APS THE ONLY SUBJECT OF LEGAL ENQUIRY
WHICH HAS ESCAPED BEING INVESTIGATED BY HIS SKILL,
AND ILLUSTRATED BY HIS GENIUS,

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, AND MUCH
OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT,

WALTER SCOTT.

15TH FEB., 1831.

INTRODUCTION.

Although the giving information concerning the unfair manner in which
they were dismissed from life, is popularly alleged to have been a
frequent reason why departed spirits revisit the nether world, it is
yet only in a play of the witty comedian, Foote, that the reader will
find their appearance become the subject of formal and very ingenious
pleadings. In his farce called the Orators, the celebrated Cocklane
Ghost is indicted by the name of Fanny the Phantom, for that, contrary
to the King's peace, it did annoy, assault, and terrify divers persons
residing in Cocklane and elsewhere, in the county of Middlesex. The
senior counsel objects to his client pleading to the indictment, unless
she is tried by her equals in rank, and therefore he moves the
indictment be quashed, unless a jury of ghosts be first had and
obtained. To this it is replied, that although Fanny the Phantom had
originally a right to a jury of ghosts, yet in taking upon her to
knock, to flutter, and to scratch, she did, by condescending to
operations proper to humanity, wave her privileges as a ghost, and must
consent to be tried in the ordinary manner. It occurs to the Justice
who tries the case, that there will be difficulty in impanelling a jury
of ghosts, and he doubts how twelve spirits who have no body at all,
can be said to take a corporal oath, as required by law, unless,
indeed, as in the case of the Peerage, the prisoner may be tried upon
her honour. At length the counsel for the prosecution furnishes the
list of ghosts for the selection of the jury, being the most celebrated
apparitions of modern times, namely, Sir George Villiers, the evil
genius of Brutus, the Ghost of Banquo, and the phantom of Mrs Veal. The
counsel for the prosecution objects to a woman, and the court
dissolves, under the facetious order, that if the Phantom should plead
pregnancy, Mrs Veal will be admitted upon the jury of matrons.

This admirable foolery is carried by the English Aristophanes nearly as
far as it will go; yet it is very contrary to the belief of those, who
conceive that injured spirits are often the means of procuring redress
for wrongs committed upon their mortal frames, to find how