How many associations rise to the mind at the name of Moore! The brilliant wit, the elegant scholar, the most charming poet of sentiment our literature possesses! His vivacity and versatility were quite as remarkable as his fancy and command of melody. He has been admitted, by rare judges of personal merit, to have been, with the single exception of the late Chief Justice Bushe, the most attractive of companions. An attempt has, in some quarters, we have heard, been made to represent Moore as sacrificing to society talents meant for graver pursuits than convivial enjoyments; and it has been insinuated that he wanted that manly sternness of character, without which there can be no personal dignity or political consistency. The facts of Moore's life overthrow, of themselves, such insinuations. It would be difficult, indeed, to point to any literary character who has, during the vicissitudes of an eventful age, more honorably and steadfastly adhered to the same standard of opinion—qualis ab incepto. His honorable conduct, when compelled to pay several thousand pounds, incurred by the error of his deputy at Bermuda (for whose acts he was legally responsible), exhibits the manliness of his nature. He determined, by honest labor, to pay off the vast demand upon him, even though it made him a beggar! Several of the Whig party came forward and offered in a manner most creditable to them, to effect a subscription for the purpose of paying off the poet's debt. Foremost among them was a delicate young nobleman, with sunken cheek and intellectual aspect, who, while traveling for his health on the Continent, had met Moore, with whom he journeyed for a considerable time, and from whom he parted with an intense admiration of the poet's genius and manly character. The young nobleman—then far from being a rich man—headed the list with eleven hundred pounds. The fact deserves to be recorded to the honor of that young nobleman, who, by slow and sure degrees, has risen to be prime minister of England—Lord John Russell.
Of the fact of Moore's steadfastly refusing to accept the subscription offered to be raised for him by his aristocratic Whig friends, there can be no doubt whatever; and the matter is more creditable to him when the fact is remembered that it was not he himself who committed the error by which he was rendered liable to the judgment given against him. He might also have sheltered himself under the example of Charles James Fox, who consented to accept a provision made for him by the leaders of his party. But Moore detested all eleemosynary aid. He speaks in one of his most vigorous poems with contempt of that class of "patriots" (to what vile uses can language be profaned!),
While sojourning at Paris upon that occasion Moore received a very remarkable offer. Barnes, the editor of the Times, became severely ill, and was obliged to recruit his health by a year's rest, and the editorship of the Times was actually offered to Moore, who, in telling the story to a brilliant living Irishman, said, "I had great difficulty in refusing. The offer was so tempting—to be the Times for a twelvemonth!" The offering him the editorship of "the daily miracle" (as Mr. Justice Talfourd called it) might, however, have been only a ruse de guerre of his aristocratic and political friends to bring him back to London, where, for a variety of reasons social and political, his company was then very desirable.
There is a very interesting circumstance connected with the birth of Moore, which deserves record. The fact of the birth, as every one knows, took place at Aungier-street, and its occasion was at a moment singularly appropriate for the lyric poet being ushered into the world. Jerry Keller, the wit and humorist, rented apartments in the house of Moore's brother, in Aungier-street, and had a dinner-party on the very day of the poet's birth. Just as the guests were assembled, and the dinner on the table, it was announced to them that Mrs. Moore's accouchement had taken place, and that she was in a precarious state, the physicians particularly enjoining that no noise should be made in the house: a difficult matter, when Keller, Lysaght, and other convivial spirits were assembled. What was to be done? One of the company, who lodged near him, solved the difficulty by proposing that the feast should be adjourned to his house close by, and that the viands and wine should be transferred thither. "Ay!" cried Jerry Keller, "be it so; let us adjourn pro re nata." Thus, in the hour of feasting, just as Keller dropped one of his best witticisms, was Moore's birth registered by a classic pun.
Moore had few friends whom he loved more than Mr. Corry, and he has left upon record an exquisite proof of his friendship in the following lines, which are very affecting to read at the present time.
On one occasion, Moore and Corry were ordered, by medical advice, to drink port wine, while they were sojourning for their health at Brighton. The idem velle atque idem nolle was perfectly applicable to their friendship, and they detested port wine with perfect antipathy. However, they were under advice which required obedience. Moore got the port-wine from his wine-merchant, Ewart; but in traveling from London it had been shaken about so much, and was so muddy, that it required a strainer. Mr. Corry bought a very handsome wine-strainer, prettily ornamented with Bacchanalian emblems, and presented it, with a friendly inscription, to Moore, who wrote in reply, the following lines, never, we believe, before printed:
The last great work of that great philosopher and friend of the modern housewife, Monsieur Alexis Soyer, is remarkable for a curious omission. Although the author—a foreigner—has abundantly proved his extensive knowledge of the weakness of his adopted nation; yet there is one of our peculiarities which he has not probed. Had he left out all mention of cold punch in connection with turtle; had his receipt for curry contained no cayenne; had he forgotten to send up tongues with asparagus, or to order a service of artichokes without napkins, he would have been thought forgetful; but when—with the unction of a gastronome, and the thoughtful skill of an artist—he marshals forth all the luxuries of the British breakfast-table, and forgets to mention its first necessity, he shows a sort of ignorance. We put it to his already extensive knowledge of English character, whether he thinks it possible for any English subject whose means bring him under the screw of the income-tax, to break his fast without—a newspaper.
