The Book Of Curiosities Part 90

In 1413, he founded an alms-house and college in the Vintry, which was afterwards suppressed by order of council in king Edward the Sixth's time: but his alms-houses on College-hill remain; these are under the direction of the Mercer's company, who allow each pensioner 3s. 10d. per week.

Sir Richard built the gate and prison of Newgate as it formerly stood; gave large sums to Bartholomew's Hospital; founded a Library in Grey Friars; endowed Christ's Hospital with a considerable sum; built Guildhall chapel, and the east end of the Hall.

Dame Alice, his wife, died in the 63d year of her age; after which he never re-married, though he outlived her near twenty years. At last he died like the patriarch, full of age and honour, leaving a good name to posterity; and the following epitaph was cut on the upper stone of his vault, and continued perfect till destroyed by the fire of London:--

M. S.

Beneath this stone lies Whittington, Sir Richard rightly nam'd; Who three times Lord Mayor serv'd in London, In which he ne'er was blam'd.

He rose from Indigence to Wealth, By Industry and that, For lo! he scorn'd to gain by stealth, What he got by a Cat.

Let none who reads this verse despair Of Providence's ways: Who trust in him, he'll make his care, And prosper all their days.

Then sing a requiem to departed merit, And rest in peace till death demands his spirit.

THE TRAVELLING FAQUIRS.

The following curious circ.u.mstance in natural history is related by a gentleman of veracity, learning, and abilities, who filled a considerable post in the Company's Service in India.--

The TRAVELLING FAQUIRS in this country are a kind of superst.i.tious devotees, who pretend to great zeal in religion, but are, in fact, the most vicious and profligate wretches in the world. They wander about the country here, as the gipsies do with you; and having some little smattering of physic, music, or other arts, they introduce themselves by these means wherever they go. One of them called a few days ago at my house, who had a beautiful large snake in a basket, which he made rise up and dance about to the tune of a pipe on which he played.

It happened that my out-house and farm-yard had for some time been infested with snakes, which had killed me several turkeys, geese, ducks, fowls, and even a cow and a bullock. My servants asked this man whether he could pipe these snakes out of their holes, and catch them? He answered them in the affirmative, and they carried him instantly to the place where one of the snakes had been seen. He began piping, and in a short time the snake came dancing to him: the fellow caught him by the nape of the neck, and brought him to me. As I was incredulous, I did not go to see this first operation; but as he took this beast so expeditiously, and I still suspected some trick, I desired him to go and catch another, and went with him myself to observe his motions. He began by abusing the snake, and ordering him to come out of his hole instantly, and not be angry, otherwise he would cut his throat and suck his blood. I cannot swear that the snake heard and understood this elegant invocation. He then began piping with all his might, lest the snake should be deaf; he had not piped above five minutes, when an amazing large cobra capella (the most venomous kind of serpent) popped his head out of a hole in the room. When the man saw his nose, he approached nearer to him, and piped more vehemently, till the snake was more than half out, and ready to make a dart at him; he then piped only with one hand, and advanced the other under the snake as it was raising itself to make the spring. When the snake darted at his body, he made a s.n.a.t.c.h at his tail, which he caught very dexterously, and held the creature very fast, without the least apprehension of being bit, until my servants dispatched it. I had often heard this story of snakes being charmed out of their holes by music; but never believed it, till I had this ocular demonstration of the fact. In the s.p.a.ce of an hour the Faquir caught five very venomous snakes close about my house.[26]

INCUBUS, OR NIGHTMARE.

This strange affection or complaint, which is more generally known by the term _Nightmare_, than by that of _Incubus_, has obtained a considerable degree of notice in the world, from the singular manner in which it seizes its victims. The term Incubus is derived from the Latin _incubare_, signifying to _sit_ or _lie upon_, which very forcibly expresses the nature of the disease. Hence, many have thought, and they even continue to think, that some incomprehensible creature, being, or agent, actually sits or lies upon them while sleeping, from which they suffer acute torment and oppression, bordering on suffocation. Many also have even affirmed, that while they have been lying perfectly awake, they have perceived this nightly tormentor creeping slowly over their feet, and have watched its advances until it has taken its seat on the breast, and inflicted those severe sufferings which no language can fully describe. But we shall consider the nightmare rather as a disease, than the creature of imagination.

