_The Infidel_, by JOHN NORRIS.

In the modern tragedy of _The Castle Spectre_ is this fine description
of the ghost of Evelina:--"Suddenly a female form glided along the
vault. I flew towards her. My arms were already _unclosed to clasp
her,--when suddenly her figure changed_! Her face grew pale--a stream of
blood gushed from her bosom. While speaking, her form withered away;
_the flesh fell from her bones_; a skeleton loathsome and meagre clasped
me in her _mouldering arms_. Her infected breath was mingled with mine;
her _rotting fingers_ pressed my hand; and my face was covered with her
kisses. Oh! then how I trembled with disgust!"

There is undoubtedly singular merit in this description. I shall
contrast it with one which the French Virgil has written, in an age
whose faith was stronger in ghosts than ours, yet which perhaps had less
skill in describing them. There are some circumstances which seem to
indicate that the author of the _Castle Spectre_ lighted his torch at
the altar of the French muse. Athalia thus narrates her dream, in which
the spectre of Jezabel, her mother, appears:

C'etoit pendant l'horreur d'une profonde nuit,
Ma mere Jezabel devant moi s'est montree,
Comme au jour de sa mort, pompeusement paree.--
---- En achevant ces mots epouvantables,
Son ombre vers mon lit a paru se baisser,
Et moi, je lui tendois les mains pour l'embrasser,
Mais _je n'ai plus trouve qu'un horrible melange
D'os et de chair meurtris_, et trainee dans la fange,
_Des lambeaux pleins de sang et des membres affreux_.
RACINE'S _Athalie_, Acte ii. s. 5.

Goldsmith, when, in his pedestrian tour, he sat amid the Alps, as he
paints himself in his "Traveller," and felt himself the solitary
neglected genius he was, desolate amidst the surrounding scenery,
probably at that moment applied to himself the following beautiful
imagery of Thomson:

As in the hollow breast of Apennine
Beneath the centre of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eyes,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild.
_Autumn_, v. 202.

Goldsmith very pathetically applies a similar image:

E'en now where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend,
Like yon _neglected shrub_ at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.
_