After hearing this singular story, Mr. Clerk asked some questions about the captain, and whether his companion considered him as at all times rational. The sailor seemed struck with the question, and answered, after a moment's delay, that in general he conversationed well enough.

he got up the companion-ladder, he heard a splash | overtaken by a tempest so sudden, and accompanied in the water, and looking over the ship's side, saw with such vivid lightning, and thunder so dreadfully that the captain had thrown himself into the sea loud, that the obdurate conscience of the old sinner from the quarter-gallery, and was running astern at began to be awakened. He expressed more terror the rate of six knots an hour. When just about to than seemed natural for one who was familiar with ink, he seemed to make a last exertion, sprung half the war of elements, and began to look and talk so out of the water, and clasped his hands towards the wildly, that his companion became aware that somemate, calling, "By, Bill is with me now!" and thing more than usual was the matter. At length, then sunk to be seen no more. Matcham complained to his companion that the stones rose from the road and flew after him. He desired the man to walk on the other side of the highway, to see if they would follow him when he was alone. The sailor complied, and Jarvis Matcham complained that the stones still flew after him, and did not pursue the other. "But what is worse," he added, coming up to his companion, and whis little drummer boy, and what business has he to follow us so closely ?"-"I can see no one," answered the seaman, infected by the superstition of his associate. "What! not see that little boy with the bloody pantaloons?" exclaimed the secret murderer, so much to the terror of his comrade, that he conjured him, if he had any thing on his mind, to make a clear conscience as far as confession could do it. The criminal fetched a deep groan, and declared that he was unable longer to endure the Efe which he had led for years. He then confessed the murder of the drummer, and added, that as a considerable reward had been offered, he wished his comrade to deliver him up to the magistrates of Salisbury, as he would desire a shipmate to profit by his fate, which he was now convinced was inevitable. Having overcome his friend's objections to this mode of proceeding, Jarvis Matcham was surrendered to justice accordingly, and made a full confession of his guilt. But before the trial the love of life returned. The prisoner denied his confession, and pleaded Not Guilty. By this time, however, full evidence had been procured from other quarters. Witnesses appeared from his former regiment to prove his identity with the murderer and deserter, and the waiter remembered the ominous words which he had spoken when he awoke him to join the Portsmouth coach. Jarvis Matcham was found Guilty, and executed. When his last chance of life was over, he returned to his confession, and with his dying breath averred, and truly, as he thought, the truth of the vision on Salisbury plain. Similar stories might be produced, showing plainly that, under the direction of Heaven, the influence of superstitious fear may be the appointed means of bringing the criminal to repentance for his own sake, and to punishment for the advantage of society.

It would have been desirable to have been able to ascertain how far this extraordinary tale was found-pering, with a tone of mystery and fear, who is that ed on fact; but want of time, and other circumstances, prevented Mr. Clerk from learning the names and dates, that might, to a certain degree, have verified the events. Granting the murder to have taken place, and the tale to have been truly told, there was nothing more likely to arise among the ship's company than the belief in the apparition; as the captain was a man of a passionate and irritable disposition, it was nowise improbable that he, the victim of remorse, should participate in the horrible visions of those less concerned, especially as he was compelled to avoid communicating his sentiments with any one else; and the catastrophe would in such a case be but the natural consequence of that superstitious remorse which has conducted so many criminals to suicide or the gallows. If the fellow-traveller of Mr. Clerk be not allowed this degree of credit, he must at least be admitted to have displayed a singular talent for the composition of the horrible in fiction. The tale, properly detailed, might have made the fortune of a romancer.

