We are glad to observe, from sundry symptoms which have of late been
manifested, that the taste for the supernatural is again reviving
amongst us. It is not safe now to deny miracles, to sneer at stories of
winking images, or to speak lightly of the liquefaction of the blood of
St Januarius. Cardinal Wiseman, in his future attempts to familiarise
us with the doctrines of saintly interference, will find a good deal
of work already cut and dry for his hand. Pious young noblemen, whose
perversion is only of a few weeks' standing, have already laid in such
a stock of exuberant faith, that all Europe rings with the fame of
their pilgrimages; and the chain in the church of St Peter ad Vincula
has already been suspended around more than one English neck, in token
of the entire submission of the proselytes to the spiritual yoke of
Rome.
[23] _Lavengro; the Scholar--the Gipsy--the Priest._ By GEORGE BORROW,
Author of the _Bible in Spain_, &c. 3 vols. London: 1851.
Nor is the hankering after the supernatural confined only to the sphere
of religious belief. Were it so, we should not have ventured even to
allude to the subject; for it matters nothing to us what amount of
pilgrims may choose to press forward to Loretto, with or without the
salutary but inconvenient impediment of pease. But we are going a great
deal faster and farther. We have renewed some of the popular beliefs
of bygone centuries; and in a short time we may hope to discover a
few of the lost secrets of the Chaldeans and the Magi. Astrology,
never wholly extinguished as a science, is again beginning to look
up. Raphael and Zadkiel--we ask pardon of the latter gentleman if we
have mistaken his name, for we quote merely from memory, and have none
of his invaluable treatises lying on our table--will calculate your
nativity for a trifle, and give you in January a shrewd hint as to the
aspect of public matters at the ensuing Christmas. Reichenbach will
tell you all about ghosts, luminous children, and suchlike apparitions
as seem perpetually to have disturbed the repose of the gifted Lady
Fanshawe. By a little fasting and maceration, and possibly a course of
purgatives, you may even succeed in reducing yourself to a state of
clairvoyance, in which case your curiosity will be amply gratified by
a visit to the nearest churchyard. You will then thoroughly understand
the occult theory of corpse-candles, and various other things undreamed
of in your philosophy, so long as you adhere to your present gross
diet of beef-steaks and porter, and pride yourself on your Particular
Madeira. Almost any lubberly boy can now discover you a spring by
means of the divining-rod. Travelling is no longer a luxury confined
to the rich. If you wish to be transported to any known part of the
earth with a rapidity greater than that of Malagigi's flying demon,
who conveyed Charlemagne on his back from Pampeluna to Paris in the
course of a summer's night, you have only to go to a biologist, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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