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

The famous Torquatus Tasso, Prince of the Italian poets, and scarce inferior to the immortal Virgil himself, and who seems to enjoy the intermingled gifts of the most accurate judgment of this Latin poet, and the more fertile and copious invention and fancy of the Greek one, Homer, strongly asserted his own experience in this kind. His life was written and published in French, anno 1692, by D.C.D.D.V. who, in his preface, tells us, that in what he writ he has followed chiefly the history given us in Italian by John Baptista Manso, a Neapolitan gentleman, who had been a very intimate friend to Tasso. In his life, among other things, he acquaints us that Tasso was naturally of that melancholic temperament, which has always made the greatest men, and that this temperament being aggravated by many hardships he had undergone, it made him sometimes beside himself, and that those melancholic vapours being despatched, he came again to himself, like those that return from fits of the falling sickness, his spirit being as free as before. That, near his latter end, he retired from the city of Naples, to his friend Manso, at Bisaccia, a small town in the kingdom of Naples, where Manso had a considerable estate, and passed an autumn there in the diversions of the season.

And here the French author gives us an account of Tasso's sensible perception of a genius, as follows: – As after these amusements, he usually retired to his chamber, to entertain himself there with his friend Manso, the latter had the opportunity to inquire into one of the most singular effects of Tasso's melancholy, of this heroic melancholy, as I may call it, which raised and brightened his spirit, so far it was from depressing or rendering it obscure; and which, among the ancients, would have reasonably caused them to have ascribed a familiar demon to him, as to Socrates. They were often in a warm debate concerning this spirit, with which Tasso pretended to have so free a communication. I am too much your friend, said Manso to him one day, not to let you know what the world thinks of you concerning this thing, and what I think of it myself. Is it possible, that being enlightened as you are, you should be fallen into so great a weakness as to think you have a familiar spirit; and will you give your enemies that advantage, to be able to prove by your own acknowledgment, what they have already published to the world? You know, they say, you did not publish your Dialogue of the Messenger, as a fiction; but you would have men believe that the spirit which you make to speak there, was a real and true spirit; hence men have drawn this injurious consequence, that your studies have embroiled your imagination, so that there is made in it a confused mixture of the fictions of the poets, the inventions of the philosophers, and the doctrine of religion.

I am not ignorant, answered Tasso, of all that is spread abroad in the world on account of my Dialogue; I have taken care divers times to disabuse my friends, both by letter and word of mouth: I prevented even the malignity of my enemies, as you know at the time I published my Dialogue. Men could not be ignorant that I composed it for the young Prince of Mantua, to whom I would explain after an agreeable manner, the principal mysteries of the Platonic philosophy. It was at Mantua itself, after my second flight from Ferrara, that I formed the idea of it, and I committed it to paper a little after my unfortunate return. I addressed it to this prince, and all men might have read in the epistle dedicatory, the protestation I there make, that this dialogue, being written according to the doctrine of the Platonics, which is not always conformable to revealed truths, men must not confound what I expose there as a philosopher, with what I believe as a Christian. This distinction is by so much the more reasonable, that at that time nothing extraordinary had happened to me, and I spake not of any apparition. This can be attested by all those with whom I lodged, or whom frequented in this voyage; and therefore there is no reason for confounding the fiction of my Dialogue with what has happened to me since. I am persuaded of all you say to me, replied Manso; but truly I cannot be of what you believe, at present, concerning yourself. Will you imagine that you are in commerce with a spirit? And I ask you, of what order is that spirit? Shall we place him in the number of the rebels, whom their pride precipitated into the abyss? or of the intelligences, who continued firm in faith and submission to their creator? For there is no mean to take in the true religion, and we must not fall into the extravagances of the gnomes and sylphs of the cabalists.

Now the spirit in question cannot be a demon: you own that instead of inspiring you anything contrary to piety and religion, he often fortifies in you the maxims of Christianity: he strengthens your faith by profound reasonings, and has the same respect with you for sacred names and things. Neither can you say that it is an angel; for though you have always led a regular life, and far from all dissoluteness; though for some years past you have applied yourself, after a particular manner, to the duties of a true Christian, you will agree with me, that these sorts of favours are not common; that a man must have attained to a high degree of sanctity, and not be far from the pureness of celestial spirits, to merit a familiar converse, and bear a harmony with them. Believe me, there is nothing in all these discourses which you imagine you have with this spirit. You know, better than any man, those symptoms which the black humours wherewith you are tormented causes in you. Your vapours are the source of your visions, and yourself would not judge otherwise of another person to whom a like thing should happen; and you will come to this in your own respect also, if you will make a mature reflection, and apply yourself to blot out, by an effort of reason, these imaginations which the violence of your evil effect causes in you. You may have reason, replied Tasso, to think so of the things that pass in me; but as to myself, who have a sensible perception of them, I am forced to reason after another manner. If it were true that the spirit did not show himself to me, but in the violent assault of my vapours; if he offered to my imagination but wandering and confused species, without connection or due sequel; if he used to me frivolous reasonings, which ended in nothing; or if having begun some solid reasoning he broke it off on a sudden, and left me in darkness, I should believe with you, that all things that pass are but mere dreams and phantoms; but it is quite otherwise. This spirit is a spirit of truth and reason, and of a truth so distinct, of a reason so sublime, that he raises me often to knowledges that are above all my reasonings, though they appear to me no less clear; that he teaches me things which, in my most profound meditations, never came into my spirit, and which I never heard of any man, nor read in any book. This spirit, therefore, is somewhat of real; of whatsoever order he be, I hear him and see him, nevertheless for its being impossible for me to comprehend and define him. Manso did not yield to these facts, which Tasso would have passed for proofs; he pressed him with new questions, which were not without answers. Since you will not believe me on my word, said Tasso to him another day, after having well disputed, I must convince you by your own eyes, that these things are not pure imaginations: and the next day, conversing together in the same chamber, Manso perceived that, on a sudden, he fixed his eyes towards the window, and that he stood, as it were, immoveable; he called to him and jogged him many times, but instead of answering him; See there the spirit, says Tasso, at last, that has been pleased to come and visit me, and to entertain himself with me; look on him, and you will acknowledge the truth of what I say.