I cannot forbear giving you, as congenial to this story, another instance of a guilt-formed phantom, which made considerable noise about twenty years ago or more. I am, I think, tolerably correct in the details, though I have lost the account of the trial. Jarvis Matcham-such, if I am not mistaken, was the name of my hero-was pay-sergeant in a regiment, where he was so highly esteemed as a steady and accurate man, that he was permitted opportuníty to embezzle a considerable part of the money lodged in his hands for pay of soldiers, bounty of recruits, then a large sum, and other charges which fell within his duty. He was summoned to join his regiment from a town where he had been on the recruiting service, and this perhaps under some shade of suspicion. Matcham perceived discovery was at hand, and would have deserted, had it not been for the presence of a little drummer lad, who was the only one of his party appointed to attend him. In the desperation of his crime, he resolved to murder the poor boy, and avail himself of some balance of money to make his escape. He meditated this wickedness the more readily, that the drummer, he thought, had been put as a spy on him. He perpetrated his crime, and, changing his dress after the deed was done, made a long walk across the country to an inn on the Portsmouth road, where he halted, and went to bed, desiring to be called when the first Portsmouth coach came. The waitor summoned him accordingly; but long after remembered, that when he shook the guest by the shoulder, his first words as he awoke were, "My God! I did not kill him."

Cases of this kind are numerous, and easily imagined, so I shall dwell on them no farther; but rather advert to at least an equally abundant class of ghost stories, in which the apparition is pleased not to torment the actual murderer, but proceeds in a very circuitous manner, acquainting some stranger or ig norant old woman with the particulars of his fate, who, though perhaps unacquainted with all the parties, is directed by the phantom to lay the facts before a magistrate. In this respect we must certainly allow that ghosts have, as we are informed by the facetious Captain Grose, forms and customs peculiar to themscives.

There would be no edification and little amusement in treating of clumsy deceptions of this kind, where the grossness of the imposture detects itself. But occasionally cases occur like the following, with respect to which it is more difficult, to use James Boswell's phrase, "to know what to think."

Matcham went to the seaport by the coach, and instantly entered as an able-bodied landsman or marine, I know not which. His sobriety and attention Upon the 10th of June, 1754, Duncan Terig, alias to duty gained him the same good opinion of the offi- Clark, and Alexander Baid MacDonald, two Highcers in his new service which he had enjoyed in the landers, were tried before the Court of Justiciary, army. He was afloat for several years, and behaved Edinburgh, for the murder of Arthur Davis, sergeant remarkably well in some actions. At length, the in Guise's regiment, on the 28th of September, 1749. vessel came into Plymouth, was paid off, and some The accident happened not long after the civil war, of the crew, among whom was Jarvis Matcham, the embers of which were still reeking, so there exwere dismissed as too old for service. He and ano-isted too many reasons on account of which an Engther seaman resolved to walk to town, and took the route by Salisbury. It was when within two or three miles of this celebrated city that they were

lish soldier, straggling far from assistance, might be privately cut off by the inhabitants of these wilds. It appears that Sergeant Davis was amissing for

years, without any certainty as to his fate. At It is therefore of the last consequence, in consilength, an account of the murder appeared from the dering the truth of stories of ghosts and apparitions, evidence of one Alexander MacPherson (a Highlan- to consider the possibility of wilful deception, whe der, speaking no language but Gaelic, and sworn by ther on the part of those who are agents in the supan interpreter,) who gave the following extraordina-posed disturbances, or the author of the legend. We ry account of his cause of knowledge:-He was, he shall separately notice an instance or two of either said, in bed in his cottage, when an apparition came kind. to his bedside, and commanded him to rise and fol- The most celebrated instance in which human low him out of doors. Believing this visiter to be agency was used to copy the disturbances imputed one Farquharson, a neighbour and friend, the wit- to supernatural beings, refers to the ancient palace ness did as he was bid; and when they were without of Woodstock, when the Commissioners of the the cottage, the appearance told the witness he was Long Parliament came down to dispark what had the ghost of Sergeant Davis, and requested him to been lately a royal residence. The Commissioners go and bury his mortal remains, which lay concealed arrived at Woodstock 13th October, 16:19, determined in a place he pointed out, in a moorland tract called to wipe away the memory of all that connected itthe Hill of Christie. He desired him to take Farqu- self with the recollection of monarchy in England. harson with him as an assistant. Next day the wit-But, in the course of their progress, they were enness went to the place specified, and there found the countered by obstacles which apparently came from bones of a human body much decayed. The witness the next world. Their bedchambers were infested did not at that time bury the bones so found, in con- with visits of a thing resembling a dog, but which sequence of which negligence the sergeant's ghost came and passed as mere earthly dogs cannot do. again appeared to him, upbraiding him with his Logs of wood, the remains of a very farge tree callbreach of promise. On this occasion, the witnessed the King's Oak, which they had splintered into asked the ghost who were the murderers, and receiv- billets for burning, were tossed through the house, ed for answer that he had been slain by the prison- and the chairs displaced and shuffled about. While ers at the bar. The witness, after this second visit- they were in bed, the feet of their couches were ation, called the assistance of Farquharson, and lifted higher than their heads, and then dropped with buried the body. violence. Trenchers " without a wish" flew at their heads, of free will. Thunder and lightning came next, which were set down to the same cause. Spectres made their appearance, as they thought, in different shapes; and one of the party saw the apparition of a hoof, which kicked a candlestick and lighted candle into the middle of the room, and then politely scratched on the red snuff to extinguish it. Other and worse tricks were practised on the astonished Commissioners, who, considering that all the fiends of hell were let loose upon them, retreated from Woodstock without completing an errand which was, in their opinion, impeded by infernal powers, though the opposition offered was rather of a playful and malicious, than of a dangerous cast.

