The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campell

But neither were the two misers for their gold, the virgin for a first husband, nor the widow for a second, half so eager as another married woman there was for the death of her spouse. She had put the question in so expecting a manner for a lucky answer, and with so much keen desire appearing plainly in her looks, that no big-bellied woman was ever more eager for devouring fruit; no young, hasty bridegroom, just married to a beauty, more impatient for night and enjoyment, than she was to know what she thought a more happy moment, the moment of her husband's last agonising gasp. As her expectation was the greatest, so was her disappointment, too, and consequently her disorder upon his going and leaving her unresolved. She was frantic, raging, and implacable; she was in such a fury at the delay of putting off her answer to the day following, that in her fury she acted as if she would have given herself an answer which of the two should die first, by choking herself upon the spot, with the indignation that swelled in her stomach and rose into her throat on that occasion. It may look like a romance to say it, but indeed they were forced to cut her lace, and then she threw out of the room with great passion; but yet had so much of the enraged wife left, beyond the enraged woman, as to return instantly up stairs, and signify very calmly, she would be certain to be there next day, and beseeched earnestly that she might not meet with a second disappointment.

All this hurry and bustle created a stay a little too tedious for the merchant, who began to be impatient himself, especially when word was brought up that a fresh company was come in; but Mr. Campbell was denied to them; and to put a stop to any more interruptions, the merchant and the dumb gentleman agreed to slip into a coach, drive to a tavern in the city, and settle matters of futurity over a bottle of French claret.

The first thing done at the tavern, was Mr. Campbell's saluting him upon a piece of paper by his name, and drinking his health. The next paper held a discourse of condolence for a disaster that was past long since; namely, a great and considerable loss that happened to his family, in the dreadful conflagration of the city of London. In the third little dialogue which they had together, he told the merchant that losses and advantages were general topics, which a person unskilled in that art might venture to assign to any man of his profession; it being next to impossible that persons who traffic should not sometimes gain, and sometimes lose. But, said Mr. Duncan Campbell, I will sketch out particularly, and specify to you some future misfortunes with which you will unavoidably meet; it is in your stars, it is in destiny, that you should have some trials, and therefore when you are forewarned, take a prudent care to be forearmed with patience, and by longanimity, and meekly and resignedly enduring your lot, render it more easy, since impatience can't avert it, and will only render it more burdensome and heavy. He gave these words to the merchant; who pressed for his opinion that moment. By your leave, resuming the pen, said the dumb gentleman, in writing, we will have this bottle out first and tap a fresh one, that you may be warmed with courage enough to receive the first speculative onset of ill fortune, that I shall predict to you, with a good grace, and that may perhaps enable you to meet it when it comes to reduce itself into action, with a manful purpose and all becoming resolution. The merchant agreed to the proposal, and put on an air of the careless and indifferent as well as he could, to signify that he had no need to raise up an artificial courage from the auxiliary forces of the grape. But nature, when hard pressed, will break through all disguises, and not only notwithstanding the air of pleasantry he gave himself, which appeared forced and constrained, but in spite of two or three sparkling and enlivening bumpers, a cloud of care would ever and anon gather and shoot heavily across his brow, though he laboured all he could to dispel it as quickly, and to keep fair weather in his countenance. Well, they had cracked the first bottle, and the second succeeded upon the table, and they called to blow a pipe together. This pipe Mr. Campbell found had a very ill effect; it is certainly a pensive kind of instrument, and fills a mind, anything so disposed, with disturbing thoughts, black fumes, and melancholy vapours, as certainly as it doth the mouth with smoke. It plainly took away even the little sparks of vivacity which the wine had given before; so he wrote for a truce of firing those sort of noxious guns any longer, and they laid down their arms by consent, and drank off the second bottle. A third immediately supplied its place, and at the first glass, the opening of the bottle, Mr. Campbell began to open to him his future case, in the following words: Sir, you have now some ventures at sea from such and such a place, to such a value. Don't be discomforted at the news which you certainly will have within three months, but it will be false at last, that they are by three different tempests made the prey of the great ocean, and enrich the bottom of the sea, the palace of Neptune. A worse storm than all these attends you at home, a wife who is, and will be more, the tempest of the house wherein she lives. The high and lofty winds of her vanity will blow down the pillars of your house and family; the high tide of her extravagance will roll on like a resistless torrent, and leave you at low water, and the ebb of all your fortunes. This is the highest and the most cutting disaster that is to befall you; your real shipwreck is not foreign but domestic; your bosom friend is to be your greatest foe, and even your powerful undoer for a time; mark what I say, and take courage, it shall be but for a time, provided you take courage; it will upon that condition be only a short and wholesome taste of adversity given to you, that you may relish returning prosperity with virtue, and with a greater return of thanks to Him that dispenses it at pleasure to mankind. Remember, courage and resignation is what I advise you to; use it, as becomes you, in your adversity, and believe that as I foretold that adversity, so I can foretell a prosperity will again be the consequence of those virtues; and the more you feel the one ought not to cast you down, but raise your hopes the more, that he who foretold you that so exactly, could likewise foretell you the other. The merchant was by this put into a great suspense of mind, but somewhat easier by the second prediction being annexed so kindly to the first fatal one. They crowned the night with a flask of Burgundy, and then parting, each went to their respective homes.

