dured with so much equanimity the presence of my imaginary attendant, that it had become almost indifferent to me; when within the course of a few months it gave place to, or was succeeded by, a spectre of a more important sort, or which at least had a more imposing appearance. This was no other than the apparition of a gentleman-usher, dressed as if to wait upon a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a Lord High Commissioner of the Kirk, or any other who bears on his brow the rank and stamp of delegated sovereignty. This personage, arrayed in a court dress, with bag and sword, tamboured waistcoat, and chapeau-bras, glided beside me like the ghost of Beau Nash; and whether in my own house or in another, ascended the stairs before me, as if to announce me in the drawingroom; and at some times appeared to mingle with the company, though it was sufficiently evident that they were not aware of his presence, and that I alone was sensible of the visionary honors which this imaginary being seemed desirous to render me. This freak of the fancy did not produce much impression on me, though it led me to entertain doubts on the nature of my disorder, and alarm for the effect it might produce upon my intellects. But that modification of my disease also had its appointed duration. After a few months, the phantom of the gentleman-usher was seen no more, but was succeeded by one horrible to the sight, and distressing to the imagination, being no other than the image of death itself-the apparition of a skeleton. Alone, or in company,' said the unfortunate invalid, the presence of this last phantom never quits me. I in vain tell myself a hundred times over that it is no reality, but merely an image summoned up by the morbid acuteness of my own excited imagination, and deranged organs of sight. But what avail such reflections, while the emblem at once and presage of mortality is before my

eyes, and while I feel myself, though in fancy only, the companion of a phantom representing a ghastly inhabitant of the grave, even while I yet breathe on the earth? Science, philosophy, even religion, has no cure for such a disorder: and I feel too surely that I shall die the victim to so melancholy a disease, although I have no belief whatever in the reality of the phantom which it places before me.' The physician was distressed to perceive, from these details, how strongly this visionary apparition was fixed in the imagination of his patient. He ingeniously urged the sick man, who was then in bed, with questions concerning the circumstances of the phantom's appearance, trusting he might lead him, as a sensible man, into such contradictions and inconsistencies as might bring his common sense, which seemed to be unimpaired, so strongly into the field, as might combat successfully the fantastic disorder which produced such fatal effects. This skeleton, then,' said the doctor,

seems to you to be always present to your eyes ?? 'It is my fate, unhappily,' answered the invalid, always to see it.' 'Then I un

derstand,' continued the physician,

it is now present to your imagination?' 'To my imagination it certainly is so,' replied the sick man. 'And in what part of the chamber do you now conceive the apparition to appear?' the physician inquired. 'Immediately at the foot of my bed; when the curtains are left a little open,' answered the invalid, 'the skeleton, to my thinking, is placed between them, and fills the vacant space.' 'You say you are sensible of the delusion,' said his friend;

have you firmness to convince yourself of the truth of this? Can you take courage enough to rise and place yourself in the spot so seeming to be occupied, and convince yourself of the illusion?' The poor man sighed, and shook his head negatively. Well,' said the doctor, we will try the experi

ment otherwise. Accordingly, he rose from his chair by the bedside, and placing himself between the two half-drawn curtains at the foot of the bed, indicated as the place occupied by the apparition, asked if the spectre was still visible? 'Not entirely so,' replied the patient, because your person is betwixt him and me; but I observe his skull peering above your shoulder.' It is alleged, the man of science started on the instant, despite philosophy, on receiving an answer ascertaining, with such minuteness, that the ideal spectre was close to his own person. He resorted to other means of investigation and cure, but with equally indifferent success. The patient sunk into deeper and deeper dejection, and died in the same distress of mind in which he had spent the latter months of his life; and his case remains a melancholy instance of the power of imagination to kill the body, even when its fantastic terrors cannot overcome the intellect, of the unfortunate persons who suffer under them. The patient, in the present case, sunk under his malady; and the circumstances of his singular disorder remaining concealed, he did not, by his death and last illness, lose any of the wellmerited reputation for prudence and sagacity which had attended him during the whole course of his life."

