Such is a brief account of the various spectral illusions observed by Mrs. A. In describing them I have used the very words employed by her husband in his communications to me on the subject;[5] and the reader may be assured that the descriptions are neither heightened by fancy, nor amplified by invention. The high character and intelligence of the lady, and the station of her husband in society, and as a man of learning and science, would authenticate the most marvellous narrative, and satisfy the most scrupulous mind, that the case has been philosophically as well as faithfully described. In narrating events which we regard as of a supernatural character, the mind has a strong tendency to give more prominence to what appears to itself the most wonderful; but from the very same cause, when we describe extraordinary and inexplicable phenomena which we believe to be the result of natural causes, the mind is prone to strip them of their most marvellous points, and bring them down to the level of ordinary events. From the very commencement of the spectral illusions seen by Mrs. A., both she and her husband were well aware of their nature and origin, and both of them paid the most minute attention to the circumstances which accompanied them, not only with the view of throwing light upon so curious a subject, but for the purpose of ascertaining their connection with the state of health under which they appeared. [5] _Edinburgh Journal of Science_, New Series, No. iv. pp. 218, 219, No. vi., p. 244, and No. viii., p. 261. As the spectres seen by Nicolai and others had their origin in bodily indisposition, it becomes interesting to learn the state of Mrs. A.’s health when she was under the influence of these illusions. During the six weeks within which the first three illusions took place, she had been considerably reduced and weakened by a troublesome cough, and the weakness which this occasioned was increased by her being prevented from taking a daily tonic. Her general health had not been strong, and long experience has put it beyond a doubt, that her indisposition arises from a disordered state of the digestive organs. Mrs. A. has naturally a morbidly sensitive imagination, which so painfully affects her corporeal impressions, that the account of any person having suffered severe pain by accident or otherwise, occasionally produces acute twinges of pain in the corresponding parts of her person. The account, for example, of the amputation of an arm will produce an instantaneous and severe sense of pain in her own arm. She is subject to talk in her sleep with great fluency, to repeat long passages of poetry, particularly when she is unwell, and even to cap verses for half an hour together, never failing to quote lines beginning with the final letter of the preceding one till her memory is exhausted.