This disorder seizes persons while sleeping, who imagine that they feel an extraordinary compression or weight about the breast and stomach, which they cannot by any effort shake off. In this agony they sigh, groan, and utter indistinct sounds; sometimes they cry out, but more frequently they attempt to speak, or to move in vain. These feelings give rise to various frightful suggestions of the imagination: the patient fancies himself to be struggling with strong men or devils, or to be in a house on fire, or in danger of being drowned in the sea or some river; and in attempting to run away from danger, or climb up a hill, he fancies he falls back as much after every step as he had advanced before. At length the sensations of oppression become intolerable, and the patient awakes; but the terror excited by the frightful ideas attending the nightmare, leaves often a palpitation of the heart, with great anxiety and languor, and sometimes a tingling of the ears, and a tremor over the whole body.

It is altogether unnecessary to attempt an enumeration of the numerous hypothetical explanations which have been attempted to be given of the phenomenon of incubus, and which have been detailed by Awen, Bond, and other writers. The disorder has commonly been supposed to proceed from a stagnation of the blood in the sinuses of the brain, or in the vessels of the lungs, or from too great a quant.i.ty of blood being sent to the head.

The horizontal posture, in time of sleep, and the pressure of the stomach upon the aorta, in a supine situation, have been thought sufficient to occasion a more than usual distention of the sinuses and other vessels of the brain; and the weight of the heart, pressing on the left auricle and large trunks of the pulmonary veins, may, it is supposed, prevent the easy return of the blood from the lungs, and thus produce an oppression and sense of weight and suffocation in the breast. But without entering into a particular examination of these opinions, which are far from being satisfactory, we may observe, with Dr. Whytt, that, if they were true, some degree of the nightmare ought to happen to every body that lies upon his back, especially after eating a full meal. Further, if a horizontal situation could overcharge the brain with blood, so as to occasion the incubus, how comes it that people, who remain for some time in an inverted posture, do not feel this disease beginning to attack them? And why does a slighter degree of the nightmare sometimes seize people who sleep in an erect situation in a chair? a circ.u.mstance which sometimes occurs, not only after eating, but when the stomach is out of order, and troubled with wind. As the weight of the stomach, even when filled with food, can have scarcely any effect upon the motion of the blood in the aorta, so the pressure of the heart is by much too small to be able sensibly to r.e.t.a.r.d the motion of that fluid in the pulmonary veins; otherwise, people exhausted by tedious diseases, who generally lie on their back, would be constantly affected with the incubus.

We know that certain medicines or poisons, worms, and even corrupted bile, or other humours, by disagreeably affecting the nerves of the stomach, produce an oppression about the breast, wild imaginations, frightful dreams, raving, and insensibility; and there is no doubt that low spirits, melancholy, and disturbed sleep, often proceed from a disordered state of the stomach. It seems, therefore, more probable that the seat of nightmare is princ.i.p.ally in that organ. It is well ascertained, that some forms of epilepsy, and of hysterical fits, originate from disorder in that viscus; and Galen considered the incubus as a nocturnal or slighter epilepsy.

People troubled with nervous and hypochondriac affections, and who have delicate or flatulent stomachs, are more peculiarly subject to this disorder; and it is observed, that a heavy or flatulent supper greatly aggravates the nightmare, in those who are predisposed to it. The sympathy of the stomach with the head, heart, lungs, and diaphragm, is so remarkable, that there can be no difficulty in referring the several symptoms of the incubus to a disagreeable irritation of the nerves of the stomach.

