Count Gabalis, in the 17th Century, whoſe Hiſtory is in every ones Hands, and whoſe Wife, as all true Adepts know, had Carnal Knowledge of, and was Impregnated by a certain inviſible Dæmon, that call'd himſelf Ariel. I hope as this extraordinary particularity was the Caſe of Plato, Appollonius Tyanæus, the Earl of Poitiers, and other great Perſonages; and as the Mareſchal de Baſſompiere in his Memoirs, is ſo candid as to confeſs it alſo, of one of the Heads of his Family; it will not be conſider'd as inſolent or conceited in me, that I have own'd this Circumſttance, eſpecially ſince in all Probability, 'tis not a little owing to it, that I am able to enrich the World at preſent, with theſe Works, worthy of ſo celeſtial an Origin.
I was born alſo under the moſt fortunate of all Planets, and to make my Nativity ſtill more Happy, in one of the Ember-Weeks, and with a Cawl, or certain Membrane about my Head; both which as the learned Jeſuit Thyræus, (an Order I particularly Reverence) obſerves, in his Tract[1] de apparitione Spirituum, are Circumſtances, that render
- ↑ Cap. 14. Num. 346.
ſuch
