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Queen Anne's husband), describes the trances, convulsions, and turned-in eye balls of Highland clairvoyants, all strictly in accordance with modern hypnotic science.

Here it may be as well to dismiss the idea that I take the Angekok, and his savage friends in general, at their own valuation. They are, no doubt, impostors, and their trick of being tied up (which they practise even when aiming at clairvoyance for their own ends) interests us because it has been revived by civilized quacks. But I am inclined to believe that, if no cases of clairvoyance had ever occurred, savage mediums would not so universally lay claim to that accomplishment.

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In the same way, I doubt if" veridical death-wraiths" would be so commonly attested, in all stages of culture, if such things were never observed. The same remarks apply to the noisy rapping Poltergeist, the elf who goes knocking and routing about the house at night." Grimm has collected old German examples from 856 A.D. downward. In Kirk's "Secret Commonwealth" there are more ancient instances; the thing is as common as blackberries in modern tales. The phenomenon takes two forms in the first, the objects which make the noise are visibly moved, and perhaps, in all modern dark séances," this is done by imposture and confederacy. In other cases the noise of heavy furniture being tossed about is loud enough, but even immediate inspection-as by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford-discovers no disturbance of the objects. In the second sort of cases, then, the noise must be hallucinatory, but how the hallucination is produced we do not know. Ambroise Paré, in the sixteenth century, says that fiends cause all the varieties of such uproar as vexed the Wesleys after his time. This is exactly the primitive animistic theory. Dyaks, Singhalese, Siamese, and Esths, according to Mr. Tylor, agree as to "such rapping and routing being caused by spirits." Modern spiritualists (whose reasoning faculties really seem, in this matter, to be on the most primitive level) agree with Ambroise Paré and the Dyaks.

* "Prim. Cult.," ii. 145.

Hartmann advance's another hypothesis of nervous force. These theories do not concern us here, but the uniformity of evidence to the facts does concern us.

The similarity of physiological condition among the persons in whose presence these impressions of noises, movements, and so forth are most common, has already been noticed. These people" suffer from hysterical, convulsive, and epileptic affections."* Tasmanians, Karens, Zulus, Patagonians, Siberians, all, when selected as "medicine men" have such "jerks" as modern mediums display, and as afflict some young ladies when they dabble in table-turning and "the willing game."

Mr. Tylor's asks whether it is probable that savages and charlatans have some method or knowledge, lost by the civilized; for this loss would be a case of degeneration. But, first, there is nothing odd in such degeneration of faculty: the Australian black has senses of sight and hearing, and powers of inference from what he sees and hears, which notoriously excel those of civilized man, and make the native "tracker" a rival of Sherlock Holmes. The cultivation of these senses to the highest point enables the black to survive in his condition of society. In the same way the cultivation of trance, and of whatever uncanny powers trance may lend, is highly serviceable to the savage. This accomplishment leads straight to wealth and power; it is a notable factor in chiefship, and in the evolution of rank. The chief often develops out of the medicine man, and supernatural attributes clung to royalty as late as the days when "Charles III." touched for scrofula in Italy (1761-86).

Now, in civilized society of the Middle Ages, convulsions and trance led either to the stake or to canonization; while since 1710, or so, they have been medically treated, and would not even qualify a man for knighthood, still less increase his wealth and political power. Thus the abnormal phenomena, if any, have been neglected. Yet, in fact, the savage and the charlatan, such as Mesmer, did hold, darkly, a secret, a piece of knowledge, namely, hypnotism, which civilized science has, at last,

*Prim. Cult.," ii., 131.

deemed worthy of recognition. Perhaps the savage and the quack knew even more than science has yet recognized. Certainly sane and educated men testify that certain patients display faculties as abnormal as any of those claimed for his own by the Angekok.

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Among these is what used to be called "divination by the mirror" or crystal, and is now called crystal-gazing." Nobody knows how far back the practice of looking for visions in a clear deep may go the Egyptians have long used a drop of ink, the Maoris a drop of blood; wells of water have been employed, and in the Dordogne, a black hole in an old wall serves as a background for visions of the Virgin. The polished coal ball of Kelly and Dr. Dee still exists, similar things have ever been an element in popular superstition.

