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rode with his waistcoat open, and chest exposed, and an inflammation on the lungs was the immediate consequence of this incaution.

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On the first appearance of indisposition, Mr. Alsop of Calne, the family apothecary (himself much attached to the child), was summoned to attend his Lordship. His treatment promised a favourable result; and after a few days he left him, in the forenoon, apparently out of danger. Towards evening, however, the symptoms becoming decidedly worse, the family were alarmed; and Mr. Jervis thought it right to call for Mr. Alsop's immediate assistance. It was night before this gentleman reached Bowood; but an unclouded moon shewed every object in unequivocal distinctness. Mr. Alsop had passed through the lodge gate, and was proceeding to the house, when, to his utter astonishment, he saw Lord William coming towards him, in all the buoyancy of childhood, restored, apparently, to health and vigour. I am delighted, my dear Lord,' he exclaimed, to see you; but, for Heaven's sake, go immediately within doors; it is death to you to be here at this time of night.' The child made no reply; but, turning round, was quickly out of sight. Mr. Alsop, unspeakably surprised, hurried to the house. Here, all was distress and confusion; for Lord William had expired a few minutes before he reached the portico. "The sad event being, with all speed announced to the Marquis of Lansdowne, in London, orders were soon received at Bowood for the interment of the corpse, and the arrangement of the funeral procession. The former was directed to take place at High Wickham, in the vault which contained the remains of Lord William's mother: the latter was appointed to halt at two specified places during the two nights on which it would be on the road. Mr. Jervis and Dr. Priestley attended the body. On the first day of the melancholy journey, the latter gentleman, who had hitherto said little on the subject of the appearance to Mr. Alsop, suddenly addressed his companion, with considerable emotion, in nearly these words. There are some very singular circumstances connected with this event, Mr. Jervis; and a most remarkable coincidence, between a dream of the late Lord William and our present mournful engagement. A few weeks ago, as I was passing by his room door one morning, he called me to his bedside. Doctor,' said he, what is your Christian name?' 'Surely,' said I, 'you know it is Joseph.' 'Well, then,' replied he, in a lively manner, 'if you are a Joseph, you can interpret a dream for me, which I had last night. I dreamed, doctor, that I set out upon a long journey; that I stopped the first night at Hungerford; whither I went without touching the ground; that I flew from thence to Salt-Hill, where I remained the next night; and arrived at High Wickham, on the third day; where my dear mamma, beautiful as an angel, stretched out her arms, and caught me within them.' 'Now,' continued the doctor, these are precisely the places where the dear child's corpse will remain on this and the succeeding night before we reach his mother's vault, which is finally to receive it.'

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"I make no further remark on this singular narrative, than to assure the reader of my own solemn belief of the truth of all its particulars.'

Upon this "singular narrative," two inquiries arise; namely, Are the alleged facts true? and, Do they, if true, necessarily convey the inference that the dream was ominous, and the supposed appearance a visible emblem of the departed spirit (for spirit itself is invisible) of the young nobleman ?

Let us first suppose the facts to be correctly stated. The dream, if such a dream occurred, would have been somewhat remarkable from the accidental coincidences of the case; but it would not, of necessity, have been preternatural. A child of precocious intellect, and peculiarly susceptible feelings, might dream of seeing his deceased mother, and of beholding

her "beautiful as an angel," as he had doubtless heard her described since her departure. The feeling of flying without touching the ground, is often the sensation of delirious dreams, and might have been natural enough after the anodyne which the medical attendant seems to have administered for his disorder. The places where he appeared to rest, were probably the well-known places where funeral processions from Bowood to the family vault were accustomed to halt, and might have been often alluded to in his hearing. He might also have some idea of his own danger, and have even held conversations on the subject with a nurse or other attendant; and the whole being mingled in a dream, there would not have been any thing unaccountable in the circumstances, even if we admit them to be truly related. Dreams quite as remarkable may have occurred in millions of cases, but not have been noticed, because not followed by any peculiar coincidence.