The city clerk emerging through folding doors from bed to sitting-room, though thirsting for tea, and hungering for toast, darts upon that morning's journal with an eagerness, and unfolds it with a satisfaction, which show that all his wants are gratified at once. Exactly at the same hour, his master, the M.P., crosses the hall of his mansion. As he enters the breakfast parlor, he fixes his eye on the fender, where he knows his favorite damp sheet will be hung up to dry. When the noble lord first rings his bell, does not his valet know that, however tardy the still-room-maid may be with the early coffee, he dares not appear before his lordship without the "Morning Post?" Would the minister of state presume to commence the day in town till he has opened the "Times," or in the country till he has perused the "Globe?" Could the oppressed farmer handle the massive spoon for his first sip out of his Sèvres cup till he has read of ruin in the "Herald" or "Standard?" Might the juvenile Conservative open his lips to imbibe old English fare or to utter Young England opinions, till he has glanced over the "Chronicle?" Can the financial reformer know breakfast-table happiness till he has digested the "Daily News," or skimmed the "Express?" And how would it be possible for mine host to commence the day without keeping his customers waiting till he has perused the "Advertiser" or the "Sun?"
In like manner the provinces can not—once a week at least—satisfy their digestive organs till their local organ has satisfied their minds.
Else, what became of the 67,476,768 newspaper stamps which were issued in 1848 (the latest year of which a return has been made) to the 150 London and the 238 provincial English journals: of the 7,497,064 stamps impressed on the corners of the 97 Scottish, and of the 7,028,956 which adorned the 117 Irish newspapers? A professor of the new science of literary mensuration has applied his foot-rule to this mass of print, and publishes the result in "Bentley's Miscellany." According to him, the press sent forth, in daily papers alone, a printed surface amounting in twelve months to 349,308,000 superficial feet. If to these are added all the papers printed weekly and fortnightly in London and the provinces the whole amounts to 1,446,150,000 square feet of printed surface, which was, in 1849, placed before the comprehensive vision of John Bull. The area of a single morning paper—the Times say—is more than nineteen and a half square feet, or nearly five feet by four, compared with an ordinary octavo volume, the quantity of matter daily issued is equal to three hundred pages. There are four morning papers whose superficies are nearly as great, without supplements, which they seldom publish. A fifth is only half the size. We may reckon, therefore, that the constant craving of Londoners for news is supplied every morning with as much as would fill about twelve hundred pages of an ordinary novel; or not less than five volumes.
These acres of print sown broad-cast, produce a daily crop to suit every appetite and every taste. It has winged its way from every spot on the earth's surface, and at last settled down and arranged itself into intelligible meaning, made instinct with ink. Now it tells of a next-door neighbor; then of dwellers in the utter-most corners of the earth. The black side of this black and white daily history, consists of battle, murder, and sudden death; of lightning and tempest; of plague, pestilence, and famine; of sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion; of false doctrine, heresy, and schism; of all other crimes, casualities, and falsities, which we are enjoined to pray to be defended from. The white side chronicles heroism, charitableness, high purpose, and lofty deeds; it advocates the truest doctrines, and the practice of the most exalted virtue: it records the spread of commerce, religion, and science; it expresses the wisdom of the few sages and shows the ignorance of the neglected many—in fine, good and evil, as broadly defined or as inextricably mixed in the newspapers, as they are over the great globe itself.
With this variety of temptation for all tastes, it is no wonder that those who have the power have also the will to read newspapers. The former are not very many in this country where, among the great bulk of the population, reading still remains an accomplishment. It was so in Addison's time. "There is no humor of my countrymen," says the Spectator, "which I am more inclined to wonder at, than their great thirst for news." This was written at the time of imposition of the tax on newspapers, when the indulgence in the appetite received a check from increased costliness. From that date (1712) the statistical history of the public appetite for news is written in the Stamp Office. For half a century from the days of the Spectator, the number of British and Irish newspapers was few. In 1782 there were only seventy-nine, but in the succeeding eight years they increased rapidly. There was "great news" stirring in the world in that interval—the American War, the French Revolution; beside which, the practice had sprung up of giving domestic occurrences in fuller detail than heretofore, and journals became more interesting from that cause. In 1790 they had nearly doubled in number, having reached one hundred and forty six. This augmentation took place partly in consequence of the establishment of weekly papers—which originated in that year—and of which thirty-two had been commenced before the end of it. In 1809, twenty-nine and a half millions of stamps were issued to newspapers in Great Britain. The circulation of journals naturally depends upon the materials existing to fill them. While wars and rumors of wars were rife they were extensively read, but with the peace their sale fell off. Hence we find, that in 1821 no more than twenty-four millions of newspapers were disposed of. Since then the spread of education—slow as it has been—has increased the productiveness of journalism. During the succeeding eight-and-twenty years, the increase may be judged of by reference to the figures we have already jotted down; the sum of which is, that during the year 1848 there were issued, for English, Irish, and Scotch newspapers, eighty-two millions of stamps—more than thrice as many as were paid for in 1821. The cause of this increase was chiefly the reduction of the duty from an average of three-pence to one penny per stamp.
