Cock Lane Ghost discredited. Popular Theory of Imposture. Dr.
Johnson. Story of the Ghost. The Deceased Wife's Sister.
Beginning of the Phenomena. Death of Fanny. Recurrence of
Phenomena. Scratchings. Parallel Cases. Ignorance and Malevolence
of the Ghost. Possible Literary Sources. Investigation. Imitative
Scratchings: a Failure. Trial of the Parsonses. Professor
Barrett's Irish parallel. Cause undetected. The Theories of
Common-sense. The St. Maur Affair. The Amiens Case. The Sportive
Highland Fox. The Brightling Case.
If one phantom is more discredited than another, it is the Cock Lane
ghost.
The ghost has been a proverb for impudent trickery, and stern
exposure, yet its history remains a puzzle, and is a good, if vulgar
type, of all similar marvels. The very people who 'exposed' the
ghost, were well aware that their explanation was worthless, and
frankly admitted the fact. Yet they, no more than we, were prepared
to believe that the phenomena were produced by the spiritual part of
Miss Fanny L.--known after her decease, as 'Scratching Fanny'. We
still wander in Cock Lane, with a sense of amused antiquarian
curiosity, and the same feeling accompanies us in all our
explorations of this branch of mythology. It may be easy for some
people of common-sense to believe that all London was turned upside
down, that Walpole, the Duke of York, Lady Mary Coke, and two other
ladies were drawn to Cock Lane (five in a hackney coach), that Dr.
Johnson gave up his leisure and incurred ridicule, merely because a
naughty child was scratching on a little wooden board.
The matter cannot have been so simple as that, but from the true
solution of the problem we are as remote as ever. We can, indeed,
study even the Cock Lane Ghost in the light of the Comparative, or
Anthropological Method. We can ascertain that the occurrences which
puzzled London in 1762, were puzzling heathen philosophers and
Fathers of the Church 1400 years earlier. We can trace a chain of
'Scratching Fannies' through the ages, and among races in every
grade of civilisation. And then the veil drops, or we run our heads
against a blank wall in a dark alley. Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks,
Eskimo, Red Men, Dyaks, Fellows of the Royal Society, Inquisitors,
Saints, have perlustrated Cock Lane, and have come away nothing the
wiser. Some, of course, have thought they had the secret, have
recognised the work of God, 'daemons,' 'spirits,' 'ghosts,'
'devils,' 'fairies' and of ordinary impostors: others have made a
push at a theory of disengaged nervous force, or animal magnetism.
We prefer to leave theory alone, not even accepting with enthusiasm,
the hypothesis of Dr. Johnson. 'He expressed great indignation at
the imposture of the Cock Lane ghost, and related, with much
satisfaction, how he had assisted in detecting the cheat, and had
published an account of it in the newspapers. Upon this subject I
incautiously offended him, by pressing him with too many questions,'
says Boswell,--questions which the good doctor was obviously unable
to answer.
It is in January, 1762, that the London newspapers begin to be full
of a popular mystery, the Cock Lane ghost. Reports, articles,
letters, appeared, and the ghost made what is now called a
'sensation'. Perhaps, the most clear, if the most prejudiced
account, is that given in a pamphlet entitled The Mystery Revealed,
published by Bristow, in St. Paul's Churchyard (1762). Comparing
this treatise (which Goldsmith is said to have written for three
guineas) with the newspapers, The Gentleman's Magazine and the
Annual Register, we get a more or less distinct view of the subject.
But the various newspapers repeat each other's versions, with slight
alterations; The Gentleman's Magazine, and Annual Register, follow
suit, the narratives are 'synoptic,' while Goldsmith's tract, if it
be Goldsmith's, is obviously written in defence of the unlucky Mr.
K., falsely accused of murder by the ghost.
Mr. K.'s version is the version given by Goldsmith, and thus leads
up to the 'phenomena' through a romance of middle-class life. In
1756, this Mr. K., a person of some means, married Miss E. L. of L.
in Norfolk. In eleven months the young wife died, in childbed, and
her sister, Miss Fanny, came to keep house for Mr. K. The usual
passionate desire to marry his deceased wife's sister assailed Mr.
K., and Fanny shared his flame. According to Goldsmith, the canon
law would have permitted the nuptials, if the wife had not born a
child which lived, though only for a few minutes. However this may
be, Mr. K. honourably fled from Fanny, who, unhappily, pursued him
with letters, and followed him to town. Here they took lodgings
together, but when Mr. K. left the rooms, being unable to recover
some money which he had lent his landlord, the pair looked out for
new apartments. These they found in Cock Lane, in the house of Mr.
