Sir William Dugdale did farther inform me that Major General Middleton
(since Lord) went into the Highlands of Scotland, to endeavour to make
a party for King Charles I. An old gentleman (that was second-sighted)
came and told him, that his endeavour was good, but he would be
unsuccessful: and moreover, "that they would put the King to death:
And that several other attempts would be made, but all in vain: but
that his son would come in, but not reign; but at last would be
restored." This Lord Middleton had a great friendship with the Laird
Bocconi, and they had made an agreement, that the first of them that
died should appear to the other in extremity. The Lord Middleton was
taken prisoner at Worcester fight, and was prisoner in the Tower of
London, under three locks. Lying in his bed pensive, Bocconi appeared
to him; my Lord Middleton asked him if he were dead or alive ? he
said, dead, and that he was a ghost; and told him, that within three
days he should escape, and he did so, in his wife's cloaths. When he
had done his message, he gave a frisk, and said,
Givenni Givanni 'tis very strange,
In the world to see so sudden a change.
And then gathered up and vanished. This account Sir William Dugdale
had from the Bishop of Edinburgh. And this, and the former account he
hath writ in a book of miscellanies, which I have seen, and is now
reposited with other books of his in the Musaeum at Oxford.
Anno 1670, not far from Cirencester, was an apparition: being
demanded, whether a good spirit, or a bad ? returned no answer, but
disappeared with a curious perfume and most melodious twang. Mr. W.
Lilly believes it was a fairy. So Propertius.
Omnia finierat; tenues secessit in auras:
Mansit odor; posses scire fuisse Deam.
Here, her speech ending, fled the beauteous fair,
Melting th' embodied form to thinner air,
Whom the remaining scent a goddess did declare.
The learned Henry Jacob, fellow of Merton college in Oxford, died at
Dr. Jacob's, M. D. house in Canterbury. About a week after his death,
the doctor being in bed and awake, and the moon shining bright, saw
his cousin Henry standing by his bed, in his shirt, with a white cap
on his head and his beard-mustachoes turning up, as when he was alive.
The doctor pinched himself, and was sure he was awaked: he turned to
the other side from him; and, after some time, took courage to turn
the other way again towards him, and Henry Jacob stood there still; he
should have spoken to him, but he did not; for which he has been ever
since sorry. About half an hour after, he vanished. Not long after
this, the cook-maid, going to the wood-pile to fetch wood to dress
supper, saw him standing in his shirt upon the wood-pile.* This
account I had in a letter from Doctor Jacob, 1673, relating to his
life, for Mr. Anthony Wood; which is now in his hands.
* See the whole story in Ath. & Fasti Oxon. Part 2, p. 91.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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