The reader may perchance wonder how I, who make no mention of my being there, as in truth I was not at the tavern, should be able to relate this as of my own knowledge; but if he pleases to have patience to the end of the story, he will have entire satisfaction in that point.

About half a year after, the merchant came again, told him that his prediction was too far verified, to his very dear cost, and that he was now utterly undone, and beyond any visible means of a future recovery, and doubting lest the other fortunate part of the prediction was only told him by way of encouragement, for groundless doubts and fears always attend a mind implunged in melancholy, besought him very earnestly to tell him candidly and sincerely if there was no real prospect of good, and rid him at once of the uneasiness of such a suspension of thought; But pray too, said he, with all the vehemence of repeated expostulation, satisfy me if there are any farther hopes on this side the grave?

To this Duncan Campbell made a short, but a very significant reply in writing. May the heavens preserve you from a threatening danger of life. Take care only of yourself, great and mighty care; and if you outlive Friday next, you will yet be great and more fortunate than ever you was in all the height of your former most flourishing space of life. He coloured inordinately when Duncan Campbell said Friday, and conjured him to tell him as particularly as he could what he meant by Friday. He told him he could not particularise any farther, but that great danger threatened him that day; and that without extraordinary precaution it would prove fatal to him, even to death. He shook his head, and went away in a very sorrowful plight. Friday past, Saturday came, and on that very Saturday morning came likewise the joyful tidings, that what ventures of his were given over for lost at sea, were all come safe into the harbour. He came the moment he received those dispatches from his agent, to Mr. Duncan Campbell's apartment, embraced him tenderly, and saluted him with much gladness of heart, before a great roomful of ladies, where I happened to be present at that time; crying out in a loud voice, before he knew what he said, that Mr. Campbell had saved his life, that Friday was his birthday, and he had intended with a pistol to shoot himself that very day. The ladies thought him mad; and he, recovered from his ecstacy, said no more, but sat down, till Mr. Campbell dismissed all his clients; and then we three went to the tavern together, where he told me the whole little history or narrative, just as is above related.

The fame which Mr. Duncan Campbell got by the foregoing, and several other predictions of the like kind, was become very large and extensive, and had spread itself into the remotest corners of this metropolis. The squares rung with it, it was whispered from one house to another through the more magnificent streets, where persons of quality and distinction reside; it catched every house in the city, like the news of stock from Exchange-alley; it run noisily through the lanes and little thoroughfares where the poor inhabit; it was the chat of the tea-table, and the babble of the streets; and the whole town, from the top to the bottom, was full of it. Whenever any reputation rises to a degree like this, let it be for what art or accomplishment, or on what account soever it will, malice, envy, and detraction, are sure to be the immediate pursuers of it with full mouth, and to hunt it down if possible, with full cry. Even the great Nostradamus, though favoured by kings and queens, which always without any other reason creates enemies, was not more pursued by envy and detraction for his predictions in Paris, and throughout France, than our Duncan Campbell was in London, and even throughout England. Various, different, and many were the objections raised to blot his character and extenuate his fame, that when one was confuted another might not be wanting to supply its place, and so to maintain a course and series of backbiting, according to the known maxim, Throw dirt, and if it does not stick, throw dirt continually, and some will stick.

