her guinea back again with a bow and a smile. She had a little
more generosity of spirit than not to be a little nettled at the
proffer she had caused by so coarse an usage. She affected appearing
grave a little, and told him she would be serious for the future, and
asked him to set down her name, which she had neglected before, to ask
other questions that were nothing to the purpose. He promised to write
it down, but pausing a little longer than ordinary about it, she
returned to her former way of uncivil merriment and ungallant raillery.
She repeated to him in three or four little scraps of paper, one after
another, as fast as she could write them, the same words, viz., That he
could not tell her name, nor whether she was maid, wife, or widow; and
laughed as if she would split her sides, triumphing to the rest of her
companions over his ignorance and her own wit, as if she had posed him,
and put him to an entire stand. But see what this overweening opinion of
security ended in: the man of the second-sight was not to be so easily
baffled. Vexed at being so disturbed, and coming out of his brown study,
he reaches the paper and begins to write. Now it was the lady's turn to
suffer, she had deserved hearty punishment, and it came into her hands
with the note, to a degree of severity, as you will perceive by the
contents of it just now. She read it, and swooning away, dropped from
her chair. The whole room being in a bustle, I, that was in the outward
chamber, ran in: while Mr. Campbell was sprinkling water in her face, a
lady snatched up the note to read it, at which he seemed mightily
displeased; I, therefore, who understood his signs, recovered it out of
her hands by stratagem, and ran to burn it, which I did so quick that I
was not discovered in the curiosity which I must own I satisfied myself
in by reading it first; a curiosity raised too high by so particular an
adventure, to be overcome in so little a time of thought, as I was to
keep it in my hands, and so I came by the knowledge of it myself,
without being informed by Mr. Campbell. This shows how a sudden
curiosity, when there is not time given to think and correct it, may
overcome a man as well as a woman; for I was never over-curious in my
life, and though I was pleased with the oddness of the adventure, I
often blushed to myself since for the unmanly weakness of not being able
to step with a note from one room to another to the fireside, without
peeping into the contents of it. The contents of it were these: Madam
since you provoke me, your name is ----. You are no widow, you are no
wife, and yet you are no maid; you have a child at nurse at such a
place, by such a gentleman, and you were brought to bed in
Leicestershire. The lady, convinced by this answer of his strange and
mystical power, and pleased with his civility in endeavouring to conceal
from others the secret, after so many repeated provocations, though she
showed great disorder for that day, became one of his constant attenders
some time after, and would not take any step in her affairs without his
advice, which she often has said since, she found very much to her
advantage. She was as serious in her dealings with him afterwards, and
improved by being so, as she was gay and turbulent with him before, and
smarted for it. In fine, she was a thorough convert, and a votary of
his; and the only jest she used afterwards to make, concerning him, was
a civil witticism to his wife; to whom she was wont, every now and then,
smiling, to address herself after this manner: Your husband, madam, is a
devil, but he is a very handsome and a very civil one.

Not long after this came another lady, with a like intent, to impose
upon him; and was resolved, as she owned, to have laughed him to scorn
if she had succeeded in her attempt. She had very dexterously dressed
herself in her woman's habit, and her woman in her own; her footman
squired the new-made lady in a very gentlemanly dress, hired for the
purpose of a disguise, from Monmouth-street. The strange and unknown
masqueraders entered Mr. Campbell's room with much art. The fellow was
by nature of a clean make, and had a good look, and from following a
genteel master when he was young, copied his gait a little, and had some
appearance of a mien, and a tolerable good air about him. But this being
the first time of his being so fine, and he a little vain in his temper,
he over-acted his part; he strutted too much; he was as fond of his
ruffles, his watch, his sword, his cane, and his snuff box, as a boy of
being newly put into breeches; and viewed them all too often to be
thought the possessor of any such things long. The affectation of the
chambermaid was insufferable; she had the toss of the head, the jut of
the bum, the sidelong leer of the eye, the imperious look upon her lady,
now degraded into her woman, that she was intolerable, and a person
without the gift of the second-sight would have guessed her to have been
a pragmatical upstart, though it is very probable that during that time
she fancied herself really better than her mistress; the mistress acted
her part of maid the best; for it is easier for genteel modesty to act a
low part, than for affected vanity to act a high one. She kept her
distance like a servant, but would, to disguise things the better, be
every now and then pert, according to their way, and give occasion to be
chid. But there is an air of gentility inborn and inbred to some people;
and even when they aim to be awkward a certain grace will attend all
their minutest actions and gestures, and command love, respect, and
veneration. I must therefore own that there was not need of a man's
being a conjuror to guess who ought to be the lady and who the maid; but
to know who absolutely was the lady, and who was the maid did require
that skill. For how many such real ladies have we that are made so from
such upstarts, and how many genteel waiting-women of great descent that
are born with a grace about them, and are bred to good manners. Mr.
Campbell's art made him positive in the case; he took the patches from
the face of the maid, and placed them on the mistress's; he pulled off
her hood and scarf, and gave it the lady, and taking from the lady her
riding-hood, gave it the maid in exchange; for ladies at that time of
day were not entered into that fashion of cloaking themselves. Then he
wrote down that he should go out, and ought to send his maid in to
undress them quite, and give the mistress her own clothes and the maid
hers and with a smile wrote down both their names, and commended her
contrivance; but after that it was remarked by the lady that he paid her
less respect than she expected, and more to her footman, who was in
gentleman's habit, whom he took by his side, and told a great many fine
things; whereas he would tell the lady nothing farther. The lady nettled
at this, wrote to him that she had vanity enough to believe that she
might be distinguished from her maid in any dress, but that he had shown
his want of skill in not knowing who that gentleman was. Mr. Campbell
told her her mistake in sharp terms; and begging her pardon, assured her
he knew several chambermaids as genteel and as well-born as her, and
many mistresses more awkward and worse born than her maid; that he did
not go therefore by the rule of guess and judging what ought to be, but
by the rule of certainty and the knowledge of what actually was. She,
however, unsatisfied with that answer, perplexed him mightily to know
who the man was. He answered, he would be a great man. The lady laughed
scornfully, and said she wanted to know who he was, not what he would
be. He answered again, he was her footman, but that she would have a
worse. She grew warm, and desired to be informed, why, since he knew the
fellow's condition, he respected her so little and him so much, and
accused him of want of practising manners, if he had not want of
knowledge. He answered, Madam, since you will be asking questions too
far, this footman will advance himself to the degree of a gentleman, and
have a woman of distinction to his wife; while you will degrade yourself
by a marriage to be the wife of a footman; his ambition is laudable,
your condescension, mean, therefore I give him the preference; I have
given you fair warning and wholesome advice, you may avoid your lot by
prudence; but his will certainly be what I tell you.

This coming afterwards to pass exactly as was predicted, and his
disappointing so many that had a mind to impose upon him, has rendered
him pretty free from such wily contrivances since, though now and then
they have happened, but still to the mortification and disappointment of
the contrivers. But as we have not pretended to say, with regard to
these things, that he has his genius always at his elbow or his beck, to
whisper in his ear the names of persons, and such little constant events
as these; so, that we may not be deemed to give a fabulous account of
his life and adventures, we think ourselves bound to give the reader an
insight into the particular power and capacity which he has for bringing
about these particular performances, especially that of writing down
names of strangers at first sight, which I don't doubt will be done to
the satisfaction of all persons who shall read the succeeding chapter,
concerning the gift of the second-sight.




  CHAPTER VII.

    CONCERNING THE SECOND-SIGHT.


Mr. Martin lately published a book, entituled, A Description of the
Western Isles of Scotland, called by the ancient geographers, Hebrides.
It contains many curious particulars relating to the natural and civil
history of those islands, with a map of them; and in his preface he
tells us that, perhaps, it is peculiar to those isles that they have
never been described, till now, by any man that was a native of the
country, or had travelled them, as himself has done; and in the
conclusion of the said preface he tells us, he has given here such an
account of the second-sight as the nature of the thing will bear, which
has always been reckoned sufficient among the unbiassed part of mankind;
but for those that will not be satisfied, they ought to oblige us with a
new scheme, by which we may judge of matters of fact. The chief
particulars he has given us concerning the second-sight, are here set
down by way of abstract or epitome, that they may not be too tedious to
the reader.

1. In the second-sight, the vision makes such a lively impression on the
seers, that they neither see nor think of anything else but the vision
as long as it continues, and then they appear pensive or jovial,
according to the object which was presented to them.

2. At the sight of a vision the eyelids of the person are erected, and
the eyes continue staring till the object vanish, as has often been
observed by the author and others present.

3. There is one in Skye, an acquaintance of whom observed, that when he
sees a vision, the inner part of his eyelids turns so far upwards, that,
after the object disappears, he must draw them down with his fingers,
and sometimes employs others to draw them down, which he finds to be
much the easier way.

4. The faculty of the second-sight does not lineally descend in a
family, as some imagine; for he knows several parents that are endowed
with it, but not their children, and so on the contrary; neither is it
acquired by any previous compact; and after a strict inquiry, he could
never learn from any among them that this faculty was communicable any
way whatsoever.

NOTE. That this account is differing from the account that is given by
Mr. Aubrey, a gentleman of the Royal Society; and I think Mr. Martin's
reason here against the descent of this faculty from parents to children
is not generally conclusive. For though he may know parents endowed with
it and not children, and so vice versa, yet there may be parents who
are endowed with it, being qualified, as Mr. Aubrey has said, viz., both
being second-sighted, or even one to an extraordinary degree, whose
children may have it by descent. And as to this faculty being any
otherwise communicable, since the accounts differ, I must leave it to a
farther examination.

5. The seer knows neither the object, time, nor place of a vision before
it appears; and the same object is often seen by different persons
living at a considerable distance from one another. The true way of
judging as to the time and circumstance of an object, is by observation;
for several persons of judgment, without this faculty, are more capable
to judge of the design of a vision, than a novice that is a seer. As an
object appears in the day or night, it will come to pass sooner or later
accordingly.

6. If an object be seen early in the morning, which is not frequent, it
will be accomplished in a few hours afterwards; if at noon, it will
commonly be accomplished that very day; if in the evening, perhaps that
night; if after candles be lighted, it will be accomplished that night;
it is later always in accomplishment by weeks, months, and sometimes
years, according to the time of the night the vision is seen.

7. When a shroud is perceived about one, it is a sure prognostic of
death; the time is judged according to the height of it about the
person; for if it be not seen above the middle, death is not to be
expected for the space of a year, and perhaps some months longer; and as
it is frequently seen to ascend higher towards the head, death is
concluded to be at hand in a few days, if not hours, as daily experience
confirms. Examples of this kind were shown the author, when the persons,
of whom the observations were made, enjoyed perfect health.

There was one instance lately of a prediction of this kind, by a seer
that was a novice, concerning the death of one of the author's
acquaintance; this was communicated to a few only, and with great
confidence; the author being one of the number, did not in the least
regard it, till the death of the person, about the time foretold,
confirmed to him the certainty of the prediction. The foresaid novice is
now a skilful seer, as appears from many late instances; he lives in the
parish of St. Mary's, the most northern in Skye.

8. If a woman be seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage
that she will be his wife, whether they are married to others, or
unmarried, at the time of the apparition. If two or three women are seen
at once standing near a man's left hand, she that is next him will
undoubtedly be his wife first, and so on, whether all three, or the man,
be single or married at the time of the vision; of which there are
several late instances of the author's acquaintance. It is an ordinary
thing for them to see a man, that is to come to the house shortly after;
and though he be not of the seer's acquaintance yet he not only tells
his name, but gives such a lively description of his stature,
complexion, habit, &c, that upon his arrival he answers the character
given of him in all respects. If the person so appearing be one of the
seer's acquaintance, he can tell by his countenance whether he comes in
good or bad humour. The author has been seen thus, by seers of both
sexes, at some hundreds of miles' distance; some that saw him in this
manner had never seen him personally, and it happened according to their
visions, without any previous design of his to go to those places, his
coming there being purely accidental; and in the nineteenth page of his
book he tells us, that Mr. Daniel Morrison, a minister, told him, that
upon his landing in the island Rona, the natives received him very
affectionately, and addressed themselves to him with this salutation;
God save you, Pilgrim! you are heartily welcome here, for we have had
repeated apparitions of your person amongst us; viz., after the manner
of the second-sight.

9. It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens, and trees, in places
void of all three, and this in process of time used to be accomplished;
of which he gives an instance in the island of Skye.

10. To see a spark of fire fall upon one's arm, or breast, is a
forerunner of a dead child to be seen in the arms of those persons, of
which there are several fresh instances.

To see a seat empty at the time of one's sitting in it, is a presage of
that person's death quickly after.

When a novice, or one that has lately obtained the second-sight, sees a
vision in the night-time without doors, and comes near a fire, he
presently falls into a swoon.

Some find themselves, as it were, in a crowd of people, having a corpse,
which they carry along with them; and after such visions the seers come
in sweating, and describe the people that appeared; if there are any of
their acquaintance among them, they give an account of their names, and
also of the bearers. But they know nothing concerning the corpse.

All those that have the second-sight, do not always see these visions at
once, though they are together at the time; but if one, who has this
faculty, designedly touch his fellow seer, at the instant of a vision's
appearing, then the second sees it as well as the first.

11. There is the way of foretelling death by a cry, that they call
_taisk_, which some call a _wraith_, in the lowland. They hear a loud
cry without doors, exactly resembling the voice of some particular
person, whose death is foretold by it, of which he gives a late
instance, which happened in the village Rigg, in Skye isle.

12. Things are also foretold by smelling, sometimes, as follows: Fish or
flesh is frequently smelt in the fire, when at the same time neither of
the two are in the house, or, in any probability, like to be had in it
for some weeks or months. This smell several persons have who are endued
with the second-sight, and it is always accomplished soon after.

13. Children, horses, and cows, have the second-sight, as well as men
and women advanced in years.

That children see it, it is plain, from their crying aloud at the very
instant that a corpse or any other vision appears to an ordinary seer;
of which he gives an instance in a child when himself was present.

That horses likewise see it is very plain, from their violent and sudden
starting, when the rider, or seer in company with them, sees a vision of
any kind by night or day. It is observable of a horse, that he will not
go forward that way, till he be led about at some distance from the
common road, and then he is in a sweat; he gives an instance of this in
a horse in the Isle of Skye.

That cows have the second-sight appears from this; that if a woman
milking a cow happens to see a vision by the second-sight, the cow runs
away in a great fright at the same time, and will not be pacified for
some time after.

In reference to this, Paracelsus, tom. ix. l. _de arte presaga_, writes
thus; "Horses also have their auguries, who perceive, by their sight and
smell, wandering spirits, witches, and spectres, and the like things;
and dogs both see and hear the same."

Here in the next place the author answers objections that have lately
been made against the reality of the second-sight.

First, it is objected, that these seers are visionary and melancholy
people, who fancy they see things that do not appear to them or anybody
else.

He answers, the people of these isles, and particularly the seers, are
very temperate, and their diet is simple and moderate in quantity and
quality; so that their brains are not, in all probability, disordered by
undigested fumes of meat or drink. Both sexes are free from hysteric
fits, convulsions, and several other distempers of that sort. There are
no madmen among them, nor any instance of self-murder. It is observed
among them, that a man drunk, never has a vision of the second-sight;
and he that is a visionary would discover himself in other things as
well as in that; nor are such as have the second-sight, judged to be
visionaries by any of their friends or acquaintance.

Secondly, it is objected, that there are none among the learned able to
oblige the world with a satisfactory account of these visions; therefore
they are not to be believed.

He answers, if everything of which the learned are not able to give a
satisfactory account, shall be condemned as false and impossible, we
shall find many other things, generally believed, which must be rejected
as such.

Thirdly, it is objected, that the seers are impostors, and the people
who believe them are credulous, and easy to be imposed upon.

He answers, the seers are generally illiterate, and well-meaning people,
and altogether void of design; nor could he ever learn that any of them
made the least gain of it; neither is it reputable among them to have
that faculty; beside, the people of the Isles are not so credulous as to
believe an impossibility, before the thing foretold be accomplished; but
when it actually comes to pass, afterwards it is not in their power to
deny it, without offering violence to their senses and reason; beside,
if the seers were deceivers, can it be reasonable to imagine that all
the islanders, who have not the second-sight, should combine together
and offer violence to their understandings and senses, to force
themselves to believe a lie from age to age? There are several persons
among them, whose birth and education raise them above the suspicion of
concurring with an imposture merely to gratify an illiterate and
contemptible sort of persons. Nor can a reasonable man believe, that
children, horses, and cows, could be engaged in a combination to
persuade the world of the reality of a second-sight.

Every vision that is seen comes exactly to pass according to the rules
of observation, though novices and heedless persons do not always judge
by those rules; concerning which he gives instances.

There are visions seen by several persons, in whose days they are not
accomplished; and this is one of the reasons why some things have been
seen, that are said never to have come to pass; and there are also
several visions seen, which are not understood till they are
accomplished.

The second-sight is not a late discovery, seen by one or two in a
corner, or a remote isle; but it is seen by many persons of both sexes,
in several isles, separated about forty or fifty leagues from one
another; the inhabitants of many of these isles never had the least
converse by word or writing; and this faculty of seeing visions having
continued, as we are informed by tradition, ever since the plantation of
these isles, without being disproved by the nicest sceptic after the
strictest inquiry, seems to be a clear proof of its reality.

It is observable, that it was much more common twenty or thirty years
ago than at present; for one in ten does not see it now, that saw it
then.

The second-sight is not confined to the Western Isles alone, the author
having an account that it is in several parts of Holland, but
particularly in Bommel, where a woman has it, for which she is courted
by some, and dreaded by others. She sees a smoke about one's face, which
is the forerunner of the death of a person so seen, and she actually
foretold the deaths of several that lived there. She was living in that
town a few winters ago.

The second-sight is likewise in the Isle of Man, as appears by this
instance: Captain Leathes, the chief commander of Belfast, in his voyage
1690, lost thirteen men by a violent storm; and upon his landing in the
Isle of Man, an ancient man, clerk to a parish there, told him
immediately that he had lost thirteen men there; the captain inquired
how he came to the knowledge of that; he answered that it was by
thirteen lights, which he had seen come into the churchyard; as Mr.
Sacheverel tells us in his late description of the Isle of Man. Note,
that this is like the sight of the corpse-candles in Wales, which is
also well attested.

Here the author adds many other instances concerning the second-sight,
of which I shall set down only a few.

A man in Knockow, in the parish of St. Mary's, the northernmost part of
Skye, being in perfect health, and sitting with his fellow-servants at
night, was on a sudden taken ill, dropped from his seat backward, and
then fell a vomiting; at which the family was much concerned, he having
never been subject to the like before; but he came to himself soon
after, and had no sort of pain about him. One of the family, who was
accustomed to see the second-sight, told them that the man's illness
proceeded from a very strange cause, which was thus: An ill-natured
woman, whom he named, who lives in the next adjacent village of
Bornskittag, came before him in a very angry and furious manner, her
countenance full of passion, and her mouth full of reproaches, and
threatened him with her head and hands, till he fell over, as you have
seen him. This woman had a fancy for the man, but was like to be
disappointed as to her marrying of him. This instance was told the
author by the master of the family, and others who were present when it
happened.

Sir Norman Macleod and some others, playing at tables, at a game called
in Irish, Falmermore, wherein there are three of a side, and each of
them throw the dice by turns, there happened to be one difficult point
in the disposing of one of the tablemen; this obliged the gamester to
deliberate before he was to change his man, since upon the disposing of
it, the winning or losing of the game depended; at length the butler,
who stood behind, advised the player where to place the man, with which
he complied, and won the game. This being thought extraordinary, and Sir
Norman hearing one whisper him in the ear, asked who advised him so
skilfully? He answered it was the butler; but this seemed more strange,
for it was generally thought he could not play at tables. Upon this Sir
Norman asked him how long it was since he had learned to play? and the
fellow owned that he had never played in his life, but that he saw the
spirit Brownie, a spirit usually seen in that country, reaching his arm
over the player's head, and touching the part with his finger where the
tableman was to be placed. This was told the author by Sir Norman, and
others who happened to be present at the time.

Daniel Bow, _alias_ Black, an inhabitant of Bornskittag, who is one of
the precisest seers in the Isles, foretold the death of a young woman in
Minginis, within less than twenty-four hours before the time, and
accordingly she died suddenly in the fields, though at the time of the
prediction she was in perfect health; but the shroud appearing close
about her head, was the ground of his confidence that her death was at
hand.

The same person foretold the death of a child in his master's arms, by
seeing a spark of fire fall on his left arm; and this was likewise
accomplished soon after the prediction.

Some of the inhabitants of Harris, sailing round the Isle of Skye, with
a design to go to the opposite mainland, were strangely surprised with
an apparition of two men hanging down by the ropes that secured the
mast, but could not conjecture what it meant; they pursued their voyage,
but the wind turning contrary, they were forced into Broad-ford, in the
Isle of Skye, where they found Sir Donald Macdonald keeping a sheriff's
court, and two criminals receiving sentence of death there. The ropes
and mast of that very boat were made use of to hang those criminals.
This was told the author by several, who had this instance related to
them by the boat's crew.

Several persons, living in a certain family, told the author that they
had frequently seen two men standing at a gentle-woman's left hand, who
was their master's daughter; they told the men's names, and being her
equals, it was not doubted but she would be married to one of them; and
perhaps to the other after the death of the first. Some time after a
third man appeared, who seemed always to stand nearest to her of the
three, but the seers did not know him, though they could describe him
exactly; and within some months after, this man who was seen last,
actually came to the house, and fully answered the description given of
him by those who never saw him but in a vision; and he married the woman
shortly after. They live in the Isle of Skye, and both themselves and
others confirmed the truth of this instance when the author saw them.