Manso, somewhat surprised, cast his eyes towards the place he showed him, and perceived nothing but the rays of the sun passing through the glass, nor did he see anything in all the chamber; though he cast his eyes round it with curiosity, and he desired him to show him the spirit, which he looked for in vain, while he heard Tasso speak with much vehemency. He declares in a letter which he writ concerning this to the Admiral of Naples, that he really heard no other voice but Tasso's own; but they were sometimes questions made by him to the pretended spirit, sometimes answers that he made to the pretended questions of the spirit, and which were couched in such admirable terms, so efficacious, concerning subjects so elevated, and so extraordinary, that he was ravished with admiration, and dared not to interrupt him. He hearkened, therefore, attentively, and being quite beside himself at this mysterious conversation, which ended at last by a recess of the spirit, as he found by the last words of Tasso; after which, Tasso, turning himself to him, Well, said he, are your doubts at last dissipated? On the contrary, answered Manso, I am more embroiled than ever; I have truly heard wonderful things; but you have not showed me what you promised me. You have seen and heard, resumed Tasso, perhaps more than – he stopped here; and Manso, who could not recover himself of his surprise, and had his head filled with the ideas of this extraordinary entertainment, found himself not in a condition to press him farther. Meanwhile he engaged himself not to speak a word to any man of these things he had heard, with a design to make them public, though he should have liberty granted him. They had many other conversations concerning this matter, after which Manso owned he was brought to that pass, that he knew not what to think or say, only, that if it were a weakness in his friend to believe these visions, he much feared it would prove contagious to him, and that he should become at last as credulous as himself.

Dr. Beaumont, who is still living, and with whom I have had formerly some acquaintance myself, has set down, among the others, this relation at large concerning Tasso, and gives this reason for it: Because, says the doctor, I think it contains a sufficient answer to what many learned friends have said to myself on the like occasion.

Perhaps it may not be ungrateful to the reader, if I subjoin here the short eulogium writ on Tasso, by the famous Thuanas, which is as follows: —

Torquatus Tasso died about the forty-fifth year of his age, a man of a wonderful and prodigious wit, who was seized with an incurable fury in his youth, when he lived at the court of Ferrara, and nevertheless, in lucid intervals, he writ many things both in verse and prose, with so much judgment, elegancy, and extreme correctness of style, that he turned at length that pity which many men had conceived for him, into an amazement; while by that fury, which, in others, makes their minds outrageous or dulls them, after it was over, his understanding became as it were more purified, more ready in inventing things, more acute in aptly disposing them after they were invented, and more copious in adorning them with choice words and weight of sentences; and that which a man of the soundest sense would scarce excogitate at his leisure, with the greatest labour and care imaginable, he, after a violent agitation of the mind set beside itself, naturally performed with a wonderful felicity, so that he did not seem struck with an alienation of mind, but with a divine fury. He that knows not these things, which all men know that have been in Italy, and concerning which himself sometimes complains, though modestly, in his writings; let him read his divine works, and he must necessarily conclude, either that I speak of another man than Tasso, or that these things were written by another man than Tasso.

After having given my readers so many memorable accounts concerning the perception men have had in all ages, and still continue to have of genii or familiar spirits, by all the senses, as seeing, hearing, &c., which accounts have been attested by men of the greatest learning and quality, if any of them still remain dissatisfied, I am contented, and desire them, for their punishment, to lay down the book before they arrive at the more pleasant parts of it, which are yet to come, and not to read one tittle farther. These unbelieving gentlemen shall then be at liberty, according as their different spirits dictate, to ridicule me in the same manner as many more learned and greater men than I have been satirized, before my time, by persons of a like infidel temper, who would fain pass incredulity upon the world as wisdom; and they may, with all the freedom in nature, bestow upon me those merry appellations which, I very well know such extraordinary freethinkers imagine to belong of right, to any author, that either believes himself, or would possess the world with an opinion and belief, that there is such a thing as the holding commerce and conversation in this habitable world with genii, and familiar spirits. I shall only first tell them all I have to say to terminate the dispute between them and me.