Parsons, clerk of St. Sepulchre's.
It chanced (here we turn to the Annual Register for 1762) that Mr.
K. left Fanny alone in Cock Lane while he went to a wedding in the
country. She asked little Elizabeth Parsons, her landlord's
daughter, to share her bed, and both of them were disturbed by
strange scratchings and rappings. These were attributed by Mrs.
Parsons to the industry of a neighbouring cobbler, but when they
occurred on a Sunday, this theory was abandoned. Poor Fanny,
according to the newspapers, thought the noises were a warning of
her own death. Others, after the event, imagined that they were
caused by the jealous or admonishing spirit of her dead sister.
Fanny and Mr. K. (having sued Mr. Parsons for money lent) left his
rooms in dudgeon, and went to Bartlet Court, Clerkenwell. Here
Fanny died on February 2, 1760, of a disease which her physician and
apothecary certified to be small-pox, and her coffin was laid in the
vault of St. John's Church. Now the noises in Cock Lane had ceased
for a year and a half after Fanny left the house, but they returned
in force in 1761-62. Mr. Parsons in vain took down the
wainscotting, to see whether some mischievous neighbour produced the
sounds. {165} The raps and scratches seemed to come on the bed of
little Elizabeth Parsons, just as in the case of the Tedworth
drummer, investigated by Glanvill, a hundred years earlier; and in
the case at Orleans, 230 years earlier. The Orleans case is
published, with full legal documents, from MS. 40, 7170, 4,
Bibliotheque du Roi, in Recueil de Dissertations Anciennes et
Nouvelles sur les Apparitions, ii. 90 (a Avignon, 1751).
'Scratching' was usually the first manifestation in this affair, and
the scratches were heard in the bedroom occupied by certain
children. The Cock Lane child 'was always affected with tremblings
and shiverings at the coming and going of the ghost'. It was stated
that the child had seen a shrouded figure without hands; two other
witnesses (one of them a publican) had seen a luminous apparition,
_with_ hands. This brilliant being lit up the figures on the dial
of a clock. 'The noises followed the child to other houses,' and
multitudes of people, clergy, nobles, and princes, also followed the
child. A certain Mr. Brown was an early investigator, and published
his report. Like Adrien de Montalembert, in 1526, like the
Franciscans about 1530, he asked the ghost to reply, affirmatively
or negatively, to questions, by one knock for 'yes,' two for 'no'.
This method was suggested, it seems, by a certain Mary Frazer, in
attendance on the child. Thus it was elicited that Fanny had been
poisoned by Mr. K. with 'red arsenic,' in a draught of purl to which
she was partial. She added that she wished to see Mr. K. hanged.
She would answer other questions, now right, and now wrong. She
called her father John, while his real name was Thomas. In fact she
was what Porphyry, the Neoplatonist, would have called a 'deceitful
demon'. Her chief effects were raps, scratchings, and a sound as of
whirring wings, which filled the room. This phenomenon occurs in a
'haunted house' mentioned in the Journal of the Psychical Society.
It is infinitely more curious to recall, that, when Mr. Im Thurn, in
British Guiana, submitted to the doctoring of a peayman (see p. 39),
he heard a sound, 'at first low and indistinct, and then gathering
in volume as if some big winged thing came from far toward the
house, passed through the roof, and then settled heavily on the
floor, and again, after an interval, as if the same winged thing
rose and passed away as it had come'. Mr. Im Thurn thinks the
impression was caused by the waving of boughs. These Cock Lane
occurrences were attributed to ventriloquism, but, after a surgeon
had held his hand on the child's stomach and chest while the noises
were being produced, this probable explanation was abandoned. 'The
girl was said to be constantly attended by the usual noises, though
bound and muffled hand and foot, and that without any motion of her
lips, and when she appeared to be asleep.' {166} This binding is
practised by Eskimo Angakut, or sorcerers, as of old, by mediums
([Greek]) in ancient Greece and Egypt, so we gather from Iamblichus,
and some lines quoted from Porphyry by Eusebius. {167} A kind of
'cabinet,' as modern spiritualists call a curtain, seems to have
been used. In fact the phenomena, luminous apparition, 'tumultuous
sounds,' and all, were familiar to the ancients. Nobody seems to
have noted this, but one unusually sensible correspondent of a
newspaper quoted cases of knockings from Baxter's Certainty of the
Worlds of Spirits, and thought that Baxter's popular book might have
suggested the imposture. Though the educated classes had buried
superstition, it lived, of course, among the people, who probably
thumbed Baxter and Glanvill.
