GHOSTS AND WITCHES.*

" Of Brounis and Bogillis fie is this boke." GAITAIN DOUGLAS.

IT hazards little to predict that this volume will prove the most popular of all that Mr. MURRAY has yet drawn forth for the public amusement and instruction from his Family Library. The name of the excellent author is in itself a passport ; but it comes in this case commended by its connexion with that world of the strange, the terrible, and the mysterious, into which no writer of this or of any bygone age has made more successful incursions, and with which none has displayed a more intimate acquaintance. The " auld warld stories " which it contains are such as Sir WAL• TER delights to tell, and tells better than anybody. The book is full of " brounies " and " bogies," of fearful and of gamesome spirits ; and their exploits which it narrates are of the same cha- racter. There is in it much that is old and much that is new-; but whether he discuss the nature of the foul fiend or the gentle elf—whether he bring from his store of mighty and manifold ac- cumulation the materials which preceding authors have furnished, or those which his own curious observation has collected—the charm of the chronicler is not the less seen and felt. His measure, whatever be the subject—deliberate argument, occasional remark, historical recapitulation, or original tale—is "ever charming, ever new."

The volume is entitled " Letters ; " but the form of the letter is hardly kept up unless in the first chapter ; and the title seems to have been chosen for little other reason than because it offered a proper opportunity of paying a compliment to Mr. LOCKHART, and because, behind the laxity so readily conceded to the episto- lary style, Sir WALTER might, without impropriety, shelter him- self in the event of any of his opinions or theories being impugned. But in truth, this last consideration need have little weight, both because our admirable author does not commit himself by dogma tizing, and because his theories are of so convenient and popular a character, that even with those who are doubtful of their sound- ness, they present no temptation to elaborate exposure. The universal belief in spirits,—and universal, in a restricted sense, it doubtless is,—Sir WALTER SCOTT deduces from another doctrine, which philosophers only have endeavoured to impugn— the immateriality of the soul. The belief that there is in ourselves a substance, under whatever aspect we may contemplate it, which perishes not when the "garment of decay" falls from around it, naturally begets a belief, that there are "millions of spirits" ever walking around us, which are hidden from our view, merely by reason of the opacity of the earthy tabernacle that interposes be- tween them and us. And these two doctrines readily connect themselves with a third, namely, that by study and appliance, so much of the middle wall of partition may be broken down, as to permit of at least a partial intercourse between the intellectual natures that are without and those that are within the veil which separates the embodied from the disembodied spirit. It is not difficult to see how the long train of ghostly. communications, whether sought for or obtruded, may have originated, when once we overstep what is morally demonstrable, and, not content with the belief that there are immaterial essences without us and within us, attempt to establish an attainable channel of communication between them.

Not to advert to cases of spectral illusion, where the phenomena are traceable to a diseased state of the body, the ever active imagination continually comes in aid of our phantasies whether grave or gay, and creates, out of the most incongruous materials, resemblances of friends and foes, the living, the dead, the ab- sent, with an accuracy which will sometimes stagger even the sceptic, and which when presented to the credulous bring with them proof strong as holy writ. Most persons have seen—and whoever has seen has laughed at while he admired—the ingenuity with which in his Phrenology Can IKSHANKS exemplifies "ideality," by fabricating out of a coat, waistcoat, trowsers, and handkerchief, as questionable an apparition as ever visited the glimpses of the moon to alarm a trembling sinner. This is the ghost ludicrous. The following with many a one might have been accepted as the ghost serious. Sir WALTER SCOTT was sitting one evening in autumn, perusing with some intensity Medwyn's Conversations— but let hinitell the story himself.

" Not long after the death of a late illustrious poet, who had filled, while living, a great station in the eye of the public, a literary friend, to whom the deceased had- been well known, was engaged, during the darkening twilight of an autumn evening, in perusing one of the publi- cations which professed to detail the habits and opinions of the distin. guished individual who was now no more. As the reader had enjoyed the intimacy of the deceased to a considerable degree, he was deeply interested in the publication, which contained some particulars relating to himself and other friends. A visitor was sitting in the apartment, who was also engaged in reading, Their sitting-room opened into an entrance-hall, rather fantastically fitted up with articles of armour, skins of wild ani- mals, acid the like. It was when laying down his book, and passing into this hall, through which the moon was beginning to shine, that the Judi.. *._Tbe Family.Library, XVI.—Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, addressed J to . G. Lockhart, Esq. By Sir Waiter Scot; Bart. London, ISM.

Waal of whom I speak sew,right before him, and in a standing posture, the exact representation of his departed friend, whose recollection had been so strongly brought to his imagination. He stopped for a single Moment, so as to notice the wonderful accuracy with which fancy had impressed upon the bodily eye the peculiarities of dress and posture of the illustrious poet. Sensible, however, of the delusion, he felt no senti- ment save that of wonder at the extraordinary accuracy of the resem- blance, and stepped onwards towards the figure, which resolved itself, as he approached, into the various materials of which it was composed. These were merely a screen, occupied by great coats, shawls, plaids, and such other articles as usually are found in a country entrance-hall. The spectator returned to the spot from which he had seen the illusion, and endeavoured, with all his power, to recall the image which had been so Singularly vivid. But this was beyond his capacity ; and the person who bad witnessed the apparition, or, more properly, whose excited state had been the means of raising it, had only to return into the apartment, and tell his young friend under what a striking hallucination he had for a moment laboured."