Archibald Macdonald, of the parish of St. Mary's, in the Isle of Skye,
being reputed famous in his skill of foretelling things to come, by the
second-sight, happening to be in the village Knockow one night, and
before supper, told the family that he had just then seen the strangest
thing he ever saw in his life, viz., a man with an ugly long cap, always
shaking his head; but that the strangest of all was a little kind of a
harp which he had, with four strings only, and that it had two hart's
horns fixed in the front of it. All that heard this odd vision fell a
laughing at Archibald, telling him that he was dreaming, or had not his
wits about him, since he pretended to see a thing which had no being,
and was not so much as heard of in any part of the world. All this could
not alter Archibald's opinion, who told them that they must excuse him
if he laughed at them after the accomplishment of the vision. Archibald
returned to his own house, and within three or four days after, a man
with a cap, harp, &c., came to the house, and the harp, strings, horns,
and cap, answered the description of them at first view, and he shook
his head when he played; for he had two bells fixed to his cap. This
harper was a poor man, who made himself a buffoon for his bread, and was
never seen before in those parts, and at the time of the prediction he
was in the Isle of Barray, which is about twenty leagues distant from
that part of Skye. This relation is vouched by Mr. Daniel Martin, and
all his family, and such as were then present; and they live in the
village where this happened.

One Daniel Nicholson, minister of St. Mary's, in Skye, the parish in
which Mr. Archibald Macdonald lived, told the author, that one Sunday,
after sermon, at the chapel Uge, he took an occasion to inquire of
Archibald, if he still retained that unhappy faculty of seeing the
second-sight, and wished him to get rid of it, if possible; for, said
he, it is no true character of a good man. Archibald was highly
displeased, and answered, that he hoped he was no more unhappy than his
neighbours, for seeing what they could not perceive. I had, said he, as
serious thoughts as my neighbours in time of hearing a sermon to-day,
and even then I saw a corpse laid on the ground, close to the pulpit;
and I assure you it will be accomplished shortly, for it was in the
day-time. There were none in the parish then sick, and few are buried
at that little chapel, nay, sometimes, not one in a year. Yet when Mr.
Nicholson returned to preach in the said chapel, a fortnight or three
weeks after, he found one buried in the very spot named by Archibald.
This story is vouched by Mr. Nicholson the minister, and several of the
parishioners still living.

Note, that it is counted by many an argument of somewhat evil attending
upon this faculty of the second-sight, because there are instances given
of some persons who have been freed of it upon using some Christian
practices; but I shall hereafter show that this opinion cannot be
entirely true.

Sir Norman Macleod, who has his residence in the Isle of Bernera, which
lies between the isles of North Uist and Harris, went to the Isle of
Skye about business, without appointing any time for his return; his
servants, in his absence, being altogether in the large hall at night;
one of them, who had the second-sight, told the rest they must remove,
for there would be abundance of other company in the hall that night.
One of his fellow-servants answered that there was very little
likelihood of that, because of the darkness of the night, and the danger
of coming through the rocks that lie round the isle; but within an hour
after, one of Sir Norman's men came to the house, bidding them provide
lights, &c., for his master had newly landed.

Sir Norman being told of this, called for the seer and examined him
about it. He answered, that he had seen the spirit Brownie, in human
shape, come several times and make a show of carrying an old woman, that
sat by the fire, to the door, and at last seemed to carry her out by
neck and heels, which made him laugh heartily, and gave occasion to the
rest to conclude him mad, to laugh so much without any reason. This
instance was told the author by Sir Norman himself.

Four men from the Isle of Skye and Harris went to Barbadoes, and stayed
there some years; who though they had wont to see the second-sight in
their native country, never saw it in Barbadoes; but upon their return
to England, the first night after their landing, they saw the
second-sight; as the author was told by several of their acquaintance.

John Morrison, who lives in Bernera, of Harris, wears the plant called
_fuga daemonum_ sewed in the neck of his coat, to prevent his seeing of
visions, and says, he never saw any since he first carried that plant
about him.

A spirit, by the country people called Brownie, was frequently seen in
all the most considerable families in the isles, and north of Scotland,
in the shape of a tall man, having very long brown hair; but within
these twenty years past he has been seen but rarely.

There were spirits also that appeared in the shape of women, horses,
swine, cats, and some like fiery bulls, which would follow men in the
fields; but there have been but few instances of these for upwards of
forty years past.

These spirits used also to form sounds in the air, resembling those of a
harp, pipes, crowing of a cock, and of the grinding of hand-mills; and
sometimes voices have been heard in the air at night, singing Irish
songs; the words of which songs some of the author's acquaintances still
retain; one of them resembled the voice of a woman who died some time
before, and the song related to her state in the other world. All these
accounts, the author says, he had from persons of as great integrity as
any are in the world. So far Mr. Martin, whose account is so long, that
I have given the reader only a short abridgment thereof; and shall
therefore satisfy myself, without relating any further passages, by
directing the reader to others also, learned men, who have written on
the same subject. Laurentius Ananias printed a volume in Latin, at
Venice, anno 1581, about the nature of demons; where, in the third book,
he writes concerning the second-sight. The learned Camerarius does the
like, and names a person of his own acquaintance whom he testifies to
have had that gift. St. Austin himself testifies something (not very
different from what we now call the gift of the second-sight) of one
Curina, who lived in the country of Hippo, in Africa. Bonaysteau tells
us something like it in his _Disc. de Excell. et Dig. Hominis_,
concerning the spirit of Hermotimus. So do likewise Herodotus and
Maximus Tyrius, about the spirit of Aristaeus. Cardan does the same in
his _De Rerum Variet._ 1. 8. c. 84, of his kinsman Baptista Cardan, a
student at Pavia. Baptista Fulgosus tells us of what we call the
second-sight, in other words, in his _Fact. et Dict. Memorab._ 1. i. c.
6. Among our own countrymen, the Lord Henry Howard, in the book he writ
against supposed prophecies, in his seventeenth chapter, tells us a
wonderful story of this kind of sight; and sure that noble lord may be
looked upon as an unexceptionable testimony, in a story he relates of
his own knowledge, he having otherwise little faith in things of this
kind. Mr. Cotton Mather, a minister of New England, in his relation of
the wonders of the invisible world, inserted in his Ecclesiastical
History of that country, printed in London, anno 1702, in folio, has
given us several instances of this kind, as also of many other
diabolical operations. Mr. Baxter's book concerning The Certainty of the
World of Spirits, has the like proofs in it. Mr. Aubrey, Fellow of the
Royal Society, has written largely concerning second-sighted persons; so
has Mr. Beaumont, in his book of Genii and Familiar Spirits, who has
collected almost all the other accounts together; and many others, whose
very names it would be tedious to recite. However, as there are a few
more passages, very curious in themselves, I will venture so far upon
the reader's patience, as not only to recite the names of the authors,
but the accounts themselves, in as succinct and brief a manner as it is
possible for any one to do.

Mr. Th. May, in his History, lib. viii. writes, that an old man, like a
hermit, second-sighted, took his leave of king James I. when he came
into England; he took little notice of Prince Henry, but addressing
himself to the Duke of York, since King Charles I., fell a weeping to
think what misfortunes he should undergo; and that he should be one of
the most miserable and most unhappy princes that ever was.

A Scotch nobleman sent for one of these second-sighted men out of the
Highlands, to give his judgment of the then great George Villiers, Duke
of Buckingham. As soon as ever he saw him; Pish, said he, he will come
to nothing, I see a dagger in his breast; and he was stabbed in the
breast by Captain Felton, as has been at large recounted in some of the
foregoing pages.

Sir James Melvin hath several the like passages in his history.

A certain old man in South Wales, told a great man there of the fortune
of his family, and that there should not be a third male generation. It
has fallen out accordingly.

Sir William Dugdale with his own mouth informed several gentlemen, that
Major-General Middleton (since lord) went into the Highlands of Scotland
to endeavour to make a party for King Charles I. An old gentleman, that
was second-sighted, came and told him that his endeavour was good, but
he would be unsuccessful; and, moreover, that they would put the king to
death; and that several other attempts would be made, but all in vain;
but that his son would come in, but not reign in a long time; but would
at last be restored. This Lord Middleton had a great friendship with the
laird Bocconi, and they made an agreement, that the first of them that
died should appear to the other in extremity. The Lord Middleton was
taken prisoner at Worcester fight, and was prisoner in the Tower of
London, under three locks. Lying in his bed, pensive, Bocconi appeared
to him; my Lord Middleton asked him if he were dead or alive? He said,
Dead; and that he was a ghost; and told him that within three days he
should escape, and he did so, in his wife's clothes; when he had done
his message, he gave a frisk, and said--

    Givanni, Givanni, 'tis very strange,
    In the world to see so sudden a change;

and then gathered up and vanished. This account Sir William Dugdale had
from the Bishop of Edinburgh; and this account he hath writ in a book of
Miscellanies, which is now reposited, with other books of his, in the
Museum at Oxford.

Thus the reader sees what great authorities may be produced to prove
that wonderful and true predictions have been delivered by many persons
gifted with the second-sight. The most learned men in almost all
nations, who are not in all likelihood deceived themselves; the most
celebrated and authentic historians, and some divines in England, who,
it is not to be thought, have combined together and made it their
business to obtrude upon us falsehoods; persons of all ranks, from the
highest to the lowest, in Scotland, who, it would be even madness to
think would join in a confederacy to impose tricks upon us, and to
persuade us to the greatest of impostures as solemn truths delivered
from their own mouths; all these, I say, have unanimously, and, as it
were, with one voice, asserted, repeated, and confirmed to us, that
there have been at all times, and in many different nations, and that
still there are persons, who, possessed with the gift of a second sight,
predict things that wonderfully come to pass; and seem to merit very
little less than the name of prophets for their miraculous discoveries.
Now, if any man should come, and without giving the least manner of
reason for it (for there is no reason to be given against such
assertions), declare his disbelief of all these authentic, though
strange accounts, can he with reason imagine that his incredulity shall
pass for a token of wisdom? Shall his obstinacy confute the learned?
Shall his want of faith be thought justly to give the lie to so many
persons of the highest honour and quality, and of the most undoubted
integrity? In fine, shall his infidelity, by a reverse kind of power to
that which is attributed to the philosopher's stone, be able to change
the nature of things, turn and transmute truth into falsehood, and make
a downright plain matter of fact to be no more than a chimera, or an
_ens rationis_? And shall a manifest experience be so easily exploded?

Taking it, therefore, for granted, that no modest man whatsoever, though
never so hard of belief, which is certainly as great a weakness as that
of too much credulity, will make bold openly to declare his disbelief of
things so well attested; and taking it much more for granted still, that
it is impossible for any man of common sense to have the front of
declaring his disbelief of them in such a manner as to urge it for an
argument and a reason why others should disbelieve them too; taking
this, I say, as I think I very well may, for granted, I think there
remains nothing farther for me to offer, before I conclude this chapter,
except a few remarks as to the similitude there is between those actions
which I have related above to have been performed by Mr. Campbell, and
these actions which so many learned, ingenious, and noble authors, as I
have just now quoted, have asserted to have been performed by persons
whom they knew to be gifted with the second-sight.

As to what is said several pages above, concerning Duncan Campbell when
a boy at Edinburgh, that he even told his little companions who would
have success at their little matches when they played at marbles, and
that he informed a great gamester there, whose name I have disguised
under that of Count Cog, what times he should choose to play if he would
win, as ludicrous as it may have appeared to be, and as much as it may
have seemed to my readers to carry with it nothing better than the face
of invention and the air of fiction, yet if they will be at the pains
of comparing that passage of Duncan Campbell's with the account given in
this chapter from the mouth of Sir Norman Macleod, concerning a man,
who, though he never played at tables in his life, instructed a skilful
gamester, when he was at a stand, to place one of his men right, upon
which the whole game depended, which the ignorant fellow, when asked how
he came to do it, said he was directed to by the spirit Brownie;
whoever, I say, will be at the pains of comparing these passages
together, will find they bear a very near resemblance, and that the way
we may most reasonably account for Duncan Campbell's prediction when he
was a boy, must be, that he was at that time directed by his little
genius or familiar spirit, which I described in the precedent pages, as
this fellow was by the spirit Brownie, according to Sir Norman Macleod's
assertion; which spirit Brownie, as Mr. Martin, a very good and credited
writer, assures us, in his History of the Western Islands, dedicated to
the late Prince George of Denmark, is a spirit usually seen all over
that country.

If the reader recollects, he will remember likewise, that in the little
discourse which I mentioned to have been held between me and this Duncan
Campbell, when a boy, concerning his little genius, I there say, the boy
signified to me that he smelt venison, and was sure that some one would
come to his mother's house shortly after; accordingly I came thither
that morning from the death of a deer, and ordered a part of it to be
brought after me to her house. Now Mr. Martin's twelfth observation
about the second-sight, in this chapter, clears it plainly up that this
knowledge in the boy proceeded from the gift of second-sight. Not to
give the reader too often the trouble of looking back in order to judge
of the truth of what I say, I will here repeat that observation, which
is as follows: Things are also foretold by smelling sometimes: for
example, fish or flesh is frequently smelt in the fire, when, at the
same time, neither of the two are in the house, or, in any probability,
like to be had in it for some weeks or months. This smell several
persons have, who are, endued with the second-sight, and it is always
accomplished soon after.

But I will here omit any farther remarks by way of accounting how he
compassed his predictions when a boy, either by the intervention of his
genius, or the gift of a second-sight; and examine how nearly those
things, which I have related to have been done by him in his more
advanced years, when he took up the profession of a predictor, in
London, correspond with the accounts given us in this chapter about a
second-sight, and how near a resemblance the things done by him bear to
those things that are so well attested to have been performed by others,
through the efficacious power of this wonderful faculty.

First, then, if we have a mind to make a tolerable guess which way Mr.
Campbell came acquainted that the death of the beautiful young lady,
Miss W--lw--d was so near at hand, and that, though she was so
universally admired she would die unmarried, the accounts given of other
second-sighted persons in the like cases, will put us in the most
probable way of guessing right. This is explained by the seventh
observation in this chapter, where it is said from Mr. Martin, that when
a shroud is perceived about one, it is a sure prognostic of death; the
time is judged according to the height of it, about the person; for if
it be not seen above the middle, death is not to be expected for the
space of a year or longer, but as it comes nearer to the head it is
expected sooner; if to the very head, it is concluded to be at hand
within a few days, if not hours. Of this we have an example, of which
Mr. Martin was an eye-witness, concerning the death of his own
acquaintance; but he did not in the least regard it, till the death of
the person, about the time foretold, confirmed to him the certainty of
the prediction.

Secondly, as to the ignominious death that Irwin came to, and which he
predicted to his mother so long before, when she was in flourishing
circumstances, and when there was no appearance that any of her children
should be brought to a beggarly condition, and learn among base gangs of
company to thieve, and be carried to the gallows; the story told in this
chapter of some of the inhabitants of Harris, sailing round the Isle of
Skye, and seeing the apparition of two men hanging by the ropes on the
mast of their vessel, and when they came to the opposite mainland,
finding two criminals just sentenced to death by Sir Donald Macdonald,
and seeing their own very mast and ropes made choice of for their
execution, clears up the manner how Mr. Campbell might predict this of
Irwin likewise, by the force of the second-sight.

Thirdly, as to Mr. Campbell's telling Christallina the belle and chief
toast of the court, and Urbana the reigning beauty of the city, that
they should shortly be married, and who were to be their husbands, it is
a thing he has done almost every day in his life to one woman or other,
that comes to consult him about the man she is to be married to; the
manner he probably takes in doing this may be likewise explained by the
foregoing story in this chapter about the servants, who said they saw
three men standing by the left hand of their master's daughter; and that
he that was nearest would marry her first, whom they plainly and exactly
described, though they had never seen him but in their vision, as
appeared afterwards. For within some months after, the very man
described did come to the house, and did marry her. Vide the eighth
observation of the second-sight.

Fourthly, as to the predictions delivered by Mr. Campbell to the
merchant, which are set down at length in the foregoing chapter, I know
no better way at guessing the manner how the second-sight operated in
him at that time, than by comparing them to these two instances, which I
briefly repeat because they are set down at length before, in this
chapter. And first it may be asked, how did the second-sight operate in
Mr. Campbell, when it gave him to know that the merchant's ships, which
repeated intelligences had in appearance confirmed to be lost, were at
that time safe, and would return securely home into the harbour
designed? The best way of accounting for it, that I know, is by the
story that Sir Norman Macleod is above affirmed to have told with his
own mouth, concerning a servant of his, who rightly foretold his
returning home and landing on the Isle of Bernera one night, where his
residence is, when there was very little or no likelihood of it, because
of the darkness of the night, and the danger of coming through the rocks
that lie round the isle. When Sir Norman examined him about it, he
answered that he knew it by a vision of the spirit Brownie; and hence it
may be the most probably conjectured that Mr. Campbell's knowledge of
the merchant's ships being safe came from a vision of his particular
genius, or familiar spirit, which we spoke of before. What I have
already instanced in, is, I think, sufficient with regard to the
wonderful things which Mr. Campbell has performed, either by the
intervention of a genius, or the power of a second-sight. But as he has
frequently done a great many amazing performances, which seem to be of
such a nature that they can't be well and clearly explained to have been
done either by the intervention of his familiar spirit and genius, or by
the power of the second-sighted faculty, we must have recourse to the
third means by which only such predictions and practises can be
compassed, before we expound these new mysteries, which appear like
incredible riddles, and enigmas at the first; and this third means which
we must have recourse to for expounding these strange acts of his, is a
due consideration of the force and power of natural magic, which,
together with a narrative of the acts, which he seems magically to bring
about, will be the subject of the following chapter.




  CHAPTER VIII.


But before we proceed to our disquisitions concerning the power and
efficacy of natural magic, and examine what mysterious operations may be
brought about and compassed by magical practises, and before we take a
farther survey of what Mr. Campbell has performed in this kind, that
relates to his profession and the public part of his life, which
concerns other people as well as himself; I shall here relate some
singular adventures that he passed through in his private life, and
which regard only his own person. In order to this, I must return back
to the year 1702, about which time some unaccountable turns of fortune
attended him in his own private capacity, which must be very surprising
and entertaining to my readers, when they find a man, whose foresight
was always so great a help and assistance to others, who consulted him
in their own future affairs, helpless, as it has been an observation
concerning all such men in the account of the second-sight, and blind in
his own future affairs, tossed up and down by inevitable and spiteful
accidents of fortune, and made the may-game of chance and hazard, as if
that wayward and inconstant goddess, was resolved to punish him, when
she catched him on the blind side, for having such a quick insight and
penetrating faculty in other people's matters, and scrutinizing too
narrowly into her mysteries, and so sometimes preventing those fatal
intentions of hers, into which she would fain lead many mortals
hood-winked, and before they knew where they were. In this light, these
mighty and famous seers seem to be born for the benefit and felicity of
others, but at the same time to be born to unhappiness themselves. And
certainly, inasmuch as we consider them as useful and beneficial often,
but always satisfactory to persons who are curious in their enquiries
about their fortunes, it will be natural to those of us who have the
least share of generosity in our minds, to yield our pity and compassion
to them, when they are remarkably unfortunate themselves; especially
when that calamity seems more particularly to light upon them for their
ability, and endeavour to consult the good fortune of other folks.

