Даниэль Дефо
The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campell
The fourth consists in omens, when, for example, a man from any words which others may have spoken on purpose, or by accident, pretends to gather a way of looking into and knowing anything of futurity.
The fifth is chiromancy, which consists in making a pretence to the knowledge of future things by the figures and the lines of the hands; and if it be by consulting the shoulder-bones of any beast, it goes by the name of spatulamancy.
As the first kind of divination, by a tacit invocation of the devil is divided into the five species above mentioned; so also is the second kind of tacit divination, or invocation of the devil, divided into two species by St. Thomas of Aquin.
Secundâ Secundæ, questione nonagesima quinta articulo tertio, and too tedious to insert here.
Now all these ways are by these divines counted wicked, and I set them down that people may avoid them. For how many gipsies and pretenders to chiromancy have we in London and in the country? How many that are for hydromancy, that pretend in water to show men mighty mysteries? And how many in geomancy, with their beryls and their glasses, that, if they are not under the instigation of the devil, propagate the scandal at least by being cheats, and who ought to be punished to the utmost severity, as our English laws enact? Mr. Campbell, who hates, contemns, and abhores these ways, ought, methinks, to be encouraged by their being restrained; and people of curious tempers, who always receive from him moral and good instructions, which make them happy in the conduct of life, should be animated in a public manner to consult him, in order to divert the curious itch of their humours from consulting such wicked impostors, or diabolical practisers, as too frequently abound in this nation, by reason of the inquisitive vulgar, who are more numerous in our climate, than any I ever read of.
But now to argue the case of conscience with regard to his particular practice by way of the second-sight, whether, in foro conscientiæ, it is lawful for him to follow it, or others to consult him? The divines above mentioned having never had any notice of that faculty in all likelihood, or if they had, never mentioned it, makes it a point more difficult for me to discuss; but I think they have stated some cases, by the making of which my premises, I can deduce from all the learned men I have above quoted, a conclusion in favour of our Mr. Duncan Campbell, and of those who consult him; but my opinion shall be always corrected by those who are wiser than myself, and to whom I owe entire submission. I take leave to fix these premises from them first, and to form my argument from them afterwards in the following manner: —
First, It is allowed by all these divines, that a knowledge which one may have of future things within the order of nature, is and may be lawful.
Secondly, They imply, that where justice is not violated, it is lawful both to predict and to consult.
Thirdly, Many of them, but particularly Aureolus, puts this question: Is it lawful to go to one that deals in the black art, to persuade them to cure any innocent body that another necromancer or dealer in the black art may have maliciously afflicted and tormented with pains? And some of these casuists, particularly Aureolus, say, it is lawful on such an occasion to go to such a conjurer, because the end is not conjuration, but freeing a person from it.
But I take leave to dissent from these great men, and think they are in a double mistake; first, in stating the question, and then in making such an answer, provided the question had been stated right.
The question is founded upon this supposition, which is passed by as granted, viz., that one necromancer could release a person bewitched by another, which is absolutely false; for it is against the nature of the devil to be made an instrument to undo his own works of impiety. But admitting and not granting this to be possible, and the question to be rightly stated, why still these casuists are out in their answer. It is lawful, reply they, because the end of going to the conjurers, is not conjuration, but freeing a good person from it; but the end is not the point here to be considered, it is the medium, which is bad, that is to be considered. It is by conjuration, according to their hypothesis, the other conjuration is to be dissolved; and does not the common rule, that a man must not do evil that good may come of it, forbid this practice? And to speak my opinion plainly in that case, the friend that should consult a conjurer for that end, would be only so kind to put his own soul in danger of being guilty of hell torments, to relieve his afflicted friend from some bodily pains, which it would be a virtue in him to suffer with patience and resignation.
Others, almost all divines, indeed, agree, that it is and may be lawful to go to a conjurer that torments another, and give him money not to afflict the patient any longer; because that is only feeing him to desist from acting after his conjuring manner.
