l students of ghostology are aware, has frequently been the
case; and it was precisely the case with the ghost seen by the famous
Lord Brougham, the brilliant and versatile Scotchman, whose
astonishingly long and successful career in England as statesman, judge,
lawyer, man of science, philanthropist, orator, and author won him a
place among the immortals both of the Georgian and of the Victorian era.

At the time he saw the ghost he was still a young man, thinking far less
of what the future might hold than of the pleasures of the present. In
fact, it is difficult to imagine a more unlikely subject for a ghostly
experience. From his earliest youth, his father, a most matter of fact
person, sedulously endeavored to impress him with the belief that the
only spirits deserving of the name were those which came in oddly
labeled bottles; and in support of this view the elder Brougham
frequently related the adventures of sundry persons of his acquaintance
who had engaged in the mischievous pastime of ghost hunting. Added to
the natural effect of such tales as these was the inherent exuberance of
Brougham's disposition and the bent of his mind to mathematics and
kindred exact sciences.

It was at the Edinburgh high school that he first met his future ghost,
who at the time was a youngster like himself, and became and long
remained his most intimate friend. The two lads were graduated together
from the high school, and together matriculated into the university,
where, in the intervals Brougham could spare from his favorite studies
and recreations, and from the company of the daredevil students with
whom he soon began to associate, they continued their old time walks and
talks.

On one of these walks, the conversation happened to turn to the
perennial problem of life beyond the grave and the possibility of the
dead communicating with the living. Brougham, mindful of the views
maintained by his father, doubtless treated the subject lightly, if not
scoffingly; but one word led to another, until finally, in what he
afterward described as a moment of folly, he covenanted with his friend
that whichever of them should happen to pass from earth first would, if
it were at all possible, show himself in spirit to the other, and thus
prove beyond peradventure that the soul of man survived the death of the
body.

So far as Brougham was concerned, this undertaking was speedily
forgotten in the pressure of the many activities into which h