“In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.” HAMLET, 4to. B. ASTR. It is not from the sources of _mythology_ alone, that I adduce my illustrations of the reality of ghosts, but from the myriads of _incidents_ which ancient and modern _history_ record. Yet may I well crave your courtesy for the scraps of fable, and perchance of imposture, that may unwittingly creep into my discourse. Listen to me. It was believed by the ancients that each body possessed three ghosts—to be released on its dissolution. The _manes_ at once emigrated to the region of Pluto: the _spiritus_ ascended to the skies: the _umbra_ or shade still wandered on the earth. Or, as the poet has more comprehensively sung, “Bis duo sunt homini, manes, caro, spiritus, umbra; Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt: Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra, Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit.” Meaning that there are four principles in man, and this is their destiny:—the _flesh_ to earth; the _ghost_ to the tomb; the _soul_ to Hades; and the _spirit_ to heaven. The queen of Carthage, confiding in this creed, threatens Æneas that her umbra will haunt him upon earth, while her manes will rejoice in his torments. The notions of other mystic scholars are thus recorded by old Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy:” as those of Surius—“that there be certain monsters of hell and places appointed for the punishment of men’s souls, as at Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead men are familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living. Saint Gregory, Durand, and the rest of the schoolmen, derive as much from Ætna in Sicily, Lipara, Hiera—and those volcanoes in America, and that fearful mount Heckleberg in Norway, where lamentable screeches and howlings are continually heard, which strike a terror to the auditors: fiery chariots are continually seen to bring in the souls of men in the likeness of crows, and devils ordinarily goe in and out.” And then, to bring this phantasy to a climax by a pandemonium of ghosts, listen to Bredenbachius, in his “Perigranions in the Holy Land,” where “once a yeare dead bodies arise about March, and walk, and after awhile hide themselves again: thousands of people come yearly to see them.” And this reminds me of the phantom of old Booty, who at the hour of his death in England was seen by the crew of a ship running into the crater of Stromboli in the remote Mediterranean,—a story which even in the present century was made the subject of discussion in a justice court. Now, you must know, the ancients believed that only those who died of the sword possessed this privilege.