Thus things went on, crowds gathering to amuse themselves with the
ghost. On February 1, Mr. Aldrich, a clergyman of Clerkenwell,
assembled in his house a number of gentlemen and ladies, having
persuaded Parsons to let his child be carried thither and tested.
Dr. Johnson was there, and Dr. Macaulay suggested the admission of a
Mrs. Oakes. Dr. Johnson supplied the newspapers with an account of
what happened. The child was put to bed by several ladies, about
ten o'clock, and the company sat 'for rather more than an hour,'
during which nothing occurred. The men then went down-stairs and
talked to Parsons, when they were interrupted by some of the ladies,
who said that scratching and knocking had set in. The company
returned, and made the child hold her hands outside the bedclothes.
No phenomena followed. Now the sprite had promised to rap on its
own coffin in the vault of St. John's, so thither they adjourned
(without the medium), but there was never a scratch!
'It is therefore the opinion of the whole assembly, that the child
has some art of making or counterfeiting particular noises, and that
there is no agency of any higher cause.'
In precisely the same way the judges in the Franciscan case of 1533,
visited the bed of the child where the spirit had been used to
scratch and rap, heard nothing, and decided that the affair was a
hoax. The nature of the fraud was not discovered, but the
Franciscans were severely punished. At Lyons, the bishop and some
other clerics could get no response from the rapping spirit which
was so familiar with the king's chaplain, Adrien de Montalembert
(1526-7). Thus 'the ghost in some measure remains undetected,' says
Goldsmith, and, indeed, Walpole visited Cock Lane, but could not get
in, apparently _after_ the detection. But, writing on February 2,
he may speak of an earlier date.
Meanwhile matters were very uncomfortable for Mr. K. Accused by a
ghost, he had no legal remedy. Goldsmith, like most writers,
assumes that Parsons undertook the imposture, in revenge for having
been sued for money lent by Mr. K. He adds that Mr. K. was engaged
in a Chancery suit by his relations, and seems to suspect their
agency. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was being 'tested' in various ways.
Finally the unlucky child was swung up in a kind of hammock, 'her
hands and feet extended wide,' and, for two nights, no noises were
heard. Next day she was told that, if there were no noises, she and
her father would be committed to Newgate. She accordingly concealed
a little board, on which a kettle usually stood, a piece of wood six
inches by four. She managed this with so little art that the maids
saw her place the wood in her dress, and informed the investigators
of the circumstances. Scratches were now produced, but the child
herself said that they were not like the former sounds, and 'the
concurrent opinion of the whole assembly was that the child had been
frightened by threats into this attempt. . . . The master of the
house and his friend both declared that the noises the girl had made
this morning _had not the least likeness to the former noises_.' In
the same way the Wesleys at Epworth, in 1716, found that they could
not imitate the perplexing sounds produced in the parsonage. The
end of the affair was that Parsons, Mary Frazer, a clergyman, a
tradesman, and others were tried at the Guildhall and convicted of a
conspiracy, on July 10, 1762. Parsons was pilloried, and 'a
handsome collection' was made for him by the spectators. His later
fortunes, or misfortunes, and those of the miserable little
Elizabeth, are unknown. One thing is certain, the noises did not
begin in an attempt at imposture on Parsons's part; he was on good
terms with his lodgers, when Fanny was first disturbed. Again, the
child could not counterfeit the sounds successfully when she was
driven by threats to make the effort. The seance of rather more
than an hour, in which Johnson took part, was certainly inadequate.
The phenomena were such as had been familiar to law and divinity, at
least since 856, A.D. {170a} The agencies always made accusations,
usually false. The knocking spirit at Kembden, near Bingen, in 856
charged a priest with a scandalous intrigue. The raps on the bed of
the children examined by the Franciscans, about 1530, assailed the
reputation of a dead lady. When the Foxes, at Rochester, in 1848-
49, set up alphabetic communication with the knocks, they told a
silly tale of a murder. The Cock Lane ghost lied in the same way.
