Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay [best inspirational books TXT] 📗
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It may be a day or two between—
Perhaps you’ll soon be stiff and cold.
Dear Christian, be not stout and bold—
The mighty, kingly-proud will see
This comes to pass as my name’s Dee.”
1598. Ms. in the British Museum.
The alarm of the population of London did not on this occasion extend beyond the wide circle of the uneducated classes, but among them it equalled that recorded in the text. It was soon afterwards stated that no such prophecy is to be found in the Harleian Ms.
ReturnChronicles of England, by Richard Grafton; London, 1568, p. 106.
ReturnFaerie Queene, b. 3, c. 3, s. 6-13.
ReturnAlthough other places claim the honour(!) of Mother Shipton’s birth, her residence is asserted, by oral tradition, to have been for many years a cottage at Winslow-cum-Shipton, in Buckinghamshire, of which the above is a representation. We give the contents of one of the popular books containing her prophecies:
The Strange and Wonderful History and Prophecies of Mother Shipton, plainly setting forth her Birth, Life, Death, and Burial. 12mo. Newcastle. Chap. 1.—Of her birth and parentage. 2. How Mother Shipton’s mother proved with child; how she fitted the justice, and what happened at her delivery. 3. By what name Mother Shipton was christened, and how her mother went into a monastery. 4. Several other pranks play’d by Mother Shipton in revenge of such as abused her. 5. How Ursula married a young man named Tobias Shipton, and how strangely she discovered a thief. 6. Her prophecy against Cardinal Wolsey. 7. Some other prophecies of Mother Shipton relating to those times. 8. Her prophecies in verse to the Abbot of Beverly. 9. Mother Shipton’s life, death, and burial.
ReturnLet us try. In his second century, prediction 66, he says:
“From great dangers the captive is escaped.
A little time, great fortune changed.
In the palace the people are caught.
By good augury the city is besieged.”
“What is this,” a believer might exclaim, “but the escape of Napoleon from Elba—his changed fortune, and the occupation of Paris by the allied armies?”
Let us try again. In his third century, prediction 98, he says:
“Two royal brothers will make fierce war on each other;
So mortal shall be the strife between them,
That each one shall occupy a fort against the other;
For their reign and life shall be the quarrel.”
Some Lillius Redivivus would find no difficulty in this prediction. To use a vulgar phrase, it is as clear as a pikestaff. Had not the astrologer in view Don Miguel and Don Pedro when he penned this stanza, so much less obscure and oracular than the rest?
ReturnHermippus Redivivus, p. 142.
ReturnJovii Elog. p. 320.
ReturnLes Anecdotes de Florence, ou l’Histoire secrète de la Maison di Medicis, p. 318.
ReturnIt is quite astonishing to see the great demand there is, both in England and France, for dream-books, and other trash of the same kind. Two books in England enjoy an extraordinary popularity, and have run through upwards of fifty editions in as many years in London alone, besides being reprinted in Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin. One is Mother Bridget’s Dream-book and Oracle of Fate; the other is the Norwood Gipsy. It is stated, on the authority of one who is curious in these matters, that there is a demand for these works, which are sold at sums varying from a penny to sixpence, chiefly to servant-girls and imperfectly-educated people, all over the country, of upwards of eleven thousand annually; and that at no period during the last thirty years has the average number sold been less than this. The total number during this period would thus amount to 330,000.
ReturnSpectator, No. 7, March 8, 1710-11.
ReturnSee Van der Mye’s account of the siege of Breda. The garrison, being afflicted with scurvy, the Prince of Orange sent the physicians two or three small phials, containing a decoction of camomile, wormwood, and camphor, telling them to pretend that it was a medicine of the greatest value and extremest rarity, which had been procured with very much danger and difficulty from the East; and so strong, that two or three drops would impart a healing virtue to a gallon of water. The soldiers had faith in their commander; they took the medicine with cheerful faces, and grew well rapidly. They afterwards thronged about the prince in groups of twenty and thirty at a time, praising his skill, and loading him with protestations of gratitude.
ReturnMummies were of several kinds, and were all of great use in magnetic medicines. Paracelsus enumerates six kinds of mummies; the first four only differing in the composition used by different people for preserving their dead, are the Egyptian, Arabian, Pisasphaltos, and Libyan. The fifth mummy of peculiar power was made from criminals that had been hanged; “for from such there is a gentle siccation, that expungeth the watery humour, without destroying the oil and spirituall, which is cherished by the heavenly luminaries, and strengthened continually by the affluence and impulses of the celestial spirits; whence it may be properly called by the name of constellated or celestial mummie.” The sixth kind of mummy was made of corpuscles, or spiritual effluences, radiated from the living body; though we cannot get very clear ideas on this head, or respecting the manner in which they were caught.—Medicina Diatastica; or, Sympathetical Mummie, abstracted from the Works of Paracelsus, and translated out of the Latin, by Fernando Parkhurst, Gent. London, 1653, pp. 2, 7. Quoted by the Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xii. p. 415.
ReturnReginald Scott, quoted by Sir Walter Scott, in the notes to the Lay of the last Minstrel, c. iii. v. xxiii.
ReturnGreatraks’ Account of himself, in a letter to the Honourable Robert Boyle.
ReturnIntroduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism, by Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy, p. 315.
ReturnIntroduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism, p. 318.