Farquharson was brought in evidence, to prove that the preceding witness, MacPherson, had called him to the burial of the bones, and told him the same story which he repeated in court. Isabel MacHardie, a person who slept in one of the beds which run along the wall in an ordinary Highland hut, declared, that upon the night when MacPherson said he saw the ghost, she saw a naked man enter the house, and go towards MacPherson's bed.

66

Yet, though the supernatural incident was thus fortified, and although there were other strong presumptions against the prisoners, the story of the apparition threw an air of ridicule on the whole evidence for the prosecution. It was followed up by the counsel for the prisoners asking, in the cross- The whole matter was, after the Restoration, disexamination of MacPherson, What language did covered to be the trick of one of their own party, the ghost speak in ?" The witness, who was him- who had attended the Commissioners as a clerk, self ignorant of English, replied, "As good Gaelic under the name of Giles Sharp. This man, whose as I ever heard in Lochaber." Pretty well for the real name was Joseph Collins of Oxford, called ghost of an English sergeant," answered the coun- Funny Joe, was a concealed loyalist, and well acsel. The inference was rather smart and plausible quainted with the old mansion of Woodstock, where than sound, for, the apparition of the ghost being he had been brought up before the civil war. Being admitted, we know too little of the other world to a bold, active, spirited man, Joe availed himself of judge whether all languages may not be alike fa- his local knowledge of trap-doors and private pasmiliar to those who belong to it. It imposed, how-sages, so as to favour the tricks which he played off ever, on the jury, who found the accused parties Not upon his masters by aid of his fellow-domestics. Guilty; although their counsel and solicitor, and The Commissioners' personal reliance on him made most of the court, were satisfied of their having his task the more easy, and it was all along remarkcommitted the murder. In this case, the interference ed, that trusty Giles Sharp saw the most extraordiof the ghost seems to have rather impeded the ven-nary sights and visions among the whole party. geance which it was doubtless the murdered sergeant's desire to obtain. Yet there may be various modes of explaining this mysterious story, of which the following conjecture may pass for one.

The reader may suppose that MacPherson was privy to the fact of the murder, perhaps as an accomplice, or otherwise; and may also suppose, that from motives of remorse for the action, or of enmity to those who had comunitted it, he entertained a wish to bring them to justice. But through the whole Highlands there is no character more detestable than that of an informer, or one who takes what is called Tascal-money, or reward for the discovery of crimes. To have informed against Terig and MacDonald might have cost MacPherson his life; and it is far from being impossible, that he had recourse to the story of the ghost, knowing well that his superstitious countrymen would pardon his communicating the commission intrusted to him by a being from the other world, although he might probably have been murdered, if his delation of the crime had been supposed voluntary. This explanation, in exact conformity with the sentiments of the Highlanders on such subjects, would reduce the whole story to a stroke of address on the part of the witness.

