g
a phenomenon as this, there remained hardly any life in him, so that he
sunk down in the arm-chair in which he sat, and continued, he knew not
how long, insensible.'

'With regard to this vision,' says the ingenious Dr. Hibbert, 'the
appearance of our Saviour on the cross, and the awful words repeated,
can be considered in no other light than as so many recollected images
of the mind, which, probably, had their origin in the language of some
urgent appeal to repentance, that the colonel might have casually read
or heard delivered. From what cause, however, such ideas were rendered
as vivid as actual impressions, we have no information to be depended
upon. This vision was certainly attended with one of the most important
of consequences connected with the Christian dispensation--the
conversion of a sinner; and hence no single narrative has, perhaps, done
more to confirm the superstitious opinion that apparitions of this
awful kind cannot arise without a divine fiat.' Dr. Hibbert adds, in a
note--'A short time before the vision, Colonel Gardiner had received a
severe fall from his horse. Did the brain receive some slight degree
of injury from the accident, so as to predispose him to this spiritual
illusion?'--HIBBERT'S PHILOSOPHY OF APPARITIONS, Edinburgh, 1824, p.
190.

NOTE 5.--SCOTTISH INNS

The courtesy of an invitation to partake a traveller's meal, or at least
that of being invited to share whatever liquor the guest called for, was
expected by certain old landlords in Scotland, even in the youth of the
author. In requital, mine host was always furnished with the news of the
country, and was probably a little of a humorist to boot. The devolution
of the whole actual business and drudgery of the inn upon the poor
gudewife, was very common among the Scottish Bonifaces. There was in
ancient times, in the city of Edinburgh, a gentleman of good family,
who condescended, in order to gain a livelihood, to become the nominal
keeper of a coffee house, one of the first places of the kind which
had been opened in the Scottish metropolis. As usual, it was entirely
managed by the careful and industrious Mrs. B--; while her husband
amused himself with field sports, without troubling his head about the
matter. Once upon a time the premises having taken fire, the husband was
met, walking up the High Street loaded with his guns and fishing-rods,
and replied calmly to some one who inquired after his wife, 'that the
poor woman