learnt that Marsilius had died at Florence at

that very hour.

We will close this chapter with a narration of a somewhat similar occurrence, the authenticity of which we can vouch for, knowing all the parties intimately, and having the fullest knowledge of the particulars, though we pretend not to account for them.

A lady, who had gone to England from India for her health, was returning to the latter country by sea. Meanwhile, her husband, who had been removed from a Staff appointment at Trichinopoly, to a superior one at Jaulnah, was going up to take up the new appointment, when he was seized with cholera at Oosoor, and was carried into Bangalore, where he died, on the 24th December, 182-. The ship in which the lady was had passed the Cape, and arrangements were made, in which she largely participated, for dancing the old year out and the new year in. Towards the termination of

the year, however, she was overtaken with a fit of despondency; and, asserting that she had had a vivid dream of her husband's death, refused to participate in any festivities, and confined herself, for the rest of the voyage, to her cabin, where she remained inconsolable. The vessel reached Madras on the 9th February following, when her worst fears were realized.

But the most extraordinary part of the story relates to her mother, a widowed lady, residing in Brompton, with her daughters, the sons being in India, save one at College. She was a woman of extraordinary courage, and had, on two occasions of her house being broken into, proceeded to the place where the thieves were, with a brace of pistols, fired at them, and made them take to flight.

Before the close of the year in question, she had gone, with a light, into a room off the hall door, as was her wont before she retired to rest, to see that the external fastenings of the

windows were secure, as well as those of the rest of the lower part of the house. We should have said that she was expecting one of her sons, an officer of the army, home on sick certificate. On entering the room, she saw a tall man standing in the middle of it, wrapped up in a military cloak, so that his face and figure were concealed; conceiving that it was her son, who was thus taking her by surprise, she called out to her daughter to hurry thither, for that her brother had returned. The figure, advancing to her, threw open the cloak, and made a gesture as to embrace her. The features were strange to her, and she now concluded that it was a housebreaker, on which she gave the alarm of thieves. The embrace was now completed, and she felt no pressure: becoming now alarmed, the candle dropped from her hand, and her daughter, hurrying thither with another light, found her standing alone. Still under the impression that it was a thief, the two searched the house thoroughly; and it was not until no

traces could be found, that they came to the conclusion that it was the spirit of the sick son, who had died. An accurate description of the face and figure were transmitted to India, and they corresponded exactly with those of her deceased son-in-law, whom she had never seen. We have recorded this, because there was no previous bias of the imagination, the convictions all tending the other way; but we pretend not to explain it.

CHAPTER XXX.

"The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport,
Forsook his scene, and entered in a brake:
Where I did him at this advantage take,
An ass's nowl I fixed on his head."

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM,
Act iii., Scene 2.

A work upon Demonology would be very incomplete, were it to omit all mention of a