It is quite obvious, that this case was no more than an ex- tended exemplification of those faces in the embers and castles in the clouds which any one who looks steadfastly at the fire or up to the sky imagines he sees, and which no second glance ever pre- sented under the same aspect. Sir WALTER tells several more circumstantial stories of others ; but in these cases, some at least of the peculiarities may be reasonably supposed to have had their origin in the imagination of the patient after, as well as during the spiritual infliction.

Captain C— was a native of Britain, but bred in the Irish Brigade. He was a man of the most dauntless courage, which he displayed in some uncommonly desperate adventures during the first years of the French Revolution, being repeatedly employed by the Royal Family in very dan- gerous commissions. After the King's death he came over to England, and ht was then that the following circumstance took place. Captain C

was a Catholic, and, in his hour of adversity at least, sincerely attached to the duties of his religion. His confessor was a clergyman who was re- siding as chaplain to a man of rank in the West of England, about four miles from the place where Captain C— lived. On riding over one morning to see this gentleman, his penitent had the misfortune to find him very ill from a dangerous complaint. He retired in great distress and apprehension of his friend's life, and the feeling brought back upon him many other painful and disagreeable recollections. These occupied him till the hour of retiring to bed ; when, to his great astonishment, he saw in the room the figure of the absent confessor. He addressed it, but re- ceived no answer—the eyes alone were impressed by the appearance. De- termined to push the matter to the end, Captain C—advanced on the phantom, which appeared to retreat gradually before him. In this man- ner he followed it round the bed, when it seemed to sink down on an elbow chair, and remain there in a sitting posture. To ascertain positively the nature of the apparition, the soldier himself sate down on the same chair, ascertaining thus, beyond question, that the whole was illusion ; yet he owned that, had his friend died about the same time, he would not well have known what name to give to his vision. But as the confessor re- covered, and, in Dr. Johnson's phrase, ' nothing came of it,' the incident was only remarkable as showing that men of the strongest nerves are not exempted from Such delusions."

The two tales that follow are instances of disease, and called for the doctor more than the logician or the divine.

"A patient of Dr. Gregory, a person, it is understood, of some rank, having requested the Doctor's advice, made the following extraordinary

statement of his complaint. I am in the habit,' he said, ' of dining at five, and exactly as the hour of six arrives, I am subjected to the fol- lowing painful visitation. The door of the room, even when I have been weak enough to bolt it, which I have sometimes done, flies wide open ; an old hag, like one of those who haunted the heath of Forres, enters with a frowning and incensed countenance, comes straight up to me with every demonstration of spite and indignation which could characterize her who haunted the merchant Abudab, in the Oriental tale; she rushes upon me ; says something, but so hastily, that I cannot discover the purport, and then strikes me a severe blow with her staff. I fall from my chair in a swoon, which is of longer or shorter endurance. To the recurrence of this apparition I am daily subjected. And such is my new and singular complaint.' The Doctor immediately asked, whether his patient had invited any one to sit with him when he expected such a visitation ? He was answered in the negative. The nature of the complaint, he said, was SO singular, it was so likely to be imputed to fancy, or even to mental de- rangement, that he had shrunk from communicating the circumstance to any one. ' Then,' said the Doctor, ' with your permission, I will dine with you to-day, t eteel-tite, and we will see if your malignant old woman will venture to join our company' The patient accepted the proposal with hope and gratitude, for he had expected ridicule rather than sym- pathy. They met at dinner ; and Dr. Gregory, who suspected some nervous disorder, exerted his powers of conversation, well known to be of the most varied and brilliant character, to keep the attention of his host engaged, and preyent him from thinking on the approach of the fated hour, to which he was accustomed to look forward with so much -terror. He succeeded in his purpose better than he had hoped. The hour of six came almost unnoticed, and it was hoped, might pass away

without any evil consequence; but it was scarce a moment struck when the owner of the house exclaimed, in an alarmed voice—' The hag comes again !' and dropped back in his chair in a swoon, in the way he had him-

self described. The physician caused him to be let blood, and satisfied himself that the periodical shocks of which his patient complained arose from a tendency to apoplexy."

There is less imagination in this than in the other. The after- dinner hag. was not so much connected with the levity of the ,patient's mind as with the weight of his paunch. A young man of fortune, who had led what is called so gay a life as considerably-to injure both his health and fortune, was at length obliged to consult the physician upon the means of restoring at least the former. -One of his principal complaints was the frequent presence of a set of apparitions, resembling a band of figures dressed in green, who performed in his drawing-room a singular dance, to which he was compelled to bear 'witness, though he knew, to his great annoyance, that the whole corps de ballet existed only in his own imagination. His physician immediately informed him that he had lived upon town too long and too fast not to require an exchange to a more healthy and natural course of life. He therefore prescribed a gentle course of medicine, but earnestly recom- mended to his patient to retire to his own house in the country, observe a temperate diet and early hours, practising regular exercise, on the same principle avoiding fatigue; and assured him that by doing so he might

bid adieu to black spirits and white, blue, green, and grey, with all their trumpery. The patient observed the advice, and prospered. His physi- cian, after the interval of a month, received a grateful letter from him, acknowledging the success of his regimen. The green goblins had disap- peared, and with them the unpleasant train of emotions to which their visits had given rise ; and the patient had ordered his town house to be disfurnisbed and sold, while the furniture was to be sent down to his residence in the country, where he was determined in future to spend his life, without exposing himself to the temptations of town. One would have supposed this a well-devised scheme for health. But, alas no sooner had the furniture of the London drawing-room been placed in order in the gallery of the old manor-house, than the former delusion returned in full force ! thegreenfiguruntes, whom the patient's depraved imagination had so long associated with these moveables, came capering and fi isking to accompany them, exclaiming with great glee, as if the sufferer should have been rejoiced to see them, Here we all are—here we all are I' The visionary, if I recollect right, was so much shocked at their appearance, that he retired abroad, in despair that any part of Britain could shelter him from the daily persecution of this domestic ballet."

