Punch (47.1864)

October 15, 1864.]

PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARTVART.

161

A SIBYLLINE LEAF.

but living, to give the most delightful intelligence of the Spirit world they have
passed into, since they have left the earth; who'hail with joy, being able to write
to their loved ones on the earth, to identify themselves to their bereaved friends.”

IM*. V V

umbug or Spiritualism, which has been a
little flat since Mr. Home ceased to fly,
may be said (in the language of the Trade
Circular) to be “ looking up,” now that
the Brothers Davenport are making “a sensation” out of their cup-
board—by the way, why don’t they get into “ a Davenport ” when
they are about it ?—and have even found their way into a place that
is likely to be still more profitable to them than their cupboard, namely,
the columns of the Times. Proeessor Anderson may outdo all
the marvels of all the Mediums by what he is content to call by
its right name of jugglery, legerdemain, or sleight-of-nand. So de-
scribed, his ingenuity and dexterity are legitimately employed in tricking
our senses, and no one has a right to call him rogue, or to begrudge
the shillings he extracts from the pockets of the crowds who fill St.
James’s Hall. But when “media” are substituted for mechanism,
“ spirits ” for sleight-of-hand, and the mystical jargon of uneducated
impostors for the clever jugglery of the Wizard of the North, Mr.
Punch! s baton must be out and rapping rogues on the head, and gulls
and dupes on the knuckles. There lies before us a circular—the last
and about the biggest dose of “ flapdoodle ” that has been shovelled
into British spoons by Transatlantic tricksters of the Spiritualist sort.
It is headed—

“ THE GREATEST DISCOVERY EVER MADE,

Is the MEDIATION WRITING direct to, and from, the Spirit World, in One Minute!
without any Mechanism, except Pen, Inlc, and Paper."

Admire on the threshold the punctuation and phraseology of the
Spiritually-inspired compiler. The Seers, in these respects, seem on a
par with “the Sperrits.” We have long been aware that the latter,
as a rule, are hazy about their spelling and grammar. It is clear
that ASacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus have not as yet esta-
blished any Board like the Civil Service Commissioners, or not one m a
hundred “Sperrits” (as the Mediums reveal them to us) could ever
have passed into their shadowy realm. Or it may be, perhaps, (and this
seems mo$t reconcileable with the observed facts) that the only Spirits
allowed to communicate with the Mediums are those incapable ghosts
who, being unable to pass their examinations for spiritual situations,
on the ground of gross deficiency in “ the three R.’s,” are left in limbo,
out of employment, and reduced to eke out a discreditable livelihood by
rapping, hand-showing, accordion-playing out of tune, mis-spelling, and
the other degrading performances with which they are now so humilia-
tingly associated.

This communication to the large world of geese and gulls, which we
reproduce, verbatim et literatim, in every point except the Sybil’s name,
goes on—

“ MRS. BOUNCE BUBBLER, Sibyle Medium,

Has the extraordinary gift of holding communions and conversation, for any length
of time, and anywhere, with the departed in the Spirit World, who are not dead,

Alas, poor ghosts! If this is to be the style of spiritual correspond-
ence, surviving relatives, we would suppose, must blush, rather than
“ hail with joy,” when the departed take “ to identify themselves to t/wir
bereaved friends.” The universal prayer for the dead ought to be

“requiescat in pace” more than ever, and, above all, “may our friends’
ghosts be strictly forbidden the use of pens, ink, and paper.”

Now for Mrs. Bubbler’s theory of this “ extraordinary gift: ”—

“ Now if this be true, surely it is the greatest phenomenon ever heard of, and opens
i the widest field for inquiry and consolation ever known ; Eor what can be more
charming than to write to our beloved ones just gone from us, and in a few minutes
to receive an answer, telling us they are actually more alive now than when on the
earth, because they have left the dead material body, and as St. Paul declares, are a
‘ spiritual body,’ and are elevated to that sphere they have earned on the earth.

“ What can be more reasonable to the scientific mind than to believe the higher
spheres, or planets, are inhabited, as well as our planet the Earth? And as we know
man has got the power of sending his message from one city to another, is it not
reasonable to believe, that God has given his progressive Spirits, who are in His
keeping, in the Spirit world, the power to communicate from one sphere to another
sphere, as easy as man can from city to city ? If this be denied, it gives more power
to man than God ! Man's power is mechanical electricity—God's power is Spiritual
Electricity—which as far surpasses the electric telegraph, as heaven surpasses the
earth ! and is a law of nature not yet understood, but is revealed to me, through
this marvellous writing, which swallows up death in victory ! through which many
prophecies are written to me ! ”

We commend the caution of the qualification “.//’this be true”—
“ Great virtue in an if!” But what is far stranger than “ the gift” itself,
is that it should be given to such hands as the Forsters and Homes
and Bubblers.

