The manuscript and portrait were both preserved, and of the original a report spread that he was still alive, and had been frequently seen in Ireland even to the present century, –but that he was never known to appear but on the approaching death of one of the family, nor even then, unless when the evil passions or habits of the individual had cast a shade of gloomy and fearful interest over their dying hour. The family could give him none, and after some days of restless inquiry and agitation, he departed, leaving behind him, either through negligence or intention, a manuscript, containing an extraordinary account of the circumstances under which he had met John Melmoth the Traveller (as he was called). Some years after, a person arrived from England, directed to Melmoth’s house, in pursuit of the traveller, and exhibiting the most marvellous and unappeasable solicitude to obtain some intelligence of him. On his departure he left them his picture, (the same which Melmoth saw in the closet, bearing date 1646), and they saw him no more. It was said that they did not feel themselves perfectly at ease in his presence. His visit was short, he said nothing of the past or the future, nor did his family question him. It was said, that during the life-time of Melmoth, the traveller paid him a visit and though he must have then been considerably advanced in life, to the astonishment of his family, he did not betray the slightest trace of being a year older than when they last beheld him. Dryden calculated the nativity of his son Charles, the ridiculous books of Glanville were in general circulation, and Delrio and Wierus were so popular, that even a dramatic writer (Shadwell) quoted copiously from them, in the notes subjoined to his curious comedy of the Lancashire witches. It must be remembered, that at this period, and even to a later, the belief in astrology and witchcraft was very general. He finds a portrait dated 1646 hidden in his uncle’s closet depicting a mysterious ancestor with eyes ‘such as one feels they wish they had never seen.’ At his uncle’s funeral, a servant tells John an old family story about a stranger called Stanton who arrived looking for ‘Melmoth the Traveller’ decades earlier…
In 1816, John Melmoth, a Dublin student, visits his miserly uncle on his deathbed.
0 kommentar(er)