The incubus is most apt to seize persons when lying on their back, because, in this position, on account of the stomach and other abdominal viscera pressing more upon the diaphragm, we cannot inspire with the same ease as when we sit up or lie on one side. Further, in that situation of the body the food seems to lie heavier on the stomach, and wind in it does not separate so readily by the aesophagus and pylorus, as in an erect posture, when these orifices are higher than the other parts of the stomach. The nightmare only occurs in the time of sleep, because the strange ideas excited in the mind, in consequence of the disordered feelings of the stomach, are not then corrected by the external senses, as they are when we are awake; nor do we, by an increased respiration or other motions of the body, endeavour to shake off any beginning uneasy sensation about the stomach or breast. The incubus generally occurs in the first sleep, and seldom towards morning, because at the earlier period the stomach is more loaded with food, and that in a more crude and indigested state than in the morning. A lesser degree, amounting only to frightful dreams, is almost a constant concomitant of overloaded stomach in some habits.

In fact, if the nightmare were owing to a stagnation of the blood in the lungs from the weight of the heart, or in the sinuses and other vessels of the brain, from the horizontal posture of the body, it would become greater the longer it continued, and would scarcely ever go off spontaneously. But we know that this disease, after affecting people for some time, often gradually ceases, and is succeeded by refreshing sleep: for as soon as the load of meat, or wind, or other cause disagreeably affecting the nerves of the stomach, is removed, the oppression and weight on the breast, wild imaginations, frightful dreams, &c. vanish; as all these proceed originally from the disorder of the stomach. It may be remarked, however, that, as neither flatulency, phlegm, nor crudities in the stomach, ever produce the symptoms of hypochondriasis, unless the nerves of that organ be indisposed; so neither a horizontal posture, sleep, nor heavy suppers, ever produce the nightmare, at least in any considerable degree, unless the person be already predisposed to the complaint, from the particular condition of the nerves of the stomach.

But although the stomach is the part commonly affected primarily in the case of incubus; yet symptoms like those of the nightmare may sometimes arise without any fault of the stomach, when the lungs, or even the brain, are affected. Thus Dr. Whytt observes, that asthmatic patients, whose lungs are much obstructed, are sometimes disturbed, in time of sleep, with distressing dreams, and oppressed with a sense of suffocation.

Startings and oppressions about the praecordia, with painful dreams, are indeed common occurrences from hydrothorax, chronic coughs, and other pulmonary obstructions; but they are not strictly a.n.a.logous to the common nightmare. Dr. Lower mentions a patient, who, though he could sleep pretty easily with his head inclined forward; yet, in the opposite situation, he was always soon awaked with horrid dreams and tremors; the cause of which appeared, after his death, to have been a great quant.i.ty of water in the ventricles of the brain. At all events, a plethoric state of habit, by rendering the circulation through the lungs less free, may help to produce, or at least increase, the oppression of the breast in the nightmare.

The Cure.--As incubus, then, is only a symptom of disordered or loaded stomach, and arises out of the irritation and morbid feelings which are thus produced during sleep, the relief of the disease, generally speaking, lies within a narrow compa.s.s. Temperance in eating and drinking, especially at late hours; taking, in fact, either extremely light suppers or none at all; and when the dinner is so late as to be only a supper with another name, being cautious that that also should be moderate in quant.i.ty, and easily digestible and unstimulating in its nature; drinking thin, sub-acid liquors, where these are agreeable to the const.i.tution,--these are the princ.i.p.al remedies required. Brisk active exercise, by which the digestive powers may be aided and the stomach strengthened, is also advisable. It were useful, too, to sleep with high pillows, and to lie on the side as much as possible, in preference to the back. If the functions of the stomach are much disordered with flatulency, heartburn, acidity, or oppression, with pain, or nausea, after taking food, the usual remedies recommended for indigestion must be resorted to.

The bowels should be kept open. See Whytt on Nervous Disorders, chap. vi.

-- 18.

CELEBRATED SPEECH ON RELIGION.

The Editor of this work well recollects, many years ago, reading in a newspaper a most interesting speech on religion, delivered by a French priest; it made a great impression on his mind at the time, and he frequently regretted he had not transcribed it. He made all inquiry possible, but could not meet with the interesting article till seventeen years had elapsed, when it was published by a person who had preserved the paper in question. It is now presented to the reader as a curiosity worthy of his notice.--This speech was delivered at the Bar of the French Convention, and is copied from the Cambridge Intelligencer of March 24th, 1798.