Neither is there any wonder; for a man, that has got applauders of all sorts and conditions, must expect condemners and detractors of all sorts and conditions likewise. If a lady of high degree, for example, should say smiling, though really thinking absolutely what she says, for fear of being thought over-credulous: Well, I vow, some things Mr. Campbell does are surprising after all; they would be apt to incline one to a belief that he is a wonder of a man; for one would imagine the things he does impossible: why, then, a prude, with an assumed, supercilious air and a scornful tihee, would, in order to seem more wise than she was, reply; Laud, madam, it is more a wonder to me that you can be imposed upon so. I vow to Gad, madam, I would as soon consult an almanack maker, and pin my faith upon what he pricks down; or believe, like my creed, in the cross which I make upon the hand of a gipsy. Lard, madam, I assure your la'ship he knows no more than I do of you. I assure you so, and therefore believe me. He has it all by hearsay. If the lady that believed it, should reply, that if he had notice of every stranger by hearsay he must be a greater man than she suspected, and must keep more spies in pay than a prime minister; the prude's answer would be with a loud laugh, and giggling out these words; Lard, madam, I assure you nothing can be more easy; and so take it for granted. Because she was inclined to say so, and had the act of wisdom on her side, forsooth, that she appeared hard of belief, which some call hard to be put upon, and the other lady credulous, which some though believing upon good grounds are called, and so thought, foolish; the prude's answer would be thought sufficient and convincing.

Thus malice and folly, by dint of noise and impudence, and strong though empty assertions, often run down modesty and good sense. Among the common people it is the same, but only done in a different manner. For example, an ordinary person that had consulted, might say, as he walked along, there goes the dumb gentleman who writes down any name of a stranger at first sight. Steps up a blunt fellow, that takes stubbornness for sense, and says, That is a confounded lie; he is a cheat and an impostor, and you are one of his accomplices; he will tell me my name, I suppose, if you tell it him first: he is no more dumb than I am; he can speak and hear as well as us; I have been with those that say they have heard him; I wish I and two or three more had him in our stable, and I warrant you with our cartwhips we would lick some words out of his chaps, as dumb as you call him. I tell you it is all a lie, and all a bite. If the other desires to be convinced for himself by his own experience, the rougher rogue, who perhaps has stronger sinews than the other, answers, If you lie any farther I will knock you down; and so he is the vulgar wit, and the mouth of the rabble-rout, and thus the detraction spreads below with very good success, as it does above in another kind.

As there are two comical adventures in his life, which directly suit and correspond with the foregoing reflections, this seems the most proper place to insert them in. The first consists of a kind of mob-way of usage he met with from a fellow who got to be an officer in the army, but by the following behaviour will be found unworthy of the name and the commission.

