IMA GIN A TI VE IMPRESSIONS. 421 



mind presented me with a vivid picture of every incident 

 of which I was told. This faculty was productive, in 

 some instances, of consequences of a rather ludicrous 

 cast. As early as the period referred to I was one day 

 sitting beside my mother, listening with great attention 

 to a recital with which she was entertaining a neighbour 

 of some of the circumstances connected with my birth, 

 such as a singular dream my father had concerning 

 me, an unusual conformation of head which the midwife 

 observed in me, and which she deemed indicative of 

 idiotism, and the details of the christening. According 

 to custom, my imagination presented me at the time 

 with pictures of all I heard described. Well, about 

 eighteen years after, by one of those sudden freaks of 

 memory which are not very easily explained, even on the 

 associative principle, these pictures were again brought 

 before me ; and, as I did not at first remember anything 

 of the narrative which had produced them, sadly was I 

 puzzled to account for the recollection. And, after 

 thinking on the subject for a few days, I had a narrow 

 escape from becoming one of the most singular of meta- 

 physicians, by being enabled to unravel the whole cir- 

 cumstances of the matter as related. I have also two 

 several recollections of spectres, which would render me 

 a firm believer in apparitions, could I not account for 

 them in this way, as the creatures of an imagination 

 which had attained an unusual and even morbid strength 

 at a time when the other mental faculties were scarcely 

 at all unfolded/ 



TO MR CARRUTHERS. 



< Cromarty, Oct. 22, 1833. 



' The last of Mr Russel's scholars, unfortun- 

 ately for your request, died last year. But I dare say I 



