“An ancient author, equal with the best,
Relates this tale of dreams among the rest”—

and a note explains that the “ancient author” was Cicero, from whose treatise, De Divinatione, the story was taken. I sent the book to Lord Cairns, who answered (June 25th, 1883): “It is Madame Bernstorff’s story to the letter! It was most kind of you to send it to me, and it is a fresh proof that there is nothing new under the sun! The ‘catena’ of Cicero—Chaucer—Dryden—Bernstorff is very amusing.”

LORD HALSBURY’S GHOST STORY

Being a Lord Chancellor does not render a man immune from belief in ghosts. I have more than once heard the late Lord Halsbury relate his adventure in this line. As a young man he went to stay with a friend, who put him up for the night. After he had gone to bed, a figure entered his room, and taking it to be his host he spoke to it, but it made no reply and left as silently as it entered. At breakfast next morning he said to the master of the house—I suppose jokingly—“If you did come in my room last night I think you might have answered when I spoke to you.” Both his hosts looked embarrassed, and then his friend said, “Well, to tell you the truth, that room is considered to be haunted; but it is our best room, and my wife thought that a hard-headed lawyer would not be liable to be disturbed, so we put you there.” Mr. Giffard, as, Lord Halsbury then was, left without further incident, but some time after, meeting his friend again, he said, “Well, how’s your ghost getting on?” “Oh, my dear fellow,” was the reply, “don’t talk of my ghost. My aunt came to stay with me and we put her into that room. The ghost came in and tried to get into her bed, and she will never speak to me again!”

Lord Halsbury also had a story about a ghost who haunted his brother’s house in London. I think it was a little old woman, I cannot remember the details, but he certainly seemed to believe in it.

Talking of dreams and apparitions, though I cannot remember the year—probably in the early nineties—I recollect a rather amusing instance of the explosion of one of such stories when thoroughly sifted. Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Knowles told me one day that the great object of Myers and Gurney and the founders of the Psychical Society was to obtain evidence of a genuine apparition seen by two witnesses who would both bear such testimony as would stand cross-examination by a barrister. This was most sensible, as one person may honestly believe in an appearance, which may be an hallucination caused by circumstances, and affected by his own mental or bodily condition, but it is hardly possible that such conditions will enable two people to see the same spirit at the same moment unless it should actually appear. Mr. Knowles said that at last the Psychical Society had found a well-authenticated story in which two thoroughly credible witnesses had seen the ghost, and this was to come out in the forthcoming number of The Nineteenth Century.

THE GHOSTLY REPORTER

The witnesses were an English judge and his wife; to the best of my recollection they were Sir Edmund and Lady Hornby, and the scene of the apparition Shanghai. Anyhow, I perfectly recollect the story, which was as follows. The judge had been trying a case during the day, and he and his wife had retired to bed when a man (European, not native) entered their bedroom. They were much annoyed by this intrusion and asked what he wanted. He replied that he was a reporter who had been in court, but had been obliged to leave before the conclusion of the trial, and was extremely anxious that the judge should tell him what the verdict was that he might complete the report for his paper. The judge, to get rid of him, gave some answer that satisfied him, and the man departed. Next day the judge learnt that a reporter had been present who was taken ill and died before the conclusion of the trial, and he was convinced that this was his ghostly visitor. The weak point, said Mr. Knowles, was that the narrators would not allow themselves to be cross-examined by a barrister. They were very old, and nervous about the publication of the story in print, and the thought of cross-examination was quite too much for them. However, Mr. Knowles and the other investigators were fully satisfied as to their bona fides, and the tale duly appeared in an article in the Review. No sooner was it published than various people wrote pointing out that it was all a misapprehension. There had been no reporter who had suddenly died on the occasion specified, and various other details were disproved by officials and others who had been at the place at the time when the judge was by way of having presided over the trial and seen the ghost. (Sir Edmund was a judge of the Supreme Court of China and Japan.) Mr. Knowles came again and said, “There you see!” The story when subjected to the light of publicity fell to the ground. No doubt something had put the germ into the old people’s heads and it had blossomed in the course of years.

To return for a minute to the year 1887. In that year my husband was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire—an appointment which he held until his death. This is referred to in the following verses by Mr. Lionel Ashley, younger son of the great Lord Shaftesbury and a friend of my husband’s and mine of long standing. Lady Galloway and I used to call him “the Bard,” as he was fond of making verses about us. I insert these because they give such a happy idea of one of Osterley Saturday-to-Monday parties. They are dated June 19th, 1887, which I see by our Visitors’ List was the Sunday.

“In a cot may be found, I have heard the remark,
More delight than in Castles with pillars.
But we find in the Palace of Osterley Park,
All the charms of suburban Villiers.
“A Sunday in Osterley Gardens and Halls,
That’s a day to look on to and after.
Its pleasures my memory fondly recalls,
And the talk, with its wisdom and laughter.
“In a nice little church a grave sermon we heard,
Which reproved Christianity flabby,
And urged that in heaven a place be preferred
To a Jubilee seat in the Abbey.
·····
“The Irish question, in masterly way,
Mr. Lowell made easy and clear.
We must make them content, without further delay,
But the method was not his affair.
·····
“Of the Queen’s new Lieutenant, with pleasure we hail
The appointment, for now ’tis a mercy,
From cold shoulders in Oxfordshire never will fail
To protect her a glorious Jersey.
····
“Then may everyone of th’ illustrious Brood
Learn to make the same excellent stand his own,
That not only the names, but the qualities good
May descend to each ‘Child’ and each ‘Grandison.’”