"WHAT I do not know is not knowledge," Sir Walter Scott might have said, with regard to bogles and bar-ghaists. His collection at Abbotsford of such works as the Ephesian converts burned is extensive and peculiar, while his memory was rich in tradition and legend. But, as his Major Bellenden sings —

"Was never wight so starkly made, But time and years will overthrow."

When Sir Walter, in 1831, wrote a brief essay on Ghosts before the Law, his memory was no longer the extraordinary engine, wax to receive and marble to retain, that it had been. It is an example of his dauntless energy that, even in 1831, he was not only toiling at novels, and histories, and reviews, to wipe out his debts, but that, as a pure labour of love, he edited for the Bannatyne Club "The Trial of Duncan Terig alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald, for the Murder of Arthur Davis, Sergeant in General Guise's Regiment of Foot, June 1754."

      The trial, as Sir Walter says in his dedication to the Bannatyne Club, "involves a curious point of evidence" a piece of "spectral evidence," as Cotton Mather calls it. In another dedication (for there are two) Scott addresses Sir Samuel Shepherd, remarking that the tract deals with "perhaps the only subject of legal inquiry which has escaped being investigated by his skill and illustrated by his genius." That point is, the amount of credit due to the evidence of a ghost. In his preface, Sir Walter cites the familiar objection of a learned judge that "the ghost must be sworn in usual form, but in case he does not come forward, he cannot be heard, as now proposed, through the medium" (medium indeed!) "of a third party." It seems to be a rule of evidence that what a dead man said may be received on the report of the person with whom he communicated. A ghost is a dead man, and yet he is deprived, according to the learned judge's ruling, of his privilege. Scott does not cite the similar legend in 'Hibernian Tales,' the chapbook quoted by Thackeray in his 'Irish Sketch Book.' In that affair, when the judge asked the ghost to give his own evidence, "instantly there came a dreadful rumbling noise into the court: 'Here am I, that was murdered by the prisoner at the bar.'" The 'Hibernian Tales' are of no legal authority, nor can we give chapter and verse for another well-known anecdote. A prisoner on a charge of murder was about to escape, when the court observed him looking suspiciously over his shoulder. "Is there no one present," the learned judge asked in general, "who can give better testimony?" "My lord," exclaimed the prisoner, "that wound he shows in his chest is twice as big as the one I gave him!" In this anecdote, however, the prisoner was clearly suffering from a hallucination, as the judge detected; and we do not propose to consider cases in which phantasms, bred of remorse, drove a guilty man to make confession.

      To return to Scott: he remarks that believers in ghosts must be surprised "to find how seldom in any country an allusion has been made to such evidence in a court of justice." Scott himself has only "detected one or two cases of such apparition-evidence," which he gives. Now it is certain, as we shall see, that he must have been acquainted with several other examples, which did not recur to his memory: the memory of 1831 was no longer that of better years. Again, there were instances of which he had probably never possessed any knowledge, while others have occurred since his death. We shall first consider the cases of spectral evidence (evidence, that is, of a dead man's ghost, not of a mere wraith) recorded by Sir Walter, and deal later with those beyond his memory or knowledge.¹

1 "Spectral evidence" was common in witch trials. Wierus (b. 1515) mentions a woman who confessed that she had been at a witch's corin, or meeting, when her body was in bed with her husband. If there was any confirmatory testimony, if any one chose to say that he saw her at the "sabbath," that was "spectral evidence." This kind of testimony made it vain for a witch to take Mr Weller's advice, and plead "a halibi"; but even Cotton Mather admits that "spectral evidence" is inconclusive.

