THE

OLD-TIME SUPERSTITIONS.

"When golden angels cease to cure the evil,

We give the royal witchcraft to the devil."-POPE.

HE reader who has dallied over "Percy's Reliques" may, perhaps, recall to his mind the old ballad of " Sir Aldingar,” in which a lazar-man who came to the King's gate is told:

"Ile make thee a whole man and a sound

In two howers of the day."

The afflicted one meets the King, and the poem continues :

"But first he had touched the lazar-man,

And stroakt him with his hand;

The lazar under the gallows-tree

All whole and sounde did stande!"

An old superstition of great strength and wide-spread prevalence is referred to in these lines,-one which has often been the subject of research and thought, and whose history, even at the present enlightened day, may prove of interest to the student of human nature,—that human nature which is ever the same, in all ages and countries.

Among the collection of coins now upon exhibition at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, Memorial Hall, Fairmount Park, in this city, are certain English gold coins, issued by Charles II. and James II., known as " touch-pieces," which were given to those unfortunates whom, in conformity with the superstition of the times, the reigning sovereign" touched" for the cure of the King's Evil, a disease so named because it was thought to be healable only by the hand of a monarch.

In days when many believed that the kingly office was of divine origin, it was natural that the imaginations of those people of feeble vitality and often of weak or deficient mental power should be so far affected as to cause such bodily changes as we know to be produced by a strongly excited imagination, and, further, that those persons who were thus cured and those who heard of such cures should attribute the effect to the virtue of the kingly touch,--not to the influences of any mere mental processes.

The superstition was a very old one in England, where it can be traced back to the reign of Edward the Confessor, and in the

chronicle of William of Malmesbury will be found the narrative of several cures of this disease effected by that sovereign in England as well as in Normandy. It is considered remarkable that no other author who lived at or near the time of Edward the Confessor has spoken of this marvellous gift, and the most singular fact of all is that the bull by which he was canonized is stated to contain no allusion whatever to any of the sanations performed by him through the royal touch. But the old chroniclers who have narrated these miracles inclined to the belief that the healing virtue proceeded from the great personal sanctity of the monarch, rather than from any hereditary virtue in the line of royal succession or from the powers bestowed by the consecration and investiture at his coronation.

Holinshead, speaking of Edward the Confessor, the first English monarch of whom the power to heal was recorded, says “that he used to help those that were vexed with the disease commonly called the King's Evil, and left that virtue, as it were, a portion of the inheritance of his successors, the kings of this realm."

There is no record that the first four Norman monarchs attempted to heal the malady by touching; but the cures of Henry II. are attested by his chaplain, Peter de Blois. John of Gadesden, who was physician to Edward III., (about 1320,) in a work upon the scrofula, recommerds that, after all other remedies have been tried. and failed, as a last resource, the patient should repair to the Court in order to be touched by the King. Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Henry IV., and Chancellor to Henry V., represents the practice as having belonged to the kings o England from time immemorial.

Henry VII. was the first who established a particular form and ceremony, and introduced the practice of presenting to the sufferer at the same time a piece of gold, which was worn suspended from a ribbon around the neck.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, William Tooker published a work upon the subject of the cures effected by the royal hand, under the title of "Charisma, sive Donum Sanationis." He was a witness to many cures where a perfect cure and restoration to health occurred from the Queen's touch, without any relapse or return of the original malady. There is an anecdote, taken from “Charisma,” of a Roman Catholic who lived in the time of Elizabeth, and,

being very firm in his communion, was thrown into prison for his recusancy. There he grew terribly afflicted with the King's Evil, and, having applied himself to physicians, and gone through a long fatigue of pain and expense without the least success, at last he was touched by the Queen and perfectly cured. And being asked how the matter stood with him, his answer was, he was now satisfied by experimental proof that the Pope's excommunication of Her Majesty signified nothing, since she still continued blessed with so miraculous a quality."

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It is related of Queen Elizabeth that, making her progress into Gloucestershire, the people affected with this disease" did in uncivil crouds presse in upon her. Insomuch that Her Majesty, betwixt anger, grief and compassion, let fall words to this effect: Alasse, poor people, I cannot, I cannot cure you; it is God alone that can doe it.'"

The following passage in Macbeth," Act IV., Scene 3, reflects the current opinion of the times in which Shakespeare wrote:

Malcolm.-Comes the King forth, I pray you?

Doctor.-Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls

That stay his cure; their malady convinces

The great assay of art; but at his touch,

Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.

