374 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d S. X Nov. 10. '60. 



2. His aunt, to whom likewise the phantom had 

 been invisible, and who knew nothing of its pre- 

 sence till she heard it described by her sister, 

 treated it as our joint hallucination ; contenting 

 herself with the chaplain's logic — that the illu- 

 sion which possessed one person's mind could as 

 readily possess another's. 



3. It did not assume any other form ; but, in 

 the moment of my wife's exclamation and my 

 striking at it with my chair, it crossed the upper 

 *nd of the table, and disappeared in the recess of 

 the opposite window. 



4. That unforgetable night was continually dis- 

 cussed among us (my boy alone excepted, to pro- 

 tect his young mind from its impression), until he 

 and they bad quitted this world of realities wherein 

 it is still my surviving mystery. 



The preternatui-al transcends my philosophy ; 

 and the doctrine of chances does not, I suppose, 

 deal with impossibilities. Nequeo monstrare, sen- 

 tio tantum ,• I forbear, therefore, comment or in- 

 ference, hftrdly expecting that my most absolute 

 pledge of veracity shall ensure what I might 

 claim in sublunary matters. 



Sir Walter Raleigh, and the other Eidola of the 

 Tower, may be left to its officials' traditionary 

 snowball. 



Prof. De Morgan (x. 277.) has made me, for 

 the first time, aware of Dr. Gregory's publication. 

 His account of this strange incident was not ob- 

 tained "directly" from me, seeing that I never 

 had the pleasure of his acquaintance ; and his in- 

 direct details, as alluded to by Prof. De Morgan, 

 present a curious assemblage of errors. I have 

 already stated that I heard the ill-fated soldier 

 described in the Tower guard-room by his fellow- 

 sentinel, not as " singing a minute or two before 

 the occurrence," but as, immediately before it, 

 awake and alert on his post, exchanging with him 

 some casual remark. Of the Serjeant's comment, 

 that " such appearances were not uncommon," I 

 am as unaware as of the summary " &c. " wherein 

 Prof. De Morgan includes Dr. Gregory's other 

 reminiscences ; or of the " court-martial," whereat 

 I did not attend, and of course bore no testimony 

 lo his wakefulness. Let Prof. De Morgan be 

 assured, that the forty-three winters which have 

 since that date blanched my head have not added 

 one single flake to his traditional snowball : the 

 gatherings of which, whateVer may be their incre- 

 ment under Dr. Gregory's manipulation, are to 

 me an unknown quantity. 



Of the military title attributed to me, I have 

 hitherto been equally unconscious ; my only mar- 

 tial experience having been during 1796 — 1803, 

 when I bore arms in Ireland as a member of the 

 Lawyers' Corps, — a service which I would right 

 gladly resume in 1861, with whatever spirit and 

 strength might then be abiding in me. 



EpMUND Lenihal Swjfte. 



Enclosed is the story of an apparition In York 

 Castle, alluded to by Mr. Swifte. The appear- 

 ance, it will be seen, was not similar to that which 

 caused the death of the soldier in the Tower. 

 The preceding story about a witch is not worth 

 quoting : — 



" One of my soldiers being on guard about Eleven in 

 the night at the gate of Clifford Tower, the very night 

 after the witch was arraigned, he heard a great noise at 

 the Castle ; and going to the Porch, he there saw a scroll 

 of paper creep from under the door, which, as he imagined 

 by moonshine, turned first into the shape of a monkey, 

 and thence assumed the form of a Turkey cock, Avhich 

 passed to and fro by him. Surprised at this, he went to 

 the prison and called the under-keeper, who came and 

 saw the scroll dance up and down, and creep under the 

 door, where there was scarce an opening of the thickness 

 of half-a-crown. This extraordinary story I had from 

 the mouth of both one and the other." — Memoirs of Sir 

 John Reresby, p. 238. 



THE OAK AND THE ASH. 

 (2"« S. X. 256.) 



Your correspondent F. C. H., from his remarks 

 upon the first coming into leaf of the oak and ash, 

 seems quite a believer in the proverb that when 

 the oak comes out first portends a dry summer, 

 but if the ash first a wet one; and in proof of this 

 instances the last summer, in which he states the 

 ash took precedence of the oak. 



It is about sixteen or seventeen years since 

 my attention was first called to this "proverb :" at 

 that time it went the round of the newspapers, 

 and as I had then always regarded the oak as pre- 

 ceding the ash into leaf, I have since made it the 

 subject of annual observation, and I can with con- 

 fidence state that I have so far invariably found 

 the oak has preceded the ash, and as the last sum- 

 mer has been most unusually wet in the North of 

 England, I can only now regard this " proverb " 

 as a popular fallacy. 



But F. C. H. has also " been long in the habit 

 of observing these trees in the spring," but says 

 " they generally come into leaf so nearly together 

 as to afford little scope for prophecy, but this year 

 the ash was decidedly the first ; and this year the 

 saying has proved too true." 



It would be interesting to know in what part of 

 England these observations were made when sucli 

 opposite results have been produced. Whether 

 the difference of climate or soil operate more 

 favourably upon one than on the other remains to 

 be shown. The district in which I reside is at a 

 considerable elevation above the sea, and hilly. 

 Here the oak and the ash grow freely and ex- 

 tensively : they form by far the greatest bulk of 

 the timber grown. Last spring, although a very 

 late one, the weather about the middle of May 

 changed, when it became very genial and warm ; 

 the effect upon the oaks in about a week was most 



