Don Juan

A SPECTRAL RESEARCH

"I have heard of spirits walking with aerial bodies, and have been
wondered at by others; but I must only wonder at myself, for if they
be not mad, I'me come to my own buriall."--SHIRLEY's Witty Fairie
One

Everybody has heard of the fate of Don Juan, the famous libertine of
Seville, who for his sins against the fair sex and other minor peccadilloes
was hurried away to the infernal regions. His story has been illustrated in
play, in pantomime, and farce, on every stage in Christendom; until at
length it has been rendered the theme of the operas, and embalmed to
endless duration in the glorious music of Mozart. I well recollect the
effect of this story upon my feelings in my boyish days, though represented
in grotesque pantomime; the awe with which I contemplated the monumental
statue on horseback of the murdered commander, gleaming by pale moonlight
in the convent cemetery; how my heart quaked as he bowed his marble head,
and accepted the impious invitation of Don Juan: how each footfall of the
statue smote upon my heart, as I heard it approach, step by step, through
the echoing corridor, and beheld it enter, and advance, a moving figure of
stone, to the supper table! But then the convivial scene in the
charnel-house, where Don Juan returned the visit of the statue; was offered
a banquet of skulls and bones, and on refusing to partake, was hurled into
a yawning gulf, under a tremendous shower of fire! These were accumulated
horrors enough to shake the nerves of the most pantomime-loving schoolboy.
Many have supposed the story of Don Juan a mere fable. I myself thought so
once; but "seeing is believing." I have since beheld the very scene where
it took place, and now to indulge any doubt on the subject would be
preposterous.

I was one night perambulating the streets of Seville, in company with a
Spanish friend, a curious investigator of the popular traditions and other
good-for-nothing lore of the city, and who was kind enough to imagine he
had met, in me, with a congenial spirit. In the course of our rambles we
were passing by a heavy, dark gateway, opening into the courtyard of a
convent, when he laid his hand upon my arm: "Stop!" said he, "this is the
convent of San Francisco; there is a story connected with it which I am
sure must be known to you. You cannot but have heard of Don Juan and the
marble statue."

"Undoubtedly," replied I, "it has been familiar to me from childhood."

"Well, then, it was in the cemetery of this very convent that the events
took place."

"Why, you do not mean to say that the story is founded on fact?"

"Undoubtedly it is. The circumstances of the