VOL. I.-6 E

The unearthly terrors experienced by the Cominissioners are detailed with due gravity by Sinclair, and also, I think, by Dr. Plott. But although the detection, or explanation of the real history of the Woodstock demons, has also been published, and I have myself seen it, I have at this time forgotten whether it exists in a separate collection, or where it is to be looked for.

Similar disturbances have been often experienced, while it was the custom to believe in and dread such frolics of the invisible world, and under circumstances which induce us to wonder, both at the extreme trouble taken by the agents in these impostures, and the slight motives from which they have been induced to do much wanton mischief. Still greater is our modern surprise at the apparently simple means by which terror has been excited to so general an extent, that even the wisest and most prudent have not escaped its contagious influence.

On the first point, I am afraid there can be no better reason assigned than the conscious pride of superiority, which induces the human being in all cases to enjoy and practice every means of employing an influence over his fellow-mortals; to which we may safely add, that general love of tormenting,

as common to our race, as to that noble mimic of humanity, the monkey. To this is owing the delight with which every schoolboy anticipates the effects of throwing a stone into a glass shop; and to this we must also ascribe the otherwise unaccountable pleasure which individuals have taken in practising the tricksy pranks of a goblin, and filling a household, or neighbourhood, with anxiety and dismay, with little gratification to themselves besides the consciousness of dexterity if they remain undiscovered, and with the risk of loss of character, and punishment, should the imposture be found out.

In the year 1772, a train of transactions commencing upon Twelfth Day, threw the utmost consternation into the village of Stockwell, near London, and impressed upon some of its inhabitants the inevitable belief that they were produced by invisible agents. The plates, dishes, china, and glass-ware, and small moveables of every kind, contained in the house of Mrs. Golding, an elderly lady, seemed suddenly to become animated, shifted their places, flew through the room, and were broken to pieces. The particulars of this commotion were as curious, as the loss and damage occasioned in this extraodinary manner were alarming and intolerable. Amid this combustion, a young woman, Mrs. Golding's maid, named Anne Robinson, was walking, backwards and forwards, nor could she be prevailed on to sit down for a moment, excepting while the family were at prayers, during which time no disturbance happened. This Anne Robinson had been but a few days in the old lady's service, and it was remarkable that she endured with great composure the extraordinary display which others beheld with terror, and cooly advised her mistress not to be alarmed or uneasy, as these things could not be helped. This excited an idea that she had some reason for being so composed, not inconsistent with a degree of connexion with what was going forward. The afflicted Mrs. Golding, as she might be well termed, considering such a commotion and demolition among her goods and chattels, invited neighbours to stay in her house, but they soon became unable to bear the sight of these supernatural proceedings, which went so far, that not above two cups and saucers remained out of a valuable set of china. She next abandoned her dwelling, and took refuge with a neighbour, but, finding his moveables were seized with the same sort of St. Vitus's dance, her landlord reluctantly refused to shelter any longer a woman who seemed to be persecuted by so strange a subject of vexation. Mrs. Golding's suspicions against Anne Robinson now gained ground, she dismissed her maid, and the hubbub among her moveables ceased at once and for ever.

experiment upon the credulity of the public. But it was certainly published bona fide, and Mr. Hone, on the authority of Mr. Brayfield, has since fully explained the wonder.*

Many such impositions have been detected, and many others have been successfully concealed; but to know what has been discovered in many instances, gives us the assurance of the ruling cause in all. I remember a scene of the kind attempted to be got up near Edinburgh, but detected at once by a sheriff's officer, a sort of persons whose habits of incredulity and suspicious observation render them very dangerous spectators on such occasions. The late excellent Mr. Walker, minister at Dunottar, in the Mearns, gave me a curious account of an imposture of this kind, practised by a young country girl, who was surprisingly quick at throwing stones, turf, and other missiles, with such dexterity, that it was for a long time impossible to ascertain her agency in the disturbances of which she was the sole cause.

