The worst of a true ghost is, that, to be sure of his genuineness—that is, of his veracity—one must wait the event. He is distinguished by no sensible and positive characteristics from the commoner herd. There is nothing in his outward appearance to raise him in your opinion above a fetch. But even this fact is not barren. His dress,—it is in the ordinary mode of the time, in nothing overdone. To be dressed thus does credit to his taste, as to be dressed at all evinces his sense of propriety; but alas! the same elements convict him of objective unreality. Whence come that aerial coat and waistcoat, whence those visionary trousers?—alas! they can only have issued from the wardrobe in the seer’s fancy. And, like his dress, the wearer is imaginary, a mere sensorial illusion, without a shadow of externality; he is not more substantial than a dream. But dreams have differences of quality no less than ghosts. All do not come through the ivory gate. Some are true and significant enough. See, there glides one skulking assassin-like into the shade,—he not long since killed his man; “Hilloa, ill-favoured Dream! come hither and give an account of yourself.” (Enter Dream.) A Scottish gentleman and his wife were travelling four or five years ago in Switzerland. There travelled with them a third party, an intimate friend, a lady, who some time before had been the object of a deep attachment on the part of a foreigner, a Frenchman. Well, she would have nothing to say to him on the topic uppermost in his mind, but she gave him a good deal of serious advice, which she probably thought he wanted; and she ultimately promoted, or was a cognizant party to, his union with a lady whom she likewise knew. The so-married couple were now in America; and the lady occasionally heard from them, and had every reason to believe they were both in perfect health. One morning, on their meeting at breakfast, she told her companions that she had had a very impressive dream the night before, which had recurred twice. The scene was a room in which lay a coffin; near to it stood her ex-lover in a luminous transfigured resplendent state; his wife was by, looking much as usual. The dream had caused the lady some misgivings, but her companions exhorted her to view it as a trick of her fancy, and she was half persuaded so to do. The dream, however, was right, notwithstanding. In process of time, letters arrived announcing the death, after a short illness, of the French gentleman, within the twenty-four hours in which the vision appeared. (Sensation—applause, followed by cries of Shame; the Dream, hurrying away, is hurt by the horn of the gate.)