"In two of the narratives, the 'Wynyard apparition' and 'Gaspar,' I have obtained and inserted in the latest editions important additional vouchers.
"You have not, as you inform me, the 'slightest hesitation in rejecting the entire mass of the stories.' Forgive me if I say, that I admire your boldness more than your discretion. Abercrombie, in his 'Intellectual Powers,' vouches ('Footfalls,' pp. 151, 163, 181, 204) for several of the most remarkable. John Wesley relates (p. 225), and Dr. Adam Clarke and the poet Southey indorse (p. 238) another; Goethe is sponsor for one (p. 197); sceptics like Mackay (p. 255) and Macnish (p. 155) for a second and third; Mrs. Senator Linn for a fourth (p. 455); Dr. Bushnell for a fifth (p. 459); William Howitt and his amiable wife for several more (pp. 170, 171, 373); Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall for two of the most interesting (pp. 447, 463). At least a dozen are attested by clergymen of unimpeached character. If all these names seem to you irresponsible, and if you refuse credit, unless men be 'put on the stand and under the solemnity of an oath,' that species of evidence also, the highest known to the law, I have furnished. The facts touching the Mompesson disturbances were officially proved in court (p. 221); so, before the sheriff of Edinburgh, were those which tormented Captain Molesworth (p. 254); so, above all, were the phenomena of the Cideville Parsonage, running through two months and a half. In this last case I have given (pp. 275 to 282) the sworn testimony of _eleven_ witnesses taken down, as the French forms of law require, in writing, read over to each witness, and its accuracy attested by the signature of each. Among these witnesses were the mayor of the town, the Marquis de Mirville, well known as an author of repute, a neighboring lady of rank and her son, and three clergymen. The mayor swears that he saw the shovel and tongs move from the fireplace into the room, no one touching them or near them; that, having replaced them, the same thing happened a second time, 'while the witness had his eyes on them, so as to detect any trick.' The Curate of Saussy saw a 'hammer fly, impelled by an invisible force, from the spot where it lay, and fall on the floor without more noise than if he had placed it there.' All testify to phenomena, and especially to knockings, as marvellous as any which American Spiritualism claims. Monsieur de Saint Victor deposes that 'he felt convinced, that if every person in the house had set to work, together, to pound with mallets on the floor, they would not have produced such a racket' (p. 280). Not one of the witnesses, placed under such solemn responsibilities, 'shrinks from repeating the monstrous story.'