These premises thus settled, if we allow the second-sight to be inborn and inbred, and natural and common to some families, which is proved in the book; and if all that Mr. Campbell has predicted in that second-sighted way terminates with moral advice, and the profit of the consulter, and without the violation of justice to others, as the book shows all throughout; if he can relieve from witchcraft, as it seems oath is to be had he can, which no one that deals in black art can do, why then I need not draw the conclusion, every reader will do it naturally; they will avow all the strictest laws of casuistry and morality to be in favour of Mr. Campbell and his consulters.
VERSES
TO MR. CAMPBELL,
ON THE
HISTORY OF HIS LIFE AND ADVENTURES
I court no muse amidst the tuneful throng,
Thy genii, Campbell, shall inspire my song;
The gentle summons every thought obeys,
Wakens my soul, and tunes it all to lays.
Among the thousand wonders thou hast shown,
I, in a moment, am a poet grown;
The rising images each other meet;
Fall into verse, and dance away with feet:
Now with thy Cupid and thy lamb I rove1,
Through ev'ry bloomy mead and fragrant grove.
A thousand things I can myself divine,
Thy little genii whispers them to mine;
Beyond the grave I see thy deathless fame,
The fair and young all singing Campbell's name;
And Love himself – for Love and thou art friends,
He joins the chorus, and his dart defends.
What noisy talker can thy magic boast?
Let those dull wretches try who scorn thee most.
O, sacred silence! let me ever dwell,
With the sweet muses, in thy lonely cell!
Or else bind up, in thy eternal chain,
Scandal and noise, and all that talk in vain.
M. Fowke.
TO MRS. FOWKE,
OCCASIONED BY THE FOREGOING VERSES
Sweet nightingale! whose artful numbers show,
Expressive eloquence to silent woe,
Sing on, and in thy sex's power presume,
By praising Campbell, to strike nations dumb.
Whene'er you sing, silent, as he, they'll stand,
Speak by their eyes, grow eloquent by hand:
Tongues are confusion, but as learnt by you,
All but Pythagoras's doctrine's true;
Campbell and he taught silence – had he heard
How much thy lays to silence were preferr'd,
He had recanted from thy powerful song,
And justly wish'd each organ had a tongue.
But could he see, what you, in every line,
Prophetic tell of Campbell's sight divine,
Like Crœsus's sons his loosened nerves must break,
And ask the cause – or make his Campbell speak.
G. S.
TO MR. CAMPBELL
Milton's immortal wish2 you sure must feel,
To point those fates which you to all reveal;
If second-sight so much alarms mankind,
What transports must it give to know thy mind?
Thy book is but the shadow of thy worth,
Like distant lights, which set some picture forth.
But if the artist's skill we nearer trace,
And strictly view each feature of the face,
We find the charm that animates the whole,
And leave the body to adore the soul.
Milton's immortal wish you sure must feel,
To point those fates which you to all reveal.
I. Philips.
THE PARALLEL
TO MR. CAMPBELL
As Denham sings, mysterious 'twas, the same
Should be the prophet's and the poet's name3;
But while the sons of genius join to praise,
What thine presaging dictates to their lays,
The things they sweetly sing, and you foreshow,
Open the Sampson riddle to our view;
Strong are thy prophecies, their numbers sweet,
And with the lion combs of honey meet.
Late on fantastic cabalistic schemes,
Of waking whimsies, or of feverish dreams,
New cobweb threads of poetry were spun,
In gaudy snares, like flies, were witlings won,
Their brains entangled, and our art undone.
Pope, first, descended from a monkish race,
Cheapens the charms of art, and daubs her face;
From Gabalis4 his mushroom fictions rise,
Lop off his sylphs – and his Belinda5 dies;
The attending insects hover in the air,
No longer than they're present is she fair;
Some dart those eyebeams, which the youths beguile,
And some sit conquering in a dimpling smile.
Some pinch the tucker, and some smooth the smock.
Some guard an upper, some a lower lock;
But if these truant body-guards escape,
In whip the gnomes and strait commit a rape;
The curling honours of her head they seize,
Hairs less in sight, or any hairs they please;
But if to angry frowns her brow she bends,
Upon her front some sullen gnome descends,
Whisks through the furrows with its airy form,
Bristles her eyebrows and 'directs the storm.'
