stories are invented to drive persons from frequenting certain neighbourhoods, so that cunning fellows may carry on some unlawful business there smugglers have profited in this way, and been left to their traffic in the silence and darkness of the night. Then a story originates in some gloomy and perverted notions of religion, as in the narrative of Mrs. Veal, prefixed to Drelincourt's work on Death; which was printed with the book to make it sell. Again, it is possible to talk of objects until they are seen in what is called "the mind's eye.” It has been shown that spectral illusions are nothing more than ideas, or the recollected images of the mind, which, during illness, have been rendered stronger; and, it has been proved, that the mind's eye is also the body's eye.

Stories of apparitions have been much fostered by wise men, and good as well as wicked men. In the latter, they may be the qualms of conscience, as in the case of Lord Lyttleton, who dreamed of his own death not long before it happened. Again, infidels are in some cases the most credulous men. Lord Herbert, who advocated deism, believed he had a vision ordering him to write against revelation; and Hobbes, who denied, or affected to deny, the Divine existence, was childishly afraid of spectres, and would not remain in a house alone. He was a clever man, but could never bear to hear of death; and his last expression was, 66 I shall be glad to find a hole to creep out of the world.at."

How truly Hobbes realized Lord Bacon's saying, that " men fear death as children fear to go in the dark." Yet good men have also believed in apparitions; and without going far beyond our own age, we may mention an instance in Dr. Johnson, whose writings have done so much in aid of virtue and morality; and Mr. Southey, in every respect worthy of being named with Johnson, believes in apparitions, and has recorded his belief. To his pen are we indebted for the touching ballad of " Mary the Maid of the Inn," the whole interest of which turns upon belief in ghost stories. But Swift, who spared none of the follies of mankind, although he himself had many weaknesses, has attempted to demolish all belief in apparitions, by observing that "one argument to prove that the common relations of ghosts and spectres are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held, that spirits are never seen by more than one person at a time; that is to say, it seldom happens to above one person in a company to be possessed with any high degree of spleen or melancholy."

Omens and charms were so numerous as to exercise the memories of those who believed in them yet, the common use of many articles for very different purposes to those for which they were originally employed, proves the decline of these absurdities. The coral and bells suspended round the necks of infants, to aid the cutting of teeth, will furnish an example: since coral was formerly used as a charm for witchcraft, and bells were employed to drive away evil spirits. Amulets

were also worn as charms against witchcraft; though it may astonish many a fond mother to hear that the wearing of coral and amulets is but a relic of olden credulity.

The silly superstition of the child's caul is hardly worn out. The caul is a kind of skin which is attached to some children when they are born. This is thought a good omen to the child itself, and the vulgar opinion is, that whoever obtains it by purchase will be fortunate, and escape dangers. Hence, cauls are sometimes advertised in newspapers* for sale, especially to persons going to sea, to save them from drowning; and the price of one varies from ten to twenty guineas. It was once customary to say God bless you" when a person sneezed: this is as old as ancient Greece; for sneezing was considered as a crisis of the plague at Athens, and the hope that, when it was attained, the patient had a chance of recovery. Salt falling is of equal antiquity, and is said to proceed from the opinion that salt was incorruptible, wherefore it was made the symbol of friendship; and if it fell, usually, the persons between whom it happened, thought their friendship would not be of long duration: but there are other explanations of this superstition. To break a lookingglass has been accounted unlucky, from the looking-glass having been formerly used in divinations by magicians. A blazing fire is a casket of omens; as purses, coffins, swords, guns, bags

* A child's caul for sale. Address, post paid, to A. B. Post Office, Colchester, Essex.-Times, Sept. 9, 1834.

of money, &c., the believers in such matters forgetting that coal which cakes considerably will make all kinds of forms in abundance.

ridicules these omens :-

Alas! you know the cause too well!
The salt is spilt, to me it fell;
Then to contribute to my loss,
My knife and fork were laid across;
On Friday, too, the day I dread!
Would I were safe at home in bed!
Last night (I vow to Heaven 'tis true,)
Bounce from the fire a coffin flew.

Next post some fatal news shall tell!
God send my Cornish friends be well!

Gay

Certain omens or warnings of death were peculiar to particular families. Thus, a white-breasted bird was believed an omen of death to a family in Devonshire, from such a bird fluttering about the death-beds of five or six members of the family. A strange superstition is related of the Lambtons of Durham, not one of whom is said to have died in his bed; the mystery of which is traced to the legend of a prophecy against one of the heirs for killing a worm or eft, (which grew to be the terror of the whole country,) and then disobeying a witch who had given him the power to slay the monster.

The idea of charming away warts is, we know, ridiculed by many persons, who are ignorant of the cause. Dr. Burrows considers this charming to be the result of the action of the mind upon the body; and he attributes to the same cause the rapid change of the hair to white: for the

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very temperature of the body is changed-as desire heats, fear and aversion cool.

Prognostications of the weather have been incidentally noticed. They are very numerous; for all men are not content with the shepherd's philosophy," that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn: that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun*." It appears, however, that the lower animals are as versed in signs of the weather as man himself; for every naturalist, sportsman, or admirer of nature has allowed that all animals, from the insect to the most powerful quadruped, has a presentiment of the changes of the weather, before any barometer, thermometer, or other meteorological instrument has indicated the least variation in the atmosphere. We have not space to enumerate these indications, and they can only be certified by very nice observers of the weather. Still there is one example fami

* The shepherd's old proverb is often correct:
A rainbow in the morning

Is the shepherd's warning:
A rainbow at night

Is the shepherd's delight:

and the explanation is as follows: a rainbow can only occur when the clouds containing the rain are opposite to the sun; now, in the evening the rainbow is in the east, and in the morning in the west; and, as our heavy rains in this climate are usually brought by the westerly wind, a rainbow in the west indicates that the bad weather is on the road, by the wind, to us; whereas, the rainbow in the east proves that the rain in those clouds is passing from us.