66 66 66 "to me that they did not cause me the slightest uneasiness, and I even some“times amused myself with surveying them, and spoke jocularly of them to my physician and my wife; I yet did “not neglect to use proper medicines, especially when they began to haunt me the whole day, and even at night "as soon as I awaked." 66 "At last it was agreed that leeches "should be again applied to me, as for"merly; which was actually done, April "20th 1791, at eleven o'clock in the morning. No person was with me be"sides the surgeon; but during the opera"tion my chamber was crowded with "human phantasms of all descriptions. "This continued uninterruptedly till "about half an hour after four o'clock, "just when my digestion commenced. I then perceived that they began to move 66 66 more slowly. Soon after, their colour began to fade, and at seven o'clock they "were entirely white. But they moved σε 66 very little, though the forms were as "distinct as before: growing however by degrees more obscure; yet not "fewer in number as had generally "been the case. The phantoms did "not withdraw, nor did they vanish; "which previous to that time had fre 66 quently happened. They now seemed "to dissolve in the air; while fragments "of some of them continued visible a "considerable time. About eight o'clock "the room was entirely cleared of my fantastic visitors." "Since this time I have felt, twice or "three times a sensation as if these 66 phantasms were going to re-appear; "without however actually seeing any thing. The same sensation surprised "me just before I drew up this account, "while I was examining some papers "relative to these apparitions which I jhad drawn up in the year 1791." This is one of the extreme cases of delusion, which a man of strong natural judgment has ventured to record of himself. Cardan, who fancied himself visited by supernatural impulses, never produced so marvellous a story. Cardan, however, describes himself as amused, in his youth, with recollected images, similar to those which I have described, in the first chapter Before he left his bed, in the morning, he saw a succession of figures, composed of brazen rings, like links of mail, (though he had never seen mail-armour at that time,) moving, in a circular direction, upwards, from right to left, till they disappeared. Castles, houses, animals, trees, men in different dresses; trumpeters, appearing to blow their trumpets, though no sound was heard; soldiers, and landscapes; all passed before him, in circular compartments. "Videbam "ego imagines diversas quasi corporum 66 æreorum. (Constare enim videbantur "ex annulis minimis, quales sunt lori"carum, cum tamen loricas nunquam "eousque vidissem) ab imo lecti angulo "dextro ascendentes per semicirculum, "lenté et in sinistrum occidentes, ut prorsus non apparerenti Areium, do"morum, animalium, equorum cum equitibus, herbarum, arborum, instru 66 66 66 66 6.6 66 mentorum musicorum, hominum diversorum habituum, vestiumque variarum, tubicines præcipue cum tubis quasi sonantibus, nulla tamen vox aut "sonus exandiebatur; præterea milites, populos, arva, formasque corporum usque ad hune diem mihi invisas: "lucos et sylvas, aliaque quorum non "memini, quandoque multarum rerum 66 congeriem simul irruentium, non ta"men ut se confunderent, sed ut ut pro66 perarent. Erant autem perspicua illa, "sed non ita ut proinde esset, ac si non "adessent, nec densa ut oculo pervia 66 non essent. Sed ipsi circuli opaci "erant spatia prorsus perspicua." * Ben Jonson, also, falls under this description, from the Heads of Conversation, published by the executors of Drummond of Hawthornden, who have deprived posterity of Drummond's original account of these interesting interviews. Jonson told him, that "when "the king came to England, about the "time that the plague was in London, "he being in the country, at Sir Robert "Cotton's house with old Cambden, he saw in a vision his eldest son, then a 66 young child and at London, appear "unto him with the mark of a bloody "cross on his forehead, as if it had been "cut with a sword, at which amazed "he prayed unto God, and in the morn 66 ing he came unto Mr. Cambden's "chamber to tell him, who persuaded * Cardanus de vita propria, cap. 37. |