ReturnDictionaire des Sciences Médicales—Article Convulsionnaires, par Montégre.
ReturnAn enthusiastic philosopher, of whose name we are not informed, had constructed a very satisfactory theory on some subject or other, and was not a little proud of it. “But the facts, my dear fellow,” said his friend, “the facts do not agree with your theory.”—“Don’t they?” replied the philosopher, shrugging his shoulders, “then, tant pis pour les faits;”—so much the worse for the facts!
ReturnRapport des Commissaires, rédigé par M. Bailly. Paris, 1784.
ReturnIntroduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism, by Baron Dupotet, p. 73.
ReturnSee Foreign Review and Continental Miscellany, vol. v. p. 113.
ReturnSee the very clear, and dispassionate article upon the subject in the fifth volume (1830) of The Foreign Review, p. 96 et seq.
ReturnHistoire Critique du Magnétisme Animal, p. 60.
ReturnThe above engraving, shewing two soldiers of William the Conqueror’s army, is taken from the celebrated Bayeux Tapestry.—See ante, p. 297.
ReturnEND OF VOL. I.
POPE URBAN PREACHING THE CRUSADES
MEMOIRS
OF
EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS.
VOLUME II.
VIEW IN THE THE HARZ MOUNTAINS.
LONDON:
OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY,
227 STRAND.
1852.
OF
EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS
AND THE
Madness of Crowds.
By CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D.
AUTHOR OF “EGERIA,” “THE SALAMANDRINE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.
VOL. II.
N’en déplaise à ces fous nommés sages de Grèce,
En ce monde il n’est point de parfaite sagesse;
Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgré tous leurs soîns
Ne diffèrent entre eux que du plus ou du moins.
BOILEAU.
LONDON:
OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY,
227 STRAND.
1852.
THE CRUSADES.
Different accounts of the Crusaders derived from History and Romance—Pilgrimages to the Holy Land first undertaken by converted Jews and the very credulous—Increasing number of pilgrims every year—Relics greatly valued—Haroun al Reschid—The pilgrims taxed—Robert of Normandy—The pilgrims persecuted by the Turks—Peter the Hermit—His first idea of rousing the powers of Christendom—His interview with Simeon—Peter the Hermit preaches the Holy War to all the nations of Christendom—The Pope crosses the Alps—King Philip accused of adultery with Bertrade de Montfort—The Council of Clermont—Oration of Urban II.—The “Truce of God”—Gautier sans Avoir, or Walter the Pennyless—Gottschalk—The arrival at Semlin—Peter the Hermit at Nissa—At Constantinople—The Crusaders conducted in safety to Constantinople—Fresh hordes from Germany—Godfrey of Bouillon—Count of Vermandois—Tancred—The siege of Antioch—The Holy Lance—Fate of Peter Barthelemy—Siege of Jerusalem—St. Bernard—Second Crusade: Siege of Damascus—Third Crusade: Death of Henry II.—Richard Cœur de Lion—Fourth Crusade—Fifth Crusade: Constantinople assaulted—Sixth Crusade: Camhel and Cohreddin—Seventh Crusade: Departure of Louis IX. for Cyprus—For Acre—His death at Carthage—End of the Crusades
THE WITCH MANIA.
Popular notions of the devil—Inferior demons—Demons of both sexes—Demons preferring the night between Friday and Saturday—The devil in the shape of a goat—Sorcery—Execution of Joan of Arc—Witches burned in Europe—Various charges of Witchcraft—Trois Echelles—The Witches of Warbois—John Knox—Torture of Dr. Fian—The Lancashire Witches—Matthew Hopkins—Burnings at Würzburg, at Lindheim, at Labourt—Request of the parliament of Rouen to the King, in 1670—Würzburg the scene of the last case of Witchcraft—The Witchcraft of Lady Hatton—Witchcraft at Hastings and many other parts of England
THE SLOW POISONERS.
Murder of Sir Thomas Overbury—Trial of Weston—Of Sir Jervis Elwes—Poisoning most prevalent in Italy—Poisons manufactured by La Tophania—Her death—Madame de Brinvilliers—The poisoning of her father and two brothers—Lavoisin and Lavigoreux
HAUNTED HOUSES.
The haunted house in Aix-la-Chapelle—In Tours—The royal palace of Woodstock a haunted house—The supposed ghosts at Tedworth—At Cock Lane—At Stockwell—Haunted house at Baldarroch
POPULAR FOLLIES OF GREAT CITIES.
Cant phrases—“Quoz”—“What a shocking bad hat”—“Hookey Walker”—“There he goes with his eye out”—“Has your mother sold her mangle?”—“Does your mother know you’re out?”—“Tom and Jerry”—“Jim Crow”
POPULAR ADMIRATION OF GREAT THIEVES.
Robin Hood—Claude Duval—Dick Turpin—Jonathan Wild—Jack Sheppard—Vidocq—Mausch Nadel—The Beggar’s Opera—Rob Roy
DUELS AND ORDEALS.
The origin of the Duello—All persons engaged in duelling excommunicated by the Council of Trent—The fire ordeal—The water ordeal—The Corsned—Duel between Ingelgerius and Gontran—Duel between François de Vivonne and Guy de Chabot—L’Isle-Marivaut and Marolles—Richelieu—Duel between the Dukes De Beaufort and De Nemours—Laws against Duelling—Duel between Lord Sanquir and Turner—Between the Duke of
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