when viewed under such circumstances, new, and various, and uncertain shapes.

II. Let it be observed, as another circumstance commonly attending their visitations, that ghosts and other spectres are seen most frequently among people of very little mental cultivation, among the ignorant. Uninstructed minds are generally the most credulous. If there were truly any beings in nature of this sort, and they were anything more than imaginary appearances, persons who are well-informed and philosophic would stand a chance, equally good with others, of forming an acquaintance with them. From these two circumstances we seem to be justified in the supposition, that many of these imaginary beings are the creations of a credulous and excited mind, viewing objects at an hour when their outlines cannot be distinctly seen.

§77. Other Circumstances characteristic of their

recurrence.

III. It is to be remarked farther, that ghosts, whenever they present themselves, are found to agree very nearly with certain previous conceptions which persons have formed in respect to them. If, for instance, the ghost be the spirit of one with whom we have been particularly acquainted, he appears with the same lineaments, although a little paler, and the same dress, even to the button on his coat; the dress in general, however, is white, corresponding to the colour of the burial habiliments; so that they may be said to have a personal or individual, a generic, and, as some have maintained, a national

character. "They commonly appear" (says Grose, who has written on this subject)" in the same dress they wore while living; although they are sometimes clothed all in white; but that is chiefly the churchyard ghosts, who have no particular business, but seem to appear PRO BONO PUBLICO, or to scare drunken rustics from tumbling over their graves. Dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts, chains and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign spectres seen in arbitrary governments."

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IV. This additional circumstance remains also to be noticed, viz., wherever ghostly and spectral beings have come from the dead to the living, it has generally been found that they were among the particular friends, although sometimes of the enemies, of those whom they came to see. This is very natural. It is our friends and enemies whom we think most of; much more than of those to whom we are unknown, and towards whom our feelings are indifferent. person, for instance, has lost a very near friend by death; his soul is greatly distressed; and amid the joys of life, which have now lost their charms, and amid its cares, to which he turns with a broken heart, he incessantly recalls the image so endeared to him. What wonder, then, that his imagination, which, in the light of the day, was able to keep before itself the picture of the departed, should, in the stillness and shades of midnight, when remembrances multiply, and feelings grow deeper and deeper, increase that picture to the size, and give to it the vivid form of real life! These circumstances justify

us in ascribing, for the most part, the existence of that supposed class of beings called ghosts (and we may include in the remark all spectres whatever) to the two causes mentioned at the commencement of this topic, viz., conceptions rendered inordinately intense, and objects actually seen, but under such circumstances as to be misrepresented to us.

§ 78. Farther Illustrations and Remarks on the same Subject.

The principles laid down in this chapter illustrate various incidents, hitherto considered very remarkable, which are to be found in history, both ancient and modern. They help to illustrate, for instance, the alleged appearance of Cæsar's ghost to Marcus Junius Brutus on the plains of Philippi; a circumstance which is the foundation of a passage in the play of Julius Cæsar.

"How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here?

I think it is the weakness of mine eyes,

That shapes this monstrous apparition.

It comes upon me; art thou anything?

Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil?”

Brutus was not only greatly fatigued at the time this terrific figure appeared to him, but his mind was exceedingly anxious; and we may therefore well suppose that the spectral apparition was merely an internal excited conception.

It is also worthy of inquiry whether these views may not account, in part at least, for a singular power of the Scotch Highlanders, called the second sight. Especially as they live in a dark, lonely,

and mountainous country, and their feelings, in consequence, are not only likely to be quickened and impetuous, like their own mountain torrents, but to possess a cast of melancholy. Such a state of feel

ing is favourable to the existence of inordinately excited conceptions or apparitions; and apparitions (that is, the seeing of things which are not present) is implied in the exercise of the second sight.

79. Remarks of Walter Scott on the subject of Ghost-stories.

As the interest of this subject is not limited to novelists and the writers of romance, but is practically and widely important, we are induced to subjoin here a passage from a popular author, who is, perhaps, better qualified than almost any other writer to form a correct opinion on it. "There are many ghost-stories which we do not feel at liberty to challenge as impostures, because we are confident that those who relate them on their own authority actually believe what they assert, and may have good reason for doing so, though there is no real phantom after all. We are far, therefore, from averring that such tales are necessarily false. It is easy to suppose the visionary has been imposed upon by a lively dream, a waking revery, the excitation of a powerful imagination, or the misrepresentation of a diseased organ of sight; and, in one or other of these causes (to say nothing of a system of deception, which may, in many instances, be probable), we apprehend a solution will be found for all cases of what are called real ghost-stories.

"In truth, the evidence with respect to such ap paritions is very seldom accurately or distinctly questioned. A supernatural tale is, in most cases, received as an agreeable mode of amusing society, and he would be rather accounted a sturdy moralist than an entertaining companion who should employ himself in assailing its credibility. It would, indeed, be a solecism in manners, something like that of impeaching the genuine value of the antiquities exhibited by a good-natured collector for the gratification of his guests. This difficulty will appear greater, should a company have the rare good fortune to meet with the person who himself witnessed the wonders which he tells; a well-bred or prudent man will, under such circumstances, abstain from using the rules of cross-examination practised in a court of justice; and if in any case he presumes to do so, he is in danger of receiving answers, even from the most candid and honourable persons, which are rather fitted to support the credit of the story which they stand committed to maintain, than to the pure service of unadorned truth. The narrator is asked, for example, some unimportant question with respect to the apparition; he answers it on the hasty suggestion of his own imagination, tinged as it is with belief of the general fact, and, by doing so, often gives a feature of minute evidence which was before wanting, and this with perfect unconsciousness on his own part. It is a rare occurrence, indeed, to find an opportunity of dealing with an actual ghostseer; such instances, however, I have certainly myself met with, and that in the case of able, wise,