University of Virginia Library

A Hammersmith wag some time ago dressed himself as a ghost, and was very successful in frightening the watchmen, and other old women, until he was obliged to give up the ghost in a very unexpected manner. A wiseacre in the neighbourhoood, forgetting that if it were a real ghost he would be only throwing away his powder, if a sham one his life, was infatuated enough to fire at and kill the unfortunate spectre, for which he was capitally indicted, and we believe condemned to death, but afterwards pardoned.

See the Letters attributed to Lord Lyttleton.

Our readers cannot have altogether forgotten the Sampford ghost, whose spirituality the Rev. Mr. Colton offered to prove by a wager, having previously received the depositions of Messrs. Chave, Dodge, Moon, and Miss Sally, who were sworn upon a Greek Testament. The Taunton Courier commented with a good deal of sarcastic pleasantry upon the evidence adduced; but the unearthly visitor was not to be exorcised by newspaper criticisms, and redoubled his formidable thumpings and bumpings. His comical freaks have lately produced very tragical consequences; the Exeter jailor, a man remarkable for strength and courage, volunteered to discover the juggle, and to pass a night in the haunted chamber. Armed with a sword and bible, and illuminated by two large mould candles, (three to the pound,) he took his station, when at the “very witching time of night,” the sword was violently wrenched from his hand, and the spectre served out to him a specimen of Molyneux's right and left hits that would not have disgraced the sable hero himself. All this while the assailant was invisible, and “the steel'd jailor, seldom the friend of man,” was still less the friend of goblins; he was carried home in a sort of stupor, and expired a few days after.—Upon another occasion, when the knockings under the floor were very loud and lively, an incredulous rustic took up one of the boards, and stood between the rafters, when the sounds instantly ceased; “O, ho!” quoth he, “have I found you out? I always said it was a lame story.”—But his triumph was short; he was saluted with such a thump on the sole of the foot, that he had a lame story of his own to carry home to his family, and the knockings increased, as if resolved to eclipse the noise of Don Quixote's fulling mills. It is not long since an honest neighbour called on Mr. C. to laugh at his credulity, and reason him, if possible, out of what he called his nervous delusions, when lo! in the midst of their conversation a heavy step was heard descending the stairs; “That is the ghost's step,” said Mr C. drawing his chair close to his visitor. Thump! thump! thump! The door opens, footsteps are heard loud as of the ghost in Don Juan, though nought is visible; they seem to pass between the chairs, though touching each other; the sceptic and his friend are unmolested, but the object of this unwelcome visit is soon manifested. Sally, or Molly, was at the side board; they hear blows and screams, and when they had courage to approach the poor girl they found she had been piteously belaboured about the shoulders, after which usual exercise of his spleen, perhaps to create an appetite, the hobgoblin, “started like a guilty thing,” and fled.

The female sex engrosses the chief share of his pugilistic devoirs, for which he has satisfactorily accounted in replying to questions solemnly put to him both in Greek and Hebrew, (which he has at his finger's ends) by divulging that he was murdered by his sister, and will continue to persecute the sex until the offender is brought to condign punishment. Men he never molests, unless in self defence, and upon an invasion of his territory. Man traps have been set in the room for the purpose of catching his ghostly leg, and rat traps have been lavishly distributed over the bed, in the hope of snapping his spiritual fingers; but he snaps his fingers at his enemies, and understands trap too well to be caught by any human contrivance hitherto discovered. When rat traps fail, exorcising can hardly be expected to succeed, and he likes his present quarters too well to wish to be billetted upon the Red Sea.

Thus stands the case at present; the ghost has baffled every attempt at an ejectment, and will probably continue to frighten the men and belabour the women till he wear out his knuckles. Mr. Colton has recently been to London, to require the aid of the ecclesiastical police, and has offered to frank down to Sampford any adventurer who will enter the lists with this airy bruiser, and fib him out of the ring. But this is idle; if fibbing would do he would have vanished long since.