Wake—Vigil—WÆcan—import one and the same thing. So we are informed, by that learned antiquary, John Whitaker, in his History of Manchester, published in 1771. Originally, this was a festival, kept by watching, through the night, preceding the day, on which a church was dedicated. We are told, by Shakspeare—

He that outlives this day, and sees old age,
Will yearly, on the vigil, feast his neighbors,
And say tomorrow is Saint Crispian.

These vigils, like the agapÆ, or love-feasts, fell, erelong, into disrepute, and furnished occasion, for disgraceful revelry and riot.

The Irish Wake, as it is popularly called, however it may have sprung from the same original stock, is, at present, a very different affair. Howling, at a wake, is akin to the ululation of the mourning women of Greece, Rome, and Judea, to which I have alluded, in a former number. The object of the Irish Wake is to rouse the spirit, which, otherwise, it is apprehended, might remain inactive, unwilling, or unable, to quit its mortal frame—to wake the soul, not precisely, “by tender strokes of art,” but by long-continued, nocturnal wailings and howlings. In practice, it has ever been accounted extremely difficult, to get the Irish soul fairly off, either upward or downward, without an abundance of intoxicating liquor.

The philosophy of this is too high for me—I cannot attain unto it. I know not, whether the soul goes off, in a fit of disgust, at the senseless and insufferable uproar, or is fairly frightened out of its tabernacle. This I know, that boon companions, and plenty of liquor are the very last means I should think of employing, to induce a true-born Irishman, to give up the ghost. I have read with pleasure, in the Pilot, a Roman Catholic paper of this city, an editorial discommendation of this preposterous custom.

However these barbarous proceedings may serve to outrage the dignity, and even the decency, of death, they have not always been absolutely useless. If the ravings, and rantings, the drunkenness, and the bloody brawls, that have sometimes occurred, during the celebration of an Irish wake, have proved unavailing, in raising the dead, or in exciting the lethargic soul—they have, certainly, sometimes sufficed, to restore consciousness to the cataleptic, who were supposed to be dead, and about to be committed to the grave.

In April, 1804, Barney O’Brien, to all appearance, died suddenly, in the town of Ballyshannon. He had been a terrible bruiser, and so much of a profligate, that it was thought all the priests, in the county of Donegal, would have as much as they could do, of a long summer’s day, to confess him. It was concluded, on all hands, that more than ordinary efforts would be required, for the waking of Barney O’Brien’s soul. A great crowd was accordingly gathered to the shanty of death. The mountain dew was supplied, without stint. The howling was terrific. Confusion began. The altercation of tongues was speedily followed, by the collision of fists, and the cracking of shelalahs. The yet uncovered coffin was overturned. The shock, in an instant, terminated the trance. Barney O’Brien stood erect, before the terrified and flying group, six feet and four inches in his winding sheet, screaming, at the very top of his lungs, as he rose—“For the love o’ the blissed Jasus, jist a dhrap o’ the crathur, and a shelalah!”

In a former number, I have alluded to the subject of premature interment. A writer, in the London Quarterly, vol. lxiii. p. 458, observes, that “there exists, among the poor of the metropolitan districts, an inordinate dread of premature burial.” After referring to a contrivance, in the receiving houses of Frankfort and Munich,—a ring, attached to the finger of the corpse, and connected with a lightly hung bell, in the watcher’s room—he significantly asks—“Has the corpse bell at Frankfort and Munich ever yet been rung?”—For my own part, I have no correspondence with the sextons there, and cannot tell. It may possibly have been rung, while the watcher slept! After admitting the possibility of premature burial, this writer says, he should be content with Shakspeare’s test—“This feather stirs; she lives.” This may be a very good affirmative test. But, as a negative test, it would be good for little—this feather stirs not; she is dead. In cases of catalepsy, it often happens, that a feather will not stir; and even the more trustworthy test—the mirror—will furnish no evidence of life.

To doubt the fact of premature interment is quite as absurd, as to credit all the tales, in this connection, fabricated by French and German wonder-mongers. During the existence of that terrible epidemic, which has so recently passed away, the necessity, real or imagined, of removing the corpses, as speedily as possible, has, very probably, occasioned some instances of premature interment.

On the 28th of June, 1849, a Mr. Schridieder was supposed to be dead of cholera, at St. Louis, and was carried to the grave; where a noise in the coffin was heard, and, upon opening it, he was found to be alive.

