SPECULATION ON GHOSTS. 425 



assizes, and in pursuance thereof they were executed for the edifi- 

 cation of all well-disposed believers in ghosts and spirits. 



There is a case of still more recent occurrence at Chelmsford, in 

 which a man was tried and condemned for a supposed murder on 

 certainly very strong circumstantial evidence ; but that which was 

 more relied on, even by the judge and jury as conclusive, was the 

 accused party having touched the body of the deceased, whereupon 

 blood immediately flowed from the wound ! By good fortune, how- 

 ever, the condemned man escaped from prison, went abroad, and did 

 not return till it afterwards came out that the victim was not mur- 

 dered (in a legal sense), but killed in an affray with another person, 

 he himself having been the aggressor. Indeed, so fond are ghosts 

 and apparitions of our own beloved country, that it is, comparatively 

 speaking, but within a few years that they have taken their last fare- 

 well of us, which they must have done with aching hearts, they 

 having been so long cherished and defended by our great grandsires. 

 It was impossible for them, however, to endure the blaze of philo- 

 sophy and bustle of commerce ; whilst intellect in its rapid strides, 

 threatening to kick these venerable beings to a place I dare not men- 

 tion, they made virtue of necessity, turned to the right-about, and 

 departed like voluntary exiles for ever. It is true we hear of a 

 haunted house now and then ; but this is nothing, the mere shade of a 

 ghost the spectre of modern times are nothing to your goblins of 

 antiquity when supported by church and state. But now should a 

 vagrant goblin dare to molest a peaceful neighbourhood, he is either 

 treated with contempt, or bound over to keep the peace before some 

 civic dignitary. 



Within the last century some of our gravest, best, and most learned 

 men were firmly impressed with the truth of the existence of spiritual 

 visitations. Among this number we may reckon Dr. Johnson, Dod- 

 dridge, Wesley, Lord Lyttleton, Sir W. Scott, " cum mullis aliis ;" 

 and taking the doctrine for the purpose, and in the light in which 

 they viewed it, there can be no harm in the belief, especially when 

 divested of the absurd fictions, which from length of time and vulgar 

 credulity have been permitted, like sordid patchwork, to flutter about 

 it. The idea that there are guardian spirits from the unseen world 

 continually hovering around our path, accompanying our lying down 

 and rising up, cannot fail to inspire the breast of a good man with 

 reverence and awe, attended, however, by an undefined feeling of 

 delight and inward gratitude from a secret consciousness that he is 

 the object of such unceasing protection of beings, concerning whose 

 disembodied nature he can form but an imperfect conjecture. The 

 idea which the royal lyrist entertained on the same subject was agree- 

 able to this doctrine " He shall give his angels charge concerning 

 thee." Again, " The angel of the Lord encampeth round about 

 them that fear him." Equally poetic, and perhaps borrowed from 

 the same source, is the well-remembered couplet which calls up the 

 recollections of childhood 



" I lay my body down to sleep, 

 Let angels guard my head, 

 And through the hours of darkness keep 

 Their watch around my bed." 



M.M.No. 100. 3 I 



