ings of cheerfulness and contentment. It is only when the sweet of grief is mixed with the bitter, that the mind retains for a long period the recollections of misfortunes. But it is amongst the proudest prerogatives of Time, that he vanquishes grief itself. "Darkness and light divide the course of time; and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings. We slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction have but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremi ties, and sorrows destroy us, or themselves. To weep into stones are fables." Is not the masterly pen of Sir Thomas Browne visible in these words? I could never think on melancholy themes long together; sometimes, in depression or in ill-humour, I have doggedly set myself to chew the cud of bitter fancies; but even in spite of the most obstinate determination, my thoughts have run into pleasanter channels. It is curious, at such times, to observe, by what ingenious associations the mind cheats itself into better temper; and how it will snatch at any opportunity of getting rid of reflections, which are painful. I have more than once blamed myself for the facility, with which I have cast off grief.

But if, on the one hand, the mind abhors the continual contemplation of evil, yet there are some feelings, which will cross it, even in its most cheerful moods, blasting, with the recollection or anticipation of evil, every sentiment of present happiness.

"There are thoughts thou canst not banish,

There are shades that will not vanish,"

which haunt us like the spectre in Macbeth, when we are at the feast, invisible to every eye but our own--

"Some fatal remembrance, some vision that throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes ;"

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and which comes uncalled and unlooked-for, and over which we have no more controul, than the maniac over his disjointed phantasies. This sentiment is well described by the author of Kenilworth. You have lived in the world twice as long as I have," says Tressilian to mine host of the black bear; " and you must know there are thoughts, which will haunt us in spite of ourselves; and to which it is in vain to say, begone, and let me be merry."

There are few people whose fears, or whose crimes, have not occasionally raised these ghosts of the soul. In some instances, perhaps, such sensations are the effects of constitutional infirmity, of weak and tremulous nerves. In Johnson, there was a feeling of this kind, which embittered his whole existence; and death was a blessing to him, because it relieved him from the dread of dying. The very mention of it shook his nerves" from

their propriety," and his terror made him ferocious with those who spoke of it in his presence. It is easy to despise this pusillanimity; but there are, perhaps, very few persons, who have not felt a chill round the heart, when, in the breathless stillness of night, the strong conviction and feeling of mortality have flashed across their minds. I have felt the sensation powerfully, and it requires a determined resolution to shake off the feeling. It is only in moments like these, that we can judge of the extent of Johnson's sufferings.

As to the periods and times when the mind employs itself most actively in thinking, perhaps, much is not to be said. People have but seldom occasion for thought, and they never perplex themselves with it, but when it is absolutely necessary. There are few quibus vivere est cogitare. Aristotle says, thinking is the business of the gods; from which, both their happiness and ours proceed. I know very few people, however, who enjoy this beatitude, or who would wish to do so. A tithe of men think for the rest, who indulge in a sort of vegetable existence, without adding a single new idea to the stores, which have been heir-looms in the human mind for ages. A man generally goes through life, as a horse does along a road, which he is accustomed to travel; he knows round which corners to turn, and arrives in safety at his journey's end. Perhaps an equal degree of thought is called into action in both cases; and what need is there of it to

one

"Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind,

Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread?"

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Some situations are naturally favourable to thought. Montaigne could not think unless he was in motion. My thoughts sleep if I sit still; my fancy does not go by itself as when my legs move it." But I question whether this is a general feeling; for my own part, I can think the best while I lie awake in bed, and if a good thought ever strikes me, it is sure to be on a sleepless night. In darkness and silence, I can handle my thoughts, sift and examine them to the bottom; and many a fallacy, which had escaped me in open day-light, has been detected and foresworn in the night. One does not, however, get to sleep very easily after these cogitations. The pleasantest thing in the world. to me is, to find my thoughts wandering, after I have lain in bed an hour or two, and just to be able to perceive the incongruity of my ideas, for then I know sleep is not far distant. It is a grievous thing for a man to lie awake all night, when

"I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno," and to think of every subject, which used to give him pleasure, while his mind turns with an equal loathing from all. Like the body, the mind, at times, becomes perfectly sick. I have some

times imagined there was not a pleasant thought left in the universe; and I have conjured up, in vain, every image, which used formerly to give me delight. There are times, too, when one has, in good truth, no thoughts at all.

"Laugh, ye who boast your more mercurial powers,
That never felt a stupor, know no pause,
Nor need one; I am conscious, and confess,
Fearless, a soul that does not always think.

*

'Tis thus the understanding takes repose
In indolent vacuity of thought,

And sleeps, and is refresh'd. Meanwhile, the face
Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask

Of deep deliberation, as the man

Were task'd to his full strength, absorb'd and lost." This is a fine morsel of truth of Cowper's, and explains many of the grave and judicious physiognomies we often see. I have been sometimes puzzled to reconcile the wisdom of a man's face with the folly of his actions; but the fact, I have no doubt, is, that the more deliberative and solemn he looks, the fewer thoughts are passing through his head. I have been asked by people, what I was thinking of, as I looked so grave, when my thoughts have been more worthless than a summer weed; but by avoiding a direct answer in these cases, one may gain the reputation of a deep-thinker at a small expense; and as people cannot read your thoughts, if you have only the discretion to hold your tongue, neither yourself, nor any one else, will be the

wiser.