In the year 1701, a lady of good quality came and addressed herself to him much after the following manner. She told him she had choice of lovers, but preferred one above the rest; but desired to know his name, and if she made him her choice what would be the subsequent fate of such a matrimony. Mr. Duncan Campbell very readily gave her down in writing this plain and honest reply; That of all her suitors she was most inclined to a captain, a distinguished officer, and a great beau, naming his name, and one that had a great many outward, engaging charms, sufficient to blind the eyes of any lady that was not thoroughly acquainted with his manner of living. He therefore assured her, and thought himself bound, being conjured so to do, having received his fee, though there was danger in such plain and open predictions, that he was a villain and a rogue in his heart, a profligate gamester, and that if she took him to her bed, she would only embrace her own ruin. The lady's woman, who was present, being in fee with the captain, resolving to give intelligence, for fear the officer, her so good friend, should be disappointed in the siege, slily shuffled the papers into her pocket, and made a present of them to the military spark. Fired with indignation at the contents, he vowed revenge; and in order to compass it, conspires with his female spy about the means. In fine, for fear of losing the lady, though he quarrelled with Duncan Campbell, a method was to be found out how to secure her by the very act of revenge. At last it was resolved to discover to her, that he had found out what she had been told by Mr. Campbell, but the way how he had been informed was to remain a secret. He did do so, and ended his discovery with these words: – I desire, madam, that if I prove him an impostor, you would not believe a word he says. The lady agreed to so fair a proposal. Then the captain swore that he himself would never eat a piece of bread more till he had made Mr. Campbell eat his words; nay, he insisted upon it that he would bring him to his tongue, and make him own by word of mouth, that what he had written before was false and calumnious. To which the lady answered again, that if he performed what he said, she would be convinced. This brave, military man, however, not relying upon his own single valour and prowess, to bring about so miraculous a thing as the making a person that was dumb to speak, he took with him for this end three lusty assistants to combine with him in the assassination. The ambuscade was settled to be at the Five Bells tavern, in Wych-street, in the Strand. After the ambush was settled with so much false courage, the business of decoying Mr. Campbell into it was not practicable any other way than by sending out false colours. The lady's woman, who was by her own interest tied fast to the interests of the beau, was to play the trick of Delilah, and betray this deaf and dumb Samson, as he will appear to be a kind of one in the sequel of the story, into the hands of these Philistines. She smooths her face over with a complimenting lie from her mistress to Mr. Campbell, and acted her part of deceit so well, that he promised to follow her to the Five Bells with all haste; and so she scuttled back to prepare the captain, and to tell him how lucky she was in mischief; and how she drew him out by smiles into perdition. The short of the story is, when they got him in among them, they endeavoured to assassinate him; but they missed of their aim; yet it is certain they left him in a very terrible and bloody condition; and the captain went away in as bad a plight as the person was left in, whom he assaulted so cowardly with numbers, and to such disadvantage. I was sent for to him upon this disaster, and the story was delivered to me thus, by one of the drawers of the tavern, when I inquired into it. They began to banter him, and speaking to him as if he heard, asked him if he knew his own fortune; they told him it was to be beaten to death. This was an odd way of addressing a deaf and dumb man. They added, they would make him speak before they had done. The boy seeing he made no reply, but only smiled, thought what passed between them was a jest with an old acquaintance, and withdrew about his business. The door being fastened, however, before they began the honourable attack, they vouchsafed to write down their intent in the words above mentioned, which they had uttered before to make sure that he should understand their meaning, and what this odd way of correction was for. All the while the maid who had brought him into it was peeping through a hole and watching the event, as appears afterwards. Mr. Campbell wrote them the following answer, viz., That he hoped for fair play, that he understood beargarden as well as they; but if a gentleman was amongst them he would expect gentlemanly usage. The rejoinder they made to this, consisted, it seems, not of words but of action. The officer in conjunction with another ruffian, one of the strongest of the three he had brought, commenced the assault. As good luck would have it, he warded off their first blows, it seems, with tolerable success, and a wine quart pot standing upon the table, Duncan took to his arms, and at two or three quick blows, well managed, and close laid in upon the assailants, felled them both to the ground. Here it was that the maid discovered her knowledge of it, and privity to the plot to the whole house; for she no sooner sees the famous leader, the valiant captain, lie sprawling on the floor with bleeding temples, but she shrieked out with all the voice she could exert, Murder, murder, murder! Alarmed at this outcry, the master and all the attendants of the tavern scampered up stairs, burst into the room, and found Duncan Campbell struggling with the other two, and the quart pot still fast clenched in his hand, which they were endeavouring to wrench from him. The drawers rescued him out of their hands, and inquired into the matter. The maid in a fright confessed the whole thing. The officer and his associate rubbed their eyes as recovering from a stunning sleep, reeled as they went to rise, paid the reckoning and slunk pitifully away; or, as the rakes' term for it is, they brushed off, and for all their odds had the worst of the lay. I, who had some authority with Mr. Campbell, by reason of my years, and the strict acquaintance I had with his mother, when I came and found him in that pickle, and had the whole relation told to me by the people of the house, though I could not forbear pitying him within my own mind, took upon me to reprehend him, and told him that these hardships would by Providence be daily permitted to fall upon him, for he met with them twenty times, while he continued in that irregular way of living and spending his time, that might be so precious to himself and many others, in drunkenness and debauchery; and I think the lessons I wrote down to him upon that head, though a little severe just at that juncture, were, notwithstanding, well timed, and did, as I guessed they would, make a more solid impression in him than at any other. In all these scuffles, whether it is that being deaf and dumb an affront works deeper upon a man, and so renders him far more fierce or resolute, it must be said, that, though nature has been kind in making him very strong, robust, and active withal, yet he has bore some shocks, one would imagine, beyond the strength of a man, having sometimes got the better of five or six ruffians in rencounters of the like kind.

The next banter he met with was in a gentler way, from an unbelieving lady, and yet she came off with very ill success, and the banter turned all upon herself in the end.

