pieces by the heavy mortar that had fallen down. The young lieutenant saw in the warning a direct favor of Providence and lived henceforth so as to show his gratitude for this almost miraculous escape ("Jenseits," p. 105). Not unfrequently the seeing of a "double" is the result of physical or mental disease. Persons suffering of catalepsy are especially prone to see their own forms mixing with strange persons, who people the room in which they are confined. Insanity, also, very often begins with the idea, that the patient's own image is constantly by his side, accompanying him like his shadow wherever he goes, and finally irritating him beyond endurance. In these cases there is, of course, nothing at work but a diseased imagination, and with the return of health the visions also disappear. Perhaps the most important branch of this subject is the theory, cherished by all nations and in all ages, that the dying possess at the last moment and by a supreme effort, the mysterious power of making themselves perceptible to friends at a distance. We leave out, here also, the numerous instances told of saints, because they are generally claimed by the Catholic Church as miracles. One of the oldest well-authenticated cases of the kind, occurred at the court of Cosmo de' Medici, in 1499. In the brilliant circle of eminent men which the great merchant prince had gathered around him, two philosophers, Michael Mercatus, papal prothonotary, and Marsilius Ficinus were prominent by their vast erudition, their common devotion to Platonic philosophy, and the ardent friendship which bound them to each other. They had solemnly agreed that he who should die first, should convey to the other some information about the future state. Ficinus died first, and his friend, writing early in the morning near a window, suddenly heard a horseman dashing up to his house, checking his horse and crying out: "Michael! Michael! nothing is more true than what is said of the life to come!" Mercatus immediately opened the window and saw his bosom friend riding at full speed down the road, on his white horse, until he was out of sight. He returned, full of thought, to his studies; but wrote at once to inquire about his friend. In due time the answer came, that Ficinus had died in Florence at the very moment in which Mercatus had seen him in Rome. Our authority for this remarkable account is the Cardinal Baronius, who knew Mercatus and heard it from his own lips; but the dates which he mentions do not correspond with the annals of history. He places the event in the year 1491, but Michele de' Mercati was papal prothonotary under Sixtus V. (1585-90) and could, therefore, not have been the friend of Ficinus, the famous physician and theologian, who was one of Savonarola's most distinguished adherents.