THIS mysterious subject has exercised the faculties of some of the world's most erudite scholars and profound thinkers. The learned German Blumenbergius, after maintaining that candles derive their name from Čandaules, King of Lydia, who first made use of them when he showed his wife unattired to his minister Gyges, for which he lost his crown and life, enters into a scholastic but somewhat far-fetched argument, to prove that, as that monarch was a great magician, and in habits of frequent intercourse with ghosts and spectres, he endued his candles with this inexplicable property, that he might learn the approach of his supernatural visitants. Suetonius, however, who took his name from the circumstance of his being a tallowchandler, on which trade he has left a learned treatise, altogether derides this solution as fantastical and vain, asking very pertinently why this ghost-indicating quality, even if originally imparted, should have descended to posterity; and proceeds to argue first-that the colour assumed is not blue but purple, such being the proper translation of the ancient word purpureus; and secondly, that this being the colour sacred to kings and bishops, the number of those personages in the lower regions may have so saturated the air with purple, that all revisitors of our purer atmosphere give it out, like a halo, and impart its hue more particularly to the lights that surround them. This seems to me a fond

Shakspeare.

conceit, and moreover savouring of the same illiberality that made Barry so prodigal of stars, garters, and mitres, when painting his scene of Judgment for the Arts and Sciences in the Adelphi.

Certain mysterious ignes fatui always assume spontaneously a bluish tint. In the Pyritegium, or Curfew Act, passed by the Conqueror, is the following exceptive clause:-" Học nonobstante liceat ut Gulielmus de Wispo, alias Johannes de Lanternâ, det lucem cæruleam quocunque quotiesque vellet."+- "Be it enacted nevertheless, that Will-o'-the-Wisp, alias Jack-o'-Lanthorn, have permis sion to show his blue light wheresoever and whensoever he will."Whence we learn, that so early as the Conquest this was the prevalent colour of all supernatural flames, and that they were specially exempted from the jurisdiction of extinguisher or snuffers. Swift, in a note on his lines-

This squire he dropp'd his pen full soon, While as the lights burnt bluely,—— hazards a conjecture, that as none but the ghosts of the wicked reappear, and candles, if properly made, are themselves wick-ed, there may be some secret sympathy or affinity between them; in support of which hypothesis he affirms, that they give out generally a faint blue whenever there is a thief in them. He asserts also, plausibly enough, that there may be a visual deception produced by the prevalent expecta

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hurried about the room; the papers containing the minutes of their transactions were torn, and the ink-glass broken, the doors all the while remaining fast, and the keys in the custody of the commissioners. The night following, Sharp, the secretary, and two of the servants, being asleep in the same room, had their beds' feet lifted up so much higher than their heads that they ex

BLACK, Whitesmith,-SCARLET, bluemaker, &c.; while Nature herself has given us the cameleon as a puzzle; and has so confused one of our field-fruits in its progress to maturity, that we may say with strict regard to truth, "All blackberries are either white or red when they are green, (i.e. unripe.) * Men moreover," he acutely remarks, never see spectres except when they are in a fit of the blue-devils, which may impart their tone to surrounding objects; and that blue-devils are su perinduced by the parties getting into hot water, which circumstance alone may account for a change of hue as violent as it produces on lobsters and fleas, and occasion the patients to imagine every thing blue, as men in a calenture fancy the whole world to be green." These lucubrations appear to me profound and philosophical, but I doubt whether we may implicitly adopt them without further inquiry.

