The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
General
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
Campbell, Duncan, 1680?-1730; Deaf people -- Great Britain -- Biography; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Prophets -- Great Britain -- Biography
Sir William Dugdale with his own mouth informed several gentlemen, 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 in a long time; but would
at last be restored. This Lord Middleton had a great friendship with the
laird Bocconi, and they 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 clothes; when he had done
his message, he gave a frisk, and said--
Givanni, 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 account he hath writ in a book of
Miscellanies, which is now reposited, with other books of his, in the
Museum at Oxford.
Thus the reader sees what great authorities may be produced to prove
that wonderful and true predictions have been delivered by many persons
gifted with the second-sight. The most learned men in almost all
nations, who are not in all likelihood deceived themselves; the most
celebrated and authentic historians, and some divines in England, who,
it is not to be thought, have combined together and made it their
business to obtrude upon us falsehoods; persons of all ranks, from the
highest to the lowest, in Scotland, who, it would be even madness to
think would join in a confederacy to impose tricks upon us, and to
persuade us to the greatest of impostures as solemn truths delivered
from their own mouths; all these, I say, have unanimously, and, as it
were, with one voice, asserted, repeated, and confirmed to us, that
there have been at all times, and in many different nations, and that
still there are persons, who, possessed with the gift of a second sight,
predict things that wonderfully come to pass; and seem to merit very
little less than the name of prophets for their miraculous discoveries.
Now, if any man should come, and without giving the least manner of
reason for it (for there is no reason to be given against such
assertions), declare his disbelief of all these authentic, though
strange accounts, can he with reason imagine that his incredulity shall
pass for a token of wisdom? Shall his obstinacy confute the learned?
Shall his want of faith be thought justly to give the lie to so many
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