We must not omit Sir WALTER'S remark on this story, were it only for the sake of the natural and appropriate figure with which it concludes :— " There is reason to believe that such cases are numerous, and that they may perhaps arise not only from the debility of stomach brought on i by excess in wine or spirits, which derangement often sensibly, affects the eyes and sense of sight, but also because the mind becomes habitually predominated over by a train of fantastic visions, the consequence of frequent intoxication ; and is thus, like a dislocated joint, apt again to go wrong, even when a different cause occasions the derangement.'

Of fabricated ghost stories, and tricks intended to induce a be- lief of ghosts, examples might be multiplied without end. Every village boy and • girl has at one time or other been engaged in an attempt to alarm less courageous companions with a hol- lowed turnip and a candle, or a smutted face and a white sheet. Such tales hardly deserved a place in a volume like that before us: but Sir WALTER'S object, while he does not pretend to be scepti- cal with relation to ghosts in general, is to show that in every par- ticular tale of their visitations, the appearances admit of an easy and natural explanation. And as trickery has doubtless been often used to produce a belief in spirits, it was of some importance to point out in a few instances the manner of its employment. The following case is clothed with the gravity of a judicial appeal. The explanation of Sir WALTER is in all probability the true one.

" Upon the 10th of June 1754, Duncan Terig alias Clark, and Alexander Bain Mac Donald, two Highlanders, were tried before the Court of Jus-

ticiary, Edinburgh, for the murder of Arthur Davis, sergeant in Guise's

regiment, on the 28th September 1749. The accident happened not long after the civil war, the embers of which were still reeking; so there existed

too many reasons on account of which an English 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 length, an account of the murder ap- peared from the evidence of one Alexander Mac Pherson, (a Highlander, speaking no language but Gaelic, and sworn by an interpreter,) who gave the following extraordinary account of his cause of knowledge. He was, he said, in bed in his cottage, when an apparition came to his bedside, and commanded him to rise and follow him out of doors. Believing his visitor to be one Farquharson, a neighbour and friend, the witness did as he was bid; and when they were without the cottage, the appearance told the witness he was the ghost of Sergeant Davis, and requested him to go and bury his mortal remains, which lay concealed in a place he pointed out, in a moorland track called the hill of Christie. He desired him to take Farquharson with him as an assistant. Next day the witness went to the place specified, and there found the bones of a human body much decayed. The witness did not at that time bury the bones so found; in consequence of which negligence, the sergeant's ghost again appeared to him, upbraiding him with his breach of promise. On this occasion, the witness asked the ghost who were the murderers ? and received for answer, that he had been slain by the prisoners at the bar. The witness, after this second visitation, called the assistance of Farquharson, and buried the body.

" 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 Mac Hardie, a person who slept in one of the beds which run along the wall in an ordi- nary Highland hut, declared, that upon the night when Mac Pherson said he saw the ghost, she saw a naked man enter the house, and go towards MacPherson's bed.

"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 pro- secution. It was followed up by thelcounsel for the prisoners asking, in the cross-examination of MacPherson, What language did the ghost speak in ?' The witness, who was himself ignorant of English, replied, " As good Gaelic as I ever heard in Lochaber.'—' Pretty well for the ghost of an English sergeant," answered the counsel. The inference was rather smart and plausible than sound; for, the apparition of the ghost being admitted, we know too little of the other world to judge whether all lan- guages may not be alike familiar to those who belong to it. It imposed, however, on the Jury, who found the accused parties Not Guilty ; al- though their counsel and solicitor, and most of the court, were satisfied of their having committed the murder.

" In this case, the interference of the ghost seems to have rather im- peded the vengeance which it was doubtless the murdered sergeant's de- sire to obtain. Yet there may be various modes of explaining this mys- terious story, of which the following conjecture may pass for one. The reader may suppose that MacPherson was privy to the fact of the mur- der, 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 committed 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 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 deletion of the crime bad 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." Ls SAGE, in his Diable Boiteux, tells a story not unsimilar to that of the Hungarian Major. There too is a soldier; but his ghost was less ingenious than the Major's fair tormentors, and his sword in consequence more successful in exorcising it than the Major's bullets. " At a certain old castle on the confines of Hungary, the lord to whom it belonged had determined upon giving an entertainment worthy of his own rank, and of the magnificence of the antique mansion which he in- habited. The guests of course were numerous ; and among- them was a veteran officer of IIussars, remarkable for his bravery. When the ar- rangements for the night were made, this officer was informed that there would be difficulty in accommodating the company in the castle, large as it was, unless some one would take the risk of sleeping in the room sup- posed to be haunted ; and that as he was known to be above such preju- dices, the apartment was, in the first place, proposed for his occupation, as the person least likely to suffer a bad night's rest from such a cause. The Major thankfully accepted- the preference, and having shared the festivity of the evening, retired after midnight, having. denounced ven- geance against any one who should presume by any trick to disturb his repose ; a threat which his habits would, it was supposed, render him sufficiently ready to execute. Somewhat contrary to the custom in these cases, the Major went to bed, having left his candle burning, and laid his trusty pistols carefully loaded on the table by his bedside.

