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APPENDIX, 



of the place, and make the town rid of you ; butit 

 is more for fear of you than love io you that I con 

 sent to grant you my chaise.&quot; Such were the ab 

 surd and superstitious notions prevalent among 

 the lower class of the Irish in 1814 or 1815 ; and 

 these were not the only instances in which they 

 were manifested, but only specimens of what fre 

 quently occurred in other parts of that country. 



However clearly persons of education and in 

 telligence may perceive the absurdity and futility 

 of the superstitious notions and practices to which 

 I have now referred, it is a fact, well known to 

 those who have been conversant among the lower 

 orders of society, that they still prevail to a very 

 considerable extent among the untutored ranks, 

 even of our own country. Nothing but a more 

 assiduous cultivation of the rational powers, and 

 a universal diffusion of useful knowledge among 

 the inferior classes of society, can be expected 

 thoroughly to undermine and eradicate such opi 

 nions, and to prevent the baneful and pernicious 

 consequences to which they lead. 



No. VIT. Circumstances which have occasion 

 ally led to the belief of Spectres and Appari- 

 twns. P. 23. 



It is certain, that indistinct vision and optical 

 illusions have, in many instances, been the sour 

 ces of terror, and have produced a belief of su 

 pernatural appearances. When we have no 

 other mode of judging of an unknown object but 

 by the angle it forms in the eye, its magnitude 

 will uniformly increase in proportion to its near 

 ness. If it appears, when at tho distance of 

 forty or fifty paces, to be only a few feet high, its 

 height, when within three or four feet of the 

 eye, will appear to be above forty times greater, 

 or many fathoms in dimension. An object of 

 this kind, must naturally excite terror and asto 

 nishment in the spectator, till he approaches and 

 recognises it by actual feeling ; for the moment 

 a man knows an object, the gigantic appearance 

 it assumed in t ne eye, instantly diminishes, and 

 its apparent magnitude is reduced to its real 

 dimensions. But if, instead of approaching such 

 an object, the spectator flies from it, he can have 

 no other idea of it, but from the image which it 

 formed in the eye; and in this case, he may af 

 firm with truth, that he saw an object terrible in 

 its aspect, and enormous in its size. Such illu 

 sions frequently occur, when persons are walking 

 through desert and unfrequented tracts of country, 

 surrounded with a fog, or in the dusk of the 

 evening, when a solitary tree, a bush, an old 

 wall, a cairn of stones, a sheep or a cow, may 

 appear as phantoms of a monstrous size. The 

 writer of an article in the &quot; Encyclopaedia Bri- 

 tannica,&quot; states, that &quot; he was passing the Frith 

 cf Forth at dueensferry, one morning which was 

 extremely foggy. Though the water is only (wo 

 miles broad The boat did not get within sight of 



the southern shore, till it approached very near it 

 he then saw to his great surprise, a large per 

 pendicular rock, where he knew the shore was 

 low and almost flat. As the boat advanced a 

 little nearer, the rock seemed to split perpendi 

 cularly into portions, which separated at littlo 

 distances from one another ; he next saw these 

 perpendicular divisions move, and upon approach 

 ing a little nearer, found it was a number of 

 people standing on the beach, waiting the arrival 

 of the ferry boat.&quot; 



Spectres arc frequently occasioned by opium. 

 Gassendi, the philosopher, found a number of 

 people going to put a man to death for having 

 intercourse with the devil, a crime which the 

 poor wretch readily acknowledged. Gassendi 

 begged of the people, that they would permit him 

 first to examine the wizard, before putting him 

 to death. They did so, and Gassendi, upon ex 

 amination, found, that the man firmly believed 

 himself guilty of this impossible crime; he even 

 offered to Gassendi to introduce him to the devil. 

 The philosopher agreed, and when midnight 

 came, the man gave him a pill, which he said it 

 was necessary to swallow before setting off. 

 Gassendi took the pill, but gave it to his dog: 

 The man having swallowed his, fell into a pro 

 found sleep, during which he seemed much 

 agitated by dreams ; the dog was affected in a 

 similar manner. When the man awoke he con 

 gratulated Gassendi on the favourable reception 

 he had met with from his sable highness. It 

 was with difficulty Gassendi convinced him that 

 the whole was a dream, the effect of soporific 

 medicines, and that he had never stirred from 

 one spot during the whole night. 



Drunkenness has also the power of creating ap 

 paritions. Drunkenness seldom or never excites 

 fear; and, therefore, it may at first sight seem 

 strange, that persons should imagine they see 

 ghosts when under the influence of intoxication. 

 But it is observable, that the ghosts which the 

 drunkard imagines he sees, he beholds not with 

 the same terror and alarm, as men that are sober ; 

 he is not afraid of them ; he has the courage to 

 converse with them, and even to fight them, if 

 they give him provocation. Like Burns &quot; Tarn 

 o Shanter,&quot; give him &quot; fair play he cares na 

 de ils a bodle.&quot; A man returnina home intoxicat 

 ed, affirmed, that he had met with the devil ; and 

 that, after a severe encounter, he had vanquished 

 him, and brought him to the ground, to which he 

 had nailed him fast, by driving his staff through 

 his body. Next morning, the staff was found 

 stuck with great violence into a heap of turfs ! 



Dreams may be considered as another source oj 

 apparitions. While the mind is under the influ 

 ence of a dream, it considers it as much a reality, 

 as it does any particular action when awake; 

 and, therefore, if a person of a weak superstitious 

 mind should have a very livply dream which in 

 terests his passions, it ma- make so deep an im- 



