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THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.

T these words the spectre gave a smile, which we can compare to nothing but the effect of

vinegar on a death's-head. However, he rose up, though very slowly; and we once more breathed with transport, like a person dropping into his chair after a long journey. He then seated himself with much dignity on the pillow, at the other end of the sofa, and thus resumed the discourse: "I have been among mankind ever since the existence of cooks and bad consciences; and my office is twofold, to give advice to the well-disposed, and to inflict punishment on the ill. The spirits over which I preside are of that class called, by the ancients, Incubi: but it was falsely supposed that we were fond of your handsome girls, as the Rosicrucians maintain; for it is our business to suppress, not encourage, the passions, as you may guess by my appearance.”

"Pardon us," interrupted we; "but the poets and painters represent your highness as riding about on horseback: some of them even make you the horse itself; and it is thus that we have been taught to account for the term nightmare."

Here the phantom gave another smile, which made us feel sympathetically about the mouth, as though one

of our teeth was being drawn. "A pretty jest," said he: " as if a spiritual being had need of a horse to carry him! The general name of my species in this country is of Saxon origin. The Saxons, uniting as they did the two natures of Britons and Germans, ate and drank with a vengeance: of course they knew me very well; and, being continually visited by me in all my magnificence, called me, by way of eminence, the Night Mara, or Spirit of Night. As to the poets and painters, I do not know enough of them to be well acquainted with their misrepresentations of me; though all of those gentlemen who could afford it have been pretty intimate with me. The moralizing Epicurean, whom you have in your hand there, I knew very well. Very good things he wrote, to be sure, about temperance and lettuces; but he ate quite as good at Mecænas' table. You may see the delicate state of his faculties by the noise he makes about a little garlic. There was Congreve, too, who dined every day with a duchess, and had the gout: I visited him often enough, and once wreaked on him a pretty set of tortures under the figure of one Jeremy Collier. My Lord Rochester, who might have displayed so true a fancy of his own without my assistance, had scarcely a single idea with which I did not supply him for five years together; during which time, you know, he confessed himself to have been in a state of intoxication. But I am sorry to say that I have had no small trouble with some of your poetical moralists, as well as men of pleasure. Something, I confess, must be allowed to Pope, whose constitution disputed with him every hour's enjoyment; but an invalid so fond of good things might have

spared the citizens and clergy a little. It must be owned, also, that the good temper he really possessed did much honor to his philosophy; but it would have been greater, could he have denied himself that silver saucepan. It seduced him into a hundred miseries. One night, in particular, I remember, after he had made a very sharp attack on Addison and a dish of lampreys, he was terribly used by my spirits, who appeared to him in the shapes of so many flying pamphlets: he awoke in great horror, crying out with a ghastly smile, like a man who pretends to go easily through a laborious wager, 'These things are my diversion.' As to your painters, I have known still less of them; though I am acquainted with one, now living, to whom I once sat at midnight for my portrait; and the likeness is allowed by all of us to be excellent."

"Well," interrupted we, "but it is not at all like you in your present aspect."

"No," replied the phantom: "it is my poetical look. I have all sorts of looks and shapes, civic, political, and poetical. It is by particular favor that I appear to you as I really am; but, as you have not seen many of my shapes, I will, if you please, give you a sample of some of my best.”

"Oh! by no means,” said we, somewhat hastily: "we can imagine quite enough from your descriptions. The philosophers certainly ill used you when they represented you as a seducer."

"The false philosophers did," replied the spectre: "the real philosophers knew me better. It was at my instance that Pythagoras forbade the eating of beans.

Plato owed some of his schemes to my hints, though, I confess, not his best: and I also knew Socrates very well from my intimacy with Alcibiades; but the familiar that attended him was of a much higher order than myself, and rendered my services unnecessary. However, my veneration for that illustrious man was so great, that, on the night when he died, I revenged him finely on his two principal enemies. People talk of the flourishing state of vice, and the happiness which guilty people sometimes enjoy in contrast with the virtuous; but they know nothing of what they talk. You should have seen Alexander in bed after one of his triumphant feasts, or Domitian or Heliogabalus after a common supper, and you would have seen who was the true monarch, the master of millions, or the master of himself. The prince retired, perhaps amidst lights, garlands, and perfumes, with the pomp of music, and through a host of bowing heads. Every thing he saw and touched reminded him of empire. His bed was of the costliest furniture, and he reposed by the side of beauty. Reposed, did I say? As well might you stretch a man on a gilded rack, and fan him into forgetfulness. No sooner had he obtained a little slumber, but myself and other spirits revenged the crimes of the day: in a few minutes, the convulsive snatches of his hands and features announce the rising agitation; his face blackens and swells; his clinched hands grasp the drapery about him. He tries to turn, but cannot; for a hundred horrors, the least of which is of death, crowd on him, and wither his faculties; till at last, by an effort of despair, he wakes with a fearful outcry, and springs from the bed, pale, trem

bling, and aghast, afraid of the very assistance he would call, and terrified at the consciousness of himself. Such are the men before whom millions of you rational creatures consent to tremble."

"You talk like an orator," said we: "but surely every ambitious prince has not horrors like these; for every one is neither so luxurious as Alexander, nor so timid and profligate as a Domitian or Heliogabalus. Conquerors, one would think, are generally too full of business to have leisure for consciences and nightmares."

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Why, a great deal may be done," answered the spirit, "against horrors of any kind, by mere dint of industry. But too much business, especially of a nature that keeps passion on the stretch, will sometimes perform the office of indolence and luxury, and turn revengefully upon the mind. To this were owing, in great measure, the epilepsies of Cæsar and Mohammed. With the faces of most of the Roman emperors I am as familiar as an antiquary, particularly from Tiberius down to Caligula; and again from Constantine downwards. But, if I punished the degenerate Romans, I nevertheless punished their enemies too. They were not aware, when scourged by Attila, what nights their tormentor passed. Luckily for justice, he brought from Germany not only fire and sword, but a true German appetite. I know not a single conqueror of modern times who equalled him in horror of dreaming, unless it was a little, spare, aguey, peevish, supper-eating fellow, whom you call Frederick the Great. Those exquisite ragouts, the enjoyment of which added new relish to the sarcasms the latter dealt about him