notion that you, like myself, have been making too free with the bottle. The serjeant replied, most solemnly declaring that he was most perfectly in his senses when he saw a frightful spectre standing at the side of his bed, and which changing its appearance, retired in the shape of a great black cat, jumping from the window over the church steeple. Now to let your honour into a secret, continued the soldier, I was informed this morning, that the landlady is neither more nor less than a witch, and her goodman is second-sighted, and can tell, awake him from his sleep when you please, the precise hour of the night, and the exact minute.

To cut short our story, the captain at night accompanied the serjeant, well provided with fire arms, and a sword, to the chamber alluded to. Having placed the arms upon the table, he lay down by the soldier's side in a bed without curtains, but enclosed with a frame of wainscoting with sliding doors. At midnight, they heard three knocks on one of the pannels, when the captain arose, ran to the door, which he found fast locked, and having a candle, searched every corner of the room without making any discovery. He lay down a second time, and about an hour after again heard the knocking three distinct times as before. Attempting to get up, the whole wainscoting tumbled down upon the bed, the violent noise of which alarmed the serjeant, who cried out, the witch! the witch is within! It was a considerable time before they could extricate themselves from the boarding, but so sooner was the captain disentangled than he saw a prodigious large sable cat

flying to the window, at which he fired a pistol, and shot off one of its ears.

Next morning the captain called the landlord, and enquired how long his house had been haunted. The landlord replied, you must ask my wife, when she returns home, for she is seldom in bed after midnight. Just as the husband was so saying, the wife came into the kitchen, and falling into a swoon upon seeing the captain, fell down prostrate on the floor, discomposed her head-dress, and discovered a terrible wound on the left side of her head and the want of an ear. The captain swore that he would take her before the provost, in order that she might be committed for trial, but the husband interfering, and the captain well knowing that he could not continue in the country till the next circuit, contented himself with telling the story among the circle of his friends, none of whom had the least reason to doubt his veracity, as he was a gentleman of strict honour, undaunted courage, and tried integrity.-It may be inferred from this that witches have a capacity of changing their outward form, and appearing in the shape of a cat, or the like, at the will; but this might only be in the imagination of the captain and the serjeant, for it would be hard to account for the loss of this witch's real ear, had she changed her body to that of the animal upon which the captain supposed he had fired.

How to reconcile these and various similar stories to the standard of common credence, is a task no less difficult than problematical; and to ascertain the real cause of the scarcity, now a days,

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of such mysterious and unaccountable occurrences, is at least a proof that the devil has been losing latterly, from some cause or other, much of his ascendancy over the human mind. To attempt to explain, or do away with the supposition, that spirits, apparitions, demons, or other preternatural agents, hobgoblins damned," or undamned, would be to attack the fundamental parts of the christian religion, which we are told and taught to believe constitutes a part of the law of the land. The wisest philosophers, heroes, and vagrants, have all, from the remotest antiquity downwards, testified to their appearance; and divines themselves have been equally orthodox, and active in promulgating the force of their testimony in support of the doctrine of preternatural agency; which neither the supposition of a morbid imagination, "contained in tabular views of the various comparative degrees of faintness, vividness, or intensity, supposed to exist between sensations and ideas, when conjointly excited or depressed," can account for on rational principles, when the mind is curious to be divested of all these presumed causes. That there are states and conditions of the mind, when, from intensity of excitement, the imagination may be played upon no one will deny; but that such causes should always have existed, is equally as preposterous and absurd-still between these and imposture, perhaps truth may lie; and then it is a point of scepticism that does little honour to the social compact, to cast even a shade of doubt on the moral character of a man, whose

* See Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions.

veracity was never before impeached on any other subject.

THE GHOST OF JULIUS CÆSAR.

MARCUS BRUTUS, one of the murderers of Julius Cæsar, being one night in his tent, saw a monstrous figure come in about the third hour of the night. Brutus immediately cried out, what art thou, a man or a god? and why art thou come hither? The spectre answered, I am thy evil genius; thou shalt see me at Philippi. Brutus calmly answered, I will meet thee there. However, he did not go, but relating the affair to Cassius, who being of the sect of Epicurus, and believing nothing of these matters, told him it was a mere fancy; that there was no such thing as genii or other spirits, which could appear to men; that even if they should appear, they could not assume a human shape or voice, and had no power over men. Though Brutus was somewhat encouraged by those reasons, he could not entirely get the better of his uneasiness: but this very Cassius, in the midst of the battle of Philippi, saw Julius Cæsar, whom he had assasinated, riding up to him full speed, which terrified him so much, that he fell upon his own sword.

The ghosts of the slain at the battle of Marathon.

Pausanias writes, that four hundred years after the battle of Marathon, there were still heard in

the place where it was fought, the neighing of horses, and the shouts of soldiers, animating one another to the fight. Plutarch also speaks of spectres seen, and dreadful howlings heard in the public baths, where several citizens of Choeronea, his native town, had been murdered. He says, that the inhabitants had been obliged to shut up these baths, but that, notwithstanding the precaution, great noises were still heard, and dreadful spectres frequently seen by the neighbours. Plutarch, who is an author of acknowledged gravity and good sense, frequently makes mention of spectres and apparitions; particularly he says, that in the famous battle above alluded to, several soldiers saw the apparition of Theseus fighting for the Greeks and against the Persians.

Familiar spirit or ancient Brownie.

It is recorded in Socrates, that after the defeat of the Athenian army under the prætor Laches, as he was flying in company with the Athenian general, and came to a place where several roads met, he refused to go the same road that the others took, and the reason being asked him, he answered that his genus, or familiar spirit, who frequently attended him, dissuaded him from it; and the event justified the precaution, for all those who went a different way, were killed, or made prisoners by the enemy's cavalry.

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