to them to follow me, assuring them that I was determined to see what it was. They then fell one behind another, and advanced in single files. As I proceeded I too was seized with a timid apprehension, but durst not own it; still keeping on before, although I perceived my hair heave my hat from my head, and my teeth to chatter in my mouth. In fact, I was greatly agitated at what I saw; the object much resembled the human figure as to shape, but the size was prodigious. However, I had promised to see what it was, and for that purpose I obstinately ventured on about thirty yards from the place where I first had sight of it. I then perceived that it was only a very short tree, whose limbs had been newly cut off, the doing of which had made it much resemble a giant. I then called to the company, and informed them, with a hearty laugh, that they had been frightened at the stump of a tree.

This story caused excellent diversion for a long time afterwards in Wellington, and I was mentioned as a hero.

The pleasure and satisfaction I received from the discovery, and the honour I acquired for the courage I possessed in making it, has, I believe, had much influence on me ever since; as I cannot recollect that in any one instance I have ever observed the least fear of apparitions, spirits, &c. since.

"What education did at first receive,
Our ripen'd age confirms us to believe."

POMFRET.

Not that I have always steadily disbelieved what has been related of such appearances, a few accounts of which seem so well authenticated, as at least to make me doubt whether there might not exist in the scale of beings some of a more aerial substance than mankind, who may possess both the inclination and the power of assuming our shape, and may perhaps take as much delight in teazing the human species, as too

many of our species do in teazing and even torment!ng those of the brute creation.

"Some astral forms I must invoke by pray'r;
Fram'd all of purest atoms of the air:
In airy chariots they together ride,

And sip the dew, as thro' the clouds they glide;
Vain spirits, you, that shunning heav'n's high noon,
Swarm here beneath the concave of the moon,
Hence to the task assign'd you here below!
Upon the ocean make loud tempests blow :
Into the wombs of hollow clouds repair,
And crash out thunder from the bladder'd air;
From pointed sun-beams take the mist they drew;
And scatter them again in pearly dew;

And of the bigger drops they drain below,
Some mould in hail, and others sift in snow.'

DRYDEN.

While I am on this subject, I cannot resist the temptation of relating a truly ridiculous affair that happened about this time at Taunton.

In the workhouse belonging to the parish of St James, there lived a young woman who was an idiot. This poor creature had a great aversion to sleeping in a bed, and at bed-time would often run away to a field in the neighbourhood called the Priory, where she slept in the cow sheds.

In order to break her of this bad custom, two men agreed to try if they could not frighten her out of it. And one night, when they knew that she was there, they took a white sheet with them, and coming to the place, one of the men concealed himself to see the event, while the other wrapped himself up in the sheet, and walked backwards and forwards close before the cow-shed in which she was laid. It was sometime before Molly paid any attention to the ap parition; but at last up she got. "Aha! (said she) a white devil!" and by her manner of expressing herself she thought it was very strange to see a white devil. And soon after she exclaimed, "A black

devil too! a black devil too!" With that the man who had the sheet on, looked over his shoulder, and saw (or imagined he saw) a person all over black behind him; the sight of which made him take to his heels. Molly then clapped her hands as fast as she could, crying out at the same time, "Run, black devil, and catch white devil! Run, black devil, and catch white devil!" and was highly diverted. But this proved a serious adventure to the white devil, as he expired within a few minutes after he had reached his own house; and from that time poor Molly was left alone to sleep in peace.

About ten years after the above affair, at Wivelscombe, nine miles from Taunton, a gentleman farmer's house was alarmed every night between twelve and one o'clock. The chamber doors were thrown open, the bed-clothes pulled off the beds, and the kitchen furniture thrown with violence about the kitchen, to the great terror of the family, insomuch that the servants gave their master and mistress warning to leave their places, and some of them actually quitted their service. This dreadful affair had lasted about six weeks, when a young gentleman who was there on a visit, being in bed one night, at the usual hour he heard his chamber door thrown open, and a very odd noise about his room. He was at first frightened, but the noise continuing a long time, he became calm, and lay still, revolving in his mind what he had best do. When on a sudden he heard the spirit creep under his bed, which was immediately lifted up, &c. This convinced him that there was some substance in the spirit; on which he leaped out of bed, secured the door, and with his oaken staff belaboured the ghost under the bed as hard as he could, until he heard a female voice imploring mercy. On that he opened his chamber door, and called aloud for a light. The family all got up as fast as possible, and came to his room. He then informed them that he had got the spirit under the

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bed; on hearing which most of them were terribly frightened, and would have run off faster than they came, but he assured them they had nothing to fear then out he dragged the half-murdered spirit from its scene of action. But how great was their surprise and shame, when they discovered that this tormenting devil was no other than one of their servant girls, about sixteen years of age, who had been confined to her bed several months by illness.

This ghost was no sooner laid, than two others alarmed the neighbourhood, one of which for a long time shook a house every night and terribly distressed the family; at length they all resolved one night to go over the whole house in a body and see what it was that agitated the building. They examined every room but in vain, as no cause could be discovered, so they very seriously as well as unanimously concluded that it must be the devil.

But, about a fortnight after this, one of the family being out late in the garden saw a great boy get in at the window of an old house next door (part of which was in ruins,) and soon after the house began to shake as usual, on which the family went out of their own habitation and entered the old house where the boy was seen to get in; yet for a long time they could not discover any person, and were just turning to come out again, when one of the company observed the boy suspended over their heads striding over the end of a large beam that ran across both houses.

It was then apparent that the violent agitation of the adjoining house was occasioned by nothing more than his leaping up and down on the unsupported end of this beam.

Another apparition had for a long time stolen many geese, turkeys, &c. and although it had been seen by many, yet nobody would venture to go near it, until at length one person a little wiser than the rest of his neighbours, seeing the famous apparition all over white stealing his fowls, was determined to be fully

satisfied what kind of spirit it could be that had so great a predilection for poultry. He accordingly went round the yard, and as the apparition was coming over the wall he knocked it down. This terrible ghost then proved to be a neighbouring woman who had put on her shroud in order to deter any persons that should by chance see her, from coming near her. Thus, though she had for a long time successfully practised this ingenious way of procuring poultry, the old fox was caught at last.

This is so prolific a subject that I could fill many pages with relations of dreadful spectres, which for a while have reigned with tyrannic sway over weak minds, and at length, when calm reason was suffered to assume its power, have been discovered to be no more objects of terror than those I have here noticed. But doubtless many such instances must have occurred to you.

"Chief o'er the sex he rules with tyrant sway,
When vapours seize them, or vain fears betray;
With groans of distant friends affrights the ear,
Or sits a phantom in the vacant chair;
Fancy, like Macbeth, has murder'd sleep."

PRALL.

It has indeed often astonished me that, in this enlightened age, there should yet remain numbers, not in the country only, but even in the metropolis, who suffer themselves to be made miserable by vain fears of preternatural occurrences, which generally owe their origin to the knavery of some ill-disposed person who has a sinister purpose to answer thereby, or to the foolish desire of alarming the minds of weak people; a practice sometimes (though intended as fun) productive of very serious consequences. Now and then indeed these terrors are owing to accidental and ridiculous causes. As an instance, I shall give you the account of a terrible alarm which some years since took place in a hospital of this city, as related