In this case the explanation of old was, naturally, animistic. Dee believed that there was a spirit, or a crowd of spirits, in his various specula. An old writer tells us "how to get a fairy" into one of these crystal balls. Folly, and superfluous rites, clustered about the crystals. Now it is an ascertained matter of fact that a certain proportion of men and women, educated, healthy, with no belief in "spiritualism," can produce hallucinations, pictures, by looking into a crystal ball.

Some observers can discover the elements of these pictures in their memory. Others cannot trace any connection between what they see and their past experience. They are not hypnotized; they are, in all respects, their waking selves, at the time of gazing. There are a few who profess to be clairvoyant when they gaze-to see distant historical events, or contemporary events occurring at a distance. These assertions require a monstrous deal of evidence; the most prolonged experience of a seer's probity can scarcely permit us to believe such remarkable statements. But the ordinary crystal-gazer merely illustrates a human faculty, like the strange mental visualization of figures which was first noticed scientifically by Mr. Galton. We are to believe the reports of these arithmetical visualizers, yet, for my own part, I never

visualized a figure, any more than I ever saw anything but reflections in a crystal ball. The report of the crystal seer, when he or she merely beholds pictures

pretty, poetical, but perfectly unconnected with fact-is just as good as the reports of people who internally see the months in colored diagrams, and so forth. We only have their words for it; for crystal vision we have also the uniform coincidence of anthropological testimony, all the world over. If there be any cogency in this argument, a great factor in folklore and in popular superstition is based on actual facts of various kinds. Where savage belief, and popular superstition, and, we must add, ecclesiastical opinion went wrong, was, not in accepting the existence of certain abnormal phenomena, but in the animistic interpretation of these phenomena. The Angekok who claims possession of a tornak, the witch who believes she has a familiar spirit, the magistrate who burns her for having one, the modern medium with his control," are all in the primitive animistic stage of philosophy, with the seers of hallucinations who believe in "ghosts." What nucleus of fact there may be in their theory we cannot at present determine; we can only say that "there are visions about," and wait for time to bring clearer information, or once more to wipe out the whole interest in such matters among the educated. At present we seem to be gaining a little free space for the flight of fancy, a brief escape, perhaps, from an iron philosophy of the hard and fast. This is quite enough to be thankful for while it lasts; if it does not last, why," things must be as they may," and we can endure our limited destiny.

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The chief reason for believing that an accepted extension of human faculty may be imminent is this: A certain set of phenomena, long laughed at, but always alleged to exist, has been accepted. Consequently the still stranger phenomena-uniformly said to accompany those now welcomed within the scientific fold-may also have a measure of fact as a basis for the consentient reports.-Contemporary Review.

THE EARLY LIFE OF PEPYS.

BY C. H. FIRTH.

FEW men are better known than Samuel Pepys. For eight years of his life he has recorded with unblushing frankness all he did and all he thought. After the Diary ends, his voluminous correspondence pictures for us, first the busy official of his manhood, and then the dilettante and virtuoso of his age. On the other hand, for the period which precedes the Diary there is an almost unbroken darkness. Half a dozen bare facts are all that the industry of his biographers has recovered. They tell us when he was born and where he matriculated; but there is nothing which foretells the future Pepys except that he was "scandalously over served with drink" at Cambridge. He was married, his biographers say, on December 1st, 1655, or, as he himself supposed, on October 10th, 1655. As he had no means, he naturally looked for assistance to his rich relations. "Sir Edward Montagu (afterward Earl of Sandwich), who was Pepys's first cousin. one remove (Pepys's grandfather and Montagu's mother being brother and sister), was a true friend to his poor kinsman, and he at once held out a helping hand to the imprudent couple allowing them to live in his house. He owed his success in life primarily to Montagu, to whom he appears to have acted as a sort of agent.'

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Fortunately this connection between Pepys and Montagu supplies materials for the biography of the former which have been hitherto overlooked. When Thomas Carte, about 1740, was preparing his History of England, he borrowed from the Earl of Sandwich three or four volumes of the correspondence of his ancestor Edward Montagu. These volumes were never returned to Hinchinbrook, but passed finally with the rest of Carte's collection to the Bodleian Library. One of them contains about a score of letters from Pepys to his patron, written between the years 1656 and 1660.

*Diary of Samuel Pepys. Ed. Wheatley, i. 22.

