of Gresset; the
_Belphegor_[14] of Machiavelli; the _Heaven and Hell_[15] of
Swedenborg; the _Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm_[16] by
Holberg; the _Chiromancy_[17] of Robert Flud, of Jean D'lndagine, and
of De la Chambre[18]; the _Journey into the Blue Distance_ of
Tieck[19]; and the _City of the Sun_[20] of Campanella. One favorite
volume was a small octavo edition of the _Directorium
Inquisitorium_[21] by the Dominican Eymeric de Cironne; and there were
passages in _Pomponius Mela_,[22] about the old African Satyrs and
Oegipans,[23] over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief
delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and
curious book in quarto Gothic--the manual of a forgotten church--the
_Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae_.[24]

I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its
probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having
informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his
intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight (previously to its
final interment) in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls
of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for this
singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to
dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution, so he told me, by
consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased,
of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical
men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial ground of
the family, I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister
countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of
my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as
at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural precaution.

At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements
for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two
alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which
had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its
oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation)
was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light;
lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the
building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used,
apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a
donjon-keep, and i