with even a more vivid distinctness than they assume to the visual organ; but it would be idle to assert that those configurations were not presented to us, because they were invisible to others. Our waking eyes may indeed be made the "fools of our other senses, or else worth all the rest ;"-granted; but still you may give us credit for the sincerity of our relation, for we pretend not to describe apparitions that other men have seen, but those which we ourselves have witnessed.

It may not be unimportant to remark, that so far from my being subject to the blue devils and vapours with which hypochondriacs and invalids are haunted, I possess that happy physical organization, which ensures almost uninterrupted health of body and mind, and which, in the elasticity and buoyancy of my spirit, renders the sensation of mere existence an enjoyment. Though I reside in the country, winter has for me no gloom: Nature has prepared herself for its rigours; they are customary, and every thing seems to harmonise with their infliction: but for the same reason that the solitude of a town is desolating and oppressive, while the loneliness of the country is soothing and grateful, I do feel the sadness of perpetual fogs and rains in July, although they excite no melancholy feeling at the season of their natural Occurrence. To see one's favourite flowers laying down their heads to die; one's plantations strewed with leaves not shaken off in the fulness of age, but beaten to earth in the bloom of youth; here a noble tree laid prostrate, and there a valuable field of corn lodged in the swampy soil, (which were familiar

objects in July last), is sufficient to excite melancholy associations in the most cheerful temperament. Confessing that mine was not altogether proof against their influence, and leaving to the caviller and the sceptic the full benefit of this admission, I proceed to a simple statement of the fact which has elicited these preliminary observations.

Actuated by the disheartening dulness of the scene to which I have alluded, I had written to my friend Mr. George Staples, of Exeter, requesting him to walk over some day and dine with me, as I well knew his presence was an instant antidote to mental depression; not so much from the possession of any wit or humour, as from his unaffected kindness and amiability, the exuberance of his animal spirits, the inexhaustible fund of his laughter, which was perpetually waiting for the smallest excuse to burst out of his heart, and the contagion of his hilarity, which had an instant faculty of communicating itself to others. On the day following the transmission of this letter, as I was sitting in an alcove to indulge my afternoon meditation, I found myself disturbed by what I imagined to be the ticking of my repeater; but recollecting that I had left it in the house, I discovered the noise proceeded from that little insect of inauspicious augury, the death-watch. Despising the puerile superstitions connected with this pulsation, I gave it no farther notice, and proceeded towards the house, when, as I passed an umbrageous plantation, I was startled by a loud wailing shriek, and presently a screech-owl flew out immediately before me. It was the first time one

of those ill-omened birds had ever crossed my path; I combined it with the memento mori I had just heard, although I blushed at my own weakness in thinking them worthy of an association; and as I walked forward, I encountered my servant, who put a letter into my hand, which I observed to be sealed with black wax. It was from the clerk of my poor friend, informing me that he had been that morning struck by an apoplectic fit, which had occasioned his almost instantaneous death! The reader may spare the sneer that is flickering upon his features: I draw no inference whatever from the omens that preceded this intelligence; I am willing to consider them as curious coincidences, totally unconnected with the startling apparition which shortly afterwards assailed

me.

Indifferent as to death myself, I am little affected by it in others. The doom is so inevitable; it is so doubtful whether the parties be not generally gainers by the change; it is so certain that we enter not at all into this calculation, but bewail our deprivation, whether of society, protection, or emolument, with a grief purely selfish, that I run no risk of placing myself in the predicament of the inconsolable widow, who was reproached by Franklin with not having yet forgiven God Almighty. Still, however, there was something so awful in the manner of my friend's death, the hilarity I had anticipated from his presence formed so appalling a contrast with his actual condition, that my mind naturally sunk into a mood of deep sadness and solemnity. Reaching the house in

this frame of thought, I closed the library windowshutters as I passed, and entering the room by a glass. door, seated myself in a chair that fronted the garden. Scarcely a minute had elapsed, when I was thrilled by the strange wailful howl of my favourite spaniel, who had followed me into the apartment, and came trembling and crouching to my feet, occasionally turning his eyes to the back of the chamber, and again instantly reverting them with every demonstration of terror and agony: mine instinctively took the same direction, when, notwithstanding the dimness of the light, I plainly and indisputably recognised the apparition of my friend sitting motionless in the great arm-chair!! It is easy to be courageous in theory, not difficult to be bold in practice, when the mind has time to collect its energies; but, taken as I was by surprise, I confess that astonishment and terror so far mastered all my faculties, that, without daring to cast a second glance towards the vision, I walked rapidly back into the garden, followed by the dog, who still testified the same agitation and alarm.

Here I had leisure to recover from my first perturbation; and, as my thoughts rallied, I endeavoured to persuade myself that I had been deluded by some conjuration of the mind, or some spectral deception of the visual organ. But, in either case, how account for the terror of the dog? He could neither be influenced by superstition, nor could his unerring sight betray him into groundless alarm, yet it was incontestable that we had both been appalled by the same object. Soon recovering my natural fortitude of spirit, I re

solved, whatever might be the consequences, to return and address the apparition. I even began to fear it might have vanished; for Glanville, who has written largely on ghosts, expressly says" that it is a very hard and painful thing for them to force their thin and tenuous bodies into a visible consistence; that their bodies must needs be exceedingly compressed, and that therefore they must be in haste to be delivered from their unnatural pressure." I returned, therefore, with some rapidity towards the library; and although the dog stood immovably still at some distance, in spite of my solicitations, and kept earnestly gazing upon me, as if in apprehension of an approaching catastrophe, I proceeded onward, and turned back the shutters which I had closed, determined not to be imposed upon by any dubiousness of the light. Thus fortified against deception, I reentered the room with a firm step, and there, in the full glare of day, did I again clearly and vividly behold the identical apparition, sitting in the same posture as before, and having its eyes closed!!

My heart somewhat failed me under this sensible confirmation of the vision; but, summoning all my courage, I walked up to the chair, exclaiming with a desperate energy-"In the name of heaven and of all its angels, what dost thou seek here ?"-when the figure, slowly rising up, opening its eyes, and stretching out its arms, replied-" A leg of mutton and caper-sauce, with a bottle of prime old port, for such is the dinner you promised me."-" Good God!" I ejaculated, "what can this mean? Are you not really