The letters show clearly what the real position of Pepys was, and what services he performed for Montagu. Montagu's earliest letter is dated March 11th, 1656, written at sea, and is a simple order to pay £180 to a certain Captain Hare. It is addressed "For my servant Samuel Pepys at my lodgings in Whitehall." During Montagu's absences from London, whether he was commanding a squadron or living in. the country at Hinchinbrook, Pepys was continually engaged in paying and receiving small sums of money for his master. He received also on his behalf the gifts which officers or officials used to offer to the Admiral, and reports one day that "Captain Clerke with his humblest service hath presented you with six goodly planks of cedar," and in another letter that Captain Holland has sent some bottles of Rhenish wine. If any furniture was to be removed from Whitehall to the country, or anything to be bought for his patron's family, Pepys executes the commissions.

"I have sent swords and belts, black and modish, with two caps for your honor and two for Mrs. Jemima." (Nov. 27th, 1656.) "I have delivered. and sent the dozen stools and halfdozen cushions. My Lady Pickering [Montagu's sister] was herself here, and see the books and silver bedstead well placed, and in the chest with the cushions there are five pieces of hangings, which her ladyship hath sent. Upon the hangings I have put the letter I mentioned with the ring in it, which the post-master sent me as unwilling to promise its security." (Dec. 11th, 1656.) "I have this week sent down one box of oranges, two razors in a little box, of Mr. Bayly's choosing and setting, some shuttlecocks also, and four battledores for the children." (Dec. 10th, 1657.)

Besides this, Pepys exercised a general supervision over the servants in the London house, though his authority was ill defined and his example not always unimpeachable. In December,

1657, the household was in sad disorder. One of the maids had clandestinely married, and Pepys had been staying out late at night instead of keeping an eye on the servants. Montagu sent Roger Pepys and a Mr. Barton with instructions to set things to rights, and Pepys was for a time in disgrace. Vindicating himself as to "this late business of the maid," he says: "As for my privity to her marriage, if no duty to yourself, a tenderness to my credit (as to my employment) obligeth me to avoid such actions, which (like this) renders it so questionable. But I shall submit your opinion of my honesty in this, to that which Mr. Barton and Roger shall inform you of from her own mouth. If the rendering me suspicious to the maid, and charging her to lock me from any room but my chamber, moved me to speak anything in an ill sense concerning my cousin Mark, I desire it may be valued as my zeal to acquit myself rather than prejudice him. For the week-days I have not yet, nor for the future on Sundays, shall I be more forth at night, though this was not past seven o'clock, as my she-cousin Alcock knows who supped with us at my father's." (Dec. 5th, 1657.) The maid, it is settled, is to be sent away and Montagu's mother-in-law, Mrs. Crewe, is to procure a new one. "Mrs. Crewe will soon acquaint me concerning the maid heretofore proffered to my Lady, till when I think it not best to let this maid know of her sudden going away; but I shall have a care to look over the inventory and goods." (Dec. 8th, 1657.) Pepys has a theory of the cause of the trouble which proves that it was not his staying out late that made it. "I shall venture to acquaint your honor that I am too evidently convinced that Sarah's and this maid's miscarriage hath risen from want of employment at home, and especially from their victualling abroad, under pretence of which four hours at least in a day was excused for their being abroad, and from thence at cookshops comes their acquaintance with these fellows. To prevent this (from the time I perceived it) I have allowed this maid very plentifully for my diet for 20 weeks, and I am sure have thereby hindered many ill consequences which in NEW SERIES.-VOL. LIX., No. 1.

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so short a time her liberty had in part occasioned. . . . Your directions to give the next maid convenient allowance encouraged me to this liberty of proposing it to your honor that (if you think it fit) she shall diet as well as myself and my wife for four shillings a week, and by that means the disrepute of a maid's going to a victualling house and neglect of your honor's own doors will be prevented. I humbly mention this to your honor upon confidence that it will be received as I intend it, viz., free from any other ends than your honor's commodity." But when the new maid came, Pepys found himself again in a difficulty. "On Thursday night there came a woman from Mrs. Anne Crewe, whom I received. But before I said anything to her concerning the house, she began and asked me if I knew what her work must be. I told her I supposed Mrs. Crewe had acquainted her with that; she told me, no. Whereupon I told her what had been the office of them that had been before her. She answered she never had been used to make fires, wash rooms or clothes, scour, or do anything like that, and she expected only to take charge of the foods and oversee other maids as a housekeeper. I answered I knew nothing to the contrary, but that her work was to be as theirs that had been in her place before, but that if your intentions were otherwise Mrs. Crewe could best advertise her. So she lodged here that night, and desired to be excused from undertaking anything till she had advised again with Mrs. Crewe. Whereupon the next morn she went away, and since I have not heard of her." (Dec. 22d, 1657.) "My cousin Mark is here, for how long I know not, but your commands concerning him I shall follow. Only it troubles me to hear what your Lordship's apprehensions are concerning me (if his report may be credited). The loss of your Honor's good word I am too sure will prove as much my undoing as hitherto it hath been my best friend. But as I was ingorant of this late passage, so I see little cause by anything I find yet to doubt of giving your Honor a good account of the goods in the house, and my care in keeping them (Dec. 26th, 1657.)

