To the Reader
Appetite to the reading so pleasant and useful a Treatise, and yet I can add one thing more touching the story of the Dæmon of Tedworth which is very considerable, it is not for me indeed to take notice of that meanness of Spirit in the Exploders of Apparitions and Witches, which very strangely betray'd it self in the decrying of that well attested Narrative touching the stirs in Mr. Mompesson's House, where altho' they that came to be Spectators of the Marvelous things there done by invisible Agents, had all the Liberty imaginable, even to the ripping of the Bolsters open to search and try if they could discover any natural Cause and cunning Artifice whereby such strange feats were done; and numbers that had free access from Day to Day, were abundantly satisy'd of the reality of the thing, That the House was haunted and disturbed by Dæmons or Spirits; yet some few Years after the stirs had ceased, the truth of this Story lying so uneasie in the Minds of the disgusters of such things, they rais'd a Report, when none of them, no not the most diligent and curious could detect any trick or fraud themselves in the matter, That both Mr. Glanvil himself, who published the Narrative, and Mr. Mompesson, in whose House these wonderful things happen'd, had confest the whole Matter to be a Cheat and Imposture, and they were so diligent in spreading abroad this gross untruth, that it went current in all the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, an egregious discovery of what kind of Spirit this sort of Men are, which as I said, though it be not for me to take notice of, yet I will not stick to signifie it being both for mine own Interest and the Interest of Truth, that those Reports raised touching Mr. Glan-
