NIGHT VIII.

OF APPARITIONS AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH.

SOPHRON. We said, some nights ago, that the wellauthenticated instances of the apparition of spirits, at the moment of their departure from the body, were far more numerous than those of any other kind. There is so much sameness in these relations, that we shall probably not be desirous of hearing very many: five or six examples, on incontrovertible authority, will prove as much as fifty.

SCEPT. I enter a protest against all cases in which the visitation of these apparitions has not been mentioned till after the death of the person was known. One can never tell how far the sheer desire of having a wonderful occurrence to relate, will lead a man.

SOPHRON. You will not generally find that people have kept such kind of visitations secret ; therefore, that argument will be cut away from under you. These visitations are generally

useless, using the word as we have all along used it; though there may be an instance or two to the contrary.

PISTUS. One such I will tell you. The father of a dignitary of our Church, very well known in London, was a colonel on service in Canada. His regiment was quartered in some place in that country, and two of his officers were stationed in an outpost at some distance from head-quarters. They slept in the same room, and on the following morning, one said to the other-"Pray, did you see any thing remarkable last night?" "Yes," said the other, "I did; did you?" "Assuredly," was the reply, "I saw the apparition of Colonel B." "Did he say anything to you?" "Yes." "So he did to me we will not tell each other what it was; but we will make a deposition of it, and see if our two accounts agree." They accordingly did so; the two depositions agreed exactly, and to the following effect:-That Colonel B. had appeared to each of them; that he had requested them, when they returned to England, to take care of his son, then a young child, thither; on reaching London, to go to such a room, in such a house, in such a street, naming each; and when there, to look in such a drawer of such an escritoire, which he described exactly; that in that drawer they would find a paper, which he also particularized; that they should present this paper, together with his son, to Queen Charlotte; that if they did this, it would be the making of the boy's fortune, and

that they themselves would be gainers. On finding that their two stories so completely tallied, they rode together to head-quarters, and there learnt that Colonel B. was dead. Shortly afterwards, the regiment was ordered to England; they took charge of young B., went to the house described on arriving in London, and found the paper without any trouble. They presented it and the child, as directed, to the queen; the boy was thenceforth taken under royal patronage, and obtained as many pieces of preferment as he could hold; and the officers themselves were shortly afterwards promoted. This story comes from the relation of the party principally concerned, namely, Colonel B.'s son himself.

SCEPT. Not, then, from that of the officers.

PISTUS. NO.

SCEPT. Then you have no witness at all to the fact of the apparition; merely to events which took place in consequence of that event, real or supposed.

PISTUS. Why, you would hardly accuse two officers of the grossest deceit, practised, too, for no imaginable end. If they were not informed of the paper and the escritoire supernaturally, they must have heard the story from Colonel B. in his lifetime; and why be at the trouble of denying this fact, and getting up another, which, till the event proved it true, must have exposed them to great ridicule ?

SCEPT. But why should not Colonel B. have told

them the secret in his lifetime, as well as after his death?

PISTUS. Oh, you may imagine many reasons for that. He might naturally have been unwilling, when in health, to trust it to any one; when he lay on his death-bed, as I said, his two friends were absent, and he might have been unable to write. But, after all, there is a simpler and easier solution, which is by no means improbable, namely, that Colonel B. might not have become acquainted with the importance that that paper would exercise on his son's fortunes, till he entered the invisible world.

SOPHRON. Very true. I think, Scepticus, we may turn Dr. Johnson's dictum against you: "He who relates nothing beyond the limits of probability, has a right to demand that they shall believe him, who cannot contradict him."

SCEPT. So you call such an appearance as this, "nothing beyond the limits of probability."

SOPHRON. In itself, certainly not: you say there is an antecedent improbability, which we do not

see.

PISTUS. I need not remind you, also, that the thing was sworn to, and could therefore, I presume, be legally verified in Canada.

SOPHRON. I will now give you an instance which occurred in Malta. Major Gainfoot-I use a name φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν—was at the mess-table with his brother officers, when his servant stepped in, and announced his brother, Colonel Gainfoot, as

just arrived from England. "Bring him in, bring him in, Gainfoot," cried several of the officers, by whom he was well known. The major stepped out with that design, and presently returned by himself. "He seemed in rather a singular state," said he; "he pleaded business, and said that he was obliged to decline your invitation." "But how is he?" said some one. "Why, truly, he said very little about himself or any thing else; but I suppose I shall see him by and by." However, that day and the next passed, and no Colonel Gainfoot appeared; and by the next mail from England, came news of his death at the precise moment that his arrival was announced to the officers.

SCEPT. I can hardly imagine one brother conversing with another, and not finding out that he was talking to an apparition, if the case really were so. How many questions of "When, and how, and why did you come?" and such like, must naturally be asked, which would not be answered!

SOPHRON. One should expect so; and so, indeed, it actually might have been in this case. Any how, Major Gainfoot thought that his brother's behaviour was strange and unaccountable. But I will read you, from Lord Byron's Life, a more remarkable instance of the same thing. "Lord Byron," says Moore, "used sometimes to mention a strange story, which the commander of the packet, Captain Kidd, related to them on the