In this plastic power of the spirit to present to the eye of the seer whatever object it wills, we find the explanation of such stories as the famous one of Ficinus and Mercatus, related by Baronius in his annals. These two illustrious friends, Michael Mercatus and Marcellinus Ficinus, after a long discourse on the nature of the soul, had agreed that, if possible, whichever died first should return to visit the other. Some time afterward, while Mercatus was engaged in study at an early hour in the morning, he suddenly heard the noise of a horse galloping in the street, which presently stopped at his door, and the voice of his friend Ficinus exclaimed: “Oh, Michael! oh, Michael! _vera sunt illa!_—those things are true!” Whereupon Mercatus hastily opened his window and espied his friend Ficinus on a white steed. He called after him, but he galloped away out of his sight. On sending to Florence to inquire for Ficinus, he learned that he had died about that hour he called to him. From this period to that of his death, Mercatus abandoned all profane studies, and addicted himself wholly to divinity. Baronius lived in the sixteenth century; and even Dr. Ferrier and the spectral illusionists admit that the authenticity of this story can not be disputed, although they still claim it for their own. Not very many years ago, Mr. C——, a staid citizen of Edinburgh—whose son told me the story—was one day riding gently up Corstorphine hill, in the neighborhood of the city, when he observed an intimate friend of his own, on horseback also, immediately behind him; so he slackened his pace to give him an opportunity of joining company. Finding he did not come up so quickly as he should, he looked round again, and was astonished at no longer seeing him, since there was no side road into which he could have disappeared. He returned home, perplexed at the oddness of the circumstance, when the first thing he learned was that during his absence this friend had been killed, by his horse falling, in Candlemaker’s row. I have heard of another circumstance, which occurred some years ago in Yorkshire, where, I think, a farmer’s wife was seen to ride into a farm-yard on horseback, but could not be afterward found, or the thing accounted for, till it was ascertained that she had died at that period.