A lady of distinction, whose name shall therefore be concealed in this place, came with two or three of her special friends, who took her for the most merry, innocent, spotless virgin upon earth, and whose modesty was never suspected in the least by her relations or servants that were nearest about her; after having rallied Mr. Campbell with several frivolous questions, doubting his capacity, and vexing and teasing him with gay impertinences beyond all patience, was by him told, that he did not take fees in his profession to be made a jest of like a common fortuneteller, but to do real good to those who consulted him, as far as he was able by his predictions; that he was treated with more respect by persons of a higher condition, though her own was very good, and so offered her guinea back again with a bow and a smile. She had a little more generosity of spirit than not to be a little nettled at the proffer she had caused by so coarse an usage. She affected appearing grave a little, and told him she would be serious for the future, and asked him to set down her name, which she had neglected before, to ask other questions that were nothing to the purpose. He promised to write it down, but pausing a little longer than ordinary about it, she returned to her former way of uncivil merriment and ungallant raillery. She repeated to him in three or four little scraps of paper, one after another, as fast as she could write them, the same words, viz., That he could not tell her name, nor whether she was maid, wife, or widow; and laughed as if she would split her sides, triumphing to the rest of her companions over his ignorance and her own wit, as if she had posed him, and put him to an entire stand. But see what this overweening opinion of security ended in: the man of the second-sight was not to be so easily baffled. Vexed at being so disturbed, and coming out of his brown study, he reaches the paper and begins to write. Now it was the lady's turn to suffer, she had deserved hearty punishment, and it came into her hands with the note, to a degree of severity, as you will perceive by the contents of it just now. She read it, and swooning away, dropped from her chair. The whole room being in a bustle, I, that was in the outward chamber, ran in: while Mr. Campbell was sprinkling water in her face, a lady snatched up the note to read it, at which he seemed mightily displeased; I, therefore, who understood his signs, recovered it out of her hands by stratagem, and ran to burn it, which I did so quick that I was not discovered in the curiosity which I must own I satisfied myself in by reading it first; a curiosity raised too high by so particular an adventure, to be overcome in so little a time of thought, as I was to keep it in my hands, and so I came by the knowledge of it myself, without being informed by Mr. Campbell. This shows how a sudden curiosity, when there is not time given to think and correct it, may overcome a man as well as a woman; for I was never over-curious in my life, and though I was pleased with the oddness of the adventure, I often blushed to myself since for the unmanly weakness of not being able to step with a note from one room to another to the fireside, without peeping into the contents of it. The contents of it were these: Madam since you provoke me, your name is – . You are no widow, you are no wife, and yet you are no maid; you have a child at nurse at such a place, by such a gentleman, and you were brought to bed in Leicestershire. The lady, convinced by this answer of his strange and mystical power, and pleased with his civility in endeavouring to conceal from others the secret, after so many repeated provocations, though she showed great disorder for that day, became one of his constant attenders some time after, and would not take any step in her affairs without his advice, which she often has said since, she found very much to her advantage. She was as serious in her dealings with him afterwards, and improved by being so, as she was gay and turbulent with him before, and smarted for it. In fine, she was a thorough convert, and a votary of his; and the only jest she used afterwards to make, concerning him, was a civil witticism to his wife; to whom she was wont, every now and then, smiling, to address herself after this manner: Your husband, madam, is a devil, but he is a very handsome and a very civil one.

