66 66 were entirely white. But they moved 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." 66 "Since this time I have felt, twice or "three times a sensation as if these 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 "had 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 66 ego imagines diversas quasi corporum "æreorum. (Constare enim videbantur ex annulis minimis, quales sunt lori"carum, cum tamen loricas nunquam 66 eousque vidissem) ab imo lecti angulo "dextro ascendentes per semicirculum, "lenté et in sinistrum occidentes, ut 66 prorsus non apparerenti Areium, domorum, animalium, equorum equorum cum equitibus, herbarum, arborum, instru"mentorum musicorum, hominum di"versorum habituum, vestiumque variarum, tubicines præcipue cum tubis 66 66 quasi sonantibus, nulla tamen vox aut "sonus exandiebatur: præterea milites, populos, arva, formasque corporum 66 66 usque ad hune diem mihi invisas : "lucos et sylvas, aliaque quorum non memini, quandoque multarum rerum congeriem simul irruentium, non tamen ut se confunderent, sed ut ut pro"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 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 morning he came unto Mr. Cambden's "chamber to tell him, who persuaded 66 * Cardanus de vita propria, cap. 37. "him it was but an apprehension, at "which he should not be dejected. In "the mean time there came letters from "his wife of the death of that boy in "the plague. He appeared to him, he "said, of a manly shape, and of that growth he thinks he shall be at the "resurrection." 66 "He said, that he had spent a whole night in looking to his great toe, about "which he hath seen Tartars and Turks, "Romans and Carthaginians fight in "his imagination."* Such sights as youthful poets dream, That extraordinary, and much misrepresented character, the Maid of France, appears to have been a visionary of this kind, and to have been enthusiastically sincere in her belief of supernatural com * Drummond's Works, p. 224. |