Those who, to give themselves the air and appearance of men of solid wisdom and gravity, load other men, who believe in spirits, with the titles of being men of folly, levity, or melancholy, are desired to learn, that the same folly, as they are pleased to term it, of opinion, is to be found in the greatest men of learning that ever existed in the universe. Let them, in order to be convinced of this, read Apuleius's book, de deo Socrat.; Censorinus's book de die Nat. c. 3; Porphyrius, in his book de Abstinentia; Agrippa, in his Treatise de Occult. Phil. 1. 3, c. 22, and also c. 21; Natalis comes in his Myth. 1. 4, c. 3; Maraviglia, in his Pseudomantia. Dissertation. 9 and 11, and Animadversion. 10; Plato in his Timœus et Cratylus; Ammianus Marcellinus's History, book 21; Hieronimus Cardanus in his book de Vita Propria, c. 47; the great Kircher, in his Œdipus Ægyptiacus, vol. iii. p. 474; Pausanius, in Cliac. Poster.; that immortal orator, Cicero, lib. i. de Divinatione; lib. ii. de Natura Deorum; the Histoire Prodigieuse, written by Pere Arnault; and a book entituled Lux e Tenebris, which is a collection of modern visions and prophecies in Germany by several persons, translated into Latin, by Jo. Amos. Comenius, printed at Amsterdam, 1655. And if they will be at the pains of having due recourse to these quotations, they will find that all these men, whose learning is unquestionable, and most of whom have been in a firm and undisputed possession of fame for many centuries, have all unanimously agreed in this opinion, how foolish soever they may think it, that there ever was and ever would be a communication held between some select men and genii, or familiar spirits. I must therefore desire their pardon, if I rejoice to see them remain wise by themselves, and that I continue to be esteemed by them a fool among so much good company.

Others out of a mere contempt of religion, or cowardly, for fear of being thought pusillanimous by men, turn bravos to Heaven, and laugh at every notion of spirits as imbibed from the nurse or imposed upon us by priests, and may top these lines upon us with an elegant and a convincing magisterial sneer, though the divine Socrates was of our opinion, and even experienced it to be true, having a genius himself: —

The priests but finish what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man.

These bring into my mind a saying of Sir Roger L'Estrange on Seneca, which I must apply to Socrates; I join in opinion with a Christian heathen, while they remain heathen Christians.

The third sort, out of a pretended veneration to religion and divinity, may call me superstitious and chimerical. To them I answer, I will continue chimerical and superstitious with St. Austin; who gives the same opinion in his Civitate Dei with Ludovicus Vives; let them be solider and more religious divines than St. Austin in disowning it. Thus I bid these austere critics heartily farewell; but let my better-natured readers go on and find a new example of this conversation being held with the genii by our Duncan Campbell.

CHAPTER VI.

A NARRATIVE OF MR. CAMPBELL'S COMING TO LONDON AND TAKING UPON HIM THE PROFESSION OF A PREDICTOR; TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF MANY STRANGE THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS JUST AS HE FORETOLD

To proceed on regularly with the life of young Duncan Campbell, I must let the reader know that he continued thus conversing with his little genius, as is set forth above in the dialogue he had with me, and predicting many things of the like nature, as I have described, till the year 1694, when he was just fourteen years of age, and then he left Scotland.

But before I come to speak of the manner of his departure from thence, his half native country, inasmuch as his father was of that country, and he had his education there, what education he could have, being deaf and dumb. I must let the reader know that in the year 1692, my very good friend, Mrs. Campbell, his mother-in-law, died, and left him there at Edinburgh, an orphan of twelve years of age.

He was, I may venture to say, the most beautiful boy of that age I ever knew; and the sensible reader, who considers a child of good birth, with the misfortunes of being deaf and dumb, left fatherless and motherless in the wide world, at twelve years old, without any competency for his maintenance and support, without any relations, in a manner, that knew him or assisted him; all the little fortune his father had having been lost in the civil commotions in Scotland, as I have related above, need not hear me describe the compassion I and many more had for him; because such a reader must certainly feel in his own bosom the same lively acts of pity and commiseration at the hearing of such a mishap as I had at the seeing it, or at least as I have now revived afresh within me at the relating it.

However, it came so to pass, that a person of the name of Campbell, and who was a distant relation of the boy, though he himself was but in indifferent circumstances, was resolved to see him provided for one way or another, in a manner somewhat suitable to his condition, and till that time to take the best care of him himself that he was able.