Not long after this came another lady, with a like intent, to impose upon him; and was resolved, as she owned, to have laughed him to scorn if she had succeeded in her attempt. She had very dexterously dressed herself in her woman's habit, and her woman in her own; her footman squired the new-made lady in a very gentlemanly dress, hired for the purpose of a disguise, from Monmouth-street. The strange and unknown masqueraders entered Mr. Campbell's room with much art. The fellow was by nature of a clean make, and had a good look, and from following a genteel master when he was young, copied his gait a little, and had some appearance of a mien, and a tolerable good air about him. But this being the first time of his being so fine, and he a little vain in his temper, he over-acted his part; he strutted too much; he was as fond of his ruffles, his watch, his sword, his cane, and his snuff box, as a boy of being newly put into breeches; and viewed them all too often to be thought the possessor of any such things long. The affectation of the chambermaid was insufferable; she had the toss of the head, the jut of the bum, the sidelong leer of the eye, the imperious look upon her lady, now degraded into her woman, that she was intolerable, and a person without the gift of the second-sight would have guessed her to have been a pragmatical upstart, though it is very probable that during that time she fancied herself really better than her mistress; the mistress acted her part of maid the best; for it is easier for genteel modesty to act a low part, than for affected vanity to act a high one. She kept her distance like a servant, but would, to disguise things the better, be every now and then pert, according to their way, and give occasion to be chid. But there is an air of gentility inborn and inbred to some people; and even when they aim to be awkward a certain grace will attend all their minutest actions and gestures, and command love, respect, and veneration. I must therefore own that there was not need of a man's being a conjuror to guess who ought to be the lady and who the maid; but to know who absolutely was the lady, and who was the maid did require that skill. For how many such real ladies have we that are made so from such upstarts, and how many genteel waiting-women of great descent that are born with a grace about them, and are bred to good manners. Mr. Campbell's art made him positive in the case; he took the patches from the face of the maid, and placed them on the mistress's; he pulled off her hood and scarf, and gave it the lady, and taking from the lady her riding-hood, gave it the maid in exchange; for ladies at that time of day were not entered into that fashion of cloaking themselves. Then he wrote down that he should go out, and ought to send his maid in to undress them quite, and give the mistress her own clothes and the maid hers and with a smile wrote down both their names, and commended her contrivance; but after that it was remarked by the lady that he paid her less respect than she expected, and more to her footman, who was in gentleman's habit, whom he took by his side, and told a great many fine things; whereas he would tell the lady nothing farther. The lady nettled at this, wrote to him that she had vanity enough to believe that she might be distinguished from her maid in any dress, but that he had shown his want of skill in not knowing who that gentleman was. Mr. Campbell told her her mistake in sharp terms; and begging her pardon, assured her he knew several chambermaids as genteel and as well-born as her, and many mistresses more awkward and worse born than her maid; that he did not go therefore by the rule of guess and judging what ought to be, but by the rule of certainty and the knowledge of what actually was. She, however, unsatisfied with that answer, perplexed him mightily to know who the man was. He answered, he would be a great man. The lady laughed scornfully, and said she wanted to know who he was, not what he would be. He answered again, he was her footman, but that she would have a worse. She grew warm, and desired to be informed, why, since he knew the fellow's condition, he respected her so little and him so much, and accused him of want of practising manners, if he had not want of knowledge. He answered, Madam, since you will be asking questions too far, this footman will advance himself to the degree of a gentleman, and have a woman of distinction to his wife; while you will degrade yourself by a marriage to be the wife of a footman; his ambition is laudable, your condescension, mean, therefore I give him the preference; I have given you fair warning and wholesome advice, you may avoid your lot by prudence; but his will certainly be what I tell you.

This coming afterwards to pass exactly as was predicted, and his disappointing so many that had a mind to impose upon him, has rendered him pretty free from such wily contrivances since, though now and then they have happened, but still to the mortification and disappointment of the contrivers. But as we have not pretended to say, with regard to these things, that he has his genius always at his elbow or his beck, to whisper in his ear the names of persons, and such little constant events as these; so, that we may not be deemed to give a fabulous account of his life and adventures, we think ourselves bound to give the reader an insight into the particular power and capacity which he has for bringing about these particular performances, especially that of writing down names of strangers at first sight, which I don't doubt will be done to the satisfaction of all persons who shall read the succeeding chapter, concerning the gift of the second-sight.

CHAPTER VII.

CONCERNING THE SECOND-SIGHT

Mr. Martin lately published a book, entituled, A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland, called by the ancient geographers, Hebrides. It contains many curious particulars relating to the natural and civil history of those islands, with a map of them; and in his preface he tells us that, perhaps, it is peculiar to those isles that they have never been described, till now, by any man that was a native of the country, or had travelled them, as himself has done; and in the conclusion of the said preface he tells us, he has given here such an account of the second-sight as the nature of the thing will bear, which has always been reckoned sufficient among the unbiassed part of mankind; but for those that will not be satisfied, they ought to oblige us with a new scheme, by which we may judge of matters of fact. The chief particulars he has given us concerning the second-sight, are here set down by way of abstract or epitome, that they may not be too tedious to the reader.