About the above-mentioned year, 1702, Duncan Campbell grew a little
tired of his profession; such a multitude of followers troubled him,
several of whom were wild youths, and came to banter him, and many more
too inquisitive females to tease him with endless impertinences, and
who, the more he told them, had still the more to ask, and whose
curiosity was never to be satisfied: and besides this, he was so much
envied, and had so many malicious artifices daily practised against him,
that he resolved to leave off his profession. He had, I know, followed
it pretty closely from the time I first saw him in London, which was, I
think, in the beginning of the year 1698, till the year 1702, with very
good success; and in those few years he had got together a pretty round
sum of money. Our young seer was now at man's estate, and had learned
the notion that he was to be his own governor, so far as to be his own
counsellor too in what road of life he was to take, and this
consideration no doubt worked with a deeper impression on his mind, than
it usually does on others that are in the same blossom and pride of
manhood, because it might appear more natural for him to believe that he
had a sufficient ability to be his own proper adviser, who had given so
many others, and some more aged than himself, counsel, with very good
success. Now every experienced person knows, that when manhood is yet
green, it is still in the same dangerous condition as a young plant,
which is liable to be warped by a thousand cross fortuitous accidents,
if good measures be not taken to support it against all the contingent
shocks it may meet with from the weather or otherwise. Now, it was his
misfortune to be made averse to business, which he loved before, by
having too much of it, and to be so soured by meeting with numerous
perplexities and malicious rubs laid in his way by invidious people,
(who are the useless and injurious busy-bodies that always repine at the
good of others, and rejoice to do harm to the diligent and assiduous,
though they reap no profit by it themselves), that he was disgusted and
deterred entirely from the prosecution of a profession by which he got
not only a competent but a copious and plentiful subsistence. Nay,
indeed, this was another mischief arising to him from his having so much
business, that he had got money enough to leave it off, when the
perplexities of it had made him willing to do so, and to live very
comfortably and handsomely, like a gentleman, without it, for a time;
and we know the youngest men are not wont to look the farthest before
them, in matters that concern their own welfare. Now, inasmuch as he had
thus taken a disgust to business and application, and was surfeited, as
I may say, with the perplexities of it, it must be as natural for him,
we know, to search for repose in the contrary extreme, viz., recreation
and idleness, as it is for a man to seek rest after toil, to sleep after
a day's labour, or to sit down after a long and tiresome walk. But there
are two very distinct sorts of idleness, and two very different kinds of
recreation; there is a shameful idleness which is no better than
downright sloth; and there is a splendid kind of indolence, where a man
having taken an aversion to the wearisomeness of a business which
properly belongs to him, neglects not however to employ his thoughts,
when they are vacant from what they ought more chiefly to be about, in
other matters not entirely unprofitable in life, the exercise of which
he finds he can follow with more abundant ease and satisfaction. There
are some sorts of recreations, too, that are mean, sordid, and base;
others that are very innocent, though very diverting, and that will give
one the very next most valuable qualifications of a gentleman, after
those which are obtained by a more serious application of the mind. The
idea which I have already given my readers of our Duncan Campbell, will
easily make them judge, before I tell them, which way, in these two
ways, his genius would naturally lead him; and that, when he grew an
idle man, he would rather indulge himself with applying his mind to the
shining trifles of life, than be wholly slothful and inactive; and that
when he diverted himself he would not do it after a sordid, base
manner, as having a better taste and a relish for good company; but that
his recreations would still be the recreations of a gentleman. And just,
accordingly, as my readers would naturally judge beforehand in his case,
so it really happened. The moment he shook off business, and dismissed
the thoughts of it, his genius led him to a very gallant way of life; in
his lodgings, in his entertainments, in paying and receiving visits, in
coffee-houses, in taverns, in fencing-schools, in balls, and other
public assemblies, in all ways, in fine, both at home and abroad, Duncan
Campbell was a well-comported and civil fine gentleman; he was a man of
pleasure, and nothing of the man of business appeared about him. But a
gentleman's life, without a gentleman's estate, however shining and
pleasant it may be for a time, will certainly end in sorrow, if not in
infamy; and comparing life, as moralists do, to a day, one may safely
pronounce this truth to all the splendid idlers I have mentioned, that
if they have sunshiny weather till noon, yet the afternoon of their life
will be very stormy, rainy and uncomfortable, and perhaps just at the
end of their journey, to carry on the metaphor throughout, close in the
darkest kind of night. Of this, as I was a man of years and more
experienced in the world than he, I took upon me to forewarn Mr.
Campbell, as soon as I perceived the first dangerous fit of this elegant
idleness had seized him. But when will young men, by so much the more
headstrong as they have less of the beard, be guided and brought to
learn! and when shall we see that happy age, in which the grey heads of
old men shall be clapped upon the shoulders of youth! I told him, that
in this one thing he ought to consult me, and acknowledge me to be a
true prophet, if I told him the end of the seeming merry steps in life
he was now taking, would infallibly bring him to a labyrinth of
difficulties, out of which if he extricated himself at all, he would at
least find it a laborious piece of work. His taste had been already
vitiated with the sweets which lay at the top of the bitter draught of
fortune, and my honest rugged counsel came too late to prevail, when his
fancy had decoyed and debauched his judgment, and carried it over into
another interest. I remember I writ down to him the moral story, where
vicious Pleasure and Virtue are pictured by the philosopher to appear
before Hercules, to court him into two several paths. I told him more
particularly, since he had not an estate to go through with the
gentlemanly life, as he called it, that, if he followed the alluring
pleasures which endeavoured to tempt Hercules, he would involve himself
at last in a whole heap of miseries, out of which it would be more than
an Herculean labour for him to disentangle himself again. If he had been
a man that could have ever heard with either, I would have told the
reader in a very familiar idiom, that he turned the deaf ear to me; for
he did not mind one syllable or tittle of the prescriptions I set down
for him, no more than if he had never read them; but, varying the phrase
a little, I may say at least, when he should have looked upon my counsel
with all the eyes he had, he turned the blind side upon it. I was
resolved to make use of the revenge natural to a man of years, and
therefore applied that reproachful proverb to him, which we ancients
delight much in making use of to youths that follow their own false and
hot imaginations, and will not heed the cooler dictates of age,
experience, and wisdom. Accordingly, I wrote down to him these words,
and left him in a seeming passion: I am very well assured, young man,
you think me that am old, to be a fool; but I that am old, absolutely
know you, who are a young fellow, to be a downright fool, and so I leave
you to follow your own ways, till sad and woful experience teaches you
to know it your own self, and makes you come to me to own it of your own
accord. As I was going away, after this tart admonition and severe
reprimand, I had a mind to observe his countenance, and I saw him smile,
which I rightly construed to be done in contempt of the advice of age,
and in the gaiety and fulness of conceit, which youth entertains of its
own fond opinions and hair-brained rash resolves. He was got into the
company of a very pretty set of gentlemen, whose fortunes were far
superior to his; but he followed the same genteel exercises, as fencing,
&c., and made one at all their public entertainments; and so being at an
equal expense with those who could well afford to spend what they did
out of their estates, he went on very pleasantly for a time, still
spending and never getting, without ever considering that it must, by
inevitable consequence, fall to his lot at last to be entirely reduced
to a state of indigence and want. And what commonly heightens the
misfortune of such men, and so of all gentlemen's younger brothers, who
live upon the ready money that is given them for their portions, is,
that the prosperity they live in for a time gains them credit enough
just to bring them in debt, and render them more miserable than those
very wretches who never had either any money or credit at all. They run
themselves into debt out of shame, and to put off the evil day of
appearing ruined men as long as they can, and then, when their tempers
are soured by adversity, they grow tired of their own lives; and then,
in a quarrel, they or some other gentleman, may be, is run through, or
else being hunted by bailiffs, they exercise their swords upon those
pursuers. Thus, where gentlemen will not consider their circumstances,
their very prosperity is a cause of, and aggravates their misery; their
very pride, which was a decent pride at first, in keeping up and
maintaining their credit, subjects them too often to the lowest and the
meanest acts, and their courage, which was of a laudable kind, turns
into a brutish and savage rage; and all the fine, esteemed, flourishing,
and happy gentleman ends, and is lost in the contemned, poor and
miserable desperado, whose portion at last is confinement and a gaol,
and sometimes even worse, and what I shall not so much as name here.
Into many of these calamities Mr. Campbell had brought himself before it
was long, by his heedlessness, and running, according to the wild
dictates of youth, counter to all sound and wholesome advice. He had, it
seems, run himself into debt, and one day as he was at a coffee-house,
the sign of the Three Crowns, in Great Queen-street, in rushed four
bailiffs upon him, who being directed by the creditor's wife, had
watched him into that house, and told him they had a warrant against
him, and upon his not answering, they being unacquainted with his being
deaf and dumb, offered to seize his sword. He startled at their offering
of violence, and taking them for ruffians, which he had often met with,
repelled the assaulters, and drawing his sword, as one man, more bold
than the rest, closed in with him, he shortened his blade, and in the
fall pinned the fellow through the shoulder, and himself through the
leg, to the floor. After that he stood at bay with all the four
officers, when the most mischievous assailant of them all, the
creditor's wife, ventured to step into the fray, and very barbarously
took hold of that nameless part of the man, for which, as she was a
married woman, nature methinks should have taught her to have a greater
tenderness, and almost squeezed and crushed those vitals to death. But
at last he got free from them all, and was going away as fast as he
could, not knowing what consequences might ensue. But the woman who
aimed herself at committing murder, in the most savage and inhuman
manner, ran out after him, crying out, Murder! murder! as loud as she
could, and alarmed the whole street. The bailiffs following the woman,
and being bloody from head to foot, by means of the wound he received,
gave credit to the outcry. The late Earl Rivers's footmen happening to
be at the door, ran immediately to stop the supposed murderer, and they
indeed did take him at last, but perceived their mistake, and discovered
that instead of being assistants in taking a man whom they thought to be
a murderer endeavouring to make his escape from the hands of justice,
they had only been tricked in by that false cry to be adjutants to a
bailiff in retaking a gentleman, who, by so gallant a defence, had
rescued himself from the dangers of a prison; and when they had
discovered this their mistake they were mighty sorry for what they had
done. The most active and busy among the earl's footmen was a Dutchman,
and the earl happening to be in a room next the street, and hearing the
outcry of murder, stepped to the window, and seeing his own servants in
the midst of the bustle, examined the Dutchman how the matter was, and,
being told it, he chid the man for being concerned in stopping a
gentleman that was getting free from such troublesome companions. But
the Dutchman excused himself, like a Dutchman, by making a very merry
blunder for a reply; _Sacramente_, said he, to his lord, if I had
thought they were bailiffs, I would have fought for the poor dumb
gentlemen, but then why had he not told me they were bailiffs, my lord?

In short, Duncan Campbell was carried off as their prisoner; but the
bailiff that was wounded was led back to the coffee-house, where he
pretended the wound was mortal, and that he despaired of living an hour.
The proverb, however, was of the fellow's side, and he recovered sooner
than other people expected he could. As soon as all danger was over, an
action for damages and smart money, as their term is, was brought
against Mr. Campbell; the damages were exaggerated and the demand was so
extravagant, that Duncan Campbell was neither able, just at that time,
nor willing, had he been able, to pay so much, as he thought, in his
own wrong, and having no bail, and being ashamed to make his case known
to his better sort of friends, who were both able and willing to help
him at a dead lift, he was hurried away to gaol by the bailiffs, who
showed such a malignant and insolent pleasure, as commonly attends
powerful revenge, when they put him into the Marshalsea. There he lay in
confinement six weeks, till at last four or five of his chief friends
came by mere chance to hear of it; immediately they consulted about his
deliverance, and unanimously resolved to contribute for his enlargement,
and they accordingly went across the water together, and procured it out
of hand.

Two of his benefactors were officers, and were just then going over to
Flanders. Duncan Campbell, to whom they communicated their design, was
resolved to try his fortune in a military way, out of a roving kind of
humour, raised in him partly by his having taken a sort of aversion to
his own profession in town, and partly by his finding that he could not
live, without following a profession, as he had done, any longer. He,
over a bottle, frankly imparted his mind to them at large; he signified
to them that he hoped, since they had lately done him so great a favour
in freeing him from one captivity, they would not think him too urgent
if he pressed for one favour farther, upon natures so generous as
theirs, by whom he took as great a pleasure in being obliged, as he
could receive in being capable of obliging others. He wrote to them that
the favour he meant was to redeem him from another captivity, almost as
irksome to him as that out of which they had lately ransomed him. This
captivity, continued he, is being either forced to follow my old
profession, which I have taken an entire disgust to, for a maintenance,
or being forced to live in a narrower way than suits with my genius, and
the better taste I have of higher life. Such a state, gentlemen, you
know, is more unpalatable than half-pay; it is like either being forced
to go upon the forlorn hope, or else like a man's being an entirely
cashiered and broken officer, that had no younger brother's fortune, and
no other support but his commission. Thus, though you have set my body
at liberty, my soul is still under an imprisonment, and will be till I
leave England, and can find means of visiting Flanders, which I can do
no otherwise than by the advantage of having you for my convoy. I have
a mighty longing to experience some part of a military life, and I
fancy, if you will grant me your interest, and introduce me to the
valiant young Lord Lorne, and be spokesmen for a dumb man, I shall meet
with a favourable reception; and as for you, gentlemen, after having
named that great patron and pattern of courage and conduct in the field,
I can't doubt but the very name I bear, if you had not known me, would
have made you take me for a person of a military genius, and that I
should do nothing but what would become a British soldier, and a
gentleman; nothing, in fine, that should make you repent the
recommendation.

These generous and gallant friends of his, it seems, complied with his
request, and promised they would make application for him to the Lord
Lorne, and Duncan Campbell had nothing to do but to get his bag and
baggage ready, and provide himself with a pass. His baggage was not very
long a getting together, and he had it in tolerable good order, and as
for his pass, a brother of the Lord Forbes was so kind as to procure him
one upon the first application Duncan made to him.

Accordingly, in a few days afterwards, they went on board, and having a
speedy and an easy passage, arrived soon at Rotterdam. Duncan met with
some of his English acquaintance in that town, and his mind being pretty
much bent upon rambling, and seeing all the curiosities, customs, and
humours he could, in all the foreign places he was to pass through, he
went, out of a frolic, with some gentlemen, next day, in a boat to an
adjacent village, to make merry over a homely Dutch entertainment, the
intended repast being to consist of what the boors there count a great
delicacy, brown bread and white beer. He walked out of sight from his
company, and they lost one another; and strolling about by himself at an
unseasonable hour, as they call it there after the bell has tolled,
Duncan Campbell, who neither knew their laws, nor if he had, was capable
of being guided by the notice which their laws ordain, was taken into
custody in the village, for that night, and carried away the next day to
Williamstadt, where he was taken for a spy, and put into a close
imprisonment for three or four days.

But some Scotch gentlemen, who had been in company with Mr. Campbell at
Mr. Cloysterman's, a painter in Covent-garden, made their application to
the magistrate and got him released; he knew his friends the officers,
that carried him over, were gone forward to the camp, and that there was
no hope of finding them at Rotterdam, if he should go thither, and so he
resolved, since he had had so many days punishment in Williamstadt, to
have three or four days pleasure there too, by way of amends, before he
would set out on his journey after his friends. But on the third night
he got very much in drink; and as he went very boisterously and
disorderly along, a sentry challenged him; and the want of the sense of
hearing had like to have occasioned the loss of his life. The sentry
fired at him and narrowly missed him; he was taken prisoner, not without
some resistance, which was so far innocent, as that he knew not any
reason why he should be seized; but very troublesome and unwarrantable
in so orderly a town; so the governor's secretary, after the matter was
examined into, judging it better for the unhappy gentleman's future
safety, advised him to return home to his own country, and accordingly
bespoke him a place in a Dutch ship called Yowfrow Catherine, for his
passage to England.

Duncan Campbell had taken up this humour of rambling, first, of his own
accord, and the troubles which he had run himself into by it, we may
reasonably suppose had pretty well cured him of that extravagant itch;
and there is little doubt to be made but that he rejoiced very heartily
when he was got on board the ship to return to England; and that in his
new resolutions he had reconciled himself to the prosecution of his
former profession, and intended to set up for a predictor again as soon
as he could arrive at London. But now fortune had not a mind to let him
go off so; he had had his own fancy for rambling, and now she was
resolved to have hers, and to give him his bellyful of caprice.
Accordingly, when the Dutch ship, called Yowfrow Catherine, was making
the best of her road for London, and each person in the vessel was
making merry, filled with the hopes of a quick and prosperous passage, a
French privateer appeared in sight, crowding all the sails she could,
and bearing towards them with all haste and diligence. The privateer was
double-manned, and carried thirty guns; the Dutch vessel was defenceless
in comparison; and the people on board had scarce time to think, and to
deplore that they should be made a prey of, before they actually were
so, and had reason enough given them for their sorrow. All the
passengers, to a single man, were stripped, and had French seamen's
jackets in exchange for their clothes. Duncan Campbell had now a taste
given him of the fate of war, as well as of the humour of travelling,
and wished himself again, I warrant him, among his greatest crowd of
consulters, as tiresome as he thought business to be, instead of being
in the middle of a crew of sea savages. The town where the dumb prisoner
was at last confined was Denain. There happened to be some English
friars there, who were told by the others who he was, and to them he
applied himself in writing, and received from them a great deal of civil
treatment. But a certain man of the order of Recollects, happening to
see him there, who had known him in England, and what profession he
followed, caused him to be called to question, as a man that made use of
ill means to tell fortunes. When he was questioned by a whole society of
these religious men, he made them such pertinent and satisfactory
answers in writing, that he convinced them he had done nothing for which
he deserved their reprimand; and they unanimously acquitted him. The
heads of his defence, as I have been informed, were these:--

First, he alleged that the second-sight was inborn and inbred in some
men; and that every country had had examples of it more or less; but
that the country of Scotland, in which he was educated from an infant,
abounded the most of any with those sort of people; and from thence he
said he thought he might very naturally draw this conclusion, that a
faculty that was inborn and inbred to men, and grown almost a national
faculty among a people who were remarkably honest, upright, and
well-meaning people, could not, without some impiety, be imputed to the
possessors of it as a sin; and when one of the fathers rejoined that it
was remarked by several writers of the second-sight, that it must be
therefore sinful, because it remained no longer among the people when
the doctrines of Christianity were fully propagated, and the light of
the gospel increased among them; and that afterwards it affected none
but persons of vicious lives and an ill character; to this objection Mr.
Campbell replied, that he knew most (even ingenious) writers had made
that remark concerning the second-sight, but begged leave to be excused,
if he ventured to declare that it was no better than a vulgar and
common error; and the reasons were these, which he alleged in his own
behalf; and to confirm his assertion, he told them men of undoubted
probity, virtue, and learning, both of their own religion, viz., the
Roman Catholic, and also of the reformed religion, and in several
nations, had been affected, and continued all their lives to be
affected, with this second-sighted power, and that there could be,
therefore, no room to fix upon it the odious character of being a sinful
and vicious, not to say that some called it still worse, a diabolical
talent. He said he would content himself with making but two instances,
because he believed those two would be enough to give content to them,
his judges too, in that case. In his first instance he told them that
they might find somewhat relating to this in Nicolaus Hemingius, who, in
his tracts _de Superstitionibus Magicis_, printed at Copenhagen, anno
1575, informs the world, that Petrus Palladius, a bishop of See-landt,
and professor of divinity at Copenhagen, could, from a part of his body
affected, foretell from what part of the heavens tempests would come,
and was seldom deceived. One of the fathers immediately asked him if he
understood Latin? To this Duncan Campbell replied, No. Oh! said the
friar, then, I don't remember that book was ever translated into
English, that you mention. But, rejoined Duncan Campbell, the passage I
mentioned to you, I have read in an English book, and word for word,
according to the best of my memory, as I have written it down to you. In
what English book? said the friar. I don't remember the name of the
book, Duncan Campbell answered, but very well remember the passages, and
that it was in a book of authority, and which bore a credit and good
repute in the world; and you, being scholars, may, if you please, have
recourse to the learned original, and I doubt not but you'll find what I
say to be a truth. For the second instance, he told them, that in Spain,
there are those they call Saludadores, that have this kind of gift.
There was, continued he, in writing, one of your own religion, venerable
fathers, and of a religious order, nay, a friar too, that had this gift.
He was a noted Dominican, said he, and though I forget his name, you
may, by writing a letter to England, learn his name. He was a devout
Portuguese, belonging to Queen Catherine Dowager's chapel, and had the
second-sight to a great degree, and was famous and eminent for it. They
then asked him what was the full power he had to do by the
second-sight. He answered, that as they had intimated that they had
perused some of the skilful writers concerning the second-sight, he did
not doubt but they had found, as well as he could tell them, that as to
the extent of people's knowledge in that secret way, it reached both
present, past, and future events. They foresee murders, drownings,
weddings, burials, combats, manslaughters, &c., all of which there are
many instances to be given. They commonly foresee sad events a little
while before they happen; for instance, if a man's fatal end be hanging,
they will see a gibbet, or rope about his neck; if beheading, they will
see a man without a head; if drowning, they will see water up to his
throat; if stabbing, they will see a dagger in his breast; if unexpected
death in his bed, they will see a windingsheet about his head. They
foretell not only marriages, but of good children; what kind of life men
shall lead, and in what condition they shall die; also riches, honours,
preferments, peace, plenty, and good weather. It is likewise usual with
persons that have lost anything to go to some of these men, by whom they
are directed how, with what persons, and in what place they shall find
their goods. It is also to be noted that these gifts bear a latitude, so
that some have it in a far more eminent degree than others; and what I
have here written down to you, you need not take as a truth from me; but
as it concerned me so nearly, I remember the passage by heart, and you
will find it very near word for word in Dr. Beaumont's book Of Familiar
Spirits. Aye, said the friars, but you have a genius too that attends
you, as we are informed. So, replied Duncan Campbell, have all persons
that have the second-sight in any eminent degree; and to prove this I
will bring no less a witness than King James, who, in his Demonology,
book the third and chapter the second, mentions also a spirit called
Brownie, that was wont formerly to haunt divers houses, without doing
any evil, but doing, as it were, necessary turns up and down the house;
he appeared like a rough man, nay, some believed that their house was
all the 'sonsier,' as they called it, that is, the more lucky or
fortunate, that such spirits resorted there. With these replies the
friars began to own they were very well satisfied, and acquiesced in the
account he had given of himself as a very good, true, and honest
account; but they told him they had still a farther accusation against
him, and that was, that he practised magic arts, and that he used, as
they had been informed, unlawful incantations. To this he made answer,
that there were two kinds of magic, of which he knew they that were men
of learning could not be ignorant. The art of magic, which is wicked and
impious, continued he, is that which is professed, and has been
professed at all times in the world, by witches, magicians, diviners,
enchanters, and such like notorious profligates; who, by having an
unnatural commerce with the devil, do many strange, prodigious, and
preternatural acts, above and beyond all human wisdom; and all the
arguments I ever did, or ever will deduce, continued he, from that black
art, is a good and shining argument; it is this, O fathers: I draw a
reason from these prodigious practices of wizards, magicians,
enchanters, &c, and from all the heathen idolatry and superstition, to
prove that there is a Deity; for from these acts of theirs, being
preternatural and above human wisdom, we may consequently infer that
they proceed from a supernatural and immaterial cause, such as demons
are. And this is all the knowledge I ever did or ever will draw from
that black hellish art. But, fathers, there is another kind of art
magic, called natural magic, which is directly opposite to theirs, and
the object of which art is to do spiritual good to mankind, as the
object of theirs is to torment them, and induce them to evil. They
afflict people with torments, and my art relieves them from the torments
they cause. The public profession of these magical arts has, as you
know, fathers, it is a common distinction, between black and white
magic, been tolerated in some of the most famous universities of
Christendom, though afterwards for a very good reason in politics,
making it a public study to such a degree was very wisely retrenched by
prohibition. If this, therefore, be a fault in your own opinions, hear
my accusers, but if not, you will not only excuse, but commend me.