      Sir Walter's first instance is from 'Causes Célèbres' (vol. xii. La Haye, 1749; Amsterdam, 1775. P. 247). Unluckily the narrator, in this collection, is an esprit fort, and is assiduous in attempts to display his wit. We have not a plain unvarnished tale, but something more like a facetious leading article based on a trial. Honoré Mirabel was a labouring lad, under age, near Marseilles. His story was that, in May (year not given), about eleven at night, he was lying under an almond-tree, near the farm of a lady named Gay. In the moonlight he saw a man at an upper window of a building distant five or six paces. The house belonged to a Madame Placasse. Mirabel asked the person "what he was doing there?" got no answer, entered, and could see nobody. Rather alarmed, he went to a well, drew some water, drank, and then heard a weak voice bidding him dig there for treasure, and asking that masses might be said for the soul of the informant. A stone then fell on a certain spot: stone-throwing is a favourite exercise with ghosts everywhere. With another labourer, one Bernard, Mirabel dug, found a packet of dirty linen, and, fearing that it might hold the infection of plague, dipped it in wine for lack of vinegar. The parcel contained more than a thousand Portuguese gold coins. Bernard and his mistress were present at the opening of the parcel, but Mirabel managed to conceal from them the place where he hid it, — not a very likely story. He was grateful enough to pay for the desired masses, and he had himself bled four times to relieve his agitation. Mirabel now consulted a merchant in Marseilles, one Auquier, who advised him to keep his old coins a mystery, as to put them into circulation would lead to inquiry and inconvenience. Meanwhile he lent Mirabel some ready money, and finally induced the lad to intrust the Portuguese hoard to his care. The money was in two bags, one fastened with gold-coloured ribbon, the other with linen thread. Auquier gave a receipt; and now we get a date, Marseilles, September 27, 1726. Later Auquier, it seems, tried to murder Mirabel, and refused to return the deposit. Mirabel went to law with him. Auquier admitted that Mirabel had spoken to him about having found a treasure which he would intrust to Auquier, but denied the rest. In his house was discovered a ribbon of a golden hue, such as Mirabel used to tie up his bag with, and a little basket which has no obvious connection with the matter. The case was allowed to come on: there were sixteen witnesses. A woman named Caillot swore to Mirabel's having told her about the ghost: she saw the treasure excavated, saw the bags, and recognised the ribbon. A man had seen Mirabel on his way to give Auquier his bags, and indeed saw him do so, and receive a piece of paper. He also found next day a gold coin on the scene of the interview. A third witness, a woman, was shown the treasure by Mirabel.

      The narrator here makes the important reflection that Providence would not allow a ghost to appear merely to enrich a foolish peasant. But, granting ghosts (as the narrator does), we can only say that, in ordinary life, Providence permits a number of undesirable events to occur. Why should the behaviour of ghosts be an exception? Other witnesses swore to corroborative circumstances. Auquier denied everything. Experts admitted that the receipt was like his writing, but declared it to be forged; the ribbon was explained as part of his little daughter's dress. The judge decided — no one will guess what — that Auquier should be put to the torture!

      Auquier appealed. His advocate urged the absurdity of a ghost-story on a priori grounds: if there was no ghost, then there was no treasure; if there was a treasure, would not the other digger have secured his share? That digger, Bernard, was not called. Then Auquier pled an alibi: he was eight leagues away when he was said to have received the treasure. Why he did not urge this earlier does not appear.

      Mirabel's advocate first defended, from the Bible and the Fathers, the existence of ghosts. The Faculty of Theology, in Paris, had vouched for them only two years before this case, in 1724. The Sorbonne had been as explicit in 1518: "The Parliament of Paris often permitted the tenant of a haunted house to break his contract."²

2 Papon, Arrêts, xx. 5, 9; Charondas, Liv. viii., Resp. 77; Covarruvius, iv. 6; Mornac, s. v. Habitations, 27; ff. Locat, and Conduct. Other doctors do not deny hauntings, but allege that a brave man should disregard them, and that they do not fulfil the legal condition, Metus cadens in constantem virum. These doctors may never have seen a ghost, or may have been unusually courageous. They held that a man might get accustomed to the annoyances of bogles, s'apprivoiser avec cette frayeur, like the Procter family at Willington.

      Ghost or no ghost, Mirabel's counsel said there was a treasure. In his receipt Auquier, to deceive a simple peasant, partially disguised his hand. Auquier's alibi is worthless; he might easily have been at Marseilles and at Pertuys on the same day: the distance is eight leagues. Bernard was now at last called in. He admitted that Mirabel told him of the ghost, and that they dug and found some linen, but that he never saw any gold. He had carried the money from Mirabel to pay for the masses due to the ghost. Mirabel had shown him a document, for which he said he had paid a crown, and Bernard (who probably could not read) believed it to be like Auquier's receipt. Bernard, of course, having been denied his share, was not a friendly witness. A legal document was now put in, showing that Madame Placasse (on whose land the treasure lay) summoned Mirabel to refund it to her. The document was a summons to him. But this document was forged, and Mirabel, according to a barrister whom he had consulted about it, said it was handed to him by a man unknown. Why the barrister should have betrayed his client is not clear. Mirabel and Marguerite Caillot, his first witness, who had deposed to his telling her about the ghost, and to seeing the excavation of the packet, were now arrested, while Auquier remained in prison. Marguerite now denied her original deposition; she had only spoken to oblige Mirabel. One Etienne Barthélemy was next arrested. He admitted that he had "financed" Mirabel during the trial, but denied that he had suborned any witnesses. Two experts differed, as usual, about Auquier's receipt; a third was called in, and then they unanimously decided that it was not in his hand. On February 18, 1729, Auquier was acquitted. Mirabel was condemned to the torture, and to the galleys for life. Marguerite Caillot was fined ten francs. Under torture, Mirabel accused Barthélemy of having made him bring his charge against Auquier, supplying him with the forged receipt, and with the sham document, the summons to restore the gold to Madame Placasse. Oddly enough, he still said that he had handed sacks of coin to Auquier, and that one of them was tied up with the gold-coloured ribbon. Two of his witnesses, under torture, stuck to their original statements. They were sentenced to be hung up by the arm-pits, and Barthélemy was condemned to the galleys for life.

