he late Mr. Maurice Lothian,
solicitor for the plaintiff, a suit which arose out of 'hauntings,'
and was heard in the sheriff's court, at Edinburgh, in 1835-37. But
we are unable to discover the official records, or extracts of
evidence from them. This is to be regretted, but, by way of
consolation, we have the pleadings on both sides in an ancient
French case of a haunted house. These are preserved in his Discours
des Spectres, a closely printed quarto of nearly 1000 pages, by
Pierre le Loyer, Conseiller du Roy au Siege Presidial d'Angers.
{269} Le Loyer says, 'De gayete de coeur semble m'estre voulu
engager au combat contre ceux qui impugnent les spectres!' As Le
Loyer observes, ghosts seldom come into court in civil cases, except
when indicted as nuisances, namely, when they make a hired house
uninhabitable by their frolics. Then the tenant often wants to quit
the house, and to have his contract annulled. The landlord resists,
an action is brought, and is generally settled in accordance with
the suggestion of Alphenus, in his Digests, book ii. Alphenus says,
in brief, that the fear must be a genuine fear, and that reason for
no ordinary dread must be proved. Hence Arnault Ferton, in his
Customal of Burgundy, advises that 'legitimate dread of phantasms
which trouble men's rest and make night hideous' is reason good for
leaving a house, and declining to pay rent after the day of
departure. Covarruvias, a Spanish legist, already quoted, agrees
with Arnault Ferton. The Parliament of Grenada, in one or two
cases, decided in favour of the tenant, and against the landlord of
houses where spectres racketed. Le Loyer now reports the pleadings
in a famous case, of which he does not give the date. Incidentally,
however, we learn that it can hardly have been earlier than 1550.
The cause was heard, on appeal, before the Parlement de Paris.

Pierre Piquet, guardian of Nicolas Macquereau (a minor), let to
Giles Bolacre a house in the suburbs of Tours. Poor Bolacre was
promptly disturbed by a noise and routing of _invisible_ spirits,
which suffered neither himself nor his family to sleep o' nights.
He then cited Piquet, also Daniel Macquereau, who was concerned in
the letting of the house, before the local seat of Themis. The case
was heard, and the judge at Tours broke the lease, the hauntings
being insupportable nuisances. But this he did without letters
royal. The lessors then appealed, and the case came before