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better, because of an ill report it lyes under of being haunted; for which reason (as I have been told in the family) no living creature ever walks in it besides the Chaplain. My good friend the Butler desired me with a very grave face not to venture my self in it after sun-set, for that one of the footmen had been almost frighted out of his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in the shape of a black horse without an head; to which he added, that about a month ago one of the maids coming home late that way with a pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling among the bushes that she let it fall.

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I was taking a walk in this place last night between the hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper scenes in the world for a ghost to appear in. The ruines of the abby are scattered up and down on every side, and half covered with ivy and elder bushes, the harbours of several solitary birds which seldom make their appearance till the dusk of the evening. The place was formerly a churchyard, and has still several marks in it of graves and buryingplaces. There is such an Echo among the old ruines and vaults, that if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, you hear the sound repeated. At the same time the walk of elms, with the croaking of the ravens which from time to time are heard from the tops of them, looks exceeding solemn and venerable. These objects naturally raise seriousness and attention and when night heightens the awfulness of the place, 25 and pours out her supernumerary horrors upon every thing in it, I do not at all wonder that weak minds fill it with spectres and apparitions.

Mr. Locke, in his chapter of the association of ideas, has very curious remarks to shew how by the prejudice of eduIcation one idea often introduces into the mind a whole set that bear no resemblance to one another in the nature of things. Among several examples of this kind, he produces the following instance. The ideas of goblins and sprights

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have really no more to do with darkness than light: yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives; but darkness shall ever afterward bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other.

As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk of the evening conspired with so many other occasions of terrour, I observed a cow grazing not far from me, which an imagination that is apt to startle might easily have construed into a black horse without an head and I dare say the poor footman lost his wits upon some such trivial occasion.

My friend Sir ROGER has often told me with a great deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate, he found three parts of his house altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means was locked up; that noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it after eight-a-clock at night; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family, that a Butler had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which either a husband, a son, or daughter had died. The Knight seeing his habitation reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the apartments to be flung open, and exorcised by his Chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, and by that means 30 dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in the family.

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I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous horrours, did not I find them so very much prevail in all parts of the country. At the same time I think a person who is thus terrified with the imagination of Ghosts and Spectres

much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the reports of all Historians sacred and prophane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless. Could not I give my self up to this general testimony of mankind, I should to the relations of particular persons who are now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other matters of fact. I might here add, that not only the Historians, to whom we may join the Poets, but likewise the Philosophers of antiquity have favoured this opinion. Lucretius himself, though by the course of his Philosophy he was obliged to maintain that the soul did not exist separate from the body, makes no doubt of the reality of apparitions, and that men have often appeared after their death. This I think very remarkable; he was so pressed with the matter of fact which he could not have the confidence to deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd unphilosophical notions that was ever started. He tells us, That the surfaces of all bodies are perpetually flying off from their respective bodies, one after another; and that these surfaces or thin cases that included each other whilst they were joined in the body like the coats of an Onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it; by which means we often behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are either dead or absent.

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I shall dismiss this paper with a story out of Josephus, not 25 so much for the sake of the story it self, as for the moral reflections with which the Author concludes it, and which I shall here set down in his own words. "Glaphyra the daughter of King Archilaus, after the death of her two first husbands (being married to a third, who was brother to her "first husband, and so passionately in love with her that he "turned off his former wife to make room for this marriage) "had a very odd kind of dream. She fancied that she saw "her first husband coming towards her, and that she embraced

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"him with great tenderness; when in the midst of the pleasure which she expressed at the sight of him, he reproached "her after the following manner: Glaphyra, says he, thou "hast made good the old saying, that women are not to be "trusted. Was not I the husband of thy virginity? Have I "not children by thee? How couldst thou forget our loves "so far as to enter into a second marriage, and after that "into a third, nay to take for thy husband a man who has so shamelessly crept into the bed of his brother? However, "for the sake of our passed loves, I shall free thee from thy 'present reproach, and make thee mine for ever. Glaphyra "told this Dream to several women of her acquaintance, and "died soon after. I thought this story might not be imper"tinent in this place, wherein I speak of those Kings: besides "that, the example deserves to be taken notice of, as it con"tains a most certain proof of the Immortality of the Soul, "and of divine Providence. If any man thinks these facts "incredible, let him enjoy his opinion to himself; but let "him not endeavour to disturb the belief of others, who by "instances of this nature are excited to the study of Virtue.

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N° 112. Monday, July 9. [1711.]

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I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday; and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of mankind. It is 25 certain the country-people would soon degenerate into a kind. of Savages and Barbarians, were there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in which the whole village meet together with

their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join together in adoration of the supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. A countryfellow distinguishes himself as much in the Church-yard, as a Citizen does upon the Change, the whole parish-politicks being generally discussed in that place either after sermon or before the bell rings.

My friend Sir ROGER being a good church-man, has beautified the inside of his church with several texts of his own chusing : He has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in the communion-table at his own expence. He has often told me, that at his coming to his estate he found his parishioners very irregular; and that in order to make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a common-prayer-book; and at the same time employed an itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the country churches that I have ever heard.

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As Sir ROGER is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps 25 them in very good order, and will suffer no body to sleep in it besides himself; for if by chance he has been surprized into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees any body else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his servant to them. Several 30 other of the old Knight's particularities break out upon these occasions: Sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing-psalms, half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the

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