      It is a singular tale, and shows strange ideas of justice. Once condemned to the galleys, Mirabel might as well have made a clean breast of it; but this he did not do — he stuck to his bags and gold-coloured ribbon.

      Manifestly Mirabel would have had a better chance of being believed in court if he had dropped the ghost altogether. It is notable that Sir Walter probably gave his version of this affair from memory. He says that Mirabel "was non-suited upon the ground that, if his own story was true, the treasure, by the ancient laws of France, belonged to the Crown."

      Scott's next case is very uninteresting, at least as far as it is given in 'State Trials, vol. xii. (1692) p. 875. A gentleman named Harrison had been accused of beguiling a Dr Clenche into a hackney coach on pretence of taking him to see a patient. There were two men in the coach besides the doctor. They sent the coachman on an errand, and when he came back he found the men fled and Clenche murdered. He had been strangled with a handkerchief. On evidence which was chiefly circumstantial Harrison was found guilty, and died protesting his innocence. Later, a Mrs Milward declared that her husband, before his death, confessed to her that he and a man named Cole were the murderers of Dr Clenche. The ghost of her husband persecuted her, she said, till Cole was arrested. Mr Justice Dolben asked her in court for the story, but feared that the jury would laugh at her. She asserted the truth of her narrative; but if she gave any details, they are not reported. Cole was acquitted, and the motives of Mrs Milward remain obscure.

      Coming to the tract which he reprints, Sir Walter says that his notice was first drawn to it in 1792 by Robert M'Intosh, Esq., one of the counsel in the case, which was heard in Edinburgh, June 10, 1754. Grant of Preston­grange, the Lord Advocate well known to readers of Mr Stevenson's 'Catriona,' prosecuted Duncan Terig or Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald, for the murder of Sergeant Arthur Davis, on September 28, 1749. They shot him on Christie Hill, at the head of Glenconie. There his body remained concealed for some time, and was later found with a hat marked with his initials, A. R. D. They are also charged with taking his watch, two gold rings, and a purse of gold, whereby Clerk, previously penniless, was enabled to take and stock two farms.

      Donald Farquharson, in Glendee, deposed that, in June 1750, Alexander Macpherson sent for him, and said that he was much troubled by the ghost of the sergeant, who insisted that he should bury his bones, and should consult Farquharson. Donald did not believe this quite, but trembling lest the ghost should vex him, he went with Macpherson, who showed the body in a peat-moss. The body was much decayed, the dress all in tatters. Donald asked Macpherson whether the apparition denounced the murderer. He replied that the ghost said it would have done so had Macpherson not put the question. They buried the body on the spot. Donald attested that he had seen the sergeant's rings on the hand of Clerk's wife. For three years the prisoners had been suspected by the country-side.

      Macpherson, for his part, declared that he had seen an apparition of a man in blue, who said, "I am Sergeant Davis"; that he at first took this man for a brother of Donald Farquharson's; that he followed the man, or phantasm, to the door, where the spectre repeated its assertion, and pointed out the spot where the bones lay. He found them, and then went, as already shown, to Donald Farquharson. Between the first vision and the burying, the ghost came to him naked, and this led him to inter the remains. On the second appearance, the ghost denounced the prisoners. Macpherson gave other evidence, not spectral, which implicated Clerk. But when asked what language the ghost spoke in, he answered, "As good Gaelic as he had ever heard in Lochaber." "Pretty well," said his counsel, Scott's informant M'Intosh, "for the ghost of an English sergeant." The repartee was probably conclusive with the jury, for they acquitted the prisoners, in the face of the other incriminating evidence. This was illogical. Modern students of ghosts, of course, would not have been staggered by the ghost's command of Gaelic; they would explain it as a convenient hallucinatory impression, made by the ghost on the mind of the "percipient." The old theologians would have declared that a good spirit took Davis's form, and talked in the tongue best known to Macpherson. Scott's remark is, that M'Intosh's was "no sound jest, for there was nothing more ridiculous in a ghost speaking a language which he did not understand when in life, than there was in his appearing at all." But jurymen are not logicians. Macpherson added that he told his tale to none of the people with him in the shieling, but that Isobel M'Hardie assured him she "saw such a vision." Isobel, in whose service Macpherson had been, deponed in court that, while she lay at one end of the shieling, and Macpherson at the other, "she saw something naked come in at the door, which frighted her so much that she drew the clothes over her head." Next day she asked Macpherson what it was, and he replied "she might be easy, for that it would not trouble them any more."

