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APPENDIX. 



between ,1 pair of very broad shoulders. The 

 chamber was sufficiently secured ; Mr. Schmidt 

 alone slept in it ; and he was very certain that 

 no one would attempt to put a trick upon him in 

 est. He knew also, that no part of his clothes or 

 any thing else was hanging at his bed s foot. 

 The figure exactly resembled that of a monk, 

 clothed in a white surplice, the falling folds of 

 which were very clearly to be distinguished. Had 

 an ignorant and timid man beheld this appear 

 ance, he would probably have covered himself up 

 with the bed clothes, and firmly maintained that 

 the ghost of a monk had appeared to him. As 

 the school had formerly been a cloister, many 

 monks had been buried both in the church and 

 church-yard, and it was currently reported among 

 the vulgar thai the place was haunted. Mr. 

 Schmidt, however, was neither ignorant nor ti 

 mid, and he immediately conjectured that his eyes 

 were deceived, though he could not imagine in 

 what manner. He raised himself up a iittie in 

 his bed, but t. e apparition did not move, he only 

 saw somewhat more of it, and the folds of the 

 surplice were still more conspicuous. After a 

 little while he moved towards the right, yet the 

 apparition remained, and he seemed to have in 

 part a side view of it ; but as soon as he had 

 moved his head so far as to have a slight glimpse 

 of the bed s foot, the apparition retreated back 

 ward, though still with its face to the bed. Fol 

 lowing the apparition quickly with his eyes, it re 

 treated with speed, swelled as it retreated to a 

 gigantic form, a rustling noise was heard, and 



at once the apparition was changed into the 



gothic window with white curtains which was 

 opposite the bed s foot, and about six or seven 

 feet distance from it. Several times after this 

 Mr. Schmidt endeavoured when he awoke to see 

 the same appearance, but to no purpose, the win 

 dow always looking like a window only. Some 

 weeks after, however, on awakening, as the day 

 began to dawn, he again perceived the monk s 

 apparition at the bed s foot. Being now aware 

 what occasioned it, he examined it narrowly. 

 The great arch of the window formed the monk s 

 shoulders, a smaller arch, in the centre of this, 

 his head, and the curtains the surplice. The 

 folds of these appeared much stronger than they 

 did at the same distance by day-light. Thus the 

 figure of the monk appeared plainer, nearer, and 

 smaller, than the window would have done. This 

 apparition, therefore, like hundreds of others, 

 was merely an optical deception. The reader 

 will find a more particular description of it, with 

 an optical and mathematical explanation of the 

 phenomenon, in vol. i. of &quot; The Pleasing Pre 

 ceptor,&quot; translated from the German of Gerhard 

 Ulrich Anthony Vieth. 



Another cause of apparitions, and of the belief 

 in supernatural appearances, is to be found in 

 the artifices and collusions of impostors, and the 

 tricks of the waggish. Dr Plot, in his Natural 



History of Oxfordshire, relates a marvellous stor 

 which will illustrate this position. Soon after 

 the murder of King Charles I., a commission was 

 appointed to survey the King s house at Wood 

 stock, with the manor, park, woods, and othev 

 demesnes belonging to that manor. One Col 

 lins, under a feigned name, hired himself as 

 secretary to the commissioners, who, upon the 

 13th October 1649, met, and took up their resi 

 dence in the King s own rooms. His majesty B 

 bed-chamber they made their kitchen, the coun 

 cil-hall their pantry, and the presence-chamber 

 was the place where they met for the despatch GJ 

 business. His majesty s dining-room they made 

 their wood-yard, and stored ic with the wood of 

 the famous royal oak from the High Park, which, 

 that nothing might be left with the name of King 

 about it, they had dug up by the roots, and split 

 and bundled up into fagots for their firing. 

 Things being thus prepared, they sat on the 16th 

 for the despatch of business ; and, in the midst of 

 their first debate, there entered a large black dog 

 (as they thought) which made a dreadful howl 

 ing, overturned two or three of their chairs, and 

 then crept under a bed and vanished. This gavo 

 them the greater surprise, as the doors were kept 

 constan* . t so that no real dog could get in 



or out. A ne next day their surprise was in 

 creased, when sitting at dinner in a lower room, 

 they heard plainly the noise of persons walking 

 over their heads, though they well knew the 

 doors were all locked, and there could be nobody 

 there. Presently after, they heard also all the 

 wood of the King s oak brought by parcels from 

 the dining-room, and thrown with great violence 

 into the presence chamber, as also all the chairs, 

 stools, tables, and other furniture forcibly hurled 

 about the room ; their papers, containing the 

 minutes of their transactions, were torn, and the 

 ink-glass broken. When all this noise had 

 ceased, Giles Sharp, their secretary, proposed to 

 enter first into these rooms ; and in presence of 

 the commissioners, from whom he received the 

 key, he opened the doors, and found the wood 

 spread about the room, the chairs tossed about 

 and broken, the papers torn, but not the least 

 track of any human creature, nor the least reason 

 to suspect one, as the doors were all fast, and the 

 keys in the custody of the commissioners. It 

 was therefore unanimously agreed that the power 

 that did this mischief must have entered at the 

 key-hole. The night following, Sharp, the secre 

 tary, with two of the commissioners servants, 

 as they were in bed in the same room, which 

 room was contiguous to that where the commis 

 sioners lay, had their beds feet lifted up so much 

 higher than their heads, that they expected to 

 have their necks broken, and then they were let 

 fall at once with so much violence as shook the 

 whole nouse, anu more tnan ever terrified the 

 commissioners. O, the night of the 19th, a 

 they were all j ..ed in the the same room for 



