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APPENDIX. 



partes subeuntem excipiens, furore repleretur, 

 ipsaque resolutis crinibus baccharetur, ex ore 

 spumam emittens, et sic furoris verba loqueba- 

 tur,&quot; tStc. 



Spectres have also been produced by such opti 

 cal exhibitions as the phantasmagoria. By means 

 of this instrument, a spectre can be made appa 

 rently to start up from a white mist, and to rush 

 forward towards the spectator with a horrific as 

 pect. If a thin screen were placed in a dark 

 room, and the lantern of the phantasmagoria, 

 with its light properly concealed, the most terri 

 fic phantoms might be exhibited, which would 

 confound and appal every one previously unac 

 quainted with the contrivance, especially if the 

 exhibition was suddenly made at the dead hour of 

 night. By means of such exhibitions, combined 

 with the art of ventriloquism, and the assistance 

 of a confederate, almost every thing that has been 

 recorded respecting spectres and apparitions 

 might be realized. 



&amp;gt; I shall conclude these illustrations of appari 

 tions, by presenting the reader with a description 

 of the ghost of a flea, by Mr. Varley, formerly 

 alluded to, as a specimen of the folly and super 

 stition that still degrade the present age. 



&quot; With respect to the vision of the ghost of the 

 flea, as seen by Mr. Blake, it agrees in counte 

 nance with one class of people under Gemini, 

 which sign is the significator of the flea, whose 

 brown colour is appropriate to the colour of the 

 eyes, in some full-toned Gemini persons, and the 

 neatness, elasticity, and tenseness of the flea, are 

 significant of the elegant dancing and fencing sign 

 Gemini. The spirit visited his imagination in 

 such a figure as he never anticipated in an insect. 

 As I was anxious to make the most correct inves 

 tigation in my power of the truth of these visions, 

 on hearing of this spiritual apparition of a flea, I 

 asked him if he could draw for me the resem 

 blance of what he saw. He instantly said, I see 

 him now before me. I therefore gave him paper 

 and a pencil with which he drew the portrait, of 

 which a fac-simile is given in this number. I felt 

 convinced by his mode of proceeding, that he had 

 a real image before him ; for he left off and be 

 gan on another part of the paper, to make a se 

 parate drawing of the mouth of the flea, which 

 the spirit having opened, he was prevented from 

 proceeding with the first sketch, till he had closed 

 it. During the time occupied in completing the 

 drawing, the flea told him that all fleas were in 

 habited by the souls of such men as were by na 

 ture blood-thiruty to excess, and were, therefore, 

 providentially confined to the size and form of 

 such insects ; otherwise, were he himself, for in 

 stance, the size of a horse, he would depopulate 

 a great part of the country. He added, that, if 

 in attempting to leap from one island to another, 

 he should fall into the sea, he could swim, and 

 could not be lost. This spirit afterwards ap 



peared to Blake, arid afforded him a view of bit 

 whole figure, an engraving of which I snail give 

 in this work.&quot; 



N. B. Blake, who died only two or threa 

 years ago, was an ingenious artist, who illustrat 

 ed Blair s Grave, and oiher works, and was so 

 much of an enthusiast, that he imagined he could 

 call up from the vasty deep, any spirits or corpo 

 real forms. Were it not a fact, that a work 

 entitled &quot; Zodiacal Physiognomy,&quot; written by 

 John Parley, and illustrated with engravings, was 

 actually published in the year 1828, by Longman 

 and Co., we should have deemed it almost impos 

 sible, that amidst the light of the present age, any 

 man capable of writing a grammatical sentence, 

 would seriously give such a description as that 

 quoted above, and attach his belief to such absur 

 dity and nonsense. But amidst all our boasted 

 scientific improvements and discoveries, it ap 

 pears, that the clouds of ignorance and supersti 

 tion still hang over a large body of our population, 

 and that the light of the millennial era, if it have 

 yet dawned, is still far from its meridian splendour. 



After what has been now stated respecting the 

 circumstances which may have led to the popular 

 belief of spectres and apparitions, it would be al 

 most needless to spend time in illustrating the 

 futility of such a belief. There is one strong ob 

 jection against the probability of apparitions, and 

 that is, that they scarcely appear to be intelli 

 gent creatures, or at least, that they possess so 

 small a degree of intelligence, that they are un 

 qualified to act with prudence, or to use the 

 means requisite to accomplish an end. Ghosts 

 are said often to appear in order to discover 

 some crime that had been committed ; but they 

 never appear to a magistrate, or some person 

 of authority and intelligence, but to some illite 

 rate clown, who happens to live near the place 

 where the crime was committed, to some per 

 son who has no connexion at all with the af 

 fair, and who, in general, is the most impropci 

 person in the world for making the discovery. 

 Glanville, who wrote in defence of witchcraft and 

 apparitions, relates, for instance, the following 

 story : &quot; James Haddock, a farmer, was married 

 to Elenor Welsh, by whom he had a son. After 

 the death of Haddock, his wife married one 

 Davis ; and both agreed to defraud the son by the 

 former marriage, of a lease bequeathed to him by 

 his father. Upon this the ghost of Haddock ap 

 peared to one Francis Taverner, the servant of 

 Lord Chichester. and desired him to go to Elenor 

 Welsh, and to inform her that it was the will of 

 her former husband that their son should enjoy 

 the lease. Taverner did not at first execute this 

 commission, but he was continually haunted by 

 the apparition in the most hideous shapes, which 

 even threatened to tear him in pieces, till at last 

 he delivered the message.&quot; Now, had this spectre 



