Dr. Robert Macnish, of Glasgow, in his "Philosophy of Sleep," says, "No
doubt the apparition of Cæsar which appeared to Brutus, and declared it
would meet him at Philippi, was either a dream or a spectral
illusion--probably the latter. Brutus, in all likelihood, had some idea
that the great battle which was to decide his fate would be fought at
Philippi. Probably it was a good military position, which he had in his
mind fixed upon as a fit place to make a final stand; and he had done
enough to Cæsar to account for his mind being painfully and constantly
engrossed with the image of the assassinated dictator. Hence the
verification of this supposed warning; hence the easy explanation of a
supposed supernatural event."
* * * * *
"The ghost of Byron" may help to verify the above. Sir Walter Scott was
engaged in his study at Abbotsford, not long after the death of Lord
Byron, at about the twilight hour, in reading a sketch of the deceased
poet. The room was quiet, his thoughts were intensely centred upon the
person of his departed friend, when, as he laid down the volume, as he
could see to read no longer, and passed into the hall, he saw before him
the _eidolon_ of the deceased poet. He remained for some time impressed by
the intensity of the illusion, which had thus created a phantom out of
some clothes hanging on a screen at the farther end of the hall.
This is not the first time that Byron had appeared to his friends, as the
following, from his own pen, will show:--
Byron wrote to his friend, Alexander Murray, less than two years before
the death of the latter, as follows:--
"In 1811, my old schoolmate and form-fellow, Robert Peel, the Irish
secretary, told me that he saw me in St. James Street. I was then in
Turkey. A day or two afterwards, he pointed out to his brother a person
across the street, and said, 'There is the man I took for Byron.' His
brother answered, 'Why, it is Byron, and no one else.' I was at this time
_seen_ (by them?) to write my name in the Palace Book! I was then ill of a
malaria fever. If I had died," adds Byron, "here would have been a ghost
story established."
Dr. Johnson says, "An honest old printer named Edward Cave had seen a
ghost at St. John's Gate." Of course, the old man succumbed to the
apparition.