For a long period after this, it would seem that ghosts were either out of fashion, or had become averse from exhibiting before multitudes, and were determined to confine their efforts to the scaring of country bumpkins. It was not till 1810 that a supernatural case of any importance occurred. This case was, it must be owned, far more interesting and startling than its predecessors; it having been managed with such consummate skill as to baffle all attempts to penetrate the mystery. The house of Mr. Chave at Sampford Peverell, in Devonshire, was the scene on which the wonders were acted for several months. The spiritual agent appears to have occasionally assumed the form of some nondescript animal, which always eluded pursuit, and to have had an extreme dislike of women, whom it always pummelled unmercifully. The Rev. C. Colton, the author of Lacon, who endeavoured, but in vain, to find out the cause of the disturbance, tells us that he examined several females who had slept in the house, many of whom were on oath, and they all, without exception, agreed in affirming that “their night’s rest was invariably destroyed by violent blows from some invisible hand, by an unaccountable and rapid drawing and withdrawing of the curtains, by a suffocating and almost inexpressible weight, and by a repetition of sounds, so loud as at times to shake the whole room.” Numerous other respectable witnesses also testified, and offered to do so on oath, to various astonishing circumstances. Suspicions having been expressed that the whole was a juggle, carried on by Mr. Chave and his servants, they made an affidavit denying, in the most explicit terms, any knowledge whatever of the manner in which the sights and sounds were produced. A reward of 250_l._ was at length offered to any one who would throw light on this obscure subject. Tempting as this bait was, no one came forward to seize it. After a while the hubbub ceased; but, like Junius, the mischievous disturber of Sampford Peverell remains to this day undiscovered.