from two or three; but Sir William Dugdale affirms what I have here taken from him to be true, and that the apparition told him of several things to come, which proved true, e. g. of a prisoner in the Tower, that shall be honourably delivered.  This Mr. Towes had so often the ghost of his old friend appear to him, that it was not at all terrible to him.  He was surveyor of the works at Windsor, (by the favour of the Duke) being then sitting in the hall, he cried out, the Duke of Buckingham is stabbed:  he was stabbed that very moment.

This relation Sir William Dugdale had from Mr. Pine, (neighbour to Mr. Towes without Bishops-gate) they were both great lovers of music, and sworn brothers.  Mr. W. Lilly, astrologer, did print this story false, which made Sir Edmund Wyndham (who married Mr. Pine’s daughter) give to Sir George Hollis this true account contrary to Mr. Lilly.

Mr. Thomas Ellyot, Groom of the bedchamber, married Sir Edmund Wyndham’s daughter, and had the roll (of near a quire of paper) of the conferences of the apparition and Mr. Towes.  Mr. Ellyot was wont to say, that Mr. Towes was (not a bigot, or did trouble himself much about a religion, but was) a man of great morals.

Sir William Dugdale did farther inform me that Major General Middleton (since Lord) went into the Highlands of Scotland, to endeavour to make a party for King Charles I. An old gentleman (that was second-sighted) came and told him, that his endeavour was good, but he would be unsuccessful:  and moreover, “that they would put the King to death:  And that several other attempts would be made, but all in vain:  but that his son would come in, but not reign; but at last would be restored.”  This Lord Middleton had a great friendship with the Laird Bocconi, and they had made an agreement, that the first of them that died should appear to the other in extremity.  The Lord Middleton was taken prisoner at Worcester fight, and was prisoner in the Tower of London, under three locks.  Lying in his bed pensive, Bocconi appeared to him; my Lord Middleton asked him if he were dead or alive ? he said, dead, and that he was a ghost; and told him, that within three days he should escape, and he did so, in his wife’s cloaths.  When he had done his message, he gave a frisk, and said,

      Givenni Givanni ’tis very strange,
      In the world to see so sudden a change.

And then gathered up and vanished.  This account Sir William Dugdale had from the Bishop of Edinburgh.  And this, and the former account he hath writ in a book of miscellanies, which I have seen, and is now reposited with other books of his in the Musaeum at Oxford.

Anno 1670, not far from Cirencester, was an apparition:  being demanded, whether a good spirit, or a bad ? returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume and most melodious twang.  Mr. W. Lilly believes it was a fairy.  So Propertius.

      Omnia finierat; tenues secessit in auras: 
      Mansit odor; posses scire fuisse Deam.