What is obscure is generally considered sublime; and what is hid from view is always, very unaccountably, thought worth seeing. If we do not know what is passing in the minds of others, especially if they be high in station, we give them credit for deep and profound meditation. We tremble on the threshold of a monarch's confidence:

"The thoughts of kings are like religious groves,

The walks of muffled Gods; sacred retreats,

Where none, but whom they please t' admit, approach."

This is, to be sure, very prudent and proper: it is a rash deed to tear away the veil from a religious shrine. What a deadly disclosure it would be, should an emperor's thoughts be discovered to centre in the hinge of a snuff-box!

Aristotle says, that when a man is thinking of the past, he casts his eyes on the ground; and when he thinks of the future, he raises them to the heavens. To this it might be added, that when he thinks of nothing, he looks in the fire (provided there be one in the room). After I have finished all my labours at a night, it is to me a very high luxury to sit with my feet on the bars,

when every thing is silent, and to watch" the dying embers through the room" casting a dimmer and a dimmer light—

"Not undelightful is an hour to me,

Spent in such parlour twilight."

Little by little, one's thoughts gradually subside, till the mind becomes as calm, and still, and waveless, as the bosom of a lake on a sunny summer's evening; and till, at last, dull Judgment goes entirely to sleep, and Fancy only is left waking, to conjure up visions of things, which can never be our's, or to paint an old friend's face in the chiaro-scuro of the cinders. It is Cowper that has so beautifully described all these sensations, and all his visions of "houses, towers, trees, churches, and strange visages."

As for Aristotle's notion of gazing on the skies, I must confess, when I do so, they sometimes look loweringly upon me. I had rather, any day, think of what has been, than what is to be. We cannot tell whether the future has any store of happiness; but we certainly know that the past has had its pleasures. Time and chance may cheat us of future enjoyments; but it is out of their power to destroy the memory of what we have possessed:

"The joys I have possess'd are ever mine,
Out of thy reach, behind eternity,

Hid in the sacred treasure of the past;

But blest remembrance brings them hourly back."

I remember a Cumberland ballad, which began, " Of all things that be, I think thought is most queer." I think so too; for I have thought till all my thoughts are fled. I may exclaim with Shakspeare, my "worser thoughts Heaven mend!"-for my better, as the reader sees, are nothing to boast of. Yet I have searched for them, as a diver does in the Indian seas, with much expense of labour and pain; and such as they are, I dismiss them without a l'Envoy.

PHANTASMATA; WITH A NEW THEORY OF APPARITIONS.

When I go musing all alone,

Thinking of divers things foreknown;

When I build castles in the air,

Void of sorrow and void of fear;

Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet,
Methinks the time runs very flect.

BURTON.

WE foresee, we shall occasionally be very serious in the course of our subject, though our object will, of course, be rather to amuse than to alarm our readers; unless, "like children of a smaller growth," we begin by endeavouring to entertain one an

other, and leave off with being frightened at the stories, which our own recollection or imaginations have conjured up.

As it would be useless and cruel to think of establishing our essay towards a theory of apparitions, on our own personal experience and that of our friends, we propose to have recourse to old Cardan, Burton, and Dr. Johnson, whenever we feel ourselves at a loss for individuals to fill our specimens of the various species and genera of ghosts. Indeed, we wonder that Darwin never undertook the task, as a supplement to his Zoonomia; it would have afforded a famous field for Ekouaxia, in the veteran gentlemen of the faculty, during the last century. Centauros, gorgonos, Harpyiasque-we should really have beheld a phantasmagorian controversy, in which Dr. Johnson would have shone, as to the nature and substances of spirits. The friends of the Doctor were almost tempted to believe he knew something more than he ought to do about such matters, as he affected considerable mystery, and observed, "that the belief in apparitions would become universal only by its truth, and that those, who deny it with their tongues, confess it with their fears." However far we may be obliged to look forward into futurity for the general acceptation of the Doctor's ghostly advice, or feel inclined to place it at the side of optimism or the millenium, we would not, on the other hand, be supposed to agree with those "wicked wits," who, presuming to laugh at every thing they do not readily understand, can make no allowances for difference of opinion, on a point, which cannot be decided by a Q. E. D.-who not only laugh to scorn the exploded doctrine of sliding-pannels, trap-doors, back-stairs, tapestry, and wax-work figures, with the other instruments of the ancient romance; but wilfully and maliciously refuse to give credit to, and be tender with the consciences of such as profess a belief in supernatural visitations, shewing little sympathy with those, who labour under nervous or spectral delusions, or, indeed, under any other species of delusions or sufferings whatsoever. We should despair of making these "giants of the earth, with hearts of iron, and with ribs of steel, who never felt variation in the weather," converts to our theory. It, perhaps, is not too much to say, that they would leave an hypochondriac, with the utmost carelessness and cold-bloodedness, under a burning sun in the open fields, without offering him an arm; or to sail on the water, in the glare of a patent-lamp; or leave him by himself in his library, in the

"Darkness of chaos and old night,"

towards evening, rightly prepared to see ghosts, while seated comfortably by his library-fire, as much as if he were amidst broken tombs, nodding ruins, and awe-inspiring ivy."

But it will be preferable to give our numerous readers a little advice out of poor Burton's " Anatomy of Melancholy," in order