The details are so perplexing, that Dr. Southey, from whom the account is in part extracted, does not attempt to explain them. They are better authenticated than any similar story on record, by persons whose testimony, on _any other_ subject, could not for one moment be questioned. What interest could a quiet, retired, respectable clergyman, of the established Church of England, have for imposing on the world? His acknowledged piety precludes the suspicion; he was fast approaching, and was very near that period of life when he knew he had to account to his Creator for his truth or falsehood. His testimony is supported by that of a brother clergyman, equally pious and respectable, who came to assist in detecting the cheat, if cheat there had been. Can it be for one instant believed, that if there had been collusion, the ladies of the family would not in after life have confessed it to their husbands or children? No less than nine respectable witnesses lived and _died_ in the belief of its supernatural origin, and at their respective deaths, they were as unable to account for the mystery as at the time of its occurrence. It commenced without apparent or ostensible cause, and terminated with no other effect than the annoyance of an amiable family. I shall now endeavor to relate a few remarkable circumstances which have occurred either to myself or to personal friends, on whose veracity I place implicit reliance; they are altogether unlike the preceding, and I think I shall be enabled to show that, by a quiet, cool, persevering investigation, we may _generally_ be enabled to account in a natural way, for imaginary preternatural circumstances and appearances, although the senses may have been many times deceived. Every story or averment of the sort ought to be taken _quære tamen_, or _sed quære_, as the lawyers have it—searched, sifted, scrutinized. In Scotland, the land of second-sight, of brownies, bogles, kelpies, and fairies, a superstition prevailed when I was a child, which was called the Dead Candle. It was said that when a person was in the last agony, in the act of departing this life, a pale blue gleam of light, resembling the flame of a small spirit-lamp, was seen to flit slowly across the room and through the passages, and disappear, without its being evident whence it came, or whither it went. It was said and supposed to be the soul of the departed, taking its flight for eternity. Many were the dismal narratives of the dead candle, to which, while a mere boy, I had listened amongst the servants of my father’s household. In a certain ancient city in Scotland which I could name, the houses are very large and very old; they are built entirely of granite, having very thick walls, in a far more substantial manner than houses of the present day.