The belief of the spectators that such scenes of disturbance arise from invisible beings, will appear less surprising, if we consider the common feats of jugglers, or professors of legerdemain, and recollect that it is only the frequent exhibition of such powers which reconciles us to them as matters of course, although they are wonders at which in our fathers' time, men would have cried out either sorcery or miracles. The spectator also, who has been himself duped, makes no very respectable appearance when convicted of his error; and thence, if too candid to add to the evidence of supernatural agency, is yet unwilling to stand convicted, by cross-examination, of having been imposed on, and unconsciously becomes disposed rather to colour more highly than the truth, than acquiesce in an explanation resting on his having been too hasty a believer. Very often, too, the detection depends upon the combination of certain circumstances, which, apprehended, necessarily explain the whole story.

For example, I once heard a sensible and intelligent friend in company, express himself convinced of the truth of a wonderful story told him by an intelligent and bold man, about an apparition. The scene lay in an ancient castle on the coast of Morven, or the Isle of Mull, where the ghost-seer chanced to be resident. He was given to understand by the family, when betaking himself to rest, that the chamber in which he slept was occasionally disquieted by supernatural appearances. Being at that time no believer in such stories, he attended little to this hint, until the witching hour of night, when he was awakened from a dead sleep by the pressure of a human hand on his body. He looked up at the figure of a tall Highlander in the antique and picturesque dress of his country, only that his with sudden and extreme fear, he was willing to have sprung from bed, but the spectre stood before him in the bright moonlight, its one arm extended, so as to master him if he attempted to rise; the other hand held up in a warning and grave posture, as menacing the Lowlander if he should attempt to quit his recumbent posture. Thus he lay in mortal agony for more than an hour, after which it pleased the spectre of ancient days to leave him to more sound repose. So singular a story had on its side the usual number of votes from the company, till, upon cross-examination, it was explained that the principal person concerned was an excisemen; after which eclaircissement, the same explanation struck all present, viz., that the Highlanders of the niansion had chosen to detain the exciseman by the apparition of an ancient heroic ghost, in order to disguise from his vigilance, the removal of certain modern enough spirits, which his duty might have called upon him to seize. Here a single circumstance explained the whole ghost story.

This circumstance of itself indicates that Anne Robinson was the cause of these extraordinary disturbances, as has been since more completely ascer-brows were bound with a bloody bandage. Struck tained by a Mr. Brayfield, who persuaded Anne, long after the events had happened, to make him her confidant. There was a love-story connected with the case, in which the only magic was the dexterity of Anne Robinson, and the simplicity of the spectators. She had fixed long horse hairs to some of the crockery, and placed wires under others, by which she could throw them down without touching them. Other things she dexterously threw about, which the spectators, who did not watch her motions, imputed to invisible agency. At times, when the family were absent, she loosened the hold of the strings by which the hams, bacon, and similar articles were suspended, so that they fell on the slightest motion. She employed some simple chymical secrets; and, delighted with the success of her pranks, pushed them farther than she at first intended. Such was the solution of the whole mystery, which, known by the name of the Stockwell ghost, terrified many well-meaning persons, and had been nearly as famous as that of Cock-lane, which may be hinted at as another imposture of the same kind. So many and wonderful are the appearances described, that, when I first met with the original publication, I was strongly impressed with the belief that the narrative was, like some of Swift's advertisements, a jocular

At other times it happens that the meanness and trifling nature of a cause not very obvious to observation, has occasioned it to be entirely overlooked, even on account of that very meanness, since no *See Hone's Every-Day Book, p. 62.

out of the room as silent as he had entered it. The company remained deeply appalled; at length, after many observations on the strangeness of what they had seen, they resolved to despatch two of their number as ambassadors, to see how it fared with the president, who had thus strangely appeared among them. They went, and returned with the frightful intelligence, that the friend, after whom they had inquired, was that evening deceased.