      The rest of the evidence went very strongly against the accused, but the jury unanimously found them not guilty. Scott conjectures that Macpherson knew of the murder (as, indeed, he had good reason, if his non-spectral evidence is true), but that he invented the ghost, whose commands must be obeyed, so that he might escape the prejudice entertained by the Celtic race against citizens who do their duty. Davis, poor fellow, was a civil, good-humoured man, and dealt leniently (as evidence showed) with Highlanders who wore the tartan. Their national costume was abolished, as we all know, by English law, after the plaid had liberally displayed itself on the London road six miles south of Derby, in 1745.

      So far, it is plain that "what the ghost said is not evidence," and may even ruin a very fair case, for there can be little doubt as to who killed Sergeant Davis. But examples which Scott forgot — for of course he knew them — prove that in earlier times a ghost's testimony was not contemned by English law. Cases are given, with extracts from documents, in a book so familiar to Sir Walter as Aubrey's 'Miscellanies.'

      Aubrey (b. 1626, d. 1697) was a F.R.S., and, like several other contemporary Fellows of the Royal Society, was a keen ghost-hunter. He publishes³ "A full and true Relation of the Examination and Confession of William Barwick and Edward Mangnall, of two horrid murders."

3 Miscellanies, p. 94. London: reprint of 1857.

      Barwick, who killed his wife, then about to bear a child, near Cawood in Yorkshire, on April 14, 1690, had intrigued with the woman before marriage, and perhaps was "passing weary of her love." On April 14, Palm Monday, he went to his brother-in-law, Thomas Lofthouse, near York, who had married Mrs Barwick's sister. He informed Lofthouse that he had taken Mrs Barwick, for her confinement, to the house of his uncle Harrison, in Selby. On September 17, at York Assizes, Lofthouse swore that on Easter Tuesday (eight days after Palm Monday — namely, April 22) he was watering a quickset hedge at mid-day, when he saw "the apparition in the shape of a woman walking before him." She sat down opposite the pool whence he drew water; he passed her as he went, and, returning with his pail filled, saw her again: she was dandling on her lap some white object which he had not observed before. He emptied his pail, and, "standing in his yard," looked for her again. She was no longer present. She wore a brown dress and a white hood, "such as his wife's sister usually wore, and her face looked extreme pale, her teeth in sight, no gums appearing, her visage being like his wife's sister." It certainly seems as if this resemblance was an afterthought of Lofthouse's, for he dismissed the matter from his mind, till prayers, when it "discomposed his devotions." He then mentioned the affair to his wife, who inferred that her sister had met with foul play. On April 23 — that is, the day after the vision — he went to Selby, where Harrison denied all knowledge of Mrs Barwick. On April 24, Lofthouse made a deposition to this effect before the Mayor of York; but in his published statement of that date, he only avers that, "hearing nothing of the said Barwick's wife, he imagined Barwick had done her some mischief." There is not a word here of the phantasm sworn to by Lofthouse at the Assizes on September 17. Nevertheless, on April 24, Barwick confessed to the Mayor of York that "on Monday was seventh night" (there seems to be an error here) he "found the conveniency of a pond" (as Aubrey puts it) "adjoining to a quickwood hedge," and there drowned the woman and buried her hard by. At the Assize, Barwick withdrew his confession and pleaded "Not guilty." Lofthouse, his wife, and a third person swore, however, that the dead woman was found buried in her clothes by the pond-side; and on the prisoner's confession being read, he was found guilty, and hanged in chains. Probably he was guilty; but Aubrey's dates are confused, and we are not even sure whether there were two ponds and two quickset hedges, or only one of each. Lofthouse may have seen a stranger, dressed like his sister-in-law; this may have made him reflect on Barwick's tale about taking her to Selby: he visited that town, detected Barwick's falsehood, and the terror of that discovery made Barwick confess.

