NIGHT IV.

WARNINGS OF APPROACHING DEATH.

SOPHRON. We have need, again and again, to remind ourselves, as we pursue this discussion, that what has been superstitiously exaggerated may, nevertheless, be credibly believed. Nothing more ludicrous, nothing more vulgar, nothing more pitiable, than the credit which some attach to omens; and verily I believe that Satan is sometimes permitted to verify one or two, that the sin of believers in such kind of signs may bring its own punishment.

PISTUS. I think so too: there are well-authenticated stories of the most absurd omens having been proved true by the event, in a way which can hardly be the effect of chance, but which may thus be very plausibly, if not probably, explained.

SOPHRON. I will give you an instance. Who can suppose that the vulgar ideas of the appearance of certain birds portending certain events, is any thing more than gross superstition, and, as such (unless through invincible ignorance), a mor

tal sin? Yet I knew a gentleman to whom a most remarkable example of a fulfilled omen occurred. He was out with his wife on their wedding tour, when, behold! six magpies appeared together. "Well," said my friend, smiling, "we know the old saw

"One for sorrow, two for mirth,

Three for a funeral, four for a birth.'

So, on that principle, we ought to hear of two funerals." "I suppose we ought," continued the lady, and nothing more was said on the subject; but they had not driven on more than a few moments, when a man rode towards them at full speed, and reined in his horse as he approached the chaise. "What's the matter?" demanded my friend. "A most shocking thing has just occurred," replied the man. "Two of Mr. -'s sons (who live over there)," and he pointed to the place, "have just been drowned in a pond in the park; they are using all the means to bring them round, and I am riding to for the surgeon." With which he struck spurs into his horse, and galloped on. And as my friend was accustomed, very justly, to observe, not the least wonderful part of the story is, that a perfect stranger should, apparently without any definite cause, have stopped to relate the accident then.

PISTUS. We ought to look on such an event as a trial of the faith of the person to whom it happened. And no doubt your friend was bound, if

ever he again saw six or sixty magpies, to look on the appearance as perfectly meaningless and harmless; and in this way to make good the cause of faith against superstition, no less its deadly foe than scepticism.

THEODORA. You do not class with this story such remarkable accounts as those given by Lord Clarendon about the death of the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Pembroke?

PISTUS. Assuredly not. We have good evidence for them and I ask only for such evidence as would warrant my believing any tale against which an antecedent improbability lay.

EUSEBIA. But what are the accounts? I do not remember them.

SOPHRON. I will read you that given by Mr. Douch with respect to Sir George Villiers, rather than Clarendon's, because it seems more exact; and you can look at the other at your leisure any day. "Some few days before the duke's going to Portsmouth, where he was stabbed by Felton, the ghost of his father, Sir George Villiers, appeared to one Parker, formerly his own servant, but then servant to the duke, in his morning gown, charging Parker to tell his son that he should decline that employment and design he was going upon, or else he would certainly be murdered. Parker promised the apparition to do it, but neglected it. The duke making preparations for his expedition to Rochelle, the apparition came again to Parker, taxing him very se

verely for his breach of promise, and required him not to delay the acquainting of his son of the danger he was in. Then Parker the next day tells the duke that his father's ghost had twice appeared to him, and had commanded him to give him that warning. The duke slighted it, and told him he was an old doating fool. That night the apparition came to Parker a third time, saying, 'Parker, thou hast done well in warning my son of his danger; but, though he will not yet believe thee, go to him once more however, and tell him by such a token,' naming a private token, 'which nobody knows but only he and I, that if he will not decline this voyage, such a knife as this is,' pulling a long knife out from under his gown, 'will be his death.' This message Parker also delivered the next day to the duke, who when he heard the private token believed that he had it from his father's ghost, yet said that his honour was now at stake, and that he could not go back from what he had undertaken, come life, come death. These three several appearances of the apparition to Mr. Parker were always at midnight, when he was reading some book. This fact Parker, after the duke's murder, communicated to his fellow-servant, Henry Ceeley, who told it to a reverend divine, a neighbour of mine, from whose mouth I have it. This Henry Ceeley has not been dead above twenty years, and his habitation for several years before his death was at North Cerney, in Somersetshire. My friend,

the divine aforesaid, was an intimate acquaintance of this Henry Ceeley's, and assures me he was a person of known truth and integrity." That is the story; and the only circumstance which seems suspicious about it is easily to be explained. It would appear that Parker did not communicate the apparition to Ceeley till after the duke's murder: but it would also appear that other people had been told of it before. Clarendon, so much used to investigate evidence, was so much convinced of this story as to insert it in his history. It may also be seen at much greater length in "Lilly's Observations on the Life and Death of King Charles I.:" not that this is any testimony to its truth.

EUSEBIA. And yet how many difficulties arise, unless you make it a mere question of evidence! How much more natural, one should say, how certainly much more effectual, would it have been had Sir George Villiers appeared to his son, rather than to his servant! Strange, too, that if he could foresee his son's death in the event of going, he could not foresee his son's determination to go!

PISTUS. What are we, that we should presume to decide on the various causes that may operate on the motives, or limit the knowledge of a spiritual visitant? You may reject a great number of historical facts, if you once take to that species of reasoning. The story of Joseph will fall to the ground at once. Why did he not, you may ask, of what a