The Fox girls started modern spiritualism on its wild and
mischievous career, as Elizabeth Parsons might have done, in a more
favourable environment. There was never anything new in all these
cases. The lowest savages have their seances, levitations, bindings
of the medium, trance-speakers; Peruvians, Indians, have their
objects moved without contact. Simon Magus, or St. Paul under that
offensive pseudonym, was said to make the furniture move at will.
{170b}
There is a curious recent Cock Lane case in Ireland where 'the
ghost' brought no accusations against anybody. The affair was
investigated by Mr. Barrett, a Professor in the Royal College of
Science, Dublin, who published the results in the Dublin University
Magazine, for December, 1877. The scene was a small lonely farm
house at Derrygonnelly, near Enniskillen. The farmer's wife had
died a few weeks before Easter, 1877, leaving him with four girls,
and one boy, of various ages, the eldest, Maggie, being twenty. The
noises were chiefly heard in her neighbourhood. When the children
had been put to bed, Maggie lay down, without undressing, in the
bedroom off the kitchen. A soft pattering noise was soon heard,
then raps, from all parts of the room, then scratchings, as in Cock
Lane. When Mr. Barrett, his friend, and the farmer entered with a
candle, the sounds ceased, but began again 'as if growing accustomed
to the presence of the light'. The hands and feet of the young
people were watched, but nothing was detected, while the raps were
going on everywhere around, on the chairs, on the quilt, and on the
big four-post wooden bedsteads where they were lying. Mr. Barrett
now played Moro with the raps, that is, he extended so many fingers,
keeping his hand in the pocket of a loose great-coat, and the sounds
always responded the right number. Four trials were made. Then
came a noise like the beating of a drum, 'with violent scratching
and tearing sounds'.
The trouble began three weeks after the wife's death. Once a number
of small stones were found on Maggie's bed. All the family suffered
from sleeplessness, and their candles, even when concealed, were
constantly stolen. 'It took a boot from a locked drawer,' and the
boot was found in a great chest of feathers in a loft. A Bible was
spirited about, and a Methodist teacher (the family were Methodists)
made no impression on the agency. They tried to get some
communication by an alphabet, but, said the farmer, 'it tells lies
as often as truth, and oftener, I think'.
Mr. Barrett, and a friend, on two occasions, could detect no method
of imposture, and, as the farmer did not believe that his children,
sorely distressed by the loss of their mother, would play such
tricks, at such a time, even if they could, the mystery remains
unsolved. The family found that the less attention they paid to the
disturbances, the less they were vexed. Mr. Barrett, examining some
other cases, found that Dr. Carpenter's and other theories did not
account for them. But it is certain that the children, as
Methodists, had read Wesley's account of the spirit at Epworth, in
1716. Mr. Barrett was aware of this circumstance, but was unable to
discover how the thing was managed, on the hypothesis of fraudulent
imitation. The Irish household seems to have reaped no profit by
the affair, but rather trouble, annoyance, and the expense of
hospitality to strange visitors.
The agency was mendacious, as usual, for Porphyry complains that the
'spirits' were always as deceitful as the Cock Lane ghost, feigning
to be gods, heroes, or the souls of the dead. It is very
interesting to note how, in Greece, as Christianity waxed, and
paganism waned, such inquiring minds as that of Porphyry fell back
on seances and spiritualism, or superstitions unmentioned by Homer,
and almost unheard of in the later classical literature. Religion,
which began in Shamanism, in the trances of Angakut and Birraark,
returned to these again, and everywhere found marvel, mystery,
imposture, conscious, or unconscious. The phenomena have never
ceased, imposture has always been detected or asserted, but that
hypothesis rarely covers the whole field, and so, if we walk in Cock
Lane at all, we wander darkling, in good and bad company, among
diviners, philosophers, saints, witches, charlatans, hypnotists.
Many a heart has been broken, like that of Mr. Dale Owen, by the
late discovery of life-long delusion, for we meet in Cock Lane, as
Porphyry says, [Greek]. Yet this 'deceptive race' has had its
stroke in the making of creeds, and has played its part in human
history, while it contributes not a little to human amusement.
Meanwhile, of all wanderers in Cock Lane, none is more beguiled than
sturdy Common-sense, if an explanation is to be provided. When once
we ask for more than 'all stuff and nonsense,' we speedily receive a
very mixed theory in which rats, indigestion, dreams, and of late,
hypnotism, are mingled much at random, for Common-sense shows more
valour than discretion, when she pronounces on matters (or spirits)
which she has never studied.
