"When I was a young man, I took up my residence at a lodging-house, which was occupied by several families. On taking possession of my apartments, I agreed with the old lady of the house, who had two children, to accommodate me with a key to the street-door, to prevent unnecessary trouble to the servant or family, as I should very frequently stay out late in the evening. This was agreed to; and, by way of making things more agreeable, I had always a light left burning for me on the staircase, which was opposite to the outer door. This arrangement being made, things continued very comfortable for some months; till, one night, or rather morning, returning and opening the door as usual, I thought I heard a faint scream—I paused for a few seconds. The cry of 'Murder!' now feebly succeeded. I hesitated how to act, when the cry of 'Murder!' was again more loudly vociferated. This very much alarmed me; and, instead of going forward, I instantly re-opened the street-door, and was in the act of calling the watch, when a tall spare figure, at least six feet high, in a complete white dress, and pointed cap, with a candle in its hand, appeared before me. This unexpected encounter completed my astonishment, and I was about to speak, when the phantom (which proved to be my good old landlady) thus addressed me—'I hope, Sir, I have not alarmed you; but, just before you came to the door, I had a most frightful dream. I thought robbers had broken into my house, and, not content with plunder, had murdered my children, and were about to destroy me; when the noise you made on opening the door increased my agony of mind; and, before I was sufficiently sensible, I screamed out Murder! as you must have heard.' This explanation having taken place, the poor woman retired, and was for several days after extremely ill; and I was not a little pleased myself at finding what I at first supposed a supernatural encounter thus terminate, without having recourse to a divine exorcist."
THE
SOMERSETSHIRE DEMONIAC.
On the 13th of June 1788, George Lukins, of Yatton, in Somersetshire, was exorcised in the Temple Church at Bristol, and delivered from the possession of seven devils by the efforts of seven clergymen.
Lukins was first attacked by a kind of epileptic fit, when he was going about acting Christmas plays, or mummeries: this he ascribed to a blow given by an invisible hand. He was afterwards seized by fits; during which he declared with a roaring voice that he was the devil, and sung different songs in a variety of keys. The fits always began and ended with a strong agitation of the right hand; he frequently uttered dreadful execrations during the fits: and the whole duration of this disorder was eighteen years.
At length, viz. in June 1788, he declared, that he was possessed by seven devils, and could only be freed by the prayers, in faith, of seven clergymen. Accordingly, the requisite number was summoned, and the patient sung, swore, laughed, barked, and treated the company with a ludicrous parody on the Te Deum. These astonishing symptoms resisted both hymns and prayers, till a small, faint voice admonished the ministers to adjure. The spirits, after some murmuring, yielded to the adjuration; and the happy patient returned thanks for his wonderful cure. It is remarkable, that, during this solemn mockery, the fiend swore, by his infernal den, that he would not quit his patient; an oath, I believe, no where to be found but in the Pilgrim's Progress, from whence Lukins probably got it.
Very soon after, the first relation of this story was published, a person well acquainted with Lukins, took the trouble of undeceiving the public, with regard to his pretended disorder, in a plain, sensible, narrative of his conduct. He asserts, that Lukins's first seizure was nothing else than a fit of drunkenness; that he always foretold his fits, and remained sensible during their continuance. That he frequently saw Lukins in his fits; in every one of which, except in singing, he performed not more than most active young people can easily do. That he was detected in an imposture with respect to the clenching of his hands. That after money had been collected for him, he got very suddenly well. That he never had any fits while he was at St. George's Hospital, in London; nor when visitors were excluded from his lodgings by desire of the author of the narrative: and that he was particularly careful never to hurt himself by his exertions during the paroxysm.
Is it for the credit of this philosophical age, that so bungling an imposture should deceive seven clergymen into a public act of exorcism? This would not have passed even on the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum; for they required signs of supernatural agency, such as the suspension of the possessed in the air without any visible support, or the use of different languages, unknown to the demoniac in his natural state.
THE MANIAC,
OR
FATAL EFFECTS OF WANTON MISCHIEF.
Some years ago, a very intelligent, handsome, and promising youth, whose names is Henry Pargeter Lewis, the son of a respectable attorney, in the town of Dudley, was placed for a probationary time, previously to an intended apprenticeship, with a surgeon and apothecary of the name of Powell, in the immediate neighbourhood of one of our great public schools. He had not been there long, before one of the scholars, who lodged at the surgeon's, in league with the servant-boy of the house, devised the following stratagem to frighten him. One night, during an absence of the master, the servant-boy concealed himself under the bed of Henry, before the latter retired to rest, and remained there till the hour of midnight; when, on a preconcerted signal of three raps at the chamber door, it suddenly opened, and in stalked the school-boy, habited in a white sheet, with his face horribly disguised, and bearing a lighted candle in his hand; the servant-boy, at the same moment, heaving up the bed under Henry with his back. How long this was acted is not known: it was done long enough, however, completely to dethrone the reason of the unfortunate youth; who, it is supposed, immediately covered himself with the bed-clothes, and so continued till the morning. On his not rising at the usual time, some one of the family went to call him; and, not answering, except by incoherent cries, was discovered in the state just described.