The friars were extremely well pleased with his defence, but one of them
had a mind to frighten him a little if he could, and asked him what he
would say if he could produce some witches lately seized, that would
swear he had been frequently at their unlawful assemblies, where they
were making their waxen images and other odd mischievous inventions in
black magic, to torment folks; what if I can produce such evidence
against you, wrote the father to him, by way of strengthening the
question, will you not own that we have convicted you then? And when he
had wrote the note, he gave it Duncan Campbell, with a look that seemed
to express his warmth and eagerness in the expostulation. Duncan
Campbell took the paper and read it, and far from being startled,
returned this answer, with a smile continuing in his face while he wrote
it. No, said he, fathers, by your leave, they will only prove me a good
magician by that oath, and themselves more plainly witches. They will
prove their love to torment good folks, and only show their hatred to
me, an innocent man, but wise enough to torment them by hindering them
from tormenting others. The fathers were well pleased with the
shrewdness of the answer; but Duncan Campbell had a mind to exert his
genius a little farther with the good friar, who thought likewise he had
put him a very shrewd question; so taking up another sheet of paper,
Fathers, said he, shall I entertain you with a story of what passed upon
this head, between two religious fathers, as you all of you are, and a
prince of Germany, in which you will find that mine ought to be reputed
a full answer to the question the last learned father was pleased to
propose to me? The story is somewhat long, but very much to the purpose
and entertaining; I remember it perfectly by heart, and if you will have
patience while I am writing it, I do not doubt but that I shall not only
satisfy you, but please you and oblige you with the relation. The author
I found it in, quotes it from Fromannus, (I think the man's name was so,
and I am sure my author calls him a very learned man,) in his third book
of Magical Incantation, and though I do not understand the language the
original is writ in, yet I dare venture to say upon the credit of my
English author, from whom I got the story by heart, that you will find
me right whenever you shall be pleased to search.

The friars were earnest for the story, and expressed a desire that he
would write it down for them to read, which he did in the following
words. Note--that I have since compared Mr. Duncan Campbell's manuscript
with the author's page out of which he took it, and find it word for
word the same; which shows how incomparable a memory this deaf and dumb
gentleman has got, besides his other extraordinary qualifications. The
story is this:--

A prince of Germany invited two religious fathers, of eminent virtue
and learning, to a dinner. The prince, at table, said to one of them:
Father, think you we do right in hanging persons, who are accused by ten
or twelve witches, to have appeared at their meetings or sabbaths? I
somewhat fear we are imposed on by the devil, and that it is not a safe
way to truth, that we walk in by these accusations; especially since
many great and learned men everywhere begin to cry out against it, and
to charge our consciences with it; tell me, therefore, your opinion. To
whom the fathers, being somewhat of an eager spirit, said; What should
make us doubtful in this case? Or what should touch our consciences,
being convicted by so many testimonies? Can we make it a scruple,
whether God will permit innocent persons should be so traduced? there is
no cause for a judge to stick at such a number of accusations, but he
may proceed with safety. To which, when the prince had replied, and much
had been said _pro_ and _con_ on both sides about it, and the father
seemed wholly to carry the point, the prince at length concluded the
dispute; saying, I am sorry for you, father, that in a capital cause you
have condemned yourself, and you cannot complain if I commit you to
custody; for no less than fifteen witches have deposed that they have
seen you, ay, start not! you your ownself, at their meetings; and to
show you that I am not in jest, I will presently cause the public acts
to be brought for you to read them. The father stood in a maze, and with
a dejected countenance had nothing here to oppose but confusion and
silence, for all his learned eloquence.

As soon as Mr. Campbell had wrote down the story, the fathers perused
it, and seemed mightily entertained with it. It put an end to all
farther questions, and the man whom they had been trying for a conjuror,
they joined in desiring, upon distinct pieces of paper, under their
several hands, to come frequently and visit them, as being not only a
harmless and innocent, but an extraordinary well-meaning, good, and
diverting companion. They treated him for some time afterwards during
his stay, with the friendship due to a countryman, with the civility
that is owing to a gentleman, and with the assistance and support which
belonged to a person of merit in distress. Money they had none
themselves, it seems, to give him, being Mendicants by their own
profession; but they had interest enough to get him quite free from
being prisoner; he participated of their eleemosynary table, had a cell
allowed him among them in what they call their Dormitory; he had an odd
coat and a pair of trowsers made out of some of their brown coarse
habits, by the poor unfashionable tailor, or botcher, belonging to the
convent, and at last they found means of recommending him to a master of
a French vessel that was ready to set sail, to give him a cast over the
channel to England; and to provide him with the necessaries of life till
he got to the port. This French vessel was luckier than the Dutch one
had been before to our dumb gentleman; it had a quick and prosperous
passage, and arrived at Portsmouth; and as soon as he landed there, he
having experienced the misfortunes and casualties that a man in his
condition, wanting both speech and hearing, was liable to, in places
where he was an utter stranger to everybody, resolved to make no stay,
but move on as fast as he could towards London. When he came to Hampton
town, considering the indifferent figure he made in those odd kind of
clothes, which the poor friars had equipped him with, and that his long
beard and an uncombed wig added much to the disguise, he was resolved to
put on the best face he could, in those awkward circumstances, and
stepped into the first barber's shop he came at to be trimmed and get
his wig combed and powdered. This proved a very lucky thought to him;
for as soon as he stepped into the first barber's shop, who should prove
to be the master of it, but one Tobit Yeats, who had served him in the
same capacity at London, and was but newly set up in the trade of a
barber-surgeon, at Hampton town, and followed likewise the profession of
schoolmaster. This Tobit Yeats had shaved him quite, before he knew him
in that disguise; and Mr. Campbell, though he knew him presently, had a
mind to try if he should be known himself first; at length the barber
finding him to be a dumb man, by his ordering everything with motions of
the hand and gestures of the body, looked at him very earnestly,
remembered him, and in a great surprise called for pen, ink, and paper,
and begged to know how he came to be in that disguise; whether he was
under any misfortune, and apprehension of being discovered, that made
him go in so poor and so clownish a habit, and tendered him any
services, as far as his little capacity would reach, and desired him to
be free, and command him; if he was able to assist him in anything.
These were the most comfortable words that Duncan Campbell had read a
great while. He took the pen and paper in his turn; related to him his
whole story, gave the poor barber thanks for his good natured offer, and
said he would make so much use of it, as to be indebted to him for so
much money as would pay the stage-coach, and bear him in his travelling
expenses up to London, from whence he would speedily return the favour
with interest. The poor honest fellow, out of gratitude to a master
whose liberality he had formerly experienced, immediately furnished Mr.
Duncan Campbell with that little supply, expressing the gladness of his
heart that it lay in his power; and the stage-coach being to set out
within but a few hours, he ran instantly to the inn to see if he could
get him a place. By good luck, there was room, and but just room for one
more, which pleased Duncan Campbell mightily, when he was acquainted
with it by his true and trusty servant the barber; for he was as
impatient to see London again, it seems, as he had been before to quit
it. Well, he had his wish; and when he came to London, he had one wish
more for Fortune to bestow upon him, which appeared to begin to grow
kind again, after her fickle fit of cruelty was over; and this wish was,
that he might find his former lodgings empty, and live in the same house
as he did when he followed his profession. This too succeeded according
to his desire, and he was happily fixed once more to his heart's content
in his old residence, with the same people of the house round about him,
who bore him all that respect and affection, and showed all that
readiness and willingness to serve him on every occasion and at every
turn, which could be expected from persons that let lodgings in town to
a gentleman, whom they esteemed the best tenant they ever had in their
lives, or ever could have.

Immediately the tidings of the dumb gentleman's being returned home from
beyond sea, spread throughout all the neighbourhood; and it was noised
about from one neighbourhood to another, till it went through all ranks
and conditions, and was known as well in a day or two's time, all the
town over, as if he had been some great man belonging to the state, and
his arrival had been notified to the public in the gazette, as a person
of the last importance. And such a person he appeared indeed to be taken
for, especially among the fair sex, who thronged to his doors, crowd
after crowd, to consult with him about their future occurrences in life.

These curious tribes of people were as various in their persons, sex,
age, quality, profession, art, trade, as they were in the curiosity of
their minds, and the questions they had intended to propound to this
dumb predictor of strange events, that lay yet as embryos in the womb of
time, and were not to come, some of them, to a maturity for birth, for
very many years after; just as porcelain clay is stored up in the earth
by good artificers, which their heirs make china of, half a century, and
sometimes more than an age, afterwards.

These shoals of customers, who were to fee him well for his advice, as
we may suppose, now he stood in need of raising a fresh stock, were
unquestionably as welcome and acceptable to him as they appeared too
troublesome to him before, when he was in a state of more wealth and
plenty.

Fortune, that does nothing moderately, seemed now resolved, as she had
been extremely cruel before, to be extremely kind to him. He had nothing
to do from early in the morning till late at night, but to read
questions, and resolve them as fast as much-frequented doctors write
their prescriptions and recipes, and like them also to receive fees as
fast. Fortune was indeed mightily indulgent to the wants she had so
suddenly reduced him to, and relieved him as suddenly by these knots of
curiosos, who brought him a glut of money. But one single fair lady,
that was one of his very first consulters after his return, and who had
received satisfactory answers from him in other points, before he went
abroad, proved, so good fortune would have it, worth all the rest of his
customers together, as numerous as they were, and as I have accordingly
represented them.

This lady was the relict or widow of a gentleman of a good estate, and
of a very good family, whose name was Digby, and a handsome jointure she
had out of the estate. This lady, it seems, having been with him in
former days, and seen him in a more shining way of life, (for he had
taken a humour to appear before all his company in that coarse odd dress
made out of the friar's habit, and would not be persuaded by the people
of the house to put on a nightgown till he could provide himself with a
new suit,) was so curious, among other questions, as to ask him whether
he had met with any misfortunes, and how he came to be in so slovenly
and wretched a habit? Here Mr. Campbell related the whole story of his
travels to her, and the crosses and disappointments he had met with
abroad. The tears, he observed, would start every now and then into her
eyes when she came to any doleful passage, and she appeared to have a
mighty compassionate kind of feeling, when she read of any hardship more
than ordinarily melancholy that had befallen him. Mr. Campbell, it is
certain, had then a very good presence, and was a handsome and portly
young man; and as a great many young gentlemen derive the seeming
agreeableness of their persons from the tailor and peruke-maker, the
shoemaker and hosier, so Mr. Campbell's person, on the other hand, gave
a good air and a good look to the awkward garb he had on; and I believe
it was from seeing him in this odd trim, as they called it, the ladies
first took up the humour of calling him 'the handsome sloven:' add to
this that he looked his misfortune in the face with a jolly countenance,
and smiled even while he was penning the relation of his calamities; all
which are certainly circumstances that first sooth a generous mind into
a state of compassion, and afterwards heighten it in the breast wherein
it is conceived. Hence it came that this pretty and good natured widow,
Mrs. Digby, when she had expressed her commiseration of him by her
looks, began to take the pen and express it in very tender terms.
Neither did she think that expression in words a sufficient testimony of
the compassion she bore to him; the generosity of her mind did lead her
to express it in a more substantial manner still, and that was to show
it plainly by a very benevolous action. She laid a purse of twenty
guineas before the table, and at the same time smiling, pointed to the
table, as signifying her desire that he would accept it, and running to
the door, dropped a curtsy, and skuttled away; and by the same civil act
as she obliged him, she put it out of his power to refuse being so
obliged; so that, though the present was very handsome, the manner of
giving it was still handsomer. If being a handsome young man of merit in
distress, and bearing his misfortunes with an equal mind, are powerful
motives to excite compassion in the mind of a generous lady, so the
generosity of a young agreeable widow, expressed in so kind and so
benevolous a way, to a young gentleman, when he had been tasting nothing
but the bitter draughts of fortune before, must stir up an affection in
a mind that had any sense of gratitude; and truly just such was the
effect that this lady's civility had upon Mr. Duncan Campbell. He
conceived from that moment a very great affection for her; and resolved
to try whether he could gain her, which he had no small grounds to hope,
from the esteem which she appeared to bear towards him already. I
remember Mr. Dryden makes a very beautiful observation of the near
alliance there is between the two passions of pity and love in a woman's
breast, in one of his plays. His words are these; For pity still
foreruns approaching love, as lightning does the thunder. Mr. Bruyere, a
most ingenious member of the French Academy, has made another remark,
which comes home to our present purpose. He says, That many women love
their money better than their friends; but yet value their lovers more
than their money. According to the two reflections of these fine writers
upon the tempers of the fair, Mr. Campbell had hopes enough to ground
his courtship upon; and it appeared so in the end, by his proving
successful; she from being a very liberal and friendly client, became at
last a most affectionate wife. He then began to be a housekeeper, and
accordingly took a little neat one, and very commodious for his
profession, in Monmouth-court. Here I must take leave to make this
observation; that if Mr. Campbell inherited the talents of his
second-sighted mother, he seemed likewise to be an heir to his father,
Mr. Archibald Campbell, both in his strange and accidental sufferings by
sea, and likewise in his being relieved from them after as accidental
and strange a manner, by an unexpected marriage, just like his father's.
And here we return again to take a new survey of him in the course of
his public practice as a predictor. The accounts I shall give of his
actions here, will be very various in their nature from any I have yet
presented to the reader; they are more mysterious in themselves, and yet
I shall endeavour to make the manner of his operating in this kind as
plain as I think I have the foregoing ones, and then I flatter myself
they must afford a fresh entertainment for every reader that has any
curiosity and a good taste for things of so extraordinary a kind. For
what I have all along propounded to myself from the beginning and in the
progress to the end of this history, is to interweave entertaining and
surprising narratives of what Mr. Campbell has done, with curious and
instructive inquiries into the nature of those actions, for which he has
rendered himself so singularly famous. It was not, therefore, suitable
to my purpose, to clog the reader with numerous adventures, almost all
of the same kind, but out of a vast number of them to single some few of
those that were most remarkable, and that were mysteries, but mysteries
of very different sorts. I leave that method of swelling distorted and
commented trifles into volumes, to the writers of fable and romance; if
I was to tell his adventures, with regard, for example, to women, that
came to consult him, I might perhaps have not only written the stories
of eleven thousand virgins that died maids, but have had relations to
give of as many married women and widows, and the work would have been
endless. All that I shall do therefore is to pick out one particular,
each of a different kind, that there may be variety in the
entertainment. Upon application to this dumb man, one is told in the
middle of her health, that she shall die at such a time; another, that
she shall sicken, and upon the moment of her recovery, have a suitor and
a husband; a third, who is a celebrated beauty with a multitude of
admirers round about her, that she shall never become a wife; a fourth,
that is married, when she shall get rid of an uneasy husband; a fifth,
that hath lost her goods, who stole them, where and when they shall be
restored; a sixth, that is a merchant, when he shall be undone, and how
and when he shall recover his losses, and be as great on the Exchange as
ever; a seventh, that is a gamester, which will be his winning, and
which his losing hour; an eighth, how he shall be involved in a
law-suit, and whether the suit will have an adverse or a prosperous
issue; a ninth, that is a woman, with choice of lovers, which she shall
be most happy with for life; and so on to many others, where every
prediction is perfectly new and surprising, and differs from the other
in almost every circumstance. When a man has so extensive a genius as
this at foretelling the future occurrences of life, one narrative of a
sort is enough in conscience to present the reader with, and several of
each kind would not methinks be entertaining, but tiresome; for he that
can do one thing in these kinds by the power of prediction, can do ten
thousand; and those who are obstinate in extenuating his talents, and
calling his capacity in question, and that will not be convinced by one
instance of his judgment, would not own the conviction if ten thousand
instances were given them. The best passages I can recommend to their
perusal are those where persons who came purposely to banter him under
the colour of consulting him, and covered over their sly intentions with
borrowed disguises, and came in masquerades, found all the jest turned
upon themselves in the end, which they meant to our famous predictor,
and had the discouragement of seeing their most concealed and deepest
laid plots discovered, and all their most witty fetches and wily
contrivances defeated, till they were compelled universally to
acknowledge, that endeavouring to impose upon the judgment of our seer
by any hidden artifice and cunning whatsoever, was effectually imposing
upon their own. His unusual talent in this kind was so openly known, and
so generally confessed, that his knowledge was celebrated in some of the
most witty weekly papers that ever appeared in public. Isaac
Bickerstaff, who diverted all the _beau monde_, for a long space of time
with his lucubrations, takes occasion in several of his papers to
applaud the speculations of this dumb gentleman in an admirable vein of
pleasantry and humour, peculiar to the writer, and to the subject he
writ upon. And when that bright author, who joined the uttermost
facetiousness with the most solid improvements of morality and learning
in his works, laid aside the title of a Tatler, and assumed the name of
a Spectator and censor of men's actions, he still, every now and then,
thought our Duncan Campbell a subject worthy enough to employ his
farther considerations upon. I must take notice of one letter sent
concerning him to the Spectator, in the year 1712, which was at a time
when a lady wanted him, after he had removed from Monmouth-street to
Drury-lane.

     MR. SPECTATOR,--

     About two years ago I was called upon by the younger part of a
     country family, by my mother's side related to me, to visit Mr.
     Campbell, the dumb man; for they told me that was chiefly what
     brought them to town, having heard wonders of him in Essex. I,
     who always wanted faith in such matters, was not easily prevailed
     on to go; but lest they should take it ill, I went with them,
     when, to my own surprise, Mr. Campbell related all their past
     life; in short, had he not been prevented, such a discovery would
     have come out, as would have ruined their next design of coming
     to town, viz., buying wedding clothes. Our names, though he had
     never heard of us before, and we endeavoured to conceal, were as
     familiar to him as to ourselves. To be sure, Mr. Spectator, he is
     a very learned and wise man. Being impatient to know my fortune,
     having paid my respects in a family Jacobus, he told me, after
     his manner, among several other things, that in a year and nine
     months I should fall ill of a new fever, be given over by my
     physicians, but should with much difficulty recover; that the
     first time I took the air afterwards, I should be addressed to by
     a young gentleman of a plentiful fortune, good sense, and a
     generous spirit. Mr. Spectator, he is the purest man in the
     world, for all he said is come to pass, and I am the happiest she
     in Kent. I have been in quest of Mr. Campbell these three months,
     and cannot find him out; now hearing you are a dumb man too, I
     thought you might correspond and be able to tell me something;
     for I think myself highly obliged to make his fortune, as he has
     mine. It is very possible your worship, who has spies all over
     this town, can inform me how to send to him; if you can, I
     beseech you be as speedy as possible, and you will highly oblige
     your constant reader and admirer,

                                                   DULCIBELLA THANKLEY.


  THE SPECTATOR'S ANSWER.

     Ordered, that the inspector I employ about wonders, inquire at
     the Golden-lion opposite to the Half-moon tavern, in Drury-lane,
     into the merit of this silent sage, and report accordingly. Vide
     the 7th volume of Spectators, No. 474, being on Wednesday,
     September the 3rd, 1712.

But now let us come to those passages of his life the most surprising of
all, during the time that he enjoyed this reputation, and when he proved
that he deserved the fame he enjoyed. Let us take a survey of him while
he is wonderfully curing persons labouring under the misfortune of
witchcraft, of which the following story will be an eminent instance,
and likewise clear up how he came by his reputation in Essex, as
mentioned in the above-mentioned letter to the Spectator.

In the year 1709, Susanna Johnson, daughter to one Captain Johnson, who
lived at a place adjacent to Rumford, in Essex, going one morning to
that town to buy butter at the market, was met there by an old miserable
looking woman, just as she had taken some of her change of the
marketwoman, in copper, and this old woman rather demanded than begged
the gentlewoman to give her a penny. Miss Johnson reputing her to be one
of those hateful people that are called sturdy beggars, refused it her,
as thinking it to be no act of charity, and that it would be rather
gratifying and indulging her impudence, than supplying or satisfying her
indigence. Upon the refusal, the old hag, with a face more wrinkled
still, if possible, by anger, than it was by age, took upon her to storm
at young Miss Johnson very loudly, and to threaten and menace her; but
when she found her common threats and menaces were of no avail, she
swore she would be revenged of the young creature in so signal a manner,
that she should repent the denial of that penny from her heart before
she got home, and that it should cost her many pounds to get rid of the
consequences of that denial and her anger. The poor innocent girl
despised these last words likewise, and, getting up on horseback,
returned homewards; but just as she got about half way, her horse
stopped, and no means that she could use would make him advance one
single step; but she stayed awhile, to see if that would humour him to
go on. At last the beast began to grow unruly, and snorted and trembled
as if he had seen or smelt something that frightened him, and so fell a
kicking desperately, till he threw the girl from the saddle, not being
able to cling to it any longer, though a pretty good horsewoman of her
years; so much were the horse's motions and plungings more than
ordinarily violent.

As Providence would have it, she got not much harm by the fall,
receiving only a little bruise in the right shoulder; but she was
dreadfully frightened. This fear added wings to her feet, and brought
her home as speedily of herself as she usually came on horseback. She
immediately, without any other sign of illness than the palid colour
with which fear had disordered the complexion of her face, alarmed all
the family at home with the story, took her bed upon it, complained of
inward rackings of the belly, and was never at ease unless she lay
doubled up together, her head to her knees, and her heels to her rump,
just like a figure of 8. She could not be a single moment out of that
posture without shrieking out with the violence of anxious torments and
racking pains.

In this condition of misery, amidst this agony of suffering, and in this
double posture, was the poor wretched young gentlewoman brought to town;
physicians were consulted about her, but in vain; she was carried to
different hospitals for assistance, but their endeavours likewise proved
ineffectual; at last she was conducted to the College of Physicians; and
even the collective wisdom of the greatest sages and adepts in the
science of physic was posed to give her any prescription that would do
her service, and relieve her from the inexplicable malady she laboured
under. The poor incurable creature was one constant subject of her
complaining mother's discourse in every company she came into. It
happened at last, and very providentially truly, that the mother was
thus condoling the misfortune of her child among five or six ladies, and
telling them, among other things, that by the most skilful persons she
was looked upon to be bewitched, and that it was not within the power of
physic to compass her recovery. They all having been acquainted with our
Mr. Duncan Campbell, unanimously advised her to carry her daughter to
his house, and consult with him about her. The mother was overjoyed at
these tidings, and purposed to let no time slip where her child's health
was so deeply concerned. She got the ladies to go with her and her
child, to be eye-witnesses of so extraordinary a piece of practice, and
so eminent a trial of skill.

