Wherefore I most earnestly beseech you, not to refuse this signe and token of my good wil, be it neuer so simple: but rather to vouchsafe, whē ye haue leisure from the laboure and toile of the common wealth, to reade ouer this my booke: for I haue good hope it will not seeme vnpleasaunt vnto you & others in the reading, as wel for the plaine order I vse therin, as also for the sundrie and manifold histories in it recited. Almightie God, who hath so blessed you with his heauenly gifts, that for them, (albeit very yong) you haue aspired vnto the highest degree in your noble citie and dominiō of _Berna_, vouchsafe to preserue you in health, and increase and multiply his good gifts in you. My Lords & brethren the ministers of _Tigurin_, and also your old companion master _George Grebelius_, that excellent man in lerning, vertu, and nobilitie, hartily salute your Lordship. From _Tigurin_ in the month of Ianuary, the year of Christs Natiuitie. 1570. [Illustration] [Illustration] Contents. A Table of the Chapters of the three principall parts, touching Spirits walking by Night. _Of the first part._ Concerning certaine words which are often vsed in this Treatise of Spirites, and diuers other diuinations of things to come. Chapter.1. Folio.1. Melancholike persons and madde men, imagining things which in very deed are not. Chapter.2. Fol.9. Fearefull men, imagine that they see and heare straunge things. Chap.3. Fol.14. Men which are dull of seeing and hearing, imagine many things which in very deed are not so. Chap.4. Fol.16. Many are so feared by other men, that they suppose they haue heard or seene spirits. Chap.5. Fol.21. Priests and Monkes fained themselues to be spirits: also how _Mundus_ vnder this colour defiled _Paulina_, and _Tyrannus_ abused many noble and honest matrons. Chap.6. Fol.23. _Timotheus Aelurus_, counterfeiting himselfe to be an Angell, obteined a Bishoppricke: foure Monkes of the order of Preachers, made many vaine apparitions at _Berna_. Chapter.7. Fol.28. Of a counterfaite and deceiuing spirite at _Orleaunce_ in _France_. Chap.8. Fol.37. Of a certaine parish priest at _Clauenna_, which fained him selfe to be our Lady, and of an other that counterfeited himselfe to be a Soule, as also of a certaine disguised Iesuit Frier. Chapter.9. Fol.41. That it is no maruell if vaine sightes haue bene in olde time, neither yet that it is to be maruelled at, if there be any at this day. Chap.10. Fol.45.