A curious comparison of the quantity of news devoured by an Englishman and a Frenchman, was made in 1819, in the Edinburgh Review—"thirty-four thousand papers," says the writer, are "dispatched daily from Paris to the departments, among a population of about twenty-six millions, making one journal among 776 persons. By this, the number of newspaper readers in England would be to those in France as twenty to one. But the number and circulation of country papers in England are so much greater than in France, that they raise the proportion of English readers to about twenty-five to one, and our papers contain about three times as much letter-press as a French paper. The result of all this is that an Englishman reads about seventy-five times as much of the newspapers of his country in a given time, as a Frenchman does of his. But in the towns of England, most of the papers are distributed by means of porters, not by post; on the other hand, on account of the number of coffee-houses, public gardens, and other modes of communication, less usual in England, it is possible that each French paper may be read, or listened to, by a greater number of persons, and thus the English mode of distribution may be compensated. To be quite within bounds, however, the final result is, that every Englishman reads daily fifty times as much as the Frenchman does, of the newspapers of his country."
From this it might be inferred that the craving for news is peculiarly English. But the above comparison is chiefly affected by the restrictions put upon the French press, which, in 1819, were very great. In this country, the only restrictions were of a fiscal character; for opinion and news there was, as now, perfect liberty. It is proved, at the present day, that Frenchmen love news as much as the English; for now that all restriction is nominally taken off, there are as many newspapers circulated in France in proportion to its population, as there are in England.
The appetite for news is, in truth, universal; but is naturally disappointed, rather than bounded, by the ability to read. Hence it is that the circulation of newspapers is proportioned in various countries to the spread of letters; and if their sale is proportionately less in this empire, than it is among better taught populations, it is because there exist among us fewer persons who are able to read them;—either at all, or so imperfectly, that attempts to spell them give the tyro more pain than pleasure. In America, where a system of national education has made a nation of readers (whose taste is perhaps susceptible of vast improvement, but who are readers still) the sale of newspapers greatly exceeds that of Great Britain. All over the continent there are also more newspaper readers, in proportion to the number of people, though perhaps, fewer buyers, from the facilities afforded by coffee-houses and reading-rooms, which all frequent. In support of this fact, we need go no farther than the three kingdoms. Scotland—where national education has largely given the ability to read—a population of three millions demands yearly from the Stamp Office seven and a half millions of stamps; while in Ireland, where national education has had no time for development, eight millions of people take half a million of stamps less than Scotland.
Although it can not be said that the appetite for mere news is one of an elevated character; yet as we have before hinted, the dissemination of news takes place side by side with some of the most sound, practical, and ennobling sentiments and precepts that issue from any other channels of the press. As an engine of public liberty, the newspaper press is more effectual than the Magna Charta, because its powers are wielded with more ease, and exercised with more promptitude and adaptiveness to each particular case.
Mr. F. K. Hunt in his "Fourth Estate" remarks, "The moral of the history of the press seems to be, that when any large proportion of a people have been taught to read, and when upon this possession of the tools of knowledge, there has grown up a habit of perusing public prints, the state is virtually powerless if it attempts to check the press. James the Second in old times, and Charles the Tenth, and Louis Philippe, more recently, tried to trample down the Newspapers, and everybody knows how the attempt resulted. The prevalence or scarcity of newspapers in a country affords a sort of index to its social state. Where journals are numerous, the people have power, intelligence, and wealth; where journals are few, the many are in reality mere slaves. In the United States every village has its newspaper, and every city a dozen of these organs of popular sentiment. In England we know how numerous and how influential for good the papers are; while in France they have perhaps still greater power. Turn to Russia, where newspapers are comparatively unknown, and we see the people sold with the earth they are compelled to till. Austria, Italy, Spain, occupy positions between the extremes—the rule holding good in all, that in proportion to the freedom of the press is the freedom and prosperity of the people."
It is the object of the following papers to illustrate the natural history of the ocean, and to introduce to the reader a few of the forms of life which the naturalist meets with in the deep sea. The sea that bathes the globe contains as countless multitudes of living beings as does the land we tread, and each possesses an organization as interesting and as peculiar to itself, as any of the higher forms of the animal creation. But the interest does not cease here, for these marine invertebrata play an important part in the vast economy of nature, some living but to afford food for the larger kinds, others devouring all matter devoid of vitality, and so removing all putrescent materials, with which the sea would otherwise be surcharged; while others, again, living in large communities, surely and slowly, by their gradual growth, so alter the physical construction of the globe as to render seas and harbors unnavigable, and in many eases even to give rise in course of ages to those islands, apparently of spontaneous growth, which are so common in the Southern Seas.