1. In the second-sight, the vision makes such a lively impression on the seers, that they neither see nor think of anything else but the vision as long as it continues, and then they appear pensive or jovial, according to the object which was presented to them.

2. At the sight of a vision the eyelids of the person are erected, and the eyes continue staring till the object vanish, as has often been observed by the author and others present.

3. There is one in Skye, an acquaintance of whom observed, that when he sees a vision, the inner part of his eyelids turns so far upwards, that, after the object disappears, he must draw them down with his fingers, and sometimes employs others to draw them down, which he finds to be much the easier way.

4. The faculty of the second-sight does not lineally descend in a family, as some imagine; for he knows several parents that are endowed with it, but not their children, and so on the contrary; neither is it acquired by any previous compact; and after a strict inquiry, he could never learn from any among them that this faculty was communicable any way whatsoever.

Note. That this account is differing from the account that is given by Mr. Aubrey, a gentleman of the Royal Society; and I think Mr. Martin's reason here against the descent of this faculty from parents to children is not generally conclusive. For though he may know parents endowed with it and not children, and so vice versa, yet there may be parents who are endowed with it, being qualified, as Mr. Aubrey has said, viz., both being second-sighted, or even one to an extraordinary degree, whose children may have it by descent. And as to this faculty being any otherwise communicable, since the accounts differ, I must leave it to a farther examination.

5. The seer knows neither the object, time, nor place of a vision before it appears; and the same object is often seen by different persons living at a considerable distance from one another. The true way of judging as to the time and circumstance of an object, is by observation; for several persons of judgment, without this faculty, are more capable to judge of the design of a vision, than a novice that is a seer. As an object appears in the day or night, it will come to pass sooner or later accordingly.

6. If an object be seen early in the morning, which is not frequent, it will be accomplished in a few hours afterwards; if at noon, it will commonly be accomplished that very day; if in the evening, perhaps that night; if after candles be lighted, it will be accomplished that night; it is later always in accomplishment by weeks, months, and sometimes years, according to the time of the night the vision is seen.

7. When a shroud is perceived about one, it is a sure prognostic of death; the time is judged according to the height of it about the person; for if it be not seen above the middle, death is not to be expected for the space of a year, and perhaps some months longer; and as it is frequently seen to ascend higher towards the head, death is concluded to be at hand in a few days, if not hours, as daily experience confirms. Examples of this kind were shown the author, when the persons, of whom the observations were made, enjoyed perfect health.

There was one instance lately of a prediction of this kind, by a seer that was a novice, concerning the death of one of the author's acquaintance; this was communicated to a few only, and with great confidence; the author being one of the number, did not in the least regard it, till the death of the person, about the time foretold, confirmed to him the certainty of the prediction. The foresaid novice is now a skilful seer, as appears from many late instances; he lives in the parish of St. Mary's, the most northern in Skye.

8. If a woman be seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they are married to others, or unmarried, at the time of the apparition. If two or three women are seen at once standing near a man's left hand, she that is next him will undoubtedly be his wife first, and so on, whether all three, or the man, be single or married at the time of the vision; of which there are several late instances of the author's acquaintance. It is an ordinary thing for them to see a man, that is to come to the house shortly after; and though he be not of the seer's acquaintance yet he not only tells his name, but gives such a lively description of his stature, complexion, habit, &c., that upon his arrival he answers the character given of him in all respects. If the person so appearing be one of the seer's acquaintance, he can tell by his countenance whether he comes in good or bad humour. The author has been seen thus, by seers of both sexes, at some hundreds of miles' distance; some that saw him in this manner had never seen him personally, and it happened according to their visions, without any previous design of his to go to those places, his coming there being purely accidental; and in the nineteenth page of his book he tells us, that Mr. Daniel Morrison, a minister, told him, that upon his landing in the island Rona, the natives received him very affectionately, and addressed themselves to him with this salutation; God save you, Pilgrim! you are heartily welcome here, for we have had repeated apparitions of your person amongst us; viz., after the manner of the second-sight.

9. It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens, and trees, in places void of all three, and this in process of time used to be accomplished; of which he gives an instance in the island of Skye.

10. To see a spark of fire fall upon one's arm, or breast, is a forerunner of a dead child to be seen in the arms of those persons, of which there are several fresh instances.

To see a seat empty at the time of one's sitting in it, is a presage of that person's death quickly after.

