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example of the former.
[3] Dr. Johnson, it is well known, was a firm believer in ghosts, as the
following extract will show:--"That the dead are seen no more," said
Imlac, "I will undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and
unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. * * * This opinion
which, perhaps, prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could
become universal only by its truth(!): those that never heard of one
another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience
could make credible."--_Rasselas_, chap. xxx.
[4] When the grammarians could not interpret some word in a sentence,
which they could make without it, they used to attribute the unfortunate

word to a natural redundancy in the language, and in the same manner
all ghost stories could be solved by referring it to "an exuberance," &c.
&c.
During the celebrated Peninsular campaign, as a lady, whose son, a
French officer in Spain, was seated in her room, she was astonished to
perceive the folding doors at the bottom of the apartment slowly open,
and disclose to her eyes, her son. He begged her not to be alarmed, and
informed her that he had been just killed by a grape-shot, and even
showed her the wound in his side; the doors closed again and she saw
no more. In a few days she received a letter, which informed her that
her son had fallen, after distinguishing himself in a most gallant manner,
and mentioning the time of his death, which happened at precisely the
same moment the apparition was seen by her! And when I add that the
lady was not _at all addicted to superstition_, the strangeness of the
occurrence is considerably increased. What inference is to be drawn
from this extraordinary tale? I confess I cannot, and do not, believe that
apparitions revisit the earth even at the "glimpses o' the moon," nor
does this story at all change my opinion, and for one grand reason,
which is this--That it is highly improbable that the course of nature
would be interrupted for the production of so insignificant an effect, for
it appears an unnecessary exertion of divine power, when the good
attained would be little or none.
Let us, therefore, attribute it to a powerful imagination acting on a mind
already affected with anxiety, and I believe we shall have no occasion
for yielding to the idea of an apparition to explain the circumstance. I
am acquainted with another tale of the same kind, but I am debarred
from relating it, from my not being authorized to do so by the person, a
gentleman of large property in Scotland, to whom it occurred. Lord
Byron was much addicted to that species of superstition of which I am
treating: the gloomy idea of spirits revisiting the earth to gaze on those
who they loved, was congenial to his mind, and an overheated fancy
indulged beyond its due limits, converted the morbid visionary into the
superstitious ascetic.
There is an account of a ghost related in the Notes to Moore's Life of
the Noble Poet (vol. i.) I have mentioned, which I shall detail here, as it
may have escaped the memory of some of your readers. A captain of a
merchant vessel was on a voyage to some port; having retired to rest,

he was disturbed in the night by a horrid dream, that his brother, an
officer in the navy was drowned. He awoke and perceived something
dark lying at the foot of the hammock, and on putting out his hand
discovered it was a naval uniform, wet. Some days after this his dream
was confirmed by a letter informing him of his brother's death by
drowning.
At Oakhampton, in Devonshire, there are the remains of a beautiful
castle dismantled by Henry VIII. on the attainder of Henry Courtenay,
which is situated in a park, concerning which many traditions exist, one
of which I will give here as it was told by a native. A great many years
ago, there lived a lady at Oakhampton Castle, who was famous for her
love of cruelty and for unbounded ostentation. This lady was killed,
and her ghost haunted some house in Oakhampton much to the
discomfiture of all the inhabitants thereof. A conclave of "most grave
and reverend signiors" was convoked, who ordained that the disturbed
spirit should every night pluck a blade of grass till all should be
gathered. And now, every night at the chilly hour of midnight, the lady
in a splendid coach with four skeleton horses, a skeleton coachman, and
skeleton footmen, is to be seen in the park obeying the dictum of the
Oakhampton worthies. This legend will be found, I am told, in "Fitz, of
Fitzford," by Mrs. Bray.