one is willing to acknowledge that he has been alarmed by a cause of little consequence, and which he would be ashamed of mentioning. An incident of this sort happened to a gentleman of birth and distinction, who is well known in the political world, and was detected by the precision of his observation. Shortly after he succeeded to his estate and title, there was a rumour among his servants concerning a strange noise heard in the family-mansion at night, the cause of which they had found it im- The astonished party then resolved that they possible to trace. The gentleman resolved to watch would remain absolutely silent respecting the wonhimself, with a domestic who had grown old in the derful sight which they had seen. Their habits were family, and who had begun to murmur strange too philosophical to permit them to believe that they things concerning the knocking having followed so had actually seen the ghost of their deceased broclose upon the death of his old master. They watch-ther, and at the same time they were too wise men, ed until the noise was heard, which they listened to to wish to confirm the superstition of the vulgar, by with that strange uncertainty attending midnight what might seem indubitable evidence of a ghost. sounds, which prevents the hearers from immedi- The affair was therefore kept a strict secret, although, ately tracing them to the spot where they arise, as usual, some dubious rumours of the tale found while the silence of the night generally occasions their way to the public. Several years afterward, the imputing to them more than the due importance an old woman, who had long filled the place of a which they would receive, if mingled with the usual sick-nurse, was taken very ill, and on her deathnoises of daylight. At length the gentleman and bed was attended by a medical member of the phihis servant traced the sounds which they had re-losophical club. To him, with many expressions of peatedly heard, to a small store-room, used as a regret, she acknowledged that she had long before place for keeping provisions of various kinds for the attended Mr., naming the president, whose apfamily, of which the old butler had the key. They pearance had surprised the club so strangely, and entered this place, and remained there for some time, that she felt distress of conscience on account of without hearing the noises which they had traced the manner in which he died. She said, that as his thither; at length the sound was heard, but much malady was attended by light-headedness, she had lower than it had formerly seemed to be, while acted been directed to keep a close watch upon him during upon at a distance by the imagination of the hear- his illness. Unhappily she slept, and during her ers. The cause was immediately discovered. A rat sleep the patient had awakened, and left the apartcaught in an old-fashioned trap had occasioned this ment. When on her own waking, she found the tumult, by its efforts to escape, in which it was able bed empty and the patient gone, she forthwith hurto raise the trap-door of its prison to a certain ried out of the house to seek him, and met him in height, but was then obliged to drop it. The noise the act of returning. She got him, she said, reof the fall resounding through the house, had occa- placed in the bed, but it was only to die there. She sioned the disturbance which, but for the cool inves- added, to convince her hearer of the truth of what tigation of the proprietor, might easily have esta- she said, that immediately after the poor gentleman blished an accredited ghost story. The circum- expired, a deputation of two members from the club stance was told me by the gentleman to whom it came to inquire after their president's health, and happened. received for answer that he was already dead. This confession explained the whole matter. The delirious patient had very naturally taken the road to the club, from some recollections of his duty of the night. In approaching and retiring from the apartment, he had used one of the pass-keys already mentioned, which made his way shorter. On the other hand, the gentlemen sent to inquire after his health had reached his lodging by a more circuitous road; and thus there had been time for him to return to what proved his death-bed, long before they reached his chamber. The philosophical witnesses of this strange scene were now as anxious to spread the story as they had formerly been to conceal it, since it showed in what a remarkable manner men's eyes might turn traitors to them, and impress them with ideas far different from the truth.

There are other occasions in which the ghost story is rendered credible by some remarkable combination of circumstances very unlikely to have happened, and which no one could have supposed, unless some particular fortune occasioned a discovery.

An apparition which took place at Plymouth is well known, but it has been differently related; and having some reason to think the following edition correct, it is an incident so much to my purpose, that you must pardon its insertion.