" He had not slept an hour when he was awakened by a solemn strain of music—he looked out. Three ladies, fantastically dressed in green, were seen in. the lower end of the apartment, who sung a solemn requiem. The Major listened for some time with delight ; at length he tired- ` Ladies,' he said, 'this is very well, hut somewhat monotonous—will you be so kind as to change the tune V 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 regard it as an impertinence, I shall take a rough mode of stoppinmp it.' With that he began to handle his pis- tols. The ladies sung on. He then got seriously angry= I will but wait five minutes,' he said, and then fire without hesitation' The song was uninterrupted—the five minutes were expired—' I still give you law, ladies,' he said, while I count twenty.' This produced as little effect as his former threats. He counted one, two, three, accordingly ; but on approaching the end of the number, and repeating more than once his de- termination to fire, the last number seventeen—eighteen—nineteen, were pronounced with considerable pauses between, and an assurance that the pistols were cocked. The ladies sung on. As he pronounced the word twenty he fired both pistols against the musical damsels but the ladies sting on I The Major was overcome by the unexpected inefficacy of his Violence, and had an illness which lasted more than three weeks. The trick put upon him may be shortly described by the fact, that the female choristers were placed in an adjoining room, and that he only fired at their reflection thrown forward into that in which he slept by the effect of a concave mirror."

The lady in the Monastery, who plays so many strange pranks, has an adventure very similar to that of the poor mad woman with the Teviotdale farmer. Her cher ami, the readers of the novel will recollect, is the sacristan of the convent. The real story, perhaps, suggested the legend.

" 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 berth. 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 ap- proached, 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 the corner where she was perched, she contrived to drop behind the horseman and seize him round the waist ; a manoeuvre which greatly increased the speed of the horse, and the terror of the rider; for the hand of her who sat behind him, when pressed upon his, felt as cold as that of a corpse. At his own house at length he arrived, and bid the servants who came to attend him,

Tak aff the ghaist They took off accordingly a female in white, and the poor farmer himself was conveyed to bed, where be lay struggling for weeks with a strong nervous fever. The female was found to be a maniac, who had been left a widow very suddenly by an affectionate husband, and the nature and cause of her malady induced her, when she could make her escape, to wander to the churchyard, where she sometimes wildly wept over his grave, and sometimes standing on the corner of the church- yard wall, looked out, and mistook every stranger on horseback for the husband she had lost. If this woman, which was very possible, had dropt 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."

And small blame to him if he had.—The terrible workings of guilt are apt to deepen and render permanent the suggestions of a heated fancy, until that which was but a casual hallucination is converted into fixed and irremovable insanity. The work before us is not deficient in examples of this kind : we quote one.

"It was about the eventful year 1800, when the Emperor Paul laid his ill-judged embargo on British trade, that my friend, l'Zr. William Clerk, on a journey to London, found himself in company, in the mail-coach, with a seafaring man of middle age and respectable appearance, who an- nounced himself as master of a vessel in the Baltic trade, and a sufferer by the embargo. In the course of the desultory conversation which takes i place on such occasions, the seaman observed, in compliance with a corn= mon superstition, 'I wish we may have good luck on our journey—there is-a magpie' 'And why should that be unlucky ?' said my friend. ' I cannot tell you that,' replied the sailor; but all the world agrees that one magpie bodes bad luck, two are not so bad, but three are the devil. I never saw three magpies but twice, and once I had near lost my vessel, and the second lien from a horse, and was hurt.' This conversation led Mr. Clerk to observe, that he supposed he believed also in ghosts, since he credited such auguries. And if I do,' said the sailor, ' I may have my

own reasons for doing so ;' and he spoke this in- a deep and serious manner, implying that he felt deeply what he was saying. On being fur-

ther urged, he confessed that, if he could believe his own eyes, there was one ghost at least which he had seen repeatedly. He then told his story as I now relate it.

" Our mariner had, in his youth, gone mate of a slave vessel from Liverpool, of which town he seemed to be a native. The captain of the vessel was a man of a variable temper, sometimes kind and courteous to his men, b4 subject to fits of humour, dislike, and passion, during which he was very violent, tyrannical, and cruel. He took a particular dislike at one sailor aboard, an elderly man, called Bill Jones, or some such name. He seldom spoke to this person without threats and abuse ; which the old man, with the license which sailors take in merchant yes.. sels, was very apt to return. On one occasion, Bill Jones appeared slow in getting out on the yard to hand a sail. The captain, according to cus- tom, abused the seaman as a lubberly rascal, who got fat by leaving his duty to other people. The man made a saucy answer, almost amounting to mutiny ; on which, in a towering passion, the captain ran down to his- cabin, and returned with a blunderbuss loaded with slugs, with which. he took deliberate aim at the supposed mutineer, fired, and mortally wounded him. The man was handed down from the yard, and stretched on the deck, evidently dying. He fixed his eyes on the captain, and said, I Sir, you have done for me, but I will never leave you.' The captain, in return, swore at him for a fat lubber, and said he would have him thrown into the slave-kettle, where they made food for the negroes, and see how much fat he had got. The man died ; his body was actually thrown into the slave-kettle, and the narrator observed, with a naiveté which con- firmed the extent of his own belief in the truth of what he told, There was not much fat about him after all.'

" The captain told the crew they must keep absolute silence on the sub- ject of what had passed; and as the mate was not willing to give an ex- plicit and absolute promise, he ordered him to be confined below. After a day or two, he came to the mate, and demanded if he had an intention to deliver him up for trial when the vessel got home. The mate, who was tired of close of confinement in that sultry climate, spoke his commander fair, and obtained his liberty. When he mingled among the crew once more, he found them impressed with the idea, not unnatural in their situation, that the ghost of the dead man appeared among them when they had a spell of duty, especially if a sail was to be handed, on which occasion the spectre was sure to be out upon the yard before any of the crew. The narrator had seen this apparition himself repeatedly—he believed the captain saw it also, but he took no notice of it for some time, and the crew, terrified at the violent temper of the man, dared not call his attention to it. Thus, they held on their course home- ward, with great fear and anxiety.