The next account of a freak of the imagination, though readily explicable, will, we think, interest our readers, if, as we surmise, it relates to a fancied vision of Lord Byron by his great brother bard, the author himself. It is thus described:

"Another illusion of the same nature we have the best reason for vouching as a fact, though, for certain reasons, we do not give the names of the parties. Not long af ter 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 twi light of an autumn evening, in perusing one of the publications which professed to detail the habits and opinions of the distinguished 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 visiter was sitting in the apartment, who was also engaged in reading. Their sitting-room opened into an entrancehall, rather fantastically fitted up with articles of armor, skins of wild animals, and the like. It was when laying down his book, and passing into this hall, through which the moon was beginning to shine, that the individual of whom I speak saw, 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 sentiment save that of wonder at the extraordinary accuracy of the resemblance, 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 cour try entrance-hall. The spectator returned to the spot from which he had seen the illusion, and endeavored with all his power to recall the image which had been so singularly vivid. But this was beyond his capacity; and the person who had 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 labored.-There is every reason to believe that instances of this kind are frequent among persons of a certain temperament; and

when such occur in an early period of society, they are almost certain to be considered as real supernatural appearances."

THERE is nothing more common than to predict the future state of the season from some single appearance in the early part of it; and yet there is nothing more unphilosophical or fallacious. An early blossom, an early bee, or an early swallow, or the early appearance of any other production of nature, is no evidence whatever of the kind of weather that is to come, though the belief that it is so is both very general and very obstinate. The appearance of these things is the effect of the weather, not the cause; and it is what we may call an external effect, that is, it does not enter into the chain of causation. The weather of to-day must always have some influence upon the weather of to-morrow; but its effect will not be altered in the smallest tittle, whether it does or does not call out of the cranny in which it has been hybernated, some wasp, or some swallow that was too weak for the autumnal migration. Birds, blossoms, and butterflies, do not come in expectation of fine weather; if they did, the early ones would show that they see not far into futurity, for they generally come forth only to be destroyed. They come in consequence of the good weather which precedes their appearance, and they know no more of the future than a stone does. Man knows of to-morrow only as a rational being; and were it not that he reasons from experience and analogy, he would have no ground for saying that the sun of to-day is to set. The early leaf and the early blossom of this spring may be a consequence of the fine weather of last autumn, which ripened the wood or forwarded the bud, and the early insect may be evidence that the winter has been

mild; but not one of these, or any thing connected with plants or animals, taken in itself, throws light upon one moment of the future; and for once to suppose that it does, is to reverse the order of cause and effect, and put an end to all philosophy-to all common sense.

And are we to draw no conclusions from the phenomena of plants and animals, which have been popular prognostics of the weather from time immemorial,-not from the face-washing of the cat, or the late roosting of the rook, which have been signs infallible time out of mind? No, not a jot from the conduct of the animals themselves, unless we admit that cats and crows have got the keeping and command of the weather. These actions of theirs, and very many (perhaps all) phenomena of plants and animals are produced by certain existing states of the weather; and it is for man to apply his observation and find out by what other states these are followed. The cat does not wash her face because it is to rain to-morrow; that, in the first place, would be throwing philosophy to the cats;' and in the next place, it would be doing so to marvellously little purpose, inasmuch as, if puss were thus informed of the future, she would only have to wait a day in order to get a complete washing without any labor or trouble. When the cat performs the operation alluded to, it is a proof that the present state of the atmosphere affects her skin in a way that is disagreeable, and the washing is her mode of relief; and, in as far as the cat is concerned, that is an end of the matter. Man, however, may take it up, and if he finds that in all cases, or in a great majority of

cases, this happens only before rain, he is warranted in concluding that the state of the atmosphere which impresses this action upon the cat, is also the state which precedes rain; and that in the cases where the rain does not follow, there has been a subsequent atmospheric change which is also worthy of his study. What it is in this case, and whether connected with the little action

in the fur of the animal by which electricity can be excited, we shall not inquire; but in the late roosting of the crows the cause is apparent : they feed upon larvæ and earthworms; these, especially the latter, come most abroad in the evenings before rain; and as most animals gorge themselves, where food is easily found, there is no reason why rooks should not follow this law.

