Dr. Robert Macnish, of Glasgow, in his "Philosophy of Sleep," says, "No doubt the apparition of Cæsar which appeared to Brutus, and declared it would meet him at Philippi, was either a dream or a spectral illusion--probably the latter. Brutus, in all likelihood, had some idea that the great battle which was to decide his fate would be fought at Philippi. Probably it was a good military position, which he had in his mind fixed upon as a fit place to make a final stand; and he had done enough to Cæsar to account for his mind being painfully and constantly engrossed with the image of the assassinated dictator. Hence the verification of this supposed warning; hence the easy explanation of a supposed supernatural event." * * * * * "The ghost of Byron" may help to verify the above. Sir Walter Scott was engaged in his study at Abbotsford, not long after the death of Lord Byron, at about the twilight hour, in reading a sketch of the deceased poet. The room was quiet, his thoughts were intensely centred upon the person of his departed friend, when, as he laid down the volume, as he could see to read no longer, and passed into the hall, he saw before him the _eidolon_ of the deceased poet. He remained for some time impressed by the intensity of the illusion, which had thus created a phantom out of some clothes hanging on a screen at the farther end of the hall. This is not the first time that Byron had appeared to his friends, as the following, from his own pen, will show:-- Byron wrote to his friend, Alexander Murray, less than two years before the death of the latter, as follows:-- "In 1811, my old schoolmate and form-fellow, Robert Peel, the Irish secretary, told me that he saw me in St. James Street. I was then in Turkey. A day or two afterwards, he pointed out to his brother a person across the street, and said, 'There is the man I took for Byron.' His brother answered, 'Why, it is Byron, and no one else.' I was at this time _seen_ (by them?) to write my name in the Palace Book! I was then ill of a malaria fever. If I had died," adds Byron, "here would have been a ghost story established." Dr. Johnson says, "An honest old printer named Edward Cave had seen a ghost at St. John's Gate." Of course, the old man succumbed to the apparition. THE GHOST OF CONSCIENCE. I have yet to find the record of a good man seeing what he believed to be a ghostly manifestation. It is only the guilty in conscience who conjure up "horrible shadows," as pictured in Shakspeare's ghost of Banquo, as it appeared to Macbeth. What deserving scorn, what scathing contempt, were conveyed in the language of Lady Macbeth to her cowardly, conscience-stricken lord, as she thus rebuked him!--