and elevation, which,—­if it be not considered as a predisposition to welcome the visitation of those unearthly substances that are impalpable to our sight in moments of less hallowed sentiment,—­is indisputably the state of mind in which the imagination is most readily excited, and the understanding most favourably inclined to grant a credulous reception to its visions.  The apartment also which was appropriated to Lord Londonderry, was calculated to foster such a tone of feeling.  From its antique appointments; from the dark and richly-carved panels of its wainscot; from its yawning width and height of chimney—­looking like the open entrance to a tomb, of which the surrounding ornaments appeared to form the sculptures and the entablature;—­from the portraits of grim men and severe-eyed women, arrayed in orderly procession along the walls, and scowling a contemptuous enmity against the degenerate invader of their gloomy bowers and venerable halls; from the vast, dusky, ponderous, and complicated draperies that concealed the windows, and hung with the gloomy grandeur of funereal trappings about the hearse-like piece of furniture that was destined for his bed,—­Lord L., on entering his apartment, might be conscious of some mental depression, and surrounded by such a world of melancholy images, might, perhaps, feel himself more than usually inclined to submit to the influences of superstition.  It is not possible that these sentiments should have been allied to any feelings of apprehension.  Fear is acknowledged to be a most mighty master over the visions of the imagination.  It can “call spirits from the vasty deep”—­and they do come, when it does call for them.  It trembles at the anticipation of approaching evil, and then encounters in every passing shadow the substance of the dream it trembled at.  But such could not have been the origin of the form which addressed itself to the view of Lord Londonderry.  Fear is a quality that was never known to mingle in the character of a Stewart.  Lord Londonderry examined his chamber—­he made himself acquainted with the forms and faces of the ancient possessors of the mansion, who sat up right in their ebony frames to receive his salutation; and then, after dismissing his valet, he retired to bed.  His candles had not been long extinguished, when he perceived a light gleaming on the draperies of the lofty canopy over his head.  Conscious that there was no fire in the grate—­that the curtains were closed—­that the chamber had been in perfect darkness but a few moments before, he supposed that some intruder must have accidentally entered his apartment; and, turning hastily round to the side from which the light proceeded—­saw—­to his infinite astonishment—­not the form of any human visiter—­but the figure of a fair boy, who seemed to be garmented in rays of mild and tempered glory, which beamed palely from his slender form, like the faint light of the declining moon, and rendered the objects which were nearest to him dimly