Beautiful instances of common-sense explanations, occur in two
stories of the last century, the St. Maur affair (1706), and the
haunted house of Amiens, (1746). The author of 'Ce qu'on doit
penser de l'aventure arrivee a Saint Maur,' was M. Poupart, canon of
St. Maur, near Paris. The good canon, of course, admits Biblical
apparitions, which are miraculous, and admits hallucination caused
by the state of the visual organs and by fever, while he believes in
something like the Lucretian idea, that bodies, dead bodies, at
least, shell off a kind of peel, which may, on occasion, be visible.
Common ghosts he dismisses on grounds of common-sense; if spirits in
Purgatory _could_ appear, they would appear more frequently, and
would not draw the curtains of beds, drag at coverlets, turn tables
upside down, and make terrible noises, all of which feats are
traditional among ghosts.
M. Poupart then comes to the adventure at St. Maur. The percipient,
M. de S., was a man of twenty-five: his mother seems to have been a
visionary, and his constitution is described as 'melancholic'. He
was living alone, however, and his mother has no part in the
business. The trouble began with loud knocks at his door, and the
servant, when she went to open it, found nobody there. The curtains
of his bed were drawn, when he was alone in the room, and here, of
course, we have only his evidence. One evening about eleven, he and
his servants heard the papers on a table being turned over, and,
though they suspected the cat, no cat could be found. When S. went
to bed, the same noise persisted in his sitting-room, where the cat,
no doubt, could easily conceal herself, for it is not easy to find a
cat who has motives for not being found. S. again hunted for the
animal, but only heard a great rap on the wall. No sooner had S.
gone back to bed, than the bed gave a violent leap, and dashed
itself against the wall: the jump covered four feet. He called his
servants, who replaced the bed, but the curtains, in their sight,
were drawn, and the bed made a wild rush at the fireplace. This
happened again twice, though the servants held on gallantly to the
bed. Monsieur S. had no sleep, his bed continued to bound and run,
and he sent on the following day, for a friend. In that gentleman's
presence the leaps made by the bed ended in its breaking its left
foot, on which the visitor observed that he had seen quite enough.
He is said, later, to have expressed sorrow that he spoke, but he
may have had various motives for this repentance.
On the following night, S. slept well, and if his bed did rise and
fall gently, the movement rather cradled him to repose. In the
afternoon, the bolts of his parlour door closed of their own accord,
and the door of a large armoire opened. A voice then bade S. do
certain things, which he was to keep secret, go to a certain place,
and find people who would give him further orders. S. then fainted,
hurt himself, and with difficulty unbolted his door. A fortnight
later, S., his mother, and a friend heard more rapping, and a heavy
knock on the windows.
M. Poupart now gives the explanations of common-sense. The early
noises might have had physical causes: master, servants, and
neighbours all heard them, but that proves nothing. As to the
papers, a wind, or a mouse may have interfered with _them_. The
movements of the bed are more serious, as there are several
witnesses. But 'suppose the bed was on castors'. The inquirer does
not ask whether it really was on castors, or not, he supposes the
case. Then suppose S., that melancholy man, wants a lark (a envie
de se rejouir), he therefore tosses about in bed, and the bed
rushes, consequently, round the room. This experiment may be
attempted by any philosopher. Let him lie in a bed with castors,
and try how far he can make it run, while he kicks about in it.
This explanation, dear to common-sense, is based on a physical
impossibility, as any one may ascertain for himself. Then the
servants tried in vain to hold back the excited couch, well, these
servants may have lied, and, at most, could not examine 'les
ressorts secrets qui causaient ce mouvement'. Now, M. Poupart
deserts the theory that we can make a bed run about, by lying
kicking on it, and he falls back on hidden machinery. The
independent witness is said to have said that he was sorry he spoke,
but this evidence proves nothing. What happened in the room when
the door was bolted, is not evidence, of course, and we may imagine
that S. himself made the noises on walls and windows, when his
friend and mother were present. Thus M. S. was both melancholy, and
anxious se donner un divertissement, by frightening his servants, to
which end he supplied his bed with machinery that made it jump, and
drew the curtains. What kind of secret springs would perform these
feats, M. Poupart does not explain. It would have been wiser in him
to say that he did not believe a word of it, than to give such silly
reasons for a disbelief that made no exact inquiry into the
circumstances. The frivolities of the bed are reported in the case
of Home and others, nor can we do much more than remark the
conservatism of the phenomena; the knocks, and the animated
furniture.