      Henry More published another tale which Scott's memory did not retain. In 1680 a girl named Anne Walker was about to have a child by a kinsman, also a Walker, for whom she kept house. Walker took her to Dame Care, in Chester le Street, whence he and Mark Sharp removed her one evening late in November. Fourteen days afterwards, late at night, Græme, a fuller, who lived six miles from Walker's village, Lumley, saw a woman dishevelled, blood-stained, and with five wounds in her head, standing in a room in his mill. She said she was Anne Walker; that Mark Sharp had slain her with a collier's pick, and thrown her body into a coal-pit, hiding the pick under the bank. After several such visitations, Græme went with his legend to a magistrate; the body and pickaxe were discovered; Walker and Sharp were arrested, and tried at Durham in August 1681. Sharp's boots, all bloody, were found where the ghost said he had concealed them "in a stream": how they remained bloody if in water it is hard to explain. Against Walker there was no direct evidence. The prisoners, the judge summing up against them, were found guilty and hanged, protesting their innocence.

      It is suggested that Græme himself was the murderer, else how did he know so much about it? But Walker and Sharp were seen last with the woman, and the respectable Walker was not without a motive, while, at this distance, we can conjecture no motive in the case of Græme. (Hibbert, 'Philosophy of Apparitions,' second edition, p. 224. Hibbert finds Græme guilty, but only because he knew where the body lay.)

      The usual authority for a very odd trial in the Court of King's Bench (1687-88) is General Cockburn's 'Voyage up the Mediterranean,' ii. 335 (London, 1815). The logs of three ships, under Captains Barnaby, Bristow, and Brown, were put in to prove that, on Friday, May 15, 1687, these men, with many others, were shooting rabbits on Stromboli; that when beaters and all were collected, about a quarter to four, they all saw a man in grey and a man in black run towards them, the one in grey leading; that Barnaby exclaimed, "The foremost is old Booty, my next-door neighbour;" that the figures vanished into the flames of the volcano. This occurrence, by Barnaby's desire, they noted in their journals. They were all making merry on October 6, 1687, at Gravesend, when Mrs Barnaby remarked to her husband, "My dear, old Booty is dead!" The captain replied, "We all saw him run into hell." Mrs Booty, hearing of this remark, sued Barnaby for libel, putting her damages at pound;1000. The case came on: the clothes of feu Booty were shown in court; the date and hour of his death were stated, and corresponded within two minutes to the moment when the mariners beheld the apparition in Stromboli. "So the widow lost her cause."

      A medieval legend has been revived in this example.

      All these curious legal cases were no doubt familiar to, though forgotten by, Sir Walter Scott. He probably had no access to an American instance which was reprinted four years after his death by a member of the club which he founded — the Bannatyne Club — in 1836.⁴

4 Notices Relative to the Bannatyne Club, 1836, p. 191. Remarkable Trial in Maryland.

      The evidence of the ghost seer was republished by Mrs Crowe in her 'Night Side of Nature.' But Mrs Crowe neither gives the facts of the trial correctly nor indicates the source of the narrative. The source was a periodical — the 'Opera-Glass,' February 3, 1827, thirty years after the date of the trial. The document, however, had existed "for many years" in the possession of the anonymous contributor to the 'Opera-Glass.' He received it from one of the counsel in the case, Mr Nicholson, afterwards a judge in Maryland, who compiled it from attested notes made by himself in court.

      The suit was that of James, Fanny, Robert, and Thomas Harris, devisees of Thomas Harris, v. Mary Harris, relict and administratrix of James Harris, brother of Thomas aforesaid (1798-99). Thomas Harris had four illegitimate children. He held, as he supposed, a piece of land in fee; but, in fact, he was only seized in tail. Thus he could not sell or devise it, and his brother James was heir-in-tail, the children being bastards. As these legal facts were unknown both to James and Thomas, Thomas made a will leaving James his executor, and directing that the land should be sold and the money divided among his own children. James, when Thomas died, sold the land, and in drawing the conveyance it was discovered that he had no right to do so, as it was held by Thomas "in tail." James then conveyed his right to the purchaser, and kept the money as legal heir. Why James could sell if Thomas could not, the present writer is unable to explain. In two years James died intestate, and the children of Thomas brought a suit against James's widow. But before James's death the ghost of Thomas had appeared frequently to one Briggs, an old soldier in the Colonial Revolt, bidding James "return the proceeds of the sale to the orphans' court"; and when James heard of this from Briggs, "he did go to the orphans' court, and returned himself to the estate of his brother to the amount of the purchase-money of the land."