Corals and Madrepores first claim our attention, because they occupy the lowest place, with the exception of sponges, in the animal scale! Indeed, so low is their organization, that former naturalists denied their animal character, and from superficial examination of their external appearance, placed them among the wonders of the vegetable world. And from the arborescent and plant-like form assumed by many kinds, in the Flustra and others, in which the resemblance to sea-weeds is so strong as generally to cause them to be confounded together under the same group, and being fixed to submarine rocks, or marine shells, observers might easily have been led to the mistake, had not modern research rectified the error. Corals and Madrepores, as they are known to us, consist but of the stony skeletons of the animals themselves, for in the living state, while dwelling in the ocean, each portion of the stony framework was covered with an animal coating of gelatinous matter, which, closely investing it, was the living portion of the animal. But the structure of the animal is not simply this, for attached to different portions of it in the living state are to be found a countless number of little cells, which, armed with tentacles of great prehensile and tactile powers, are the apertures through which the particles of food are conveyed for the sustenance of the animal These bodies as they may be called, are the analogues of that simple polyp, the common hydra, which, abounding in almost every pond, has been long known to naturalists. It consists of a single dilated gelatinous vesicle, which is terminated at one extremity by a sucker, and at the other by a number of contractile filaments, which serve as the tentaculæ, by which it seizes its prey. This is all that represents the animal, the dilated portion of the tube being the part in which the process of digestion is carried on, and where the food is assimilated to the wants of the little creature. These hydrae live singly, each animal being independent of another, and each possesses the power of self-reparation; so that, should it happen that a tentacle is lost, another sprouts to supply its place, or should the naturalist by way of experiment divide it in half, each portion immediately reproduces the wanting section. Such, then, is briefly the structure of the simple fresh-water hydra, a polyp of common occurrence, and from this description the reader will gain some idea of the polyps of the Coral family before us; but he must remember that in the case now under discussion, the polyps are aggregated together, a number on one common stem, each possessing independent life, but all ministering to the support of the compound animal.
The hydra, then, of the Coral and Madrepore, thus explained, would appear to be the parts through which food is absorbed for the general nourishment of the body, which, as before observed, consists simply of a gelatinous film of animal matter, possessing but little evidence of vitality. Here, then, is a community of nourishment, and with it also a community of sensation, for if one portion be irritated, contiguous portions of the animal are apt to sympathize. When the Coral polyps are not in an active state, or in other words, when they are not in want of food, these hydra-form polyps may not be visible, but being retracted into cells found as depressions in the skeletons of the Madrepores, they are lost to observation, and it is only when in quest of food and nourishment that their contractile tentacles are expanded, and distinctly prominent.
The physiology of the growth of the skeleton, both in the Madrepores and the Coral, is the same. The entire skeleton, however ramified it may be, or whatever form it may assume, is secreted by the living matter with which it is invested, the materials for its formation being derived from the element in which it lives; and as its deposition takes place at different times, the central stem of some corals is apt to assume a beautiful concentric arrangement of laminæ. But the material deposited or secreted need not necessarily be hard or calcareous, but even may partake of the character of horn or other flexible materials, as is the case with some of the coral family. In other cases there is an alternation of each material; and the necessity of this change in the character of the skeleton will now demand our attention.
The common coral of the Mediterranean, possessing a stony skeleton, is found in situations where its stunted form and its extreme hardness sufficiently preserve it from the violence of the waves; but place a coral under other circumstances, and expose it to the storms of the Indian Ocean, where the waves rage with fury, dashing on and uprooting all things within their power, and the structure of the simple coralium would fail to withstand their violence. Here, then, under such circumstances, in the case of the Gorgonia, nature has provided a horny and flexible skeleton, which, spreading majestically in the sea, shall be capable of bending beneath the weight of the superincumbent waves, and so yielding to the storms. Nature has thus adapted herself to each contingent circumstance.
The next point to which we shall advert will be coral formations, which form so interesting a study to the naturalist and geologist. When we consider that we have at hand only a soft, gelatinous covering, stretched on a hard, stony frame-work—that the material on which this animal substance exists is furnished by the sea in which it lives—we can not but be surprised at the smallness of the means which nature uses for the execution of her great designs. But time compensates for the insignificance of the means employed, and the continued activity of nature's architects, during continuous ages, accomplishes these stupendous results, which have at various times excited the wonder of the navigator, and aroused the attention of the naturalist. Many examples of these are to be found in the Pacific Archipelago. Seas and shallows, once navigable, become in the process of time so filled by these living animals, as to become impassable, their stony skeletons forming hard, massy rocks and impenetrable barriers, which, rising from the bottom of the sea and shallows, constitute solid masonry of living stones.