A club of persons connected with science and literature, was formed at the great sea-town we have named. During the summer months, the society met in a cave by the sea-shore; during those of autumn and winter, they convened within the premises of a tavern, but, for the sake of privacy, had their ineetings in a summer-house situated in the garden, at a distance from the main building. Some of the members to whom the position of their own dwellings rendered this convenient, had a pass key to the garden-door, by which they could enter the garden and reach the summer-house without the publicity or trouble of passing through the open tavern. It was the rule of this club that its members presided alternately. On one occasion, in the winter, the president of the evening chanced to be very ill; indeed, was reported to be on his death-bed. The club met as usual, and, from a sentiment of respect, left vacant the chair which ought to have been occupied by him, if in his usual health; for the same reason, the conversation turned upon the absent gentleman's talents, and the loss expected to the society by his death. While they were upon this melancholy theme, the door suddenly opened, and the appearance of the president entered the room. He wore a white wrapper, a nightcap round his brow, the appearance of which was that of death itself. He stalked into the room with unusual gravity, took the vacant place of ceremony, lifted the empty glass which stood before him, bowed around, and put it to his lips; then replaced it on the table, and stalked

Another occurrence of the same kind, although scarcely so striking in its circumstances, was yet one which, had it remained unexplained, might have passed as an indubitable instance of a supernatural apparition.

A Teviotdale farmer was riding from a fair, at which he had indulged himself with John Barleycorn, but not to that extent of defying goblins which it inspired into the gallant Tam O'Shanter. He was pondering with some anxiety upon the dangers of travelling alone on a solitary road, which passed the corner of a churchyard, now near at hand, when he saw before him, in the moonlight, a pale female form standing upon the very wall which surrounded the cemetery. The road was very narrow, with no opportunity of giving the apparent phantom what seamen call a wide birth. It was, however, the only path which led to the rider's home, who therefore resolved, at all risks, to pass the apparition. He accordingly approached, as slowly as possible, the spot where the spectre stood, while the figure remained, now perfectly still and silent, now brandishing its arms, and gibbering to the moon. When the farmer came close to the spot, he dashed in the spurs, and set the horse off upon a gallop; but the

spectre did not miss its opportunity. As he passed | cordingly; but on approaching the end of the numthe corner where she was perched, she contrived to ber, and repeating more than once his determination drop behind the horseman, and seize him round the to fire, the last numbers seventeen-eighteen-ninewaist; a manoeuvre which greatly increased the teen, were pronounced with considerable pauses bespeed of the horse, and the terror of the rider; for tween, and an assurance that the pistols were the hand of her who sat behind him, when pressed cocked. The ladies sung on. As he pronounced upon his, felt as cold as that of a corpse. At his the word twenty he fired both pistols against the own house at length he arrived, and bid the servants musical damsels;-but the ladies sung on! The who came to attend him, "Tak aff the ghaist!" Major was overcome by the unexpected inefficacy They took off accordingly a female in white, and of his violence, and had an illness which lasted more the poor farmer himself was conveyed to bed, where than three weeks. The trick put upon him may be he lay struggling for weeks with a strong nervous shortly described by the fact, that the female chofever. The female was found to be a maniac, who risters were placed in an adjoining room, and that had been left a widow very suddenly by an affee-he only fired at their reflection thrown forward into tionate husband, and the nature and cause of her that in which he slept by the effect of a concave malady induced her, when she could make her cs- mirror. cape, to wander to the churchyard, where she sometimes wildly wept over his grave, and sometimes standing on the corner of the churchyard, wall, looked out, and mistook every stranger on horseback for the husband she had lost. If this woman, which was very possible, had dropped from the horse unobserved by him whom she had made her involuntary companion, it would have been very hard to have convinced the honest, farmer that he had not actually performed part of his journey with | a ghost behind him.

Other stories of the same kind are numerous and well known. The apparition of the Brocken meantain after having occasioned great admiration and some fear, is now ascertained by philosophers to be a gigantic reflection, which makes the traveller's shadow, represented upon the misty clouds, appear a colossal figure of almost immeasurable size. By a similar deception, men have been induced, in Westmoreland and other mountainous countries, to imagine they saw troops of horse and armies marching and countermarching, which were in fact only the reflection of horses pasturing upon an opposite height, or of the forms of peaceful travellers.