In the month of July, 1849, a Chicago paper contained the following statement:—

“We know a gentleman now residing in this city, who was attacked by the cholera, in 1832, and after a short time, was supposed to have died. He was in the collapsed state, gave not the least sign of life, and when a glass was held over his mouth, there was no evidence that he still breathed. But, after his coffin was obtained, he revived, and is now living in Chicago, one of our most estimable citizens.”

“Another case, of a like character, occurred near this city, yesterday. A man who was in the collapsed state, and to all appearances dead, became reanimated after his coffin was procured. He revived slightly—again apparently died—again revived slightly—and finally died and was buried.”

I find the following, in the Boston Atlas of August 23, 1849:—

“A painful occurrence has come to light in Baltimore, which creates intense excitement. The remains of the venerable D. Evans Reese, who died suddenly on Friday evening, were conveyed to the Light Street burying-ground, and while they were placed in the vault, the hand of a human being was discovered protruding from one of the coffins deposited there. On a closer examination, those present were startled to find the hand was firmly clenched, the coffin burst open, and the body turned entirely over, leaving not a doubt that the unfortunate being had been buried alive. The corpse was that of a very respectable man, who died, apparently, very suddenly, and whose body was placed in the vault on Friday last.”

The Recherches Medico-legales sur l’incertitude des risques de la mort, les dangers dÉs inhumations prÉcipiteÉs, les moyens de constater les dÉcÈs et de rappeler Á la vie ceux qui sont en etat de mort apparente, by I. de Fontenelle, is a very curious production. In a review of this work, and of the Recherches Physiologiques, sur la vie et la mort, by Bichat, in the London Quarterly, vol. lxxxv. page 369, the writer remarks—“A gas is developed in the decaying body, which mimics, by its mechanical force, many of the movements of life. So powerful is this gas, in corpses, which have laid long in the water, that M. Devergie, the physician at the Morgue, at Paris, says that, unless secured to the table, they are often heaved up and thrown to the ground.”

Upon this theory, the writer proposes, to account for those posthumous changes of position, which are known, sometimes to have taken place. It may serve to explain some of these occurrences. But the formation of this gas, in a greater or less degree, must be universal, while a change in the position is comparatively rare. The curiosity of friends often leads to an inspection of the dead, in every stage of decomposition. However valuable the theory, in the writer’s estimation, the generation of the most powerful gas would scarcely be able to throw the body entirely out of the coffin, with its arms outstretched towards the portal of the tomb; of which, and of similar changes, there exist well authenticated records.

It is quite probable, that the Irish wake may have originated, in this very dread of premature interment, strangely blended with certain spiritual fancies, respecting the soul’s reluctance to quit its tenement of clay.

After relating the remarkable story of Asclepiades of Prusa in Bithynia, who restored to life an individual, then on his way to the funeral pile—Bayle, vol. ii. p. 379, Lond. 1735, relates the following interesting tale. A peasant of Poictou was married to a woman, who, after a long fit of sickness, fell into a profound lethargy, which so closely resembled death, that the poor people gathered round, and laid out the peasant’s helpmate, for burial. The peasant assumed a becoming expression of sorrow, which utterly belied that exceeding great joy, that is natural to every man, when he becomes perfectly assured, that the tongue of a scolding wife is hushed forever.

The people of that neighborhood were very poor; and, either from economy or taste, coffins were not used among them. The corpses were borne to the grave, simply enveloped in their shrouds, as we are told, by Castellan, is the custom, among the Turks. Those who bore the body, moved, inadvertently, rather too near a hedge, at the roadside, and, a sharp thorn pricking the leg of the corpse, the trance was broken—the supposed defunct sprang up on end—and began to scold, as vigorously as ever.

The disappointed peasant had fourteen years more of it. At the expiration of that term, the good woman pined away, and appeared to die, once more. She was again borne toward the grave. When the bearers drew near to the spot, where the remarkable revival had occurred, upon a former occasion, the widower became very much excited; and, at length, unable to restrain his emotions, audibly exclaimed—“don’t go too near that hedge!”

In a number of the London Times, for 1821, there is an account of the directions, given by an old Irish expert in such matters, who was about to die, respecting his own wake—“Recollect to put three candles at the head of the bed, after ye lay me out, two at the foot, and one at each side. Mind now and put a plate with the salt on it, just atop of my breast. And d’ye hear—have plinty o’ tobacky and pipes enough; and remimber to have the punch strong. And—blundenoons, what the devil’s the use o’ pratin t’ye—sure it’s mysilf knows ye’ll be after botching it, as I’ll not be there mysel.”