But besides thus aggregating in the neighborhood of land and continents, formations similarly produced are constantly met with during the circumnavigation of the globe. Not only barriers and reefs owe their origin to these humble means, but large lands, stretching for miles in the centre of the ocean, rise gradually from beneath the surface of the sea, and, becoming clothed with verdure and vegetation, at last offer a resting-place for the daring seafarer. But now occurs the interesting question, How happens it that these islands are found in situations where the sea is too deep to allow of any animal life to exist? And yet these corals must have grown upward from some resting-place. The researches of Darwin have shown that the greatest depth in which corals live, is between thirty and forty fathoms beneath the surface of the sea; hence it is absolutely certain that for every island some foundation must exist in the sea for these reef-building animals to attach themselves to. Such foundation, from the observation of Darwin, would appear to be provided by submarine mountains which have gradually subsided into the sea, having originally existed above its surface. Upon these foundations the reef-building saxigenous corals have become attached, and slowly accumulating in large numbers, and gradually depositing their carbonate of lime, during the lapse of ages, by degrees construct these large piles, which, at last emerging from the ocean's bosom, appear as newly-formed continents and islands. Once above the surface, the work of the corals is at an end; no longer exposed to the salt water, the emerged portion dies, and then new agencies are called into play, before its surface can be clothed with vegetable life. The storms of the ocean and the rising waves gradually deposit on its surface the sand and mud torn up from the bottom of the sea, and the sea-weed, too, that is cast upon its tenantless shores soon crumbles into mould, and unites with the debris of the former polyps. At last, some seeds from the neighboring lands are driven to its strand, and there finding a soil united for their growth, soon sprout, under the influence of a tropical sun, into fresh life, and clothe the ocean isle with verdure and vegetation.
Then, last, man comes, and taking possession of the land, erects him a house to dwell in, and cultivating the soil he finds, soon converts the ocean-rescued land into cultivated plains. Islands thus formed are constantly increased in circumference by the same means as those that gave them birth; the same agency is ever at work, adding particle on particle to the rising land. But is it not strange that such simple means can resist the ever-flowing and roaring ocean—that such simple animals can uprear a masonry which shall resist the violence of the waves and defy the power of the breakers? Is it not strange that a single polyp can form a structure in the bosom of the ocean, which shall stand, a victorious antagonist to the storm when works of man and other "inanimate works of nature" would have crumbled into nothing before the relentless fury of a disturbed ocean? "Let the hurricane tear up its thousand huge fragments, yet what will that tell against the accumulated labor of myriads of architects at work day and night, month after month?" for here organic force is opposed to the raging elements, and opposing, is victorious.
Though few men are themselves on visiting terms with their ancestors, most are furnished with one or two decently-authenticated ghost stories. I myself am a firm believer in spectral phenomena, for reasons which I may, perhaps, be tempted to give to the public whenever the custom of printing in folio shall have been happily revived; meanwhile, as they will not bear compression, I keep them by me, and content myself with now and then stating a fact saving the theory to suggest itself. Now it has always appeared to me that the apostles of spectres (if the phrase will be allowed me) have, like other men with a mission, been, perhaps, a little precipitate in assuming their facts, and sometimes find "true ghosts" upon evidence much too slender to satisfy the hard-hearted and unbelieving generation we live in. They have thus brought scandal not only upon the useful class to which they belong, but upon the world of spirits itself—causing ghosts to be so generally discredited, that fifty visits made in their usual private and confidential way, will now hardly make a single convert beyond the individual favored with the interview; and, in order to reinstate themselves in their former position, they will be obliged henceforward to appear at noon-day, and in places of public resort.
The reader will perceive, then, that I am convinced of the equal impolicy and impropriety of resting the claims of my clients (ghosts in general) upon facts which will not stand the test of an impartial, and even a skeptical scrutiny. And, perhaps, I can not give a happier illustration of the temper of my philosophy, at once candid and cautious, than is afforded by the following relation, for every tittle of which I solemnly pledge my character at once as a gentleman and as a metaphysician.
There is a very agreeable book by Mrs. Crowe, entitled "The Night Side of Nature," and which among a dubia cæna of authentic tales of terror, contains several which go to show the very trivial causes which have from time to time caused the reappearance of departed spirits in this grosser world. A certain German professor, who, for instance, actually persecuted an old college friend with preternatural visitations for no other purpose, as it turned out, than to procure a settlement of some small six-and-eightpenny accounts, which he owed among his trades-people at the time of his death. I could multiply, from my own notes, cases still odder, in which sensible and rather indolent men, too, have been at the trouble to re-cross the awful interval between us and the invisible, for purposes apparently still less important—so trivial, indeed, that for the present I had rather not mention them, lest I should expose their memories to the ridicule of the unreflecting. I shall now proceed to my narrative, with the repeated assurance, that the reader will no where find in it a single syllable that is not most accurately and positively true.
About four-and-thirty years ago I was traveling through Denbighshire upon a mission which needed dispatch. I had, in fact, in my charge, some papers which were required for the legal preliminaries to a marriage, which was about to take place in a family of consideration, upon the borders of that county.
The season was winter, but the weather delightful—that is to say, clear and frosty; and, even without foliage, the country through which I posted was beautiful. The subject of my journey was a pleasant one. I anticipated an agreeable visit, and a cordial welcome; and the weather and scenery were precisely of the sort to second the cheerful associations with which my excursion had been undertaken. Let no one, therefore, suggest that I was predisposed for the reception of gloomy or horrible impressions. When the sun set we had a splendid moon, at once soft and brilliant; and I pleased myself with watching the altered, and, if possible, more beautiful effects of the scenery through which we were smoothly rolling. I was to put up for the night at the little town of ----; and on reaching the hill—over which the approach to it is conducted, about a short mile from its quaint little street—I dismounted, and directing the postillion to walk his jaded horses leisurely up the winding road, I trod on before him in the pleasant moonlight, and sharp, bracing air. A little by-path led directly up the steep acclivity, while the carriage-road more gradually ascended by a wide sweep—this little path, leading through fields and hedgerows, I followed, intending to anticipate the arrival of my conveyance at the summit of the hill.