When a novice, or one that has lately obtained the second-sight, sees a vision in the night-time without doors, and comes near a fire, he presently falls into a swoon.

Some find themselves, as it were, in a crowd of people, having a corpse, which they carry along with them; and after such visions the seers come in sweating, and describe the people that appeared; if there are any of their acquaintance among them, they give an account of their names, and also of the bearers. But they know nothing concerning the corpse.

All those that have the second-sight, do not always see these visions at once, though they are together at the time; but if one, who has this faculty, designedly touch his fellow seer, at the instant of a vision's appearing, then the second sees it as well as the first.

11. There is the way of foretelling death by a cry, that they call taisk, which some call a wraith, in the lowland. They hear a loud cry without doors, exactly resembling the voice of some particular person, whose death is foretold by it, of which he gives a late instance, which happened in the village Rigg, in Skye isle.

12. Things are also foretold by smelling, sometimes, as follows: Fish or flesh is frequently smelt in the fire, when at the same time neither of the two are in the house, or, in any probability, like to be had in it for some weeks or months. This smell several persons have who are endued with the second-sight, and it is always accomplished soon after.

13. Children, horses, and cows, have the second-sight, as well as men and women advanced in years.

That children see it, it is plain, from their crying aloud at the very instant that a corpse or any other vision appears to an ordinary seer; of which he gives an instance in a child when himself was present.

That horses likewise see it is very plain, from their violent and sudden starting, when the rider, or seer in company with them, sees a vision of any kind by night or day. It is observable of a horse, that he will not go forward that way, till he be led about at some distance from the common road, and then he is in a sweat; he gives an instance of this in a horse in the Isle of Skye.

That cows have the second-sight appears from this; that if a woman milking a cow happens to see a vision by the second-sight, the cow runs away in a great fright at the same time, and will not be pacified for some time after.

In reference to this, Paracelsus, tom. ix. l. de arte presagâ, writes thus; "Horses also have their auguries, who perceive, by their sight and smell, wandering spirits, witches, and spectres, and the like things; and dogs both see and hear the same."

Here in the next place the author answers objections that have lately been made against the reality of the second-sight.

First, it is objected, that these seers are visionary and melancholy people, who fancy they see things that do not appear to them or anybody else.

He answers, the people of these isles, and particularly the seers, are very temperate, and their diet is simple and moderate in quantity and quality; so that their brains are not, in all probability, disordered by undigested fumes of meat or drink. Both sexes are free from hysteric fits, convulsions, and several other distempers of that sort. There are no madmen among them, nor any instance of self-murder. It is observed among them, that a man drunk, never has a vision of the second-sight; and he that is a visionary would discover himself in other things as well as in that; nor are such as have the second-sight, judged to be visionaries by any of their friends or acquaintance.

Secondly, it is objected, that there are none among the learned able to oblige the world with a satisfactory account of these visions; therefore they are not to be believed.

He answers, if everything of which the learned are not able to give a satisfactory account, shall be condemned as false and impossible, we shall find many other things, generally believed, which must be rejected as such.

Thirdly, it is objected, that the seers are impostors, and the people who believe them are credulous, and easy to be imposed upon.

He answers, the seers are generally illiterate, and well-meaning people, and altogether void of design; nor could he ever learn that any of them made the least gain of it; neither is it reputable among them to have that faculty; beside, the people of the Isles are not so credulous as to believe an impossibility, before the thing foretold be accomplished; but when it actually comes to pass, afterwards it is not in their power to deny it, without offering violence to their senses and reason; beside, if the seers were deceivers, can it be reasonable to imagine that all the islanders, who have not the second-sight, should combine together and offer violence to their understandings and senses, to force themselves to believe a lie from age to age? There are several persons among them, whose birth and education raise them above the suspicion of concurring with an imposture merely to gratify an illiterate and contemptible sort of persons. Nor can a reasonable man believe, that children, horses, and cows, could be engaged in a combination to persuade the world of the reality of a second-sight.

Every vision that is seen comes exactly to pass according to the rules of observation, though novices and heedless persons do not always judge by those rules; concerning which he gives instances.

There are visions seen by several persons, in whose days they are not accomplished; and this is one of the reasons why some things have been seen, that are said never to have come to pass; and there are also several visions seen, which are not understood till they are accomplished.