How many wits have been set wandering by roadside horrors, raised up from the elements of the ridiculous! The simplest objects become the means of deadly mischief. A donkey in the deep shadow, a cow in the dim moonlight, a stump of an old tree, a white finger-post at the corner of a by-path, have produced in myriads an agony of agitation; but what are these to the good old English country ghost, the elements that compose which we here set in their uncombined, and therefore unterrifying forms, before the spectator. Why, here are agents by which even the most unskilful may succeed in frightening a whole parish--nay, a county. Look upon these the simple means, and then behold the easily manufactured ghost! [Illustration] But of all fields for frights the church-yard is the most productive of terrors! Yet why? Whosoever wanders over one in the daytime will find, be he in town or country, that he is surrounded by none but the most amiable and affectionate people in the world--by the kindest of relations--the faithfullest of friends. Such people are little likely to start from behind their tombstones, in the dark, for the mere pleasure of frightening benighted wanderers. In a churchyard, if the inhabitants be rightly described, there should be no terror! But what shall we say for a church, the sanctuary of the disturbed passions, a temple dedicated to sacredness and love. Yet where is the pious individual who would feel no tremor, if left to pass the night within the gothic aisles of such an edifice? In the vulgar superstition all churches are haunted, so also is every house that happens to be "in chancery." There are two classes of haunted tenements--one celebrated for mysterious Sights, and the other for mysterious Sounds. The old Cock-lane Ghost, and the various modern editions of that personage at Cambridge and elsewhere, are specimens of the Visible; the recent mysteries at Windsor and Dublin are examples of the Audible. Opinions differ as to which is the truly Terrible. For ourselves, though shadows without substances are eminently agitating--noises without the slightest possible cause--noises, sudden, strange, and above all self-existent--noises of this kind at midnight--in the wainscot, in the next apartment which is empty, in the room below where the gentleman took the dose of poison by mistake--are not, we make bold to confess, a sort of sound that we should like to go out of our way to listen to. [Illustration] Of the Audible Ghost, Addison's comedy of the "Haunted House" contains the noisiest representative on record; and perhaps Defoe's account of the apparition of Mrs. Veal appearing to her friend, presents the Visible Ghost in most extraordinary reality to our all but believing eyes. But talk of believing--we shall put the reader's faith to the test, by inviting him to take a peep into a "haunted house" which we have fitted up for his reception. Hark! * * * * *