A passing shower too, if it list, may make its sprinklings audible, against the windowpanes. No candles, I insist upon it; and the fire one of those, which

teach light to counterfeit a gloom :

While the features of a few old portraits alternately vanish and reappear, as a scanty, faint, and intermitting blaze directs; and the phantom shadows, or apparitions, of the lumbering furniture, are "solemnly tripping," or dancing up and down the walls, at the fitful pleasure of this dubious light.

The Æolian Harp ?—

No: I am all for originals; and will admit no copies. The Æolian Harp (which is not Gray's "Eolian Lyre,") but sets to music, and accompanies, the shriek and sob, the longdrawn moan, and plaintive wailings of the wind; together with those "songs of other worlds," which, according to Ossian, are wafted on its wings. Now I prefer the vocal, to the

* See Catherine's Vision, in Henry the Eighth.

instrumental strain.-The mournful bay, if not too near, of a disconsolate and moon-struck dog, I have too great mythological respect for Hecate, to prohibit. The Irish cry too—

What! that barbarous howl?

When

Wild and dismal, if you please; but do not stigmatize it with the epithet of howl. its roughnesses, and chromatic or other discords, are softened by distance, and as it were diluted in the open air, it comes, with "a dying fall," of inexpressible plaintiveness, upon the ear. It is, I confess, an echo, or paraphrase of the wind's lament; but I admit it, on the score of sweetness, as an exception to my dislike of copies. Is it a song of this world, sadly floating to another? Or a song of other worlds, addressed, by Grief, to this?-Some of its cadences resemble those of a nurse's drowsy lullaby and thus we may be said, in Ireland, to enter and retire from-life, upon a song. What an admirable introduction, to the ghost story which you are about to tell!

Nay, I have no ghost story: Nothing, tanto

* Shakspeare.

dignum hiatu, to append. I can substitute, if you will accept of anything so tame and meagre, what Rambler Samuel* would be apt to call a moribund divination.

Proceed; μὴ κεῦθε vow, si non datur ultra.

I once attended a near and dearly beloved relative, and friend, on his sick-and as it eventually turned out his death bed. A small chamber-clock, not an alarm one, ran down suddenly and unexpectedly, with considerable noise. The sick man started at the sound; and having learned its cause, proceeded to inquire at what hour the clock went down. Then calling me to his bed-side, he said, "W-, at that hour I shall die." His final expiration was so tranquil, that it would be difficult to fix, with exactness, the moment when it occurred. But so far as this could be ascertained, his foreboding was fulfilled. He was not superstitious: very much the contrary: though what I have stated, and am about to mention, may smack strongly of superstition.-The house-dog being enlarged, stationed himself under the window,

*Johnson.

and began to howl. "Ah! Welbore!" said the dying man, "I thought none but myself knew what was coming."-It is to be observed, that while others considered his case as but precarious, he himself pronounced it, from the first, to be quite hopeless.

Do you know that I connect his last ominous exclamation, with a previous dog-anecdote of your family; which you have already told me, but which I wish you would repeat.

So do I thus connect it.In the last illness of my paternal grandfather, and almost at the moment of dissolution, a favourite and faithful dog crept under the bed; and would not be removed. When the remains were being transferred to the coffin, he came forth, and howl'd for a short time, by this chest of death. He afterwards accompanied the funeral; and in the confusion and sad preoccupation of the day, it was not observed that he had not returned. But next morning came a message from the Glebe, two miles distant, that in the course of the night, mournful sounds had been heard from the neighbouring Church-yard, which turned out to be the cries of this affectionately

attached creature; and at an early hour of the morning, he was found, lying and whining near the entrance of the vault. He caressed the finder; and seemed to be soliciting and expecting, that the door would be opened, which shut him out from remains, still held by him so dear. Food was offered him; which he received, but did not quit his post. The remainder of the story I have forgotten; with this exception, that poor Oliver became even a greater favorite than before, with the orphans of his beloved master; and that his likeness was admitted, amongst the few family portraits of the house. Do you recollect the Aid-de-camps of Evander, as described by Virgil?

Yes; and greatly admire the primitive simplicity of the scene :

Gresumque canes comitantur herilem.

Do you remember Auld lang syne? "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?"Besides, what poet, genuine or would-be, ever forgot a composition of his own? I do recollect, and can repeat what relates to the dog Oliver.