Then, with regard to Mr. Alsop, it would not be incredible, if suddenly summoned at night to visit this interesting child under such perilous circumstances, and feeling how much depended upon the event, not only as respected his patient and the noble family, but himself and his own prospects, more especially in the absence of the surviving parent, he should have been anxiously meditating on the subject as he hasted by moonlight into the grounds of Bowood, and have started nervously at a passing shadow, a moon-beam, an owl, or a boy stationed to look out at the lodge, and hastily running in to announce his approach: the boy might even be clothed in the cast-off apparel of his young master. Many a sensible man has been taken off his guard in a moment of reverie, and, mingling up the subject of his intense meditations with some trifling impression suddenly darting upon him, has connected the one with the other before he could awake to recollection. I have no right, or need, to suppose, in addition to all this, that Mr. Alsop might have been spending his evening as was too commonly the habit in those days, when, according to Dr. Johnson, “half the sober men went to bed drunk every other night." I merely allude to these points, in order to shew that such a passing story, even if true, would not of necessity present any thing supernatural; more especially as there was not apparently the slightest object to be answered, and none is stated to have been even conjectured, by the supposed manifestations. Where a supernatural interposition is professed, not only should the facts themselves be well authenticated, but they ought to be of such a nature as not to be accounted for upon ordinary principles. Such were the miracles of Scripture. Joseph and Daniel's solution of the various dreams submitted to their consideration involved minute predictions of events which none but He who knows the end from the beginning could have foreseen. Our Lord's miracles also were of the same unequivocal character.

Thus then I would maintain, that the facts stated to have occurred, even if authenticated, would not of necessity prove any thing supernatural: they might be extraordinary; they might furnish matter for serious reflection; but as long as a rational solution was at hand, without a miracle, they ought not to be considered as involving that consequence. But the truth is, that the facts themselves are not certified; and the reports alluded to by Mr. Warner are so vague that no calmly reflecting person would venture to ground upon them any serious inference, much less a prodigy. Such was my feeling at the first perusal of the case as stated by Mr. Warner; but that feeling has been much strengthened by a narrative of the facts, published by one of the parties immediately connected with the circumstances; namely, Mr. Jervis, the young nobleman's tutor. The following is the substance of Mr. Jervis's statement.

Of Mr. Townsend, from whom Mr. Warner first heard the report, Mr.

Jervis speaks in high terms, as " a man of great worth and respectability;" but he adds, that he was "predisposed to entertain some visionary and romantic notions of supernatural appearances." As estimates of mental character take their colour from the habits of mind of the estimator, I pass by this preliminary, not being acquainted with Mr. Jervis, and not knowing how far he extends his views of what is " visionary and romantic.' It is, however, very possible, that his two neighbours, Dr. Priestley and Mr. Townsend, were both in extremes; and that the latter was as credulous in regard to a ghost story, as the former was incredulous in regard to some of the truths of holy writ. But be this as it may, Mr. Jervis states, that he has no recollection of Mr. Townsend being at Bowood about the time when these extraordinary occurrences are said to have taken place, so that he could only have spoken of them by hearsay and report.

Mr. Jervis further tells us, that Mr. Warner has faultered even on the threshold of his details, by mistaking the address, designation, age, and disorder of the young nobleman; which, though these are only subordinate matters, shews that the story has not been reported with such accuracy as to warrant implicit credit to the other particulars. The young nobleman was the Marquis of Lansdowne's second son, the Hon. William Petty, not the third, who is the present eminent owner of the title. The child was in his tenth, not his eighth year, and his disorder was not an inflammation of the lungs, but of the lower viscera; so that the "riding before the gamekeeper, with his waistcoat open, and his chest exposed, loses much of its point; added to which, Mr. Jervis tells us, that neither riding with the gamekeeper nor careless exposure could have happened under those habits of personal and domestic discipline which the preceptor superintended as anxiously as the studies of his pupils.

