the extraordinary affection, till the father placed a block and an axe in their view, and declared that he would decapitate the first one who should exhibit any more gestures, except the first one taken. By this expedient, all imitation and imaginary feelings were overcome, and the five last were happily delivered from the nervous agitations. With respect to the appearance of ghosts and apparitions, it cannot be doubted, but many of the reports found on record, or repeated by tradition, were mere illusions of imagination, or fictions, contrived solely to amuse, or to answer some particular purpose; and too many have been the dupes of implicit faith, without examining the affair with that jealous attention which it required. It is not improbable, that in many instances, hobgoblin stories may be explained by the deceptive powers of ventriloquism. We have had auricular demonstration of the extraordinary powers of ventriloquists; they can counterfeit the voices of animals and all imaginable noises, at pleasure, and conjure up a ghost or witch on any occasion. Although ventriloquism was not practised, as an art, in ancient times, it was not unknown, and individuals possessing that faculty might have put it in operation, on particular occasions, without suspicion. In most cases of supposed apparitions and spectres, the reports originated with timorous and credulous persons, or those of questionable character. The scene is always exhibited in the night, when the eye is prepared to see frightful spectres, and the imagination is awaked to magnify every object, whether real or unreal. 'All things are full of horror and affright, And dreadful even the silence of the night.'