A few days after the archbishop of Paris and his vicars had set the example of renouncing their clerical character, a rector from a village on the banks of the Rhone, followed by some of his parishioners, with an offering of gold and silver saints and chalices, rich vestments, &c.

presented himself at the bar of the convention. The rector, a thin venerable-looking man, with gray hairs, was ordered to speak.

"I come (said he) from the village of ----, where the only good building standing is a very fine church: my parishioners beg you will take it, to make an hospital for the sick and wounded of both parties, they being both equally our countrymen. The gold and silver, part of which we have brought to you, they entreat you will devote to the service of the state, and that you will cast the bells into cannon, to drive away its foreign invaders.

For myself, I came with great pleasure to resign my letters of ordination, of induction, and every deed and t.i.tle by which I have been const.i.tuted a member of your ecclesiastical polity. Here are the papers; you may burn them, if you please, in the same fire with genealogical trees and patents of n.o.bility. I desire, likewise, that you will discontinue my salary; I am still able to support myself by the labour of my hands, and I beg you to believe, that I never felt sincerer joy than I now do in making this renunciation. I have longed to see this day! I see it, and am glad."

When the old man had thus far spoken, the applauses were immoderate. The rector did not seem greatly elated with these tokens of approbation: he retired back a few steps, and thus resumed his discourse:--

"Before you applaud my sentiments, it is fit you should understand them; perhaps they may not entirely coincide with your own. I rejoice in this day, not because I wish to see religion degraded, but because I wish to see it exalted and purified. By dissolving its alliance with the state, you have given it dignity and independence. You have done it a piece of service; a service which its well-wishers would perhaps never have had courage to render it, but which is the only thing wanted to make it appear in its genuine beauty and l.u.s.tre. n.o.body will now say of me, when I am performing the offices of religion, 'It is a trade; he is paid for telling the people such and such things; he is hired to keep up a useless piece of mummery.' They cannot say this, and therefore I feel myself raised in my own esteem, and shall speak to them with a confidence and a frankness, which before this I never durst venture to a.s.sume. We resign without reluctance our gold and silver images, and embroidered vestments, because we never have found that looking upon gold and silver made the heart more pure, or the affections more heavenly; we can also spare our churches, for the heart that wishes to lift itself up to G.o.d, will never be at a loss for a place to do it in: but we cannot spare religion, because, to tell you the truth, we never had so much occasion for it. I understand that you accuse us priests of having told the people a great many falsehoods. I suspect this may have been the case, but till this day we have never been allowed to inquire whether the things which we taught them were true or not. I cannot but hope, however, that the errors we have fallen into have not been very material, since the village has in general been sober and good; the peasants honest, docile, and laborious; the husbands love their wives, and the wives their husbands; they are fortunately not too rich to be compa.s.sionate, and they have constantly relieved the sick and fugitives of all parties, whenever it has lain in their way. I think, therefore, what I have taught them cannot be so much amiss.

"You want to extirpate priests: but will you hinder the ignorant from applying for instruction, the unhappy for comfort and hope, the unlearned from looking up to the learned? If you do not, you will have priests, by whatever name you may order them to be called; but it is certainly not necessary they should wear a particular dress, or be appointed by state letters of ordination. My letters of ordination are my zeal, charity, and my ardent love for the children of the village: if I were more learned, I would add knowledge; but, alas! we all know very little: to a man every error is pardonable, but want of humanity. We have a public walk, with a spreading elm-tree at one end of it, and a circle of green around it, with a convenient bench. Here I shall draw together the children that are playing round me: I shall point to the vines laden with fruit, to the orchard, to the herds of cattle lowing round us, to the distant hills stretching one behind another; and they will ask me, how came all these things? I shall tell them all I know; what I have heard from the wise men who have lived before me; they will be penetrated with love and adoration!

They will kneel; I shall kneel with them; they will not be at my feet, but all of us at the feet of that good Being, whom we shall worship together, and thus they will receive within their tender minds a religion.

