DURATION OF THE SOUL. 



335 



While such, however, were the philosophical traditions, the popular tra- 

 dition appears to have been of a different kind, and as much more ancient as 

 it was more extensive. It taught that the disimbodied spirit becomes a ghost 

 as soon as it is separated from the corporeal frame ; a thin, misty, or aerial 

 form, somewhat larger than life, with a feeble voice, shadowy limbs ; know- 

 ledge superior to what was possessed while in the flesh capable, under par- 

 ticular circumstances, of rendering itself visible ; and retaining so much of its 

 former features as to be recognised upon its apparition ; in a few instances 

 wandering about for a certain period of time after death, but for the most part 

 conveyed to a common receptacle situated in the interior of the earth, and 

 denominated scheol (SlJ^iy)^ hades {aSvs), hell, or the world of shades. 



Such was the general belief of the multitude in almost ail countries from a 

 very early period of time ; with this difference, that the hades of various 

 nations was supposed to exist in some remote situation on the surface of the 

 earth, and that of others in the clouds. The first of these modifications of 

 the general tradition is still to be traced among many of the African tribes, 

 and perhaps all the aboriginal tribes of North America. That most excellent 

 man, William Penn, who appears, with some singularities, to have united in 

 his character as much moral goodness, natural eloquence, and legislative wis- 

 dom, as ever fell to the lot of any one, has sufficiently noticed this fact, in 

 regard to the American tribes, in his valuable account of the country, ad- 

 dressed to " The Free Society of Traders of Pennsylvania," drawn up from 

 an extensive and actual survey, and constituting, so far as it goes, one of the 

 most important and authentic documents we possess. " These poor people," 

 says he, " are under a dark night in things relating to religion, to be sure, the 

 tradition of it : yet they believe a God and immortality without the help of 

 metaphysics ; for they say there is a great king who made them, who dwells 

 in a glorious country to the southward of them, and that the souls of the good 

 shall go thither, where they shall live again."* And it is upon the faith of 

 this description that Mr. Pope drew up that admirable and well-known pic- 

 ture of the same tradition, that occurs in the first epistle of his Essay on Man, 

 and is known to every one. 



Lo ! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind, 

 Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind : 

 His soul proud science never taught to stray 

 Far as the solar walk or milky way ; 

 Yet simple nature to his hope has given 

 Beyond the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heaven ; 

 Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd. 

 Some happier island in the wal'ry waste ; 

 Where slaves once more their native land behold, 

 No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 



The tradition which describes the hades, or invisible world, as seated in 

 the clouds, was chiefly common to the Celtic tribes, and particularly to that 

 which at an early age peopled North Britain. It is by far the most refined 

 and picturesque idea that antiquity has offered upon the subject, and which 

 has consequently been productive, not only of the most sublime, but of the 

 most pathetic descriptions to which the general tradition has given rise under 

 any form. The Celtic bards are full of this imagery ; and it is hence a chief 

 characteristic in the genuine productions of Ossian, which, in consequence, 

 assume a still higher importance as historical records than as fragments of 

 exquisite poetry. Let me, in proof of this, quote his fine delineation of the 

 spirit of Crugal from a passage in the second book of Fingal, one of his best 



Fuga le nebbie, e le terrestre mole 



Leva da m^, e splendi in la tua luce ; 



Tu se' quel sommo ben che chiascun vuole; 

 A t^ dolce riposo si conduce, 



E t^ come suo fin, vede ogni pio ; 



Tu se' piincipio, portatoree duce, 

 La vita, e '1 termino, Tu sol Magno Die. 



* Ularkson's liife of W^m. Penn, vol. i, p, 391, 