Mr. Jervis proceeds to state, that the particulars of the conversation said to have passed on the road, (not to Wickham, but to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire,) are wholly without foundation. In truth, neither Dr. Priestley nor Mr. Jervis attended the funeral: the former continued with his family, and the latter remained with his surviving pupil at Bowood. No communication of the nature alluded to was ever made by Dr. Priestley to Mr. Jervis on this or any other occasion; and such was the free and friendly intercourse subsisting between them, that, had such a circumstance occurred to either, it would, Mr. Jervis says, have been unreservedly imparted to the other. It is stated in Mr. Warner's account, that as Dr. Priestley was passing the chamber door of the young and interesting sufferer," he was called into his room, and cheerfully accosted by him." Now it so happens that Dr. Priestley had no apartments in the mansion at Bowood, nor was he ever accustomed to sleep there: he resided in a house at Calne; and more than this, Mr. Jervis confidently asserts, that Dr. Priestley never saw Mr. Petty during his illness.

The next point is the alleged "appearance to Mr. Alsop," whom Mr. Jervis had sent for to his pupil. Mr. Warner says, that the statement was "confirmed by a voucher scarcely to be resisted,—an indisputably true report of Dr. Alsop's viva voce declaration on his dying bed." Whence he obtained this" viva voce declaration," he does not mention; so that there is no possibility of bringing the story to the test. Mr. Warner ought not to have omitted the evidence for this supposed "voucher," in order that his readers might weigh it. But in the absence of all positive testimony to its truth, we have Mr. Jervis's solemn declaration that he never heard of any such occurence till it was pointed out to him in Mr. Warner's pages. No distant rumour, not even a whisper of the kind, ever reached him; Mr. Alsop never breathed a syllable to him on the subject, either at the time

of Mr. Petty's death or afterwards. Surely this one fact alone is decisive as to the authority of the tale. Mr. Jervis admits, that it is possible that before his death Mr. Alsop's mind being weakened and impaired, his ideas confused, and his judgment clouded by infirmity or disease, he might give way to the suggestions of fancy, and the delusion of an imaginary scene; but as it is not mentioned that he ever narrated the story in former years, much weight would not attach to a statement made under such circumstances. Till, however, Mr. Warner lays before the public, the "vouchers" for his "indisputably true report," the whole narrative may be fairly viewed as apocryphal; more especially as so many of the other circumstances, and particularly Dr. Priestley's alleged conversation with Mr. Jervis, are proved to be fictitious.

Here, then, is an excellent ghost story spoiled in its birth, from the unlucky circumstance of its being published during the lifetime of one of the parties, who, at the distant period of, I suppose, nearly half a century, survives to disprove all the leading particulars. Had Mr. Jervis been dead, or had Mr. Warner's narrative not happened to meet his eye, or had he confined his refutation of it to an oral declaration, or a solitary and perishable written statement, this dream and apparition might have been hereafter quoted as indisputable, and have been added to the popular collections of similar narratives, which circulate current as veracious histories. One such tale cleared up is a public benefit; it tends to free the mind of superstitious notions, and to guard the understanding against idle fallacies and irrational alarms. I might add, also, that it is of great service to the cause of true religion, which nothing more tends to injure than mixing up truth with fiction. A sound understanding will discriminate between them; and while it rejects false tales, will cleave the more closely to those inspired oracles which are the dictate of Infallible Wisdom. A man who believes a silly ghost-story, may be at heart a good Christian; but his judgment will not weigh much with others, as accrediting his decision.