As soon as this dismal object was brought into his room, Mr. Duncan
Campbell lifted up her head and looked earnestly in her face, and in
less than a minute's time signified to the company, that she was not
only bewitched, but in as dreadful a condition almost as the man that
had a legion of fiends within him.

At the reading of these words the unhappy creature raised up her head,
turned her eyes upwards, and a smile, a thing she had been a stranger to
for many months, overspread her whole face, and such a kind of colour as
is the flushing of joy and gladness, and with an innocent tone of voice
she said, she now had a firm belief she should shortly be delivered. The
mother and the rest of the company were all in tears, but Mr. Campbell
wrote to them that they should be of good heart, be easy and quiet for a
few moments, and they should be convinced that it was witchcraft, but
happily convinced by seeing her so suddenly well again. This brought the
company into pretty good temper; and a little after, Mr. Campbell
desired she might be led up stairs into his chamber and left there alone
with him for a little while; this occasioned some small female
speculation, and as much mirth as their late sorrow, alleviated with the
hopes of her cure, would permit.

This you may be sure was but a snatch of mirth, just as the nature of
the thing would allow of; and all sorts of waggery being laid instantly
aside, and removed almost as soon as conceived, the poor young thing was
carried in that double posture up stairs. She had not been much above
half an hour there, when by the help only of Mr. Campbell's arm she was
led down stairs, and descended into that roomful of company as a miracle
appearing in a machine from above; she was led backward and forward in
the room, while all gazed at her for awhile with joyful astonishment,
for no arrow was ever more straight than she. Mr. Campbell then
prevailed with her to drink a glass of wine, and immediately after she
evacuated wind, which she had not done for some months before, and found
herself still more amended and easy; and then the mother making Mr.
Campbell some small acknowledgment at that time, with the promise of
more, and her daughter giving thanks, and all the company commending his
skill, took their leaves and departed, with great demonstrations of joy.
I shall here, to cut the story short, signify, that she came frequently
afterwards to make her testimonials of gratitude to him, and continues
to enjoy her health to this very day, at Greenwich, where she now lives,
and will at any time, if called upon, make oath of the truth of this
little history, as she told me herself with her own mouth.

The next thing, therefore, it behoves me to do in this chapter, is, to
give some satisfactory account of magic, by which such seeming
mysterious cures and operations are brought about.

This task I would perform in the most perspicuous and most convincing
manner I can; for magic, I know, is held to be a very hard and difficult
study by those learned, and universally unlawful and diabolical by those
unlearned, who believe there is such a science attainable by human
genius. On the other hand, by some learned men, who believe there is no
such science, it is represented as an inconsistent system of
superstitions and chimeras; and again laughed at as such by the
unlearned, who are of an incredulous temper; what I would therefore
undertake to do in this place is to show the learned men, who believe
there is such an art, that the attainment to a tolerable knowledge of
the manner how magical practices may be brought about, is no such
difficult matter as they have represented it to themselves; and by doing
this I shall make the system of it so plain, that while the learned
approve of it, the unlearned too, who are not of an unbelieving kind,
may understand clearly what I say; and the learned men who have rejected
this science as chimerical, may be clearly convinced it is real; and
then there is nothing left but obstinate unbelieving ignorance, which I
shall not here pretend by arguments to lead into sense, but leave it to
the work of time. In fine, I will endeavour to induce men of sense to
say, that what has been accounted mysterious, is delivered in a plain,
easy, and convincing manner, and to own that they approve, while men of
the lower class of understanding shall confess and acknowledge that they
themselves understand it; and that what has hitherto been represented as
arduous and difficult to a great genius, is adapted and rendered not
only clear, but familiar to persons of middling talents. In this work,
therefore, I shall follow the strictest order I can, which of all things
render a discourse upon any subject the most clear; and that it may be
plain to the commonest capacity, I will first set down what order I
intend to follow.

First, I will speak of magic in general.

Secondly, Of magic under its several divisions and subdivisions.

Thirdly, Concerning the object of art, as it is good or bad.

Fourthly, Of the persons exercising that art in either capacity, of good
or bad, and by what means they become capacitated to exercise it.

In the fifth place, I shall come to the several objections against the
art of magic, and the refutation of those objections.

The first objection shall be against the existence of good and bad
spirits; the refutation of which will consist in my proving the
existence of spirits, both good and bad, by reason and by experience.

The second objection that will be brought, is to contain an allegation
that there are no such persons as witches now, and an argument to
support that allegation, drawn from the incapacity and impossibility of
any thing's making, while itself is incarnate, a contract with a spirit.
This objection will be answered by proving the reality of witches from
almost universal experience, and by explaining rationally the manner how
the devils hold commerce with witches; which explanation is backed and
authorised by the opinion of the most eminent divines, and the most
learned physicians.

From hence, sixthly and lastly, We shall conclude on the side of the
good magic, that as there are witches on the one hand that may afflict
and torment persons with demons, so on the other hand there are lawful
and good magicians that may cast out demons from people that are
possessed with them.

And first as to magic in general. Magic consists in the spirit by faith,
for faith is that magnet of the magicians by which they draw spirits to
them, and by which spirits they do great things, that appear like
miracles.

Secondly, Magic is divided into three sorts, viz., divine, natural, and
diabolical. And natural magic is again subdivided into two kinds, simple
and compound; and natural compound magic is again likewise divided into
two kinds, viz., natural-divine magic, and natural-diabolical magic.
Now, to give the reader a clear and a distinct notion of each several
species of magic here mentioned, I set down the following definitions:
Divine magic is a celestial science, in which all operations that are
wonderfully brought about, are performed by the Spirit of God. Natural
magic is a science in which all the mysterious acts that are wrought,
are compassed by natural spirits. But as this natural magic may be
exercised about things either in a manner indifferent in themselves, or
mere morally good, and then it is mere natural magic; or else about
things theologically good, and transcendently bad; and then it is not
merely and natural magic, but mixed and compound. If natural magic be
exercised about the most holy operations, it is then mixed with the
divine, and may then be called, not improperly, natural-divine magic.
But if natural magic troubles itself about compassing the wickedest
practices, then is it promiscuous with the demoniacal, and may not
improperly be called natural-diabolical magic.

Thirdly, The object of this art is doing wonders out of the ordinary
appearing course of nature, which tend either to great good or bad, by
the help and mediation of spirits good and bad.

Fourthly, As to the persons exercising that art in either way, whether
good or bad, and by what means they become capacitated to act it, the
notion of this may be easily deduced from the notions of the art itself,
as considered above in its each different species; for as all magic
consists in a spirit, every magician acts by a spirit.

Divine magicians, that are of God, are spoke of in the sacred Book, and
therefore I shall not mention the passages here, but pass them over, as
I ought in a book like this, with a profound and reverential silence, as
well as the other passages which speak of natural and demoniacal
magicians; and in all I shall speak of them in this place, I shall only
speak of them with regard to human reason and experience, and conclude
this head with saying, that natural magicians work all things by the
natural spirits of the elements; but that witches and demoniacal
magicians, as Jannes and Jambres in Egypt were, work their magical
performances by the spirit of demons, and it is by the means of these
different spirits that these different magicians perform their different
operations.

These things thus distinctly settled and explained, it is now we must
come and ground the dispute between those who believe there are no such
things as magicians of any kind, and those who assert there are of all
the kinds above specified.

Those who contend there are, have recourse to experience, and relate
many well-witnessed narratives, to prove that there have been in all
times, and that there are still, magicians of all these kinds. But those
who contend that there are no such persons, will give no ear to what the
others call plain experience; they call the stories, let whatever
witnesses appear to justify them, either fabulous legends invented by
the authors, or else tricks of intellectual legerdemain imposed by the
actors, upon the relators of those actions. Since, therefore, they say,
though the believers in magic brag of experience never so much, it may
be but a fallible experience; they reasonably desire to know whether
these gentlemen that stand for magic can answer the objections which
they propose, to prove that the practice of magic, according to the
system laid down, is inconsistent with reason, before they will yield
their assent. Let the stories be never so numerous, appear never so
credible, these unbelieving gentlemen desire to be tried by reason, and
aver till that reason is given they will not be convinced by the number
of stories, because, though numerous, they are stories still; neither
will they believe them because they appear credible, because seeming so
is not being so, and appearances, though never so fair, when they
contradict reason, are not to be swallowed down with an implicit faith
as so many realities. And thus far, no doubt, the gentlemen who are on
the unbelieving side are very much in the right of it. The learned
gentlemen, on the other hand, who are persuaded of this mighty
mysterious power being lodged in the hands of magicians, answer, that
they will take upon them to refute the most subtle objections brought by
the learned unbelievers, and to reconcile the practicability of magical
mysteries by the capacity of men who study that art, to right rules and
laws of reasoning, and to show that some stories, though never so
prodigious, which are told of magicians, demand the belief of wise men
on two accounts; because as experience backs reason on the one hand,
reason backs experience on the other, and so the issue of the whole
argument, whether there are magicians or not, is thrown upon both
experience and reason. These arguments on each side, I shall draw up
fairly _pro_ and _con_; for I do not pretend to be the inventor of them
myself, they belong to other authors many years ago; be it enough for me
to boast of, if I can draw them up in a better and closer form together
than they have yet appeared in. In that I take upon myself a very great
task; I erect myself as it were into a kind of a judge; I will sum up
the evidences on both sides, and I shall, wherever I see occasion,
intimate which side of the argument bears the most weight with me; but
when I have enforced my opinion as far as I think needful, my readers,
like a jury, are still at liberty to bring in their verdict just as they
themselves shall see fit; and this naturally leads me where I promised
to come to in the fifth part of this discourse, to the several
objections against the power of art magic, and the refutation of those
objections.

_The First Objections being against the Existence of Spirits, and the
Refutations thereof._

The first objection which they who reject magic make use of, is, denying
that there are any such things as spirits, about which, since those who
defend the art say it entirely exerciseth itself, the objectors contend,
that if they can make out that there are no such beings as spirits, all
pretensions to the art must be entirely groundless, and for the future
exploded.

To make this part out, that there are no spirits, the first man they
produce on their side is undoubtedly one of very great credit and
authority, inasmuch as he has justly borne for many centuries the title
of a prince of philosophers. They say that Aristotle in his book _de
Mundo_, reasons thus against the existence of spirits, viz., That since
God can do all things of himself, he doth not stand in need of
ministering angels and demons. A multitude of servants showing the
weakness of a prince.

The gentlemen who defend the science make this reply, they allow the
credit and authority of Aristotle as much as the objectors; but as the
objectors themselves deny all the authorities for the spirits, and
desire that reason may be the only ground they go upon, so the refuters,
on their parts desire, that Aristotle's _ipse dixit_ may not be
absolutely passed upon them for argument; but that his words may be
brought to the same touchstone of reason, and proved if they are
standard. If this argument, say they, will hold good, Aristotle should
not suppose intelligences moving the celestial spheres; for God
sufficeth to move all without ministering spirits; nor would there be
need of a sun in the world, for God can enlighten all things by himself,
and so all second causes were to be taken away; therefore, there are
angels and ministering spirits in the world, for the majesty of God, not
for his want of them, and for order, not for his omnipotency. And here
if the objectors return and say, who told you that there are spirits; Is
not yours a precarious hypothesis? May not we have leave to recriminate
in this place? Pray, who told Aristotle that there were intelligences
that moved the celestial spheres? Is not this hypothesis as precarious
as any man may pretend that of spirits to be? And we believe there are
few philosophers at present who agree with Aristotle in that opinion;
and we dare pronounce this to be ours, that Aristotle took his
intelligences from the Hebrews, who went according to the same
whimsical, though pretty notion, which first gave rise to the fiction of
the nine muses. But more than all this, it is a very great doubt among
learned men, whether this book _de Mundo_ be Aristotle's or no.

The next thing the objectors bring against the existence of spirits, is,
that it is nonsense for men to say that there are such beings of which
it is impossible for a man to have any notion, and they insist upon it
that it is impossible for any man to form an idea of a spiritual
substance. As to this part, the defendants rejoin, that they think our
late most judicious Mr. Locke, in his elaborate and finished Essay on
the Human Understanding, has fairly made out, that men have as clear a
notion of a spiritual substance as they have of any corporeal substance,
matter, or body; and that there is as much reason for admitting the
existence of the one, as of the other; for that if they admit the
latter, it is but humour in them to deny the former. It is in book the
2nd, chap. 29, where he reasons thus: "If a man will examine himself
concerning his notion of pure substance in general he will find he has
no other idea of it, but only a supposition of he knows not what support
of such quality which are capable of producing simple ideas in us, which
qualities are commonly called accidents. Thus, if we talk or think of
any particular sort of corporeal substance, as horse, stone, &c., though
the idea we have of either of them be but the complication or collection
of those several simple ideas, or sensible qualities which we use to
find united in the thing called horse, or stone; yet because we cannot
conceive how they should subsist alone, not one in another, we suppose
them to exist in, and be supported by some common subject; which support
we denote by the name of substance, though it be certain we have no
clear or distinct idea of that thing we suppose a support. The same
happens concerning the operations of our mind, viz., thinking,
reasoning, and fearing, &c., which we concluding not to subsist of
themselves, and not apprehending how they can belong to body, we are apt
to think these the actions of some substance which we call spirit;
whereby it is evident, that having no other notion of matter, but
something wherein those many sensible qualities which affect our senses
do subsist, by supposing a substance wherein thinking, knowing,
doubting, and a power of moving, &c., do subsist, we have as clear a
notion of the nature or substance of spirit, as we have of body: the one
being supposed to be, without knowing what is, the substratum to those
simple ideas which we have from without; and the other supposed, with a
like ignorance of what it is, to be the substratum of these operations
which we experiment in ourselves within. It is plain, then, that the
idea of corporeal substance in matter, is as remote from our conceptions
and apprehensions as that of spiritual substance, and therefore from our
not having any notion of the substance of spirit, we can no more
conclude its not existence, than we can for the same reason deny the
existence of body; it being as rational to affirm there is no body,
because we cannot know its essence, as it is called, or have the idea of
the substance of matter, as to say, there is no spirit, because we know
not its essence, or have no idea of a spiritual substance." Mr. Locke
also, comparing our idea of spirit with our idea of body, thinks there
may seem rather less obscurity in the former than the latter. Our idea
of body he takes to be an extended solid substance, capable of
communicating motion by impulse; and our idea of soul is a substance
that thinks, and has a power of exciting motion in body by will or
thought. Now, some perhaps will say they comprehend a thinking thing,
which perhaps is true; but, he says, if they consider it well, they can
no more comprehend an extended thing; and if they say, they know not
what it is thinks in them, they mean they know not what the substance is
of that thinking thing; no more, says he, do they know what the
substance is of that solid thing; and if they say they know how not how
they think, he says, neither do they know how they are extended, how the
solid parts are united, or where to make extension, &c.

The learned Monsieur le Clerc, who generally knows how far human reason
can bear, argues consonantly to what is before delivered by Mr. Locke,
in his _Coronis_, added to the end of the fourth volume of his
Philosophical Works, in the third edition of them, where he writes as
followeth:--

"When we contemplate the corporeal nature, we can see nothing in it but
extension, divisibility, solidity, mobility, and various determinations
of quantity, or figures; which being so, it were a rash thing, and
contrary to the laws of right reasoning, to affirm other things of
bodies; and consequently from mere body nothing can be deduced by us,
which is not joined in a necessary connection with the said properties;
therefore those who have thought the properties of perceiving by sense,
of understanding, willing, imagining, remembering, and others the like,
which have no affinity with corporeal things, to have risen from the
body, have greatly transgressed in the method of right reasoning and
philosophising, which hath been done by Epicurus, and those who have
thought as he did, having affirmed our minds to be composed of corporeal
atoms: but whence shall we say they have had their rise? truly, they do
not owe their rise to matter, which is wholly destitute of sense and
thought, nor are they spontaneously sprung up from nothing, it being an
ontological maxim of most evident truth, that nothing springs from
nothing."

Having thus given the reader the first objections made against the
existence of spirits, and the refutations thereof, I must now frankly
own on which side my opinion leans; and for my part, it seems manifest
to me that there are two beings; we conceive very plainly and
distinctly, viz., body and spirit, and that it would be as absurd and
ridiculous to deny the existence of the one as of the other; and really,
if the refuters have got the better in their way of reasoning, they have
still a much greater advantage over the objectors, when they come to
back these reasons with fresh arguments drawn from experience. Of this,
there having been many undoubted narratives given in the foregoing
pages, concerning the apparitions of spirits, I shall refer the reader
back again to them, and only subjoin here one or two instances, which
may, if required, be proved upon oath, of spirits seen by two persons of
our Duncan Campbell's own acquaintance. In the year 1711, one Mrs.
Stephens and her daughter were together with Mr. Campbell, at the house
of Mr Ramell, a very great and noted weaver at Haggerstone, where the
rainy weather detained them till late at night. Just after the clock
struck twelve, they all of them went to the door to see if the rain had
ceased, being extremely desirous to get home. As soon as ever they had
opened the door and where all got together, there appeared before them a
thing all in white, the face seemed of a dismal palid hue, but the eyes
thereof fiery and flaming, like beacons, and of a saucer size. It made
its approaches to them till it came up within the space of about three
yards of them, there it fixed and stood like a figure agaze, for some
minutes; and they all stood likewise stiff, like the figure, frozen with
fear, motionless, and speechless; when all of a sudden it vanished from
their eyes, and that apparition to the sight was succeeded by a noise,
or the appearance of a noise, like that which is occasioned by the
fighting of twenty mastiff dogs.

Not long after, Mrs. Anne Stephens, who lived in Spitalfields, a woman
well known by her great dealings with mercers upon Ludgate-hill, sitting
in her house alone, and musing upon business, happened by accident to
look behind her, and saw a dead corpse, to her thinking, lie extended
upon the floor, just as a dead corpse should be, excepting that the foot
of one leg was fixed on the ground, as it is in a bed when one lies with
one knee up; she looked at it a long while, and by degrees at last stole
her eyes from so unpleasing and unexpected an object. However, a strange
kind of a curiosity overcame her fears, and she ventured a second time
to turn her head that way, and saw it, as before, fixed for a
considerable time longer, but durst not stir from her seat; she again
withdrew her eyes from the horrible and melancholy spectacle, and
resumed the courage, after a little reflection, of viewing it again, and
resolved to ascertain herself if the vision was real, by getting up from
her seat and going to it, but upon this third retrospection she found it
vanished. This relation she writ down to Mr. Duncan Campbell, and has
told before Mrs. Ramell, her own sister, and many other very creditable
persons. Now as to these arguments from experience, I shall also deliver
my opinion; I dispute not but that learned men, who have obstinate
prepossessions, may produce plausible arguments why all things should be
thought to be done by imposture which seem strange to them, and
interfere with their belief; and truly thus far their humour may be
indulged, that if only one person relates a very strange and surprising
story, a man may be more apt to think it is possible for that person to
lie, than that so strange a relation should be true; but if a
considerable number of persons, of several countries, several religious,
several professions, several ages, and those persons looked upon to be
of as great sagacity as any the country afford, agree in relations of
the same kind, thought very strange and are ready to vouch the truth of
them upon oath, after having well considered circumstances, I think it a
violation of the law of nature to reject all these relations as
fabulous, merely upon a self-presuming conceit, unless a man can fairly
show the things to be impossible, or can demonstrate wherein those
persons were imposed on; for from hence I form the following conclusive
argument. What is possible according to reason, grows probable according
to belief; where the possibility is attested to have reduced itself into
action by persons of known credit and integrity. Now, not only the
possibility of the existence of spirits, but the actual existence
thereof is proved above by logical demonstration; therefore are we to
believe both by the course of logical reason and moral faith, that those
existences have appeared to men of credit, who have attested the reality
thereof upon oath.


_Second Objection against the Existence of Witches._

These objectors go on to say, that provided they should allow there is
an existence of spirits, yet that would be still no argument how magic
should subsist, because they deny that it is impossible for a man in his
body to have a commerce, much less make a contract, with spirits; but
here again the refuters allege they have both experience and reason on
their sides. As a joint argument of reason and experience, they tell
you, that the numerous witches which have in all countries been
arraigned and condemned upon this occasion, are evident testimonies of
this commerce and contract being held and made with spirits. They
pretend to say, that these objectors call not their, the refuters,
judgment so much in question, who contend that there is a magic art, as
they call in question the judgment of all the wisest legislative powers
in Christendom, who have universally agreed in enacting penal laws
against such capital offenders.

But here the objectors return and say, that it being impossible for us
to show the manner how such a contract should be made, we can never, but
without reason, believe a thing to be, of which we can form no perfect
idea. The refuters, on the other hand, reply with the learned Father le
Brune, it is manifest that we can see but two sorts of beings, spirits
and bodies; and that since we can reason but according to our ideas, we
ought to ascribe to spirits what cannot be produced by bodies. Indeed
the author of the Republic of Learning, in the month of August, anno
1686, has given us a rough draught for writing a good tract of
witchcraft, which he looks upon as a desideratum; where among other
things, he writes thus: Since this age is the true time of systems, one
should be contrived concerning the commerce that may be betwixt demons
and men.

