ANTICIPATED ILL. 401 



natural proportions on the paper ; then, swimming in a haze of 

 misty moonshine, it seemed endowed with life and motion 

 was magnified multiplied into a loathsome swarm a dark, 

 besetting, horrifying legion, which rose, some on wing, some 

 crawling round him glared at him with their horny eyes from 

 beneath their overlapping corslets, waved their long antennae, 

 and thrust their spiny arms into his very face. Caleb had 

 seen enough, and attempted, his few teeth chattering, and his 

 knobby knees knocking, to effect his exit from the library ; 

 had almost reached the door, when a cold arresting hand 

 seemed laid upon his shoulder, and he fell, as we had found 

 him, prostrate on the floor. 



" Master is dead/' said Dolly, after hearing the above 

 relation. "Master is dead; I know it;" and her supersti- 

 tious awe giving way presently to heart-breaking sorrow, she 

 burst into an agony of tears. " Why," remonstrated Mr. 

 Caligraph, " I do not say I saw its face only its back in 

 the very coat that now hangs empty in the libery ; besides, 

 Mrs. Dove, you know, as I have before observed, ' super- 

 stition is the daughter of ' but here the words died 

 upon his lips ; and the mechanic amanuensis grew from that 

 night more thoughtful than before, and never stayed in the 

 book-room, or volunteered to visit it after dark or dusk. 



If news of death were really on their road to us, as our 

 Dove was now thoroughly persuaded, they travelled, like a 

 hearse, slowly. Tidings none at all reached us of my uncle ; 