There is also a large class of stories of this sort, where various secrets of chymistry, of acoustics, ventriloquism, or other arts, have been either em- A very curious case of this kind was communiployed to dupe the spectators, or have tended to do cated to me by the son of the lady principally conso through mere accident and coincidence. Of these cerned, and tends to show out of what mean mateit is scarce necessary to quote instances; but the rials a venerable apparition may be sometimes following may be told as a tale recounted by a fo- formed. In youth, this lady resided with her tather, reign nobleman, known to me nearly thirty years a man of sense and resolution. Their house was ago, whose life, lost in the service of his sovereign, situated in the principal street of a town of soine proved too short for his friends and his native land. size. The back part of the house ran at right angles At a certain old castle on the confines of un- to an Anabaptist chapel, divided from it by a smail gary, the lord to whom it belonged had determined cabbage-garden. The young lady rsed sometimes upon giving an entertainment worthy of his own to indulge the romantic love of solitude, by sitting rank, and of the magnificence of the antique man-in her own apartment in the evening till twilight, sion which he inhabited. The guests of course and even darkness was approaching." One evening were numerous, and among them was a veteran of while she was thus placed, she was surprised to sc ficer of hussars, remarkable for his bravery. When a gleamy figure, as of some aerial being hovering, as the arrangements for the night were made, this of it were, against the arched window in the end of ficer was informed that there would be difficulty in the Anabaptist chapel. Its head was surrounded by accommodating the company in the castle, large as that halo which painters give to the Catholic sain's; it was, unless some one would take the risk of and, while the young lady's attention was fixed on sleeping in a room supposed to be haunted; and an object so extraordinary, the figure bent gracefully that as he was known to be above such prejudices, towards her more than once, as if intimating a sense the apartment was, in the first place, proposed for of her presence, and then disappeared. The seer of his occupation, as the person least likely to suffer a this striking vision descended to her family, so bad night's rest from such a cause. The Major much discomposed as to call her father's attention. thankfully accepted the preference, and having He obtained an account of the cause of her disturb shared the festivity of the evening, retired after mid-ance, and expressed his intention to watch in the night, having denounced vengeance against any apartment next night. He sat, accordingly, in his one who should presume by any trick to disturb his daughter's chamber, where she also attended him. repose; a threat which his habits would, it was sup- Twilight came, and nothing appeared; but as the posed, render him sufficiently ready to execute. gray light faded into darkness, the same female Somewhat contrary to the custom in these cases, figure was seen hovering on the window; the same the Major went to bed, having left his candle burn- shadowy form; the same pale light around the ing, and laid his trusty pistols carefully loaded on head; the same inclinations, as the evening before. the table by his bedside. "What do you think of this ?" said the daughter to He had not slept an hour when he was awakened the astonished father." Any thing, my dear," said by a solemn strain of music--he looked out. Three the father, "rather than allow that we look upon ladies, fantastically dressed in green, were seen in what is supernatural."-A strict research establishthe lower end of the apartment, who sung a solemned a natural cause for the appearance on the winrequiem. The Major listened for some time with delight; at length he tired-"Ladies," he said, "this is very well, but somewhat monotonous-will you be so kind as to change the tune?" The ladies continued singing; he expostulated, but the music was not interrupted. The Major began to grow angry: "Ladies," he said, "I must consider this as a trick for the purpose of terrifying me, and as I re- Another species of deception affecting the credit gard it as an impertinence, I shall take a rough of such supernatural communications, arises from mode of stopping it." With that he began to handle the dexterity and skill of the authors who have made his pistols. The ladies sung on. He then got se- it their business to present such stories in the shape riously angry-"I will but wait five minutes," he most likely to attract belief. Defoe-whose power said, and then fire without hesitation." The song in rendering credible that which was in itself very was uninterrupted-- the five minutes were expired-much the reverse was so peculiarly distinguished"I still give you law, ladies," he said, "while I has not failed to show his superiority in this species count twenty." This produced as little effect as his of composition. A bookseller of his acquaintance former threats. He counted one, two, three, ac- I had, in the trade phrase, rather overprinted an edi

dow. It was the custom of an old woman, to whom the garden beneath was rented, to go out at night to gather cabbages. The lantern she carried in her hand threw up the refracted reflection of her form on the chapel window. As she stooped to gather her cabbages, the reflection appeared to bend forward; and that was the whole matter.