88 
forthwith intreduced, and the old gentleman 
is conveyed to the castle, at Canterbury, 
and flung among felons ; and the old lady, 
in like manner, is consigned to a solitary 
apartment in the bishop’s house ; to do public 
penance, in due time, in a white sheet, as a 
harlot, the law not recognising a clergy- 
man’s wife. 
Just as they have gone, and the daughter, 
with the old seryant, are on the point -of 
abandoning the parsonage, comes the son 
from the continent, who upon hearing the 
sad details, flies to the neighbouring squire, 
his father’s friend, who is sheriff of the 
county, and has jurisdiction, we suppose, 
in the city, to implore his assistance ; and 
on his way, in the plantations, encounters 
the daughter of the said squire. Now this 
daughter and he were once, with the con- 
sent of her mother, half a protestant or 
more, affianced; but religious differences, 
and the bigoted obstinacy of the squire, had 
long broken off the connexion, though the 
young man was still resolved to hold her to 
the contract, and she was nothing loath. 
A conversation and a sot of explanation 
follows, and then he proceeds to the house, 
where, at the door, he meets with the con- 
fessor, and is prompted by some insolence 
of his, to knock him down. Disposed suf- 
ficiently before by religious fecling to injure 
the youth, Spanish revenge makes him ten 
times more malignant than ever, and stirs 
all his worst energies. He leagues with a 
cousin of the young man, who stands in his 
way also to.a great inhevitance, to ruin 
him. He has also, as confessor, full con- 
troul over the squire, and by misrepresenting 
the young man, enrages the squire against 
him, past all conciliation; and then pro- 
poses and urges with all the weight of his 
spiritual thunder, the cousin as the husband 
of his daughter. This cousin is a perfect 
and profligate villain: he charges the youth 
with an act of iieason, of which he himself 
had been the chief contriver, and attempts 
to force the young lady’s consent to a mar- 
riage, by engaging to save him. She indig- 
nantly repels him, and is finally consigned 
to the charge and controul of the monk, who 
drives her, by his severities, into a state of 
incipient madness. 
In the meanwhile the persecutors proceed 
in their homid course. Thornton has an 
interview with the old protestant’s daughter, 
and attempts to seduce her to be his ¢ lady- 
love;’ and in revenge for her rejection, 
turns her over to Hampsfield, who ‘also, 
exasperated at her steadiness, threatens her 
with the stake, and finally, by way of 
specimen,' holds her beauiiful little hand 
over the candle, till the sinews snap. Then 
follow the trial of the old man, and the day 
of burning for him, his servant, an old 
woman, and a blind boy. The particulars 
are all minutely detailed—the daughter 
hangs bags of gunpowder about the necks 
of the victims—the bishop himself is put- 
ting the torch to the pile, when he is 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[ Jan. 
seized with a fit, and then another and 
another attempt is made,- till the sheriff 
appears in sight, riding on a foaming horse, 
and cries God save Queen Hlizabeth—__ 
which implies the death of Mary, and 
ensures the pardon of the victims. Finally, 
the squire’s daughter recovers, is converted, 
and marries the somewhat moody and im- 
petuous son of the protestant; but no 
husband is found for Rosa, with the burned 
hand, which seems very unkind and quite 
incorrect. 
— eS ee 
Past Feelings Renovated; or, Ideas 
occasioned by the Perusal of Dr. Hibbert’s 
Philosophy of Apparitions ; 1823.—Few 
persons could have read Dr. Hibbert’s book 
on the Philosophy of Apparitions, without 
a conyiction that he has given a death-blow 
to the existence of very meny ghosts. He 
did not set about the annihilation by asking 
to what purpose they came, or why they 
were so rare, or why they selected some 
in preference to others, or why they ob- 
served no rule at all, or why the reality 
of their visits was still questionable ; but 
hearing of ghosts, which indubitably proved 
to be no ghosts, but the sheer effect of 
morbid impressions, he was prompted to 
conclude they were all alike; and’ subse- 
quent inquiries ripened his conclusion to 
conviction. In his own estimation, he had 
discovered a touchstone for all sorts and 
sizes, and was well disposed to bring them 
—all-abounding as they do—in old books 
especially—no new stories have been added 
of late years we ihink—to his test. But 
the want of circumstantiality in the stories 
precluded a geneval application, chiefly from 
the absence of details relative to the health 
and previous habits of the witnesses; and 
Dr. Hibbert could, consequently, only start 
certain suggestions, the realization of which _ 
would have bfought them within his theory. 
This inapplicebility has been seized upon, 
and a strange sort of exultation exhibited, 
that his victory is not complete. Dr. Hib- 
bert established the fact, that in certain 
states of diseases, old impressions re-appear, 
without the actual presence of the original 
object ; these re-appearances, when the case 
Was not understood, were mistaken for 
ghosts ; and the possibility followed at once 
that all the ghosts upon record were cf the 
same unimportant character. The case on 
which he yvelies for the basis of his theory, 
is the very memorable one of Nicholai, the 
bookseller of Beilin, who experienced these 
re-appearances, these day-dreams, and mi-— 
nutely recorded them, and accompanied 
them with the minutest details of his men- 
tal and bodily state. Farther inquiries 
brought numerous confirmations. ; 
The writer of the book before us, is 
something of an alarmist; he detects infi- 
delity and materialism, and the book must, 
on the common demands of duty, be an- 
swered. ‘To question the reality of ghost 
is, in his eyes, to deny revelation, and 