I had not proceeded very far when I found myself close to a pretty old church, whose ivied tower, and countless diamond window panes, were glittering in the moonbeams—a high, irregular hedge, overtopped by tall and ancient trees inclosed it; and rows of funereal yews showed black and mournful among the wan array of headstones that kept watch over the village dead. I was so struck with the glimpse I had caught of the old church-yard, that I could not forbear mounting the little stile that commanded it—no scene could be imagined more still and solitary. Not a human habitation was near—every sign and sound of life was reverently remote; and this old church, with its silent congregation of the dead marshaled under its walls, seemed to have spread round it a circle of stillness and desertion that pleased, while it thrilled me.
No sound was here audible but the softened rush of waters, and that sweet note of home and safety, the distant baying of the watch-dog, now and then broken by the sharper rattle of the carriage-wheels upon the dry road. But while I looked upon the sad and solemn scene before me, these sounds were interrupted by one which startled, and, indeed, for a moment, froze me with horror. The sound was a cry, or rather a howl of despairing terror, such as I have never heard before or since uttered by human voice. It broke from the stillness of the church-yard; but I saw no figure from which it proceeded—though this circumstance, indeed, was scarcely wonderful, as the broken ground, the trees, tall weeds, and tomb-stones afforded abundant cover for any person who might have sought concealment. This cry of unspeakable agony was succeeded by a silence; and, I confess, my heart throbbed strangely, when the same voice articulated, in the same tone of agony,
"Why will you trouble the dead? Who can torment us before the time? I will come to you in my flesh, though after my skin worms destroy this body—and you shall speak to me, lace to face."
This strange address was followed by another cry of despair, which died away as suddenly as it was raised.
I never could tell why it was I was not more horror-stricken than I really was by this mysterious, and, all things considered, even terrible interpellation. It was not until the silence had again returned, and the faint rustling of the frosty breeze among the crisp weeds crept toward me like the stealthy approach of some unearthly influence, that I felt a superstitious terror gradually inspire me, which hurried me at an accelerated pace from the place. A few minutes, and I heard the friendly voice of my charioteer hallooing to me from the summit of the hill.
Reassured, as I approached him, I abated my speed.
"I saw you standing on the stile, sir, by the church-yard," he said, as I drew near, "and I ask your pardon for not giving you the hint before, but they say it is not lucky; and I called to you loud and lusty to come away, sir; but I see you are nothing the worse of it."
"Why, what is there to be afraid of there, my good fellow?" I asked, affecting as much indifference as I was able.
"Why, sir," said the man, throwing an uneasy look in the direction, "they do say there's a bad spirit haunts it; and nobody in these parts would go near it after dark for love or money."
"Haunted!" I repeated; "and how does the spirit show himself?" I asked.
"Oh! lawk, sir, in all sorts of shapes—sometimes like an old woman almost doubled in two with years," he answered, "sometimes like a little child agoing along a full foot high above the grass of the graves; and sometimes like a big black ram, strutting on his hind legs, and with a pair of eyes like live coals; and some have seen him in the shape of a man, with his arm raised up toward the sky, and his head hanging down, as if his neck was broke. I can't think of half the shapes he has took at different times; but they're all bad: the very child, they say, when he comes in that shape, has the face of Satan—God bless us! and nobody's ever the same again that sees him once."
By this time I was again seated in my vehicle, and some six or eight minutes' quick driving whirled us into the old-fashioned street, and brought the chaise to a full stop before the open door and well-lighted hall of the Bell Inn. To me there has always been an air of indescribable cheer and comfort about a substantial country hostelrie, especially when one arrives, as I did, upon a keen winter's night, with an appetite as sharp, and something of that sense of adventure and excitement which, before the days of down-trains and tickets, always in a greater or less degree, gave a zest to traveling. Greeted with that warmest of welcomes for which inns, alas! are celebrated, I had soon satisfied the importunities of a keen appetite; and having for some hours taken mine ease in a comfortable parlor before a blazing fire, I began to feel sleepy, and betook myself to my no less comfortable bed-chamber.
It is not to be supposed that the adventure of the church-yard had been obliterated from my recollection by the suppressed bustle and good cheer of the "Bell." On the contrary, it had occupied me almost incessantly during my solitary ruminations; and as the night advanced, and the stillness of repose and desertion stole over the old mansion, the sensations with which this train of remembrance and speculation was accompanied became any thing but purely pleasant.