" At length the captain invited the mate, who was now in a sort of favour, to go down to the cabin and take a glass of grog with him. In this interview, he assumed a very grave and anxious aspect. I need not tell you, Jack,' he said, what sort of hand we have got on board with us —He told me he would never leave me, and he has kept his word—You only see him now and then, but he is always by my side, and never out of my sight. At this very moment I see him—I am determined to bear it no longer, and I have resolved to leave you'

" The mate replied, that his leaving the vessel while out of the sight of any land was impossible. He advised, that if the captain apprehended any bad consequences from what had happened, he should run for the West of France or Ireland, and there go ashore, and leave him, the mate, to carry the vessel into Liverpool. The captain only shook his head gloomily, and reiterated his determination to leave the ship. At this moment, the mate was called to the deck for some purpose or other, and the instant he got up the companion ladder, he heard a splash is the water, and looking over the ship's side, saw that the captain had thrown himself into the sea from the quarter-gallery, and was running astern at the rate of six knots an hour. When just about to sink, he seemed to make a last exertion, sprang half out of the water, and clasped his hands to- wards the mate, calling By —, Bill is with me now !' and then sunk to be seen no more."

We have noticed as yet the spirits of men only ; but there were others, both healthy and mischievous. Among the more remark- able in our own island, was that singular class called Fairies: a name which has been the foundation of so many fanciful etymolo- gies. Of these "good neighbours," as they used to be termed in Scotland—for the now. ncpular epithet was one of evil omen, and never used where by any chance its owners were supposed to be within ear-shot—Sir WALTER gives several anecdotes. The fol- lowing is the most veracious.

" Au industrious man, a weaver in the little town [of North Berwick, a seaport eighteen miles east from Edinburgh] was married to a beautiful woman, who, after bearing two or three children, was so unfortunate as to die during the birth of a fourth child. The infant was saved, but the mother had expired in convulsions ; and as she was much disfigured after death, it became an opinion among her gossips, that, from some neglect of those who ought to have watched the sick woman, she must have been carried off by the elves, and this ghastly corpse substituted in the place of the body. The widower paid little attention to these rumours, and, after bitterly lamenting his wife for a year of mourning, began to think on the prudence of forming a new marriage, which, to a poor artisan with so young a family, and without the assistance of a housewife, was almost a matter of necessity. He readily found a neighbour with whose good looks he was satisfied, whilst her character for temper seemed to warrant her good usage of his children. He proposed himself and was accepted, and carried the names of the parties to the clergyman (called, 1 believe, Mr. Matthew Reid) for the due proclamation of bans. As the man had really loved his late partner, it is likely that this proposed decisive alteration of his condition brought back many reflections concerning the period of their union, and with these recalled the extraordinary rumours which were afloat at the time of her decease, so that the whole forced upon him the following lively dream. As he lay in his bed, awake, as he thought, he beheld, at the ghostly hour of midnight, the figure of a female dressed in white, who entered his hut, stood by the side of his bed, and appeared to him the very likeness of his late wife. He conjured her to speak, and with astonishment heard her say, like the minister of Aberfoyle, that she was not dead, but the unwilling captive of the Good Neighbours. Like Mr. Kirke, too, she told him, that if all the love which he once bad for her was not entirely gone, an opportunity still remained of recovering her, or winning her back, as it was usually termed, from the comfortless realms of Elfiand. She charged him, on a certain day of the ensuing week, that the should convene the most respectable housekeepers In the town, with the clergyman at their head, and should disinter the coffin in which she was supposed to have been buried. The clergyman is to re- cite certain prayers, upon which,' said the apparition, I will start from the coffin, and fly with great speed round the:church, and you must have

the fleetest runner of the parish'(naming a man famed for swiftness) to pursue me, and such a one, the smith, renowned for his strength, to hold me fast after I am overtaken ; and in that case Jshall, by the prayers of

the church, and the efforts of my loi,ing husband and neighbours, again recover my station in human society.' In the morning the poor widower

was distressed with the recollection of his dream, but, ashamed and puzzled, took no measures in consequence. A second night, as is not very surprising, the visitation was again repeated. On the third night she appeared with a sorrowful and displeased countenance, upbraided him with want of love and affection, and conjured him, for the last time, to attend to her instructions, which, if he now neglected, she would never have power to visit earth or communicate with him again. In order to convince him there was no delusion, he saw in his dream ' that she took up the nursling at whose birth she had died, and gave it suck ; she spilled also a drop or two of her milk on the poor man's bed-clothes, as if to assure him of the reality of the vision.

" The next morning the terrified widower carried a statement of his perplexity to Mr. Matthew Reid, the clergyman. This reverend person, besides being an excellent divine in other respects, was at the same time a man of sagacity, who understood the human passions. He did not at- tempt to combat the reality of the vision which had thrown his parish- ioner into this tribulation, but he contended it could be only an illusion of the devil. He explained to the widower, that no created being could have the right or power to imprison or detain the soul of a Christian— conjured him not to believe that his wife was otherwise disposed of than according to God's pleasure—assured him that Protestant doctrine utterly denies the existence of any middle state in the world to come—and ex- plained to him that he, as a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, neither could nor dared authorize opening graves, or using the intervention of prayer to sanction rites of a suspicious character. The poor man, con- founded and perplexed by various feelings, asked his pastor what he should do. ' I will give you my best advice,' said the clergyman. ' Get your new bride's consent to be married to-morrow, or to .day, if you can; I will take it on me to dispense with the rest of the bans, or proclaim them three times in one day. You will have a new wife, and if you think of the former, it will be only as of one from whom death has separated you, and for whom you may have thoughts of affection and sorrow, but as a saint in Heaven, and not as a prisoner in Elfland: The advice was taken, and the perplexed widower had no more visitations from his former spouse."