On this passage Father le Brune writes thus: "Doubtless here the author
complies with the language of a great many persons, who, for want of
attention and light, would have us put all religion in systems. Whatever
regard I ought to have for many of those persons, I must not be afraid
to say, that there is no system to be made of those truths, which we
ought to learn distinctly by faith, because we must advance nothing
here, but what we receive from the oracle. We must make a system to
explain the effects of the loadstone, the ebbing and flowing of the sea,
the motion of the planets; for that the cause of these effects is not
evidently signified to us, and many may be conceived by us; and to
determine us, we have need of a great number of observations, which by
an exact induction may lead us to a cause that may satisfy all the
phenomena. It is not the same in the truths of religion, we come not at
them by groping, it were to be wished men spoke not of them, but after a
decisive and infallible authority. It is thus we should speak of the
power of demons, and of the commerce they have with men; it is of faith,
that they have power, and that they attack men, and try to seduce them
divers ways. It is true, indeed, they are sometimes permitted to have it
over the just, though they have it not ordinarily, but over those that
want faith, or fear not to partake of their works; and that to the last
particularly, the disordered intelligences try to make exactly succeed
what they wish; inspiring them to have recourse to certain practices by
which those seducing spirits enter into commerce with men." Thus far
Father le Brune. But still these objectors demand to know by what means
this commerce may be held between demons and men, and urge us to
describe the manner; or pretend that they have still reason to refuse
coming into the belief of a thing which we would impose upon them,
though wholly ignorant of it ourselves; to that the refuters answer
thus; that both Christian divines and physicians agree as to the manner
how, which they are so curious in inquiring after, that demons stir up
raptures and ecstacies in men, binding or loosing the exterior senses,
and that either by stopping the pores of the brain, so that the spirits
cannot pass forth, as it is done naturally by sleep, or by recalling the
sensitive spirits from the outward senses to the inward organs, which he
there retains; so the Devil renders women witches ecstatical and
magicians, who while they lie fast asleep in one place, think they have
been in divers places, and done many things. This the learned objectors
say proceeds from no demon, but from the disease called an epilepsy;
but, on the other hand, the more learned refuters insist upon it, that
these ecstacies are not epileptic seizures; this, say they, appears from
Bodin, in his Theatre of Universal Nature, where he says, That those who
are wrapped by the Devil, feel neither stripes nor cuttings, nor no
wresting of their limbs, nor burning tortures, nor the application of a
red hot iron; nay, nor is the beat of the pulse, nor the motion of the
heart perceived in them; but afterwards, returning to themselves, they
feel most bitter pains of the wounds received, and tell of things done
at six hundred miles' distance, and affirm themselves to have seen them
done. The ingenious Dr. Ader, makes an admirable physical distinction
between this kind of ecstacy and a syncope, or stupor caused by narcotic
medicines. Sennertus, in his Institutio Medica, writes of the demoniacal
sopor of witches, who think they are carried through the air, dance,
feast, and have copulation with the devil, and do other things in their
sleep, and afterwards believe the same things waking. Now, he says,
whether they are really so carried in the air, &c., or being in a
profound sleep, or only dream they are so carried, and persist in that
opinion after they are awake, these facts or dreams cannot be natural;
for it cannot be that there should be so great an agreement in dreams,
of persons differing in place, temperament, age, sex, and studies, that
in one night, and at the same hour, they should, in concert, dream of
one and the same such meeting, and should agree as to the place, number,
and quality of the persons, and the like circumstances; but such dreams
are suggested from a preternatural cause, viz., from the devil to his
confederate, by the divine permission of an Almighty power, where
punishments are to be permitted to be inflicted upon reprobate sinners.

Whence also, to those witches, sincerely converted, and refusing to be
any more present at those diabolical meetings, those dreams no longer
happen, which is a proof that they proceeded not before from a natural
cause.

Here begins the great point of the dispute as to that branch of magic
which we call natural magic. The objectors may tell us, that they will
freely own that there may be an existence of spirits, that there may be
an existence of witches, that by a divine power men may be influenced so
far as to have a communication with good spirits, and that from thence
they may become spiritual-divine magicians, they will likewise, perhaps,
as freely grant, that by the intervention of a demon, things
preternatural may be brought about by persons who have studied the
demoniacal magic; but then what they principally insist upon is, that it
must be contradictory to all human reason to imagine that there can be
such a thing as natural magicians; and thus far they may form their
argument. They say, that the persons, who contend for the magic art,
own, that all that is brought about by magic, is by the assistance and
help of a spirit, and that consequently what is effected by it must be
preternatural; now, they say, it is a thing inconsistent, by a natural
power, to bring about a preternatural effect; therefore, there can be no
such thing as natural magic, which has within itself the efficacy of
destroying those acts done by magicians in the diabolical.

To this the refuters take leave to reply, that the foundation upon which
the argument is built is wrong grounded; they have admitted that, in
diabolical art magic, there may be a commerce held between men and
spirits, by which several preternatural effects may be brought about;
and the reason they assign for it there is, because there is a
preternatural agent concerned therein, the devil; but then, say they, in
natural magic you can pretend to no such agent, and therefore to no such
preternatural effect. This argument contains within it two fallacies;
first, as to the commerce held between a man and a demon, there is
nothing preternatural in getting the acquaintance; the will of the man
is entirely natural, either naturally good, or naturally corrupted; the
black spirit that converseth with him, it is acknowledged is not so, but
it is from the will of the man, not from the power vested in the devil,
that the acquaintance first grows, therefore the acquaintance itself is
natural, though it arises from the last corruption and depravations of
nature; but being made with a preternatural existence, though the cause
of the acquaintance be corruptedly natural, yet the intermediate cause
or means after that acquaintance is not so, and therefore the effect of
that intermediate cause may be wonderful, and seem to be out of the
ordinary course of nature. Now, since it is generally allowed that there
are natural spirits of the elements, as well as divine and infernal,
what we have to prove is only this, that man by natural magic may have a
commerce with natural spirits of their elements, as witches may have
with the spirits or demons. Now, as we said before, the commerce itself
depends upon the will of the person, and is therefore natural, and
consequently may as well subsist between the one as the other; for the
devil cannot force a man to hold a commerce with him whether he will or
no. The second fallacy is calling the effect preternatural, no otherwise
than as it connotates the agent that brought it about, which is a
spiritual agent; for the effect is, in itself considered, natural, and
brought about by second causes that are natural, by the devil's
penetration, who is subtle enough to make use of them for such and such
ends. Now men, by natural spirits, which are of a faculty thoroughly
subtle, may as well with natural second causes compass the remedy of an
evil spirit, as the devil is able to infect men with it. From these
speculations a farther plain consequence may be deduced, how a man may,
by the pure force of natural magic, cure a person that is infested with
evils by a demon; for how is it that a demon infests anybody with his
evil motions? It is true, he is a preternatural agent, but the evil
effect he does is brought about by natural causes. For how does a demon
stir up raptures or ecstacies in men? Why he does it, as we are told
above, by binding or loosing the exterior senses, by stopping the pores
of the brain, so that the spirits cannot pass forth; and this the art of
physic can compass by its drugs, and sleep causes the same thing very
naturally of itself; therefore, as the evil itself is natural, the
remedy, that is natural, will certainly overcome it. But then, say you,
why cannot those persons be cured by physicians? I answer, not because
their remedies are not in themselves sufficient to cure the evils
themselves, but because generally physicians do not administer their
drugs as Christians, but as physicians; and when they prescribe them to
the sick they generally prescribe to them only purely considered as
patients, not as Christians, and therein they come to fail; because the
agent, the devil, is a subtle spirit, that brings the evil, and alters
its situation before the remedy, which would master it otherwise, can
take any effect; which agent, the devil, is employed by the horrible and
impious faith of the antiphysician, viz., the black magician; but if the
physician would act the Christian at the same time, so far as to have a
faith that things ordained in the course of nature for the good of man,
would have its effects in spite of a devil, if taken with a good faith
by the patient; that all good things ordained to be for the natural
recovery of men, if they took it with thankfulness to the sender, would
have due effect; why then the natural spirits of the elements would
resist the farther agency of the demoniacal spirit, and then nothing but
the natural evil, caused at first by the demon, remaining in the person,
without the farther superintendency of the demon, might demonstratively
be taken away by the mere natural remedy or medicine. And thus good and
pious physicians, making use of such proper remedies as their skill
teaches them, and having an honest faith, that the goods of nature
intended for the use and benefit of man, if received by the patient with
the same good faith, is above the power of the devil to frustrate, may
not improperly be called natural magicians. These arguments of mine I
shall now take leave to back by experience.

Besides, what we have urged from reason, concerning the power of natural
magic, we shall only subjoin, that divines themselves hold that natural
magic, and also natural divinations and prophecies, are proved by
quotations from that venerable writ which is their guide; and bring
proofs from the same also, that by natural magic demons are also cast
forth, but not all kinds of demons, and so many works of efficacy are
wrought by natural magic: they tell you, such was the Pythonissa that
raised the apparition to Saul, which appeared in a body of wind and air.
Thus, if a person by natural magic should cast out demons, it does not
follow that this was also from divine magic; and if demons are cast out
by natural magic, by one that is in the fear of God, it does not follow
that he is a true magician of God; but if it exorbitates to demoniacal,
then it is condemned: and when natural magic keeps within its bounds,
the divines tell us it is not condemned in the venerable book, which is
the Christian's sure guide. But, inasmuch as the lawfulness even of
natural magic has been called in question by others, I shall, in an
Appendix joined to this treatise, examine that matter, both according to
the reasons of our English laws, and according to the best stated rules
of casuistry that I am a master of; still submitting my judgment to the
superior judgment of those who are professed divines and lawyers; and if
my opinions prove erroneous, I am willing to retract them; and
therefore, in this place, there remains nothing farther for me to do,
but only, as I have shown, on the one hand, how natural magic, and its
powerful operations, are proved by reason, to show, on the other hand,
how far reason in these cases is likewise backed and supported by
well-evidenced practice, and notorious experience. And to do this, after
having mentioned one memorable instance, which I refer the reader to in
the body of the book, concerning the performances of Mr. Greatrix, to
which a Lord Orrery was a witness, in Ireland; I shall, to avoid
prolixity, bring the other testimonials of practice, from the success
which our Duncan Campbell himself has had in this way on other
occasions.

In the year 1713, lived in Fenchurch-street, one Mr. Coates, a
tobacco-merchant, who had been for many years sorely tormented in his
body, and had had recourse for a cure to all the most eminent physicians
of the age, even up to the great Dr. Ratcliff himself; but all this
mighty application for relief was still in vain; each doctor owned him a
wonder and a mystery to physic, and left him as much a wonder as they
found him. Neither could the professors of surgery guess at his ailment,
or resolve the riddle of his distemper; and after having spent, from
first to last, above a thousand pounds in search of proper remedies,
they found the search ineffectual; the learned all agreed that it could
proceed from nothing else than witchcraft; they had now indeed guessed
the source of his illness, but it was an illness of such a kind that,
when they had found it out, they thought themselves not the proper
persons to prescribe to him any remedies. That task was reserved, it
seems, for our Duncan Campbell, who, upon somebody's information or
other, was sent for to the bewitched patient Mr. Coates, who found him
the wonder that the others had left him, but did wonders in undertaking
and compassing his cure. I remember, one of the ingredients made use of
was boiling his own water, but I cannot tell how it was used; and, upon
turning over the books of some great physicians since, I have found,
that they themselves have formerly delivered that as one part of the
prescriptions for the cure of patients in like cases. But as there are
other things which Mr. Campbell performs, that seem to require a mixture
of the second-sight, and of this natural magic, before they can be
brought about, I will entertain the reader with one or two passages of
that sort likewise, and so conclude the history of this so singular a
man's life and adventures.

In the year 1710, a gentlewoman lost about six pounds' worth of Flanders
lace, and inasmuch as it was a present made to her husband, she was
concerned as much as if it had been of twenty times the value; and a
lady of her acquaintance coming to visit her, to whom she unfolded,
among other things in discourse, this little disaster, the lady,
smiling, replied with this question, Did you never hear, madam, of Mr.
Duncan Campbell? It is but making your application to him, things that
are lost are immediately found; the power of his knowledge exceeds even
the power of laws; they but restrain, and frighten, and punish robbers,
but he makes thieves expiate their guilt by the more virtuous way of
turning restorers of the goods they have stolen. Madam, rejoined the
losing gentlewoman, you smile when you tell me this; but really, as much
a trifle as it is, since it was a present to my husband, I cannot help
being sensibly concerned at it, a moment's disappointment to him in the
least thing in nature, creates in me a greater uneasiness than the
greatest disappointment to my single self could do in things of moment
and importance. What makes me smile, said the lady, when I speak of it,
or think of it, is the oddness and peculiarity of this man's talent in
helping one to such things; but, without the least jest, I assure you,
that I know, by experience, these things come within the compass of his
knowledge; and I must seriously tell you, for your farther satisfaction,
that he has helped me, and several of my friends, to the finding again
things lost, which were of great value. And is this, without laughing,
true? said the losing fair, very gravely and demurely, like a person
half believing, and desirous to be fully confirmed in such a belief. The
lady she advised with did then ascertain her of the truth of the matter,
alleging that, for a single half-guinea, he would inform her of her
things, and describe the person that conveyed them away. No sooner was
this gentlewoman convinced, but she was eager for the trial; solicited
her friend to conduct her to Mr. Campbell, and, upon the first word of
consent, she was hooded and scarfed immediately, and they coached it
away in a trice to Mr. Campbell's house, whom they luckily found within.

The ladies had not been long seated before he wrote down the name of
this new client of his, exactly as it was, viz., Mrs. Saxon. Then she
was in good hopes, and with much confidence propounded to him the
question about the lace. He paused but a very little while upon the
matter, before he described the person that took it, and satisfied her
that in two or three days she would be mistress of her lace again, and
find it in some book, or corner of her room. She presented him a
half-guinea, and was very contentedly going away, but Mr. Campbell very
kindly stopped her, and signified to her, that, if she had no more to
offer to him, he had something of more importance to reveal to her. She
sat full of expectation while he wrote this new matter; and the paper he
delivered to her contained the following account: As for the loss of a
little bit of lace, it is a mere trifle; you have lost a great many
hundreds of pounds, which your aunt (naming her name) left you, but you
are bubbled out of that large sum. For while you was artfully required
down stairs about some pretended business or other, one Mr. H--tt--n,
conveyed your aunt's Will out of the desk, and several other things of
value; and writing down the names of all the persons concerned, which
put Mrs. Saxon in a great consternation, he concluded this paper, with
bidding her go home with a contented mind, she should find her lace in a
few days; and as she found that prediction proved true, she should
afterwards come and consult about the rest.

When she came home, it seems, big at first with the thoughts of what she
had been told, she rifled and ransacked every corner, but no lace was to
be met with; all the next day she hunted in the like manner, but
frightened the whole time as if she thought the devil was the only
person could bring it, but all to no purpose; the third day her
curiosity abated, she gave over the hopes of it, and took the prediction
as a vain delusion, and that what she gave for it was only more money
thrown away after what had been lost before. That very day, as it
commonly happens in such cases, when she least dreamt of it, she lighted
on it by accident and surprise. She ran with it in her hand immediately
to her husband, and now she had recovered it again, told him of the loss
of it, and the whole story of her having been at Mr. Campbell's about
it; and then, amplifying the discourse about what he had told her
besides, as to more considerable affairs, she said she resolved to go
and consult him a little farther about them, and begged her husband to
accompany her. He would fain have laughed her out of that opinion and
intent, but the end was, she persuaded him into it, and prevailed upon
him to seem at least very serious about the matter, and go with her to
the oracle, assuring him there was no room for doubting the same
success.

Well, to Mr. Campbell's they accordingly came; and after Mr. Saxon, in
deference to his wife's desire, had paid our predictor a handsome
complement of gold, Mr. Duncan Campbell saluted him in as grateful a
manner, with the assurance that there was in Kent a little country
house, with some lands appertaining to it, that was his in right of his
wife; that he had the house, as it were, before his eyes, that though he
had never substantially seen it, nor been near the place where it stood,
he had seen it figuratively as if in exact painting and sculpture; that
particularly it had four green trees before the door, from whence he was
positive, that if Mr. Saxon went with him in quest of it, he should find
it out, and know it as well the moment he come near it, as if he had
been an inhabitant in it all his life.

Mr. Saxon, though somewhat of an unbeliever, yet must naturally wish to
find it true, you may be sure, and yet partly doubting the event, and
partly pleased with the visionary promise of a fortune he never
expected, laughed very heartily at the oddness of the adventure, and
said he would consider whether it would not savour too much of
Quixotism, to be at the expense of a journey on such frolics, and on
such a chimerical foundation of airy hopes, and that then he would call
again and let Mr. Campbell know his mind upon that point.

In every company he came into, it served for laughter and diversion;
they all, however, agreed it was worth his while, since the journey
would not be very expensive, to go it by way of frolic. His wife, one
morning, saying that she did remember some talk of a house, and such
things as Mr. Campbell had described, put him forward upon the
adventure; and upon Mr. Saxon's proposing it to his brother Barnard, Mr.
Barnard favoured the proposal as a joke, and agreed upon the country
ramble. They came on horseback to Mr. Campbell's with a third horse, on
which the dumb predictor was mounted, and so on they jogged into Kent,
towards Sevenoaks, being the place which he described. The first day
they set out was on a Saturday morning in June, and about five that
afternoon they arrived at the Black Bull, at Sevenoaks, in Kent. It
being a delicate evening, they took an agreeable walk up a fine hill,
gracefully adorned with woods, to an old seat of the Earl of Dorset.
Meeting by the way with an old servant of the earl, one Perkin, he
offered Mr. Barnard, who it seems was his old acquaintance, to give them
all a sight of the fine ancient seat.

After they had pleased themselves with viewing the antique nobility of
that stately structure, this Perkin went back with them to their inn,
the Bull, at Sevenoaks. They that could talk, were very merry in chat;
and the dumb gentleman, who saw them laugh and wear all the signs of
alacrity in their countenances, was resolved not to be behind with their
tongues, and by dint of pen, ink, and paper, that he made signs should
be brought in, was resolved, if one might be said to crack without
noise, to crack his jest as well as the best of them; for it may be
truly said of him, that he seldom comes into any, even diverting
company, where he is not the most diverting man there, and the head,
though we cannot call him the mouth, of the cheerful society. After
having eyed this Perkin a little, and being grown, by his art, as we may
suppose, as familiar with the man's humour as if he had known him as
many years as Mr. Barnard, Pray, Mr. Barnard, quoth he, in writing, how
comes it, you, that are so stanch and so stiff a whig, should be so
acquainted and so particularly familiar with such an old Papist, and so
violent a Jacobite, as I know that Mr. Perkin (whom I never saw nor had
any notice of in my life) to be? And pray, replied Mr. Barnard, what
reason have you beyond a pun to take him for a Jacobite? Must he be so
because his name is Perkin? I do assure you, in this you show yourself
but little of a conjurer; if you can tell no more of houses than you do
of men, we may give over the search after the house you spoke of. (Here
the reader must understand they discoursed on their fingers, and wrote
by turns.) Mr. Campbell replied, seriously, Laying a wager is no
argument in other things, I own, but in this I know it is, because I am
sure, after we have laid the wager, he will fairly confess it among
friends, since it will go no farther; and I, said Mr. Campbell, will lay
what wager you will apiece with you all round. Hereupon, Mr. Barnard,
who had known him a great many years, was the first that laid, and many
more, to the number of five or six, followed his example; the decision
of the matter was deferred till next day at the return of the old man to
the inn, they being about to break up that night and go to bed.

The next day being Sunday, the landlord carried his guests to see the
country, and after a handsome walk, they came through the churchyard.
They were poring upon the tombs; no delight can be greater to Mr.
Campbell than that; and really, by the frequent walks he usually takes
in Westminster abbey, and the churchyards adjacent to this metropolis,
one would imagine he takes delight to stalk along by himself on that
dumb silent ground, where the characters of the persons are only to be
known, as his own meaning is, by writings and inscriptions on the
marble. When they had sufficiently surveyed the churchyard, it grew near
dinner-time, and they went homewards; but before they had got many yards
out of the churchyard, Mr. Campbell makes a full stop, pointing up to a
house, and stopping his friends a little, he pulls out of his pocket a
pencil and paper, and notes down the following words: That, that is the
house my vision presented to me; I could swear it to be the same, I know
it to be the same, I am certain of it. The gentlemen with him remarked
it, would not take any farther notice at that time intending to inquire
into it with secrecy, and so went on to the inn to dinner.

As merry as they had been the night before after supper, they were
still more innocently cheerful this day after dinner, till the time of
service begun. When the duty of the day was performed and over, they
returned to divert and unbend their minds with pleasant but harmless
conversation. I suppose nobody but a set of very great formalists will
be offended with scandal or scruples, that to travellers just ready to
depart the town, Mr. Perkin came on that good day and decided the
wagers, by owning to all the company, secrecy being first enjoined, that
he was a Roman Catholic, though nobody of the family knew it in so many
years as he had lived there, which was before Mr. Campbell was born.
This and other innocent speeches afforded as much cheerfulness as the
Lord's-day would allow of.

On the next day, being Monday, they sent for one Mr. Toland Toler, an
attorney of the place, to find out to whom that house belonged, but by
all the inquiry that could possibly be made with convenient secrecy,
nobody could find it out for a long time; but at last it came to light
and appeared to be justly to a tittle as Mr. Campbell had predicted.

Being now satisfied, the next day our three travellers returned for
London; and the two vocal men were very jocular upon their adventure,
and by their outward gesticulations gave the prophetical mute his share
of diversion. Mr. Barnard, as they passed into a farmhouse-yard,
remarked that all the hogs fell a grunting and squeaking more and more
as Mr. Campbell came nearer, (who, poor man! could know nothing of the
jest, nor the cause of it, till they alighted and told it him by signs
and writing,) said to Mr. Saxon, laughing, Now we have found out our
house, we shall have only Mr. Campbell home again by himself--we have no
farther need of the devil that accompanied him to the country, up to
town with us, there are other devils enow to be met with there he knows;
and so this, according to the fashion of his predecessor devils, is
entered into the herd of swine.