But the “ Sibyle Medium” is not sordid, nor selfish. She does not
desire to keep the gift to herself. She has the will and the power to
dispose of it to others—for a consideration. At least she can teach all
to “ write to their loved ones; ” though, it is to be noted, that she does
not undertake they will receive answers—which one would have sup-
posed the important point. She promises to teach us “ to call spirits
from the vasty deep;” whde she leaves us to ask, with Hotspur, “But
will they come ?”

“ I here declare I have no desire to keep so great a privilege to myself, because 1
have the power given me to teach others—either believers or sceptics !—to enable
them to write to their loved ones, quite independent of me, after 1 have taught
them ; who can investigate the truth of this statement for themselves—for what
we can do ourselves, we know to be true—teaching others will be the best means of
making this great gift known.”

And now for the list of Mrs. Bubbler’s spiritual acquaintance.
It is large, and decidedly mixed. Death, like misery, evidently makes
men “ acquainted with strange bedfellows; ” and not the most hetero-
geneous “ crush ” at a scientific London conversazione—not even a
Saturday night at Cambridge House itself—ever exhibited a more
queerly compounded “lot” than that which enjoys the privdege of
exchanging raps or notes with Mrs. Bubbler. The only assemblage
to compare with it is the famous one in the Groves of Blarney—

“ The Hay thin Gods and Goddesses so fair,

I Bould Plutarch, Niptune, and Nicodamus,

All standin’ stark naked in the open air.”

“ I can commune with the Spirit nearly as soon as it has left the body ! Time is
no barrier: for no Spirit can resist my call ! I have the communions of Adam,
God’s first man, who has given an account of the universal law, whioh God gave
him ; also Father Abraham, Noah, Moses, Aaron, Solomon, Lorenza, St. Paul, St.
Peter, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Josephus the Jewish historian;
Pilate, Herod, Amphion, King of Thebes ; Daniel and the other Prophets, Stephen,
Timothy ; the Sibyls of the Delphi Temple, and others; Queen Elizabeth, Mary
Queen of Scots, Pope, Milton, Lord Bacon, Lord Hastings, the great Sir Isaac
j Newton, who gives a philosophical explanation oi this mediation writing ; Sweden-
borg, who contradicts much he has written ; John Bunyan, Titian, the great painter,
communicates-?! full account of his method of painting ; and Van Eyck, tire inventor
of oil painting, gives me his secret of oil painting, so the secret of oil painting by
the old masters need never be lost again. Shakspeare, Byron, Burns, and Thacke-
ray, write poetry to me. Shakspeare has written his own fife from the Spirit world,
because I have written him all that has taken place at Stratford relative to himself.
Napoleon Bonaparte, Howard, Hall, Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Robert Peel, Sir Francis
Burdott, Bloomfield, the Duke of Buckingham, the Duke of Bedford, Sir Benjamin
Brodie, Dr. Whately, Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Clyde, Robert Owen, Miss Catharine
Sinclair, the Duke of Wellington, Sir John Franklin, Lord Auckland, Hon. Miss
Eden, Lady Craven, George the Fourth, King of England, and many others ; three
communications from the Duchess of Kent, to write to her daughter the Queen
Victoria ; a great number from our lamented Prince Consort, who has come spon-
taneously ever since he left the earth, requesting me to write to his beloved Queen,
which I did on the 16th November, 1862. And it is by his request I now make it
public for the consolation of the world.”

One fact here communicated is painful—to say the least of it. Shak-
speare has had the whole history of his own Tercentenary humiliation
inflicted upon him by Mrs. Bubbler. He knows of the squabbles
that beset that luckless undertaking ; is cognisant of the names of his
principal Tercentenary worshippers; and must be aware (we fear) of
the statues promised and the dedcit actually realised. He has sent
back his “Life” in return. Mrs. Bubbler is bound to publish it.

The quintessence of all the wit and wisdom of this highly-distin-
guished fist ot Mrs. Bubbler’s own correspondents can be had cheap;