Several ladies of quality who had known his perfections, coveted to make the boy one of their domestics, as a page, or a playfellow to their children; for though he could not speak, he had such a vivacity in all his actions, such a sprightliness of behaviour, and such a merriment accompanying all his gestures, that he afforded more entertainment than the prettiest and wittiest little prattlers at those years are wont to do. Mr. Campbell had certainly accepted of some of these fortunate offers for his little cousin, which were many of them likely to prove very advantageous, if it had not been put in his head by some friends, particularly myself, that if he had a mind to dispose of the boy in that manner, the best way he could take would be to present him to the late Earl of Argyle, who for his namesake and for his father's sake, as well as the qualifications and endowments of the boy, would more naturally, according to all probability, take a greater pleasure and delight in him, and consequently provide better for him, and with a more lasting care, than any other person of quality that had a sudden liking to him, which might change, and took him as a stranger out of a bare curiosity. Mr. Campbell was by these reasons overruled in the disposal of his little dumb prophetical cousin, as he called him, and resolved that an offer should be made of him to the present illustrious Duke of Argyle's most noble father. But it so unfortunately happened, that the earl making very much a longer stay at London than was expected, Mr. Campbell, the uncle, sent our young Duncan Campbell, his nephew, handsomely accoutred, and with a handsome sum of money in his pocket, by sea, with Captain Meek of Kircaldie, to London, with letters of recommendation to the earl's favour, and just a few days before young Duncan arrived in London, the earl was set out on his journey to his seat in Scotland.

I had now left him for near three years, not having seen him since about a year after his mother's death; and then coming to London, I had by mere accident an appointment to meet some Scotch gentlemen at the Buffalo at Charing-cross. There happened at that time to be a great concourse of Scotch nobility there at an entertainment; and one of the ladies and gentlemen passing by and seeing one of my friends, desired him to come in, and told him both he and his companion should be very welcome to partake of the diversion. The lady told him they had got a lovely youth, a Scotch miracle, among them, that would give us exquisite delight, and write down to us all the occurrences of our future lives, and tell us our names upon our first appearance. The moment I heard of it, Duncan Campbell came into my head; but as it is a thing not rare to be met with in Scotland for second sighted persons to tell such things, and as the Earl of Argyle was in the north, I thought little Duncan had been under his protection and with him, and did not dream of meeting with him there; and accordingly told my friend, before I went in, that I believed I knew a lad in Scotland would exceed this in foresight, let him be as dexterous in his art as he would.

As soon as I entered the room, I was surprised to find myself encompassed and surrounded by a circle of the most beautiful females that ever my eyes beheld. In the centre of this angelic tribe was seated a heavenly youth, with the most winning comeliness of aspect that ever pleased the sight of any beholder of either sex; his face was divinely fair, and tinged only with such a sprightly blush as a painter would use to colour the picture of health with, and the complexion was varnished over by a blooming like that of flourishing fruit, which had not yet felt the first nippings of an unkind and an uncivil air; with this beauty was joined such a smiling draught of all the features as is the result of pleasantry and good humour. His eyes were large, full of lustre, majestic, well set, and the soul shone so in them, as told the spectators plainly how great was the inward vivacity of his genius; the hair of his head was thick, and reclined far below his shoulders; it was of a fine silver colour, and hung down in ringlets like the curling tendrils of a copious vine. He was by the women entertained, according to the claim which so many perfections joining in a youth just ripening into manhood might lay to the benevolent dispositions of the tender sex. One was holding the basin of water, another washing a hand, a third with a towel drying his face, which another fair had greedily snatched the pleasure of washing before, while a fourth was disposing into order his silver hairs with an ivory comb, in a hand as white, and which a monarch might have been proud to have had so employed in adjusting the crown upon his head; a fifth was setting into order his cravat; a sixth stole a kiss, and blushed at the innocent pleasure, and mistook her own thoughts as if she kissed the angel and not the man; and they all rather seemed to adore than to love him, as if they had taken him not for a person that enjoyed the frequent gift of the second-sight, but as if he had been some little prophet peculiarly inspired; and while they all thus admired and wondered, they all consulted him as an oracle. The surprise of seeing a young man so happy amidst the general concurring favours of the fair, made me be for awhile lost in a kind of delightful amazement, and the consideration of what bliss he was possessed made me scarce believe my own eyes, when they told me it was Duncan Campbell, who I had left an unhappy orphan at Edinburgh. But so it was, though he was much altered in stature, being now shot up pretty fast in his growth since I had seen him, and having gained a kind of a fixed comportment, such as we may daily observe in those who are taking leave of their minority, and stepping into a stage of maturer life.

The first remarkable thing I knew him do in London, being in this splendid company, where there were so many undoubted witnesses of quality too, that had ocular proof of his predictions at that public tavern: I choose to record it here in the first place according to its due order. It was in the year 1698.

Among this angelical class of beauties were Dr. W – lw – d's lady and daughter. Upon earth there was not sure a more beautiful creature than the daughter was; she was the leading light of all the sparkling tribe; and Otway's character suits her exactly; for she was among ten thousand eminently fair. One would imagine prosperous and lucky fortune was written upon her face, and that nothing unhappy could be read in so fair a book; and it was therefore the unanimous consent of all, that by way of good omen to the rest, his predictions should begin to be opened luckily that day, and that therefore he should first of all be consulted about her.