Malcolm.-I thank you, doctor.

Macduff.-What's the disease he means?

(Exit Doctor.)

A most miraculous work in this good king,
Which often, since my here remain in England,

I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,
All swol'n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,

The mere despair of surgery, he cures ;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction.

James I. doubtless exercised this among other royal prerogatives, a proclamation, dated March, 1616, being said to be in existence, forbidding patients to approach him during the summer. He is also reported to have touched the son of the Turkish Chiaus for the cure of the evil, at the foreigner's special request, using at it the usual ceremony" of signing the place infected with the crosse,

but no prayers before or after." When he was requested to effect the cure," His Majesty laughed heartily, and as the young fellow came neare him he stroked him, with his hande, first on the one side and then on the other; marry, without Pistle or Gospell."

In the reign of Charles I. the practice must have been of great frequency, for eleven of his proclamations relating to the touching for the King's Evil are still extant, mostly appointing times when the people who were afflicted might repair to the Court. It was further ordered that such persons should bring with them certificates from their parson, vicar, minister, or church-warden, that they had not previously been touched for the disease. Charles I., when he visited Scotland in 1633, "heallit 100 persons of the cruelles, or King's Evell, yong and olde," in Holyrood Chapel, on St. John's Day. The number of those "touched" in the reign of Charles II. was very great," and yet," says Pettigrew," it is not a little remarkable that more people died of scrofula, according to the Bills of Mortality, during this period than any other."

On the 6th day of July, 1660, Evelyn writes in his diary, "His Majestie began first to touch for ye evil, according to costome, thus: His Matie sitting under his state in ye banquetting house, the chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne where they kneeling ye King strokes their faces or cheekes with both his hands at once, at which instant a chaplaine, in his formalities, says, He put his hands upon them and He healed them.' This is said to every one in particular. When they have all been touch'd they come up againe in the same order, and the other chaplaine kneeling and having angel gold strung on white ribbon on his arme delivers them one by one to His Matie, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they passe, while the first chaplaine repeats, That is ye true light who came into ye world.' Then follows an epistle, (as at first a gospell,) with the liturgy, prayers for the sick, with some alteration; lastly, ye blessinge; then the lord chamberlaine and comptroller of the household bring a basin, ewer and towell for His Matie to wash."

During the first four years of the reign of Charles II., he is reported to have "touched" nearly twenty-four thousand persons, Friday being the favorite day for the ceremonial. Pepys saw the operation performed on the tenth day of April, 1661, and forthwith proceeded to note the same in his faithful diary.

"A Nonconformist's child in Norfolk," says Browne, in his work entitled "Adenochoiradelogia," "being troubled with scrofulous swellings, the late deceased Sir Thomas Browne being consulted about the same, His Majesty being then at Breda, or Bruges, he advised the parents of the child to have it carried over to the King (his own method being used ineffectually); the father seemed very strange at this advice, and utterly denied it, saying the touch of the King was of no greater efficacy than any other man's. The mother of the child, adhering to the doctor's advice, studied all imaginable means to have it over, and at last prevailed with the husband to let it change the air for three weeks or a month; this being granted, the friends of the child that went with it, unknown to the father, carried it to Breda, where the King touched it, and she returned home perfectly healed. The child being come to its father's house, and he finding so great an alteration, inquired how his daughter arrived at this health. The friends thereof assured him that, if he would not be angry with them, they would relate the whole truth; they having his promise for the same assured him they had the child to be touched' at Breda, whereby they apparently let him see the great benefit his child received thereby. Hereupon the father became so amazed that he threw off his Nonconformity and expressed his thanks in this manner: Farewell to all dissenters and to all Nonconformists; if God can put so much virtue into the King's hand as to heal my child, I'll serve that God and that King so long as I live, with all thankfulness.'"

The ceremony of "touching" was continued under James II., he, on one occasion, August 28, 1687, having healed as many as three hundred and fifty persons; even when in exile, at the Court of France, he would frequently perform the ceremony.

William III. refused utterly to countenance the superstition, and could not be persuaded to exercise the gift, being of the opinion that he would do no injury to the sufferers by withholding from them the royal touch.

Queen Anne is the last English sovereign of whom we have authentic proof that she performed this ceremony. On one occasion, she touched" two hundred people, among whom was the child Samuel Johnson, sent by the advice of his physician, all other means having failed of relief. But in his case success did not attend the operation, for during his whole life he was afflicted with