_Lord Curryfin._ Shakespeare's are glorious ghosts, and would make good stories, if they were not so familiarly known. There is a ghost much to my mind in Beaumont and Fletcher's _Lover's Progress_. Cleander has a beautiful wife, Calista, and a friend, Lisander, Calista and Lisander love each other, _en tout bien, tout honneur_. Lisander, in self-defence and in fair fight, kills a court favourite, and is obliged to conceal himself in the country. Cleander and Dorilaus, Calista's father, travel in search of him. They pass the night at a country inn. The jovial host had been long known to Cleander, who had extolled him to Dorilaus; but on inquiring for him they find he has been dead three weeks. They call for more wine, dismiss their attendants, and sit up alone, chatting of various things, and, among others, of mine host, whose skill on the lute and in singing is remembered and commended by Cleander. While they are talking, a lute is struck within; followed by a song, beginning 'Tis late and cold, stir up the fire,-- Sit close, and draw the table nigher: Be merry! and drink wine that's old. And ending Welcome, welcome, shall go round, And I shall smile, though underground. And when the song ceases, the host's ghost enters. They ask him why he appears. He answers, to wait once more on Cleander, and to entreat a courtesy-- --to see my body buried In holy ground: for now I lie unhallowed, By the clerk's fault: let my new grave be made Amongst good fellows, that have died before me, And merry hosts of my kind. Cleander promises that it shall be done; and Dorilaus, who is a merry old gentleman throughout the play, adds-- And forty stoops of wine drank at thy funeral. Cleander asks him-- Is't in your power, some hours before my death, To give me warning? The host replies-- I cannot tell you truly: But if I can, so much on earth I loved you, I will appear again. In a subsequent scene the ghost forewarns him, and he is soon after assassinated: not premeditatedly, but as an accident, in the working out, by subordinate characters, of a plot to bring into question the purity of Calista's love for Lisander. _Miss Ilex._ In my young days ghosts were so popular that the first question asked about any new play was, Is there a ghost in it? The _Castle Spectre_ had set this fashion. It was one of the first plays I saw, when I was a very little girl. The opening of the folding-doors disclosing the illuminated oratory; the extreme beauty of the actress who personated the ghost; the solemn music to which she moved slowly forward to give a silent blessing to her kneeling daughter; and the chorus of female voices chanting _Jubilate;_ made an impression on me which no other scene of the kind has ever made. That is my ghost, but I have no ghost story worth telling.