Dr. Plot, in his Natural History of Oxfordshire, informs us that

Soon after the murder of King Charles I. a commission was appointed to survey the King's house at Woodstock, with the manor, park, woods, and other demesnes, for which purpose, they met on the 13th of October, 1649, and took up their residence in the King's own rooms, sitting in the Presence Chamber for the dispatch of business. On the 16th of this month, in the midst of their debate, there entered a large black dog howling, who overturned three of their chairs, crept under a bed, and vanished, although all the doors had been kept carefully locked. The next day, sit ting in a lower room, they heard persons walking overhead, though the chamber was locked up; the wood of the King's oak was brought from the dining room, and thrown with great violence into the Presence Chamber; the chairs, stools, tables, and other furniture were forcibly

then were let fall again with a violence that shook the whole house. On the night of the 19th, all being abed in the same room for greater security, and lights burning by them, the candles in an instant burnt blue, and then went out with a sulphureous smell, and that moment the wooden trenchers whereon they had eaten the day before, and which had been locked up in the pantry, were hurled about the room with great violence. On several following nights the candles changed colour as before, strange noises were heard, their honours received sore bruises from logs of wood and other substances thrown upon them which kept rolling about the room all night, though next morning nothing could be seen. On the 29th, about midnight, the candles went out bluely as usual, something walked majestically through the room, and opened and shut the windows, and at about a quarter after one, a noise great stones flew about in all directions, was heard as of forty cannon discharged together, and again repeated at about eight minutes distance, which being heard through the country for sixteen miles round, brought all the neighbourhood into their honours' room, where they gathered up the great stones, fourscore in number, and laid them by in the corner of a field, where in Dr. Plot's time they were still to be seen. The commissioners during this visitation gave themselves up for lost, crying aloud for help, and Giles Sharp snatching up a sword had well nigh killed one of their honours, mistaking him for the spirit as he ran in his shirt from one room to the other. Still, however, they resolved on continuing their labours, when, on the 1st of November the most dreadful scene of all ensued: candles were lighted up in every part of the room, and a great fire made; at midnight, the candles all burning blue, a noise like the bursting of a cannon was heard, and the burning billets were tossed about even on their honours' beds, who called Giles and his companions to their relief, otherwise the house had been burnt to the ground; an hour after the candles went out as usual, horses' bones came pouring into the room with great force, the curtains and windows

were violently torn and shaken, and the whole neighbourhood alarmed with such tremendous noises, that even the rabbit stealers who were abroad that night in the warren were so terrified that they fled away, leaving their ferrets behind them. One of their honours this night spoke, and in the name of God asked the spirit what it was, and why it disturbed them so? to which, however, no answer was given.

One of the servants now lighted a large candle, and set it on the door-way between the two chambers; and as he watched it, he

plainly saw a hoof striking the candle and candlestick into the middle of the room, and afterwards making three scrapes over the snuff, scraped it out. Upon this he was so bold as to draw a sword, but had

scarce got it out when he felt another invisible hand pulling it from him, and at length prevailing, struck him so violently on the head with the pummel that he fell down for dead with the blow. At this instant was heard another explosion like the broadside of a ship of war, and at about a minute or two's distance each, no less than nineteen more such, shaking the house so violently that they expected every minute it would fall upon their heads. But what put an end to their proceedings happened the next day as they were all at dinner, when a paper in which they had signed a mutual agreement to share a part of the premises among themselves, (which paper they had hid for the present under the earth in a pot in one corner of the room, and in which an orange tree grew,) was consumed in a wonderful manner by the earth's taking fire and burning violently with a blue fume and an intolerable stench, so that they were all driven out of the house, to which they could never again be prevailed on to return."

Thus far Dr. Plot, whose narrative, occurring in a grave and authentic county history, affords abundant testimony to the fact which forms the subject of this Essay, while it supplies much matter for serious and deep reflection. Later writers offer concurrent evidence. Colman in his pathetic ballad, describing the appearance of the gardener's ghost, particularly notes that the candle turned blue-" Though a large Dip of four to the pound;" and Lewis, in his Lorenzo the Brave, fails not to

record, that at the appearance of the skeleton guest

All pleasure and laughter were hush'd at his sight,

The dogs as they eyed him drew back in affright,

And the lights in the chamber burnt blue:

but neither author attempts any solution of the phenomenon.