So much for the world of spirits, as far as it is connected with " Demonologie." It might have been thought, that they who at- tained to the high knowledge requisite for holding converse with those superior agencies, would have been the objects of admiration rather than of hatred. But the imperfect interpretations of Scrip- ture which came into the world to put brother against brother and i the son against the father, stepped in to prevent this very natural consequence. There is a verse in the Old Testament which for- bids the Israelites to permit witches to live in the land. At the utmost, this would only authorize the banishment of such unhappy persons; but our ancestors dispensed with the restriction in the command, and, to render their obedience more certain, would not allow witches to live at all. They seem at the same time to have wholly inverted the humane rule which says it is better that nine rogues escape than one honest man suffer; for in the case of women accused of commerce with the Devil, it was " Kill, kill, kill," as the Popish priest said on the storming of a Protestant vil- lage, " and God will take his own." The witch persecutions form the darkest of the many dark pages of human nature, and the more to be lamented that they were the accompaniment of one of the most glorious events in the history of man, the Reformation. Of these persecutions Sir WALTER gives numerous examples. That which follows is among the more curious.

" The ministers of the Church of England, though, from education, in- tercourse with the world, and other advantages, they were less prone to prejudice than those of other sects, are yet far from being entirely free of the charge of encouraging in particular instances the witch superstiti on. Even while Dr. Hutchinson pleads that the Church of England has the least to answer for in that matter, he is under the necessity of acknow- ledging, that some regular country clergymen so far shared the rooted prejudices of congregations, and of the government which established laws against it, as to be active in the persecution of the suspected, and even in countenancing the superstitious signs by which in that period the vulgar thought it possible to ascertain the existence of the afflictions by witchcraft, and obtain the knowledge of the perpetrator. A singular case is mentioned of three women, called the Witches of Warbois. In- deed, their story is a matter of solemn enough record ; for Sir Samuel Cromwell, having received the sum of forty pounds as lord of the manor, out of the estate of the poor persons who suffered, turned it into a rent charge of forty shillings yearly, for the endowment of an annual lecture on the subject of witchcraft, to be preached by a doctor or bachelor of divinity of Queen's College, Cambridge. The accused, one Samuel and his wife, were old, and very poor persons, and their daughter, a young woman. The daughter of a Mr. Throgmorton, seeing the poor old wo- man in a black knitted cap, at a time when she was not very well, took a whim that she had bewitched her, and was ever after exclaiming against her. The other children of this fanciful family caught up the same cry, and the eldest of them at last got up a vastly pretty drama, in which she herself furnished all the scenes, and played all the parts.

" Such imaginary scenes, or make-believe stories, are the common amusement of lively children ; and most readers may remember having had some Utopia of their own. But the nursery drama of Miss Throg- morton had a horrible conclusion. This young lady and her sisters were supposed to be haunted by nine spirits, despatched by the wicked Mother Samuel for that purpose. The sapient parents heard one part of the dia- logue, when the children in their fits returned answers, as was supposed, to the spirits who afflicted them ; and when the patients from time to time recovered, they furnished the counterpart by telling what the spirits had said to them. The names of the spirits were Pluck, Hardname, Catch, Blue, and three Smacks, who were cousins. Mrs. Joan Throg- morton, the eldest, (who, like all other young women of her age, about fifteen, had some disease on her nerves, and whose fancy ran apparently on love and gallantry,) supposed that one of the Smacks was her lover, did battle for her with the less friendly spirits, and promised to protect her against Mother Samuel herself; and the following curious extract will show on what a footing of familiarity the damsel stood with her spi- ritual gallant: From whence come you, Mr. Smack ?' says the afflicted young lady ; ' and what news do you bring t' Smack, nothing abashed, informed her he came from lighting with Pluck the weapons, great cowl-

staves,—the scene, a ruinous bakehouse in Dame Samuel's yard. ' And who got the mastery, I pray you?' said the damsel. Smack answered, he had broken Pluck's head. ' I would,' said the damsel, he had broken your neck also.'—' Is that the thanks I am to have for my labour ?' said the disappointed Smack. Look you for thanks at my hand ?' said the distressed maiden. I would you were all hanged up against each other, with your dame for company, for you are all naught.' On this re- pulse, exit Smack, and enter Pluck, Blue, and Catch, the first with his head broken, the other limping, and the third with his arm in a sling, all trophies of Smack's victory. They disappeared, after having threatened vengeance upon the conquering Smack. However, he soon afterwards appeared with his laurels. He told her of his various conflicts. I won- der,' said Mrs. Joan or Jane, that you are able to beat them ; you are little, and they are very big.'—' He cared not for that,' he replied I. he would beat the best two of them, and his cousins Smacks would beat the other two.' This was most pitiful mirth, for such it certainly is, was mixed with tragedy enough. Miss Throgmorton and her sisters railed against Dame Samuel ; and when Mr. Throgmorton brought her to his house by force, the little fiends longed to draw blood of her, scratch her, and torture her, as the witchcreed of that period recommended; yet the poor woman incurred deeper suspicion when she expressed a wish to leave a house where she was so coarsely treated, and lay under such odious suspicions.

