yet that same Sir Walter very shrewdly suggested to Sir William Gell the manufacture of a ghost with a thin sheet of tin, painted white, so that by half a turn the spectre would instantly vanish.

CAST. A ghost, I believe, according to the rules of fantasy, ought to be without matter or form, or, indeed, any sensible properties. Yet are very serious tales related of guns bursting when fired at them, and swords broken by their contact, and of loud voices issuing from filmy phantoms, through which the moonbeams are seen to glimmer. A spirit ought, of course, to communicate with us in another way than that which we know, and possess those ethereal faculties of creeping through chinks or keyholes, and of resuming its airy form, like the sylph of Belinda, when the "glittering forfex" had cut it in twain. An exquisite morceau of such a phantom just now flits across my memory. It is of two old ladies dwelling in two border castles in Scotland. One of these dames was visited by the spectre bust of a man, and the other by the lower half of him. Which had the better bargain I know not, but I believe

ASTR. Nay, it were not difficult, lady, to overwhelm me with tales like yours-the idle and unmeaning gossip of a winter's night; but there are many spectral visitations so intimately associated with events, that the faculty even of prophecy cannot be doubted. Bodine, as Burton writes, is fully satisfied that "these souls of men departed, if corporeal, are of some shape, and that absolutely round, like sun and moone, because that is the most perfect form; that they can assume other aërial bodies, all manner of shapes at their pleasure, appear in what likeness they will themselves; that they are most swift in motion, can pass many miles in an instant and so likewise transform bod

ies of others into what form they please, and, with admirable celerity, remove them from place to place; that they can represent castles in the ayre, armies, spectrums, prodigies, and such strange objects to mortal men's eyes; cause smells, savours, deceive all the senses, foretel future events, and do many strange miracles."

Then the eccentric Francis Grose has thus summed up many of their wondrous attributes:

"The spirit of a person deceased is either commissioned to return for some especial errand, such as the discovery of a murder, to procure restitution of lands, or money unjustly withheld from an orphan or widow; or, having committed some injustice while living, cannot rest till that is redressed. Sometimes the occasion of spirits revisiting this world is to inform their heir in what secret place or private drawer in an old trunk they had hid the title-deeds of the estate, or where, in troublesome times, they had buried the money and plate. Some ghosts of murdered persons, whose bodies have been secretly buried, cannot be at ease till their bones have been taken up and deposited in sacred ground, with all the rites of Christian burial.” The ghost of Hamlet's father walked on the platform at Elsineur to incite his son to revenge his murder; and many modern phantoms have enlivened the legends of our local histories, bent on the same mysterious errand.

The mythology of the ancients, and the fairy superstition of our own land, are also replete with legends of these apparitions. The rites of sepulture were essential for the repose of the manes. If the body was not quietly entombed, the soul was wandering on the banks of Styx for one hundred years ere it was permitted Charon to ferry it across the river. Thus spoke the shade of Patroclus to Achilles in his dream:

"Thou sleep'st, Achilles, and Patroculus, erst
Thy best beloved, in death forgotten lies.
Haste, give me burial: I would pass the gates
Of Hades, for the shadows of the dead
Now drive me from their fellowship afar."

And this is a prevailing sentiment among
American Indians :

the North

The bones of our countrymen lie uncovered, their bloody bed has not been washed clean, their spirits cry against us: they must be appeased."

In the letter of Pliny the consul to Sura, we learn that there was at Athens a house haunted by a chain-rattling ghost. Athenodorus, the philosopher, hired the house, determined to quiet the restless spirit. "When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in the fore-' part of the house, and after calling for a light, together with his pencil and tablets, he directed all his people to retire. The first part of the night passed in usual silence, when at length the chains began to rattle. However, he neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pencil, but diverted his observation by pursuing his studies with greater earnestness. The noise increased, and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. He looked up and saw the ghost exactly in the manner it had been described to him: it stood before him beckoning with the finger. Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and threw his eyes again upon his papers; but the ghost still rattling his chains in his ears, he looked up and saw him beckoning him as before. Upon this he immediately arose, and, with the light in his hand, followed it. The spectre slowly stalked along as if encumbered with his chains, and, turning into the area of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus, being thus desert ed, made a mark with some grass and leaves where

the spirit left him. The next day he gave information to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. This was accordingly done, and the skeleton of a man in chains was there found; for the body, having lain a considerable time in the ground, was putrified, and had mouldered away from the fetters. The bones, being collected together, were publicly buried; and thus, after the ghost was appeased by the proper ceremonies, the house was haunted no more."

Yet, not only to entreat the rites of sepulture, the phantom will walk according to some law of those beings remote from the fellowship of human nature -it may be to obtain readmission to that earth from which it was, by some fairy spell, in exile.

In the wilds of Rob Roy's country, there is many a Highlander believing still the traditions of the Daoine Shi, or Men of Peace; and among the legends of Aberfoyle there is one phantom tale that is apropos to my illustrations.

There was one Master Robert Kirke. He was one evening taking his night walk on a fairy hill, or dunshi, in the vicinity of his manse. On a sud

den he fell to the ground, struck, as it appeared to many, by apoplexy; the seers, however, believed it to be a trance inflicted on him by the fairy people for thus invading the sacred bounds of their kingdom. After the interment, the phantom of the minister appeared to one of his relatives, and desired him to go to Grahame of Duchray, his cousin, and assure him that he was not dead, but was at that time a prisoner in elf land, and the only moment in which the fairy charm could be dissolved was at the christening of his posthumous child. The counter-spell was this: that Grahame should be present at the baptism, holding a dish in his hand, and that when the infant was brought, he should

throw the dish over the phantom, the appearance of which at that moment was faithfully promised.

When the child was at the font, and while the guests were seated, the apparition sat with them at the table; but fear came upon the Græme at this strange glamourie: he forgot the solemn injunction, and it is believed that Mr. Kirke, to this day, "drees his weird in fairy land.”

PROPHECY OF SPECTRES.

"I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound."—Hamlet. EV. THESE are very meager spectres, Astrophel, or accomplices, as the lawyer would say, after the fact.

AST. I have reserved prophecies for this evening. In the earliest profane records of our globe, we read of the frequent visitations of prophetic phantoms. Listen, Evelyn, to a story of your own Pliny -the legend of Curtius Rufus. When he was in low circumstances, and unknown in the world, he attended the governor of Africa into that province. One evening, as he was walking in the public portico, he was extremely surprised with the apparition of a woman, whose figure and beauty were more than human. She told him she was the tutelar power who presided over Africa, and was come to inform him of the future events of his life: that he should go back to Rome, where he should be raised to the highest honours, should return to that province invested with the proconsular dignity, and there should die. Upon his arrival at Carthage, as he was coming out of the ship, the same figure accosted him upon the shore. It is certain, at least, that being seized with a fit of illness, though there were no symptoms in his case that led his attend