However, the event of this journey, to cut the story short, procured Mr.
Saxon a great insight, upon inquiry, into several affairs belonging to
him, of which he would otherwise have had no knowledge; and he is now
engaged in a chancery suit to do himself justice, and in a fair way of
recovering great sums of money, which, without the consultation he had
with this dumb gentleman, he had in all likelihood never dreamt of.

In the year 1711, a gentleman, whose name shall be, in this place,
Amandus, famed for his exquisite talents in all arts and sciences, but
particularly for his gentlemanlike and entertaining manner of
conversation, whose company was affected by all men of wit, who grew his
friends, and courted by all ladies of an elegant taste, who grew his
admirers; this accomplished gentleman, I say, came to Mr. Campbell, in
order to propound a question to him, which was so very intricate, and so
difficult to answer, that, if he did answer it, it might administer to
himself and the ladies he brought with him, the pleasure of admiration
in seeing a thing so wonderful in itself performed; or, on the other
hand, if he did not make a satisfactory reply to it, then it might
afford him and the ladies a very great delight, in being the first that
puzzled a man who had had the reputation for so many years of being
capable of baffling all the wittiest devices and shrewd stratagems that
had been from time to time invented to baffle his skill and explode his
penetration in the second-sight, and the arts which he pretended to. The
persons whom Amandus brought with him, were the illustrious Lady
Delphina, distinguished for her great quality, but still more celebrated
for her beauty, his own lady, the admired Amabella, and a young blooming
pretty virgin whom we will call by the name of Adeodata, about which
last lady, the question was to be put to Mr. Campbell. Adeodata, it
seems, was the natural daughter of this very fine gentleman, who had
never let her into the knowledge of her own birth, but had bred her up
from her infancy under a borrowed name, in the notion that she was a
relation's daughter, and recommended to his care in her infancy. Now the
man that had the second-sight was to be tried; it was now to be put to
the proof if he could tell names or no? Amandus was so much an
unbeliever as to be willing to hazard the discovery. Amabella and
Delphina were strangers to her real name, and asked Duncan Campbell, not
doubting but he would set down that which she ordinarily went by.
Amabella had indeed been told by Amandus, that Adeodata was the natural
daughter of a near friend of his; but who this near friend was remained
a secret: that was the point which lay upon our Duncan Campbell to
discover. When the question was proposed to him, what her name was, he
looked at her very steadfastly, and shook his head, and after some time
he wrote down that it would be a very difficult name for him to fix
upon. And truly so it proved; he toiled for every letter till he
sweated; and the ladies laughed incontinently, imagining that he was in
an agony of shame and confusion at finding himself posed. He desired
Amandus to withdraw a little, for that he could not so well take a full
and proper survey of ladies' faces when a gentleman was by. This
disturbance and perplexity of his afforded them still more subject of
mirth; and that excuse was taken as a pretence, and a put-off to cover
his shame the better, and hide from one at least, that he was but a
downright bungler in what he pretended to be so wonderful an artist.
However, after two hours hard sweat and labour, and viewing the face in
different shades and lights, (for I must observe to the reader that
there is a vast deal of difference, some he can tell in a minute or two
with ease, some not in less than four or five hours, and that with great
trouble) he undeceived them with regard to his capacity. He wrote down
that Adeodata's real name was Amanda, as being the natural daughter of
Amandus. Delphina and Amabella were surprised at the discovery; and
Amandus, when he was called in, owning it a truth, his wife Amabella
applauded the curious way of her coming by such a discovery, when
Adeodata was just marriageable, took a liking to her as if her own
daughter, and everything ended with profit, mirth, and cheerfulness. I
could add a thousand more adventures of Mr. Campbell's life, but that
would prove tedious; and as the town has made a great demand for the
book, it was thought more proper to conclude it here. The most diverting
of all, are to be found best to the life in original letters that passed
between Mr. Campbell and his correspondents, some select ones of which
will be shortly published in a little pocket volume, for the farther
entertainment of such readers as shall relish this treatise; in which
the author hopes he shall be esteemed to have endeavoured at the
intermingling of some curious disquisitions of learning, with
entertaining passages, and to have ended all the merriest passages with
a sober, instructive, and edifying moral, which even to those who are
not willing to believe the stories, is reckoned sufficient to recommend
even fables themselves.




  APPENDIX.


It is not that Mr. Duncan Campbell stands in need of my arguments, to
prove that he is in no respect liable to the Acts of Parliament made
against fortuntellers, &c., that I undertake the writing of this
Appendix, the true reason thereof being, the more completely to finish
this undertaking; for having, in the body of the book itself, fully
proved a second-sight, and that the same frequently happens to persons,
some of them eminently remarkable for piety and learning, and have from
thence accounted for the manner of Mr. Campbell's performing those
things he professes, to the great surprise, and no less satisfaction of
all the curious who are pleased to consult him; and at the same time
proved the lawfulness of such his performances from the opinions of some
of the most learned in holy science; I thought it not improper to add
the following short Appendix, being a summary of several acts of
parliament made against fortune-tellers, conjurers, Egyptians,
sorcerers, pretenders to prophecy, &c., with some proper remarks, suited
to our present purpose, as well to satisfy them who are fantastically
wise, and obstinately shut their eyes against the most refulgent reason,
and are wilfully deaf to the most convincing and persuasive arguments,
and thereupon cry out, that Mr. Campbell is either an impostor and a
cheat, or at least a person who acts by the assistance of unlawful
powers; as also to put to silence the no less waspish curs, who are
always snarling at such whom providence has distinguished by more
excellent talents than their neighbours. True merit is always the mark
against which traducers level their keenest darts; and wit and invention
oftentimes join hands with ignorance and malice to foil those who excel.
Art has no greater enemy than ignorance; and were there no such thing as
vice, virtue would not shine with half its lustre. Did Mr. Campbell
perform those wonderful things he is so deservedly famous for, as these
cavillers say, by holding intelligence with infernal powers, or by any
unjustifiable means, I am of opinion he would find very few, in this
atheistical age, who would open their mouths against him, since none
love to act counter to the interest of that master they industriously
serve. And did he, on the other hand, put the cheat upon the world, as
they maliciously assert, I fancy he would then be more generally
admired, especially in a country where the game is so universally,
artfully, and no less profitably played, and that with applause since
those pretenders to wisdom merrily divide the whole species of mankind
into the two classes of knaves and fools, fixing the appellation of
folly only upon those whom they think not wise, that is, wicked enough
to have a share with them in the profitable guilt.

Our laws are as well intended by their wise makers to screen the
innocent, as to punish the guilty; and where their penalties are
remarkably severe, the guilt they punish is of a proportionable size.
Art, which is a man's property, when acquired, claims a protection from
those very laws which false pretenders thereto are to be tried and
punished by, or else all science would soon have an end; for no man
would dare make use of any talent providence had lent him, and his own
industrious application had improved, should he be immediately tried and
condemned by those statutes, which are made to suppress villains, by
every conceited and half-learned pedant.

It is true, indeed, those excellent statutes, which are made against a
sort of people, who pretend to fortune-telling and the like, are such as
are well warranted, as being built upon the best foundation, viz.,
religion and policy; and were Mr. Campbell guilty of any such practice
as those are made to punish, I openly declare, that I should be so far
from endeavouring to defend his cause, that I would be one of the first
that should aggravate his crime, thereby to enforce the speedier
execution of those laws upon him, which are made against such offenders.
But when he is so far from acting, that he doth not even pretend to any
such practice, or for countenancing the same in others, as is manifest
from the many detections he has made of that sort of villany, which the
book furnishes us with, I think myself sufficiently justified for thus
pleading in his defence.

I cannot but take notice, in reading the statutes made against such
offenders, our wise legislature hath not in any part of them seemed so
much as to imply that there are in reality any such wicked persons as
they are made against, to wit, conjurors, &c., but that they are only
pretenders to those infernal arts, as may reasonably be inferred from
the nature of the penalties they inflict; for our first laws of that
sort only inflicted a penalty which affected the goods and liberty of
the guilty, and not their lives, though indeed they were afterwards
forced to heighten the punishment with a halter; not that they were
better convinced, as I humbly conceive, but because the criminals were
most commonly persons who had no goods to forfeit, and to whom their
liberty was no otherwise valuable but as it gave them the opportunity of
doing mischief. Indeed our law-books do furnish us with many instances
of persons who have been tried and executed for witchcraft and sorcery,
but then the wiser part of mankind have taken the liberty to condemn the
magistrate, at that time of day, of too much inconsideration, and the
juries of an equal share of credulity; and those who have suffered for
such crimes, have been commonly persons of the lowest rank, whose
poverty might occasion a dislike of them in their fellow-creatures, and
their too artless defence subject them to their mistaken justice; so
that, upon the whole, I take the liberty to conclude, and I hope not
without good grounds, that those laws were made to deter men from an
idle pretence to mysterious and unjustifiable arts, which, if too
closely pursued, commonly lead them into the darkest villany, not only
that of deceiving others, but, as far as in them lie, making themselves
slaves to the devil; and not to prevent and hinder men from useful
inquiries, and from the practice of such arts, which though they are in
themselves mysterious, yet are, and may be lawful.

I would not, however, be thought, in contradiction to my former
arguments, to assert that there never were, or that there now are no
persons such as wizards, sorcerers, &c., for by so doing I should be as
liable to be censured for my incredulity, as those who defame Mr.
Campbell on that account are for their want of reason and common
honesty. Holy and profane writ, I confess, furnishes us with many
instances of such persons; but we must not from thence hastily infer,
that all those men are such who are spitefully branded with the odious
guilt; for were it in the devil's power to make every wicked man a
wizard, and woman a witch, he soon would have agents enough to shake
this lower world to atoms but the Almighty, who restrains him, likewise
restrains those.

Having premised thus much, I shall now proceed to consider some of the
Acts of Parliament themselves; the persons against whom they were made,
and the necessity of making the same. And some of the first Acts we meet
with, were those which were made against a sort of people called
Egyptians; persons who, if in reality such, might, if any, be suspected
of practising what we call the black art, the same having been for many
ages encouraged in their country; nay, so much has it been by them
favoured, that it was introduced into their superstitious religion, if I
may without an absurdity call it so, and made an essential part thereof;
and, I believe, Mahometanism has not much mended the matter, since it
has imperiously reigned there, or in any respect reformed that
idolatrous nation. Now the mischief these persons might do, being so
much in the devil's power, among the unwary, was thought too
considerable not to be provided against; and therefore our wise
legislature, the more effectually to prevent the same, by striking at
the very foundation, made an act in 22 Henry VIII. 8: That if any,
calling themselves Egyptians, do come into this realm, they shall
forfeit all their goods; and being demanded, shall depart the realm
within fifteen days, upon pain of imprisonment; and the importers of
them, by another act, were made liable to a heavy penalty. This act was
continued by the 1 Philip and Mary. Conjuration, witchcraft,
enchantment, and sorcery, to get money, or consume any person in his
body, members, or goods, or to provoke any person to unlawful love, was
by the 33 Henry VIII. 14. and the 5 Elizabeth 16. and the 1 James I. 12.
made felony; and by the same 33 Henry VIII. 14. it was made felony to
declare to another any false prophecies upon arms, &c., but this act was
repealed by the 1 Edward VI. 12., but by another act of the 3 and 4 of
Edward VI. 15. it was again enacted, That all such persons who should
pretend to prophecies, &c., should, upon conviction, for the first
offence forfeit ten pounds, and one year's imprisonment; and for the
second offence, all his goods, and imprisonment for life. And by the 7
Edward VI. 11. the same was made to continue but till the then next
sessions of parliament. And by the 5 Elizabeth 15. the same act was
again renewed against fantastical prophesiers, &c., but both those acts
were repealed by the 1 James I. 12.

Thus far we find, that for reasons of state, and for the punishment of
particular persons, those acts were made and repealed, as occasion
required, and not kept on foot, nor indeed were they ever made use of,
as I can remember in my reading, against any persons whose studies led
them into a useful inquiry into the nature of things, or a lawful search
into the workings of nature itself, by which means many things are
foretold long before they come to pass, as eclipses and the like, which
astrologers successfully do, whose art has been in all ages held in so
great esteem that the first monarchs of the East made it their peculiar
study, by which means they deservedly acquired to themselves the name of
Magi, or wise men; but, on the contrary, were provided against persons
profligate and loose, who, under a pretence and mask of science, commit
vile and roguish cheats; and this will the more plainly appear, if we
consider the letter and express meaning of the following Acts, wherein
the persons I am speaking of, are described by such characters, which
sufficiently prove the assertion; for in the 39 of Elizabeth 4. it was
enacted, That all persons calling themselves scholars, going about
begging, seafaring men pretending losses of their ships and goods at
sea, and going about the country begging, or using any subtle craft,
feigning themselves to have knowledge in physiognomy, palmistry, or any
other the like crafty science, or pretending that they can tell
destinies, fortunes, or such like fantastical imaginations, shall be
taken and deemed rogues, vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and shall be
stripped naked from the middle upwards, and whipped till his or her body
be bloody. And by the 1 James I. 12. for the better restraining of the
said offences, and for the farther punishing the same, it was farther
enacted, That any person or persons using witchcraft, sorcery, &c., and
all their aiders, abettors, and counsellors, being convicted, and
attainted of the same offences, shall suffer pain of death, as felons,
without the benefit of clergy; or to tell and declare in what place any
treasure of gold and silver should or might be found in the earth, or
other secret places; or where goods or things lost or stolen should be
found or become; or to provoke any person to unlawful love, such
offender to suffer imprisonment for one whole year without bail or
mainprise, and once in every quarter of the said year shall in some
market-town, or upon the market-day, or at any such time as any fair
shall be kept there, stand openly in the pillory by the space of six
hours, and there shall openly confess his or their offence; and for the
second offence shall suffer death as felons, without the benefit of
clergy.

That these laws were made against a set of villains, whose natural
antipathy to honesty and labour furnished them with pretensions to an
uncommon skill, thereby the more easily to gull and cheat the
superstitiously credulous, and by that means discover from them some
such secrets that might farther them in perpetrating the more consummate
villany, is plain from the very words and expressions of the very Acts
themselves, and the description of the persons they are made against;
and not, as I before observed, to prevent and hinder men from the lawful
inquiry after useful, delightful, and profitable knowledge.

Mr. Campbell, who has been long a settled and reputable inhabitant in
many eminent parts of the city of London, cannot, I am sure, be looked
upon as one of those these Acts of Parliament were made against, unless
we first strip the Acts themselves of their own natural, express, and
plain meaning, and clothe them with that which is more obscure,
unnatural, forced, and constrained a practise; which, if allowed, would
make them wound the innocent and clear the guilty, and render them not
our defence but our greatest evil; they would, by that means, become a
perfect enigma, and be so far from being admired for their plainness,
that they would be even exploded like the oracles of the heathen for
their double meaning.

If Mr. Campbell has the second-sight, as is unquestionable, from the
allowed maxim, that what has been may be again, and by that means can
take a view of contingences and future events; so long as he confines
these notices of approaching occurrences to a good purpose, and makes
use of them only innocently and charitably to warn persons from doing
such things, that according to his conceptions would lead them into
misfortune, or else in putting them upon such arts that may be of use
and benefit to themselves and posterity, always having a strict regard
to morality and religion, to which he truly adheres; certainly, I think,
he ought so much the more to be admired for the same, by how much the
more this his excellent knowledge is surpassing that of other men, and
not be therefore unjustly upbraided with the injurious character of a
cheat, or an ill man: however, this I will presume to affirm, and I
doubt not but to have my opinion confirmed by the learned sages of the
law, that this his innocent practice, and I venture to add, honest one
too, doth by no means entitle him to the penalties of the
before-mentioned laws made against fortune-tellers, and such sort of
profligate wretches; which it is as great an absurdity to decry, as it
would be to call him, who is a settled and reputable inhabitant, a
stroller or wandering beggar.

Again; it is true that Mr. Campbell has relieved many that have been
supposed to have been bewitched, as is related and well attested in the
book of his life; but will any one from thence argue that he himself is
a real conjurer, or wizard, because he breaks the chains by which those
unhappy wretches were bound? No, surely; for if that were the case, we
might then as well indict the physician who drives away a malignant
distemper, and roots out its latent cause by his mysterious skill in
plants and drugs; or conclude that the judge, who condemns a criminal,
is for the same reason guilty of the self-same crime for which the
offender is so by him condemned. Persons who delight in such unnatural
conclusions, must certainly be in love with the greatest absurdities,
and must entirely abandon their natural reason before they can be
brought to conclude that the Prince of Darkness would assist men in
destroying his own power.

The best answer I can afford those men is silence; for if they will not
argue upon the principles of reason, or be guided by her dictates, I
think them no more fit to be contended with in a rational and decent
manner than bedlamites, and such who are bereft of all understanding. A
rod is the best argument for the back of a fool, and contempt the best
usage that ought to be shown to every headstrong and ignorant opponent.

In a word, I know of no branch of Mr. Campbell's practice that bears the
least resemblance to those crimes mentioned in the foregoing Acts. That
he can and doth tell people's names at first sight, though perfect
strangers to him, is confessed by all who have made the curious inquiry
at his hands; but what part of the Acts, I would fain know, is that
against? Knowledge, and a clear sight into things not common, is not
only an allowable, but a commendable qualification; and whether this
knowledge in him be inherent, accidental, or the result of a long study,
the case is still the same; since we are assured he doth it by no
unlawful intelligence, or makes use of the same to any ill purpose, and
therefore is undoubtedly as lawful as to draw natural conclusions from
right premises. Hard is the fate of any man to be ignorant, but much
harder would his lot be if he were to be punished for being wise; and,
like Mr. Campbell, excelling others in this kind of knowledge.

Much more might be said in defence of Mr. Campbell and the art he
professeth, but as the arguments which are brought against him by his
enemies on the one hand, are trivial and ill-grounded, I therefore think
they deserve no farther refutation; so on the other, his innocency is
too clear to require it.

After having thus taken a survey of Mr. Campbell's acts, with regard to
their legality according to the statutes and the laws of the nation
wherein he lives, we will consider next, whether, according to the
stated rules of casuistry, among the great divines eminent for their
authority, it may be lawful for Mr. Campbell to predict, or for good
Christian persons to visit his house, and consult him about his
predictions. I have upon this head examined all the learned casuists I
could meet with in ancient times, for I cannot meet, in my reading, with
any moderns that treat thoroughly upon this case, or I should rather
have chosen them, because, perhaps, the second-sight was less known in
those ancient days than it has been since, and so might escape their
notice.

My design is first to give the reader a distinct summary of all that has
been said of this matter, and to do it as succinctly and briefly as
possible, and then to argue myself from what they agree upon as to this
man's particular case.

That the reader may have recourse to the authors themselves, if they
have a curiosity, and find that I do not go about to impose upon their
judgments, I will here tell the reader where he may find the whole
contents of the following little abstract of divinity and casuistry,
because it would be a tedious piece of work to set down the words of
each of them distinctly, and quote them every one round at the end of
their several different sentences, which tend to the same meaning, but I
will strictly keep to the sense of them all; and I here give the reader
their names, and the places, that he may consult them himself, if his
inclination leads him to be so curious: Thomas Aquinas, iv. _Distin._
34. _Quaestio._ 1. _Art. 3_; Bona, ii. _Dist. 7. Art. 2. Quaest._ 1;
Joannes Major, iv. _Dist. 34. Quaest. 2_; Sylvester, _Verbo Malefico.
Quaest. 8_; Rosella, _Verb Impedimentum_, xv. cap. 18; Tabiena, _Verb.
Impedimentum_, 12 vers.; Cajetan, tom. ii. _Opusc. 12. de Malefic_;
Alphonsus, _a Cast._ lib. x. _de Justa Haereticorum Punitione_, cap. 15;
Cosmus Philiarchus, _de Offic. Sacerdot_, p. 2. lib. iii. cap. 11;
Toletus, _in Summa._ lib. iv., cap. 16; Spineus, _in Tract. de
Strigibus_; Petrus Binsfield, _in Tract. de Confessionibus Maleficorum_.

These divines have generally written upon impious arts of magic, which
they call by the name of divination; and this divination, as they term
it, they divide into two kinds; the one, in which the devil is expressly
invoked, to teach hidden and occult things; the other, in which he is
tacitly called upon to do the same. An express invocation is made by
word or deed, by which a real pact is actually made with the devil, and
that is a sin that affects the death of the soul, according to the laws
of theology, and ought to affect the death of the body, according to
civil and political laws. The tacit invocation of demons is then only,
when a man busies himself so far with such persons, that it is meet and
just that the devil should be permitted to have to do with him, though
it was opposite to the intention of the man.

But then this express invocation is again subdivided into several
species, according to the divers manners by which the devil instructs
these men.

The first is enchantment, which I need not describe, and of which I will
speak no more, because it is what everybody knows to be detestable, and
nobody ought to know the art thereof.

The second is divination by dreams, when any instructions are expected
from the devil by way of dream, which is a capital crime.

The third is called necromancy, which is, when by the use of blood and
writing, or speaking certain verses, the dead seem to rise again, and
speak and teach future things. For though the devil cannot recall a soul
departed, yet he can, as some have thought, take the shape of the dead
corpse, himself actuate it by his subtlety, as if it was informed with a
soul. And some affirm, that by the divine permission the devil can do
this, and spake so in the case of Samuel and Saul. But divines of a more
solid genius attribute that power only to the Deity, and say, with
reason, that it is beyond the devil's capacity. But it is certain this
was a divination done in dead animals by the use of their blood, and
therefore the word is derived from the Greek [Greek: nekron], which
signifies dead, and [Greek: Manthea], which signifies divination.

