A Note on Spectral Illusions and Other ” Warnings” in a Case of Apoplexy; With Reference to the Fatal Illness of the Late Earl of Eglinton
- Author:
GAIItDNER, M.D.
In the last number of tlie Journal of Psychological Medicine there is an article by Dr W. A. F. Browne, a well known and much respected authority, on ” Second-sight, or Deuteroscopia.” To write a criticism, or commentary, on the article is no part of my present purpose. Indeed, fascinating as the subject is, I should not have been tempted to meddle with it at all but for one of the anecdotes referred to as proviug that “modern times and persons whom we might have touched afford similar evidence ” to that which Sir Walter Scott had before him when he em- bodied in immortal fiction the tale of the Bodach-Glas which appeared to Fergus Mclvor on the eve of his capture and execution.” The sole object of this note is to deal with the one particular instance here adduced of a very modern “Bodach- Glas ;” the facts alleged being susceptible of verification, or the contrary, in a way which might chance to be impossible a few years hence. The real facts and theories which underlie such narratives in general are extremely interesting; but obviously the first point in importance is to have the exact truth, as nearly as it can be had ; and the purpose of this communication, therefore, is simply to assist Dr Browne, and all others who may follow him, in the attempt to carry out scientific enquiries into a dark and difficult subject.
The narrative in question is to be found at p. 29 of part 1, vol. ii. of the new series of this Journal, and is borrowed verbatim from a book entitled Apparitions: a Narrative of Facts,by theEev. Bourchier Wrey Saville, M. A. (London: 1874); a volume to which in general terms Dr Browne expresses his acknowledgments as the source of some considerable portion of his materials. In this particular instance, however, the ” facts ” have been filtered through at least two other media before reaching Mr. Saville’s pages : for it is expressly mentioned that a certain ” Henderson,” in a certain work passing under the name of ” Folk Lore,” attributes the story to a certain ” Scotch clergyman, ivho endorses every ‘particular as authentic and perfectly true.”
I am not in a position to be able to track this narrative through all the various stages indicated, inasmuch as I have not the slightest idea who is the Scotch clergyman here referred to, or how the story got into the possession of ” Henderson;” but as the compilation of such books as this ” Folk Lore,” is usually very ranch of a paste-and-scissors business, and as no names are mentioned in connection with the absolutely first source of the information, it is probably not too much to assume that between this first source and the ” Scotch clergyman,” or between the latter and ” Henderson,” there may have been several other media of more or less transparency, consciously or unconsciously imparting a colouring to the narrative. At all events, it is at least charitable to suppose so much ; for I am in a position to affirm with the most absolute certainty that the narrative attri- buted to the ” Scotch clergyman,” so far from being’in ” every particular authentic and perfectly true,” is, in the commonest particulars, and in almost every individual detail, totally de- void of the character of a trustworthy report of the facts and circumstances of the late Lord Eglinton’s death.
It happens that I am the only survivor of the medical men who saw Lord Eglinton on his death-bed,’* and who heard at the time the exact report of what was said to have preceded his fatal illness. I have also had the advantage of a communication from Mr. Whyte Melville, of Mount Melville, at whose house lie died; and I am able, moreover, to compare the incidents of Lord Eglinton’s last illness with facts and impressions as to his state of mind and body during the last year, or more, of his life ; these particulars resting upon the unpublished, but perfectly exact and carefully considered statements of two friends of the late Lord Eglinton, who were certainly more in his confidence, and more in daily intercourse with him, at the time in question, than any other person or persons whatever, Lady Eglinton alone excepted. I am thus in the possession of means for the discovery of the truth in this case which can rarely be at the disposal of anyone who desires to follow to its sources a tale of death-bed wonders; the actual subject of the narrative being, of course, disqualified from giving evidence as to the facts, unless, indeed, through some other supernatural apparition, which would itself require a like careful and elaborate process of verification. The facts are certainly both curious and interesting, and in lecturing upon the premonitions of apoplexy I have invariably referred to them (without, however, giving names or local indica- tions) as illustrating the physical basis upon which such quasi- supernatural tales as those of the Banshee, Bodach-Glas, wraiths, and other warning visions have, with great probability, been * The late Dr A dam son, of St. Andrews, with his colleague and partner, Dr. Oswald Bell, more recently Professor of Medicine in the University there, were associated with me, more or less, throughout; Dr Adamson having the more im- mediate charge, and having communicated to me most of the details as understood at the time. Dr Begbie, senior, of Edinburgh, was also called in consultation. founded. It is, therefore, a matter of considerable interest to me as a teaclier of medicine to find that a full-blown supernatural tale has actually grown up and got itself published three times over within fifteen years?first as ” Folk Lore,” then as ” Appa- ritions, a Narrative of Facts,” and finally as a modern instance of ” Deuteroscopia,” in a medical journal. And I have accord- ingly to thank Dr Browne for having been the means of bring- ing under the notice of competent scientific judges what might otherwise have been left to fructify in ” Folk Lore,” until the miraculous element had assumed still larger proportions. I believe we have here a typical story, from which the true genesis of many other myths of a like order may be easily inferred.
