on his Shoulders as one that was justly loaded or charged with that crime of getting his Kinswoman with Child, as well as of complotting with Sharp to Murder her.
The Letter also which he mentions writ from the Judge, before whom the Trial was heard, to Serjeant Hutton, it is plain out of Mr. Smart's Testimony that it was from Judge Davenport; which in all likelihood was a very full and punctual Narrative of the whole business, and enabled Mr. Webster in some considerable things, to be more particular than Mr. Lumley; but the agreement is so exact for the main, that there is no doubt to be made of the truth of the Apparition. But that this forsooth, must not be the Soul of Anne Walker, but her Astral Spirit, this is but a fantastick Conceit of Webster and his Paracelsians, which I have sufficiently shewn the Folly of in the Scholia on my Immortality of the Soul, Volum. Philos. Tom, 2. Page 384.
This Story of Anne Walker I think you will do well to put amongst your Additions in the new Impression of your Dæmon of Tedworth, being so excellently well attested, and so unexceptionably in every respect; and to hasten as fast as you can that Impression, to undeceive the half witted World, who so much exult and triumph in the extinguishing the belief of that Narration, as if the crying down the Truth of that of the Dæmon of Tedworth, were indeed the very flaying of the Devil, and that they may now with more gaiety and security than ever sing in a loud Note, that mad drunken Catch
Hay ho! the Devil is Dead, &c.
Which wild Song, though it may seem a piece of Levity to mention; yet believe me, the Application thereof bears a sober and weighty intimation along with it, viz. that these sort of People are very horribly afraid there should be any Spirit, least there should be a Devil & an account after this Life; & therefore they are impatient of any thing that implies it, that they may with a more full swing, and with all security from an after reckoning, indulge their own Lusts and Humours in this; and I know by long experience that nothing rouzes them so out of that dull Lethargy of Atheism and Sadducism, as Narrations of this kind, for the being of a thick and gross Spirit, the most subtile and solid deductions of Reason does little execution upon them; but this sort of sensible Experiments cuts them and slings them very sore, and so startles them that by a less considerabie Story by far than this of the Drummer of Tedworth, or of Anne Walker, a Doctor of Physick