I felt, I confess, fidgety and queer—I searched the corners and recesses of the oddly-shaped and roomy old apartment—I turned the face of the looking-glass to the wall—I poked the fire into a roaring blaze—I looked behind the window-curtains, with a vague anxiety, to assure myself that nothing could be lurking there. The shutter was a little open, and the ivied tower of the little church, and the tufted tops of the trees that surrounded it, were visible over the slope of the intervening hill. I hastily shut out the unwelcome object, and in a mood of mind, I must confess, favorable enough to any freak my nerves might please to play me, I hurried through my dispositions for the night, humming a gay air all the time, to re-assure myself, and plunged into bed, extinguishing the candle, and—shall I acknowledge the weakness? nearly burying my head under the blankets.
I lay awake some time, as men will do under such circumstances, but at length fatigue overcame me, and I fell into a profound sleep. From this repose I was, however, aroused in the manner I am about to describe. A very considerable interval must have intervened. There was a cold air in the room very unlike the comfortable atmosphere in which I had composed myself to sleep. The fire, though much lower than when I had gone to bed, was still emitting flame enough to throw a flickering light over the chamber. My curtains were, however, closely drawn, and I could not see beyond the narrow tent in which I lay.
There had been as I awaked a clanking among the fire-irons, as if a palsied hand was striving to arrange the fire, and this rather unaccountable noise continued for some seconds after I had become completely awake.
Under the impression that I was subjected to an accidental intrusion, I called out, first in a gentle and afterward in a sharper tone,
"Who's there?"
At the second summons the sound ceased, and I heard instead the tread of naked feet, as it seemed to me, upon the floor, pacing to and fro, between the hearth and the bed in which I lay. A superstitious terror, which I could not combat, stole over me; with an effort I repeated my question, and drawing myself upright in the bed, expected the answer with a strange sort of trepidation. It came in terms and accompanied with accessories which I shall not soon forget.
The very same tones which had so startled me in the church-yard the evening before, the very sounds which I had heard then and there, were now filling my ears, and spoken in the chamber where I lay.
"Why will you trouble the dead? Who can torment us before the time? I will come to you in my flesh, 'though after my skin worms destroy this body,' and you shall speak with me face to face."
As I live. I can swear the words and the voice were the very same I had heard on the occasion I have mentioned, but (and mark this) repeated to no one. With feelings which I shall not attempt to describe, I heard the speaker approach the bed—a hand parted the bed-curtains and drew them open, revealing a form more horrible than my fancy had ever seen—an almost gigantic figure—naked, except for what might well have been the rotten remnant of a shroud—stood close beside my bed—livid and cadaverous—grimed as it seemed with the dust of the grave, and staring on me with a gaze of despair, malignity, and fury, too intense almost for human endurance.
I can not say whether I spoke or not, but this infernal spectre answered me as if I had.
"I am dead and yet alive," it said, "the child of perdition—in the grave I am a murderer, but here I am Apollyon. Fall down and worship me."
Having thus spoken, it stood for a moment at the bedside, and then turned away with a shuddering moan, and I lost sight of it, but after a few seconds it came again to the bedside as before.
"When I died they put me under Mervyn's tombstone, and they did not bury me. My feet lie toward the west—turn them to the east and I will rest—maybe I will rest—I will rest—rest—rest."
Again the figure was gone, and once again it returned, and said,
"I am your master—I am your resurrection and your life, and therefore, fall down and worship me."
It made a motion to mount upon the bed, but what further passed I know not, for I fainted.
I must have lain in this state for a long time, for when I became conscious the fire was almost extinct. For hours that seemed interminable I lay, scarcely daring to breathe, and afraid to get up lest I should encounter the hideous apparition, for aught I knew, lurking close beside me. I lay, therefore, in an agony of expectation such as I will not attempt to describe, awaiting the appearance of the daylight.
Gradually it came, and with it the cheerful and reassuring sounds of life and occupation. At length I mustered courage to reach the bell-rope, and having rung lustily, I plunged again into bed.
"Draw the window-curtains—open the shutters," I exclaimed as the man entered, and, these orders executed, "look about the room," I added, "and see whether a cat or any other animal has got in."
There was nothing of the sort; and satisfied that my visitant was no longer in the chamber, I dismissed the man, and hurried through my toilet with breathless precipitation.
Hastening from the hated scene of my terrors, I escaped to the parlor, whither I instantly summoned the proprietor of "the Bell" in propria persona. I suppose I looked scared and haggard enough, for mine host looked upon me with an expression of surprise and inquiry.
"Shut the door," said I.
It was done.
"I have had an uneasy night in the room you assigned me, sir; I may say indeed, a miserable night," I said.
"Pray," resumed I, interrupting his apologetic expressions of surprise, "has any person but myself ever complained of—of being disturbed in that room?"
"Never," he assured me.
I had suspected the ghastly old practical joke, so often played off by landlords in story-books, and fancied I might have been deliberately exposed to the chances of a "haunted chamber." But there was no acting in the frank look and honest denial of mine host.
"It is a very strange thing," said I hesitating; and "I do not see why I should not tell you what has occurred. And as I could swear, if necessary, to the perfect reality of the entire scene, it behoves you, I think, to sift the matter carefully. For myself, I can not entertain a doubt as to the nature of the truly terrible visitation to which I have been subjected; and, were I in your position, I should transfer my establishment at once to some other house as well suited to the purpose, and free from the dreadful liabilities of this."
