In a tale like this, which is only one out of a vast number, exactly analogous, Common-sense is ill-advised in simply alleging imposture, so long maintained, so motiveless, and, on the whole, so very difficult to execute. M. Leleu brought in the Church, with its exorcisms, but our Dominican authority does not say whether or not the noises ceased after the rites had been performed. Dufresnoy, in whose Dissertations {178} these documents are republished, mentions that Bouchel, in his Bibliotheque du Droit Francois, d. v. 'Louage,' treats of the legal aspect of haunted houses. Thus the profession has not wholly disdained the inquiry. Of all common sensible explanations, the most sporting and good- humoured is that given by the step-daughter of Alexander Dingwall, a tenant in Inverinsh, in 1761. Poor Dingwall in his cornyard 'heard very grievous lamentations, which continued, as he imagined, all the way to the seashore'. These he regarded as a warning of his end, but his stepdaughter sensibly suggested that, as the morning was cold, 'the voice must be that of a fox, to cause dogs run after him to give him heat'. Dingwall took to bed and died, but the suggestion that the fox not only likes being hunted, but provokes it as a form of healthy exercise, is invaluable. The tale is in Theophilus Insulanus, on the second sight. There is no conclusion to be drawn from this mass of Cock Lane stories. Occasionally an impostor is caught, as at Brightling, in 1659. Mr. Joseph Bennet, a minister in that town, wrote an account of the affair, published in Increase Mather's Remarkable Providences. 'Several things were thrown by an invisible hand,' including crabs! 'Yet there was a seeming blur cast, though not on the whole, yet upon some part of it, for their servant girl was at last found throwing some things.' She averred that an old woman had bidden her do so, saying that 'her master and dame were bewitched, and that they should hear a great fluttering about their house for the space of two days'. This Cock Lane phenomenon, however, is not reported to have occurred. The most credulous will admit that the maid is enough to account for the Brightling manifestations; some of the others are more puzzling and remain in the region of the unexplained. APPARITIONS, GHOSTS, AND HALLUCINATIONS.