" It was in vain that this unhappy creature endeavoured to avert their resentment, by submitting to all the ill usage they chose to put upon her;. in vain that she underwent, unresistingly, the worst usage at the hand of Lady Cromwell, her landlady, who, abusing her with the worst epithets, tore her cap from her head, clipped out some of her hair, and gave it to Mrs. Throgmorton, to burn it for a counter charm. Nay, Mother Samuel's complaisance in the latter case only led to a new charge. It hap- pened that the Lady Cromwell, on her return home, dreamed of her day's work, and especially of the old dame and her cat ; and as her Ladyship died in a year and quarter from that very day, it was sagaciously con- cluded that she must have fallen a victim to the witcheries of the terrible. Dame Samuel. Mr. Throgmorton also compelled the old woman and her daughter to use expressions which put their lives in the power of these malignant children, who had carried on the farce so long that they could. not well escape from their own web of deceit but by the death of these helpless creatures : For example, the prisoner, Dame Samuel, was in-. duced to say to the supposed spirit, ' As I am a witch and a causer of Lady Cromwell's death, I charge thee to come out of the maiden.' The girl lay still ; and this was accounted a proof that the poor woman, who only subdued and crushed by terror and tyranny, did as she was bidden, was a witch. One is ashamed of an English judge and jury, when it must be repeated, that the evidence of these enthusiastic and giddy.pated girls was deemed sufficient to the condemnation of three innocent persons. Goody Samuel, indeed, was at length worried into a confession of her guilt, by the various vexations which were practised on her. But her husband and daughter continued to maintain their innocence. The last showed a high spirit, and proud value for her character. She was advised by some, who pitied her youth, to gain at least a respite by pleading preg- nancy ; to which she answered disdainfully, No, 1 will not be both held witch and strumpet l'"

Even in the article of witchcraft, however, superior civilization has the advantage. A man who is too mad even for a " warlock" in Scotland, may make a capital good magician among the red- wanderers of America.

" Among the numberless extravagances of the Scottish Dissenters of the 17th century, now canonized in a lump by those who view them in the general light of enemies to Prelacy, was a certain shipmaster, called, from his size, Meikle John Gibb. This man, a person called Jamie, and one or two other men, besides twenty or thirty females who adhered to them, went the wildest lengths of enthusiasm. Gibb headed a party, who followed bins into the moorlands, and at the Ford Moss, between Airth and Stirling, burned their Bibles, as an act of solemn adherence to their new faith. They were apprehended in consequence, and committed to prison ; and the rest of the Dissenters, however differently they were affected by the persecution of government, when it applied to them- selves, were nevertheless much offended that these poor mad people were not brought to capital punishment for their blasphemous extravagances; and imputed it as a fresh crime to the Duke of York, that, though he could not be often accused of toleration, he considered the discipline of the house of correction as more likely to bring the unfortunate Gibbites to their senses, than the more dignified severities of a public trial and the gallows. The Cameronians, however, did their best to correct this scan- dalous lenity. As Meikle John Gibb, who was their comrade in captivity, used to disturb their worship in jail by his maniac howling, two of them took turn about to hold him down by force, and silence him by a napkin thrust into his mouth. This mode of quieting the unlucky heretic, though sufficiently emphatic, being deemed ineffectual or inconvenient, George Jackson, a Carneronian, who afterwards suffered at the gallows, dashed. the maniac with his feet and hands against the wall, and beat him so se- verely, that the rest were afraid that he had killed him outright. After which specimen of fraternal chastisement, the lunatic, to avoid the repe- tition of the discipline, whenever the prisoners began worship, ran be- hind the door, and there, with his own napkin, crammed into his mouth, sat howling like a chastised cur. But on being finally transported to America, John Gibb, we are assured, was much admired by the heathen for his familiar converse with the devil bodily, and offering sacrifices to him."

Witchcraft is now fast dying out. All kinds of supernatural beings, and their servants as well, have a natural abhorrence of

light. As is said of the wicked " they love darkness because their deeds are evil." " I scent the day," quoth the uneasy spirit whom an over-long colloquy has kept unconsciously absent from his home until morn approaches. Witches and witches' persecutors have long scented the day, and have mostly been obedient to the warning which the coming light sends before it. Some of them, however, still linger in out-of-the-way corners, whither the sun has not yet penetrated. The last tale within Sir WALTER'S know- ledge is only thirty years old. He himself was, we presume, the sceptical Sheriff whom he alludes to.

"The last Scottish story with which I will trouble you, happened in or shortly after the year 1800, and the whole circumstances are well known to me. The dearth of the years in the end of the eighteenth

and beginning of this century was inconvenient to all, but distressing to the poor. A solitary old woman, in a wild and lonely district, sub- sisted chiefly by rearing chickens ; an operation requiring so much care and attention, that the gentry, and even the farmers' wives, often find it better to buy poultry at a certain age than to undertake the trouble

of bringing them up. As the old woman In the present instance, fought her way through life better than her neighbours, envy seg.