What is detailed in the published narrative, omitting, for the present, the apparently supernatural occurrence, may be briefly thus contrasted with the actual facts, as known to myself and probably to many others, bearing on the last illness and death of the late Lord Eglinton. I purposely give, though not every word, yet every single incident of an ordinary or easily verifiable kind, related on the authority of the ” Scotch clergy- man ” as being in ” every particular authentic and perfectly true.”
1. Lord E. was engaged in playing golf at St. Andrews on the 4th of October 1861. This is incorrect as to date, as will presently appear. It is correct otherwise.
2. ” Within a few hours Lord E. was a corpse. He died the same night.” This is as inaccurate as so brief a statement could possibly be. Lord Eglinton was taken suddenly ill on Monday, the 30th of September 1861, and died on Friday, the 4th of October. It was on the former date that he was playing golf as above stated. Five days, therefore, intervened between the incidents referred to as occurring on the links of St. Andrews and his death.
3. Lord E. died ” with such suddenness, that he was engaged in handing a candlestick to a lady, who was retiring to her room, when he expired.” This is altogether inaccu- rate, and indeed purely imaginary. Lord Eglinton expired after nearly four days of insensibility, during which he lay in bed perfectly helpless. He was, indeed, very suddenly taken ill on the evening uf the day on which lie had been playing golf; but without going into minute details of what must have been a painful scene in a private drawing-room, I may say that I have it on the best authority that Lord Eglinton was himself retiring from the room at the time of his seizure, after saying ” Good night” to the company, and had reached the door, walking backwards, and feeling for the handle, in the course of which his manner was observed to be peculiar, and this led to liis being followed into the passage just in time to be prevented from falling to the ground.
Now these details, given on the authority of an eye-witness, would be of no great importance were it not for the clear evidence they afford, that the first source of the tradition ascribed to the ” Scotch clergyman” was not an eye-witness, and not even a well-informed secondary or hearsay witness. The narrative, which is ushered in with such pretensions to authority and exactitude, is inexact in every particular, and obviously founded on the merest gossip of outsiders, who were utterly misinformed as to dates and circumstances, which any good contemporary newspaper could have supplied, while the colouring imparted to the narrative is such as to make it appear to be in all its details ” authentic and perfectly true.” Of course I do not blame the unknown ” Scotch clergy- man ” for this. When A tells B, who tells C, who tells D, who tells E, etc. etc., a story which is ultimately printed by a cunning compiler of ” Folk Lore,” the errors of the tradition are not to be placed to the account of any one of these letters of the alphabet. And in this case we cannot be sure that the ” Scotch clergyman” really meant to authenticate the narrative as we have it; I am almost sure, indeed, that no Scotch clergyman was in a position to do so.
The importance of this preliminary investigation as to the more ordinary or credible incidents of the narrative is that, the facts being so, we may almost certainly assume that the appa- rently supernatural incidents require to be discounted, or severely scrutinised, in proportion to the want of care and good faith shown in the whole structure of the traditional story. We know positively that we have to deal, not with such facts as would stand in a court of justice, but with the flimsiest and loosest of gossip, gathered in all probability from various sources, and at such a distance from the actual facts that even dates had ceased to be, or to appear, of importance. On such authority as this we are required to receive the following:? ” Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the game, exclaiming, ‘ I can play no longer?there is the Bodach-Grlas; I have seen it for the third time; something fearful is going to befall me.’ Within a few hours Lord Eglinton was a corpse; he died the same night,” etc. etc.