      Now before the jury were sworn, the counsel, Wright and Nicholson for the plaintiffs, Scott and Earle for the defendant, privately agreed that the money could not be recovered, for excellent legal reasons. But they kept this to themselves, and let the suit go on, merely for the pleasure of hearing Briggs, "a man of character, of firm undaunted spirit," swear to his tale of a ghost in a court of law. He had been intimate with Thomas Harris from boyhood. It may be said by sceptics that he invented the ghost, in the interest of his friend's children. He certainly mentioned it, however, some time before he had any conversation with it, or knew what it wanted with him.

      Briggs's evidence may be condensed very much, as the learned Mrs Crowe quotes it correctly in her 'Night Side of Nature.' In March 1791, about 9 A.M., Briggs was riding a horse that had belonged to Harris. In a lane adjoining the field where Harris was buried the horse shied, looked into the field where the tomb was, and "neighed very loud."

      Briggs now saw Harris coming through the field, in his usual dress, a blue coat. He believes that the horse recognised his old master. Harris vanished, and the horse went on. As Briggs was ploughing in June, Harris walked by him for two hundred yards. A lad named Bailey, who came up, made no remark, nor did Harris tell him about the hallucination. In August, after dark, Harris came and laid his arm on Briggs's shoulder. Briggs had already spoken to James Harris, "brither to the corp," about these and other related phenomena, such as a groan, a smack on the nose from a viewless hand, and so forth. In October Briggs saw Harris about twilight in the morning. Later, at eight o'clock in the morning, he was busy in the field with Bailey aforesaid, when Harris passed and vanished: Bailey saw nothing. At half-past nine the spectre returned and leaned on a railing: Briggs vainly tried to make Bailey see him. Briggs now crossed the fence, and walked some hundreds of yards with Harris, telling him that his will was disputed. Harris bade Briggs go to his aforesaid brother James, and remind him of a conversation they had held, "on the east side of the wheat-stacks," on the day when Harris's fatal illness began. James remembered the conversation, and said he would fulfil his brother's desire, which he actually did. There was a later interview between Briggs and Harris: the matter of the last Briggs declined to impart to the court, and the court overruled the question. "He had never related to any person the last conversation, and never would."

      Bailey was sworn, and deposed that Briggs had called his attention to Harris, whom he could not see, had climbed the fence, and walked for some distance, "apparently in deep conversation with some person, Witness saw no one."

      It is plain that the ghost never really understood the legal question at issue. The dates are difficult to reconcile. Thomas Harris died in 1790. His ghost appeared in 1791. Why was there no trial of the case till "about 1798 or 1799"? Perhaps research in the Maryland records would elucidate these and other questions; we do but give the tale with such authority as it possesses. Possibly it is an elaborate hoax, played off by Nicholson, the plaintiff's counsel, on the correspondent of the 'Opera-Glass,' or by him on the editor of that periodical. The hallucinations of Briggs, which were fortunate enough, it is said, to get into a court of justice, singularly resemble those of M. Bezuel in July and August 1697, though these were not matter of a sworn deposition. The evidence is in 'Histoire d'une Apparition arrivée à Valogne.' — (Paris, 1708. Reprinted by Lenglet Dufresnoy in his 'Dissertations sur les Apparitions': Avignon, 1751: vol. iii. p. 38.) The narrator of 1708, having heard much talk of the affair, was invited to meet Bezuel, a priest, at dinner, January 7, 1708. He told his one story "with much simplicity."

      In 1695, when about fifteen, Bezuel was a friend of a younger boy, one of two brothers named Desfontaines. In 1696, when Desfontaines minor was going to study at Caen, he worried Bezuel into signing, in his blood, a covenant that the first who died should appear to the survivor. The lads corresponded frequently, every six weeks. On July 31, 1697, at half-past two, Bezuel, who was hay-making, had a fainting-fit. On August 1, at the same hour, he felt faint on the road, and rested under a shady tree. On August 2, at half-past two, he fainted in a hay-loft, and vaguely remembered seeing a half-naked body. He came down the ladder, and seated himself on a block in the Square des Capucins. Here he lost sight of his companions, but did see Desfontaines, who came up, took his left arm, and led him into an alley. One servant followed, and told Bezuel's tutor that he was talking to himself. The tutor went to him, and heard him asking and answering questions. Bezuel for three-quarters of an hour conversed, as he believed, with Desfontaines, who said that he had been drowned while bathing at Caen, about half-past two on July 31. The appearance was naked to the waist, "his head bare, with his beautiful yellow locks flowing." He asked Bezuel to learn a school task that had been set him as a penalty, the seven penitential psalms; he described a tree at Caen where he had cut some words — two years later Bezuel visited it and found them; he gave other pieces of information, which were verified, but not a word would he say of heaven, hell, or purgatory; "he seemed not to hear my questions." There were two or three later interviews, till Bezuel carried out the wishes of the phantasm.