"The old men will come sometimes, from having deposited under the green sod one of their companions, and place themselves by my side: they will look wistfully at the turf, and anxiously inquire,--Is he gone for ever?

Shall we soon be like him? Will no morning break over the tomb? When the wicked cease from troubling, will the good cease from doing good? We will talk of these things: I will comfort them; I will tell them of the goodness of G.o.d; I will speak to them of a life to come; I will bid them hope for a state of retribution.

"You have changed our holidays; you have an undoubted right, as our civil governors, so to do: it is very immaterial whether they are kept once in seven days, or once in ten; some, however, you will leave us, and when they occur, I shall tell those who choose to hear me, of the beauty and utility of virtue, and of the dignity of right conduct. There is a book out of which I have sometimes taught my people; it says we are to love those who do us hurt, and to pour oil and wine into the wounds of the stranger. In this book we read of Christ Jesus: some worship him as a G.o.d; others, as I am told, say it is wrong to do so; some teach that he existed before the beginning of ages; others, that he was born of Joseph and Mary.

I cannot tell whether these controversies will ever be decided: but, in the mean time, I think we cannot do otherwise than well in imitating him--for I learn that he loved the poor, and went about doing good."

Addenda to VESUVIUS.--See page 441.

A grand eruption of Vesuvius took place on Sunday night, Feb. 24, 1822. It continued for several days. The following is an extract from a private letter, dated Naples, March 8, 1822.--

"Towards the evening of Tuesday, February the 26th, as appearances promised a good night's work, we set off from Naples to view the operations nearer; the road to Resina was covered with people going and returning, as if a fair had been in the vicinity. When we reached the spot where strangers are on common occasions surrounded by guides, and a.s.ses, and mules, to conduct them up to the mountain, we found that no animals were to be procured, and it was with difficulty we could get a stupid old man for a _cicerone_, who rendered us no other service than carrying a torch. The ascent was thronged with people, some pushing on eagerly to the object of their curiosities, and others returning, and discussing what they had seen. Far below San Salvator we saw the stream of fire rolling along a wide hollow, and approaching the path by which we were going up: it was then, however, at a considerable distance, and its course was very slow. On reaching the hermitage, we refreshed ourselves as well as the crowd there a.s.sembled would permit; we then continued our journey, and approached the lava, which was chiefly formed by the eruption of January, 1821. We found it about thirty feet wide; it was not liquid lava, but consisted of ashes, ignited stones, and old ma.s.ses of volcanic ejections, swept away by the present eruption, and heated again. These lumps, rolling over each other, produced a strange clinking noise. Some of them were of a very great size; and the whole stream, though descending a steep cone, moved but slowly.

"Beyond this princ.i.p.al stream, midway up the cone, was an opening, whence very large stones and other burning matters were continually thrust out.

This mouth fed a scattered stream, beyond which was another narrow stream, proceeding like the princ.i.p.al one from the crater. They both united with the main body in the deep hollow below, and rolled on towards the road which leads from Resina up to the hermitage. The mult.i.tude of the spectators standing by the sides of the burning river being seized with astonishment, we, with a great many of the more adventurous, determined to ascend the cone; we therefore pa.s.sed a little to the left of the great stream, and began to scramble to the deep loose cinders and ashes which cover this part of the mountain, and render it at all times a most fatiguing climb. A little path or track formerly existed, in which the guides laid ma.s.ses of lava to facilitate the mounting, but it was just in that line that the present eruption descended, and we were in consequence obliged to go up over the sand and cinders, in which we frequently stuck up to our knees, and, at every three steps, lost one on an average. After a most fatiguing toil of an hour and a half, we found ourselves, with a few others, on the edge of the grand crater: hence the _coup d'oeil_ was terrifically sublime; the flames rushed out of the mouth, and threw themselves in the air in a broad body to the elevation of at least a hundred feet, whilst many of the fiery stones flew up twice that height.

Sometimes the flames fell back into the mouth of the crater, and then burst out again, as though impelled by a fresh impulse, like the blast of a bellows. In their descent, some of the stones and lumps of cinder returned into the mouth, but the greater part fell outside of the flames, like the jets of a fountain.