As wide from these are Addisonian themes,
As angels' thoughts are from distempered dreams;
Spenser and he, to image nature, knew,
Like living persons, vice and virtue drew:
At once instructed and well pleas'd we read,
While in sweet morals these two poets lead,
No less to wisdom than to wit pretence,
They led by music, but they led to sense.
But Pope scarce ever force to fancy joins,
With dancing-master's feet equips his lines,
Plumes empty fancy, and in tinsel shines.
Or if by chance his judgment seems to lead,
Where one poor moral faintly shows its head,
'Tis like a judge, that reverently drest,
Peeps through the pageants at a lord may'r's feast;
By starts he reasons, and seems wise by fits,
Such wit's call'd wisdom, that has lost its wits.
Unnam'd by me this witling bard had been,
Had not the writer's caused the reader's sin;
But less by comedies and lewd romances,
Are ruin'd, less by French lascivious dances,
Than by such rhymers' masqueraded fancies.
From such the root of superstition grew,
Whose old charms fertile, daily branch'd in new;
From such chimeras first inspired, the fair
The conj'rer's ring approach'd, and Jesuit's chair;
Throng'd to the doors where magic rogues divin'd,
And sold out ignes fatui to the mind.
Wizards and Jesuits differ but in name,
Both demon's envoys, and their trade the same;
Weak wills they lead, and vapour'd minds command,
And play the game into each others' hand;
Like spiritual jugglers at the cup and ball,
Rising by foolish maids, that long to fall.
Some into love they damn, and some they pray,
For greensick minds are caught a different way;
To the same end, tho' several paths, they run,
Priests to undo and maids to be undone;
Some blacker charms, some whiter spells cajole,
As some lick wall and some devour a coal.
Here ladies, strong in vapours, see men's faces
Imprinted in the conjurer's dazzling glasses,
There, when, in spring time, the too praying priest,
Toasts, and does something better, – to the best
A spouse is promised on next Baptist's6 feast.
First some young contrite rake's enjoined to marry,
Lest – madam's forc'd to squeak for't – or, miscarry:
In June, the lass does to the fields repair,
Where good sir Domine just took the air.
When, O strange wonder! near a plaintain root,
She finds a coal – and so a spouse to boot.
She longs to dream and to secure the sport
That very day the youth design'd – must court,
He does – she struck with rapture and delight.
Bespeaks her fancy – strongly – dreams at night.
The yielding fair, the ravish'd youth obtains,
A maid she passes – so his child's free gains,
He has the pleasure, yet is sav'd the pains.
Thus when priest's wench – to cure the growing evil
Poor St. John Baptist must forerun the devil.
But if the ladies fall, at fall of leaf,
Or in the winter – still there's fresh relief;
Let her lace close four months, and if she can,
St. Agnes7 heals the breach and brings the man.
Thus a lewd priest to vapour'd virgins cants,
And into pimps reverts his vestal saints.
O! dire effects of mask'd impiety!
And shall they, Christian muse! have aids from thee;
Wilt thou, like witty heathens, lewdly given,
To a Gehenna metamorphose Heaven?
Wilt thou? – O no – forbid th' unhallow'd song,
Such profanations to Rome's bard belong.
Let one, who gods and goddesses adores,
Paint them like rakes and bullies, bawds, and whores.
Our genii, Campbell, shall be all divine,
Shall high o'er theirs as much distinguish'd shine,
As o'er such priests or chiromancers, thine.
Thine, which does future time's events command
To leap to sight, and in thy presence stand;
Thine, whose eyes glowing with a gifted ray,
New roads of life o'er wisdom's Alps survey,
And guide benighted travellers to day.
Let me, for once, a daring prophet be,
Mark from this hour – and poetry thoul't see
Date a new era from thy book and thee;
Thy book, where, thro' the stories, thou hast laid,
All moral wisdom's to the mind convey'd;
And thus far prophecies each page, that all
Must rise by virtues, or by vices fall.
