PRELIMINARY MOTE
James Russell Lowell
[In the month of February, 1866, the editors of the 'Atlantic Monthly'
received from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of Jaalam a letter enclosing the
macaronic verses which follow, and promising to send more, if more
should be communicated. 'They were rapped out on the evening of Thursday
last past,' he says, 'by what claimed to be the spirit of my late
predecessor in the ministry here, the Rev. Dr. Wilbur, through the
medium of a young man at present domiciled in my family. As to the
possibility of such spiritual manifestations, or whether they be
properly so entitled, I express no opinion, as there is a division of
sentiment on that subject in the parish, and many persons of the highest
respectability in social standing entertain opposing views. The young
man who was improved as a medium submitted himself to the experiment
with manifest reluctance, and is still unprepared to believe in the
authenticity of the manifestations. During his residence with me his
deportment has always been exemplary; he has been constant in his
attendance upon our family devotions and the public ministrations of the
Word, and has more than once privately stated to me, that the latter had
often brought him under deep concern of mind. The table is an ordinary
quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty pounds, three feet seven inches
and a half in height, four feet square on the top, and of beech or
maple, I am not definitely prepared to say which. It had once belonged
to my respected predecessor, and had been, so far as I can learn upon
careful inquiry, of perfectly regular and correct habits up to the
evening in question. On that occasion the young man previously alluded
to had been sitting with his hands resting carelessly upon it, while I
read over to him at his request certain portions of my last Sabbath's
discourse. On a sudden the rappings, as they are called, commenced to
render themselves audible, at first faintly, but in process of time more
distinctly and with violent agitation of the table. The young man
expressed himself both surprised and pained by the wholly unexpected,
and, so far as he was concerned, unprecedented occurrence. At the
earnest solicitation, however, of several who happened to be present, he
consented to go on with the experiment, and with the assistance of the
alphabet commonly employed in similar emergencies, the following
communication was obtained and written down immediately by myself.
Whether any, and if so, how much weight should be attached to it, I
venture no decision. That Dr. Wilbur had sometimes employed his leisure
in Latin versification I have ascertained to be the case, though all
that has been discovered of that nature among his papers consists of
some fragmentary passages of a version into hexameters of portions of
the Song of Solomon. These I had communicated about a week or ten days
previous[ly] to the young gentleman who officiated as medium in the
communication afterwards received. I have thus, I believe, stated all
the material facts that have any elucidative bearing upon this
mysterious occurrence.'
So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems perfectly master of Webster's
unabridged quarto, and whose flowing style leads him into certain
farther expatiations for which we have not room. We have since learned
that the young man he speaks of was a sophomore, put under his care
during a sentence of rustication from ---- College, where he had
distinguished himself rather by physical experiments on the comparative
power of resistance in window-glass to various solid substances, than in
the more regular studies of the place. In answer to a letter of inquiry,
the professor of Latin says, 'There was no harm in the boy that I know
of beyond his loving mischief more than Latin, nor can I think of any
spirits likely to possess him except those commonly called animal. He
was certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, but I see nothing in the
verses you enclose that would lead me to think them beyond his capacity,
or the result of any special inspiration whether of beech or maple. Had
that of _birch_ been tried upon him earlier and more faithfully, the
verses would perhaps have been better in quality and certainly in
quantity.' This exact and thorough scholar then goes on to point out
many false quantities and barbarisms. It is but fair to say, however,
that the author, whoever he was, seems not to have been unaware of some
of them himself, as is shown by a great many notes appended to the
verses as we received them, and purporting to be by Scaliger, Bentley,
and others,--among them the _Esprit de Voltaire_! These we have omitted
as clearly meant to be humorous and altogether failing therein.
Though entirely satisfied that the verses are altogether unworthy of Mr.
Wilbur, who seems to Slave been a tolerable Latin scholar after the
fashion of his day, yet we have determined to print them here, partly as
belonging to the _res gestæ_ of this collection, and partly as a
warning to their putative author which may keep him from such indecorous
pranks for the future.]