Accordingly, the mother, to be satisfied of his talent before she proceeded to any other questions, asked him in writing if he knew the young lady, her name, and who she was. After a little ruminating and pondering upon the matter, and taking an exact view of the beauty, he wrote down her name, told Mrs. W – lw – d she was her daughter, and that her father was a doctor. Convinced by his so readily telling the name and quality of persons he had never seen in his lifetime, that fame had not given a false character of his capacity, she proceeded in her questions as to her future fortune. He gazed afresh at her very eagerly for some time, and his countenance during that time of viewing her seemed to be ruffled with abundance of disturbance and perplexity. We all imagined that the youth was a little touched at the heart himself with what he saw, and that instead of telling hers, he had met in her bright eyes with his own destiny, the destiny of being for ever made a slave and a captive to so many powerful and almost irresistible charms.

At length, after having a long debate within himself, which we thought proceeded from the strugglings of love and passion, he fetching a great sigh, which still convinced us more, took the pen and wrote to Mrs. W – lw – d, that he begged to be excused, and that his pen might remain as dumb and silent as his tongue on that affair. By this answer we concluded, one and all, that our former conjectures were true, and we joined in pressing him the more earnestly to deliver his real and sincere opinion concerning the accidents upon which the future fortunes of her life were to turn and depend. He showed many mighty reluctances in the doing it; and I have often since considered him in the same anguish as the late great Dr. Ratcliff, who was endeavouring by study to save a certain fair one, whom he loved with a vehemence of temper, and who was, as his reason told him, got far away beyond the reach of the art of physic to recover. At last he wrote in plain terms that his backwardness and unwillingness to tell it, arose from his wishes that her fortune would be better than his certain foreknowledge of it told him it would be, and begged that we would rest satisfied with that general answer, since it was in so particular a case, where he himself was a well-wisher in vain, to the lady about whom he was consulted. The young lady herself thinking that if she knew any disasters that were to befall her she might, by knowing the nature of them beforehand, and the time when they were likely to happen, be able, by timely prudence and forecast, to avert those evils, with many beseechings urged him to reveal the fatal secret. After many struggles to avoid it, and as many instances made to him both by mother and daughter for the discovery of his prescience in that point, he complied with very great difficulty; and blotting the paper with tears that trickled fast from his eyes, he gave her the lamentable scroll, containing the words that follow; viz., I wish it had not fallen to my lot to tell this lady, whom everybody that but once looks at her must admire, though they must not have leave to love, that she is not much longer to be possessor of that lovely face, which gains her such a number of adorers. The smallpox will too soon turn a ravisher, and rifle all those sweets and charms that might be able to vanquish a king and to subdue a conqueror of mighty battles. Her reign is doomed, alas! to be as short as it is now great and universal; I believe she has internal beauties of the mind, not the least inferior to those external excellences of the body; and she might, perhaps, by the power of her mind alone, be absolute queen of the affections of men, if the smallpox threatened not too surely to be her farther enemy, and, not contented to destroy the face, was not perversely bent to destroy the whole woman. But I want words to express my sorrow. I would not tell it if you did not extort the baneful secret from my bosom. This fair creature, whose beauty would make one wish her immortal, will, by the cruel means of the smallpox, give us too sudden a proof of her mortality. But neither the mother nor herself ought too much to repine at this, seeing it appears to be the decree of Providence, which is always to be interpreted as meant for our good, and seeing it may be the means of translating her the sooner only to her kindred angels, whose beauty she so much resembles here on earth, and to be among the lowest class of whom, is better than being the greatest beauty of the world here below, and wearing an imperial crown. While I comfort you, I cannot help the force of nature, which makes me grieve myself; and I only give you, because you compel me to it, so particular and so exact an answer to so particular and so exacting a question.

The mother, who took the paper, was prudent enough to conceal from the daughter what he said; but nature would force its way, and bubbled from her eyes; and the daughter perceiving that, pressed hard to see it, and wept at the consideration that hard fate, though she knew not particularly what way, was to befall her. Never surely was anything so beautiful in tears, and I obtained of the mother to see the writing. At last, in general terms, to free her from a suspense of mind, it was told her that some trouble should happen to her that should diminish her beauty. She had courage enough to hear that misfortune with disdain, and crying, If that be all, I am armed, I don't place much pride in that which I know age must shortly after destroy, if trouble did not do it before; and she dried up her tears; and, if what Mr. Bruyere says, be true, viz., that the last thing a celebrated woman thinks of when she dies, is the loss of her beauty, she showed an admirable pattern of female philosophy, in bearing such a cruel prediction with such unspeakable magnanimity, as exceeded even the patience of stern stoicism, considering she was a woman, to whom beauty is more dear than life.

If any evil, that is impending over people's heads, could be evaded by foreknowledge, or eluded by art, she had the fairest opportunity of having this prediction annulled, which would have been more to the satisfaction of the predictor than knowing it verified, than ever any woman had. Her mother was specifically told that the fatal distemper should be the smallpox; her father was, and is still, a very eminent physician; and distempers of that kind, especially, are much more easily prevented by care, than cured by art, and by art more easily set aside, when there is a timely warning given to a physician to prepare the body against the danger of the poison, than when the distemper has once catched hold of a body at unawares, when it is unpurged of any gross humours that may accompany it. But neither the foreknowledge and caution of the mother, nor the skill and wisdom of the great physician her father, were sufficient to ward off the approaching harm, that was written in the books of fate. Not many suns had finished their yearly courses, before she was forced to submit to the inevitable stroke of death, after the infectious and malicious malady had first ravished her beauty, rioted in all her sweets, and made an odious deformed spectacle of the charmer of mankind. The death of the daughter worked hard upon the mother's bowels, and dragged her speedily after her, with a broken heart to the grave.

