There are various authorities for this story, the correctness of which is vouched for by some members of Mrs. Pigou’s family, with whom I am acquainted, who have frequently heard the circumstances detailed by herself, and who assure me it was always believed by the family. I really, therefore, do not see what grounds we have for doubting either of these facts. Lord Westcote, on whose word Dr. Johnson founded his belief of Lord Littleton’s warning, was a man of strong sense; and that the story was not looked upon lightly by the family, is proved by the fact that the dowager Lady Littleton had a picture—which was seen by Sir Nathaniel Wraxhall in her house in Portugal street, as mentioned in his memoirs—wherein the event was commemorated. His lordship is in bed; the dove appears at the window; and a female figure stands at the foot of the couch, announcing to the unhappy profligate his approaching dissolution. That he mentioned the warning to his valet, and some other persons, and that he talked of _jockeying_ the ghost by surviving the time named, is certain; as also that he died with his watch in his hand, precisely at the appointed period! Mr. Andrews says that he was subject to fits of strangulation, from a swelling in the throat, which might have killed him at any moment; but his decease having proceeded from a natural and obvious cause, does not interfere one way or the other with the validity of the prediction, which simply foretold his death at a particular period, not that there was to be anything preternatural in the manner of it.