where they arise, while the silence of the night generally occasions the imputing to them more than the due importance which they would receive if mingled with the usual noises of daylight.  At length the gentleman and his servant traced the sounds which they had repeatedly heard to a small store-room used as a place for keeping provisions of various kinds for the family, of which the old butler had the key.  They entered this place, and remained there for some time without hearing the noises which they had traced thither; at length the sound was heard, but much lower than it had formerly seemed to be, while acted upon at a distance by the imagination of the hearers.  The cause was immediately discovered.  A rat caught in an old-fashioned trap had occasioned this tumult by its efforts to escape, in which it was able to raise the trap-door of its prison to a certain height, but was then obliged to drop it.  The noise of the fall, resounding through the house, had occasioned the disturbance which, but for the cool investigation of the proprietor, might easily have established an accredited ghost story.  The circumstance was told me by the gentleman to whom it happened.

There are other occasions in which the ghost story is rendered credible by some remarkable combination of circumstances very unlikely to have happened, and which no one could have supposed unless some particular fortune occasioned a discovery.

An apparition which took place at Plymouth is well known, but it has been differently related; and having some reason to think the following edition correct, it is an incident so much to my purpose that you must pardon its insertion.

A club of persons connected with science and literature was formed at the great sea-town I have named.  During the summer months the society met in a cave by the sea-shore; during those of autumn and winter they convened within the premises of a tavern, but, for the sake of privacy, had their meetings in a summer-house situated in the garden, at a distance from the main building.  Some of the members to whom the position of their own dwellings rendered this convenient, had a pass-key to the garden-door, by which they could enter the garden and reach the summer-house without the publicity or trouble of passing through the open tavern.  It was the rule of this club that its members presided alternately.  On one occasion, in the winter, the president of the evening chanced to be very ill; indeed, was reported to be on his death-bed.  The club met as usual, and, from a sentiment of respect, left vacant the chair which ought to have been occupied by him if in his usual health; for the same reason, the conversation turned upon the absent gentleman’s talents, and the loss expected to the society by his death.  While they were upon this melancholy theme, the door suddenly opened, and the appearance of the president entered the room.  He wore a white wrapper, a nightcap round his brow, the appearance of which was that of