This lady, whose fortune so great and so distinguished an assembly had chosen to hear as a happy forerunner and lucky omen of all their own, which were to be asked afterwards in their turns, proving so contrary to their expectations, already unfortunate in the prediction, and having been in tears about the matter, disheartened all the rest of the beauties from consulting him farther that day. The person who kept the tavern, by name, Mrs. Irwin, alleged that as some people were very fortunate, and others unfortunate upon the same day, so one lady might be before told a mishap one minute, and another lady all the prosperity in nature the very next minute following, and therefore that what the unfortunate lady had heard was not to be taken as ominous, or as what could malignantly influence the day, neither ought it to be the least hinderance to any who had the curiosity of being let into the secrets of time beforehand. However, whether the ladies were convinced or no; if she prevailed over their belief in that point, she could not prevail over their humour, which, though they might not believe the former prediction ominous to themselves, were naturally awed for fear of the like, peradventure, for a time, and so it was agreed, nemine contradicente, as a witty lady wrote it down, That no more petitions should for that day be presented by any of that company to his dumb, yet oracular, majesty. Mrs. Irwin, however, would have her way; said she did not presume to such honour as to call herself of that company, and that therefore she might consult him without breaking through the votes of the assembly. Many endeavoured to dissuade her, but as she was passionately fond of knowing future events; and had a mighty itch to be very inquisitive with the oracle about what might happen, not only to herself, but her posterity; it was agreed that he should have the liberty of satisfying her curiosity, since she presumed her fortune was sure to be so good, and was so forward and eager for the knowledge of it. But, alas! such is too often the fantastical impulse of nature unluckily depraved, that it carries us often into wishes of knowing, what when known we would be glad to unknow again, and then our memory will not let us be untaught.

Mrs. Irwin was at that time in a pretty commodious way of business, everything in plenty round about her, and lived more like a person of distinction, that kept such a cellar of wine, open house, and a free table, than like one who kept a tavern. She brought in her pretty children, that were then almost babies, the youngest having not long been out of the nurse's arms, or trusted to the use of its own legs. These children she loved as a mother should love children; they were the delight of her eyes all day, and the dream of her imagination all night. All the passions of her soul were confined to them; she was never pleased but when they were so, and always angry if they were crossed; her whole pride was centered in them, and they were clothed and went attended more like the infants of a princess, than of a vintner's relict. The fortune of these was what she had near at heart, and of which she was so eager of being immediately apprised. Her impatience was proportionable to the love she had for them, and which made her wish to foreknow all the happiness that was like to attend them. She sat cheerfully down, presented one to him, and smiling, wrote the question in general terms, viz., is this boy to be happy or unhappy. A melancholy look once more spread itself all over the face of the predictor, when he read the too inquisitive words, and he seemed mightily to regret being asked a question, to which he was by his talent of foreseeing compelled to give so unwelcome an answer. The colour of the poor woman flushed and vanished alternately, and very quick, and she looked not quite like the picture of despair, but a disconsolate woman, with little hopes on one hand, and great doubts and dismal fears on the other. She professed she read great evil in the troubles of his face, thanked him for his good nature, told him that they all knew that though he could foretell he could not alter the acts and decretals of fate, and therefore desired him to tell her the worst; for that the misfortunes, were they never so great, would be less dreadful to her than remaining in the state of fear and suspension. He at last wrote down to her that great and unexpected and even unavoidable accidents would involve the whole family in new calamities, that the son she asked him about would have the bitterest task of hardship to go through withal, while he lived, and that to finish all more unhappily, he would be basely and maliciously brought to an untimely end, by some mortal enemy or other, but that she should not trouble herself so much on that head, she would never see it, for it would happen some years after she was departed from the world. This melancholy account closed up the book of predictions for that day, and put a sad stop to all the projected mirth and curiosity. Now I must tell the reader how and when the event answered the prediction. And in a few words, it was thus; poor Mrs. Irwin, by strange accidents, decayed in the world, and dying poor, her sons were forced to be put out apprentices to small trades, and the son, whom the above-mentioned prediction concerned, was, for stealing one cheese from a man in the Haymarket, severely prosecuted at the Old Bailey, and on Wednesday, the 23rd of December, 1713, hanged at Tyburn, with several other criminals.

The two foregoing passages are of so tragical a nature, that it is time I should relieve the minds of my readers with some histories of ladies who consulted him with more success and advantage, to whom his predictions were very entertaining, when they so came to pass in their favour, the relation whereof will consequently be agreeable to all readers who have within them a mixture of happy curiosity and good nature.