The Amiens case (1746) is reported and attested by Father Charles
Louis Richard, Professor in Theology, a Dominican friar. The
haunted house was in the Rue de l'Aventure, parish of St. Jacques.
The tenant was a M. Leleu, aged thirty-six. The troubles had lasted
for fourteen years, and there was evidence for their occurrence
earlier, before Leleu occupied the house. The disturbances were of
the usual kind, a sound of heavy planks being tossed about, as in
the experience of Scott at Abbotsford, raps, the fastening of doors
so that they could not be opened for long, and then suddenly gave
way (this, also, is frequent in modern tales), a sound of sweeping
the floor, as in the Epworth case, in the Wesleys' parsonage, heavy
knocks and thumps, the dragging of heavy bodies, steps on the
stairs, lights, the dancing of all the furniture in the room of
Mlle. Marie de Latre, rattling of crockery, a noise of whirring in
the air, a jingling as of coins (familiar at Epworth), and, briefly,
all the usually reported tintamarre. Twenty persons, priests,
women, girls, men of all sorts, attest those phenomena which are
simply the ordinary occurrences still alleged to be prevalent.
The narrator believes in diabolical agency, but he gives the
explanations of common-sense. 1. M. Leleu is a visionary. But, as
no one says that all the other witnesses are visionaries, this helps
us little. 2. M. Leleu makes all the noise himself. That is, he
climbs to the roof with a heavy sack of grain on his shoulder, and
lets it fall; he runs up and down the chimneys with his heavy sack
on his shoulder, he frolics with weighty planks all over the house,
thumps the walls, makes furniture dance, and how? What is his
motive? His tenants leave him, he is called a fool, a devil, a
possessed person: his business is threatened, they talk of putting
him in jail, and that is all he has got by his partiality for making
a racket. 3. The neighbours make the noises, and again the
narrator asks 'how?' and 'why?' 4. Some priests slept in the house
once and heard nothing. But nobody pretends that there is always
something to hear. The Bishop of Amiens licenses the publication
'with the more confidence, as we have ourselves received the
depositions of ten witnesses, a number more than sufficient to
attest a fact which nobody has any interest in feigning'.
In a tale like this, which is only one out of a vast number, exactly
analogous, Common-sense is ill-advised in simply alleging imposture,
so long maintained, so motiveless, and, on the whole, so very
difficult to execute. M. Leleu brought in the Church, with its
exorcisms, but our Dominican authority does not say whether or not
the noises ceased after the rites had been performed. Dufresnoy, in
whose Dissertations {178} these documents are republished, mentions
that Bouchel, in his Bibliotheque du Droit Francois, d. v. 'Louage,'
treats of the legal aspect of haunted houses. Thus the profession
has not wholly disdained the inquiry.
Of all common sensible explanations, the most sporting and good-
humoured is that given by the step-daughter of Alexander Dingwall, a
tenant in Inverinsh, in 1761. Poor Dingwall in his cornyard 'heard
very grievous lamentations, which continued, as he imagined, all the
way to the seashore'. These he regarded as a warning of his end,
but his stepdaughter sensibly suggested that, as the morning was
cold, 'the voice must be that of a fox, to cause dogs run after him
to give him heat'. Dingwall took to bed and died, but the
suggestion that the fox not only likes being hunted, but provokes it
as a form of healthy exercise, is invaluable. The tale is in
Theophilus Insulanus, on the second sight.
There is no conclusion to be drawn from this mass of Cock Lane
stories. Occasionally an impostor is caught, as at Brightling, in
1659. Mr. Joseph Bennet, a minister in that town, wrote an account
of the affair, published in Increase Mather's Remarkable
Providences. 'Several things were thrown by an invisible hand,'
including crabs! 'Yet there was a seeming blur cast, though not on
the whole, yet upon some part of it, for their servant girl was at
last found throwing some things.' She averred that an old woman had
bidden her do so, saying that 'her master and dame were bewitched,
and that they should hear a great fluttering about their house for
the space of two days'. This Cock Lane phenomenon, however, is not
reported to have occurred. The most credulous will admit that the
maid is enough to account for the Brightling manifestations; some of
the others are more puzzling and remain in the region of the
unexplained.