Poets shall blush to see their wit outdone,
Resume their reason and assert its throne,
Shall fables still for virtue's sake commend;
And wit the means, shall wisdom make its end.
Who hopes to please, shall strive to please by pains,
Shall gaining fame, earn hard whate'er he gains
And Denham's morals join to Denham's strains.
Here paint the Thames8 'when running to the sea
Like mortal life to meet eternity.'
There show both kings and subjects 'one excess,
Makes both, by striving, to be greater, less.'
Shall climb and sweat, and falling, climb up still,
Before he gains the height of Cooper's Hill.
In Windsor Forest, if some trifling grace
Gives, at first blush, the whole a pleasing face,
'Tis wit, 'tis true; but then 'tis common-place.
The landscape-writer branches out a wood,
Then digging hard for't finds a silver flood.
Here paints the woodcock quiv'ring in the air,
And there, the bounding stag and quaking hare.
Describes the pheasant's scarlet-circled eye,
And next the slaught'ring gun that makes him die.
From common epithets that fame derives,
By which his most uncommon merit lives.
'Tis true! if finest notes alone could show,
(Tun'd justly high or regularly low,)
That we should fame to these mere vocals give,
Pope more, than we can offer, should receive.
For, when some gliding river is his theme,
His lines run smoother than the smoothest stream;
Not so when thro' the trees fierce Boreas blows,
The period blust'ring with the tempest grows.
But what fools periods read for periods' sake?
Such chimes improve not heads, but make 'em ache;
Tho' strict in cadence on the numbers rub,
Their frothy substance is whip-syllabub;
With most seraphic emptiness they roll,
Sound without sense, and body without soul.
Not such the bards that give you just applause,
Each, from intrinsic worth, thy praises draws,
Morals, in ev'ry page, where'er they look,
They find divinely scatter'd thro' thy book:
They find thee studious with praiseworthy strife,
To smooth the future roads of human life,
To help the weak, and to confirm the strong,
Make our griefs vanish, and our bliss prolong,
With Phineus' equal find thy large desert,
And in thy praise would equal Milton's art.
Some fools, we know, in spite of nature born,
Would make thee theirs, as they are mankind's scorn,
For still 'tis one of truth's unerring rules,
No sage can rise without a host of fools.
Coxcombs, by whose eternal din o'ercome,
The wise in just revenge, might wish them dumb,
Say on the world your dumbness you impose,
And give you organs they deserve to lose.
Impose, indeed, on all the world you would,
If you but held your tongue, because you could;
'Tis hard to say, if keeping silence still,
In one, who, could he speak, would speak with skill,
Is worse, or talk in these, who talk so ill.
Why on that tongue should purposed silence dwell,
Whence every word would drop an oracle?
More fools of thy known foresight make a jest,
For all bate greatest gifts who share the least,
(As Pope calls Dryden the often to the test9)
Such from thy pen, should Irwin's sentence10 wait,
And at the gallows own the judge of fate.
Or, while with feeble impotence they rail,
Write wonders on, and with the wise prevail.
Sooner shall Denham cease to be renown'd,
Or Pope for Denham's sense quit empty sound,
To Addison's immortal heights shall rise,
Or the dwarf reach him in his native skies.
Sooner shall real gipsies grow most fair,
Or false ones mighty truths like thine declare,
Than these poor scandal-mongers hit their aim,
And blemish thine or Curll's acknowledg'd fame.
Great Nostradamus thus, his age advis'd,
The mob his counsels jeer'd, some bards0 despis'd
Him still, neglecting these his genius fir'd,
A king encourag'd, and the world admir'd;
Greater (as times great tide increas'd) he grew,
When distant ages proved what truths he knew;
Thy nobler book a greater king received,
Whence I predict, and claim to be believ'd,
That by posterity, less fame shall be
To Nostradamus granted, than to thee;
Thee! whom the best of Kings does so defend,
And (myself barring) the best bards commend.
H. Stanhope.
Whitehall,
June 6th, 1720.
