upon the head with poles; the same day they hanged two women at Turbet; and this deponent doth verily believe, that Rulmore O'Rely the then sheriff, had a hand in commanding the murder of those said persons, for that he saw him write two notes which he sent to Turbet by Brian O'Rely, upon whose coming there murders were committed : and those persons who were present also affirmed, that the bodies of those thirty persons drowned did not appear upon the water till about six weeks after past; as the said Rely came to the town, all the bodies came floating up to the very bridge; and those persons were all formerly stayed in the town by his protection, when the rest of their neighbours in the town went away.

That the sounds complained of by these witnesses were mere delusions,

*Hist. of the Irish Rebellion, by Sir John Temple, Kt.-p. 123.

there can be no doubt.

The actors in

liable to tre

such bloody scenes are mendous recollections. The solitary hours of Charles IX. of France were rendered horrible by the repetition of the shrieks and cries which had assailed his ears during the massacre of St. Bartholomew.* When the mind is loaded with a sense of insupportable guilt, partial insanity is at hand; and warning, or reproaching voices distract the feelings

of the sufferer.

The appearance of bodies, sitting upright in the water, was no deception, though it contributed by its horror, to the illusions of the ear. This terrific visitation has occasioned much alarm, under similar circumstances, even in modern times. We are told, that after the executions which took place, in the bay of Naples, by order of that court,

* Mem. de Sully, Liv. i.

in 1799, the body of Carraccioli* was seen floating, in an erect position, several days after his death, near the vessel on board of which he had suffered. In a certain stage of putrefaction, the bodies of persons which have been immersed in water, rise to the surface, and in deep water, are supported in an erect posture, to the terror of uninstructed spectators, Menacing looks and gestures, and even words, are supplied by the affrighted imagination, with infinite facility, and referred to the horrible apparition. I insert a striking instance from Dr. Clarke. "One day, leaning "out of the cabin window, by the side “of an officer who was employed in

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fishing, the corpse of a man, newly sewed in a hammock, started half out "of the water, and continued its course, "with the current, towards the shore

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Nothing could be more horrible: its

* Clarke's Life of Nelson, vol. II.

"head and shoulders were visible, turn

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ing first to one side, then to the other, "with a solemn and awful movement, "as if impressed with some dreadful "secret of the deep, which, from its

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watery grave it came upwards to reveal. "Such sights became afterwards fre

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quent, hardly a day passing without "ushering the dead to the contempla"tion of the living, until at length they passed without observation."*

LUCIAN has treated this malady of the mind with his usual severe ridicule, in one of his most entertaining dialogues, the Philopseudes. The stories of the

statues, which descended at night from their pedestals, and walked about the court, are well told. But that of the inchanted stick is the best.

Eucrates says, that he became ac

* Second Part of Clarke's

Travels in various

parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa." Page 268.

I

quainted, in Egypt, with Pancrates, who had resided twenty years in the subterraneous recesses, where he had learned magic from Isis herself. "At length, "he persuaded me to leave all my "servants at Memphis, and to follow "him alone, telling me that we should "not be at a loss for servants. When "we came into any inn, he took a "wooden pin, latch or bolt, and wrapping it in some clothes, when he had

I repeated a verse over it, he made it "walk, and appear a man to every one. "This creature went about, prepared

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supper, laid the cloth, and waited on "us very dextrously. Then, when we had no further occasion for it, by

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repeating another verse, he turned it into a pin, latch or bolt again. He "refused to impart the secret of this "incantation to me, though very oblig"ing in every thing else. But having "hid myself, one day, in a dark corner, "I caught the first verse, which con