The Purcell Papers, vol 1 | Page 8

which his fine features, distinguished
bearing,
and charm of conversation marked him out as
the
beau-ideal of an Irish wit and scholar of
the old school.
From this society he vanished so entirely that
Dublin, always ready
with a nickname, dubbed
him 'The Invisible Prince;' and indeed he
was
for long almost invisible, except to his family
and most
familiar friends, unless at odd hours
of the evening, when he might
occasionally be
seen stealing, like the ghost of his former self,

between his newspaper office and his home in
Merrion Square;
sometimes, too, he was to be

encountered in an old out-of-the-way
bookshop
poring over some rare black letter Astrology or

Demonology.

To one of these old bookshops he was at one
time a pretty frequent
visitor, and the bookseller
relates how he used to come in and ask
with
his peculiarly pleasant voice and smile, 'Any
more ghost
stories for me, Mr. -----?' and
how, on a fresh one being handed to
him, he
would seldom leave the shop until he had looked
it through.
This taste for the supernatural
seems to have grown upon him after
his wife's
death, and influenced him so deeply that, had he
not been
possessed of a deal of shrewd common
sense, there might have been
danger of his
embracing some of the visionary doctrines in which

he was so learned. But no! even Spiritualism,
to which not a few of
his brother novelists
succumbed, whilst affording congenial material
for
our artist of the superhuman to work upon, did
not escape his
severest satire.
Shortly after completing his last novel, strange
to say, bearing the
title 'Willing to Die,' Le
Fanu breathed his last at his home No. 18,

Merrion Square South, at the age of fifty-nine.
'He was a man,' writes the author of a brief
memoir of him in the
'Dublin University
Magazine,' 'who thought deeply, especially on

religious subjects. To those who knew him he
was very dear; they
admired him for his
learning, his sparkling wit, and pleasant

conversation, and loved him for his manly virtues, for
his noble and
generous qualities, his gentleness,
and his loving, affectionate nature.'
And all
who knew the man must feel how deeply deserved
are these
simple words of sincere regard for
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.
Le Fanu's novels are accessible to all; but
his Purcell Papers are now
for the first time
collected and published, by the permission of his

eldest son (the late Mr. Philip Le Fanu), and
very much owing to the
friendly and active
assistance of his brother, Mr. William Le Fanu.
THE PURCELL PAPERS.

THE GHOST AND THE BONE SETTER.
In looking over the papers of my
late valued and respected friend,

Francis Purcell, who for nearly
fifty years discharged the arduous
duties of
a parish priest in the south of Ireland, I
met with the
following document. It is
one of many such; for he was a curious

and industrious collector of old local
traditions--a commodity in

which the quarter
where he resided mightily abounded. The

collection and arrangement of such legends
was, as long as I can
remember him, his
hobby; but I had never learned that his
love of
the marvellous and whimsical had
carried him so far as to prompt
him to
commit the results of his inquiries to
writing, until, in the
character of residuary
legatee, his will put me in possession of all

his manuscript papers. To such as may
think the composing of such
productions
as these inconsistent with the character
and habits of a
country priest, it is necessary
to observe, that there did exist a race

of priests--those of the old school, a race
now nearly extinct--whose
education
abroad tended to produce in them tastes
more literary
than have yet been evinced
by the alumni of Maynooth.
It is perhaps necessary to add that the
superstition illustrated by the
following
story, namely, that the corpse last buried
is obliged,
during his juniority of interment,
to supply his brother tenants of the

churchyard in which he lies, with fresh
water to allay the burning
thirst of
purgatory, is prevalent throughout the south of
Ireland.
The writer can vouch for a case in
which a respectable and wealthy
farmer,
on the borders of Tipperary, in tenderness
to the corns of
his departed helpmate,
enclosed in her coffin two pair of brogues, a

light and a heavy, the one for dry, the
other for sloppy weather;
seeking thus to
mitigate the fatigues of her inevitable

perambulations in procuring water and
administering it to the thirsty
souls of
purgatory. Fierce and desperate conflicts
have ensued in
the case of two funeral
parties approaching the same churchyard


together, each endeavouring to secure to
his own dead priority of
sepulture, and a
consequent immunity from the tax levied
upon the
pedestrian powers of the lastcomer.
An instance not long since

occurred, in which one of two such parties,
through fear of losing to
their deceased
friend this inestimable advantage, made
their way to
the churchyard by a short cut,
and, in violation of one of their
strongest
prejudices, actually threw the coffin over
the wall, lest
time should be lost in making
their entrance through the gate.
Innumerable
instances of the same kind might be
quoted, all
tending to show how strongly
among the peasantry of the south this

superstition is entertained. However, I
shall not detain the reader
further by
any prefatory remarks, but shall proceed
to lay before
him the following:
Extract