Hobson, who professed to have been visited on several occasions
by supernatural beings. He upholds too the authenticity of the
notorious Drummer of Tedworth, whose escapades are described in
chapbooks and in Glanvill's _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ (1666), a
book in which he was keenly interested. In his journal (May 25th,
1768) he remarks:

"It is true that the English in general, and indeed
most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up
all accounts of witches and apparitions, as mere old
wives' fables. I am sorry for it; and I willingly take
this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against
this violent compliment which so many that believe the
Bible pay to those who do not believe it."

The Cock Lane ghost gained very general credit, and was
considered by Mrs. Nickleby a personage of some importance, when
she boasted to Miss La Creevy that her great-grandfather went to
school with him--or her grandmother with the Thirsty Woman of
Tutbury. The appearance of Lord Lyttleton's ghost in 1779 was
described by Dr. Johnson, who was also disposed to believe in the
Cock Lane ghost, as the most extraordinary thing that had
happened in his day.[5] There is abundant evidence that the
people of the eighteenth century were extremely credulous, yet,
in literature, there is a tendency to look askance at the
supernatural as at something wild and barbaric. Such ghosts as
presume to steal into poetry are amazingly tame, and even
elegant, in their speech and deportment. In Mallet's _William and
Margaret_ (1759). which was founded on a scrap of an old ballad
out of _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, Margaret's wraith