I proceeded to detail the particulars of the occurence of the past night, to which he listened with nearly as much horror as I recited them with.
"Mervyn's tomb!" he repeated after me; "why that's down there in L——r: the churchyard you can see from the window of the room you slept in."
"Let us go there instantly," I exclaimed, with an almost feverish anxiety to ascertain whether we should discover in the place indicated any thing corroborative of the authenticity of my vision.
"Well, I shan't say no," said he, obviously bracing himself for an effort of courage; "but we'll take Faukes, and James the helper, with us; and please, sir, you'll not mention the circumstance as has occurred to either on 'em."
I gave him the assurance he asked for, and in a few minutes our little party were in full march upon the point of interest.
There had been an intense black frost, and the ground, reverberating to our tread with the hollow sound of a vault, emitted the only noise that accompanied our rapid advance. I and my host were too much preoccupied for conversation, and our attendants maintained a respectful silence. A few minutes brought us to the low, gray walls and bleak hedgerows that surrounded the pretty old church, and all its melancholy and picturesque memorials.
"Mervyn's tomb lies there, I think, sir," he said, pointing to a corner of the church-yard, in which piles of rubbish, withered weeds, and brambles were thickly accumulated under the solemn, though imperfect shelter of the wintry trees.
He exchanged some sentences with our attendants in Welsh.
"Yes, sir, that's the place," he added, turning to me.
And as we all approached it, I bethought me that the direction in which, as I stood upon the stile, I had heard the voice on the night preceding, corresponded accurately with that indicated by my guides. The tomb in question was a huge slab of black marble, supported, as was made apparent when the surrounding brambles were removed, upon six pillars, little more than two feet high each. There was ample room for a human body to lie inside this funeral penthouse; and, on stooping to look beneath, I was unspeakably shocked to see that something like a human figure was actually extended there.
It was, indeed, a corpse, and, what is more, corresponded in every trait with the infernal phantom which, on the preceding night, had visited and appalled me.
The body, though miserably emaciated, was that of a large-boned, athletic man, of fully six feet four in height; and it was, therefore, no easy task to withdraw it from the receptacle where it had been deposited, and lay it, as our assistants did, upon the tombstone which had covered it. Strange to say, moreover, the feet of the body, as we found it, had been placed toward the west.
As I looked upon this corpse, and recognized, but too surely, in its proportions and lineaments, every trait of the apparition that had stood at my bed-side, with a countenance animated by the despair and malignity of the damned, my heart fluttered and sank within me, and I recoiled from the effigy of the demon with terror; second only to that which had thrilled me on the night preceding.
Now, reader—honest reader—I appeal to your own appreciation of testimony, and ask you, having these facts in evidence, and upon the deposition of an eye and ear witness, whose veracity, through a long life, has never once been compromised or questioned, have you, or have you not, in the foregoing story, a well-authenticated ghost story?
Before you answer the above question, however, it may be convenient to let you know certain other facts which were clearly established upon the inquest that was very properly held upon the body which in so strange a manner we had discovered.
I purposely avoid details, and without assigning the depositions respectively to the witnesses who made them, shall restrict myself to a naked outline of the evidence as it appeared.
The body I have described was identified as that of Abraham Smith, an unfortunate lunatic, who had, upon the day but one preceding, made his escape from the neighboring parish workhouse, where he had been for many years confined. His hallucination was a strange, but not by any means an unprecedented one. He fancied that he had died, and was condemned; and, as these ideas alternately predominated, sometimes spoke of himself as an "evil spirit," and sometimes importuned his keepers to "bury him;" using habitually certain phrases, which I had no difficulty in recognizing as among those which he had addressed to me. He had been traced to the neighborhood where his body was found, and had been seen and relieved scarcely half a mile from it, about two hours before my visit to the church-yard! There were, further, unmistakable evidences of some person's having climbed up the trellis-work to my window on the previous night, the shutter of which had been left unbarred, and, as the window might have been easily opened with a push, the cold which I experienced, as an accompaniment of the nocturnal visit, was easily accounted for. There was a mark of blood upon the window-stool, and a scrape upon the knee of the body corresponded with it. A multiplicity of other slight circumstances, and the positive assertion of the chamber-maid that the window had been opened, and was but imperfectly closed again, came in support of the conclusion, which was to my mind satisfactorily settled by the concurrent evidence of the medical men, to the effect that the unhappy man could not have been many hours dead when the body was found.
Taken in the mass, the evidence convinced me; and though I might still have clung to the preternatural theory, which, in the opinion of some persons, the facts of the case might still have sustained, I candidly decided with the weight of evidence, "gave up the ghost," and accepted the natural, but still somewhat horrible explanation of the occurrence. For this candor I take credit to myself. I might have stopped short at the discovery of the corpse, but I am no friend to "spurious gospels;" let our faith, whatever it is, be founded in honest fact. For my part, I steadfastly believe in ghosts, and have dozens of stories to support that belief; but this is not among them. Should I ever come, therefore, to tell you one, pray remember that you have to deal with a candid narrator.