We should err, however, if on account of the d ‘priori un- trustworthiness of the narrative we should treat it as wholly without foundation in its apparently supernatural incidents. The fact is, that Lord Eglinton unquestionably had some kind of spectral illusion, or deceptio visus, while playing golf at St. Andrews on the day of his illness. He did not explain himself very clearly, or in much detail about it, but said to the bystanders on more than one occasion (as 1 was informed next day), ” There’s my little old man again “?as if he had become more or less familiar with the object. It is not a pai’t of the story, as I heard it, that he manifested any supernatural awe or terror, or gave expression to any fear of immediate con- sequences. I am almost as sure as a man can be of anything derived from testimony, that the language attributed to Lord Eglinton above is a pure invention, and one long after the fact. For reasons which I shall state presently, I believe that Lord Eglinton was fully persuaded, long before this, of his approach- ing end, and that he looked forward to it, as a brave man without superstition or guilty fear will usually do, steadily and unflinchingly, for at least several months. He was not, there- fore, in a state of mind to be suddenly terrorised by a Bodach- Glas, or banshee, even had he believed the spectre to be such. But I never heard it said at the time that he so believed it. On the contrary, it is certain that he went home, passed afternoon in society, ate a hearty dinner, and then afterwards entered into conversation about the gold medal that was to be played for next day ; rose, however, early, and went to the drawing-room, where he listened with evident appreciation to the singing of Scotch songs, and then retired, to be seized, as stated above, with his fatal illness (apoplexy) just after leaving the drawing-room. Such are the unvarnished facts of the case in so far as they bear on the alleged supernatural occurrence. How long before this Lord Eglinton had become aware of the premonitory symptoms of disease, and what position he assigned to these spectral illusions among the premonitory symptoms, are questions which must probably remain for ever unanswered. But we have abundant evidence of such premonitory symptoms in other cases of apoplexy and epilepsy, and of their probably depending on physical causes. And in Lord Eglinton’s case I am able to supply a missing link, by showing not only that he had formed a very decided opinion that his life was drawing to a close, but that he had expressed this opinion in a very practical form, and entirely without reference to any supernatural or superstitious impressions of warning. I am even in a position to show that his symptoms, more than a year before his death, were such as to suggest to a physician of large experience the probability of apoplexy, and further, that among these symptoms were spectral illusions, not indeed so definite in character as the ” little old man” on St. Andrews links, but still such as probably to concur with the other evidence of impaired health and vigour in leading to the fixed impression on Lord Eglin- ton’s mind of impending fatal disease. The following statements are simply an abridgment of what has been carefully written down for my guidance by one of the two very-intimate and confidential friends of Lord Eglinton above referred to.
Lord Eglinton was, as is well known, a man of robust bodily frame, and of a remarkably genial presence, fond of all manly sports, and especially an adept at most of our Scottish games, but never permitting amusements to interfere with his various business engagements, which, up to about two years before his death, had included the public duties of the vice- royalty of Ireland. In that office he did not spare himself, and he is known to have gained the goodwill of all classes, and an almost unbounded popularity. In the autumn of 1860, when residing at home in Ayrshire, he was observed by a few of his more intimate friends to be falling off in vigour of body, but not to such an extent as to attract the notice of casual visitors. At this time, in consequence of representations made by the Countess of Eglinton to my informant, seriously remark- ing upon the altered health of the Earl and his indisposition (contrary to all his former habits) to take active exercise, he was induced to make a personal visit to all his tenantry in Ayrshire, and in the course of these excursions, thus voluntarily under- taken with a view to his own health, as well as to the gratifica- tion of those visited, he spoke frequently and confidentially of his own symptoms, among which the loss of weight was the one most present to his own mind as indicating derangement of health. He spoke of it as gradual and progressive, and said that it was annoying, for at his time of life most men became heavier, and he could not account for it by anything in connec- tion with his diet or regimen. He then explained that he had also had peculiar sensations connected with his sight, and my informant remembers distinctly the statement, that when out shooting some days before, he had on several occasions taken the gun from his shoulder without drawing the trigger, because, he said, ” I could not cover the object.” On being asked what it was that prevented him from taking aim, he replied that ” a little black spot seemed now and then to cross his vision, and he could not fire.”
A fact not stated at the time in connection with these symptoms, but which became known to my informant after Lord Eglinton’s death, is that even for some time before this he had been consulting Dr Macfarlane, of Glasgow, late Pro- fessor of Practice of Physic in the University, for symptoms which the latter considered to be ” indicative of apoplectic tendencies.” Dr Macfarlane, in stating this circumstance in conversation with my informant, added that he had recom- mended his lordship to take regular exercise, and to dine an hour or an hour and a half earlier, but that he was met with the answer, ” Oh, doctor, we cannot give up our eight o’clock dinners.”
