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 our idea of glimpses of the future world than
those in which the vision is continued or repeated for hours, days, and
months, affording opportunities of discovering, from other
circumstances, that the symptom originates in deranged health.

Before concluding these observations upon the deceptions of the senses,
we must remark that the eye is the organ most essential to the purpose
of realizing to our mind the appearance of external objects, and that
when the visual organ becomes depraved for a greater or less time, and