"Rex cui nil aliud praesto fuit, accipe, dixit.
Annulum, & ex digito detrahit ille suo.
—- Evangelistoe —- villa Johannis.
— gratia petit."
The verses under the Pilgrim are not legible. This story is in
Caxton's Chronicle.
Dr. —- Twiss, minister of the new church at Westminster, told me, that his father, (Dr. Twiss, prolocutor of the assembly of divines, and author of "Vindicitae Graticae") when he was a school-boy at Winchester, saw the phantom of a school-fellow of his, deceased, (a rakehell) who said to him "I am damned." This was the occasion of Dr. Twiss'a (the father's) conversion, who had been before that time, as he told his son, a very wicked boy; he was hypochondriacal. There is a story like this, of the conversion of St. Bruno, by an apparition: upon which he became mighty devout, and founded the order of the Carthusians.
John Evelyn, Esq., R.S.S., showed us at the Royal-Society, a note under Mr. Smith's hand, the curate of Deptford, that in November,1679, as he was in bed sick of an ague, came to him the vision of a master of arts, with a white wand in his hand, and told him that if he did lie on his back three hours, viz. from ten to one, that he should be rid of his ague. He lay a good while on his back, but at last being weary he turned, and immediately the ague attacked him; afterwards he strictly followed the directions, and was perfectly cured. He was awake, and it was in the day-time.
This puts me in mind of a dream of old Farmer Good, a neighbour of mine at Broad-Chalk, who being ill, dreamt that he met with an old friend of his, (long since deceased) by Knighton Ashes (in that parish) who told him, that if he rose out of his bed, that he would die. He awaked, and rose to make water, and was immediately seized with a shivering fit, and died of an ague, aged 84.
The Lady Viscountess Maidstone told me she saw (as it were) a fly of fire, fly round about her in the dark, half an hour before her lord died: he was killed at sea, and the like before her mother-in-law the Countess of Winchelsea died, (she was then with child).
A Dutch prisoner at Wood-bridge, in Suffolk, in the reign of K. Charles II. could discern Spirits; but others that stood by could not. The bell tolled for a man newly deceased. The prisoner saw his phantom, and did describe him to the Parson of the parish,* who was with him; exactly agreeing with the man for whom the bell tolled. Says the prisoner, now he is coming near to you, and now he is between you and the wall; the Parson was resolved to try it, and went to take the wall of him, and was thrown down; he could see nothing. This story is credibly told by several persons of belief.
* Dr. Hooke, the Parson of the parish, has often told this story.
There is a very remarkable story of an apparition, which Martin Luther did see. Mentioned in his "Commensalia" or Table-Talk, which see.
Those that are delirious in high fevers, see (waking, men, and things that are not there). I knew one Mr. M. L. that took opium, and he did see (being awake) men and things that were not present, (or perhaps) not in being. Those whose spleens are ill affected have the like phantasies. The power of imagination is wonderful.