I have thus established, beyond all question, the fact that for more than a year before Lord Eglinton’s death he had been failing in health, had experienced disorders in vision amounting to a kind of spectral illusion, and had been considered by a physician of the largest experience the subject of ” apoplectic tendencies.” Had Lord Eglinton been a superstitious man, he was therefore in the very condition to be, even at this time, visited by a ” Bodach-Grlas,” or what he might have construed as a warning vision of some kind. But in the very end of 1860 a great calamity befel him, and shortly after this his confidential communications to the two friends I have referred to assumed a new character, with a distinctly increased solemnity of anti- cipation of the approaching close of his own life. Lord Eglinton was twice married. His second wife was the Lady Adela Capel. This lady was delivered of a child in Edin- burgh on the 6th or 7th of December 1860, and all went well for three weeks. At the end of that time there was a sudden and unexpected illness, which terminated fatally on the 31st of December. It is quite certain that this event caused a very severe mental shock to Lord Eglinton, and almost from the very day of the death of the Countess he used expressions inti- mating that ” his heart was broken,” and that it would not be long before his own life would come to a close. Indeed, on the very day after the funeral of his wife, he gave most minute instructions to one of the confidential friends alluded to above as regards his own funeral, and, what is still more striking, repeated these instructions in detail, pointing out on the spot the very place where he wished to be laid, and exacting a solemn pledge to carry out his wishes from the other friend, a man at least twenty years older than himself, and at the time by no means in vigorous health. I have a most vivid impres- sion derived from this last gentleman (now dead) as to the per- sistency with which Lord Eglinton pressed upon him personally the duty of seeing him buried in the exact place pointed out by him, and when told that, according to all ordinary calculations, he (Lord Eglinton) ought to be the survivor of the two, he said, ” No, my career is ended ; you will soon see me buried there.” With all this there was no hint of any overstrained imagina- tive terror or superstitious feeling, and no allusion, even in the most casual way, to any supernatural warning or visitation. The works referred to by Dr Browne contain a very circumstan- tial narrative of a dream which, it is said, warned Lord Eglinton beforehand of the death of the Countess, and even of the very time when it was to take place, making him cry out with terror. Dr Browne does not quote this story, though it is very plausibly told, and is quite a fitting pendant to the tale of the ” Bodach- Grlas.” For the purposes of ” Folk Lore ” it is quite as good a story as the other, though it does not assume to be attested in every particular by a ” Scotch clergyman.” Upon this sub- ject my informant writes: “From the day of the Countess’s death, and for many weeks afterwards, I was constantly with Lord Eglinton, and had many private conversations with him on the subject of his great loss, but I never heard the slightest allusion to a dream or foreboding of any kind.” Is it at all probable, or even possible, that Lord Eglinton should have been for weeks in constant communication with a most intimate and confidential friend, speaking of the facts connected with the death of the Countess, and should never have dropped a hint about a supernatural warning, if the latter story had been true ? Yet the narrative appears side by side with the other in Mr. Saville’s book, and equally with it assumes to be derived from authentic sources, or at least claims, by its very form and word- ing, the credit due to a statement of indisputed fact. One more illustration I am able to give at once of the strongly-realised conception that Lord Eglinton had formed of the probability or certainty of his own premature death, and of the freedom of that conception from all superstitious fears, or even traces of supernatural visitation. At the instance of the elder of the two confidential friends I have mentioned, and chiefly with a view to the occupation of his leisure hours during the last year of his life, Lord Eglinton had agreed to a pro- posal to place on record some of his own personal recollec- tions, his friend doing the same; and each reading over to the other, from time to time, the successive portions of the two narratives as they were completed. Both these autobiographical Productions still exist, and I believe that the interchange of ?confidences contained in them was a source of much pleasure and satisfaction to their respective authors, although I have often heard the elder and survivor of the two say that he believed Lord Eglinton did not intend his memoir to be pre- served, or in any way to be made use of, after his death ; regard- ing it as merely a private or confidential record for his own use, and that of his most intimate friends. I am not in a position, of course, to quote or otherwise refer in detail to this document; but I believe it is true that the last words in it contain an affecting allusion to the death of his wife nine months before, conveying, as simply as possible, the sense that in this world he had no more to do, but to prepare for a meeting in the next. Had there been any supernatural manifestation or ghostly terror present to the mind of Lord Eglinton. shortly before his own death, or had his previous experience contained such an incident as that of the second story referred to above, it was here that we might have expected to find it. For I am informed, on the same authority as I have previously so often referred to, that ” the 29th September 1860 was Lord Eglinton’s birth- day. It was a Sunday, and I believe I am right in saying that on that day he wrote the last sentence which is found in his autobiography.” On the next day, the 30tli September, as we have seen, he was on the links at St. Andrews playing golf, and it was then that he experienced the premonitory symptoms which led up to a fit of apoplexy the same night.
I have endeavoured to present these occurrences in such a way as may be of service in the investigation of truth, and at the same time avoid ministering to a morbid appetite for the marvellous, or a mere love of gossip. The surviving friends of the late Lord Eglinton will not regret to know that an attempt has been made to distinguish between fact and fiction in the current traditions; although had not these been published in a scientific journal, it is more than probable that the attempt would never have been made.
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