matized her as having some unlawful mode of increasing the rains of

her little trade, and apparently she did not take much alarm at the accu- sation. But she felt, like others, the dearth of the years alluded to, and chiefly because the farmers were unwilling to sell gram in the very mode- rate quantities which she was able to purchase, and without which, her little stock of poultry must have been inevitably starved. In distress on this account, the dame went to a neighbouring farmer, a very good-na- tured, sensible, honest man, and requested him, as a favour, to sell her a peck of oats at any price. Good neighbour,' he said, ' I am sorry to be obliged to refuse you, but my corn is measured out for Dalkeith mar- ket; my carts are loaded to set out, and to open these sacks again, and for so small a quantity, would cast my accounts loose; and create much trouble and disadvantage; I dare say you will get all you want at such a place, or such a place.' On receiving this answer, the old woman's tem- per gave way. She scolded the wealthy farmer, and wished evil to his property, which was just setting off for the market. They parted, after some angry language on both sides ; and sure enough, as the carts crossed

the ford of the river beneath the farm-house, off came the wheel from one of them, and five or six sacks of corn were damaged by the water. The good farmer hardly knew what to think of this ; there were the two circumstances deemed of old essential and sufficient to the crime of witch- csaft—Damnian minatum, et malum secutum.• Scarce knowing what to believe, he hastened to consult the Sheriff of the county, as a friend rather than as a magistrate, upon a case so extraordinary. The official person showed him that the laws against witchcraft were abrogated, and had little difficulty to bring him to regard the matter in its true light of en accident. " It is strange, but true, that the accused herself was not to be recon- ciled to the Sheriff's doctrine so easily. He reminded her, that if she used her tongue with so much licence, she must expose herself to sus- picions, and that should coincidences happen to irritate her neighbours, she might suffer harm at a time when there was no one to protect her. He therefore requested her to be more cautious in her language for her own sake ; professing, at the same time, his belief that her words and in- tentions were perfectly harmless, and that he had no apprehension of being hurt by her, let her wish her worst to him. She was rather more angry than pleased at the well-meaning Sheriff's scepticism. I would be laith to wish ony ill either to you or yours, sir,' she said ; for I henna how it is, but something aye comes after my words when I am ill guided, and speak ower fast.' In short, she was obstinate in claiming an Influence over the destiny of others by words and wishes, which might have in other times conveyed her to the stake; for which her expres- sions, their consequences, and her disposition to insist upon their effi- cacy, would certainly of old have made her a fit victim. At present, the story is scarcely worth mentioning, but as it contains materials resem- bling those out of which many tragic incidents have arisen. " So low, in short, is now the belief in witchcraft, that, perhaps, it is only received by those half-crazy individuals who feel a species of conse- quence derived from accidental coincidences, which, were they received by the community in general, would go near, as on former occasions, to cost the lives of those who make their boast of them. At least one hypochon- driac patient is known to the author, who believes himself the victim of a gang of witches, and ascribes his illness to their charms, so that he wants nothing but an indulgent judge to awake again the old ideas of sorcery." We have dwelt long on this curious subject, but we must have one more last word. Sig. WALTER talks of Scottish witches as dying out in 1800. While we were reading his account, the fol- lowing tale of an Irish• witch made its appearance to prove how backward the folks in the West are, compared with those of the North. Had it occurred a couple of hundred years earlier, it might have added one more to the examples of the horrible and the ludicrous which witch trials display. The march of time as well as the march of intellect has converted the tragi-comedy into farce; and we can now laugh, without shuddering at the same time at the story of Mister Tailor Knox and his persecuting weasel.

WEXFORD PETIT SESSIONS.

A schoolmaster named Donnelly was charged before E. Sutton, T. Walker, and Wilmsden Richards, Esq. by one Knox, a tailor, with witch- craft. There was nothing extraordinary in the appearance of the prose- cutor; who is a man of about forty years of age, active-looking, middle size, and dark complexion.

Mr. Walker—" What is the charge ?" Knox—" Witching, your worship, real witching. And here is a letter which I wish you would read, but it is too long." " Was this letter written by the witch ?" " No, it was written by myself, but it would be too long to read it all. Read it there, from that part down." Clerk of the Court—" State all the facts now, and nothing else." Knox hesitated some time.

Mr. Walker—" What has occurred?"

" Let him be sworn, or let me be sworn, and let him deny it, if he can, that he keeps it in his house, and that I have heard it every day, and every night, and every hour, and every minute, and every other time." " Have you seen it ?" " No, I never saw it ; but I heard it, and that five minutes before I came

here, speaking as plain as I do now."

" What was it you heard ?" " A weasel. I heard him say it was a weasel a hundred times. It knows all my thoughts, and every thing that I do. And it knows what I

am speaking even at this moment:'

" Does it cut your cloth ?" "No, it does not." " Does it do you any harm ?" " Yes, it annoys my mind. It is not a pleasant thing to have my thoughts known. I am sure no one would like it." " Have you ever any thoughts that you would not wish it should know ?" . . " Yes, perhaps I have. I am a freemason, and it would get the secret from me if it could." " But it was never able to get that from you ?" It endeavoured to do it, but I kept upon my guard." Mr. Walker—" Well; I would strongly advise you, if you have any

thoughts which you wish to keep secret, to have a guard over them in

future." • .

Knox--" I can not be always on my guard."

Mr. Walker—" If Mr. Donnelly give the weasel up to us, and we destroy

It, will that do?"• • • • • . .

2 Well, It Winking the weasel here." " Oh you know it is invisible, you have never seen it." " Will he swear it is not in his house1—Will he swear that?"

iDonelly said he was certain he would still be annoyed by the plaintiff; for, when the case would be dismissed in this Court, he would imme- diately bring it into the Mayor's-office.

Knox—" I will, into all the offices in the United Kingdom."

Mr. Walker (to Donnelly)—" Well, you have only to send word tothe different Magistrates that you have destroyed the weasel."

Knox—" Is there no law to punish a man for such an annoyance ?" Mr. Walker—" We cannot afford you redress ; the Act of Parliament relative to witchcraft has been abolished."

Knox—" Then why not abolish the witches also ?"