It is highly probable that it was Aubrey who furnished Wood with the account of Traherne which appears in the _Athenæ Oxonienses_, and doubtless he could have given us much more information about him had he chosen to do so. But he was incapable of appreciating so fine a spirit as Traherne's; nor was the latter likely to reveal to him the profounder depths of his nature. It is much to be regretted that Aubrey gives us such a confused account of what he was told. The stories were doubtless related to him at his own direct request, he being ever eager to collect accounts of the marvellous and the supernatural. It seems evident that Traherne attached little importance to these two visions, purposeless as they apparently were, and as visions of the kind usually are. No one nowadays would attribute such phantoms of the brain to any supernatural cause, nor does it appear that Traherne himself did. I find no trace in his writings of a belief in the common superstitions of his time as to ghosts, witches, or evil spirits. The date of the interview in which Traherne related these things to Aubrey is fixed by the date given in it (1671) to a period within two or three years of the poet's death. During these latter years he was, according to Wood, minister of the parish of Teddington, Middlesex. It was there that Sir Orlando Bridgman's country residence was situated; and it was doubtless owing to his lordship's influence that Traherne was appointed minister. That he did hold that position seems to be certain, though, curiously enough, his name does not appear in the list of ministers of the parish which is given in Newcourt's "Repertorium Ecclesiasticum." Perhaps this may be accounted for by the fact that though Traherne was actually the working minister, the post was nominally held by a clerical pluralist of the time. The succession of curates as given by Newcourt during the period of Traherne's connection with the parish is as follows: 1664,--Badcock; 1668, Car. Bryan; 1673, Joh. Graves; 1677, Jacobus Elsby.