I would not, however, be understood to say, that notwithstanding Mr. Jervis's counter-statement, there may not be some scintillations of truth in the narrative. Mr. Warner's veracity is beyond question; and though he seems to have taken up the tale on light grounds, he could not have taken it up on no grounds at all. Some gossip it is likely enough passed upon the subject; probably some nursery tale, or village wonderment; for what old house in the country was there half a century ago, that had not some strange specialities belonging to it? and what person of rank quitted the world without some omen or presentiment ? It is possible, as I have before remarked, that the child might really have had some dream, which his nurse afterwards persuaded herself was prophetic, till by dint of repetitions and additions, it took the form above narrated. Mr. Alsop may also have said that he could have fancied he saw the beloved child, as he rode up the grounds of Bowood on the night of his death; and that he knew not how to account for the deception, whether caused by the moon-beams, or his own hurried fancy; but without meaning to attach any real importance to the matter. Some such vague story, not worth a thought, may possibly have existed; but had it been of the slightest moment, or attracted the attention of the neighbourhood, it could not surely have been unknown to Mr. Jervis, or the Lansdowne family, or been reserved to be introduced at this late hour, without a tittle of evidence, on the rumoured, but unproved, narrative of two persons long since dead.

In offering the above remarks, I should add, that I do not mean them to apply, directly or indirectly, to the general question of prophetic dreams, visions, or other supernatural manifestations. These things, we know from the Word of God, actually were in former times for special purposes; and

there is no declaration that they never shall be again; though I certainly see no cause either in reason or Scripture, in our own day to expect them. To the Christian, they do not appear matters of much moment; he knows that a communication does exist between the unseen and the visible world; but the particulars of its mode he is not anxious to discover; he is in the hands of an all-wise and gracious Father, and there he is contented and safe. It would not, to such a man, be a subject of terrific apprehension, if he thought that dreams may still be ominous, or the appearances of departed persons be permitted to haunt the earth; for what can harm him if he be a follower of that which is good? But still he would not wish to be betrayed into weak fancies; it is not for the glory of God, the good of his neighbour, or the welfare of his own soul that he should be so; and therefore, without any feeling of presumption or profaneness, which some are apt to attribute to an enlightened inquiry into such subjects, he searches for evidence, he investigates truth, and is not willing to put up with error, because it happens to assume the garb of voluntary humility, or superstitious, not religious, feeling.

M.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LITERARY POLICY OF THE CHURCH Of rome.

The Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, exhibited in an Account of her Damnatory Catalogues, or Indexes, both Prohibitory and Expurgatory. By the Rev. JOSEPH MENDHAM. Second edition; much enlarged.

1 vol. 8vo.

AMONG the most original and effective of the innumerable speeches delivered on the question of the Roman-Catholic disabilities in Ireland, were two by Sir R. H. Inglis, on the prohibitory and expurgatory bookcatalogues of the Church of Rome. Such things have been heard of generally, and as applying to dark ages: but that these indexes are numerous, extensive, and with the newest dates upon them, seems not to have been generally known; and the intelligence produced a powerful sensation in the House of Commons, more especially when Sir Robert read the names of some of the works and authors which are excluded by this inquisitorial system including many of the most valuable efforts of the human mind, literary and scientific, as well as theological.

An attempt was made, both in the evidence proffered to the House of Commons, and in the publications of Mr. Butler and others, to set aside this argument, by urging, that the Indexes were not authoritative or generally received, at least in Ireland. "Few of them" (the Roman Catholics), said Mr. Butler, "know of the existence of the Index Expurgatorius;" and in like manner, Dr. Murray, the titular archbishop of Dublin, when examined before the House-of-Commons' committee in 1825*, stated,

Mr. Mendham, in alluding to this House-of-Commons' examination, extracts the following question, as an illustration of the sapience with which theological inquiries are sometimes conducted in that Westminster assembly of divines: "What is the distinction you take between schism and heresy? Is it that the one is voluntary, and the other involuntary?" This sagacious leading question was put by some honourable member, to "the most reverend" the titular archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Kelly, who very gravely replies,-doubtless suppressing the smile which might have led to a committal for contempt " No : schism and heresy are different things; schism refers to

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