My friend Sir Roger has often told me, with a great deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate, he found three parts of his house altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means was locked up; that noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it after eight o'clock at night; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family that a butler had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son, or daughter had died. The knight, seeing his habitation reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the apartments to be flung open and exorcised by his chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, and by that means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in the family. I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous horrors, did not I find them so very much prevail in all parts of the country. At the same time, I think a person who is thus terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless; could not I give myself up to this general testimony of mankind, I should to the relations of particular persons who are now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other matters of fact. I might here add, that not only the historians, to whom we may join the poets, but likewise the philosophers of antiquity have favored this opinion. Lucretius himself, though by the course of his philosophy he was obliged to maintain that the soul did not exist separate from the body, makes no doubt of the reality of apparitions, and 1 Should give myself up to; i. e., believe. that men have often appeared after their death. This I think very remarkable; he was so pressed with the matter of fact which he could not have the confidence to deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd unphilosophical notions that was ever started. He tells us that the surfaces of all bodies are perpetually flying off from their respective bodies one after another, and that these surfaces or thin cases that included each other, whilst they were joined in the body, like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it; by which means we often behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are either dead or absent.1 I shall dismiss this paper with a story out of Josephus, not so much for the sake of the story itself as for the moral reflections with which the author concludes it, and which I shall here set down in his own words: 66 Glaphyra, the daughter of King Archelaus, after the death of her two first husbands (being married to a third, who was brother to her first husband, and so passionately in love with her that he turned off his former wife to make room for this marriage) had a very odd kind of dream. She fancied that she saw her first husband coming 2 1 Nunc agere incipiam tibi (quod vehementer ad has res Dico igitur, rerum effigias tenuesque figuras LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura, iv., 33-50. Arrange in better order. towards her, and that she embraced him with great tenderness; when in the midst of the pleasure which she expressed at the sight of him, he reproached her after the following manner: 666 Glaphyra,' says he, thou hast made good the old saying that women are not to be trusted. husband of thy virginity? Was not I the Have I not children by thee? How couldst thou forget our loves so far as to enter into a second marriage, and after that into a third? However, for the sake of our past loves I shall free thee from thy present reproach, and make thee mine for ever.' 66 Glaphyra told this dream to several women of her acquaintance, and died soon after. 1 "I thought this story might not be impertinent in this place wherein I speak of those kings. Besides that, the example deserves to be taken notice of, as it contains a most certain proof of the immortality of the soul, and of divine providence. If any man thinks these facts incredible, let him enjoy his own opinion to himself, but let him not endeavor to disturb the belief of others, who by instances of this nature are excited to the study of virtue."? 1 L. Josephus had been speaking of at least four kings: Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, Glaphyra's father; Herod the Great, father of Glaphyra's first husband, Alexander (whom Herod put to death); Juba, king of Libya, Glaphyra's second husband; and Archelaus, her third husband, brother of Alexander and " ethnarch his father's kingdom. over half 2 This story is in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, book xvii., ch. 13. XI. A COUNTRY SUNDAY. [Spectator No. 112. Monday, July 9, 1711. Addison.] ̓Αθανάτους μὲν πρῶτα θεούς, νόμῳ ὡς διάκειται, Τίμα. PYTHAGORAS. I AM always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians were there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in which the whole village meet together with their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join together in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. A country fellow distinguishes himself as much in the church-yard as a citizen does upon the 'Change, the whole parish politics being generally discussed in that place, either after sermon or before the bell rings. My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified the inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing; he has likewise given a handsome pulpit cloth, and railed in the communion table at his own expense. He has often told me that, at his coming to his estate, he found his parishioners very irregular; and that, in order to make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a Common-PrayerBook, and at the same time employed an itinerant singingmaster, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed outdo1 most of the country churches that I have ever heard. As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself; for, if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and, if he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his servant to them. Several other of the old knight's particularities break out upon these occasions; sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing Psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he pronounces Amen "three or four times to the same prayer; and sometimes stands up when everybody else is upon their 3 knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are missing. 66 I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, in the midst of the service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was about, and not disturb the congregation. This John Matthews, it seems, is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behavior; besides that the general good sense and worthiness of his character makes A suggestive word, indicative of volume. 2 We might say humors. 8 Why is this not in accord with modern grammatical usage? |
