Happy Halloween! 🎃👻
The story of the Cock-Lane Ghost:
You might be surprised to learn that Dr. Johnson was
once involved in a ghost investigation. He was a very religious man and didn’t believe
in ghosts, stating to Boswell “Sir, I make a distinction between what a man may
experience by the mere strength of his imagination, and what imagination cannot
possibly produce …” In his Life of Johnson, Boswell wrote “… Johnson had a very
philosophical mind, and such a rational respect for testimony, as to make him
submit his understanding to what was authentically proved, though he could not
comprehend why it was so … he was willing to inquire into the truth of any relation
of supernatural agency, a general belief of which has prevailed in all nations
and ages ... no man
was more ready to refute its falsehood when he discovered it.’
In 1762 the story of the Cock-Lane Ghost had gained popularity
in London, and Johnson was invited to investigate the matter, he later wrote an
account of what happened to set the record straight which was published in
newspapers and The Gentleman’s Magazine.
The rumoured ghost was reportedly giving messages to an eleven-year-old girl at
a house in Cock Lane. The messages were given in the form of scratching noises
when the girl was lying in her bed. Her father, William Parsons, thought that
the sounds coming from the ghost were that of his recently deceased sister-in-law.
Great crowds visited the house to get a look at the girl and try and hear the
noises for themselves.
Johnson visited, accompanied by Reverend Dr. Douglas, Sir John Fielding and
others. For an hour they listened and heard nothing. They then went downstairs
to ask her father what he knew of the matter ‘who denied in the strongest
terms, any knowledge of belief of fraud.’ The men were then summoned back
upstairs to the girl’s room by ladies who had heard scratching and knocking.
When they entered the room, the girl told them ‘that she felt the spirit like a
mouse upon her back.’ She was then asked to keep her hands outside of the bed
and no further noises were heard.
Johnson reported that ‘It is, therefore, the
opinion of the whole assembly, that the child has some art of making or counterfeiting
a particular noise and that there is no agency of any higher cause.’
Later, the girl was found to be a fraud, she was scratching a piece of wood
beneath her blanket. Although Johnson was mocked for taking the investigation
so seriously, he later smugly said how he had 'assisted in
detecting the cheat’.
Image:
‘Frontispiece for the 2nd Edition of Dr J-n's Letters’ The ghost of Dr. Johnson
appearing to Hester Piozzi; Print made by: James Sayers, Published by: Thomas
Cornell, 1788. Museum Number: 1925,0715.28
© The Trustees of the British Museum
References:
Life of Johnson by James Boswell
Samuel Johnson: A Personal History by Christopher Hibbert
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