"While we were standing on the exposed side of the crater, very intent in observation, all of a sudden the volcano gave a tremendous roar. It was like the crash of a long line of artillery, and was instantly succeeded by such a discharge of stones as we had never before seen. At the same moment, the wind, which was very high, gave an irregular gust, which directed a great part of the stones towards the place where we were posted. Hence our situation was for a minute or two very perilous; but there was no shelter near, and we stood still, looking at the descending shower which fell around us. We, however, happily sustained no other injury than a short alarm, and having some ashes dashed in our faces by stones which fell near us. Two or three gentlemen who were ascending the cone after us, were not quite so fortunate, for many of the stones falling outside of the ridge, rolled down the side with great velocity, loosening and carrying with them lumps of cold lava, &c. some of which struck those persons on the legs with great violence, and nearly precipitated one of them headlong to the foot of the cone.

"After this, we thought we had seen enough, and turned to go down. The descent is as easy as the ascent is difficult; the cinders and ashes sliding away beneath the feet, nothing further is necessary than to step out, the quicker the better, to keep one's equilibrium, and to avoid the fixed or large stones and pieces of lava. We were not more than ten minutes in reaching the point whence it had taken us an hour and a half to mount. In coming down, we were struck with the strange appearance of the torches of companies ascending and descending; they formed a pale wavering line from Resina to the hermitage; and thence to the cone, they were scattered about in thick and fantastic groups. On reaching the hermitage, we found it so crowded, that we could not enter. The large flat around was covered like a crowded fair, by people of all nations, and of all ranks, from the beautiful and accomplished countess of Fiquelmont, wife of the Austrian amba.s.sador, to the Austrian sergeant and his wife, who had come to see the blazing mountain. Numbers of people had come from towns and villages below, with bread and wine, and fruit and aqua-vitae, all of which articles seemed in very great demand. The motley scene was illuminated by the bright silvery moon, and the red towering flames at the summit of the volcano. We took some slight refreshments, and repaired homewards in the midst of as merry groups as ever returned from scenes of festivity and joy.

"When we got lower down, we found that the lava had approached very near to the road, and had already seized upon a fine vineyard, which was blazing very brilliantly. After our retreat, we learned that the lava traversed the road. On Wednesday, the 27th, the eruption was in a great measure tranquillized; still, however, crowds of people continued going up the mountain; and an Austrian officer, who had come from Caspua to see it, was unfortunately killed on the ridge of the cone, by a large stone striking him on the head. On Thursday scarcely any thing but smoke issued from the crater, and it has continued from that time in the same peaceful state."

ANAGRAMS.

In "The Book of Curiosities," even that mechanical, yet curiously fortuitous species of wit, called the _Anagram_, must not escape notice.

It can scarcely be necessary to premise, that anagram, or metagram, is the dissolution of a word into its letters, as its elements; and then, by a new connection of them, making some perfect sense, applicable to the person or thing named. As there are some modern ones of this sort, exhibiting astonishing coincidences, we shall here subjoin a selection of the best:--

LO I DRESS, _Soldiers_.--'TIS YE GOVERN, _Sovereignty_.--SPARE HIM NOT, _Misanthrope_.--GREAT HELPS, _Telegraphs_.--NO MORE STARS, _Astronomers_.--NO CHARM, _Monarch_.--MARCH ON, _Monarch_.--COMICAL TRADE, _Democratical_.--BEST IN PRAYER, _Presbyterian_.--A JUST MASTER, _James Stuart_.--TO LOVE RUIN, _Revolution_.--OH POISON PITT, _Th'

Opposition_.--HONOR EST A NILO, _Horatio Nelson_.--A BEAR UPON 'T, _Buonaparte_.

The unhappy Sir Edmundburie G.o.dfry, having dared, as a magistrate, to take some legal depositions against the Papists, was, by three of those fellow-subjects, Green, Berry, and Hill, waylaid, and shockingly murdered, in 1678, upon which was then written,