[13] Euripides.

[14] "_Spectre of the Brocken_."--This very striking phenomenon has been
continually described by writers, both German and English, for the last
fifty years. Many readers, however, will not have met with these
descriptions; and on _their_ account I add a few words in explanation,
referring them for the best scientific comment on the case to Sir David
Brewster's "Natural Magic." The spectre takes the shape of a human
figure, or, if the visitors are more than one, then the spectres
multiply; they arrange themselves on the blue ground of the sky, or the
dark ground of any clouds that may be in the right quarter, or perhaps
they are strongly relieved against a curtain of rock, at a distance of
some miles, and always exhibiting gigantic proportions. At first, from
the distance and the colossal size, every spectator supposes the
appearances to be quite independent of himself. But very soon he is
surprised to observe his own motions and gestures mimicked, and wakens to
the conviction that the phantom is but a dilated reflection of himself.
This Titan amongst the apparitions of earth is exceedingly capricious,
vanishing abruptly for reasons best known to himself, and more coy in
coming forward than the Lady Echo of Ovid. One reason why he is seen so
seldom must be ascribed to the concurrence of conditions under which only
the phenomenon can be manifested; the sun must be near to the horizon,
(which, of itself, implies a time of day inconvenient to a person
starting from a station as distant as Elbingerode;) the spectator must
have his back to the sun; and the air must contain some vapor, but
_partially_ distributed. Coleridge ascended the Brocken on the Whitsunday
of 1799, with a party of English students from Goettingen, but failed to
see the phantom; afterwards in England (and under the three same
conditions) he saw a much rarer phenomenon, which he described in the