death the very first moment, without jumbling circumstances, and without
any interest too; she must be more witty, fortunate, and wicked too,
than any indifferent person, I dare say, will allow. I asked Mrs.
Bargrave several times, if she was sure she felt the gown? She answered
modestly, If my senses be to be relied on, I am sure of it. I asked her,
if she heard a sound when she clapped her hand upon her knee? She said,
she did not remember she did; but said she appeared to be as much a
substance as I did, who talked with her. And I may, said she, be as soon
persuaded, that your apparition is talking to me now, as that I did not
really see her: for I was under no manner of fear, and received her as a
friend, and parted with her as such. I would not, says she, give one
farthing to make any one believe it: I have no interest in it; nothing
but trouble is entailed upon me for a long time, for aught I know; and
had it not come to light by accident, it would never have been made
public. But now, she says, she will make her own private use of it, and
keep herself out of the way as much as she can; and so she has done
since. She says, She had a gentleman who came thirty miles to her to
hear the relation; and that she had told it to a room full of people at
a time. Several particular gentlemen have had the story from Mrs.
Bargrave's own mouth.

This thing has very much affected me, and I am as well satisfied, as I
am of the best-grounded matter of fact. And why we should dispute matter
of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain
or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me. Mrs. Bargrave's authority
and sincerity alone, would have been undoubted in any other case.


TO THE READER