Note (return) — AMPTHILL HOUSE, THE SEAT OF LORD HOLLAND.

The existence of apparitions has been acknowledged by many, and a tendency towards a belief of them is to be remarked in many more. Ardent, and what is stranger still, since directly opposed to ardent, morbid minds are too ready to embrace "the pleasing dreadful thought," and to this may be attributed the prevalence of this kind of superstition among the poets, and all indeed of an enthusiastic temperament.3 Some of the tales urged in defence of apparitions are upon a primâ facié observation to be traced to an exuberance4 of imagination on the part of the ghost, others that are plainly false, and others that as they cannot be authenticated, are not worthy of notice. I shall here give what I consider an example of the former.