Two ladies, who were the most remarkable beauties in London, and most courted, turned at the same time their thoughts to matrimony; and being satiated, I may say wearied, with the pleasure of having continually after them a great number and variety of adorers, resolved each, about the same time, to make a choice of their several men, to whom they thought they could give most happiness, and from whom they might receive most. Their names, for they are both persons of distinction, shall be Christallina and Urbana. Christallina was a virgin, and Urbana a young widow. Christallina engrossed the eyes, the hearts, and the sighs of the whole court; and wherever she appeared, put any court lady out of her place, that had one before in the heart of any youth; and was the most celebrated toast among the beau monde. Urbana's beauty made as terrible havock in the city; all the citizens' daughters that had many admirers, and were in fair hopes of having husbands when they pleased themselves, as soon as Urbana had lost her old husband, found that they every day lost their lovers; and it was a general fear among the prettiest maids, that they should remain maids still, as long as Urbana remained a widow. She was the monopolizer of city affection, and made many girls, that had large stocks of suitors, bankrupts in the trade of courtship, and broke some of their hearts, when her charms broke off their amours. Well, but the day was near at hand when both the belles of the court and the city damsels were to be freed from the ravages which these two tyrants, triumphant in beauty and insolent in charms, made among the harvest of love. Each had seen her proper man, to whom the enjoyment of their person was to be dedicated for life. But it being an affair of so lasting importance, each had a mind to be let into the knowledge of the consequences of such a choice, as far as possible, before they stepped into the irrevocable state of matrimony. Both of them happened to take it into their heads, that the best way to be entirely satisfied in their curiosity, was to have recourse to the great predictor of future occurrences, Mr. Duncan Campbell, whose fame was at that time spread pretty largely about the town. Christallina and Urbana were not acquainted with each other, only by the report which fame had made of beauty. They came to Mr. Campbell's on the same day, and both with the same resolution of keeping themselves concealed and under masks, that none of the company of consulters, who happened to be there, might know who they were. It happened that on that very day, just when they came, Mr. Campbell's rooms were more than ordinarily crowded with curious clients of the fair sex, so that he was obliged to desire these two ladies, who expressed so much precaution against, and fear of having their persons discovered, to be contented with only one room between them, and with much ado they complied with the request, and condescended to sit together incog. Distant compliments of gesture passed between them, the dress and comportment of each making them appear to be persons of figure and breeding, and after three or four modish courtesies, down they sat, without so much as once opening their lips, or intending so to do. The silence between them was very formal and profound for near half an hour, and nothing was to be heard but the snapping of fans, which they both did very tunably, and with great harmony, and played as it were in concert.

At last, one of the civil, well-bred mutes, happening to sneeze, the other very gracefully bowed, and before she was well aware, out popped the words, Bless you, madam. The fair sneezer returned the bow, with an – I thank you, madam. They found they did not know one another's voices, and they began to talk very merrily together, with pretty great confidence, and they taking a mutual liking from conversation, so much familiarity grew thereupon instantly between them, that they began not only to unmask, but to unbosom themselves to one another, and confess alternately all their secrets. Christallina owned who she was, and told Urbana the beau and courtier that had her heart. Urbana as frankly declared that she was a widow, that she would not become the lady's rival, that she had pitched upon a second husband, an alderman of the city. Just by that time they had had their chat out, and wished one another the pleasure of a successful prediction, it came to Christallina's turn to visit the dumb gentleman, and receive from his pen oracular answers to all the questions she had to propose. Well, he accordingly satisfied her in every point she asked him about; but while she was about this, one of Mr. Campbell's family going with Urbana to divert her a little, the widow rallied at the virgin as a fool, to imagine that she should ever make a conquest of the brightest spark about the court, and then let fly some random bolts of malice to wound her reputation for chastity. Now it became the widow's turn to go and consult; and the same person of Mr. Campbell's family in the mean time entertained Christallina. The maid was not behindhand with the widow; she rallied against the widow, represented her as sometimes a coquette, sometimes a lady of pleasure, sometimes a jilt, and lifted up her hands in wonder and amazement that Urbana should imagine so rich a man as an alderman such a one, should fall to her lot. Thus Urbana swore and protested that Christallina could never arrive at the honour of being the wife to the courtly Secretarius, let Mr. Campbell flatter her as he would; and Christallina vowed that Campbell must be a downright wizard if he foretold that such a one as Urbana would get Alderman Stiffrump as a husband, provided a thing so improbable should come to pass.

However, it seems, Duncan had told them their own names and the names of their suitors, and told them farther, how soon they were both to be married, and that too directly to their heart's content, as they said rejoicingly to themselves, and made their mutual gratulations.

They went away each satisfied that she should have her own lover, but Christallina laughed at Mr. Campbell for assigning the alderman to Urbana; and Urbana laughed at him for promising the courtier to the arms of Christallina.

This a pretty good figure of the tempers of two reigning toasts with regard to one another.