      When Desfontaines went away on the first occasion, Bezuel told another boy that Desfontaines was drowned. The lad ran to the parents of Desfontaines, who had just received a letter to that effect. By some error, the boy thought that the elder Desfontaines had perished, and said so to Bezuel, who denied it; and, on a second inquiry, Bezuel was found to be right.

      The explanation that Bezuel was ill (as he certainly was), that he had heard of the death of his friend just before his hallucination, and had forgotten an impressive piece of news, which, however, caused the apparition, is given by the narrator of 1708. The kind of illusion in which a man is seen and heard to converse with empty air, is common to the cases of Bezuel and of Briggs, and the writer is acquainted, at first hand, with a third modern example. Here the percipient, of course, did not believe in a ghost, like the unsophisticated Bezuel and Briggs.

      In this case a gentleman had for some time been busy in arranging the affairs of an intimate friend, recently dead. As he sat in his study, which faced the street, he heard a cab stop at his door, and then the familiar footstep of his friend on the stairs. The steps passed through an adjoining room, in which some people were sitting, and the dead friend entered, took a seat, and discussed the settlement of his own affairs! When he vanished, the percipient, rushing into the outer room, asked, "Has Mr X. been here?" "Why, he is dead!" "Did you not hear us speaking?" "We heard you speaking to yourself."

      Mrs Crowe cites, on the authority of the late Mr Maurice Lothian, solicitor for the plaintiff, a suit which arose out of "hauntings," and was heard in the Sheriff Court at Edinburgh in 1835-37. But we are unable to discover the official records, or extracts of evidence from them. This is to be regretted; but, by way of consolation, we have the pleadings on both sides in an ancient French case of a haunted house. These are preserved in his 'Discours des Spectres,' by Pierre Le Loyer, Conseiller du Roy au Siège Presidial d'Angers.⁵ Le Loyer observes that ghosts seldom come into court in civil cases, except when indicted as nuisances — namely, when they make a hired house uninhabitable by their follies. Then the tenant often wants to quit the house, and to have his contract annulled. The landlord resists, an action is brought, and is generally settled in accordance with the suggestion of Alphenus in his 'Digests,' book ii. Alphenus says, in brief, that the fear must be a genuine fear, and that reason for no ordinary dread must be proved. Hence Arnault Ferton, in his 'Customal of Burgundy,' advises that "legitimate dread of phantasms, which trouble men's rest and make night hideous," is reason good for leaving a house, and declining to pay rent after the day of departure. Covarruvius, a Spanish legist already quoted, agrees with Arnault Ferton. The Parliament of Grenada, in one or two cases, decided in favour of the tenant and against the landlord of houses where spectres racketed.

5 Second edition, Buon, Paris, 1608; first edition, Angers, 1586. A closely printed quarto of nearly 1000 pages. Le Loyer says, "De gayété de cœur semble m'estre voulu engager au combat contre ceux qui impugnent les spectres!"

      Le Loyer now reports the pleadings in a famous case, of which he does not give the date. Incidentally we learn that it can hardly have been earlier than 1550. The cause was heard, on appeal, before the Parlement de Paris. Pierre Piquet, guardian of Nicolas Macquereau (a minor), let to Giles Bolacre a house in the suburbs of Tours. Poor Bolacre was promptly disturbed by a noise and routing of invisible spirits, which suffered neither himself nor his family to sleep o' nights. He then cited Piquet, also Daniel Macquereau, who was concerned in the letting of the house, before the local seat of Themis. The case was heard, and the judge at Tours broke the lease, the hauntings being insupportable nuisances. But this he did without letters royal. The lessors then appealed, and the case came before the Cour de Parlement in Paris. Maître Chopin was for the lessors, Nau appeared for the tenant. Chopin first took the formal point, — the Tours judge was formally wrong in breaking a covenant without letters royal, a thing particularly unjust in the case of a minor, Nicolas Macquereau.