; so

that we anticipated a very gay and jovial season. Our expectations were not disappointed. What with shooting, fishing, and riding, abroad -billiards, songs, and high feeding, at home, our days and nights glided as merrily away as fun and frolic would make them. One of the many schemes of amusement devised by our party, was giving a sort of military subscription-ball at the small town of —, from which we were distant not more than four or five miles. All my Lord

-'s

party, of course, were to be there, as well as several others of his friends, scattered at a little distance from him in the country. On the appointed day all went off admirably. The little town of- absolutely reeled beneath the unusual excitement of music, dancing, and universal fêting. It was, in short, a sort of miniature carnival, which the inhabitants, for several reasons, but more especially the melancholy one I am going to mention, have not yet forgotten. It is not very wonderful, that all the rustic beauty of the place was there. Many a village belle was there, in truth,

panting and fluttering with delighted agitation at the unusual attentions of their handsome and agreeable partners; for there was not a young military member of our party but merited the epithets. As for myself, being cursed-as I once before hinted-with a very insignificant person, and not the most attractive or communicative manners

being utterly incapable of pouring that soft delicious nonsensethat fascinating, searching smalltalk, which has stolen so often through a lady's ear, into the very centre of her heart-being no hand, I say, at this, I contented myself with dancing a set or two with a young woman, whom nobody else seemed inclined to lead out; and continued, for the rest of the evening, more a spectator than a partaker of the gaieties of the scene. There was one girl there-the daughter of a reputable retired tradesman-of singular beauty, and known in the neighborhood by the name of "The Blue Bell of- -" Of course, she was the object of universal admiration, and literally besieged the whole evening with applications for the "honor of her hand." I do not exaggerate, when I say, that, in my opinion, this young woman was perfectly beautiful. Her complexion was of dazzling purity and transparenceher symmetrical features of a placid bust-like character, which, however, would perhaps have been considered insipid, had it not been for a bril

which it was almost madness to look upon. And then her light auburn hair, which hung in loose and easy curls, and settled on each cheek like a soft golden cloud flitting past the moon! Her figure was in keeping with her countenance slender, graceful and delicate-with a most exquisitely turned foot and ankle. I have spent so many words about her description, because I have never since seen any woman that I thought equaled her; and because her beauty was the cause of what I am about to relate. She riveted the attention of all our party with the exception of my young host, Lord who adhered all the evening to a sweet creature he had selected on first entering the room. I observed, however, one of our party, a dashing young captain in the Guards, highly connected, and of handsome and prepossessing person and manners, and a gentleman, of nearly equal personal pretensions, who had been invited from Hall, his father's seat, to exceed every one present in their attentions to sweet Mary ; and as she occasionally smiled on one or the other of the rivals, I saw the countenance of either alternately clouded with displeasure. Captain was soliciting her hand for the last set —a count dance-when his rival, distinction's sake, I vor, though that, of v far from his real e,) stepping up to her, seized her hand, and said, in rather a sharp and quick tone, "Captain she has promised me the last set; I beg, therefore, you will resign her. -I am right, Miss ? "" he inquired of the girl, who blushingly replied, "I think I did promise Mr. Trevor-but I would dance with both, if I could. Captain, you are not angry with me are you?" she smiled, appealingly.

k

"Certainly not, madam," he replied, with a peculiar emphasis; and after directing an eye, which kindled like a star, to his more successful rival, retired haughtily a few paces, and soon afterwards left the room. A strong conviction seized me, that even this small and trifling incident would be attended with mischief between those two haughty and undisciplined spirits; for I occasionally saw Mr. Trevor turn a moment from his beautiful partner, and cast a stern inquiring glance round the room, as if in search of Captain I saw he had noticed the haughty frown with which the Captain had retired.

Most of the gentlemen who had' accompanied Lord to this ball were engaged to dine with him the next Sunday evening. Mr. Trevor and the Captain (who, I think, I mentioned, was staying a few days with his lordship) would meet at this party; and I determined to watch their demeanor. Captain was at the window, when Mr. Trevor, on horseback, attended by his groom, alighted at the door, and on seeing who it was, walked away to another. part of the room, with an air of assumed indifference; but I caught his quick and restless glance invariably directed at the door through which Mr. Trevor would enter. They saluted each other with civility-rather coldly, I thought-but there was nothing particularly marked in the manner of either. About twenty sat down to dinner. promised to go off well-for the cooking was admirable-the wines first-rate, and conversation brisk and various. The Captain and Mr. Trevor were seated at some distance from each other-the former was my next neighbor. The cloth was not removed till a few minutes after eight, when a dessert and a fresh and large supply of wine were introduced. The late ball, of course, was a prominent topic of conversation; and after a few of the usual bachelor toasts had been drunk with noisy enthusiasm, and we all

All