witness, and
his evidence the best possible; but he cannot be heard by proxy in this
court. Summon him hither, and I'll hear him in person; but your
communication is mere hearsay, which my office compels me to reject."
Yet it is upon the credit of one man, who pledges it upon that of three
or four persons, who have told it successively to each other, that we
are often expected to believe an incident inconsistent with the laws of
Nature, however agreeable to our love of the wonderful and the horrible.

In estimating the truth or falsehood of such stories it is evident we
can derive no proofs from that period of society when men affirmed
boldly, and believed stoutly, all the wonders which could be coined or
fancied. That such stories are believed and told by grave historians,
only shows that the wisest men cannot rise in all things above the
general ignorance of their age. Upon the evidence of such historians we
might as well believe the portents of ancient or the miracles of modern
Rome. For example, we read in Clarendon of the apparition of the ghost
of Sir George Villiers to an ancient dependant. This is no doubt a story
told by a grave author, at a time when such stories were believed by all
the world; but does it follow that our reason must acquiesce in a
statement so positively contradicted by the voice of Nature through all
her works? The miracle of raising a dead man was positively refused by
our Saviour to the Jews, who demanded it as a proof of his mission,
because they had already sufficient grounds of conviction; and, as they
believed them not, it was irresistibly argued by the Divine Person whom
they tempted, that neither would they believe if one arose from the
dead. Shall we suppose that a miracle refused for the conversion of
God's chosen people was sent on a vain errand to save the life of a
profligate spendthrift? I lay aside, you observe, entirely the not
unreasonable supposition that Towers, or whatever was the ghost-seer's
name, desirous to make an impression upon Buckingham, as an old servant
of his house, might be tempted to give him his advice, of which we are
not told the import, in the character of his father's spirit, and
authenticate the tale by the mention of some token known to him as a
former retainer of the family. The Duke was superstitious, and the ready
dupe of astrologers and soothsayers. The manner in which he had provoked
the fury of the people must have warned every reflecting person