      So much for the point of form; as to the matter, Maître Chopin laughed at the bare idea of noisy sprites. This is notable, because it shows that, in an age when witches were frequently burned, the idea of a haunted house could be treated by the learned counsel as a mere waggery. In the same way the old people, when Joan of Arc was a child, believed in fairies which appeared under the oak-tree of Domremy (1420). But Joan and the other children of her age did not believe in them, as she states in her trial (Quicherat, i. 66). Yet the belief in haunted houses has survived in modern society the legal prosecution of witches. "The judge in Tours has merely and mischievously encouraged superstition." All ghosts, brownies, lutins, are bugbears of children: here Maître Chopin quotes Plato and Philo Judæus in the original, also Empedocles, Marcus Aurelius, Tertullian, Quintilian, Dioscorides. Perhaps Bolacre and his family suffer from nightmare. If so, a physician, not a solicitor, is their man. Or again, granting that their house is haunted, they should appeal to the clergy, not to the law.

      Manifestly this is a point to be argued. Do the expenses of exorcism fall on landlord or tenant? This, we think, can hardly be decided by a quotation from Epictetus. Alexius Comnenus bids us seek a bishop in the case of psychical phenomena. — (τὰ ψυχικά ἅπαντα.) So Maître Chopin argues; but he evades the point. Is it not the business of the owner of the house to "whustle on his ain parten," to have his own bogie exorcised? Of course Piquet and Macquereau may argue that the bogie is Bolacre's bogie, that it flitted to the house with Bolacre; but that is a question of fact and evidence.

      Chopin concludes that a lease is only voidable in case of material defect or nuisance, as of pestilential air, not in a case which, after all, is a mere vice d'esprit.

      Here Maître Chopin sits down, with a wink at the court, and Nau pleads for the tenant. First, why abuse the judge at Tours? The lessors argued the case before him, and cannot blame him for credulity. The Romans, far from rejecting such ideas (as Chopin had maintained), used a ritual service for ejecting spooks, — so Ovid testifies. Greek and Roman hauntings are cited from Pliny, Plutarch, Suetonius; in the last case (ghost of Caligula) the house had to be destroyed, like the house at Wolfelee, where the ghost, resenting Presbyterian exorcism, killed the Rev. Mr Thomson of Southdean, father of the author of 'The Castle of Indolence.' "As to Plato, cited by my learned brother, Plato believed in hauntings, as we read in the 'Phædo.'" Nau has him here. In brief, "the defendants have let a house as habitable, well and truly knowing the same to be uninhabitable, and infested by spirits." The Fathers are then cited as witnesses for ghosts. The learned counsel's argument about a vice d'esprit is dismissed as a pitiable pun.

      The decision of the court, unluckily, is not preserved by Le Loyer. The counsel for Bolacre told Le Loyer that the case was adjourned on the formal point, but that having obtained letters royal for his client, he succeeded in getting the remainder of the lease declared void. Comparing, however, Bouchel, s. v. Louage, in his 'Bibliothèque du Droit françois,' one finds that the higher court reversed the decision of the judge at Tours. In the Edinburgh case (1835), the tenant, Captain Molesworth, did not try to have his lease quashed, but he did tear up floors, pull down wainscots, and bore a hole into the next house, that of his landlord, Mr Webster, in search of the cause of the noises. Mr Webster, therefore, brought an action to restrain him from these experiments.

      Le Loyer gives two cases of ghosts appearing to denounce murderers in criminal cases. He possessed the speech of the President Brisson (at that time an advocate), in which he cited the testimony of the spectre of Madame de Colommiers, mysteriously murdered in full day, with her children and their nurse. Her ghost appeared to her husband when he was wide awake, and denounced her own cousins. As there was no other evidence beyond the existence of motive, the accused were discharged. In another well-known case before the Parlement de Bretagne, the ghost of a man who had mysteriously vanished guided his brother to the spot where his wife and her paramour had buried him after murdering him. Le Loyer does not give the date of this trial. The wife was strangled and her body was burned.

      Modern times have known dream-evidence in cases of murder, as in the Assynt murder and the famous Red Barns affair. But Thomas Harris's is probably the last ghost cited in a court of law. On the whole, the ghosts have gained little credit by their legally attested appearances, but the trials do throw a curious light on the juridical procedure of our ancestors. The famous action against the ghosts in the Eyrbyggja Saga was not before a Christian court, and is too well known for quotation.

      Dr F. G. Lee, in 'Sights and Sounds,' p. 43, quotes two Irish cases of haunted houses which led to lawsuits, in Drogheda (1890) and in Dublin (1885). In the former, the tenant was not allowed to give up the house without paying his rent: in the second, one Kiernan, a neighbour, was accused of causing the disturbances; but the jury took the view that he was innocent, without deciding as to the real cause of the window-breaking and so forth.

A. LANG.