The fourth species is called divination by the Pythians, which was taken
from Apollo, the first diviner, as Thomas Aquinas says in his _Secunda
Secundae, Quaest. 95. Art. 3_.

The fifth is called geomancy, which is when the devil teaches anything
by certain signs appearing in the earthly bodies, as in wood, iron, or
polished stones, beryls, or glass.

The sixth is named hydromancy, as when a demon teaches anything by
appearances in the water.

The seventh is styled aeromancy; and it is when he informs people of such
things by figures in the air.

The eighth is entituled pyromancy; that is, when it instructs people by
forms appearing in the fire.

The ninth is termed aruspicy; which is when by signs appearing in the
bowels of sacrificed animals the demon predicts at altars.

Thus far as to express divination, or invocation of the devil, which is
detestable; and the very consulting of persons that use such unlawful
means is, according to the judgment of all casuists, the high road to
eternal damnation.

Now as to tacit divination, or invocation of the devil, that is divided
into two subaltern kinds. The first kind is, when for the sake of
knowing hidden things, they make use of a vain and superstitious
disposition existing in things to judge from; which disposition is not
of a sufficient virtue to lead them to any real judgment. The second
kind of tacit divination is, when that knowledge is sought by the
disposition of those things which men effect on purpose and of their own
accord, in order to come by and acquire that knowledge.

Both these kinds of tacit divination are again subdivided into several
species, as are particularly mentioned by St. Thomas, _Secunda Secundae,
Quaest. 95, Art. 3_; Gregory de Valentine, tom. iii. _Disput. 6. Quaest.
12. Puncto 2_; Toletus, _in Summa._ lib. iv. cap. 15; and Michael
Medina, lib. ii. _de Recta in Deum fide: post Sanctum Augustinum_. lib.
ii. _de Doct. Christ._ cap. 19. _et seq_.

The first of these kinds of tacit divination contains under it the
following several species:--

The first species is called Genethliacal, which is when from the
movement or situation of the stars, men's nativities are calculated and
inquired into so far, as that from such a search they pretend to deduce
the knowledge of human effects, and the contingent events that are to
attend them. This Thomas Aquinas and Sixtus Quintus condemns; but I
shall, with humility and submission to greater judgments, inquire
hereafter into their reasons, and give my opinion why I think this no
evil art; but I submit my opinion, if, after it is given, it is thought
erroneous.

The second is augury, when anything is predicted from the chattering of
birds, or the voice of animals, and this may be either lawful or
unlawful. If it comes from natural instinct, for brutes having only a
sensitive soul, have their organs subject to the disposition of the
greater bodies in which they are contained, and principally of all to
the celestial bodies, his augury is not amiss. For if when crows are
remarked to caw, as the vulgar phrase is, more than ordinary, it is,
judging according to the instinct of their nature, if we expect rain,
and we may reasonably depend upon it, we shall be right if we foretell
rain to be at hand. But sometimes the devils actuate those brute animals
to excite vain ideas in men, contrary to what the instinct of their
nature compels them to. This is superstitious and unlawful, and forbid
in holy writ.

The third is aruspicy, when from the flight of birds, or any other
motion of any animals whatsoever, persons pretend to have an insight and
a penetrative knowledge into occult and hidden matters.

The fourth consists in omens, when, for example, a man from any words
which others may have spoken on purpose, or by accident, pretends to
gather a way of looking into and knowing anything of futurity.

The fifth is chiromancy, which consists in making a pretence to the
knowledge of future things by the figures and the lines of the hands;
and if it be by consulting the shoulder-bones of any beast, it goes by
the name of spatulamancy.

       *       *       *       *       *

As the first kind of divination, by a tacit invocation of the devil is
divided into the five species above mentioned; so also is the second
kind of tacit divination, or invocation of the devil, divided into two
species by St. Thomas of Aquin.

_Secunda Secundae, questione nonagesima quinta articulo tertio_, and too
tedious to insert here.

Now all these ways are by these divines counted wicked, and I set them
down that people may avoid them. For how many gipsies and pretenders to
chiromancy have we in London and in the country? How many that are for
hydromancy, that pretend in water to show men mighty mysteries? And how
many in geomancy, with their beryls and their glasses, that, if they are
not under the instigation of the devil, propagate the scandal at least
by being cheats, and who ought to be punished to the utmost severity, as
our English laws enact? Mr. Campbell, who hates, contemns, and abhores
these ways, ought, methinks, to be encouraged by their being restrained;
and people of curious tempers, who always receive from him moral and
good instructions, which make them happy in the conduct of life, should
be animated in a public manner to consult him, in order to divert the
curious itch of their humours from consulting such wicked impostors, or
diabolical practisers, as too frequently abound in this nation, by
reason of the inquisitive vulgar, who are more numerous in our climate,
than any I ever read of.

But now to argue the case of conscience with regard to his particular
practice by way of the second-sight, whether, _in foro conscientiae_, it
is lawful for him to follow it, or others to consult him? The divines
above mentioned having never had any notice of that faculty in all
likelihood, or if they had, never mentioned it, makes it a point more
difficult for me to discuss; but I think they have stated some cases, by
the making of which my premises, I can deduce from all the learned men I
have above quoted, a conclusion in favour of our Mr. Duncan Campbell,
and of those who consult him; but my opinion shall be always corrected
by those who are wiser than myself, and to whom I owe entire submission.
I take leave to fix these premises from them first, and to form my
argument from them afterwards in the following manner:--

First, It is allowed by all these divines, that a knowledge which one
may have of future things within the order of nature, is and may be
lawful.

Secondly, They imply, that where justice is not violated, it is lawful
both to predict and to consult.

Thirdly, Many of them, but particularly Aureolus, puts this question:
Is it lawful to go to one that deals in the black art, to persuade them
to cure any innocent body that another necromancer or dealer in the
black art may have maliciously afflicted and tormented with pains? And
some of these casuists, particularly Aureolus, say, it is lawful on such
an occasion to go to such a conjurer, because the end is not
conjuration, but freeing a person from it.

But I take leave to dissent from these great men, and think they are in
a double mistake; first, in stating the question, and then in making
such an answer, provided the question had been stated right.

The question is founded upon this supposition, which is passed by as
granted, viz., that one necromancer could release a person bewitched by
another, which is absolutely false; for it is against the nature of the
devil to be made an instrument to undo his own works of impiety. But
admitting and not granting this to be possible, and the question to be
rightly stated, why still these casuists are out in their answer. It is
lawful, reply they, because the end of going to the conjurers, is not
conjuration, but freeing a good person from it; but the end is not the
point here to be considered, it is the medium, which is bad, that is to
be considered. It is by conjuration, according to their hypothesis, the
other conjuration is to be dissolved; and does not the common rule, that
a man must not do evil that good may come of it, forbid this practice?
And to speak my opinion plainly in that case, the friend that should
consult a conjurer for that end, would be only so kind to put his own
soul in danger of being guilty of hell torments, to relieve his
afflicted friend from some bodily pains, which it would be a virtue in
him to suffer with patience and resignation.

Others, almost all divines, indeed, agree, that it is and may be lawful
to go to a conjurer that torments another, and give him money not to
afflict the patient any longer; because that is only feeing him to
desist from acting after his conjuring manner.

These premises thus settled, if we allow the second-sight to be inborn
and inbred, and natural and common to some families, which is proved in
the book; and if all that Mr. Campbell has predicted in that
second-sighted way terminates with moral advice, and the profit of the
consulter, and without the violation of justice to others, as the book
shows all throughout; if he can relieve from witchcraft, as it seems
oath is to be had he can, which no one that deals in black art can do,
why then I need not draw the conclusion, every reader will do it
naturally; they will avow all the strictest laws of casuistry and
morality to be in favour of Mr. Campbell and his consulters.




  VERSES

  TO MR. CAMPBELL,

  ON THE

  HISTORY OF HIS LIFE AND ADVENTURES.


    I court no muse amidst the tuneful throng,
    Thy genii, Campbell, shall inspire my song;
    The gentle summons every thought obeys,
    Wakens my soul, and tunes it all to lays.
    Among the thousand wonders thou hast shown,
    I, in a moment, am a poet grown;
    The rising images each other meet;
    Fall into verse, and dance away with feet:
    Now with thy Cupid and thy lamb I rove[A],
    Through ev'ry bloomy mead and fragrant grove.
    A thousand things I can myself divine,
    Thy little genii whispers them to mine;
    Beyond the grave I see thy deathless fame,
    The fair and young all singing Campbell's name;
    And Love himself--for Love and thou art friends,
    He joins the chorus, and his dart defends.
    What noisy talker can thy magic boast?
    Let those dull wretches try who scorn thee most.
    O, sacred silence! let me ever dwell,
    With the sweet muses, in thy lonely cell!
    Or else bind up, in thy eternal chain,
    Scandal and noise, and all that talk in vain.

                                         M. FOWKE.




  TO MRS. FOWKE,

  OCCASIONED BY THE FOREGOING VERSES

    Sweet nightingale! whose artful numbers show,
    Expressive eloquence to silent woe,
    Sing on, and in thy sex's power presume,
    By praising Campbell, to strike nations dumb.

      Whene'er you sing, silent, as he, they'll stand,
    Speak by their eyes, grow eloquent by hand:
    Tongues are confusion, but as learnt by you,
    All but Pythagoras's doctrine's true;
    Campbell and he taught silence--had he heard
    How much thy lays to silence were preferr'd,
    He had recanted from thy powerful song,
    And justly wish'd each organ had a tongue.

      But could he see, what you, in every line,
    Prophetic tell of Campbell's sight divine,
    Like Croesus's sons his loosened nerves must break,
    And ask the cause--or make his Campbell speak.

    G. S.

       *       *       *       *       *

  TO MR. CAMPBELL.

    Milton's immortal wish[B] you sure must feel,
    To point those fates which you to all reveal;
    If second-sight so much alarms mankind,
    What transports must it give to know thy mind?
    Thy book is but the shadow of thy worth,
    Like distant lights, which set some picture forth.
    But if the artist's skill we nearer trace,
    And strictly view each feature of the face,
    We find the charm that animates the whole,
    And leave the body to adore the soul.
    Milton's immortal wish you sure must feel,
    To point those fates which you to all reveal.

                                       I. PHILIPS.


       *       *       *       *       *

  THE PARALLEL

  TO MR. CAMPBELL.

    As Denham sings, mysterious 'twas, the same
    Should be the prophet's and the poet's name[C];
    But while the sons of genius join to praise,
    What thine presaging dictates to their lays,
    The things they sweetly sing, and you foreshow,
    Open the Sampson riddle to our view;
    Strong are thy prophecies, their numbers sweet,
    And with the lion combs of honey meet.

      Late on fantastic cabalistic schemes,
    Of waking whimsies, or of feverish dreams,
    New cobweb threads of poetry were spun,
    In gaudy snares, like flies, were witlings won,
    Their brains entangled, and our art undone.

      Pope, first, descended from a monkish race,
    Cheapens the charms of art, and daubs her face;
    From Gabalis[D] his mushroom fictions rise,
    Lop off his sylphs--and his Belinda[E] dies;
    The attending insects hover in the air,
    No longer than they're present is she fair;
    Some dart those eyebeams, which the youths beguile,
    And some sit conquering in a dimpling smile.
    Some pinch the tucker, and some smooth the smock.
    Some guard an upper, some a lower lock;
    But if these truant body-guards escape,
    In whip the gnomes and strait commit a rape;
    The curling honours of her head they seize,
    Hairs less in sight, or any hairs they please;
    But if to angry frowns her brow she bends,
    Upon her front some sullen gnome descends,
    Whisks through the furrows with its airy form,
    Bristles her eyebrows and 'directs the storm.'

      As wide from these are Addisonian themes,
    As angels' thoughts are from distempered dreams;
    Spenser and he, to image nature, knew,
    Like living persons, vice and virtue drew:
    At once instructed and well pleas'd we read,
    While in sweet morals these two poets lead,
    No less to wisdom than to wit pretence,
    They led by music, but they led to sense.

      But Pope scarce ever force to fancy joins,
    With dancing-master's feet equips his lines,
    Plumes empty fancy, and in tinsel shines.
    Or if by chance his judgment seems to lead,
    Where one poor moral faintly shows its head,
    'Tis like a judge, that reverently drest,
    Peeps through the pageants at a lord may'r's feast;
    By starts he reasons, and seems wise by fits,
    Such wit's call'd wisdom, that has lost its wits.

      Unnam'd by me this witling bard had been,
    Had not the writer's caused the reader's sin;
    But less by comedies and lewd romances,
    Are ruin'd, less by French lascivious dances,
    Than by such rhymers' masqueraded fancies.

      From such the root of superstition grew,
    Whose old charms fertile, daily branch'd in new;
    From such chimeras first inspired, the fair
    The conj'rer's ring approach'd, and Jesuit's chair;
    Throng'd to the doors where magic rogues divin'd,
    And sold out _ignes fatui_ to the mind.

      Wizards and Jesuits differ but in name,
    Both demon's envoys, and their trade the same;
    Weak wills they lead, and vapour'd minds command,
    And play the game into each others' hand;
    Like spiritual jugglers at the cup and ball,
    Rising by foolish maids, that long to fall.
    Some into love they damn, and some they pray,
    For greensick minds are caught a different way;
    To the same end, tho' several paths, they run,
    Priests to undo and maids to be undone;
    Some blacker charms, some whiter spells cajole,
    As some lick wall and some devour a coal.
    Here ladies, strong in vapours, see men's faces
    Imprinted in the conjurer's dazzling glasses,
    There, when, in spring time, the too praying priest,
    Toasts, and does something better,--to the best
    A spouse is promised on next Baptist's[F] feast.
    First some young contrite rake's enjoined to marry,
    Lest--madam's forc'd to squeak for't--or, miscarry:
    In June, the lass does to the fields repair,
    Where good sir Domine just took the air.
    When, O strange wonder! near a plaintain root,
    She finds a coal--and so a spouse to boot.
    She longs to dream and to secure the sport
    That very day the youth design'd--must court,
    He does--she struck with rapture and delight.
    Bespeaks her fancy--strongly--dreams at night.
    The yielding fair, the ravish'd youth obtains,
    A maid she passes--so his child's free gains,
    He has the pleasure, yet is sav'd the pains.
    Thus when priest's wench--to cure the growing evil
    Poor St. John Baptist must forerun the devil.

      But if the ladies fall, at fall of leaf,
    Or in the winter--still there's fresh relief;
    Let her lace close four months, and if she can,
    St. Agnes[G] heals the breach and brings the man.
    Thus a lewd priest to vapour'd virgins cants,
    And into pimps reverts his vestal saints.

      O! dire effects of mask'd impiety!
    And shall they, Christian muse! have aids from thee;
    Wilt thou, like witty heathens, lewdly given,
    To a Gehenna metamorphose Heaven?
    Wilt thou?--O no--forbid th' unhallow'd song,
    Such profanations to Rome's bard belong.
    Let one, who gods and goddesses adores,
    Paint them like rakes and bullies, bawds, and whores.

      Our genii, Campbell, shall be all divine,
    Shall high o'er theirs as much distinguish'd shine,
    As o'er such priests or chiromancers, thine.
    Thine, which does future time's events command
    To leap to sight, and in thy presence stand;
    Thine, whose eyes glowing with a gifted ray,
    New roads of life o'er wisdom's Alps survey,
    And guide benighted travellers to day.
    Let me, for once, a daring prophet be,
    Mark from this hour--and poetry thoul't see
    Date a new era from thy book and thee;
    Thy book, where, thro' the stories, thou hast laid,
    All moral wisdom's to the mind convey'd;
    And thus far prophecies each page, that all
    Must rise by virtues, or by vices fall.

      Poets shall blush to see their wit outdone,
    Resume their reason and assert its throne,
    Shall fables still for virtue's sake commend;
    And wit the means, shall wisdom make its end.

      Who hopes to please, shall strive to please by pains,
    Shall gaining fame, earn hard whate'er he gains
    And Denham's morals join to Denham's strains.
    Here paint the Thames[H] 'when running to the sea
    Like mortal life to meet eternity.'
    There show both kings and subjects 'one excess,
    Makes both, by striving, to be greater, less.'
    Shall climb and sweat, and falling, climb up still,
    Before he gains the height of Cooper's Hill.

      In Windsor Forest, if some trifling grace
    Gives, at first blush, the whole a pleasing face,
    'Tis wit, 'tis true; but then 'tis common-place.
    The landscape-writer branches out a wood,
    Then digging hard for't finds a silver flood.
    Here paints the woodcock quiv'ring in the air,
    And there, the bounding stag and quaking hare.
    Describes the pheasant's scarlet-circled eye,
    And next the slaught'ring gun that makes him die.
    From common epithets that fame derives,
    By which his most uncommon merit lives.
    'Tis true! if finest notes alone could show,
    (Tun'd justly high or regularly low,)
    That we should fame to these mere vocals give,
    Pope more, than we can offer, should receive.
    For, when some gliding river is his theme,
    His lines run smoother than the smoothest stream;
    Not so when thro' the trees fierce Boreas blows,
    The period blust'ring with the tempest grows.
    But what fools periods read for periods' sake?
    Such chimes improve not heads, but make 'em ache;
    Tho' strict in cadence on the numbers rub,
    Their frothy substance is whip-syllabub;
    With most seraphic emptiness they roll,
    Sound without sense, and body without soul.

      Not such the bards that give you just applause,
    Each, from intrinsic worth, thy praises draws,
    Morals, in ev'ry page, where'er they look,
    They find divinely scatter'd thro' thy book:
    They find thee studious with praiseworthy strife,
    To smooth the future roads of human life,
    To help the weak, and to confirm the strong,
    Make our griefs vanish, and our bliss prolong,
    With Phineus' equal find thy large desert,
    And in thy praise would equal Milton's art.

      Some fools, we know, in spite of nature born,
    Would make thee theirs, as they are mankind's scorn,
    For still 'tis one of truth's unerring rules,
    No sage can rise without a host of fools.
    Coxcombs, by whose eternal din o'ercome,
    The wise in just revenge, might wish them dumb,
    Say on the world your dumbness you impose,
    And give you organs they deserve to lose.
    Impose, indeed, on all the world you would,
    If you but held your tongue, because you could;
    'Tis hard to say, if keeping silence still,
    In one, who, could he speak, would speak with skill,
    Is worse, or talk in these, who talk so ill.
    Why on that tongue should purposed silence dwell,
    Whence every word would drop an oracle?
    More fools of thy known foresight make a jest,
    For all bate greatest gifts who share the least,
    (As Pope calls Dryden the often to the test[I])
    Such from thy pen, should Irwin's sentence[J] wait,
    And at the gallows own the judge of fate.
    Or, while with feeble impotence they rail,
    Write wonders on, and with the wise prevail.

      Sooner shall Denham cease to be renown'd,
    Or Pope for Denham's sense quit empty sound,
    To Addison's immortal heights shall rise,
    Or the dwarf reach him in his native skies.
    Sooner shall real gipsies grow most fair,
    Or false ones mighty truths like thine declare,
    Than these poor scandal-mongers hit their aim,
    And blemish thine or Curll's acknowledg'd fame.

      Great Nostradamus thus, his age advis'd,
    The mob his counsels jeer'd, some bards[K] despis'd
    Him still, neglecting these his genius fir'd,
    A king encourag'd, and the world admir'd;
    Greater (as times great tide increas'd) he grew,
    When distant ages proved what truths he knew;
    Thy nobler book a greater king received,
    Whence I predict, and claim to be believ'd,
    That by posterity, less fame shall be
    To Nostradamus granted, than to thee;
    Thee! whom the best of Kings does so defend,
    And (myself barring) the best bards commend.

                                      H. STANHOPE.

    Whitehall,
    June 6th, 1720.


  [A] See Mr. Campbell's Life, p. 43.


  [B]                         To see and tell
    Of things invisible to mortal sight,
                                    PARADISE LOST.

  [C] (Vates) See the Progress of Learning.

  [D] See the History of the Count de Gabalis, from whence he has taken
      the machinery of his Rape of the Lock.

  [E] Mrs. F--m--r.

  [F] See the Dedication of Mr. Campbell's Life.

  [G] See Mr. Campbell's Dedication.

  [H] See Cooper's Hill.

  [I] See many places of his notes on Homer.

  [J] See Mr. Campbell's Life, page 80.

  [K] Alluding to this verse, "sed cum falsa Damus, nil nisi Nostra
  Damus."


  THE END OF DUNCAN CAMPBELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

  TRANSCRIBER NOTES:

    Punctuation corrected without note.

    Archaic spellings have been retained.

    The following corrections have been made:

    page iv: "two" changed to "too" (too long to dwell upon).

    page 8: "dedelighted" changed to "delighted" (however, delighted
    extremely in this way).

    page 13: "off" changed to "of" (night not be despaired of.).

    page 14: "a" added for continuity (for she that can dally with a
    heart).

    page 15: "governer" changed to "governor" (who is the governor of
    Uma).

    page 25: "Willis" changed to "Wallis" (An Extract from Dr.
    Wallis).

    page 36: "hiting" changed to "hitting" (that he seldom missed
    hitting).

    page 44: "vension" changed to "venison" (to bring a side of
    venison to me).

    page 47: "be" added for continuity (no demonstrative proof is to
    be had on either side).

    page 143: "their" changed to "there" (and left there alone).

    page 153: "know" changed to "known" (by persons of known credit).

    page 180: "inbord" changed to "inborn" (if we allow the
    second-sight to be inborn).

    page 180: "onger" changed to "longer" (not to afflict the patient
    any longer).








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