80."

How Pepys found a satisfactory housemaid at last the letters do not show. He succeeded however in regaining Montagu's confidence, and by the end of 1659 obtained, doubtless through his influence, a clerkship in the office of Mr. Downing, one of the four Tellers of the Receipt of the Exchequer. Still however he continued. to act as Montagu's factotum, and on December 15th, 1659, wrote to advise him on the reply to be sent to a summons to take part in the deliberations of the General Council of the Army. Though no longer living in Montagu's lodgings at Whitehall, he kept his eye on both the house and its occupants. On January 12th, 1660, he reported to Montagu that several persons were try ing to get the lodgings granted to themselves, and that Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper was specially anxious about them. More alarming still was the health of "Mrs. Jemima," Montagu's daughter, afflicted with mysterious pimples which her maid pronounced small-pox. "But my Lord, if it be she hath none on her face at all, and for her health she was last night as well and merry as ever I knew, and hath not yet had the least pain or sickness imaginable since they appeared, which is six days since."

Now and then, but not often, the series of domestic incidents which these letters record is enlivened by references to current events in Court or Parliament. In Parliament in December, 1656, the question of the succession to the Protectorate was under discussion. "The capital dispute, an anima gubernatoris debet generari vel creari, hath lately warmed a great deal of breath there, and to be feared some blood too, not one openly abetting generation but the graver of those two your Honor may remember present at Sir W. P.'s magnetic experiments." In other words the majority were for the election of Cromwell's successor, and against an hereditary Protectorate. At Court preparations were making to celebrate the third anniversary of Cromwell's accession. "Pagan Fisher hath a solemn speech prepared for the 16th current, the day of His Highness's inauguration, to be spoken in the Cockpit on Tuesday next, and distrusting by his

rhetoric he should lose the name of the Poet Mendicant he hath fitted a song, which Mr. Hingston hath set for six voices, with symphonies between each stanza for as many instruments, the first of which (being at a practice at Mr. Hingston's chamber) I remember runs thus:

Funde flores, thura, crema
Omne sit lætitiæ thema,

Facessat quicquid est amari,
Tuba sonet, et tormentum
Grande fiat argumentum

Invicti virtus Olivari."

(Dec. 11th, 1656.)

At Hingston's chamber the Protector himself would occasionally appear to listen to the music. It was from once playing before him there that Roger l'Estrange gained the nickname of Cromwell's fiddler. Pepys however does not record seeing the Protector, though he must often have done so. In a letter dated December 8th, 1657, he illustrates the Protector's idea of humor. "Some talk there is of a plot, but I believe it is merely raised upon the late discovery of so many Jesuit priests, whose copes and other popish vestments the Protector yesterday made some of his gentlemen put on, to the causing of abundance of mirth." A fortnight later he describes a strange embassy to Cromwell. "There is an ambassador, (rather drove than) come from Florida, forced by the Spaniard's rigor to an address to his Highness, but more by the calamity of shipwreck to the miserable condition of his coming, his Highness being necessitated to give him clothes. He is a Moor, and by the perishing of his interpreter cannot be understood. He was yesterday at Whitehall, and was received courteously there." (Dec. 22d, 1657).

From the historical point of view the most valuable of these letters are three written in December, 1659, giving an account of the rising opposition of the citizens to the rule of the Army. The demand for the summoning of a Parliament grew daily stronger, and the ap prentices were preparing to back their demand by force. Yesterday," writes Pepys, "there was a general alarm to our soldiery from London, so that the City was strictly guarded all night, occasioned by the apprentices' petition de

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