"Grammercy!" cried the Student, "what do I see. At the other end of the church are two spirits, who are passing along together, but badly matched. Their forms and manners are immensely different: one is of enormous height, and moves with corresponding gravity, while the other is of dwarf-like stature, and passes o'er the ground like a breath." "The giant," replied the Cripple, "was a German, who lost his life in a debauch, by drinking three healths with tobacco mixed inadvertently in his wine; and the little ghost is that of a Parisian, who, with the gallantry belonging to his countrymen, was imprudent enough, on entering this very church, to present the holy water to a young lady who was leaving it: as a reward for his politeness, he was saluted on the same day with the contents of a carbine, which left him here a moral for all too attentive Frenchmen.
"For myself," continued Asmodeus, "I have been looking at three spirits which I discerned among the crowd; and I must tell you by what means they were separated from their earthly companions. They animated the charming forms of as many female performers, who made as much noise at Madrid, in their time, as did Origo, Cytheris and Arbuscula, in theirs, at Rome; and, like their said prototypes, they possessed the exquisite art of amusing mankind in public, and of privately ruining the same amiable animal. But, alas! all things must have an end, and these were the finales of those celebrated ladies: one died suddenly of envy, at an apopletic fit of applause, from the pit, which fell upon a lovely first-night; another found in excessive good cheer, at home, the infallible drop which follows it; and, the third, undertaking the dangerous character, for an actress, of a vestal, became so excited with her part that she died of a miscarriage behind the scenes.
"But we will leave to their reposes(!) all these shades," again continued the Demon; "we have passed them sufficiently in review. I will now present to your sight a spectacle which, as a man, must impress you with a deeper feeling than the sight of the dead. I am about, by the same power which has rendered the shades of the departed visible to your sight, to present to you the vision of Death himself. Yes! you shall behold that insatiable enemy of the human race, who prowls unceasingly in the haunts of man, unperceived by his victims; who surrounds the earth, in his speed, in the twinkling of an eye; and who strikes by his power, its most distant inhabitants at the same moment.