early years, and the circumstance that he that evening saw Mr. Hume for the first time, I confess that it seems to me that the improbability of any proposed explanation of the mystery must be incalculably great indeed, for a solution the improbability of which approaches so very near to impossibility to be preferably accepted. Here is one other case, which I will give both because the person on whose testimony the value of it depends, was one on whose accurate veracity I could depend as on my own, and because it illustrates one specialty of Mr. Hume’s performances which I have not yet spoken of. This was a sensation of being touched, which was frequently experienced by many of those present. This touching almost invariably took the form of a knee being grasped under the table, or a hand being laid upon it. In the case I am about to relate this was experienced in a more remarkable manner. A very highly valued old female servant, who had lived in my then wife’s family since her birth, and had followed her when she married me, had some months previously died in my house. The affection which had subsisted between her and my wife was a very old and a very strong one. Now there was, it would seem, an old nursery pet name, by which this woman had been long years before in the habit of calling my wife. I had never heard it, or of it. My wife herself had never heard it for very many years. She and the old servant had never for years and years spoken on the subject. But one evening this pet name was very distinctly spelled; and my wife declared that she at the same time felt a sort of pressure at her side, as she sat in the circle, as if some person or thing had been endeavouring to find a place by her side. But for all that, my wife, though utterly mystified and incapable of suggesting any theory on the subject, was a strong disbeliever in all Mr. Hume’s pretensions. She strongly disliked the man. And were it not that, as we all know, her sex never permits their estimate of facts to be influenced by their feelings, it might be supposed possible that this biassed her mind upon the subject! I could add dozens of cases to the above two, but they were all very similar; and it is sufficient to say that the same sort of thing occurred over and over again. I may mention, however, that I observed that any question addressed to the supposed spirits bearing on theology and matters of creed were invariably answered according to the views of the questioner. Catholics, Protestants, materialists, were all impartially confirmed in the convictions of their diverse persuasions.