parliament (i.e. from London to Oxford), and stand to his council;'
adding, 'Do as I bid you.' That on the 26th, it appeared to her a
third time, but said only, 'Do your message;' and that on the next
night, when she saw it for the last time, it said nothing at all.
Those, who depend upon the people for support, must try all manner
of practices upon them, and such fooleries as these sometimes
operate more forcibly than experiments of a more rational kind.
Care was besides taken to have this relation attested by Sir Joseph
Jordan, a justice of peace, and the rector of Hatfield, Dr Lee, who
was one of the king's chaplains. Nay, the message was actually sent
to his majesty, and the whole forgery very officially circulated
over the kingdom." RALPH'S _History_ Vol. I. p. 562.

4. In truth, the devil and the conjuror did not always play upon the
square, but often took the most unfair advantages of each other.
There is more than one instance of bad faith in the history of that
renowned enchanter, Peter Fabel. On one occasion, he prevailed upon
the devil, when he came to carry him off, to repose himself in an
enchanted chair, from which he refused to liberate him, until he
had granted him an additional lease of seven years. When this term
was also expired, he had the eloquence and art to prevail on the
fiend to allow him a farther respite, till a wax taper, then nearly
expiring, was burned out. This boon being granted, he instantly put
out the light, and deposited the taper in the church at Edmonton.
Hence, in Weiver's "Funeral Monuments," he is thus mentioned: "Here
(at Edmonton) lieth interred, under a seemly tombe without
inscription, the body of Peter Fabell, as the report goes, upon
whom this fable was fathered, that he, by his wittie devices,
beguiled the devill." p 514. See also the _Book of his Merry
Prankes_. Another instance occurs, in the famous history of Friar