himself and other friends. A visitor was sitting in the
apartment, who was also engaged in reading. Their sitting-room opened
into an entrance-hall, rather fantastically fitted up with articles of
armour, skins of wild animals, and the like. It was when laying down his
book, and passing into this hall, through which the moon was beginning
to shine, that the individual of whom I speak saw, right before him, and
in a standing posture, the exact representation of his departed friend,
whose recollection had been so strongly brought to his imagination. He
stopped for a single moment, so as to notice the wonderful accuracy with
which fancy had impressed upon the bodily eye the peculiarities of dress
and posture of the illustrious poet. Sensible, however, of the delusion,
he felt no sentiment save that of wonder at the extraordinary accuracy
of the resemblance, and stepped onwards towards the figure, which
resolved itself, as he approached, into the various materials of which
it was composed. These were merely a screen, occupied by great-coats,
shawls, plaids, and such other articles as usually are found in a
country entrance-hall. The spectator returned to the spot from which he
had seen the illusion, and endeavoured, with all his power, to recall
the image which had been so singularly vivid. But this was beyond his
capacity; and the person who had witnessed the apparition, or, more
properly, whose excited state had been the means of raising it, had only
to return into the apartment, and tell his young friend under what a
striking hallucination he had for a moment laboured.

There is every reason to believe that instances of this kind are
frequent among persons of a certain temperament, and when such occur in
an early period of society, they are almost certain to be considered as
real supernatural appearances. They differ from those of Nicolai, and
others formerly noticed, as being of short duration, and constituting no
habitual or constitutional derangement of the system. The apparition of
Maupertuis to Monsieur Gleditsch, that of the Catholic clergyman to
Captain C----, that of a late poet to his friend, are of the latter
character. They bear to the former the analogy, as we may say, which a
sudden and temporary fever-fit has to a serious feverish illness. But,
even for this very reason, it is more difficult to bring such momentary
impressions back to their real sphere of optical illusions, since they
accord much better with