It little matters whether you look to public events or private histories--you will see signs and omens, and wondrous visitations, prefiguring and accomplishing their purposes; and if occasionally, when too they are indisputable, they seem to accomplish no end, it may be only a seeming non-accomplishment--but suppose it real, it would then the more follow, that they arise necessarily from the nature of things, though a nature with which we are not acquainted. There is an unaccountable sympathy and connexion between all animated nature--perhaps the invisible, as well as the visible. Did you never remark, that in a crowded room, if you fix your eyes upon any one person, he will be sure soon to look at you? Whence is this more than electric power! Wonderful is that of yawning, that it is communicable;--it is so common, that the why escapes our observation. This attractive power, the fascination of the eye, is still more wonderful. Hence, perhaps, the superstition of the "Evil Eye," and the vulgarly believed mischief of "being overlooked." Of private histories--I should like to see the result of a commission to collect and enquire into the authenticity of anecdotes bearing upon this subject. I will tell you one, which is traditionary in our family--of whom one was of the _dramatis personæ_. You know the old popular ballad of "Margaret's Ghost"-- "In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, And stood at William's feet." You do not know, perhaps that it is founded on truth. William was Lord S----, who had jilted Margaret; she died; and after death appeared to him--and, it is said, gave him the choice of two things--to die within a week, or to vow constancy, never to marry. He gave the solemn promise to the ghost. We must transfer the scene to the living world of pleasure. Lord S---- is at Bath. He is in the rooms; suddenly he starts--is so overcome as to attract general attention--his eyes are riveted upon one person, the beautiful Mary T----, whose father resided in great style and fashion at Bathford. It was her resemblance to Margaret, her astonishing resemblance, that overcame him. He thought the ghost had again appeared. He was introduced--and, our family tradition says, was for a length of time a daily visitor at Bathford, where his habit was, to say little, but to sit opposite to, and fix his eyes upon the lovely face of Mary T----. The family not liking this, for there was no declaration on his part, removed Mary T---- to the house of some relative in London. There Lord S---- followed her, and pursued his daily habit of profound admiration. At length the lady spoke, and asked him his intentions with regard to her guest. Lord S---- was in the greatest agitation, rose, burst into tears, and left the house. Time passed; and here nothing more is said of Mary T----; Lord S---- saw her no more. But of him, it is added, that, being persuaded by his family and friends, he consented to