At another time, the chief was confined to his bed, by indisposition, and my friend was reading to him, in a stormy winter-night, while the fishing-boat, belonging to the castle, was at sea. The old gentleman repeatedly expressed much anxiety respecting his people; and at last exclaimed, my boat is lost! The colonel replied, how do you know it, Sir?--He was answered; I see two of the boatmen bringing in the third drowned, all dripping wet, and laying him down close beside your chair. The chair was shifted, with great precipitation; in the course of the night, the fishermen returned, with the corpse of one of the boatmen. MARTIN, who has given a very particular account of _Seers_, in the western Islands, mentions a young woman, who was troubled, during four or five years, with the constant appearance of her own image before her, the back being turned towards her. No event was connected with this spectral impression. But one of the most remarkable _Seers_ on record, was JOHN BEAUMONT, who published a ‘treatise of spirits, apparitions, witchcrafts, and other magical practices,’ in 1705. He appears to have been a man of a hypochondriacal disposition, with a considerable degree of reading, but with a strong bias to credulity. His collections of stories are entertaining; but my business is with his visions, which shew in a most astonishing manner, how far the mind may be deceived, without the occurrence of actual derangement. They will be detailed in the next chapter. Had this man, instead of irritating his mental disease, by the study of the Platonic philosophers, placed himself under the care of an intelligent physician, he would have regained his tranquillity, and the world would have lost a most extraordinary set of confessions. CHAP. III. _Beaumont’s Visions--Those of Tasso--Kotter--Drabicius--Arise Evans--Bovet._ Physicians have sometimes occasion to regret the prolixity of the statements, which they receive from their patients. Beaumont has been rather more diffusive than usual; for his book, which may be considered as a narrative of his malady, contains four hundred pages, in octavo. It is, however very much to my purpose, for it exhibits the disease of spectral vision, in its full strength and permanency.