unrestrained freedom. In short, sir, on such occasions, I think I am
bewitched.

_Captain_. Nay, sir, if you plead sorcery, there is no more to be
said--he must needs go whom the devil drives. And this, I suppose,
sir, is the reason why you do not make the theatrical attempt to which
you have been so often urged?

_Author_. It may pass for one good reason for not writing a play, that
I cannot form a plot. But the truth is, that the idea adopted by too
favourable judges, of my having some aptitude for that department of
poetry, has been much founded on those scraps of old plays, which,
being taken from a source inaccessible to collectors, they have
hastily considered the offspring of my mother-wit. Now, the manner in
which I became possessed of these fragments is so extraordinary, that
I cannot help telling it to you.

You must know, that, some twenty years since, I went down to visit an
old friend in Worcestershire, who had served with me in the----
Dragoons.

_Captain._ Then you _have_ served, sir?

_Author._ I have--or I have not, which signifies the same thing--
Captain is a good travelling name.--I found my friend's house
unexpectedly crowded with guests, and, as usual, was condemned--the
mansion being an old one--to the _haunted apartment._ I have, as a
great modern said, seen too many ghosts to believe in them, so betook
myself seriously to my repose, lulled by the wind rustling among the
lime-trees, the branches of which chequered the moonlight which fell