FOURTH, which terminates the
work, belongs to the "Mater Tenebrarum," and will be entitled _The
Kingdom of Darkness_. As to the SECOND, it is an interpolation requisite
to the effect of the others; and will be explained in its proper place.]

[Footnote 16: "_Spectre of the Brocken._"--This very striking phenomenon
has been continually described by writers, both German and English, for
the last fifty years. Many readers, however, will not have met with
these descriptions: and on _their_ account I add a few words in
explanation; referring them for the best scientific comment on the case
to Sir David Brewster's "Natural Magic." The spectre takes the shape of
a human figure, or, if the visitors are more than one, then the spectres
multiply; they arrange themselves on the blue ground of the sky, or the
dark ground of any clouds that may be in the right quarter, or perhaps
they are strongly relieved against a curtain of rock, at a distance of
some miles, and always exhibiting gigantic proportions. At first, from
the distance and the colossal size, every spectator supposes the
appearance to be quite independent of himself. But very soon he is
surprised to observe his own motions and gestures mimicked; and wakens
to the conviction that the phantom is but a dilated reflection of
himself. This Titan amongst the apparitions of earth is exceedingly
capricious, vanishing abruptly for reasons best known to himself, and
more coy in coming forward than the Lady Echo of Ovid. One reason why he
is seen so seldom must be ascribed to the concurrence of conditions
under which only the phenomenon can be manifested: the sun must be near
to the horizon, (which of itself implies a time of day inconvenient to a
person starting from a station as distant as Elbingerode;) the spectator
must have his back to the sun; and the air must contain some vapour--but
_partially_ distributed. Coleridge ascended the Brocken on the
Whitsunday of 1799, with a party of English students from Goettingen,
but failed to see the phantom; afterwards in England (and under the same
three conditions) he saw a much rarer phenomenon, which he described in
the following eight lines. I give them from a corrected copy: (the
apostrophe in the beginning must be understood as addressed to an ideal
conception):--

"And art thou nothing? Such thou art as when
The woodman winding westward up the glen
At wintry dawn, when o'er the sheep-track's maze
The viewless sno