The fancy that murdered persons reappear in some shape after death for the purpose of wreaking their vengeance upon their enemies, is very common among all nations, and has often been vividly embodied in legends and ballads. The stories of Hamlet and of Don Giovanni are based upon this belief, and the older chronicles abound with similar cases belonging to an age when violence was more frequent and justice less prompt than in our day. Thus we are told in the annals of the famous castle of Weinsberg in Suabia--justly renowned all over the world for the rare instance of marital attachment exhibited by its women--that a steward had wantonly murdered a peasant there. Thereupon disturbances of various kinds began to make the castle uninhabitable; a black shape was seen walking about and breathing hot and hateful odors upon all it met, while the steward became an object of special persecution. The townspeople at first were skeptic and laughed at his reports, but soon the black visitor was seen on the ramparts of the town also and created within the walls the same sensation as up at the castle. The good citizens at last observed a solemn fast-day and performed a pilgrimage to a holy shrine at Heilbrum. But all was in vain, and the disturbances and annoyances increased in frequency and violence, till at last the unfortunate steward died from vexation and sorrow, when the whole ceased and peace was restored to town and castle alike (Crusius, "Suabian Chron." ii. p. 417). Another case of this kind is connected with a curious token of gratitude exhibited by the gratified victim. A president of the Parliament of Toulouse, returning from Paris towards the end of the seventeenth century, was compelled by an accident to stop at a poor country tavern. During the night there appeared to him an old man, pale and bleeding, who declared that he was the father of the present owner of the house, that he had been murdered by his own son, cut to pieces, and buried in the garden. He appealed to the president to investigate the matter and to avenge his murder. The judge was so forcibly impressed by his vision that he ordered search to be made, and lo! the body of the murdered man was found, and the son, thunderstruck by the mysterious revelation, acknowledged his guilt, was tried, and in course of time died on the scaffold. But the murdered man was not satisfied yet; he showed himself once more to the president and asked how he could prove his gratitude? The latter asked to be informed of the hour of his death, that he might fitly prepare himself, and was promised that he should know it a week in advance. Many years afterwards a fierce knocking was heard at the gate of the president's house in Toulouse; the porter opened but saw no one; the knocking was repeated, but this time also the servants who had rushed to the spot found nobody there; when it was heard a third time they were thoroughly frightened and hastened to inform their master. The