In Aubrey’s “Miscellanies” we read how Sir Richard Napier, immediately before his death, was journeying from Bedfordshire to Berks, and saw his own apparition lying stark and stiff on the bed; how Lady Diana Rich, the Earl of Holland’s daughter, was met by her death-fetch in the garden at Kensington, a month ere she died of small-pox;—and listen to this legend of Aventine.
“The emperor Henry went down through the Strudel: in another vessel was Bruno, bishop of Wurtzberg, the emperor’s kinsman. There sat upon a rock, that projected out of the water, a man blacker than a Moor, of a horrible aspect, terrible to all who beheld it, who cried out, and said to Bishop Bruno, ‘Hear! hear! Bishop: I am thine evil spirit; thou art mine own; go where thou wilt, thou shalt be mine: yet, now will I do nought to thee, but soon shalt thou see me again.’ The bishop crossed and blessed himself; but the holy sign was powerless. At Posenbeis, where dwelt the Lady Richlita of Ebersberg, the floor of the banqueting-room fell, in the evening: it was the death-fall of the bishop.”
As the protector Seymour was walking with his duchess, at their country seat, they perceived a spectral bloody hand thrust forth from a wall; and he was soon after beheaded.
It is recorded, that, like Julius Cæsar, James of Scotland had three warnings. The saintly man in Lithgow palace, and another phantom, in Jedburgh, warned King James of his fate: the latter wrote a Latin couplet on the mantel-piece in the hall: had he read it wisely, he had not died at Flodden.
The demon, or the guardian angel of Socrates, was also a prophetic mentor—not only to the sage himself, but even to his companions in his presence; and the slighting of its counsel often brought regret to those who were the subjects of its warning.
In the minds of Xenophon and Plato its influence was devoutly believed, and from the hive of the Attic bee I steal this honied morsel:—“One Timarchus, a noble Athenian, being at dinner in company with Socrates, he rose up to go away, which Socrates observing, bade him sit down again, for, said he, the demon has just now given me the accustomed sign. Some little time after, Timarchus offered again to be gone, and Socrates once more stopped him, saying, he had the same sign repeated to him. At length, when Socrates was earnest in discourse, and did not mind him, Timarchus stole away; and, in a few minutes after, committed a murder, for which, being carried to execution, his last words were, ‘That he had come to that untimely end for not obeying the demon of Socrates.’”