My own theory, which I submit with great deference, is entirely founded on the system of chromatics. Every ray of light, it is well known, consists of seven primary colours, and that the colours of bodies proceed from their disposition to reflect one sort of rays and absorb the other; such substances as reflect two or more sorts of rays appearing of various colours; the whiteness of bodies arising from their reflecting all the rays of light promiscuously, and their blackness from their inability to reflect any. Now, if a candlebut I forgot to mention in the con clusion of Dr. Plot's marvellous narrative, that the whole contrivance was subsequently discovered to be the invention of the memorable Joseph Collins, of Oxford, otherwise called Funny Joe, who, having hired himself as secretary to the Commissioners under the name of Giles Sharp, by knowing the private traps belonging to the house, and the help of pulvis fulminans, and other chemical preparations, and letting his fellow servants into the scheme, carried on the deceit without discovery to the very last. Combining this circumstance with the great doubts as to the existence of ghosts themselves, I conceive it less necessary to pro◄ ceed with the exposition of my theory, because, if there be no spectres, there can be no change of colour in the candles; and if there be, the change is perfectly natural, for I should like to know which of us, standing in such a presence, would not look blue.

H.

CAN you spare a little room, Mr. Editor, for a humble subject, being little more than the adventures of an evening? If so, I shall find myself a contributor of the LONDON MAGAZINE, and put on high-heeled shoes accordingly.

The late warm weather that kept us all, as Falstaff has it, in a continual "dissolution and thaw," wafted with it a languor nearly tropical. On the evening of each burning day, the good citizen, puffing, with his hat in his hand, wandered along the City Road, towards Islington, in search of fresh air, while his spouse moved heavily at his side, exactly as Hogarth has delineated them. Others a little wealthier went off to the coast, or, to avoid the closeness of Cheapside, drove early into the country, where they reposed in a cooler atmosphere, and arose "powerfully refreshed," as a drunkard once said of himself, when in a state of ebriety. At the west end of London, the down beds of the flaccid votaries of fashion became unbearable, and they were compelled to "turn out" of them at noon; with irritable feelings, annoyed at straws and feathers, they trailed themselves across the pavement to their carriages, and drove through clouds of dust to Grange's, or some favoured limonadier's to kill time and heat with ices and lemonade. Lady C. a withering spinster of my acquaintance, whose aridity of fibre rendered her long insensible to "skiey influences," mollified under the discipline of the caloric, and her countenance, which was commonly of an ash colour, became flushed for the first time these twenty years. Tom R- -, an exquisite, so Like a "waiting gentlewoman" that the breath of a zephyr discomposes nim, seated himself in muslin trowsers,

Ten thousand mighty nothings in his face, at his dressing room window in St. James's-street, sprinkling himself occasionally with lavender water, and eau de Cologne; Faublas in one hand,

and a cambric handkerchief in the other. Evening, however, revived the enervated beau monde. Like the bird of night, it hailed the darkness with rapture; routs and quadrille parties were assembled in an atmosphere almost suffocating, which was endured until sinking nature reminded them, as Philip's valet did his master, that they were mortal.

Such being the general character of this visitation, it may easily be conjectured, that I also, a mere bookworm, and caput mortuum in creation, vegetating for the most part in the solitude of my study, suffered inconvenience from the heat even there. I lost the power of fixing my attention on any thing; I could neither read nor compose, and therefore emerging from my "nook obscure," I rambled out into the fields. It was after seven o'clock when I cleared the smoke and dust,

-The eclipse That metropolitan volcanoes make, Where Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long,

in spite of Mr. Angelo Taylor's attempts to put an extinguisher upon liament. At length I found myself them by means of an Act of Paron the top of Primrose Hill. Startle not, ye who lampoon every thing in and around London with the title of "cockney," because ye cannot taste what is only to be enjoyed by less vulgar perceptions than yours. Take to yourselves the rebuke of Churchill to some foreigners who were abusing "Gentlemen, Kensington gardens. when the Samoied ambassadors were

in England, they could relish nothing but train oil." If by confessing

an unaffected admiration of the view from Primrose Hill, I should subject myself to the epithet in question, I am ready to bear the appellation. It is enough for me that the beauty of the view must be notorious to all who have a relish for a noble landscape, particularly under the warm sun that glowed around me at the time. But few great cities in the