First, their curiosity made them, from resolving to be concealed, discover one another wilfully; from utter strangers grow as familiar as old friends in a moment, swear one another to secrecy, and exchange the sentiments of their hearts together; and, from being friends, become envious of each other's enjoying a similitude of happiness; the compliments made on either side face to face, were, upon the turning of the back, turned into reflections, detraction, and ridicule; each was a self-lover and admirer of her own beauty and merit, and a despiser of the other's.

However, Duncan Campbell, proved at last to be in the right; Urbana was wrong in her opinion of Christallina's want of power over Secretarius, and Christallina was as much out in her opinion that Urbana would miss in her aim of obtaining Stiffrump; for they both proved in the right of what they thought with regard to their own dear single persons, and were made happy according to their expectations, just at the time foretold by Mr. Campbell.

Christallina's ill wishes did not hinder Urbana from being mistress of Alderman Stiffrump's person and stock, nor did Urbana's hinder Christallina from showing herself a shining bride at the Ring, in Secretarius's gilded chariot, drawn by six prancers of the proud Belgian kind, with her half dozen of liveries with favours in their hats, waiting her return at the gate of Hyde Park.

Both loved and both envied, but both allowed of Mr. Campbell's foreknowledge.

Having told you two very sorrowful passages, and one tolerably successful and entertaining; I shall now relate to you another of my own knowledge, that is mixed up with the grievous and the pleasant, and chequered, as it were, with the shade and the sunshine of fortune.

Though there are vicissitudes in every stage of life under the sun, and not one ever ran continually on with the same series of prosperity; yet those conditions which are the most liable to the signal alterations of fortune, are the conditions of merchants; for professed gamesters I reckon in a manner as men of no condition of life at all; but what comes under the statute of vagabonds.

It was, indeed, as the reader would guess, a worthy and a wealthy merchant, who was to run through these different circumstances of being. He came and visited our Mr. Campbell in the year 1707, he found him amidst a crowd of consulters; and being very eager and solicitous to know his own fortune just at that critical juncture of time, he begged of him, if possible, to adjourn his other clients to the day following, and sacrifice that one wholly to his use; which as it was probably more important than all the others together, so he wrote down that he would render the time spent about it more advantageous to Mr. Campbell; and, by way of previous encouragement, threw him down ten guineas as a retaining fee.

Mr. Campbell, who held money in very little esteem, and valued it so much too little, that he has often had my reprehensions on that head, paused a little, and after looking earnestly in the gentleman's face, and reading there, as I suppose, in that little space of time in general, according to the power of the second-sight, that what concerned him was highly momentous, wrote him this answer; That he would comply with his requests, adjourn his other clients to the day following, and set apart all the remnant of that, till night, for inspecting the future occurrences of which he had a mind to be made a master.

There is certainly a very keen appetite in curiosity; it cannot stay for satisfaction, it is pressing for its necessary repast, and is without all patience: hunger and thirst are not appetites more vehement and more hard and difficult to be repressed than that of curiosity; nothing but the present now is able to allay it. A more expressive picture of this I never beheld than in the faces of some, and the murmurs and complaints of others, in that little inquisitive company, when the unwelcome note was given about signifying an adjournment for only twenty-four hours.

The colour of a young woman there came and went a hundred times, if possible, in the space of two minutes; she blushed like a red rose this moment, and in the switch of an eyelash she was all over as pale as a white one: the suitor, whose name her heart had gone pit-a-pat for the space of an hour to be informed of from the pen of a seer, was now deferred a whole day longer; she was once or twice within an ace of swooning away, but he comforted her in particular, by telling her, though he said it only by way of jest, that the day following would be a more lucky day to consult about husbands than the present that she came on. The answer was a kind of cordial to her hopes, and brought her a little better to herself.

Two others, I remember, sisters and old maids, that it seems were misers, women ordinarily dressed and in blue aprons, and yet, by relation, worth no less than two thousand pounds each, were in a peck of troubles about his going and leaving them unsatisfied. They came upon an inquiry after goods that were stolen, and they complained that by next morning at that time, the thief might be got far enough off, and creep into so remote a corner, that he would put it beyond the power of the devil and the art of conjuration to find him out and bring him back again. The disturbance and anxiety that was to be seen in their countenances was like that which is to be beheld in the face of a great losing gamester, when his all, his last great stake, lies upon the table, and is just sweeping off by another winning hand into his own hat.

The next was a widow who bounced, because, as she pretended, he would not tell her what was best to do with her sons, and what profession it would be most happy for them to be put to; but in reality all the cause of the widow's fuming and fretting, was not that she wanted to provide for her sons, but for herself; she wanted a second husband, and was not half so solicitous about being put in a way of educating those children she had already, as of knowing when she should be in a likelihood of getting more. This was certainly in her thoughts, or else she would never have flounced about in her weed, from one end of the room to the other, and all the while of her passion, smile by fits upon the merchant, and leer upon a young pretty Irish fellow that was there. The young Irishman made use of a little eye-language; she grew appeased, went away in quite a good humour, scuttled too airily down stairs for a woman in her clothes, and the reason was certainly that she knew the matter before, which we took notice of presently after: the Irishman went precipitately after her down stairs without taking his leave.