lic, and is insisted on by Dr. Ferriar, Dr.
Hibbert, and others who have assumed Demonology as a subject. Nicolai
traces his illness remotely to a series of disagreeable incidents which
had happened to him in the beginning of the year 1791. The depression of
spirits which was occasioned by these unpleasant occurrences, was aided
by the consequences of neglecting a course of periodical bleeding which
he had been accustomed to observe. This state of health brought on the
disposition to see _phantasmata_, who visited, or it may be more
properly said frequented, the apartments of the learned bookseller,
presenting crowds of persons who moved and acted before him, nay, even
spoke to and addressed him. These phantoms afforded nothing unpleasant
to the imagination of the visionary either in sight or expression, and
the patient was possessed of too much firmness to be otherwise affected
by their presence than with a species of curiosity, as he remained
convinced from the beginning to the end of the disorder, that these
singular effects were merely symptoms of the state of his health, and
did not in any other respect regard them as a subject of apprehension.
After a certain time, and some use of medicine, the phantoms became less
distinct in their outline, less vivid in their colouring, faded, as it
were, on the eye of the patient, and at length totally disappeared.

The case of Nicolai has unquestionably been that of many whose love of
science has not been able to overcome their natural reluctance to
communicate to the public the particulars attending the visitation of a
disease so peculiar. That such illnesses have been experienced, and have
ended fatally, there can be no doubt; though it is by no means to be
inferred, that the symptom of importance to our present discussion has,
on all occasions, been produced from the same identical cause.

Dr. Hibbert, who has most ingeniously, as well as philosophically,
handled this subject, has treated it also in a medical point of view,
with science to which we make no pretence, and a precision of detail to
which our superficial investigation affords us no room for extending
ourselves.

The visitation of spectral phenomena is described by this learned
gentleman as incidental to sundry complaints; and he mentions, in
particular, that the symptom occurs not only in plethora, as in the case
of the learned Prussian we have just mentioned, but is a frequent hectic
symptom--often an associa